milk flakes

so needing to write an update, i have to say looking at the posts it’s amazing how much has shifted around in the last few weeks.  sitting in the hospital in cuauhtemoc for hours and hours with nothing to read and no paper to write on, i ended up meditating on possible futures hatching and dispatching them to their own little worlds, finally choosing this one in which i am traveling.  it was partly influenced likely from being around people constantly while my cousins came to visit, and the sort of paralysis that results from not being alone.  in addition with the death of my mother’s oldest brother, it seemed like a good idea to go and relate stories of her family that, in some ways, i now know better than she does. 

so here i am in midland texas, pushing off my leaving day by day as i do minute repairs on my car.  so weird to say ‘my car’ it is only slowly sinking in that i personally own one of these things.  i bought it from this awesome old jive talking black gent who apparently works at the post office and runs a car yard as a hobby.  things look pretty good on it, as far as i can tell, the only real repair is what i’m waiting on now, a bent strut in the rear which is causing an inclination to the left when i drive at highway speeds. 

things are cold here, i am staying in an unheated trailer during one of the local cold spells, with the nights getting into the twenties and the days hovering in the mid forties.  but tomorrow, if all goes well, i hope to head towards the north of austin where i have some family on my dad’s side that i don’t know very well.  mostly i am just trying to start moving, but slowly so that i can end up in norman, oklahoma in time to see smog and joanna newsom play.  then to west virginia to visit my parents, and try to get at least a solid week of playing guitar in the basement.  i feel like i’m wasting away without playing music, especially when i thought i would have two more months of unbroken practice, everything seems all out of place.  but once i’m on the road i think i’ll feel better.  it helps that everything seems to be working out in a weirdly prescripted way.  everything even seems to be channeling me into leaving on the full moon, which seems reassuring.  (though i tell myself not to speak these things aloud because when everybody’s at my funeral they’ll secretly think i was wrong.  but mostly i’ve been letting my subconscious connect all the next steps and the timing, and then rationalizing it after the fact.) after wv, i’ll head further north to visit my grandmother for a bit and then likely to boston. 

  i will be applying to cms at mit, pretty much only mit this year, if they want me i’ll likely accept, and if they don’t then i’ll spend the year working on music.  three goals for next year are nova scotia, charleston south carolina (for a month or more?) and texas/mexico a second time. 

photos coming soon, i hope by saturday or sunday to have the first few up.  i’m hoping to make it to austin proper, but i’ll know better whether i’ll make it down there this time or not. 

 also i’m hoping to put together some small handmade books of some of my photos from the trip, maybe five or ten little books, but i need to take a look at the photos in more detail first.  if you’re interested, drop me a mail and i’ll try to make one up for you.  and when i get to my recording equipment in wv i’m going to work on some recordings.