Berkeley to Pittsburg, CA
Tuesday January 14, 2003
Okay, today is Tuesday the fourteenth of January of 2003. Man, what a crazy time I have been having. When I left San Antonio I told myself that I was going to go to California, people were going to be cool and let me crash at their house, do my laundry and take a shower. Well last night, I was holding up my sign. The whole time I have been flying my sign I had just been sitting down and saying hey as people walked by. But yesterday, I just decided to stand up and walk up to people and ask them, "Hey man, will you read my sign? I just want you to read it, that's it." I asked this one girl Sammie if she would read it and she ended up staying and talking to me for a long time. She told me she was going to go to her apartment later and drink some beers and that I was welcome to come if I wanted. So badass, I got to hang out, drink and smoke some weed with Sammie and she introduced me to her friend Kate that was there. I told both of them that I wanted to travel some more and if they wanted to come with me. I asked them if they had anything to do. Kate was all, "You wanna go to Humboldt County? I'm driving up Wednesday." I said, "Sure thing!" I'm going to get a free ride to Humboldt County. It's going to be awesome.
My first thought was, "Man, I can't just leave Berkeley yet. I need to do some stuff here first. Humboldt County is like a five hour drive north. I thought, "Hmm, I'll go there, smoke a lot of weed and when I'm tired I'll just hitch a ride back." Kate wouldn't be able to bring me back because she goes to school at Humboldt State University(HSU). I thought I could go to Arcata and just come back to Berkeley when I got tired and get back to my mission where I left off. Hmm, I should really go to the library today and type up some more chapters so I have some cassettes to tape over. Kate told me I could get on at the computer at HSU in Arcata, so maybe I'll just chill out and enjoy my last day in Berkeley. Well, until I come back. I already typed a lot of stuff yesterday, so I have a full tape I can use.
When we woke up today in Sammie's room, they got the urge to go eat some Mexican food at Mario's on Haste and Telegraph. They told me they could spot me if I didn't have enough money. I had like a dollar in change in my pocket. When we went and they ordered. They got these big chalupas. I ate off of both of their plates. They served big portions at this restaurant. It was damn good Mexican food. It sure as hell was much better than Taco Cabana or Taco Bell.
These girls are just hooking me up left and right. I got a place to stay and I'll be able to, for the first time since I've been here, walk around without my bigass bag on my back. I'm just free. I can walk anywhere. Last night I was able to take a shower. They hooked me up with a razor and and this morning I shaved. My thermals that I've been wearing ever since I left San Antonio, I got to wash those in the shower and I hung them up to dry in Sammie's room.
Let's see after we woke up we went to eat at the Mexican restaurant and then we went and smoked weed at People's Park. I met some cool people and after the park and we walked over to Sammie's job over on Shattuck. We were in downtown Berkeley. I passed a computer store there. I went in and talked to the manager. I told him, "Hi, I noticed on the sign outside that if I want to work here I have to for at least four months. I asked him if he had any temporary positions available. I told him I was from San Antonio and that I had experience working at a computer shop. The boss, some Asian guy, said no, that he didn't have any temporary positions available. So I walked all the way down to the movie theaters where Sammie worked looking for her and Kate. I found them.
I felt like I should go to the library and check my email. I had spammed a lot of people on Telegraph and people should have mailed me. Sammie and Kate walked up Telegraph with me. They had to go to some traveling place because they were planning on going to Spain or Italy soon. I'm here at the Doe Library at UC. Sammie said I could go back to her house tonight if I wanted to crash there. Badass. I got a roof over my head tonight. I'm going to go check my email now. After this, I'm going to go fly my sign on Telegraph some more and get some money together for laundry. And I am going to Humboldt County after all. At first I thought I had too much shit to do here in Berkeley, but I can always just come back, duh. I got some traveling to do. Badass. I'm going to check my email. Oh yeah, the time right now is about four 'o clock.
Okay, let me recap the whole night. It's ten at night. Let's see, what's happened today? I haven't been recording at all. Let's see, I crashed at my new-found friend's five hundred dollar room and umm, hehe. Okay, I woke up and..umm, let me think. What did I do today? Oh yeah, I woke up all dressed up. I think I already recorded that earlier. They dressed me up and wrote on me with lipstick. Oh yeah, we had Mexican food. We walked to the Mexican restaurant. We got stoned at People's Park. After people's park we walked to Shattuck and I talked to the guy at the computer shop who told me they weren't looking for any temporary work. Then I went to the library to check my email. A couple girls who I had given my address to on the street emailed me and I replied to them. One girl told me that she made webpages and shit and offered some help. She asked me what exactly did I want. I told her I just wanted to keep it as simple as possible. I told her I wouldn't need her help because I was just going to have my FTP server up and it would just be text files(little did I know then).
It was about five when I was through checking my email. I went to my corner on Telegraph and Haste. I tried flying my sign but I got bored real quick. I decided I would go check to see if my friends were there. I should have written down the intersection because I wasn't too sure where it was. Actually, I think I had been to these apartments before(1-02-03) That one time when some other dude talked to me at the park. I asked him if he knew anywhere to take a shower. He told me he was about to go take a shower himself. So I followed him to some apartment complex. Then we went up to take a shower in two separate stalls. He had gotten out of his stall and told me his water wouldn't get hot and if he could get in my water real quick. I told him he could, but just until his water warmed up. I thought to myself, "Man, this dude better not touch me." I felt uncomfortable with this dude in my stall so I told him, "You know what? I don't mind cold showers. I'll jump in yours." When I went in there, the hot water worked just fine. I'm just glad I didn't have to kick some ass, hehe. Anyway, I think it was in the very same building where Sammie lives.
Oh yeah, Kate called her mom, who lives in Pittsburg and asked her if I could crash there and we would drive to Arcata in the morning. Her mom said cool. We're going to Humboldt county tomorrow. It's going to be awesome. I mean, I plan to come back to Berkeley and work on my mission some more, but I deserve a vacation, damnit. They smoke weed there, lot's of it. Kate told me Arcata and Berkeley are very similar. Excellent, I love Berkeley.
Haha, Kate told me that I smelled like a Humboldt kid. She said it wasn't offensive or anything. She said it was a homely smell. A laid-back smell. I don't know.
The time is now ten fifty four at night and I'm visiting Pittsburg, California. I asked Kate if Pittsburg was another suburb of San Francisco and she said not really.
No comments:
Post a Comment