Arcata, CA
Sunday September 21, 2003
I was without a recorder for a whole week. My life became extremely unorganized and bad stuff happened to me. In the plaza, some kid gave me some plant called Datura and I had a really bad trip. Datura is this natural plant that makes you trip. I thought I saw UFO's over the marsh and everything. They were these humanoids with rainbow balls spinning around them. They were doing some pretty amazing aerial maneuvers, like taking ninety degree turns at haul ass speeds. There were lots of them.
I lost everything. Like all my gear. My entire Quadforce of Wealth. My mission bag and backpack and my walking stick and water bottle. I even lost my glasses! I just totally didn't know where they were. I felt like shit and got really depressed. I felt like I had failed at my mission. Ahh, I really don't feel like talking about it right now.
I finally found out they sold my same exact tape recorder at Long's Drugs for thirty dollars. Well, thinking that tape recorder might be the key to my happiness and organization, I diligently spare changed the thirty dollars in one night and the next day and I bought it again. Once I started logging stuff again things got better. See, I was depressed because without my recorder I was doing nothing for my cause. I was wasting history. Letting time disappear. People say Datura makes you crazy, and I was almost starting to believe it. I'm over the Datura trip now, especially after I ran into Alisha, who had taken Datura that same night I did. It turns out, she had an almost identical experience to mine. She thought she went crazy, too. Well, hopefully I'll remember more stuff later. It's all still kind of fuzzy and I'm typing this on the 24th. What really sucks is that I hadn't missed a day since June 14th and now I have a big week-long gap in my story. Just goes to prove that I am not perfect.
1:52pm Man, I've had such a huge gap. I've gone through so much shit. It pisses me off. I dropped my recorder out of the tree when I was with that treesitter Lisette. It was really weird, because when I dropped it I could've sworn the side of the tree I dropped it out of was the slope-side of the mountain, not the street side. I thought I would never find it. The next morning I climbed down, leaving my bags. I just went down there to see if I would find anything. I climbed down the slope and gave up when I saw the dense foliage. I climb back up to road-level and spot something grey out of the corner of my eye. It's my recorder! Badass. It was lying with the tape side down, so I picked it up only to find the tape and the door had come off. I lost the tape. The tape recorder was broken, which didn't surprise me. I didn't expect a cheap little recorder to survive a hundred foot fall through branches. Anyway, this happened a while back. I was all bummed out because I lost the tape. I moved a leaf close to where the tape recorder had fallen and I found the tape! Badass. I put that in my bag.
I walked back to Arcata and I don't know how many nights it had been since I'd come back, but this girl gave me some Datura in the plaza. Here is some info on Datura I found on the web: http://www.b-and-t-world-seeds.com/Datura.htm
I didn't think anything of it. It was natural. That night, I had some crazy shit happen. I could've sworn I walked out to the marsh and had actually seen UFO's. All of a sudden I saw these glider-looking machines with a humanoid pilot. I saw these big purple orbs up in the air. I was going nuts thinking UFO's were invading. I didn't even think of the Datura. I was going around the next day telling people in Arcata that I saw UFO's and to be careful who you trusted in the marsh. The next day when I took Geba to the marsh, I saw one of those machines and pointed it out. Geba said, "That's just a glider." The glider was barely lifting off the ground and the lit up machines I had seen the night before were hauling ass and taking ninety degree turns. I was just really confused.
I didn't know what was real. Nobody was believing me. Oh yeah, I lost all my shit, too. I kind of remember crashing on these pallets underneath this green tarp in the marsh. I remember losing my stuff and being all bummed out. Then, when I woke up in the morning under the green tarp I saw on a crate all the contents from my Adidas bag on top of it. I thought, "Oh shit, it's been returned to me." I stood up and as I went to reach for my stuff it disappeared right before my eyes! It just became transparent. I remember being at some air force base near the marsh. I even remember my mom, sister and little brother being in my vision. People say that Datura makes you crazy, and I'm afraid it has.
Well, the next day I walked out to the marsh again, hoping I would find my stuff, mysteriously. Before I had left walking, I said out loud, "God, if you exist please help me out." I walked up to this parking lot and asked people if they could spare any water because I had lost my bottle. I asked this one girl playing with her dog. I asked her and she ended up not only giving me water, but she sat down and listened to my whole story and smoked me out! In the end, she gave me a ten dollars and three cigarettes! I told her, "I'm going to try not to spend this." It seems my prayer had been answered.
After that magical encounter I told myself I was going to walk around the marsh in hopes I would find all my gear. I was walking down this road and I saw a barn in the distance. I didn't think it was the same barn I crashed in, because I was looking at it from the other side. Out loud I say, "God, if you really do exist, please let me find my stuff in that barn." I hop the fence and start walking through this big field. As I near the barn I notice all these heads in the barn. I thought, "Hmm, what am I walking into?" Well, I got a little closer . . . and they all disappeared! Man, I was totally flipping out.
Well, I came towards the front entrance of the barn and out of the corner of my eye I see my Mexican falsa blanket poncho. Hey! I need that! I walk inside to pick it up and I glance to the right and on the other side of the wall I spotted my rainbow scarf. I turn the corner and on the floor I found, all taken apart, my little notebook with all my email addresses I got in Berkeley! I had been all bummed out and thought I was going to have to go back and get five hundred more email addresses. I couldn't believe all my stuff was there.
Then it hit me. Should I really believe in God now?
The next couple days in Arcata I was all bummed out, not knowing what was real. I crashed in the barn every night, which is awesome. I love that barn now. Well last night, I finally saw how I was truly wasting history. I felt like I had failed at my mission. I wasn't logging my life every day. I didn't have the discipline to go to the school and remember each day. I needed my tape recorder again.
I walked over to Long's Drugs hoping they sold a recorder and found that they had the same exact model there, for thirty bucks! So, last night I sat down by the donut shop and spanged. I hadn't used the ten dollars that girl had given me, so I had a good head start. I had this big wallet I had magically found in the barn and it was perfect. At the end of last night, I was only short six dollars. This morning I woke up and started spanging. I also talked to this guy earlier while I was spanging. I told him about my bad experience with Datura and he told me to go to the Eureka Mental Health place and have them give me some thorazine which should balance the effects of the Datura. Man, it's been a crazy ride. I don't know what's real. It pisses me off. But, I got my tape recorder back now, so I can go back to school and be productive. I have to take pictures of my barn. It's awesome, this barn. Alright, that's enough for now. I'm going to go be happy that I found my thing.
2:11pm I finished buying my recorder at Long's Drugs. I'm going to go take a shit at the Safeway.
2:32pm I am out of the bathroom. I shaved. I'm feeling a lot better. I haven't shaved all this time that I've been all down. I'm walking again.
This guy gave me directions to the Food Stamp Office: "To get to the food stamp office you drive through Eureka until you get to the KFC, which will be on your left. On that street, I think it's Washington, you take a right and then you go down a few blocks and it's on your left. It's the food stamp office. It's a bunch of grey buildings with bluish tops. You'll see it on your left."
3:37pm I'm back on track. I'm going to go spare-change five dollars for a disposable camera so I can go take pictures of my barn and everything else in Arcata. So I can prove it.
3:42pm Jules(I think I got his name wrong) was nice enough to give me a quarter. I am saving up for a camera so I can take pictures for my webpage. Shweet, Julie gave me 75 more cents.
3:49pm Man, that was a badass presentation. I'm back on track. That guy was all staring at me while I was talking to him. He gave me another dollar. I told him everything. I got his email address, he got mine. Once again, I'm on my way to save the world. It's good to be back.
3:56pm Shanon gave me a cigarette. I appreciate it, sister. Everybody gets credit in my game.
4:00pm I asked some guy for some change. He didn't give me any change, but he gave me an orange. I appreciate it, brother.
4:05pm I have just come to the conclusion that I am nothing more than a walking, talking self-fulfilling prophecy. I am a programmed peace machine. I'm not too sure that I want to be a machine, but that's what I am for now. I have to play the role until it happens, I guess.
4:11pm Dave just hooked me up with some spare change.
4:15pm The reason I felt down was because I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't progressing any. I wasn't recording any. I wasn't working towards my goal at all. I was dead. I could've gone and tried remembering stuff and typing it up, but it wouldn't be perfect. I needed my tape recorder. My tool. Now that I've got it I am back on track and I feel like I'm not wasting time anymore.
4:22pm This crazy lady just gave me a dollar.
It was just the compilation of all those things happening at once, that made it so hard for me. Me losing my glasses, my tape recorder breaking, my bad experience with Datura. It was all just one big bad reality check. But now I found the key. I need to stay productive and moving forward. I'm doing that again with my tape recorder now. Things are looking better. A lot better.
4:39pm I just bought me my camera. I had twelve cents left over. I had almost exactly enough change for it. It was $5.35.
5:17pm Travis was nice enough to give me a cigarette. I appreciate it, brother.
5:26pm I'm kind of bored. There's a big country fair in the plaza or something. That's why the spanging's been good, I'm guessing. I don't like the crowd though. I'm going to the barn. I'm going to go home and read my book.
5:47pm I'm going to take a picture. The occasion today is the North Country Fair in the Arcata Plaza. The picture has the Jacoby's Storehouse in the background.
5:55pm Sam hooked me up with a cigarette. I appreciate it, Sam.
6:10pm I just ran into Hannah and Flip. I forgot to tell you all about Hannah and Flip. See, last night when I was sleeping I saw these flashlights out in the field. At first I freaked. I thought, "Oh shit, they're going to bust me for sleeping here." As they got closer, I noticed they were these kids lugging backpacks and shit. I said, "Hello," and they said it back. It turned out to be Hannah and Flip. They knew about the barn and were just coming to squat. Well, this morning I woke and started reading my book. When they woke up I made friends with them. I offered them some weed from that big bag of trim that I had. I let them roll cigarettes. This Hannah girl is sweet as hell. I asked her if she had needle and thread and she did. She even got it ready for me and I fixed my backpack, which had been worrying me. If I wouldn't have fixed it, it would've broken soon. She made my day so much better. I gave her a big hug. I even told her about my big problem not having my glasses and how I missed my clarity. She even offered twenty dollars to help me get glasses. I walked over and gave her a hug telling her, "That's very generous of you, but I have to wait until tomorrow, Monday. I'm going to talk to The Endeavor and see if they can help me with that." She's just the sweetest girl in the world. Oh yeah, when they woke up this morning I told them my story and Hannah told me, "I'm really glad to see that there are warriors out there like you. I'm coming across them all the time." Hannah made my day. I love Hannah.
I'm over my slump, I think. I'm walking to the barn. I'm going to go read my book and fall asleep later on.
6:25pm I'm taking a picture of the railroad tracks next to the field with the barn in it.
6:39pm I got a picture of the mattress and sleeping bag which is my bed at night. I'm going to go stand behind the bed and take a picture of the inside of the barn.
7:12pm I've settled in. I put on my thermal bottoms, which I've never worn before. I put on my blue sweatpants and my shorts. I got my sweater and my big NOFX jacket with the hood. I just rolled me up a joint from that big bag of leaf that I had. I crunched it all up. Let's see if I get anything from that. I'm going to roll me a cigarette and read my book. While it's still daylight out.
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