SPRENG BRAKE!!1!

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I am retiring this one until I make it back to europe, hopefully over spring break.

the future.

I am home.





And I am fucking bummed.

not gonna make it to dinosaur land. bummed.

traveling alone is lonely. traveling with someone is frustrating. ready for home.

looking forward to looking back.

I sincerely hope this trip makes me into a better, more patient, thoughtful, focused person and not a total asshole.

because honestly, it could go either way.

and now for something completely different.

I woke up screaming, from a dream
I had to save you
a mess of hot tears and soft eyes
the same black cloud in a new white dress
you pressed your chest against my forearm
pleading
I leaned in to listen
but I was ripped away
saw you recede into grey static
black bangs and pink cheeks swaying in the breeze
and I was at year zero
we were spitting songs at the lamplight
under the fruit tree time forgot
I will be your way, your heart, your drum beat
forget me not

paranoid android.

things are falling apart. I am coming home soon.

you can even bring your baby.

last night in paris. solid trip. headed to prague tomorrow. I can't wait for low prices and youth hostels full of friendly people and computers that actually work and not sweating for 8 hours every night while I am desperately trying to sleep.

in unrelated sad bastard news, disco 2000 by pulp came on at the bar kaitlin and I were at tonight and I got bummed out because it reminds me of someone I used to know. sad trombone.

it comes and it goes.

26. not nearly as bummed out as I was two hours ago. gonna make an awesome day out of my last day in paris tomorrow.

call for the captain ashore.

seriously tired. seriously homesick. turning 26 in 26 minutes. can't get ahold of my girlfriend. desperately trying to keep my head above water.

I feel so broke up, I wanna go home.

grimple sorghum

paris is awesome. not the city of love, perchance, but definitely the city of amazing long walks and skinny women in high heels. I reckon I am walking between 6 and 10 miles a day. I feel so good.

all of the drinks are expensive and sold cold. I've seen the ugly american in me coming out a little bit in the past couple of days. kinda bums me out.

speaking of bumming me out, I can't find a place that sells phonecards (outside of the hellish tenderloin single residence hotel masquerading as a youth hostel, which is a story for another time) so if my girlfriend is reading this, I apologize profusely for not calling you.

and I saw a macaron the size of a donut for 2 euros!

the longest 24 hours of my entire fucking life.

welcome to the san francisco of spain

saw the pride parade. 5 minutes later saw a junkie beating up his junkie girlfriend. have an ingrown toenail. going to paris tomorrow.

fuck.

money flying out of my pockets.

sat on my ipod. screen is half cracked. longest day ever. been in barcelona for 2 hours and already I know I am going to love it here.

fuck.

2:20 train to barcelona was full. tried to buy my ticket 2 days ago, but the spanish train website is a complete piece of garbage. waited 2 hours in line today to find out I have to take a first class ticket at 6:20. the spanish train office is a complete piece of garbage.

the ugly american in me is coming out. all I want is for everyone to interrupt the siesta and do their fucking job with some level of competency.

4 hours to kill in a shitty town with a huge bag on my back. pobrecito.

fuck.

drank 4(!) forties last night. bag got stolen. saw some shit catch on fire. drunkenly danced with children while getting sprayed down with a firehose. hungover as fuck. hungry. tired. looking forward to company. awesome.

the summer I turned 16 my best friend, in an attempt to get as far away from his crazy family as humanly possible, remodeled his family garage into a tiny 1 bedroom studio with a bathroom and loft, almost entirely by himself.

while my friend did quite a good job considering he was only 15 at the time and had to assist him only the barest of help from his shitty stepfather whom I now hope is slowly dying of cancer in a 3rd world country (but I digress), it was rough around the edges. the bathroom wasn´t completed until at least 6 months after the rest of the studio. the ceiling was uneven and patchy. the studio invariably smelled horrible, what with 15 year old boy hygeine and two british bulldogs living in a backyard not four feet away.

the hostel I am staying in feels exactly like that studio and it fucking sucks. it is halfway through remodeling so there is drywall and large pieces of plastic cordoning off construction areas and there is no sink or oven in the kitchen, only a microwave and hot water dispenser for instant coffee.

while this hostel is supposedly full, it always feels eerily empty and only now that a gigantic party is starting in an hour and a half are people gathering in the sparsely furnished and decorated terrace.

alicante sucks, but the festival is cool so I guess things average out to an average time.

talked to an intelligent brazilian dude for a couple of hours earlier today and several times his smile and his demeanor reminded me of Ian Moore, if only he could trade a VEGAN chest piece for a civil engineering masters. It´s just funny because I feel like I keep meeting the same people over and over again, like everyone´s living out a carefully synchronized existance halfway and thirdways and crossways from perfect twins (mind skin color and language and VEGAN chest pieces) never crossing paths with so many dopplegangers in so many self sufficient spheres.

get fucked up with the boys.

just got into alicante. took an overnight bus thinking I would get some sleep. riiiiight. in between uncomfortable seats, uber attractive young spanish couple with baby arguing and fucking obnoxious 16 year old spanish boys yelling at the top of their lungs at 6 a.m., I didn´t get much sleep.

that said, I wandered out of the bus station at 8:15 a.m. to be surrounded by marching bands and drunk people and LOUD firecrackers. the streets are all cordoned off to traffic and at every intersection are gigantic fallas, or floats made out of wood and papier mache. these things are huge. some are 60 feet tall. they look like something out of alice in wonderland, all bulbous and brightly colored, a definite surreal edge to them. local artists compete in teams to see who can make the most impressive fallas, with favorite themes being satire and hometown heroes.

and because tonight is the summer solstice and christian festivals are always pagan aagricultural celebrations under a thin veneer of jesus, every single one of those floats is going up in flames while the entire town gets fucked up on the beach.

good times!

faaaat kiidddd

I am losing weight because I am walking so much which makes my body tell me to eat more which fucking sucks because the food here is tiny and unfulfilling and I am constantly ravenous. what I wouldnt give for a burger right now.

oh dan savage, how I love thee.

in tarifa for a night. this place is nice, but it is straight out of orange county. the weather, the people vacationing here, the food, the scenery, the price. even the irish desk guy at the hostel used to live in newport beach.

that being said, my hostel is a five minute walk from a causeway connecting the mainland to a small islet. if you look left on this causeway, you see the mediterranean. if you look right, you see the atlantic. and across the bay at this very moment I can see morocco.

rock and roll high school.

leaving the youth hostel tomorrow. a breakdown of my favorite people.

1. nora - BADASS north african-french girl from the ghettoes of paris. speaks in hardass french to everyone, whether they know french or not. listens in spanish or english. answers in french. does not drink because she is muslim. this does not prevent her from smoking hash and sunbathing topless. is chef de cuisine in a fancy french restaurant in the city. wish I knew how to speak french so I could hang out with her in a few days. if i ever learn french, I hope I learn how to speak like her. as she said to me through a friend from quebec translating 'where I am from, it is rough and you have to talk hard or no one will listen to you'

2. askar - spanish dude in his early 40's who lives at the hostel as a handyman. more or less a gypsy, plays mandolin on the street for money. always drinking a beer, always giving funny/disapproving looks. yesterday he put on a little girls shirt and wore it in the kitchen while smoking a cigarette and drinking a 40. keep in mind that nominally, at least, he works here. I haven't asked him, but I am certain that he is a tom waits afficionado. I am pretty sure he is the one who just put the ramones on the stereo.

3. ida - the most down to earth girl I have ever met. would be total marriage material if only every norweigan girl wasn't totally secure and low key and kind of boring. when her best friend smiles she looks just like drew pearson. kinda makes me wish I was content and secure and low key and kind of boring.

gonna miss this place.

moon over marin.

today would have been mama's 50th birthday.

I know she would be proud of where I am and what I'm doing.

And I know I will always be proud to have been her son.

home or homesick; or, how I learned how to stop worrying about home and chill the fuck out.

so as much as these previous days have been very up and down, at this moment I feel the most complete and fulfilled I have felt in a very long time and for that I am infinitely thankful.

I am thankful I am finally seeing the one thing europe has over the rest of the first world: quality of life over quantity of stuff. because this trip is costing me money, costing me double. the money flooding out of my money belt and the hours I'm not putting in, the commission I'm not counting on, the abstract numbers I check once a week that keep growing and growing toward an unspecified and important, responsible conclusion.

I am thankful I am finally learning to live in the mañana of now because while this trip is costing me columns of abstract calculation, this moment seems like I could stretch it out into forever, like saltwater taffy made out of pure gold, sinewy ropes mere molecules wide wrapping from los angeles, california to cadiz, andalucia and back again an almost infinite number of times shining like a thousand suns, lighting up lonesome sunrises and night skies full of nowhere to go but forward.

And for this I am infinitely thankful.

embarassing?

had a moment with manu chao waiting in line at the supermarket today. what an amazing place I am in right now and if for a moment I stumble, may the good lord strike me down. I spent my day at the beach and a buzzing youth hostel and a 10 euro hammock are waiting for me just around the corner.

fuck yes, spain. fuck yes.

so.

my bus leaves to cadiz in 20 minutes. I just got back from 3 days in las albujarras with my italian friend johnny.

we stayed in orgiva, which due to its proximity to malaga and therefore british tourists concerned with getting a tan and expecting that the rest of the world learn english, is home to a 'large british new age expat community', as the lonely planet guidebook says. in reality, it's a disgusting, seedy tourist trap of a town filled with weird, tweeked out looking old british people with no teeth wearing football jerseys and crust punks. tons of crust punks.

I had to explain to my friend johnny who the band 'leftover crack' were because I honestly felt I was at one of their shows, forced to smell all of the drunk, leather faced assholes with mangy dogs on a leash. the first day we were there a crust punk wearing a hat made out of a flower pot was dumpster diving in front of us and opened up a plastic bag filled with rotting meat. as in at least a week in that bag rotting meat. we both almost threw up.

but the place we stayed at was cool and rustic and out in the middle of nowhere and cheap as hell and we visited some small towns that were cute enough, though the omnipresent smell of garbage and dog shit is starting to wear on me.

I probably sound like a cranky asshole, but hey, I had to wake up at 6 in the morning and walk half an hour along an unpaved trail so I could wait at the bus stop while the living dead in drug rugs and skate shoes pilfered the trash can next to me.

and in 15 minutes I am off to cadiz, where I will work on my tan and expect that the rest of the world learn english and get drunk on the beach until 4 in the morning.

vacation, motherfuckers. vacation.

sucks to old people.

tomorrow I am going to the mountains with this awesome, funny little italian dude. after 3 days in granada I constantly see two dogs without collars chasing each other in a playful manner. all day. every day. up and down the hill leading to the alhambra. it is fucking weird.

and on my way walking home from the bar tonight I saw a meteorite burn out green in the atmosphere. jesus, what a place this is.

de acuerdo.

these days my mouth is a blur and my mind is scrambling for new passages and habits and I almost got la segunda lengua thing down. but I am alone.

My thoughts drift to cold nights and warm beds, frail, beautiful things curling up against a warm body with eyes deeply closed, sitting pretty in that sweet spot where manliness is not ugliness, but it is close and where boyishness is not recklesness, but it is close, where all the chipped and imperfect things are anew again and all my almosts are appreciated and in accord. the nexus of the nervous eyes and assured voice and the small, pretty things it draws in close to envelop and protect and nourish until the sunlight jars us back to life.

the flat back and bulging torso making riverbeds for tired heads. I miss the company of forms.

fuck.

spending way more money than I had originally thought.

en italia, he visto culos que pueden hablar.

chatted for 4 hours with a badass italian dude today. granada doesn´t have nearly the charm of sevilla. but it has more tea houses and kebab shops and none of the heartache, so it´s a trade I´m willing to make.

also, I would like to point out that all home printed pieces of paper advertising the daily specials or admonishing drunkards who speak loudly in the street in earshot of nearby residences are without exception printed in comic sans font. thought all of my graphic design (read: white) friends would get a kick out of that.

tomorrow I am going to the alhambra and judging by what everyone tells me of their experiences, I hope I don´t pee myself with glee. fuck yeah!

sometimes good guys don´t wear white.

I´m leaving sevilla in an hour and a half. I am going to granada for two nights. I squeezed in a booking at the sister hostel for friday and saturday, which required wrangling and deals on the side made with the manager of the other hostel. I know two people who will be staying at the hostel at the same time as me. I have a reservation for the alhambra saturday night.

it´s really funny. when I left for this trip my sister told me that sevilla would steal my heart. and she was absolutely right.

thing is, sometimes you get your heart stolen in ways you hadn´t expected and this is why I am leaving for a couple of days.

I am too open here. too unguarded, too welcome, too raw. I do not feel safe.


so I am going to another city that is in all likelyhood, exactly like this one, in hopes that I can stop acting like such a neurotic, sensitive dickhead living out a woody allen romantic comedy in my head 24/7 and instead I will be the stoic, masculine badass I yearn to be but have no fucking idea how to realize.

let´s see how that one works out.

wet blanket.

lonely. tempted. lazy. cold. in need of a new place and a big hug.

he`s got the best of me. and I miss him.

the miller ears and excited, modest grin that spreads like a glasgow smile looking at tanned hands and the off and on eye contact I got down pat. he looks like the grandpa he never met and I`m half a world away and all I can think of is the aloof posture that has no idea of the effect it has on women glancing from the corners of their eyes. and all I can think of is nintendo 64 and the soap and eggs smell of home. that kid`s got everything good that I got and I hope that one day I have the courage and the nerve to tell him just that.

australian tourist = drunk college freshman

1. it is raining.
2. I´m developing a dependence on melatonin to sleep at night.
3. the friendships you make when you´re so far from home are like the friendships you make when you´re 16 years old. I feel like I belong in a homemade distillers shirt.
4. I met a guy from colorado who looks EXACTLY like biafra. mannerisms, facial expressions, everything. also, he is skinny because middle age hasn´t caught up to him and made him fat.
5. I still miss home. le sigh.

negative nancy.

today I went on a historical tour of seville led by a young, unemployed australian guy who looked EXACTLY like my friend lili. I am absolutely in love with this city. I´m so in love with it it hurts. I don´t want to leave. I am in the best of all possible places and I am in a strangely sad mood because this shit is gonna have to end real soon and it bums me out. fuck.

in other news, I´m surprised to find that the scariest neighborhoods in spain are the lawless gypsy neighborhoods where the police refuse to go. there are no electrical or plumbing or trash collecting services. but they do get postal delivery.

a semi-nomadic people without water or electricity or permanent residence or job or law but they get junk mail. go figure.

a week? almost?

so I´m at an internet cafe in toledo. internet cafes anywhere always seemed to be closed the hours I want to use them. yesterday I left madrid, which is rather like the los angeles/long beach of spain. it´s urban, there are nice neighborhoods, but there is nothing to do except get drunk and make comments about spanish women who are out of your league. generally speaking, all spanish women are out of an american´s league.

yesterday I went to toledo, which is a super medieval city on a hill. it´s gorgeous, but clogged with tourists. I was wandering the streets around the cathedral when I heard a violin trio. I followed the music until I got to the central plaza in front of the cathedral, which is fucking MASSIVE. the violin trio was amplified, providing the music for the most horrendous, gaudy, eurotrash fashion show. model attractive spanish dudes strutted down the runway wearing disgusting blazers covered with sunbursts and tribal designs and lightning bolts and shit. it was awful.

and I came to this realization that while yes, this city and most of europe are old and enchanting and full of history, it´s not like the cathedral from the 15th century or the military bunkers from world war 2 exist in a vacuum. people continue live in apartments next to the church that got bombed out during the spanish civil war that was never rebuilt and winos get drunk in roman ruins and part of the absurdity of romanticizing this trip and this lifestyle and this continent is you have to juxtapose it alongside the techno and the gaudy jeans and the shitty blazer midnight fashion show.

so fuck all that noise. I´m going to the south where I plan on working my giri tan and getting drunk for a week straight.

day 3

spain is awesome. there's a lot less cultural shock than I would have expected. I am still getting used to the spanish as it is spoken here, but I think as long as I say "vale" and "hasta luego" I'll be good.

Madrid is the los angeles of spain. There are small pockets of awesome seperated from each other, but for the most part the only thing to do is eat and get drunk (but not like I have a problem with that).

old friends are doing wonders to put me up. everything I have eaten and drinken is amazing. my biggest concern at the moment is 3 days without showering, washing clothes or masturbating. tomorrow is a bank holiday so hopefully I can get something done.

I can't wait until I can turn my friends onto the joys of pan con tomate and tinto de verano.

under the water it glowed.

I landed. I'm at a friend's house. I think I'm starting to get an idea of what spain is about. jet lag is finally catching up to me. I don't know if I want to sleep or get a cup of coffee and get drunk. I have a feeling I'll be having that feeling a lot in the coming weeks.