Something is ending.

Here I am, sitting in my old room. Beginning on Monday, I realized that technically, I'm homeless. That doesn't mean I don't have anywhere to stay -- on the contrary, there are many welcoming beds and my belongings are mostly accounted for. There will be no longer be a place that's considered mine. The room I'm in right now holds a strange feeling. It's the place I slept most nights in the past year, the place where I spent the majority of my time, but it's not home anymore. Everything is different -- even the direction I am facing as I type. As minor as that seems, my position quite literally adjusts my view of the whole area.

Is it silly to forfeit all responsibility for feeling differently about the room?

It's not just here -- everything is changing. Yesterday in Sacramento, I drove past a house only a few turns away from my parents'. It is the place to which I used to sneak out the windows of my house, around an extra block so as not to be spotted by my neighbor. He was usually staring out the front window, and there is no way he wouldn't have told my parents. This is the house in which I had my first experience in tame promiscuity. Where it all began. When I passed my driver's license test, I started driving a different route home to see if I could spot the person who lived in that house.

As I drove by yesterday, silently reminiscing, I saw the person who lives there standing on the porch. This is the person I was hoping to see aged 16, as I drove my Buick past the house. Instead of a good-looking, well dressed 18-year-old boy, however, there was a 60+ woman in a nightshirt, pointing a running hose in no particular direction. Instead of a run down white Buick, which would later fall victim to various thefts and break-ins, I was driving a shuddering, overheating truck. Neither the person in the house nor I are the same people anymore, but there's still a part of me that glances toward the front door, hoping to make eye-contact with someone in particular, no matter how forcefully I try to focus my eyes forward.

For some reason, I find this incredibly sad. Why can't my brain just fucking release me?

Looking at Joseph Cornell's art makes me teary-eyed. Of course, what doesn't these days?

It's just so fucking gentle.

The truth will come out eventually.

How long can I keep everyone believing I'm sane?

Can I really hide it for much longer?

Try until the end try until the end try until the end.

Two new hobbies

1) Meticulously combing every millimeter of my meal for traces of meat.
2) Looking for Kosher symbols on food packaging.

For the first time

I am having problems I can't talk to anyone about.

Usually, not talking about my problems is my preferred manner of recovery. It's hard for me, however, to know that I actually can't speak to anyone.

Flosstradamus

Ayumi saw these DJs at Download Festival. We've been listening to them all morning, and they do some great mashups -- in particular, the one of Kanye West and Sigur Ros.

www.myspace.com/flosstradamus

Sacramento, CA

I am shifting cities quite frequently.

Last night, I talked Ayumi into leaving her new apartment in San Francisco and meeting me here. It was going to be the first time each of us had slept alone in a long time. I picked her up at the train station last night at 10pm, and we hung around, talking to my parents and growing progressively more tired. Once in bed, we shared one of those giggly sleepover-type conversations that I miss so much. Sacramento's getting so lonely, I have to import my friends.

Usually -- according to what I've heard -- when someone gets ready to leave the country for an extended period of time, their lives fall into place in a very inconvenient way. Fortunately, mine is not. I'm developing awkward crushes, basically, and can't wait to ditch them. It's probably just an effort to feign attachment.

Advice from my mother:

As given on the drive from Fort Bragg to Sacramento:

"No, Jordan, you don't want to tailgate him too early. Get a good distance behind him and give him a chance to pull into a turnout. If he doesn't, ride his ass until he caves. Yeah, yeah, lead him into a false sense of security, then go straight for the jugular."

Fort Bragg, CA

I am unable to sleep for the first time in months. The last time this happened to me, I was in Sacramento and drank myself to the point of vomiting in an attempt to pass out -- because good old falling asleep wasn't really working. What I learned is that whiskey is a sub-par replacement for exhaustion.

My cousin got married today. The general subject of marriage sat in the air all day, occasionally receiving visits from my mother and me. What we decided: I am never getting married. I can never imagine myself getting really excited because someone proposed to me, for one. What I can imagine is the incredible discomfort I would feel having to verbalize that I love someone enough to marry them. Definitely not my ideal conversation. It would also make me feel very uncomfortable to watch other people get excited for me. I am actually getting awkward right now, and I'm completely by myself, not speaking out loud.

Fort Bragg is a strange place to be. I thought I knew people here, but apparently they've all moved away from this the tiniest of hometowns. The only thing I've had the opportunity to do that even slightly resembles a social event (a wedding I was forcibly coerced into doesn't count) is my mother's high school "preunion", a term coined by my father and me. That is, the night before her actually reunion, she invited me to a bar with all of her old high school classmates. I reminded her that I am only 20, and her response was, "Come on... don't you have a fake ID?" This from a woman who joined AA when she was only a few years older than me.

I'm excited, because we're having more couch surfers when I get back to San Francisco. Chris came back to visit -- took his few days off and flew back to San Francisco from Las Vegas. Don't you just love making friends whose company you actually enjoy?

Maybe I'll just stay up so I can sleep on the ride home. I drove the whole way here from Sacramento, while my mother sat in the backseat "attempting to sleep" (aka. verbally correcting my driving).

Networking

I can't believe all of the random connections I have made in Europe. I can't wait to travel around once I'm there.

Even my living in Berlin is pretty random. My friend Hannah came on exchange to Sacramento my sophomore year of high school from Graz, Austria. She is the reason I ever went to Europe in the first place, and the reason I was ever inspired to learn German. Ruth, who I am staying with in Berlin is her best friend from high school; I've spent a lot of my time in Austria hanging out with the two of them. That was a connection I never suspected would serve such a useful purpose.

I have friends (or random connections) in Hungary, Latvia, Holland, France, Austria, and England. My connections in Latvia, Holland, and England are the kind of unlikely connections I never expected to make. My friend Peter is going back to Latvia in September, and I met him on the bus. I met a girl in Holland through a random guy I met in a bar, and Chris, who lives in London, was the camera man for a guy I hosted through CouchSurfing.com.

I feel very lucky in the irrationality that is my life.

Movement.

Ayumi found a new apartment. It's seven blocks from our current one, and absolutely beautiful: an old Victorian with hardwood floors, high ceilings, and basically everything I would like in a house. Her lease is two years, so I don't know exactly what I'm going to do when I get back from Berlin. Maybe Seattle is actually realistic.

I've had a lump in my throat for the past week. I lay in bed every night before I fall asleep, wondering if I'm going to suffocate in the night. An earthquake usually hits my chest during these episodes, my heart pounds at least one wave per second. Then the aftershocks: shaky knees, sweaty palms, gasping for breath, praying to a God I don't believe in that the oxygen will bypass the lump. So far it has, but I truly believe that each breath will be fin, my pounding heart my grand finale.

I haven't ever felt this trapped before.

There is a blank billboard on the corner of Arguello and Geary. The sight of it made me irrationally sad, but there was also a distinct beauty in its reflective white. It's wonderful to have a break from constant advertisements, but why is it their right to steal a chunk of the sky from me?

Ayumi says...

"Customers always come up to me and share the most personal stories. Seriously, I know way too much about these people's lives. The other day a woman was looking at foot files and talking about how she needed the roughest one. She said, 'I literally have a hole in my heel.' Why do people tell me these things? I want to say, 'Okay, I may be a sales associate, but I'm also a human being. But, when I leave work, I maintain the memories from what happened in my job. Now I'm stuck thinking about your foot hole. Thanks.'"

Tell me: what is this knick-knack?

I bought it at Goodwill today, but have no idea what its function could be.



Just for fun, here's the person next to me while I'm taking advantage of Ayumi's photo booth.

I obviously have no life.

Three times in a single day. Really, Jordan?

Yes, really.

Ayumi and I were just incredibly disappointed; she thought she was going to be able to move out of our house tomorrow (which means I could have moved in with her), and the landlord didn't call her. We preemptively had champagne chilling, which made the whole ordeal all the more depressing.

Fortunately, we know how to drown our sorrows in alcohol. Now we're housecleaning and listening to Flight of the Conchords. Everyone who reads this blog (aka. no one), ask Elohim in your nightly prayers to get us out of this disgusting house.

I also bribed one of my high school friends to come over and bring beer. Score.

By the way

in exactly one month, I am moving to Berlin.

Ich liebe Seattle.

For my last night in Seattle, we organized a scavenger hunt. No competition, just one big team, adding and dropping members as the night went on. The same people made the list and participated in the hunt -- it was a good time. What I remember from the list: picture in the back of a pickup truck, empty 40oz, male babe, female babe, single french fry, someone with fast food, someone's armpit hair, picture standing in a fountain. There were many more, the idea being that we would find them all and take photos of each.

It started at midnight. We were at it for a couple of hours, drinking and laughing, before heading home. Some babe drew a penguin on my arm and told me he was from San Francisco. When I asked where in San Francisco, he said, "well... I'm actually from Petaluma." Hailey asked him if he was in the band Birdwatchers United, and was unnecessarily embarrassed when he said no. When we were back at the house, I talked to and smooched some babe, who then bolted very suddenly and, in my paranoid mind, fearfully. It could have been the normal 5am I-should-really-go-home departure, but I like to amplify situations so that I'm viewed negatively. Why is that, I wonder?

I fell asleep on some couch cushions that Jared kindly set up for me, but woke up on the floor in the hallway (with my sleeping bag), halfway in the bathroom. How did I get there? I must have walked, but I can't imagine why. I wasn't drunk enough to vomit, and since I brought my sleeping bag, there must have been some intention of sleeping.

Back in San Francisco, I just want to leave again.

I just uttered this phrase:

"... no matter how you roll it up in rice and make it into sushi."

Where did that come from?

Hailey is reading through her old journals and she just reminded me that I went through an incognito phase in high school. My uniform: huge sunglasses, a scarf wrapped around my head (sometimes covering my mouth), and a sweatshirt with the hood up. I don't remember what inspired this bit o' fashion innovation, but I'm thinking of bringing it back.

Seattle, WA

I actually think I could move here.

The weather is strange and rainforest-esque; warm but damp during the day, with clouds billowing through the sky, alternating between hiding and exposing the sun. Hailey and I walked home at 4am this morning, and I was comfortable in a skirt.

We went to see Tilly and the Wall last night. I have now developed a bitter crush on the bassist for Birdwatchers United, one of my many new loves in Seattle. I don't know why I develop crushes so easily; it's an actual character flaw.

Still in Pinole

I care, but why?
Words from a kindhearted cynic.

Where the hell is Pinole, CA?

I would never have been able to answer that question before 3:30pm today.

As a claustrophobic, I very much fear situations in which I am stuck. I am terrified of airplanes, elevators, too-small rings, and shoes that are too tight for my toes to wiggle. It turns out, I get anxious when I'm large-scale stuck also.

On the drive back to San Francisco, my car overheated and broke down. I sat on the side of the road in Rodeo (which is apparently not pronounced like the place where cowboys congregate) for an hour before my car was cool enough to drive to a gas station. Two quarts of motor oil, a gallon of water, and two miles of driving later, I am sitting in a Peet's Coffee in Pinole, CA, scared to continue driving, but also fearing my inertia.

After a flat tire on Christmas Eve, and overheating on the 4th of July, one could conclude that I have bad holiday driving luck.

To change topic, I found out that I don't need a Visa to get into Berlin. All I need to do is renew my passport before I leave, then apply for a residence permit when I arrive. I leave at 10:45am on the 10th of August. I was kind of banking on some sort of Visa trouble to prevent me from leaving, but apparently it's really happening.

In some ways, I think I've never been more ready to pick up and start over.

After more than a year in one place, I get too antsy to stick around. However, I feel like once I get to Germany, I'll never come back. That may just be because of current circumstances; right now I'm going through this series of issues that I really can't discuss with anyone. It feels so exhibitionist to write something like that online, but what is a blog if not exhibitionism?

California's capitol.

As we drove into Sacramento, Ayumi and I noticed a distinct orangey-gray haze in the sky, threatening to overcome us. Was it just our respective imaginations? The delusion of our reluctance to leave San Francisco? No, just the smoke from a thousand* forest fires, all intent on ruining the city and its inhabitant's lungs.

So now I'm here. There is ash in the air, baking in the 90 degree weather. I have a sore throat. Not only that, but I trapped a junebug last night, between a piece of pottery and an Arrested Development DVD case, and who knew a baby junebug could escape from that? So now I'm hot, in pain, and creeped out. Seriously, bugs should not be able to bench press that much.



*the amount of forest fires is courtesy of Brenda, Deniz, and Joe's know-it-all neighbor Sean.

What we do.

We start out riding bikes around, around, around the panhandle as we try to decide what to do with the night, one of us always yelling over our shoulder at the other, barely able to hear each other. After brief mention of the beach (it's something I always suggest), we decide fuck the bikes, throw them in the back of my truck, head to Twin Peaks. You drive -- I get performance anxiety driving with other people in the car, plus I want to see what you look like driving stick shift. Halfway up, we're both scared because the fog is too thick to see, and actually it's my dad's car so we turn around and say let's go to the beach after all. Might as well take advantage of a warmish night? Armed with a six pack, you humor me and ride to the beach like I suggested in the first place, lock up, carry the bottles to the wake, shoes off, pants rolled up. I hate getting my rolled up pants wet, but I hide my discomfort because it seems so excitingly carefree not to mind. I could go for a tall can, I think, and some cigarettes, so we walk back to Safeway and stop to make out somewhere on the way. Not the sickeningly romantic beach, but somewhere lame, like the Safeway parking lot or the windmill where guys blow each other as soon as the sun sets. I make a stupid joke and you laugh and tell me you think I'm pretty. I say, of course it's always nice to hear that and now do I have to admit I'm just a romantic at heart?