Music Time in House

So I now have an apartment in Ithaca, in the top corner of my building, 5 floors up, above Ithaca's Glass on the commons.

My room has a wall of three windows, under one of which my bed is nestled in the corner. We have two couches, one comfy, one not; and two chairs, one comfy, one not. We've got two 5' tye-dye tapestries on the walls, another 8' tapestry is going up over my bed soon. At the back of my room is hung a 15' X 20' red backing to a large tapestry, hand-sewn and wove with recycled cloth. The face of the tapestry looks out at the kitchen in the far back of my room.

We've been sitting here in the living room half of my room smoking a hookah and listening to live and funky jazz music coming from the top of a bar across the street. Now I'm about to go to bed but I wanted to update people on my location.

 

I'M BACK IN ITHACA EVERYBODY!

 

I'm living here with Kevin and Andy from back home in Williamson. Kevin and I just got jobs with Max's in the bottom of the Holiday Inn across the block. We're working mornings, so we sleep early mostly, sometimes, so come hang out with us sometime during the day!

We have guitars, mics, a bunch of instruments, and you can bring your own, WE PLAY MUSIC HERE! COME PLAY WITH US!

That's about that, so I'm off, sorry it's been so long, might not have any people watching anymore, that's ok, at least I put out the message, even if it's just an exercise in writing out my intention.

Going to NY

I'm leaving soon back to NY, Tucson is my last stop West Coast. The work study program at the Garchen institute is 2 months minimum comitment, so I don't have time to do it this time around, unless I wanted to bail on Kerry in the apartment in Ithaca, which I don't want to do. And I want to work with the day camp!

So I'm going to go for finger rock again, the sun turned us back last time, and this next run, we're starting earlier and bringing a lot more water. Wish us luck.

Island by Aldous Huxley, you must read.

And other than that, I'm just helping Harry out with stuff and playing with Michael. One of the cats caught a horny toad today, which is actually a fat flat lizard, that was pretty cool.

I'm excited to see you all again.

And sorry I didn't write anybody, but I lost my little book with the first 2 months of names and contact info in Washington :(

The unconditional love store is really turning out, feel free to get involved anytime!

Finger Rock

There is a notch in the western peak of the Santa Catalina mountains. Within that notch, a large boulder jabs up, and off of that large boulder, a smaller spire of rock jabs up. And It looks like a hand pointing upward growing from the top of the mountain.

I've been looking at that spot on the horizon since I've been in Tucson. Today, with two brothers I met at the University of Arizona, though they're not students, I'm going to that rock.

The day's started well, reaffirming an intention of love, facing east meditating, I opened my eyes to the risen sun.

I have had a wierd pain on top of my right foot, but I'm going for the hike anyway, I think the pain is from wearing flip-flops and walking 6 miles on concrete. Flip-flops are bad walking shoes. But I've got my good trekking shoes and when I wear them it feels like I'm realigning my strained right foot, so hopefully the hike will make it better, and not worse.

Got an apartment!

Right on the commons! Kerry signed for it yesterday, really sweet.

So that's where I'll be all summer, still looking for a third person, we'll find one for sure though :)

Until then, I'm still here in Tucson, waiting on a response from the Garchen inst. Though I'll likely head up into the mountains in the next couple of weeks regardless.

Reading Eugene O'Neill's plays and Keats's poems and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.


In other news:
Let's open the unconditional love store. I've got the prospects for first quarter growth drafted, it's pretty peachy. Contact information forthcoming, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't start buying stocks once we go public....
...We just went public.

Say, that's weather all right

Yesterday I saw the icy cirrus clouds come in streaks from the North.
And with them came cold weather and winds.
The winds stripped the small yellow flowers from the Palo Verde trees.
The small yellow flowers formed a blanket over the ground, and floated on top of the pool.
We humans protected the pool's water, not that it cared, by covering it with a plastic tarp, and clamping the north side against the winds.
Next the wind brought the red dust from the Catalina mountains to the North.
The red dust bit grittily into our eyes, and ground between our teeth, all while leaving a red film on the plastic pool cover.
When the night came, under the day-after-full moon, the desert cooled, and the winds subsided.
And in the cool weather of the night, large cumulous clouds, not even seperate, as a white/gray blanket in the sky, crept over the mountains.
When the sun rose this morning, it was darker outside than is customary for sunrise, and I slept longer for it.
Realizing the clouds were truly a presence I went out when I woke, to the first drops of rain I've ever seen outside of the mountains in Arizona.
From a back porch of a house in the center of Tucson, I saw the showers sparsly, then thickly, then splashingly join into the puddles of thier predecessors.
And watching the yard flood quickly, I saw bits of hail jump up from the puddles, revealing that each drop must have a core of ice.
And soon this was very obvious, as the wetness and streaks of rain yielded to a thick flurry of small white hailstones.
Small hailstones, that, for a moment, left a white streaking across the high ground, where the puddles and thirsting rivulets did not consume them.
Though these white streaks were quickly erased, as the downfall became rain once again, continuing to mat down and make sticky streams throughout, the dust which covered omnipresently.
Intermittently, precipitation has continued today, though cloudbreaks have taken precedence as the norm.
And through a cloudbreak at this very moment, the sun is shining from the west.
And to the east, over the city, there are two rainbows arched, one over the other.
The bottom of these two rainbows bright even to a melding of the colors, shining, it seems, with its own light where ROY G BIV joins the horizon.
The top, faded to naught more than an arched light in the sky, pulling vibrancy from the drab grey of the eastern clouds.
And my uncle assures me that I will sunburn again, come the end of this next week.

Berkeley in retrospect

I never met the people I went to Kenya with in Berkeley :(

None of them answered facebook, phones, or called.

So I went anyway!

I wandered up onto a big lawn where lots of kids were playing frisbee by a clocktower very much like Cornell's. Other kids were sitting around and there was a little hack circle. So I walked up, took off my pack and coat, and joined the hack. We played for a while, I got to know some of the guys in the circle and I was offered dinner that night.

After hanging out and seeing some of Berkeley I ended up at a naked dinner at the Lothlorian co-op. Though I only saw two naked people, the fajitas were delicious! Then I played bananagrams, met a guy who worked on a telescope in antarctica, at the south pole station, tracking magnetic resonation left over from the big bang, pulsating from the origin in the universe.

I hung out in a room that used to be the bedroom of a cult leader whose followers lived in the house before it was a co-op, and practiced group sex rituals.

Then for the end of the night, I was given a place to sleep in a redwood tree. There was a treehouse accessible from a bridge from the 5th floor of the co-op house next door. I left this poem in the treehouse:

In a tree housed
I sat open mouthed
disbelieving my good fortune

As Berkeley stops go
I've surely lots to show
for a naked dinner in food orgy preparation

Being quite clear
I haven't a fear
That my mind will slip grip on this destination

So if you do, keep open doors
I'll come back for more
next time I've crossed this nation

Under the Tucson Sun

My Aunt Maureen and Cousin Micheal picked me up from the Greyhound station yesterday morning, I was one of the only people I saw that day wearing a raincoat...

Since, I've cleaned the pool for my Uncle Harry, helped him sell and ship some ebay stuff, and we ran grocery and sundry errands while looking for more ebay stuff at a church rummage sale. I got 6 poetry books for $3, including a hardcover of John Keats' and Eugene O'neil. So now I have some reading materials, and I get to sit in the sun, and this is some intense sun.

I drove around today, I have a key to the truck and a key to the house so I'm going to explore the city and the mountains around. Tuscon is cool because it is surrounded on all four sides by different mountain ranges, the closest being the Santa Catalinas to the West. There's also the University of Arizona here, so I think I'll try my luck at getting some people together to hack the sack sometime soon. About 3 blocks away I found a park, big empty baseball and soccer fields with some basketball courts and gazebos it looked like. I'll head over there sometime to see if I can't meet some interesting characters, Liberty Park sounds like an inviting place, right?

I can't help noticing that everything in this city seems pre-fabricated and prematurely aged by the sun. However, Wal-Mart is thriving and shiny and air conditioned, and there's a McDonald's right inside, Oh Boy!

Dealing with the heat, looking into the Garchen institute, I just found a music healer who is associated with Garchen so I'm going to visit him while I'm here.

Greyhounding Tomorrow

So all, I'm hopping on a Greyhound tomorrow and riding down to Tuscon to stay and work with my Uncle Harry!

He's got stuff to get done, and an ebay business to run, and I'm pumped to learn some internet peddling skills. Plus, I get to watch my cousin Micheal and attempt to teach him to not scream obnoxious questions in a terrible shrill voice that makes you want to drive him 150 miles into the Arizona desert and leave him for the jackals. But yeah, I'm pretty psyched :)

It's looking like New Zealand is not going to happen, so I'm going to end up down in Arizona, I might as well keep heading toward the Garchen Institute. It's a Buddhist center on top of a mountain outside of Chino Valley, AZ. I'm really excited to get up there and spend a week or more in very structured meditation. I have never experienced something like that before and I think it will really improve my personal practice, and help me to know my center and find it even when things get hectic (curse you Cornell!!!)

So bus trip down the southern remainder of America's West Coast, I'll have gone all the way across and then all the way up and down! Then climbing up into the mountains to meditate. I can't believe I'm on the last legs of this trip! Although I still have over a month left, so we'll see what happens.

Be well all.

Clayton

Burnin'

I cant hear you
I understand though
The frustration
I embody
The failed meaning
The outreach denied
The vacant uncaring
of my hollow eyes
But when I notice you seeking
Smiling seek

But baby the world is burnin'
If we're hot enough we wont feel it
So lets stop going (seeking) and just
Start loving
That hot love we got
The two of us
We'll show the flames how to lick
Curling our toes
The way blackened paper's edges
Ash blow away

Craving

Interrupted
by a cigarette
interjecting
a craving into the dark pink
of a craving mouth

And it howls
a bestial guttural sound
when denied

Short lived resistance
toppled lego block walls
snapped hastily
into a blockade before the door
But children don't stop the adults
from smoking their tar
And little lungs cough cutely
like dandelion fluff blowing away

So quickly does the quicksand
Consume
The smile that must be parted to fit
Another last cigarette between the lips

And some people catch on
And then most people catch on
A lucky few know how to sell
addiction to death and not
hate themselves for it

because they buy self approval
And they sell cigarettes

Castro St.

I met my cousin Will today.

He lives down by Castro st. in San Francisco with his boyfriend Kevin, he came and met me here at Mary Lou's house and took me around the city, it was awesome. We got to catch up, grown up, see how our lives are. It was really nice. Best part was, we're both doing the $0 a day thing! So we were able to cruise around the city and not spend money and really just get to know each other. No need for consumer tendencies. We did walk past a bunch of shops and things downtown, but mostly just to get a feel for the way the city works. San Fran is not like most big cities I've been in. The hills really help give it a small community feel. Except for the skyscrapers downtown.

Having met all my relatives around here, I think I'm moving on. Prospects for New Zealand are looking pretty grim, but I'm moving forward! I'm trying to get in touch with the guys at cloud city, I was gonna go backpacking Sequoia National Pk. with them. But I don't have any of thier numbers, so I'm trying to get in touch with Rob (from back in vacaville) to find these guys, though he's still not answering. And I want to visit the Berkley folks from Kenya, but they aren't really responding either. I mean come on, who doesn't read their facebook messages? :P

So if Berkley and Sequoia Natl Pk don't happen I'm moving further south, visiting my cousin Eli in LA, and trying to hunt down Rob and Eric, who were headed that way when I last saw them. And after I escape the city of angels I'll work my way even further south to Tuscon. Having spanned the entire west coast from the middle up and all the way back down on less than $200 I'll work for my uncle a bit there and be ready to get back to Ithaca in mid-May. PLANTASTIC!!!

Any feedback or good suggestions for while I'm out here???

I basically have a blank check and a month to do whatever while I'm over here.

ooooh! I just remembered about the Garchen Inst. in Chino Valley. I might go there for sure...

Anyway that's me for you.

I think I'm going to post a couple poems for April Fools day.

Family

I'm still with Aunt Mary Lou, waiting here to see if a ticket to New Zealand will miraculously materialize. If so, I'm crossing that ocean! If not, I'm backpacking sequoia national park, we'll see what fate has in store for this old boy.

Never before have I felt so connected with my family as on this trip. I actually miss people back home! A phenomenon that never occurred at the Big Red pain in the ass. And I'm getting to actually know my Aunt and cousins on a personal basis, where we understand each other as more than just relatives...as...friends? I'm going to try to make it down to visit my Uncle Harry and his family in Tuscon before coming back to Ithaca. My cousin Micheal is a handful to euphamize excessively, but it'll still be fun. I like putting him in his place when he needs it.

Every night I've been here, Mary Lou and I have had amazing talks, about everything from spirituality to food to psychology and of course family. And she talks about my Dad Jeff. I'm so glad, and it means so much to me. I've not heard nearly enough about him, it was always a topic that was a little bit weird in my family for some reason. I think because my Dad Dave always thought he was being compared with Jeff, and really, how can you compete with the dead husband and father? No one talks bad about the dead. But even if they did, I don't think anyone would ever have talked bad about Jeff. Mary Lou says he was calm and grounding, he didn't even need to say anything and you just felt better being around him. She loved him, and so do I, and being here is so good, I soak up every word.

I feel like I'm growing in a very similar way to Jeff, following his path three decades later, and I want to be like him. Best of all is that Mary Lou keeps saying how I am just like him :) Not only because I look like him (if you've ever seen the picture of me inset with the picture of him you know what I mean) but because I act like him, and calm her manic-depressive craziness. She's been manic the whole time I've been here, but stable. And being compared with my father is the greatest compliment I've ever received. Thanks Mary Lou.

I can't really know for sure that I'm like him, I take people's word for it. But I still have this sense of who he was, even though I only have a handful of memories, like riding on his shoulders and he had to duck to make it under a doorway with me. And riding a little red wagon, steering with the bar, and something about fruit cocktail. No matter, I found some of his books growing up and got to read those, and I love sci-fi and the sorts of stuff he did *cough, green, cough*. It's all good :)

I'm eating amazing food and sleeping in a great bed, she has a little basement room that I would love to hole up in and write for a decade, but I need to finish my trip before I go Vonnegut on everyone. I can't wait to get a little space and write until I have carpal tunnel. Ithaca's going to be great this summer! Until then, I'll keep blogging.

Haight 'n' Clayton

Actually San Francisco's been loving me lately. Not in that famous San Francisco way per se. More in a sleeping in the sun with hippies all day kind of way.

The road trip down from Olympia was great. We stopped in Arcata, my second time, stayed in Humboldt State for a night. Met up with some people that Luke, Ben and Henri knew. Meanwhile, I found some people I knew from my last stop, groups joined, we left the next day.

Made it to San Francisco, stayed on Sasha's floor on the corner of Haight st. and Clayton st. . . . appropriate.

Next few days we spent cruising around Haight Ashbury meeting hippies we knew from all over the west coast. I found four people from evergreen that I knew, all chilling on hippie hill in golden gate park. I also got to know a few travelers really well and stayed with them after Ben Luke and Henri left for LA, then San Diego, then South Carolina, NY, Colorado, etc. Dead Tour. Best of luck guys!

I went to a Bob Weir show at the Fillmore, it was sweet. Then I crashed with Layla and Turtle, and Driftwood and Sunshine.

Oh I just need to mention Captain and Mama Cat. First night I was in SF, an old hippie with long graying dreads, a beard and aviators asked me if I had 73 cents. I was walking with Sasha and the group to his apartment to sleep, and the guy was standing right on the corner of the Haight and Clayton, leaning on the Clayton st. sign. I didn't think I had any money left (Except for a lucky 50 cent piece Rob gave me about a month ago, which I'm not spending. As long as I have my lucky 50 cent piece I'm never broke) So I just said "sorry man" and kept moving, Ben gave him the rest of the butt he was smoking and the guy thanked him and said we'd meet up tomorrow. I didn't think much more of it until the next day, I always feel bad not giving people change who ask though.

Next day, Ben Henri and I are sitting at a table outside an overpriced greek food place right on the corner by Golden Gate Park. I didn't buy anything, as I only had change, and I don't much go for restaurants unless I'm buying food for someone else too. But as I was sitting at the table I counted out my change (excluding the 50 cent piece) and with all my pennies nickles dimes and a quarter, I had exactly 73 cents. I remembered the night before, I hadn't opened my change pouch since then, and felt really bad for not giving him the 73 cents and I was just blown away by the "coincidence". I sat there for a while, made sure to point it out to Ben and Henri and just said "I wonder why that guy asked me for 73 cents." They weren't as excited about it as me, but that's ok.

We went back into the park and took a little trip around the world under the sun, seeing the arboretum blending from Australian Eucalyptus Forest to American Coastal Redwoods. Eventually making our way back to Hippie Hill. It's easy to find, just walk into the park from the entrance by Haight and Stanyon and go under the bridge, keep straight for about 3 minutes and after you've been offered buds by about 4 different people the hill should be on your right.

Anyway, on the hill I saw that same guy sitting with a group of other people in the sun. So I thought about it for a second and then crab walk scrambled over to him and said. "You asked me for change last night, how much did you ask me for?". At first he shrugged and so I smiled invitingly, he said "73 cents." Laughing I said "You got it right!" and I gave him the stack of coins and everybody in the circle started laughing and clapping. The woman he was with introduced herself as Mama Cat, behind the greenest eyes I've ever seen. She was ecstatic that I had the change. Not for the change's sake, but because of the meaning. We met and it was all love, all meant to be. Then I rolled over backwards down the hill and a bunch of other people started rolling racing with me. Turns out they'd just been talking about how someone should roll down the hill right before I got there.

His name was Captain, and they both have bumped into me everywhere I've gone in this city since, and I doubt this city will be the end of it.

Mama Cat is a healer, and reads minds. Enlightenment, get ready, Captain will bring cookies.

Yesterday Turtle and Layla left, with another guy named Turtle, so I had no one left to stay with for a moment, then my Uncle Harry called, as soon as I plugged in my phone. He called my Aunt Mary Lou, who lives here in San Fran, she picked me up down by the park, and I got to meet up with her for the first time in years, and shower for the first time in even longer.

She cooked an awesome Mac 'n Cheese dinner, we talked for a few hours, and I set it up to meet my cousin Mark for the first time for breakfast the next morning (today).

I went to breakfast with Mark and his partner Ric, at Savor on 24th. It was delicious! They're awesome guys and know the city really well, so they drove me around a little bit and we talked about so much stuff. We ended up at the twin peaks overlooking the whole city, the ocean, Alcatraz and Berkley, stunning...

Then I slept with Mary Lou's cats for the rest of the day, ate soup, watched some shark week on the Animal Planet boob tube plug in zone out static brain not think listen pictures move make feeling like you have ideas really just sit think nothing sit watch listen obey the moving talking box look box look it tells look look flashes of buy buy buy.

Disconnected from Comcast, I decided to plug back in, mercy me, to update you poor lost souls as to the merry wanderings of the voyager named Clayton. It's been great! Sorry it's been so long all.

Love you

Cobblestones

On cobblestones
I hobbled home
Having found no place to go

Underfoot passing rocks
Clarifying realization knocks
Reaffirmation back into my muddled head

Wandering without goal
Essential to know
Is that seeking drive keeps you from whole

Long Stop Worth It

So I'm finally leaving Evergreen tomorrow.

I found a ride down to San Francisco with some guys, Luke and Ben, and Henri, a girl. Maybe someone else too. Details are forthcoming.

This will be a sweet trip, we're camping down the coast again! Humboldt and the redwoods part deux.
We're planning on stopping in Arcata for a little while, and selling T-shirts out of the back of the car.
We're throwing tie-die parties to make shirts along the way.

I'm only staying with them until SF, but these guys are following the Grateful Dead touring around the country. They're going south, then to S Carolina, then back to Colorodo.

Anyway, sorry for the short update but this computer is dying.

Wish us luck, we're leaving tomorrow after celebrating the equinox all night tonight : )

Happy Spring Everybody!

Evergreen, then white, then sunny, then wet

I'm using the same computer only its a few days in the future. How much have you all changed with the many many experiences you've had since last we met?

Unfortunate (Fortunate?) to say I still feel just about the same. No monumental revelations, just very content. Which is always nice.

I've met many many students here. The Evergreen State College is unbelievably cool and I kind of want to stay here and just not leave ;) But I'm catching a ride back down to Cali with people leaving for spring break on Tuesday. I definitely want to come back though. They do grad work in environmental studies that is really interesting.

This was an interesting time to visit, the quarter is over so everybody was stressing to finish stuff and then running around celebrating being done. So naturally I've been helping everybody to celebrate and enjoying all the extra dining meals people need to use up before the end of the quarter :)

The woods are beautiful here, but I can't upload pictures until I get back, I sent home my camera cord with my laptop. Sorry. Heres a douglas fir made out of pixels <---
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and some more douglas firs.
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<---
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There are many many trees all around. Basically you cant be more than 50 feet away from a large tree anywhere you go here. It's awesome.

They also have a beach where we have fires. Oh! and Tree Houses. There's a three story tree house I'm going to find today.

I'll let you know more when I do.

Standing, Blogging, Tired

Hellooo all, I made it to Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

This school is big! And right in the middle of the woods. This morning it snowed. That was cold.

On my way here I met one of the greatest families that I know, the turtle family. Guy and Ashley are about my age and they have a little 4 month old baby named Lotus. I stayed with them for the weekend, getting to know them and playing with the baby, she is so friendly and cute and full of life :) I know I'll be staying in touch with them for a long time.

We saw a bit of Woodbury, and then Ashley's Grandpa gave me a ride up to Olympia with his wife Helen. He's a WWII Vet that flew cargo planes in Burma and over the Himalayan Mountains. He's a great guy and it was about an hour drive he made with me. He told me about publishing and he gave me a copy of his memoir. I read the first couple hundred pages already. I want to have it finished before I see him again on my way back down the coast.

Well, now I'm checking out this college, it is really cool, other than the cold. And the courses seem really specialized for ecological system work. The campus is mostly gardens and preserved patches of the surrounding woods. You can tell this place was built in a rain forest. All of the buildings are concrete and made of super-waterproof stuff. Hopefully I won't get caught out in the elements while I'm here.

I'm off to wander, be well.

Alec's Houses

Phew!

That was a little bit of a wandering homeless ordeal, but I finally found the illustrious elusive Mr. Eason :)

We never did meet up the day before yesterday. I waited at the OSU library until around 10pm then packed it across the city to his mom's house that I looked up on google. I slept in some cedar trees behind his house. A gang of birds woke me up around 6 yesterday and I went in for breakfast a little while later. I've managed to stay with Alec more or less since then.

I'm at his Dad's house now, having gone for a hike and run today, then soaking in the hot tub out back. This was a very good stop :)

Tomorrow I'm going up I-5 to visit the Evergreen Inst. in Washington. Wish me warmth.

Well, the computer's dying, that's my cue.

Much love all!

Lost and Found

So I finally got in touch with Alec!

Turns out he'd lost his cell phone and I got lucky calling him at his dad's house. Unfortunately, when I called him I was doing my laundry and couldn't go over right away. In the meantime, he got picked up and went to his mom's house, but he told me he'd meet me today at Oregon State University and pick me up to go hiking around 11 . . . . It's 2 now.

So I went into the library to do internet stuff. Unfortunately, I can't access my email on these computers, but I can blog.

I've called Alec's mom's house a couple times, no one has answered, I'm not worried though, at least I know he's around here. Maybe I'll walk.

Another man lives with Dunbar, I spoke with him last night for a long time.
This was the result:

The man without a name cried two tattoos.
He fought the desires that he couldn't choose.
Wide eyes shone his spark of life.
Transcending the implanted strife.
And that knowing smile of his.
Tiredly conceded, this is the way we live.
But his life is his.

Oregon State

So now I'm in a library, I've been in lots of libraries lately.

Corvallis is a really nice city, everything's going really well, and it's only been raining one day since I've been here. Today there's a beautiful blue sky and sun. Everything seems pretty fine except I STILL CAN'T FIND ALEC.

I found a listing for a Dr. with Alec's last name in the phone book, so I called him and left a message yesterday, I hope he knows him. I think I'm going to give him a couple more days before I head back south.

When I finally leave I'm going to go to the Sacramento area, then San Francisco bay.

In the meanwhile, I met a woman named Denise here in the Corvallis public library. We got to talking and she showed me a couple places I could go to get food if I need it and a place to sleep, which was so sweet of her. I have all my packing gear so I'm ok if I'm on my own for the night, but I still really appreciated how much she wanted to help me out. She's living in a shelter here when she can, but they don't let her stay if it's over 40 degrees out that night.

I ended up talking with Denise for about 6 hours day before yesterday, and it turns out she's wanted to write a biography about her life. What are the odds I said, that we would meet in a library, me wanting to write, her wanting to be written about, and to top it all off, I almost forgot my big writing pads so she reminded me, before I had even met her. Her life is fantastical, and the stories are very real. I'm looking foreward to this. I can't quite draft a whole book on public computers, so I'm going to establish an outline by hand and take quotes.

Yesterday however, Denise never showed up at the library, so I read a book, wrote a bit and finally went to a big sunday church dinner. Denise eventually showed up and I left the table I had set my things at to eat with her.

After dinner, an old man, 6' 5" tall, with a long white beard hair came up to me, he had the sort of hair you could tell hadn't been cut in over a decade and an eye that was a little bit crooked. He had been at the table I'd left to eat with Denise, and in a friendly way asked if he had scared me off. We got to talking, and he showed me a board/card game he had developed in the 70's called the glass plate game. The game is easily the most thought provoking I have ever seen. Basically, it guides a conversation to various topics (city as artifact, joy, symbolic handles, death etc.) and maps how the topics relate to one another as they are discussed. You need to play it to really get it, but there's no winner or loser, just disussion.

I ended up going to Border's to play this game with him for a while, Dunbar is his name. He has lived an extraordinary life, he is a 75 years old gay man that lived in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Fransisco through the sixties to the mid seventies. He talks quietly because he cant hear how loud he is, but it's well worth the extra attention to listen. Ultimately, he let me stay in a spare room he has in an apartment right next to campus here. We ended up talking until 3 in the morning last night, and now here I am, a couple blocks away, Dunbar is somewhere in the Library too. I think we're going to watch Zeitgeist and discuss it today, as well as making a deck of the glass plate cards on his printing press. You've never met a more youthful 75 year old.

My buddy Dunbar.

Corvallis Public Service Announcement

Hello All,

I have 6 minutes and 28 seconds to write you an update before the computer boots me off.

I made it to Oregon, Corvallis to be perhaps. I'm trying to find Alec, Everybody who reads this who knows Alec, the brother at KDR at Cornell, TELL HIM TO CALL ME.

I lived in the Redwoods for a week, shelter cove, and then in Redwoods National Park, slept on a beach here in OR last night. Gonna try to head back south after this probably, see the Oregon dunes a little closer.

Oh, big news I almost forgot, I'm on my own now, I mailed back all my extra stuff and I'm backpacking from here.

Erik and Rob dropped me of at Oregon State University, and I've been here chilling in Corvallis since. They went to visit a friend in Eugene, we might meet back up, maybe not, they're going to LA eventually.

Thanks so much for all the help you guys!

Erik gave me sweet new shoes, he's A-O.K.

Gonna find a place to charge my phone.

Be Well.

The 101 Cafe

I'm eating the best biscuits and gravy I've ever had, no exaggeration.
The last two nights I've spent living out of a truck in Redwood State Forest in Humboldt, hiking, camping etc.
For maybe a week before that I stayed with Erik's friend Eric in Shelter Cove, also in Humboldt.

We came into town for a hot breakfast, coffee, wifi, and cell access.
I opted to charge my laptop instead of my phone, so congratulations readers, you found me.
This is a great little cafe in the middle of nowhere on rt. 101, the redwood highway.

I'm having an unbelievable time, I am very alive, with many more stories to tell.

Some of which are not appropriate for this blog, but just ask me about Humboldt sometime.
You've probably heard of it, I thought it sounded pretty familiar when we got there...

Probably going to disappear into the woods here for a while longer, I'll let you know when I make it to Oregon.

Be well out there in ceilingland

Poem on page 45. Kenya

Past tense
Relays
Past tensions

To resent
as you repent
Is to strip
True intentions

A cool, controlled
reminiscence
bathing in hate
poisons the mind

wreaks the heart
An itching
unscratchable
Agony

Release the past
Accept the now
here we harbor no ill will

It's a Grind

Pirating another Coffee Shop's free wifi to bring me to you!

Doing time in Folsom.

Hello, as I've been reminded by Abe earlier today, I haven't updated this glob in a week!

So here's my exciting new news, Rob, Erik and I are all geared up and ready to go. Our friend Travis gave us a 3-man tent to use out and about, trail tested personally by him in Alaska. We've all got sleeping bags, we've got food and free schedules, so we'll be leaving on Tuesday if all goes well.

First stop: The Redwoods National Forest.

All I have left to find are some rain pants. When I traded my rain pants for a little wooden set of animals in Kenya, I had this foreboding feeling. It was something like, If I trade these rain pants for this little wooden set of African Animals, It's likely that I will find myself with wet legs in the near future. Well this is the near future I would say, and unless I find myself some new rain pants I will indeed be aquiring a new set of wet legs.

That's all on the rain pant front.

In other news, we got a camper shell for Erik's truck! A steal on craigslist for $80, so now we not only have sweet camping gear as provided by Travis, but now we have a camper to live out of when not in the wild.

Things are looking very good for this haphazard gathering of souls.

Did I tell you Erik collects comic books?
He's got boxes and boxes of back issues, that's what we're up to today. Bringing some of th0se comics to Travis so he can check them out until we return.

Coming back down the coast, I think Travis will be joining us to go hiking in the Sequoia National Park. I'm really looking foreward to that.

The Buddhist institute in Chino Valley is having a seminar series for the next couple weeks so we can't go there until they're open to travellers again. But that has not been nixed from the plans for anyone curious.

I'm not sure how much more internet I can promise for the near future, but I'll try.

We're leaving on Tuesday to go into the redwoods, then coming out the other side we'll be going to Corvallis and Eugene OR. So if you don't hear from me before Tuesday, assume I'm travelling up the coast.

Everything is going very well, love to the all who read this,
Clayton

Birthday

Hooray!

I'm 20 now, I've been alive for two decades. It's rather decadent.

I've spent today at my friend Rob's house, his mom made me a delicious chocalate cake. It was a day filled with food and relaxing contemplation. What more could I ask for?

Rob lives outside of Davis, in Vacaville, Cow-ville if you will. It's pretty chill.

I met Rob playing music outside Peet's Coffee Shop in Davis with his friend Erik, that was 3 nights ago. The night I met them they decided to join me on my travels, so Rob quit his job, and we're waiting on Erik to pick us up and then we're on the road. No destination in particular.

I've been making plans to make T-shirts, and it turns out so have Rob and Erik, what a coincidence! Erik has a silkscreen machine, and I have poems I want to make into clothes.

We're also making songs, we'll play music and let people know that the world isn't as down in the dumps as the employment rate.

I'm finally reading Kerouac, On The Road has been suggested to me so many times, I woke up today knowing I had to start it, so that's what I'm about to do.

Happy Sunday Everyone :)

Help for the disorganized

It's a long journey, this blog is already very long.

I just looked at it, I don't want to look at it anymore until it's fixed.

Anyone know anything about blogs to make this less of a novel to read?

I'm not saying I don't want it to be long and involved (that's what she said)

But I would like some help with links and sorting out the page.

Comments, volunteers? I'll give you admin access or whatever if anyone's willing to clean this mess a bit, I'd rather spit content at an editor than play the pretty margins game.

Love,
Clayton

Me: On Gmail

1:14 PM me: on gmail?

I kinda wish I'd been born before cell phones and internet

1:15 PM I'd be so much better at relationships in the 1800's

I can write nice letters

and I have good intentions

And I still love

but its never enough

Roni: yes but we're babe

so you have to work with what we have

me: but i don't want to be trapped by a cell signal

1:16 PM if i want to go where there isn't phone and internet i wish it wasn't this absurd freaky thing

but eveyone is so plugged in now

its not to escape contact per se

1:17 PM although that is nice for clearing my thoughts

Its more because I really think that there are amazing things worth seeing out there

way out there

1:18 PM not to say there aren't good things in the grid too

cities are really cool

architecture is amazing

I'm not some nature freak who doesn't like people

I just do want to spend time out as well

1:19 PM I like both worlds and so much, the vast majority, of my life has been surrounded by people stuff

1:22 PM Roni: i think it really comes down to how you want to live your life

i mean

i have phone and internet and haven't been on it all the time with people back home

1:23 PM me: To be fair...when I met you I told you I wanted to live in trees

I will write before I speak as I fast until completion

Mon Feb 2nd

IHOP: It begins, watching Maddie and Marshall eating Omlettes and Pancakes

In order to better understand precisely what I am saying, I am going to write my responses before speaking

Marshall's meal looks amazing, spinach and mushrooms are so good!

Do you usually sort your food as you eat it?

Rice. We were both right? That's funny

The mexican place

I think that even though the conversational flow will at first appear disjointed and possibly confusing, sustained thought on a topic will reveal trends that will be relatively easy to read.

Like right now, I'm saying two things on the same topic and looking back at this section you will be able to tell there was a conversation

I think she was talking to the man on the bench

I'm going to start using a smaller notepad, this big one is for the car

Can I drive? I could take the night shift if its a short trip from Vegas to LA

I'm not writing sounds but mmhmm seems alright if you cant see me nodding

I can also read signs and other things already written

If I have a bunch of pre-written phrases I can use them. It's like vocabulary flashcards

The salt is really unique here, on the car. We're the only car with salt

Freaking Awesome! They're talking about it in spanish

My camera is dying but its ok I have more batteries

The heat shimmer looks like water

Theres nothing I can teach you, you need context.

Innate knowledge discoverable only on your own, it rests in rockslides.

In growing plants. Planets being born.

Read the surrounding chapter if you are perplexed.

I believe there is a collective universal consciousness. A higher knowledge.

The army is practicing over there, there's a bunch of Humvee's

It's really nice that you have Grandparents that think about you and call you.

I've never had a casual conversation with my grandparents, It's always an event.

I think It's my fault that conversations with my grandparents seem tense.

I don't even know if they notice it, it could all be in my head.

I think I have an issue with ageism, but mostly with relatives, I'm working on it, I'm getting better

Ageism goes both ways, but I always thought I was a victim, I realize now I'm also a perpetrator

This is chapparal, It's a lot like the saanna, It's a bit drier here, the plants are smaller, sparser

Do you want to visit the Berkley people?

--------
Broke silence for a phone conversation with Mom+Dad, Mom asked about college applications
--------

I'll break for you guys anytime you ask too, I'm mostly doing this for myself

No worries

Be well

You guys can eat

Thanksgiving is a celebration, like Mardis Gras, they aren't backwards

It used to be a big event to have many dishes

Lovely

It's groundhog's day

Hey now, no resentment

I should establish residency

That's a really nice white Mustang, "I'd rather be by the river," it said around the plate

He owns a luxury car that he'd rather not be in

I really like driving, I'd like my first car back

The engine died

I can't be with Roni in New Zealand

I'm alright with it I guess, It sucks though

I'm going to try to go still

It'll still be just as hard

I think she isn't doing this to me, it just happened

Plans change

She texted me because I cant keep in touch

I told her that

Although I could have, I really wanted to move freely

Is there a will work organic website?

Time to look for work

Under what?

It's not indentured servitude

But yeah...That was really big news with Roni :(

"I" Thoughts

Hello to all my many many lovely followers :-P

I'm really excited to be able to share with you when I do get online, but also perplexed by the concept of just how much there is to share once I'm here.

You see, I've done many many things since I last had the lovely luxury of surfing the world wide web. One of the most substantially different things (besides crossing the country) being that I fasted silently for three days. Let me get my soup, then I'll explain...

...It's good soup, new england clam chowder.

So anyway, I'm here in Davis, California. We made it!!!

Along the way, since Kansas, we had some fun times, and I wasn't totally sure how to convey them all to you.

We:
Slept in a park in Oklahoma, after sketchy back-road wandering
Slept in a hotel in Vegas, after late night superbowl slots
Slept in a travelodge somewhere in SoCal, after walking the boardwalk in Santa Monica
Slept in Maddie's new apartment in Davis!

I'd provide pictures, but her wireless doesn't let me on :(
So I'm using Maddie's apt. mate's computer, Kate is awesome, she's from Brooklyn.

In the future I'll get photos up of the trip, but in the meantime I do have something tangible of the journey to present...The things I chose to say!

Like I was saying, I fasted silently for three days...Well, it wasn't quite silent, but I did get hungry. I'd been planning the semi-silence since before I left, just ask my good friend Zachary. But the food aspect was spontaneous.

But wait you might ask me, you were traveling with two other people in a tiny car, and meeting new people all over the place, how could you just not talk for all that?

Well let me get more soup and I'll tell you...

...In case you were wondering, I'm eating my soup with the very last of Ted the whole wheat bread, he came with us all the way across the country. His heel and ante-heel absorb soup like a champ. I'm also drinking a cross-continental voyager, some Odwalla Superfood! It's plants, but a drink? It's citrus-y but green? It actually might be a little sketchy from the voyage but still tastes like the superfood I love to drink so I don't care. As for Ted, well, Ted is bread.

Silence, right, anyway, before leaving Vegas we stopped in an IHOP, I had my 18"x24" Sketch pad with me to jot down views of the strip, there are some nice palm trees. I didn't order anything to eat at breakfast because I had made up my mind to begin regular fasting the night before. But as Maddie and Marshall were waiting for their food, it occured to me that this would be a good time to begin my vow of semi-silence.

My quiet contemplation entailed writing every thing I spoke, before I said it. It was like being mute, but able to read things out loud. I also read signs on the road and other things written, but random thoughts popping in my head, had to jot them down first.

So now I have a huge archive of all the things I wrote for those three days, from Vegas to Davis.

And they're all transcribed from my rite in the rain book onto a file that is saved on my computer, which, in case you missed it, is in wireless exile...bummer.

So you don't get to see those quite yet. But I promise, there's fun stuff, call up your friends, get ready!!!

All the juicy half-conversation goodness you could possibly want right on your boob-tube!
Plus some of the stuff I just thought and didn't say. You're in my head! Creepy.

As a reconciliation gift, today I'll post two half-conversations that weren't in the rite in the rain book. Like I said I started recording the silence on a huge piece of sketch paper, so you'll see the prize excerpts from that. Also there's a glimpse of my romantic life ooOooOoOooO.

Till later, keep your fingers out of the toaster
Clayton

People! Wake Up!!!!

Understand Your Understanding

Allow things to be.

A disallowance of things to be as they are is an insistance that you could better design the moment.

However, do not deny that you naturally, inevitably, have personal preferences for the order of It All.

Temporaly, this book will physically exist longer than myself.

My Me-body Here-body Now-body

I'd like for it to leave a good impression.

If this is my echo I hope it's a soft and soothing sound.

Not a lullaby, rather, a wake up call.

Used: a poem in four thoughts

I find myself rummaging through an old garage sale bin, filled with unsold memories.
Electric leavings and splashes of sound form what I use of those days past.
Each reminiscence has value, but not nearly so much as the hands which now hold, rotate, and examine.

I am too young to live in the past.

Strike

Bowling tonight.


Pitcher for a glass.

So goes Lawrence Kansas.

If I went on for too long I'd probably bore you with slurred ramblings, so I'll transcribe a lovely story I have of a night spent drunk waiting for a plane in Nairobi.

27 obvious americans were sitting in the Nairobi Java House cafe. Can you dig?

We finished bottles of Tusker Lager with vigour. American swigs.

American kids,

making obnoxious noises while the international crowd waited,

for thier ships to set sail.

Jetliners sailing through the clouds.

Read if you know where I'm headed.


17th January 2009

I've been sitting at at a cafe with the group for 3 hours. We're in the airport in Kenya. Nairobi.

Disconnected thoughts. Or do thoughts just evade me?

2 Litres of Tusker. 2 Litas of Tuska.

1)Formative Know

2)Knowledgable How?

These were the names I gave Wilson and Irby's vans in Kenya.

I wrote them in dust on the cab roofs. Perhaps 2 Litres of Tuska has illegibilized my script.

Perhaps, however, maybe...
It has loosened my lips.

But the resultant outflow seems little. Nothing more than speech for sounds' sakes.

How can I be content when my contentedness is dependant on ink shapes staining paper?


How much more must I write before I realize there's no real need?

Creating a Web Log? Ho do weBlog?

First night on the road, I'm creating my blog later than expected.

Sorry to anyone that was waiting to see what's up with me, I'm getting on it now. I promise I'll update when I have Internet access.

Unfortunately/Fortunately for me, too bad for anyone who is really watching, the road to New Zealand is not lined with routers, so no promises on updates.

I'm going to try to make what I post interesting or at least relevant to my current situation, but this is more of a therapeutic process for myself than anything else.

I write consistently, publicly, hoping that an audience will give me more incentive to commit and regularly update this outlet.


More poetry than actual narrative might appear here after a while. I find it easier to transcribe my handwritten work than to write originally, quickly, rushed by a limited window of Internet access.


Tonight I have access as long as I want, however, so I'll tell you how the trip is after our first day on the road.

Maddie called me 18 times this morning, we were supposed to leave at 8am, I woke up at 9:07. Off to a good start.
It was alright though, because they were off to a somewhat late start as it was. However, they still ended up driving for a while calling out my name into the cold Cornell morning.

When I got to the car, I was able to get my toothbrush and run back into the Risley Residential Castle to brush my teeth, go to the bathroom, and I even had time left to find my big heavy gloves I'd lost the night before.

In the car, on the road, we drove for 12 hours to West Lafayette, Indiana, we're staying with Maddie's friend Chris, a grad student at Purdue.

This is Chris, at an underground bar in Indiana, it was fun:

The drive let me get acquainted with Maddie's other tag-along for the trip, Marshall.

Marshall is an awesome guy, he manages a doggy day care and pet salon in New York City, he's coming along for the ride to Davis and flying back at some point after we get to California.

I'll do a bio on him for a blog post at some point. Some posts will be mini bios of people I meet, some will be pictures with captions, some poems, and some just stream of thought narratives. All to let Mom and Dad know I'm alive :)

Much love to you all, especially those who will be waiting to see how I'm doing,

I'll try to make this fun to read...no promises.

Now I'm getting my 4 hours of Z's before Marshall makes eggs!
Goodnight all.

Surroundings

Entailing the place that has enveloped me. With the lovely wrappings of people, events, emotions, plans, keeping me bundled.

So lucky I’ve been swaddled so warmly, its 5 degrees outside last I checked.

Arms wrapped and locked lips occasionally forming words to trade. But calm understanding, sharing quiet sounds, makes more sense than this weird language we make with our heads.

I pick up frequencies that tell me when to laugh and cry. The receiver glows bright red when I feel, truthfully; seeing the waves as they are, before the static, buzzing, sounds they become. Soon after, I don’t need the receiver or the speakers at all.

I’m the waves watching the waves.

But back to HERE, Vermont, with Roni and her family, casual hospitality and love.

***Written 24 January 2009***

Dear Cornell

I’m leaving you.
I’ve promised so many panicked faces that I will be back, that it’s just until the Fall.
I do hate promises.
Perhaps they would not have panicked so breathlessly, scurried so readily, frantically preparing their worry wardens, had I broken the news some other way.
As it were, I never broke the news; I let it do its thing, the media machine will run Its course.
The news has been a tangled mess for a long long time; Anna Nicole’s death got more American news coverage than the cyclone in Burma.
But that’s neither here nor there, that’s in Burma, wherever that is.
I decided to follow Roni to New Zealand while in Transit to Kenya on the thirty-first of December, 2008, Happy New Years!
Having made my decision I told nobody except Angela, who was going with me to study the elephants, ants, and many varieties of small, stabbing, trees, she’s lovely.
I signed up for a Boingo!© wireless account in the Heathrow International Airport, London, in order to apply for a work holiday visa in New Zealand, the application for which was submitted five minutes prior to boarding the Kenya Airways jet to Nairobi.
On the Mpala ranch I spent two equatorial weeks with field researchers, pastorialists, and other students, experiencing the savanna.
When I shared my plans with others there, my professor Irby helped me to get a satellite internet connection.
Using my limited email window I alerted my parents to my changed plans, requested a leave of absence, asked Roni to help me find a flight to --------, and received confirmation that my work visa was approved.
Upon my second email check a few days later, Roni told me that all flights are cheaper through America, I would be coming back through the states and leaving from California, not London.
I told my parents not to cancel my flight from London to Washington, I would find a way west.
What are the odds? Maddie, another girl surveying ticks and dung piles with me in the tall, hot, grass, was moving from upstate New York to California a week after returning from Kenya, I was welcomed to join, she’s lovely.
I returned to America, moved my stuff out of Ithaca, dealt with a speeding ticket in the Penfield town court, bought backpacking gear in Rochester, said goodbyes to family and friends in Williamson, and drove to Albany.
Priscilla Corwin is my mom’s friend of over 40 years.
Her curio crusted apartment serves as a busily fluid display of the many places and people that have resonated with her.
This gallery of Ms. Corwin in Malta, New York, outside of Albany, is where Roni picked me up and brought me to ---------.
I accepted her family’s casual hospitality and stayed the weekend of the 24th in Vermont.
This marked the first month Roni and I had been together, half of which I was unplugged in Kenya.
This marked a year since her father had died.
It was my last weekend before setting out.
On Sunday we went to her house in -------- Connecticut; where we were, we were there together.
On Tuesday I took a greayhound bus from Stamford to Ithaca, I raced a snowstorm into town.
I imprinted fresh powder paths in the snowstorm with my friend Davis, Tuesday night at Cornell.
Here in Becker House I wait to meet with Maddie, Wednesday afternoon, bidding Farewell.
Soon she will be here, I will load my things into her car and leave.
I have backpacking gear, a laptop, a nice outfit, paints, pastels, charcoal, pencil, pen, paper, and an easel.
Before we leave, my friend Sidney will use her surplus of Big Red Bucks to buy us travel food, peanut butter and power bars.
Sidney grew up with Roni, she introduced us, she’s lovely.
So now I’m crossing the country, with eighty-five dollars in cash and four hundred in the bank.
I’ll be looking for a job on the west coast that can pay for a ticket to New Zealand.
In New Zealand I will work, write, and be with my love.
An Ideal world is, Necessarily, comprised of Idealists

With much love to your luxurious Ivy, and all those who gaze on it,
Clayton DeFisher
P.S.
Big Red Pain does not equate to Big Red Pride
Work together, not against one another, your minds have been assembled for good, RIGHT NOW.

If I proffered an artistic vision, Promised to be the true state of the world, Would the clarity move you?
How can I possibly change your minds?
I cannot.
I must change mine, As you must change yours, let us understand our understanding.

Love
Exists

Provides