If I have a home, then I guess I'm here.  For quite a long time, I've been confused about the idea of home.  I've moved around, rejected past lives, put "do not disturb" signs outside of apartments - constantly just visiting.

I guess it's more or less just whining.  It's nice when I have friends around to tell me to shut up.  But it would be nice to enter a room, smile, throw my coat onto a comfortable brown chair (that matches the rest of the interior design), and say "I'm home."

Tonight I'll be spending the night in my bed.  Big deal, right?  Well - it will be for the second night in a row.  I haven't spent the night in the same bed for consecutive nights in quite a long time.  Before I kick my blankets around in a futile effort to sleep, I'm sitting on my patio.  At my home. 

Being outside has gotten me thinking.  I've been a lot of different places in the past few months.  There is one defining characteristic that links all of them - being outdoors.  Here are some portraits:

North Bimini, The Bahamas - -

The doors to the balcony are odd.  They are large, sliding glass doors.  They have complex curtains, and I get lost in them several times.  There are two sliding doors, on the right and left.  They close in the middle.  It is like a puzzle, and if you don't solve it correctly, your punishment is crisp Carribbean air.  Outside I  lean back in my chair, putting my legs up on the guardrail.  To the east I can smell the ocean, bluer than the eyes of any girl I'll never fall in love with.  Behind me, to the west, I imagine I can throw a stone and hit the water.  I would have to have a very strong throwing arm, but I like to believe with an operation it would be possible.  Or if I had an accident like that kid in "Rookie of the Year."  But I shake my head from my inane thoughts, and realize - I am in The Bahamas.  Dusk is settling in, and I take one long last whiff before I unsuccessfully try to open the doors and curtains.

Manhattan, New York - -

The sun is setting to the west, over the Hudson River.  It's powerful beams cast rays onto the 29th floor, illuminating the emerald green exterior of the building, making everything brighter than it should be.  It's a huge balcony - it stretches wide, with arms open.  You can go to the edges and gaze out to the south - towards Long Island, or the north - towards Central Park.  People are out here.  It's hard for them not to smile.  I think the percentage of happy people on a 29th story balcony in Manhattan has to be pretty high.  I'm not sure of this, because I have never taken a survey, but I am speculating. 

New Orleans, Louisiana - -

On a second floor balcony, every once in a while there is a strong smell of garbage that emanates up from the street.  It is Bourbon Street, so it is naturally dirty.  It is not necessarily a disgusting filth - it's just expected.  To the right and left, tourists walk down the street, probably silently congratulating themselves for donating 25 dollars to a Katrina fund two summers ago.  I should probably be throwing beads to 40 year olds, enticing them to show me their no-no parts.  We are at a bar called The Bourbon Street Music Company.  It is an apt name, because the same band is playing the same songs for the third night in a row.  I still go down and watch them occassionally, because the girl lead singer is very cute.  She has short blonde hair, and wears shirts that show off the tattoos that are right around the place on your body that pants are actually supposed to hide.  She smiles at me sometimes, but I'm sure she just thinks I'm somebody else.  Maybe she thinks I'm Ben Affleck.  I'm not sure if I should be happy about this.

Dowagiac, Michigan - -

There are about twenty people seated around the campfire.  In its glow, I recognize some faces, others are brand new.  We are in the middle of nowhere.  There are more stars in the sky than I can remember seeing in a very long time.  I try to name them, then remember that I never took an Astronomy class.  Two kegs sit to the left of the campfire.  People drink a few cups and then head to bed.  Late in the night, around four a.m., only a few people remain.  We were there for a wedding - we are at the bride's parent's house.  Some of the wedding party begin making racist comments about my Korean friend Joe.  After chewing them out, my friend Kraig and I realize that if they wanted to kill us no one would ever know.  We go spying around in an old barn on the property.  We find a Der Fuhrer book and 200 or so jars of peanut butter, filled with various items, none of them being human skin.

St. Johns, Michigan - -

My last night on my back porch.  This place has so much meaning for me.  Never has a place given me such condradictory sensations.  I want to leave so bad, and I want to remain here forever.  The porch looks out onto the finely manicured backyard.  In the west you can see the glow of St. Johns.  The Burger King parking lot lights are very bright.  I sit on the porch swing and read for a while.  It is cold, because I am imagining that I will be in Florida in just a few nights, so the warmth has already made its way into my bones.  I hear a noise, a sniffing, scuttling noise, to my left, only a few feet away.  I get up, back away slightly, and wait for the beast to show itself.  It is a skunk.  It is completely oblivious to me.  Still, I'm petrified.  It crosses under the porch to the other side before I begin to talk to it.  It still pays me no mind.  I hold a conversation for a while and contemplate going after him, because I've never been sprayed be a skunk before.  Eventually it heads behind the garage.  I missed it immediately.  About an hour later, it returned the exact same spot.  This time I stood up and started talking to it.  Het ran off into the night, uninterested in what I had to talk about.  I was trying to talk to him about finding a date.  I leaned over the porch rail, waiting a very long time for him to come back.  This is what I always do on my last night.  He never came back.

Cincinnati, Ohio - -

We're on the outside patio of a bar called the Cadillac Lounge, or some other generic bar name.  It has a mechanical bull.  Seriously.  It's in downtown Cincinnati, and there's a mechanical bull.  I instantly rename the bar Six in the City, because of the abundance of underwhelming girls.  I try to decide if this is mean.  It is.  I try to decide if the Cincinnati air is intoxicating enough for me to try and have a conversation with a girl.  Sean is talking to a cougar with her boobs half exposed.  He is entertaining the idea of taking her back to our hotel room.  I send him a text message.  This is what it says:  NO.

Lake Worth, Florida - -

My patio is enclosed by a dilapidated fence, so no one can judge me.  Along the fence there are various plants growing.  It seems as if I've been gone for years, because the plants seem much larger and greener than when I left.  The moon hangs in the south, hidden by a large tree that sometimes is home to a squirrel I sometimes talk to.  The ground is wet from a thunderstorm that rolled in earlier, soothing me with dark and serious arms.  I feel a little bit euphoric, but I'm not sure why.  It could be the Florida air that smells a little bit like roasted pecans.  It could be the green and white christmas lights that sparkle over my head.  Or it could be that I feel, even if it's just a little bit, like I'm home.