I’m headed to MetroRock in Everett tonight to climb! If you want to come along, meet us at the Wellington T stop at 5:45 to get the shuttle, or just meet us there. If you miss us at the T stop, you can call them at 617-387-7625 and they’ll send the shuttle.

I have three weeks left, three years of stuff I want to do, and about three days of free time to fill. Help me schedule my last days! Below are the open-invitation activities that I’d love to do, but they’ll only happen if there’s enough interest. Fill out the survey thingy below to express your interest!

• Camping Trip– Next Weekend???: I have a free entry into any national park, and I’m free next weekend! Let’s head up to Vermont, build a big fire, make smores, tell ghost stories, hike around, relax, and take substances best taken in the middle of the wilderness!
  I was thinking about heading up Friday early evening or Saturday morning (20th or 21st) and coming back Sunday (and skipping Rocky), and the more the merrier. Come join me!
• Visit the ICA: I’ve been meaning to go for years! The Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art is supposed to be great, and I’m interested in almost everything there now.
• Poker Night: A night of beer, cards, and poker faces. There was interest earlier in having a doing a $5 entry Texas Hold’em tournament, but I’d also be open to something more varied and freeformed. Newbies are probably welcome, but it depends on the setup.
• Rock Climbing at MetroRock: MetroRock is a climbing gym in Everett, and it’s so much fun and an excellent work out. It’s about $18 after entrance and rental, but they have a ton of walls to climb, from totally-beginner to totally-impossible. No experience needed!
• How to Run a Revolution Lectures: I have piles of notes on everything from understanding the game, to setting up the dominoes, to letting them fall. It’s *probably* too much for me to organize before I go, but I might be convinced! If it doesn’t happen this month, I’ll come back and give the lectures some other year.

Now vote! Expressing your interest *is not* a commitment to come, but it means you can help me decide on the details.

Some years ago I was cutting wood not far from this journal, and I was about to cut down one tree when a little man, not more than three feet high, came running out of nowhere and begged me to spare it. I couldn’t believe my eyes, I just started stammering, “You’re a– you mean– I thought–”

“Oh, god!” he said. “Don’t even start that. Listen, I’ll give you three wishes if you *stop* babbling, and spare my tree. No wishes-for-wishes though, or anything that will get my forest overrun with wish-hungry humans.”

“Three magic wishes, huh? Do I have to decide on them now?”

“Not at all! Take your time. When you want to make a wish, just put your hands like this, and say ‘I wish…’, and, you know.” And then he disappeared.

I never decided what to wish for. I have a list of my top ideas somewhere, and there have been some times when I’ve come really close to using one of my wishes. But I always ended up doing things the non-magic way (or not doing them, and then deciding it wasn’t worth it).

Today I got a little note on crinkly leaf-paper in my mailbox. It said my wishes expired.

I can’t decide whether or not to be disappointed. I might have really enjoyed my wishes. Or I might have ended up with a carrot nose. I bet not, though.

I guess I’ll keep living like I still have three wishes.

In other news, some random friends heard that I do hypnosis sometimes and asked to try it, so I’m reviewing my skills. Anyone want in on a round of trances?

I’m having a Salon Party this Friday, May 30, and you should come! Part salon, part party: we’ll have good food and drink, good company, and plenty of good discussion– politics, religion, philosophy, sex, art, and society.

When: Friday, May 30, starting around 7 pm
Where: My apartment, 283 Washington St., Cambridge
Directions: http://www.existencia.org/info/grey17.txt

Many of the French salons were like parties, with the greatest thinkers of the day schmoozing, sharing ideas, and playing games (language games being the most popular). If you have ideas for activities or games, tell me about them!

Invite friends that you think would enjoy the salon atmosphere. And RSVP so I know how many people to expect!

I now have my one-way ticket to parts unknown! I leave July 4 from NYC and fly into Sao Paulo, Brazil. There, I find a place to leave my moving-bag, and spend the next couple weeks or months trekking around the country. PLUS, the funnest person in the entire world is going to meet me to explore (read: cut down) the Amazon– getting drunk on riverboats, hanging off trees, seducing headhunters, discovering new species, endless craziness!

Time is running out… My schedule for the next two months includes:

• This Saturday: Rocky Party! Cast, crew, and their guests are invited. Come to get drunk, naked, and off.
• May 30: Salon Party! Come if you love discussion! Wine, philosophy, and good company.
• June: Poker night? ICA visit? Camping trip? Vege dinner party? Drug orgy? Everything I have time for (which, admittedly, will be limited)! Salons on June 10 and 24!
• June 28: Brazillian Party!!! (Going Away Party)– EVERYONE should come to this! It starts Saturday evening, and continues into the Rocky afterparty. I’ll set up an evite in June.

I need to go climbing, dancing, driving, hashing; I need to get my visa, storage, jobs, and give use sell pack and trash all my stuff; I need to finish teaching my Future seminar, writing up my other seminars for OpenCourseWare, and coding a working beta of the Travelers Network. And I need to spend all the rest of the time with good friends.

I’m torn: I don’t want to lose my friends here! But I don’t want to try to force a remote-presence, like some awful year-long goodbye, and I don’t want to distance myself from the incredible things I can be doing in Brazil. I’ll probably never return to greater-Cambridge, except to visit, but there are too many special people here that I don’t want to lose track of, touch with, or connection to.

Should I start posting every day, like the LJ blogs with very active readerships?
Should I build an virtual park/living room, where I can run into friends online?
Should I just forget everyone, like I’ve done in the past?
Would you join a group forum, where we commit to posting something notable every 10 days?
Would you Skype with me every once in a while, just to catch up?

Live fully.

Steer Roast isn’t a party. It’s a living, breathing creature. Even when you’re not immersed in one of the endless pockets of music, friends, joints, and nitrous canisters, you can feel it throbbing all around you.

Especially when you’re on excellent new drugs. Brief Trip Report

Today, I could start a sex commune. Don’t ask me why– I don’t know– but it’d be glorious.

I’m starting an “Ask James” F.A.Q., with answers to all the questions I wish people would ask me. Like “Why Brazil?”, “What is the meaning of life?”, “How does one start a sex commune?”, “Why have I stayed single?”, “What role does religion have humanists?”. Not that my answers are right or my questions necessarily relevant to anyone, but I have an awful lot of both and each one demands its own little soap box. And one big soap-box of soap-boxes in corner seems better than clutters all over the floor.

Do you have any questions for me? Feel free to reply anonymously.

The last week has been absolutely incredible. Ever since getting drunk with a friend last Sunday (right after he realized it was his 21st birthday!) and talking about life and women and moving, I’ve been feeling much better. Which isn’t to say I don’t feel anxiety and all the rest, but I’ve caught my emotional breath, and the incredible weather doesn’t hurt!

I forgot how beautiful spring is! I saw the most beautiful thing in my life last week (except for some women of my acquaintance), even if it just a tree lit by a street lamp:

Moving to Brazil is becoming more real– I’ve started to look for a job down there, or a telecommuting deal up here. I’d been belittling the move (Hey, everyone has to live somewhere– why not Brazil?), but that fact is I’m moving to Brazil despite a gazillion reasons to stay, because I think life will be more incredible if I do. If it’s a mistake, I can always move back, or try a hundred other countries.

For the past week, I’ve been swimming in good music! My second couchsurfer, who’s from Brazil, gifted me with a CD packed with Brazilian music, and my favorite guru for music-stalking, , just introduced me to a pile of new bands– not to mention, some new friends. I haven’t had enough time to enjoy them, but I’m in no hurry (time is short, but a hurried life is shorter).

Finally, I took my (third) couchsurfer, a PhD student studying the sociological effects of fractal geometry, to “Yeast Roast” at T.E.P. As we came in, the whole house was chanting “Yeast! Give us bread! Yeast! ‘Till we’re dead!” as a huge tray of yeasty delights was slowly lowered from the ceiling. She spent most of her time chatting up undergrads in the naked roof hot tub.

I’m in such a weird emotional space right now. I’m lonely, and anxious, and conflicted, and melancholy. And I know it’s temporary, I know at least some of the causes, and I know a part of me that enjoys the confusion, but life right now has none of the thrills I know it could. I wish sometimes I could cry.

I’m not lonely exactly for lack of friends or opportunities, but friends aren’t what I’m lonely for. It’s two-and-a-half months before I leave, and that’s too long for a lame duck social life and too short to pursue any new relationships. And I don’t have the time or the energy to organize the social life I want– and I’m not even sure what social life that would be any more.

All my employers want an ever-bigger slice of my pie before I leave. When I find extra hours, I end up pouring it into jobs I care less for every day. And I’m not getting to work on my own projects. It’s like I spend all my time driving up an ever-steepening slope, but it feels like my wheels are mostly just spinning in mud.

I’m torn over the dozens of friendships I want to make better here. I’m torn over what happens when I leave to those relationships when I leave. And if preparing to leave has also been freeing, I waver on how much to explore that freedom, and how much to care. And in my confusion, I’ve said some hurtful, inappropriate things recently to good friends who didn’t deserve them.

Mostly, I’m just sad. Sad to be leaving, and sad to be alone and getting more alone every day. I want to enjoy my last few months, and instead I’m comparing them to an imagined other life I think I could build for myself here. Not sad enough to change my plans, but just sad enough to want to forget about them.

I just did my taxes. It could have been worse, but I cleared out most of my bank account and still owe the feds thousands. It won’t stop me from going to Brazil, but it won’t make it easy. And I still haven’t gone to the consulate to find out how legally I can work there.

C’est la vie.

Plan to do something fun with me before I leave! Want to go camping? Want to bar-hop and check out some new music? Want to just hang out, drink tea, and talk life? Distract me in a new way, and I’ll shake off this haze before a jet engine blows it away.

Sign up to host couchsurfers! The Couchsurfing Project isn’t just a website; it’s a movement. People around the world can offer up their couches, and search for couches in areas where they’re traveling. You don’t pay anything (for the site or the couch), hosts aren’t expected to do anything but let you sleep on their couch (though, many will show you around if they have time), and you end up meeting a ton of cool people as host or surfer.

I feel a guilty pleasure that my first two requests for couchsurfing are from women from exotic places (well, other continents anyway). Here’s some women, traveling alone to a far-away country. And she says to herself, “Here I am, a woman, with breasts and hips and everything– I wonder where I should stay amongst all these couches available in the greater-Cambridge area? Oh, this person– a guy– looks nice!” Is it bad for me to be proud of that?

Of course she isn’t sleeping at my house to sleep with me, and I would never make a move on a couchsurfing guest (unless, I suppose, I really thought she wanted me to). But I can’t forget the sexual potential.

The problem is, there aren’t any good sites for sexual tourism. So Couchsurfing has to make it extra clear that that’s not what it’s for. But I’m sure there are some women using the site who want it for that. And I think my last couchsurfer tried to hit on me.

My most recent couchsurfing request is from a guy in Florida who used ALL CAPS in his email to me. Who does that? Is it fair for me to not want him to sleep on my couch if he uses email that way?