I Live in a Pick-Up Truck

an endless series of miraculous surprises

2010-02-20T14:33:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-19T22:32:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-19T00:08:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-17T23:43:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-16T13:31:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-02-15T11:09:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-02-15T10:37:00.000-08:00

	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.)

collected-thoughts-on-paper me versus real-time me

2010-02-12T14:35:00.000-08:00

when i started this trip - oh so many months ago - my idea of it was much different than what actually transpired. the excitement has always been there, when i was building my truck, secretly starting this blog, scheming various realities that i alone had the opportunity to prove or disprove, all of that was exciting. i knew that i money was a thing that, and this thing would be the a frequent contributor to the outcome of my decisions. to that end, my plan was to ride the wind. not unlike anna fang.

really, i was just going to be a taxi service. my idea to workaround capital was to spend as little money as possible on gas, taking travelers from point a to point b (in accordance with a general line of travel that i had in mind for my trip) for a fee. haunting the craigslist rideshare board and using these people to get back into the groove of being a real person. and so, the final decider for when i would leave portland hinged on when i could catch a rider heading south or east.

that person was reuben, he was heading southwest (perfect) and leaving on the 14th of may. so was i reuben, so was i. from bend, or wherever it was that i left him i was supposed to pick up another rider, someone to contribute to the gas tank. but after that first day all of the ideas that i had been concocting about this trip crumbled into dust and flitted away. i wasnt making the long jumps that i had expected, and i liked going on the back roads between small towns instead of large long jumps on the bland expressway between megacity and metropolis.

i posted a few more times on craigslist, from wherever i was to some point towards where i was going, but this only lasted a week or so and i never responded to any of the folks that were hoping to copilot. and then i gave up on the idea completely. it wasnt until i picked up a hitchhiker in new mexico (just going to the rainbow festival) that another person sat in my truck. and, really, my truck has been devoid of people for this trip. maybe ten people existed as passengers, one other person actually drove my truck, and maybe six people were in the back of it.

and so, my attempt to become more of a real person failed. at least in the way i wanted to be more real. i have gotten better at being around people, regained some confidence about people actually liking me, certainly found new joy in the world, all these are good things. but those are all actionable items, things that happen after the point of impact - after the spark. what do they say? "actions come easy, its the moments just before that are hard, when i have to get my head on the same page as my heart."

anyway, i havent done so good with that just yet. i dont think i have ever been very good with taking the first step. pretty good at follow through, but i got a bad starter. this could be one of the reasons i keep the company of people more outgoing than i am, good starters for me to work with. some kind of symbiance. anyway, i am rambling right now. my point is that i havent accomplished all of the goals that i set out to.

a couple weeks ago i realized how my situation had changed and tried to get back to the original idea of this trip. since i left chicago it has really been just expressway driving between large points on a map, perfect conditions for me to get better at "knocking on the door." this dawned on me somewhere around alton and from there i started posting on various craigslists where i was, where i was going and when i was leaving. from little rock to dallas, dallas to okc, okc to amarillo, amarillo to albuquerque, to flagstaff, to las vegas, to los angeles, to santa cruz. i think that is all the posts i have done.

at first there wasnt much response but as i started working further west more people were interested in my rides. a few times i just wasnt into the people who responded, but it was in los angeles where i got a ton of responses and i responded to a few of them but was never able to "seal the deal." i stayed in santa barabara the other night and again got a bunch of people from there who wanted a ride to santa cruz. eventually i realized that i wouldnt be able to go through with it. the thought process is a muddled mess, but the basics are: what the hell am i going to talk with a stranger about for five hours, what if i want to stop for something that they dont, since they are purchasing my services am i their servant now, etc?

now, i have come to terms with not being able to initiate interactions with people. i mean, even throughout this trip with people i know, i have been terrified to make that initial real-life communication. sometimes it has been debilitating, and that is strange. like when i couldnt just knock on the door to friedels house, or even a day later when i hesitated for minutes to knock on tiffanys door. there is some deep seated inner pessimism or other little devil that keeps reminding me of all the bad things, all the things that could go wrong and oftentimes it is just easier to be alone. ever present restless uncertainty.

one night, in los angeles, i had planned to hang out with friedel but that fell through and instead of going back to tiffanys i opted to just sleep in my truck. in the morning i had a raging internal debate. when i went back to tiffanys should i lie and say that i stayed at friedels or should i tell the truth that i slept in my truck just a couple blocks away from her house. i ended up telling the truth, by a narrow margin, she and austin were incredulous at my decision. they were certainly up when i made the decision to not go back to their house, so what circumstances contributed to the decision to just not go back to her house?

all of this matters right now because i am knocking on portland door and i am supposed to be a different person, at least a somewhat changed person. i am supposed to come back and see all of these old friends, the most concentrated area of friends that exists for me, and i am still frozen when i comes to just announcing myself in some way. these nine months were supposed to help me in some way, and i have some really great experiences and awesome new friends, but i need to put whatever i learned into action (or at least lie about it in such a way that it appears i have learned something).

i would like to say that this is something that just sprang from nowhere, but i have been thinking about it very much recently and it has been on my radar for a long time. i have always known that i would have to get back to portland and then do something. and that something better include personal happiness and a fair amount of the friends that i have made living in portland the last seven years.

so, i got about five days to figure this out. i am thinking party.

self reflecting golden future

2010-02-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

the days have absolutely flown by. so much so that there was a day called monday and i have very little to no recollection of what transpired that day. using various forms of technology and the memories of others i was able to cobble together that i didnt do anything worth remembering that day anyway. tuesday, however, i got back on the horse.

after a few false starts friedel and i actually got to hang out together again. i think we had tried to make it happen on sunday and then again on monday but neither of these times panned out into face-time. we planned for tuesday morning, but soon that seemed like it would fall by the wayside as well. it was an important thing for us to get together, mostly so i could leave then with saying a proper goodbye.

she had an appointment in the early afternoon, so i hung back and made it over to culver city around 2 in the afternoon. there was a fierce rainstorm battering los angeles while i was driving and arriving at her house. this is more rain than los angeles is used too, i hope it isnt my fault. i went inside for a minute, but this is a house of dogs. i am sure that i have intimated that i dislike dogs, the most glaring reason for my dislike is the smell of a dog when it is wet. it is the absolute worst smell in the world to me - i like the smell of burning hair more.

i do feel it is necessary to note that although i "dislike" dogs, that doesnt mean that i hate them or think they are bad they just arent a thing that i would want to be around for a long time. and so, since it was raining and the dogs were wet and jumping, we didnt stay here very long. instead friedel whisked me away to a pho restaurant in little ethiopia. it was good. we had a very large bowl that the two of us were unable to finish. we chatted there mostly (or most of my memories were) about the phrase "i am sorry," the responsibility of sorrow and life. (there has been so much redacted text in my various writings recently...) so, that happened.

dessert and a coffee

and then we got back into the jeep to go back to her house. i failed to mention the jeep earlier, this was the first time i had ever been in a jeep and that was an experience. but this was a borrowed vehicle and it had to be returned. this time we werent at her house for very long before we got back into my truck and drove to the lacma. i would type out what lacma stands for but i am not entirely positive, it is the los angeles museum of contemporary art. we were under the impression that it was free after 5:pm so, to kill the remaining time, we went to a diner.

for a dessert and a coffee, it was also the kind that had little jukeboxes at the tables and we played about eight songs. and in this restaurant setting friedel decided to get the "art talk" out of the way. i guess it is a strange thing, but i things that i like and things that i dont like and i am pretty sure i know what they are. but because i am only pretty sure i leave it open, i know i dont like baby corn but i will try it every time it is in front of me. for years and years i knew i didnt like olives until i ate them and did like them. i love art. i think art is awesome, but most of it i dont like and i find almost all of it to be useless.

this is not how they want you to interact with art

making these statements to friedel brought into another conversation where i was attempting to talk myself out of a corner. i am not very good at writing myself out of things, so i am - again - not going to try. or at least i am going to say i am not going to try and then proceed to try in such a way that is half-assed and i have the "way out" because i never wanted to write the dumb words anymore. my mind works in such a way that i do not even understand it...it is like the museum of jurassic technology. oh - to have a hot air balloon of my own!

i think art is useful in a specific time and place and most generally do not find it "timeless." i agree that it tells a story, but as the stories change the art must also change and grow with it. some things must be discarded and disregarded, while others will be built up. i dont know much modern art and certainly dont like much of it. i like street art, i find that art tells stories pertinent to me and this period that we are living in. if i had to choose an artist that represents what i mean, it would be cataldo. he is also just a nice person.

and that will be the end of my anti-explanation. we had some fun in this museum. i am the type of person that, to put it easily,likes to test the rules. i like to touch the art. i think that the art should slowly decompose as the ideas that created it also decomposed. i also like to take pictures, and when these thigns are put together it turns into a fun day. it has been kind of a theme for me to take people to places where they should not have fun and entice them into fun. the most recent was getting adam in dallas to interact with the art at whatever museum we were a part of. yesterday it was enticing friedel to engage in something similar.

standing on surfaces that boldly state "do not stand," crawling over and under the art installations, touching the paintings, and - of course - frequently interacting with the security guards. we went through an umber of rooms and eventually we were engaged by this lady who had been following us around. barbra had been watching us since the first breaking of the rules, and when she offered to take a picture of friedel and i interacting with art together i was convinced that she was an undercover for the museum and was going to steal away with my camera.

the picture our new friend took

the truth is stranger than fiction. maybe not this truth, but that is a good thing to remember anyway. barbra turned out to just be enjoying the way we were interacting with the art and wanted to also be a part of it. when i had first thought she was undercover she was really just watching to see if friedel would take the step onto the forbidden platform. and then we started talking and became friends. she is an activist from pittsburgh so we talked a bit about the g20 this past year. i told her how i darted just before the protests because i wanted nothing to do with it at the time.

then i reminded friedel of our friend who lives in pgh and it was someone that barbra also knew so we had, what, two degrees of separation. we just hung out chatted in the museum for ten or fifteen minutes, it was nice. but we had to part ways into different wings of the museum. we continued throughout the museum until i found something that i really liked: joseph beuys. specifically his doodles and sketches, that kind of stuff is awesome to me. not that it is useful or has meaning, but still really great. it is the kind of thing that i would prominently hang in my future house and just stare at for hours and be in a state of complete joy. maybe i'm strange.

then we made it outside into the garden of streetlamps and i got into an argument with a security guard, i showed him my golden ticket but he was not impressed and asked us to leave. i huffed and puffed and then told him we were done there anyway. after some turning around friedel directed me to the beach, but it was closed so we kept on back to culver city and the ever popular grocery store. i cannot describe how much i miss the idea of a grocery store.

but is this really art?

i get into the sad/happy mode while i am inside one. i am sad because i miss so much the simple joy of shopping for food and then making it into a delicious treat on my home fire. but then i get real happy thinking about the day when i am able to experience such joy again. what do they say about taking things for granted and then being apart from them until appreciation is gained. something like "i never saw my hometown until i stayed away too long." anyway, the day i get to buy whatever i want from the store and then think about it as i ride my bike home from the store, prepare it and eat it. those are the days i live for now.

but shortly after we got back to her house friedel got a call she needed to take and i took this as an opportunity to leave. we parted ways again and agreed not to let another five years pass without seeing one another. i drove back to tiffs and talked to her for awhile. i had mostly made the decision to leave in the morning and i wanted to just enjoy being around this person who has been my friend for so long. after awhile though i needed to think about sleeping if i were to actually leave the next day.

so i thought about it until austin came home. and then he insisted on finishing this drawing he was making for me before i settled into slumber. it was very nice and is tucked away in my truck for display in whatever place becomes my home next. and in the morning i slowly prepared and finished convincing myself to get out while i still could. and here i am back in santa barbara. oh it was so long ago and yet again here i am.

bartles, james, me, and my memory

2010-02-07T21:44:00.000-08:00

this was a good weekend. perhaps the weekend to end all weekends for this journey. but we will not be paying our respects to a trip well done just yet. first, lets just understand what transpired.

for almost the entirety of friday i wrote words and looked at the internet. some would calculate this as an unproductive day. i am a part of that sum. i have absolutely no right or reason to spend a days worth of waking hours writing words in various forms, reading words, and doing art things...none whatsoever. i can use the excuse that it was raining but i am not a big fan of excuses, and that is how it happened.

saturday existed as a make-up day, its fullness was enough for about 1.6 days. it started with the three of us gearing up to visit the museum of death. death really isnt something i am overly concerned about or really enjoy enough to pay to learn more about. and it was an expensive museum. luckily tiffany wanted to go to this museum enough for all of us and made it her treat. the museum isnt far from where she lives, housed in a rather nondescript building.

not dead yet!

walking up there is a sign on the building and a big skull on the metal mesh but nothing graphic or telling that you were about to enter a place that just the previous evening caused two grown men to faint. we entered the metal mesh to a sort of sidewalk porch that had some cages for large animals, odds and ends, and a real guillotine. it was my intention to put my head into the lock thing and have this as a picture. i am a fan of living life and taking advantage of the opportunities that i am presented with. but the blade was very sharp. the proprietors assured me that it was safe, but these people also have the entire place wired for video and are quite interested in the idea of people dieing. i just took some photos near the guillotine.

we paid our way inside and made our way through a heavy steel door into the first rooms of exhibition. what i was especially disappointed with was that i was not able to take video or even photographs of the exhibits. there were a number of times i wanted to break this decree, but the entire place was wired for video and i didnt want to get caught. the first rooms werent spectacular, some bones and caskets and stuff like that. the only thing unpleasant about these rooms were that they smelled bad. bad like death, maybe like an autopsy room that has been sprayed with febreeze.

then we had some options. there was a wing dedicated to some serial killers, and then a hall of photos which led to different part of the museum. we went into the little wing. there was a case of memorabilia to charles manson and other things, a movie was showing and the creepiest thing about it was the lady that was tucked in the corner of the room silently enjoying this film. but then i looked up. up, the upper portion of the wall above the television, was a series of blown up photographs of a lady that had been cut in half, sodomized, and left to rot. pictures from the field where they found her - her halves about a foot apart - and from the autopsy table. it was disturbing.

we were moving quickly and went into the hall of photographs next. one way were car wrecks and things like that, nothing you couldnt see with regularity. but in the other direction, a little hallway that ended with a door we were not to enter, were some more photos and certainly more disturbing photos. it was a series of photos, a

dont look at this if you cannot stand it

husband and wife were taking and taking pictures of each other mutilating a body. the body of someone they had killed. the most compelling photo was the wife, completely nude, sawing the head off of this guy.

this was the eighties. when they took the photos to be developed the authorities were informed. she got six years, he got thirty. he'll be out in 2014. i couldnt stand it any longer and just had to take a picture of this.

then we were by a little cubicle dedicated to the heavens gate cult, this was a suicide cult from the 90's. there was a dvd about the cult and i watched it for awhile. it was disturbing, but then it ended and there was this awesome song playing over the dvd's title page. i really wanted to know more about the song because i liked it so much. i didnt get very good information about it from the proprietors.

there were a few more rooms, but i dont remember them too well right now. they must not have been very exciting, especially not with the second to last room that i have to talk about. it was a little theatre, sitting maybe 15 people. there were some stuffed things around the room and playing on the screen was scene after scene of people dying. i watched a wire walker fail one of his moves and fall to his death, a woman walk in front of a train, the police drag a man behind his minivan and execute him, a number of ritual executions, someone burning to death, you get the picture. it was much more real and more gruesome than the "faces of death" tapes that you could get at the video store as a kid.

the most disturbing video that i saw, and i dont even know if the guy died, but it was castration. this was also, i think, the longest clip that they showed. it was a black man strapped to something like a gurney in a desolate looking place. he wasnt struggling, but he was clearly alive. as he was carried on this gurney the camera took regular shots of his flaccid penis bouncing with the movements of his bearers. then they stopped and tortured him for awhile, there were still regular shots of his penis moving. and then one of the men grabbed his penis and cut it off.

from the body a stream of blood came shooting from the pelvic region with the heartbeats just as if this man were urinating - except with blood. and from the dismembered penis, the person holding it squeezed it and something like urine and blood mixed shot out of the tip. i walked away after that. it was a bit much for me to handle, i am not queasy about it but there is just so much i need to know or witness. the last room was about death row prisoners and incarcerated serial killers. it was like an art gallery with their letters and paintings, some of their plans to murder people when they get out of prison, etc.

then we were back out in the world. we were a bit disoriented from being inside and around all that death, to process i had tiffany interview austin about the experience. and then we were off, we didnt have much of a destination but settled for a place called the bourgeois pig. it is a little coffee shop, near the upright citizens brigade theatre, and rather unassuming from the outside. actually, it is unassuming from the inside as well...at least until you make it into the backroom. this room is set up to resemble being in the forest.

these things happen inside the cabin...

there is a little cabin off to one side, which sets two people inside. there is a large mushroom pillow that you can lay on, fake trees run floor to ceiling. real tree trunks are across the floor as footrests, tables, and seats. the entire room is very dark. there is a small "campfire" in the center of the room which gives a little red glare of light and some "stars" blanketing the ceiling. it is a pretty neat little room. actually, i am sitting there as i write this. i am sitting under a fake tree and every now and again some water drips on me. i dont know if the ceiling will cave in or it is part of the ambiance.

our sojourn to the bourgeois pig was more of a way station to let some time pass us by before we set off on our next adventure: riverside. riverside is a large community, 300,000 people, about an hour southeast of los angeles. i cannot imagine anyone really ever has a reason to go there, but tiffany and austin were nice enough to make one of my dreams/goals for this trip come true. we were going to a house show.

its true, one of the goals or things that i really wanted to do was end up at some random punk house show and just enjoy the hell out of it. just to see if i could still. i thought that my adventure in amarillo was going to be as close as i would get, and if so, it would have been good enough. i also have a book of cd's that i listen to when i drive for this trip. i listened to what i made in portland until i got to indiana the first time and i changed a bunch of them over. one of the bands that has stayed a constant in my rotation on this trip has been blackbird raum. and they were playing riverside this night.

they had played la just a week or so earlier and i informed tiffany - she and austin went and they enjoyed it. i didnt think i would see them, i wouldnt have driven 60 miles to see a band, no matter how awesome they are. but they were willing to go see this band again and i was thankful. the drive there was long, and we were expecting to go to a cafe for the show. when we pulled up there didnt seem to be anything resembling a show, let alone one with the type of crowd blackbird raum would attract. we milled about outside, and then went in to inquire. the show was originally going to be in this cafe, but they didnt have the permits so it was moved to a nearby house.

we got the address and drove to this residence. it was teeming with drunk punks, crusty traveler punks, and generally the crowd i have been avoiding at all costs for the enormity of this trip. really, not my crowd any longer and i was immediately nervous to enter this space. i have been to a ton of these types of shows and house parties in portland...but not for a very long time and generally i have people there that i know. luckily austin and tiffany were with me, had i been alone it is entirely possible that i wouldve just walked right on by.

we walked to the door and the guy there said they were "at capacity," how hilarious, it is a house show! after dallying a moment they let us in and it was packed. the first band was just wrapping up and blackbird raum was next. we wedged our way away from the door towards the merch area. i had never seen this band and wanted to be part of the experience, but i also wanted to take pictures and shoot some video. i was able to finagle a position that would allow me to shoot some video and be part of whatever happened, but then the accordian wanted to stand there to play. with this i was displaced into the general crowd area. as soon as they struck their first note it was quite apparent that any video or pictures i wanted to take were not going to be easy acquisitions. there was quickly a swaying mass of people that devolved into a mosh pit.

i am not, nor have i ever been, a fan of the mosh pit. neither have i been a fan of crowd surfing. and that would happen later, when i was younger i was the guy that would pull crowd surfers down if they came near me. not usually in a violent way, but there were a few times - after i had been kicked in the head or the mouth - that i would pull them down in a less that friendly way....anyway.

the mosh pit was on and i was at the edge of it, trying to watch the band and stay upright. austin took my video camera and shot some video, i just enjoyed being very sweaty in riverside. there were a few people in the crowd that i really disliked, i dont know anything about riverside, the community, the house i was in or any of the people inside that house. but there were a few overly drunk people that liked the music and were singling along sometimes, but they were also throwing one another into other people and - in turn - into the band. it was during one of these surges that i was pushed into the accordian player.

another person i disliked was the guy. you know the guy, he is the one that feels up ladies in the crowd and then tries to play it off, among other things. well, this guy - between songs - kept yelling to get people to take their clothes off. not so much in a fun way but more in a demanding way. needless to say he remained fully clothed, he just wanted to see people naked and perhaps increase his chances of getting laid. he went on so much that one of the band members had to set the disclaimers for a safer space. you know, "you can get naked if you want too, but you cannot make fun of other people for getting naked or not getting naked" that kind of stuff. it was just annoying.

towards the end of the set some guy on the other side of the room got up and did a crowd surf. i dont think i had ever seen someone make it all the way across the room at a house show. i guess that says something about the community or at least about how many people were there. luckily he came down just before he got near me. but his success prompted others to try. they guy demanding people take off their clothes tried to convince some lady to crowd surf - she didnt want too. all the while, there was some lady behind me (one of the two throwing each other into the mosh pit trying to expand it or otherwise cause trouble) who kept grabbing my shoulder and kicking the back of my leg.

i assumed it was just someone dancing and brushed it off, but after a particularly rough grab i turned around and saw that this lady was trying to push up off of me to crowd surf. she was just about up, but i pulled away and she came down. she kicked someone in the head as she came down. she moved a bit to find a better spot and eventually made it up for a few moments. and then, while singing the song "silent spring" at the end, the accordian player dropped his accordian and jumped into the crowd to surf. ironic as it is, i have no problems with people in the band crowd surfing. i assume that they have been to enough shows and seen the damage that one can incur enough times to be more respectful about it. i could also just be mean about people who want to have fun.

and then the show ended. it was super hot and i was sweaty and not really into the crowd. we walked outside to get some fresh air and we naturally carried ourselves to the car and proceeded to drive back to los angeles. i had never before just gone to a house show and have the band i want to see start promptly and then leave as soon as it ends. it was strange and made me feel old.

we drove back into los angeles and went to a diner called "brite spot" for some dinner. i wasnt especially hungry, but we ordered a number of things and i ate up - i ate until i couldnt eat any longer. (and, since i have been wanting to say it i will now, quitting smoking has been mush easier than quitting eating. i have tried on two occasions to quit eating on this trip and have for a total of about three days. i have also tried quitting smoking twice on this trip and have succeeded for at least ten days. thats all i am saying about that.) the topper of this meal was a huge cupcake that the three of us shared. it was ridiculous.

and by this point i was tired and full and just feeling lethargic. so we decided to meet friedel downtown and go clubbing. but first we required a little motivation and this came in the form of whiskey. i had drank the last of my whiskey in amarillo and that was worth it. now, in los angeles, i purchased just a small bottle for austin and i to share. it was very very cheap and tasted accordingly. we drove into downtown la, at night, to find friedel.

we parked and found her with a troop of friends standing in line for a club. they were dressed fancy, dresses shoes, makeup, etc. i was wearing the ugly shorts. so i pulled a time off of my little bottle. we met her friends and she met mine and we hung out in line drawing ever nearer the bouncer. i wasnt feeling particularly excited about clubbing downtown, when friedel invited me out i was thinking of a small bar where friends enjoy company not whatever we were at. we stashed the whiskey in tiff's bag and i was elected to go through the "do you belong in this club" critique first. i walked up and was promptly pulled aside. the bouncer looked at me and said "no shorts, no hoodies, and no sneakers" he couldve made it a perfect picture had he said no velcro sneakers.

is this why i was turned away?

so, i was turned away. predictable, the first time i try to go clubbing in la i am denied, the gods are against me! but this was for the best, friedel offered to pull us all out and go to a different place but i doubt any club in la would let me in and they were dressed for clubbing. so tiffany and austin and i took our leave, laughing about how quickly our scenes had changed. from smelly traveler kid punk show to fancy los angeles. we went home and drank more whiskey, but i was right tired. and so i fell asleep promptly.

in the morning i was awesome. i felt awesome and it was awesome outside and it was just one of those times where life is completely right and i felt very good. i took a walk around the neighborhood and sang a very popular song debbie reynolds, eventually i came back to the house and hung around as tiffany and austin performed their waking rituals. i finished watching a movie we had started the previous evening and tried to upload some videos. the internet at her house has been acting up and it makes uploading video hard, but (this is a sad thing to admit) if the internet had been working this morning i probably wouldnt have taken that walk and sang that song and been as ultimately happy as i was.

our agenda for this day including the museum of jurassic technology, we had wanted to visit this when i was here the first time, but that never happened. i am not entirely sure why, but probably because we ran out of time. the problem with this museum is that i had no idea what it was all about as we plotted to visit and still no idea as we were parking to visit. when we went inside my idea of the place had yet to materialize. and now, six hours since leaving this museum i still cannot find concise words to describe it. eclectic, dark, and amazing.

so hungry.

i want to use many words here to describe all of the things that were there but i have been typing a long time and i probably couldnt do any justice to this place anyway. the highlights included holograms and microscopes, paintings on the tips of needles, a bell ferris wheel, old wives tales, mobile homes architecture dioramas, and a strange room where a lady sings to you in a strange language. there was a whole bunch more stuff, but like i said, i couldnt describe it anyway.

i spent a great deal of time in this museum and could have easily spent two more hours there, watching videos or reading all of the plaques but the stomachs of tiffany and austin got the better of me. we were in culver city and this is apparently a place where very good indian food exists so we made a path to find some of it. we walked about a half mile and found something, it was just okay. certainly not with $13 each! (sorry for spending your money so poorly steve...) and then we continued walking.

just messin. who could eat 4lbs of chips!

we found a store on the way back, and we did some shopping. i merely bought 180 starlight mints. i have traded my addiction to nicotine for an addiction to starlight mints. and they are good. tiffany needed some things, i was feeling playful and recruited austin to join in storming the store and enjoying all of the things it had to offer. and then back to the car and to the house, nap time for the young ones and typing time for the old guy.

and now i have to think about leaving. i am having a good time here and tiffany - joking i am sure - suggested that i should move to los angeles for a few months, pretty much until she moves to san francisco. i dont want to move here, but i also dont want to leave. leaving means moving closer to my final destination and the time will come to evolve towards a more real life. all scary things, and for a person who is easily frightened, this might be debilitating. i am just stalling.

i am glad i am alive / hail to the thief of suffering

2010-02-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

and so, eventually, i made my way into the home of one of my friends. actually, it wasnt easy. after failing to muster the courage to stay at friedels while she was out of town i continued to park near her house for some reason. i say "some reason" because i dont know it, and it wasnt smart. traffic in la is bad, and when tiffany got back into town and invited me to come hang out with her and austin i was on the complete opposite side of town and there was no way i would brave the crosstown traffic.

the next day, however, it was on. well the next evening i guess. i spent my couple days of solitude staying busy by walking around various spots in los angeles, seeing some free museums, and doing plenty of driving. boy, can i drive. by now i am pretty much over the whole driving thing though. on wednesday i spent my time getting lost in south pasadena while i foolishly tried to convince myself that i remembered where tiffany lived. i was on the wrong side of downtown.

literally hours later i caved and used the internet to locate me and her neighborhood so that i could path a direct line. as it turned out i wasnt far away, just not very near either. i got to her neighborhood early, the idea being that i would drive in the middle of the day when the traffic was at its lightest. and then i would mill about waiting for her to come home from school. you know, acquaint myself with the neighborhood, meet some locals, maybe drink a 40 on "shore" of the los angeles river. really i just walked up and down a street and then drove around to become lost some more.

a random art school student whose house i was in

finally the time came for me to see someone here, and i drove to tiffanys house. and it really is a strange thing, i was here just a week or so into my trip, i was terrified to see tiffany then, it had been so long. now, 8 months later, the terror is certainly reduced but i had to psyche myself up outside her house to go knock on the door.

this is an irrational thing. but the way it breaks down, i think, is my unwillingness to be a burden on anyone. my thought process is something like: she is doing homework and busy with school, i am just some random dude that lived with her 10 years ago, i am going to come into the house and just be a lump of coal that she avoids, i will feel uncomfortable and want to leave but then feel unable to express my need to leave and just internalize the uncomfortability, life would be so much easier if i just sat in the back of my truck and never saw another person, etc.

and this thought process is all of about 3 seconds. really, i know that these people i see want to see me and that is why they agree too, but it really is hard to convince myself of this fact. but i knocked on the door. and it was pretty good. we sat and talked for an hour or so, caught up on the last few months and then i took a shower. we chatted more and then it was time to call it a night. everything was really great, it is always nice to see tiffany and know that she is doing well in life. she was a catalyst for me even having a life...and maybe i was something similar for her.

anyway, that was tuesday. on wednesday i left to explore griffith park (which is right in tiffanys backyard). i was here on my first visit, but not to explore, to go on a hike. the exploratory part took me to the stars, specifically to the griffith observatory where i enjoyed some sweeping views of the park and the city all the way to the ocean. it was before this, but also during this, that i admitted los angeles really is a beautiful place. sure the city is too big and spread out,

griffith observatory

but the ocean is just there, and a bunch of little neighborhoods, and oh! the mountains at your back. the pretty weather for most of the year, etc etc. i had always been down on la but never had i really been here. i dont think i would ever want to live here but it sure is a nice place to visit.

i was in the observatory and around griffith park for quite awhile, then i planned to go sit at a cafe and write. you know, as if i were in paris or something. but that wasnt a very easy thing for me to accomplish. instead i just drove around some more and was soon surprised by a new phone call. this was from my friend friedel, i wasnt expecting to hear from her for hours, but it happened she was able to find me early. i called her back, but received no reply. to have something to do i decided to start driving across town towards her house, it would take awhile anyway.

while en route she called me back and disclosed her location: ucla. so i changed my track a bit and headed towards the college to pick her up. i went straight down wilshire boulevard, right through beverly hills and it was getting on 4:pm which is when the commuting hours start. it took me much longer than i wanted to navigate to this college. but it was very nice to see friedel. it had been five years and i had forgotten a fair amount about her. quickly, i remembered. and we fell into catch up and general chat as we drove the slow streets back towards culver city.

and finally we arrived at her house, the same house that i was unable to enter a few days previous. i admitted all of these fears to friedel and she laughed them away, aware of my ridiculousness. we entered through side gate and then met her dog and i was expecting to come into a full bustling house and explain away the fear process that courses through me, but no one else was home. so we sat and chatted more over tea and then she made some dinner and we played some board games. then people started coming home and we played a few more games, chatted about geography and the history of domestication, you know the light things that people talk about in society.

we switched from tea to cocktails as we played a tough visual card game called set. and then it was late. i slept over there that night and in the morning, the mornings in which i wake up ever so early and the people i am visiting so often sleep ever so late, i laid in bed thinking. i was ready to start my day, but it was pretty nice laying there i spent some time thinking about my life and (heavily loaded and full of meaning:) other things. past things. anyway, enough heavy and ill-placed veils.

eventually free also got up and we chatted for the morning and had some tea, then i was off again. my intention was to go sit and write somewhere, but my truck led to pasadena. this time for a purpose.

the museum calling card

pasadena, i am sure, is home to many strange and unique things. i will tell you about one of them. this anomaly is known as "the bunny museum." this museum was "founded" by candace frazee on february 14th 1994 when her then boyfriend/current husband gave her a stuffed bunny holding a heart that says "i love you." in turn candace gave steve a porcelain bunny rabbit. the bunny theme stems from their affectionate cat call of "honey bunny." after this fateful valentines day an event was set into motion that has yet to dissipate.

every single day (yes, day) since then they have exchanged a gift of some kind of bunny themed object. by 1999 they were listed in the guiness book of world records as the largest bunny collection in the world. at the time they owned just under 9,000 bunny related artifacts. now their home is a full fledged museum...and living space. they share their pasadena residence with 8 cats, 4 live rabbits (and 5 freeze dried ones), a few daily visitors and over 25,000 bunny related artifacts. if i had a word to describe this living situation, the word would certainly be "creepy."

when i got there just before my 2:pm appointment a young asian lady sped past me and walked in through the door. i was meandering on the steps, 1.) because i was early 2.) because i was freaked out, already. when this lady walked right in i spoke into the metal mesh door "should i just come in as well?" i mean, i knew it was someones home and it seems strange to just walk into it...what if they are pooping?

and after i called into this dark room a ladies voice came back at me, affirming that i was her appointment and asking me to wait just a few moments while she gets set up. "getting set up" including putting a sign out on the porch, a visitor information sheet and a donation box. then, as if i had just randomly walked up and not seen her do this little set up, she segued into her spiel.

i listened with rapt attention, awaiting entry into her home. and shortly i was whisked from the porch into the land where bunnies were never neutered. staring at me from all angles were hundreds of bunny figurines, plush dolls, ornaments, all manner of medium...and this was just the foyer. then i was shown the wall of bunnies from different cultures, the pretender wall (other animals or figures dressed as bunnies), and into another room that was floor to ceiling shelves of bunnies and the floor was so encroached that there was only a small area in which i could pirouette and move on to the dining room.

so far this is a very strange experience, candace is a very vibrant red and upbeat about bunnies to the point of sickness. in the dining room - just next to the table where they enjoy their meals - is a glass case with five of their previously living bunny friends now freeze dried for eternity on display. i shuddered. if i were to ever lose a limb, or really any significant body part, i have already decided that i would save it forever. some kind of taxidermy or pickling or just under the pillow as if the appendage fairy would come and leave me five dollars. because, you know, this thing has been a part of me for x number of years and if it cant stay attached to me at least i can keep it close.

still, freeze drying companion animals and displaying them is something that freaks me out. she could tell that i wasnt impressed or even into the idea of dead animals preserved in playful states, so she led me into the next room, by far the creepiest room of them all. this was the tv room.

and it must be intimated that this is her house, she and her husband live here full time, the tv room is where they sit and watch tv. it is a dark hole that once had windows but they have since been covered by stuffed animals in the form of bunny rabbits. all four walls were just stuffed animals staring down at you. i didnt want to spend five minutes in there, let alone sit and watch a movie. from there we moved on to the kitchen where i got to meet some of the living furry friends, and the lady who sped by me when i was coming into this strange place.

the lady was the bunny museums intern, she was organizing the library. unknowingly she had blocked the blind rabbit into a corner and while i was getting the tour candace reprimanded her for not being more aware of the bunny friends needs. we went through the kitchen where every dish, every piece of silverware, and all other things were bunnies. i hope you are starting to get the idea of this home. from the kitchen we emerged to the backyard and the "garden of broken dreams." this garden is where all of the bunnies that have been broken were sent to die. it was overpowered by large lawn decorations with hundreds of smaller ornaments rotting at their feet. there were even some stuffed animals decaying in the sun with their insides strewn about.

it was sad. then i tried to get away but was unfortunate. candace found me again and started regaling me with stories of her acquisitions, the rose parades, the international media and so on. again i tried to sneak away but she wanted to make sure i had a copy of "the hoppy news" and then finally i was able to get away. sitting in my truck, processing what i just went through, i glanced at this newsletter she left me with. it was from january 2002. she told me it wasnt the most recent, but that "it still had a lot of good information." the information it contained were gems like: yesterday candace donated two bunny ornaments to the museum. candace, of course, being the curator of the museum. basically it led me to believe that this museum was set up by someone a bit delusional and the aim was mostly self-serving.

i could be wrong, but i was happy to get out of there. and then all i wanted was a beer.

something that i finally made myself do was quit smoking. and after being at this museum i think i wanted a cigarette, at least i thought about smoking as a good idea while decompressing. after thinking about it for a moment i changed tack and decided that really i just wanted a beer. it had been awhile since i had just sat and drank a beer and enjoyed it. so i drove to the liquor store. there i called tiffany to see if she wanted to get real drunk, but that was a negative. she had to drive up to school soon.

so i bought some beer and sangria and came back to her house. i had a beer and caught up for a little bit, then i went with her to santa clarita. the plan for the evening was to go from her house to her school, then see some dude read poetry, and then drive back into los angeles and go eat some ethiopian food. and, for the most part, this is how it happened.

we left a few hours early - traffic - and got there only an hour early. we went and had some coffee where we promptly ran into two of tiffanys friends from school. tommy and jacoby. very much art school boys. as i generally feel out of place at college when these two guys came up i automatically felt out of place. we were also at starbucks, a place that i have only been a few times in my life and since we had a gift card i wanted to order something with a long name that you see other people with. in the end my anxiety got the best of me and i just ordered a black coffee. their coffee isnt the greatest.

as a means to get away from these two boys we left the coffee shop and drove to the college proper. before tiffany had a meeting she was going to give me a basic tour of the college and then turn me loose in this playground for an hour or so. we walked around and i noted a number of different things that i wanted to explore once i had my opportunity. this list including the walt disney theatre, the school of dance, a few different galleries of art and a number of hallways.

although i am terrified of college students i do love going to art school because there are so many artsy things just around that are basically given up for trash. like well made announcement posters that will be crumbled and tossed aside once their date has come to pass. or walls of art displayed for a month, taken down and never claimed. trash cans full of drawings and paintings that will never make it out of the hallway. i spent some time trying to reclaim some of these things. and i did a pretty good job.

corridors of insanity

the walt disney theatre had since closed and i had to find a back way into it. before i could accomplish this i got caught up by a little orchestra that had assembled in a hall somewhere and were attempting to play music. i sat and watched this for awhile. and then i made it into the upper workings of the theatre, near the roof and was able to see all of the set up that was taking place. i found a very nice spiral staircase that i spent moments admiring and then photographed for posterity. eventually i had to get out of here though. i went and watched the school of dance for a minute and then got myself very lost in the corridors that started to feel more like a mental institution than an art college.

i did circles for awhile before i decided to just get outside and walk around the building instead of trying to find the original entrance. this strategy worked and i was outside heading towards the creative writing building where i was supposed to meet tiffany to watch the award winning poet d.a. powell read from his new book. i got there first and there was a gaggle of college students, at least one that i had earlier met and i didnt want to thrust myself upon them so i stood back in the shadows and spent a moment recounting my life.

eventually tiffany called me and i was beckoned to the entrance. we sneaked inside (only because we were now late and didnt want to cause a disturbance) and proceeded to watch this poet read his work and talk about his style. i wrote poetry before. at least i wrote short lines of words that had breaks every few lines and called them poems. i do think that some poems are beautiful and evoke amazing thoughts and images...but mostly i just think they are random words thrown together and the artist just hopes that someone will find some meaning similar to whatever they had intended.

this reading lasted a bit more than an hour and the thing that stuck with me the most is that people dont clap or snap anymore after a person reads a poem. there were applause when he wrapped it up first and then after the q & a. then we were gone. this guy won some award recently for being a good poet, but i thought he was just okay. certainly his was better than the poetry i wrote when i was 19.

after this we sped away south on the golden state highway and went to find austin for our date in little ethiopia. we picked up austin and navigated the city streets down to fairfax and an ethipoian restaurant whose name currently escapes me. we went in here and had some fun on the horses and then ordered our various things and

said photo opportunities

it was good. i havent had ethiopian since i was in portland. and, our meal included a fish. we enjoyed this fish and the photo opportunities it presented. we closed down this restaurant with a healthy dose of sandalwood incense and ethiopian coffee. it was pretty good.

then the three of us came home and proceeded to go trough some of the art thing that i had attained from my foray into art school and austin busted out the sewing machine for us and put on a sewing workshop. he also sewed onto my jacket this patch i had been carrying around for about five years. it was a gift from a friend in amsterdam, and now i feel better that it is affixed to some article of clothing. and then we just stayed up until about 3:am doing art things and hanging out. it was really awesome.

when tiffany and i lived together in new york - back in the 1990's - we would have a regular "sewing night" where we would make our outfits more punk rock by sewing new patches onto our articles and sharing techniques and stuff. this felt like that. it just felt young and fun. and i was pretty happy for it. now, i have been sitting and writing for the better part of five hours and have employed the grease soundtrack to bring it all home. all i have left is a bunch more writing and the whole of my life. i will hold on.

the years, the fears, the sleep

2010-02-01T19:14:00.001-08:00

after being in palm desert for a couple of days i realized that i had been there a couple of days too long. the place is an upper elite cess pool, a place in which i do not fit in and generally do not feel comfortable. the last night i was there, there was an invitation only event in which a whole block on "el paseo" was shut down for pedestrian traffic. i tried to get into this event, but my ugly shorts and vest didnt quite measure up to the evening gowns and tuxedos.

instead, i jut walked all around the place and eventually i took a phone call from emily. we talked for over an hour and that was okay. the conversation didnt clear up much about my return to the homeland, but it is always nice to talk. in the morning i talked to steve for more than an hour. those two calls equal or outdo my phone time for the entire previous 30 days of january. lets call it an anomaly.

after steve and i talked i finished up on the computer and hit the highway. my destination was los angeles, a mere 120 miles away. onto the expressway i jumped and set off to this place. the circumstances were less than ideal, both of the people that i had been set to see were going to be out of town upon my arrival. tiffany, my longtime friend from new york, was in san francisco until monday night. i stayed with tiffany last time i was here and planned to stay with her this time, but since she wasnt here i called on my friend friedel.

friedel is another one of those people i met in miami. really, i met a whole bunch of people in miami and have attempted to reconnect with a number of them on this trip. free, as we called her, was a very good person. after miami i saw her again

friedel in 2004

in boston and then new york where we were participating in actions related to the dnc and rnc respectively. it was in new york - in 2004 - that i last talked to friedel, we had become pretty good friends, as much as people could when they were trying to bring down the system. we were sitting in a park maybe throwing a frisbee, and she asked me what my real name was. see, from 2003 until at least 2006 i never shared my real name with anyone, i was simply "bht."

and since we were getting on so well she wanted to know more about me, like where i came from, what kind of person i really was (because no one could be as awesome as i was in real life), what my real name was, etc. specifically she said that she would tell me her real name if i told her mine. security culture got the best of me and like i was reading off a prepared statement i informed her that i couldnt disclose that information while we were in the middle of "an action." or a series of actions as the rnc was. after that the mood soured a bit and we went our separate ways, i realized pretty quickly that i had made a mistake. as the world turns at least one of the people that i was running around with at the time ended up actually being an fbi informant, it wasnt friedel.

we havent actually exchanged words with one another since that moment, as far as i can remember (which, you must know, my memory if more for dramatic effect than an actual account of things). then a series of events transpires while i am in denver visiting my friend adam, another person i had met in miami. we were at a bookstore and he showed me a new york times bestseller that had been written by a friend of ours, you guessed it, from miami. adam reminded me that this person had been dating free and he filled me in with whatever he knew.

with the information adam gave me i was able to find free on facebook and attempt to see her again at various points on this trip. it never worked out, but since she lives in la and i was driving into the heart of it i got back in touch with her so we could meet each other while i was in town. well, bad timing and me strike again, she is out of town until wednesday. however, she invites me to go to her house, and sleep in her bed with her dog until she returns.

i dont know if i have enough words to describe how strange of a thing this is for me, but i said yes to this offer. at the time, it made sense. so i drive highway 10 west until i get to la and navigate to her house, and all of a sudden i am struck with the absurdity of this prospect. after not seeing her for 5 years, i am to go to her house and stay with her housemates for up to three days! i parked in front of the house and began psyching myself up for this encounter. i phoned a friend that would give me some words of advice, but this friend didnt answer the phone. after sitting and watching the house (you know, for movement and to see what other kind of people were in there) i decided that i wasnt going to knock on the door.

so i drove away and was cursing/laughing at myself. what happened? i never used to be this scared of people. actually this used to be the kind of thing that i lived for. but, the factors that entered my mind while i was deciding whether or not i would actually knock on the door were as follows: i did not know how many people were in there, i did not know anything about the make up of the people behind that door, once i was inside it would be awkward for me to leave, since i barely know friedel and i do not know these people at all how would i answer questions about my life or my relationship with her, i dont really like dogs, since i was staying in her room would her dog become my responsibility, (i was tired at the time) would i need to stay up and hang out with these people for a long time, etc etc etc.

and as i drove away and parked only blocks away from her house i started thinking of a different me, a me of the past, me circa 2002. and my intention was to write about the last time i was told to just knock on a door and sleep in someone elses bed until they arrive. that was in september 2002, when i moved to portland. i did actually write out that story, but it became way too long and i decided to save it for later.

so, anyway, i just went and slept in my truck a couple blocks away from her house fully realizing the ridiculousness of this, this..whatever it is that i feel. fear, i guess. i went to bed very early - i said i was tired - and ended up waking up at 7:am. shitty! with no people that i know here and nothing lined up to do, i had the second largest city in the united states at my fingertips, this is not something that i find ideal. i much prefer smaller places. but i went out for breakfast and then to the exposition park to explore some of the museums and read my book. basically i just walked around as the day unfolded in front of me.

it was hot out again. then i decided to go downtown. i dont know why i came to this decision, generally the bigger the city the less outstanding the downtown area is. it becomes just big buildings and bento places for people on the go. the neighborhoods are more where it is at and in a place like la, a place that is already very spread out, downtown would certainly hold nothing for me. i knew all of this, but in the direction of the big buildings i drove anyway. knowledge be damned!

but, i didnt make it there. eventually i stopped when i saw a place that i knew to have free wifi. i wanted to write some of the day away, and i have accomplished that. however, the wifi is broken and i am not able to post it. boring. now, i guess i will continue towards the big buildings. ugh, blah. i am back to my sleeping spot now.

everyone can relate to what i appreciate, my friend / my first road trip #3

2010-01-30T16:22:00.000-08:00

las vegas eats the dust from my truck. speaking of dust, a california highway worker threatened to call the california highway patrol (chp) on me yesterday. it went like this, i was driving south on highway 95 headed for joshua tree national park. i didnt really want to go to joshua tree, but it was a condition that steve added to lending me money. basically he forced me. i am just kidding.

but he did recommend that i go there, the last place he suggested to me - prescott, az - was awesome. so i gave him the benefit of the doubt. south south south. then highway 95 joins up with highway 40 to go east, back toward arizona. after ten miles or so of this 95 breaks off and then heads south again. and once i got to this breakaway the signs started popping up: highway 95 was closed.

i wouldnt believe that this entire highway was closed, so i kept going. eventually i made it to a barrier in the road and the scene suggested that i should go no further. there wasnt really another route i could take to get to joshua tree and i had already gone more than 100 miles out of the way, so i sat at this intersection looking at the map. i wasnt the only one, about four other cars were having the same debate - should we see what is down this road or not. shortly, but surely, the other cars were called on their bluff and turned tail scared of what the closed road may hold for them.

not so, this truck. after the last car left i said "fuck it" and drove around the barrier. i had done things like this before, but never in the desert wasteland. the first sign i saw was "next services 40 miles." which meant that i would be driving for 40 miles and see nothing, except for maybe a washed out impassable road or a dinosaur or flying saucer or something like that. i told myself i would go 15 miles and turn around if the road really looked bad.

by about 10 miles i started seeing signs for construction and when i got to the construction the road constricted to one lane but there was a flagger and i was waved through. i figured that this was the only reason the road was closed. i was feeling good, in the middle of the desert with no other cars around and 10's of miles away from civilization. i thank my truck for deciding against breaking down in this situation, the thing is good to me.

twenty more miles down the road i came upon another vehicle, a street sweeper kicking up a whole bunch of dust. i rolled up the window and sped past this person, who sweeps the desolate desert roads? another 10 miles and i was at the other end. there were about ten vehicles on the other side of the barrier, contemplating whether they should risk the closed road or not. i was very popular, like i had just come out of a maze and everyone wanted to know the proper turns to take so they too can overtake it. i pulled up and assured the first few cars that it was okay to go through, just some construction down the road.

after talking to the first few people i switched to just giving a thumbs up, i wanted to keep going. but a pickup truck pulled up and wanted to talk. i immediately told her that it was fine to travel the road. she erupted at me. she worked for the transportation department and informed me that the road was closed for the street sweeper. this didnt make sense to me so i told her that he was

this is the moonrise. there will be a video soon.

off on the side of the road sweeping, the traffic wouldnt bother him. but she kept on saying that he would have to sweep the entire road again because a couple of cars went through. this made even less sense to me, wouldnt the daily traffic kick up dust and rocks anyway? whats the point.

she sensed that i wasnt grasping the seriousness of the violation and then she threatened to call the chp. i was like, whatever. and then i drove off. she followed me for a little bit, but turned on highway 62 while i drove 95 south. i was thinking of how ridiculous it would be if the chp came speeding down on me for kicking up dust. i laughed as i drove further south and into the sun.

so, i am reading this book called guns, germs, and steel and it isnt what i thought it would be, at least not yet. i was thinking that it would be about how guns germs and steel were used and acquired by some people and why this was so. it is a really academic book that starts about 11,000 years ago and is currently describing how some people acquired crop production and animal domestication. and the spread of these things. right now, you are thinking, yeah so what get to the point.

the fertile crescent is where farming and animal domestication started and it spread rapidly east and west but slowly north and south. the reason for this is because of the climate and the ability of plants and animals to survive and thrive. the climate stays relatively the same on an east west axis, but when you start moving north and south the climate changes much quicker. and this is what i am getting at. when i was in mississippi it was 70°, when i drove 150 miles north towards indiana it was 30°. in las vegas it was comfortable, in the 60's. right now, 150 miles south, it is 80°. and thats my whole point - convoluted and unnecessary.

i hit highway 10 and headed west toward joshua tree, it was getting late now and my plan was to get into joshua tree and park to camp there overnight. i had never been to this place and was expecting something different. i turned off at the joshua tree exit and drove about 20 miles into the park and it was all just high desert. it was boring. the sun was going down and it was getting dark. there werent places to park and camp plus it was really cold in the desert mountains. so i pulled over and took a walk through the desert. just over the mountains i could see the moon rising and decided to sit and watch that for awhile. then i watched the

luckily i outran these rabid beasts!

sunset behind me, then i kept walking through the desert. it was really cold, and i started getting scared that coyotes and rattlesnakes were going to come and tear me to pieces.

i ran back to my truck.

and then drove into the wasteland that is palm desert california. which was also the destination of my first road trip. dear reader, i recognize that this is the third time i have titled a post and talked about "my first road trip." i think the story goes like this in 1997 i drove to dallas on a whim as my first road trip. then in 1998 i drove to new york with my then girlfriend as my second road trip. in 1999 i drove to new york again to stay and in 2000 i left new york for palm desert, my first cross country road trip. see, what i mean by first here? anyway.

so, it was may of 2000. i had just lived in new york - bronxville - for about 9 months and steve came to visit and spirit me away. first we went to washington dc for the may day parade and protest. we went on may day but the dumb communists scheduled the parade for may 5th. we drove back to new york, i packed up all of the things i could into steve's little car, the rest i packed in a box and left $20 for tiffany to mail it to my parents. that box eventually got thrown out, and i was unhappy about that. it mostly held all of the books that i never wanted to lose, now i cant even remember what most of them were, i know there was a lot of aleister crowley in there though.

so, all packed up, we left on may 2nd or so back down to dc and then west. this was also the day i decided to switch to a vegan diet, from dc we headed to asheville, nc. asheville was nice we had never been there and were excited about the food we could get and also, a band that we liked alot just happened to be playing the next night. we slept at the hostel or in the car and then went to see the band fishbone. it was probably the third or fourth time we had seen them together and it was pretty good.

then we were going southwest to bryan/college station texas. we were going to visit tiffany's mom, we arrived late at night and slept in the car in front of the house. her dad found us in the morning and went to get the shotgun. but beth stopped him, she was sure that these two dirty kids sleeping in a car in front of her house were me and steve. she came out and woke us up. that was nice. we stayed there for a few days, beth made us a country breakfast - including meat - both steve and i were vegan such a short time and we werent good at turning down food so we ate it. it remained the last meal of meat that i ate until i stopped being vegan in 2008 or so.

from there we went to tempe arizona to visit my brother and i got completely wasted on tequila. then i made out with joes neighbor on the table, next to the pool, in the trees, and pretty much anywhere else we could. this was a new experience for me, i dont remember anything about the night. that was the last time i drank tequila straight. then we drove on to palm desert where steve

PRETTY.

was meeting his online girlfriend. we stayed here for a couple of days and then steve wanted to go back to indiana to be with his real life girlfriend.

i harassed him for this, and it was something that nearly brought down our friendship. i insisted that he went back for this girl and was determined to make him admit that. also, i thought that he was weak for abandoning his life to be with some girl, and i made fun of him for it. now, i realize that i was the dummy. love, lust, whatever it is, companionship is something that is really awesome and should be sought out and nurtured and held in very high regard. i dont know if this was how he felt at the time, but he had the right idea.

we drove back to indiana very quickly and within two weeks i was off again for olympia, washington to live. steve stayed behind to see where this relationship went. seven months later he was back with me in olympia. so, anyway, that was my first cross country road trip. because it is short and this post is already long, i am going to share the journal entries i wrote in 2000 during this road trip:

May 2 2000 Left New York for LA, end up in Asheville, N.C. Money is not an issue here. Very quaint little punk/anarchist town in the mountains, and Fishbone is playing tonite. A slight detour, to see a band, stay in the area for the evening live on spontaneity, live on life.

May 3 2000 25 mile per hour, 24 hours a day.

May 7 (?) 2000 I am in Tempe, AZ.

May 10 (?) 2000 Weird days/nights here in Tempe. Steve and I have spent most of our time here in some weird haze. Two nights ago, for the sake of remembering, I made out with Joe's neighbor, Julie. I think these things need to be remembered, even if they do take place in a drug-induced mindset. Living on a postcard here; palmtrees—poolside vaginal sunsets and drinks to boot. Where are we going and what direction am I headed in? What is this life for?

May 23 2000 So a lot has changed. Steve and I had a bit of a falling out. Wait, backtrack, after Tempe, we went to Palm Desert California—to see Steve's on-line girlfriend Marisa. That was for Steve what Dallas was for me (Robin + Dusty). We stayed there a couple of nights. Steve will never admit it, but we left Palm Desert and our joint plans so he could be with Rachael. We tried to get an apartment/house in Hammond, but it didn't work. I am on my way to Olympia WA. To begin anew. The falling out--Steve basically runs his life on Rachael time and that is fine, as long as he admits it, which he won't. I won't drop it and the truth pisses him off. APPARENTLY I DON'T NEED ANYBODY!

see, i was the idiot. i do need people, and like them alot. specifically, i am very thankful that steve has stuck with me all this time even though sometimes i am really mean to him. and not just because he is financing my life right now, we have been through so much of life together that it would really be a hard thing to think about not having him to talk about life with. (last night i watched the film "anvil" and i liken the relationship steve and i have to the one that the drummer and singer of that band have.)

palm desert, now (probably even then), is a pit. it is all country clubs and strip malls. it wasnt super easy to find a place to park last night and today it was very hard to find a place to sit and use the internet for hours while i wrote away my life. i did accomplish the tasks that i set out for today. i did laundry and changed the oil in my truck. also it is very hot here, while doing laundry i changed into my stupid shorts for the first time in months, i look like such a fool. tomorrow i will head into los angeles again. how scary.

...the other half lives. / technical notes #11

2010-01-29T11:14:00.000-08:00

well, i have been in vegas for a few days now. it is pretty boring, i am not willing to waste away in the casinos and i was having trouble convincing my cousin to be my friend. after hanging out with some folks a couple of nights ago i really havent been around anyone. except for all the people that exist in las vegas, but not people i know.

two days ago i was all ready to go visit the pinball hall of fame and see a movie at the tropicana cinema - the dollar theater. i thought these places were right next to each other, thats what my information told me, so i went to the theater and was planning to play some pinball for an hour and then sidle effortlessly into the theater and watch a show. however the streets here are hard to

some pinball games i beat

navigate. you cannot take very many left turns and i got a bit lost and then confused on how to actually get into this plaza where my desire existed.

eventually i made it into this parking lot and got out ready to go, i only had forty minutes to play pinball now so i was ready. but! the pinball hall of fame had moved from near the cinema to a number of blocks down the street, about the same place where i had just come from. i was mad about this, but got back in the truck and navigated to the poorly announced building that was now the pinball hall of fame.

i was expecting a little bit more than what i got, but it was still a good experience. i expected more of a museum than just a pinball warehouse. it was very dark and there were just four rows or so of pinball and other machines back to back. many of them were old and they were all mostly working, i got a couple dollars change and had fun for while. i played well past the allotted time and subsequently missed the show i wanted to catch.

it was fun there but ground kontrol in portland is way better. not as wide a selection, but they have metal night and sell beer. also, it is brighter and more welcoming. i miss that place. and, as my sad account will show, that is all i think i accomplished on this day.

yesterday, after being bored and not really having any reason to waste away on the internet any longer, i decided to drive further north on the las vegas strip, get to the downtown area, and just see more than the few big hotel/casinos that i had on my first foray into sin. driving on i saw a casino that advertised $3 blackjack and i thought that was a good deal. playing slot machines gets boring quick and it is something i could do in portland. i have never played a table game and always wanted to.

i was scared to interact with a dealer and really show my ineptitude for gambling, but i was determined to have this experience. while i was looking for a place to park i saw another casino that boasted $1 blackjack. this was for me. it couldnt get any cheaper than that, so i parked at the sahara and walked on in. i walked around the tables looking for the blackjack, but i didnt find it. eventually i asked one of the scary guys in suits and they pointed me to a machine. a blackjack machine.

it was set up like a table and you can bet $1 to $100 on your round, i slipped in a $20 and got to playing. shortly i was up $10 and thought that this was very easy. the machine kept telling me to join the players club to earn rewards and since i was doing good, i thought that i might as well. so i cashed out and went to join the players club. they gave me $10 in free play and a free drink. sweet. i went back to my blackjack game and proceeded to dwindle my $20 (i was back to even) down to 90 cents - not enough to play anymore. so i cashed out and went just next to the machine, to a wheel of fortune slot machine.

i put in my players card and used my $10 of free game play (i wasnt allowed to use it on the blackjack machine). i quickly burned through this, but i had won about $5 on this free game play. so i cashed out and went right back to the blackjack game. i did better this time. i was slowly betting more money and soon found myself at $60. i attempted to convince myself to cash out then and call it a day. but i didnt really have anywhere else to go or anything else to do. so i made a commitment to myself to cash out at $100 or at $30.

guess which came first, $30! and then i kept playing because i wanted to get myself back up, it seemed so easy. but then i was back down to $20 and luckily i convinced myself to split out of there at even. i acquiesced to my demands. i had two dollar bills in my pocket and decided to keep them safe in a slot machine, and attempt to get a few more dollars to play more blackjack. but these dollars quickly vanished. and i was back out on the street. i had been in there for almost four hours. i texted my cousin and demanded that she see me tonight, because i had to get out of las vegas. today was the day whether or not she wanted to hang out last night.

and she replied saying okay. she gave me her address and said she would be home around 6:pm, that was still a few hours away so i wasted away a bit more on the computer. and then it was dark and i was driving back up the strip to north las vegas, where nicole lives. interestingly, this was the first time i had been on the strip while it was dark out...and i almost had a seizure from all of the lights flashing around me, the multitudes of people and just the hustle of it all.

i drove and drove. eventually i got to where she lived. her neighborhood wasnt very fancy, but a little bit fancy. there wasnt a car in the driveway but a light was on, i didnt know if she lived by herself or if she would be alone, maybe she invited some of her other family members that i am related to. i started to freak out a little bit. i hadnt showered for a number of days and, hey, i get self conscious. so, parked just outside of her house, i did some last minute grooming and tried to calm my nerves...and then i knocked on the door.

my cousin nicole is 26 years old. i dont think i have seen her since she was 14 - barely even a real person. coming into this i had no idea what to expect. she has gone through college, gotten married and subsequently divorced, moved to las vegas, engaged in

in her defense, she is making the sad face

a "career", and owns a house. so i had to fast forward from barely being a real person to her being a bona fide adult. i dont even consider myself an adult yet, i am scared to think of what i will look like as an adult. she invited me in and gave me an awkward half hug and then we milled about for a few moments not really knowing where to go from here.

her house was pristine, you know, like a museum. everything was spotless and she was in the process of cleaning everything that was already very clean. these are things that i do not understand. we sat around and talked for awhile, catching up, and then she offered to make me dinner. how absolutely strange, this is not my ideal setting. alone with someone who might as well be a stranger, a dirty kid in a clean adult world, and now dinner? i am not one to shy away from new and odd experiences so i said yes and she started making some things. then we went into the garage to smoke some cigarettes. conversation was flowing a bit smoother now, i was regaining some of my edge - the nervousness was melting away.

and i was just thinking of all the strange situations i was put myself in on this trip. going to brand new places and interacting with people that i have no idea about, as a kid this was the thing that i dreamed of. and i did okay. we ate dinner at a two person table on bar stools. and this was how she lived, by herself in a nice place, working and then making dinner and cleaning. this is what a number of people consider life to be. i have a hard time picturing myself in such a situation but i am sure one day i will grow up.

then she started talking about history. this was what i wanted, she talked about the family and the estrangement that she and her immediate family has from the rest of the extended family - my immediate family included. since i hadnt really been present in the life of the family for the last ten years or so much of this stuff was new to me. i sat listening at full attention. she told me about the things she remembered of us being kids around one another. she was 14 and i was 17. so there werent very many situations, but i will try to paint a picture.

i grew up in cedar lake, indiana - until about 14 when my dad moved me and my siblings to griffith, indiana to live with his new wife, my stepmom, bobbie. this was when my real life started and generally when i talk about my "childhood" i am talking from this point on. i lived in the upstairs of this house, in the largest room and was given free reign. eventually i made friends and entertained them with a bevy of drugs and alcohol in my room. nicole recounted being around for some of these drug induced days of entertainment that i offered.

clearly, she was too young to be hanging around with my people. but my friend steve had a younger brother who was also around sometimes and i learned last night that nicole and chris had some romance in the cubby holes of my party room. which is hilarious. i wish i had pictures or just some better words to describe this room and situation. it was pretty much ideal. i have good parents. so, i liked hearing her talk about these things. after all, this was the main reason for me to interact with her - to know more about myself. the "myself" that other people see, the reflection that i leave in the eyes of other people.

and this was about the end of it. it was just after 9:pm and, well, i wasnt exactly tired, but it was getting more awkward and i got set to leave. leaving was easy and strange, just like i am a passing whisper. another weak half hug and i was out the door. i sat in my truck for a few minutes, processing the strangeness of it all. ah, this life, you strange beast!

i drove back towards where i had been staying, and i was tired now, but since i had decided to leave las vegas today i thought that i should see some things in this city at night. on my way back was "the fremont street experience" and i stopped to...experience it i guess. as soon as i drove by it i knew that i had been here before. it was when i was 19 in las vegas, this was near the bus station and what i thought las vegas was for much of my life. now i know different.

after being there for a little bit i drove all the way back down the strip and there was much more action. and the street was like a parking lot. i did get to see the bellaggio fountains go off and some other things that happen at night and entice people to this city. i did not get to see the volcano go off, but i did drive by it. i saw the treasure island pirate battle and some other things. it took me over an hour to drive down the strip, that is a long time. i was fully ready to sleep away the night and once i found my spot i called it a night.

	current cycle	total trip
miles	1629	18481
gallons	77.6	799.1
dollars	205.2	2071.4
mpg avg	21	23.1
costpg avg	2.64	2.59
days	14	259

well, now it is time to offer up some technical notes from this trip, the eleventh edition! since i had my starter replaced in dallas my truck has been running better. i am not sure why this should be so, i thought the starter was just, you know, for starting the truck. but i have been able to drive at faster speeds with less vibrations. my top speed has gone from 75mph to 80mph, but mostly i still drive at 75mph.

this cycle started in greenville, tx on january 15th, and ended yesterday, january 28th, in las vegas, nevada. a whole 14 days! going through the mountains i was getting really poor gas mileage and i thought it was all the climbing and the altitude, but i turned out to be very wrong. my truck leaks oil, not much, but when it gets low the "check oil" light will come on. well, it didnt this time and my oil well was mostly dry. i am not sure why this would amount to super poor gas mileage, but once i filled the reservoir the gas mileage came back to normal - even above average. not like it is going to make a difference for this cycle, it will still look pretty shitty.

and, the sad news, my passenger side headlight has burnt out. we will all mourn the loss and hopefully not get pulled over for this offense.

songs to remember all we have lost and all we have loved

2010-01-27T12:55:00.003-08:00

well, las vegas. earlier on this trip when i was at the grand canyon, in june, a lady found me on the internet her name was pam and she implored me to backtrack a little bit and come to las vegas. i considered it, but ultimately decided to continue north and east. i assured her that i would come to las vegas on my way back. and then this whole trip happened to get me to a point that i could stay true to my promise.

i set a course that would take me to the few places in the southwest that i had people to see in and las vegas was right on that line. i got back in touch with her and said "here i come." well we didnt meet one another the day i got here, but we talked and last night we finally met each other. but first i had a day in las vegas.

i woke up very early yesterday, owing to the fact that i went to bed real early and that i am now on pacific time. i only spent about 3 days in mountain time, so for most purposes my body was still working on central time - the time zone that i have spent most of this trip in. maybe because it is the largest time zone, or maybe i like the people there a whole bunch. that will remain a mystery.

i sat in my truck, just laying there, for at least an hour. then i willed myself to get dressed and see what this day had to say to me. it wasnt very encouraging. after getting out into the day i then sat in the front of my truck for another length of time trying to decide what to do. it was too early to call pam and meet her, my cousin that i had found here was at work so i couldnt meet her either, and i just had one of those hours where i curse myself for ever even being on this trip because i have no direction right now. but i reassured myself about some of the great things that this trip has brought about and the wonderful people i have met.

and then i went out for breakfast.

however, after that the same thoughts and conundrum of what to do filtered throughout my body. these feelings are a testament to the fact that i do not have it all figured out. i convinced myself to go to las vegas - the las vegas people see in the movies. i went down to the strip and it was actually a good decision, well thought out if had been thinking about it the right way. see, i still hadnt had the funds injection that i was expecting from steve, i had about $60 in the bank and at least $2 in cash on me. so, in hindsight, choosing to explore this tourist trap of a town when i had no money was really a good decision.

i parked and went into the tropicana casino first. for the most part all of the casinos are connected to each other via skywalks so i went in there and put one of my dollars into one of the first machines i saw. rapidly that dollar turned into zero cents. i walked

tag: the best city in las vegas

across the sky to the new york new york casino. i liked this one, they had a big roller coaster around it and the facade of the building is set up to look like the new york skyline. very innovative.

i walked through here, and then kept going. back across the street and down onto the pavement. walking up las vegas boulevard and enjoying the sunshine. i just kept going, determined to walk the whole strip or at least to caesars palace, the furthest casino i could see. i walked by planet hollywood, the harley davidson place, the eiffel tower, and a number of other casino/hotels and went into very few of them. eventually i got to the palace and went inside. i dont know what i was expecting, all of the casinos look the same on the inside. i walked through there and then went into the bellaggio. now i am on the other side of the street.

and, this walk/sightseeing/casino haunting took the better part of two hours. i was not in a hurry and there are plenty of things to look at, stop and gawk awhile. inside the bellaggio i decided to part ways with my second - and last - dollar bill. i sidled up to a machine that was eerily similar to the oregon state lottery machines and inserted my bill. it was a penny slot machine, so i had 100 credits, i could play about ten games. i started hitting the button, slowing the release, examining the screen, smoking a cigarette, burning time, and soon i found myself down to my last 20 cents.

but the next push of the button brought three turkeys on the screen and the machine went into a special mode - i had ten free spins at double whatever i would win. and after these played themselves out i found myself up to almost 800 credits. i shouldve walked away then, up $7 on the machine. but, i continued there pushing the button until i was back down to a few credits. and again, right when i was about to run out of credits i won again - this time only two dollars. i burned through this rather quickly and when it was all gone i got up and tried to maneuver back to the exit. i had been there for a little bit of time and just wanted to get back outside.

outside the bellaggio is a huge pool that watercraft traverse and lights and fountains spring from. there is a scene in a movie where brad pitt stands in a little alcove and watches these fountains. he stands there with george clooney. so, i went and stood around the same place they did, at every one of the fifteen or alcoves. anything to get closer to brad pitt.

laughing at myself for this, i walked away. i kept on down this side of the street but stayed outside, weaving through the slow traffic of tourists. eventually i could see the tropicana again and this time i went into the mgm grand instead of new york to cross back over towards where my truck was parked. inside the mgm they have a lion habitat and i stood around there for awhile watching these big cats and the trainers inside the cage. these guys were just petting these animals as if they were house cats and i wanted nothing more than to just go up in there and pet them as well.

that got boring after awhile, so i went back over to the tropicana. by this time i had convinced myself to get some money out of the atm machine and gamble some more. but first i wanted to get back to my truck, to ditch a jacket and to drink some water. i walked through the tropicana, i was all sweaty from walking in the sun, and i got lost real quick in the casino, trying to find the entrance near my truck. there are cameras everywhere, i am walking to strange and deserted places and sweating. suspicious. so i finally asked someone where the exit i wanted was and she pointed me in the direction, it was a hidden corridor behind a bank of slot machines.

i got to my truck and checked in with myself that i was really prepared to gamble some of the dwindling funds i had. i agreed with myself that it was a good idea (how dumb) and walked back in to an atm machine. i plugged my card in and typed in $20, but then they wanted a service charge. you would think since the money you are getting from the atm in the casino is all going right back into the casino that they wouldnt charge a fee - or at least a nominal one. the service fee was almost $5. that would be like 12% of my remaining money and i deemed it not worth it. so i walked back out to sit in my truck longer.

i got in touch with pam but she was busy for awhile, so i found a coffee shop to sit and sip tea at while i wasted away on the internet. that got boring after awhile so i went to a bookstore to catch up on my magazines. then pam got back in touch with me and we were set to meet at her house around 8:pm. by this time i had also gotten in touch with my cousin, nicole, who invited to her house in north vegas to watch american idol. i passed on this offer, thinking that pam might put a little more on the table.

meeting pam was strange. strange because i was meeting a perfect stranger at her house. we know absolutely nothing about one another and now we are just pushed together and told to make it work. she was home with some real tall dude and they were playing music. music would become something of a topic of the night that i wasnt involved in. they played some songs while i just sat there, and this went on for about an hour. slowly more people came over to play music and i wasnt really talking to anyone. just sitting on the couch. when pams man friend came back we all went over to the local bar called "stake out."

i walked with these 4 other people the two blocks to the bar and, well, i guess i was hoping for something more. it was after 10:pm now and i was tired. the bar was a pretty normal place, kind of divey but it was still expensive. we sat down and the folks i was with, especially pam, knew everyone there. i was introduced as "my friend brian who is traveling around the country in his pickup truck." i dont really like this introduction, generally people then ask where i have been. i dont have a good answer for this. but none of these people cared. i sort of wilted into the background.

the people i was with were playing the jukebox and were very much music people, talking about music festivals and bands and such. i didnt know many of the people they were talking about, not because they were obscure, but because they were popular. i felt a little bit dumb when they were talking about thom yorke and i didnt know who that was. apparently he is the singer from a very famous band that most people like called radiohead. i have never really listened to radiohead - aside from their first album when i was like 16 or something.

they were singing along to the songs and talking about how awesome the music was and then someone played a mountain goats song. i was like, aha!, i know this and can contribute when they all start taking about the mountain goats. i can talk about how i got into them when it was just john darnielle, well before they were a thing and, you know, i could hold some sway. but no one sang along to these songs or even gave it mention. it was as if they didnt even like the music, so i didnt mention anything. just sat there nursing my overpriced pbr.

after the real tall kid left i saw this as my opportunity to leave as well. it was after midnight now and i was over being awake. so i said goodbye to the few folks whose names i remembered and told pam that i would call her today. i will probably still do that, but more so i just want to see my cousin for a little bit, go to the pinball museum and then get out of this place. when i left it was raining outside. i didnt really know that it rained in las vegas. i mean, i know it rains here, but this was a heavy rain and i was surprised at that.

in the morning it was still raining, it had rained all night long and gotten heavier. i didnt want to leave my truck. i just sat back there for about two hours reading and listening to music. i like music and i guess i have particular tastes, i was sort of boosting my confidence after the night of being a music dummy. and, with this, i started thinking about my life. (most any music can delve me into these pits of thought, but - for reference - these are some of the songs i was hearing this morning: "with arms outstretched" - rilo kiley; "jersey girl" - tom waits; "ode to my family" - the cranberries; "speeding motorcycle" - yo la tengo; "germinal" - blackbird raum; "a line allows progress, a circle does not" - bright eyes; "sarah baker turns partying into art" - chicks on speed; "not without" - tin tree factory; "yellow walls" - jackson c. frank. okay, it was on random, i am done trying to recreate this playlist.)

actually, since i have left chicago and moved so quickly to be within striking distance of portland i have been thinking much heavier and more in-depth thoughts about my life. i have been thinking of and preparing ways to wrap up this trip, this blog, this part of my life. i sit and think about the different things i have learned and the experiences i have had, how to adapt them and turn them into positive things moving forward. i think about getting an apartment or a house in portland and how i am going to decorate it.

i think about the people on this trip that i have met or seen that i want to see again, what that looks like. how i need to find some kind of gainful employment and then also a place to live - what all of this is going to look like. the people in portland whom i havent seen for many months and will soon be back upon and how our relationships will have changed, shrunk or grown since i have been gone.

the future is that way.

these thinking sessions arent very helpful. mostly they just accentuate my confusion in life and how i very little figured out. i have a bunch of things that i want to accomplish or things that i want to have - feelings i want to feel - and reminding myself of them but not being able to come up with logical and realistic plans for attaining them. i soothe myself by convincing myself that most people feel this way about life, but i also dont have any proof or reason to know how most people feel or what most people think. could be everyone is a shiny happy start that has everything figured out and they just slowly walk down a deliberate and clear path, encountering few obstacles along the way. while i am off the beaten track, slashing through the wilderness as my machete grows ever duller.

anyway. every day i am getting closer to my future and i know that for all the thinking and planning i can do the real thing will bear little resemblance to whatever i am thinking. ah, the future.

the light above the metropolis

2010-01-25T19:17:00.000-08:00

well, flagstaff was supposed to be a milestone for me. i had been thinking of it as the first place that i would visit for the second time on this trip...but then i just remembered that chicago-land was the first place i visited for the second

...

time. i guess too many good things happened there the second time, so this little fact failed to enter into my consciousness.

however, as i previously noted, this wasnt such a great milestone - this flagstaff visit. i stayed on the hostel for another night to little fanfare. i watched some american football on the television with various foreigners and found myself explaining the game to them. i finished my bottle of wine and took a number of hot showers. this morning, i gathered all of my things, filled up all my water bottles and set off in the direction of the post office.

i wasnt the only person that had this idea. because of the snowstorm very few, if any, people that live in flagstaff received their mail. so i waited in line for a fair amount of time to get what i came for, a parcel from my friend vaughnda in chicago. the teller went into the back to discover my mail but came back empty-handed. i was crestfallen, i had waited out the weekend and she said that the mail was backed up at least two days so it may be that long before my letter actually arrives.

with my head down, i exited the building. i didnt really have enough money to stay at the hostel again so i was convincing myself to just find a place to park and wait it out for another night. and it took a bit of convincing, i had been looking forward to this mail for quite awhile and i debated just leaving flagstaff and having the mail returned to sender. quickly i realized how poor of an act this would be so i decided to settle in. i went to the town square and started reading. i havent been reading enough lately and this most recent book that i picked out is a very hard read.

i sat there for a few hours, basking in the sunshine and came back to being happy. it is a hard thing for me to be unhappy for a very long period of time i have this problem of always finding something in life to be positive about. when it came around 3:pm i was done sitting there. i talked myself into pestering the us postal service and decided to go back to inquire if my mail had yet arrived. the place was even more packed than in the morning and i stood counting off the people in line, trying to use math so i didnt get the same teller as i had in the morning.

my math worked. i got a different teller and gave my id just as before. i steadied myself against getting too hopeful for her to walk out with whatever awaited me. and to my ultimate delight she emerged from the backroom with a small package. i thanked her and went back into the sun. i opened the package to find a nice picture card with some words on it and a compact disc.

with my objective in flagstaff completed i hightailed it out of town. well, i tried to hightail it. i got a little bit lost looking for the expressway and almost ended up going the wrong way on it. but when i got my direction straightened out, my tail was high. i listened to the cd a number of times as i drove west toward las vegas.

after two days or so of lounging around a comfy hostel, returning to driving was no fun. driving in general isnt very much fun but for some reason today was very much not fun. it didnt seem like i had far to go but the miles were moving slow. eventually i made it to the switch-off from the expressway to highway 93 north to las vegas. i was not aware that i would run right into the hoover dam driving this way, i was somewhat pleasantly surprised until i got to the checkpoints.

the hoover dam

at the checkpoint the performed a light search of my truck and quickly i was deemed okay to go over the dam. once inside i was finally able to get my friend steve on the phone. we talked for a bit of time, about the money he is depositing into my bank account tomorrow and some trips he is planning for his future. i want him and his lady friend to borrow my truck when i get back and go on vacation, but he considers himself too old for that.

then i got paranoid about talking on the phone because of all the security and someone was probably listening in on the conversation, and i already sketched these people out so i got off the phone real quick and away from the dam. and twenty miles later i got into the shadow of las vegas. i pulled off before i hit the city proper, becuase all of the lights were very intimidating. they say that las vegas at night is the easiest thing to spot from space. they say these things, but i have never been to space.

lets see, i have been to las vegas once before. i think i wrote about it previously, which was dumb of me - clearly i should have saved the story for once i was actually here. but it was after santa barbara, in march 2001 i think, i was on a greyhound back to indiana; my tail between my legs. i was 20 years old and since i had never been here and we had a short layover, i decided to try my luck and my last few dollars on the slot machines. i think i won for a minute and then lost all of my money. when i came back to the bus station, the bus had left without me and i was stuck there for another three hours. (just now i reviewed my old journals and found the entry from las vegas, but i am opting not to share it here.)

after sitting here for awhile, i got in touch with my friend here and shortly i will be with some more new strange friends. let me get out the meeting people face.

into the dust, into the snow, into the mountains, into the hostel

2010-01-24T08:45:00.000-08:00

i left amarillo just after george, my doppelganger, came into the coffee shop, i was glad that he didnt come talk to me - i was done with these people. i hopped on i-40 west in the face of strong winds and shortly i found myself in the middle of a moderate dust storm. tumbleweeds were desperately running across the highway, dodging the metal machines and the horizon was a low thick mist of brown. i was happy for this.

except that the strong winds played hell on my already shaky drivers side window. like this i drove until i made it through the dust and then i started climbing. i hit some rain and small hail and climbed ever higher. the towns and gas stations were few and far between, and it started to get cold in the cab. i was perplexed by this, because i had forgotten about a little thing called topography. and those big things known as mountains.

i was heading right into the heart of the sandia mountains, known for the watermelon color that they assume at sunset. the highest peak in this range is just over 10,000' and i wasnt getting up there, i think my altitude topped out between 6 and 7000'. but, up here there was a fair bit of snow on the ground and the clouds in the sky were muttering some kind of curse on the people below. luckily i had stopped just before i left amarillo to fill up my tank and got a relatively cheap price for the petrol. i made it through this range unscathed, but as i descended towards albuquerque i saw the channel 3 news team in a field of snow on the side of the highway. this image led me to assume that the amount of snow was unusual or there was some sort of impending doom.

in albuquerque i drove around for a while trying to find a good place to take a picture of the sandia mountains, because it was sunset, and it was beautiful. at this, i failed. the sun went down and i was left looking for a place to warm my bones for a few hours before i searched for a safe spot and succumbed to sleep. i found a coffee shop and sat in there for an hour or two, alternating between reading and wasting away on the internet. eventually i left and drove for a fair bit again looking for a place that i could park overnight, the temperature was dropping but once i am inside and under the covers it really isnt that cold.

an albuquerque morning.

in the morning, however, it was that cold. i could see snow perched on my window outside and i was not looking forward to getting out from under my cover pile and putting my clothes back on in the winter air. but, i persevered. when i emerged from the truck i saw that about an inch of snow had fallen throughout the night. cursing the gods of travel i loaded into the truck and headed back to the coffee shop. i had no reason to be in albuquerque, it was simply a way station on my path to flagstaff. so i sat in the coffee shop again for a while feeding my addiction to the internet and eventually being able to talk to steve on the phone.

we talked about the money he is lending me and i gave him the details to deposit into my numbered offshore account. on monday he will deposit it into my account and by that time it will be sorely needed. yesterday was a heaving spending day, the likes of which i havent seen since...well, i guess since dallas - not that long ago.

and then i was done in albuquerque. i didnt even try to explore this town at all, which is a testament to how much i am actually done with this trip. and it was off to flagstaff, back onto interstate 40. shortly after i started driving, i had to stop and get gas. and this was an alarming thing for me because my gas mileage was much lower than it should have been. generally, especially all highway driving, i should get about 360 miles out of a tank of gas - not very good by any standards. but now the needle was resting on "e" and the mileage was just under 300. i pushed it as far as i thought i could, to about 312 and then stopped to get gas from one of the infrequent stations that are placed in this high desert. and gas is expensive in these more remote places.

for $45, $2.80 per gallon, i filled up my tank. and it was near empty, i didnt give it much thought and just pushed on. the distance between albuquerque and flagstaff is 322 miles, and i would be driving for more than five hours this day. i drove again through mountains, up steep grades but not down many. and all the while the snow was thicker on the ground. when i stopped to get my daily food ration, i could see some more mountains in the distance and that was when i remembered about flagstaff. that it was situated high in the mountains, and would most probably be worse off than albuquerque.

these mountains drew ever nearer as i continued to climb and the snow pack thickened and thickened. my reason for being in flagstaff is to receive a piece of mail, general delivery. this place was the choice because, when i was thinking about it, i thought it would be a beautiful crisp dry warm place and i had already successfully received mail general delivery there. it was actually the first place i got mail on this trip and now it might also be the last, so it was supposed to be symbolic. realizing that it might not be awesome to spend time in flagstaff this turn round, i pushed faster in an attempt to get to the city before 5:pm, when i figured the post office would close on saturday.

the san francisco peaks, the mountains i was speeding towards, were becoming ever so closer and calculating the miles i have left to travel and the nearness of these mountains my dread was secure, into the cold i go. i got to flagstaff just around 4:30pm and i was happy about that, i could get to the post office and just spend one night nere and be gone in the morning, however all was not well in flagstaff. route 66 was clear of snow, but all around the road the snowpack was about 6'. the gas stations and shops all had just enough of one lane clear to allow for cars to get through but not clear enough to really see where you were going. the town was a mess. i drove through the tiny lane cleared to get to the post office and was excited to see people coming and going there. however, when i went to investigate i learned that the post office had closed at 2:pm on saturday and my hopes were dashed.

icicles!

i drove into town, to scope the scene. there were emergency crews on the roofs of buildings, frantically clearing snow, the downtown square was just being cleared out and all of the roads were barely one lane. people parked willy-nilly where the could. this was starting to become very shitty. i found a place to park and started to walk around town, there were new signs posted that informed motorists parking was illegal on the city street between 12:am and 7:am to aid in snow removal. that meant i would have to try to find a parking lot or something to park in for the night. and parking lots suck because there is very little protection from the wind and my truck is not windproof. also, there is much more traffic through parking lots.

also, after only 290 miles, my gas tank was resting on empty again. i must be the altitude that is giving me such poor gas mileage, but whatever it is i am displeased. the gas is way more expensive and the mileage it gives me is much less. so i am paying more for worse.

anyway, i walked to the visitors center and got there just before it closed. i got the guidebook in order to test some of the local hotels, get an idea of rates and such in case i needed to head down this road. after that i walked back to a coffee shop that was always closed when i was here before, but i dont think i was drinking coffee anyway when i was here before. i went in and proceeded to look up some of the hotels and such and see if i could get a deal for the weekend. no such luck. i did, however, learn that the city of flagstaff had been shut down for most of the previous two days as it received about 4' of snow in that time. luckily i came in after that.

the dumb snow and a small path.

unfortunately the coffee shop closed earlier than the time posted on the door and i wasnt able to complete my research. now it was just dark and i was out on the street again. i capitulated and drove to the hostel, it would be the cheapest rate in town and get my truck off the street. also, i promised my dad that i wouldnt freeze to death in my truck, if it was too cold to sleep outside i would bite the proverbial bullet and book a room.

i dont have a very long history of staying in hostels, this was the first time i had been in one since 2001, i guess. the first hostel i stayed in was in san francisco, california sometime in the later days of january...much like now. so, to celebrate my 9 year anniversary, i thought i would wow you with the journal entries i made when i was staying at that hostel, at that time, when i was that person (unfortunately, i wasnt into dating entries then...):

"And the joy is overwhelming. After riding last night for hours in the not-so-warm temperature and the oh-so-high hills, I found a hostel with vacancies. The San Francisco Travelers Inn at 374 5th St. Nick dropped me off at 20th St. I had little direction and hope. I went to two hostels before this one. I dropped $120 for the week and I get kicked out on the 1st, I am pretty sure. By then, I should have this city on the back of my hand (hah!). I did a lot already today, I went to the top of Telegraph Hill, to the Marina, to Haight-Ashbury (and I saw a neat anarchist bookstore). I have been to two natural foods stores—the Rainbow something on 13th and Folsom and some other one on Haight St.. I have eaten twice and feel I am spending too much money. But, this big city living never really attracted me, I feel I may be bored before Parenti. I may go back up to Sacramento. But, Steve! Where is he? Who knows, and he knows not where I am. I really want to be somewhere like Tempe, where it is warm and it doesn't rain and we can camp out and no worries. I am just spending way too much money. But, other than that, things are great! I wonder what'll happen next.

--

So, the guy sleeping on top of me is an Aussie named Dechlan. He is a neat fella. I have no idea what I am doing here. I walk and bike around this town and I just don't know why. I was looking into jobs yesterday, and I am going for an interview on Wednesday. I have no doubt that I will get the job, so what am I doing? Am I already settling on San Fran? I hope not. But, I guess it could be wonderful. Steve should, said he would, wind up here tomorrow and we were supposed to correlate a place to meet, but we didn't. Now, chances are, we wont even meet up until Parenti. I am sick, I have a cold. It is horrible. I am going to take Francisco's words to heart and make eating my least priority, and I don't think I can make food in the hostel kitchen anymore, as that is probably why I am sick. I am at the SF City College waiting for the library to open, because I am completely lost in technical life and I really want to check my email. Hah!"

okay, i just got caught up reading through my old journal from that point and about waiting for steve to get his dumb butt to san francisco so i could talk to him (i am pretty sure this was before cell phones were a thing). i love reading my old journals, i remember so many more things while reading the few words i wrote, and everything becomes much more vivid. also, i get to laugh at the younger me, that is always fun.

so, anyway BACK TO THE HERE AND NOW! so i checked into the hostel last night and that was all okay. it is $18 a night and it is mostly empty here i am staying in a dorm room with one other guy, ichiro, from japan - he doesnt speak much english. i hung around the hostel all last night, i went next door and bought a bottle of wine to enjoy. i took a nice long shower and enjoyed that immensely, then i called it a night. it was very warm, almost hot, in the room for the night and i slept a bit fitfully. this morning i have been enjoying some coffee and hanging out with the other folks here.

many of them left to go skiing, which is something that is beyond me. i will explore this snowy town for a bit and enjoy being inside at least as much. i just bought another night here at the hostel and hopefully tomorrow i can make it out.

slow teeth = hot nights

2010-01-22T10:32:00.000-08:00

so, last night was one of the stranger nights of this trip. the strangest, surely, involves my adventures through sioux city; amarillo, however did bring its own bag of tricks to the game. on the last leg of my trip i am only trying to go to places that have something specific for me. amarillo is such a place. some people that i am friends with in portland have a band called slow teeth and they are on tour, last night they played amarillo.

my plan, and it was a good one - i thought - was to surprise them. there is no reason i should be in amarillo and they certainly wouldnt have any idea that i was going to be there, so i waited for them to arrive. around 8:pm or so, i was sitting in my truck reading and waiting when a minivan pulled next to me and turned around, i stared into the window and knew that it was my friend brenna. i must've looked a bit creepy, and she didnt recognize it as me. so i finished up my chapter and went down to the golden light cantina to meet them.

this turned out to be a much harder thing than i was prepared for. i walked towards the show space and lurked around back, trying to make sure that the van i saw was actually from oregon and actually carrying my friends. once i discerned this fact i should have just announced myself and gave some hugs to greet my friends, but i got caught up on the presentation. they were milling about in front of the space about a half block from where i was, if i walked down this concrete path to them i would surely be spotted before i arrived to their group, and i didnt want that. what, there could have been some awkwardness, do you notice the people you know and run to them or continue to walk slow with a smile on your face, what if they are in the middle of some serious conversation and my arrival is less than what i had planned. these are the things i think about and i understand that they are irrational and somewhat creepy.

eventually, after peering around corners for a good five minutes, i figured out the best plan of arrival. i went around back and came into the back door of the space so i could then walk out the front door and be directly upon them. and, fortunately, this worked out rather well. brenna noticed me halfway through the bar and came inside to give me a hug and be surprised that i was also here in amarillo. we talked for a little bit, then she introduced me to the band people that i didnt know. i was curious, becuase there was a person missing. my friend rachel who plays the clarinet and the saw in the band was no where to be seen. i inquired about her absence and was informed that she ditched the tour back in california because she had to work! how dumb!

but she will rejoin it in the midwest. then we sat in the place for a little bit before going next door to the restaurant portion of the space where the band received free food. i had recently eaten and wasnt hungry, but we sat there for awhile, getting to know everyone and catching up, telling road stories and just having a real good time. it was the happiest i had felt since i was in chicago. (this doesnt take anything away from my friends in alton or dallas, but - and heres the thing - this reunion is my return to portland in a microcosm. all the fear i feel for coming back to my old friends was captured in this little moment and it all

welcome to my home, friends.

turned out well, the people that used to like me still end up liking me and the people that never knew me also end up liking me...a confidence boost.)

there was still a good bit of time before they had to start the show so we went back to my truck. and this was one of the best things. i had some whiskey in there (that i had bought oh so long ago in salem, mass) and they wanted to drink it. i figured we would just go back and stand outside the truck pulling off of this bottle, but one of them asked if we could all get in. there has never been more than two bodies inside the back of the truck, but i was down for this. so they starting to crawl in and i got in last, then i got out my christmas present from my dad - a very powerful flashlight that has three heads and wowed my visitors with its luminance. we all fit in there okay, and just drank whiskey and talked at my house. it was pretty awesome.

this didnt last very long though, we went back to the bar to hang out with some of the kids that helped book their show. jojo, erick, jimmy, jackie, and us all played some hot dice for a little bit. i had never played before and it took a bit to understand the rules. before we could all get the game and get into it the time had crept up for slow teeth to start setting up and be ready to play. the band got free drinks and brenna was nice enough to continue going up to the bar to get drinks for me so i could drink for free also. then they set up the merch table and just sort of waited for the crowd to fill in.

during this time they learned that the second band, mag seven, had canceled. but jojo did some quick footwork and got the local band "starkiller" to come and play after slow teeth. the bouncer went around and collected money from everyone and it became like a real show. i would later learn that this was the first show on their tour that was not a house show, and soon they began playing to the semi full house.

hello, doppelganger.

but! and you had to know i wouldnt get there this quickly. shortly before they played it was $1 pitcher hour and i bought a couple pitchers of beer to share, while i was doing this brenna met a local person. this guy went by the name of george. george and i have a history. by this time i had been in amarillo for about 30 hours, in that time - all earlier in this day - i had been mistaken three different times for this george person. once walking down the street, once in the coffee shop, and once when i was lurking around the corner spying on the band. brenna met him and then introduced the two of us as doppelgangers.

this was nice, everything was falling into place in amarillo. i was with an old friend, and made a bunch of new ones pretty quickly. i talked to george for a bit and then slow teeth got up to start playing. i went up to the stage area so i could take some video of their performance. they played acoustic and this bar was about half-full and a bit loud. so they invited people to come close to the stage and played their set. i recorded five of the eight or nine songs that they played. you couldnt hear them very well too far from the stage, this venue certainly wasnt the best for the way

slow teeth!

they place music, but they got about twenty people crowding up to the stage. and the people were really enjoying the music, it was certainly not something they were used too and the change of pace was appreciated. also, we were all spotted in amarillo!

after they finished they sold a number of cds and other merch and it was a pretty successful show - to my standards and i have no knowledge of what makes a show successful. then the next band, 'starkiller' set up to play. they couldnt have been more opposite from slow teeth, it was amazing - and not in a very good way, i would call them screamo pop rock. we sat through their set and it was okay, the best part was the video i was able to take of their merch guy rocking out to them!

and shortly after they finished up the show was over and people were looking for what to do next. brenna and the band were going over to jojo's house, thats where they were sleeping and a number of other people were heading that way too. it was late and i was up, i tagged along. we went to the apartment of erick, jimmy and jackie - just across the street from jojo's. and this was where the night started to get a bit strange. i have a sneaking suspicion that all of these amarillo kids are just 17 years old, they all look very young, and they had been doing shots from a handle of vodka all night long. there was about two fifths left in the bottle by the time we got back to the apartment.

the penny-farthing experience

it was a messy place, and i was unclear whose it actually was, but that was quickly sorted out. and then i saw it. the dream of my life, the thing that i have always wanted was just in front of my eyes. and i had to have it, for if not now, when? i had never been this close to the object of my desire and all i needed to do was perform a small repair. this, i think, is the first time on this trip i have utilized the leatherman that is attached to my belt for its proper purpose. but i picked that pedal up off the floor and amatuerishly threaded it back into the arm. and then it was fixed and i carried the penny-farthing down the steps to eternal glory!

this monster was certainly hard to get up on, but i used some knowledge of riding a tall bike to get up on it - i propped it against a light pole. once on it, going was another hard thing. my first attempt resulted in making it about six inches before falling over and twisting my ankle. lubricated with liquor, however, the pain was minimal. i got right back up to tame the beast. this time, i had robby give me a push off and there i was! living the fucking dream, in amarillo texas riding a penny-farthing for the first time down the dark streets. it was sweet bliss, and then i fell off again. but i was satisfied with my glory.

robby forever jumped on next and was much better at it than i was, it was fun to watch him guide it better - until he almost crashed into a car and then fell off! next brenna gave it the old try. hers was much like my first try, she got on, got the push, and then about six seconds later she was on the ground with her leg twisted in the bike. that was a pretty good fall she did, and she was satisfied with her moderate success. robby gave it another go and this time performed the

she is okay, dont worry.

proper dismounting procedure and we called our penny-farthing experience and carted it back up the steps. jimmy, thank you for making this happen for us!

but then we were back up in the small dirty apartment with the very young people who were very drunk. by this time two of the very young girls, jackie and erick had locked themselves in the bedroom with the vodka and were arguing or something. we went outside and smoked cigarettes, then came back and everyone was milling about in the bedroom just hanging out. the night went on like this for a bit until the band said they were heading with jojo back to his place to sleep. i had recently acquired a glass of franzia and decided to hang out in this place with these people until i was done with it.

the right choice? maybe not, but it was the choice i made and i cant go back on it now. i spent the next half hour or so trying to get jimmy into a dress and then he got yelled at and reduced to tears by one of the very young girls. so i shifted from badgering him to put on a dress to trying to cheer him up. to the room of three or four people, including jimmy, i sang "lets go fly a kite" from the marry poppins soundtrack - this received a few laughs (especially when i didnt stop after the first verse) but no applause. then i sang another song, but i dont recall what it was, i was just trying to cheer these folks up. and, i was in my most carefree attitude where i feel as if nothing bad can happen to me or go wrong, everything i say (no matter how scathing or ridiculous or just mean) seems to be taken the right way.

so i was having a good time, but then there was another drama freak out in the bedroom and jimmy was sad again, and i had to get out of there. i said my thanks and farewells and went out to my truck to call it a night. this was around 2 in the morning. i was drunk, and ready to sleep it off for a long time. but then there was a knocking at my door. it felt like only minutes after i had curled up to rest, but it had been a couple of hours. outside my truck was brenna and robby letting me know they just got kicked out of jojo's apartment.

i rustled myself up and opened the back door. this was not what i wanted to hear. apparently jojo's girlfriend came home and was pissed. she kicked everyone out, including jojo, and instead of staying longer brenna said they were just going to leave for oklahoma city. it was 5 in the morning. so much for brunch when we all awoke! i said bye to them and closed the door and started to try to go back to sleep. however, this was not easy. jojo, the ex-boxer, was pounding on his door. it sounded like he was going to break it down, and he was yelling.

"let me in, you bitch" "this is my house too" "open the fucking door"

and other things of this nature, these words were chorused with heavy pounding, some kicking and a few screams. i had a hard time trying to fall back asleep. part of me thought that i should remain somewhat conscious in the event he did break the door down and try to harm his lady friend, another part of me knew that i was mostly naked and still drunk and i dont have a good track record going against people looking for a fight. eventually i got back to sleep and woke to the amarillo sunshine, not feeling the best. but i dressed and peeled out of there quickly, i just wanted to be done in this town. and soon enough, this desire will be realized and i will head west on highway 40 inching ever closer to my future.

begging when the sun begins to blaze

2010-01-21T14:59:00.001-08:00

things are wonderful here, just thought i would let you know. a couple of days ago it became apparent that the money that i had would not be enough to make it back to portland, it wouldve barely made me back to los angeles...and i did not want to be stuck in los angeles.

the reason for this drastic and rapid lack of funds, clearly, was my dumb truck being shitty and breaking down. and so i had to do something that is not very easy for me - i had to ask for help.

help has been offered to me a couple of times. before i left on this trip both emily and steve implored me to call on them should i require aid. i quickly wrote off emily as a viable option, since she barely has enough money for herself. my dad has suggested that i borrow money from him a couple of times, but i parlayed. just the other night my mom even offered to send me money, but i called her on her bluff. i knew that she didnt have any money either.

the reason why i have been offputting is becuase this trip that i am on is a choice

steve and i have been friends a long time. this, however, is the only time we have kissed.

that i made. true, the idea of it wasnt my own, but it was my choice to embark and continue with it. and, overall, it has been a great choice. some things in my life have been broken and will never be repaired again, but there are more things that i started building on this trip to make up for the broken things.

and so, the other day i sucked up my pride and asked steve to loan me some money. throughout my life i have been pretty self-sufficient. in my adult life i have never asked for money from my parents, and really i have never asked them for much assistance. their unconditional love is worth too much to me to even consider giving money the chance to muddy the waters. however, i have had to borrow money a couple of times in my life.

when i moved to olympia on a whim and with no prospects my money ran out before my job was able to fill the gap. i borrowed a couple hundred dollars from steve. and, again, later that year i borrowed money from steve to buy a plane ticket back to new york to go to my friends art opening. i am pretty sure that i paid him back both times, if not he hasnt been overbearing to get his money back.

and so, i asked to borrow 1000 american dollars from him and today he agreed to my request. the terms are still being worked out, and i want to make them very clear. this is a whole lot of money - more than i will need - and i dont want our relationship to suffer at all because of money. that was actually the hardest tangible to account for while i was writing him to ask for cash.

but that is mostly over with. now i just need to make the most of it. in celebration for not having to micromanage every penny spent i ate lunch today. dont worry, i wont get in the habit of it.

and so, anyway, now i am here in amarillo texas. i am in the panhandle, i think, for the first time ever. it is very warm here. i spent this day walking all around

ahhh! i am on the ground! in amarillo!

the city, maybe three or four miles and i was sweating. it was almost 70° and i still have two jackets, pants, and long socks on. i am an idiot - you heard it here first!

i walked from the historic route 66 area (where i am "staying") down to the amarillo museum of art, it is a free museum and seemed close enough in the only slightly warm morning. that was a pretty boring art museum. then i walked back up into downtown and then across town to my truck, i was thirsty. along the way a man on a bike asked me for spare change, and i told him that i didnt have any to spare.

so, and this has never happened before, he pulled out a pocket of change and asked if i wanted some. i told him no, he should keep it, but then he just threw it on the ground in my general direction and rode away. i walked a little bit away and then turned back and picked up all the change. i am not above that. then, however, the guy found me walking again and rode by semi-fast and said something unintelligible to me. these amarillians are strange indeed.

and now, now i am just waiting. i am here for a reason and i need that reason to happen. tomorrow - albuquerque.

death and these dumb memories of it / hey! i am in oklahoma city!

2010-01-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

the reason i try to write every day is because when i wait a few days everything gets so backed up and starts to become one big jumbled mess in my mind. even though nothing really happened in the past couple of days. the hardest is for where to start, do i just act as if the few days where nothing really happened didnt really happen at all and then i have this two day void in my life as if those days were just as good as two days dead?

well, thats a good enough start i guess. i dont know very many dead people. earlier on this trip i learned that the girl i went to prom with is dead. we were never very close and there was no reason that the knowledge of her not being alive anymore should provoke any type of emotional response. when i was in high school some kid committed suicide. i didnt know him very well, but i felt bad about it. he was a popular kid and i remember thinking that popularity or perceived success in life does not automatically quell the things that work inside a person.

and then there was my grandmother. i think she died in 1995, she was the closest person to me that has died in my life and she is the reason i am here in oklahoma city right now. my grandmother, mary conner (aka "the lady in the red hat") was a softball mogul. i dont really know what that means, but she was instrumental in making girls softball a thing in the state of indiana and some say that she had a

the softball hall of fame

hand getting it into the olympics. i havent found any mention of this, but i believe it because it is a good story to tell.

when i was younger, 8 years old to 11 years old maybe, i would go with my mom and my grandmother to oklahoma city every year for the national girls softball tournament. my grandmother was a mover and a shaker, my mom was her back up and i, i was a batboy. although i dont have very many memories from this time i do think these were good times. i have written before about how i was the forgotten child, i was made fun of alot, and i had really poor self-esteem. confidence was not a word that registered with me.

but, these traits were most obvious when i was in my normal arena and specifically around my brother. these summer trips to oklahoma were the beginning of an awakening for me. even at this young age i knew that i wasnt happy about my life and something needed to change, at the time i am sure i expected that someone else would change things for me and in a way that is what happened. here i am, an overweight and shy little boy thrown onto a field to chase bats for young fit girls between the ages of 12 and 17. they thought i was cute, not cute in that they wanted to get with me, but how awkward i was.

i became "friends" with some of these girls and started hanging out with them in the hotel and away from the field, it was a major confidence boost. i assumed that these were just very outgoing, caring young ladies but i think i had a devil-may-care attitude even when i was a small boy, i have never had much to lose in life so taking things to the extreme edges and testing the boundaries have never been out of the question. i had a secret life in these week long summer trips that i would take with my mom and my grandmother and this awakening was just what i needed.

not that it translated much into my regular life, coming home i was still the same shy little boy, but now i had a secret. not just a secret but the knowledge of a secret self. i started to develop the idea that things would be better there, rather than here...instead of standing up and making what you want for yourself wherever you are. and i guess i started to get the idea that i could always run away to someplace new and make things work. i have spent many years trying to overcome this; but, although i know things there are the same as things here, i am still tempted to just pick up and go wherever there is for that initial burst of change, the flavor filled first few months.

anyway, all that talk is too much about life, and i am supposed to be talking about death. eventually i became more aware of my attraction to girls and got to an age where i was more apt to act on it however long a shot it would be. and so my position on these summer vacations was taken over by my little sister. that bitch (i am kidding). life would go on as normal for me (normal being unhappy about life, unsure of myself and unaware of the power of change that i possessed) for the next few years until i got another chance to spread my wings away from where i grew up. this was the trip i took to europe in the summer of 1996.

but before this happened, my grandmother died. i dont remember when, i think it was 1994, i dont remember how i heard about it or really anything. all i know is how my dad feels about funerals and death. and, by extension, how i feel about funerals and death: not worth it. i dont have a strong belief system, i dont think that something better happens to a persons body or soul after they die, i just think that people go into a wooden box and then a concrete box and then get covered by some dirt while people around cry and pray.

i know, it is a shitty outlook, but i have no reason to think otherwise. and so, when my grandmother died, i didnt want to go to the funeral. at the time i wasnt looking back on my sweet summer vacations with her, surrounded by a bunch of young girls that wanted to show me the way of the woman, i was probably just thinking that this would be an afternoon that i wouldnt be able to play nintendo and i was not happy about that. but i got dressed in a kid suit, and went to the adult funeral home and listened to some people speak. i milled about, i think i went outside to smoke cigarettes (i know, what a bad kid - and what bad parents!) and i was confronted with my cousin ezra.

ezra was adopted into the family, maybe a year or two older than me, and he was crying. i couldnt comprehend, i looked at him and put my hand on his shoulder and he asked me why i wasnt crying - i think i told him that the grief hadnt hit me yet (more probably, i said something like i dont know, or nothing at all, who - at 14 - knows that grief can be suspended, seriously). but really i just wanted to get away from him. i didnt feel anything. i didnt feel love for my grandmother, aside from the summer vacations we werent really that close, i didnt feel sad that she was dead and i would never see her again. i felt nervous, all around me people were crying and showing grief, and i was just waiting for more people to notice that i wasnt feeling anything and for them to be mad at me.

so i walked away. i walked down the alley for awhile and came back later. i willed myself to cry and to feel bad about this situation, but i just couldnt do it. this was my first taste of my lack of emotion, my first taste of my more realistic and analytical temperament rather than an emotional temperament. and then i proceeded to go through the majority of the rest of my life not feeling emotion. it has gotten me into plenty of trouble in relationships, for sure, but it also helped a good deal when i was working with protest movements and in other stressful situations.

but then i got into this real good relationship that kept going for a long time and emily was much more emotional than i was, through our years together we helped each other level out a bit. she would sit me down and keep me talking until she got to what my emotional depth was, what i was really feeling and while i never really liked these conversations they helped me become a much more rounded person, she helped me to feel more like a person. and i am pretty grateful for that.

and then came the next funeral. fast forward at least a dozen years, i am in portland, living with emily at the mississippi co-op and we are out on a walk. i receive a phone call from one of the people that we live with that one of our cats was just run over and is now dead. at the time i was calm and collected, i didnt want to let emily know because she would burst into tears and become an emotional

my cat friend, warren

mess, my calculating nature knew that this would only worsen the situation. i used business like words over the phone and we continued our walk. but i couldnt handle it anymore, i couldnt walk and talk with emily letting her know that our little cat friend, warren, was now dead.

and so i told her, and she proceeded to breakdown. i was still calm, everything was okay, it was just a dead cat. i called our friends back and asked them to come pick us up - we wouldnt make the walk back. during the wait for the ride and the ride back i was comforting her, but i was like a stone wall. i was determined to treat this as just a bump in the road of life. we got back to the house and all of the people we lived with that were home at the time, were out on the front steps in various states of grief and i was still okay. we walked into the door and towards the back porch where our cat friends body was. and this was when i lost it.

i had never cried so hard in my life, right now, typing this years later i am still overcome with emotion over this death - crying in some dumb coffee shop in oklahoma city. emily was petting warren's lifeless body but i didnt want to touch him, that would make it more real. he was such a good and loving cat but to feel his cold body and not have it respond to my touch would be way too much. we sat there crying over his body for awhile and then we had to do something. i got a shovel from the back and we went back out front. i dug a deep hole next to the front steps, crying the whole time, right in the middle of the hops where warren liked to lay.

then we put his body in there and covered it up. later that night our other cat friend, olympia, ripped out a number of her claws as a way to show her emotion over losing her brother. all sad things. its strange, when i started writing this, i had no intention of writing about warrens death. i was only thinking about people that died and i was going to write just about my disaffection with death, but then i remembered this and it all came pouring out. more well roundedness, i guess.

and so, to commemorate my grandmother i came to oklahoma city. because here there is the softball hall of fame where she was inducted, posthumously. when i got to the hall of fame i immediately recognized that this was also the place i would come as a child. this field and the sculptures, so i walked around the grounds for a good while, taking it all in. then i went to the hall of fame itself, i was under orders from my mom to take a picture of my grandmothers plaque, but the hall of fame was closed for remodeling. fortunately there wasnt anyone around, so i just slipped into the museum area that was under construction, i found where the hall of famers had their plaques but hers wasnt there.

i assume it was becasue of the place being under construction. i went ahead and walked around the place more and then i left there for good. thanks for all the childhood memories.

oklahoma capitol building

after this i headed to the state capitol building. i cannot write enough about how i like these places, i ditched some metal in the truck and then went on in through the security gates. i had to wait a few minutes for the tour to start, so i milled about the second floor and eventually jumped on the hour long tour. the mot interesting thing about this capitol building is that it was drawn up to have a dome, but when it was being constructed they ran out of money for it so they just capped it without a dome, just a regular roof. it probably looked very silly. but then, in 2001, the push to bring the building to its full glory decided to ask for funding to finally build the dome. with money mostly from private donors, the $22 million for the dome construction was raised and the work started. the result of this is a nice dome and inside there are inscriptions of multi-national corporation like "monsanto" and "general motors." crazy.

now i am done here in okc, probably forever. so long!

the sunshine that surrounds me, and how i bask in it

2010-01-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

ulysses is a good name for a person, not one that exists very much any more. at least, i have never met someone named ulysses...until yesterday. sitting in the opening bell coffee shop, in downtown dallas, i went through the craigslist pages for a mobile mechanic. my truck was dead in the water (not literally, but figuratively) and i needed to make it run good again. i went through these pages of mechanics but was hesitant to call.

i knew that it would probably cost at least $200, but it also could cost a whole lot more, and i felt that if i kept putting it off it would get cheaper. there is no rationale for thinking this way. eventually i wrote down a couple of numbers and went outside to start calling these mechanics. i dont know much about cars, so i am on the phone explaining noises to people that do know about cars. i felt kind of dumb, but i kept insisting that it was my starter that was bad. i left some messages, and finally got through to one guy.

i made the noises and explained what was happening to him, and he said that it didnt sound like a starter problem. but, he said, for $45 he could come to me right now and diagnose it and tell me how much it would be to fix it. i didnt like this fool becuase he didnt think it was a starter problem, but most other people did. so i waited. i went back inside and wrote down more numbers and then went to call again. and the first person i called was ulysses.

and he turned out to be a nice guy. it took him almost an hour to get to me, but when he got there, i fired it up and he said right away that it was the starter, that the teeth had probably worn out. who knew trucks had teeth? and do i have to rethink my belief that it is an inanimate object? questions questions. but then, he just got under the car and started working. he and his friend (who was involved in a threesome last night, fyi - he told me) worked quickly to take off the starter. ten minutes later they were getting back in their truck, with my starter and going to buy a new one.

i had a brief thought of how ridiculous it would be if these guys were actually scamming me and just came and stole a piece of my truck while i watched. so i told them that they better not be fucking with me. they assured me they would come back. it took them awhile, but they did indeed return. they both jumped right back under the truck and put on this new shiny $120 starter for my truck. this, again, was a quick procedure and after twenty minutes they were driving away with my old starter and $220. i was sitting there listening to my truck run smoothly and wallowing in my lack of funds.

its true, my bank account has dwindled to an alarming low and i think i will have to give up eating. it wouldnt be the first time, and i am sure i can only grow with the experience.

hmmm. there are a few concurrent stories that i want to flesh out here and i am not sure how to tackle them... okay, got it.

so, after they left i went back to the coffee shop and got in touch with my friend adam from dallas. our history is an interesting one, and - as per usual - not one that i am sure i have all the facts for. but first, the news. i got adam on the phone and he gave me his address, said that he would be home in an hour. so i sat in this coffee shop on the computer for a little while longer and i was approached by a slender black lady with a microphone. she started talking to me about some news story and she said she was looking for a laptop, and i was like "you want to use my laptop?"

but, she answered no. she wanted to shoot my laptop. and i was like, "you want to shoot my laptop, like, with a gun? i am kind of using it right now." she laughed and again said no. she was a news lady with the dallas 33 news team and the story was "do wireless waves cause harm" and she wanted to film me using my computer. i told her that was fine, but then she sort of crouched near me and started asking me questions. the camera came on and all of a sudden i was being interviewed for the dallas news. i thought it was hilarious. we talked for a minute or two, and i said some ridiculous things. in the end they used just a small clip of me.

i figured i had had my share of being famous and decided to cut out of there early to head towards adam's apartment. and it was a good thing i did becuase i was leaving in the throes of rush hour traffic, heading north from downtown towards the outskirts of dallas - precisely where everyone else was heading. i managed through bumper to bumper traffic for about forty minutes to go a distance similar to ten miles. not ten miles, but similar to it. and by the time i was coming up to his apartment complex it was dark and there was construction and i didnt really know what was going on around me or how to properly navigate to his location.

i pulled over somewhere, to get my bearings, and was set to call adam when the next portion of my twisting stories of the day finally gets some type time. it started on new years eve, the lady that i was with when i was ten years old, hannah carnell, found me on facebook and started chatting up a storm. since then, every time i have been online at the same time as her, she has typed up a storm of words to me. that was all okay, a bit overbearing especially because of some of the things she was saying. however, it started the night before that she found my number online and began texting me.

this, again, was okay - but not something that i was really interested in pursuing. i havent seen this person for about 20 years, so by my account she is just a stranger, a ghost of my past. true, part of this trip was meant to reconnect with my past and learn some of the things that i had forgotten. if i were still in indiana, i would be interested in meeting up with her and catching up on old times. but i have never been the type of person to keep a regular flow of communication with people that arent right around me. it is a shitty thing and i oftentimes feel bad about it, but i really think that life is full enough that i should direct as much of my being to what and who is currently around me. soak in the world and let it set.

and it was as i picked up my phone to call adam and determine where i was as compared to where was/i should be. i had a few more text messages from hannah, one of which said that i needed to "call her asap." now, i am not a very good phone person. i dont much like talking on the phone but i know it has its uses. this aversion to telephony is a big part of why i am not very present with people who arent around me. but, for whatever reason i heeded her request and hit the send button.

what i got was a tidal wave. i barely said hello before she went off on a tirade about her husband. seeing as though i barely know this person i hardly see why i should be an outlet for her to complain about the life she has found for herself. but i sat there and listened to it and then the reason why she called me came out. she believes that i am the opposite of her husband, he is grumpy and unhappy about life and - apparently - i am a ray of sunshine. then she began to tell me how i hadnt changed since i was ten years old and that i am still the same person.

these words are not the keys to my heart.

i beleive that i am a completely different person, 110% changed from whatever i was as a child. and i like it when other people notice as much. she was trying to be flattering, i am sure, but her intended effect was not being achieved. after a few more minutes of talking i informed her that i needed to leave this conversation so i could find my friend adam. i shook my head as if i had just gotten the chills and continued on with the life in front of me.

adam told me i was close, i had to drive a bit down the road and turn into a dirt road (because of all the construction) and i would be in his complex. i did as i was told and turned right at the first dirt road i came too. as it turned out this dirt road was not meant for my kind of traffic and i kind of just drove through the construction site. everything was alright though, i was in the complex. i navigated successfully with adams instructions and was soon parked and out of the truck.

when i met adam the year was 2005, we were both in austin to attend a conference mostly for the united states indymedia network. my interest in indymedia was certainly waning at the time, but this conference was a great experience for me. if nothing else it boosted my self confidence greatly. i had been working for the two previous years with portland indymedia and increasingly in the global network, but the more involved i got the more i realized that this system was never going to become what it was

this is not illegal.

intended to be. that there were too many differing opinions to shape a cohesive future. but, becuase i was heavily involved my name was kind of well known.

and, since the majority of this national and global communication happened via email this would be the first time many of us were meeting each other in person. like i said, i ate up the attention and really enjoyed the role. one of the people i met there was adam from dallas indymedia. he was a bit younger than me at the time...i think he was 17. actually, although the years have moved on the gap in our ages has remained the same. crazy how these things work. he ended up becoming pretty good friends with my good man arturo commando. and now, after almost five years i am seeing him again at his home in dallas.

and it is a really nice experience. i like catching up with my old people, and especially with adam since he is still pretty young it is nice to see what kind of person he is becoming. we sat in his apartment for awhile and caught up with one another and then he was set to take me out to an arabic restaurant for the friday night special manseh. manseh is a large piece of lamb over rice that has a yogurt sauce poured over it. it was okay, probably not something i would get again - i am

this is illegal.

not a big fan of yogurt sauce. after the meal adam ordered a hookah, strawberry flavored. i havent smoked a hookah since i was young and i wasnt very good at it.

when we were done there we came back to his apartment and played some rock band. this is not something i have played before, so i just watched him until he informed me that i could sing. i like karaoke and i likened this to karaoke. it was a bit different, because i am supposed to get the pitch right, but after a couple of songs i felt like i had a pretty good hang of it. however, by this time it was getting later and we were both tired. we watched some tv for a little bit before calling it a night. i slept on a mattress in the living room and it was pretty good.

i was up rather early in the morning and spent some hours while adam slept reading and enjoying the internet. eventually adam woke up and he took me to a vegan buffet. it had been a long time since i had vegan food and it was pretty good. then we were off to explore downtown dallas. we opted to take the light rail instead of driving. i thought that was a pretty good option, public transportation is not something i have spent much time on the last eight months. we got off downtown and walked to where john f kennedy was shot in his car. i had kind of forgotten about this event in history, but apparently it is a big tourist destination in dallas.

after that we went to the old courthouse museum and i gave my friend adam a lesson

just messin'

in sneaking. together we sneaked into this museum and then spent some time perusing the exhibits. it wasnt a very good museum, mostly because its layout was confusing. i did pay some close attention to the mary kay exhibits since a good friend of mine is related to her. then we were back out and on the train heading to the car. both of us werent feeling very well. i have a sore throat and am coming down with some sickness, adams allergies have been acting up and as i write this he is visiting the doctor to get some medicine.

and, finally, a general update for my trip. i have some plans for my movement in the coming days, and that movement will ensure that i get to 40 states before the end of this trip. that kind of became a goal awhile ago, and i didnt think was going to reach it. i figured i could only get to 39, and i started scheming a way to get to utah without burning too much gas but then i had a memory. as a technicality, i have already visited utah on this trip. that was on my first time around when i visited the four corners monument and i my body was in four states at once, so, mission accomplished.

my first road trip / the turn of fate / technical notes #10

2010-01-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

	current cycle	total trip
miles	1481	16852
gallons	72.7	721.5
dollars	194.5	1866.2
mpg avg	20.4	23.4
costpg avg	2.68	2.59
days	23	245

it is hard to believe that just five days ago i was haunting a cold city in a warm bed with a beautiful lady next to me. but, there are many things about this life that i find hard to believe. as a matter of fact i find the whole idea of life a hard thing to believe. but thats not something i am set to talk about this day. this day, i am set to talk about little rock, dallas and my shitty truck.

i woke in little rock yesterday and it was pretty awesome. the feeling of somewhere that you have never seen in the light just waiting beyond some thin doors. i went to a coffee shop and sat there for awhile, writing. and then i was off to explore little rock. it is a place i have been before...and you know what that means! you will get to read some rambling story of a life that i existed in many years ago, one that i have a foggy memory of and then just make a bunch of stuff up. who is ready for that!

anyway. after the coffee shop i made my way to the natural first destination. as with any capital city, the capitol building is the first stop. capitol building are so easy to find and i like their architecture so much. i also like the mostly marble and limestone construction, the smooth cold walls and often ancient woodwork and craftsmanship. it is definitely a draw. so i drove and found the capitol very easily, i stowed some of my metal objects in the truck and set off up the hill to the building. thats another thing i like about these places, they are most often situated on top of a hill. very pretty.

the arkansas capitol building.

i have been to quite a few of these building on my trip and the worst part, generally, is going through the metal detectors. i carry so much stuff with me and i am just standing there unloading and then reloading for a minute or more while this police officer is just checking me out. it isnt enjoyable, but once i get inside i enjoy the experience very much. usually there is a guided tour, and those are the best, the guides will answer so many random questions and give the darnedest facts - things you would never think of.

but it wasnt so at this building, there wasnt a tour for more than two hours and i wasnt prepared to wait that long. so i took the booklet and embarked on the self-guided tour. it is much less interesting this way. in the shadow of the portrait of bill clinton i sat and wrote some postcards. long overdue, it has been months since i sent my last postcard and i have many more to write and send out. i meandered throughout the building but there wasnt very much to see in there. when i made it back to the lobby i asked one of the officers there about things i should see in little rock.

with some vague information i set off for downtown. my destination was riverfront park, my goal was to find "le petite roche" - the littlest rock. i dont think that is an accurate translation but in my searches i consistently muttered to myself 'where is the littlest rock.' and i carried on an internal debate if the littest rock was actually going to be a small rock or if littlest should exist in quotes and the rock would actually be quite large. these are the types of things i think about as i am walking around in random cities attempting to be a part of life.

as it happened, i never found "le petite roche" and i am convinced that it doesnt actually exist. later i learned that "la petite roche" wasnt necessarily even a rock, it was just the site where little rock was originally founded. i would guess by the french. but i have no substantiating evidence to back this up. what i did find was public art. and a lot of it.

i was pretty surprised to find so much in a place like little rock. i know that is assumptive, but i was surprised. the problem with public art is that usually i dont find it to be very good and certainly i would rather see cities spend money on things like housing than public art. i was in this place called peabody park and there were dozens of pieces of public art. the best of which were

the plane! the plane!

some sculptures of the transition of a piece of paper into something else. one went from flat paper to a paper airplane and the other from flat paper into an origami star. there were also little pieces like a horse, an owl, a lady with a rose, some things that i didnt really know what they were. and, amazingly, one of bob wad and his dad!

then i continued walking and ended up in the president clinton presidential park. i am pretty sure that is the name for it and that whomever named it wanted to make sure that everyone knew bill clinton was once the president. it is an expansive parks of rolling hills, right on the river, there is a large presidential library and a decommissioned steel bridge that runs right next to it. the bridge was really the best part. eventually they are planning on turning it into and walking path and that will be nice...as if i will ever see it!

something i was surprised to find is that little rock is also headquarters for the international martial arts association or something. they had a nice little public park with lots of art and chinese gates at the entrance. it was a tranquil little place that really has no purpose being somewhere like little rock.

then i went back towards my truck and had to make a decision. i could continue roaming the mean streets of little rock or i could head south. keep on trucking, as it were. it wasnt a very hard decision and i didnt think very long about it. i fired up the truck and set of on highway 30 west. towards texarkana. my plan was to get to texarkana - a moderately sized and well placed city - and enjoy a night there. i figured that it would be somewhat of a place, at least a waystation with, well, things to do. when i arrived i found that my thoughts on this matter were very far from the truth.

lets back up just a moment. somewhere on the way from little rock to texarkana i had to stop and refuel. and this went fine, i was getting decent mileage from these last few days of intense interstate driving, my truck was working hard and i was thankful for that. but when i tried to start up my truck again it made a noise. a protest against my persistence. the noise was, well, like this: screech! just kidding. when your car is already running and you turn the ignition it makes a screaming noise and this was the noise my truck was making - but i wasnt double starting.

i was unhappy about this development and chalked it up to how much work i was putting this beast through. i was hoping that a night of rest would set everything right again. and then i got to texarkana. i was fully prepared to stay here for the night, i exited the expressway and headed south on state line road towards what appeared to be downtown. texarkana is a strange place. it saddles the border between texas and arkansas (hence the name) and it is essentially a ghost town. the downtown area was a few larger building situated around the rail yard but these buildings were unoccupied and the windows were all busted out.

i found a place that i could park for the night, in case the truck didnt want to move again, and then set out on foot to explore this urban wasteland. i walked throughout the downtown area, and eventually to the coffee shop i was aiming for, the place i wanted to sit at it in the morning. however, this place has since closed and i became despondent. here i was with a shitty truck in a dead town in the middle of nowhere. i walked to the post office to mail my postcards and then sat outside for an hour or so reading. at least it was warm out.

with states like these, who needs enemies.

and then i decided i would continue to push on. i came back to my truck and forced it to turn over and got right back on that highway determined to get closer to dallas. i made it to sulphur springs and there i slept in some parking lot off of the expressway. i was still in the middle of nowhere, but it was here that i slept. in the morning i was happy that my truck decided to start again, even if it was getting rougher. back to the expressway.

i had about 70 miles before i would need to refill and dallas was about 85 miles away. i pulled off after about 50 miles, the exit had a hotel that i knew gave free wireless, so i went there and found a place to shoot for once i got into dallas - i didnt dare turn off the engine - and then i went to the gas station to fill up. and i turned the truck off. once the fill up was done so was the truck. it refused to start again. when i turned it over i just got a soft whine - or more like a soft shriek - from under the hood. by this time i had deduced that the problem was the starter. i dont know much about cars, but i whittled the options down to this.

i rolled the truck forward into a motel parking lot and sat there for a few minutes. i got out and popped the hood. i had done this at least three times since this starter noise had began. i still had no idea what i was looking at. i tried starting it again, same thing. i walked around the gas station and surveyed what may have become my new home. there was nothing around, just a random exit on the highway. i contemplated calling AAA and having them come get me and tow me into dallas, i weighed my options. and then i thought to give it one more try.

and voila, the truck started up. the double starting noise was back and i knew that i only had a few more starts in me so i hightailed it into dallas and found the coffee shop i was shooting for and a place to park that would allow me to leave the truck there for a time if necessary. and there it was, i found myself in dallas - for the first time since i was 17.

yes, i have been to dallas once before. it was actually the first road trip that i took - at least that is how i remember it. oh, the internet is such a nice thing. growing up in northwest indiana i always felt there was something more for me, the internet opened the entire world and i ate it up at the time. actually i still eat it up. and it was in my 17 year old mindset that i met a girl named robin on the internet.

we chatted all the time and i thought that maybe she and i would get along pretty good. she was cute, around the same age, and short. i like the short girls. she was short to the tune of 4' 10" and i guess we had some other things in common. i dont really remember too much of it. but i do remember that i was up for the challenge. my car either wasnt working or i didnt trust it enough to make the trip so i borrowed my parents car - the same car that i would steal about a year and a half later and move to new york with.

i highly doubt that i told my parents that i was taking their car to dallas, i didnt tell them much then. and i dont think that i wouldve been allowed to borrow the car if they knew i was going to dallas with it. this was in the summer, i wish i knew how much money i had or a few other details of this. i made the trip in one day, i am pretty sure. i did stop in little rock and in texarkana then, but i dont think i accomplished anything in either place at the time. i rolled into dallas and went to her house. i think she lived in denton but i am not positive of that.

like i said, this was in the summer. and it was hot in dallas. i have never been someone that loves the heat very much and i was instantly sweating. since i was in the car and there was no air conditioning, i decided that i would strip down and drive naked. i was a bit outlandish at the time and this made sense to me. no one could see my lower half, and the expressway was a parking lot. so i took off my top clothes and then wriggled out of my bottom clothes, all while driving on the expressway. i did leave my shoes on. i thought it was hilarious, but i dont think it is something i would readily repeat at this wiser age.

i do remember that the suburb she lived in - with her parents - was posh. i came up to the house and immediately felt out of place, i was wearing tattered clothes and was driving an old hatchback. but she came out of the house, probably perplexed at my arrival, and gave me a big hug. she was a very good hugger and i liked that very much. she invited me inside, i may have met her parents, but we went straight up to her bedroom. and i think this was why i came down there, i was expecting that we would have sex...and this was a big deal for me since i hadnt yet lost my virginity.

but instead, we just talked. probably if i were more confident i could have made some kind of move and realized the things that i wanted, but i am still sometimes dogged by this lack of confidence. i remember her room so vividly, she was very big into tori amos. i was not, at the time i was very much into punk rock and thought her obsession with tori was overwhelming. she was so short and sweet, what added to the effect was that she wore wings wherever she went. like a pixie.

i dont remember us ever leaving her house, but i do remember that i wasnt allowed to sleep over at her house. and that she had a mean boyfriend that she was in the process of breaking up with. so i would sleep in the car in a parking lot somewhere. i think i was only there for two nights. the first day and night was euphoric, we sat and talked on her bed and took a walk, she talked to me about her relationship with the wind and i thought that was pretty cool. the next day i came back to her house and we carried on but she started talking more about her boyfriend and said that she had to think some things through. halfway through the day she said that she needed alone time and asked me to leave her parents house. she said we could resume tomorrow.

my hope was waning. i didnt feel like we were going to get together any longer and i was starting to feel like an idiot for driving so far and so long for something that i wasnt prepared to engage in. and, i didnt know anyone or anything else in dallas so i wasted away the hours in a way that i can no longer remember. walking around downtown, i think i tried to go to a rodeo in fort worth. that night i parked in a parking lot again but it was so hot and the car was so small. so i opened the back door and slept there with my feet hanging out. i can only imagine how it looked. to someone else it looked like i was passed out or dead in the back of this car. and so the cops came.

i was roughly woken up by the police and gruffly informed that i could not sleep here. after they searched the car and determined i was not a threat they left, and left me with a warning. if they caught me again i would be arrested. my mind was stirring. there was a jack in the box fast food restaurant and i had never even seen one of these, let alone been to one. so i went through the drive through and got some food while i contemplated my options. things werent working out with robin, i wasnt having a very good time, and i was probably running out of money. so it was there in the parking lot i set my course back to indiana. i left at 3:am or so and powered through back to my home.

i think i slept for days upon my return. i regaled my friends with my story, i certainly made it into a tall tale at the time, i was prone to do that and no one would know the difference. i am sure i told at least a few people that i had sex with her while i was down there. and as far as robin and i were concerned, our friendship was over. i learned a valuable lesson about the internet: online personalities do not always line up with real life personalities. not that i wouldnt jump off that bridge again, but it was good to know that disappointment is a likely possibility.

i have never talked to robin again, but i wish i knew where she was now, or i had some way to get a hold of her. i would love to see how she turned out, and have her see how i turned out. i have long written this possibility off, i have no identifying information aside from a first name and a metropolitan area that she lived in during 1997. oh well. (and just a note about my lack of memory, earlier i made a post about "my first road trip" to new york with melissa. i think that was actually my second road trip. but, if not, then there are so many bad facts in here, it might as well just be read as fiction.)

and now i am sitting here, trying to find a mechanic to come fix my truck. it will probably cost in the $200 range...so there goes my food budget.

and the good is still good.

2010-01-14T07:43:00.000-08:00

it was just a few days after i set my new high of miles traveled in a day that i broke it. yesterday i left alton, il and drove until the sky was dark with night. i drove until the snow fields gave way to crisp brown fields. i drove almost until i couldnt take it anymore. i drove about 500 miles from alton to little rock arkansas and i am the happier for it.

there was nothing much of note that happened over the seven hour drive. i just sat in the drivers seat and allowed the truck to power me through. a smile grew on my face and blossomed when i finally beat the snow. i was happy when i saw the mississippi flowing again. something that i have to not be happy about is the amount of gas that i burnt through yesterday. i when through almost two tanks of gas and it was the first time that i had filled up twice in one day. the $82 i spent had me wishing that i had gone to south dakota instead.

the second time i filled up, only 40 miles outside of little rock, i took a short break and used the internet to plan where i would get off the expressway for maximum benefit. i needed to do laundry and i was preparing for a cold night so, i wanted to do laundry last night to shorten the time i would be in the truck sleeping. i found a 24 place that was also near a coffee shop that i could visit in the morning. things were looking good. when i got to the laundromat and out of the truck i was hit with a warm surprise.

i had caught up with the weather i had been chasing. it was 8:pm and in the low 40's - sweater weather, my favorite weather. i did the laundry and then drove around for a minute to find a decent place to park the truck. this would be the first time in almost a month that i would be sleeping in the truck and i was nervous/excited. like coming back to an old lover - you know what to expect but it has been so long there is a possibility for surprises. i got in the back and it wasnt cold at all i sat above the covers for awhile, changing into my bedclothes and whatnot.

and then i tucked in and watched a movie in the back there and i was just so happy to be back inside my truck friend. i slept pretty well and was greeting with a warm memory in the morning. and this is a memory that i dont know how many people get to experience, something i have come to relish.

in sleep, i have no idea where i am. i dont recall my dreams very frequently and i would categorize it as just dead sleep. but in the morning, i pop right up ready to start my day. and the memory that i was able to have again was that of waking up in a completely new and strange place...but also a safe place. i knew that as soon as i got out of this truck a whole world that i have never seen before would be awaiting me. the safety and comfort of my familiar truck is a thin veil to the mystery and adventure that awaits me once i open those back doors and greet the day. i love it very much.

and life, thats good too.

oh friend, i trust you to look forward

2010-01-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

and so, eventually i did leave chicago yesterday. i drove slow through the streets that i had come to know well enough to understand where i was...and not need to drive slow because i knew them. so i drove slow symbolically. or maybe habit, i dont know. all i know is that there was a pull to not drive away but the centrifugal force of the vehicle in motion won out the battle of wills. i found the expressway and headed east then south on interstate 55.

i will say this, my truck was happy to be driving for a long stretch at fast speeds. it was happy to get warmed up and have most of the ice fall away from it.

with my new friend dean, in alton.

however, gas has gone up since the last time i had to buy some. i dont know why, but i think it will be cheaper the further south i get or the warmer it gets.

i drove a stretch of about 300 miles, south to alton, illinois. i think it was the longest stretch of driving i had done on this entire trip - about 6 hours (there were some stops in there). i rolled into alton just after 6:pm and called my friend alison. it was strange to see her again. it was about 5 months earlier when i saw her last and so much had transpired in my life to get me to this point. i guess this is the beginning of the retrospective part of my trip. where i visit some places and people that i had earlier on this trip and try to reconcile who i was with who i am and become who i want to be.

or something deep like that.

i met alison at her parents house where she is staying for a week or so. she just got back from a trip to costa rica and is soon on her way to ireland. i certainly wasnt excited about the idea of staying at someone else's parents house so i had thought about just skipping over this place. or just stopping for a couple of hours and then driving on to little rock or dallas or something like that. but, she arranged for us both to stay with her friends liz and dean.

and so, after being at her parents house for a couple of minutes - petting the cat - we were of again heading to another strange house in a strange places filled with strangers. luckily i have this switch that i can turn on that will make me a funny person and fun to be around. i turned on this switch and fell into the favor of liz and dean rather quickly. i was only planning on staying in alton for two nights but by the end of our night together liz was offering for me to live in the unfinished basement of her house.

we were at their house for awhile, and then we went out to explore some alton establishments. we made a path to fast eddies. this is a period restaurant, and an alton landmark. the draw is that the food here is all the same price it was 25 years ago when they started selling food...the drink prices, however, have inflated. so we sat there for a few drinks, acclimating ourselves to one another and just having a good time.

after this i wanted to go to a place called norbs. i wanted this because they had been talking about it and tonight was 75 cent draft night. we were supposed to party this night - get wild - and i thought it would be an okay thing to get real drunk as a way to reintroduce myself to the hard life of the road. but, alton is a small town and the people i was with grew up here. which means that going to any bar (and there are only bars and casinos in alton) is a guaranteed invitation to spend some face time with the people you grew up with, went to high school with, and sometimes dont even like anymore.

nearly immediately upon arriving alison had picked out at least one person she wanted to avoid. dean had been a regular here before and knew a number of the patrons and the bar staff - he put on some butterfly wings and socialized a bit. liz spotted some girl who she had a spat with in high school (she beat up her fake baby in the see-how-well-you-can-take-care-of-a-fake-baby class) so she went to apologize for that. i found this entire scenario absolutely hilarious and fell right in. this being a small town, everyone thinks they know one another. so i fell into that and insisted that some people had met me here before and they fell for the rouse.

one of the people that i convinced we had met each other at this very bar a couple of weeks ago, my friend paul owens, was also the person that alison particularly did not want to see. i received some reprimanding looks for commiserating with this fool. we didnt stay there very long, i had played my favorite jukebox song but didnt get to listen to it. thats okay, the joy of the song is watching the people in the bar listen to it but i can content myself knowing that the tree falling in the forest will still make a sound if i am not there to hear it.

then we came back to liz and deans house and just hung out for awhile. we drank some more beer, they smoked some pot, and we just talked and it was fun. dean is a hilarious person. he reminds me of my step-father gordon albeit 25 years younger. he talks about some very random things and will just keep talking about them, even if no one is really paying attention. it is a good quality for him. he talks about random things like music and books. gordon focuses on the weather and sports, so it becomes very redundant and boring quickly.

something about being in the small town where everyone knows each other is the gossip. it is amazing, how in depth people are about people that are peripheral. who is married and divorced, birthdays, who got into a fight or is cheating on who. all of these things. i have never paid much attention to them, but i do enjoy hearing other people talk about these things. i find it interesting and funny.

bob wad

in the morning we played some wii fit. it was liz's birthday and she received this as a present. they set it up and we played this for some time. alison had gone to school and i was left alone with dean and liz - two people i had just met the previous night, in their home, alone. these are not situations that i like to get myself into, but everything was okay. being a morning person, i like to allow people to have their mornings with some sanctity. but here i was just hanging out. everything was okay.

when alison came back we went out for lunch and then proceeded on the grand tour of alton. the first stop on the tour was the statue and chair of robert wadlow. bob wad to those in the know. he has a statue and a chair because he is the tallest man in recorded history. and he was from alton. he stood 8' 11" and it is a fun tourist experience to stand next to this tall person and compare yourself. or sit in the very large chair and think about what you would say to such a tall man if you were to ever meet him. he died from a foot blister. strange.

after that we went to a cemetary to where there is a statue of an abolitionist newspaperman. then to missouri. alton is situated on the mississippi river at the

the antarctic ice wastes

missouri border. this trip was purely for my benefit. the mississippi had mostly frozen over and the surface of it looked as if you could walk across it. this was untrue, but the surface of the river was all jagged and like a frozen wasteland from the barges pushing through and shifting the ice. we went to an island preserve and i was able to get some good shots of the ice wastelands. it reminds me of what the ice wastelands from the mortal engines quartet (probably my favorite book series) would look like.

i had fun out here and was truly amazed by how thick the ice chunks were and the enormity of it all. after this we went to the square where lincoln and douglas had a debate. to refresh everyones memory, douglas won this debate. then to the piasa bird caves. the legend of the piasa bird is that 1000 moons before the pale faces arrived a great bird beast lived in this cave. it satisfied itself with lesser animals until some native americans stumbled into the cave and the bird ate them. then it had the taste for human flesh and all hell broke loose.

the piasa bird painting

eventually the native chief prayed and a solution to this piasa bird situation came to him. he would stand in front of the cave egging on the bird and twenty of his finest warriors would be in the wait - guerilla warfare style - to shoot the bird down with poison arrows. this rouse worked and the dying birds body cascading harmlessly into the river and sank to the bottom/floated away. convenient for them - no evidence left. however, the cave system was still in existence. dean and i shimmied around a fence and went on some amateur spelunking. i like adventure and was happy and scared to be in these caves. they were huge, and went very deep for a very long time. we only walked a couple hundred yards into them. there was detritus strewn around from the various parties of local teenagers and undoubtedly the population of people who called these caves home.

this was about the end of the tour. we drove past a mansion said to be haunted and apparently featured on ghost hunting shows. it wasnt very exciting. then we were back to the house. we played wii fit some more and then dean and liz went out for dinner to her sisters house to celebrate her birthday. alison and i hung back and after a little bit of hula hooping and other things we went out to do the alton bar scene. we went to the regal beagle where i ate the robert wadlow sandwich. we had a few drinks here and then we were on to the ranch house. we sat there for a drink and commiserated with the locals and then came back to liz and deans house to play some uno.

it took awhile to get the uno game started, what with all of these computers and the wii around. eventually we started the uno game, but we didnt play regular uno. we played some uno slap game that required a computer to tell everyone when to play and stuff. it was a bit confusing and not as much fun as regular uno. dean and i crapped out and then everyone was mad for a little bit. so we watched some late night television and spent more time on the computers. it is a nice change up to be here, a good start to life on the road again.

today, however, i continue heading south. my plan is to go to little rock, arkansas. i put out a feeler to a person i met from there a number of years ago, but after researching the weather i feel fairly confident that it is warm enough there at night to sleep in my truck if necessary. and i guess now i really start being on my trip again. these are real nice people that i got to fall in with and it is a great thing to regularly be surrounded by nice people and generally be taken care of. it will be a strange thing when i get back to "real life" and have to do something about it.

what do i want, i wish that i knew // i dont know the future, i wish that i did

2010-01-11T10:07:00.000-08:00

i live this life and complete this journey with a heavy heart. i have sat and stared at this screen for the better part of an hour trying to find a way to put my thoughts and feelings into some cohesive update about this thing called life. for all intensive purposes i have been out on the road for eight months now, i have come and gone through hundreds of places and in a number of them i have met with my old friends or made new friends and my mind is clouded about my intentions and my future.

once an idea is set into motion the easiest and usually most logical action is to allow it to follow through that motion to its end. and so, i am leaving chicago. it doesnt get easier, it isnt getting easier.

lets have a review of the past days - this should be easier than finding and applying big words to veil my feelings. so. the other night i was excited, i had a good thursday night with my friend mike and his lady friend vicki, not my usual thing, but that added to its awesomeness. the next day i found myself still in the city of chicago, and since i was here i decided i should see this band that i had found on my trip and came to like very much.

the band is called mucca pazza chicago's own punk rock marching band. i got in touch with a number of my friends int he city and rallied them to attend what would probably be an amazing show. after a number of text messages and other communication i had rallied a number of people to the cause. satisfied, i went about my night. the show wasnt set to start until 10:pm and i had to occupy that time. however, halfway through my time occupation i was alerted to the fact that the show this evening was sold out.

i called the club and asked if they could sneak a couple of people through the back door. they laughed (it is always worth a shot to ask these silly things, the audacity of it has about an 8% chance of working and that is much higher than the 0% chance if you didnt ask), but informed me they didnt have a back door. i tried to call my friend diane to see if she could work some of her old contacts to get us into a sold out show. unfortunately she was in mexico at the time and nothing could be worked out.

so, i had to disband the troops and rework the evening. i went over to vaughndas and proceeded to spend the evening with her. we went to a bar in her neighborhood called the burlington. it had nice ambiance but i felt it was much too loud for its small size. the patrons werent very friendly either. at one point i got yelled at by a lady named robin because i was listening in on and even joining her conversation. but that is something that happens at bars, people mingle and meet one another. their conversation wasnt all that interesting, so i was glad when they walked away.

later we went back to her apartment and had a nice night of sleeping next to one another. this is something i have missed quite a bit being on this trip for so long so i ate it up. we had a nice morning and went back to the handlebar for breakfast. then we took a nice walk around wicker park. we talked about some of the building architecture and the unsightliness of new modern construction in old neighborhoods. this was something i had some knowledge about, having been the land-use chairperson for my neighborhood and helping to raise awareness about these new constructions and even fighting the designs within the city government. like a mini-politician.

we went into an art gallery and into a small bakery with ornate confections. it was just really nice to walk around for awhile with this wonderful person and share a day of life together. i was happy. later we went back to her apartment and napped together. i dont think i have ever napped with someone else before - napping is not something i am built for - but i enjoyed the experience. and then i left to go meet up with some friends.

these people, nick and heidi, are good people. i had been trying to get together with nick all week long, but he was summarily ignoring all of my attempts. eventually he admitted to having the sickness and this was the reason he isolated himself. i accepted his reasons, i was just happy that we got to see one another before i left. we went to the fireman bar near their apartment, just for a drink, and then formulated a plan for the evening and set off to actualize it.

that plan was karaoke. it is something that for most of my life i was deathly afraid of and readily railed against its merits. now, things are different. it is still sometimes hard for me to get that first song in, nerves, but after that first song is in i am all about it and want to sing more. we went to a place called the hidden cove. it is a little dive bar that features karaoke every night. and not very fancy karaoke. the books are at the end of the bar, you sign yourself up on a sheet and the bartender just yells out the names in the order they are written down and punches in a song.

there are two video screens and one microphone. the mic is situated center stage amid a laser show. i like that they arent even trying to be fancy. i did make my first karaoke enemy early on in the night. i was trying to enter in some songs on the list for me to sing, but he was hoarding the sign up sheet. i asked for it from him and he said that he was using it, but really he was jut flipping through the books. eventually he came over to me with the sign up sheet, but took over the book i had open to my page and started looking again for his song. this incident was a preview to how obnoxious he would be throughout the night.

he sang first-ish - he was the first i remember. he sang eye of the tiger, and had some gusto but did a poor job of it. quickly after that i was up with my first song, born to run! i had never sang this song at karaoke but have listened to it heartily in the style of paul baribeau and ginger alford. we video recording a number of our selections. i have wathed them and deemed them a bit too hilarious and of poor quality to post anywhere yet. maybe as easter eggs of the special edition dvd of my life. i went on to sing my way and the boys are back in town. nick sang i wanna sex you up and tennessee. we were kicked out before heidi had a chance to sing.

i wanted the fact that we were kicked out to conjure some wicked or sinister dealings that we engaged in to get kicked out of a dive karaoke bar. alas, it wasnt our fault - the being kicked out. at some point a lady was leaning back on her chair and caught herself - but not the chair - before it slammed backward and busted the front window of the bar. songs went on for about ten minutes after this occurred, but eventually the bar people said that it was hazardous and everyone had to leave, the bar was being shut down and an emergency team was coming to board up the window.

it was midnight, i was tired, but we kept on a little bit. we went back tot he black rock where i was staying that night. alex was just done with work and having a drink. so the three of us joined him. shortly mike tsirtsis showed up and we were all hanging out. it was nice, this was what i had been trying to make happen in the previous week to have my friends come together and all hang out. later, alex's ex-wife, tiffany, showed up. i hadnt seen her for quite awhile and the story of how they met is a part of our history and a funny thing.

and since i will never have another reason to recollect it, i will do it now.

oh, to be seventeen. i have written about my forays into the seedy night life of a teenager in northwest indiana. late night coffee shops and shows in the city. well, it happened one night that i was at the late night coffee shop with alex, and maybe some other people. at a table somewhat near us existed a group of girls from whiting. i dont think we knew them at all, but we had seen them there before. tiffany was certainly the cutest of the group.

she and her gang left before us. i had a recognizable car back in the day and an outgoing personality - i was arrogant. so it was easy for most people to identify me and my ride. and, by extension, the people that were with me. i know i write this as if i were some kind of mastermind of a group of indiana outcasts - the leader of the doomed. that probably isnt true, but since my memory is hazy and i have to write about these things we'll just have to live with my perspective on it.

as alex and i were leaving we came up to my car and found a note on it. it was under the windshield, on the drivers side, and i picked it up and read it. it was from tiffany. it said something about hanging out at some point and gave her phone number. i was elated by this, it is nice to be noticed. i let alex read the note and then we debated about who she left the note for. me or alex. i was dead positive that she had left the note for me, and alex didnt put up much of a fight on that point but he did make an argument. he said something along the lines of me being able to get any girl that i wanted (which is patently untrue) and he wasnt able too. he asked me to give him the note and let him call her back so he could ride along whatever wave this path of life offered him.

i acquiesced. they started hanging out and eventually dating one another. then they got pregnant, got married (i was asked to be the best man, but declined), got a house, had a kid, and got divorced. sometimes i still joke with alex that tiffany had meant that note for me and he should just turn over his son to me. 12 years later, i am sure alex still has that note somewhere. and although i have been gone a lot he is still a good friend. thats awesome.

so we were all sitting at the bar and just having a good time. the bar closed and we stayed on after close. we eventually called it a night around four in the morning. i wasnt very drunk, but i was tired and was elated about the evening. i had written that my day was so good that my night would have a hard time living up to it. the night put up a good fight.

and then sunday morning happened. i woke up late and went out to my truck. i turned it over and it started for a moment then died. i tried again and nothing. i was freaked out. were the gods toying with me saying ever so subtlety that i shouldnt leave chicago - they would make every effort to impede my progress? luckily the gods are no match for jumper cables. i took alex's car to my truck and jumped my vehicle, making it go. i was relieved. i sat at the bar for a little bit, mostly just resting on the couches int he back. i ate some breakfast and then showered - preparing myself for my final date with vaughnda johnson.

i had been thinking about it since i got up, probably since the night before, maybe even since i left indiana. that one day i would have to break off from this wonderful experience and keep going south. the knowledge of this impending end did little to lessen the blow of it becoming a real thing. she had a figure drawing class, and met me at black rock when it was over. we went out for lunch (i wasnt hungry, so i ordered the cheapest thing - menudo. stomach lining soup. i do not recommend it.)

after she asked me to come back to her apartment to neck with her for a couple of hours. i thought that was a good idea, and i liked that she asked to neck instead of make-out or something. she is a nice lady. and so we spent our final hours together, enjoying each other and having some wonderful bed talk. but it all had to end. it just had too. she had to go to a dance rehearsal and well, i didnt have anything to do. i drove her to the dance rehearsal. it was a generally quiet ride. i wasnt really at-the-ready with something witty or something that would change the fact that this was the last time we would see one another.

once we were at the dance space, we kissed a few times in the car. i did inform her that she was not getting away without some romantic embrace and kiss in the glare of the headlights and cold of the night. and then that was it. she walked to the door of her rehearsal space and i sat in my truck. i turned down the music and went back to the bar in silence. sigh.

at the bar, i found alex with his work friends. they were preparing to go out to eat somewhere, i asked alex if he wanted to just hang out with me. and the reason is because alex is such an awesome friend to me. he gives me a place to stay, helps to make my first date with vaughnda even happen, makes me food and is just my friend for better or worse. and since most of my time in the city i had been with vaughnda and he had been working, i thought it would be nice to just spend some time together, find some way to show my appreciation for him being a part of my life.

but we ended going out with his friends to a taco bar in wicker park. the draw, they said, was that it was very cheap and very good. living on a negative income, my idea of cheap is much different than these bar people who make $300 a night or more in tips. the tacos, small as they were, were $2 or more apiece. the beer was $3 a can. i ordered very little while the people around me ordered a whole bunch, they talked about work and i just sat there in silence. it wasnt much fun for me. but, i am not sure that any kind of group activity wouldve been fun for me.

by the time we had left i had spent $11 - which is a lot for me to spend on food. the three of them had spent about $120. including shots of tequila and whiskey that were $10 each. absolutely ridiculous. i was happy when alex dropped them off at another bar and i didnt have to be with them anymore. alex was going back to indiana so he dropped me back at the black rock. we sat and had a cigarette in his car. in my way i told him how much i appreciated his kindness and then gave him back his key. the end was upon me.

i went upstairs and gathered up my meager things, preparing myself for life on the road again. life in the cold heading into an uncertain future. who knows, maybe this time it will be different.

my problems arent really all that bad

2010-01-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

well, i had a night. i guess i have a bit of a confession to make: i make all of the choices in my life. this snowstorm that came over this region really wasnt all that bad, i couldve driven away in it and i coudve slept in the back of my truck and things would have been fine. instead, i saw what was in front of me and made the choice to stay longer. i will own up to that.

snow in chicago!

i was getting down on myself a bit yesterday, after (again) running my destinations and mileage through a map and contrasting that with my current available funds. i was trying to make myself feel bad for staying longer in this city, living with opulence. and so it was like this when i connected with my old friend mike tsisrtsis yesterday. i was sitting at a bar drinking slowly, enjoying the drink but also making it last. he called me.

we had tried to get together before while i have been here, but our planets were not aligning. last night was different. he and his lady friend, vicki, came to meet me at the bar. we sat there for a drink, catching up. mike is another person that i went to high school with, it is nice that a number of the friends that i had in high school are still good people. and they are still into hanging out with me even though i havent made any effort to be a friend for the majority of the last twelve years or so.

the memorable bonding moment that mike and i had was shooting videos together in high school for some dumb class. i think i have expounded on how ridiculous i thought high school was and how i didnt really go and that, but this class asked us to be creative. i was into that. so, the two of us (along with whomever else had the misfortune of being paired with us) set off to make some hilarious commercial for fictional products. this experience certainly anchored our friendship. one of the videos was about shuttlecocks (becuase being 17 and in high school who wouldnt want to seize the opportunity to say cock a whole bunch of times), and when i was at the kansas city art museum i sent mike pictures of the shuttlecocks there.

the fact that he lived less than two blocks away from me certainly didnt hurt our high school friendship. we would smoke pot and do other drugs together often. you know, the things kids do. anyway.

so, i saw mike when i visited last time...but he didnt make very good company. he was very wasted, this time he was not. so it was nice to sit in the bar with him and vicki for a beer and catch up. knowing that i am on a budget he suggested that we go to a bar near vickis apartment where we could drink for next to nothing. i was down with that. i tried to pay my tab, but mike insisted on picking it up for me, i packed up my things and dropped my bag off at the apartment. then we drove away to the next bar.

the snowstorm had come upon us, it was snowing and there was plenty of snow on the ground. i was nervous to leave my truck, but i just figured that i could move it whenever i got back from this bar. i wasnt looking to be out all night and i have never really liked staying at random places or waking up in the morning and not knowing where i am at. probably the scariest thing for me would be to wake up in a weird room and not know where i was or why i was there. i would probably wake up and sit there for hours listening, trying to ascertain that no one else was around before i sneaked away. anyway.

we got the bar, it was called the lion head pub. and it was packed. almost immediately we were greeted by jill, mikes little sister. i felt bad because she remembered who i was, including my name, and i couldnt remember hers. had mike not

mike and i

told me it was his sister i would not have known. then we sidled throughout the bar towards the end of it where there were some seats open. i walked away to the bathroom and tried to get myself together a little bit.

it is true that i do well in social situations, but it is not without effort. so, in the bathroom - which had an attendant and everything, fancy - i discussed some finances with myself and worked out about how much i could spend and about how long i could stay at the bar with them. however, shortly after coming back i had to throw all of that financial planning away. mike illuminated for me the nature of our business here. vicki works there part-time as a server, in addition to being a kindergarten teacher. and mike was the manager of this bar for a fair amount of time up until very recently. next to nothing meant we were drinking for free. there was a beer waiting for me, i was still in sipping mode, but that shortly evaporated.

and i dont know what happened. it was only about 8:pm or so when we got to this bar and we didnt leave until almost 2:am. we talked, and drank, eventually food was brought to us, and i just took it all in and enjoyed myself. i just keep getting in line for the ride of life and am constantly amazed by how good it is. the bartenders kept bringing us beers. they would bring them to me while my current beer was still half full and i willed myself to drink faster. after i went outside to smoke i came in to a shot waiting for us.

i am not a big shot. i will just leave that sentence as it is, it looks good. i dont do shots very often, but it was waiting, and my friends were ready with their shots. i didnt think to question what it was until after i took it - it just made sure it wasnt a tidal wave. after drinking it i was informed it was some kind of flavored rum, with red bull. i am also not an energy drink person. i like to think i have plenty of energy without them and if my body says it needs to shut down, i like letting it. but not so this night.

around midnight, after two more shots and at least as many beers, i was curious about the upstairs. it was a place called the apartment and it had very good drink specials. not that we needed them, but $1 drafts is a good special for a fancy bar in the city. the apartment is a dance club, and it looked like it might be hopping up there. i wanted to go up there, i could dance. mike insisted that he was not a dancer, but vicki said she would grind me. so that was settled.

mike asked for the bill - we had to close out before going upstairs. with nine shots, 12-15 beers, and two rounds of food our bill came out to $12. i offered to pay, but again i was shut down. we gathered our things and went upstairs. it wasnt as packed up there as i thought it would be, and there werent very many people dancing, but i was into it. the place is set up to give the effect of being in an apartment, so there are couches and soft things all around as well as another bar. mike gravitated to this bar and we were awarded with another round of shots and more beer. jesus.

vicki and i

mike was determined not to dance, so vicki and i went out on the dance floor and engaged in some booty dancing. now, i am not very good at this, i dont know any of the songs and i cannot keep a rhythm for the life of me. but i did it because it was fun. i wanted mike to dance with vicki though, so we went over to the bar and i tried to show mike some of the moves. it was a bit awkward for me grinding on his lady, holding her hips, slapping her ass and such right in front of mike. eventually he got the idea. so i was left to dance by myself. that was certainly much less fun.

then we all danced together for a little bit, performing moves like the ever popular sandwich. luckily they were ready to leave after being upstairs for an hour and a half or so. vicki did have to go teach six year olds in the morning after all. by this time i was drunk. and happy. mike pointed me towards the brown line and then he and vicki walked in the other direction. when i got to fullerton, i was supposed to turn and walk to the brown line, pay the $2, and then get off after a couple of stops. this seemed ridiculous to me at the time.

i remembered driving here and it wasnt that far. and, since it was snowing, it wasnt even that cold. so i kept on walking up lincoln avenue. the snow was thick at my feet and my shoes are certainly not meant to be sloshing through snow. after a couple of blocks this seemed like a bad idea, i felt like i should have been much further along than i was. so i started running. eventually i came upon a group of people and i invaded them. i confirmed that i was walking the proper direction towards addison, but they informed me that it was much too far of a walk. one of the ladies buttoned up my jacket for me, i thought that was hilarious.

i assured them that a couple of miles would not pose a problem to me and with the knowledge that i was going in the right direction i trudged on. after a couple more blocks i was not a happy walker. i saw a cab and i just opened the door and started talking to him. after a moment i noticed that he already had a passenger so i asked him which way he was going. the light turned green and he drove away without telling me.

i walked on and i saw a lone person on the other side of the street. i yelled to him "ADDISON?" he said it was only a couple more blocks, then i yelled "DAMEN" and he said i was close. i thanked him. then i crossed the street and came upon a person shoveling snow. i asked him if he would walk in front of me and shovel a path. he said no. but that was okay, i could see the bar that i started the night at! i ran towards it and was satisfied that i knew where i was and that i was indeed close. finally i was back to the apartment, about an hour after i started.

but now i had a whole new dilemma. here is my dumb truck, parked on damen right under a sign that says "no parking if there is more than 2 inches of snow" i spent a fair amount of time debating what this sign meant. two inches of snow on the street? in general? would i get a ticket or would i get towed? setting better judgment aside i decided that i didnt want to risk having my truck towed, so i got in it and started it up. the heat felt nice and i think i fell asleep a little bit in there, but then i awoke and told myself i would drive down the two side streets and if there wasnt parking there i would just leave the truck to the fates of damen.

i drove around the block, and there wasnt parking. so i just parked the truck right back where it was and called it a night. i went upstairs and peeled off my wet clothes and reflected a bit about the night. and i got excited, since i hadnt spent any money this night i could justify going to see a show i wanted to catch tonight. i wasted no time in sending a drunken text message to a few friends that i would like to come with me. satisfied, i turned out the light and went to sleep.

in the morning my teeth felt disgusting. like i had just eaten twenty packages of smarties and the sugar residue was stuck on all of my teeth, i dislike red bull. i wanted nothing more than to brush my teeth. i gathered my things and went upstairs. but for whatever reason there was no water. this wasnt ideal - i wouldve like to wash my face as well - but i have been in worse situations, i got the sick residue out of my mouth and just had to settle with having some toothpaste left in my mouth until i could find running water. a small price to pay.

i'm about to leave again; i knew i was leaving

2010-01-06T13:13:00.000-08:00

when diane and i were out the other night we talked heartily of my new friend vaughnda. we certainly devoured and demolished the topic of our dates until they were barely recognizable. the happiness that came over me was visible and so i gushed everything i could. it was good, she gave me perspectives that i wouldnt have easily fallen upon and she gave me her opinion of some of the various ideas i had from the position of being a woman.

since i will be leaving soon and our face time would be short lived i needed to come up with some sweet things to do while i am away to let her know that i am still thinking of her. some of the things diane shot down, some she admitted would be sweet. at the time it was ambiguous if vaughnda and i would see one another again before i left.

she had come down with the sickness and needed time to rest and recuperate. i can be voracious and never ending but everyone knows i have to leave. even if no one wants it to happen, we all know it must. so i had made a mix cd for my friend and promised to lend her a book that i have been carting around since adolescence. if i werent able to see her again, how would these things come to be in her possession. i worked out some plans for that to happen, but it wasnt necessary in the end.

the ambiguity of our union dissolved throughout the day. through email messages and texts, we made plans to see each other again last night after she had gotten off work. so i had a day to prepare. i have been coming to this nice little coffee shop, just north of where i am staying, to write and relax each day. so i weathered some time there and then went back tot he apartment to shower and change. then i decided to be proactive.

my brother had given me this neat little video camera. i employed it a couple of times on my second date with vaughnda - while we were ice skating - but those videos came out rather choppy. they convey the fun and excitement but arent really pleasurable to watch. and since i had this thing and time, and i had promised my brother to use it, i started this new thing.

sitting in alex's bedroom i recorded my first "video blog." as of right now i dont know how people can view them aside from facebook, but i might start a youtube account or something if i keep going with them. so, in the dim room i sat and talked about my current state of mind and the oddity of video documentation versus writing. i like writing more, who wants to watch themselves fidget for words? i could just get a mirror and watch my face as i type. but these videos arent really for me, they are for my brother.

and with my first video completed i decided to jump right into video blog number two. there is a place in the city of chicago called the fireside bowl. i have driven past it each time i have gone to or from vaughndas apartment. in my youth, i went to this place at least once a month and for a spell i was going every weekend. but i didnt go for the bowling, i dont even think the lanes were ever open in those days. this place operated as an all ages punk club. and i was (or really wanted to be) punk.

the fireside bowl

so i drove to this place, paced in front of the building for ten minutes while i recorded some memories of my time there. it was fun, and funny - hilarious i daresay. it was a fun thing to do and i think i will like using it more as i continue these travels.

afterwards i went to a bar and finished the mix that i made for vaughnda. it was nearing the time that she would come meet me and i needed these things to be done should i not see her again before i left. when i finished up there, i headed back over to the black rock where she would be meeting me after she got off work. i had a drink there and just sat. i am getting tired of sitting in bars. half past six she showed up. it was similar to the first time i saw her walk through the door. i tried to look more casual than i was feeling as she came up and then i received a surprise.

she greeted me with a kiss. that was very sweet and unexpected. we sat at the bar while i finished my drink and talked. she had been very sick the night before i happy that she was risking her health a bit more to spend time with me. she wanted to see the hovel that i had been staying in, so i took her upstairs and walked her through the apartment. i felt a bit embarrassed because it was such a mess, but it isnt my place, it is just where i am staying.

then we went out for dinner. we sat at a small table and i was able to stare into her stunning blue eyes, i liked that. then we went back to her place and enjoyed each others company for the evening. i was happy. i did have to tell her that i read up about her birthday and her birthday was listed as an important date to me - a fatal attraction. we laughed about that for a bit. we laid together in bed for a long time, and eventually fell asleep together.

we woke up early and laid together longer. she was still feeling very sick and called off work, eventually i had to leave. as much as i enjoyed sitting there with her, she would be better served getting good rest so i wrenched myself together and away. i went back to the apartment and helped the guys working there for a little bit before setting off to my favorite coffee shop to contemplate my future. i have to leave here soon, there are still some people i would like to see, but i need to stop convincing myself to stay longer.

the contrast of decay

2010-01-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

well, i spent last night at the bars with some friends. mostly i spent the night talking to my old friend diane curtis. our connections to one another is an interesting thing. when i was younger, 16 or 17 years old, i would spend many evenings at an all night coffee shop aptly named "round the clock." i wasnt the only one. in addition to the friends i would come with there were numbers of other groups. kids from different schools, or older kids that were out of school.

it worked out okay for me. i would stay up all night long drinking coffee, reading, talking with random people, certainly being arrogant and annoying. and in the morning i would either not go to school or go there and just sleep through my classes. my parents were very lax and i was never admonished for this night life. its true i felt i was better than other people. even though i slept through many of my classes i was able to pass them all and even manage good grades in some of them. at one point i was put in honors english but the teacher thought me flippant and brash and sent me back to the regular class. i did good in that one, somewhere i still have the stories that i wrote for my creative writing classes. probably not so good now, but at the time they worked. probably, if i wouldve applied myself more, i would be smart by now.

but this isnt what i am even talking about! in my nights at this coffee shop i met many people, my personality stood out almost as much as my hair. there were a group of people, mostly ladies, that came from other places that also hung out there and people that i went with, mostly guys, allowed nature to run its course and we ended up becoming friends with each other.

within this new group of people existed diane curtis. we are almost exactly the same age other than that we were about as opposite as two people could be. she was logical and reserved. i was random and daring. how the two of us became and remained friends over these years is still beyond me. of these groups of people squashed together, i still talk to two of the guys that i would come with and just one of these ladies that we met.

during those formative years we spent a fair amount of time together, i met her parents and we became friends. even though she shopped at the gap and i wore the same tattered shirt every single day. i think we offered each other a good perspective on different ways to live. when i left in 1999 we stayed in touch, she was friends with my family and they would also keep up with one another. when i came back in 2001 we fell back into a friendship. we worked with some dumb band, she as the manager and me as the sound technician (i was never very good at it, but in later days when i was doing radio work this previous experience came in handy).

and in the year and a half that i spent back in indiana we became pretty good friends. when my wits end had been reached and i felt about ready to burst in the capsizing region of rusted dreams i found a way out. that way out was a one way ticket to portland, or. leaving again wasnt as sad as it should of been, but that could have been because of the barrier i had built between myself and the people that cared about me. a barrier of empty beer cans and liquor bottles.

before i left she gave me a parting gift that i still have and will never forget. it is one of the nicest most thoughtful gifts i have ever received. it was a simple little photo album filled with pictures of our past together and stories of our unlikely friendship. she had things going back to before we had even met each other when she and her friends would simply talk about the wierd guys that hung out at the coffee shop every night, before she even knew my name. and the photos worked all the way up to the parties that we were having as i was preparing to leave.

diane, now

and then i left to a wonderful world in portland. i was there for a couple of months and, to my surprise, diane wanted to come visit me. i hadnt been there long, but i had been through some interesting things since i moved there. its funny, all throughout this trip and on this blog i have been writing about my memories and past but i havent yet elucidated on my arrival and first few months in portland. i will have to get to that sometime...

so she came to visit. and i was confused about her intentions, like a dumb guy i assumed that she wanted to be with me. that her desire to visit me burnt from some long felt love that she had for me and as she saw her chances slipping away she was making a last grasp dying effort. i couldnt have been more left of center. and my mistake was admitting to her that i knew why she had come and that i wasnt interested in a sexual relationship. that led to a bit of a strained relationship for a bit - mostly because i was embarrassed by my arrogance/ignorance.

but, although i felt like a bad person for awhile, it was a good thing for me to learn. the lesson was that i am an idiot and although i oftentimes think i know everything and am more perceptive than anyone around me that simply is not true. that the people around me will be honest with their feelings and i need to believe them and their intentions, instead of reading into things in such a way that validates my ego trust the world that exists around me to unfold properly. basically, to be less of an idiot.

shortly after she left portland i decided to destroy everything that had propped me up for the majority of my life and start anew. my method for achieving this was to disappear from all of my friends and family. to this end, i stopped writing in my journal at the time, drafted a letter that elaborated my feelings toward the world at the time and sent it to everyone. i knew and cared about. this included my mother and father, my brother and sister, diane, alex and a few other friends that i was still keeping up with. and, although embarassing, since the letter still exists i will repost it here for general laughter:

"Life has never really attracted me. Or, maybe at one time it did and now it doesn’t because I've wiped a few layers of shit off of my eyes. And I begin to actually see. This isn’t something that just happened out of nowhere. It has been cultivating inside me for years and I've just never really understood how to process it. Attempts have been made to inject myself into society and flourish with it, the two of us growing and learning, changing together. I have finally realized that is not possible right now. The attempts have been shut-down and sometimes I feel lesser

me, now.

because of what I put myself through. I don’t like to give up on things. With what I am doing now, it doesn’t feel like giving up...more like growing up and above this world of lies that constantly tries to pull me back into it. I feel very good about what I am doing, this symbolic death. Societal death. These attachments (...) that draw me into this hell are being left behind. I no longer connect with that which I leave, and these things unconsciously hold me back...I've let them, but no longer. Thanks for understanding (if you do, but if you did then these words probably wouldn’t reach you...whatever). Peace.Love. "

that was written on february 20th 2003. and after sending out that letter i went ahead and dropped out of society. i destroyed my license, got rid of my cell phone, emptied my bank account, and whatever else i could do to remove myself from the system and make it hard to locate me. (in 2005 i had to work to reclaim my identity...that was a very hard thing to do. all i had was a non authentic looking birth certificate, mail, and a library card. that isnt enough things to even get a bank account.) this lasted for about nine months. but in that nine months, i immersed myself in the protest movement. i fell in with the portland indymedia collective, went to a number of protests and started becoming an organizer for these things. and i was pretty good at it. at least i think i was, i was diligent and restless and those were necessary qualities to possess when fighting a battle that you will most often lose.

so i grew up and became my own person. it was late november 2003 when i talked to my parents again. i had recently met emily, i had helped organize and carry out a successful protest against the ftaa in miami, and i was elated. i had also just smoked pot for the first time in years (thanks carlos), everything was going well and i just felt it was time. i borrowed a cell phone and called my dad. i think they were happy to hear from me.

in the years that have proceeded i learned about what my family and friends went through while i was exploring the new world i wanted to be a part of being free and traveling. my mom had thought i joined a cult and seriously contemplated sending my brother to oregon to look for me. my stepmom would call diane and ask her whether or not she had heard anything from me, i think my dad told me he thought about hiring a private detective. and no one understood why i had done what i did. honestly, i didnt really understand it so much either at the time, i was mostly just working off of soemthing i read in a book.

after my experiences i had a different outlook on where i came from and the people i came up with. i still felt better than them (i wont get to it in this post, but i no longer feel than i am better than people, i have been humbled since my younger days and have a much more even outlook on life) and i am sure i gloated way too much about my experiences. anyway, diane stuck with me throughout all of these things. all of the times i would disregard her, or treat her poorly, or insult her intentions, she stayed even and allowed me some grace to get over whatever i was working with.

and that is a quality of great friendship, something that is pretty rare and i surely appreciate. so, last night we got to hang out together again. (in this post i am omitting the second time i broke off communication with diane...some other time.) and it was real nice. she was interested to hear more about my dates with vaughnda because she could tell it was making me very happy. it was nice to tell her the things that i was feeling and the experiences i had shared with vaughnda and then get her perspective on them. as i said, her perspective is much different from mine.

and i wanted to know more about her relationship with her man. they have been together for 6 years, and i dont know much about their union. i want to know. also, i wanted to hear about sweet things that long time couples do for and with one another to keep a relationship interesting. having come out of a long term relationship that waned in excitement and interest toward to the end, i was interested to hear some tips and tricks from the other side. also, i like getting diane to talk about these things because she is a pretty reserved person. (many of the things she told me last night i had to swear not to write in my blog...)

she and i talked through her drinking an entire bottle of wine. and by the end of the night i got her to sing a song to me. her choice was "eternal flame" by the bangles, and she did a good job. she and i probably wont see one another for awhile, but i will always be happy with the knowledge that she exists out there, a true friend that will be there through any time, distance, or situation. those kinds of things are good.

the best books of our lives are being written all the time

2010-01-04T10:44:00.000-08:00

i do not even know where to begin. oftentimes i think this is all just a dream, that eventually i will awake and find myself alone in a cold bed with the covers all twisted around me. however, for right now, i will jut roll with this glowing enactment of life.

so, i left indiana and again i am embarked on my magnificent travel. when i left last time my intention was to get as far away as possible as a way to fuel the fires and get my head back in this game. my most recent leaving was quite the opposite. this time i drove just 40 miles away to the city of chicago. after coming up here the other night and not spending time with some longtime friends i felt it necessary to at least come up and see them.

vaughnda johnson, my new friend.

and, more poignantly, i wanted to spend more time with my new friend vaughnda. to that end, my first night in the city was devoted to spending time with her. i came up to the black rock, the bar alex works at hoping that he would be there already so i could retrieve a key for his apartment which i would be calling home. he wasnt there yet. so i sat down and had a beer. i needed a bit of time to reconcile my heart and my mind. see, i was nervous about seeing her again. our first date went so well for me i had to fight away the thoughts of disaster.

i just needed a little bit of time to convince myself that everything would be okay. some time and a beer, that was all i needed. so i had these things. alex showed up and we sat at the bar for a little bit hanging out. then vaughnda sent me her address, and enticed me to get over my fears with a bottle of wine. i left the bar and proceeded to get a little bit lost. eventually i found her street and parked.

i sat in the truck for a couple minutes, encouraging myself. i know that this seems a bit juvenile or maybe like overkill. but, i hadnt had a date as good as with her in a very long time and there was a chance of sullying that memory with this second date. there was also a chance to give it all wings. and i guess thats just what life is, a series of chances that we take or turn away from. i rung the bell. and nothing. so i rang it again. still nothing. it was very cold out and instead of being patient and waiting for an answer, i called her. luckily the bell was out of order and i wasnt rushing her out of the bathroom or something.

she opened the door and let me in and my eyes were reminded of just how cute she is, her smile lit up the entire room. and here i was, in her apartment, i felt like i might be a bit over my head, but squashed these thoughts as quickly as they came, eased my mind and just let things happen. she opened a bottle of wine, we sat on the couch. and we talked. it was easy and fulfilling. i was happy. every now and again we would stop to make out a little bit, but then keep on talking. and i think that is important. however, eventually the time for talking came to an end.

and i had a pretty good night.

in the morning the covers were twisted. to my delight, however, i was warm and not alone. we laid in bed for awhile, enjoying the morning. eventually we kept on with our date and went our for breakfast. she took me to a nice little vegan friendly cafe (it was reminiscent of something you would find in portland) and we had a nice meal and worked out some ideas for our day together.

we drove back to her apartment to drop off my truck and then we hit the cta. our destination was downtown - to the cultural center. it was a cold walk to the subway, and once we were on the subway we sat there. we didnt talk much on the subway, i think that was because of how loud it was, but i was also enjoying the time to review my thoughts and feelings over the last 12 hours. you know, to get myself onto a more organized page. we walked through an underground mall once we were downtown and then made it to the cultural center.

this place was an old library - very beautiful - that was set to be demolished but was saved from the wrecking ball and turned into a public place. they have various art installations in there, it looked as if people could just come hang out in the sitting room and apparently they have live music there frequently. we walked through the floors until we got to the third floor. this was a very ornate place with detailed tile work around the windows and arches, words carved into the limestone. and in the center was a stained glass dome. probably more that 15,000 pieces of glass melded together with lead. it was very well done. we milled about the room, enjoying the architecture and craftmanship. then we kept on up through the building.

there was an art show on the top floor, and we walked through that. there were a few pieces in there that i liked. but, more to my attention, was a locked door that revealed a ballroom just beyond. i wanted to go in there, because it looked amazing. i talked to the security guard and tried to get him to let us in, but he maintained that he didnt have a key. instead i chatted with him awhile about the art on the walls and he took me around showing me some of the pieces he liked and

a glimpse of happiness and the bean

admitted to not understanding most of it and not even knowing what some of it was supposed to be. he was a nice guy.

then we went down and found another stained glass dome and more art. one of the rooms overlooked millennium park and the ice skating area that had been set up out there. vaughnda wanted to go ice skating, and i was into it. in my life i have only been ice skating twice. once in portland with my friend jennifer shortly before i left on this trip and yesterday. the first time i was pretty poor at it and by the finish my ankles were very sore. this time i knew to tie those skates tighter and was better at keeping my blades perpendicular to the ice. better, but by no means great at it. we wobbled around the rink a few times before we became pretty comfortable.

this was a pretty nice thing to do. we got to hold hands while we whipped around the rink in the ice and the cold. a couple of times i wanted to whip around in front of her so we could kiss while we were skating. my technique does not allow for this possibility. my best attempt at it led me to skating backwards for a second or so (while holding on to a strange man) and then falling. we were there for quite awhile, the time just flew right on by. it was very enjoyable. afterwards, once we stopped moving, we were both cold and thirsty, so we tramped back to the subway and on to her apartment. once there we enjoyed a cup of tea and i talked to alex on the phone.

he had neglected to give me the key to his apartment the previous night, so i needed to meet him up before he left the city. he wanted help picking up a television and he was hungry for dinner. so were we. vaughnda and i left after the cup of tea to go meet alex at the bar and then quickly left again to retrieve this television. of course it was huge and on the top floor. vaughnda stayed by the car to watch the "valuables" while alex and i hefted this machine down the stairs. it took up the entire back area of the car so upon leaving we had to pile into the front. vaughnda was sitting on my lap and that was nice.

we went to a german restaurant. i had thought i had been to a german restaurant once in my life, but after eating there i am pretty sure i have never been to one. we had a nice dinner together, and everything was good. when alex and i were alone at the table i got the chance to ask him what he thought of vaughnda. and he echoed many of the things that have attracted me to her. it is nice to have a friend see the things you see. after the complimentary schnapps shot we were finished with this place. we were all a bit a tired, and alex dropped us off back at my truck. finally i retrieved the key to his apartment. vaughnda and i left quickly back to her apartment.

as i knew it must, our date was coming to an end. i really didnt want it to, but she - like much of the rest of humanity - lives in reality. she had to go back to work this morning. we sat and had another cup of tea and kissed for a little bit.

the sadness of parting

we talked some more and then just held each other. it was pretty much like heaven. i was a bit torn. i wouldve very much liked to have stayed there with her again, but i was also looking forward to some time by myself to process all of the wonderful things that i had been a part of.

upon leaving i was elated. the elation didnt come from leaving but from the memory of all the time we had together. and i did it. what i had always wanted too, i sang in the streets as i walked back to my truck. i didnt get to tap along and dance around lightpoles, but i did sing the few verses i could remember/cobble together from the fred astaire number "they cant take that away from me." i was happy and all traces of tiredness vanished from my body.

i went back to alexs and intended to go to the bar and have a couple of drinks, but i got caught up seeing my computer for the first time in a more than a day. it isnt much of a secret that i am addicted to internet. so i just started reviewing the things that have transpired while i was spending time on joy island. as it got later i lost any desire to go sit at the bar, especially by myself, so i resigned myself to reading. i plugged in the second space heater (it was there, might as well, right?) and within a few minutes the power went out. i had tripped the breaker.

that sucked. i used my flashlight to get around the apartment looking for the breaker box, and after not finding it i called alex. he informed me that i had to go to the bar and into the basement to flip the switch. this was not something i wanted to have to do. i was mentally prepared to sit in a room by myself all night and turning the switch to interact with people is not one that instantly responds. but i sucked it up, it was that or a room as good as being outside. i went downstairs and was told that goldy was in the basement and i should talk to him.

goldy is scary. he is the boss of the bar and i had absolutely no desire to converse with him. he already doesnt like me because of the last time i was here. but i was already down there and went to the basement to tell him. he grilled me for a moment about what was plugged in to trip the breaker and i told him that i had plugged in the second space heater. then he asked me if i was living up there. i told him that i was just staying for a couple of days, and then he made the lights work again and i walked away. although this whole chain of events lasted less than ten minutes, it was thoroughly exhausting and i wanted nothing more than to sleep after that. so i curled up and made that happen.

waking up i was alone in a cold room, the covers twisted around me. the dream was over.

life is not made up of things that can be lost or won

2010-01-02T12:09:00.000-08:00

12/31/09

leaving is always hard. yesterday i started my proceedings to step away from northwest indiana, what that means is seeing some family for the last time and saying goodbye. since there is a new years party being hosted at my dad's house, i will see much of my family there, but the notable exception - as always - is my mom. last night i fulfilled my duty to travel to her home and spend some time with her saying goodbye.

this doesnt seem as if it too big of a deal, but i have never had a great relationship with my mom. and after consideration it is through mutual fault. and as i drove to the coffee shop this morning to spend my writing time, i had some epiphanal thoughts about my relationship with emily and the way i think about my mom.

first off, i certainly do not give my mom enough credit. when my parents divorced - i was 12 i think - my family life was more like a white trash wonderland than, well, i dont know good enough words for a proper functioning family. both of my parents were alcoholics and my brother was just getting started. my sister was a princess and i felt generally forgotten. it is the curse of the middle child to be constantly overlooked. i didnt get the responsibility laid on my brothers shoulders or the overwhelming attention and opportunity of my sister.

when i was younger i read some books about it. my brother is two years older than me, so my dad was more likely to take him to work and give him actual tasks that he could work out on his own, as i said - responsibility. my sister was five years younger than me so she represented a chance for my parents to not repeat past mistakes. and i was left to just exist, jealous of my sisters attention and scraping at my brothers heels for information. this led to earn my brothers scorn - he took me lessened responsibility more as my freeloading while he had to shoulder a heavier workload. and i was mean to my sister becasue that was a fast track to being noticed, even if in a negative way.

my mom and i

certainly, none of these things were apparent to me at that time. (and, i'll be honest, right now i am having trouble focusing this entry back to where i was initially heading. so i will just follow it naturally - structure be damned.)

my parents marriage led to divorce, so far as i know, becasue of infidelity. again, at the time i wouldnt have known this but the signs were there. my dad was often gone nights and my mom took us kids to homes of her boyfriends during the day. during the divorce fighting i heard my mom yelling at my dad for all the flings that he would have, but i dont think us kids were ever privy to it. and then when they started getting divorced, i beleive it was my mom's decision. she had found a guy that she wanted to be with more than my dad and, if i recall my dad was devastated. i think that guy was her current husband - gordon.

and this is where things wrap into my recently ended relationship with emily. i got my basic ideas of life from my parents and etched deep into my subconscious are the patterns that i learned from their lives. emily and i were in an open relationship for our entire time together. an open relationship allows the partners to see other people freely and openly so long as good communication exists and general rules are established. our general rules were that making out with other people was just fine and dandy, but having sex with another person is something that would need to be discussed beforehand. no nights of passion, act like adults and make things work.

for most of our relationship neither of us really exercised our open options. sure, we would make out with other people but there werent many times that are carnal desires strayed from one another. then 2008 happened. our relationship wasnt the happiest it had ever been. our communication was still okay (actually, i would say it was great because she helped me so much be more open with how i am feeling and say the things that are hard so we could move forward), but with growing frequency we found ourselves talking about intense things at the kitchen table, with tears streaming and honesty eventually coming out. we still liked each other, but we were becoming more like great friends instead of lovers. and then she met someone new. and around the same time i met a friend of mine that i had liked for years.

and so we talked about this and agreed to explore these peripheral relationships. and this is the thing that hit me as i was driving to the coffee shop this morning - this is where it all comes together. but, sorry, i want to say one more thing before i get to it. after my parents divorce i saw little of my mom and that has persisted to this day. this has led me to not really know much of anything about her. just the menial day to day things that she would tell me on our yearly phone calls or every-other-yearish visits. and so i made her a voice. a voice that i would use when i was talking to emily about what my mom and i talked about or when i was talking to other people about my mom. that voice - if you will imagine it - is kind of like a muppet crossed with a duck. t (mean, i know, but honest to my feelings at the time and hopefully...eventually in this post...i will make up for some of it.)

and there was a time when i was recreating (read: mocking) something emily said and in the recreation i slipped into my moms voice for emily's voice. she did not appreciate that.

and so, this morning, i think i figured out why that happened. when emily and i both embarked on secondary relationships within our primary relationship our ideas of how this would look were askew. my idea of it was that i would have a friend that i saw and spent time with, not as a reprieve, but more as a complement to my relationship with emily. i had things that i wanted to go out and do. i wanted to go ice skating and rock climbing, square dancing, i wanted to sit at a bar or something like that. and consistently emily didnt want to join in these activities very often. she encouraged me to go with another person or to go by myself, but i really just wanted to go with her. i wanted to share these things - new experiences and things that i find great joy in - with her. so, i used my secondary relationship to fulfill some of these things.

and it was great. one day a week i would go with my new friend and we would do something fun out on the town and then come back and have pretty good sex. it was reinvigorating. i wasnt looking at this as a supplemental relationship or anything, more like a good friendship with a friend that shared the desire to explore and be adventurous with me. and, in the interest of maintaining good communication, i would tell emily about my time out with as many or as few details that she desired. i wasnt trying to keep anything from her becasue i wanted my relationship with emily to work.

emily, on the other hand, approached her new relationship differently. she didnt want to just have a fling with another person or a once-a-week date. she wanted a secondary relationship. something that held similar weight to our primary relationship. and, to this end, she would go out for dates with her new friend and have different experiences. i just started to try and write about these experiences, but - and this is the thing - i have never known much about them. she was less forthcoming with her nights out so i gave it time. but then something developed that, to me, became a wedge in our primary relationship.

emily started staying the night at her new friends house. now, just writing that, it may not seem like a big deal. but, for me, a large part of a long term relationship are the simple common joys. falling asleep together, having a warm body next to me in the bed, having dinner together, unwinding about our days, you know - the things you take for granted. and so i brought up my discomfort, perhaps even my jealousy, about her other relationship. and this led into a deep discussion about our personal ideas of what these secondary relationships mean and their level of importance.

and so our ideas about these other relationships we were engaging in differed largely. i liked the idea that we would both just have friends that we also have sex with. and she felt that having a relationship without a considerable emotional investment was not worth her time. and so this is where it parallels with my mother and father. my father, i do not think anyone denies it, had sex partners that were not my mother while they were together - friends that he also had sex with. my mother, i know full well, was carrying along secondary relationships with considerable emotional investment.

and, although i had never thought about it much before now, this is why i used the imitation of my moms voice for emily. this memory of how my parents conducted their lives has permeated and become manifest in my own life. i think if i were smarter i wouldve come to this conclusion sooner.

and so, as i said, last night i started my goodbyes. i drove to my moms house after she got off work and i was kind of dreading it. generally she and gordon just sit in separate rooms and watch tv until they fall asleep, we dont really talk about anything until it comes time for me to leave. then my mom gets teary eyed and talks of how she doesnt want me to leave. well, this time it was a little bit different.

my mom had gotten a gift from her work friends - a table size bottle of sangria. we opened it upon my arrival and proceeded to drink the entire thing throughout the night. my mom asked me questions about my life and i answered in kind. she asked about my relationship with emily and i told her my perspective of what happened, not what has been written above - that didnt dawn on me until this morning. we talked about my trip, the places i have been and where i plan to go next, she wanted to know what i was going to do with my life.

at some point we got to talking more generally about life and happiness. she told me a story of when she and gordon nearly got divorced, and then we were talking about my siblings. and in a roundabout way i apologized for not being a more present son. and she just blurted out a question - "well, are you happy?" and i told her that i was, and as a mother should, she said that was all that mattered.

at some point i recalled to her my date with vaughnda and my mom got schoolgirl-ish. she tried to take my phone away from me so she could call her and "introduce herself." i thought that was hilarious but i dont think she mustered the courage to do such a thing. and it dawned on me that i was having fun with my mom. that we were having a good time, and i felt bad about the way i have characterized her throughout my life.

i want to be a better person to my family. i am sure that there are more surprises that await me if i were around to apply myself more and just be more present.

1/2/10

well, new years happened. and i wish i had a good story for it but i dont really. the sad thing about new years happening is that now i must go. the happy thing about it is that i am just going to chicago and i am looking forward to some days there. i called vaughnda on new years eve, but during the day. i dont know her well enough to call her at midnight that might be a bit overbearing. but it had been a couple of days since our date, and although i dont really understand dating rules, i was pretty sure that not calling soon after the date would look bad.

so i sucked up my dislike for talking on the phone and dialed the numbers. really i dont dial numbers anymore, i just hit buttons. i got her voicemail - and was happy for that - then proceeded to leave what was probably a too long and not very clear message. you know how i do. my parents planned to have a party for new years, and to my surprise that party was set to start at 2 in the afternoon!

this was just sledding for kids and such, but when the party starts the drinking starts. house rules. shortly after that vaughnda and i had the chance to talk on the phone and that was nice. afterwards i plunged on with the day. i had invited my friend becky to celebrate the ringing of the new year with me, and eventually she showed up. as i have said before, she is crazy. i invited her because i wanted to be with someone, i rarely have a date to enjoy a family function with so i hoped this would be a nice changeup.

the party was just some family, pretty small, and becky showed up late. late, meaning before midnight but about two hours after she said she would arrive. that was fine. eventually the new year was rung in and we all danced and welcomed it together. quickly after that everyone left. becky and i went up to bed and had a nice night. i actually slept in the other room, but it was still a nice night. the morning was different, however.

i wanted to start prepping to restart my trip - cleaning my room and my truck, making some rounds, etc - and she was determined to take as long as humanly possible to leave. i have a thing about time, something that i am trying to manage. i loathe being late for a thing (my method for coping/getting over this/accepting this is not setting times for me to be somewhere), in the morning i like to pop right up and start my day (i enjoy some alone time in the morning, but still i generally just

beckia

get up and start), and i am sure there are other things. so becky's taking extra long in the morning irked me.

she left after about three hours of being together in the morning. then i went to my brothers house and watched "hedwig and the angry inch" with him. this is one of my most favorite movies and a damn fine musical, i dont know why i recommended it to him, but he got it and said that it would take me watching it with him for him to watch it. i liked it, him not so much. during my time there my brother was determined to give me a video camera for my trip. he had just gotten this little flip camera thing for christmas and kept on that i would do better with it.

i accepted it, only after giving him all the things i was planning to take back. it worked out okay, he took the stuff back and only had to spend about $30 to get himself a new one. then i came back to my folks house and started doing laundry and cleaning my truck out. that wasnt much fun. things were absolutely frozen back there. i had to thaw out my futon mattress and my "boyfriend" (you know, the pillow with arms), and washed my blankets and such. then i started repacking everything back in there.

i finished that up this morning. but, before i get too far away from the contributing stories, i want to talk about love. the idea, the word, the feeling, all of it. i dont have the greatest words for it, but i do have some recent experiences that are prompting this.

on new years eve, during the day (after sledding, before becky arrived) i was found on facebook by my ten year old girlfriend. not in the pedophile way, but the girl that i dated when i was ten - when we were both ten. her name was hannah carnell, i have written her name a few times previously on this trip. she found me and started chatting with me.

i was happy for that, i had always wanted to find her again. i wanted to see what kind of person she became and how her life had shaped itself after i left it. my mom made the mention, something along the lines of, "she has never stopped loving you" when we were talking. why my mom would know what things have persisted in the life of hannah carnell when she couldnt even tell me how to get a hold of here is beyond me. but i dont think so much that she was so wrong in her assumption.

hannah was chatting me up and somewhere in the conversation, talking about our memories she admitted to being in love with me and asked me if i loved her. after consideration i acknowledged that my ten year old self was in love with her. and i kept the conversation very much attached to my ten year old self and never my current self. i am not sure if feelings about a person can persist through 17 years of not seeing one another or being connected in any way or form. i really dont think that they could.

so i worked through that awkward conversation thinking about what it all means. about what it means to be in love with a person, certainly i care about all the people that have had an effect on my life and the first experiences i had with her are stowed in my heart. they could never leave. is that love? i dont know. i am certainly not smart enough to discern something as weighty.

and then last night happened. after parting ways with becky she called me a few times but i kept on with what i was doing, i would call her after i had left. but she was ever persistent and resorted to sending me a stream of text messages. and the gist of it was that she had never gotten over me and the relationship we had seven years ago and thought that my coming back here was a sign from god. she told me of her undying love for me and that he would follow me anywhere if i ever wanted her too.

i havent yet responded because i just havent discovered the right tact for saying that i dont want her to follow me anywhere. that she is a nice person, but i came back here to visit my family - her god character never intervened. when i do respond i will just have to tell her that she is a wonderful person with great qualities and she just needs to apply herself more to finding what she wants in her life. i wont be there for her and she will have to accept that and move to become a stronger person. change the combination to her heart and drop hints with other people she fancies. i dont know.

and this stuff happens when i am working through the breaking of a long term relationship and i have to reconcile my feelings on that as well. i think the ultimate lesson here is that life is confusing, but there is a light. sure, you have to fight through a blizzard of emotion but eventually you will find that one perfectly backlit snowflake that is so pure and so cold that you almost cant stand it. at least thats what i am hoping for.

i will say this. i am surprised by how much i have grown in these last few months of my life. and i have an idea of what i want but no idea how to materialize it.

badly pronounced and half finished sentences from a stupid suburban novel

2009-12-30T10:15:00.000-08:00

when i left portland to be on this trip, the title for this portion of my life was: My Magnificent Travel of the Summer of 2009. see, that title made sense because this trip was supposed to last six months. and then i was supposed to come back to portland as a renewed individual ready to face the complexities of life with a fresh perspective. well, this journey has overstepped its boundaries and will need to be retitled - i am still working on that. as a matter of fact, i think the entire purpose and goals of this trip need to be reimagined.

with that in mind, i am going to summarize my journey of 2009. it will be a poor

the enormity of this trip (santa barbara)

summarization that leaves out just about everything that happens and instead focuses on how my current feelings are reflecting upon my memories...or something like that:

May: I am laid off from my job, simultaneously Emily suggests that we should live separately - yet remain a couple. I acquiesce and prepare for a shitty life. In the course of our discussions, Emily suggests that I dont just have to have a shitty life - she suggests that I could travel. After all, it is something that I had done in the past and it successfully reinvigorating my life. I adapt my pickup truck to function as a living space and set off.

Summer: I am reinvigorated. My life seems to be better out in the world, after some initial awkwardness in meeting some old friends, I remember what it is like to be a real person and free. However, I am often lonely and longing for regular companionship - the road exists not without its drawbacks. Emily and I barely speak to one another, more because of circumstance rather than choice.

my steed and i (st. louis)

August: My beard is long and after spending a wonderful week in St. Louis I am returning to visit my family. This allows me to decompress, assess my life and choices and determine my happiness. I like being with my old friends - the ease of it all. After a month in the region I leave and it is like starting this trip over again. The days grow shorter and my joy thins. Things become tedious and after being turned away from the Canadian border I take up smoking again.

Fall: I power through the east coast, there are memorable and very enjoyable visits with friends, but I am determined not to encounter cold weather. I find myself in Richmond - a city I am in love with. With my friends there, I am comfortable and happy again. Thoughts of my relationship-on-hold come ever more frequently and eventually action must dominate inaction. I take counsel from close friends, and decide to break up with Emily.

November: Despondent again. My beard has grown out of control and months on the road have affected my appearance and demeanor. I am regarded as a regular homeless person and this distinction affects my ability to enjoy certain adventures that had punctuated my trip previously. I find myself in

the friends i have met and made (portsmouth)

New Orleans and am presented with a decision. Head north for the holidays or continue west with this trip.

December: My loneliness and despondency dominates my judgment and I head north towards my family. My personal funds have recessed quickly and I am ever conscious of the money I spend on frivolous things like food. The safety and comfort of being with my family has warmed me to the point that I want nothing more than to be a part of something so wonderful for always. However my head is overwhelmed by the possibilities and decisions i must make pending the inevitable conclusion of this journey.

well, now that that is finished i want to elaborate on my choice of words - as anyone who has met me will know i am a very happy person. despondency and sadness are not qualities that i regularly or openly portray, every single moment that i am here i am trying to be as happy as i possibly can and the moments of overwhelming joy are not few and far between. it just so happens that when i choose to sit and write i reflect more on the side that i share less prominently.

you know, trying to make myself more of a complete person.

painting over the things i thought i knew

2009-12-29T11:37:00.000-08:00

last night i had the most wonderful date i have ever been on. i havent held much stock in blind dates, but luckily this one wasnt completely blind. i have written before about being on a dating website called okcupid, and this lady i met last night is someone that comes from this place. as i am traveling i update my location to where ever i am going to be or to where i am heading so that i can scroll through my matches in the area and people watch on the internet. i have never been very compelled to pursue meeting people from this website.

i have exchanged plenty of messages with ladies on the website and even planned to meet up with a number of them, but when it comes down to it i just couldnt bring myself to it. basically, i talk myself out of it. like a tease. so i started a conversation with a lady in chicago and, well, one thing led to another. i had mentioned square dancing on my profile and picked up on that saying that if i ever actually came to chicago she would love to go square dancing with me.

immediately, i searched the internet for chicago area square dances. not only because of this carrot, but because square dancing is something that i love to do very much and i have had a hard time finding dances along my way. to my immense surprise i found a healthy square dancing community that lives in the city of chicago and there was a very perfectly timed dance that happened last night.

so i made some inquiries about the dance, floated an invitation and waited. in the meantime i went through the motions to make it to chicago for this dance should the offer actually be accepted. and it came down to the wire. i sourced some proper square dancing attire, a plaid shirt with leather shoulders, a bolo tie, jeans (!), and a cowboy hat. this would be the first time i have worn jeans for social purposes in at least ten years. there is something very strange about jeans to me, something about wearing blue pants that just doesnt mesh well with my peripheral vision.

my date, vaughnda (i know, what an awesome name), took some time to get back to me. for a day or so i felt as if she just wasnt going to respond. meeting people on the internet is wierd and i had started our conversation ensuring her that we would never meet one another and in just a few days time i am asking her on a date. but i had already set everything into motion and whether or not she wanted to come out with me i was headed to chicago for the evening. fortunately, the night before the square dance she got back to me, allayed any stranger danger and agreed to come out with me. i was happy about that but also nervous it would be hard to back out now. so i took some deep breaths and allowed this knowledge to course through my body and slept the night fully.

the next morning alex and i went out to some thrift store to get the jeans i wore and we went to pick up a digital camera from my sister because mine had recently crapped out - hence the lack of pictures recently. around 3:30 in the afternoon we left for chicago, i drove his little car/truck thing up and proceeded to go the wrong way on the expressway while he slept in the passenger seat. normally i am not bad at driving and i have made the trip from indiana to chicago hundreds of times. once i realized i had gone the wrong way i woke up alex and inquired about our next move. he navigated us through some southern city suburbs to find the proper expressway again and we set along our path.

we got to his work right at 5, which is also the time he had to start work so he sent me on some errands he wouldve accomplished had i not gotten us lost on the way to the city. i went to the store to buy some supplies for the bar kitchen that night. shortly after i finished shopping and was driving back to the bar vaughnda called me. this was the first time we had talked to one another and i was relieved to hear that she had a very pleasant voice. there was a bit of awkwardness but that was to be expected. she said that right at the end of her workday she had been given extra work to do. upon hearing this i thought she was giving me a line to get out of this date we had planned and my hope tanked for a moment.

but this was not the case. she just said it would delay her leaving working for a few minutes and we planned to meet up at alex's bar - the black rock. i went back to the bar and proceeded to freak out - internally. i had a beer and smoked cigarettes at a rapid pace. alex assured me that the train from downtown to here would take at least 40 minutes so i had plenty of time to compose myself. in this time i proceeded to feel very dumb for the outfit i was wearing. already i felt out of place because it was such a departure from how i view myself - even though i knew no one around me was thinking this, they have no idea how i regularly look and certainly most people do not consider jeans an awkward choice of leg coverings - and knowing that vaughnda was coming straight from work i figured that she would be much less dressed for the occasion than i was. alex comforted me by suggesting that the possibility of her bringing along a change of clothes existed.

i stood outside of the bar, smoking, watching the corner where people coming from the train would emerge. i caught her just as she rounded the corner and immediately appreciated her - if just from a distance. heart pounding i darted back into the bar pulled from my beer, chewed down a peppermint, and then tried to look casual. of course i was laughing at the ridiculousness of myself in this moment.

the thing of it was, i had never really asked anyone out on a proper date in my life. this was a first for me, so the middle school butterflies that i should have long since bested were flitted madly about my insides. i was nervous and giddy, excited and scared. and then the door opened. she was wearing a long orange parka, a colorful knitted hat with flaps that come over the ears, rectangle glasses and a wonderful smile. she sauntered to my position at the bar, i got out of my chair and i think we shook hands. i asked if she felt more comfortable sitting at the bar or in the back room on a couch. she chose the bar. and that was wonderful. frequently i find that women are more comfortable sitting away from the bar, but i like going to the bar to sit at the bar thats what it is about.

she took off her coat and i was happy to see that she was wearing what i would call a jumper dress that buttoned up the front. pleasant earth tone plaid with a small dark gray sweater, black tights and some black boots. she was very cute. and i was happy for this. happier still was when she sat down, ordered a point pale ale, and we had a laugh. her smile and laugh was very relaxing and we fell quickly into some random conversation. it was very easy and i appreciated this. at some point she noticed that it was well past our time to leave for the start of this dance and we quickly paid the tab and departed for evanston, il.

it took us about twenty minutes to get there and we kept up a healthy conversation, the fear of failing conversation is a heavy burden for a first date, but nothing seemed forced. when we got to the space we were about twenty minutes late for the pre-dance training session. vaughnda had never been to a square dance before, so there was a little bit of concern from missing the training but it wasnt overbearing. i was expecting to walk into this hall and see a number of octogenarians and a crowd that was mostly 50+, at the very least i expected to be some of the youngest people there. this was not the case.

the training was still happening when we walked in the door, no one was taking money at the door so we just came in and jumped into the training. i was happy for this, because i am not a big fan of paying for things, but i was prepared to. we met some people quickly that seemed to be younger than us and finished the few minutes of training that was planned. there was a short intermission between the end of the training and the beginning of the proper dance. and any fear that i had of the square dance being too complex or this not being an awesome evening vanished.

the dance was very similar to the ones in which i participated in portland. the caller walked through the entire dance before the fiddlers came in and the actual dance was called. there were many moves that i had no recollection of, so the walk through was very helpful. the dance itself started at 8 and went to 11. we danced there for the entire three hours, sitting out just one dance i think. and, i dont think there exists a better or more complete way to experience a first date than to go to a barn dance. you have a primary partner and throughout each dance switch partners frequently. there is plenty of touching and you get to sweat a little bit. there were no moments i liked more than when we got to swing together and we pulled our bodies close together and danced around in a circle two or three times. our faces close together, both smiling, nothing better.

well, i guess there was one move that i liked better. i dont recall the name for it but i will walk through it now. there are two couples that form a square. the gents are facing each other, as are the ladies. the gents come to the middle, grasp hands and lift them in the air. then the ladies come inside the gents, clasp hands and similarly lift them in the air. then the arms - hands still tightly clasped - come down around everyone so we are tightly locked together. everyone puts their right foot into the middle toes touching each other. this foot stays on the ground and with the left foot we run around each other to create the effect of, well, the carnival ride "tilt-a-whirl." after going around two or five times very fast you unclasp hands, draw your partner close to you and swing.

there is nothing better than this move because a person cannot help but have an amazingly large smile on their face after this tilt-a-whirl move and then when you draw close together there is just a wonderful connection there. like we both just had an amazing experience that will shortly be recreated. i love square dancing.

each dance we were encouraged to find a new partner. i didnt want to do this - i liked my partner very much - but i acquiesced for two dances. these were just as fun, but i found myself looking around the room to find vaughnda and when the dances brought us together again, things were good. at a few points in the evening there were breaks in the large square dances for couples dancing and we did this each time it was offered as well. i was happy - ecstatic more so - to have such a willing partner. we had no real idea how to do couples dancing but we continued to bump our way straight through the dance floor, laughing all the way.

but the dance had to come to an end. i had mixed emotions regarding this. square dancing is labor intensive, i was dripping sweat and my back was drenched by the end of the dance and i would have wished not have a sweaty back on our first date. luckily out of the two of us i wasnt the only one with a sweaty back. so i was happy to get outside and cool off, but when the dance was set to end i knew our evening was drawing ever closer to its end and this was not something i was happy with. i was in such a state of joy i dont think i have yet learned the words to describe it.

but we had to leave. and so we were outside and soon back in the car. having to decide our future. i equated my situation as a cinderella story. at 1:am my pumpkin, my dress, and all my little animal friends that had helped make this evening a success would have to return to normal. so we went to a bar, her local bar the whirlaway. we sat there drinking two beers continuing talking and at this point i was a little bit sad. i wanted so much to be swinging my partner with our bodies drawn close to one another instead of sitting at the bar watching one another intently and sometimes having our legs touch. it was at this moment that she admitted to her like of me. and that was nice.

so, in my typical saying wierd things at inopportune moments i posed our situation to her. i let her know that this night was our entire relationship; the beginning, the good times, the bad times, the end of it all. and all crammed into seven hours. i dont remember precisely what she said, but i admitted to my liking of her around this moment and that i was sad that we couldnt spend more time together. maria, the bartender and proprietor of the bar, offered us a shot as we were leaving the bar. our wonderful romantic evening drawing to a close. neither of us accepted the shot, i had to drive.

by this time, regardless of how well everything was going, my intense attraction to this wonderful person next to me, i had made my mind up not to kiss her. it felt rational in my mind, i knew that i wouldnt be around and sealing the evening with physical romance would only lead to longing. and, especially for me, questions. however, when we got outside she turned to me and said very abruptly that she was going to make out with me now and there was no way i was going to say no. for 10 or 15 minutes we stood outside the bar in the freezing temperature making out with one another. and it was divine. i was very torn and wanted nothing more than to come home with her and continue with this night.

but i was poorly dressed for being out in the cold so long, shivering through the delight and knowing that my 1:am call time was drawing ever nearer and perhaps had even passed already. i wasnt going to leave that spot, i wouldve stood there in the freezing cold as long as she was on my side of the road. like leonardo dicaprio in titanic. as soon as her boots fell on the opposite sidewalk my heart was deflated and i was very confused and sad. i sat in the car/truck thing and debated with my inner self. i was also texting alex. after a few minutes he said that i could stay out until 2 and he would just sit and drink at the bar, but i had already watched vaughnda turn the corner.

i debated the merits of running after her and wrapping her in my arms while we continue to kiss one another, but then i thought about how unfair that was. to everyone involved. and i was upset about the path of life i am on where i am developing relationships with wonderful people throughout this country and after hours or days or weeks of being around some awesome people i am ripping myself away from places where i could easily be happy for a much longer period of time, and all for what? i am unhappy with my unreliability to the people that flit throughout my life. and my inability to just give myself more time.

i came back to the bar, and i was beaming. absolutely. although i had some fleeting sadness about the state of my life i pushed that aside for another time and reviewed the magic of this evening just bursting to tell someone about how wonderful it was. alex was outside smoking when i rolled up and i proceeded to unload my tale upon him. i came out as a jumbled mix, not very coordinated at all. we sat at the bar for about a half hour and then we came back to indiana. alex had been drinking so i had to drive again. and that was okay. it gave me more time to rerun the evening and gush as something new was remembered.

we made it back very safe and sound, and had some text messages from vaughnda on my phone. alex proceeded to confuse me, but detailing all of the merits of moving back to chicago - using this evening as a general pretense - and also playing on my confusion over life and especially my confusion over what awaits me back in portland. sigh.

the loneliness that you call freedom

2009-12-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

well, its been ages since i have been able to sit down and write a bit about the life happening around me. most of it has been family things. i went to my aunt carol's 50th birthday, then shopping with my siblings for pictures, a small pre-christmas with my mom and stepdad, christmas eve with the family on my stepmoms side, christmas day at my dads, and then the day after christmas at a surprise party for my grandpa. a whirlwind of family activity.

and, unfortunately, not much excitement. i guess i wasnt really expecting any kind of excitement. mostly the times have just been good family time, something that i havent had given time for in years. in between these family things i cut off all of my hair, and met up with my old friend becky again.

the most surprising thing about being here, without much notice, for christmas was the amount of gifts i received. and this was a strong reason for me not to want to come back here for the holidays. i think stopped celebrating the holidays about 10 years ago, basically renounced the season and the gift giving and things like that. at first i was pretty militant about it and actually got upset at the idea of people wanting to exchange gifts. i remember sending my sister an email when she was 15 describing all the reasons why i dont choose to participate, mostly because of the rampant consumerism and the automatic reflex, unquestioning devotion to this holiday.

over time my views softened and just last year i sent gifts to a number of people in my family. those gifts were macrame plant hangers and owls, crafts that i made by hand. this year i didnt put enough thought or time into it and i was somewhat embarrassed coming to the three functions where i received gifts and didnt have anything to really give in return. well, i was part of a group gift at all the functions.

on the walls of my moms house the most recent picture of me is from my sophmore year in high school - pretty embarrassing. my dad has more recent pictures, but the last 'family photo' that he has is about 15 years old. also embarrassing. i was - at the time - a rebellious kid and didnt take to following orders from anyone. in the picture i am the only one not dressed up, i wear a dumb expression and am generally untidy. my sister had the idea this year that us four kids and our nephew would go get professional pictures and give them as gifts to the family. this worked out wonderfully.

i dressed in my best clothes (which still werent very good) we went to the mall and had eight shots taken of us. one with my brother, me and our nephew bryce, one with me my brother and my sister, one with all of us, a funny one, and some others. we got frames and gave these as gifts to my mom, the aunts and uncles on my stepmoms side, and to my dad. they went over well.

on the day after christmas, at my grandpas surprise party, i got to hang out with a number of my cousins that i havent seen in years. at these functions i generally cringe. i prepare myself for answering the same questions over and over again. i live in oregon - not "warshington", i have been traveling for seven months, i am unemployed, yes it rains alot, those types of questions. i dont feel that there is much i have in common with these people and my prolonged separation from them has led to me thinking of them more as strangers than as family. thats sad, but true.

so i was surprised when my cousin josh spotted me and made to talk with me. josh is like 38 years old, so he was always older than me and growing up i didnt know much about him. but at this event he came to talk to me and felt that i was a kindred spirit. he started talking to me about his ideas on life how capitalism is fucked up and that he would want nothing more than to walk around the country with a backpack. and that he wants to just have a bit of land somewhere hunt and fish for his livelihood and raise a family outside the bounds of what society has become.

then he got metaphysical on me and started talking about religion and his life experiences and these things. if i didnt have such a wall built up for the people in my family i wouldve been more inclined to pursue these things with him, but we were both at the mercy of the rest of the family and mingling that we didnt get to expand very much on these topics. i did share some stories of my time in the anti-globalization movement and my desire to be self-sufficient. we exchanged numbers.

after this event my brother and i left. he wanted to continue going out, as he always does, and i was the designated driver. being the designated driver in my family does not mean that you cannot drink, it just means that he cannot get so fucked up people can tell you shouldnt be driving. luckily i dont get this way often, so being the driver wasnt that big of a deal. however, i was ready to call it a day and just head back to my dads house. he convinced me to continue being out.

we went to my aunt tina's house to pick up his girlfriends camera which was left there on christmas eve, then we went the liquor store where he bought a case of beer and some hot damn. hot damn is a cinnamon schnapps which is popular with my moms husband and my brother. then we went to his friend tatum's house and had some beers. there he convinced them to continue the night out to meet more of his old friends from high school at a bar in downtown crown point. i acquiesced.

i did take the opportunity of being out and about in crown point to call my old friend becky, she lives in crown point and i had been meaning to get together with her but a sympathetic situation had not yet arisen. i called her and she asked me to come pick her up. i dropped my brother off at the bar and then went to get her. it took me a half hour to get to her house and then she jumped in the car and we drove back to the bar. there was nothing groundbreaking about us coming together. neither of us were dressed fancy, which came as a bit of a shock when we got to the bar.

the bar, called the zodiac room, was a fancy place. the patrons were all in suits and general business attire, so i immediately felt out of place. i can only imagine how becky felt, but we sat down and chatted with tatum and his girlfriend kelly and eventually my brother came back to us. my brother is a social butterfly and his idea of a good time is going to a bar, getting as completely fucked up as possible and before leaving he is compelled to meet every single person and touch them in some way. he just walks up to tables and sets his drink down and start talking about something. it is annoying.

but it is also a family trait. i can do this - certainly not as well or as willingly - because we learned it from our father. so, he flitted about the bar while the four of us sat and talked, mostly amongst ourselves. meaning i talked to becky and tatum and kelly talked to one another. eventually joes friends showed up, including some girl that he used to date and has always ben in love with. this brought him back to the table and becky and i moved to a loveseat. an hour or more later, my brother owns the place and more people he knows are streaming in. this isnt fun for me, so becky and i decide to leave.

wait, something i forgot to mention. at some point becky and i went up to the bar to smoke and my brother was there talking to someone. he wrapped up that conversation and then turned to us and asked me if i know who the person sitting at the bar was. i had no idea who it was. and this is something that happens often, my brother wants me to remember someone and i have no recollection of them, then he introduces me to them and act like its the first time meeting them. because, for me, it really is. however, this person was someone i did remember. it was my step-brother. but, i didnt remember his name. i thought it was jason, but it turned out to be adam.

so we got joe ready to leave, but he wanted to go to just one more bar and we obliged. a pile of us left the bar to walk down the street. by this time becky and i were just making out with one another. these bars were not going to offer us anymore. we went to the next bar and it was a regular bar but it was also completely packed. we took one step inside and decided not to stay. by "we" i meant becky and i. to my brother this was mecca. i wrenched him away from whoever he was trying to meet just then and told him we were leaving. since i was his driver, i told him to call me when he is ready and i will come get him. it was only about 10:pm so i wasnt expecting a call anytime soon.

becky took me back to her house where we "got to know each other better" and that was nice. around 1 in the morning i tried calling my brother to see if he was ready to go but he didnt return my calls or text messages, so i fell asleep with becky in her bed. and that was even better. i do miss cuddling like that. i woke up at 5 in the morning and decided it was time to leave - brother be damned. mostly i wanted to leave because becky lives with her parents and i didnt want to be leaving in the morning when they were having breakfast. her family is dysfunctional enough and i had no desire to meet them just then. so i got dressed, called my brother some more and when he didnt answer i went back to valpo.

i got home at 6:am and promptly fell asleep again. my brother called me at 9:am, i got up and left to get him. i told my parents what was going on and then left again to crown point. i picked him up some house where a mom invited me inside and talked to me about portland for a little bit while joe got his things together. that was uncomfortable, i didnt want to meet the parents at the house i slept at so why the hell do i have to meet the parents of the house he slept at?! then we drove back to valpo.

and we had the frequent conversation concerning my brothers happiness and his direction in life, why he gets up to things he does and why he treats himself the way he does. the conversation is getting boring to me because he recognizes his problems and just doesnt do the work to turn it around. then we had a lazy day.

now i am at my friends alex's house in griffith, preparing to go to chicago with him tonight. first i need to buy jeans.

technical notes #9

2009-12-22T09:43:00.000-08:00

	current cycle	total trip
miles	1743	15371
gallons	75	648.8
dollars	182.5	1671.7
mpg avg	23.2	23.7
costpg avg	2.43	2.58
days	19	222

another 19 days, another milestone. the days are getting longer now (thanks to the winter solstice!) and i am quite done with this adventure - thank you very much. it has been over 7 months now that i am out on the road, living in my pickup truck and exploring this country. it has been eye-opening and there have been many times i have been in awe of the wonders in the world.

however, the times i have been happiest have been when i am visiting old friends, meeting new friends, and sleeping inside. i look forward to the end. i look forward to my new beginnings and the bounty that my next life will offer.

i know this is a bit of a lame post and offers little information. sorry about that. if anyone can tell me why my html is wrong and there is such a large gap between the title and the start of the post, i would appreciate that.

my life in full revue

2009-12-21T08:49:00.000-08:00

so, i have been back here for a couple of days and have been taken to one of the requisite family parties already. it was my aunt carol's 50th birthday party, supposedly a surprise, and poorly planned. my brother came to pick me up in the early afternoon and he was in a bad mood. he has been to enough of these things to know how they turn out. basically, the planning amounted to a clusterfuck. three different people gave out different times and the main organizer of the event chose to go to the christmas party at the bar instead of the birthday party.

so it was a good thing my brother bought a half-rack of beer and some hot damn before we arrived. i hadnt seen my mom since i was back, so it was nice to see her, but it is rarely exciting to hang out with this side of the family. eventually many people showed up and it was an enjoyable time. again, i got to see a whole bunch of family that i havent seen in many years - like 8 years. one of my cousins has 6 kids, the oldest of which is 7...and i had never met any of them. i quizzed her knowledge of her childrens names. i dont know if she got them all right, but judging by her offense to my quiz i think she did.

we stayed there for many hours, i got to see a glimpse of my future self...in the form of my uncle mike. another person i havent seen for many many years. probably more like 12-15 years. my mom's brother, aka my uncle. he is a couple inches

my uncle mike/my future

shorter than me, but has balded in the same way that i am currently balding, he has the same frame and can grow the same red beard. well, maybe not any longer - his is more gray than red, but i am sure that is what i have to look forward too.

then i had a long conversation with my uncle snake about hydrogen. a couple of years ago i got some no-nonsense plans from the internet on how to supplement your vehicle with hydrogen and get like 200 miles from a gallon of gas. when i was here earlier in the year i wanted to find him and have him convert my truck because he has been an auto mechanic his entire life. he told me stories about when he was my age and he fiddled with hydrogen. he converted a cadillac in the 80's to supplement gasoline with hydrogen. he said the gain was negligible and that the danger was significant. he explained it in terms of having a small hydrogen bomb under your hood at all times.

so, he said he wouldnt help me with the conversion. oh well.

shortly after this it was time for us to leave. us included my brother and his girlfriend. however, instead of leaving and heading home my brother wanted to go to the bar. and this is where the bulk of what i want to explore lies. the bar we went to was the town club, in cedar lake indiana. this is the bar that y parents went to for much of my childhood, as a child - under ten - i knew the phone number to this bar by heart. if there were such a thing as speed-dial in my youth this wouldve been in the top three. the other two also being bars.

upon entering this bar we met frankie. frankie is my dad's longtime friend, a few years younger than my dad and probably a large proponent of my dads partying when i was a child. he gave me a hug and then he talked with my brother about work. then, louie - another lifelong (my life) friend of my dad came over and bought us drinks. he was with my moms best friend, shelly, and i gave her a hug. and then my brother went about the bar - much like my does when i come in there to visit her - telling every single person that he knows that his brother is here.

so then i have to meet them, a number of them tell me stories of how they knew me

see how much fun we are having!

when i was little, and i have to say i dont remember them. but, it is like i am a show on display...but i am just a regular person. seriously. the way i am introduced is often as "alberts son" because everyone knows and remembers my dad. and then they see the resemblance. i get to hear that as a child my brother and sister looked like my dad and i looked like my mom, but now we all look just like my dad. that i have the same sense of humor and a similar demeanor. i quickly tired of all this. i tucked in at the back of the bar, allowing the world to exist with me as a non-participating observer.

i played the jukebox. and this was what got me through the night. one of my favorite lou reed songs is called "like a possum." it is a great song - for me - to just sit and think about my life. it is 18 minutes long, and mostly heavy guitar and a few lyrics. it was really helpful to listen to this song while watching this world happen. because, this world could have quite easily been my world. i could have spent many of my formative years at this bar hanging out with my parents friends and transitioning them to be my friends as well. i could have, but i chose to get out of there.

after that song, i played a few more. it is hard to find good songs for the environment i was in and that i liked. i played wanda jackson, johnny cash, the doors, the velvet underground, and a few others. i think they went over well. eventually my mom came to the bar to hang out with us. by this time i was pretty well done there. but we stayed on for another hour or so. enough time for my brother to become drunk and almost get into a fight. we kind of had to pull him out of there.

on the ride home my brother lapsed into one of his introspective diatribes about his life. these are a common thing for when i am around. i know that the differences between his life path and my life path sting him. he thinks he wants to be able to have a life more along the lines that i live and when i am here it becomes more apparent. so, we had to listen to him talking about why he drinks as he does when he is out and how he doesnt like his job but doesnt feel like he has any options, he doesnt feel as appreciated as he thinks he should be. i have heard this all before.

i dont know if paige had, but probably. we got back to my dads house and joe sat in the garage brooding for awhile. i went out there and we chatted some more. i like having heart to hearts with my brother, with my family. i think that i have good advice, but that could be entirely wrong.

the thing that i dont ever, or at least havent ever, acknowledged is that i have similar introspective life debates. whenever i come back to indiana i cannot help but think about the life i could have had if had never left. i would have had a very steady job and been around a family that look out for another at all costs and just had everything that a person could ever need in life. turning my back on all of that is something that i debate the merits of. the easier word to use there wouldve been "regret" but it wouldnt have been the right word. i have never regretted leaving here, but i have always thought about the course of life if i hadnt left.

certainly, i would have a home and probably a wife with at least one kid bouncing around, a cat. i probably wouldve had my regrets and more longing for a life that i never explored. in short, i probably wouldve been in a similar space that my brother is in. there were times in my life where i went too far out on the limb and wished for nothing more than the simple safe life that i couldve so easily accepted. right now i am just trying to write out the lyrics to "my way" by frank sinatra but adapt them to my life and circumstances.

i will save that.

the next day we went sledding. it had snowed overnight, my sister and my nephew came over. tuesday had come home from school and we were all under the same roof. us kids took the sleds down the hill for an hour or so. it was fun, bryce (my two year old nephew) was hilarious going down the hill, and eventually he started to like me a little bit. after that it was a pretty lazy day. my dad was cooking all day he made breakfast lunch and dinner.

the locks on the floor

at some point between lunch and dinner i decided it was time to shorn my locks. i got my sewing scissors from my truck, went into the garage and took of my shirts. it was cold. then i grabbed some hair in my hands and started cutting. it felt good, and there was a large pile of hair on the ground when i was finished. when i went back inside no one had noticed, so i had to point it out to them. then bobbie gave me some clippers and i went back out and cut my beard off as well. that also felt good, and resulted in a large pile of hair.

when i was done i took a shower and styled my new hair a bit. i was surprised at how evenly i had actually cut it. there wasnt a mirror and my method was just bending over and cutting the hanging hair. not very sophisticated, but it turned out a refined product.

departure from normalcy

2009-12-18T10:14:00.000-08:00

on a serious note, this trip is really hard. many of the folks have responded to my trip in a sort of envious way and i have to bring them back down to earth a little bit, explaining that i live in a pickup truck. i have a good face that i use, the face that gets me through most of my life, shrugging and off and letting slide anything that is potentially harmful to happiness. i look at things with the brightest light that i can.

but, really, i will be happy when this thing is over and i can put it behind me. try to start some kind of life again. which will be equally scary and daunting...but maybe i will be in a place that has heat and running water. thats all i'm asking for. now - the departure from normalcy - i am back in valparaiso. i am staying at my parents house, sleeping in a bed and i have taken two showers in the last four days. talk about glory!

i dont really know when i last talked about my trip, i was in tennessee and then kentucky. then i busted into southern indiana, spent some time in bloomington, then indianapolis, then on to muncie. muncie was the most important stop ont he journey north from new orleans. there resides my sister tuesday.

i dont think i have talked mch about my sisters. and there is good reason for that - i dont know anything about them. when i left home, at 19, my sisters were 13 years old. there was a clear age discrepancy there. i was back in 2000-01 but they werent much older then...and i had my hands full partying.

so, i wanted to stop and see my sister, see where she lives and how she lives and just talk with her. i knew that i could do that when she comes back up here for the holidays, but it is different when you visit a person at their place and make that effort. and we wouldnt be surrounded by a bunch of people that hadnt see us or one another for a long time.

unfortunately, tuesday wasnt home when i got there. i waited for her at a bar while she drove from valparaiso back to muncie. when she got there, she didnt recognize me sitting at the bar. she sat against the wall and called my cell phone. once we found one another we sat there and talked for about a half hour. not very long, but still probably the longest conversation we had ever had with each other. and it was nice to just talk to her as an adult.

i told my other sister, becky, when i talked to her on the phone that i still think of her as 13/14 years old. i have never known these people as adults. so i tasked myself to learn something about them as adults and their lives. to be somewhat present. i want to be more present with all of my family, something that i never really thought about. but it isnt like people live forever and i have spent most of my life being selfish, living it for myself and not giving much thought to the people that have worked to support me unconditionally throughout my life.

true, i havent asked for much support but that doesnt mean it wasnt always there or frequently offered. so, it is nice to be here, to be present in the lives of my family and work on that more.

i got back on wednesday. no one was home at my parents house. so i made some phone calls, tried to turn on the tv but i broke it with my first touch of a button. then i gave up on that and read for awhile, waiting for folks to get back home. bobbie and i hung out for awhile until my dad came back and then we all went out for their regular wednesday night party.

whats more - much more than this - i did it my way

every wednesday they go to the local mexican restaurant - pepes - to hang out with their friends, drink copious amounts of alcohol, and sing karaoke. i went once when i was here earlier this year, it was fun. we were there for hours, drinking 32oz cups of beer, and sometimes doing shots. i pored over the karaoke books becuase i wanted to sing some bruce but again they had a poor selection. i sang "i'm on fire" but not very well. i went on to sing "my way" and "waterfalls" those went better.

growing up in this region i have many reasons to enjoy coming back. and i have a few reasons not to enjoy coming back. i like seeing some of the friends that have buckled down and created their own outposts here, i like seeing some of places i used to frequent or live and recalling memories that only come when i look at a certain place, or drive by someplace and let the flood come. although i have typed a number of starts to the reasons i dont like coming back here (and subsequently deleted them) i will just leave it here.

seagull screaming! (kiss her) (kiss her)

2009-12-16T13:58:00.000-08:00

as i was leaving muncie this morning, i flipped through my cd's looking for that perfect one for a crisp morning as i trekked back to northwest indiana. i fell upon one of my standby's for driving, seagull screaming kiss her kiss her and i thought i should write about the role and progression of music in my life. actually, i have been thinking to write this for a long time, but now i am actually doing it.

growing up, i listened to the oldies. like the oldies station, 104.3, all the hits from the 50's and 60's. this was what my mom listened too and up until about 12 years old i spent much of my music listening time around her. so that was the music i liked, she also had an affinity for old musicals...oh, mom.

after that i mostly listened to the music my dad listened too, which was the classic rock station. music from the 60's and 70's that had more of a rock edge to it. i latched onto this much easier than the oldies. i took in my own direction and fell particularly for a band called 'the doors.' this persisted for at least four years. in that time i devoured everything i could about the band. i have read every book about the band that was released before 1996. i obtained every single one of their albums, including imports and harder to find ones like the album released after jim morrison died.

it was during this time that i got my first cd player and my first cd. ironically, the first cd that i ever had was vanilla ice. that was a good album. and, left to my own devices, my musical tastes could have progressed more along the lines of vanilla ice. luckily, they didnt. through the doors i started getting all other kinds of classic rock music, liking creedence clearwater revival quite a bit and eventually finding the velvet underground.

this was a revelation. one of my favorite albums ever is white light/white heat. after finding this band i devoured their discography and then fell into the trap of finding out more about them. that led to a deep appreciation for lou reed and laurie anderson. specifically i liked that they broke free from musical barriers. and certainly didnt give much of a shit what the public wanted to hear, they made music for what they wanted to make. commercialism be damned.

it was around this time - 1995 - when my family went to visit some family in wisconsin. the family in wisconsin is my dads family, consisted of his "cousins" (this is in quotes because they are actually his real brothers...but he wasnt brought up that way), including my uncle stuart. i dont know this family very well (as if i know my moms side of the family any better) 1995 might have been the last time i went to see this family. i have seen some of them independently over the years. but whatever.

while i was there, i told my uncle stu about liking the velvet underground and other experimental bands. then he changed my life forever. he gave me a double disc cd, the greatest hits album of a band called 'half japanese' i had never heard of them, not many people had at the time. maybe not many have even now. they are two brothers, jad and david fair, who started making music in 1975. the music they were making was punk, but not in the way people were thinking about punk at the time. their musical philosophy was that tuning and even learning the "proper" way to play an instrument inherently limited the number and variety of sounds that you could produce from any instrument.

david fair explained how to play guitar in the liner notes: I taught myself to play guitar. The skinny strings play the high sounds, and the fat strings play the low sounds. If you want to play fast, move your hand fast and if you want to play slower move your hand slower. That's all there is to it. You can learn the names of notes and how to make chords that other people use, but that's pretty limiting. Tuning the guitar is kind of a ridiculous notion. If you have to wind the tuning pegs to just a certain place, that implies that every other place would be wrong. But that's absurd. How could it be wrong? It's your guitar and you're the one playing it. It's completely up to you to decide how it should sound.

and after i listened to this cd and read the liner notes my entire idea and appreciation of music had changed. thanks uncle stu!

i didnt stop listening to other music, but i listened to this much more than other music. later that year my love of classic rock and the doors would peak and then make a drastic decline. the peak came when i visited paris and went to the pere lachaise cemetery to see jim morrisons gravesite. i beleive it was the first and last time in my life that i made a conscious trip to a graveyard.

when i got back the luster had died down and anyway i had this new stuff to listen too. i ramped up listening to the velvet underground, especially after i learned that moe tucker (the drummer for vu) was an on-and-off-again member of half japanese. how awesome. delving into the world of the velvet uunderground and that whole scene around andy warhol's factory in the late 60's and early 70's also produced a literary gem that changed my life.

the book was called "the SCUM manifesto," written by valerie solanas. i read this book dozens of times, it was dog-eared and highlighted beyond belief. one of my high school teachers found me reading it in class and confiscated it, i was very unhappy about that. i dont know if i ever got it back. but reading this book was where i first started learning about dominant power structures and the role i play as a white male. born into a natural power position and able to walk all over women and people of different races based purely on the color of my skin and the junk in my trunk. i was more conscious about my role in the world, certainly not all-aware but somewhat aware.

then i met steve and he introduced me to more recent punk rock music. really, i met alex and he introduced me to the music, but i wasnt ready to appreciate it until steve re-introduced me. it was at this point that i completely renounced classic rock and worked to be punk rock. i changed my style of dress, cut and dyed my hair, applied copious amounts of knox gelatin and voila. a young punk kid.

the bands at this point were operation ivy, rancid, the suicide machines, things like this. i progressed this way eventually finding more punk - crust punk - bands and also local music from chicago. almost weekly, in 1997, we made trips to the fireside bowl to catch whatever show was playing. it was in this way i met a girl named kelly and she introduced me to minor threat, janes addiction, slapstick, and gave me reasons to appreciate the smashing pumpkins and also some world music. there was something missing though. all of the music i listened to was made by men, and mostly white men. because of this, i started to think that women just couldnt make good music.

and that led directly to one of the most vivid memories of my stupidity. now we are in 1999, and i am living in new york - with tiffany. at some point virgina (our other housemate), she and i got into a discussion about music. and i can see the room and myself so clearly...and the words that came out of my mouth. for some reason, during this conversation, i got heated and announced that women (i probably said girls) couldnt make music as well as men. so much for whatever i had gleaned in my younger years from the scum manifesto.

at the time i stood by and defended what i had said. luckily tiffany spotted me for an idiot and started indoctrinating me on some really amazing music made by women. she introduced me to sleater-kinney, cadallaca, k-records, kathleen hanna (in the form of bikini kill, le tigre, and julie ruin) along with countless other bands (and record labels), predominantly women or at least fronted by women, that were making awesome music RIGHT NOW. i didnt acquiesce straight away. i played dumb, but i found myself taking out her BMW with more regularity simply to listen to the cd's that she kept in the car. and, instead of admitting that i was wrong, i just acted like nothing happened and that i had enjoyed this music all along.

by the time i left there i was more punk than i had ever been before, more well read, knew a greater diversity of music and bands, and i was vegan. the last time i ate meat (before 2008 when i renounced veganism) was may 2000 in bryan, tx at tiffany's moms house.

steve and i were traveling and i found myself back in indiana, with a ton of money and no desire to move back to the region. so i picked up a copy of time magazine (a magazine that i loved at the time and still find myself reading with some pleasure). on the cover was sleater-kinney, and the main article was about the music revolution happening in olympia, wa. i got on the internet, found an apartment and wired a down payment. in two weeks i would move to the other side of the country, to a place that i had never been within 1500 miles of....because i read an article about music made by women in time magazine. my dirty little secret.

a drawing of my apartment in olympia

when i got there it was another opening for music. i didnt know anyone, and in the 9 months i would live there i didnt meet anyone. but i did rediscover the library. and many of the local bands and labels would deposit their releases at the library for circulation. i ate it up. and my horizons expanded. on one mix-cd i learned of the mountain goats, dead moon, mirah, calvin johnson, little red car wreck, and seagull screaming kiss her kiss her. i was constantly checking out cds from all styles and just listening to them. i had nothing in my apartment aside from a chair and a cd player.

punk rock was fading a little bit from my preferred style of music to listen too, but half japanese remained in my top five. i mail ordered for thier entire catalog (like 16 albums or so) and they werent very easy to get. i also got a very hard to find record by a band called "the stinky puffs" which was some of the members of half japanese and some of the members of nirvana fronted by a seven year old. it was hilarious.

also, while i was in olympia, i got to rekindle my love of musicals with my first rock opera. the show was called 'the transfused.' and this show, this amazing show, changed my life in so many ways. i know i have been throwing around the "changed my life" stuff, but really, this was an epic event. there are some clips on youtube watch and find out just why it was so amazing. the week after that show closed the first lady fest was staged in olympia. this was why i had come here and now i was a part of it all. it was great.

anyway, so my musical tastes were rounded out for the next couple of years. i left olympia and eventually moved back to indiana for awhile. there i started collecting records (hello eBay...and tons of money down the drain) and buying all sorts of wierd new music. i also got back into classic rock some - mostly because of the records i was getting at garage sales. and life was good. it was also during this time that i found out about plan-it-x records and started listening to folk-punk music in general. it was a very good melding of a few different styles and i liked it alot.

since i started writing this, i kind of lost focus. because i had to listen to all of the different music i was writing about and then watch some youtube videos and such. but, what i wanted to get across with this post is that there is a band called 'seagull screaming kiss her kiss her' and it is one of my favorites. top five. the album 'red talk' is the one that i have been listening to in my truck. bye!

the end of the world will come at night time

2009-12-14T14:04:00.000-08:00

i got beat up once before. (i thought that was a very just/funny opening sentence, laugh if you agree.) seriously though, growing up i was never a fighter. in middle school i punched some kid in the head becasue he towel whipped me. when my brother and i would fight, he would throw punches and i would ridicule him. psychological warfare, it worked most of the time.

the only time i was really in a fistfight was the typical "meet me after school at the tracks so we can fight over a girl." i guess i was a junior in high school, some dude that i didnt like very much and whose name i cannot recall for the life of me had recently had a falling out with girlfriend. for whatever reason, i seriously cannot recall any right now, i liked her. he took this as an affront to his manhood and challenged me to a fight.

i didnt want to accept it, but there really wasnt any other choice. so i agreed to meet him, but he seemed dirty so i called upon some friends and friends of friends to accompany me to the battle site. remembering it, it was hilarious. just like an 80's movie, his group of people were waiting for my group of people in the clearing. there was a warm-up fight between one of my friends and one of his friends, my friend lost - but lost gracefully. then it was my turn.

i was terrified. i dont even think i threw a punch, but he certainly did. psychological warfare wasnt going to work here. i went quickly to the ground and after that the fight was called. i wasnt hurt too bad, i never really had too much pride so that wasnt even damaged too much. and the end result? his ex-girlfriend, cara massa (the girl i had a crush on) asked me to the prom. apparently, sometimes when you win you really lose and sometimes when you lose you really win. and sometimes when you win or lose you actually tie.

this pre-story is just some buildup for me to talk about going to prom. why in the hell am i thinking about this now, and thinking about it enough to write about it? well, at some point on this trip - i dont remember when or from who - i learned that this girl cara was dead. she committed suicide, at least thats what i hear. i havent talked to her or really even thought about her since the day after prom. and the reason i am writing about it now is because i am near where we had our day after prom thing. you know, after prom your party goes out somewhere and does something? well, we went to turkey run state park.

so, lets hear this story out. and, remember, as with all the stories of my past some of this is certainly made up because i dont remember it all but you'll get the gist of it.

i am pretty sure she asked me to the prom. i am pretty sure of this because i am pretty sure i have never asked anyone in my life out on a proper date. thats something i have been thinking to work on, but it just seems so funny to ask someone out properly. so, i was probably pretty surprised by this turn of events. i was 16 (i had to do some math to figure out how old i was, so dont try to prove me wrong) and i really had given that much thought yet to girls. i was too busy figuring myself out at the time to complicate it with members of the opposite sex, or i was high.

she and i had never gone out or even hung out with each other before prom. i really dont even know why i wouldve had a crush on her or why she wouldve asked me to the prom. but we worked it out, talking in the hallways. we got a two other couples - friends of mine who were seniors - to round out our prom party. although she asked me to the prom, the burden of buying tickets and renting a limo and stuff was on me.

so i went to my dad. my dad knows people, and it just so happened that he knew someone with a limo and he would work out a deal with the guy and secure it for our prom party. because the limo was at my house and my parents are cool people the three couples met at my house to take pictures and leave for the prom. and we were got up too. fancy dresses, slick black tux's and all. i had a cane and a top hat. i felt suave, even if looking at the pictures today i feel like an idiot.

part of this has to do with my hair. i was coming out of being a loner/hippie/stoner kid into being a more well known punk rock stoner kid. so, i still had long hair. hair longer than it is today, although i didnt have any facial hair yet. i wasnt yet ready to cut off my hair, but i had to do something with it, so i got someone (perhaps even my future girlfriend, melissa) to braid it. hundreds of little braids with little colored rubberbands at the bottoms. again, i felt cool. but in reality i was ridiculous. this type of thing wasnt new for me, i had been doing cornrows and other types of braids in my hair for awhile.

so, dressed like a fool we were all in a limo and off to the prom. since we were high most of the time in regular life there is no reason for me to think that we werent then. i am also pretty sure that we were drinking because our limo driver, my dads friend, had a ready supply of alcohol...and he wasnt holding back. i do not remember a single thing about the prom. there are pictures to prove we were there, i still have these photos in portland. i dont think cara and i took couples shots, but i was in a group shot with "all my friends." of the twenty or so guys in the picture i could probably name twelve of them then, maybe four now.

i think we left rather quickly, i dont think we danced at all, i am positive i was a bad date. but, i also think that i was finding out that i didnt even really like this person that i got beat up over and received the consolation prize of paying her way and entertaining her for a night. so, my night wasnt going awesome. we found our limo driver and had him drive us - the three couples - to the after prom dinner. we went to the house of kobe and i am pretty sure that we met some of those guys from my group picture there. but by this point i dont beleive i was really with the world anymore.

we were at dinner a long time and afterwards we were going to go to a party. however, there was a problem. our limo driver was, by now, completely wasted and passed out in the driver seat. we deliberated for a little bit and decided to push him aside, take his liquor and drive the limo ourselves. it wasnt like he came from a company or anything. so, this happened. i didnt do the driving, one of the other guys did, he wasnt completely sober himself - but what a good prom story. part of the deal that my dad had made with the limo driver was that he could stay at my parents house that night. so we took him back to my parents house, got him inside on the couch and then the six of us deliberated for a few moments.

we decided that we would take the limo back out and go partying. although i was the one that would be most on the line should anything bad happen - and it was bound too - i was all for this idea. we were outside again and just pulling away from the house when my dad came out of the house. awesome as he may be he quickly identified some shady business going on. he took me aside and i told him that the limo guy was drunk and we had to take over the limo. then i asked my dad (as if it were his limo) if we could continue with our plan and take the limo out partying.

unfortunately, he said no. he encouraged all of us to stay the night at the house. we were allowed to drink there and there were plenty of places to crash. the entire upstairs was pretty much my domain. there were two bedrooms and a bathroom, my little sister that lived with my mom had the other bedroom and wasnt there a whole lot. it had bunkbeds, and i had three couches, a bed, and a cubby hole. i dont remember if everyone stayed, by i did. and i think cara did. but, unlike the way many prom stories end, nothing happened between us. we never even kissed one another. not ever.

the next day our group reconnected and drove down to turkey run state park in southern indiana. this was a popular day-after-prom thing. we went hiking and such throughout the park. i think we may have even camped out there. but i am not so sure. and now, here i am, near turkey run and thinking about prom. twelve years later, i cannot remember the names of the people i was with and my date is dead by her own hand. i guess thats one person i wont be reconnecting with.

every streetlight reveals a picture

2009-12-13T07:59:00.000-08:00

well, i am in a wierd place right now - louisville, kentucky. really it isnt that wierd here, whats wierd are the time zones. becasue now i am heading north straddling the line between the eastern and central timezones. my phone updates automatically but the clock in my truck and on my computer do not. so i get conflicting times and it just messes with me a little bit.

earlier on this trip i read a book about daylight savings time and how it came into effect, amazingly it was only adopted (as we know it) in the 1980's. in the book it also talks about how time zones were established and all that stuff. it was really interesting. it is something i had never really thought about but the manipulation of time is probably one of the largest turning points where humans took over and completely dominated nature and the way we perceive it.

here i am!

before time zones were a thing every town had a central clock that would chime at noon - based on the position of the sun - and the people would adjust their timepieces to be in accordance with the sun at noon where ever they resided. which mean in louisville in would be noon but thirty miles east it would be 12:15 and thirty miles west in would be 11:45. people lived based on the position of the sun. the standardization of time zones was implemented becasue of the emergence of railroads as a way to make scheduling easier.

industry dominating the natural order to provide better service. i think i wrote about it earlier on the trip.

anyway, i have been moving fast. the other day i was in bowling green, ky and it was a nice small town there. i left yesterday and went on to mammoth cave national park. about thirty miles north. mammoth cave is a place i visited as a kid. i have no idea how old of a kid i was but i know that i went there with my mom and dad so it was before they were divorced. it cost a fair amount to actually take cave tours, so i contented myself walking around the park.

and it was real nice. moving fast i have mostly been sitting in my truck or at a coffee shop in large towns or cities. it was awesome to be back out in nature. on the way out to the park i almost celebrated thanksgiving the american way - by killing a turkey. i was cruising along the empty road that lead to the park and a wild turkey (i am pretty sure thats what it was) darted across the road and i slammed on the brakes. then i laughed loud and heartily. i drove slower after that.

once i got to the visitor center, i walked through it and then found myself on a path to the natural entrance to the cave system. it was locked down so i continued

the cave entrance

on the trail system. i walked for about 4 miles throughout the park. i saw a few other smaller entrances to the caves, all of them barred from human entry. i also got to see some underground rivers come out from the caves. the best one was the echo river spring. where the river comes out from the ground there is a lake and you can see whirlpools and such where the water is flowing out from underground.

they had a plaque there about some of the cave water animals. i had seen pictures of these things before, but reading about them so close to where they were had a different effect. animals like the albino kentucky shrimp. an endangered species that doesnt exist anywhere else but in this cave system. or the albino fish that dont have any hardware for eyes. these animals live completely in the dark. they had pictures of these animals and i wondered how it affected them when these pictures were taken. these animals must've died. i mean, they never seen light in their lives and all of a sudden a bright flash of light takes your picture.

anyway. along the trail i saw some dumb white tail deer. they were just feet from the path, but they wouldnt come when i called them. i just wanted to pet them a little bit. i wondered why deer were never domesticated. in another book i read on this trip - i think the history of salt - it had historical accounts of europeans first encountering bovine, cows. the testimony was of a large fearsome animal that the explorers were terrified to approach. now look at cows.

it was a nice brisk day and the hike was very pleasant. i liked seeing the icicle formations on the rocks. this is something i had seen quite a bit on the expressway and always wanted to stop to take a picture but stopping on the expressway is a dumb thing and thats why i dont really like expressway driving. there was one cave that looked like i might be able to get into, but if i were caught there was a $20,000 fine and up to 20 years in federal prison. i weighed the risks and benefits then decided against it.

when i left i headed straight to louisville. i thought about going to frankfort, the capital of kentucky, but it would add about 100 miles to my journey and i wasnt

where the underground river styx emerges

prepared for that. so i got to lousiville and my first experiences were typical. in a larger city the first thing i look for is the main library. i do this because libraries generally have wireless and information on the city. also, there are usually signs to point the way to them. the library was closed, but i sat outside searching the city for a place that i could walk around, like a hawthorne district or something.

i found it, bardstown road. i drove over there, parked somewhere and then walked around. it wasnt too chilly here and i had a nice place to spend the night. i went about twenty blocks up the road and back, just watching the city and killing time. i sat in a bookstore and perused the new titles. i think i want to read the book '1424.' it is about the chinese explorations of the americas 70 years before the europeans. i read through the introduction and it was fascinating.

then i went and sat outside under a light and finished the book i was reading. while sitting there some lady gave me some spare food she had. that was nice. i guess i look homeless enough to warrant it, sitting outside in the cold with a large beard and mostly unkempt. i appreciated the offer and ate the food. when i finished the book i went back to my truck and settled it. the night was raucous around me, but i had ggod wireless where i was parked and the night wasnt nearly as cold as it had been recently. i slept better than i had all week.