boring backstory

I started this so I wouldn't have to write separate emails to separate people, and so I could update it as I pleased.

I left Maryland at noon on Monday the 16th. I felt sort of shitty, like I was getting a cold. I was also underprepared. Both these were my fault. Instead of laundering and packing clothes I took naps and wasted time playing Ken-ken online. At about 5 am on Monday I finalizing the first day of my route on a map. The United States is huge and terrifying, especially for people from little states. Most of the time the US is just a jigsaw to me, different themed states like subdivisions of a theme park. Theme parks are so tiring. Imagine camping for three nights a week.

For people who don't know me, the setup is this: I don't have a job, but I do have an unusually large tax return and two returned security deposits. I also have some money saved from the five months I worked as an editorial assistant in Florida and during which my only luxury was my shelter cat.

No one would believe me, but I'm not doing this to delay looking for work, as if I expect the recession to clear up. Actually I got this idea at the exact same time I understood what kind of job I wanted. It was like I had a nebulous cloud of confusion and it split in two.

I would get a job (education, ish). Before that I would do something crazy. I wanted it to be enjoyable and memorable, not just crazy for crazy's sake. But it had to be off The Track, because I had begun to resent The Track. I wanted to know I could do something else, out of order. I wanted to measure myself against another standard of success.

I wanted the power that comes from being on the fringe. And even then I'm not really on the fringe, really, I am by suburban standards.

This is all a long way of saying
I decided to go on a roadtrip before I get a job.
I chose the South and the Southwest because I haven't explored either much, and because they are warm in March.

I bought a camp stove, repaired the zipper on the Coffin (childhood sleeping bag), talked to some friends, checked some books out of the library, bought an Atlas and a bag of apples.