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?