Wanderlust Circus hits San Francisco - The Trip Down

On Thursday morning-ish the replacement Wanderbus began ingesting circus folk & gear. The morning before I dug ditch while listening to Creature mastermind a replacement. It was pretty impressive. All hail Kae, by the way. As Creature put it, "I didn't buy a bus, I bought a guy."

I had to work on Thursday from 9:30 to noon. I was all excited, telling all of my gymkids that I was getting in a car to drive to San Francisco to do a big circus show. Lots of my gymkids stunt with me; I love my job. Alysia's kind of the final evolution of gymkids to stunt with.

Then I biked to Clover's place with my backpack. One advantage of being largely homeless is that I easily pack for days at a time. Clover and Andy and I waited a bit for Sid and Dutch and then we filled Susie-Q to very near her weight limit, and drove her southward.

We stopped here and there to stunt, but most of the initial ride is hazed a bit by pain. Dutch and I are big fellas, and Susie-Q is dainty like her driver. My knees and legs were killing me, and Dutch matched my whine-intensity gripe for gripe. We were some unhappy large dudes.

Providence saw fit to offer us a cruel twist of fate, though. Not cruel to us - cruel to Wanderlust, who had to pay $650 for new tires when a piece of rebar in the road made messy rubber shrapnel of 2 replacement Wanderbus tires. A focused Mormon-looking mechanic made quick work of the repairs but not before my and Dutch's need manifested a meeting. We swapped onto the bus, which necessitated some stunting with Brittany Walsh.

Brittany Walsh
She gets her own header. She's incredible.

I've never stunted with Brittany before. Frankly, she intimidates me. She's a for-reals Circus acrobat - a hand-balancer who routinely achieves feats that leave me bitterly envious yet inspired to be a better me. But on a wacky Circus tour, my normally-robust inhibitions sometimes break down a bit, and I asked her to stunt.

She leapt gracefully to her feet and then my hands, and we did some basic stunts. But we did 'em well. She's one of the best first-stunts I've ever experienced. I pushed into a Butterfly from an Angel (her 2nd with me) and she just responded and flew it. Later at Temple's we did another Butterfly, and walked it along the wall. First time I've ever thought of or tried it - it went splendidly!

Every time I've asked her stunt since that initial one, she's jumped up and gone for it. I love this girl.

We ate delicious food while swapping tires & passengers, as well. Ben is a great guy. I figured he was, otherwise Uli never woulda snuggled with him and then blushed so entertainingly about it. Ben made superbomb food the whole trip. I want him as our cook every time. Not just for the food - he's a chill guy who's really nice. I'd love to hang out with him more. Hell, maybe we can even snuggle.

Then it was time to pile into the bus and find a place. Alysia had abandoned the bus for Clover's car, to keep the bus under its legal limit.

This was a point when I first actually saw clues about Doc & Alysia. They had hung out once before in a datelike fashion, but I blew that off. Until the bus - I saw a glance and an arm-touch that were pretty clear. Aw! And yet... hm. Doc's an older fella, divorced, has a kid, and going through a very familiar-looking reinvention of himself via the Circus.

I mean, I dated Gaelen, who was too young for me. But she wasn't young the way Alysia is young.

Perhaps I'm simply so suspicious of lechery in myself that I project it's potential in others? Nah, I don't actually think Doc's horning for a pretty 18-year-old.

I just worry that he's in flux, and she's potentially at risk of what the fluxing puts him through. But enough of that.

The bus took off with about 300 lbs more weight than it expected, but it seemed to handle it fine. I hovered for a bit, playing on the hang-bars, and flitting about in pure enjoyment of leg room while traveling. I like spacious busses way better than wee Irish cars.

I ended up by Creature, which was cool. He's a solid base for me to operate off of. But I floated around a lot.

There was a movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I've not seen it in years. I watched most of it, but dozed off near the end.

There were a few stops, such as when we rolled into California and pinged closed liquor stores until bursting in on Weed. There was less stunting in Weed than one might wish. I slacked.

After that, we had booze. Dutch foolishly tried to lure the prim AWOL ladies (Brandy and Jess) into playing drinking games. They rose to the challenge and we had a laughter-laden 4-hour game of 21. Much fun. Favorite quote: "Table" by Brandy as a word to rhyme with. Super-inventive, those drunk A-WOL chicks. ;)

I also played guitar for an hour or so, which I enjoyed a bunch. I got to play to the back section where Tiari and Noah were sleeping, so I didn't feel like I was too-louding everyone else. I haven't played & sang for way, way too long. I gotta get my guitar to Jem's the next time I have boys.

We rolled into San Francisco and arrived at Temple's place. Temple is one of Creature's old circus buddies, and he is awesome. He put up the circus in his huge living space. Everybody but me even got something soft to sleep on. We crashed out *fairly* quickly, but we didn't even get there until morning, so I don't remember what time the last person went to bed, leaving me an empty living room at long last. I slept for 2 or 3 blissful hours before the breakfast crew began prep-work on the Day of the Show.

Circus & Relationship let-down blues

So, breaking up with Joey was tough and painful 'cause I deserved it and I hurt her. But then I had lots of busy-ness going on with working for Creature, stunting a ton, and prepping for the San Francisco trip. Facebook is a reminder of the painfulness - pictures of Joey and comments from Joey. But part of my busy-ness included no real online access. So, I was mostly distracted.

Now I'm back into the normal, boring old groove of my life. And now I'm missing Joey a lot, as well as missing the distraction & fun & emotional balm of circus camaraderie.

Despite that, I never quite find myself wishing that Joey and I were still together, somehow. I'm not 100% sure why that is, especially since she stopped drinking and that was one of the biggest challenges I had in our relationship.

I do keep finding myself wishing I'd just broken things off instead of stepping out and betraying the relationship. :( That really eats at me. Dutch and Sara are great at reminding me of that, which I appreciate. I don't want a free pass, or to be distracted instead of hurting. I want to shoulder the consequences of my choice and be impacted by them.

In San Francisco I got lots of snuggling and fun. Amanda came out to see me, and she had clearly designated herself as my arm-candy. Very friendly, dancing with me, always standing next to me - it was wonderful. But Dutch's "No Action for Two Weeks" decree weighed on me. It turns out that Amanda wasn't there to sleep with me, anyway - she was just arm-candy. I'm not gonna claim 100% satisfaction with that... but all things considered I'm really glad it worked out that way. Sex with guilt attached wouldn't have been good. There was enough guilt about just the cuddly stuff & kissy stuff.

It was also nice to be attached. There were a bunch of hungry-eyed ladies at the show, and they were smiling at us Kazum boys like panthers eyeing a couple of plump bunny rabbits. I don't want to experience rock-star style casual hookups with hot babes. It freaks me out. I like people way more than I like flesh, and casual hookups are about flesh way more than they're about people.

Getting to know Jess & Brandy & Brittanie was super fun. Again, there wasn't any romantic pressure there - none of 'em are at all interested in me for whatever reason, so I can relax and just hang out with them. Yay! The AWOL girls were crazy fun. Spending the car ride back with Brittanie was also way fun. She was raised Mormon, and it's tough to see her as a hot girl now. At the same time, she's super attractive to me - I understand Mormon girls, very much, and I really bond well with them. That makes me (mostly) glad that she's too young for me and uninterested in me, to boot.

Lulu was really friendly at the show, as well. She's been friendly in the past, and I always seem to have a relationship or a date at the time. Lame. I'd love to kiss Lulu. Even more, though, I'd love to hang out with her and get to know her. I only ever see her at big festive parties and afterparties.

I also love hanging out with Anna. Again, she's not at all interested in me for whatever reason, and that leaves us free to snuggle and cuddle and hang out without any romantic pressures. :) She's another girl that would be big trouble if she liked me.

Adrienne is another matter. She used to go on at length about how much she wanted to be my lover, but since reconnecting with her after breaking up with Joey, she's not been at all romantically forward. Maybe it's just Dutch's hostile "Two Weeks!" energy. But it's for the best, I think... as Dutch would say, I don't deserve rebound action. And, painfully, I agree with him.

But I've been dating someone or other for the last year or so, and I'm into my 2nd week without any lovin's. It's difficult. And that's okay. If I strive to be honest with myself, that's even excellent. Just tough.

This somehow turned into a "list the girls I'm crushing on" kind of post. Lame.

Back to the circus. :)

I wanna be on the Wanderbus more in the future. The car is great! But it's just got less people to get to know. I did enjoy reciting my entire repertoire of poems while driving through northern California in the early AM. Everyone else was asleep (though Andy caught some of it) which lets me just relax and not be nervous about soliloquizing. I'm oddly shy for someone who's so often spammy and powerfully extroverted.

Playing drinking games with Dutch and Uli and the AWOL ladies was spectacular. I didn't spend much time with my all-time favorite AWOL girl on this trip, sadly - Alysia was usually doing things where I wasn't. :( But she was quite adequately entertained, as was I, and I sure hope that we'll resume our hanging-out patterns now again despite the interference of a certain Kazumite who's started monopolizing her time. :)

I didn't spend much time with Uli or Miranda, either. On Kazum-only tours we get way more time together. I can't wait for more of that. I love those girls very much.

Brittany Walsh is a stunt-goddess! She also doesn't know how to say "no". Pretty much the perfect girl for me. Off-limits, super-stunty, no inhibitions about stunting. Right on.

I feel bad, as though I stole Kae's dream girl. Amanda came for me, and was there to be my date, but both Temple and Kae were crushing on her pretty hard (and who wouldn't be, good heavens).

I really need to blog out a chronological order of events for this trip, for my own memory if nothing else. And... Clover just called and I need to go pick up my bike. So, this is the end of this disjointed ramble.

I miss Zac. *sigh* And Alex. Why can't they both live close by again? I haven't had a best friend for months, now.