I decided to go on this excursion only two weeks before I left. It was a Friday night around 9pm. I had gotten home after a day of work of giving manicures and pedicures and I was slumped on the couch watching t.v. I had to take a leave of absence from what was supposed to be my last semester at school, I was only making enough money to scrape by, and my love life was down the tubes. If I didn't do something soon I knew that i would start melting into one with my old sweat pants and t-shirt and you wouldn't be able to see where my futon ended and I began. I poured a glass of red wine that I bought, thought about where I'd like to go, got onto Craigslist and called someone renting an apartment in Santa Fe.
Right now I'm sitting in front of the fireplace in the communal room of the Adelaide Hostel in San Francisco. I begin my first entry into this "New York to New Mexico" blog in a city about 1200 miles northwest of where I actually set out to go. I did get to that dusty dry town. However, about a week into it I realized that I very well may have been only one of ten people under 50 that didn't have a back pack, a walking stick, and a dog. That and the job situation was resembling something..well something scary. I started imagining a lot of Chef Boyardee in my future.
Right now I'm sitting in front of the fireplace in the communal room of the Adelaide Hostel in San Francisco. I begin my first entry into this "New York to New Mexico" blog in a city about 1200 miles northwest of where I actually set out to go. I did get to that dusty dry town. However, about a week into it I realized that I very well may have been only one of ten people under 50 that didn't have a back pack, a walking stick, and a dog. That and the job situation was resembling something..well something scary. I started imagining a lot of Chef Boyardee in my future.
My neighbor
was an old man named Bill. At the beginning we were friendly and would share
chit chat over an outdoor cigarette about painting since he was a painter too.
One day he even invited me in to show me his "pointillism" paintings
and gave me a jar of turpenoid and a small canvas he had. Then he started
appearing at his door every time I went outside, which wasn't often. At first I
thought it was coincidence. Then one day I timidly hovered inside the door
frame with just my hand, my cigarette, and the smoke that was curling up peeking
outside, hiding so he wouldn't see me. But then I heard a door and the creek of
his lounge chair. I heard him let out a sigh and in a second I closed my door,
and decided rules or no rules, I was smoking the rest of that cigarette
indoors. On the last day I was in Santa Fe I was doing laundry and every
run I had from the washer to the dryer he somehow appeared outside. His last
words to me were "you left your outside light on”, I looked up and my
light was still on from the night before, “I thought you got lucky last night”.
I promptly decided to stop being nice. Dry clothes in hand, I walked inside my
apartment and shut the door. My flight was leaving that evening. I packed my
suitcase, cashed in my three dollar winning scratch-off, said one final goodbye
to the KFC and McDonalds down the road, and I was on my way.
However, before going further
into this second leg of my escape from New York to even more western places, I will
backtrack with my photos I've taken and start from the beginning.
