gelbtronic3000

1. I walk into Sandy's liquor store in downtown San Luis Obispo to buy a bottle of whiskey for the boys who have so kindly put me up in the band's house, fed me the bands food, and poured me plastic cup after plastic cup of the band's wine, which was given to them for free after the last show they played. I know it's not much but whiskey is always the right thing to get for someone when you want to say thankyou. Whiskey and a hand-written note. But anyway, I walk into the store and ask the guy behind the counter if it is okay that I have an out of state id. And he says in some middle-eastern accent, "Well, what do you want?" and I say, "Whiskey." And he looks at me for a moment, thinking, and then shrugs his shoulders and says, "OK", just like that like, "OK, sure, fine, yeah, whatever."

So I pick up a bottle of Jim Beam (I wanted Evan Williams but they didn't have it and the Jim Beam was on special) and set it on the counter. The guy rings me up, gives me my total, I pay him, and then he remembers about the ID. "ID?" he asks. So I take it out of my wallet and hand it to him and he takes it in his hands and holds it and stares at it for like five seconds, which is awhile. So I reach over and point at where it has my birthdate and I say, "Oh, it's right there." And he looks from my finger up to my face and he says, "I know where it is, I've seen hundreds of these." And I feel dumb. And he looks back down at the ID and I am thinking to myself, "Well then why are you staring at it for so long. Give me my whiskey." And he is still staring at it and he takes a breath, and looks back up from the ID to my face and I'm thinking, "Does he not think it's me? I mean it's definitely me." And he looks at me and finally says, "Do you know what your last name means?" And I sigh, relieved, and laugh, kind of embarrased as I always have been to answer that question and I say, "Yeah. It means yellow. In German." and in my head I'm thinking, "BO-ring." And he smiles, and says, "No. It means heart. In Arabic. In old Arabic slang , Gelb means heart."

"Really?" I ask, kind of excited that my last name is not as boring as I had always thought and happy at the prospect that it could mean something so cool as heart. "Yea. Really," he laughs and puts his fist against his chest and says, "Yea. If you love someone, y'know, if they are like your brother, then they are your gelb. They are your gelby. They are your heart."

And I'm just super elated and I'm just like, "Wow, man, that's so cool." and he laughs some more and says, "Yea, you're gelby, you're heart." And he pats his fist against his chest once more and smiles and gives me a high five and tells me to have a great night with my whiskey and I thank him again, and grab my ID and my whiskey off the counter, stuff them in my satchel and turn, on a cloud, smiling to walk out of the store. And without noticing, I am singing along to the background music playing in the store as I walk out and it's not till I get to my bike that I realize that the song that is playing as I walk out of the store is "Magic Man", by the band "Heart". And I hopped on my bike and rode back to the boy's house, singing.

2. I've just met up with Corey in downtown San Francisco to go out for lunch which is funny because I'm wearing dirty clothes and am carrying this huge backpack and my hippie satchel and have various accoutraments hanging off of me and Corey is wearing a suit. and is carrying an attache case. And we get cheap chinese food, which is great, and he leaves his leftovers but I pack up mine while I am thinking of that scene in Dharma Bums where Jack is coming back over the border from Mexico and is laughing his ass off as the border patrol guys search his huge backpack looking for marijuana or cocaine or opium but all they find is his left over french fries wrapped in newspaper, and a half of a loaf of old wheat bread and some raisins and nuts and they are farely disgusted and they send him on through. Anyway, I stuff my leftover fried rice into my satchel and am thinking about this as me and Corey walk back towards his work office. We are on the corner and I notice there is a man taking a photograph of another man, who is posing. And the first man, who is taking the picture, is crouched down, looking through the viewfinder up at the other man, like he is trying to get something super tall in the frame and I follow his angle up with my eyes and look up to see that we are standing at the base of that building, you know, that one quintessential San Francisco building that like defines the San Francisco skyline, that one that is like a huge white elongated pyramid, the TransAmerica building I think it is called. And I am just like laughing in my head that I am standing at the base of this famous building and I didn't. even. know it. And I say to Corey, "Oh. that's THAT building?!" and he starts laughing at me like, "Yea. Duh." And I still just can't believe it and I'm just laughing out loud now cuz it's Pretty. Funny. And every time I look back up in the sky and that building, that building! that i've seen so many times, but really just in postcards or like some weird stock footage of the skyline in some movie, and I am standing right under it! and it's SO FUNNY. And at this point I just can't stop laughing and I look up at it again, and just laugh even harder and Corey is kind of laughing but is more just like, "What's wrong with you?" And I can't stop and this security guard is staring at me, but he's laughing a little now too. At me. And at the fact that I am uproariously laughing--so loud--in the middle of the street and it is echoing off the buildings and people are staring and Corey's motioning to this security guard guy, pretending to smoke a joint and pointing at me at the same time like, "She's craaazy." And I am so high on this building, this freaking building that I don't even notice this, but then Corey tells me about the security guard and the motioning and the looks and we're walking now, and I'm just laughing even more uncontrollably and I look back at the guard and he's laughing at me all like, "Damn. I wanna be on whatever that chick's on." Which makes me laugh even harder, cuz I'm not even on anything. It's just that building. That Building! And Corey and You, security guard man. You and me. You, stranger, and me. Laughing together. On this street. Under this building.

3. I'm walking down Chesnut Street on my way to Columbus to go check out this bookstore, I think. I'm not really sure what I am doing. Or what I am doing with myself. Or how much longer I am staying in this city. Anyway, I'm walking down the street and I'm kind of aimless I guess, but more than that, I am hungry. And I remember the leftover Chinese food in my satchel and so I pull out the box and open it up as I'm walking down this hill and I'm trying to eat it with my hands. But it's tricky, because it's fried rice. And I decide I need to find a fork or something because this is not working, but I also decide that I can't just go in somewhere and sit down and eat my leftover chinese food in their establishment. But what I can do is find some cafe or something and see if maybe they can give me a plastic fork or something that I can take with me and then I can eat my fried rice while I walk down the street.

So I decide all of this, and then look up in front of me and there is the Columbus Cafe. I think to myself, "Yea, this place totally looks like the kind of place that would give me a plastic fork." So I walk in and look around and there is this kid, this red-headed young dude standing at the counter and I know him. I mean, I guess I don't really know him, but he was on my train yesterday from San Luis Obispo, and then he was on my bus from Oakland. He was sitting next to me. And I was like, whoah, and I went up to him and said, "Hey man. I know you. You were on my train yesterday." And he squints his eyes a little, and nods his head up and down a little bit and then says, "Yea. Oh yea. Totally. Whoah, crazy." And I'm all, "Yeah dude." And he says something about the Chances and about This City of Five Million People and then says, "See ya later, " and goes to take his seat with his homie at the closest table. And now, all of a sudden, I am SUPER conscious of the fact that I just came in here, like some bum, to ask for a fork and leave. "Shit," I am thinking in my head and the guy behind the counter is staring at me like, "Well, What'll ya have?" and I get nervous and I feel like the red-headed train kid and his friend are watching me and I decide I can't just ask for a fork and leave so I tell the guy I'll have a cup of tea. "What kind?" he asks. "Shit," I am thinking, "I have no Idea." So homeboy behind the counter laughs at me a little bit and points out the tea list, to which I respond, "I'll have green....i mean, er....jasmine. No. Actually, yea, green." And he asks, "For here?" And theres this part of me that's like, shit, well if i am buying this fucking tea I might as well sit down and enjoy it and perhaps this kid from the train will come strike up a conversation with me, cuz well he seems kind of cool and I have no fucking clue what I'm doing anyway. "Yea," I say, "For Here." And by the time I pay, and get honey and find a free paper to read and a seat, I look up and red-headed boy is gone. Like he just got up and left at some point. I mean, I dont know what the hell I expected.

And now I am sitting here with this fucking tea that I didn't even want in the first place. But I guess at some point I get over that, because the tea is good, and it is nice to sit here and for some reason, I feel like writing. So I do. I sit and drink my tea and write down these stories. from my travels. And Corey calls at some point and stops by. We find out this place has dollar fifty microbrews so we get a couple of those, and drink them. Also, this girl that I craigslisted calls me and offers me a ride to Portland in the morning and it turns out we have about 1,000 things in common, and also Pete calls me. And tells me he's "cleared his schedule for the evening" so we can get burritos and beer. And somehow within the time I am sitting at this cafe, drinking tea and beer and writing, about a million things fall perfectly into place. And I'm pretty sure, looking back on it now, that this little cafe on the corner of Colombus and Lombard must be the cosmic center of my universe. The place where I walked in the door, hungry, not knowing how I was going to get back to Portland, feeling like I had given up on trying to see Pete, feeling like I had no idea what I was doing myself except for trying to find a plastic fork. And I walked out of that place with tea and a beer in my belly, a ride to Portland with what turned out to be the raddest chick, a great conversation with Corey and plans to see Pete.

The next morning, I walked back down to the cafe to get a cup of coffee before Kathleen (my craigslist ride) picked me up to head north. And as I walked toward the front door, a voice said my name and I looked up to see my Australian bike-touring friend, James, looking right back at me, smiling wide and in shock to see me. To see me of all places here, on this random street corner, in this random city which neither of us resided, during this random hour of this random morning on this random day. And I smiled back at him, and laughed. "Of course," I thought to myself. "Well yes of course this is happening." And we got two cups of coffee and sat outside, under the awning and talked and watched as the sun turned to rain, and then hail, and the back to sun again.

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The crazy thing about traveling without a schedule, for me at least, is that I seem to spend half the time completely lost and distraught. Not sure what to do next, stressed by all the options, feeling lonely or slightly depressed, directionless. Or even worse, feeling like an imposition on my hosts and their lives that they have set up and maybe feeling like my misguided-ness and open-ended plans sometimes stresses them a bit, like, "How long is this chick gonna crash on the couch for?" or whatever.

But the other half the time. The other half of the time is beautiful.

It always seems that it is right when I think nothing will work out for me, when I am ready to give up, Fuck this traveling shit, and crawl, defeated, back to my comfort zone, It is always then that some beautifully wonderful serendipitous moment will occur. And in an instant, it is all worth it and everything works and it is wonderful and perfect. And everything fits together and shines like the sun blazing out in the San Francisco sky after the rain on a wet February morning, while I sit and drink coffee, blissed out, totally and completely in awe of my life.