is there anyone from woodstock on this crazy group? or people at any publication or radio station, you have to call me. just write me here but i'll be leaving sometime tomorrow.

strange things continue to amaze me. like, how odd a siren sounded. i hadn't heard one since my arrival. god, it's terrifying. after being removed from tv and the um, big city of pittsburgh, i realize how absolutely nuts the big city is.

and in true jo style, tomorrow i'll go to the biggest city in america, new york new york. man. i anticipate much arguing in the heat.

even though, it poured here this morning. i never saw clouds move so fast, like they were in a hurry. hey, i never had that sensation, of a cloud in a hurry. and today i will have mango and yogurt. and tomorrow, a ruben sandwhich. hey, the biggest flying insect that looks like it's packing, was in here and i was just wigging and running around and then it just flew out so it's time to close the door. hold on.

man, i don't know the name of this one neil young song, but it makes me feel as strong and directed as a scud missle aimed directly at america. set to dissapate love and groovy vibes all over. and it is awesome to be doing this.

i just had a very intense and slightly rough start. but i'll be cool. i have this excellent powerbook.

just let me tell you, you have no idea of who these other people are. i still think you have a pretty good idea of who i am, but not really. okay, what else? i will drink in new york city and stare at people and take pictures. and i will not fall in love. i have already decided that can't have anything to do with this shit.

i'm telling you that what i write, all this stuff, especially about sex, well as stunningly confining as it is, seems the focus of my romantic attentions are centered on one man who probably thinks i'm crazy. but it's easier to just call me crazy instead of confronting your own mounting mania on the road to jo.

but man. hey, i am all alone out here. one little dame. 5'5" 550 pounds of jo.

don't you love the soundtrack to south pacific? happy talk keep talking happy talk. talk about adam duritz.

no, now i feel real strange. like i can't wait to get out there. that's only cause of listening to these tunes.

HEY ADAM DURITZ. darling honey okay, um, hey, whatever anyone wants to think of my wretchedness, well too bad. you just must not understand how utterly i surrender my life to the tunes i listen to. i mean how i think, feel act do, i become totally indoctrinated.

and i am really smart, well i mean i know all kinds of shit.

ah huh. see, adam, you need a blue collar bootcamp session with your favorite former welfare mother. well i bet he's known other welfare mothers. they end up in the wierdest places.

still puzzled about this all. after my second night here, i feel, well everything is really familar to me now.

gosh, i must admit, okay kill me. that um , well first, that i'm so glad that bat-mobile sized wasp left. it's legs hung two inches. i am not kidding.

so for now on, i am on a mission of discovery, okay all of you? not even a hint of a romantic ordeal. man. nd out all kinds of good and bad new things and need to smoke just a little more pot. only kidding. i hope i don't fry anyone's brain. but i am not giving my heart to anyone so easily. fuck.

see, cause i already did. blindly. completely. like being smacked upside the head with a two by four and i still feel it just like i did a year ago. and yeah, i was with st. john the roofer but i thought maybe adam would begin to fade away. but he didn't.

so it is love. that is the total and entire criteria. yikes i just made some people mad at me but leave me alone then. i can understand not wanting to be around someone you're like in love with and can't have. but this is just like seeing what the real obsticles between us as people.

and how the internet effects that. i still can't make those kinds of observations. i know absolutely that i would never have met the people i have before mel and paul, if it hadn't been on the net. and it's not a comfortable realization for someone like me who people say all this shit like i'm jovian (that means superhuman. i mean i have to make jokes. you don't understand, i mean i am so spent. the supposed confidence i have is just a series of refusals. i am just stubborn.

but my heart makes me strong. i can *feel* what is right and wrong. and that's what the world needs.

we censor sex, try to, from our lives but blatent killing is a part of the dinner time programming. eat and watch the news. now there's a garunteed digest problem. but we treat it like nothing. like why people are killing, what it might suggest about the luck they've had, and yet most of us are not killers. but the numbers are increasing.

and i'm still amazed how that bug flew out that door when i was wigging. see, that is a miracle. anytime disaster doesn't strike and could, is a miracle. everytime you drive anywhere and don't crash, i mean this world is stacked against us brick on top of brick.

but there has to be a way to beat it. and like i told my friend tom. well,

he asked me about me being famous. was it really what i wanted.

and you all still don't understand. i can only talk to all kinds of people if they know me. and i have to be famous. who knows. i mean it may never happen. that really doesn't matter. seeing all this does. holding a little baby. meeting people. every day i am trying. i want to learn how we can all get along. i swear. it is so simple.

and i feel this huge responsibility. everyone treats me like i am so special. or like i don't know. i do try and be nice. but so, well i try and be tolerant and i think if i can't figure this out. well who will tell the stories? but more than that, see, i am fairly rigid about some things.

and this peace and love song is so excellent. i love neil playing the guitar like he does on this song. anyway, it is so hard to be honest with strangers. over the computer, is so easy. amazing. maybe it'll get easier as i adjust to my own quirks and think them away. but i wigged. i am telling you. i feel really bad. i will not let that happen again but it was just the combination of so many things.

i will find what i need to. this trip is the most important thing i've done in terms of my um, career. after raising a child for 13 years, it is my turn to go out in america and see how things changed while i went to college and took care of leo. leo leo.

yeah, adam's birthday is coming up. and who knows where i'll be. new england.

but again, i'm not kidding. i was never in any danger. the first night i felt wigged. the reality of what i was doing was sinking in. most wigdom, well alot, seems to come from a desire to be accomadating and kind while still tending to the little rituals and weirdness we need to feel some control over our environment. the other day, i felt none. it was horrible. that was so much of the problem.

well it always is.

anyway, so we try to be nice but can't be ourselves so it never lasts.

oh, this is too complicated and i need more data. but the issue always is liberty vs tyranny. you want to be free to do what you want but allow others the same freedom but so often these things are in flux and opposed. but there has to be a way to strike a balance. i just want to see why we have these little quirks or something. i don't know.

i just know that the internet seems to provide a strange solution that seems somehow evil. well cause it is the height of superficiality. we think we know each other somehow. but we don't.

and yet we do. most of you are very kind way down inside. just scared. sick of being hurt and screwed over and mainly are just tired, huh? we all need some kind of buzz to keep us going. it thrills me to think some of you may find that with me.

but as i exist out here, well this is me, but when i talk about sex like i do, it's like an illusion. i can't handle the thought of being touched by someone i'm not attracted to. i swear if like don johnson hit on me, it'd make my stomach hurt.

but i already, well okay. i'll admit that there's a lot i don't know. but i've at least seen adam on tv. and i know that no person exists that won't somehow annoy me. i am a wretched jo. even madge who is like an angel wigs me out sometimes. i am so hard on this world and myself mostly but i love things being so perfect.

okay, i need a little pot. and i'll finish up these posts and read them over and write what has to be, one of the best columns i've ever done. it still has to be my voice but different. with a different authority, that kind of authority that comes from having no sense of authority over anything anymore. a poor stranger in a string full of towns on the road to jowhere.

i just had no idea what a non-reality cyberspace was. and so maybe this is the perfect vehicle to what may be a non-person, adam my duretz. no, see, there are so many things i do know about him. i don't know what's behind the artist, but i'm sorry, i just don't think in his case, that it can be very far from the man.

it will be though. knowing someone is a constant process of discovery. it's terrifying seeing what you find about them that makes you realize how inadequate you are. i mean wanting to do the right thing, trying to please someone all the time is so hard. so exhausting. it doesn't seem right.

why is it so hard to be like that with some people and so easy to be with others. what makes a person seem threatening?

well these questions and more i'm sure are going to be pondered as i make my way down the old highway. on the lost highway. steve earl, eh?

woodstock is a paisly courderoy pillow, not quite round, colored hot pink and burnt orange. so soft. mel's grandma made it. oh, and i was just playing with the little baby. i am going to miss this. but i'll take pictures. hey, they're having a yard sale.

this place is so wild. i feel so laid back even the clouds seem hurried. and i would marry adam but not on a dare.

no, okay, i have to stop that shit. and i know i am the like opposite of a whore and i can't even think about having sex. i mean it is easy to think about. the easiest. impossible not to.

but yikes. that is a strange call. who you're going to want or not. man. i can't believe anyone has sex at all. i mean it is like a huge deal to me cause it just never happens is all. and i won't be talked into loving someone just cause they might be good for me. i'm in a strange realm so just leave me alone.

so okay, i have to leave adam out of this mess. no, he provides the perfect desperate poetic background, looking for mr.jones in all the wrong cyberplaces.

and so many people, i've met on the crows' group. i haven't read e-mail groups in over a week. no, i don't miss it. i don't know. i miss reading my mail. damn, and i bet like twenty gladiolas are in bloom by now. well who knows. but i miss my yard. madge is all grown up there now.

i still never got to live alone. and going and staying with strangers is the polar opposite of being alone. i've stayed with people in hotels. but there, i was surrounded by others all in the hotel. i don't know.

i still do feel so bad though. so i have to toughen up. not consider taking no for an answer. just going and staying with these people and being really honest with these virtual stangers.

boy, it's hot here again. sunny and clear. so high up in the mountains. it is so beautiful.

shit. the winged beast of a bug is back and it's headed right at me. paul said it doesn't sting. well let's hope not. i don't care. i'd crush it with my bare hands if i had to.

i should be doing promotional stuff around here but i feel like i just have to get my head together and figure out how to do this. no more whore jokes. i mean no one that i'm visiting invited me to try and get over or anything like that. but after talking so much about it, well i just can't stand it when i'm in this situation. i don't know what i'm talking about.

i just think if you were a man it'd be impossible to be around me and not think about sex. man. then i think men are just like that in general cause they are filthy pigs. i love.

so i'll shut up. yes, i'm going to start proofreading.

man, this business is harder than i thought. and i'm only a week into the game. got three more to go. but i am so looking forward to meeting my friends. i'm just trying to adjust to what a punk i am.

i am drinking warm pepsi and it is a hot one today. mel and paul and the baby are all outside having a yard sale. i wish i didn't have to write and could smoke dope and just play with the baby and walk around looking at things. maybe we'll go swimming later, too. there's a creek right across the street.

and then tomorrow off to paul's house to meet his very conservative catholic parents and see how the other half lives. very well i imagine. i can't wait. cause i have a theory that everyone is so nice. just a little confused.

i am eating a bagel from woodstock. i feel like i am so hip already that i can't wait for new york. what are the chances that the big apple is the place that feels like home.

see, the man i'm visiting there. well of course he hasn't told his friends i'm coming or hasn't done anything to prepare for my arrival because he is just too much of a man to make such a big deal out of this.

well then don't expect a big deal out of jo.

that's all.

so now off to finish my bagel and start re-writing and posting. i do love smoking joints. like it's so much easier and i roll perfect ones. big, can smoke the same one all day.

i am nervous about writing my column. but the pressure has always been on i guess. well okay. man. i feel so ravenous today. had some blueberries, a bagel and a bunch of olives.

i must say i feel like this rude awakening. i had no idea how much was going on out in this big ol' world. i'm getting my barings and then i'll be heading out into america again.

this is a big deal, huh? this is something new. going to stay with person after person, just me. little helpless jojo. no, i don't think any of you would hurt me.

some of you little girly girls would like to. but it takes more than trying to actually hurt me. and even then, it won't stop me.

but i was halted two days ago. but i'll adjust and continue on. i just wish it wasn't so damn hot.

wow, i just ate some yogurt with peaches, blueberries, raspberries kiwi and bannanas. so perfect. and i just drank some fresh squeezed orange juice. i swear to god i just had a craving for some tofu cooked in sesame oil with green and yellow peppers and celery seed.

actually, i am in great health if i'd just lose a hundred and fifty pounds.

anyway, it is wild how the littlest things we see in others, we assume is a sign of so many things. it's stunning how right and wrong we can be in reading those signs, huh?

oh gosh. i'm overwhelmed.

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