Another beautiful day in The Bay.

I get up early.  Usually, the night before I go to bed, the logistics are planned out of how I'm going to work.  If it's anywhere in the East Bay (Oakland, Berkeley, or further) I'll ride my bicycle.  If it's in San Francisco, I may or may not take my car.  My bicycle is an amazing, expensive machine and I love it for what it is and what it does.  It takes me forever to get ready.  There are a ton of things I feel I need to do before I go and take with me, but I don't lack anything while I'm away and am always prepared for whatever the day may bring.  Normally, it's overcast in the morning and just a little bit chilly.  It all burns off around eleven.  I never fail to look out my window and think "Another beautiful day in the bay."  I go to work.  Most times it's at a BART station, where I hand out chocolate milk to commuters on their way to work.  I get along with my coworkers, though sometimes it's a little weird working with my ex girlfriend, the girl I had a very brief stint with immediately afterwards, and especially strange when both of them are together, chatting away (we refer to them as "Tweedles" when they are together).  On Mondays and Fridays I go to the storage unit where we keep the Nesquik vehicle, extra milk, swag, promotional materials, etc and I drive the truck to the distribution center, pick up a pallet of milk, and drop it back off at the storage unit.  After that, I usually stay in The City for a few hours.  The shop where I pedicab is very close, only a song or two away on my bike.  It's located on the Embarcadero at the end of a pier in a warehouse and I love going there even when I'm not working.  Pedicabbing is awesome.  I ride my tricycle around taking people to Fisherman's Wharf, Giants games, or wherever they need to go.  No one tells me where I must go, or when I have to take lunch or anything like that.  I rest when I'm tired, eat when I'm hungry, and stop when I must.  After work, I get a beer out of the fridge and stick money in the envelope, $1 for domestic, $2 for import.  I like to sit on the dock and watch the ships sailing or look at the lights on the Bay Bridge.  Once I saw a sea lion.  

  When I'm at home, I hang out with my roommates.  One is a nurse and it's fun to hear him playing around with electronic music, playing bass, or belting out melodies scat style.  The other is always incredibly excited about the weekend hike he is going on, or the future he is on the cusp of carving out.  We eat together often and often have house guests or couchsurfers.  

  During my free time I work on various art projects.  I've gotten into stenciling, and still make flair buttons.  I spend too much time on the internet and my bedroom is in a constant state of disarray.  I go out in San Francisco and often crash there at a friend's house.  

  The Bay area is full of wonder and surprises.  I go to concerts all the time, take trips, skate, and just fall more and more in love with my life all the time.  There were some hardships getting here, and it was a bit of a scramble at the beginning, but I've moved on from surviving to thriving.  I guess that sums it up for now.  It's time to get ready for a sailing trip with a dude I met online; he surfed my couch and ended up buying a boat.  Five hot girls are coming with us.  It's overcast out, but it'll all burn off by 11.  Another beautiful day in the bay.  Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Bicycle Tour.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

I recently bought a brand new bicycle, a touring bike. If a road bike is the equivalent of a thoroughbred horse, I got a Clydesdale, or a draft horse. I had been training on Dad’s old road bike for a long time, but more seriously recently, doing just under a hundred miles a weeks for a month. I had done my homework online and talked to other people about touring bicycles before I chose the one I wanted, found a dealer, and had it shipped from the factory. I got it, put some miles on it, came back the next day for the rack, panniers (expensive waterproof bags that hang off the sides of the rack), and a few other accessories before heading out on my trip. I left Reno last Monday with about 30 pounds of gear and headed to Carson City. I burned through the oatmeal I had eaten pretty early and the banana I brought for a snack as well. I stopped at a gas station in Washoe flats, midway between Reno and Carson City and had a few corn dogs, some chips, and cookies. I filled up my water bottles and camel back and set out again. I had never ridden to Carson City before. It was cool to be on a road I hadn’t traveled before; it was long, flat, and straight. I had a great view of the back side of the ski resort I used to work at, and took in the scenery of the farms and ranches that I normally never got a chance to see while I whizzed by on the 395 South. I stopped another cyclist for directions when the road stopped and was about to spit me on the freeway. I knew that I had a huge climb ahead of me, and it gave me heart to hear that he had done the climb on Christmas and he was much older than me. I stopped in South Carson in a parking lot and rested. I was cold. I put on the arm warmers I had got at REI and sort of cursed the guy that talked me out of getting the warmer ones. Boy was I wrong, shortly after I got back on the bike and started the climb, I heated up. The arm warmers came off, the jersey got unzipped, and after awhile, since the go was so slow and the shoulder so wide, I took off my helmet too. It is about 23 miles from where I stopped in Carson City to where I stopped in South Lake Tahoe with a 1,435’ climb in elevation. It was a beast of a climb, but I did it without complaint (though I did run out of water) and without using my lowest gears. I pulled into a casino and started in on my MRE while I used the internet on my phone to figure out where I was going to stay that night. I had put out a few requests on the couchsurfing website I use to travel and host travelers, but hadn’t gotten any responses. I also had an account on another website called warmshowers.org that provides lodging to touring cyclists. Warmshowers is a little better because it has phone numbers listed, and after one unsuccessful attempt, I found someone who was willing to host me. I asked him what kind of beer he would like and he wasn’t particular. As I whizzed down the hill a little ways in town, I noted that it had grown a little dark and COLD! I’m glad that I brought my snowboarding jacket, I needed it then. I was amazed at just how much difference a six pack could make putting it all in one pannier. The bike drove a little wonky the 12 miles to my host’s house.

I used my smart phone to map the route and while it worked pretty well, I wish I hadn’t been so technologically dependent for this trip. For example, I had written down directions for a route later in the trip that I had gotten from my phone, and I realized that it had me turn right, go one mile, turn left, go one mile, turn left, go one mile, then turn right again to put me back on the same road that I was already on! It does this to keep the cyclist off of heavily trafficked roads, but I think that it’s better to just stay on the road you’re on sometimes.

My phone was dying as I was approaching my destination, and it lost service and the map wouldn’t re-update itself. I was glad when I finally pulled in. My hosts name was Kevin and he was ski patrol at one of the resorts in Tahoe. He showed me pictures of previous cycling tours he had done, we had a beer, and chatted for awhile before he showed me where my room was, gave me a towel for a shower, and went to bed. I made a rookie mistake and forgot to put on sunscreen that day. It didn’t help that I was riding towards the sun most of the day and in increasing elevation. My arms and tops of my legs were fried pretty good and I didn’t sleep very well that night. I woke up with the spins and I think it was because I didn’t hydrate well enough. I was also starving and didn’t have anything to eat. Not a bad first day though, almost 80 miles with a 1500’ climb.

Kevin’s house, even though it was 12 more miles from where I thought I was ending my first day (by far the most arduous to date day I had done on a bicycle, the most before that being half the distance with none of the weight) was still on route to my next stop in Placerville. He gave me some eggs and toast for breakfast and I was very grateful as I was starving.

I was on highway 50 for a long leg of the trip. My first 45 minutes on the bike that day were quite a climb, and then I was in top gear blasting down the grade. I know it might sound strange, but even though my second day was the least amount of distance (62 miles) with the most amount of downhill, it was my least favorite day. Highway 50 doesn’t have much of a shoulder, and you have to be very aware of every little bump in the road when you’re descending at breakneck speeds. Your hands start to hurt from the static position they are in on the brakes, and cars are passing you with only a few feet of breadth. I stopped at the first little grocery I saw in Strawberry, and not wanting to repeat the mistake I had made the night before, I bought way too much. It didn’t hit me until after a mile or so later that I had just spent $28 on 6oz salami, 8 Cliff bars, a pack of donuts, small bottle of milk, a honey bun, and a 5 hour energy caffeine shot (I had one of those caffeine shots right before doing the pass the day before and I think it really helped me, though I am curious to why the triathlete who had given it to me didn’t want it, as if caffeine can have a negative effect). It was food, but I wasn’t going to eat it all at once, and therefore, it was weight that I had to carry. I really had it in my head that touring on a bicycle would cost next to nothing after the initial expense (which was substantial, my 2012 Surly Long Haul Trucker bicycle with Topeak rack and Ortleib waterproof panniers was around $1700). You have to fuel the machine though! I remember doing a little bit of math a few days before that. It was something like the cost of loaf of bread, ham, and turkey, worked out to be $0.69 a sandwich, which was 250cal and was burned in 5 miles or something like that. On a caloric basis, it’s only a little bit cheaper than gas in a car. I’m sure there are people who could argue different things about what to eat to make it cheaper, but the bottom line is, you gotta pay to play. Food costs money and it takes food to pedal.

I was making great time and about 20 miles from Placerville I decided to rest for awhile. It was beautiful countryside, and you could see the American River from time to time. I was pretty stiff after I got back on the bike and I’m pretty sure the first upgrade I get will be a new saddle.

It was around the 18 miles to Placerville sign that the hills started again and I was in low spirits. I think back on it now and think that I really should have had something more substantial than just some cliff bars, I think a sandwich or burrito or something would have set me right. The descent started again and was chugging along. Somewhere along the line, seamlessly, 50 turned into the freeway and I didn’t realize it until a highway patrolman sternly told me to “GET OFF ON THE NEXT EXIT, YOU NEED TO TAKE BLAH BLAH BLAH”. I obliged and was in a place called Apple Hill I think. I went down Carson street along some farms and wineries. I was checking directions on my phone when another cyclist offered some assistance. Winston told me I was on the right road and it would spit me right into downtown Placerville. He inquired about my route and told me that there was a beautiful river trail that goes from outside Placerville all the way to Davis. I had thought to stop in Sacramento the next day, but realized that if I went to Davis instead, I could probably just make the next leg of the trip the next day and shave off a day. I had arranged to stay with the mother of some friends that night (well, actually, it was a different night, but she was still ok to host me) and got directions to the house. Nine miles doesn’t seem like much after you’ve done 55, but let me tell you, those last miles are long ones and there were some HILLS. I finally, for the first time, used my granny gear. Kathy was just getting in as I was pulling into her driveway. We chatted for a moment and she told me where the shower was. I was getting ready when I heard her say “Shad, I need you!” and I could hear a touch of desperation in her voice. I ran down the hall and he 93 year-old father was on the floor with his arm pinned behind him in an awkward position. She asked if wanted her to call 911, and he said he wanted to be moved onto his back and then on his feet. I got behind him with my arms under his elbows and picked him up. It was fortunate I was there because I don’t think Kathy could have done it by herself. He was pretty shaken up after that, but for the most part ok. The nurse, who had never failed to be there, had car trouble and called Kathy to let her know that she wasn’t going to be there on her scheduled time and so Kathy went home immediately afterward. I found out later that he had been like that for three hours! Poor guy.

I had bought food at a supermarket in town before heading to her house; rice and beans with a can of corn, two cans of cooked chicken, and jalapeno cheddar tortillas. It cost around $12 and filled me up that night, part of breakfast and all of lunch the next day. It was really nice having dinner with Kathy that night and swapping stories about the boys. Riley and Kenyon are her identical twin sons. Riley lived next door to me and we hung out alot and did a cycle gatherings (Critical Mass) in San Francisco with Kenyon. I was really into skateboarding when I was a teenager and so was Kenyon, though I have to grudgingly admit that he was and is still probably better than me at it. I stayed in his room that night surrounded by familiar skateboarding posters and icons.

I didn’t sleep as well as I would have liked, I was still sunburned and though I had drank more water than I did the day before, I was still a little dehydrated. There was also a book lying around by one of my favored authors AND it was about a teenage skateboarder, so I got sucked into that as well. I headed out the next morning after breakfast and was on the road for my longest day.

Remember earlier when I talked about how my bike was riding a little wonky when I added six pack of beer? Well, sometimes I would take stuff out of one and put it in the other, and forget what went where, and they became a little bit unbalanced. I repacked everything and shortly after I left I noticed they were rattling alot. There is a little lever on the side that I can adjust with an allan wrench, and I had to pull over and do this before getting on my way. Sometimes it feels like I can’t get more than a mile or two without having to pull over to pee, take off/put on a jacket, or get something out of my camel back or panniers. It’s hard to get moving sometimes, but I guess that’s how bicycle touring is sometimes. Someone told me later that the mileage I was doing was kind of alot, but I figured that since I was only going for a handful of days with only 35lbs of stuff, that I could do a little more.

Just outside of Placerville there is a beautiful bicycle trail that goes on for a long time. I think it went even farther than I took it and I just lost it somehow and if I had stayed on it, it would’ve taken me all the way to Sacramento or Davis. I got lost somehow, for a long time and didn’t realize it and instead of riding for just over six hours, it ended up being more like nine. I was alongside I-80 when the sun was going down over the mountains. My directions got really strange once I was in Davis trying to find my hosts’ house. When I switched the format from bicycle directions to automobile directions on my phone, they really simplified and I needed to learn this earlier I think.

The people I stayed with were extremely accommodating. They fed me almost as soon as I walked in the door, pasta with pesto sauce. They offered to let me do laundry, use their computer, and gave me a towel to use to take a shower and a really comfortable futon. Rachel didn’t have to work till the afternoon the next day and wanted me to meet her friend and have breakfast together. It felt like I was cheating not doing the last 80 miles, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I only got to speak with my host a little bit more the next day. He made me coffee though and I was really grateful to stay with someone who had done bicycle touring before, so he knew how grueling it was sometimes and what he could provide to make the situation ideal for the traveler.

I learned alot of things during this trip. It once again reinforced my belief that doing your homework beforehand and going into a situation prepared makes difficult things a little more comfortable. I would look at huge hills and think “If I get a running start at this, I might make it up before I get tired”. Then they wouldn’t be so big sometimes when I actually was on them. I brought a tent and a sleeping bag, but I didn’t bring a sleeping mat. I thought “I’m not going to use it anyway”. Why would I bother bringing a sleeping bag and a tent then? Apparently it was because I knew somehow I would end up going camping while I was here because that’s what happened.

Cathy Ames

It didn't work out with Bree and I am very disappointed. I knew for a long time that she liked me. She had said something a long time ago to one of my guy friends, Nick or Darren along the lines of "Why is he dating Jasmine when he thinks she's so vanilla, he should be dating me". I saw a note she had left for me at my camp at Burning Man about how she wanted to spend some time in the cuddle puddle together. I thought she was attractive, but I didn't know if I liked her. Nick and Melissa both had said that she was toxic, a narcissist, and "fuckin' crazy". I think I decided that I did like her after we had went on our trip to San Francisco together. I would like to think that when we stayed at Leif's house in Berkeley, I didn't sleep in the same bed with her because I wanted to keep things pure between us till I was no longer with Jasmine, but the truth is that I just wasn't getting the vibe from her. She had told me later that she was surprised that I hadn't come in, that she had been expecting me and stayed up waiting. She thought that maybe I didn't feel the same way and the next night after San Francisco decompression, she told me to sleep on the air mattress that I had blown up. I thought this was perhaps another type of rejection. I was pretty fucked up that day and think I definitely would have gotten all types of handsy had she let me stay on the couch with her. It wasn't big enough for the two of us anyway. I got an earful from Jasmine the day after I had gotten back. Bree did laundry and passed out for a little while on my bed, Alejandro, who is Jasmine's ex-boyfriend who she set up on a blind date with my roommate Sarah and they're dating now, saw this and reported it to her. I was a little pist off about a pinche rata columbiano en la casa, but I realized immediately that he was being a good friend to her, and never said anything to him about it. I spent a lot of time with Bree after that. I helped her move things from her storage unit into her mom's basement or into the basement of this dude's house who used to follow the Grateful Dead with her mother. It was to become a studio where she could work on her sewing projects. I would come over sometimes and press buttons or go through magazines and punch out images for them while she sewed. We didn't talk much then, just kinda worked and listened to a podcast she had saved of English dub-step (which, honestly, I kinda hated. I wish she would have rocked out to something different, but whatevs). It should be noted here that I broke up with Jasmine. Bree had little to do with it, perhaps maybe nothing at all, but I do have a history of not jumping ship till I have another boat on the horizon. I spent an evening at Bree's house and just felt the spark. The wiggliness. Electricity. She perked her head up one point and reminded me totally of the squirrel in The Sword in the Stone who chases Arthur all around the tree. I moved in and we had a wonderful makeout session. I got past second base. It was lovely. I spent the night on the couch. I should note here that this is at her mother's house where she lives. Her mother had a stroke awhile back and has limited motion on her left side. Apparently, this also dampens her sensors of what is appropriate to say and she is a little edgy sometimes. Bree is like her very much. I can see her mom getting incredibly angry sometimes, but then it just passes right away. Bree is the same. Bree was her official care-taker for a long time and getting paid for it as well, but she gave that job up because...because I don't really understand why. I guess her mom could really press her buttons sometimes and would act more helpless than she really was and Bree couldn't stand it, so she relegated the responsibility to someone else, but she still helps out alot. The next day we went on a walk to Idlewild and kissed in the sunshine and it was great. Everything was new and great. I love that point in the beginning of a new romance where no one has made any mistakes yet and it's all so perfect. Things kind of continued like this. She would come over and we'd eat together all the time, watch movies on the couch at her house or mine. She finally spent the night the day before I left to go ride dolphins in California with my best friend, his sister and her husband.

Then the shit show transpired at Zombie Crawl while I was away. I need to back up here a little bit and say that she and my very recent ex-girlfriend Jasmine were "friends". Jasmine had contracted a fur coat for Bree to make before Burning Man. She would go over to Bree's house when Bree was living with Melissa and Nick and get measured and later we worked on matching fur leggings and they had hung out at various gatherings. They weren't best buddies or anything, but maybe they could have been someday. Jasmine had texted Bree saying that my intentions weren't just friendly, though Bree knew this already. So it was quite a blow when they saw each other at the Zombie crawl and Bree said some fucked up shit to her. Jasmine had known that we were hanging out all the time, Alejandro and Sarah told her. Bree told me that she had confided in Sarah and that she had pretty much told everything to Jasmine. Bree said to Jasmine something like "I don't know what universe your living in, but we're not friends. You only call me when you need something, and you never ask how I'm doing or anything like that". To which Jasmine pushed her against a wall and ran off crying after saying something back. Things never got better between Bree and I after that. We never made out again, though I thought for a second that things had gotten a little better. We went to Sacramento decomp together and I thought we would sleep (and when I say "sleep" I mean sleep, but hey if something more happens, then so much the better) together in the same tent on the same mattress pad that she brought. She iterated tonight, that she wasn't comfortable with that and so she ended up staying awake all night partying instead of coming and cuddling with me. She tried to explain why this was to me, but I didn't and don't get it. She was saying something about my friends asking what was going on, where was she going to sleep, and she wanted it to be obvious that we were together and somehow I didn't do the things to make that apparent, so she didn't feel comfortable. I still don't understand. I think that she overcomplicated it somehow and I really wanted it to get back to the visceral, basic, primal...littlekidwritingonanote"Ilikeyou,doyoulikeme?" stage, and she was so wrapped in her head that she couldn't. When we were arguing she kept telling me that I didn't get it. She's right. She was doing all kinds of mental girl gymnastics and verbal wrap-arounds. I see now that I fell into a lot of traps. She accused me of things that make me think she was doing them because she brought them up. Like when I finally arrived that it wasn't going to work, that I couldn't do or say anything to make it better (and frankly, her lack of affection made it a lot easier to arrive at that conclusion) I told her that I needed to get my skateboard out of the car. She said "That makes me think that you are just not going to blah blah blah" But she had texted me earlier asking for a stack of movies at my house, the final "getallmyshitbeforewebreakup" task. She told me that I didn't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to try and make it work, that I was doing it just for show and that it didn't really mean anything...but her saying that makes me think that that's exactly what she was doing.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Shadrach Close

PO Box 8573

Reno, NV 89507

Tel 775-225-4379

Dear Alex,

I hope this letter finds you well. I'm writing to tell you about Burning Man. It was quite a pity you missed out, it was a great burn and your brother was a fucking rockstar. I had a shit ton of people staying at my house the night before Nolan arrived. I had a little list that I had posted on the facebook couchsurfingcamp group, but even though I had it tagged with everyone who was coming, when they were arriving/departing, everyone who was supposed to show up on Sunday came on Saturday. My house was so full that no matter where you were, you were goosestepping over people to get to the rest room. It was an awesome party though and it was really cool to get to know people who were going to be in our camp for the week. I was up early that morning, and I was washing my car when your brother called me from the Greyhound station. I wanted to wash all the sap off of the roof so that when I strapped the mattress from the couchbed, it wouldn't be all sticky...but it's still kind of pointless to wash your car before Burning Man. I was constantly worrying beforehand about Nolan because he was so non-communicative. I told him to read the guide, book the flight, think of questions to ask me, and had very little response. It was a tight squeeze of two hours from when his plane landed till his bus departed in San Francisco (which btw, I wanted to ask you about. I had told YOU that IF you were going to arrive in SF a few days in advance AND if it were SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper, fly into SFO and I would come get you and we could hang out in The City. I was really peeved that the flight was scheduled to arrive late Sunday. I looked at flights from BWI to RNO and even with short notice, it was only about $50 more to go to RNO than SFO, factor in the cost of the bus ticket and BART to get to the station and it's only about a savings of $23 and adds a shit ton of time and pain in the ass to the equation).

I picked him up from the station and the sun was just barely coming up. He told me he had slept most of the bus ride and that the taxi from the airport into the city was really expensive. I really wanted to talk to him before he left home to tell him "This is doable, but you have to ask for help, you gotta ask a lot of strangers questions like 'how do I get into the city with the BART?'" and other things like that. I was bummed he spent alot of money needlessly. I was so stressed out when he called me well after his bus had left saying "I'm in San Francisco, now what?" I frantically looked on Craigslist and CS for a rideshare and actually found him one, plus I had it set up for him to take a BART to Berkeley where a good friend lives who could have hosted him for the night and found a dude on couchsurfing to take him the next day. If he had waited in the airport for an hour or so, this could have been worked out, but he decided to book it into the city and get a hotel. I was actually on my way up there in my car to get him and drive back when he called me and told me this. I was blabbing with you when I discovered that there was another bus leaving at 1am and he got on that one. He told me that he slept most of the time on the bus and said little about his 7 hour stint in SF. We went to Starbucks and got coffee, then went back to my house. Mom was up, but no one else was, so I just kind of puttered around my room getting piles of costumes and stuff together, then doing the same in the kitchen with food. When people woke up, I started really staging, getting everything that we were going to bring with us outside by the car. Finally, I had to wake up a surfer and tell her "I need the mattress from the couch, it's time to get up". Then I used my masterful Tetris skills to get all that shit in the car and on the roof and on the bike rack. We headed out just before noon and stopped for lunch at a brewery. Nolan was tired. I imagine he didn't sleep very well on the plane, in SF, on the bus, or the night before he left. This German dude David came with us in his minivan. He was 24 , very well prepared for the festival, and kind of introverted. We stopped for gas off I-80 in Wadsworth. There were a ton of burners there doing the same thing and an Aussie guy came up to me and said "Ey mate, yoo got a flat tire." Some people gave me a can of fixaflat, but he said "Yoo bean driving on the sidewall mate, it's proper fucked, you gotta put the spare on". This sucked a little bit, but as he pointed out, at least we were at a place with shade, cold drinks, a bathroom, and it didn't happen on the side of the road, on the playa where it would have been a major pain in the ass to get a jack under it, or god forbid, while we were on the interstate doing 70. We swapped it out fairly quickly and headed out on the road. David, mein deutscher freund behind us in the mini van, told me that my spare was really low. We pulled over and I was just going to find someone who had a bike pump, but we lucked out and found a dude with an air compressor and got my 30psi tire to 60. I busted out the button cape and gave him and his family some as thanks. Then we got moving again, Nolan slept. We made it into line eventually, and cracked some beers and got to partying. There was a group of Canadians I recognized from two years ago in line next to us. I came up to him and said "What up Tundra?!" and we partied together for a short while before wandering to the next place. I donned my button cape and bounced from car to car collecting treasures and conversations. The wind picked up and I hid in David's van with him. I felt somewhat guilty that Nolan and Mom were in the other car, but I figured that they had each other and David didn't have anyone to talk to. I liked David. I liked how he was trying to come out of his shell and experience things that were strange and foreign to him. Some moments I would like to mark about David, to show his character, like how I said since he had a minivan, he should take someone with him, someone being a total stranger who needed a ride. Dude had a freaking minivan, if he packed it better, he could have taken several people, but the idea of taking a total stranger seemed so dangerous and weird to him that he completely rejected it. Another example, when we first got to the festival, we drove to the Couchsurfing camp. He didn't know where he was going to camp. We found a pair of girls who were on a sofa together and chatted them up and David ended up camping next to them, not too far away from CScamp. The way he reacted though when I told them to get in the van and show us where to go though was funny to me, he seemed reluctant and I thought it was because he was afraid that they were going to crush his things, or that he was weirded out by two strangers getting in the car, even for a short ride. He told me later that he didn't want to inconvenience them, and I got the impression later that it was extremely important for him not to be a burden on anyone. It was cool though, they helped him set up his tent, and I think they wanted to go back to their camp for something anyway. When I went back to our camp afterward, Nolan and Mom had been setting up for a long time and were almost done. I fixed us a dinner of rice and beans mixed with mexicorn and chicken on tomato basil tortillas. It was kind of a chore to give it all away afterward to random people so my pot would be clean. I remember having to drink a lot of watered down, burned up food just so I wouldn't moop it anywhere. Mom went to bed and as exhausted as Nolan was, I told him we HAD to go out on the esplande for at least a short trip. We rode our bikes to a giant trojan horse that was covered in red neon. We parked our bikes and walked up onto it. Nolan smoked a cigarette and remarked how it was like some massive multiplayer online role playing game. I thought "yeah, it kind of is, people have all these weird avatars going off on their quests with their blinking lights and strange costumes. We headed out again and ended up in a giant fur covered cylinder. It had a wheel on one end and a stake on the other and it could be pushed in a circle, which was helpful to block the wind. There were two girls inside smoking cigarettes and writing shitty poetry. I took a flask of whisky with me and had a few pulls...or did I...I can't remember...Nolan smoked a cigarette. I gave the girls who were with us some "Hi, my name is" stickers that I had with me for them to write poetry on. More people showed up. I remember a guy laying on his back and another girl saying "I have a trick, wanna see?" the guy said he did and she pulled out her tit and squirted him with milk. Nolan and I looked at each other and laughed. This particular episode is what I tell people was his first taste of Burning Man..some dude getting lactated on. We went back to camp after that and passed out in the tent together.

Tuesday

los cliches son verdaderos...

Sometimes I look back on my youth, mostly early twenties and wonder how the hell I did the things that I did. I remember for spring break in Spain I took a trip from Madrid to Paris, Paris to Berlin where I met up with my sister, then took a train from Berlin to Munich, Munich to Amsterdam and then back to Madrid. I never worried about the in between details of "how do I get from the airport to hostel" (Nice guys named Juanjo say "Yees, I know wher eet is, buht my companee ees paying me a taxi, and eef yoo want, I am can take you there" or the heroin addicts in Holland will get your train pass for you if you give them a couple Euros). Now as I get older, I get overwhelmed by the minutiae. The mountain of what is in front seems so massive that I'd rather go around to the smaller ones. It just seems so unbelievable how well everything worked out and how everything fell into place. I remember after my sister's wedding in Leipzig I was very hungover the next day and in the post apocalyptic hangover insanity I almost had a panic attack of the seemingly insurmountable things I would have to do in order to arrive home. Then I just took a breath, stepped back, and told myself "one thing at a time, put one foot in front of the other, and everything will be fine". It's weird how true the cliches are sometimes. I got home safely and pretty sure everything (dignity included) was intact.

My heroes and the people who I've met who are close to me are mostly people who took off and went. Meggs followed her heart to Oz for love. Carrie followed it to wherever it was snowing, Colin followed it to serve his country, and it was super dangerous where he was. So why can't I follow mine? What is it that holds me back? Where does the fear come from? I've never flat out failed with my traveling adventures. I've got the time and the money. I guess I should just get the ticket and go. See what happens. Piss away my savings there instead of here.

Hmmm..."And of course you can't become, if you say what you would've done, so I missed a million miles of fun...

How I retarded my way into Bill Cosby last Saturday.

I had to work last Saturday and it was kinda lazy for it being a holiday weekend. One of the bartenders at my work asked me "Do you want to go with me to Bill Cosby tonight at 9:30, my date cancelled and I don't have anyone to go with."

I told him that I would. I was thrilled to go. Bill Cosby is old, and I doubt that another opportunity to see him again will present itself, especially for free.

He had two shows going on that night. One at 7 and the other at 9:30. It was a pretty lax night at the brewery and I was somewhat peeved when I started to be inundated with tables right when I was supposed to get off (no doubt many of them from the early show getting off). I saw the ticket that the bartender had left for me on top of the counter where our cash tips were left and put it in my box. I hustled best I could to get my tables closed out before the show and transfered the rest to another server.

It was a serendipitous series of events that followed. If I hadn't rushed table 31 through their meal, if I hadn't ran to the locker room to get changed, if I hadn't taken the short cut to the venue, if I hadn't transfered my tables to the other server when I did, if someone hadn't been asking the ticket taker for directions to somewhere at the exact time when I was having my ticket scanned, I would not have been able to get to the show. I didn't think anything of it when the ticket gun made a funny sound and flashed red and green instead of green. I went to my seat and looked for my friend the bar tender, assuming he would be in the seat next to me. The whole row was empty.

The show was great. It should be noted that the Bill Cosby I knew was Cliff Huxtable, fixed in my mind as the late 30's early 40's doctor and family man. In truth, he is OLLLLLLLD! He spoke in two word beats, gathering his thoughts and sometimes losing where he was- even in this well-rehearsed act, but dammit he was funny. I'm glad I got to go.

I texted my friend afterward lamenting that I didn't see him at the show and thanking him for the ticket. I received a message back saying "I went to the 7-o'clock show and I didn't leave a ticket for you."

So I guess I just found some random ticket and waltzed my way into the show. Go me! I doubt it would have worked as well if I knew the ticket wasn't legit.

Sliver

Danny came over and sat next to me on the couch. He winced when he put his hand on the armrest, putting his weight on it to sit down.

"What's wrong with your hand Danny?"

"I was making a tweak pipe with a lightbulb and it exploded in my hand, I still haven't gotten out all the glass shards."

"How long ago was this?"

"I don't know, a week."

"Danny are you fucking kidding me?! We have to get that shit out now."

I pulled out my little swiss army knife. The blade was blackened and sticky from using it to scrape pipes, I put a lighter up to it to melt it off and sterilize the blade. I looked at Danny's hand. I could see places where the skin had actually began to heal over the tiny shards of glass.

"This is gonna hurt Danny boy."

He shrugged. "It's gotta come out somehow."

He took a pull from the plastic half-filled bottle of Popov vodka, I did too and used a little to clean off the knife a little more.

The knife worked well for the bigger shards, and the tiny tweezers were ideal for removing the jagged fragments from his palm. The whole process took about a half an hour and Danny took it like a man, hardly wincing even when I dug into his palm to get the deeper rooted shards. When we were finished I had him dump a little of the vodka into his hands and we both took a pull from the bottle to celebrate the successful surgery.