I love Austin. I tell everyone that for a strange individual like me, it’s home… there’s a lot to do, there’s great food, never-ending music, hot girls, business-minded people, support for the weird…. it’s the only place that has had a homeless transvestite run for mayor and get 3rd place.  It’s just a great city, and I have my Austinite friends that I’m missing before I even leave– people like Craig Allen, Kate Buck Jr, Will Stoerner / Kevin Eaton (they live in the same house, and have been friends since 4th grade or something, so I always list them together), Katie Brown, Perry Belcher, David Gonzalez, Jimmy Walters the Fourth.   There’s more… but these are people who have changed my life, really took the time to get to know me, and (most of them) appreciated me exactly for who I am.  How many of your friends are true friends, and how many of them you just spend your time with because they’re conveniently around?

For me, regardless of my financial situation (which right now is not making me smile– but that never stops me from grabbing life by the balls and living), I have my wealth… which is the friends that I’ve met through my life.  The people I truly care about, and feel blessed to have in my life.  “Stuff”  I don’t care about… I have a few moving boxes full of it, and even those I don’t care about… just camera, laptop, and a few things to wear.  Oh yeah, and external harddrives to store my millions of photos and videos…. the other 1/2 of my wealth: memories.

So, while I generally enter things going “Well, how hard can this be?” A cleanse can be a really difficult thing, because it brings out something I’m not good at dealing with… emotions.  The last few days have been hard.  My friend Dagny was kind enough to be honest, and ask me if I’ve been diagnosed for being Manic Depressive.  No, I haven’t… but I”m not above it, either.  I don’t think that I’m suffering from that, I think it’s the cleanse mixed with some heartache.  Why am I so confident?

For one, I wasn’t feeling so crazy before I started it. Another reason is because on a hard day like yesterday, I was able to become normal (or close to it) by eating a huge heaping bowl of Chicken Nachos with Cheese and Rice and some spicy stuff.  Kate Buck Jr’s husband is a chef, and so visiting there is always a tasty treat.  I have been able to avoid greasy food so far, but I was in a funk.  It helped…a LOT!  I even made up the following joke to mock myself:  What kind of a dog is always sad? A Melancholy! (For those of you who don’t know me well enough, puns are my favorite form of humor…  so, a Collie is the kind of dog that Lassie was… Melancholy means to be in a gloomy state of mind….  If you can’t get it by now, I can’t do much for you).

I was already looking forward to going to the beach in California.  I wanted to be near the ocean, to have some space from the girl (whom I spoke to today.  Thanks Sam.), and to figure out what I want to do with my life.  While things were good, I was even debating settling down, now the pendulum swings the other way.

Last night, while I was at Craig’s to tie up loose ends, I get this call: “Were you at the house today?” “No. Not since I left this morning, and you were still here.”  “Ok.  Then there’s been a break-in, and I’m calling the cops.”

It was Ceci.  I had just finished house-sitting for her, and all my stuff was at her house.  Not just my camera, but lenses, clothes, etc….  If you recall, in December, I had thrown away, given, or sold all my belongings that I couldn’t fit in my car from my Atlanta home which I never really visited much.  I packed too much stuff in my car, and had to ship one large box to Kate Buck’s house.  I also had stuff from a previous visit to Austin over at Craig’s.  He said that I can keep whatever I want at his house, since he has tons of storage place.

Craig is moving.  Ceci said a while back that I could use her place for storage, since she has a 3 bedroom with a mostly empty garage.  During house-sitting, I moved all my stuff from Craig’s to Ceci’s… so… saying all my worldly belongings are there isn’t far off the mark… then I get a call that there was a break-in.

I didn’t have my camera on me.  I didn’t think I did…. I went to my car, and checked.  Nope, no camera.  Ceci couldn’t find it either, and with that 70-200mm lens, it’s pretty easy to spot.

I walked back into Craig’s and said “I gotta go.  Now.”  He had overheard enough of the conversation to know where I’m headed and why.  “Call me and let me know what you figure out.”

Thank you Chef Morris Buck!  Those Chicken Nachos were still in effect (and Craig had gotten some pizza from Whole Foods, which at this point I had no trouble partaking in)!  My mood was still stable.  So… I sob like a bitch for no reason, but when I get told that $6,000 of gear is missing, I’m ok.  Go figure.

I wasn’t really ok… I just wasn’t freaking out… I was angry.  That’s today’s emotion of the day, by the way.  Less “mopy” and “gloomy”, and more angry.  Though, I certainly am not feeling like a superhero today after the conversation I mentioned earlier, where I was humanely told that I’m not what “the girl” is looking for– which I already knew, but a formal discussion of where things are was not had.  Back to the story… I drove to Ceci’s, and felt pretty drained.  My brain’s had to deal with a lot.

When she got home from her journey, I told her that I suspected that someone had been in the house… because she had left her windows unlocked, and a door was unlocked that I remembered leaving locked.  I generally lock all doors, as my parents gave me shit about it enough times.  The same applies for turning off lights when I leave the room.

Well, seems I wasn’t just being paranoid (though, I do love the saying: Just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me)… those people had come back, and taken Ceci’s camera, and harddrives.  My harddrives were just sitting out on the kitchen table, but were not taken.  A portable one was opened up (maybe to see if there’s any valueables in it??) but left alone.

Ceci started to speak to me, and I said that it’s not really a good time to say anything to me, I’m not in a good state of mind… let me evaluate the situation.  I walked into my room, lifted the pile of clothes off the floor, and there was my camera!  Apparently, I had some common sense.  You know that saying “Gut feeling” ?  — well.. it really revolved around millions of years of evolution.  That gut feeling is a survival mechanism, which was originally designed to save you from getting eaten by dinosaurs.  These days it tries to save you from bad dates, and having your camera stolen.  Because I had an uncomfortable feeling that someone had been there, I kept stuff lightly hidden.

If my stuff is missing, I don’t know what it is, as I have too much stuff.  The garage door was left wide open, and a lot of my stuff was in the garage.  They didn’t steal my enema kit for some strange reason :p   They were in a hurry, so probably didn’t take the time to go through the boxes of stuff in the garage.  My lenses were still there.  For those of you who don’t know, decent lenses are the most expensive part of photography.  You can get a camera that will take amazing pictures for a mere $800.  To get the great photos, you want a good lens that lets in a lot of light, and captures a lot of color….. those can cost a few thousand each.  $400, $600, $800, $1200, $1500, $1800— some of mine.

I said it’s ok to speak, and even made sure to say I”m sorry that her place got broken into.  That does have to suck, and I’m not an inconsiderate asshole.  My camera, however, is sort of my life. Ceci is a bit of a photographer too.  I feel awful for her– she lost a camera, and her harddrive which had 10 years woth of photos at 5,000-30,000 photos per year!  My heart breaks just hearing that.

I needed a nap.  Or maybe I didn’t, but I didn’t want to be awake anymore to deal with craziness, or have more bad things or emotions happen.

Ceci was still waiting for the cops to show up to get prints.

I woke up because I heard a voice.  There was some guy there, and I heard someone say “Fingerprints” — it’s probably the cops.  I burried my head in a blanket, and tried to go back to another realm.

I woke up in the middle of the night, I was wide awake… my stomach hurt a bit from all that food of the previous day.  I had also taken a few extras from the digestive stimulator to make sure I’d get rid of that food quickly.  It seemed to be working. Thank god I woke up first, eh?

I wasn’t tired, but didn’t feel like dealing with the world yet.  I checked my e-mail, made a few proofs for a client who had sent a middle of the night e-mail…. back to where ever sleep takes you (I have some theories).

I woke up to Ceci opening her door.  Back to sleep.  I was going to talk to the girl– maybe see her today before I left.  Now that I had to get my stuff elsewhere, I figured that’d be a great way to spend some time…. help me move my shit (probably not the best way to write things after just talking about digestive stimulator, eh?), so I can sleep better at night.  Kate’s house is kind of far, so making one trip with two cars would be better than multiple trips with one…. but she said she was having car trouble, so was going to take her car to the shop.  Hopes crushed some more.  Anger was the mood of the day anyways, so no biggie- “Ok… I gotta figure this out- talk later”

Jesse has a huge SUV, but it turns out was leaving to go look for houses– as he’s been doing for the last few weeks.

Craig’s car is pretty awesome for moving stuff– it’s what I used to carry all those jugs of water from the springs… He’s gotta be at the office.  Kate’s got an SUV, but had already spent plenty of her time yesterday to cheer me up.

I was going to keep making calls to check on people, but then the girl called…. I didn’t have much to say.  My blog had already spelled out everything I felt, and she had read it.  The conversation lasted a little while, but after hearing enough times what I already knew, and what was hurtful to hear (I am a big fan of changing peoples’ lives… but being the guy who helps them figure out what they’re not looking for…. ), I said that I gotta go get my stuff moved (especially since I’m doing it solo now)…. and then I went and wrote this blog post :p

I guess while my mood’s been crazy lately, and I don’t have a pizza or chicken nachos handy, writing on my blog has been theraputic.

I really am off to move my stuff.  But my point is that between needing space, and having a break-in, and the temperature is about to go into the 100′s…. And I’m sure if I was in a clearer state of mind I could come up with some more stuff…  It seems like I’m getting some signs from above to get the fuck outta dodge already.  So… I’m gone!

Off to pack, and then off to Arizona to meet new strangers, check out Sedona, and then go to Cali and figure out what life has planned for me next.

Lock your windows!