Urban Camping

This is my current inventory:

• (3) notebooks
• (1) book
• (1) sketchbook
• (5) pens
• (1) wallet
• (?) tampons
• (1) clothespin
• (1) toothbrush
• (1) knife
• (2) sets of keys
• (1) headphones
• (1) mini pack of color pencils
• (1) outfit
• (1) work outfit
• (1) watch
• (4) ponytails/rubber band
• (1) stick of deodorant
• (1) light jacket
• (1) inkwell

Today I'm missing my mini tripod, my camera, and cellphone (currently sitting in rice).

I carry two bags with me nearly constantly and I'm not the only one.  We're urban campers.  Survivalists who have learned to live in a difficult to maneuver environment.  I've learned that when it's hard to get home, it becomes necessary to make everywhere more home like.

There isn't much I can take for granted; there isn't much anybody can take for granted.  Hence the pack.  Packs prepare people for a wider array of experiences.  A well prepared pack can get people through nearly any situation.

Last night, my general plan was to make it home.  Cook, eat, write.  Instead, I stuck around for M and S, started the evening with pizza&beer at Roma's, and party-hopped the night away.  After chasing down a bus, we made it home around 3 or so.

My pack gave me (normally would give me) entertainment on the bus so I wouldn't pass out (I'd just finished Gravity's Rainbow and my phone was broken, so I couldn't actually read--but normally it would have been there for me), the spare jacket I would have been miserable without, trail mix to supplement the pizza...

Without my bike, I've been hiking to work.  There's about a mile between both my work and BART and my house and BART.

Urban Camping.  What do I mean by that?  People are prepared to sleep, eat, be anywhere.  Is that camping?  Kind of.  It reminds me of J.S.'s proposed 3-month-long hike through the Appalachians.  There are elements of isolation, fending for oneself, and preparedness.  These are all things people deal with here too (or in any urban setting, potentially).

Isolation--There are lots of people, but not many interact with each other.  Especially not so much to help out.  I feel this a lot when it comes to transportation.  In the middle of the night, even the bus will pass you by if they please.

That ties in a lot with fending for oneself.  There isn't someone who can be relied on.  Either they're not present, or they're not to be relied on.  There isn't much of a sense of hospitality here--people are too broke.  Parties don't have kegs, people bring their own 40s.  They're big and don't get put down for someone else to drink.  It's sometimes hard sleeping at other people's houses because they might not even have blankets to spare.

This naturally flows into preparedness.  In understanding that these are fundamental qualities of the environment, one either learns to deal or learns to avoid.  A lot of people want to be here, so a lot of people learn to deal.  Hence adaptations like carrying a pack.  Bikes kind of fit into it too.

People have recognized the limits and parameters of interacting with this environment.  These limits and parameters are similar to those of camping.

I think a lot of it has to do with transportation.  There is a trade off between needing to change oneself to adapt to the environment or the ability to change one's environment to adapt to their needs.

The smaller car culture and limits of public transportation are important contributing factors.

Without the ease to move (change one's environment), one has to become able to change oneself.

My ways of interacting with an urban environment have changed with other parts of my lifestyle.  When I was very academically focused, I made myself be prepared for spending the day in the library.  I'd have the proper clothes (extra layers and jackets), all the conceivably necessary books and any technological implements I might need.  I wasn't in a place (mental, mostly) where I'd get swept up into other kinds of interactions.  Here, I am.  So my pack is better suited to that set up.

I did this with my car somewhat too.  (Although it was less necessary because cars promote such independent mobility, it wasn't often necessary to be prepared to stay somewhere I didn't want.  Generally, I'd have layers and a work shirt.  Books and other more personal items would be in my bag.  Although, I did have a big technological focus in my car, centered around music.  Phone charger, stereo bits, mini speakers (for a while), cords, wire splitting tools... ...

We all camp.  We all carry packs that fit with the call of our own personal environments.  (Except, perhaps, those unlucky people who never quite seem to be in their element.  They just haven't figured out what they need.)

Update

There isn't an easy way I've found of putting newly edited or updated articles on the front page, so I'll make a link here.

Rosario Castellanos and Isabel Allende

Southern Renaissance

A little while back I read a book of Flannery O'Connor's essays.  It's been a while since I've read any of her work or even thought about the grotesque movement in literature, but the coincidental reminder was welcome. 

It was nice to see that the South had once held an esteemed place in the culture of America--it wasn't always seen as a joke.  And though people and situations down there can be crazy, I feel like something is changing.

I've been living in California since leaving Costa Rica in September 2012 and the lesson that keeps coming to mind every time I move to California is that it's a nice place to visit, but not live.  But there's been guilt about wanting to go back to Austin.  I do feel the pressures to live somewhere more "cultured" and "full of opportunities" but the more I hear that from people, the more I realize those opportunities are available in places other than the Great Idea of California. 

Austin is a not only a booming economy, it's also a growing and successful idea-space.  People have more freedom of expression there than I've noticed out here, more exuberance, yet less pretentiousness.  It's growing and will come to lead the way for future growth as a new cultural hotspot.  In all earnestness, I believe that Austin will become the new San Francisco within the decade.

I don't just have high hopes for Austin, either.  New Orleans has inspired me recently, but I am a cautious optimist when it comes to Louisiana. 

Another inspiration for this train of though is the documentary "Beauty is Embarrassing" about Wayne White's work and life.  He's a creative Tennessee boy who succeeded in spreading his ideas and baring himself to the world.  Not only is he inspiring, but the documentary also pointed out a cultural flow from the East Coast to the West Coast that I don't think has reached an end. 

Future Thoughts

I've always imagined trends.  When I was little, I had a notebook where I designed clothes.  Most were pretty out there, but a lot of them have come to be.  It was all kind of random, "wouldn't it be cool if..." but now my sense of what will come has been slightly more honed. 

So now I want to share my predictions and make myself a Nostradamus of the internet. 

I'm a little late on these, but here's what's been on my mind.

+ Mustaches will be replaced by Octopuses. 
+ Horizontally striped pants will become a fashion thing (it won't be everywhere, only on the trendiest legs).
+ Round sunglasses will make a comeback.

Jigga City

Dancing in Louisiana makes me feel one with my people. I am a notoriously bad dancer but here I fit right in

Deutschland

So I showed up in Germany day before yesterday, and so far it seems like a pretty cool place. 

Upside down and Backwards

I am ruled by opposites.

I feel like a negative representation of a person--like when you invert the colors on a picture.

I hold beliefs that I don't want so that I may be convinced that they are wrong.  Determinism is a great example of that.  I don't want to believe it, but its just too convincing at the moment.

And in my introspective-outrospective moments I more often think about what image I don't want to portray than what I actually want to be.