The End?

Exactly one year ago today, I posted as my facebook status the following quote:

"As we pass through childhood, each of us, a storehouse of alternative ways of becoming a person, imagines many different courses of action and of life he may later take. However, we cannot be everything in the world. We must choose a path, reject other paths. This rejection, indispensable to our self-development, is also a mutilation. In choosing, as we must, we cast aside many aspects of our humanity."

I can’t for the life of me remember where I read this. I believe I remember why, however. I was in the process of choosing law schools to apply to. I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to go to law school, but I had chickened out from doing a PhD program, hated my then-current job, and hadn’t made any other plans. I needed to do something, but was afraid to make a bad choice. I didn't want to get stuck.

At the present moment, I just got home from the University of Miami School of Law, where I spent 12 hours studying today. And 12 hours yesterday. And I like it.

I put up this site as a place to post travel pictures and travel stories, but I am no longer mobile. I have a place I go home to every night, and I have a place I go to classes every day. I take the same route there and back, and see the same group of people.

When I started out, I gave away almost all of my stuff. When Hunter and I broke up, I pared my belongings down even further. When I got robbed, I was divested of pretty much everything. But not long after, the trend reversed. I got new clothes, a new toothbrush. I got my bike out of storage in LA and bought a car in Portland. Now I can leave my toiletries in the bathroom, and my computer in my room. The people I’ve met in the last week will hopefully still be my friends in a month, and we will still live in the same city, all of us. It’s novel.

I made a choice, and by that choice rejected many other possibilities. By that choice, my freewheeling, responsibility-free vagabond ways are behind me, at least for now. But it doesn’t feel like a mutilation.  

"You are no one. You are everyone."

A brief remark.

After seeing the study floating around online about how Internet Explorer users are dumb, I checked the stats from this blog, and found that the majority of you are Firefox users. Congrats, smartypantses! I am also highly amused that people are ending up on my site after Googling things like "American brothels". Sorry boys. (I also just had to look up whether or not "googling" should be capitalized. Chicago Manual of Style says yes, but I lean towards not capitalizing. Learning things is fun! And on that note, I also learned that Apple has more money than the U.S. government at the moment.)

Here is a picture of a voodoo queen's tomb in New Orleans. I will get around to putting up some pretty pictures of Memphis and N.O. soonish.

Le Bon Temps.

As I write this, I am sitting on a balcony with a wrought iron fence, overlooking St. Anne’s St. in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Bourbon Street is a block and a half away and mule-drawn carriage tours are passing below me. Life is good again after having a strange 36 hour episode of one of the blackest depressions I have ever experienced.

Driving through Mississippi last week, I was caught on the highway in the heaviest downpour I’ve ever seen. You mid-westerners may be familiar with this, but as a west-coaster, the onslaught was frightening. The heavens opened up, and the apocalypse of rain obscured even the hood of my car. I couldn’t drive faster than a crawl, despite the supposed 70 mph speed limit. Just as I was about to pull off before I died of either a horrendous car wreck or by drowning, I could see blue sky ahead of me, and in a few minutes, it was sunny and dry again. Weather is weird.

I had a parallel experience after I left St. Louis.  Staying with Roland and Tricia, old friends from back in the Eugene days (circa 2003-4?)  was great fun. We saw the arch, heard some great blues, talked and drank and I made friends and got to experience some St. Louis kickball. 

On my last night there however, as I lay on the floor in my sleeping bag, the whole dark world seemed to stretch before me and I felt so lost, so untethered, so afraid of everything, and so so so tired.  In retrospect, I can say that probably the stress of moving and starting school, the fact that I have been travelling almost non-stop for nine months, and the worry that I had no where to go or stay after Missouri had finally caught up with me in that moment. But as I experienced it, there was no possible way to go on. I had exhausted every last reserve of joviality and endurance, and I could not possibly face the prospect of continued life. Dramatic and ridiculous, yes, I know. But still.

I left St. Louis and drove without a goal for several hundred miles, until I finally had to stop. I took a motel room off the interstate, lay in bed. Watched TV. I was too tired to sleep. Too tired to even move my eyeballs. I didn’t think I would ever make it out of Springfield Missouri. I wondered if it were possible to die of world-weariness. I wished I would.

I didn’t, of course.  The next day I drove to a hostel in Memphis and fell asleep again, still exhausted. When I woke up, I found I was sharing a room with a German guy, a French guy, and a Swiss girl. It was the first time in the States for all of them, and they were happy and excited.  So I pulled myself together enough to go out with them.

 We drank big ass beers, and listened to music, and danced. The German and I got up on stage and sang “Sweet Home Alabama”.  The night was goofy and fun. And just like that, the storm had passed. 

I still feel that profound tiredness sloshing around in my head in my downtime, when there is nothing on the surface to distract me. But after Memphis, we spent five or six days in New Orleans, so there was precious little of that time. 

 As I finish writing this, I am sitting in a café in Pensacola Florida. There is supposed to be a punk house I can stay in around here somewhere that some kids I met busking in N.O. told me about. I also have a possible couch to crash on in Panama City. And so the Epic Cross Country Road Trip rolls on.

Laissez le bons temps rouler.

1500 miles later...

Before I left the Northwest, I had registered my car in Washington for less expensive insurance reasons. I was a little sad about this, because I liked my Oregon plates:

OMGWTFBBQ!

But then I got my Washington plates and thought, well, it's appropriate at least.

Ooo.. is that something shiny over there?!

I am currently in Wisconsin and will be heading on to Chicago tomorrow.  But on my way here...

Yellowstone was crazy gorgeous

Buffaloes are surprisingly massive animals. And they don't really look like anything that belongs in nature; they seem more like Jim Henson creatures.

Missoula Montana was a great town and a random that I was hanging out with gave me a Thor comic book (also random!). I went to Deadwood, South Dakota, which is a little mountain town entirely devoted to drinking and gambling, as is appropriate. It's where Wild Bill was killed over a poker game. I saw his grave, and the chair he was killed in at Saloon No. 10.

Sioux Falls, of all places, was a crazy party night. I started out at a cigar lounge, listening to a bluegrass band, and ended up climbing fences in an industrial area at 3 AM.

I spent the next morning, hungover, drinking mimosas and watching Top Gear with an ex-race car driver.

Then there was Minneapolis, where I got to see some of the old Eugene crew!

 

 

St. Paul Saints game with Jef and EJ

BBQing with Mo and Taro

There are many more stories and pictures, of course. The specter of law school keeps getting bigger and closer as well. I applied for a grad PLUS loan and signed all my promissory notes the other day. Funny how I feel like I should be signing in blood.

And yet, somehow I keep having dreams that I'm back in Tamarindo.

On the road again!

After getting back to the states, spending a week in LA and a month in Portland, I am finally off and traveling again. This time in the form of an Epic Cross Country Road Trip. 

Some pictures from ECCRT day one:

Starting out at my mother's beautiful new house in Bellingham WA

Goodbye, Pacific Northwest! Also: this is my new car. Her name is Hester.

Heading east, and I am soon out in the desert again. Oh, how I missed it!

This was my campsite the first night. Beautiful and creepy abandoned farm.

Wildflowers

 

 

The entire second floor had been claimed by nesting birds.

Whoever used to live here had fantastic taste in wallpaper!

Where will I end up tonight? You never know.

People.

And now it has come down to it: my last day in Costa Rica. Which has had me thinking about all the people I have met since I took off on my own that have made my travels so enjoyable. And I´m thinking about people back home that I will see soon.

I would like to propose a toast, and I hope you will forgive me if it a bit of a long one.

Cheers!:

To Simon, whose couch I will be on tomorrow night, who likes cool music and is so sincere.

To Greg, whose couch I will be on in a few days, who is taking care of business for me, and who is a fantastic human being.

To Brennan, who has been taking care of business for me for a long time, and whose grumpiness I miss.

To Chris, my stepfather, who always has my back and who is always awkward and sincere.

To my mother, whose birthday I forgot, and whose birthday I forget every year until sometime around mother´s day, when I remember that I forgot.

To Diana, who was my first friend in Central America, and who made the way for all the others.

To the Italian, Miguel, who drank red wine with me in the middle of the night.

To the Swiss guy, Nikolai, who stumbled down the very steep hill in the pitch black night with me.

To Marcus, the Australian, who drank and talked with me; who got robbed and fled with me. Who had pretty, calculating eyes and a businessman´s body. I wish you well on the rest of your travels.

To Oliver, the Englishman, who had blue eyes and a golden body and a white ass. Who was a terrible surf instructor and who had a curious British sense of humor (I hate you). May your passport get you into Honduras and-or may your bribes go over well. 

To Mike Gross, who was good fun and an amusing dancer. Grosscoast.

To Peter, the other Australian, who took an interest in my interest in baseball, and loved to play poker.

To AP Steve, who does not like the outdoors and who is as awkward as ever. You are an inspiration and I want your car.

To Webb, who almost made me a pirate. I´m sorry I didn´t go with you. It´s my only regret.

To The Milkman, Cheesecoast, Brent, Rachael, and Kai, who were my posse from Santa Teresa to Bocas del Toro.

To Elizabeth, also known as Frenchie, who was beautiful and kind and who I was always jealous of.

To Zach, who always has a funny comment, and who has done his best to warn me off law school.

To Hunter, who took me surfing for the first time.

To Robyn, the Canadian nurse, who made the second time in Tamarindo as fun as the first.

To the Israeli guys, who nearly died crossing the river with us and who did not laugh at my surfing abilities.

To all those I met so briefly: the New York Greek in Boquete; the English DJ in Panama City; Dan who owned the hostels who I met at Aqualounge; Dan´s pretty, pretty friend; Brian in San Jose, who was so nice to me it made me cry; Brooks, who looks so much like Scott; David in LA, who just got a new apartment; and all the others I admired momentarily and then forgot.

To Fernando, my cab driver; to the old security guard at the David bus station; to the bartender at Iguana; to the guy I took my very first bus ride with; to all the locals who had patience with my Spanish and were good to me.

To all the people back in Portland: I have missed you, I have missed your antics, and I hope to see you soon.

To you all: It was swell. Cheers!

The City and The City.

I arrived in Panama City last night, and I eventually found myself in a seedy part of town at a place called Club Miami in the company of four very drunk and coked out guys I had met at a previous bar. Club Miami is a strip club, of sorts. The doorman looked at me rather oddly as I made my way inside. The dancing itself had nothing on the clubs in Portland: the girls half-heartedly strutted across the stage at random intervals, and there was almost no pole work to speak of. The men were not tipping. At one point, I followed the signs that said ¨banos¨, only to find a men´s room at the end of the hall, but no women´s. A bouncer took pity on my confusion and led me to the stripper´s dressing room, where I peed in a stall-less toilet next to a naked woman talking on a cell phone. It was obvious that women were not expected as customers.

The reason for all this, of course, was that this was not an establishment where one goes to watch naked ladies dance, except to examine the goods before paying $100, picking the girl you like, and taking her to one of the rooms in back. I was in a whorehouse.

Now, I wasn´t surprised to be there as the guys had been pretty explicit about what sort of place we were going to. If anything, I was a little surprised at how ordinary it seemed. Some of the women were good looking; most were average, a little on the chubby side. I didn´t look at their faces very closely- I was shy about making eye contact. I watched a parade of butts and stomachs and tits. They all wore white, an ironic touch. The guys I was with greeted the doorman and DJ with familiarity as the bouncer informed us that the cocaine would be arriving in half an hour. One of the guys said he was writing a guide called ¨The Not So Lonely Planet¨.

I had a few drinks and then took a cab home and went to bed. Not a very exciting story in the end. I was simply curious to see what a Central American brothel was like, and I was a bit disappointed.

In the daylight, however, I find the city utterly charming. I´m staying in the Casco Viejo district- an old neighborhood filled with crumbling colonial buildings. Walking north from here through the market (filled with the requisite vegetables, junk, piles of trash, stray dogs, half-naked children, and delicious delicious bags of sliced mango) you emerge on a main street closed to cars and lined with cheap shops. I bought a new outfit today for $10. Looking across the bay you can see downtown and the financial district, a forest of modern skyscrapers reminiscent, as many have said, of Miami. Fernando, my cabbie from the bus station yesterday, was probably the nicest person I´ve met on this trip. There are $0.50 beers in the bar below my hostel. So all in all, I adore this city. Although I do think I might try to find some classier nightlife tonight.