beast in pig latin
September 14

East Bay

Well, to finish my story, I figured the guy standing by the truck and a friend of his were two guys I messed around with at this very same spot many months ago. There were enough similarities to convince me. So, after some frolicking by the light of a passing Starlight Coast Express, I decided to find a motel for the night and continue my trip north in the clearer hours of the morning. In a reasonably priced chain motel up in Santa something I fell right to sleep.

Since I decided I wasn't in a hurry, and that in life one has to stop and smell the roses, or kelp beds in this case, I cut over to highway 1 to see the Elephant Seals and again be reminded how much like humans they were, or vice versa. I kept a very respectable distance, though I could easily have rolled up to a pup and petted it or threw sand on it but instead I kept a safe distance away high on a ledge.

Why that logic didn't remain with me, well, I guess it was time for a lesson. After the endless twists and turns making my way into Big Sur, I felt the urge to nap alongside the highway and take in some of the famous sea fresh air. I found a perfect spot on the shore side with shady pine trees proudly standing guard above a cushy bed of pine needles.

I took a look over the ocean and saw a tiny path meandering toward the edge of the cliff. Maybe a path to the beach, I thought, and off I went. About ten yards down I broke out in a sweat and mild panic- I was surrounded by poison oak. It was scraping my legs and arms and my breath went stacatto. I scrambled back to my truck.

I had read that simply washing with water right away might prevent a rash, so I opened my truck, carefully pulled out a shirt and pair of shorts, found a plastic bag, took off all my contaminated clothes and put them in the bag with a stick. Then I poured half a bottle of water on myself as motorists whizzed by. This was the best I could do, I could stop at some general store in Carmel and get that special soap-

I could if I could get back in my truck. I had locked myself out. As I waited for a sympathetic driver to pull over, the remaining urishiol was seeping into my skin and creating dermal drama. I still had a tiny left over outbreak from the week before when I went hiking and I swore I didn't touch anything but poison oak has a way of finding you.

A family stopped and their cell phone didn't work so they dropped my off at Julia Pfeiffer somebody state park and I called AAA. They told me it would be about an hour wait. I had given up on combatting the poison oak and spent the time gazing out over the Pacific. There were few if any better places on earth to wait for someone to break into your car.

A couple days later I repeated this scenario again, except this time I locked myself out of my friend's apartment while I was doing laundry. The security guards would not open the door to the apartment for me but they would open the laundry room door, so I sat under the ghoulish florescent lights and watched my clothes spin. I tried to stay as still as possible to see if I could deactivate the motion activated light.

When my stuff was dry I changed, folded my clothes, left them at the door to the apartment, and went to a payphone to call my friend, who was having breakfast in the city. I walked over to a nearby park and immediately found a brightly colored baby snake. I was so thrilled, I hadn't held a snake since I was a kid when my brothers and I would look under any rock and find snakes and bring them in the house and Ma Kyler didn't mind, she thought they were cute. This one didn't move. It was plastic. I picked it up anyway and wove it among my fingers and petted its head and held it a little in front of me as if it was real.

There were lots of guys hanging out in their cars and naturally I was in the midst of another cruise spot, but I was not going to get into any trouble, there was no point. Besides, the night before a policeman stopped me on my way home from the same park and acted like I was some kind of serial killer. I was just looking for a spoon I had dropped earlier. With each question he ratcheted up his level of aggro incredulity, as if the only reason someone was looking for something on the ground at night had to be for the purpose of committing a crime. The park has since held no attraction to me, except for nature stuff, of course.

A couple days later, I drove out to Telluride for the film festival. I decided to try out Highway 50, the Loneliest Road in America, and I can tell you, it was beautiful, and hardly lonely. I thought I'd be the only car for miles, and wondered if there were I-50 pirates who waited for foolish travelers to risk their way into the vast desert. Nope. And no rest stop activities and so what, I was concentrating on not scratching the rashes that has grown on my legs and arms.

Once there I dropped off my stuff and began a week-long adventure in Colorado. Many of the the regular volunteers returned and I met new ones. One of the new ones was especially cute but I didn't get with anybody. In between work and dark movies and late parties almost every night, it just didn't happen. I also got drunk twice in three nights, a first. Movies I recommend: Respiro, Autofocus, Cuckoo, Bowling for Columbine, Rabbit-proof Fence, Man Without a Past.

My drive back worked out great, I got to see in daylight places I had passed in the night, including the one monument I really had my heart set on: the Shoe Tree. It was moving, I don't mean falling over, I was just touched by all the shoes and the big strong poplar (birch?) that had gathered them, sometimes in long garlands of various shoes. I added my pair of old sneakers.

A week ago I finally got back into rugby and it's been almost non-stop: touch on Saturday, followed by social, then training on Monday, which kicked my ass royally and that was a thrill, followed by a social, then a memorial drink on Wednesday for Mark Bingham, followed by community touch on Thursday in Berkeley right down the street from a punk club I used to go to, and if I hadn't a client this morning, I would have gone to touch today as well, but no worries, I needed a break from all the activity and unavailable humpy men. Well, maybe temporarily unavailable.

Time to continue settling in and pack for my trip to LA.

what I'm reading right now: The East Bay Express.
what songs I can't get out of my head: 'All Those Years Ago', George Harrison

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