2004-01-21

IMPORTANT NEW NOTES FROM JUSTIN:

Wow, I sure have been traveling for a long time. As I post today's installment I looked at my calendar and saw that I've been out here for 164 days! This is the longest I've ever traveled, and by far the most challenging trip I've ever taken. Sometimes I think about calling it quits and heading home—some days I'm just tired of never sleeping in the same bed, some days I'm tired of wondering what happens when the money runs out. I miss my friends and family.

Yet, there is something that compels me to continue. I know I have something great to find out here. And, I know I have something great to give out here. And, I'll know when it's time to go home. But, until then, you'll find me somewhere out there. I'm the one in the red car with the driver's side window that doesn't work anymore, the one with the rust spots all over it that speeds past you. I'm the one taking the pictures of the graffiti, the statue, the strange food.

I am still looking for nice, fun people who can put me up for a few nights and really host me. This would involve me staying at your house for a few days, showing me a good time, feeding me from time to time, and leading me into whatever general mischief we can get into. I'll get to learn about your life and write about our times together! I am meeting with people I've never met before and living some life with them. That could be you! If you think it might be fun to host me for a day or two or three, email me at justingrace AT mac DOT com.

Please make sure to include your address and phone number in your email to me so I can be in touch!

I am especially looking for places to stay in the southeast USA and everywhere on the East Coast. I will be traveling all over the USA, though, so email me no matter where you are because I will probably come visit! Here are the places I will be in the next few months that I am still looking for a place to stay at:

� North/South Carolina
��Georgia
� Tennessee
��Virginia/West Virginia

Please contact me ASAP if you want to hang out!

If you believe in what I am doing and want to help support me, please do so! You can donate money to me using PayPal. Email me for more information! Or, check out my photo sales page! Buying photos from me feeds me and keeps me on the road!

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US Tour Day 129: Planned Parenthood

I got tested for STDs today. There was the usual jamming of the swab into my urethra. The swab looks so small—it's barely half the size of the cottons swabs you get at the drug store. But, when the doctor inserts the sterile swab into the tender opening in my penis—a delicate path normally reserved for hot fluid removal—I tell you that at that moment the tiny swab feels like a mighty sequoia. That's on fire. With other very rough and similarly mighty sequoias protruding from the sides in angles specifically designed by nasty bad people to be very painful to the inside of my penis.

After the genital torture we moved from the doctor's office to the blood work room. They needed my blood. And it looked like they were going to need lots of it, too. The nurse's assistant grabbed a handful of vials and started laying them out on the table next to my extended left arm.

Can you go real slow when you draw the blood? Really, take your time, if that's OK. I want to get some good pictures.

She looked at me, half amused and half concerned about my sanity. I foraged in my bag for my camera and started white balancing the shot for the horrible florescent lighting.

"Normally we don't let people take photos in here. There've been so many attacks on Planned Parenthood by fundamentalists and crazy people. We have to take a lot of precautions to be safe. We lock all the doors. We have bulletproof glass. And, we don't allow photos. But, you're just taking pictures of your arm, so it's OK."

What kind of world is this that we have created for ourselves? Something we have done—something we are all responsible for—has grown a legion of those who feel that extreme acts of violence against a doctor or nurse is an effective way to disseminate their beliefs. We can't point the finger at someone else, because we are all part of this big mess.

America! Wake up! I am talking to you! Yes you! Not your mom or your neighbor. You. The one reading these words. You and me are partly responsible for this mess, this world. What did we do to mess things up so bad? What did we teach our young that encouraged them to grow up and deface clinics and kill doctors?

These questions need answering, and soon. I don't want my doctors living in fear. And, I want to be able to take pictures inside Planned Parenthood anytime I want without their staff wondering if I was some radical compiling plans for their untimely demise.


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