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Throughout life, people are often given oppurtunities. Sometimes an inheritence or settlement of some sort will allow someone to pack up and travel someplace they've always wanted to go. Sometimes a job-loss, complete with a cashed-out 401K, can provide the perfect circumstance for a mid-life-crisis-style journey. And sometimes, as in my case, you are given the gift of homelessness, coupled with indecision about life and career, an insatiable wanderlust, and enough gas money to get through at least 5 states before turning tricks at a truckstop becomes a very real possibility. So I find myself hitting the road, searching for new places, new experiences and hopefully, some clarity. I think it is really amusing to hear others' ideas about what this trip is going to be for me. The most humerous idea being that I will meet some handsome, Kerouac-esque stranger while on the road and have a torrid affair. Considering that for the first week and a half I was traveling, I didn't comb my hair or apply makeup and I started most days with a baby-wipe whore-bath and a swish of listerine, I didn't exactly notice many fellas looking my way. Plus, I sort of need a break anyway. Boys have been making my head hurt more than usual lately. It's a scientific fact that when someone who is slightly interested in you thinks they aren't going to see you for a long time, they immediately want to have sex with you. I experienced this to an eery degree 10 years ago when I announced I was moving to Colorado. I had ex-boyfriends and old crushes coming out of the freaking woodwork for "one last fling". Same thing before I left on this trip, even though I made it clear I'd be back in a month. Maybe full moon had something to do with it? Bizarre. Another thing people assume is that since I'm stopping in Pennsylvania (where I grew up) to visit family and friends, that I'm going to spontaneously decide I want to give up everything I have in Colorado and move back to my hometown. Clearly these people have never been to my hometown. I won't lie... being back in Pa brings out a weird nostalgic longing in me that I'm not exactly sure what to do with. I've even indulged in some random, stream-of-consciousness daydreams about running into someone from high school who I didn't really know, but who I always thought was cute, and we would fall in love and I'd move into his farmhouse and pop out a bunch of babies and we'd go to church on Sundays, then maybe to lunch at his parents' house and I would join the ladies auxillary and help organize craft shows and firehall BBQ's. Is this what I want? Not particularly, but this is what being in Pa does to my brain. I think there is something in the air there (besides the ever-present smell of manure). So, I will continue being a soul-searching hippy for the moment and when I return home in a few weeks, I will attempt to be a grown-up and make better decisions. Although, as the facebook page I recently became a 'fan' of says: "Bad decisions make funny stories". And life is all about the stories...