Hurry up and wait

I am clean. For the next 11 weeks, I have no more material possessions than I can carry in my arms. I am free of an unhealthy addiction to the internet, free of drawers full of clothes I never wear, and free of a bedroom to hide in. The bike may have taken months of steady prep, but the clense happened all at once.
For the sake of tradition I stayed up all night packing and watched the last local sunrise of the season. Suzanna made me breakfast as I made the final arrangements to leave my computer behind. My God, am I attatched to that chunk of plastic! I could feel my hair standing on end at the anticipation of losing my library of music and bookmarked websites and ultimate source of instant gratification. It was like breaking up with a crazy artist: all that creativity and passion we shared that felt so enriching at the time now seems so exhausting and empty. To step inside her world is intoxicating, but to step out is deeply liberating. Moral of the story is don't stick your dick in Reddit.
It's not just technology that suffocates me when I'm sedentary. The rythm of consistency is so insular. (Are you with me here? Rythm arrises from a beat, but there can be a constant beat that is not musical, yet we make it musical anyway. It's human nature to identify with our experience.) It's very easy for me to lose perspective and take little things waaay too seriously. On the road, without the resources to fight these battles, I become ultra fluid. I flow around obstacles like water and wash them clean as I go.
I arrived at the train station an hour early to pack my bike in a box and check my bags. After I was done, I learned that the train was running two hours late. So there I was, still in Davis, but with only my wallet and toothbrush. Those two hours were unlike any I've spent in Davis in years. So odd to start a 3000 mile bike trip with a 2 mile walk around town.

Is this thing on?

Annnnd... we're back! Coming to you live from my new Nook tablet. I don't quite have the hang of typing on this tiny keyboard, but Android is also the first operating system I've had to learn in, like, 15 years. This should help keep things short and sweet for now.
As you all know, the big trip is coming up. This is the place to find my updates, pictures, diatribes, and cathartic ranting. Nothing interesting to say yet, but stay tuned!

Photogoblog

"Every camera, every phone, all the music that you own/ 

won't change the fact you're all alone!"

- from Sick of You, by Cake

I took a whirlwind trip down to Santa Cruz and biked around for a bit. I took pictures of stuff:

(For your listening pleasure while you browse)

The background is the west side of the Barbie Dream House Co-Op

I really love the pattern of the grease stains on my tape.

That's it for now while I revert to couch surfing. I'm trying to get back to where I was last May. 

Can You Find the Hypocrisy?

"There's a pre-meeting meeting after the meeting."

- Chris, clarifying the schedule of house, Board, and community meetings

Biking back from Winters, 12 miles outside of Davis

Working at Peet's Coffee involves a lot of trouble shooting when it comes to customers' needs. I have to translate what they want into what we can do. Most of the time this is straightforward and only a matter of negotiation  Yesterday, however, I had three people come in with some real brain teasers. First, a man asked for a plain cup of iced coffee with sweetener. Alright, dude, you can't have both plain and sweetened coffee and even if you could, I don't know what you mean by "sweetener", since we have literally 13 kinds of sugar and syrup.
Another customer asked for an empty cup of ice. I actually hesitated before scooping the ice, afraid I was doing something... stupid. Finally, a woman came in an asked if we put water in our iced tea. Well you see, Miss, we— by which I mean the entire world— actually use water twice: once when we BREW THE TEA and then once more when we PUT ICE IN IT. Since you seem to struggle with the concept of  tea, perhaps I should also explain the difference between ice and water.

I am way too excited about Premium Rush!

The social implications of this are, of course, huge. If being a fixie bike messenger is cool enough to be the subject of $100+ million blockbuster, then it's undeniably too mainstream. What will you hipsters do now? Bwahahaha!

Last week, midway through one the most jubilant and rejuvenatingly playful days of my life, I received a text message from my brother:

"Do you ever feel like this is the most enriched and free you'll ever be in your life?" 

I've arriving at a realization that I'm at this crucial nexus in my life where I've very recently experienced the peak of my youth, but with every passing day I grow more appreciative of what I have left. If youth is wasted on the young, when does youth end and hindsight begin? Now that school is in, I'm surrounded by truly young people just beginning to step into adulthood. I recently overheard someone defending the Freshmen, saying that the forest needs the saplings. (To cross metaphors) when I was 19 I missed that forest for the trees. I felt lost and helpless— disconnected from the community. Now I can see that I was the forest. I still am, but my role is evolving. We need the saplings and they need us.
Is this the most enriched I'll ever be? Ultimately, yes, but the less I have to get from my community, the more I have to give.

Truth in Advertising

"(There is) a good dose of prejudice based on your age and status as an itinerant uninstitutionalized heart-throb."
- a concern raised while discussing whether or not I am "boyfriend material"

Sandwiches from the Food Co-Op are incredible.  Ted (in the red shirt) always gets all the free extras available, while I go for the classic lettuce-tomato-onion combo. Either way, as you can see, salivation is unavoidable.

These Boxes is totally the name of my new Indie Aleatoric Funk band.

I moved into a new house and now must stock my cupboard with staples and my bathroom with toiletries. With less and less time in my day to work up a good lather, I've decided to revisit body wash as a medium for expeditious general hygiene. In the past I've used an Adidas brand body wash which, in retrospect, seems like using Kraft toilet paper. Yesterday I stood before an 8ft shelf of scented varieties for men and slowly narrowed my options to select the scent that best represents Me (a marketing rep for any of these companies would have creamed their jeans to observe this process outside of a focus group):

The first consideration was cost, so my choices were limited to what was on sale. I didn't even look at the labeling of the other brands.

So far so good: my frugalness is my core value here.

The next consideration was finding a mild scent: not too strong and not too soapy. My brother once brought my attention to the malodorous combination of fruit and B.O.

Apparently, I value subtlety over style. I don't want to wear the scent like an expensive watch.

The final stage was repeatedly sniffing 3 different scents, trying to identify with the smell: Is this what I want to smell like? I was trying very hard to ignore the associations of the labeling, but still walked away with Old Spice Denali which smells, according to the label, "like wilderness, open air and freedom". I wonder whether this is the result of very precise marketing or simply the power of suggestion... probably a little of both. Or maybe the Universe is trying to sell tell me something.

Played during the intermission of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Arboretum:

The Road to Hell

"Oh, it's you. Is anyone of consequence home?"
- Jessi to me, finding me on the couch reading the Hobbit

I love running at sunset. Everything starts to glow. The temp drops from superfucking hot down to very warm. I've taken to bringing my camera along to try to catch the little jems I pass on my loop around campus. 

Oh my dear sweet lord, what a mess I've made. I have so thoroughly deluded myself in so many respects that, while I'm beginning to understand the current state of things, I have no idea how it has come this far. Perhaps I could be more vague? The last two weeks have been filled with self reflection regarding my romantic machinations, more specifically the ethos that has informed my decision-making before, during, and after my relationships. All of them. There is a number equal to the amount of people I have slept with. Like your weight or maybe your age, it's a number that I've been rounding down for so long that I'd lost track of the real thing. This number, as it turns out, is very large relative to anyone I know. While I'm not surprised, I'm suddenly a little uncomfortable.
It wasn't my goal to end up here. I've never identified as a ladies man and I've never felt particularly confident as a suitor. I'm not saying I'm not a scoundrel; I just thought that all my good intentions might make up for my flights-of-fancy. Apparently not. So now what? I'm still me and there's nothing to be done about that— but I can use this new clarity to move forward with more... discipline. Already, I feel less pressure to pursue every opportunity that comes up. Which is to say I'm enjoying not feeling the need to, you know, hump every cute girl that comes within arms' reach.

Fucking mynocks, right?* Always chewing on power cables. What's that about?

*obligatory Star Wars reference of the week

Interim

"Würfeln!"
-German for Roll the dice! (pronounced "voorfln")

Co-op dinner: awww yeah!

Let's talk about this. The tortilla at the top was hand made. The pickle was pickled at a pickle party*. The grapes were grown in a house garden. And all of it vegan.

I'm    w  a  i  t  i  n  g.  

For Burning Man 
To start work at ROCKNASIUM
       To move into my new house 
                   To catch up one-on-one with so many people
                                                        To watch Davis explode back into life 

When will then be now?

  *less dirty than it sounds