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my need for near constant stimulation exacerbated a bad case of cabin fever recently (as a secondary result of the back issue), and last night i flipped the fuck out.

adventure. now.

lafayette – why, i have no idea – called.

blue dog saloon.

i got slightly lost, which makes it a perfect four for four that every time i enter lafayette city limits i get lost. there’s something i’m just not … seeing … over there. it seems upside down.

great little bar. bartender called it chelsea’s doppelganger.

yes.

some great indie bands.

austin’s till we’re blue or destroy:

lafayette’s own brass bed:

vancouver, canada’s karen segal:

see, the other thing happening here is the blue moon is also a hostel. attached to this great bar is this great little guest house. i’m watching this band and all of a sudden this door that i’m leaning on opens … i wasnt’t even aware it was a door, and here comes karen. i assumed she worked there and was coming from some back office, but we started talking and she’s just traveling the south couch surfing, woofing (working on organic farms for room and board, i learned), and riding the hound. wow. adventure! just what i needed. great chick, super hip, lots of good ideas. she wants to go where jimmy rogers was born in mississippi.

go, canada.

so they have the proper bunk bed hostel rooms, the living room has a piano and a guitar (met a german named thomas sitting there on the way out … great guy, loving the south, loving life, beautiful), nice communal kitchen. they also have a handful of other private rooms. karen’s room was big with comfy chairs and a couch and had a private bathroom with a _huge_ old clawfoot tub. just a really, really, hip place. i wanna go live there for a few days. you do, too.

i was trying to articulate this last night, but things just feel so much more natural and right with me when i’m in some sort of traveling, transitory mode. i’m decent at playing music, not horrible at the academic bull shit, but i’m a fucking mega traveler, man. i’m really fucking good at it. that i know. i was just kinda called to lafayette last night and ended up vicariously sharing in this backpacker adventure. just felt good. but you live and you acquire shit – like a dog that you love and miss – and you’re tied to these commitments of various sorts. and it’s different. but it’s good, too. keeps you moving forward, and provides a certain level of comfort that is also nice. so finding these little fissures of unexpected newness requires a little more creativity than it used to, cause it’s not an all or nothing thing right now. it’s not ‘i’m selling my van, subletting my apartment, and going to new zealand for three months.’ those extremes are easier in a way. you just shut one door tight and open a new one wide. but living with it all … that’s trickier. i still have a lot to learn. when things don’t go like i want, i cut and run. or i want to. but, you know, you gotta live with it, too. so … i gotta get better at being here and there at the same time. and i think i am. i do.

anyway … thank you lafayette, canada, red stripe, abita, and mr. tom waits, who took me west with bone machine and east with mule variations, and reminds me every time we meet (typically at night, behind the wheel) that everything i need is all right here. always. i just have to remember to see it.

from cold water:

i look 47, but i’m 24
well, they shooed me away from here the time before
turned their backs, and they locked their doors
i’m watching tv in the window of a furniture store

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