Since it was about time for doors to open and I had my unallowed camera with me, I headed back to the Sir Francis Drake to clean out my pockets. On my way back down Powell, I stopped and picked up two slices of chicken barbeque at a pizza/Asian food joint. I then continued down Powell to Market and headed to the Warfield. After having my ticket checked, I placed myself at a somewhat empty table on the main floor. Not long after that, the previous occupants of the table, who had been up purchasing drinks when I arrived, returned to the table. I made acquaintances with them and their friends who showed up not long after. We had a good chat about our hometowns, comedy, and whatnot.

The show was rather entertaining. It was great to see Bob Saget in an entirely different light from that which one is normally accustomed to. He was pretty funny, though I wouldn’t say “hilarious,” per se. He relied mostly on vulgar language and humor rather than material that was actually funny ha ha. It was extremely entertaining nonetheless, and I’m sure I would have enjoyed it far more had I consumed more alcohol.

After the show, I headed back to my hotel to find a decent bar to hang out at. When all else failed, I decided to hit up the Crazy Horse Gentlemen’s Club, which was next door to the Warfield. I had never been to a strip club before, and it was 11:30PM and I had nothing else to do. Hey, why not? It was quite entertaining, no doubt. I walked in to a room full of scantly-clad women, old, lonely men, and a solid concentration of d-bags, and picked a seat somewhat far from the stage. As the night progressed, and more strippers tried to work me into a lap dance, I moved closer to the stage.

As the night progressed, one very determined stripper approached me for a lapdance. She cast some sort of spell where I was completely unable to say, “No thanks,” so I happily obliged. Hey, you only live once. So we hit up the ATM, went to the back area, and partied for a bit. It was quite an expensive, enjoyable experience. There was still a depressing, desperate air about it, but fuck it, I’m doing what I want to do. I’m living.

Around 2:30AM, I decided I was pretty damn beat. I headed up Powell, stopped at the Walgreen across the street from the Drake, purchased some snacks, headed to my bed, and assed the fuck out. That concluded Day Numero Uno.

I’m sitting here enjoying the free WiFi and come-and-go sun in Union Square, waiting for 3:00PM to roll around so that I can check into the lovely Sir Francis Drake Hotel. I mistakenly thought that I was to be staying at the Courtyard in Pleasant Hill on Wednesday night, so at the last minute, I had to book a room at a different hotel, as the Drake was booked for Wednesday. I ended up at The Cartwright, which is conveniently around the corner. It was a nice little hotel, with a small room and a very comfortable bed. I got me some good sleep.

This is Day 2 in the city. I had meant to post last night, but I took a trip down to Haight St. and the Golden Gate Park and ended up taking a nice nap afterwards. This much I know: I <3 San Francisco. Walking up the stairs from the BART up to Powell Street was like some sort of rebirth. There I was, in the middle of a new city, a new start, with the bare essentials packed in three bags. Around me where several other newborns and their luggage, as fresh and wide-eyed as me.

As I mentioned in my last post, I feel somewhat detached from my usual self, being out here all alone in the unknown. The best description that I can think of is that the world seems like the way it seems when one is ill, with a cold or a flu; the way reality seems glossed over, unreal, like a dream. At times it feels like I'm watching myself talking and walking and interacting (with wait staff and hotel staff and the like, although I did say “Hi” to a girl at Golden Gate Park). I only hope that maybe I can find away to detach myself further, mainly from my neurosis, my negativity, my self-doubt. Maybe I truly can be reborn.

I’m realizing a few things here, being so far away from Michigan. One, I realize how much I truly despise The Great Lakes State. Two, I realize that I deal somewhat better in unfamiliar surroundings among strangers, which seems totally assbackwards from how one would expect a shy introvert would act. I think it mostly has to do with how I think others perceive me, how people have this set perception of me that can never change. Being around strangers gives me the opportunity to change, to be someone else. Third, I love travel, and I need to do it a lot more. And finally, I have a goal in life: to get myself out West.

That’s about it for now for my personal introspection. Today I have reservations at 6:10PM to do the Alcatraz tour. I found out yesterday that Bob Saget is performing tonight at 8:00PM, so as long as the tour is out by then and the show isn’t sold out, I’m definitely there. With all the extra time I have before then, I may check out the Museum of Modern Art, or I might just crash in my hotel room. I’ll be sure to keep the world posted as my life out West develops.

This whole trip to this point has been very surreal. The flight here was the first time I had ever been on a plane. It was something so monumental, yet I brushed it off as another day, for the most part. It first hit me when we arrived at the airport right outside the entrance. I had a flash of excitement burst through me. “Christ,” I thought. “This is it.” After the security cattle drive, we waited for a couple hours for our plane to arrive.

When the plane arrived (twenty minutes late), we were rounded up and directed onto the plane. I took my aisle seat and awaited my fellow rowmates. It turned out to be one older female who I found out was flying back to Oakland and barely arriving in time for an old friend’s jazz concert. It turned out that the person who was supposed to take the window seat never showed, so I politely asked if I could take it, as it was my first flight. I offered to rock-paper-scissors for it, but she kindly stepped out of her middle seat to let me take it. Waiting for takeoff, I anxiously fixed my eyes out of the window and watched the non-action on the tarmac.

Several minutes later, the time had come. The cargo was loaded and the plane began to roll back. I was instantly grateful for having taken Dramamine prior to leaving my house, but after several minutes of moment, regretted not taking more. I tend to get motion sickness easily, and this occasion was certainly no exception. I was glad to have a window seat so that I could at least see the plane moving. Had I kept the aisle seat, the magazine pocket in front of me would have had my breakfast in it. The liftoff wasn’t any better, but once we were in the air and cruising, my stomach began to settle.

The view from the window is far too glorious for any human being to put into words, but I will do what I can, as there is no other way for me to communicate this to the world. Watching the world disappear beneath you as you climb into the clouds that you always would lie under, daydreaming, is one of the most amazing sights one could ever see. Floating above the clouds, seemingly gliding across their flowing white surface, I thought to myself, “If this is what heaven is like, I want to be there. How could I ever get so low when I’ve been this high?” I thought about all the tiny people below in their tiny houses and tinier cars, living their tiny lives. I thought about all the ants that scurry along the sidewalk in the hot summer sun, and how their lives are no different than mine from several thousand human feet away. I saw the Great Salt Lake and the Rocky Mountains, and brown hills climbing and creasing and folding like the old wrinkly skin of a Shar-Pei.

I arrived to this:

And that is when I fell in love with California. The weather is unreal. To make matters worse (or better, glass half full), it’s like this, more or less, year-round. I say worse because I have to go back to manic depressive Michigan weather in a week. There’s heat, yes, but there’s no humidity. And most obviously, there’s a fucking surplus of sun.

Our first day of work was today, and I was certainly glad it went well and it didn’t drag on too long. We arrived promptly at 9:00AM (12:00PM EST, which is still somewhat early for the slacker me), only to wait more than a half hour for the employees to arrive. It was very interesting to meet the people behind the voices on the phone. I work in the late shift in tech support, and this particular client, being on the west coast and processing late in the evening, they deal almost exclusively with me, so we’re all very buddy-buddy. Again, it just seemed very surreal to be there. Everything went off without a hitch, save a few minor problems here and there. We had kick-ass Mexican food for dinner, which I was more than obliged to stuff my face with. We ended up leaving around 10:00PM, and because we left everything working, we were given the day off tomorrow (er, today).

And here I am, at 2:03AM local time, logging days one and two of my trip to California. I feel somewhat detached, in a good way, from my usual self being out here. There’s just something different, something I must have left in Michigan. Tomorrow we will likely end up exploring San Francisco, no doubt running into the Pride Parade somehow. That’ll certainly be an experience. Until next time…

What am I really even connected to anymore? Was I more plugged in when I would often jot down fragmented pieces of writing in my notebooks, or does it just seem that way now that I can read it all back? Writing has no time to it. It could take me a half hour to assemble all these random and disconnected thoughts, but that moment is forever encapsulated in the short amount of time it takes for me to read it back. A work of art that took months or years to create can be digested in minutes, hours. Our small lives are minutes in hindsight.

This is probably the first time I’ve felt connected to my writing in a while. I haven’t had much to say otherwise, but now it feels like I do. I base so much on how things feel, as if there’s some sort of physical component to everything. If I don’t feel a particular way, my actions and behavior have to be based around that, otherwise I will feel like I’m being fake, a phony. It’s ridiculous, yes, because often times I don’t feel like doing fuck all, so I don’t; I sit there and stare, retreat into my wasteland mind, I burn minutes and hours out of the day and tally up more time that I will one day regret wasting. I neglect writing, I neglect social contact, I neglect life. The sad thing is, I’d much rather vent about it than actually do anything to fix it.

Maybe I just create problems for myself so I can have something to strive towards fixing, or so I create some sort of self-journey to work though this and that and get to point X and all will be better. Maybe I like bitching. No, not maybe; yes, I like to complain about problems. Yes, I like to feel like a victim. It’s the only time people actually care, or so it seems. I have this constant burning inside of me to be significant, to be something, yet I do nothing constructive to further this. All right, I take that back; I don’t spend enough time on the constructive ventures. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. I have been recording the songs that I’ve been kicking around for too-fucking-long, I’ve been working on signing so that I can lay down some good vocals. I could be doing more, but I don’t. Again, I’d rather complain than fix.

When I am going to finally grow the fuck up and take charge of my station in life? When am I going to stop feeling like I’m permanently fifteen years old, permanently awkward, permanently hated by my peers? When will I feel some real, actual, sustaining self-worth, not these bullshit fleeting moments when I listen back to a song I recorded with a smile and a chuckle and think, “Damn, this is really good,” or when I look at myself in the mirror and think, “You know, you’re not such a bad looking guy?” When will I accept the fact that there are more talented, better looking people than me, and stop using that as a deterrent for building myself up and doing my own thing? I’m just one more meatbag trying to mark my place in the dirt just like everyone else, for better or for worse. When will I not only write that, but actually believe it?

When will I ever have faith?