Drove home on Tuesday night to surprise my parents.  I'd never done the drive between Los Angeles and Colorado in one shot, but it was exceptionally fun - even in the dark.  Thirteen hours ended up being:

- leave The Adams House at 11:00pm

- six pit stops for coffee (total of $7.23 for six cups)

- three shooting stars

- finding out that country music keeps me more awake than any other genre

- hitting 300 miles at 3:30am, just outside Vegas

- my car's moon shadow on the pavement

- dedicating every crooning cowboy love song to my beau

- remembering a wild morning of under-age gambling at the Virgin River Casino in Mesquite

- 4:11am, Arizona state line

- listening to Thriller and thinking of Erin's dance moves

- 4:33am, Utah state line

- the awesomeness of Beethoven's 7th Symphony with the sunroof open and the stars more brilliant than I ever get in LA

- 6:30am, I-15/I-70 junction

- hitting 500 miles at 6:20am

- running into a gas station and finding that they sell "Extreme Coffee" and wondering if what they really mean is just "espresso"...?

- 8:02am, iPod dies after having gone through 327 songs

- 9:40am, Colorado state line

- 12:00pm, almost give Grandpa a heart attack when I show up unexpected at his front door

- 1:30pm, almost give Mom a heart attack when I show up unexpected at her office

- 883 miles

Manifesto from the back porch at 2am...

Another something I've discovered in myself to live by:

I seek to make every connection meaningful--to make others revel in what I find compelling about them.  People are the biggest draw for inspiration and I hope to inspire them in the same way.  I wish to turn what I see in their characters back onto them so that they might find the beauty within that they already know exists.  And to show others that same beauty...

Things change, plans change, and I try not to be disappointed.  No Vancouver this Spring Break (unless someone hits me up wanting to go, NOW).  Possibly New York for the week, but who knows.  Friday's come and the optimism I had for the week turning out has faded.  Sometimes you have to let five days go as being what you didn't want them to be...

Check out my friend Travis and vote for him on his quest to be cast in the Big Gay Sketch Show on Logo! He's pretty damn funny and could use your support through votes (another popularity contest--weren't these supposed to be done with in high school?). But check it out anyway! :-)

Love, Love me do... Out.com

Check out this compelling article in the recent issue of Out Magazine. It speaks to the speed with which things are not getting done in Washington and compelled me to think about what other solutions or avenues can be pursued outside of party lines to get LGBT issues (and specifically, marriage equality) passed through Washington. Thoughts?

Stumbling out of a bleak Monday, I'm part way through a mediocre Tuesday. It hasn't been so much a factor of direct stress or assault that has made this week already lame, but rather, a bunch of subtle, distant and impending stresses and concerns. Last night I took a look around my room (which is clean for once in a blue moon) and realized that I am going to miss it. I have two months left at the Adams house and then I'm going to be living someplace completely new (if not in LA, elsewhere) and will be shifting my focus away from school to the all-important task of making money. On the phone last night with mom, I realized that materialism is going to become a distant concept, not a practice, in the next few years as I pull myself into being on my own. A commercial for All-State insurance confirmed that as I was dozing off: "during the last depression, people returned to what really mattered--the little things."

Spectator magazine, the post-graduate Critical Studies publication that I do design and layout for has hit the ground running. I'd worked through the first two articles and was working on the third when the video card in the Mac died (or so I've discerned). So Macless and workless in that realm, I'm forcing myself to play catchup on the readings I haven't done for this week and hoping that the Mac comes back to me (or they replace it) without too much trouble. Good thing the Mac is the office's and not my personal computer.

I am getting extremely excited for the road trip Brian and I are taking over Spring Break (see map posted below). Ten days until he arrives in LA (and my BIRTHDAY) and ten and a half until we are on the road. We plan on taking our time going up the coast of California, Oregon and Washington--camping along the way, photographing the coast, shooting Super 8mm, not driving into the Pacific--before hitting Vancouver. Four days in Vancouver (I am elated) and then driving back down (not via the coast, but rather, I-5), taking a night to stop over in Seattle, a night in Portland, and a night in San Francisco before hitting SoCal again. Our original plans amended (what used to entail Banff, Calgary, Yellowstone, Salt Lake City, the Grand Canyon--a giant kidney bean on the West Coast, if you will) I am happy with what we've planned. It is cost-efficient while simultaneously being adventurous enough to be doable.

Be sure to keep in touch during those days, as I will be posting from the road (one of my goals is to keep an extensive journal that will become a chapter in the book I'm writing about my time in LA--just wait until I tell you about that). In addition, we plan on taking bunches of footage, making a couple vlogs which I can post here from strategic points on the journey, and hopefully, once processed, some clips from the Super 8.

For now, I'm checking out to go check in at the office. Tuesday's looking better, Wednesday will be good, Thursday, grand, and Friday, well, you'll just have to see. Loves and hugs (bitches and thugs)!

R

The Great American/Canadian Road Trip 2009

Plans have been finalized for my final Spring Break trip of my undergraduate career! The West Coast is covered and won't know what hit it when Brian and I take our time filming, photographing, camping, hiking, driving, adventuring it... Keep in touch for updates, as an entire collaborative series of posts/musings/misadventure recountings is guaranteed and the possibility (ok, that's another guarantee that Brian will have to help me make good on) of the first vlog series on fusednonsequitur... It's gonna be epic!