an endless series of miraculous surprises

anyway, (you had to know that i couldnt just leave it at that. i had hoped that the open comma would be a dead giveaway...) life is different and wonderful, i bask in the changes and appreciate all of the moments. oftentimes i feel sad for the things that i have forgotten, the people that once played large roles in my life that are now tertiary or non-existent. while i was writing the previous "ending" for this blog, i was overcome with emotion and instead of just dealing with it and using the feelings as an aid to writing, i wrapped it up and called it a life.

hopefully i can work with whatever feelings arise this time. 275 days of life really isnt a long time at all, but as a person lives each and every one of those days it becomes important. when i left on this journey the problem with my life was that i gave up on living it. i had simply found a daily routine and subscribed to it. the thought of living was taken out of my life and auto-pilot took over. i lost interest in being a real person and the scariest thing about it all is that i didnt even know it. or, if i did, i was doing a wonderful job of convincing myself otherwise.

i take full responsibility for what my life had become by may of 2009. although there were a few other people that could have helped me out of it or worked with me to prevent it, ultimately it is my life and i am the only one that can make the choices that lead to happiness and i was ready to settle. when i was in santa cruz (the second time) the weather was beautiful, and in the mornings i would take long walks throughout the city. one morning i walked over the river and saw a guy just sleeping by the edge of the river it looked like a nice place to be except it was in full sun. hours later i walked back over the same place and saw that the guy (person?) had barely moved. he was up and just shifted into the shade of a nearby bush.

and i thought about the validity of living. these thoughts that i am about to lay down are not meant as judgments of other people, just the way that i think about life for myself. and i really dont see much of a point to life if existence consists of simply shifting from the sun to the shade, that seems like a horrible life to me. it doesnt seem like one that is worth living, but it is hard for a person to recognize that is what they are doing. a life where you just go to work and come home is pretty similar from just shifting from the sun to the shade. and that was the life that i was ready to just accept.

it amazes me now, looking back, that i didnt recognize this in myself. it took another person (whom i thank very much) to point out to me that life doesnt need to be this way and that i, of all people, should know this. that i had had adventures in the past and people tend to like me wherever i go no matter how i treat them, that the whole world was open to me if i just had a bit more gumption and the willingness to take a chance.

this trip, this 275 days of life, was the chance i took. and it was a great one. i lost some pretty significant things from the life i had been living before and i will question whether or not this was the right decision for a little bit, but the facts exist. i took the chance, and that chance resulted in some safe things breaking and never being able to be put back together. but it also reminded me that life is amazing and there are so many miraculous things that are happening, you have to do little more than pay attention to be a part of it.

just sitting and watching the sunset or the moonrise is an awesome and amazing things, the art of life, it happens everyday and it is taken for granted. it is forgotten, and it really shouldnt be. i cant promise, not even myself, that i wont forget about the moon again one day but i know that it exists now and that is a great consolation. life is a work in progress and something that you have to remember to live everyday.

it is a strange thing, as i look for jobs and apartments to live in, worrying about the things common things that didnt exist to me for the last nine months. i am scared about getting a job and working everyday just like i was scared so often to knock on someones door or dial a dumb phone number. and i think this apprehension is good, it gives me a moment to reflect on whether or not this is really what i want out of life. i am pretty sure i could live off of much less money than i spent on this previous trip, that i could just keep going, but i like it here. and i think there exists a happy balance between working for money and living for love.

its true that i dont have the most positive self-image, you may not ever know it but i get down on myself a whole bunch. i am often scared of people and convince myself that i have little to offer, i am pretty good at convincing myself of these things, it has been going on for thirty years or so. however deep-seated this inner pessimism is, i always have to remember that pessimism is just a passing emotion and not a philosophy by which i can live life.

so, i have to keep taking chances. i have to keep failing and succeeding, i have to not let life beat me. i want to keep growing, keep learning new things, and never succumb to the demons of life again. i dont want to forget how awesome everyday is, the gifts that are constantly offered if i just keep my eyes open long enough to see them.

i dont know how much of a different person i am from when i left. i certainly feel different, i am not sure i have a different perspective on life, but i am refueled with hope. when i was twenty years old i got this tattoo on my arm that says "still hoping.." although i have gone through waves i think that the hope still exists in me. i want to be more receptive to other people, i have my own personality and it is distinct, but i also know that it oftentimes alienates the people closest to me and i want to change that. i think that i can.

this is supposed to be a mini-retrospective of my trip and i wanted to talk about some of the good and bad things from it. but, really it was all good. the best was the people that i met or reconnected with. the initial focus of the trip was on places and not on people, but that changed between los angeles and san diego. when i got back in touch with my old friend tiffany and then my old high school friend ricky, i came to realize that i needed to have these people reflect who i am so that i can see it and be happy about my self and about life again. (maybe i never saw it in those words, because i just put them together, but i think they work good.) there are a number of other people that have turned this journey into a wonderful life experience, not all of it "good" but certainly all of it was full of wonder. i do hope many of these people remain part of my life moving forward.

i regained (or just plain gained) a level of self-confidence that i hadnt really known in myself since 2006 or so. now i just need to keep it up. i am not entirely sure how to do that, but i guess i will figure something out. ending this blog is ending a chapter in my life. when i left i named this chapter "my magnificent travel of the summer of 2009" we can all see how this title no longer adequately reflects what actually transpired. and so, i have chosen "an endless series of miraculous surprises" as the new title to this chapter in my life. if i had been keeping this in a mead journal these words would be prominently etched across the front. if i could still update the website that contains my life from 1997-2003 those words would be the link that goes to it. even though the title is a misnomer (clearly this is an ending) i still think it is good.

and now as i attempt to "get on with life" i will need to process these last 275 days in some way and the way that i have chosen is to write some stories about the experiences. i am not very good at writing stories, at ending things, or saying goodbye. so dont expect anything very quickly. as i wrote that i reckoned back to a time on this trip when i wanted to get a new tattoo (which is not something that i have wanted for many years) that said "no expectations no explanations" and i am glad that i didnt. because this is a pretty long explanation right now. and, although i am loathe to admit it, i do have some expectations for the future.

i think this is a better ending than the one i wrote last night. thank you to all the people that have made my life the wonder that it is, i really appreciate it.

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.)
-----------
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)
-----------
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,

my memories, and these dumb relics to remind me of them

i think i have made a huge mistake. i sat down to write a boring account of my day, the various phone calls, fixing a flat tire, job search stuff, mailing my taxes and seeing old friends. blah blah blah, we have heard it all before. but for some dumb reason, just before i sat down, i decided to open my memory box and just have a quick look at what was in there. an hour later the room and bed are covered with old papers, dating as far back as 1995.

i want to concisely describe the things that i have kept, and i want to do it as chronologically as possible, but thats hard. there are two journals in there, neither of them finished. back in early 2003 i mailed all of my journals and personal writing to my friend rob in new york, these journals were spared because they were unfinished. the older one has the wonderful varied writing on the cover ("the end of forever is now..., wedged between union and forget, i may never be the same this is destroying me and i dont know if i care, we are now become us." among other things.) and inside is mostly old poetry. hilarious.

also, in this old one, there are a number of journal entries from after i had mailed away my journals and "stopped" writing. the accounts of living in laurelhurst park and on the rooftop of some girl i was sweet on. awesome things. there are also some essays with titles like "Structures and Symptoms of Non-Delight or, Apathy," some short stories, a diagram of the room i lived in at the time, notes on how to build a tattoo gun from a bic pen, diagrams and notes on how i would live once i made it to bisbee, and some meeting notes. this was like a bridge from when i was just some kid to when i got involved in activism and really gave up journalling. (i almost wrote one of the poems here before i thought better of it...)

anyway, the second notebook "notes on the furtherment of society" is sparse and mostly just meeting notes, including a number of notes written by someone else! it must have taken a lot of effort for me to turn over such a notebook to someone. but i was meeting good people at the time. so, let me continue with the contents of this memory box. there is my chapbook of poetry that i made in 2000, a book that a friend of mine had been writing and gave to me (it is pretty awesome), all of my old media tags and various relics from the protests that i was a part of, my two old phone books, pictures postcards and letters from people.

really just a bunch of old crap that makes me really sentimental - and i like it. (you are starting to realize why it sucks that i perused this place before writing, huh?) the best thing that is in there, something i am very surprised that i still have, is a magazine that i got at the the chicago blues festival in 1995. it is one of two that i got, i imagine the other one went to rob in the 2003 exodus. i figured this one had as well, but here i found it. it is the whole reason why i ended up becoming who i am.

this changed my life.

my parents had recently divorced and my dad was getting remarried, i was moving from where i had always been to someplace new. i had an opportunity to do something new and be whoever i wanted, but i just didnt know who to be. i certainly didnt want to be someone from MTV or 90210, i wanted to be unique. and this magazine gave me the chance. the cover of it simply says "THIS IS A STATEMENT OF REVOLUTION" and it is all about subverting the system and how we need to start building something new while we are tearng down the old. it is pretty awesome, certainly dated now. but, remember, in 1995 there wasnt an internet where wayward kids could just find a community and plug in.

so i read this and the other magazine religiously. i also listened to the tapes and became my own person. i am very thankful that the zendik farm folks came out that year and convinced me to give them $5 for a couple ratty mags and tapes. so, that is what i have been doing for the last couple of hours. it happens at least once every other year and every time i try to convince myself to get rid of some of the things, but i never really do. but other than this nostalgia party (i have started typing again after being absorbed for an hour or so...) i had a day.

i was woken up much earlier than i wanted to be, my friend abbie in indiana called me and i got up to answer the phone thinking it was steve wanting to get into his apartment. since she has only called me one other time in the last eleven years or so i figured i would answer it. and it was pretty good. she called to talk to me about some of the problems she had been having in life, specifically with relationships and in my half awake state i listened and tried to be a good phone partner. and after that i was up.

action shot!

not that i wanted to be. but i started working on cover letters and job applications when i got another call. this time from my friend jennifer here in portland. i had just seen her the night before so i answered the call, she had gotten a flat tire on her car and wanted me to come help her change it. i thought about it for a minute, i was kind of doing things, but nothing that needed to really get done, so i said i would come help her out.

if anything, i could get some pictures of me changing a tire. see, after nine months on the road and not having very many truck stoppages i was feeling a bit left out. on my way into portland from salem i had visions of a cop catching me speeding and chasing me, but (wanting to keep my perfect record for not being pulled over) i tried to outrun the cop. in the process i got a flat tire and then lost control of the truck and it spun off the road and was totaled. lucky i was able to keep away and bring you the story of the harrowing end to my trip. unfortunately, none of this happened. my truck just continued to slowly disintegrate as it drove evenly into multnomah county.

so, this opportunity, to help a friend and get some action shots was something i couldnt pass up. i got my shit together quickly and went to find her. when i pulled up i realized that i hadnt changed a tire in this millenium. well, bike tires, but i am not awesome at that. so i tried to act "the man" and make the broken tire come off so the fixed tire could go on...i performed admirably. at least i didnt break anything else and i havent heard back from her that the new tire came off while she was driving. so thats all good.

she bought me a bagel after that but i couldnt stay long becuase i had to meet steve up for lunch! its funny, i have all the time in the world but things still seem to get really cluttered and fall on top of each other and i am rushing. i did not have this eccentricity before i left. then i was always on time (and on time meant at least 15 minutes early) and everything was spaced so that there would be no possible way that i could be late. very bland.

action shot!

so, on the way to meet steve i stopped at my friend adam's bookstore. i hadnt seen him since i have been back. i visited him and his wife love back when i was in denver, but they had since relocated to portland and opened a small bookstore called "copyleft books." i stopped in to see him, but they werent open yet...but he had left the door unlocked so i went in and left him a note. then i drove back to steves apartment to ditch my truck and get my bike. then i rode right back towards where i had come from to meet steve for lunch.

i was early. so i went in and read the paper for awhile and then steve got there and we hung out for a lunch while. after that we both rode back to his apartment to do work. he had to do things for his company and i had to finish my dumb resumes and cover letters and the like. i also got my taxes wrapped up and sealed to send away. i had to go find a fax machine to fax one of my applications, that was strange.

then i rode back to adams bookstore to see him. i spent a couple of hours hanging out with him there, which was really nice. we got to talk about a bunch of things and just hang out, we made some tentative plans for later as i was leaving, but that eventually never panned out. instead i got wrapped up the above memory box joy and seem to have lost track of time a little bit. shitty!

trying to be a little better than the best that i can

portland really is a nice city. probably the best. in the beginning of my trip, as i went to new cities i was quick to appreciate the little things about them and think that the towns were awesome. like prescott, az a small mountain community with a town square and an infoshop. a mix between crown point indiana and portland oregon but probably smaller than both. it was really great, but not as good as portland. then there was cheyenne, wyoming a wonderful little capitol city that had some kind of public and or art thing every night downtown, and a vibrant little arts community.

still, not as good as portland. the only place that almost measures up is richmond viginia. it is a firm and close number 2 of the list of places i would most like to live. clearly, number 1 is portland. a distant third might be chicago. but, certainly, that is only for the people.

and speaking of people, people are one of the reasons portland is so awesome. i have been here for going on eight years, the beauty of the city and the breadth of things going on kept me here early on. and then i made friends and started appreciating them as part of the city. when i left on this trip i was leaving so i could realize what i was forgetting and at the time of my leaving i had really forgotten about so many folks that make me love this place. so, i came back for the people - but the city and its surroundings are a definite plus.

everybody poops.

so, yesterday i caught up with my old friend arturo. he has been one of my better friends for almost as long as i have had friends in this city. the only person that may outstrip him is my old friend focus...we havent heard her name in a long time and it only comes up because she randomly text messaged me last night to welcome me home. the last time i talked to her she said she had deleted my phone number, so this was definitely a surprise.

but, seriously, we are talking about arturo. and he is great. i met him a short while before i met a majority of my friends as we were trying to organize a collective called ACAN. there has been dispute over what the acronym actually stands for, but my notes say "the anarchist community autonomy network." the purpose of this group was to bring together a few various smaller group into one larger working group, more like a spokescouncil for the various activist groups. i certainly wont remember all of them, but they included: the anarchist gardening and gleaning collective, the anarchist carpentry collective, brew bloc (a home brewing collective that i was a part of), and maybe more. i cant think of any right now.

it was at the first meeting of all of these groups and arturo had come for some reason, or maybe i had invited him because i knew that he was doing something with portland indymedia. or maybe we were both also doing things with pdximc but he had a radio show and i think i wanted him to interview people or something. anyway. he never interviewed anyone, but we became pretty good friends over the years.

i went over to his house and walked into the upstairs to find him brushing his teeth with another old compadre, comfrey. i chatted with them for a while and then arturo and i left to drink some beer in the middle of the day. unfortunately, arturo advised me not to divulge any of the secrets he told me during our date, if i did he said that we wouldnt be friends any longer. so then we went to the next bar. and after a couple of beers there we called it an afternoon. i took him back to his house, and for those that know arturo, we had the customary long goodbye in the truck.

after this i wanted to find steve so i could get the keys to his apartment and chill out for a little bit. that was harder than it shouldve been and instead of meeting up right away i went to a coffee shop for a little bit and found out that my friends were performing in their band !Powder Keg! tonight, downtown. since my bike had recently started working and i wanted to make more of an effort to go out and see people, i decided to attend this event. when the coffee shop closed i went to the local natural food store chain called new seasons and perused the face care aisle so i could get help for my fucked up face.

i really like saying "my fucked up face" i dont think the lady at new seasons appreciated it as much as i did, but due to not being able to shower regularly the last nine months or so my skin has become very dry and especially on my face around my nose and eyes. i dont like it at all, while i was staying with tiffany i was putting lotion on and showering every day, that helped a whole bunch. this lady told me that because i am older i could have new allergies, i dont believe that, but i also really dont want allergies. that sounds worse than a fucked up face.

i eventually got some special jojoba shampoo and broccoli. then i drove out towards patty's house. patty is steves lady friend and i figured i would meet him there eventually anyway for the key exchange. i parked about a block away and was prepared to just wait for him to call, he called within minutes of me parking there. just enough time for him to point out that it was creepy for me to do what i had done. i know these things are strange, but they are certainly not malicious. i hung out there for a drink, talking about my day, but i had to get out quick before patty's housemate came home.

when i got back to steves apartment, there wasnt any parking. there was a basketball game happening and his apartment is walking distance from the arena. so i parked illegally and went upstairs to wait it out. up there i perused the internet for a little bit, got the aforementioned text message from focus, and talked to arturo again. we planned to meet up downtown in a little bit to see some of our friends perform in the unique marching band: !Powder Keg!

i went downstairs and the roads had cleared since the game ended, so i reparked my truck. i was happy that my truck was not broken into, on the street there were just piles of broken glass from windows smashed during the game. luckily my truck looks shitty enough not to be randomly broken! after i reparked i pulled my bike out of the back and saddled the beast. i strapped on my helmet and powered over the broadway bridge into downtown. i heard !PK! before i saw them. i heard them a number of blocks away from where i was supposed to find them, so i parked near where i would end up and walked the few blocks back to where they were warming up.

let me just take a moment to say that being back on my bike is really awesome. it has been many months, from even before i embarked on this journey. i am happy to say that i can still ride real good without my hands, but i do need to dig my lights out.

!PK!

as i was walking towards !PK! warming up the smile on my face grew bigger and bigger. my friends victory, ashes, and balam were all part of the ensemble and it was going to be exciting to see them performing this type of art that i absolutely adore. when i got up there, i saw victory first and she came and gave me a hug, then ashes came over. we just said a quick few words before they went back into the art, ashes offered me a flag or something so i could be part of the show, but i told him that i would rather hang back and shoot video.

victory and ashes are awesome. they were both also people at that first ACAN meeting (come to think of it, i think balam was as well), i think ashes was mostly watching their child and i forget precisely which group victory was with, but it just makes me so happy to have kept these folks as friends for so long. especially because there were a few years there where i made myself unavailable and it would have been very easy for them to completely dismiss me (which i think is what i wanted everyone to do to me in those years), but they never did. i am appreciative for that.

after a short while, the assembled group starting marching. well, first, while i was walking from the bar to where the band was the feeling downtown was very much like a protest. not because of the people, but because of the cops. cops on foot, ATV, horse, car, all manners. i wouldnt be surprised if they had the boat cops out as well. they basically lined the quickest route that !PK! could have taken from where they were to where they intended to be. clearly, the folks decided against walking that way. instead they went through chinatown a little bit and up into a random bar.

they were playing out front for a few minutes and then someone opened the door and they continued playing as they walked inside. arturo found me around then and we went in to watch them in this place. there werent many patrons, but the few of them seemed to appreciate it. the dj's, however, did not look pleased. when they left there, they looped back towards where they began and played in front of a bar there until, similarly, someone propped open the door and they marched in. in here, it was different. there were more people, a stage, and a band that was currently setting up. !PK! took over the floor and then slowly the stage. it was really amazing.

this is some of !PK! on the stage

they were in there for at least twenty minutes, the band that was setting up was playing with them. eventually they moved away from this bar and started the march towards the thirsty lion, where they were scheduled to perform about a half hour ago. the cops had mostly found other things to do by then, but most of those other things were in the direction we were all headed. along the way someone reclaimed an uprooted tree and used it as a prop as we marched through the streets. eventually the tree attracted some horse cops and the tree had to be ditched. but the horse cops attracted the ATV cops, and so one. !PK! marched into the thirsty lion, which was packed already, and then the bouncers closed the door and didnt allow anyone else in. the cops slipped in and just hung out in there, all the while no one else was allowed in.

this included arturo and i. so arturo was talking to some friends out front and i was just hanging around looking like an idiot. shortly the bouncers were letting people in again, and arturo and i slipped in. we heard !PK! playing when we came in, but almost immediately it switched to a jam band and we walked over near the stage to investigate. there was no sign that !PK! had ever been there so arturo and i left but couldnt find the folks. so we settled into a bar and had a drink before parting ways.

on my way "home" i rode by where !PK! started and found many of them still around, i hung out with victory and ashes for awhile before riding back over the bridge to the apartment. when i got there i congratulated myself on a life well led. when i got back to portland i wanted to be more social and reignite some friendships that i had let lapse and repair some that i had broken. this had been a great beginning and i was proud of myself for sticking with the uncertainty of life.

then i slept because i was really tired. i got up late and redoubled my job search, i had skipped a day in it and much had changed. i mailed off a resume, and printed out some applications to be filled out and gotten to the proper parties this week. i am serious about this job thing, i guess i have to be since i am in debt. after doing this for awhile i wanted to go to the vegan chinese buffet downtown that i had always liked so much, i tried to get steve involved but he was busy. and after showering and planning my day i had to cut out the vegetarian house option. i will get it soon.

c'mon, my cat is smart

instead i drove back over to emily's to get some things that i had left over there, including the buckets of my life. i have these two buckets that attach to my bike, i have had them since olympia, and in one of them i keep all the important documents and sentimental things i have gotten and saved over the years. if the house were on fire, this would be the first thing i would grab. assuming that my cat were smart enough to get out on her own. i also got the laundry i had started the day before and my tax information. although i only worked for about four months last year, my earnings were almost $12,000! crazy.

and then it was all the way across town (fyi, i am doing these things in the truck, not the bike. it will take awhile to fully transition to the bike) into st.johns. st.johns is about the furthest place away from anything else in portland, but it is really nice up there and some real good friends of mine live there. these people are justin and tonya, i have known tonya from the ACAN days (crazy how many people i met then and have stayed with over the years!) and justin was a neighbor for a number of years when i lived at the mississippi haus. the four of us also served on the neighborhood association together and various other things in 2006 which culminated in all of us living together around 2007.

that didnt last as long as it should have, partly because both couples wanted to live on the other sides of town, our house was too expensive for how crappy it was, and they had just had a kid. that kid, solan, is almost two now and super-cute. anyway, i went up there and hung out with them for awhile. tonya had to take off about an hour into my visit to go to school and then i hung out with justin and solan for a couple hours, drinking some beer and just talking. it is amazing to me how much of the anxiety i felt has completely washed away. its true, i did have a slight bit before coming up to their house, but very little. and not even enough to persist at all once i saw them. yay for good friends! i look forward to seeing them a bunch more even though they lives at the outer edge of the city.

when i left there, i was determined to get some work done! life cannot be just an endless succession of fun. but, really, my work then included doing my taxes, looking for jobs, filling out applications, and writing this dumb blog. i sat at my new favorite coffee shop, albina press, and did very little of what i wanted to accomplish for the next hour and a half. i did get the videos of !PK! from the previous night uploaded and a little writing down, but not enough. and i didnt even bring the applications or my taxes in with me.

look at these folks!

while i was there my friend topher texted me and invited me out to a small birthday celebration that he was having. so i packed up and headed over there. again, this was all the way across town. but, it was really great. i got to see topher, sophia, and jennifer! (arturo was there too...but youve heard enough about him!) the four of them had just eaten and had some drinks, i just sidled up and hung out with them for a little bit. again, very nice. when we all parted ways arturo, topher and i walked back towards my truck and arturo gave us some info on the stars and constellations and stuff. i love that kind of thing, especially when someone i have known for a long time talks about it and i never even knew he cared!

then it was back to the apartment. since i have been here i have accomplished my taxes (hoping on a refund of $1500!!!) and this dumb post. because so much is happening and i'm not really living in a pickup truck anymore, this blog has only a very limited duration. i love writing, and hopefully i will translate that into something else, but i dont want to live a lie...or change the name of this one.

the mountain is thick with snow, this air is thick with memories

well, i came back to portland two days early. i set a date on my phone to be back into portland on february 17th before 8pm. i had planned to come into portland and just lurk for a day before announcing myself, but then steve called me and asked me what my eta was. and i didnt want to lie to him, so i told him four hours. i ended up being in portland within two hours. i am always early. i guess that hasnt changed.

the boring oregon capitol

i was in grants pass in the morning and then drove until i got to salem where i stopped to see the capitol building. its a strange thing, i love capitol buildings, yet i have lived just 57 miles away from this one for 7 years and have never visited it. also, i lived in olympia, wa for 9 months and never visited that capitol either. WTF! needless to say the oregon capitol was one of the worst that i have been too. the "real" capitol burnt down in 1935, during the depression, and the public money available afforded a very drab WWII style low lying office building. boring. so i was only there for a half hour or so and then, with surging adrenaline i drove to portland.

the first thing i saw (aside from the suburbs) was mount hood towering over the south waterfront, looking real good. mt hood doesnt look so good when it doesnt have snow, but it was a blanket of white on this clear day and i smiled. then the south waterfront and its three or four new skyscrapers in the last 9 months came into view. it was here that i started to freak out a little bit. although i have lived and been present for every single day of the last nine months coming home felt like waking from a dream. like i had been gone nine hours instead of nine months.

it was good. the second person i saw in a bicycle was someone i knew, i havent know the person (name of alex) for a couple of years, but for the first time in a long time i was happy to just be out and be able to point at random people and know that i know them. then i drove by my old house and was spotted by my neighbour. i waved and drove on. my intention was to wait the few hours i had until my "designated" arrival time to see steve. so i wanted to find a place to sit and use the internet for awhile, but i wanted to go somewhere i didnt think i would know anyone. and i really wouldve liked to have a beer.

i ended up at the albina press coffee shop and spent an hour or so there acclimating. and, since we are all experiencing this acclimation, i will paste here the previously written account of my arrival in portland for the first time, september 11th, 2002:

ah, the summer of 2002 was good to me, i was living in indiana and making a bunch of money working for my dad. i had my own house, i was collecting records, i was working on a volkswagen bus that i had purchased, i dressed "nice," entertained friends and just had the life that any 21/22 year old would want. this was quite a departure from who i was just a year before. a year before i had just gotten back from santa barbara and felt worn out and defeated by life, i felt that i had tried out the world and it beat me now i had to go back to indiana and work the family business like i always knew i would.

but, by august of 2002 my relationship with my brother had led to a poor work environment, he fired me and i accepted that. i had gotten my swagger for life back and steve was coming to visit soon. he never left santa barbara, he has always won life. when he came back i unleashed a new level of partying, reckless and without care. he told he was moving to portland and, although i had never been there and really didnt know anything about it, i asked if i could come with. of course he said yes.

this is steve and i happy, to see each other after nine months. this was last night.

it was on september 11th 2002 that i arrived in portland oregon via greyhound bus. steve was still in indiana visiting with his family, he would be here on the 12th. i got all of my things, put my bike together with a leatherman and strapped all of my belongings on this bike. it was truly a ridiculous sight. without a map i was headed for 36th and powell. i went over the steel bridge, and for those of you who know portland, you know this was a poor choice of bridges to take from downtown to get to 36th and powell. from there i proceeded to hit every single big hill that existed on the route and eventually came to my destination.

my destination was an apartment that i would now be living in. i found it, and i was all sweaty. standing on the stoop, drinking a sparks waiting for me, was carfin, and she was cute. when steve told me i could live with him i am sure he mentioned that carfin - a lady that he lived with in santa barbara - was also living with us. i was so happy to be out in life again that i let the adrenalin overcome me.

i pulled up a hilarious sight, she beckoned me up to her and introduced herself. then she wanted me to hug her. i told her that i was all sweaty and smelled real bad after being on the bus for three days. she didnt care, she made me hug her. then i got all of my stuff upstairs and took a shower. there were two rooms, her room and steves room. steve and i would be sharing his room. after i got a bit settled, she asked if i wanted to go out with her tonight. i said yes, what else could i say?

she took me to a place called the pub at the end of the universe and i thought it was an awesome place. we talked for hours and eventually i was a bit drunk. we were on foot and we walked back to the apartment. when we got upstairs, we talked more and then - out of nowhere - she asked me if i would sleep with her tonight. i probably laughed, but i know i was nervous. and, again, it was like i was a visitor in her house and i felt that i had to say yes to her. i was also attracted to her and wanted to say yes, but i was filled with all kinds of thoughts about this.

this is emily and patty, i dont know why they are so happy.

it turned out that she just wanted me to lay with her, we werent having sex that night. but, once we were in the bed we cuddled and made out with one another, i dont know if it went further than that - i was probably much too scared to initiate anything and much too confused to be a very good partner. in the morning it was a little bit strange, but we did have something to take our minds off of whatever had transpired last night, steve was arriving today!

this was good for me, i needed to process with him the things that had transpired. he had been living with carfin for about a year and a half so he would know more about her motives and i could make sure that he didnt have a thing for her, and talk about the dynamic of sleeping arrangements. i did get to talk to steve, and he eased all of my concerns and told me to do what felt right. that night we went out to dots (i am pretty sure) which is a really awesome place in the city of portland.

at night there was a conundrum, should i sleep with steve or with carfin? both options were open to me and i chose carfin. so much for "bros before hoes." and with that carfin and i had some kind of a relationship. i think i liked her a whole lot when i first got there, i was young and impressionable in a new place that offered all kind of opportunity. she was older than me and (so i felt at the time) much cuter than me. i liked her a whole lot, and i think she liked me, but she liked something else more than me. that was alcohol. she was a functioning alcoholic, and that was something that i didnt really notice or take any interest in until our relationship had imploded.

for a couple of weeks things were fine, the three of us lived in this apartment, steve and i looked for work, carfin worked at the liquor store. steve and i were vegan, i think carfin was vegetarian, we made dinners and went out nights, i moved into her room and steve stayed in his own. then another friend from indiana decided to move to portland. this was justin gall, and he was coming to live with us. he wasnt like us, he moved here with a car and a tv. and he wanted his own room, that was a harder order to fill in a two bedroom apartment. but, we managed.

carfin and i moved into steves room while justin took over the room carfin and i had been staying in. our new room was great. we pushed together two queen sized beds and the three of us lived in there together, i think carfin generally slept in the middle and i also think that we stopped having sex as much. but, by this time she was also drinking alot more (or at least alot more openly) and i was less and less turned on by her anyway.

the relationship that we had completely imp.oded within a few months, we were living together and sleeping int he same bed but not talking to each other at all. i hadnt let learned the words to say or how to properly express them. i wrote letters and never gave them to her. eventually she moved out of the room with steve and i and into the living room, and then she invited her new boyfriend - another alcoholic, but i dont believe he was even a functioning one - and five of us lived in this two bedroom apartment, and at least two of us werent speaking to one another at all.

so it had to change. steve, justin, and i decided to move out and we found a house on SE 52nd near burnside. it was a nice three bedroom house with garage. steve and i had separate rooms but withing a few weeks we slept in the same room. when our lease ran out there my life was culminating into something i didnt understand. i felt like i was near imploding again, i was writing furiously everyday, i dont think i had a job. and i decided i needed another change, so i wrote a letter to my family and friends and told them that i was never going to talk to them again, move to bisbee arizona and live in the desert.

i did drop out of communication, i think that coincided with our lease running out. steve and i voluntarily went homeless and justin got an apartment downtown. i finished compiling all of my journals online and mailed the originals to my friend rob in new york. (i am writing all of this right now, this isnt stuff i wrote a couple weeks ago any longer - fyi.) and i thought i gave up on writing. instead of moving to bisbee i slept in laurelhurst park and got involved in the anti-war movement. eventually i moved onto my friends roof and slept variously up there and in her bed.

just now, going through some of my things in portland, i found a journal that i was keeping of this time period, and it is awesome. i will have to transcribe some of it eventually. but, anyway, this is going way too far from what i had originally intended. this was supposed to merely be an interlude while i was waiting for steve to get ready and now we are nine months into my life in portland. i will pick up this story eventually...(as: being in portland part 2 from the rooftops to the mississippi haus. or a more clever title)

now it was 7:pm so i could go to steve apartment. i have known steve and been great friends with him since 1996. in all of that time i have never gone to his place before. he hadnt had one, and when i thought about this i allowed myself to have some nervousness about seeing steve! how absolutely ridiculous. i went to his apartment, buzzed in and heard him moving on the second floor to come and greet me. we met in the stairwell, embraced, and then went upstairs to talk more. we chatted for an hour, and then i showered.

we left to meet emily on alberta at bellafaccia. the three of us hung out there, chatted and caught up for another hour or so. and it wasnt very strange at all. a little bit, but not very. and i was happy, things were good. towards the end of our meal patty, steves love interest, met us up there. i hadnt met her yet and it was nice to meet someone who made steve so happy. the four of us went next door to the whiskey bar and had some whiskey while we talked more and more. eventually this part of the night was done though. steve and patty took their leave and emily and i were left alone.

we went to the next bar together to hang out and talk more. i wasnt dreading this moment, but i certainly wasnt looking forward to it, maybe those arent the right words, but i was much more nervous about us being alone together. i didnt know what to expect, we have never really been alone as just friends, in portland we had always lived together. and i have never kept up with people that i dated before. not for lack of trying, but this just never took root. so it was strange for me, and she felt similarly. so we sat and in some uncomfortability talked more.

and eventually, inevitably, it came back to our broken relationship. i broke up with her over the phone in virginia beach, in november. not the most ideal but thats what happened. i had time before that to thin of all the reasons why i thought we should split and since then i have come up with plenty more reasons to justify it. she never got most of these reasons and so i found myself in the unenviable situation and breaking up with her again in person. it went easier than

my bike, before it worked.

i thought, but i really dont like making people feel bad or watching people be unhappy. but i also knew that it was some kind of necessity. oh, emotion, you devil.

around midnight we called it and went our separate ways. i went back to steves apartment alone and slept in this space, and it wasnt a great sleep. at 8:am steve called me and i was forced awake, beckoned to breakfast with him. after breakfasting i went to over to my old house to catch emily just before she left for work. i needed to do some laundry, go through my mail, see my cat (who hid from me most of the day), and fix my bike. now that is mostly done. tonight, more.

this is all about who i was an hour ago, everything changes so fast.

for all effective purposes this trip is now over. yesterday i celebrated nine months on the road, and i drove into the state of oregon, which means that i am home. at least in my home state, all of the license plates look like mine now. it rained as i entered the state and it even felt like home. i had half a mind to just drive all of last night and be in portland for a couple of days before i even told anyone.

just to be fair, i didnt do that. i am in grants pass. night driving is not something i do well, with all the lights behind me i cant see what is in front of me and since my truck has been crumbling slowly it becomes harder to push it blindly into the darkness. i tried stopping in ashland, but the place was very happening on a sunday night and everything was closed. so i mulled over my options, really i just wanted to coffee shop that was open late to sit at and write these diatribes that have been building, but no such luck. i even considered going to the starbucks, but it was closing in a half hour.

so i pushed north and thought about pulling off into medford before i convinced myself to just drive until i got to eugene. obviously i didnt convince myself of this becasue about ten minutes later i pulled off into grants pass and parked at a hotel that has free wireless and tried to type things into this machine from the back of my truck, but that just wasnt happening. so i slept. and now i have some decisions to make.

but first, let me talk about my second trip to santa cruz. i left los angeles and stopped in santa barbara. i used to live in santa barbara, under a tree on cliff next to the ocean. it was an awesome time but way too much experience for my young mind. when i was here earlier on the trip i took a bunch of pictures of the place where i used to stay and did some reminiscing, this time it was really just a layover. a place to pass some time before i ended up in santa cruz.

originally i was just going to head straight up the i-5 corridor and into oregon, i did the coast on the way down. but then this band that i like, blackbird raum, was playing a show on their home turf in sc. so i decided to hesitate my trip and catch them again. i got to sc a few days too early and spent the time walking around and enjoying the place as much as i could. it is a beautiful place, but i dont like it very much.

all of santa cruz looks like this

my friend bradley lives here and i got in touch with him, he was the first person that i saw on this trip way back in may. it was awkward for me then, but i made it. this time it was not awkward at all, so, that means the thing i was talking about the other day, thats taken care of. yeah, right. in addition to seeing bradley again, tiffany and austin wanted me to meet their friends mat and vanessa who live here. since i had more time to be here before the show and not much to do i was into this idea. i went into the record store mat works at to meet him initially and then we met up later on friday night at a bar.

the bar wasnt fancy, but it was certainly not the place that i would regularly find myself. we sat there and talked for awhile with some older gentlemen from sacramento who were in town to see stephen stills. i spent this time meeting new people, and it is a strange thing, i can turn on this switch that makes me very personable to all the people around me i have no fear in the social setting and just let it all ride. and then, the next day, i will turn back into myself and have this unnatural timidity about interacting with people. jesus life is strange.

we were there for two pitchers, bradley left to go see a show and then came back just about when we were all leaving. so i left mat and vanessa and went with bradley. we went to a diner and then back to his house where we just talked for awhile before i called it a night and went back to my truck. then it was time for the next day to start. i spent it just walking all around the town, the weather was awesome and there were a bunch of people out because of the weekend. i spent some time by the river and went to a diner for breakfast in the middle of the day.

and eventually the day turned into the night an i had to do what i came here for. you know how i was talking about one night being awesome around people and the next being scared of them? well, tonight i decided to be scared of them. in honor of this i employed my friend: liquid courage. i stopped at a liquor store and got a 12 pack of pbr, sat in my truck near the house show and drank a few beers before i actually walked up to the show. i was feeling better. i engaged the first person i saw and talked with him for awhile.

see the washboard player? he is my favorite.

then i went back to my truck and got some more beer, and stood around outside talking with all the young people between shifts of hiding in the corner. i didnt go into the house until blackbird raum was about to play, the first two bands were metal bands and very loud. i could hear them just fine outside. eventually i went inside and watched bb raum play, they were much better than in riverside. the crowd was also better. i stood off to one side and really enjoyed myself for the 40 minutes that they played. i hung around this house for awhile afterwards, talked to some of the people in the band and all the young friends i made while i was drinking outside.

then i made an ass of myself and decided to call it a night. unfortunately there was wireless internet where i had parked for the night and since it was still very early and i had drank quite a bit i decided to continue making an ass out of myself by sending various messages throughout the ether. what an idiot.

in the "morning" i had a chance to remember all the dumb things i did the night before and took that opportunity to drive very fast away from santa cruz. how fast, we will never know because of my dumb speedometer being broken. my plan was to drive to redding and call it a night there. i took the 880 up through oakland and for a moment i debated actually going to san francisco. i won this debate and continued heading north. i will say that sf was really beautiful from the oakland side, the entire city was engulfed in fog and you could just see the tips of the bridges and the tops of the buildings.

the fog dissipated right at the expressway i was on, which was good, because driving in fog sucks. eventually i got to redding and there wasnt any reason for me to stay there, it was still early-ish in the day and i decided to drive to yreka. yreka had less going on than redding and the next thing i know someone is pumping my gas for me. welcome home.

as it crumbles around me... (technical notes and truck update #12 / the last)

	current cycle	total trip
miles	1598	20079
gallons	74.3	873.4
dollars	211.5	2282.9
mpg avg	21.5	23
costpg avg	2.84	2.61
days	17	274

well, my truck has continued to self-destruct. i have been getting ever poorer mileage per tank of gas and i havent had any real idea why that is. i guess i first noticed it after amarillo, i had gotten like 70 miles less than i should have from a tank of gas. i thought it was the mountains or that i didnt have enough oil or something like that. then i got past the mountains and had an oil change.

the resulting tank of gas after the oil change gave me about 100 miles less than i shouldve gotten from a tank of gas. and this is the intersection of technology and real-life that becomes disturbing. i am paying so much attention to this machine that tells me how far i have gone and have such absolute trust in it that i am not even noticing how far i am actually traveling. it wasnt until i got more that 150 miles less than i should have that i figured out my counter was broken.

so much trust was placed on this machine that it didnt ever occur to me to question the validity of the data it sprouted. literally, the first thing i thought about was how this affects my statistics that i had been keeping so well for the entirety of this trip. i figured out some workarounds to the trip odometer not recording correctly, and then my speedometer went out completely. no more movement from the speedometer, i would have no idea how fast i was going from here on out. not that it was very reliable before...

and when this happened i noticed that it wasnt just the trip odometer that failed to record all the miles, the actual truck odometer also stopped when the speedometer stopped. so i couldnt even employ my complex set-up of division, back math and averages to figure out the miles i had gone. all of my statistics were out the window. luckily, this trip is almost over and this wouldve been the last technical notes anyway. instead i just used an average based on how many gallons of gas i spent and what my avg mpg has been. oh well, at least i eclipsed the 20,000 mile mark (which, if my truck had been recording all the miles traveled, this would have happened long ago. dumb truck.)