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Today, I found myself floundering a little in my bed, trying to think of reasons to get up. It was one of those days I was going to need coffee and a To Do list.

To Do:
-That really important thing you get paid for
-That second most important thing you get paid for
-Dishes
-Laundry
-Money making scheming
-Start a salon/art movement (not the hair kind)
-Write blog

So here I am sitting in my robe drinking coffee once again, except now my robe is really wet because all my towels are dirty, and my coffee is black because I’m too lazy to walk to the store I live directly above to get milk.

Last week, I had some great dinner experiences. Friends came over, and we ended up spending hours drinking and talking and cooking and eating. The first dinner, after running downstairs to purchase the second bottle of vodka, we came up with this really amazing idea for a salon. A SALON. Okay, so remember when you used to take that white liquid Elmer’s glue and rub it on your hand and let it dry so you could peel it off? Yeah, that was kick ass and sounded like a really good after-dinner activity. My hands, dry and flakey from doing dishes and cooking, were as tender as meat cutlets after the glue did it’s magic. It’s also really satisfying to peel off your hand from your hand.

We started to have visions… visions of slathering hot rich trophy wives with glue, putting them under heat lamps, and then making them shed skin like snakes. People would love it and I bet it would be fun for those skin peeling enthusiasts (I know you’re out there!).

The next dinner was full of hardheaded discussion of the nature of the world and political agendas and missed opportunities and isolation and selfish mentalities and community organizing and lots of good stuff. And I thought to myself, wow, if we could all get together like this more often, like, everyone in the world on rotate, I bet we could really figure some things out. My own pessimistic view of the world grew hopeful, and I could see dear old motivation rearing her head for the first time in a while.

I thought about how lovely my stranger dinner potlucks were.. People coming together for the sole purpose of sharing a meal, without any strings or futures or drama. People presented themselves how they wanted, spoke about their passions, grew less isolated, and more connected to humanity.

That is when I realized…. the universe is telling me something! I should start a salon! But not an Elmer’s Glue Salon, a social exchange salon. We need a place to invite people that isn’t a bar or restaurant. Somewhere we can be for cheap and spend hours talking and listening to music and sharing stories and hanging out. Intimate, cheap, fun, interesting, always changing. It would be a great way to meet new people, develop ideas, create community, etc.

Luckily, I’ve been reading a lot of books about art/literary movements, and Gertrude Stein, so I’ve been able to outline some steps to initiating a forum like this. Here’s what I have come up with so far:

1. Find a venue.

This place has to be a private home. It must be intimate, so it makes people feel at home, and it must not be money driven, like a bar or restaurant, so people can relax and not worry about whether they paid enough or too much, or if they can afford it, etc.. It has to be a place people are welcome to stay for hours, and which has a spot people can go to remove his/herself from the festivities with one or two other people. (Those moments where you find respite from the group creates intimate moments where a real connection can be made.)

2. Pick an active day for the salon.

I knew someone who had potlucks every week at her house in Seattle. Different people would show up all the time. Also, Gertrude Stein seemed to have a constant flow of people who would just show up at her door around dinner or tea time or whatever, which I think is awesome. In order for a salon to be established, there should be a time and place that it always exists. That way, there can be a community of people who always feel like they could be invited.

3. Get people to come.

With the Stranger Dinner, I would make invitations monthly and get people I knew to invite people they knew. In this way, we kept it pretty safe, but always had new people come and participate. I think this time I’ll do the same kind of thing, but also reach out to some pre-established communities. I think making up some cards that I could give out when I meet new people would also be a good way to invite.

The only snag I envision is that my apartment can at most accommodate six people. More than that and the connective, intimate nature of the event may be lost. I will have to include an RSVP on the invitation, and accept the first six who RSVP for a particular week. I wonder how that will go!

If you live in the Bay Area, and would like to participate, leave a comment or email me: arianna [dot] davalos [at] gmail [dot] com . I promise you will have a time, and good or bad, you’ll meet some new people, exchange some new ideas, and maybe even find some inspiration!

Don't you wish you could be in your bathrobe at noon?

This morning, the brand new used coffee maker I bought yesterday at Goodwill kicked off at 7am. T’s alarm started going off soon after, every five minutes. At 9am, the jackhammer started. I think the universe was trying to tell me something.

Yesterday I spent all day feeling guilty that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. I’m not good at getting things done when I don’t have that much to do and I’m working with vague deadlines. I need pressure, a deadline, fear of God or something like that to get things done.

I ended up torturing myself most of the day until the afternoon, when I said to myself. Self, if you’re not going to do it, just don’t do it. Why do you gotta be a martyr about it? Why don’t you just do whatever you want all the time?

Whatever I want all the time is my prime motivation in life. When I grow up, I want to be able to do that. Flow easily through most things, have sparkles come out of my fingertips and leave a trail of pretty flowers and magic blooming in my wake, like in Fern Gully when the forest starts healing itself or some shit.

I think the only thing that’s really blocking me is my thoughts. My thoughts tell me I have to be really awesome and amazing and smart and beautiful to do anything. It says I can’t to anything I want until I do all the things I have to do, like becoming really awesome and amazing and smart and beautiful.

But I have found a solution! Shut those thoughts down! Just stop thinking them. Just think… I’m thinking evil thoughts.. don’t think about that anymore! Think about what’s for dinner and what delicious cocktails you will make and listen to some music and dance around.

Yesterday, after I killed those thoughts, I went to the farmer’s market, got a coffee maker, found some cheese, made some delicious dinner that was lit by candlelight, made some muffins, and listened to music. It was fuckin’ bad ass. Life is more fun if you’re not berating yourself in your head and feeling guilty all the time.

And I’m starting to realize that if I just shut up those thoughts in my head pressuring me to be really cool and awesome (and successful and rich and popular), I can finally have the breathing room to be really cool and awesome, because that’s what I am naturally. COOL AND AWESOME. And hot. Yeah.

Also, I’m starting a salon (not like hair, like intellectuals and booze), because I want to feel like I’m in France all the time. ALL THE TIME. If you miss living in Europe you may know what I’m talking about: late nights, consuming things that are bad for you, long walks, and philosophical conversations over 3-6 hour drinking and eating sessions. It’s going to be fun and you wish you could be part of it.

I have been away for so long because first I was frantically looking for apartments and despairing and then everything was changing and I moved!! I have a super sweet pad now with a big kitchen made for people coming over and me feeding them, because it’s what I love to do. So come over and get fed!!

Moving is a bitch. I’m all, why do I have all this shit? I never use it but I keep it because when I get famous it will be worth a fortune. Like every single thing I made in college. All my fave books that I’ve already read and will never read again. There are things I’ve hauled all over this damn country that I’m now like “TOSS!!”.

And no, that picture above is not some new band I have formed. I have this special wine box full of letters and things that was pretty out of cont. I went through it yesterday and found an early love note from my first ever BF. That’s the side without the letter. Oh yeah, we were bad ass punks. Note the awkward 13-year-old whatdoisay theme, and subtle undertones of sweet adoration:

Hi.
I’m on the phone with you now. We’re not saying anything, but I don’t care. I thought I should write something with this, but! I don’t have anything to say. So in this package is:
- a “Book!”
- a “CD!”
- this “Note!”

I hate writing with a pen(cil). Prolly because I can’t do it. I’m almost tempted 2 rite like this bcuz it is ez but I am resisting. I am not looking forward to writing next year. I’m taking my time writing this so imagine my note-taking.

Aaah! I’m flipping TV channels, and on some shitty gameshow, the female contestant was named “Ketchup.” How sick is that? Adam’s middle name is Hilton. I wonder if that’s where he was conceived. I think he should have his whole family’s middle names after the hotels that they were conceived in. But then like, they’d run out of respectable-sounding hotels and it’d be like “Steve Holiday Inn Shaw” or “Alan 7 Buck Motel Shaw.” Yah.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Overbooking of Flights
Airline flights may be overbooked and there is a slight chance that a seat will not be available on a flight or confirmed reservation. If the flight is overbooked, no one will be denied a seat until the personnell ask for colunteers willing to give up their reservation. If there are not enough volunteers, the airline will deny boarding to other persons in accordance with the airline policy. Persons denied boarding involuntarily are generally entitled to compensation. The complete rules of compensation are abailable at all airport ticket counters.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am out of space.
I love you.
M

Like, for serious, I couldn’t make this shit up. This letter is exactly how this guy was, too. Awkward, random, but really sweet and well-meaning underneath it all. The mixtape that came with that package was the best one I ever got. I wish I knew where it was. I got it when I was 13 or 14 and 11-12 years later one of the songs on it is still my favorite. I still try to replay it in my head, the whole mixtape. It had good transitions and soundbites and everything.

Reading through these old letters makes me appreciate how many wonderful, sweet, loving people I’ve had in my life so far. I’ve been so lucky.

On that note… my social life has been on hiatus for too long. Call me up, stop by, and I’ll make you pie.

I am on a hiatus between work assignments and I feel like I’m dreaming, or waking up, or something. There’s nothing to do. Well, actually there are tons of things I should be doing, but I’m letting myself float in the “do what you would like to within reason” land, which means that mostly I sleep, or clean, or paint, or watch really bad movies with Sally Field in them.

I feel like I keep waiting to be able to do the things I really want. I’m not exactly sure what those things really are, but this is what I’m waiting for:

Cook good food in my new kitchen.

Make fun friends and invite them to dinner parties in my new place.

Eat healthy, get new clothes.

Have a routine in which I get to do fun creative projects.

Have my own space.

The last is the one that all the others stem from. I can never really feel like I’m being myself lately… I miss having good friends around me. I miss the time when anything we did was an adventure. Life seems so lame now, and maybe it’s because I’m jaded, or maybe it’s because I’m just not in college anymore, but nothing seems exciting. I don’t feel cool. Sometimes I think J took my mojo with him when he went to Tokyo.

Sidenote: Why do hot, well dressed people always seem like they are having more fun than I am?

Nothing is new, everyone’s a poser, this American culture bites and squashes all attempts at creativity. Everyone is too hipster or too lame. Can’t make any friends. It’s probably my bad outlook that is making me think this way, but it would be so nice to just be able to relax.. stop having to work so hard to prove to myself that I’m not wasting away my youth.

I mean, I’m too old to even be a pornstar… my fallback career. Now what am I going to do when I’m really broke and have no hope? I’ll have to be a madam and squeeze my living out of the blood of younger, more beautiful ladies.

Sometimes I try to think of it long term… I haven’t even thought of most of the really amazing things I will do in my life! But I also feel my reserve start to crumble… I’m starting to understand more and more everyday why people take the corporate route with the big paychecks and the fancy weddings. Get married, have kids, buy a house… sometimes it sounds like stability, more manageable then a roller coaster life where you have no idea what will happen in another year. Right now I’m just disappointed that life isn’t always new shoes and new cities, new adventures and late nights on public transit. I want to start a bike gang, befriend a group of radical lesbians who throw the best impromptu dance parties, and are building a ropes course in the empty lot next door.

I bet it’s the internet… all that stimulus and now I’m trained life to go faster, present me with more content and information every step of the way. Connect me to hundreds of my friends every moment. I find myself staring at the screen waiting for someone to start talking to me. Waiting for my life to come to me instead of trying to make it on my own.

I know it’s just me, and I’m hoping to get out of it soon, but now that I have a few moments to relax, I can’t help wonder… why is everything so lame? But soon, we will have our own place… we will cook dinner, and if it kills me, I will have a dinner party and it will be fun, dammit.

The story I tell everyone about being in tune with the universe goes like this:

In college, there was this great table in the dining hall. It was a booth, the only booth in the whole hall, in this little recessed area with stained glass windows on three sides extending up to the something like 40ft tall ceilings. It was the best. You could fit 8 people at it, and it was my favorite place to sit.

Senior year, fall came around and for a good 2 months, every time I came to a meal the booth was open. It was a lucky streak, and it made me feel like someone had sprinkled me with fairy dust or something… Maybe the booth was tapped and it was always open because they were investigating me and my friends, but I felt like I was at one with the universe. I was doing something right, like when you bowl a bunch of strikes in a row, and I didn’t question it because I didn’t want to ruin it somehow.

Sometimes this happens. You are in the right place at the right time and all the pieces just fall into place and you feel like you must be cautious about everything because if you breathe too hard it might disrupt the flow.

My job is ending soon and lately I’ve been on the brink of worrying about what will happen next. Not really worrying for more than a minute or two, but very aware that there is room for catastrophe if things don’t go my way. But today I’m feeling good, because it seems like the universe has my back.

Exhibit A: When I got to the bus stop, it told me the bus was coming in 8 minutes, which gave me some time to go get lunch to take with me!

Exhibit B: After I got my sandwich, I noticed a valid transfer sticking out from the frame of the poster in the bus shelter, almost like someone had left it just for me. Saved $2!

Exhibit C: After reading my book all the way there are not wanting to put it down, my workday got reconfigured and I didn’t have to be where I was and turned back to go home!

Exhibit D: When I got to the bus stop to go home, someone passed by and gave me ANOTHER valid transfer for my return trip.

Exhibit E: After reading my really good book on the bus for 2 hours, I got home and had an email from a friend offering me free tix for me and a guest to the entire Andy Warhol Retrospective this weekend at the Frameline Film Festival.

Exhibit F: Got notified about a meeting Friday for an additional assistantship for one day a week, ongoing. My temp job with the Census will be ending soon, and I was wondering about work in combination with my upcoming move.

Exhibit G + H: I needed some new clothes and kitchen stuff for our future place.. and one of my BFFs is moving and offered me all the kitchen stuff she doesn’t need!

Now all I need is an awesome new place to live, and a little more work. Need an assistant? Some graphic design? Some advice on bringing your business online? Social Media? Networking? Want to buy a painting?

T always says the universe provides, you just got to decide on something and ask for it. Now that we’re staying in San Francisco for a while, I can feel the universe tuning into what I’m asking for and trying to get it to me.

It’s nice to be in a place of less struggle, more flow. Hustle and Flow, people! Hustle and flow.

There are a lot of things that bother me about money, but I think one of the biggest things is the fact that no one talks about it. To me, it’s a mystery. I’m not always sure how to get it and I think it would be easier if I could ask other people about their strategies. But it’s like a math test in high school: everyone has their arm covering it up so you can’t see their answers.

Life is hard enough, but it seems to me we are all competing with each other for the same thing. We all need food, clothes, and shelter, but instead of trying to help each other get what we need, we have to hide all our tips and tricks so that we can do better than the others.

I have come a long way since we first moved to our little place. Before, we never had any money, and I would worry about how we’d pay our phone bill, or the ridiculously cheap rent our fairy god-landlady for our place. Now, I know we can pay the rent this month, but with my temporary job and imminent move I’m worried about three months from now.

Money makes you worry, no matter how much you have. We worry about getting it, keeping it, having enough, and being about to do what we want. I’m worried not only about feeding and housing myself, but also being able to have the life I always wanted to live.

I am a very lucky person to have the things I have.. I know that. I’m very lucky to have been brought up to believe that I could be an artist, that I could travel, and learn new things constantly. I want the grand experiences. I want to feel success in the things that matter most to me. I want to have space and time and the freedom to do all the things I want to do in life.

But I need money to make all this happen. And it leads to difficult decisions. I can’t have everything I want, not even close. So what do I choose. A few months of fun and then back to square one? Throwing caution to the wild and letting things unfold? Or do I plan and miss out on the adventure that could be? Or will the adventure just come?

I wish I had people to ask who could tell me what to do. I wish I was still in school, or on a career path, or surrounded by successful people who would support any venture I wanted to start. But this is not the case, and I know even if I could find every detail about everyone’s financial history, I still wouldn’t have the answer to my future. But I want to be all in this together, instead of every man for himself. It would make me feel a lot less lame.

On Saturday T and I went to check out the SF Fine Art Fair, that was apparently a big deal because we don’t really have international art fairs in San Francisco. It was lame. It’s like when someone buys you an art magazine and you’re really excited until you find out it’s Art News, which is basically “Couch Art in America.” 99% of everything are paintings that people buy to go with their furniture.

My favorite piece, the one that showed the most creativity and inventiveness and awesome use of materials was “Milky Way” by local artist Renee Gertler. Here’s a picture of it:

(photo credit: Eleanor Harwood Gallery)

It’s hard to see, but the insides of the paper bags are painted midnight blue, and there are mirrors inside the bags on the bottom. The top of the bags are little pinpricks, and the mirrors reflect the light that comes in through the top of the bag from the room. The effect is an entire “Milky Way” on view inside the bags.

It’s really awesome, like these bags are a portal into this amazing other place.

The fair made me inspired to paint more, but only because I felt I could do as well or even better than most of the things I saw. T felt the same way, and now he’s super into painting.

On Saturday we went to Dolores Park and we ripped open a paper bag and lolled about on the grass fingerpainting. Then he continued as I pretended to read my book and really listened to the people around us gossip and complain as they got progressively more stoned and drunk. T started painting with blades of grass.

Our ladylady/friend-whose-basement-we-live-in is going to Paris for a year and we are looking for a new place.

It is very frustrating because we really want to live in all the big converted warehouses with tall ceilings and cool windows and open floor plans that are so big you could do double dutch jumprope in them, but they are either too expensive or in East Oakland. And while I don’t mind living in semi-bad neighborhoods, I don’t know if East Oakland would be fun to live in. I don’t necessarily want to be nervous walking around my neighborhood, or worrying that T will never come back if he goes out to buy cigarettes. I wish I had an expert person who knew all the okay places to live and the icky places to live so I could just ask him.

Also, I keep thinking that maybe if I move there and lock in my cheap rent, the whole place will gentrify really quickly and then I’ll live in a bad ass neighborhood where I won’t get shot. Then I think that is such an elitist privileged thing to say and gentrification is bad!! And then I try and think if East Oakland is like moving to the Mission before all the hipsters and yuppies and maybe I’m missing out on being really cool and tough and avant-garde. But then I think I’d rather be alive than avant-garde and start looking for something in Emeryville, which has an IKEA so it must be safe, right? Also, swedish meatballs.

Even when I do find good places on craigslist, I can’t bring myself to call them because it’s scary and I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to pay rent once my temporary job is over. But I have an optimistic feeling that it will work out somehow.

I also wish I could combine the cheap rent and space of East Oakland with San Francisco location and make it all hot like LA so that I live in this awesome place that is spacious and has a garden, but also cheap and in an old dairy or firehouse but I don’t need a car. Also, I wish all my friends would move there. I would be so happy in this imaginary place. Also, I’d have the best job ever. I’m not sure what it would be, but it would probably involve me hanging out and throwing events for my friends and becoming brilliant and then famous and being the coolest person in the world, which I am already, I just have to find the right place.

I am going to ask Renee Gertler how she became so cool and creative to have shows and think of things like the “Milky Way” and maybe I will become cool too. And then maybe she will agree to be interviewed and then I’ll post it and you can be cool too.

See? I am contributing so much to society already!

Yoko Ono is following me on twitter. Along with 200k+ others, but who cares?

The other night I went to this big bakery/co-op/employment meeting and ate scones and talked about being stranded on a desert island for a while before meeting T to go to this party/video shoot. I had met this awesome lady through my lame temporary job. She did video production on the side and was shooting a music video for a grammy nominated musician. She was having a party to serve as ambiance for the shoot and needed bodies to come and have a good time.

We trampled through a brisk night in the mission to this building with a ton of artist studios. We were running late, but I figured we’d blend into the crowd. When we got there, I remembered what it’s like to organize something where you actually need people to come and be cooperative. The room had just a few people, sitting on the floor or milling around.

“We’re not gonna start until there are more bodies,” says my awesome lady friend. “Oh shit, did I buy any tape?”

T and I stood around awkwardly, talking to each other about business cards on the table by the entrance. The studio belonged to a woman who provided a kind of life coaching services for musicians. When you are blocked, and your energy isn’t flowing, when the song in your heart won’t come out of your face, this is who you call. She’s a specialist on everything from chord progressions to emotional problems.

Her studio was amazing. 12 foot ceilings, windows along one side of the space, exposed brick, painted wood floors. By the time the shooting was ready to get under way, we had redesigned the entire interior as if it was our house. We still needed a kitchen, though.

A few more people had accumulated at this point, but in this bright, alcohol-free environment, few looked like they were ready to boogie down. After a few awkward false starts, the star of the show proclaimed “Hello San Francisco!” to the ten or so people trying to crowd around as best as possible and cheer like a group of many more.

Then we were supposed to dance. Since I was the shortest, and only lady of the bunch, I was moved to the front. The music started, and the rest of the crowd, a bunch of tall guys dressed in black, stood around staring from their feet to each other to the musician. For the next 25 minutes three of us at the front tried to carry the rest of them, twirling and swaying and trying really hard to look like we were having a good time, which we finally began to, once we forgot the extremely awkward nature of the situation. About 15 minutes in, we were tired, sweating, out of dance moves. But the song went on, and I swayed back and forth as T tried frantically to make up for less dancing.

I have to say it was kind of impressive. The spins and twists he came up with reminded me of Skeeter in Doug, the cartoon. Do you remember watching that?

All in all, it wasn’t too bad. We got to dance like no one was watching (though a lot of people were), and afterwards we went out for margaritas at Puerto Alegre. Margaritas make everything fun.  We’re not afraid to dance, no matter how awkward the situation.

And somehow, it got me thinking.. maybe here is not such a bad place to be after all. I mean, they need us.

drawing by Dylan Taylor

Sometimes I’m unreasonable. I don’t think it’s anything to apologize for, until I feel like an asshole and I didn’t mean it. I’m just existing in my universe and you in yours and they sometimes clash. Like when I buy you coffee that I’m going to drink half of and then I show up and you’re not there and I have to wait like, two whole minutes for you to get there. Don’t you know you’re ruining my whole day? And I’m so angelic I brought you coffee. And where were you? Getting coffee? Oh I see how it is. No, now you can’t have the coffee I brought you, even though it tastes more delicious and I’ll never be able to take these 4 espresso shots.

When I get like this I try to step back. Maybe it’s not as big a deal as I feel it should be.

Maybe I do this a lot and don’t even know it. Like everyday, almost every time I’m annoyed.

I hate waking up. I don’t think I was built for it. I was meant to snuggle in bed until the warm sun and a light breeze gently rouse me from consciousness and I jump out of bed singing and laughing. This hardly ever happens because I live in a basement, and so each morning I have to pry myself out of bed with the motivational fear that if I don’t get up right at this second, my world will collapse and I’ll be late and get fired and ugh I’m such a horrible lazy person and I’ll never hold down a job. Then I start making up excuses for why I was late… I was sick, it’s too much for me. How do people do this whole getting up and working thing? I’m really bad at it. Oh I’m such a lazy incompetent person, all I want to do is frolic all day and be independently wealthy (read: rich enough to not work and do whatever I want all the time).

It’s not a good way to start the morning.

When I was in high school I had to get up at 6:45am every day to go to school. Did I like it? Of course not. Would I have rather slept in? Hell yes. But I had to go to school, and I didn’t blame it on society or the way the world worked or the country I was unfortunate enough to live in; it was just the way it was and I had to get my ass out of bed, no matter how late I stayed up.

But now it turns into a mental tirade about how I’m just not cut out for this life and there must be another way, but oh I’m a lazy piece of shit and I’ll never amount to anything. Back and forth between self-righteousness and self-hatred. That’s where I seem to live.

To have expectations is to have disappointment. I always all into this trap. Can I be ambitious if my ambition is to be ambitionless? Am I the problem with kids these days? I can’t do anything but I could do anything, given the perfect circumstances. Are my constant existential crises a sign of my overwhelming intelligence and superiority over 90% of the normals, or just the stubborn spoiled sensibility of an over educated wannabe artist who isn’t ready do give up her dream of a perfect life where she can do whatever she wants all the time?

Why do we have to do stuff we don’t want to all the time? Why is it so hard to just survive?

Why do I argue myself out of every plan I make? Everything is impossible or not good enough. Am I alone in this thinking? Or are there others like me too? If you are like this, don’t tell me. I probably wouldn’t like you, and if we had a conversation I’d try to get you to see the error of your ways, convince you to be more optimistic and less whiny, work harder and stop being so wishy-washy, and then avoid your calls and emails because I don’t want to talk to you.

Life may be a whole lot better if I just sucked it all up and didn’t complain or turn everything into a basic question of existence. But then what kind of person would I be?

I am sitting in bed and eating ice cream that makes me teeth hurt. Last night I saw Charlene Yi perform. She’s a young comic/musician/performer who wrote Paper Heart, a sweet fictional documentary about whether love exists. She dropped out of school and lived in her car to get to LA and follow her dream. Her work is funny and honest and seems to come from her gooey chocolatey center.

Lately I’ve been thinking about what it is I want to do. A lot of the time I think about what I don’t want to do, or what’s stopping me from doing what I want, or how I can’t do anything and have no talent or passion, or how the whole world is fucked up and I just want to run away and live in a cave and eat berries like the guy in the book Hatchet I read when I was 10.

Some people make Bucket Lists of things they want to do before they die. Some people have lofty goals and ambitions that motivates them to do things like go to Law School, or climb a ladder of business hierarchy, or work 12 hours a day making food for people for very little money.

I don’t know what it is I want to do. When I was a kid I had these vague ideas of travel and adventure, being a poor hobo and relying on the kindness of strangers to get me where I need to be, and letting life carry me through good times in bad.

I haven’t gone for this lifestyle because it’s full of worried relatives and sketchy situations and being homeless and not getting what I need to eat, poop, and sleep safely. It’s not ambitious enough in the “I’m gonna be somebody” kind of sense, and there is no end goal except for exploring and seeing what is out there for me to see. I don’t know when a trip like this will end, or what I should do when I’m done. I always thought something would just happen.

The other thing, is money. I don’t want to have to rely on people for money, but I don’t want to work 40 hours a week for a paycheck, either. I wish I didn’t have to have money to live. Right now I’ve been working a lot at a temporary job where I get paid $23.50 an hour, but I’m always disappointed. I calculate pay during work and then am horrified when $200 gets deducted each week for taxes. When I didn’t have a job a month ago, I was always worried, but it seemed like I went out to eat a lot more, made more art, read more books, and wasn’t so angry. I seem to have a very short fuse and money lights it all the time.

The thing about this vague traveling trip I keep/kept thinking about what this: I don’t have any other plans. I seriously don’t think I ever imagined myself as old as I am now, and my plans were never definite enough to seem like something I should actually make a plan to do.

So I’m trying to make a list of things that I would like to do. People always say we never make time to just do the things that mean so much to us because we’re too busy with jobs and kids and things. Well, my job is temporary, and I’m not very fond of money and I don’t want kids until I’m done fooling around, so I thought I might as well make a list of things that I want to have happen at some point in my life and then just go from there. I hope I can think of something. I hope they aren’t impossible.

1. Have a studio that is all mine.

I want a place to go with big windows and tall ceilings that is my place. I want to be able to go there and be alone and work or dance or sing or record things or draw or paint of make prints. I want a big counter with a sink and an electric kettle and a hot plate and a refrigerator and I want to be the only one with a key. I like company, but this is a place I can go if I want to be completely alone. I work best when I’m completely alone and I never quite feel like that. Sometimes I would like a whole week of just being alone so I could get into it and get the voices out of my head. I want time to do whatever I want and I want to take all the pressure off of myself so that I don’t have to worry about how what I will do will impress people or how it will effect my future. And I don’t want this to be in a place where I am scared of getting shot walking out of my building, but I don’t want this place to be in the middle of nowhere either.

2. I want to work part time at a mindless job.

When I was in Seattle I worked at this frame shop/gift shop. I worked from 11-5pm four days a week, I got foodstamps, my work was two blocks away, and mostly I put price tags on things, made stuff pretty, and kept it all dust-free. It left me a lot of brain space to thing about things like what I was going to do or make outside of it. Sometimes I wish I had never left Seattle. The weather was bad, but that’s all I can think of that was bad. My best friend and I had our own radio show, I lived in an awesome house, I met really cool people who were doing amazing things, and I got to go see live music and eat for practically nothing all the time. I couldn’t afford cheese or meat or wine, but I was really healthy and cooked all my meals from scratch and spent like $100 on groceries for two people every month. I want to live somewhere where that’s possible. I’m tired of being cramped into one room. But I can’t think of anywhere I want to move either, not even Seattle. I like the sun too much.

3. I want summer in the country.

Freshwater creeks to live in, gardening to do, bonfires, learning to play an instrument. I want to do all these things. I was thinking about the ukulele or maybe making stuff electronically. But I want to make songs and sing them at night on the back porch after a day of baking chocolate cake and swimming and drinking minted lemonade.

So those are three things for now. Maybe I’ll think of some other things later. I wonder if the place in my head that I want to exist is real or if it’s just the amalgam of everything I like about all the places I’ve been so far. Either way, I feel compelled to travel until I find it.