Well, it's not even August and I'm starting to miss NYC. I miss my bike. I miss riding in Brooklyn; tooling around the burnt out husks of old-time industry, the old waterfront on West street. I miss powering over the 59th street bridge, sweating like a savage beast, listening to loud rock and roll and churning through the tides of midtown, freaking people out on the Upper East Site. Sweat dripping down my nose, wild eyes flashing animal promise.

I don't miss the heat and the stink, but I do miss the action. I miss sex and sweat and moving my muscles like an adult does. I miss the engagement that just fucking permiates the air back there; thin layers of oily ambition all over everything. Every now and then it gets to be too much and I need to leave, but after about a month away I start to miss it. I miss the life, the density, the grind of it all. Hymns for the city.

I like San Franciso. It's got a lot of the same qualities, plus hills and wind and even some palm trees. There's also no bitter old-world archie bunker contingent that I can see. White trash instead, like most of the West. The fantasy of being a bike-messenger and a computer guru and an artist sweeps my mind every time I pop my head up from the BART. Fresh baked utopia, just around the corner.

Sometimes I think of the old NYC : Brooklyn :: San Francisco : East Bay analogy, and I think it could happen out here for me. Don't know if it's real of just imaginary, but maybe just crazy enough to work. I don't know much these days. Tailspin on the long-term vision as Everything I once banked on now seems dubious. The dream is mutating -- maybe a new thing, maybe fatal dream-cancer -- and I'm bored sitting around waiting for something to happen.

Part of my ennui springs from the fact that I'm broke right now and here in 'Merica there's not a lot you can do without spending money. Damn shame. Last night Luke and I were wasted -- cheap red wine and california weed -- and trying play Hearts with friends Mike and Emily. It was pretty fun, but I kept feeling self-conscious about how out of it I was. When dealing with friends of friends, I'm still pretty much a socially awkward person, uncomfortable with myself, afraid I'm going to fuck something up.

But I'm going to proj on. There's no point in knuckling now. It's going to be a hell of a month. Anyone got any tips for Burning Man?