I committed myself to a holiday weekend thing and I regret it. I would love to go home and clean my place and play with fucked up guitar tones and bust some pedals tonight. But instead I have a dinner in Seaport and then leave early tomorrow morning for a couple of days.

My place is such a mess after the last two weeks. It’s a wonder my plants are alive. I don’t have any clean laundry left and my fridge is empty. The cleanest room is Hollow Way, surprisingly. We destroyed it with high voltage metal just two days ago and it’s pristine already. I like to think that sound waves might still be bouncing around in there, cleaning everything up.

I don’t mesh with most people. When I do or seem to, it’s an illusion: I have to try hard and it exhausts me. I’m happier on my own where I don’t need to get involved in things that don’t matter to me. Small talk is like acid drops in my ears. Yet I want a pretty chick with hot body next to me. I want to feel her and take her and I want her care. But it’s difficult to get that by being true to yourself because chicks have been groomed to be attracted to candyass fuckfaces. They’re attracted to the lamest of the lame, almost as much as they’re attracted to money. So you have to do the dance if you want it. The thing is that it’s easy, and getting attention is easy if you just watch how to play it up. But it’s also annoying and weak to have to do those things. You see all the men playing along, learning how to be to win the affection they desire. But you don’t see the people like me who don’t play nicely and who’d rather stab themselves in the leg than put on the costume and rather die than do that job just to get the shiny object that guarantees your bedmate of choice.

Sometimes I don’t think I’m even supposed to be here. Wrong place, wrong time. I’m supposed to carry a big club and mate fiercely and righteously with my chosen one, and know that my offspring will be the only ones left standing when all is said and done.

Watching everyone trying to be and act like what they’ve seen on TV and in movies over the last 20 years of their lives is eery and terrifying. The only people I feel truly comfortable around, for the most part, are foreigners, and especially wild or tribal people. That’s why I love Nagaland so much. Why I love Arunachal. They who don’t make a habit of acting, speaking, thinking, looking and doing what they’ve been told to. They’re not easily impressed by simple things, like decorations or conformity.

I can’t live out in a crowd. For me, crowds suck.  I don’t even like groups for more than a couple hours. I’m the one who leaves the party first. Usually without saying bye, hoping I can just slip out without needing to explain anything. The thing about me is that I go sometimes, whereas other people like me don’t even do that. I think it’s better to check things out than write them off. When your biases are confirmed repeatedly, it gets harder to keep the curious/furious balance. It leads to furious. But I try. There are chicks out there who get that, right? Who’ll leave with me out the window while everyone else is busy gabbing?

I’m looking forward to next week and weekend when I plan to be alone and recharge for a bit before an intense fall begins. Late Sept. I’m in Colorado for a week of wilderness survival training with a Bhutanese friend. Then right at Thanksgiving I’m off to Bhutan and Arunachal to put the finishing touches on a side project with a friend, going way deep into the jungle. That’ll be about a month of intense life and I can’t wait for that.

I wish I could just be on the road all the time. If I could be in constant motion around the world, I would understand things better. That’s all I ever think about, all I ever want:  to understand things and myself better.