I Might Like You But Leave Me Alone

I want to be left alone.

I travel alone. I live alone (except for my cats.)

As I get older, the more I don’t want to be around people. I live in the middle of Downtown LA, yet I make it my mission never to be in contact with anyone.

I usually don’t give a fuck about this since it serves me well. I don’t have to deal with conforming myself to anyone’s expectations – it’s bad enough doing this eight hours a day at work.

Then I found myself at the Dark Force Fest in Parsippany, NJ the first weekend in May. A couple of issues:

1. It was a warm, humid weekend, which never bodes well for dressing up. It was also an under-10-minute walk from the secondary parking lot which normally isn’t an issue for me, but once you add humidity and being dressed up: oof.
2. The venue itself got real stuffy, and there was very little seating. As a fat 46-year-old, standing for eight hours is less than optimal. But to their credit, they did set up water coolers throughout the hotel and kept them topped up.

All of this could be dealt with. But as I sat in my hotel room a couple of miles away, the dread hit me. The dread of being around people. The people there were nice. In fact as a group of people, they are probably the closest to kindred spirits I could be around. But it still didn’t take away from the fact that I did not want to go despite the fact that I really wanted to see bands like Haujobb, Razed in Black, Suicide Commando, Funker Vogt, Klute, the Genitorturers and the Birthday Massacre. I don’t know if it was being around people or if it was just pure laziness.

I did go to enough of the festival/convention. I got to see Razed in Black which really was the reason I wanted to go in the first place. I also got some things from the vendors:

Meanwhile the rest of my East Coast vacation up in New England was great. I spent the next week going to the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire via a cog train where the 70 mph wind gusts knocked me on my ass a couple of times at the peak:

I went to a few state capitol buildings in Montpelier, Vermont:

Augusta, Maine:

Providence, Rhode Island:

I saw lakes in the “mountains” of Maine (Mooselookmeguntic Lake):

Walden Pond outside of Boston, MA (a bit overrated but pretty):

FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, NY:

And some covered bridges!

I really loved Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Connecticut is a complete waste of space. And, of course, New Jersey is probably the worst state I’ve ever been to. What a fucking shithole.

But does it say something about me that the places I loved the most had no people? Perhaps in this environment it is just as well.