My life as etch-a-sketch

Just to warn you, I have no fucking clue what this entry is going to say, or if it's going to make any sense whatsoever. I'm going to try to do a quick run down of the past few days.

I just drove 1100+ miles and totally up-ended my life. I feel very...weird. Being a boy, I'm having trouble verbalizing this particular sensation, but for now "weird" will do. In the past 3 days, I've changed job, geographical location, and relationship status. (I try to avoid making this blog excessively personal, but I will say that the latter sucked majorly. It sucked at the time, it sucks now, and will undoubtedly continue to suck for a while yet to come.) It really is like I grabbed my life by both sides and shook it violently, and now I have this really weird blank slate. Thing is, there were parts of the picture from before I really liked, and now they're gone. At the same time, I'm looking forward to finding out what can be made out of the blank silver shit in front of me. So it's not so much good or bad, but really...weird.

But, anyway...let me stop being melodramatic and share some observations about my trip. Or rather, at least mix in some directed anger and humor with the melodrama, self-involvement, and self-pity.


Observation #1: Everyone in Marin County needs to die.

The very first part of my trip was painful. Driving out of San Francisco on the Golden Gate was surreal. I think I may have actually spoken the words "goodbye" out loud at some point. It was very weird (again that word) to think this was a one way exit from The City. I'm sure I'll be back there at some point, but...weird. I've moved a lot of times, but given my health, very few of my exits have been made by car, and the ones that were were so long ago as to be only very blurry memories. So it was jarring to leave in such a relatively slow and picturesque way.

Unfortunately, such philosophical thoughts were cut short as I slammed (not literally, fortunately) into traffic about 5 miles out from the Golden Gate. Fuuuuck. Fuckity fuckity fuck. I was hoping it was a pocket due to an accident or something, but no. The goddamn traffic continued for a good 60 (yes, 60) miles. I hate traffic to begin with, but the fact that I kept thinking about how most of these people were shallow California yuppies with too much fucking money going up to wine country for the weekend so they could be wine snobs just made me seeth. The worst part was when it would start to clear and then randomly screech to a standstill again. I was about ready to throw something at the next SUV I got behind.

I concluded, therefore, that everyone in Marin County needed to die, and I stand by it.

The rest of that day's drive was pretty if uneventful. I followed US-101 up through the redwoods (which I saw by dusk) to Crescent City, which is in northern California just shy of the Oregon border. There I stayed at the Hampton Inn.


Observation #2: Calling yourself a resort doesn't make you one.

I was underwhelmed by the Hampton Inn (had a longer name that involved the word resort). It was clearly trying to be a fancy resort and failing miserably. It was like a chef trying to take a twinkie and arrange it decoratively on a plate and call it some kind of special dessert. It just didn't work. I mean, the room was fine if unremarkable. The bed was damn comfy, but it was just your average hotel room. But what really got me was the "breakfast." I didn't think it was possible for a breakfast to put on airs, but that's what it was doing. It had these elegant metal holders for the food, and so you ended up with this modern-looking sculpture vaguely resembling a tree with little boxes of Frosted Flakes on the ends. And you know those metal food warmer things they have at Sunday brunch buffets? Well, it had one of those. Just one. Sitting by itself. And it had steamed potatoes in it. That's all.

The whole thing was like what you would get if you told Larry the Cable Guy to make a fancy resort. Anyway, as I said, underwhelmed. The beach was pretty though.


Observation #3: State highway patrol officers are glorified luxury tax collectors.

I had planned to take 101 up the Oregon coast, but after looking at a map, I decided that I didn't want to deal with windy two lane roads all day, and that the view of the ocean wouldn't be worth it. So, I cut over to I-5 and took that north instead. To my surprise, I-5 in Oregon was some of the most beautiful scenery of the whole trip. The highway is elevated much of the way, so you get these long vistas (not the Windows kind) and beautiful rolling hills.

For the hell of it, I decided to stop in Portland simply because I'd never been in Portland before. Amusingly, I missed Portland the first time around. The city center is small enough that it's gone after about 2 or 3 exits, and I suddenly found myself on a large bridge leading away from Portland. In my head, I was clawing at the passenger window sniffling, "But...but...I wanna be down there!" Fortunately, I had the good sense to actually keep driving. Eventually I turned around and made it into Portland.

I kind of wandered around for a while until I saw some kind of fair going on at the waterfront. So, just for the hell of it (and since I needed dinner anyway), I parked in a garage, hoped to god no ruffians and/or thieves figured out the shit I had lying in my car, and ambled towards the fair.

Little did I know, the fair turned out to be a hemp fest. Now, I'm as open-minded as the next guy. I don't have a huge problem with people who smoke pot, and it's absolutely ridiculous that alcohol is legal and pot isn't, particularly given the obvious therapeutic value for some people. That said, there is such a thing as being obsessed. Cartman's voice kept echoing in my head: "God...damn...hippies!!!" and seeing the live reggae band and hackey sack circle didn't help matters much. I kept seeing these tents filled with way, way too many bongs in them that were clearly hand made (because the glass was cloudy and impure), and I resented the vendors for being such goddamn stereotypes. You _know_ these fuckers spend their entire day constructing these bongs and get giddy to the point of orgasm at the prospect of making weed their actual profession.

Does it mean I've gotten too old or swung dangerously towards conservatism that instead of thinking, "Aw, what wonderfully free spirits!", most of what I thought to myself was, "God, grow the fuck up."? In my defense, I'd rather spend a week with those guys than 10 minutes with anybody in the Religious Right.

Anyway, the day was going swimmingly until I was driving down US-26 at dusk and saw those delightful red and blue lights flashing behind me.

Mother.
Fucker.

I was livid. It was all I could do to be civil to the cop (since getting pissed at the guy can only fuck you up more). The goddamn asshole cited me for doing 71 in a 55. He didn't even knock it down, the jackass. The following thought kept raging through my head:

"I've been driving for over 10 goddamn years, and for the first fucking 8 of those years, I didn't get one single ticket. Not one. My driving style hasn't changed one iota, and yet, in the past 26 months, I've gotten 3 speeding tickets. What's the one thing that _did_ change in the last 26 months? I splurged and bought an IS300. These fuckers are picking me off because my car says I'm a fucking revenue stream. Fuck them. Fuck their families, and fuck them. Fuck them and their selective goddamn enforcement. Fuck the legislators who refuse to fund the highway patrol and make them generate their own revenue through tickets. Fuck the insurance company who is part of the only business in America legally allowed to discriminate against me based on demographic fucking averages. Fuck them all. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckitty fuck fuck! Fuuuuuuck!"

Suffice it to say, I wasn't in a charitable mood. I drove angrily for the next hour or two until I got to my hotel.


Observation #4: The reason the best hotel in Astoria, OR is only $250/night is because it's in Astoria.

Unfortunately, I still hadn't purged the rage when I arrive at my hotel in beautiful Astoria, Oregon, which was fucking BEAUTIFUL. The Cannery Pier Hotel in Astoria may well be my favorite hotel anywhere ever. At $250/night, I think I liked it even better than the $400/night room in the Halekulani in Honolulu. The price difference has to do, no doubt with the difference between Honolulu and Astoria as tourist destinations. But still.

Every room in the place has a view of the Columbia river, as well as the grand and imposing Astoria Bridge. You can see Washington's Olympic Peninsula in the distance, and your room it literally hanging over the water of the Columbia. And the hotel room itself was awesome. The bathroom was the size of a dorm room...it was airy and had a huge tub as well as a shower. There were shutters covering a large indoor window the opened into the main part of the bedroom which would allow you to either easily converse with someone in the bed (while you were in the tub) or enjoy views out the window from either the tub or the shower. The bed was huge and comfy, there was a comfortable little desk to put your laptop next to a gas fireplace, and there was even a little patio if you wanted some air. The bed was huge and oh so comfortable. All of this was decorated in a very simple, traditional-yet-modern way with elegant furniture, and gave an open, warm, inviting feel.

It was fantastic. I wish I had had more time there. And, yes, I wish I hadn't been alone there on a number of levels. :-/


Observation #5: The first word to leap into your mind when looking at a hillside should not be "shaved."

The final day of my travels took me up around the Olympic Peninsula before careening headlong into my new home city of Seattle. There's a much more direct path between Astoria and Seattle, but I had wanted to see the Olympic Peninsula for a while, so I took the scenic route. The most surprising part about my journey today was that it was remarkably unscenic for large swaths. Up until about 20 miles south of Forks, WA, the trip consisted of slowly decaying logging towns consisting of dirty, falling apart houses and business buildings with "for sale" signs up. It was really depressing. The other depressing part was the huge amount of clear-cutting I saw. I was expecting to see rolling, evergreen hills, but instead what I often saw where these essentially shaven landscapes that looked like something out of Dresden. It was quite depressing. Quite often the swaths of destruction brushed up right against the bounds of one or another national park. I don't know it for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that much of this was done since the rise of GW, and that it was some kind of legal sleight-of-hand that allowed the loggers to have at these areas.

It pissed me off. I do consider myself somewhat of an environmentalist, but I try to be pragmatic about it. And this was just stupid. It's not like there's a shortage of fucking paper. Last I checked, paper was ridiculously cheap, and the computerization of business gets rid of the need for more and more paper every year. We didn't fucking need to expand logging, and even if we did, destroying areas clearly visible from a major highway is just idiotic when there are plenty of such areas _not_ visible from the highway. Not only is permitting the logging a cynical political stunt to appease the poor (literally) logging communities temporarily, it's killing tourist dollars by scarring what is otherwise a beautiful area that, even if you don't want to save it for purely conservation sake, would be a draw for campers, eco-tourists, etc., and I would probably make much more money for the area in the long term. Fucktards...

Anyway, parts of it were indeed pretty. Plus, it was sufficiently deserted in long stretches that I had fun playing with the cruise control. It was sadly entertaining to watch the cruise control try to maintain a constant speed in the face of hills. (Look, you get bored after 3 days of driving).

Plus, I saw the best town name ever: Humptulip, WA. What a fantastic fucking mental image.


Observation #6: Being in a car that's on a boat is a truly surreal experience.

Not much to say here...just wanted to note that I ended the journey...purposefully...by taking the ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle. It's a quick car ferry that goes across Puget Sound. It was very nice to have the very final leg of my journey be on a boat approaching the night-lit skyline of Seattle, which when all is said and done, is really, really pretty. The two best views of Seattle are coming north on I-5 and from the ferry. I got to kind of stand in the wind at the front of the boat and let the fact I was essentially starting a new life in a new city, new even when compared to the city I lived in when I last lived in Seattle, sink in. Fortunately, I soon realized how close I was to having a Leo DiCaprio Titanic moment, so I scurried back inside.

One last thing: I entertained myself during the drive by listening to audiobooks. The three main authors I listened to were David Sedaris, George Carlin, and Lewis Black. A lot of people I know love David Sedaris, and he did make me laugh on occasion, but to be honest I found him a bit...I dunno...esoteric? Perhaps a better description would be cold. Maybe he's just better read. His live performance at Carnegie Hall was a bit better because you got the audience reaction, but he reads in such a monotone that I couldn't take it after a while. George Carlin was his usual, wonderful, cynical, perverse self. He is a fantastic narrator, and he is a fantastic narrator in particular of his own material.

Lewis Black I'd never heard reading before, and I don't think I'd read any of his stuff. I've seen his standup, so I know what his material is like. I saw a lot of negative reviews of his audiobook from (stupid) people expecting it all to be just like what he does on the Daily Show. It is a little known fact (apparently) that Lewis Black doesn't, in fact, write the stuff he performs on the Daily Show. The Daily Show writers do. They're just so goddamn talented that they can give a different voice to each personality on the show. There's a reason those fuckers have won so many Emmy's. Lewis Black's stuff is actually slightly different. To be honest, it's generally much deeper and more intellectual, and I was very impressed with him. Some of it is downright introspective rather than purely comical, although the comedy is never far away. I really liked it, almost better than Carlin because it was more of a narrative. I recommend it if you're bored.

So now here I sit in my barren living room in Seattle, my laptop battery running near empty and my connection to the internet through my phone and therefore painfully slow. I hope to god my shit gets here tomorrow as the driver suggested it would be. But still...very weird. I'm in my new home, but I feel quintessentially homeless. My home was dissolved, and the familiar seems very far away right now. I know I'll get used to it, but for the moment, this is where I am: floating, untethered...a stranger in a strange land.