Hi-jinx In Houston

The past 48 hours have been crazy busy, but in the end, my dad and I made it to this beautiful hostel in Antigua, Guatemala.

Yesterday morning, I woke up with a fever and headache 45 minutes before our wakeup call. I was pretty fucking pissed. I was about to spend the entire day in either planes or airports, and clear two customs agencies. It was lame. We got to the airport, caught our plane, and flew to Houston. I don’t remember the flight to Texas very well, just the pounding pain above my right temple and feeling sick to my stomach. After a four-hour flight, we settled down for a 7 hour layover. We were just sitting down when we were approached by two other Canadians off of the same flight as us. Steve and John had met up before our mutual flight, and discovered that they were both headed to Lima, Peru. We sat and talked in a corner of the airport for an hour about politics, weed, and world travel. Then we ate some tacos and they left to catch their flight. I was really happy to meet those guys. Not just because we all had something in common to talk about, but that they were just really interesting dudes. By the time the conversation was over, my headache was gone.

In the time we were in Houston, we ate Mexican, Italian, and Chinese food. Eventually it was time to board, and we caught our plane to Guatemala City. As we took off, I thought about how most airports look the same. Especially at night. Just a lot of steel-panelled buildings and runway lights.

As the plane descended below cloud level, I realized how massive Guatemala City is. Orange streetlights stretched as far as the eye could see, the urban sprawl was intimidating. The airport  not what I was expecting. One runway extended past a single terminal that could only accommodate ten planes. After arriving, we approached the customs booths.They didn’t even check our photos before stamping our passports and waving us through. For all the comments about narcotic trafficking that I heard from friends before leaving, it seemed that the Guatemalan border guards didn’t care about tourists.

Guatemalans celebrate Halloween the same way people do back home, apparently. Get wasted and wander around downtown in kinky costumes. The streets were full of techno music and parties. After a short taxi ride, we got to the hotel, and fell asleep in hard beds.

This morning we spent an hour and a half in a chicken bus, surrounded by shouting chocolate bar vendors and incredibly cute Guatemalan babies. We ended up in Antigua, 45km from the capital, but oh so very different. Where Guatemala City is crowded, ugly, and grey, Antigua is colourful, welcoming, and has better vibes, man. We’re now staying in a hostel that I can certify is wonderful via exhibit A:And that’s where we are now. Killing time after really long time travelling. I had to edit the hell out of this post because so much had happened since my last one. I’ll be updating more now that I have consistent access to wi-fi in this hostel.

Day one of NaNoWriMo. Word count: 0.

Thanks for reading.

-A

Thoughts From Downtown Vancouver

This morning I woke up with an unreasonable amount of sleep under my belt, drank the coffee that I sorely needed, and got a ride to the ferry terminal. I live on an island, in case anyone was wondering, and the only cheap way off is by boat.

My mom and I were half asleep while she drove me to the dock, so we got lost twice on a route that we’ve been taking for nearly nine years. Eventually we got there, and after a two-hour boat ride, I got to Vancouver. I love this city more than I can say. It’s clean, the people are nice, enough said.

I try really hard not to look like an out-of-town person. For some reason I assume that if I don’t look like I live in the city I’m in, people will laugh at me or look at me funny. I guess it’s all part of the normal human desire to fit in. I’ve gotten the hang of looking like I live in Vancouver pretty good. There are a bunch of business/modern people who walk around and look really self-important, and if you try to look like them you’ll end up looking arrogant. The trick to looking like a Vancouver person, is to look mildly content, yet at the same time looking like you have a lot on your mind. It’s a careful balance.

Anyway, I searched for an hour to find a coffee shop that wasn’t a Starbucks or a Blenz coffee, and I was successful. Not that I have anything against those establishments, but I’d prefer to give my money to a coffee shop that needs my business to stay afloat.

I’m also pretty sure that that paragraph confirms the fact that I am in the process of becoming a hipster. Fuck.

I’m preparing right now to start my next book. Writing while in a brand new city can be an incredible pain in the ass, because you need to write a lot, but there’s a whole new place out there that you need to explore, distracting you. But it can also be an incredible opportunity to get your mental gears turning. It’ll be an adventure.

I’m going to sign off for now, Vancouver demands some more exploring before I fly tomorrow. I’m going to leave a note on this table with the address to this blog. So if you’re reading this because you found my note, good job.

Next post will be from Antigua. Thanks for reading.

-A

We Fit Our Lives Into A 10×10 Box

Well, today was moving day. And everything went flawlessly. My dad and I had nowhere to put our stuff for the month, so we moved the entire apartment into a storage unit that was, you guessed it, 10 feet by 10 feet. I’m camping out at my mother’s house until Tuesday, then it’s time to go.

It finally feels like the loop is breaking.

Every morning for the past two months, I have woken up to the same view out of my bedroom window. The same grey parking lot and the same noises of parents dragging their whiny children down the stairs and off to school. Eventually, the mornings just blend together into this messy soup of memory that I can only vaguely piece together. It’s the same feeling as when a record skips, and just plays the same two seconds of the song looped. The singer’s voice says the same word over and over again. But after a while, it doesn’t even sound like a human voice anymore, just this looped sound. The music looses it’s purpose. And the same goes for the past two months. The days merged, they flew by, and after a while, they didn’t seem like days anymore. Just these vague purposeless moments. And I am happy beyond belief that I might have some chance to give my days purpose again.

I’m only going to say this once.

Peace, Nanaimo. It’s been fun.

Anyways, I’ve been putting off posting this for a while, and I want to get it up, and stop reminding myself to post it. I frequent the Longboarding SubReddit, where I do all my Longboarding things online, and somebody posted this video. After careful deliberation, I have decided that this is probably my favourite YouTube video of all time. You can apply it to whatever you want. The words will still mean the same thing.

Sorry for the rambling, indirect post. I’m a mess right now and trying to keep up with my life. But I will post whenever I can in the next three days. I won’t forget.

The amount of people who have followed this blog doubled after my last post, so thank you for taking my advice. I’m a terrible self-promoter and a brutally self-conscious blogger, so having people read what I post means a lot to me. If you enjoy what I do, please encourage someone you know who might like this kind of thing to check my blog out. And that’s all I have to say about that.

I dismantled an apartment today and it’s already the 29th. I’m going to bed.

-A

Photograph Story

So I was cleaning out my camera before my trip, and I found a photo from this summer that my dad took. We were about to hop in our rented ford escape and drive out to Calgary, where my cousin lives. Apart from looking really sheepish, I was really excited to hit the road. 

So the first day we took a ferry off the island, drove past Vancouver and then through Whistler. We made it pretty far into the mainland before finding something resembling a campsite. The forestry service runs these semi-campsites where you can camp for free. Our site was right next to a rushing river, which would keep me up later that night. My dad and I talked in really loud offensive German accents and ate hot dogs. Then we had a short campfire and went to bed.

On day two, we drove, and drove, and drove, and ended up in a small town on this big lake called Sicamous. We tried to camp, but there were millions of mosquitoes  so we set up our tent and drove away. We went and got some dinner, then came back, ran into our tent, and fell asleep.

We wanted to make it to Calgary on the third day, so we pushed towards Banff national park. We drove through Revelstoke and then Golden, before stopping at a forestry service station. When we went in to get some maps, they told us that there had been a mudslide on the highway and that it was impossible to get to Banff. So we had to turn around, drive back to Golden, and search six motels before we found one that had a vacancy. There was a thunderstorm that night, and we sat on our hard beds and watched the lightning while eating ice cream.

The fourth day, they had cleared the mudslide, so we drove through Banff and made it to Calgary that afternoon. This all sounds like a much nicer trip than it actually was. The car we rented was a brand new 4×4, but somehow it managed to break down just outside of the city. We were also running around on day two in Sicamous trying to get 3G signal so that my dad could send a really important email.

The drive home was pretty lame actually. No exciting new bugs trying to drink our blood, no geological features trying to run us off the road, it was really pretty boring. But we did go to a beer factory.

I’m going to stop because I’m terrible at storytelling. Right now I’m in the process of packing for both a trip to central america, and moving houses. So I’m pretty busy and rushing to pack as fast as I can. 

More posts coming. I promise. In the meantime, why don’t you head over to the panel to your right and follow via email. That way, you won’t have to check my blog, see I haven’t posted, and feel bad about everything.

-A

Reporting live from Guatemala in T-minus 3 days.

Keep Your Friends Close And Your Backpacks Closer

So I have this backpack. It’s the kind of backpack one would use if one was to hitchhike or backpack across Guatemala (hint hint). I love this backpack. It’s huge, it’s ugly, and if I wanted to turn the geek factor up to 11, I could use the waist straps. It’s hard for me to explain how much I like this backpack, because I’ve taken it on most of my trips in the past few years and always enjoyed it, I have a firm loyalty to this backpack. Like a dog and it’s master, except I’m the dog.

I think it’s really important to have a trusty backpack. One night, you might wake up at 3am and realize that you pretty much hate your life and want to leave it all behind to go TrainHopping. What the fuck will you use to hold all the shit you want to take with you? That’s right motherfucker. A trusty backpack. Then you’re set.Yes, having a trusty backpack is really important. But that’s not all I’m trying to say. When we want to go on adventures, we think about all the things we need. All the gear that we don’t have, that will be essential to a decent adventure. And obviously planning ahead is a REALLY good idea. But then we go out to MEC or REI and buy all this new fancy, brightly coloured plastic junk that is grossly overpriced. If you plan to go TrainHopping, you don’t need a backpack that is both gigantic and designed for a professional hiker about to scale Everest, you need a dark coloured, small, light, comfortable backpack that probably won’t let you down. You don’t need new gear. You need gear. Hit up the thrift shop or (hint hint) a free box.

If you want to go on a real adventure, one where you break free of the hotel-infested tourist traps and actually experience the culture and grit of a place, you don’t necessarily need new gear. Travel is about adventure, not a huge price tag. Society has labelled travel as expensive because that’s what most people do when they go travelling. Spend a ton of money. You don’t need to if you don’t want to. Sometimes all you need is a few changes of clothes, a towel, and a trusty backpack.

-A

(reporting live from Guatemala in T-minus 6 days)

Dating Advice From A Vastly Under Qualified Teenager: Part 1

So I’ve decided to do a post about relationships. This isn’t an argument, this isn’t an essay. This is advice about relationships from one extremely naive teenager to a bunch of people who may or may not know him. I’m not going to use lists, I’m not going to be thorough, and I’m definitely going to leave gaps in my logic. But at least it’ll be real and not some bullshit that I came up with because I had nothing better. So here we go. Consider this the lead in.

There is no prince charming out there for you.
There is no Victoria’s Secret Model out there for you.
There is no person out there for you, who will magically whip you into a relationship that is immediately perfect and constantly ideal. If you believe these things, consider yourself lied to, because Hollywood is addicted to that idea and is holding onto it with a death grip. If a relationship is built quickly, it’ll end quickly. I’m not saying that true love isn’t possible, it’s very possible, and very real and lots of people feel it. It just doesn’t look like most people think it looks. Long lasting relationships are built. They’re not held together by this magical force that keeps everything working properly. They’re built. They take time. They take effort and sometimes they just don’t work. But magically waiting for love to happen isn’t how it works.

Relationships exist on a sloped plane of truthfulness. And in my opinion, they only last if they’re on either end. Some relationships that turn into marriages, are so filled with lie upon lie that it forms this kind of pile. On top of this pile of layered lies, sit the two people in the relationship, but the lies also forms a wall between them. The pile and the wall of lies gets bigger every time something goes unsaid. And eventually the wall gets so thick you don’t know who you’re married to anymore.

And on the other end of this plane, is the end where the two people in the relationship, (or more, if that’s how you roll) are completely open with each other. It’s easy to talk about stuff. Life is simple. A lot of relationships start at this point. But at both ends of the plane, things start to drift towards the middle. And that’s why I say that relationships only last if they stay on either end. Because if they drift towards the middle, which they do a lot of, mind you, things get turbulent. And nobody likes that adjective being used to describe a relationship. Especially  when you’re the one in it.

Fuck. I knew I’d ramble.

All the advice I’m trying to give, is that you have to be really conscious and honest about a lot of the stuff you do in a relationship. More importantly, really conscious and honest about the things you think. If there’s a mis-communication between you two, it’s because there’s a difference in thinking.

Which is why functional couples do things like talking and spending time not thinking about sex constantly. I’ll give more functional advice in Part 2.

In the short time between this post and Part two, I want you to remember something very important.

-A

Guatemalan Plans And What’s Happening When I Get Back

In ten days, I’m getting on a ferry off the island to Vancouver. Then I’m meeting up with my dad in Vancity and we’re staying at a hotel that night. The next morning we fly from Vancouver airport to Houston, and then to Guatemala City. I really have no idea what will be happening after the first few days in Antigua, an old colonial city near the capital. But I will have internet access, and I will be blogging. I’m planning on doing two posts per week that are updates on what’s going, plus whatever content I can come up with.

The other day, I was is Victoria, and I managed to talk my old boss into letting me work for the month of December, I’m planning on making a large amount of cash in as short a time as possible. I’m a dishwasher, so it’ll be sweet to get back into dish Kung Fu. I have my old job back. YES!

Anyways, last week I applied to a trip to Turkey. The organization, Unschool Adventures, is run by my friend Blake Boles. Next year, 15-20 Homeschoolers/Unschoolers will travel all around turkey, visiting ancient monuments, and experiencing the culture. I was one of the first people to apply, so I have a fair chance of being accepted, and I’m psyched. But it’s a tad expensive, so I’m going to have to work a lot over the next six months to make it happen. A good challenge, I think. Something worth working for. The link to UA’s website can be found here.

I have to get going. I have a squash lesson in 45 minutes, and no ride, so I have to skate there. Squash is a sport for bored white people, I know. But I fall under that categorization anyway, so I’m all good.

I’ll post plenty before I leave the country. Check often to stay updated.

-A

 

 

 

Free Boxes Will Change The World

And yes, I plan to make a T-shirt of that.

I used to live in a hippie populated neighbourhood called Fernwood, it was the best place ever, pretty much. There was a main square filled with brick buildings from the turn of the century, coffee shops filled with trustafarians, community gardens, it was fucking rad. A big thing that people in the hood do, is put out boxes  with FREE written on them in permanent marker. Then they just set whatever they don’t want into these boxes and put them out in front of their houses. You can be guaranteed that whatever you put out, will be gone within two days. And its amazing what one can find in a free box, I found a pair of pants that I wore for two years, a CD of a band I’d never heard of before that turned out to be pretty good, binders. It was really awesome, because this isn’t stuff people are too lazy to throw out, its stuff that people would usually give to a thrift store, but instead are just giving it away.

And I can understand that, I mean, some of the biggest non-religious thrift stores are for-profit, they get free stuff and sell it at whatever markup they choose. Sure, a cut of it goes to charity, but unlike the Salvation Army, the majority of their profits go towards making more profits. You probably know one of these companies, Value Village. About a year ago, Value Village was bought by Wal-Mart, and since then, the company markup has increased, and new products have started showing up in what used to be a thrift store. Dumb shit.

That’s why free boxes aren’t just junk, the people just don’t want to, or can’t, go to the thrift store to ‘donate’, so they give it away. And when you have one or two households doing this, it’s pretty rare and isn’t that big a deal, but when you scale it up to an entire neighbourhood, it’s pretty incredible. Why don’t more people do this, I mean, it’s a community act of charity. The two problems, in my opinion, are:

1. People hoard a lot of stuff, so they don’t need to get rid of a lot.
2. Not enough people know about free boxing and what joy it can bring to a casual passerby.

The world needs more free boxes. So I’ve decided to never give anything to the thrift shops again. Instead, whenever I have clothes or things I don’t want, I’ll put it in a free box and leave it outside. I encourage you to do the same. Imagine all the free stuff that you could get just by walking down the street.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. And the world could use a bit more treasure.

More posts coming.

-A

My Music Taste Used To Suck

And yes, I do capitalize each word of my titles. Deal with it.

I can remember the first song I liked enough to know the name of. It was ‘Elevation’ by U2 and I loved that song when I was six.

The older you get, the more music you consume. The amount of music that you listen to, goes up until your late teens, then it plateaus off until your late 30’s, and it starts to drop again. I’m in the process of peaking my music absorption, finding about two bands every month. I have about 21 GB of music in my collection, but by most standards, that’s a pretty small amount. I had a roommate who could play music from his iTunes for 40 days, and you’d never hear the same song twice.

Like the title says, my music taste used to be terrible. I first started listening to music when my parents split up, I was around ten. My favourite song at the time was ‘Chop Suey’ By SOAD. I was a pretty fucking hardcore ten-year old. When I listened to it a few weeks back, I was shocked, it sucked, I listened to more music that I used to like. It all sucked. 

Back then, I was much angrier. But I don’t believe I was angry because I listened to that music, I listened to that music because I was angry. My father always used to tell me to not listen to that heavy metal crap, that it would rot my brain and turn me into a terrible person. That’s total bullshit. I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now. If anything, that abusively angry music was more of a release than anything. I couldn’t talk to anyone, I couldn’t blog, I was in a corner with no way out emotionally, and music was there. If I didn’t have that fucking awful music there for me, I might be a jerk today. We just don’t know.

Music changes how our brains work, it drowns out everything else when we don’t want to think, and gives us the inspiration to work when we want to. I’m writing this post while my dad is watching television, and thank god for music, or else I wouldn’t be able to write this post.

I listened to some awful music back then, and there are plenty of people who would say that the music I listen to now sucks too. But I like what I like, and chances are that soon, I’ll hate it too.

Moving

I’m writing this post while some people are touring my apartment. My dad and I are moving, so we have to deal with our landlord bringing people through and checking that we have kept the place in good condition. After a few years, you get used to this kind of thing. In my life I’ve lived in 13 homes in 3 countries. I’ve met people who have only lived in one house since they were babies, I can’t even begin to fathom how that would feel. All I can think is how lucky they are. I had no option of making long-lasting friendships as a child. I have no friends who I grew up with. They all live in other countries.

This morning my dad and I bought plane tickets to Guatemala. We’ll be living there for November, then we’re coming back to BC and starting again in Victoria. Three weeks after we come back, I’m flying to Livermore, California to visit my girlfriend for New Years, her birthday and the better part of January. So from the looks of it, being 15 started really fantastically, ended really fantastically, and everything in between was mostly clinical depression. And I am really REALLY looking forward to not being in this town anymore.