August 5, 2001
I thought I had the energy to get this month kicked off today... it would seem that this is not the case. Expect definite changes to this month's 'me' link and probable changes to the rest of the page. I don't know if I'm just too tired to be creative right now, if the weather's too dull or if I've absorbed some of the apathy that blankets the small island town of Victoria, stifling and sucking the willpower required to do anything but the most mundane of actions. Whichever excuse (or combination thereof) that appeals to you is fine, as nothing else is getting done today.
August 9, 2001
Well, one solid week of beer, dope and disc golf. Yup. I'm in Victoria, all right. What with things being the way they are, it's no wonder I feel like I'm on vacation. Also no wonder, then, is the fact that I still feel like I'm going back to Japan very shortly.
Every time I start thinking about not returning to Japan, I have to fight off the incredible urge to accost passing Japanese so that I can talk to them. It's driving me crazy, to tell the truth; after three years of putting up with 'gaijin groupies' (it's an affectionate term), I know what it's like to be in their shoes. So what do I do? Wear shirts covered in kanji and hope that someone talks to me? Or maybe sit around in cafes "studying Japanese"? It's terrible - I've resorted to constantly muttering things to myself under my breath, it seems.
On a better note, I think I'm doing fairly well on the "don't-talk-about-Japan-all-the-time" front. I also appreciate how it feels to be inundated with countless tales about someone's travel experiences. Moderation in all things. I figure I'm doing well because folks keep pumping me for more stories - that's a good sign, right? Guess they feel like I'm just in on vacation, too.Hanging out in Victoria (particularly since the change in the weather) was definitely a good idea before heading out on the road. I'm feeling calm and relaxed, yet eager to get on the road. Not that I have anywhere to go, it's just that doing nothing everyday can wear you down surprisingly quickly. It's the oddest feeling: waking up in the morning and knowing that you have nothing, not-one-damn-thing to do. Rolling over and deciding whether or not you want to get up at all is the major decision of the day. I'm not used to this, but I kind of like it.
As far as the road trip is concerned, still no word from the other members of the Burning Man Pact, but it's still early. That and I haven't checked my email in five days. Major concerns include (in no particular order):- The Shocking Exchange Rate On The Dollar
- Crime Horror Stories
- Car Horror Stories
- Trip Fund
- Run-ins With The Law
and my personal favourite,- The Deliverance and/or Easy Rider Unfortunate Turn Of Events Experience
which, I'm sure you'll agree, is the one most unlikely to happen but would make for one hell of a story. If I lived through it, of course.I'll be fine... honest.
August 12, 2001
One of Life's Many Joys:
Buying a vehicle, taking it out for an inaugural run about town, coming home, sleeping, waking up and discovering your new vehicle has a flat tire. Turns out I ran over a nail somewhere between Vancouver and White Rock. Puncture repair = 20 bucks. I'm hoping that this isn't some sort of ominous omen for the trip. Hanging out in Vancouver was fun, though. Stag parties, how peculiar. Boys, beer and boobs - all night long.
I've been to see 'exotic dancers' before, but I think last night's show was pretty good. Peelers I've seen in the past have usually wandered out on stage, stripped and gyrated a bit before walking off. Make no mistake, I'm hardly a stripper connoisseur, I usually feel uncomfortable and (for lack of a better word) dirty during a show, but last night's performance was... different. It wasn't even all that erotic, just impressive.
Imagine if you will, a woman hanging upside down from a vertical pole by one leg, the other sticking straight out into space as she uses her hands to disrobe. Naked women doing chin-ups. Another girl holding herself up on the pole with just her hands, sliding down the pole (still with just her hands), stopping and the doing the splits in mid-air before lowering herself to the ground (with just her hands). The display of sheer athleticism was far more entertaining than the display of flesh and orifices, if you ask me.
Does this mean I'm going to start frequenting said establishments more often? Probably not, but I think I have a modicum of more respect for the girls on stage now. Hell, I respect anyone who is in better shape than I am.August 14, 2001
Rented a couple movies the other night - I couldn't believe the number of previews there were on each tape! Even The Adventures of Baron Munchausen had at least a half dozen. The real winner, though, was definitely Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Thirty-five minutes of non-stop preview action. Who is responsible for that sort of thing? A few previews is fine, but anything over 15 minutes (let alone a half-hour) is pushing it. I figure it must be some kind of conspiracy aimed at wasting my time. Finances are becoming more of a concern these days - just found out this afternoon that renting a tux for the wedding is going to cost me a hundred and seventy bucks. J is not happy about this. I'm trying to be good, I really am; but every time I turn around, it seems I've got some fairly major expense to cover. Sucks. At this rate, I'm going to need a job by mid-September.
I don't know how I do it; money seems to burn a hole right through my wallet, through my pocket and through anything else that gets in its way as it flees my person. It's stupid, really. I also found out the other day that I get to pay a USD$65 handling charge to pick up my cargo at the seaport on Thursday. That works out to what, yet another hundred Northern bucks? Of course, we can't forget the cherry on top: monthly student loan payments deducted automatically from my account - it hurts to hit a bank machine and find your savings at $300 less than what you anticipated, let me tell you.
Maybe I should sign up for the Amazon donation link. "Help me pay my bills" will be the theme. Just think, if I can get the 300 or so people who actually come to this page to chip in a dollar apiece, I'll be able to pay off at least one unexpected cost with no concern whatsoever.
Yeah, right. Give me your dough and I'll give you minutes of good, clean fun. This sounds a whole lot like a pyramid marketing scheme, doesn't it? We all know how well those things work. Ah, well, whatever. Anyone who knows me knows I ain't going to be no millionaire, that's for sure. Just as long as I don't end up slaving away at a job that I hate for a pittance of a salary, I reckon I'll be fine. Then again, it would be nice to not have to think about each and every purchase I make and how said purchase is going to affect my plans for the next month or so. It would be nice to be able to buy something without calculating whether or not I can afford it. Because that's what I really want to be - a thoughtless consumer. What am I talking about?
August 16, 2001 Now I'll admit I split bananas
Take Easter eggs and make them dye
But I've never harmed an onion
So why should they make me cry?Now potatoes I've mashed
And berries I've crushed
I've made an artichoke, but that's not all
I've also whipped cream and beaten an egg
Yes! I've even made a melon ball! Of all the things above, I'm guilty
If punished, I would know just why
But I've never harmed an onion
So why should they make me cry?
Oh, why should they make me cry? - Rowlf the Dog, "Onion Song" Just another random Thursday at the ol' homestead, watchin' the stars and lettin' the minutes slip past. It's funny, but not having anything to do only seems to propagate move slothfulness and not a whole lot of motivation. Well, enough motivation for this, but that's about it.
August 28, 2001
Well, I suppose I'd best get this endeavour underway. Having been on the road for just about a week, with plenty of free time (hell, all free time), I somehow never got around to getting this thing kicked off. I guess I was hoping to score some free time on a computer somewhere along the way.
As it stands, I'm currently sitting in a park in Los Alamos, it's 11:03 in the morning, and many people are wondering just what exactly I am doing - which is not surprising, as it ain't every day you see someone using a typewriter in a park... but why don't I start at the beginning?
Left White Rock on a cloudy morning and headed straight for the border (well, relatively straight, but insurance stories are usually boring, and this one is no exception). I couldn't believe it when the border guard basically waved me through with a bare minimum of questions - I tend to get severely abused whenever I get close to the border, let alone try to cross it. Maybe this short hair thing ain't so bad after all.
Trundled down the I-5 with little to no difficulties until I reached Seattle - after that all hell broke loose: the Heavens opened to unleash an afternoon of monsoon-like rains, reducing visibility to roughly 50 feet, drivers were reluctant to surpass the 40 mph mark (which was fine by me, to be honest...) and I passed more than a dozen wrecks on the drive into Portland. Not such a happy drive. Yet after the entire 6-hour endeavour, I made it safe and sound into Portland and began the laborious process of rying to locate Nicole's abode. Suffice to say PDX is a confusing city to drive in. Particularly when there is all sorts of construction going on. One-way streets, half-marked detours, irritable drivers and a very tired Jeremy made for a poor mix that evening. Around about 11PM I gave up and steeled myself for my first night on the trip alone in the van outside a 24-hour Safeway. Settling in, I received a whole lot of visual insubordination from one of the security guards out front, so I opted for one last phone call - badabing! The girl was home; her sofa open to my weary bones a mere half-block away. Left PDX after a delightuful evening with Nicole and pointed my nose towards San Francisco - note that this took me an hour and a half, I didn't roll out of the city until 9:30 or so. Fourteen hours later (not to belittle the beauty of the drive or the agony of my leg cramps, but nothing terribly exciting happened the entire way - sue me), I found myself at the toll gate to the Bay Bridge, forking over my last $2 of ready cash to get into the city.
I tell you, this is the last time I use traveller's cheques on a trip. They're not convenient at all - they're a pain in the ass, to be blunt about it. Nobody willing to cash them (except of course Money Mart, but like I was about to pay them to give me my own money), can't spend 'em anywhere, yet they're still worth a hundred bucks, so you can't exactly ditch them somewhere. I managed to scrounge together 70 cents to make a couple of phone calls, only to discover that Rene had left for dinner with Amanda and Matt a mere 15 minutes prior to my call... curses. I got directions from her roommate Karen and trucked my way across town to their apartment. By this time, I had not a single penny in my pocket and wandered into a small pub called "The Pig & Whistle" where I prayed they would be able to hel me with my cheque situation. No dice. What with Rene and co. not returning home for at least another half hour and I feeling tired and defeated, I took what I felt to be my last available course of action: I busted out a manga, slapped down my VISA and ordered the biggest Guinness they could muster.
Sitting there, bleary-eyed and scruffy-looking, sipping my Irish brew and reading my Japanese comic book, I think it would be safe to say I cut a strange figure, to say the least. Then I got my first break of the day - the bartender took pity on me (I can't imagine why...) and offered to let me come back the next day and pay for the beer, though I must admit I kind of suspect she just didn't want to waste time with a $4 credit card purchase - but after meeting only rude and impatint folks since I crossed into California, I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Arriving at Rene's place to a warm reception was the icing on the cake. Good to see old friends again, good to make new friends in a foreign environment (I just can't seem to escape using that word), good to sleep on a nice futon instead of in the van.
Cue three days of wandering around San Francisco, hanging out in parks and lying on grass, all interspersed with good conversations and more than a few drinks. A great, albeit expensive visit in all. It was particularly nice to know that there are good places to end up after Japan - Rene's life seems to have turned out pretty well, I reckon. Definitely going to have to make another stop-in on the trek back home.Which brings me to today - after a 6-our trek down the west coast (another great drive) and a good conversation with a Texan hitchhiker returning home after a month on the road - sitting at a picnic table on a warm sunny morning, catching up on the recent events in my life. I apologize for the overall brevity and succinctness of this entry, but hey, I gotta get my ass down to LA for more adventures.
August 29, 2001
I think I've had perhaps the laziest day of my life today. After waking up at 10 AM to move my car out of the way of oncoming streetsweepers, I ended up lazing about Satoru's apartment until two in the afternoon waiting for either he or his roommate Yoshi to roll out of bed and face the day. I would've left sooner and gone for a walk, but I had no keys to get out (let alone back in) to their apartment complex. I don't really understand the need for a gate which cannot be unlocked without a key from the inside. Maybe I'm just not used to LA, I guess.
Eventually managing to escape the miasma of lethargy that envelopped the pair - Satoru actually went back to bed until 4 or so - I trucked up and down the ass end of Sunset Boulevard for about an hour before retreating back to the apartment to escape the heat.
Los Angeles strikes me as a very bleak city. Walking around, I found myself face-to-face with a number of different people all possessing the same set of eyes: at once cold and calculating yet dull and lifeless at the same time. Hunched-over bodies lurching listlessly across the heat-soaked tarmac - the streets themselves peppered with potholes and scattered in refuse - everyone seemingly seeking some way into the life they see promised them on a daily basis on the television screen... but I'm getting away from myself here.
This is a tangent I don't need to make - I was walking around, tired and preoccupied with my financial situation on the trip so far and I think I was picking up on all sorts of signals that weren't there. I'm sitting here thinking that I was grafting my hopes, dreams and desires onto their lives; and now I'm faced with the question "do I want to do something with my life that will help people, or so I simply want to get myself away from scenes such as these?" Is the latter what I have been steering my life towards?I write this, still sitting in Satoru's, faced by the blithering inanities of late-afternoon television. Both Satoru and Yoshi have gone to work for the evening as I sit here alone, feeling destitute and confused in this land they call America. I don't know what to do with myself tonight in the City of Broken Dreams, let alone what to do with the rest of my life.
Seems I'm stuck with another unfortunate mix of questions that have no easy answers, improbable dreams and a severe dislike of what I see the world becoming. Who the hell is responsible for condemning us to this MTV planet where image, money and power are all that matters anymore?Later
Just finished my first bout of B&E in America - ran out to the store to buy some smokes and locked the door with the one lock I didn't have a key for. I got to sit on the front steps with the neighbourhood cat until it was dark enough to operate (though in retrospect, this was probably a bad idea...) before prying a screen open wide enough to wriggle through. Times like this, I'm thankful to be a scrawny SoB... being skin and bones can have its perks. Of course, now I get to be preoccupied with just how easy it was to get in and the added concern of leaving all my valuables in a decidedly insecure environment. Sigh. Some days my brain just won't leave me alone.
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