I write about my journey through self-exploration and awareness; doesn’t everyone? Here, though, there are tendencies toward green living, veg*nism, travel, relationships and complaining. :)
I can’t find the creativity to write a decent blog entry and it’s pissing me off, so this is what you’re getting.
Feeling unorganized. Taking on a lot of freelance work. Buying a new Prius with the BG. Calling and getting a shitload of car insurance rates. Finding out I’m forced to get my NC drivers license. Insurance is a scam. DMVs are a scam. Owning a car is expensive and you only really figure that out after you stopped owning one for a while. Car dealers are a scam. It’s been hot as hell here lately. Exercise and yoga have been spotty, I just feel busy all the time (see “unorganized” comment above). Loving my friends in Raleigh (Morgan’s leaving in a couple of months, that kinda sucks). I’ve been having heart palpitations again, this time worse than ever. Just looked out the window and am seeing SMOKE from an eastern North Carolinia wildfire and thought it was smog. We’re leaving for Georgia tomorrow and the BG’s family doesn’t know yet that we bought the car. The other day I noticed that I’ve been here longer than I lived in Portland. Kinda sad, kinda happy. I’m cooking more, because I’m tired of waiting to be cooked for. ;) ME HUNGRY ALL THE TIME. CHOMP CHOMP
Like a few of my otherfriends I’ve been thinking of taking a picture a day. Since I’ve been mulling this over for a while I’ve decided I need to either shit or get off the pot. So here I am, MAKING A COMMITMENT.
The reason I’m joining the one group I thought I wouldn’t be interested in is (after not really putting that much thought into it) I realize that I find pictures of myself, friends or people much more interesting than objects, places or flowers. Let’s see if I can do this!
Something weird is going on. I feel like I’m in a warped reality where I’m 70 years old with Alzheimer’s. My shortcut contacts are no longer in my phone, my facebook photos have all disappeared, I’ve had to re-login to all my accounts on Safari AND Firefox even though they were all saved passwords.
Last week was tough. My emotions dipped to a new low and although I’m feeling MUCH better now through a process of rationalizing with myself and yoga, I think I should give some credit to the beach trip the BG and I took last weekend.
Normally traveling on holiday weekends turns me off because everyone knows someone headed to the beach and the LAST thing I want is to be around people. But I had this feeling we’d be clear of both traffic and retards, and it turns out we were. We left Sunday morning and headed east on US 64 until we came into Cape Hatteras National Seashore and then headed south to Pea Island. It probably took us about ten minutes to find a suitable camping area. By “suitable” I mean no one else around, even if it meant we did it under the radar. After passing the “Day Use Only” sign we found this little road and some construction equipment. We hid the car behind the equipment and set up camp in a little nook in the dunes.
It ruled. After laying around on the beach and eating chips we sat on our hill overlooking the ocean, ate our homemade burritos and spied on people with the binoculars.
Then later after the sun went down we ran around naked and watched the stars. [No picture available.]
A little removal of the pants and staring at the stars with binoculars is all I needed. ALL.
A few days ago the BG received a request from someone on Couchsurfing to stay at our place. The particular night this person requested was actually one where we were planning to be at the beach, but as usual we checked out his profile and then his blog. Incredibly inspired I told BG to see if Amtrekker was going to be in Raleigh after we got back. *Then* I started following him on Twitter. (Heheheheeeee.) After some phone calls we actually met him last night at Napper Tandy’s for some weekly trivia (and Strongbow). He had some amazing stories and when all was said and done, he actually needed a place to stay so we gladly hosted him. Score.
This kid has been traveling around the country achieving goals and making videos about it for nearly a year. He said his family all had wagers on how long he’d be gone, and none of them bet into 2008… here it is nearly June. What’s really interesting, though, is that some of the goals on his list seem totally insane and to achieve them he had to have pretty heavy traffic to his site. We played twenty questions with him asking how he manages to keep the stats up on his site, how often he writes and how the HELL did he get on Good Morning America?! (Through a wild chain of events Diane Sawyer found his friggen blog. CRAZY.)
Anyway, the BG and I are now motivated. We are going to make a list of things to accomplish on our year-long road trip. In addition, the BG has some fantastic ideas about mounting a camera in the Prius and taking pictures at equal intervals throughout. We’re looking into purchasing a GPS data tracker that we will sync with the EXIF data on our photos so that each evening when we’re uploading to Flickr, they will automatically be geotagged and put on the map. We’ll be able to see exactly where we’ve been (and our families will see that we’re not dead). Eeeeee technology!
Right now Amtrekker is still asleep on my floor. And although I feel oddly famous right about now, I realize that he’s simply a shining example of how the internet serves to teach and inspire. Sometimes when I’m nerding out on the interwebs I become overwhelmed by just how much information exists out there. It amazes me that it’s possible to weed through all of it to find something (or someone) that can brighten your day, motivate you, or teach you something you never knew you were interested in.
(That was filmed eight months ago. I’m happy to say that I drove him to the Amtrak station this morning and he commented on how easy it was for us to get there. Glad I could help improve his idea of Raleigh… He somehow did the same for me!)
Check out the other Amtrekker videos here and tell me you don’t just want to eat him alive he’s so damn awesome.
So we’re thinking of buying a car, (and selling the hand-me-down Passat). At first we thought it’d be SWEET if we could find another Honda Insight but yea, they’re a little tough to locate now that gas prices are soaring. I found this weird thing that crawls multiple Craigslist city sites based on your preferences and used it to try to find an Insight even remotely near us. The closest I could find was in Texas and it was very overpriced.
We’ve talked about a few other options but then yesterday I came home from being out and Ben suggested we just hunker down and get a new Prius. And… yea. I think it makes sense.
I’m kind of excited… in a CONSUMER KIND OF WAY. (The shame.)
