wanderingwho's Journal

One of the things I've found surprising about this trip so far is the total lack of fear I feel most places I go. The media spends so much time pumping out fear mongering stories about the stranger waiting around the corner that one can't help but anticipate some sort of attack. But the truth is, even as an interracial pair going everywhere the worst we've gotten is people who are just not nice, maybe rude. It's amazing what most people will open up to you about just from a "Hello" and how helpful people can be, especially in the campgrounds. I wish more of my friends were into camping because it's such a unique, relaxed experience. At worst it's a collection of quiet types looking for a place to sleep between hikes and at best it's a block party with grass, beer, volleyball, music and no police. At No Name City the guy next to us gave me pancakes one morning.

If I had to say one thing that stands out about this trip, perhaps not the most but in a significant fashion, it's that most of my time is spent around intelligent people. Be it in the car with Latasha or stopping at either her or my people's places it's nice to be around people who get it again. All of her people were really nice and she really like Jaimie and Dani, which made me happy.

This trip has also really made me want to travel more and more in the future. I went a lot of places but there are still places I want to go. I need to spend some time is Boston and Philadelphia sometime in the near future and I'd love to get back to NYC for a weekend sooner rather than later.

We stopped in for a potty break in Richmond a couple days ago. It caught me right in my chest how much I missed the city. I'll always have love for VCU, but there's just something about the place in summer that feels unique. It's watching the door guards plays cards instead of being assholes and that emptiness in the dorms that exposes the energy that's usually hidden by the masses of people.

More than anything I'm just excited about life again. I'm ready to come back so I can get started on the rest of it, I put it off for a year that I can never get back. My hope is to shove enough life in the years to come that it'll make up for the lost time. There's just so much to see and do that I feel like I've been missing. The first part is going to be some heavy partying once I can get back to RVA.

I had meant to write something somber and reflective but I'm just not feeling that tonight. It's too late for that nonsense, not to mention too hot. Plus, Corinne Bailey Rae is too cute and upbeat.

It is weird being back home. Being away made me realize how much I love this place. I'm an East Coast guy through and through. It's not that the other parts of the country were bad, but they just didn't have that sort of east coast swing. The banter was just a half-step or IQ point too slow, perhaps in the case of out west it was because too much energy was being put into maintaining appearances. If I could have two characters meet in a bar in Oklahoma City I suppose the dialogue would go something like this:

"Please, the West Coast is the shit. We have everything you guys have out East plus our women are better looking."

"Hardly, your women are just turn Halloween into a year-long event, and besides you don't have everything we do back East."

"You're right, we have more."

"Prove it."

"Los Angeles."

"New York."

"Seattle."

"Memphis."

"San Francisco."

"Boston."

"Lake Tahoe."

"Martha's Vinyard."

"San Diego."

"The Triangle."

"Las Vegas."

"Atlantic City."

"Yosemite."

"Blue Ridge Mountains."

"Golden Gate Bridge."

"Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel."

"Whatever man, besides The Triangle is more than one city."

"Alright, fair enough...but we've still got Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami and wait, oh yeah, D.C., which is the real center of the universe, not L.A."

Also, I've been brainstorming ideas for a comic my friend and I are supposed to put together for a competition. Right now I've got a Jewish vampire hunter, a peasant in a fantasy land caught up in destiny, a story I started to write about a poker game between two friends, Merlin, Death and the Devil and a four-issue series about trying to find a Beta player in Richmond that inculdes a scene with a deaf child playing Marco Polo in the middle of the Fan.

So yeah, tomorrow we're supposed to head to Savannah and then from there to the Florida Keys for a couple days. Maybe while I'm there I'll think of something serious to write about my trip. I hope you're all well, peace.

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