Somewhere along the way I had picked up a nasty speed habit. I loved to smoke it, and I hated how all this black stuff built up on the bottom of the pipe, and I would wipe it off onto my nylon pants and then they would melt onto the damned thing and there�d be a hole in my pants and that sucked. From this dilemma sprang forth my obsession with natural fiber. I had learned how to walk around in the rain and not be soaked, so my next step was to fuck off all my synthetic stuff and learn how to do it using only wool and cotton. I met a guy who used to camp at the same spot I did who did all his camping with natural fiber. He used bone, leather, wool, etc. and only used nylon when he absolutely had to cut a certain amount of weight.

I�d test stuff by holding a lighter to it and seeing if it melted or burned, and sometimes ended up throwing away silk or something like that on accident. I acquired a sleeveless cashmere turtleneck, which I could pull over my face and tuck under my beanie in the rain. I learned about how if you wear wool on the inside and cotton on the outside, the cotton will get soaked but won�t soak through to the wool and you get this insulating property. That was kind of cool. I became obsessed with this new system of staying warm, and would only use nylon when I had to. When I went crazy, I was in the mental hospital, telling them to let me out and I�m just going to sleep outside with all my wool on and they were all �SHUT UP ABOUT THE WOOL�. But it was cool. Eventually I got over the obsession a little bit and started using synthetics every now and then. My favorite was the pair of crocs. For thirty bucks you can get these lightweight sandals that like are really comfy once you break them in and u can wear them in the rain with no socks and your feet don�t get too fucked up. Plus they don�t slip on wet metal. That�s the best part about them.

I think I gave in with shoes first because even leather shoes have rubber on the bottoms of them anyways. Plus I realized that pavement is kind of synthetic, too. I hear asphalt is a form of nuclear waste, and that tar reminds me of plastic. I had an acrylic hoody that never got wet on the inside, only on the outside. It was totally weird. And it dried hella quick, except the hood, which didn�t have the same double-layer effect as the rest of the hoody. I guess the big advantage to wool over acrylic is that you can wipe your pipe off with it and it won�t melt.

No but seriously, there�s something nice about how it feels. Like once you get used to wool it isn�t itchy anymore, and it dries quickly, and stays warm even when wet anyways; it�s just a good deal. I love the rain. Just yesterday I took my bike out and went all the way up Market Street, over Portola down to West Portal and back again. A totally intense ride in the rain, I was wearing cotton and polyester. It got totally soaked. Since I�ve been indoors lately, I�ve been slacking on rain gear accumulation. I miss that stuff. It�s just so much fun to have that right set of equipment where you can just wander around in the pouring rain and not even feel cold. And when it�s too warm, wet cotton rocks. It stays wet for hella long so you can stay cool.