Date: 2004-02-14
To: Good Riddance ...
Miles today: 0.0

Welcome to Black Saturday, otherwise known as Valentine's Day.OK, enough of the fuzzy feel good crap from the last entry ... yes, I know, it was only a couple of days ago, but now it's time for some regular old ranting. I have now officially cleaned my apartment for the last time. I have a roommate, a while straigh male, whom came to live here through an ad online. I have sublet here in NYC through a guy who no longer lives here but charges us $600 more than the actual rent so he can make some money. When looking for a roommate this moron who has the lease tried to talk me into living with this feeble minded (read crazy) chickie who he thought was hot, thinking he could get some action. I said no. So now I live with GENE. Gene came here from Queens where he lived with his mommy. Gene's 27. Gene has never had to clean a bathroom or kitchen, and has never been allowed to have girls sleep over. I found this out by witnessing his cursory wipe down of the bathroom and calling it clean, and the many nights I spent listening to he and his girlfriend have sex. I'm 35 for God's sake and don't feel like I want to relive this partucular aspect of my college years. I finally had a talk with him about listening to his sexual escapades, and then he was so polite as to turn on loud music so to muffle the sounds. But the bathroom issue has driven me crazy. In additon to the fact that he doesn't think cleaning the tub or the floor part of the cleaning process, his girlfriend leaves piles of hair clogging the drain of the tub. I can say with all and complete honesty that this contributes to one of the reasons I'm gay. It was cemented when a female roommate of mine at one time took a bath, shaved what I assume to be every part of her anatomy during said bath and simply let the tub drain. When I went in to take a shower, I was greeted with a lovely ring around the tub of an amount of hair that I'm sure could have been donated to LOCKS OF LOVE and made into wigs for several kids. But now ... oh, now, this is over. I don't have to clean up after my roommate or his hirsute girlfriend ever again. Solitude, here I come. Two weeks more and I won't have to deal with a subway again. Here's the deal, if I say excuse me to someone standing in the door of the car when I'm trying to get on, and they don't move, in my mind that gives me every right to knock them down (I know this is not right, and am trying to be a better person about this). Of course then I become the a**hole. If I'm on the subway car standing at the door and it comes to a stop and someone tries to get on without letting other people off first, that gives me every right to knock them down. One time a man was taking up three seats, I walked in the car, said excuse me, and sat down. He went off on me saying, "Slavery is over, you can't treat me like this." (he was African American). I looked at him and said, "Are you friggin' kiddin' me?" Of course the rest of the ride I got dirty looks from each and every person in the car cuz I had become The Man. Another time a woman was on the train and she had three seats, two of them occupied by her shopping bags. I said excuse me, she didn't move, so I squeezed myself onto the seat. She told me I was a rude young man, I said, "You paid for one seat, lady, not three," and then she spit on my boot. But in two weeks ... oh, in two weeks I can just walk. In two weeks I can just walk and stop trying to explain to people why I am doing this trail. Are you going to find yourself? No. Are you going to escape your problems? No. Are you going because you don't like to face up to your responsibilities? No. Are you trying to be Thoreau? No. I HAVE NO ONE REASON FOR DOING THE TRAIL, I JUST KNOW I HAVE TO! Two more weeks and I can just walk. Two more weeks and I just walk and not look at a newspaper or read online all the horrible, detestable and damaging things the government administration is doing to our country. Sue me for thinking that doing good things for others is the correct thing to do. Sue me for thinking that war for oil or war to be titled a War President is wrong. Sue me for thinking the environment and this earth is important enough to take care of instead of destroy at even a faster pace than what we humans do on an average day. Bush is an idiot. Our political system has turned into a joke where you only get elected if you're rich or play by the inside-the-beltway rules. I read newspapers, I read political books, I look online to keep informed and I do my best to do what's right. Bush is not right for this country and although I am walking a trail during the high political season, I will continue to believe that Bush and his cronies are grinding this country into the ground. For 160 or so days I won't constantly worry about the 500 American soldiers who have died, or the more than 10,000 Iraqi civilians who have died because Bush decided he wanted to be a War President. I will still worry about that, and I will still feel partially responsible for not doing enough to stop it, but at least for awhile, I can just walk. Can't we all just get along?If I believe that equal rights for everyone is the correct way of things, can we all agree that I'm not an activist, but just a human? If I say love is all that really matters, can I be looked as just a human, rather than some hippie stoner who is too idealistic to be any contribution to society?You know maybe I am doing this trail for a reason. Maybe I want to return to myself without the distraction of computers, or phones, or cars, or mass transit or anything else. Maybe I want to strip it all bare, get to the essence of me so that I can begin to create a way, a new way, to give voice to those who think this world has got to change its ways before it implodes or explodes and there is nothing left but a green vapor filled with negative molecules that we as a species visited upon ourselves. I know what this sounds like. I know people think I'm ranting. Good. But I am going to make this world a better place in my own small way, in spite of you, or with you. Choose. Things accomplished:*2nd pair of boots bought. *pack packed and weighed*Notice given at work*Taxes done