the end... for now

ok, heres the deal. and by the way i noticed my last post was a while back; i had meant to be more dilligent than that - my apologies. so since i last wrote i went to el paso, which was nice, and then spent six nights in austin. its a great city, and i very well may end up there, but i couldnt make the decision to commit that quickly, not to mention i was living in a hotel spending money quickly. so i decided to come back to new york, at least for a little while, get some rest, maybe make some money, and figure out exactly what it is im looking for.

but obviously austin to new york takes more than a day, so i went from austin to birmingham, alabama for one night. go look at a map for a second... it was a personal best - over 800 miles in aboot 13 hours, crossing half of texas, louisiana, mississippi, and half of alabama. the ultimate goal was to make it all the way to atlanta (wouldve been 1000 miles) but i just got too tired and sleepy, so i stopped in birmingham.

obviously with the goal of going to atlanta, the next morning i arrived at mikes house. it was an unplanned visit, so it just consisted of lunch, afternoon drinking, and going out drinking at night - but it was excellent, as visiting mike always is.

the next morning i left the atl and drove to north carolina to check out atoms new digs. it was very nice and he seems to be enjoying himself there. we hung out for a bit in chapel hill and later went to a massive state fair, which was bizarre but fun. i had a fried twinkie, which started out tasty, but by the end i really wanted it to be gone from my tummy.

i had made a motel reservation in southern new jersey, aboot seven hours from atoms, but when i got there it looked like a crackhouse. so i searched around maple shade, nj for an alternative lodging, but found nothing good. i went into a quality inn which looked just ok, but they wanted 80 bucks, so i just decided to soldier on home. it was supposed to be two-and-a-half more hours, but as the approaching-new-york traffic makes the rules, it took almost four. but i made it back in one piece, and put a fitting end on a journey that took me almost eleven-thousand miles and sixty days across the country. i hope you all have enjoyed reading this; ive certainly enjoyed both experienceing and writing aboot it all... im just wondering what the next adventure might be.

tombstone blues

right now im in tucson, arizona. its not a bad place; everything is very tan and that faded sunbleached pink. phoenix (where i stayed last night), on the other hand, i did not like at all. it seemed like a city full of crazy people. then again, they are forced to deal with 120 degree heat occasionally. back in vegas there was a record store called zia that i really liked, and i found out they originated in arizona and had seven other locations in phoenix, tucson, and points in between. so, yesterday and today, i went to all seven. they were ok.

im excited aboot tomorrow. im going to tombstone! the site of the famous shootout at the ok corral between the rustling clampett gang and wyatt earp and his law-upholding posse. 'the town too tough to die' they call it. the ramones have a great album called 'too tough to die'. its not a westerny album at all, so its unrelated as far as i can tell, but great nonetheless.

tomorrow night ill stay in el paso, which is basically the texas/new mexico/mexico border. its also memorialized in song, this time by marty robbins.

tonight i went to get some ice and noticed something in the vending machine... a cinnamon roll for a dollar, marked on the front with the words 'pastry of the year'. obviously i had to verify this. well unfortunately the only reason it even claimed 'pastry of the day' was because the rest of the day was particularly pastry-free. the lesson is beware of outrageous claims, especially when credited to (im not joking) the 'automatic merchandiser readers choice awards'.

i do believe ive had enough

after a few days of apartment/soul searching, ive decided to pack it in as far as la is concerned. theres just too much compromise attached to living here. allow me to explain: decent - and only decent - places to live around here are way out of my price range. in order to survive (briefly) id have to live in a tiny studio for like 900 bucks a month in an undesirable (dangerous) area. im not interested in not wanting to step outside of an apartment at night, worrying aboot my place and car getting broken into, etc. and even to afford that id have to have two jobs i bet. and to do something im actually interested in id probably have to work for little-to-no pay, which id be happy to do, except id be homeless in three months. i could always borrow a little money, but that would be stemming a tide rather than solving a problem. and living within thirty miles of a beach is even more cost-prohibitive. its not a place im in love with anyway. its got its good parts and bad. some things are super-cool, but also ill be giving up wildfires, earthquakes, smog, and freeway snipers (five incidents since ive been here).

tonight is my last night in california, in pasadena, which is one of the nicer communities in the greater la area. but of course, its super expensive and pretty far inland.

one nice thing is there were a couple further south locations that couldnt be visited on my way out here... tomorrow i go to joshua tree national park and then phoenix and tucson for a couple nights. after that ill be "down in the west texas town of el paso" and then im gonna go back to austin for a while. it was probably my favorite place on my trip, so perhaps ill stay. everything there adds up - apartment costs are reasonable, its pretty safe, job prospects are good, and its big into independent film.

one thing im really looking forward to is some more open road. ive been in the la area for two weeks now, and ive grown to miss driving long distances. i did go to san diego twice while i was here, which is a two hour drive, but its different cuz of all the traffic. i cant wait to drive five hours through a desert with no one around.

sorry everyone

so... i wouldn't call this the end of the blog, just a slow-down. hopefully i haven't completely lost my audience. since last time, i went to san diego to see cousin megan, which was great. shes got a super-cool kid whos just shy of two years. i also saw my just-starting-college cousin, ryan. hes great too. san diego is a nice area, i wouldnt mind going back sometime in the near future.

anyway, i think im gonna stick around here, at least for a while. its a little difficult figuring out the order in which to accomplish things. first of all, housing is expensive, so i need a job soon. but do i go to ny and get my stuff? do i commit to an apartment first? do i get a job and then risk not being able to have time to go to ny and drive my stuff across the country in the next few months? theres a one month hotel/apartment i could get, but id need a job by the end of that, so i dont know if that helps me any. if anyone has any advice, id be glad to hear it.

ive looked at a few apartments so far - the dollar doesnt go too far around here. ive already resigned myself to get a crappy place for a year and just hope i can afford a nicer one by next year.

ive also run out of minutes on my phone and gone over by thirty or so. at 40c/minute, im using it as little as possible until the tenth, when my new minutes start. ive already upped my plan for next month.

so this is just a quick update, ive got some more apartment appointments today. this is a stressful time; i hope everything works out ok soon. hope everyone is doing well.