I want to:

• Grow my own food
• Recycle and compost
• Replace most driving with biking and walking
• Prepare the majority of my own meals
• Read for pleasure daily
• Host and feed friends often
• Move out of this country
• Learn what drives my parents and grandparents
• Restructure the way I handle these countless forms of communication

Most of all, I want to be able to live by the motto, “one step at a time.”

My first issue occurred when I attempted to submit a form after my session timed out. I switched from one network to another during a session and was redirected to the login page when I tried to submit a discussion post. I tried going back to the page in which I typed my post, but was redirected to a page requesting me to log in. Upon logging me in, BbV directed me to my list of classes, wholly discarding my data.

My second issue occurred in an attempt to prevent a repeat occurrence of the first issue. I switched from a window containing my post in progress to a window containing a list of discussions in the topic. I refreshed the page and was redirected to a list of my current classes. I tried to switch back to the window containing my post in progress, but found that it had vanished, wholly discarding my data once again.

Perhaps these outcomes were proper by the standards of BbV. Maybe I have become too reliant on the infinite foresight of Google and Facebook as well as the considerate interfaces of many other popular services. My rage has subsided and another hour has passed, leaving me just as unproductive in schoolwork as it found me. My deed is done; may the world of educational tools advance a little bit more safely and wisely!

This won’t be a chronological list of events, as some memories are much clearer than others. I went into Burning Man with no expectations, so I hope you will approach these tales likewise. My only goal in writing about this week is to articulate the awe and inspiration I felt while witnessing the collaborative efforts of 40,000+ minds. By doing so, I hope to convince many others to join me at future burns. Ideally, as I wrote on a leaf of a memor-tree in the deep playa, I want to run a camp of my own some day, preferably with a ridiculous theme and plenty of excess.

I have no schedule or structure for these writings. If there is anything specific you want to know about, please ask. If too much time passes between posts, prod me; I want to write about this just as much as you want to read about it, but there is only so much time in a day.

For now, though, my body stinks and my belly growls. It is time for the best way to start a day on any hedonistic voyage – a beer in the shower. For those of you who haven’t tried this blissful combination, find a shower with a window-ledge and crack open a cold one. Cheers!

“What do you need?” I ask.

“Well, you see, my car broke down at 42nd and Haverford and I need to get it towed. Can you give me a ride to a garage?”

A sign bright as a Broadway theater awning appeared before my eyes: Story Time! “Sure, let me just drop my things off inside.”

I run inside and drop the rice cooker and paper Trader Joe’s bag on the kitchen table without a word, then barrel back down the stairs and out the two apartment doors. I unlock the door as I cross the street and we both get into my car. Fear Before’s self-titled album picks up where I left off and we drive up 43rd Street.

“Thank you so much, you don’t know how much this means to me! My car is rather old, it’s an ‘88 Celica and it broke down on me. I like your car, this is very nice. Do you go to school here? What are you studying?” She’s rather gesticulate and touches my arm at least once every other sentence. “Wow, you must be really smart. Are you married?”

“No.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Not anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Eh, they come and go. Cycle of life.”

We drive up 42nd street and after 20 questions, I ask her where I can find this garage. She tells me it’s just up this road and points ahead as we near Lancaster Ave.

“They say they’ll tow my car for $60, but I only have $50.” She touches my arm. “Would you mind lending me the extra to cover it?”

“Ahh, I’m afraid I don’t have any cash on me. I’ve become to reliant on my credit card; I don’t go anywhere I can’t use it!” We turn left onto Lancaster Ave, now heading out of the city.

“Oh okay. Maybe we can find an ATM somewhere.”

“Sure, when we get to the garage I’ll ask where we can find one. Where did you say the garage was?”

“It’s back that way,” she says and points to 4 o’clock.

“What? Let’s just go there then.”

“No, we should go to the ATM first.”

“You know what,” I reach for my wallet, “I might have cash after all. I get so used to not having cash that I often don’t remember when I do.” I open the wallet just enough to show a bill or two. “Yup, I do have some. Let’s go to the garage.”

“Thank you so much. Is there anything I can do to make this up to you?” She touches my arm.

“No, that’s alright, it’s a small favor from one stranger to another.” I make the next right turn.

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?”

She touches my leg.

She slides her hand up my leg.

“Nah, that’s alright. It’s no big deal, really.”

“Okay.” She looks around and notices the current song title displayed on the console. “‘Stay Weird,’ I like that.” We continue to drive west toward 42nd Street when we spot a Chinese restaurant ahead. “The garage is near here; make a right.” I turn right to head south on 42nd, but no more than half a block later, she remembers, “I think it’s actually the other way; turn around.”

We circle the block, returning to the corner at the Chinese restaurant where this time we make a left. We travel nearly a block this time when she informs me we’ve arrived at our destination. Our destination, apparently, has no buildings that look remotely like a garage. “Alright, can I have the money?”

“No, I’m going to go in with you and see how much it costs.”

“No, you can’t! They’re ghetto, they might think you have a lot of money or something.”

“So what? It’s business, if they want money, they’ll take my money.”

“No, no, no! Look, what if I leave everything here with you. Will you trust me then? Here! Here is my cell phone.” She puts her phone under my parking break.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“And my jewelry!” She takes off several bracelets and other jewelry, placing them beside her cell phone.

“Fine.” I hand her a crisp $10 bill and unlock the car. She steps out and I immediately lock the doors and turn off Fear Before. She begins crossing the street and I turn around to watch. Contrary to my expectations, she traveled hardly down the opposite sidewalk before stopping at a stoop and talking to two black boys (my age, give or take a few years). I turn away to avoid looking suspicious and I think of ways this could possibly end. A minute later, she knocks on my window and I let her back into the car. “This is the wrong place, it’s actually back that way,” referring to the direction we came from.

A u-turn and a block later, we’re back at the Chinese restaurant where she instructs me to stop. I park near a corner and let her out again, keeping watch over her valuables again. She approaches a man on a bicycle and they stroll around the corner out of sight. I sit back and resume the album, anxious to tell my tale to everyone back in 514. A minute later, she returns.

“Everything taken care of?” I ask.

“Yes!”

“They’re gonna tow your car?”

“Yes.”

“And what, give you a ride back to your place?”

“Mmhm. You can take me to my car now.” We resume driving south on 42nd. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?”

She touches my leg again.

“Mmm… no, that’s okay. Having this story to tell is worth the money.”

“Okay, but at least let me give you my number. Do you have a pen?”

“Yeah. I’ve got some sticky notes too, here.” I hand her my wide pad of sticky notes and a green dry-erase marker. “I use those sticky notes to flirt on the highway. It’s kind of a shame that nobody flirts back, but I guess not many people keep sticky notes in their car.”

She writes her name and number on the yellow note and caps the marker. “I want you to call me to make sure I get back safely. Will you call me around 10? I should be back by then.”

“Alright.” I fold the note and put it in my pocket.

“Thanks again, I really appreciate it!”

“No problem.” I unlock the car and she steps out. “Bye!”

—

9:45 and my belly is full of fried tofu, rice, pork and onions. Gero moves an intricately carved knight in our extended game of chess. Evan and Anthony finish up seconds of the king-sized meal as I push out my gut and breathe a content sigh. “It’s almost that time. How should we do this?”

“Dial star-6-7 before you call, make sure she can’t get your number,” says Obie from the couch. “Don’t want her tracking you down for more money.”

“Good idea. I’ll put it on speaker phone too.” Scenarios play out in my head like moves in chess. How will this go down? What do I say when she answers?

10 o’clock strikes the oven clock. “Alright, here we go.” Star, 6, 7, phone number… send.

Ring… ring… ring… oh god… ring… ring…

“Hello?” a deep voice answers. This doesn’t sound like the woman I helped.

“Hi, is Jen there?”

“Who is calling?”

“A friendly stranger.”

“What do you want?”

“Well, I gave her a ride to a garage earlier to have her car towed and she asked me to call her and make sure she arrived safely.”

“Oh… what’s your name?”

“It’s… not important.”

“Hold on.” Silence.

“You should’ve said ‘I’m Ron Mexico’,” said Evan. The room muffled a chuckle.

More silence.

It ends. The phone blinks the time duration and the phone number before returning to the home screen.

TL;DR – I picked up a prostitute.

However, I’ve just finished listening to Carl Sagan explain scenarios of asteroid-earth collisions and whether or not humans can be trusted to develop a defense strategy without fumbling it into malicious hands (see Pale Blue Dot, chapter 18 – The Marsh of Camarina).

—

I’ve spent the last 20 minutes or so talking to Evan about what Jesus would do about health care reform and how hypocritical Republicans are in opposing “death panels” when in the past they’ve favored living wills and end-of-life consultation. At least Democrats are realizing the futility of their attempts to persuade the infantile.

Of course, I have yet to acknowledge the fact that in writing my under-informed opinions on opinions of opinions, I’m only contributing to the noise which slowly vibrates and erodes the sedimentary will of the educated and determined to a sandy apathy.

—

I’m going to stop here before this turns into a post detailing the reasons every event of my day built on my burned-out, paranoia-induced inferiority complex.

—

Edit: Barney cheered me up a little.

I have a better understanding of why I and many others foolishly tried to dumb myself down to fit in with grade school peers. Most of my friends can agree that middle school was one of the worst periods of our lives.

The problem is, the world these kids create for themselves is at first a very crude one. If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices, what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. Presumably it was not a coincidence. Presumably someone wanted to point out to us that we were savages, and that we had made ourselves a cruel and stupid world. This was too subtle for me. While the book seemed entirely believable, I didn’t get the additional message. I wish they had just told us outright that we were savages and our world was stupid.

In a rush to write this, I can’t find the other quote I wanted to cite. It had to do with going back to school at our current age and avoiding all the drama because we know enough now to see through it. I wish I could go back to school and set an example for future generations. Being a mature student among younger peers would present the message that learning isn’t as worthless as it feels when it’s forced on us seemingly without purpose. If I went through the 11th grade with co-eds a decade older than me, not only would I feel confident that knowledge never loses worth, but I would gain a perspective of someone who has graduated the system and come back for more. It would set us at the top of the food chain; the youngest and freshest minds learning how to combine state-of-the-art technology, literature, history, math, social networking, and a myriad other disciplines with the real-world application set forward by adults who have weathered the currently decaying education system.

At this point, I’m forcing words to get my point across rather than structuring my thoughts, so I’ll stop there.

In conclusion, it’s difficult for me not to find everything but education and environmental conservation trivial when our tunnel-vision and lack of hindsight is killing us and everything that supports us at an increasing rate.

Yet, as I sit here writing this, I find myself doing what I do every time I want to write: writing by the seat of my pants. None of this was thought out before writing it. I have no objective for writing this other than the hope for attention and criticism.

I told my brother yesterday that he shouldn’t talk so aimlessly because he didn’t have any reason to say the things that spewed from his mouth. This morning, I can’t help but wonder if I was justified to say that. So what if he has no motive in telling me his uninformed opinion on which console is ruling the present gaming market? Who am I to say, “You shouldn’t talk about things you don’t understand?” We all need to learn somehow. Don’t get me wrong; I explained to him the little more I understand about the gaming industry on top of minimalizing his opinion. I’m not that cruel of an older brother (I hope).

Right there! (and here) I completely diverted from the subject at hand, switching from questioning my authority as a conversation moderator to justifying my status as a good brother. Edit: I have no idea why I wrote this. Do I find any reason I can to distract myself? Was I making a point? This is the problem i have with writing. I could very well completely abandon this post because it all sounds like nonsense upon review. The fear of sounding like a raving lunatic is ever present. Ugh… no wonder Hunter wrote so much about fear and loathing…

I want a motive. I want to focus. Drifting around the infosphere is fun for a while, but seeing others cruising a structured route and making tangible accomplishments fills me with envy.

In times like this, I try to remind myself of Steve Jobs’ message to a Stanford graduating class – take life as it comes, it will all piece together when the time is right. I can only hope that my decaying short-term memory and my inability to filter my thoughts as fast as they escape through my mouth and fingers doesn’t hinder what good I have yet to bring to the world. I can’t imagine how many others in my age range can identify with this; I know I’m not alone.

Once again, I leave you answerless and probably less informed than you came. Hopefully you can relate, though, and ask me questions that my working memory hasn’t yet processed.

Edit: I’ve spent entirely too much time reviewing this and wondering what others will think of it. It doesn’t matter; I’m as clueless as the rest of you and I should stop pitying myself for being so. In fact, disregard this paragraph; I don’t want to delete it because I want to look back years from now and know the full extent of my paranoia.

I was very intimidated by the bachelorette party at Americana. Imagine a room full of 20/30-something year old women and all the wine and fudge one could every consume. That was my reality.

Twitter is revealing to me it’s power. This morning, I browsed tweets by people in this area. I saw a guy posting about the Ithaca Farmer’s Market and regretted not posting that I was there. Around dinner time, I was tasting beer at Ithaca Beer Company and asked the bartender if the brewery had a Twitter account. At the end of the bar, a man sampling beer chimed in saying that they did. He proceeded to mention that he had found the brewery by means of Twitter. I asked if he was the man I’d noticed earlier today and he confirmed that he was. I later found out that he was born at Lancaster General, the same hospital in which Glenn (my step dad) was born. For anyone interested, the man is @follownathan on Twitter and his website is http://follownathan.org

Is mom trying to get me drunk or does she genuinely not want to finish those samples?

The Coddington Bed & Breakfast can expect my business in the future. This second-story deck overlooking Lake Seneca is inspiring.

Driving

• Coasting down hills in neutral
• Using cruise control
• Revving to approximately 2500 RPM (rarely over 3000)
• Driving the speed limit
• Braking gently long before I have to stop
  *This is especially helpful at traffic lights because when the light turns green, the momentum you’ve sustained reduces the gas required to resume driving the speed limit

Bathroom

• Using cold water to wash hands
• Running sink gently to conserve water
• “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
• Turning off the shower while lathering

Electricity

• Shutting down electronics when not in use
  ex: computer, stereo, tv, lights
• Unplugging chargers when inactive
  ex: phone, computer, camera

Consuming

• Avoiding buying and using products which create excessive waste
  ex: bottled water, disposable utensils and dishware
  
• Reusing materials
  ex: water bottles, plastic bags

I’ll build on this list over time. Hopefully my audience will do the same.