Yar!: The Whole Trip Wrap-Up

Click here for bonus photos from the trip (previously unreleased)

It was too hard to tap into the traveling spirit and write this last post in my artificially-lit, climate-controlled apartment, so I packed the laptop into the backpack and biked over to Cafe Mundi, one of Austin’s many righteous coffee shops, the one that makes me feel most transient. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been pretending to myself that I’m visiting Austin rather than living here, which is arguably not entirely untrue, and which helps me appreciate the time more. So here we are with one final post from the road!

This one is long, so it’s broken into the following sections: “Back in Austin”, “The packing lists”, “Theron update”, “Trip stats”, “Comparison of cities”, and “Future plans”.

Final push-up count: 775
Final sit-up count: 700

Part one: Back in Austin

I was possessed of a wry, mischievous smile as I wrote up that last post about how Seattle is all sunny and bright, but now the ghost of irony past has come to haunt me by transforming Austin weather, which was reputedly a post-apocalyptic desert while I was on my trip, into a soggy haze more akin to Degobah, with precipitation enough to flood the creek near my house to dangerous levels. I was worried about getting Seasonal Affect Disorder, but the rain and sky finally cleared up. In atonement I will confess for those that don’t already know that Seattle is actually cloudy, cold, and rainy for 7 months out of the year. Sorry I tried to trick you.

Austin has been comfortable and entertaining, including trips to Hamilton Pool, a free Shins in-store at Waterloo Records, and The New Year opening for Tortoise at Emo’s. Such is Austin, a velvet rut as some call it. When I first got home, I watched Lulu pack up to move to SF indefinitely and we discussed the process by which magical adventures in strange new places become pedestrian after you’ve lived in those places for a while.

Part two: The packing lists

I spent a long time planning what to pack for the trip, and it’s an interesting comment to observe what I ultimately did and did not use. Here is the entire packing list, which will tell you a bit about why my backpack was so heavy and bulky.

Some stuff I packed and did use:
- Hoodie: My equivalent of the Hitchhiker’s towel, the hoodie is a warm garment, a pillow, a blanket, a raincoat, and a hankie all in one!
- Lots of quarters: You always want exact change for the bus. Don’t be a sucker standing there with a twenty as the bus pulls away.
- iPod: I love this thing, but I’ve been thinking of writing an essay (as an authority on design, you know) about how the interface is provably wrong. Sure, the scrollwheel is dreamy, but it starts to suck beyond that.
- iPod carrying case: I bought this non-compliant ipod carrying case from a local artist here in Austin. I love it because it camouflages the ipod from would-be wrongdoers while simultaneously protecting it from its neighbors in my backpack.
- Blank envelopes, stamps, and checkbook: You never know when you’re going to have to pay your rent while on the road! Well, I guess you do know, actually, if you’ve ever used a calendar.
- Optical mouse: You can use it pretty effectively against the side of your leg while cramped into an airplane seat and similarly inhospitable conditions.
- Vitamins: When sickness threatened, I consumed extra packets of emergen-C, which I highly recommend for each of your traveling plans.
- Spare ziplock bags: Never fail to bring plastic bags with you on any long trip. They take up essentially no room or weight, but they solve so many problems.

Some stuff I packed but didn’t use:
- Reading material: Any time that I might have spent reading I spent doing something else instead, usually on the laptop.
- iPod headphones: I couldn’t stand the thought of looking as clearly trendy as the silhouettes in those ipod posters, which are as ubiquitous as wallpaper in San Francisco. I used my big bulky ones instead.
- Laptop audio hardware: We had this idea that we’d write a bunch of songs, and I had this idea that the internal audio card that my laptop comes with wasn’t nearly good enough for the task, but you’d be surprised what sounds good enough when the alternative involves finding another power outlet and more flat surface area for yet another portable device.
- Button-down shirt: For a guy who claims to be seeking more opportunities to wear non-tshirt garments on his upper body, I couldn’t seem think of a single occasion that would call for the one non-tshirt shirt I opted to pack.
- Hat: Who needs a hat when you can pull your hoodie hood over your head, and, if desired, pull the string til you look like one of the Ice Climbers?
- Military bag: Ben Snakepit would call this my “man purse”, and I thought it’d be nice on those days when I didn’t need to bring along everything in my backpack, but for some reason I never felt secure enough to leave the backpack behind, so the man purse’s day never came.
- Contacts: I’m not exactly sure why I thought I’d want not to wear my glasses. Just another thing that doesn’t seem like too much hassle when you’re at your own house packing.

Note that1 bar of Dr. Bronner’s soap and 1 tube of Tom’s of Maine toothpaste both lasted exactly until after the very last morning of the trip.

Cargo acquired during trip:
- Small bottle of sunscreen, purchased at surf shop in Ocean Beach, San Diego
- PCI Wireless card (w/ manual, cd, etc.) purchased at COMPUSA in San Francisco
- Secret birthday presents, purchased in pirate store at 826 valencia and Ready Frenzy in Portland, Oregon
- Righteous painting of a horse entitled Wyld Stalyn, purchased last year from Jef! who painted it
- Poster stolen from Nocturnal
- Misc bus transfers, pamphlets, and programs
- Short stack of hand-drawn maps and notes

Part three: Theron update

Theron, back in his dreary, dead-end “life”, has been bored at work and text messaging me a lot, but mostly just calling me for lengthy, one-sided conversations in which he repeatedly laments that if his cock were only a foot or so longer, he could fuck his own bunghole and then wouldn't have to cruise for anal penetration from flabby, middle-aged men. Believe me, I've been trying to no avail to tell him just to rump-hump doorknobs, but maybe you can talk some sense into him.

Here is a Theron quote from a recent TM conversation:

“Too SMALL!!?!! It sounds, good friend, like someone is a quitter!!! (that’s you) if you try hard enough, you can fuck ANYTHING!! Its all about believing in yourself!”

Part four: Trip stats

Here are some stats describing successes and failures of the trip, which perhaps will be of use to you when planning your own copy-cat trip.

Best overall advice: minimize luggage (credit: Lulu)
Most fun recommended experience: Berkeley Thai Brunch (credit: Lulu)
…runner-up: Pirate store at 826 Valencia (credit: Lulu)
Most fun non-recommended experience: 2 mile uphill hike in SF
Smartest pre-trip tactical move: save money then get fired
…runner-up: subscribe to a fast, easy blog service to document trip
Most important qualities for traveling companion:
- never complains
- always gets along with you
- eats the same food as you
- thinks nothing of walking >4 miles at night while wearing heavy backpacks
- appreciates the same types of experiences as you
- likes to talk about math and gay sex
- is firm but yielding regarding his urges to give you rimjobs
- looks hot in panties
- can’t smell your farts
Minimum # of text messages sent by Theron: 50
Minimum # of vegan scrambles consumed by Randy: 8
Least successful trip plan: writing an entire album of music
..runner-up: Eating groceries instead of at restaurants (where do you put the left-overs?)
# of song titles written: 11
Percentage of song titles with partially-written songs that go along with them: 18%
Most successful trip plan: doing push-ups and sit-ups daily
Percentage of the push-ups done by Theron: 50%
Percentage of the sit-ups done by Theron: 61%
Percentage of the trip that Theron was present for: 64%
Percentage of the trip that Randy was present for: 100%

Part five: Comparison of cities

It’d be an exaggeration to claim that I was shopping the west coast for a city to live in; mostly I was just shopping for inspiration. Still, the most common question was “Are you thinking you might move to the west coast?” (to which my stock reply was “I’m not really thinking”), and Theron and I certainly spent a great deal of time trying to articulate our comparisons between the cities. Without further ado, here is a list of such comparisons, with Austin thrown in the mix, since it’s the city I know best and am moving away from. I was going to include a disclaimer mentioning that I spent less than a week in each city, but I’m too opinionated and punk rock! YAR!

The city at the beginning of the list scores highest in that category, the one at the end scores least.

Prevalence of scenic natural beauty: Seattle, Portland, SF, SD, Austin

Bike friendliness: Seattle, Portland, SF, SD, Austin
I really wanted to bike around each of the first 3 cities in this list and am still thinking of returning to Seattle to join the downtown bike messengers. I would get to ride my bike aggressively, hang out with cute punk rock kids, and stare at Seattle architecture all day!

Availability of vegan food: Portland, Seattle, SF, Austin, SD
In Portland the word “vegan” appears on every menu, as though decreed by the mafia.

Cute girls per capita: Portland, Austin, SF, SD, Seattle
This is a tough call, since if you’ve got yellow fever or like hot older chicks, you’d be all into SF. The “per capita” throws it off, though. And SD has lots of cute girls if you like the porn star type.

Apparent availability of cute girls: Portland, Seattle, Austin, SF, SD
At least half of the cute people in Austin are part of couples. And the cute girls in SF are all kind of intimidating looking (go them!). Girls in Portland are friendly and approachable.

Tendency for people to wear revealing clothing: Austin, SD, Portland, SF, Seattle
Bunch of prudes in Seattle, whereas once summer hits Austin, one can scarcely be bothered to wear clothes at all.

Metropolitanness: SF, Seattle, SD, Austin, Portland
SF bustles, and you don’t doubt you’re in a real city. Portland feels like a large, flat village, even downtown where the tall buildings have an air of being empty and made out of cardboard.

Prevalence of facial tattoos and piercings: Portland, Austin, SF, Seattle, SD
Prevalence of high-tech plastic designer backpacks from Japan: SF, Seattle, Austin, SD, Portland
Portland is dangerously, violently hip, a summer camp for hipsters, an artificial city, a Logan’s Run -esque utopia where people outside the age range of 18-35 are tidily euthanized by floating robots. Portland is counter-cultural without being all self-conscious about it.
SF’s culture is fueled by cutting edge design and cosmopolitan awareness.
San Diego has a lot of surf bums.

Apparent quantity of squatters, homeless, and crazy people: SF, SD, Austin, Seattle, Portland
Amount of sun: Austin, SD, Seattle, SF, Portland
Amount of clouds: Portland, SF, Seattle, SD, Austin
Attractiveness of city architecture: Seattle, SF, Portland, SD, Austin
Overall cleanliness of city: Seattle, SD, Austin, Portland, SF
Prevalence of coffee in culture: Seattle, (tie) Portland / Austin, SF, SD
Affordability: Portland, SD, Austin, Seattle, SF
Racial diversity: SF, SD, Seattle, Austin, Portland
All 5 cities in a randomly ordered list: SD, Seattle, Austin, SF, Portland
That same list, in reverse order: Portland, SF, Austin, Seattle, SD
A 5-way tie: (tie) Austin / SF / SD / Portland / Seattle

Part six: Future plans

Shortly after being fired, I got the idea to travel along both the East and West coasts and visit all the friends I haven’t seen in a while. I didn’t have a lot of solid plans much further out than that, and the idea was really just to get moving. When I arrived back in Austin after the West Coast trip, I didn’t want to unpack. I wanted to sleep on my futon couch, live out of my backpack, and log onto the internet with my wireless card, even though the broadband cable was only 3 feet away, paid for by the same bank account as the rent on my 2 bed, 1.5 bath downtown apartment bloated with my bulky material possessions.

So the West coast trip reminded me of something I had forgotten, the thing I have fantasized about every time I visited some tropical location during a vacation from work: that I’ve made it a goal for years to pay off my debt, save a bunch of money, become unemployed, and see the world, or at least sleep on a beach for a few weeks. Somehow it didn’t occur to me until I got back to Austin that I had finally achieved all of the necessary prerequisites to get started on that goal. I think I forgot partially because the reality is different than I imagined, but that’s just because I’ve found my own particular identity as a traveler, a high-tech nomad cutting a savage path of blogging, adventure, and gay sex pirate jokes up the West coast, and not just cribbed my idea of travel from the memoirs and novels that have been inspiring me lately.

If I hadn’t been Austin-style lazy and comfortable this past week, I would have been making schedules and budgets to figure out how long I can remain unemployed and whether and when I continue my adventures:
- East coast tour
- backpack around Mexico
- go to Burning Man
- be home in Vermont when my sister gives birth to twins
- travel in Europe, Asia, other continents
- fly to moon on spaceship, travel backwards in time

To keep things complicated, I’m going to Vermont with Lulu next week to celebrate our adjacent birthdays, I’m trying to break the lease on my apartment by finding a new occupant, and I’m discussing the possibility of contract work with a company in France for a couple weeks in July. Life is exciting! Whee! Get fired, it’s great!

Eventually, I’ll have a better sense of what the plan is, but I’m sure it’ll involve more travel and more blogging.

The next post will probably involve some photos from Vermont posted in about a week by a 30 year old who still talks like he’s in 5th grade. Take care til then!

Comments

[jef]

i'm glad this hasn't ended...for some strange reason it gives me hope for myself. after going to vancouver and seattle in the same week, i have an understanding. this year is dedicated to getting rid of 'stuff' and figuring out how to travel and make money at the same time.

keep 'em coming...i'm here.

[Randy]

word to a similarly-minded brother.
vermont is in its june beauty right now, and i'll post some righteous pictures in a few days.
did you post about seattle and vancouver in your LJ? i should read that.

[lola]

If your ass is in Austin in 2004 when I get back to the states I am going to kick it back up north or west where it belongs.-urlovinfrendMKB

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