24aug01 ...feeding the poor, feeding my mind, feeding the meter

To restate, in case I was unclear:

• Virgo Month of Leisure + Burning Man = fewer updates here
• Postcard project will start up as soon as my mail begins to trickle into Amherst MA.
• NotLost gets some action from me from time to time
• looking for me at Burning Man? I'll be in Snake & Bacon, Some People's camp, 8:30 and esplanade.

I cut my finger halfway to off [it seemed] while spending all day today cutting vegetables for Food Not Bombs. I like feeding people in the park. I like Berkeley.

22aug01 ...virgo month of leisure starts tomorrow

And, accordingly, I am taking a small break from typing, updating, etc. Between Burning Man, and travelling, and needing to give my spazzy self a break from the running narrative that is this page, I'll be updating with less frequency than usual for the next 3-4 weeks. Since I can't quit talking about myself cold turkey, I will also be adding an update or two to NotLost and writing postcards to my friend Matthew who will scan them and add them to this page which will be where you can get your fix of jessanews.

If it's all too much to keep track of, feel free to just take a break yourself. Maybe send me a postcard to greet me upon my return? PO Box 14, West Topsham Vermont 05086.

21aug01 ...it's getting to the point

So I travelled to Providence yesterday which is a city I fell instantly in love with for three simple reasons: 1) Jordan and Louisa have a lovely welcoming house there, 2) there are many fine falling down buildings including an old masonic temple that was built and never occupied across the street from the capitol and what looks to be an abandoned temple getting all overgrown with greenery 3) Scrabble club every Monday night. I got my ass kicked by a human dictionary who did not speak English as a native language. He had trouble looking words up because he didn't know alphabetical order, but he wiped the floor with me. Jordan got beaten by a precocious twelve year old. It was a massacre.

I stay in Providence until Wednesday when my flight leaves. It's getting to the point where not only do I not know what day it is [which is fairly standard] I am starting to not know where I am which for someone who is as much of a control freak as me generally, is a really strange feeling. I feel like I have pulled one over on myself when I wasn't looking and I am gleeful.

More updates again on NotLost.

17aug01 ...things i like to know

I generally have a rotating set of questions that I ask people when I visit them. Not like I am some sort of hardline interviewer, but there are things I like to know about how people live. The top few questions generally are:

• do you know your neighbors?
• do you recycle?
• do you use public transportation? [generally followed by "why not?"]
• what do you do for fun here?
• why did you decide to live here?
• what is this neighborhood known for? how old is it? what kinds of people live here?
• do you have a library card? ["why not?"]

I think my general feeling is that most people are interesting if you give them a chance to be, and asking them about the choices they make in their lives tends to be a good way to start conversations, though it can sometimes also be a way to start arguments. When I am a guest in people's homes I try pretty hard not to be contentious, which may be another reason I like to travel. Some pictures from the trip back this way are in this directory

I went to the post office this morning and mailed my Burning Man gear to myself in San Francisco so I don't have to lug it with me. This is one of my new schemes for continuing to enjoy travelling, and it's cheaper than paying for extra luggage on the flight.

15aug01 ...packing vs unpacking, monster grudge match

Got home last night to a cleanish house that was not filled with rain or wolves. It had also not fallen down, how excellent. There was, however, at least one mouse in the house, attempting to eat my hard-earned marshmallows. I dispatched it humanely.

The chaos created by my trying to pack and unpack simultaneously reminds me of when I was a kid and first learned that they sometimes lit fires in order to extinguish other fires [I use this metaphor a lot, it's so flexible] and I thought "what madness!"

So, I leave tomorrow afternoon to start heading towards Providence, San Jose, San Francisco, the desert, my birthday, and back this way by mid-September. Virgo Month of Leisure begins on the 23rd, and I have big plans. And that's the end of it. I do not have a single time-sensitive activity on my calendar, ever again. It just turned out this way; it's not a statement or anything. I have loose ideas, like "go back to Seattle" and "get a job" and "clean up this mess" and "run away before the holidays" and "get over yourself" but nothing specific.

For anyone who is going to be at Burning Man, I'll be driving in with some Vogon Poetry campers, and staying with the Chupas in Some Place. See Snake & Bacon? Somewhere near there. Come say hi.

13aug01 ...did i say departures already?

So I made it to Milwaukee in a record 2.5 days. Slept in rest stops, saw bikers, used air conditioning excessively. Got here and have been doing some serious R&R with Greg who may or may not have pictures from our camping trip online at some point. We went out to just outside of Madison to see the meteors, staying in a "secluded oak savannah" [?] Saturday night. Of course, I have been so raggedly running during this trip that we just grilled some bratwursts and went to sleep, taking advantage of the moderate temperatures and lack of traffic noises.

Travel continues tomorrow with a two day sprint back to Vermont before Round Three: The Trek to Burning Man begins in earnest on Friday. Check out NotLost for some observations on mini bowling and the Wisconsin State Fair. Also, I'll be having some sort of birthday get together in SFO on the seventh of September, someplace. If you're in the area and want to go out for a few beers, please drop me a line

07aug01 ...departures

There's some part of me that is refusing to plan this trip better because I used to be such a pain in the ass about nailing down each and every detail of my travelling, much to the dismay of my travelling companions. I would agree that I could have stood to loosen up, historically. This trip appears to be almost reactive to this. I haven't looked at a map almost at all except to follow directions to people's houses. I haven't planned places to stay in advance. I didn't put a vacation message on my email. The fact that the trip is going moderately well I think speaks to the fact that in many ways travelling can be easier than staying. Maybe that's why I like it so much.

Updates, if there are any, will be on NotLost.org. Some pictures I took so far on this trip live in this directory.

05aug01 ...hit the ground running

first full day in seattle

7 am: wake up
7:15 am: coffee
7:20 am: shoot shit with roomate, awakened by coffee making noise
9-11 am: dick around doing online stuff, DSL sure is fast
11 am: start cleaning out roomate #2's room. I can move in if I move his stuff out. roomate #2 is in europe for six months. otherwise I get to keep sleeping in the basement bike shed room.
2 pm: lunch with Cam who is on a whirlwind tour of Seattle. We cruise for desserts as the tourists in Seattle seem to teem and throng. More people than live in my whole county in Vermont seem to be out and shopping today.
5 pm: wedding BBQ, eat meat, talk to friends, explain what "I don't have a job" really means, explain why I think marketing is the devils own avocation.
6:30 pm: "So I spent $1500 at Ikea and outfitted my whole house, what's wrong with that?" Have moderate success biting tongue about Chinese prison labor, etc.
8 pm: try to rally troops to go to beach burn
9 pm: rally is not the word for troop behavior, but we finally arrive
9:30 pm: watch things burn, scantily clad people dance, hide beer from cops, meet up with other friends
10 pm: barely-rallied troops head off to political schmoozefest. I am invited, I decline
10:15: try to visit a friend who is working inside a locked building where I have no way of contacting her. Ruminate for a bit on locked buildings and how strange they seem to be.
11 pm: home, email, sleep.

03aug01 ... where am I, continued

Last night I got a whole motor home to myself at the luxurious Larkfarm estates. This was good because the night before I had the whole backseat of my car to myself, somewhere outside of Billings Montana. It's not as bad as it sounds -- I got the first eight hours night's sleep there -- but still there's something to be said for stretching your legs all the way out.

Mike and Dana sent me home with some eggs [chicken and duck] and beets, and memories of sitting in the front yard seeing how many cats we could see at once. My record was thirteen. Mike and Dana will be stiff competition for Nutty Cat Person Champion when I try to go for the title. They live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, so judged by bearing an uncanny resemblance to my own strange abode.

So, I arrived in Seattle today under my car's own power, though I had to spend parts of the last few days driving with the heat on and the windows down due to a poozly radiator. I did get something that passes for a suntan and DAMN am I happy to be in Seattle. I am on a 72 hour wedding themed fly-by after which point I will turn around and head back to Vermont in my friend James's car. If you are looking for a ride out East and don't have much stuff, email me quickly.