learning how to make alot of new mistakes

i keep a page of notes about this blog, these notes include the html i use at times, some titles that i have thought of and would like to use one day, and some things that i would like to write about whenever i have a reason to write about them. but, after today and sitting here tonight, i am pretty sure that i am done living in a pickup truck. and that means that i am pretty sure i am done writing this blog. it is kind of a sad thing, but not really. think of it like the butterfly.

thanks, truck...

some things that i wanted to write about one day, but just never had a reason too, or when i did have a reason i didnt have the time or the inclination include: the cold page (a newsletter that my friend alex and i put out in high school), pbh (the punk brotherhood, the "gang" i was a part of in high school), motorcycles (and my history of/relationship to them...or how a motorcycle made this trip a reality), and i was going to do a series over the next few days about living in portland - the next part was supposed to be from living on the rooftops all the way to emily moving here. that wouldve condensed the most explosive years of my life in portland to a couple of paragraphs and they would be incomplete because i just cant remember it all.

so, what i am going to do here is let the few folks who have kept up with this blog know that i had a good day today. a couple of days ago i alluded to a person called focus and that she randomly came back into my life, well i got to catch up with her today. i would love nothing more than to detail our relationship from its beginnings to now but i just dont think i have the energy. and, since she is the first person i met in portland and has remained one of the people i think are most awesome in the world it would be really hard for me to put all of that into a pretty little paragraph for random people to digest.

also, i would like to say that i like being on my bike again, but my butt and my thighs hurt from riding it. hopefully that goes away soon, it is probably just because i am very much out of shape. to that end, i began research on various tap dancing studios that will teach a burly 30-something how to tap dance. i cannot wait for this to occur. but, as for what my life is like, that is pretty much it. i was hoping for a bigger/better shebang of a stepping out party but i have never been particularly good at saying goodbye.

so, instead, i will just get technical. that seems like a very male response and i certainly am trying to be a better guy. since this trip is now completely over - i sleep in an apartment, in a bed, alone - i have to get back to real life. and real life is all about money, so here is a quick and not-very-precise breakdown of my monetary situation throughout my trip (i call it "the money that has come upon me"):

started in bank account: $2225
received from unemployment: $4758
selling hemp: $80
birthday: $200
christmas: $310
random: $20
steve: $1000 (technically, i still have about $400 of this money left, but whatever.)
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over nine months i spent: $8593 (about $31 a day)

and this is how i can remember spending some of it:

shows/entertainment: $50
cell phone: $210
electronics: $150
cigarettes: $100
gambling: $25
truck repair/maintenance/insurance: $900
travel (greyhound, cta, tolls, etc): $200
gas: $2365 (approximate)
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these expenditures equal: $4000

while these are just numbers, and dont really mean so much, it suggests that over nine months i spent about $4600 on food and drinks. and i think that is really too much, especially since i had food stamps for the first few months of the trip and in many places folks insisted on buying or making me food (which was really awesome, thanks folks!) i wish that i kept better track of how i spent the majority of my money, but i only partially wish that. if i knew how much money i spent at bars or on shitty food i would probably be pretty mad at myself so it is better to just know that i wasted $4600 and leave it at that.

(this is an interlude, i was really hoping that it would be easier to wrap up all of this stuff with just a quick, mostly technical, note...but it isnt. this is agonizing and has already taken much longer than i wanted it too.)

for most of my trip i kept a running list of the various wild animals that i encountered. the appearance of these animals were mostly on the west coast and in the southwest on the first leg of my journey, the east coast really isnt where its at for wildlife. also, on my return trip i was mostly driving on the expressways instead of state highways like i had been doing initially. anyway, here is the

falling backwards into the night as the darkness overcomes the light.

list: quail (lava road), deer, lizard, ground squirrels (casa grande), fox (lava road), seal, sea lion, hummingbird, turkey vulture, hawk, chicken, gecko, elk, california condor, cow, wild horses, woodpecker, groundhog, bison, antelope, albino squirrel, turkey! (this turkey was at mammoth cave in kentucky, i almost ran it over...)

(there has just been a long break again, and the song that i was listening to said "sometimes the words come out all wrong and when that happens i just tear them all apart." i wish i had the ability to just tear all of this apart right now and not just let this place fade away, but i am not that strong (or weak) however you want to catalog it. maybe i am just being stupid.)

and so i have gone back and read this post so far, when i said that this wasnt really a sad thing i was lying. i am pretty sad right now. anyway,