Tag Archives: travel

Character, Experiences, Philosophy, Travel, Writing

Breaking Resolutions

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So, I made this fantastic goal for myself to write 24 blog entries this year. Two a month. The plan was around the 1st and 15th of each month. It’s not even that big a feat, considering how many people write multiple articles in a day or week. I had subjects prepared, partial drafts together. I wanted to do it, because I want to get into the habit of writing more, and on topics I care about. But I failed.

I should have posted another one by March 1st. But I was busy. I got back from a week-long trip to the East Coast. I returned home and was swamped with work that built up during the week I was gone. I got into a car accident. Someone else quoted me in a blog entry instead.

Most people don’t really know this about me, but I can get a bit self-defeatist at times. Not about life – I’ve got lots of hope and ideas and possibilities. But about things I try at and mess up on. It’s like I get a plan in my head and then I start on it, and the first time I fuck up, I go “shit, guess that wasn’t meant to be” and I throw out the entire thing. Continue reading Breaking Resolutions →

Adventures, Experiences, Past, Travel

The Context (Leading up to the Summer of 2011)

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Two years ago, I was in a very different space. So different, in fact, that I can barely recall it, so I flip through journals and pictures and try to reassemble the jumble of memories. I loved a Boy who lived 2,000 miles away from me, and I struggle to remember why. I try to remember kisses and adventures on chemicals in a forest land in upstate New York where we found one another among the clutter of New Age festival wildness.

Two years ago, I packed my life up and drove across the country for three months. That’s the story I’ve been wanting to tell, but before I do, I have to explain why I did, which is a story in and of itself. So there are few entries to read, and they’re autobiographical nonsense of a girl in her early 20s who seems to make a lot of life-altering decisions for boys. But these experiences, for all that they twist me around and make me run off on crazy paths in alternate directions, they’ve really shaped who I happen to be.

So, I guess we’ll back up to July of 2010, when I flew from my home in Los Angeles to New York for an annual hippie festival I’d been attending for years. It was already set to be a wild adventure – I flew out with clothing, a sleeping bag and a pillow, but no tent. I had no room for one in my baggage and decided I knew so many people at the festival that I would find someone to let me share their tent. It was a crazy idea, I’ll admit, but I love those kinds of situations. I have always made the best of not knowing what comes next, and Brushwood is a real home for me, filled with friends of my parents, friends of mine, former lovers, and lovers yet to be discovered. Continue reading The Context (Leading up to the Summer of 2011) →

Adventures, Experiences, Travel

The Place in My Heart for San Francisco

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Half-written blog posts litter my “drafts” folder. It’s not like I don’t write, I just never write enough on one subject to feel it deserves to be posted on my blog, so it ends up being a post on Facebook or a comment. This habit needs to stop, this blog is a place for my collected thoughts, but it’s not collecting anything but dust lately. Virtual dust.

I just spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Boston and New Hampshire with my family and friends back East. After eight days, I flew from the East coast back to the West, but instead of my residence of Las Vegas or my home-of-the-heart, Los Angeles, I came to San Francisco for a little vacation from my vacation. I’m being hosted by a sweet-hearted lover and am enjoying the city by way of Vespa and BART.

It’s funny – I’ve been to this city a number of times over the past several years, and also visited as a child, and I’ve always liked it, but I’ve never loved it. Continue reading The Place in My Heart for San Francisco →

Adventures, Burning Man, Experiences, Travel

Burning Man 2012

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I left Black Rock City exactly two weeks ago. That’s enough decompression for now, time to share some of the experience. This is by no means all-encompassing – so much occurred that I have no words for, so much exists only there, and everybody’s experience is completely different. This was mine.

I’ll start with the basics: Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada. For event details, I’d refer you to Wikipedia or the official website. I was attending for the first time, with a number of veteran Burners. My camp was primarily friends of mine from Los Angeles, and we were a registered theme camp called Steampunk Saloon. We had a pretty badass promotional flyer designed by the even more badass Art Lazaro.

steampunksaloon

Now, as one of my favorite first-burn blog entries already tells it: Civilization as we know it has ended and 50,000 survivors came out to the desert to throw the biggest party the world has ever seen. This is the Black Rock Desert. There was nothing here. Hundreds of people showed up pre-event to start making the skeleton of the city, complete with road signs, greeter booths, Center Camp and lots and lots of Porta-Potties.  By the way, dear people, some of whom I actually know, THANK YOU, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Continue reading Burning Man 2012 →

Travel

Mid-West Wandering

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Dubuque, Iowa.  I cannot believe I’ve been here this long.  The house I’m staying in is set up on a bluff overlooking the city.  If I bothered to wake up early enough, I could sit on the front steps and watch the sun rise in the East over the Mississippi River.  From this vantage point I can see Illinois and Wisconsin.  At night, the same view is littered with blinking and stationary lights – alerting boats and aircraft alike to the position of the bridges. Continue reading Mid-West Wandering →

Pets, Travel

There & Back Again

My intention at the beginning of June was to post entries along each step of my journey across country.  Obviously I’ve failed at that.  But now I’m staying in one place for a little while, so I decided to catch up.

I left Los Angeles on June 3rd and arrived in Las Vegas five hours later.  I stayed at my favorite hotel, The Artisan, for ten days.  I did some gambling, some work, made a few new friends and realized that I really like Las Vegas – something I hadn’t been expecting.  There’s an energy to it that would definitely wear one down over time, but it’s one of the few places that hasn’t managed to bore me at all, despite the amount of time I spend there.

My last few days in Las Vegas I started writing poetry inspired by a new acquaintance, so I think I may start posting that again. Continue reading There & Back Again →

Adventures, Character, Experiences, Past, Pets, Travel

The Birds

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I have two small parrots in the passenger seat of my car for this trip across the country.  When I tell people that, they tend to look at me like I’m crazy.  Where will I keep them when I stop on the trip?  Aren’t they loud?  Won’t they fly away? Who the hell brings two parrots on a cross-country drive?

A bird-mama does.

I have given up custody of these dear children of mine once since I’ve had them.  A painful nine months where I simply could not have them due to my housing situation.  It was hard.  I didn’t see them the entire time because I didn’t want to feel guilty saying good-bye every time.  They were in good, capable hands.

Since I got them back – fourteen days has been my limit.  The longest I will tolerate being away from them.

When I was a kid, I wanted a pet, and my mother told me I was allergic to cats and dogs (not true, different story).  So we got me a pair of budgerigars.  Small birds, colloquially known as “parakeets”.  Two turned into four, and my interest in birds grew, so I slowly acquired more – bigger each time. Continue reading The Birds →

Travel

Traveling

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As friends & family know, as of June 1st, I’m officially On The Road.  I moved out of my beautiful three bedroom apartment in the Marina Peninsula just south of Venice Beach on the last day of May, and I’m… homeless.  It’s not a bad thing though.

There’s a two-door Ford Focus parked outside right now, filled with my needed belongings.  I’ve got four months paid on a 5×10 storage unit in West Los Angeles containing the hundreds of books, few pieces of furniture, and various non-essential knick-knacks I’ve acquired over the years.  Myself and my two parrots are traveling via car across the United States and back this summer. Continue reading Traveling →