Coding In Paradise

I'm back. What a long strange trip its been. I want to share my life again with this nameless blog, communicate my ups and downs. So much time has passed since I've written here. My birthday was last Sunday, a week ago. Last Sunday a year ago I started travelling, right on the day I turned 25. What a fucking crazy year; I feel like I've lived several lifetimes. A few days ago I was walking home from BART, the public transport system here, and I was thinking how blessed I am for how much I've experienced; I feel like my life has been so full. Many images filled my mind: Vietnam, the village in Thailand, Bangkok, riding on motorcycles through the rice-fields, the beauty of Spring first-time love with Kathleen, my old college society ADP full of freaks, geeks, hags, and fags, all of us celebrating our sexual craziness in NYC, the Gordon Elliot Talk Show, the Valley, my brothers, Esalen, the virginity of Freshman year, the dark throes of Sophomore year, the long-haired searching of Junior year, discoveries of Senior year, Boobah falling out the window, my Wicca circle in NYC, the Winter of love comming off its train-tracks, the anguish of not loving someone enough to stay but loving them too much to leave, being a "playa" around the world, Japan, high-school, my beautiful high-school soul-mates Jorge and Daniel, my beautiful college soul-mates Laurent and Susan. Everyone I've met along the way.

Everyone I've met along the way.
Everyone I've met along the way.

I feel tears behind my eyes right now. Enough for now; I'll fill in whoever's out there what I've been up to since November 25th, 2001, the last time I updated this blog, but not today.

I'll just talk about now. I live in El Cerrito with my brother, Bryan, right next to Berkeley. I love Berkeley; I revel in its freakishness, its wierdness. On Wednesday nights I volunteer at the Long Haul, an anarchist bookstore, serving coffee, selling zines, and talking to folks about the revolution in its various guises. On Tuesday nights I volunteer at Free Radio Berkeley, helping to build microradio/pirate transmitters the size of school lunchboxes to send around the world. On Thursday nights I go to Rad Tap and get blissfully beatup by an intense, wonderful, tough tap teacher who says tap comes from the knees and not the feet, and tries to "unteach" us. On Sunday nights I go to Bare Foot Boogie, pop off my shoes, and dance for hours in a space where I can do anything. Sometimes I play role-playing board-games with 12 year olds, nuclear physicists, and numerical scientists.

During the day I work on my project, The Writeable Web. The Writeable Web is a new web browser and web architecture. I've been working on it for about 7 months so far; its going to probably take about 2 years to build. I'm blowing my life savings on it; that's what they're there for, right?

I'm living life on my own terms now, no one elses. Honesty, sincerity, integrity; the last year has really honed my sense of what my values are and who I am. Sometimes, while sitting in Starbucks, I'll look out the window, see the blue sky and the trees blowing in the wind, and just get the universe and feel at peace, and my eyes will mist up. I feel like I can believe mutually contradictory things now, that life isn't so black and white. I want to build bridges, to understand how everyone sees and feels things. Sometimes when I go to bed my eyes hurt, too much looking, too much feeling. The world is such a big fucking place; huge. There's always something new to discover.

I ride my bike everywhere. On my old bike the brakes simultaneously broke while the chain fell off; I gave that bike away. My new bike is doing better, and I love it. When I can, I get to nature out here, revel in the eucalyptus trees. I go to a hill near here named Albany Hill, where huge eucy trees rise tall. To get there you have to jump a creek and go through a tunnel of poison oak. I've buried and burned into the air many memories from my past there, said goodbye to them at the top of that hill. It's a beautiful place.

The town I'm in, El Cerrito, seems like some flying saucer from the fifties flew over and farted out a bunch of burger joints and bowling allies. Watch out the aliens are in your hotdog.

I miss my dad; I feel like something's been missing from our relationship the last few years. Maybe I'm just growing up.

I miss Kathleen sometimes. Not as much anymore. I do little rituals to say goodbye. I know I made the right choice to leave and travel; I've grown hundred-fold as a person, but that doesn't make it any easier. It isn't a logical thing, its an emotional one. I woman in Thailand who read's auras and does healing said that once your souls touch its hard to pullback; your higher selves will always be connected in some-way. I wonder what Kathleen's up to in her life right now?

I've made a good emotional, intimate friendship with a girl named Maria. We have fun flings in interesting spots, like Singapore. We hold each other, makeout, lie in bed naked together, have fun, and talk about things. I don't have a romantic spark for her. She feels like a buddy, a partner; we help each other in life. I'm there for you Maria; love you dude. Keep on truckin.



Boobah, my cat, is great. What a stunning little dude. I have to take him for walks on a leash or he gets cranky. His favorite thing is to attack and eat long blades of grass; he's a vegetarian! Boobah doesn't want to hurt anything; he just wants to smell everything. Sounds like a good philosophy of living to me.



Most days I sit in my robe, a bright-yellow Thai-silk deal with dragons all over it, far too late. The handle on the toilet runs water continously and is obviously broken, and there are way too many spiders and daddy-long legs in the house for my comfort. But these are little things, and should pass with time.



Sometimes me and my brother will see someone really really ugly, and we'll talk about how the universe is showing us a little of it's beauty there. We'll laugh and feel guilty, but its true; who says the universe wasn't beaten with the ugly stick? Who says God isn't an overweight American from Nebraska? Who says?

Do souls get yellow with age, like the pages of an old book, curl and ripple from the moisture in the air?

I have every book I've ever owned under one roof now. I always have something to read when I go to the bathroom.

That's all for now. Love everyone. Brad Neuberg.