Kit Carson, my namesake Posted by Hello

checking turkey's lymphnodes Posted by Hello

"be water"

It rained today. Yeah, always, I know. It's a drizzle. Oh it's rain, but it doesn't come down like it did in New Mexico. Here, rain is constant and light. I don't mind it. No one here carries an umbrella, really. They wear raincoats and get wet. Grass gets too much water and gets muddy. Leaves, fallen from trees, mold to the sidewalk, creating a cushioned carpet.

You don't run inside when it rains. If you did that here you'd be inside all the time. So you deal with it. I'm trying to deal with the rain. Nights creep up on you -- it gets dark at five. The drizzle starts and you begin to wonder why you left the desert. Then you walk down a street you've never been on before. You see something new. Something that makes you think of something you've never thought of before and you realize. This is why I came to a different climate. A different place. This is why I've come to play in the rain.


Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless--like water.
Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup,
You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle,
You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Now water can *flow* or it can *crash*!
Be water, my friend.
-- Bruce Lee

in Portland

So, gang, I'm in Portland, Ore. And just as I suspected, it's wet.

I just got internet service and was talking to my brother and he said I should blog. So now I blog.

And I'm hoping this is a way to communicate my experiences here to those afar and are interested in reading them and perhaps responding to them or each other.

Or not.

As some of you may know about a month ago I packed up my Jetta with what ever would fit and said, 'so long' to a life in Albuquerque. North on I-25 with Heidi, my dog of three years, I got out of the only place I knew to be home. We rode, Heidi, in a space I created in the back seat, and I, 25-year old Carson K. Smith.

In Denver, Colo. I stayed for a few days visiting friends: Marie, Genny and Amanda. I fulfilled my Jack Kerouac dream of eating Pizza downtown at a place he used to frequent and having a beer at another.

In Denver I met up with Steve, a college friend and former roommate who would join the journey -- north by northwest.

With a two-car-strong caravan, I continued north. I'll never forget the warm welcome a state trooper gave in Cheyenne, Wyo. I won't be returning for my December sixth court date, but I will miss the money the bastards made me pay for speeding there.

We went from there west to Salt Lake City, Utah where we spent the night in a Best Western or someplace like that. And from there we went to beautiful Reno, Nev., where we stayed the night with my cousin, her husband and two sons. We gambled in Reno (I broke even), and we drank some beers.

From Reno we went to Portland. I'm quite surprised my car made it. And for ten days we stayed with friends, Jerry and Rachel, who I owe a great deal to. I started working at the Borders in Beaverton, Ore. and soon had a one bedroom apartment. I've put some furniture in it and I attempt to cook.

And here I reside.