“Did someone forget their apple?” Faith asked, emerging from the bathroom, holding a half-eaten, half-rotted apple by the stem she’d discovered on the tiled floor next to the toilet.

The house is three stories; tight staircases and half-a-dozen rooms on every level, and I’m sitting on rug in the second floor den playing cards–feeling tired and longing for home. Wherever that is.

Nothing like leaving a rotting apple on the bathroom floor of the complete stranger’s home that’s provided a roof over your head to say, “thanks for the hospitality.”

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It’s a rainy morning in Pittsburgh, and I’m coming to you a bit later than usual because I’m crashing with a rather swell blogger here in PA, Secret Agent L, who lives a rather simple “sans internet” lifestyle at home when she’s not surreptitiously leaving behind random acts of anonymous kindness for strangers to find.

Every city and town I am in, I never know who or what I am going to find. And trudging through the rainy streets this morning I realized something…

I didn’t start this blog to be your teacher. I started Make It MAD to create.  To be me. To share truth.

So if you’ve come here for a lesson each Wednesday, you’ve come to the wrong place.

I don’t know the first thing about tomorrow.

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I will cross the country in a search of your faith even though I may have lost mine.

I claim to believe in a God who is fair, but there is nothing fair about this.

I will give you the last dollar in my wallet when I see you on the street

just to forget you.

Never to feed you.
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I am sitting in what is quite possibly the coldest coffee shop on planet Starbucks this evening, my stomach still in ropes from the debilitating illness that left me spilling my guts all over a bathroom floor in Seattle last weekend, and I’m rapidly losing weight having had to knife a new hole in my belt Monday morning.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I just had a kidney stolen.  All the elements are there, but as far as I can remember, I didn’t wake up in a bathtub full of ice this morning. I still haven’t counted it out, though.

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Eight days on the road, and you want to know what I’ve learned?

I have no idea what I am doing.

There are no miraculous encounters to retell here.

No life-threatening misadventures.

I haven’t seen a single burning bush, and not even one snake slithering around in any trees containing knowledge of good and evil has offered me a delicious apple.

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I arrived here with the intent to camp, set up a tent, crash in a sleeping bag on the cold, hard dirt, rub two stick together to make fire, and perhaps even roast a hot dog while listening to nearby campers tell scary ghost stories.  Oh, I also came here first to clear my head, pray, connect with God in nature, and marvel at something not man-made.  And if I had to kill a coyote by hand, I would do that too.

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I have a confession to make. I am terrible at being a Christian.

On Thursday I went to Barnes and Noble. I bought a map to help chart my course for Mad Across America. I purchased one of those outrageously giant wall maps I could write on and put tacks in and draw tiny little pictures of tanks on, pretending I am in the middle of the Civil War.

And good thing I bought that map before hitting the road. If there’s anything I’ve learned from planning this trip, it’s that there are a lot of states in America. 50 of them, it turns out. And the states are big. Who knew? I may be on the road longer than anticipated.

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“I cannot think of one reason why anyone not raised in the faith would choose to be a Christian.  The mythology is silly–a virgin birth, wise men following a star to a single geographical point, a crucifixion–by the time I was 10 I knew this didn’t make sense.  And I was raised in the faith.”

This is a comment found online, written in reply to the following question, “Why aren’t you a Christian?”

While I write this I am eating a peanut butter chocolate chip brownie for lunch at an outdoor coffee shop where all the seating is mismatched patio furniture.  As I eat this delectable treat, I am aware that 90% of you reading this will never get to experience eating this peanut butter chocolate chip brownie at this coffee shop with mismatched patio furniture on an 80 degree January day in Los Angeles.  Not because this particular peanut butter chocolate chip brownie is something spectacular (far from it, in fact, because there’s nuts in this thing), but because you’ve found your own peanut butter chocolate chip brownie somewhere else.  Maybe it’s just as good as mine, or better.  Or maybe you’re not crazy about the nuts, but you can look past it so you eat the thing anyway.  Maybe that particular brownie just isn’t good enough, and you’re always asking yourself: what if there’s something better out there?

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I was feeling rather discontent yesterday, and it wasn’t the holy kind.

I was angry.  The kind of anger that burns like rocket fuel and seeks to destroy, however I couldn’t place it.

I woke up (on most days this is an automatic win; still breathing? Check) in a bed (another win when you are wandering planet Los Angeles with nothing but a couple of boxes and a lamp–which, until it produces a genie, I will continue to reevaluate its value to my operation), and in my own private room where there appears to be a crib, some zebras on the floor, and a whale in the shower.  I know what you’re thinking: There’s been a successful jailbreak at the zoo.  I’m currently living with one of my biggest fans, a brilliant and kind-hearted man, who, along with his wife and child (to whom all the animal paraphernalia belongs), has taken me and my vagabond lifestyle in, provided me a home, yet I still woke up with a heavy heart.

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I abandoned my apartment this week (much to the dismay of my landlord who became quite vexed at the discovery of my chalkboard wall and furniture I couldn’t sell), junked my car, and gave away everything I owned, including some CDs and DVDs which Amoeba Records bought in exchange for some lunch money.  My entire life now fits into four boxes and a duffle bag.  Three of those boxes are filled with books.

Oddly excited to drop off the grid and crash with close friends giving me the chance to get my life in order, I decided to have a celebratory burger and fries with my lunch money before I dropped out of Hollywood.

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