Maxwell's Lost Again

The daydream planning of a possible trip is in many ways more fun than any trip’s reality. It is an exercise in possibility, the way you hope travel can be, but daydreams are infinite and our actions are, sadly and presently, singular. I like to scour websites like workaway and think about what might happen if I spent a month or more living and working with this or that person. I like thinking about all the places you might go when you leave your given place in your hometown to see what else exists. Something about all the possibilities of living with no ties, against the consigned monotony of class and work everyday and a year long lease on an apartment or the commitment of your dorm room or Greek house.  

I am in my apartment now. Note; I am a poor interior decorator. It’s not really something I care about. I have some old paintings and a “don’t tread on me” flag that I’ve put up. I’ve got liquor bottles on various shelves and counters, clothing all over the floors and furniture. I suppose if you have no reason to care about mess and no one to force you into caring for them, well there’s no real reason to do anything about it. I can’t explain why I’ve always found clutter to be so reassuring, it’s as if there’s mystery in mess.

Anyways, a hometown and an apartment, I can’t stay here long. I can never stay anywhere too long, or if I can I never have. I’m called in three directions and held down in none. I’m trying to quit my habit of calling things double-edged swords; there’s good and bad to everything and habit. I have fun going out where I only know a few people but end up talking to many.

I have an itinerary for December that segues to January. I have plans big plans for February through summer, to go and stay in France and Spain through the summer. Now I’ve done one sort of “round the world” trip and I do it all in stages or chapters, I’ll start off visiting friends in the states (I have stories from visiting New York a month ago) and then I’ll buy a ticket out of the country after I’m used to bouncing around and debating beds. I’m going to Chicago on Thursday. I’m going to Las Vegas on Saturday. I’ll be home a few days after Vegas then will go to New York for my third time this year. New York is splendid and wonderful and I couldn’t be more excited for that. I nearly had plans to stay in New York until New Year’s but somehow I’ll be flying to Cincinnati the day after Christmas and flying to Florida the day after that. Oh, the struggle. I suppose it will be nice to see some sun. I want to ride a jet ski over a wave with a crest like a sharp hill. An ephemeral hill. Or intermittent ephemeral ones. A constant influx of ephemeral hills that I totter over at 30 miles per hour. This is how I day dream.

That is my mental preparation. And this is my verbal preparation. I have an internal struggle, a recurring debate with myself over the fact that I have this website-the fact that I enjoy writing about my life much more than I like talking about it. Things are so complicated when you talk but if you can properly lay a story then it’s all linear. I don’t know how much I should write in here or how truthful I should be. I suppose I’ll have to decide as I go, though it could be a lovely thing to share with you, my dear persistent reader, to share all that I go through.  So do stay tuned, or perhaps I can remind you if I decide to write again.

Greetings at 3 a.m.

-Maxwell