I'm ready to write something new, I think, new format/new forum. I went back fifteen months ago last night. I really do believe writing about things sets a course and constructs a narrative, and doing so in a potentially public forum makes the words weigh more. My life can be explained by very few things but consistent writing and luck may be a start.

The chronology is good but it's closing off, so much and nothing has happened between january 08 and now. June 08 to mid april 09 stand as a mostly lost year. The year I started watching tv again, did a lot of yoga, waited and thought through it.

Yesterday at brunch she said I guess I got it out of my system in highschool. The chasm widened. All this space has allowed me to watch lives unfold and a not unfamiliar awareness mine is different. It will never get out of my system, it is my system.

I want to live, as much as possible, along the edges of things happening, expanding the space of this time to fill with contents. I want to know people, in deep and long ways, and in short interactions. I want to read more great books, which turns on different parts of your brain than watching and observing. I want to dance and laugh really hard until I am old. Most people I know don't do either of those things enough. I want to take care of my body so it will have me as long as possible. I want to sort out the difficult parts of life by bobbing in the ocean.

I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

~Henry David Thoreau

And this is no longer needed for that. So, goodbye.

night moves

One of my favorite books growing up, after all the Berenstein Bears ones demonstrating the consequences of rule-breaking (heeded or not... unclear), was this picture book called The Tompkin.

It was a book about a small man who lurks around checking to make sure the animals and children on the farm sleep at night, leaving footprints in the snow as the only sign he was there.

My mother has since informed me she found it "boring." Yet she didn't find my early interest in oddly voyeuristic activity alarming. I understood the Tompkin. My brother, who is known for walking home alone wasted from parties, does too. Tonight, enjoying being home alone, I stepped out to grab some eggs for the buttermilk rusks and pancakes I was making. The lawns are still winter, ice and snow, but the air is spring and the streets are slick. The best kind of night to be out in.

Buying eggs at night from a convenience store always reminds me of my favorite night with my friend Alb. He paid for his first degree by playing basketball. Midway through the degree, and negotiating not failing a mandatory math class with a prof who was a fan of the team, he started to learn about statistics. And, he started to play poker. That's how he paid for his second degree. He was the kind of guy with a lot of secrets and I think he was looking for someone to talk to; we'd have long conversations after nights out about life.

Admittedly, we tried hooking up. It started the night we ended up taking a super expensive cab ride to a Denny's only to find out it was closed for the only night it closes every year. The driver felt so sorry for the four of us the ride back was free and we stopped at an all night convenience store for groceries. Back at the house the guys made this epic midnight breakfast using everything we'd gathered. It was actually pretty fantastic. After, alone, with all the smoothness of a don juan who dunks he looked at me and said,

"Are we going to do this?"

And I shrugged and we kissed. And then the piece of furniture we were on collapsed. Neither of us were exceptionally heavy people and I took it as a sign this was a bad idea. We laughed about it and passed out; in a sobered state I Tompkins'd out of there and later he would tell me he was sad I didn't say goodbye. He had the broadest smile and this sense of calm around him for having led a somewhat crazy life.

For being a good looking ex-jock he was a genuinely respectful nice guy and something tells me he'll probably end up being one of the most successful people I've run across in my life.

*

While I'm baking, I like to have dance parties. Tonight, this is my jam.

beijos

I write this in bed, breakfast tea and whole grain cereal cooked in coconut milk and cinnamon, getting ready to head out for awhile. The house is empty this weekend - peaceful. Everything is as it should be, arranged in place.

The wind outside is 60km/h, audible. I think about staying in bed, instead.

Modest Mouse - People As Places as People

Work is crazy quiet. It's entirely possible in twenty minutes I'll escape for cold air and coffee. My coconspirator has called in sick for three days and this place is lonely.

Meanwhile.

Sleuthing reveals new destinations and methods of transit. Right now, tentative plans to visit four spots.

25 days left at this office.
43 days until I leave this city permanently.
73 days to departure.

looks like a baby rat

I think the new design is facebook leaping over the shark and impaling itself on the fin. I know everyone has complained about old changes, but the problem with this interface is that it provides less information for prying eyes.

It's putting a cramp in my creeping.

Stella McCartney used to have the best music in her shows, like Lindsay Lohan's Revenge and sweet M.I.A tracks before anyone else. Now it's all lurid clubhaus remixes and my source is bankrupt.

I may have had drinks after work and kept drinking while watching The City (finale), the after show because W. Port called in AND new Gossip Girl. On my way home I thought it would be high-larious to score 7/11 chicken and Women's Health. I don't know if you noticed but The City soundtrack this episode was entirely apparently bomb 80's remixes and I would buy that album in two seconds if someone would compile it for me. And it featured DVF as the fairy godmother of hapless reality tv stars. Woah. GG was worth the wait and in the final scene before anything was evident I may have been fist pumping, downing gin alone to drown the chicken, and yelling "chuck, chuck, chuck" in my living room.

I saw this four foot kid on the pay phone by my house who was like "yeah, wrong answer bitch, you want this" and hit the phone repeatedly against the booth before resuming "you get down on your f-ing knees and you beg, on your KNEES." Junior high threats are apparently at a whole new level in South Central.

In our third police interaction of the year I called back a number assuming it was for the file on which I'm a witness only to find out my roommate's deadbeat ex tenant called the cops to GET HIS FIREARMS LICENSE FROM US. For his, uh, job. We don't have this license because we mark all his mail "return to sender" including the monthly letters from the casino Players Club (assumed rent alternative), but I'm glad to know that even if he never paid rent and he let his dog crap all over her carpet he obeys the rules as far as lawful gun use.

The earlier post was a reference to finding out several of my amigos are, probably unknowingly, friends with a murderer fugitive. Not kidding, but google tells no lies and lets just say I have a new news alert.

And I have new nerd glasses that are like kryptonite. Baaaam.

This entry has been so TMI. That's what happens when you stop drinking and start again.

making a plan

Sometimes information comes out of the ether and what appeared to be is not. What provokes this is unimportant, though it's strange and came about in the process of looking for information on something equally odd.

Work is slow and I'm distracted thinking about what to plan and not.

Trip Notes, if you were interested.

It's going to be 150 Euro to fly a board back . That's bananas.

I am taking a cell, a cheap one where the SIM switches out. I'm not taking a laptop this time for security/travel weight/lack of wifi reasons. I'm probably taking my rusty 4G ipod and leaving it there, assuming it still works.

I booked the cheapest air flight to the coast from the hub yesterday, approximately $35 CAD. The first stop is warm (forgiving) water and sunny beaches to deal with my pale skin vitamin deficiencies. The second stop is unknown, I've been going back and forth a lot on it.

Accom costs have jumped about 10% even with the exchange rate, mostly attributable to the Canadian dollar sucking like it's 2002. However, food costs appear to have remained pretty stable and transit is still inexpensive.

It's possible I could find some work that would cover some room and board but I'm not sure about that one yet. There are a couple solid volunteer projects that are worthwhile literally right beside where I'm staying. Normally I'd say voluntourism is neither here nor there but the projects are being run by my friends in a community that benefits from them. So we'll see.

I'm not sure if the E can come or not. To be honest, I think her travel dollar is better spent heading somewhere else as two weeks is way too short to go this far and the cost is prohibitive right now. I sent some info on everything and haven't heard back yet...

More to follow. Time for drinks.

I've Packed a Change of Clothes and It's Time to Move On

Marking yet another day off on the calendar reinforces how quickly a year goes. I literally mark my six-months-at-a-glance with red x's. Where did all those marks come from? Better, what have they amounted to?

I have to start packing again.