At night in Oakland I feel so twisted up and I’ve figured out that it is because I am stranded in my own neighborhood. I don’t have a car or a motorcycle or a bicycle, and because Oakland is so large and spread out, and dangerous at night, I feel trapped. In the past I would walk north to Berkeley, but that’s a good three or four miles on foot, and by the time I get there I already feel like turning around and going home. That and no one ever wants to come with me.

In Nokesville I could get in my car and drive to the woods. In Baltimore I could walk from one end of the city to the other. In Austin I could step out my door and wander around Hyde Park for hours and see a lot of different places and no one ever bothered me.

Oakland is a ghost town filled with trash. This is my last month here. Whoa!