Updated Plans

BIG 'OL U.S.A. TRIP DRAFT TWO

Here's the new and improved plan. I've been crunching the numbers and seeing what I can afford/have time to do. I've had to streamline the trip to make it more, I dunno, efficient. Some things that were too far out of the way (such as Miami and New Orleans) had to be done away with. I still hope to go to those places, but this trip is just not the time.

I had to limit it to about 30 places, over about 75 days (avg. 2.5 days per place, but some places I'll want to stay more than that and some places less than that). This is still packing quite a bit into the trip, so I'll be pretty damned busy. Here's a list of the places that I'm planning to visit.



boston, MA
somewhere in CT
new york city + nearby jersey
philadelphia, PA
richmond, VA
raleigh, NC
asheville, NC
athens, GA
atlanta, GA
columbus, GA
nashville, TN
bowling green, KY
indianapolis, IL
chicago, IL
bloomington, IN
st. louis, MO
springfield, MO
denton, TX
fort worth/dallas, TX
austin, TX
san antonio, TX
santa fe, NM
albuquerque, NM
seattle, WA
olympia, WA
portland, OR
eugene, OR
san francisco/oakland, CA
santa barbara, CA
los angeles, CA

Traveling via Greyhounds, Megabuses, Amtrak sometimes, and flying from Albuquerque to Seattle. Transport budget is $1500, which is an average of $50 per journey (that should be about right, as the bus fares average around $25, and the trains and plane will obviously be more. Food budget: $750 (average of $10 a day, which should be a piece of cake considering that I currently eat for about $3 a day). Another $500 budgeted for "thanks for letting me stay/hang out with you, i love you" meals or drinks or whatever. Another $750 for entertainment/hopefully very rare nights of having to get a motel room/misc. Total budget: $3500. Am I forgetting anything? I should have around an additional $1000 that I don't plan on spending but can serve as some sort of emergency fund. Hoping to not have to pay for lodging by staying with friends/family/couchsurfing. I'm more likely to rough it than pay for a room.

I THINK that I've budgeted to make this comfortably affordable for me, such that there is plenty of room for error built into the budget.

I will try to set off in early October and make it home by Christmas or New Years. Much of this is still up for change, so suggestions are welcome!

Things Go In Waves

This blog was originally set up to keep my friends and family informed of what I have been getting up to in England. I haven't posted since I arrived in Brighton. So let's call a spade a spade and say I failed on that front. But I kinda always knew I wouldn't keep it up.

Similarly, I don't have massive hopes for this blog. I'm using the same space as the old blog for a different purpose. This is a space for me to write the thoughts that I feel like sharing, when I feel like sharing it. I don't really know what the shape of it is going to be.

I often think of how things go in waves because I notice that pattern in my behavior. It's something I've recently come to embrace. I used to get angry with myself for not sticking with all the things that I told myself that I wanted to do, but now I feel like it is too simple a view of life to think that one can foresee at the outset of some project or direction how much it will be worth the time and effort, and how much one can sustain the interest.

Now I think of the complex and ever-shifting geography of moods, thoughts, events, and opportunities, and I find a beauty and a horror in it. Sometimes the particular meshing of all sorts of the variables of life results in a swell, sometimes a depression, sometimes a calm, sometimes a storm, and so I use the word "waves" to describe it to myself. Perhaps cynically, in this oceanic metaphor, it is on the clear days that one sees the horror of what it means to live, and one prays for a fog to shrink one's world to something bearable.

BUT! I think I'm now at the beginning of the swell of a wave. I'm preparing to make a movie in Brighton, getting mentally prepared to just dig in and do a good job. This is all I have to focus on until I return to the United States in October, at which point I will immediately start a cross-country road trip. I'll most likely be flying into Boston, and basically doing this:



I'm really excited about this trip. I've put out a request to old friends and new friends to meet up along the way, and I'm just looking forward to exploring the U.S. It feels like the right thing at the right time.

This movie that I'll be making and this U.S. trip will basically occupy me until the end of the year. Standing here at the beginning of this new wave and knowing how much it will shape me is pretty incredible. I faced a similar thing when coming from the U.S. to the UK, and it has indeed done much to form the person that I am now. I've changed very much, I think. I'm really grateful to be so excited and curious to see the person that I will be after the year is over. I really have no idea.

The only thing that has stayed the same for me in the past decade is that I know that I want to make movies.

Well, this blog post has been a bit all over the place. Hopefully I'll keep doing it.