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Like everything, a journal is the reflection of a journey and its form morphs with time. This archive covers my blogging from 1999-2002.


The Blogger years. It started as I began travelling and wanted a more daily journal of my life to share with my friends.
oct sept aug july
june may april march
feb jan    
dec nov oct sept
aug july june may
april      

The leap from milky white pages to glowing white screen...the start of virtual exhibitionism.
apr.17: irate
apr.08: expired
apr.07: home
apr.06: free
mar.26: bound
feb.18: inked
jan.02: lost
jan.02: dream
sep.13: high
sep.02: wander
aug.30: touched
jul.24: glow
may.11: snap
feb.29: sex
jan.11: why
jan.01: the apocolypse
dec.06: mourning
nov.01: insanity
oct.13: caged
oct.13: surrender

baring a soul : september 2000

wander: 09.02.00
"Not all who wander are lost..."

9.2 | 9.3 | 9.4

09.02.2000 :: san francisco

i love flying. so much so i often wish i had longer layovers - the energy of airports always makes me want to write. this trip was quiet...no one to chatter with (it seems that i have always been oddly lucky to sit next to interesting people on planes). and actually i had my first negative fellow-passenger experience. the dumb bitch sitting next to me decided that an airplane was the ideal place to *paint her nails*. the stewardess almost kicked her ass :) it was great. luckily we got rid of her in lubbock.

so i arrived in san franciso...and as i walked outside, i realized that the high for the day was *65*! ohmygod. when was the last time it was 65 in austin?

so then i get the good news - we are spending the weekend in san francisco instead of leaving immediately as i expected <GLOW>

its 4pm and i am in this amazing city...it was definately time to roam :)

we hiked up to coit tower, where we could see the whole city and the bay....i even saw alcatraz! then we ambled down to chinatown, struggled up and down painful hills and beautiful streets. there was just so much to see...i couldnt even think about the vast shopping possibilities...it was just too much.

amusing-but-typical-belen anecdote:
we were standing in front of this beautiful cathedral, ascending the steps to look inside, when a large SF wind gust blew my dress straight up. i am certain that anyone admiring the church's ethereal charm for across the street got *quite* an eyefull. it was all i could do to stifle a cackle as we ducked into the serene place of worship with its organ music and reverent patrons. obviously the architect of that structure had the wind to stair-height ratio just right :)

first night in san fran...our mission:
a goth club. so you'd think "san fran=awesome goth club", right? apparently the one that runs on tues night is called rodricks and is amazing. i wait with baited breath for the experience of the club that must exist in *san francisco* on a *saturday night*.

it was *aweful*. it was as hot as atomic (HOW? you gasp! the air outside was 55). the dance floor was big but shitty...you could feel the wooden floor move with everyone's motion and it was packed. "OK belen," you think, "if it was that packed, at *least* you had vast amounts of eye candy, right? how many are you bringing home with you?" <shakes head> nope. 1, maybe 2 (if i had had enough to drink) that i would have brought home to you. <sigh> what was even worse was the music was really good (very similar to jason's good love :) so i sat in pain, aching to dance, sweating like mad and watching these poeple with *no rhythm* lope around the dancefloor. the whole night was quite comic :) i spent my night being very catty...it was fun.

09.03.2000 :: san francisco - day 2

sunday morning dawns and i am super-excited. why? well because we are going to a ren faire outside of san francisco and i am figuring "a ren faire in the land of hippies! this will be great!!"

<rolls eyes> after an hour and a half of driving, we get to the faire.

1st sign that something is wrong:
the faire is located right off the feeder road in the middle of a town. <raises eyebrow> hmmmm....'k. so we pay the $17/each to get in.

2nd sign that something is wrong:
there is no grass. this entire place is one large dustbowl. 'k. it was universally declared the worst faire we'd ever seen.

2 good things at the worst faire ever:
1) a portabello sandwich to die for
2) a *way-cool* present for dondi :)

09.04.2000 :: leaving san francisco

monday morning rolled in and it was time to leave san francisco. despite the bust on my 2 favorite things to do (i ask you, how could *both* a goth club *and* a ren faire be a bust??)

before we can leave SF however, we are on a quest for a specific comic book that is hiding at a specific comic book store. yes, *hiding* - i can't count the number of times we had gotten lost in the previous 36 hours, but it was getting downright comidic. but you know, if you're gonna be perpetually lost, i do believe that san francisco is the place to do it. :)

two hours later, we have the comic book and are headed out of the city, across the golden gate bridge - with a 12 hour drive ahead of us along rte 101 which winds its way slowly up the california and oregon coast.

as the sun was getting low in the sky, we turned onto the avenue of the giants in the redwood forest. if you've never been there, it needs to be at the top of your list. i remember so clearly the first time i saw the deep quiet dwarfing forest, it made me believe that faerie kingdoms did exist. any place that ancient and vast had to hold unfathomable magic.

and it was no different this time. we stopped at the visitors center and saw a cross-section of a redwood with dates marked in its rings. it was 800 years old and still smaller than many we had seen.

with the last rays of light filtering through these giants, we wound our way up to oregon.

the drive was a good, allbeit long, one...except for 2 minor ocurrances:

road trip disaster #1:
while riding along, i took off my rings, placed them in the billowing folds of my skirt in my lap, and began blissfully braiding my hair, pondering how amazing my life was. ovbiously i was so enraptured in the Joy that is My Life, that when we stopped at the gas station, i failed to remember my dear rings. i lept out of the car toward the bathrooms...and an hour down the road realized what had happened. <deep sigh> b-bye rings :(

road trip disaster #2:
at 1am, we saw the red and blue flashing lights in the back window. the very nice, very young, very cleancut officer from florence OR asked us if there was an emergency. we said no and explained that we were driving in from san fran. he whistled and looked amazed at our adventure...i almost expected a "golly gee!" to exit his mouth at any moment :) but the very nice, very perky officer just told us to keep it slow because "whether it was right or not, people dressed in all black liked to run across the road in the middle of the night." we stifled our laughter. who knew that all the suicidal gothic jaywalkers of the world lived in florence OR? and we thought the deer were bad! :)

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