home? stress? veiled perfection?

I thought I'd write something here as an update, since I'm inside a house screwing around on the internet a whole lot. I found a new vehicle living blog: Freedom Van. It's written by a girl (female... 29... I always say 'girl'). She's in Colorado, and moved into her van. The blog starts as she's going through all of the preparation - mental and logistical. She's a good writer, and I read it like a book today. The better news is that she's continually updating it.

I'm back in Kennett Square where I grew up. I have a pile of used bicycles that I bought in order to fix up and sell. They're leaning on my parent's garage. I'm a guy who puts an ad in the paper, then buys used bicycles. Then they get fixed up and sold for a good profit. I'm also a guy who ends up surprising himself with lack of action. I haven't worked on the bicycles at all, and my savings from Key West is going bye bye. Why can't I make myself work? I like bicycles - why can't I just shut up and work on them? Weird fuckin problem.

I've had a lot of second thoughts about the definition of home. I thought I was coming home, but I'm really just returning to a geographical area which is familiar. An area where I felt anxiety and stress before, and where I feel some now. It's a manageable amount of these feelings, I'm trying to describe rather than complain. I'm aware my anxiety is small compared to Bad Shit other people have to deal with. At least I know I can live a simple van-home life and thus be out of range of certain financial tragedy in the form of fucked up bills to people I don't like. I readily feel that life is good and simple - so what's with this fucking tight-chest nonsense? I have to think to breathe.

I spent two nights inside a house in a bed, and I felt like I was cheating. I park often at my parent's house in the driveway. It's a great big house with a great big view of trees and a little piece of some woods. I can sit for hours and hours in my life-is-easy chair and relax with the doors open. But sometimes it feels false, like setting up a tent in the back yard - then going inside to use a bathroom and pop some popcorn in the microwave. That's not camping! This is not van living! (I accuse myself). What does that matter? I've slept on residential streets and at the farm. I love my van most, and we're achieving awesome moments as a routine. That's just a thought - I have no conclusion drawn from this.

I want Tara (hobostripper) to mention a special herb to calm my ass down. I found one herb, also known as pot. Smoking that alleviates some symptoms, but I'm not going to just be a pothead and act like that fixes something.

I'd like to kinda just get the fuck out of here. First I have to fix up these bicycles and sell them. I need the money. Also keeping me here is the thought that I won't be here long. I'm going to ride my bicycle to Nemaska, or at least set out again with the intention of doing so. That's a sweet little adventure. So I need to fix bicycles, make money, and learn some French for traveling in Quebec. When I was riding through Quebec before, I vowed to learn French. Now I just gotta chill out with some Rosetta Stone action (language learning software).

So that's my plan: stress around and hope for a magical chill pill and bide my time until I ride a bicycle all over. Hopefully something I do, or somewhere I end up soon, will make me open my eyes and laugh at my awesomely perfect caricature of a predicament.

If anyone wants to ride a bicycle up the east coast and hide in the woods with me at night, please give me a call or send me an email. I get along with everyone, with few exceptions. If this sounds interesting, I bet we'd get along fine.