Yeah so the big trip was a ridiculous scene. I went to Ireland and Budapest and a couple other places--I almost died one night in Berlin but I can't really talk about it until my legal team assures me that I can't be extradited--and when I got back I was almost immediately thrown out of my apartment. White on white gentrification is just so sad. It's like that "First they came for the communists..." poem except much worse because it happened to me.
I wound up taking a Greyhound out of Portland down to San Francisco. I forgot how luxurious a 15 hour bus ride could be. When I used to ride it all the time I had a Greyhound Face I'd put on whenever I had an empty seat next to me and there were people still getting on. I'd mess up my hair and push my glasses down to the end of my nose and stick out my front teeth like I had a massive overbite and leave my mouth hanging open like an old man with a sad neurological condition. Then I'd look everybody in the face as they got on the bus and stare at them until they walked past me and sat somewhere else. Nobody wants to get stuck next to a banged up guy on an overnight bus ride. You just need to have the will and a big gaping hole where your dignity should be to pull it off. It takes something out of you, the looks you get from girls when you're pretending to be retarded, but that extra seat is precious goddammit and I need my rest.
It worked every time except for this one trip when a dude got on who was making pretty much the exact same face I was, only he wasn't pretending. He looked at me like "I have a brother!" and sat right down beside me and started talking about his favorite animals, then later he fell asleep on my shoulder and snored like a fucking jackhammer the entire night. It was kind of sweet in an utterly depressing way. This time the bus was mostly empty though, so I was all right...........Paul
