Day 38

Crashed out at my buddy Kelvin’s last night and then went surfing early this morning. REALLY early. I haven’t been with the ocean in almost a year and a half. A sense of fear still overwhelms me when I know a wave is about to collide with me. I really need to embrace and kick that habit. It’s kinda strange; how can I love and be afraid of something at the same time?

The rest of the day, I spent helping Amy and her roommate Rachel move into their new place. It’s pretty ridiculous. It’s literally two blocks from the beach and a block away from main street. She’s definitely got a great setup going.

Oh yeah, after we were all done with everything, we hung out in the living room for a long while. Like 1:30 in the morning long while. During that time, I had my first hit of weed. Rachel said that I had broken my weed-cherry, I thought that was pretty funny. The “weed experience” wasn’t really as exciting as I thought it’d be. I don’t know, maybe I just did it wrong, or didn’t smoke enough of it or something.

Day 34

Woke up really early this morning and went for a bike ride, but I totally ate it on the sand and slid on the path. My knee was scraped up a bit and I bled somewhat. I even got a pretty good stain on the surface of my right hand as I tried to wipe it off. I am the coolest.

Day 28

So last night, as I was leaving work; I noticed my ipod wasn’t attached to my backpack anymore. I walked back to my desk and searched everywhere for it. No luck. “Could it have been stolen?” I thought, “but how? And when?” After looking over every inch of my desk for the third time, I decided, it had to have fallen off in the van somewhere.

I said goodnight to the guards, and nervously walked to the van. I didn’t want to believe that it had been stolen, despite the fact that there had been numerous acts of vandalism and theft at the agency lately.

So I get to my van, and look everywhere for it. Again, no luck. “Did I miss a spot at my desk?” Not a chance. That ipod was gone.

So I go to sleep in disappointment and have this dream where I somehow find my ipod. Which kinda makes sense since that was the last thing I was thinking about. But then I wake up, and what’s next to the foot of my sleeping bag? My ipod! Kinda weird huh?

Day 21

I woke up this morning and moved my car as I would always do to keep things mixed up. Except this time, after I had parked and was getting my gear ready to take a shower, a white Toyota 4runner pulled into what was once my most cherished of parking spots. It was the same white 4runner that would always be right behind me when I’d wake up in the morning. I recognized it because of its customized license plate, “LPORTO.” Only this time, I was awake to see who owned this vehicle, and to much surprise, it was our office manager Carol! Which I guess now ends the debate as to whether someone had ratted me out a couple weeks ago? Or had she actually caught me sleeping in the van? 

Needless to stay, it amazes me that out of the perhaps 300+ spaces in the lot, and the 800+ employees at Chiat, the one spot I chose to be my favorite was also that of my office manager. I must be the unluckiest guy on the planet.

Day 20

Woke up this morning in my new spot, and I just have to say, the curtains are quite fantasmical.

Day 19

It’s my birthday today. The big 28. I spent most of it hanging out with the familia. and thanks to a video camera and the internet, I even got to talk to my brother Kris whose been in Nicuagra the past couple months. Mom and Dad have been super supportive of my decision to live in The Goose. One of my birthday gifts this year were some custom made curtains for the van and a couple new interior lights that don’t run on the car battery. These will definitely offer a lot more privacy. Especially now that I will be parking on the street. So thanks again mom and dad, you guys are the best.

Day 9

So I came into the office this morning to find a voicemail already left on my phone at work. In a very kind and warm tone, the message said, “Hi Justin, it’s Carol. Could you give me a call when you get this?.” –click. Oh snappidy! Cue the scary orchestra music.

Carol’s the office manager at my office. And in my opinion, she has the toughest, toughest, toughest job out of anyone here. Part of her job is to listen to everyone’s complaints and address them to the rest of the agency. Which in turn, can sometimes make her look like the bad guy.

But I digress, so instead of talking to her on the phone, I deicided to talk to her face to face. I caught her as she was walking past the basketball court.

“Hi Carol, I’m Justin.” I suddenly felt like I was in elementary school again and was standing in front of the principal. “I’m here because of the voicemail you left for me this morning.”
With a smile she replies “Oh hi Justin! I was just wondering, have you been traveling lately?”
“Traveling? Nope, I haven’t gone anywhere lately.”
“Oh, well. . . do you own more than one car then?”
By this time, I was totally perplexed. And I think Carol was too. “Two cars? No, I still only have the one.”
“Well, is there a reason why your car’s always here so late? I know these things because I get here early, and I can tell when a car’s been here overnight. The reason I ask is because there’s a very limited amount of spaces here, and we can’t afford to have people leave one of their cars here while they commute back and forth with their other car.”
I couldn’t believe it, Carol thought I was just using our parking lot as storage for a spare car. “Oh no, it’s nothing like that at all,” I responded, “see, the lease to my old place ended January 31st, and I can’t move into my new place until February 15th; so in the meantime, I’m just camping out until then.”
I had totally thrown Carol a curve ball. “Oh, so ummmmm... you’ll be gone by the 15th then?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, okay, that’s fine then.” And then she smiled again and walked off.

Yeah I know, I bent the truth a bit, but I was honest about the major stuff. But the most important things was, I had survived a meeting with the principal and had gotten a smile out of it. Now all I have to do is find a new spot to camp out at.

Day 5

It rained pretty hard this past weekend, and I have to admit, sleeping under the rain was pretty amazing.

Day 2

So I survived my first night sleeping in the Goose. I was a bit worried about it being too cold, but a goose down sleeping bag does wonders. And thanks to my friend Armando’s old futon leopard print mattress, yes, leopard print, the van floor felt just like any other bed.

Day 1

Tonight was my last night together with the housemates. We went to dinner at this place called Truxton’s after the final walkthrough with our landlord was complete. Who knew when the five of us would be together like that again?

Afterwards, as we were walking towards our cars in the parking lot, it felt like I was in a season finale episode of “The Real World” (not that I watch the show or anything.) As we reached one person's car, we’d hug them good-bye and then the remaining roomies would head over to the next person’s car, until finally, it was just me and the Golden Goose. And thus began the next chapter of my life.

What is the Golden Goose you ask? Well, the Goose may seem like an ordinary 1994 Gold Toyota Previa minivan; but trust me amigos, she’s a whole lot more.  ;)