cigarette butts....i have never seen more cigarette butts...and on streets dotted by ash/trash cans... wait a minute...i'm in california... these people don't smoke, they're not allowed to... well they need to go ahead and take the next step and send out some semi-social outcasts in police uniforms to issue recyclable paper tickets from the seats of their bicycles...... surely i'm not going through the bitter part of my re-entry into american culture...am i.........well at least i am laughing at it now. i actually am starting to take to santa cruz. its a wacky little place. california summed up in one 1/4 mile strip of "pacific garden mall". hell, i'm even starting talk to myself public a little just to fit in. i spend my days doing laps up and down the "pacific garden mall" watching freaks and robots do their dance to be seen. i entertain myself by counting how many times i hear the phrase "i was all like" or i will even accept "like" but it doesn't count for as many points as the full phrase. i'm sorry to confess that i don't exactly recall the current record. i tend not to remember things like numbers...ask my credit card companies. besides, i'm too busy dealing with all the solicitations to remember game stats. the same effeminate boy asks me over and over, " are you a registered california voter?" after 3 days of this today he finally pushed a little further and ventured "would you like to register?"..... i don't answer him...ever...to do that would be to tamper with the elements in an experiment, and a good scientist would never do that. today i tried something new, i smoked a cigarette while walking down the "pacific garden mall"... i was not disappointed... oh no.. at least 15 (estimated)times i was asked for a cigarette...in california........................cigarette butts. life always leads in circles and i'm afraid my circle peaks here and begins the outer180 back to the beginning or the end, depending on your school of thought. i will be leaving here sunday bound for the glories of LA. or i may just buck off this schedule/debt/credit card/responsibility saddle and fly bareback into the desert...                                                   until then i remain, smokely,