www.patreon.com/posts/18277908

Usually I try to write something unique here, but just click the link because I’m too cold to be bothered right now.

www.patreon.com/posts/18248431

The PCT is truly the trail of the Gracetopher. A Christopher drove myself and a girl named Grace to the southern terminus, which was in and of itself very fitting I thought. And then at the first water source (mile 4.4) Grace and Gracetopher met another Grace!

Destination: Canada, via PCT, which will be reached early on the morning of my 25th birthday. At 4 am I meet one other hiker and the trail angel driving us both to Campo CA.

For more see my public post over here on My Patreon.

A week from today I turn 25 and take my first steps northward from the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. Holy crap!

www.patreon.com/posts/18055600

Travelogue + vlog = TraveVlog

I’m experimenting with vlogging, so here’s a link to my first foray into this new storytelling medium. I recorded this as I was waiting for a bus a few weeks back.

www.patreon.com/posts/17826231

And at times I speak my very own private language, uninhibited by the rules that box in those who I met during that one foray into White Collar Society. I hadn’t known the rules, and so worried each day. But why do these rules exist anyway?

Why can’t I say muchly and still be taken seriously? This is the language that I speak. I am not trying to sound cutesy or funny, it’s just how things come out of my mouth. Have you never heard the word muchly before? Well then, gentle reader, I do pity your small existence, devoid of the pleasures that come from playing in language as children play in puddles.

Sorry, did I say children? Because at 24, I’m still always up for a good splash.

People sometimes have problems hitting page or word count goals on essays, but my problem has consistently been the opposite. I’ve gutted more essays than I can count, taken literal scissors to them to cut them down to size. The essays always come out much stronger, much better written if I begin by ballooning out and end by cutting out all that is irrelevant.

The written word helps me process what is happening in life. The written slows me down, grounds me, and makes the world real. Without writing, my brain flits too quickly and too unpredictably to remember what is real and what isn’t. With writing, my brain continues to flit about so quickly that sometimes I still lose my spot, and another idea is forever lost in space.

Yes, more people would listen to me if I learned to edit before writing a massive essay and chopping it back to a verbal tweet. Yes, more people might read my writing if I kept things short and sweet. As things stand however, my writing as an art form is certainly more developed than it might have been otherwise. So I don’t bemoan my own idiosyncrasies, though I do acknowledge that there are communication strategies I would benefit from in the capitalistic, nearly post-apocalyptic, world outside my door.

I tried to you know. After it happened. I was in a beach town at the time, so once my numb body and lifeless mind were released onto the streets again, I started walking toward the sea. I wasn’t calling it rape yet, but I was calling it the end.

Lucky Me

I didn’t make it to the sea.