I'm going to be in New York June 13-16. Some of that time I'll be hanging out doing wedding things, but I am free to hangout from the night of June 14 onwards.

If you are living in New York, can I stay with you the nights of June 14 and 15?

Also, do you have a bike I can borrow? I am 5'8" and prefer my bikes to come with lots of brakes.

I made this a week or two ago, and I can't stop thinking about it.  Works better as a condiment/topping than eaten plain, because it is damn hot.

Kidney beans
Half onion
Green peppers
Red peppers
Mushrooms (chopped small)
Garlic
Hickory smoked barbecue Sauce
Crushed red pepper
Cumin (Tumin?  I forget what this spice is called.  It's dull orange, pretty spicy, smells middle-eastern)
Sugar
Sriracha

Cook, combine, then eat.

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Also, tickets to Panama City, Panama are just under $200 if you fly before December 4th.  I've never spent a whole winter in Atlanta, and I don't want to make this the first.  Cold sucks.

And there's a really huge art show going on in New Orleans from November through mid-January.  I really want to go - a few other Atlanta people are heading over there to show/curate/shmooze, and I'm considering asking one of them for a ride.

Took a spill earlier this evening on the way to the Eco lecture, showed up about three minutes before the talk began, bleeding a little down my leg and face smudged with bike grease.  Felt stupidly proud of myself and trapped sitting in this 22nd century cathedral-style auditorium. 

I think I learn a little more every time sufficient concussive force is applied to my body, so I've tried and listed the events of the crash in order to share that knowledge:

1)  Curb coming faster than I can turn the bike.  Shit.  Twist and bail.

2)  That didn't work, I'm in the air - now I'm on the ground, how did I manage to hit with my shoulder instead of my head?

3)  Damn, bike's in the road.  Get up, give driver thumbs up to say "nothing's broken," then move bike.

4)  Wheels aren't working, fix chain.

5)  Ride to lecture, get off bike.  Am I bleeding?  Where?  Did I hit my head and pass out without realizing it?  No blood in hair, shirt untorn, hands fine under bike gloves.  Huh, I guess it's just those two scrapes on my leg.  Go into lecture.

My Moon My Man (Boys Noize Remix)

Their other remixes are pretty awesome too. But I think we all need a bit of familiarity tonight.

I've been thinking of cypress trees recently. I get this idea that I should spend more time around them.

Speaking of, here's Mr McKenna on time:

"The bottom line, the final true message of psychedelics - the positive input that comes to you if you accept change - is the message that the culture outside of psychedelics is so keen to deny with materialism, everything from the calendar to theories of democracy. But nothing lasts, not your friends, enemies, fortune, children, not even you. Nothing lasts...

...All time is the seriality of events, and the more events there are, the more time you have, so awareness becomes very important, and even, as the Buddhists say, awareness of awareness."

I've had this window open for the last hour, because I meant to post more... but I am "drawing a blank."  In the future, I will try "drawing a square."

(Humor!  At 1:50 am!)

This is a bit of a long shot, but do any of you know of a functioning bike co-op in Charleston? I want to fix up the bike I'm borrowing from my hosts, but I need some specialty tools, a new (or gently used) set of brakes, and a spare seat post.

Other things - Charleston continues to be way awesome, and has actually improved since Adam left. The people I'm staying with are nice, every stranger I meet in the city is nice, and even the drivers are nice. I sleep next to a pair of bunnies at night. They are also nice.

Are you on couchsurfing yet? Why not? I am.



I would like a ukelale.

Oh, and I finally started working on that article for Southeast Performer.  I think it's going to be way better than the normal band spotlights they publish, and my editor will be FLABBERGASTED.

Delta's had a lot of cheap flights these last few weeks. As in: $556 for roundtrip Atlanta-Shanghai (Pudong Airport).

That's sort of insane. I paid twice that amount for my roundtrip flight to Japan in non-peak season.

A reminder:  if you'd like to go on a free trip to Israel in July or August, email me your full name. 

Trip info here.

Registration forms here.

 

You could be swimming in that.

Also, check out Millionaire Magicians.  They're real good.

Two words that confuse me: epistemology, and phenomenology

You can define them to me as much as you want - it probably won't work.

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The couchsurfers gave me the tent they've been using for the past few months. It's a bundle of rods and tarps, tied with one of those belts with metal ringed holes in them. I haven't tried setting it up yet, but it looks like an a-frame, the sort of thing where you make two "A"'s, connect their apexes with a long rod, and then drape a tarp over the whole thing. I don't think it'll be very warm, but it's lighter than the much more modern tent I've used since Japan, and takes up a bit less room on a pack.

I want to go caaaaaampiiing.

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I've been walking a lot again. The weather's holding around 50-60 degrees Fahrenheit, and, as winter ends, I've finally collected enough clothing to feel properly warm while riding or walking around the city. I found my scarf (100% cashmere, made in Italy) on the train, my gloves near Atlantic Station, borrowed a few pairs of good hiking socks from my Mom, inherited my hat from that retirement home in Chicago, and even bought myself a set of thermal underwear three weeks ago.

Current position = sitting pretty.

The video's poster, joeblowaz, hosts all the intro videos for seasons two and three.

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I got home about three hours ago. Still decompressing. I realize I haven't been responding to any of your messages or calls over the last week. I'll probably get around to all that stuff some time tomorrow.

Ow.

I spent the afternoon riding my bike around town. These Atlanta hills kill me. I was doing my usual exercise thing a few minutes ago, and I could feel all the old broken bones complaining.

(One fractured left leg, twice fractured left arm, once broken right arm, once jammed middle finger of right hand, possibly broken nose, and at least one weird never x-rayed problems in my left toes.)

So much of my recent life has involved movement between places. As mentioned, I (and the family) visited my brother in Charlotte NC this weekend. I spent the previous weekend running home at 3am. And I've spent this morning nervously circling my neighborhood and thinking of how to write.

I am freaking out, but it is (somewhat) under control. I am reminded of all the cracks along my limbs, which never bother me except when the weather and workload coincide in horrible ways.

Getting back to school is always surprising. I had not previously realized that entire institutions could be designed to freeze millions of people.

Anyway. Today was nice. I skipped school, caught up with some errands, bugged MARTA's press people, successfully cooked couscous, rotated my compost, walked on train tracks, picked up some tasty bourbon, cleaned my apartment, and used the Cat as a foot warmer.

Also, played Magic with Jeremy. That was a blast from the past.

What are you doing for Halloween?

The future looms.  It has tentacles.

Bugging people about internships.
Writing things.
Trying to figure out loans and stuff.
Buying shoes.
Renting tux for upcoming wedding.

If you look at the chapter listing for Calvino's Invisible Cities, you'll find that the lengths of the chapter titles have been chosen and arranged to make a sort of picture.  It is a city.

My brother's been calling me every day or so.  He even joined facebook and gmail.  I think he's lonely, though I wonder how lonely he is for my company, and how lonely he is for familiarity.  It's actually worked pretty well for our relationship, as, in physical meetings, we generally get on each others nerves within the hour.  On the phone, we talk about how wasted we were/are going to be.  He says that the apartment didn't have power for the last few days, because neither he nor his roommate realized they needed to pay the bill.  He's actually taking some time off to visit on Wednesday and Thursday.  I'm gonna try and convince him to walk downtown with me.  And maybe we'll find out whether or not we're actually going canoeing, or even hiking.

That's funny.  I just reread that last paragraph, and realized that none of those sentences led to the next.  That's another thing I'm gonna have to work on in preparation for the future.

Oh, and I'm doing a week of volunteer work in New Orleans this January.  I did a similar thing the year that the hurricane hit, and it was great.

Contemplating making the whole journal private - I don't like differentiating between private and public thoughts, and I am supposed to be getting into the professional type swing of things, so future employers probably should not being hearing about my plans to shave secret messages into my pubic hair.  Actually, you probably don't want to hear about that either.

Alternatively, I could make the entire journal except my most favorite (worksafe) entries private.  This would still allow random people to figure out if they want to be my imaginary internet friend, which I always appreciate. 

PS: how do you spell canoeing?

I'm thinking of joining the ultimate frisbee team. Maybe fencing too. And possibly writing a crap article for the newspaper.

Aren't the first weeks of school fun, when you still think it'll all turn out okay.

Don't mind me.

Lydia's sitting across from me, playing that song with the "She Tastes Just Like a Woman" chorus.

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I'm reminded of a few summers ago, when I took the bus up to Charleston. Adam's brother was renting the bottom floor of this huge dilapidated plantation house. I don't think he was actually paying anything - the owner didn't have the money for repairs, so Adam's brother offered to fix the place up in lieu of rent. [Isn't it funny how sometimes we speak French?]

Charleston summer is nice. Like the hot parts of Georgia spring. Adam and I were staying with the Brother and his Girlfriend. We started off sleeping in the ballroom (18 foot roof, big enough that we raised our voices to talk across the place). Over the two weeks we were there, the Brother kicked us out of the ballroom for repairs, then out of the kitchen, and then I slept in a closet as big as my bedroom back home, while Adam slept on the porch. The place smelled like plaster, paint, and the Girlfriend's perfume.

On one of the last few days, Adam's birthday surprised us. His Brother gave him a Bob Marley collection, and neither I nor the Girlfriend had any gifts. So we all ended up along Adam's army cot on the porch, listening to the cd, and watching graffiti being sprayed across the street. The Girlfriend told Adam "happy birthday" twice, but we were mainly silent, and the wayward youth eventually left his painting behind.  The sun was setting behind us, and the plantation house's shadow slowly fell into the sea.

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I like being too hot.

Dang.

I hate the last three days before a big trip.

I think the Fir Tree may be my favorite pub of all time.  Any time I stop in, there's always at least three regulars at the bar.  And two dogs running around the place making nuisances of themselves.  The owners are jolly and talkative even when they're sober (not often).  It's a mile from my apartment, but I still manage to stop by twice a week.

Last night, I dragged Anna over.  We took two other gals - a Brit first year and an American Milwaukeean.  We got in about 11, no more than 20 people in the bar, stood around gathering drinks and playing with the puppy.  After socializing with many a friendly drunk, we retired to a side room with random crap on walls and hugely over-stuffed chairs.  As last call was rung, the owner brought by half a pizza.

That's the entire story.

But it's everything I like about the bar.

I mean, the problem with American bars, is that we don't have much socializing between the age groups.  So, in an American bar, none of the regulars would have talked to us, and the owner would have treated us like Student Scum.  Which we are, but still.

People keep telling me to write poetry, and I keep telling them to go fuck themselves.

Oxford: Now - June 20th
London: June 12th, June 15th + 16th
Istanbul: June 20th - July 17th
Atlanta: July 17th - as soon as I can get the fuck out again...

...not that I dislike the city too terribly, and I do miss my various people... but there's so many amazing places out there, and so few of them are Atlanta, GA.

I'm getting more and more excited about the semester at Oxford/Somewhere in France.  I have no idea how realistic the plan is, I don't even know if I'll have time to apply before spring semester starts, but sweet jumping jesus I can feel the feet start dancing already.

Happiness is being far away from my happiest place.

Really, this weekend has been great.  I just want to spend my life wandering around after dark, getting occasionally and disastrously drunk with friends, half-assedly translating things, doing a bit of brainless work, and cooking food with my brother.  Which is why I have to leave the country.

Elizabeth, the millionth tall girl in my life, is making plans for some sort of joint roadtrip along the Gulf of Mexico.  I believe we'll need a car, money, an agenda, and about 1.5 - 2 weeks off our respective works.

I really do mean to go on that walk once things have been sifted, but I've been waiting for the sifting to finish my entire life, asshole.