recap central: cross-country kamut road trip, day seven: omaha.

(I am currently writing this from Gaia Italian Cafe in Lower East Side, Manhattan. Just the best fucking place, man, and right downstairs from where Jeanette lives. Wish I had found it earlier. I am soooooo into it…!!)

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ACTUAL DATE OF TRAVEL: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH, 2011.
SMALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN BY ROSE ON HER IPHONE; LARGE PICTURES ARE MINE.
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OMAHA, NEBRASKA

Ohhhh so many days in Omaha. After a night out last night, woke up early to go to church. Wooooo! Not exactly my ideal type of church, but it was quite fun nonetheless. But a Monday mass is pretty much guaranteed to be mass with hardcore people, and as my previous trip to a weird Houston Catholic church also revealed…

This was the first time Rose had ever been to church, and man, I don’t know if Catholics just don’t want people to become Catholic or what, but the barrier to entry is set soooooooooo fucking high. It feels seriously that it is impossible for one to just simply jump into Catholicism. There’s not a goshdarn thing to jump into! They go to infinity from the get-go, rushing through just tons and tons of movements without anyone commanding anything, chanting lines here and there that mean Lord knows what; confusing, confusing, confusing!!! At least I still remember the Lord’s Prayer from my days in Catholic elementary school… woOoooOoooOoOo! :L

We went to St. Cecilia’s Church, which is huge, towering, and definitely not the type of church you see frequently in the United States. So it had that going for it. I would post some pictures that Rose took, but honestly, I’m so churched-out at this point in my life that particular church was not particularly all that interesting (it was alright, dude) that generally I am going to stamp a big fat “PASS!” on doing that shit. Boo-hoo-ring.

Let’s talk instead about the service itself, because that’s way more interesting. There were probably like 20 people at mass, with a priest dude who honestly seemed like he was totally a newb and didn’t entirely know WTF he was doing. Pretty sure he stumbled over his words a few times. Also, do they fucking take Communion at every mass? Cause if so, I didn’t know that, or didn’t remember that, and man dudes, that’s just kinda eating up the Lord Jeebus Christ a little too often, isn’t it? He doesn’t even taste that delicious in wafer form.

I refrained from taking Communion even though I’m baptized because I’m so very not into it and no longer feel the need to pretend. Well, that’s kind of a lie. When I went to Israel recently with my parents and a shit ton of the other parents from their church, I did in fact take Communion, though I only took the wine (or was it grape juice? Whatever…) and not the actual host. But that time it was mostly for the peer pressure reasons that led me to sign up to be baptized and to be remain sexually sacred until marriage back in high school… I was always the last one to do both! So… WHUTEVA! I remember there was one older girl in our church, Tammy, who refrained from doing the True Love Waits bullshit, and for sure, everyone whispered and wondered why she chose to make that decision. Judgmental churchgoers? NEVERRRRRR. I can’t say that I didn’t whisper and wonder because I’m quite sure I did or this wouldn’t even be on my mind or in my memory whatsoever, but… so it goes. It’s a natural repressed curiosity to wonder why someone else wouldn’t make the same ridiculous decision as you!

While we were at church, Rose picked up this book when they were reading a verse from Ezra. She thought it was a Bible but it was not; it was some weird book with hymns but also occasional directives. Not really sure what it was. It certainly did amuse me, though, that the verse from Ezra they chose to display basically just talked about how people should donate money. But… of course…

Afterwards, we went to AVANZAAAAA! I was really excited to go to a Mexican supermarket buuuuuut Avanza (2900 Leavenworth St.) was just alright. Been to better ones, bitchez. But what they DID have was a huge cup of fresh flan, made with milk not cream, and I ate the shit out of that for breakfast. A huge cup of flan for like $2.00, for breakfast? TALK ABOUT HEAVEN! HEAVEN FOR A SUGARY FATASS SUCH AS MYSELF!!!!

Beyond that, we went to explore a few places because we had nothing particularly better to do… Starting with the arboreteum area. We actually found it because we got lost, but whatever. It actually cost money so we didn’t go in and ended up at this mini-park with old Union Pacific trains and such… (Omaha being a middle-of-the-country connection point for original trains; it was just about the only thing near where it was). The trains were KINDA interesting just because I had a recent stint being really interested in trains (they’re such aesthetically-pleasing things)… but that’s about it.

Then I guided us to a random downtown park (where Rose learned that the oldest restaurant in town was a Chinese restaurant, and wanted to go there later on…) but yeah. It was a really nice downtown waterfront park they had, and I did a brief, long-overdue meditation there. It was quite good, quite good.

Alright, I guess I will share a couple of my photos since… they exist… (but that’s the only reason).

Not gonna lie; this dude was pretty cool, and like the praying mantis, this was the closest I’ve ever been to a grasshopper and the first time I’ve ever really had the opportunity to study em! It should also be noted that this motherfucker was fucking huuuuuuuuuuuuge!!

A husk of a man.

Then we headed to that oldest Chinese restaurant Rose had seen. It is called King Fong Café (315 S 16th St) and honestly is apparently quite shitty but the history behind it is KINDA cool… it was one of the first places in the States to import these Chinese lantern things and looks very old-school, even with the restaurant being on the upper floor as opposed to the first floor. I don’t doubt it has history but the food is probably MEHHH, with a and super Americanized menu, but the lady was very nice and let Rose snap a whole buncha photographs even though they were closed for lunch. So that was nice. But the street it was on was this weird ass part of town that reminded me a bit of Seattle’s Pioneer Square, only there was nothing really going on and just a whole bunch of somewhat shady people hiding under somewhat shady trees, waiting for the bus or something. Ohhhh the sketchiness of bus malls.

Instead we went to Panda House (301 S. 16th St), where Rose got crab rangoons, and I can bet this place is way better. They defo had some legit crap on their menu, though none of that was ordered (and we had just missed the lunch specials by 3 minutes or something). Because we dilly-dallied a bit, we got a ticket for an expired parking meter, though. But tickets in Omaha are only $15.00…!!!

Randomly found another park downtown soon thereafter. This shit was really fucking cool. It had the most amazing pioneer bronze sculptures ever, which had apparently just been put in in 2009. The detail on them was INCREDIBLE. Seriously. It seemed like they were real. I wish you could see that the wagons had grains, the tools had bolts, the drapery was amazing… everything was just so godamn rad. Definitely one of the coolest parks I’ve been to ever, and I can totally rant and rave about this place, for suuuure.

So fucking epic.

Afterwards, went back home to meet up with Bill and then headed down south to go to the Mexican neighborhood, which, strangely enough, seemed perhaps one of the hippest parts of Omaha, and it was the place with all the thrift stores and such. It had a SHIT TON of restaurants, some of which are supposedly amazing, but because people wanted cheap margaritas, we ended up at a restaurant that was pretty much not good at all, and of course, I don’t drink margaritas. C’est la vie… (here is a pic of the not-so-amazing food, the boys, and the drinks)

Before we went to the restaurant, though, we did go to this place that sold gardening pots for like, the least amount of money ever… it was seriously kind of incredible how cheap this place was… you could buy huge ass ones – you know, those giant planters – for like $20.00 or something. Surely that place is a front! Apparently there are never workers in there! Anyway, these are total Mario boots!

Our horrible “band” photo…

Gotta buncha snacks from the International Bakery (5106 S 24th St.) afterwards, which is a Mexican bakery. Can’t complain. They had these particular cookies and were really dry, and we all know I love a fucking dry cookie. The drier the better. Which I was joking, but I’m notttttttt at all.

A mural from the Mexican part of Omaha, had you any doubts as to its existence or legitity (not a word, but it should be, maybe…)

That night, we met up with SC dude and went to their venue, The Slowdown (729 North 14th St.) and got a tour of it. I mean, honestly, meeting with dude and going to tour the SC stuff is basically the only reason we stayed in town the extra evening, so it is great that it actually lived up to expectations (not that I had any, really, but Rose did) and it was easily the coolest part of our Omaha experience, just cause Slowdown is such a cool space; they really, really put a lot of thought into it and you can tell that from just looking at their setup, their weekly specials, etc. There is, apparently, like a giant 20-foot television; they have room separators so they can cater to large or small shows; the green room is fucking huge and amazing, and with showers; they have beer specials when they don’t have shows that are like $2.00 for anything – domestic or international – that’s on tap, and they have shit like Newcastle on tap, lucky me; etc. etc. The place is just super solid, and visually looks appealing in that typical black-walled venue kinda way. And it’s all-ages, and I guess most good shows that come through town go through there (as they are one of perhaps two venues).

From here I will show Rose’s pics, as I didn’t take any… also learned some more about Nebraskans and football from Jason, which was no doubt interesting… he was talking about how he was in fact super into football when he was going to school in Lincoln, and that the seats there are teeny tiny and are on benches that are marked with spaces (as opposed to being individual seats), and that, as a result, if you have a fat person on either side of you (which, judging from a lot of what I saw of Nebraska, is wholly possible), there’s a good chance that you’d be standing for an entire game because you literally cannot sit. So that’s funny. Anyway. Pics.

[ABOVE] Inside their offices; [BELOW] Jason has a creepy clown thing on his door… it is pretty downright creepy…

Inside their record store… dude, that chair is seriously the most amazing fucking find. You can’t see all of the details, but it has like, a wooden tree trunk base, and is made of upholstered brown leather with tartan patterning? WHAT THE FUCK; IT’S SO COOL! Evidently Omaha is a bedrock of amazing vintage finds, because no one really gives a shit and there is so much of it. I promised I wouldn’t let out the secret. I think I just did…

But yeah, it was pretty cool to see their warehouse and attached store. Rose was like, “Why is there no dedication or commemoration to Conor Oberst in Omaha?!!!” and that’s a funny thought, in general. The closest thing was this wall in the SC record store that had a bunch of old tickets and memorabilia tacked up from the early days of Bright Eyes and other SC bands. I dunno. Amusing…

Anyway, that’s it. Beyond that, I went to bed after doing some work; Rose went out and had a night out on the town with a boy. Snore! Snarf!!

(Side note: I am about to order what I think is an eggplant parmigiana sandwich from that place I said is amazing and I am totally stoked. And jealous that owner speaks Italian and Spanish fluently and owns such a cool place. I am also in major recipe-development mode and have been coming up with some ideas for things… and started practicing yesterday… so when I go home I am just going to be an insane baking fool! Imagine Chinese ingredients mixed with Latin American ingredients – that will about sum up what I’m going for…!!!!! STOKED!!!)

recap central: cross-country kamut road trip, day six: lincoln, omaha.

ACTUAL DATE OF TRAVEL: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH, 2011.
SMALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN BY ROSE ON HER IPHONE; LARGE PICTURES ARE MINE.
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LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

Woke up too late for church – which I was bummed about because, well, as I always say, “Sleep when I die, bitches!” – but went with the CS boys to Virginia’s Traveler’s Café (3820 Cornhusker Highway) – a place that apparently the locals like to go to. Make no mistake! The locals are chubbbbbbbskiiiiiinnnnns indeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed. And, as Rose noted, people fucking LOVE to wear SWEATPANTS!!!

Ostensibly, our young and agile and liberal CS hosts did not seem like the others… until… they… started… eating… Philly cheesesteaks and drinking sodas for breakfast… and that was like… whaaaat. Meanwhile, Rose had the sweetest fake strawberry-topped waffle… and I had oatmeal, with raisins, and also mixed in some peanut butter… wOooOOooOo! Different strokes!!!!!!!!! Different folks!!! Fuck American breakfast!!!! But yeah, seriously. Lots of sweatpants.

Jesse and Michael…

Funny post-meal photo of the boys… this is one of Rose’s iPhone pics, but there is a better one that she took with her film camera where they’re looking super Backstreet Boys-like.

Oh yeah, it’s worth noting that when we first got up, Rose was super tired and had no brain, and I was trying to discuss with her changing our upcoming CouchSurfing plans because she really wanted to meet the Saddle Creek people in Omaha and that would’ve only been possible if we stayed another day in Omaha. Well, ultimately, it was kind of shitty to have spent the extra day in Omaha as opposed to the infinitely more awesome Chicago, buttttttttttttt. Whatever. I was cranky about that at first, definitely, but got over it… or whatever… arghhhhh. But uh, yeah. I was being rather short with her because she seriously had NO morning brain! And I guess that’s not her fault but it was just so frustrating, haha.

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OMAHA, NEBRASKA

Anyway, the drive to Omaha is only an hour away, so we didn’t really do anything or stop anywhere. I slept the whole time. Went immediately to a coffee shop in downtown Omaha (which Rose had originally thought was a place that Delphine had suggested – only it turned out that Delphine was from LINCOLN not OMAHA, and had suggested places in Lincoln, only well, we blew it)… and worked for a couple hours. Which felt really good because it was my first time doing any work and it was long, long overdue. I was rather stressed for the majority of this trip because I really had stuff to do for the ladies at UW and no time to do it, or no internet access, and didn’t want to be the person who was constantly caught up with doing work and what not. But shit just fucking needs to be done, and sometimes it’s hard to not be given the opportunity to do the shit that needs to be done. Often I think that just because I make my own schedule or whatever it’s hard for people to understand when I do need to work because they think I’m just being like, a workaholic… but it’s not like that at all! (Though I’m not necessarily NOT a workaholic…)

ANYWAY. The coffee shop we ended up at was pretty neat. It’s called Aromas (1033 Jones St.), but I was most interested in the beans they roasted there. There one that was infused with chili pepper and dark chocolate or something? Or was it more complicated than that? In any case, it sounded good, and the espresso was REALLY fucking good, though the barista was not the most jolly dude ever.

After that, went to our CS host Bill’s house. CUUUUTE little house with lovely painted walls – which had colors he picked out, apparently. His roommates were great, particularly this one gal Alley (didn’t talk to the other dude too much). Alley had wanted to make us dinner and stuff one night but had to work so much and study so much that she didn’t really have a chance to hang out too much, which I was pretty bummed on cause she just seems hella rad.

We were going to eat dinner at this hippie-ish café, but it was closed. So we went to Mother India Tandoori Cuisine (3572 Leavenworth St.) pretty close to his house. It’s a teeny-tiny place run by a couple and really like, ghetto foreign supermarket status inside in terms of décor, though they did really love up on a good plant or two. They had plants everywhere, be it on metal exposed piping or in their crazy ass outside patio that looked pretty unsightly. But the food was amazing, and cheap, and actually came with rice included in the price! Outrageous for Indian food! Oh man, that shit was so good.

After dinner, Bill drove us downtown and we checked out this crazy vintage shop / candy shop called Fairmont. Place also has a freaking movie theatre that plays old movies for free all day which is soooo fucking rad. It has a lot of shit going on. Not really sure how much money it really makes, but I definitely bought some candy (mostly shitty peanut buttery kinds… man, I love a Chic-O-Stick), including some chocolate-covered jelly beans and some caramel apple and chocolate caramel caramel corn. FUCK, I LUBS CARAMEL CORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My sweet tooth was kiiiiiinda out of control during this trip. Not gonna lie. Anyway, the Fairmont has a pretty interesting history, which you can read about here. (SIDE NOTE: I’m at a 24-hour diner writing this right now, and they’re playing the radio with Deliliah’s show, and that shit fucking rullllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllles. I’m so tired of music lately that this is music that works. Man, it’s sad. I dunno why but this road trip kinda fucked up my mental state a LOT.)

I guess this is a Blues Brother. I’ve never actually seen that movie so I don’t have much to say about it. Bill hated the movie so he refused to take a picture with them, haha.

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Getting eaten by a hippo"]

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "I need these Omaha salt & pepper shakers" – girl was seriously obsessed with them.]

It should be noted that O! is seriously Omaha’s slogan…!!!!!!!!!!!!

Afterwards, we headed to the Homy Inn (1510 North Saddle Creek Rd.) which is honestly pretty fucking awesome. And a bunch of Bill’s friends came out and they were all really cool, though I must say that being in groups of strangers without a solid backbone friend to rely on – and by that I mean, one who socializes in a way that’s similar to how I socialize – I think I give off just the lamest first impression… because I have no interest in small talk, and would rather not talk, and therefore am quiet a lot in group settings. I also don’t talk about myself all that much, which makes it all the more difficult for starting conversations with people, particularly when the people aren’t the type to ask questions about you. I ask questions, but for the uninterested, my asking of questions can only be stretched so far. I dunno. It’s interesting. But these kinds of situations make me feel totally inferior and a bit suck, which is ultimately kind of lame.

Homy Inn has $1.00 peanuts, which they serve in dog bowls…

And so it ended. I talked to Troy outside on the phone for a long while which felt soooo great considering I was feeling sooooo weird — as well as drooled over how awesome this Saddle Creek Laundromat place looked (was totally bummed I didn’t have my camera). That evening, Rose and I shared this futon thing, even though we later discovered there was a spare bed upstairs, and I was totally bummed cause blankets kept getting stolen and Vivians kept getting pushed off. BUT WHUTEVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. SUCK IT, ME!!!!!!

recap central: cross-country kamut road trip, day five: lincoln.

ACTUAL DATE OF TRAVEL: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17TH, 2011.
SMALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN BY ROSE ON HER IPHONE; LARGE (AND NOT BLURRY) PICTURES ARE MINE.

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BETWEEN DENVER, COLORADO AND LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

I didn’t really care to take too many photos in Lincoln because the place was pretty much a wash… so these are mostly Rose’s. Say hello to Nebraska! I’ll start off by saying that Rose was HORRIBLY excited for Nebraska, as it is the land of Saddle Creek and Conor Oberst. I could really care less about these things, but for her, it was quite exciting, and she did most of the driving through Nebraska, blasting a shit ton of SC bands – and waayyyyyyyyyyy too much Bright Eyes – along the way… I should also state that Nebraskans are super prideful of being Nebraskan, and Rose made fun of this sign a lot (it is an extremely plain state-welcoming sign compared to some of the other ones) but that making fun of fell among deaf ears, or at least, ears that did not agree… I think the response Michael, our CS host in Lincoln, gave was, “But it is the good life…”

Along the way, there wasn’t much interesting stuff to eat, and I wanted some real food, so rather than getting like, a salad or whatever for the same-ish price, I just went to town on this buffet in this random gas station. I think the restaurant was called Grandma’s or some shit, and definitely the buffet was the best vegetarian option around. Buffets are, for me – master binger – just the monetarily-sound way to go. I can eat a huge buffet meal and pack it away and then I don’t have to eat dinner, and frankly, I feel better that way most of the time…

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Salad bar featuring pepperonis"]

Rose’s food – less spectacular if I do say so myself…
[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Grandma may not have veggie burgers but she's got smart balance" – apparently (I didn't hear it) lady was not stoked when Rose asked if they had veggie burgers...]

This is fucking grandma, dude, if you ever doubted her existence…

Funny picture for a burger challenge, which reads, “”Think climbing Mount Everest is a challenge Well, try this one on for size. Two pounds of ground beef on a large homemade bun topped with choice toppers. Four pounds total!!! Are you tough enough to try? If you can polish this baby off in less than an hour, we’ll give you a free shirt and hang your picture on the wall. Ya know what Andy Warhol said, “Everyone is famous for 15 minutes.” Well, here’s your chance.” YUMMMMMM! That reminds me of all the cow farms we passed on the way… I must say, though, there is a lot of grass-fed cow meat in Nebraska, or at least there is close to the highway, and it was actually getting slightly terrifying that I would be like, “MMMM! It smells good!” because the smell of grass would come wafting into the car, and then two seconds later we would pass a herd of cows, and I was just like, “Fuck!” It’s a little bit scary when cow shit apparently starts smelling really awesome…

Check out what’s considered “ethnic” food: Spaghetti & Meatballs and Nacho Supreme. Hahahahhahahahahahahah.

You can betchur buns these locals had the buffet! As I was finishing up my pretty healthy meal and getting a shit ton of brownies and ice cream for dessert, the guy behind us was like, “Ah, and here I was thinking she would be eating healthy!” He was a truck driver who was on his way back to Indiana after taking a trip to San Francisco. Guess dude does that every other week or something. He highly recommended the potato chowder, but I didn’t eat it because mmmmmehhhh. It probably had bacon in it. And I just wasn’t feeling it, in general. But nice to talk to you, dude!

Anyway… first round of foods and then the aftermath (see the brownie and ice cream action?!!!)…

Above: Love a good truck stop, dude; below: Rose taking a self-portrait because she was tired of my suck-at-posing-for-pictures ways.

Like I was saying…

I’m sure that is soooo what they want. Really, though, I don’t even think this offer is valid anymore. I think that shit be advertising for false.

Grandma’s parking lot capture which I really enjoy…

Being sad about balloons.

Oh, before we left, though… WE TOTALLY FOUND ANOTHER SINCLAIR DINOSAUR! Rose was hunting around for a person to take a photograph for us, and I wanted her to ask this dude who looked friendly and gave me a friendly smile; instead she found this dude simply because he had a nice car and he was the creepiest mofo. She was assuming her position on the dinosaur’s back, and he seriously said, “Yeah, tart it up, honey, tart it up.” UH-HUH. GOOD JOB.

I was trying to keep that broccoli stalk for a while because I’m gross. That’s about as dried out and interesting as it got. I actually really wanted to turn it into a sculptural work but it flew around the car and I forgot about it until way later on, when it changed shapes and stopped being uhhh something I really wanted to touch so much.

Anyway, there was a sign for this one place from far, far away, and like Little America, we just kept being excited to go to it. Finally, we made it… but it had closed the previous hour. FUCK. And unlike Little America, this place actually looked really fucking awesome… it was a museum of old shit that was “showing man’s progress” through the years. I mean, come on. How sick.

Anyway, along the way, we pulled down this random road to stop by a lake because the sun was coming down and Rose wanted to take some photos of some cows… On the way there, she pulled over and a truck with two dudes was coming from the opposite direction. She put on her hazards. They of course stopped to see if she needed any help. Of course she made it seem even more like we didn’t know what we were doing or where we were going by asking where the lake was though it was clearly the way we were headed. They eventually left after making small talk with her. We went to this lake that was in the middle of tons and tons of corn fields, but I got the grossest vibe from the place. Usually I don’t really get weirded out by being places, but the interaction, the isolation, the fact that we were two “ethnic” girls in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska (not even off a major freeway, but a farm thoroughfare freeway) just made me really paranoid and we only walked a little distance before I mentioned that we should just go. Snapped a couple shots (below) but mostly just ducked out of there. It just reminded me too much of when Lenny and I were in Montana and Native Americans almost ran us over with their truck.

Rose is kinda eternally hungry or at least needs to snack a lot more than I do, and we stopped by this AMAZING Mexican restaurant in po-dunk nowhere (Hastings, Nebraska). The restaurant chain is called El Puerto, and it was fucking delicious, and the service was top-notch… maybe even above-and-beyond x 10,000 with younger, fairly good-looking Mexican waiters… yeeeaaah, it was interesting. Guess they have restaurants in Kansas, too.

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LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

Finally arrived at our host’s house in Lincoln that evening, where they had been drinking ALL DAY. It was three dudes who lived together who had a really hilarious mega-gay dynamic (a big no-no in Lincoln), and they were nice, but I was sure that they were going to drink/party, and I was going to be whatevers about it all. And that turned out to be true, of course. This particular Saturday the Huskers football team had had a game, and especially in Lincoln, everyone is SUPER into football. I asked Michael about the people in town who didn’t like football, and he said that in Lincoln, “Even the people who don’t like football like football.” Which is funny. Apparently the Huskers’ season tickets have a waitlist of FORTY YEARS – longest season ticket sell-out ever — because people don’t give up their tickets if they already have them; you just keep having them through as many seasons as you want them. Fucking bizarre.

But we went to a dubstep show at The Bourbon Theatre, and I was really excited for the prospect, though less than excited that it was $15.00 – but I thought hey, why not? How bad could it really be! Turns out it can be really bad, and I should have known this from past experiences that going to random dubstep shows is not necessarily a good thing. What’s worse… asides from the CS host Michael himself, who very obviously liked dubstep and was into dancing, his girlfriend and his two roommates coughed up the dolla bills but were seriously not into it or dancing at all. So it was just kinda bad music and then all the more weird-vibed. The other two dudes left early and we hung out with gf and Michael for a little bit but eventually left soon thereafter. So… whatever.

Went to a bunch of bars. Had minimal conversation. There was one fun interaction in a pizza place where some guy from Austin saw me standing near the gumball machine, where I had just purchased a gumball, and asked me if I had change for $1.00; I said I did not, and he said I wasn’t allowed to stand by gumball machine if I didn’t have change! I suppose he maybe had a point, but I was just waiting for the bathroom, man!

Also went to this hella dance club crap with a buncha frat kids and got bought two drinks. Got a little drunk. It was whatevers, man. This picture would show an example of what the streets looked like, though. It was an early game so there were a lot of people out, but not nearly as many as there would have been had it been a late game; I guess the Huskers campus is a dry campus so people can’t actually drink on-campus so they hella wile out after the games are over.

Group pic later that evening. Blah, blah, who cares, blah, blah.

recap central: cross-country kamut road trip, day four: denver.

ACTUAL DATE OF TRAVEL: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH, 2011.
SMALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN BY ROSE ON HER IPHONE; LARGE PICTURES ARE MINE.

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DENVER, COLORADO AND ITS SURROUNDING AREAS

When you’re on a cross-country road trip of such brutal proportions, a day off — any day off — just seems like absolute heaven. Such was the case our first full day of not having any driving responsibilities — we had a day off, being chauffeured around by Kathy and Ed, in Denver and its surrounding mountain town areas. What wonderfulness!

This is apparently me sleeping.

Kathy and Ed’s kitchen. I’m always glad there are other people around to take photos (especially Xinlei for a lot of the trips I go on with her) because, left to my own devices, I focus too much one miniatures and could really seriously care less about anything else…

Breakfast was super chill. Kathy had bought a quiche that was heated up (she’s not horribly amazing at cookery), and I stole some of Ed’s cereal (a non-sugary kind I had wanted to try for a while… but was not impressed, no no)… we ate outside on the patio, and it was super nice… got a good view of some little prairie dogs. Haha. Cutie patOoties!

Then we went to a state park called Roxborough, and it was right next to the famous Red Rocks Ampitheatre (which seriously looks like the most awesome place to see a show — right there next to The Gorge, if not better). Description on a Colorado parks website describes the place as, “More than 1.2 billion years of geologic time are represented by the spectacular red-rock formations found within Roxborough State Park, which is located southwest of Denver. Ecologically, the park is highly diverse as a result of its location in a transition zone between the plains and the mountains. The area’s geological structure has resulted in micro-climates that have produced seven distinct plant communities in a unique mixture of prairie and mountain species. As a result, Roxborough is home to abundant wildlife, including black bear, mountain lion and deer.”

It was about a half hour or maybe more drive to get there from Ed and Kathy’s house (which is actually located in Littleton, Colorado, which I believe was the site of Columbine). It was actually pretty crazy… I wouldn’t think it would matter that Denver is a mile high, but I am apparently so out of shape that slight inclines were initially me wearing me out. My body definitely got used to it after a little bit, but initially I couldn’t catch my breath and I was seriously like, “WHAT THE FUCK!!! HOW AM I THIS OUT OF SHAPE!?!!” I mean — I guess I am still out of shape cause I probably shouldn’t have been out of breath at all, but the fact that it’s a mile high makes it a LITTLE better. Very little, though. Pathetic. The image below is one Rose took, of a view from a teeny tiny little lookout point that took like 1 minute to walk to.

Having traveled so much, places always remind me of other places, and geographic formations always remind me of other geographic formations. This one reminds me of the formations at Cumbe Mayo in Cajamarca, Peru, just a little bit. I guess in some ways it’s funny to no longer be astounded by beauty in nature in such an extreme way, but at the same time, it’s not that it isn’t remarkable — it still is — but it is no longer remarkable in a way where I feel it necessary to constantly say aloud, “Oh my god, this is so beautiful!” but sometimes I forget that other people haven’t traveled nearly as much as I have, and that as a result, they still do need to say these things… sometimes I need to remind myself of that. It’s like with Burning Man, where everyone was like, “Your mind isn’t blown right now????” and I was just like, “No, this feels totally natural to me.” And it wasn’t that I wasn’t impressed by anything that was going on — I was — but nothing felt so incredibly foreign that it was constantly astounding me… it was just like, “Well, clearly this is a environment where anything goes, and here it all is, splayed out, and it is just going.” I guess there is nothing in the positive realm of things that people do that really blows my mind anymore; the things that blow my mind are more in terms of things that exist in the universe, or the really truly horrible things that people can do. I don’t consider this jaded, though… it just seems like… tolerant. But maybe is my skewed view. But anyway…

Well, we didn’t see many animals, though we did see a praying mantis that was sitting real pretty and nice… which is pretty cool, since I have never actually seen one before… it was just sitting there forever. Such beautiful things!

Apparently Colorado peaches are a big deal. Or at least this is what they kept telling us.

We later on went to the mountain town of Georgetown. Small mountain town with cute little tourist shops, fresh air, etc. Think it was very much reliant on tourism, and one of the shop owners mentioned to Kathy that the reason was coming to an end because the days were getting drearier.

We took a tour of a place called the Hotel De Paris, which was pretty interesting. We were not allowed to take photos inside, but the place had a really interesting history, with a founder (Louis Dupuy, though that was his fake name because he was running from the law in France or something) who knew nothing about architecture but a lot about business, and he did really clever things like saving money where it didn’t matter (in terms of striking visitors with a good impression) and spending money where it did matter. For example, he had these really ornate table legs on his dining room tables but when you lifted up the table cloths, the tables were just crappy wooden planks. Or he would get slightly mismatched objects that looked just close enough alike that no one would really notice unless they were really studying them in-depth. Clever dude. Also used a hotel to try and spread his ideas about good hygiene — through hand-washing, less people in an individual room, etc. Through the tour we learned that Coors Beer was founded around the same time and that they were contemporaries, and that Super 8 was also around at that time (but was much lower-class than this particular hotel). The lady who was giving us a tour totally had a crush on the dude posthumously — it was very obvious — and we all definitely got a kick out of that. Here’s a before and after shot of the place just because it’s interesting:

One of the shops, being hella senile and shit. I got a major, major kick out of the tennis balls. Major. Side note: As we were leaving this shop, Kathy destroyed one of Ed’s sunglasses, which I guess was like… the fifth one she’d destroyed in a couple months or something. Not sure how the woman even does it!

The Trading Post was a cute little shop there. The store owner was a cute little man. He got really excited about taking a photograph of us and dressing us up. This picture below frightens me a lot because I feel like I look like Yee-Ma. Lord fucking god.

There was this really cool antique shop and bookshop in town where I found an excellent book (I read the first few pages and definitely needed it; don’t remember what it was, but it was about travel and one guy’s adventures, basically, and it was a very, very old book…). I thought it was $15.00 or something, which was cheap, a splurge for me because I didn’t need it. Turns out it was actually $45.00, and the $15.00 was a leftover remnant. The shop owner said that they liked to keep those older prices of the books on the books because it spoke to the book’s legacy, and I really liked that. They had wonderful books in there. When I explained to Rose the situation and why I didn’t buy it, she said, “They didn’t honor that?” and I said that it made sense that they wouldn’t… and she said something like, “You’re a good person,” which is the strangest response to that thing because to me, that’s just what makes sense…

On the way back to Littleton, we stopped by another little town, but again, there wasn’t so much except for a little town and some shops. And apparently a pizza joint that is totally the jam, but we didn’t really eat at it (constant abstinence from food, I’m tellin’ ya!). Not sure what makes a Colorado pizza a Colorado pizza, though. I’d be curious to find out sometime. Then we went back to the place and ate some roasted veggies, bean dip, tortillas, etc. that Kathy had bought the previous day, and it was like, presto! Instant meal from a bunch of pre-made things! But it was good, and there was some fucking jamming queso, hah. NOMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

After it got later, Rose and I wandered downtown and just wandered. Here are some of the things we found…

13th and Sherman St. I’m not at all interested in this mural. What I am interested in (but we did not get to eat at) is this vegan and vegetarian restaurant right next door to it, called City O’ City… it was so nice-looking and so hoppin’… then again, Denver was just a hoppin’ place, in general…

This is a truck next to a show we walked by, which I knew Troy would kill me for not going to… George Clinton and Parliament Funk! AND IN DENVER? I’m sure it woulda been fucking awesome. Unfortunately, it was also like $45. A dude in line who answered my question about what it was insisted that we should go, and I mighta, but the price was just a bit too steep for the two of us.

Denver’s downtown area (pictured above) was just in general kind of rad. Here were some of the extremely large-scale installations found there, that again, makes stupid Seattle’s Sculpture Park seem just so dumb… (someday I’ll get over how much that thing sucks…)

After going downtown, we visited Gypsy House Café (1279 Marion St.) a bit north from downtown Denver. IT HELLA RULED. Man. If I had this in my town I would DEFINITELY go there everyday. I’m talking… normal bookworms, Muslim women, gothic kids galore. It was fucking fascinating. And they had hookah. And they had a super vegetarian-friendly menu. Shit ruled so hard. I think there was a venue attached to it in the back (where I suspect some kind of goth show was going on??) but I can’t really be sure.

Anyway. I eavesdropped on a LOT of conversation, mostly on our peer-aged Muslim gal pals who were talking a LOT about makeup, and one of them was talking about how she went canoeing fully covered but pulled her head veil back because, “A hijab tan is the worst thing ever.” I thought that was just the most hilarious thing… they also talked a lot about how people would welcome them to the United States after they said they were from Colorado, even though they were born in the States, just because people wouldn’t believe them. Bum deal.

This is a sign found in their bathroom. Fun one.

After working at Gypsy House Café for a good hour-and-a-half or something, we decided to go onto Larimer Square, which Ed had said would be a “happenin’” part of town… and it definitely was, though in a frat boy-y kinda way.

What we ran into on the way there was fucking Denver’s OKTOBERFEST! We were clued in by this really horrible metal-punk-Irish band, complete with accordion, but even more obnoxious than one might ever expect from a band like The Dropkick Murphys, even. God, that shit just doesn’t work for me and just never has, though I applaud their efforts… I guess…

My eyes were definitely popping out of my head when I saw these marshmallow treats, and I was definitely wondering, “WHAT THE FUCK!?! WHY DON’T OTHER PEOPLE USE OTHER KINDS OF CEREAL THAN RICE KRISPIES FOR MARSHMALLOW TREATS? GENIUS!!!” I mean, it’s not that novel of an idea really but it so is, too… I think I need to combine my newfound love for Peanut Butter Puffins (seriously, the best thing ever…) and make marshmallow treats using those… omg omg omgogmaogmoamgoagmoagmoamg. I am already pre-dying with taste satisfaction. RECIPE FORTHCOMING ZOMG. OMG AND I CAN ADD SOME BANANA TOO HOLY SHIT.

The rest of Oktoberfest is what one might expect: a bunch of drunken idiots milling about. But everyone seemed to be in high spirits, extremely friendly, and bro-y, but in a different way from the usual bro. They were all like skater-snowboard bros, which is a more tolerable kind of bro (and which, up until recently, I hadn’t really considered a bro, but they are bros in other people’s eyes, I guess). MM-HMM. Yeah, I’m kind of a boring counterpart to these kinds of things just because I don’t like, party. Or drink. So I just kind of sit, and for some people, it’s weird to go to a bar with me as I do not drink or whatever. With multiple people it’s fine, but with just one person, it’s sometimes like, well, might as well not.

Along the way back, we passed one of many marijuana dispensaries, but this one is particularly dope because it’s built out of an old gas station. Caaaamoooonnn. That totally rules…

Anyway, got sidetracked there. This was just a funny thing we happened upon walking by a tall skyscraper building… and both of us did a double-take — for good reason, obviously.

That was pretty much the end of the evening. Crawled home and back to bed.

recap central: cross-country kamut road trip, day three: salt lake city, denver.

ACTUAL DATE OF TRAVEL: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15TH, 2011.
SMALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN BY ROSE ON HER IPHONE; LARGE PICTURES ARE MINE.

—

SALT LAKE CITY

Woke up! Breakfast at home in Salt Lake City, where mom CSer made an awesome egg scramble (apparently the only thing she can really cook). God, I hate American breakfast, generally speaking! I just don’t ever wanna pay for that shit!

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Bright n early, up n Adam" -- hehe, she said Adam...]

So, I’ve been ridiculously fascinated by supermarkets since Sherry and I started exploring the shit out of them on our international vacations, and domestic supermarkets are not exempt from this. This particular morning was spent stopping at many a supermarket (the first of which Rose did not visit because she was busy being sick-feeling? Or cranky? I forget). I should also note that here is where I first purchased a puff-grained cereal (an Egyptian grain largely unchanged since it was first cultivated — or so I read) called KAMUT. It wasn’t my first time purchasing KAMUT, but it became an on-going love because it is quite the texturally-satisfying food. That and we kind of evolved the word “kamut” to mean a million and one things… but mostly… you can say “kamut” with different influxes in speech and it will represent your different moods. BEHOLD, THE KAMUT!!

(Seriously, though… the texture is amazing! Imagine rice puffs but with a texture more akin to a marshmallow; it kind of melts into your mouth with your spit!)

This one is Emigration Market, the second supermarket stop. It was like, the most amazing supermarket ever, and we stumbled upon it while taking a weird route to the freeway (had Rose gotten her pipe dream of visiting an In-N-Out — as the chain had recently extended its bounds to Utah — then we would have missed it… buuuuuut she decided not to go because it was slightly out of the way, and so we got here ). [SIDE NOTE: I'm writing this in NYC's Lower East Side right now, at Jeanette's apartment. It is 4:45am. Man, there are the gnarliest sounds outside of here, always.]

It was a former local grocery store called Emigration Market which had been taken over by a larger chain called Harmon’s, but they kept much of the unique aspects of it intact (I guess).

And we were greeted by John, Chief Financial Officer, pictured below… who gave us a coupon for a free loaf of bread, which I voted we exchange for a white chocolate walnut bread which was FUCKING INCREDIBLE. They also allowed you to slice your bread in different widths (we went with a “10″, whatever that means) — and that was kind of the most incredible thing. Even more incredible, though, is that the store had JUST opened the previous day, so we were seeing it at the height of people being excited, super nice, and very, very busy! It was amazzzzzzzzing. That place is the jam. I would shop there all the time if it were in my town. It would be out all. No contest!!!!!!!!!! But yeah. John. He’s the jam and isn’t that portrait just the face of jolliness?!!! But seriously. I want a bread that I can slice to the #5 mark cause that’s just godamn incredible, bitches.

The salad bar at Emigration Market, which Rose was endlessly fascinated by because it had sushi. And who can blame her?

—

BETWEEN SALT LAKE CITY AND DENVER, PASSING THROUGH WYOMING

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Approaching Wyoming on the way to Denver"]

As Rose was sleeping for the majority of Wyoming, she woke up to some boring parts of it and concluded that Wyoming is the most ugly state. I kept getting mad about this because Jackson Hole and Yellowstone are in Wyoming and I totally like the state. Plus we only saw the south end of it where nothing in particular is fucking going on, and it’s just stereotyping the poor state!!!!! I had to fight on Wyoming’s behalf many a time (which is probably inherently totally pointless because who needs to defend a state’s honor, really) before she started prefacing the story of, “Wyoming is really ugly,” with, “granted we only saw part the Southern part of it…” I WIN. (BUT NOT REALLY AT ALL.)

Perhaps the biggest bummer, for me, lied in this hilarious thing called Little America. There were signs for it like 100 miles out, and I had been driving like two hours, so I was desperately awaiting its arrival so that I could stop driving. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally it emerged…

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Arriving at the much anticipated little America"]

Little America was oh-so-American. It was really just a gross little place that served a highly-advertised 99-cent ice cream cone (of the not-really-ice-cream-but-weird-flavored-ice-variety akin to that of McDonald’s), hamburgers, and hot dogs, and sold just the worst little knick-knacks and trinkets that you would expect from any Montana or Wyoming tourist shop; I’m talking instant soup mixes, emblazoned spoons, shaped rocks, and everything your grandma that loves to hoard newspapers could ever want.

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Good ol merican lunch"]

The second building, though, was depressing in a wholly different way. Think a dimly-lit Midwest diner remnant lacking any of the pep and step that you would want in any diner; imagine a Shari’s but even more dimly lit, with the only patron — a husk of a man — sitting on a stool just barely alive enough to sip his coffee. A waitress who has lived long beyond her glory days mills about, wiping down counters that probably don’t need wiping, standing next to curiously saran-wrapped doughnuts that can’t possibly be fresh, displayed like artifacts under glass casings. And let’s not discount the equally worthless gift shop that was attached to it, with the combination of all of these things making even the most jaded of Americans a sudden patriot, because we’re not all this pathetic, godammit, Uncle Sam!

Little America was, I guess, named after some complex {?} some guy had established on Antarctica. I don’t know the whole story anymore, but it was something about how some dude had been freezing in the cold winter in Wyoming and it reminded him of being in Antarctica, and he decided he would come back and establish a hotel where people could be warm amidst such frozen Midwest tundras. I’m sure Little America was quite a glorious establishment in its time, but the glory hath since fadeddddddddd! Faded and given way to the most banal and messy gas station that we were afforded the un-luxury of seeing the entire trip.

I guess this stuffed penguin was some sort of artifact to commemorate the Antarctica connection.

Luckily, before we got into that building we had some fun with the statues outdoors… riding buffalos and chasing dinosaurs.

Rose mentioned something about this thing being a cow. To which I responded, “It’s a buffalo, dude.”

This is the Sinclair gas station dinosaur!!! LOVE HIM!

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Double teaming the Dino"]

Wyoming! And she calls this ugly! P’shaw!

At a gas station stop somewhere after Little America, there were a series of foothills and brush in the near distance that I really wanted to get all up in. Climbed it for a bit, and it was a bit reminiscent of the small hills at Capaddoccia — extremely tiered and very easy to climb. Same coloration of stone, too. I ambled through the brush as Rose stayed down near the gas station, and got pretty high — and would have climbed higher — but felt rude for making her wait. I would very much liked to have just chilled out there for a second, though, as it was the first time being able to get into nature for the road trip, and I just love to do a meditation atop a random unsuspecting rock formation… the last one I had done was in New Mexico, and it was ever a mystical time… but yeah, since I was alone and didn’t want to make her wait, I climbed to the top and barely got to soak it in before I came back down. Did see a TON of what I think were rabbit pellets, though. TONS! The brush was kinda high and I was slightly worried about snakes, but I think twas not the season for them anyway.

Some man was collecting horns in his backyard around where I climbed the foothills.

From sundown the previous night, in the park, Rose had gotten all of these mosquito bites… these are what happened after she scratched the shit out of them. For once, I got a couple and RESISTED from scratching the shit out of them!! And did not turn into potato arm/leg/face! I must say that I was quite proud of myself because resistance to scratching mosquito bites is not something I am very good at.

Before we got to Denver, Rose really was hungry and we stopped by a Mexican restaurant. I don’t remember what I ate, but I didn’t need it.

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "don't tell me what to do! If I want to choke to death I will!" -- yes, I did say that, as a sassy joke, though I don't know why anymore...]

[ROSE'S SUMMARY OF DAY THREE: "wilded out at a rad grocer & had quiche, lasagna & tortelini for breakfast.(yes I am half Italian). Wyommings interesting at the edges but otherwise has a likeness to the default windows 98 bkg. Drove past Denver, staying w some nice folks near the columbine shootings. Most surprisingly awesome goes to Utah, & the opposite title to Cheyenne. Can't wait for tomorrow, were taking the whole day off."]

—

DENVER

Finally arrived in Denver, rather later than initially anticipated. We were slightly out of it and I got the house wrong, and we knocked on the neighbor’s door. Could hear some rustling behind the door, the TV blaring, and a woman’s voice yelling, “Bobbbb? There’s someone at the door.” We waited a moment of the door to open, and it never did, so we just backed away… meanwhile, Ed said that he had happened to come out, saw our car, thought to himself, “This has to be them!” but saw no one around so he went back into his house, hyper-confused. We later appeared and solved the mystery for him!

Anyway, Kathy and Ed had a really great guest room with a king-sized bed, all made up for us and ready to go. We unfortunately got there way later than initially intending to, which was maybe inconvenient for them. Kathy had just gotten back from a month-long stint working at an army base in a nearby town (she is a military psychological counselor) and was super exhausted. It’s interesting — she basically takes people’s profiles in half-hour increments. But how much can you really get to know someone in half an hour? She said a lot of soldiers are just basically like, “I’m fine, ma’am,” and say nothing more, whereas others, I guess [?] say a lot more. But anyway. We just talked with them a little bit and then went to bed that evening. Big day ahead of us, of hiking (thank god, after two days of sitting in the car being glued to seats. Blargh!) But yeah, it was my first shower of the road trip, and that was, of course, quite a nice and lovely luxury.

recap central: cross-country kamut road trip, day two: boise, salt lake city.

ACTUAL DATE OF TRAVEL: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14TH, 2011.
SMALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN BY ROSE ON HER IPHONE; LARGE PICTURES ARE MINE.

—

BOISE, IDAHO

Woke up and spent the morning with Brian Baker! He drove us around in his “ghetto” car (he has two) and took us to Boise’s downtown, where I had only been in passing before. He had a 5-panel mirror in his car… could see everything and all angles! Yay! I think every Asian mother should have one of those, maybe

We went to Goldie’s for breakfast. I didn’t eat much; just a side of red potatoes with an in-house seasoning mixture that was not particularly interesting. Thank lawd for hawt sawce.

Walked around afterwards, which included heading to Freak Alley, where a bunch of graffiti (and other) artists had paid money, generally, to draw up on a section of wall. There were a good pieces, but they were few and far between. This would be one of them. I guess it is a portrait of an older shop owner who had died.

This is of Jimi Hendrix, which was put together by smashed-up mirrors. Pretty neat.

We then went to this parking lot full of graffiti. There were some fun things.

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Wasn't the yellow man also in a painting at de nada?"]

[ABOVE] Brian inspecting da fatz; [BELOW] Brian gettin’ low/homoerotic.

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Gideon & mosaic"]

There were plenty of finger-painted handprints. We decided to add our own with nice thin-tipped Micro pen (of which I was freaking out and telling everyone to “be gentle” with )

Fucking hellzaz rad Ninja Turtles mural thing. SOOOO RADDD. Definitely the best thing in the parking lot. The models are doing a great job, too.

Went to the train station afterwards. Apparently bitchez be gettin’ married out tharr. It was a pretty neat place.
After getting out of downtown Boise and getting Brian’s car tour, we just hung around his place a bit and he gave rose a brief introduction to dubstep and the history of dubstep. Got to listen to some of his new tracks, a lot of which are really good! I really hope that he gets something out of his music because dude is so much better than a lot of bullshit that’s out there right now. That and he’s been doing it for-fucking-ever and deserves it, because he is goooood.

Anyway, heading out of Boise, there was this lovely building. We most certainly had a hey-day.

—

BETWEEN BOISE, IDAHO AND SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Not the most glamourous of rest stops"]

—

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Didn't expect to see rain in Utah"]

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Giddy punch!"]

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Another day, another state"]

We stopped by a park that was a teeny tiny nook off of the Salt Lake. As Rose said on her Tumblr, “Millions of mosquitos not pictured.” Yup. Although I had purposely carried around deet for the duration of the trip, I of course forgot that it might be a good idea to actually bring it when we were exploring a swampy park right at sundown. Dammit!! We ended up running from place to place in order to avoid being eaten alive so thoroughly… and while that helped — minorly — we still got eaten alive. Indeed. Bug bites on top of bug bites! Surprisingly, I didn’t get it too bad this time even though I usually am quite loved by those miniature havoc-wreakers. This time, Rose got the brunt of it, and like me, she swells up to infectious states, and I think in some places she had three mosquito bites in one section that made for a reaaaaaaaaaal fun time (sarcasm). She was quite pOofy. Reminds me of the time when I went to Europe as a kid, got a huge big bite on my arm, and then my arm swelled up huge; for the rest of the trip, my parents and brother called me “potato arm.” That’s love, I guess. But yeah, despite the mosquito-y death — definitely worth in on the picture-taking and general beauty arena!

Rose was endlessly fascinated by how beautiful Utah was, cause — I guess — coming from Los Angeles she kept thinking that Utah and anywhere outside of the West Coast was basically really hideous and boring, but I mean, Utah’s one of the raddest geographical states, for sure! She also considered it the Midwest which was really just kind of amusing.

We drove a bunch and got to Salt Lake City that evening, where we were staying with a Couchsurfer. What I knew of the lady was that she was a mom who had a stripper pole in her living room. You know… whatever… that sounds fine. Not judging as some people just enjoy the exercise of it or whatever. But it got real weird kind of fast, and right before getting there I was just major cranky pants (snatched the iPhone out of Rose’s hand when she was reading her own directions to the house and getting a little bit lost and I was certain I knew the directions and thought it would be better if I just told her as opposed to having her look… but it was totally cranky!) from being really, really hungry… and then being stuck behind a train for godamn forever! We also went to Whole Foods after getting lost a whole bunch and bought a bunch of dinner fixin’s, but by that time, I really didn’t care to be shopping and really just wandered around aimlessly cause my brain wasn’t really working. Rose picked out everything and I helped pay for it, barely really knowing what was going on.

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Half mile from our destination, stuck behind the longest train ever. So hungry!"]

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Welcome to tonights friend for a day!"]

There were three other CouchSurfers in the apartment, and I just kind of like fuuuuuck, cause I didn’t necessarily want to deal with that many people at the time. There was a 19-year-old girl from Montana who had run away from Montana because she had “gotten into trouble,” which on the last straw involved crashing her grandfather’s car into a ditch and then ditching it. She was on a trip with a guy she had just met — another CouchSurfer — who was from Virginia or something and had just graduated from Business school. He was an interesting dude — the type of dude who is probably really sad (as evinced by some details he later let on) and displays it all through this kind of cock-assuredness “I am so smart and witty” attitude that, as he got drunker and drunker throughout the course of the evening, became very obviously just a front he used to make living with himself a lot easier. When I first arrived, he pretty much just played 20 questions with me, which I didn’t mind because the attitude was so direct and interesting. He guessed right off the bat that I had been a Sociology major, and also guessed something else which I have since forgotten, and I was pretty impressed immediately. And then he wanted me to guess what he had graduated studying, after telling me that he had graduated from Jon Hopkins, which I had THOUGHT was a medical school and not just a general school. He got offended when I thought he was a nurse, and then also offended when I thought he had studied some kind of translation thing. (I later found out that he was an English major, which… I don’t know why he would have been so offended by the translation thing. Newb.)

After those fairly OK exchanges, the conversation somehow got steered towards politics (he was a Ron Paul supporter), and he said something really dumb about how Barack Obama wasn’t really African-American because he was born in Hawaii and was only half-black, but how does that discount him from being African-American? Dude wasn’t even talking to me during this conversation because I had removed myself from speaking, but that’s when he really started bothering me a HUGE amount, and I kind of started making faces and being even more anti-social because I just couldn’t stand really being in that room. I was ready to be like, “Hey guys — I’m going to go take a walk and I’ll be back,” but then Rose had finished putting stuff in the oven and needed to go to the car, so I went with her and vented. By the time I came back, I felt a lot better, and just getting slight perspective by removing yourself from the situation helps sooooooooooooo much. But anyway. We went back upstairs, ate food, and I started warming up to the dude a LITTLE bit. It took a very long while, though. I will get back to that later.

The last guy was a very, very large man who said he was in the midst of divorcing his wife and fighting for custody over his child. He said he had another lover and that he was homeless for the time being, but that he wanted to get in on a work trade for shelter thing that was going on in the city — only there was a waiting list for it. His options, I guess, were CouchSurfing or staying in a shelter with 400 other people, and he said that he was scared of staying in a shelter. Freshly homeless, I guess. He said, “You wouldn’t think so, but large guys get scared, too. We beat up other people and then we go home and cry about it.” Although he was very large of the not particularly muscular type, so I’m not entirely sure how many people he beat up. Interesting? Dark past? Wonder who he was beating up, or when it was, and why. (Presently Rose and I are talking about “doing violent things and wanting to cry about it” and she said she gave a kid a black eye once when she was 15. She says, “I’ve definitely now decided never to punch anybody in the face.” I’ve never done anything violent, but these stories remind me of dad, and how my parents used to talk about how my dad beat people up for no reason… such as picking fights with people the bus stop…!!)

Back to the dude who had previously been bothering me. Throughout the course of the evening, dude continued to make a lot of comments about blacks… such as… when he and I were having a deep conversation and a hip-hop song came on, he immediately went to change it and said, “I can’t listen to black music right now. It’s too intense.” (Actually, the word wasn’t intense, but something a little more ignorant than that.) He also got to questioning, “Can you be racist and truthful at the same time?” and it was a good question, I think… just because it showed that he was thinking a little bit about his own actions. Apparently, upon graduation, he had a six-figure job lined up, I guess, but then decided he didn’t want to work long hours every day and be unhappy. He wanted to get out and explore the world and just see things while he was young, and he said that part of his reason for deciding that was that his father had died early, after always saying he wanted to do this and do that, but had never gotten the opportunity to because he was always working. It was kind of heart-warming, but dude was definitely conflicted; he felt bad for hating his father and not getting along with him prior to his death, but also said that he had hated the man ever since he (he in this case being the CouchSurfer) had punched his sister when he was young and his dad immediately punched him out. He said, “Well, at least I learned never to hit a girl,” but he was still mad at his dad — evidently a huge dude — punching him — evidently, at that point, a tiny kid. Which makes sense. But to have that kind of regret can really eat away at someone, particularly when you don’t know if it’s right or wrong… but I hope that he talks to someone on this trip who can help him with that. He said to me, “I guess I’m being really honest with you right now, but I know I’ll never see you again.” I guess it’s good that people are willing to always talk to me about these things, even when I don’t particularly vibe with them well. It has always been the case. And I have felt, especially lately, that I really need to do something with those abilities / tendencies… hrmph.

But yeah. Dude was super interesting, and very confused. You could tell that his rich background and surroundings tainted him from who he really wanted to be; he had been a baseball player in college and touched upon the fact that he had gay friends… and while he was definitely not so familiar with gays he felt it necessary to leave that detail out, he did mention that he was the only one on the baseball team WITH gay friends, and that he got a lot of shit for that because it was such a taboo for everyone else around. So I guess his heart is in the right place, and I have to give him that for being able to tolerate and accept other people when surrounded by such closed-mindedness. And it’s easy to judge him for even being closed-minded to begin with, but the dude is definitely trying to make strides, and if his goal right now is to just follow where life takes him without a worry, and his way of accomplishing it is through CouchSurfing, I can imagine only that he will, even a year from now — if not less time — be a much more mature and actualized dude who will be useful in making positive change. I’m sure all of the remnants of past ignorance will not go away, but I’m positive that he will make huge strides towards more and more openmindedness. We actually also had a conversation after he made the “black music” comment about how that was a bad thing to say, and he acknowledged it, and said that he had had conversations with people before where he was in my position, telling other people that racial constructs didn’t matter — but then said that being mugged and jumped in Baltimore had unfortunately tainted his experience in a way that actually influenced his thinking actively. And I can understand that, surely, as Baltimore is a particularly gnarly place, especially with regards to race relations… but I just hope that he will see soon that being black is not necessarily equated always with bad things. I guess I can say that I went from being his biggest skeptic to his biggest supporter, and I’m really glad I got the chance to hear him and understand where he was coming from. Rose and the CS host were definitely more tolerant of him at first, but also later on seemed more annoyed by him after I had arrived to a place where I thought he was fine and/or going to be fine.

Onwards to details about the CSer herself. I really don’t know how she afforded such a nice apartment, and without working. She had a young child. She was formerly Mormon and married, and it seemed that after finding herself anew (post church-shunning) she had turned from what was probably a typical Mormon lady with typical Mormon gender roles to an extreme opposite, with stripper poles and always making comments about how strong women were. It was almost as though she was trying to convince herself constantly. Which I don’t necessarily blame her for — it was just very interesting. I suppose when you’re in that kind of situation and have been judged for being an ex-Mormon with a baby who is now divorced, it is only natural that you need to rely on yourself an extraordinary amount and prop yourself up, even if that involves hyper-correction. But yeah, I didn’t necessarily feel all that comfortable around her because I didn’t feel like she really understood my kinds of comments or brand of humor, but it’s all whatevers.

Dinner seemed to take forever, with a bunch of hovering piggies pigging out (myself included — there were some of the best fucking local flavored tortilla chips EVER). Although what Rose made for food was very much standard everyone-in-Portland-would-eat-this-and-know-what-it-was-and-probably-cook-it-or-something-similar-fairly-frequently, the people here were absolutely mind-blown. Like, seriously!!! Other than the large homeless man, the other people were just like whuuut about most of the stuff. And granted, I personally had never eaten endives before, they weren’t mind-blowing. The CS host chick actually wrote down directions the next morning on how to cook all of these things, which was amusing just because it was mostly like… sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper, and roast. Haha. But I guess everyone needs to learn sometime. Rose’s beets were particularly super ace, though.
[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Feast for our four new friends; baked beets w vinaigrette glaze, red wine endives, portabello mushrooms & quinoa w bruschetta"]

There were some neighborly dudes who kept wanting CS host to hang out. They live the floor below her, I guess. As for me, I was not particularly interested in talking to anyone this evening, and was probably being a bit of a quiet butt, but WHUTEVA.
[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Courtyard riders"]

Anyway, after eating and after CSer lady took the 19-year-old (haha) — during which Rose took a nap / eavesdropping break and I had that deep conversation with the kid from the East Coast — we went to take a night walk around SLC. Baby had passed out long beforehand, and mom wrapped her up in a blanket, took the stroller, and departed the hOoOoOoose, baby in tow. The new baby carts are fucking intense pieces of machinery, man. Some have thick wheels as though they’re for off-roading or something. The one she had was maybe not THAT intense but it was fairly intense.
The walk mostly took us downtown to the main Mormon cathedral (?) complex, where Rose smoked a pots cause she thought it’d be funny, haha. It was interesting-ish but not hella, but it was nice to be able to just walk around there for a little. Took a few pics, but they are mostly who cares.

Partway through, baby woke up and started crying and got creeped out by this fleece blanket she had that had a dog’s head on it. Honestly, baby seems a little schizo or something haha. Apparently she sometimes walks by certain alleys and says there are fairies or something. But maybe that’s just how babies are. It was interesting to see her freaking about the dog having a head and being wrapped up in that heady-dog-blanket, but it was pretty much between that and being naked (she seriously had no clothes on), so eventually, after mom telling her she needed to use her “real words” — which, she of course didn’t, since it was like 2am and baby was cranky — baby started behaving and we headed on our way back (but not after walking a few more extraneous blocks).

Interesting rainbow metal thingy installation which CS host had never seen before. I did see later on in the local SLC weekly that it was a new installation and it had won some kind of award. WHUTEVA!

Thus concludes day two!

[ROSE'S TUMBLR SUMMARY OF DAY TWO: "street art tour & crash course in dubstep in Boise. Back on the open road, salt lake sunset, & a feast for our new friends to be followed by a downtown wanderings. & I think I may love Utah."]

recap central: cross-country kamut road trip, day one: portland, pendleton, boise.

The aim of this upcoming series of posts is a completely comprehensive recap of my last two weeks of intense cross-country road-tripping with my friend Rose. I didn’t manage to write a single thing until today — the last day of the road trip, or at least the last day before we are reaching New York City… so… might as well recap it all at once and make life nice and easy peasy. This is probably going to take forever, but for my last few major trips (Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Peru even ughhhhhh, and Israel and Jordan)… I really fucking blew it and didn’t get the opportunity to recap them at all. And at this point, they’re so far in the distant past that I don’t really want to recap them because for one, I don’t really remember — and for some trips where I actually took notes, I kind of just misplaced the notes. Eventually they will resurface but probably not in time. I suck. Anyway, in short: I don’t want that shit to happen this time. So here goes… slowly… and surely… and it is my goal to properly document the remainder of the two weeks in New York City properly, as well. No more slick-slack-slam-slam-bing-bang-wing-wam! NAW MEAN!

ACTUAL DATE OF TRAVEL: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH, 2011.
SMALL PICTURES WERE TAKEN BY ROSE ON HER IPHONE; LARGE PICTURES ARE MINE.

—

PORTLAND, OREGON

Began at noon! Said a long morning goodbye to le Troy and headed out, pretty on time, considering Rose is always late and was moving across the country, of course. During the course of this road trip and subsequent two weeks in New York City, I’ve subletted my apartment to this skater kid from San Diego named Nick. We had a Craigslist call for potential roommates and there was an interesting selection of human beings… my favorites were Nick and this New Age mom who was getting surgery and was just looking for a place to chill afterwards (because she was opting to do medical marijuana instead of Western medicine). I was super into her and she was giving us details about how to use hash and resin to make super potent pot treats (she said that when her children were trying the initial truffle batches, they “almost saw God.” Perhaps she was speaking of the hallucinogenic properties of which Troy sometimes speaks. In any case… Andrew didn’t want to live with a mom (and her daughter, too, who would need to be there to take care of her) and Shawn just thought she was kind of a lunatic and too far out in New Age land, but I was totally into her. This is a bit of a digression but I do feel since I have been interested in this stuff I’ve kind of gone to an extreme in being accepting of all things New Age… but it’s more a curiosity than anything; I’ve always been curious about these things but not had enough reason to believe in any of their truths to actually pursue any of that shit. But now that it actually seems that some of those things are legitimate — through first-hand knowledge and know-how — this whole new world of hippie bullshit has been opened up to me. And well, I’m actively pursuing it in a way. And it feels weird, but… what can you do.

Anyway. Back to the roommates. There were a couple other sweetie pies including a gal from Maine who was pretty shy-seeming but used to work at a record shop in Portland, ME and wanted to work at one in Portland, OR… she was really quiet but you could tell just a sweetheart. Initially I thought she was a bit too shy and so she didn’t make that huge of an impression upon me, but in retrospect, she probably would have been my next favorite choice. There was also a guy from Illinois who was super hilarious and into music (metal, mostly, it seemed). Larger dude… and he was really into writing and Nabokov. But yeah. He woulda been the next choice after the gal, but Nick was the only one all three of us agreed on. He kind of reminds me of Brian Meyers…
Onto the road trip. We left, we left, we left. And it was funny because Rose had initially thought that she could cram all of her possessions into her trunk but definitely not. Still, though… the car is/was full, but that’s not the most terribly extraordinary amount of possessions. Pretty good lack of things, actually. WEE!

(Continuing this now, September 25th, 2011, from Syracuse, NY, at Shawn’s mother’s house.)

—

BETWEEN PORTLAND, OREGON AND BOISE, IDAHO

Jeesu (I don’t know how to spell it) — a little protective guide sculpture that Matt Leavitt gave Rose when we were leaving Portland. The little dude kept flying around the car when it was on the dashboard, haha. Eventually we had to stow him into safer places.

Forget where this is. Crap. As I’m looking this up on the map, I just realized that we passed Lime, Oregon, where this abandoned concrete plant is that I’ve been wanting to check out FOREVER since we Lenny, Andy, and I went there a million years ago (pictures: Seaside, Cannon Beach, Portland + Cove Palisades State Park + Shaniko.

The theme of the first part of the trip, particularly starting from this day, was TONS AND TONS of construction. This was our first traffic run-in, though, but it wasn’t construction; it was an accident in which a truck carrying loads of hay bales had caught on fire. In the town of Pendleton, Oregon, we waited for the 84 highway to clear. They had basically closed the freeway off 60 miles beforehand — so far beforehand that we actually had forgotten that there was even that accident by the time we got there.
[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Grateful for semi truck shade." -- to clarify: it was hot as fuck (luckily I was driving; Rose was on the side where the sun was beating down upon her with great fury) and I kept prolonging our stay under semi truck shade for occasional bits of respite from the heat...]

We had been talking all along on our trip about finding a casino and going to it, and lo and behold — the highway block-offage afforded us the opportunity to do the one and only available things in Pendleton on that exit, which were visiting: a little shopping plaza with a McDonald’s and a gas station; a casino.

The casino just so happened to have a glorious happy hour with, GREEN BEAN FRIES. AAGHHHH SO DELICIOUSSSS. And also had the fattingest, most savory mayo-based ranchy sauce ever with slight hi of Cajun something or other. NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM. Seriously, I was a bit obsessed with the green bean fries and certainly wonder why they are not a more prevalent thing in the world. SO GOOD. SO GOOOOOOD.
[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Waiting for the blown up truck to clear the 84, gettin down on some casino sports bar jams"]

Rose’s first time playing slots. She won ten bucks (technically $7, after putting in three). I lost $3. Oh, well. It was kind of sad, as always, to see the old people hiting up the gambling, but particularly sad when they’re fucking double-fisting the shit! Yer fuking double-fisting the slot machine? That can’t go well! It simply can’t! That $3.00 went away in like, fucking, ten minutes or something. And I was playing 1 cent and 5 cent slots! CAMOOOOONNNNNNN PEOPLE.
[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Won myself $10! Thx for lunch, wildfires casino."]

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Back on the road"]

[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Just past la grande Oregon"]

I didn’t really take any pictures this particular day other than when we were leaving the casino later that day. And all of the pictures I took that day involved uh… me swinging my hand around this side mirror and trying to catch the refractions (?) of my hand off of the numerous semi truck lights behind us. WA haw haw ahw.

—

BOISE, IDAHO

Took forever, but we finally got to Spastik Brian boy’s house in Boise, where he was staying in a rather nice neighborhood about 20 minutes outside of downtown. Reckon he is moving to the Portland area soon, which is fantastic! Hopefully he can get his musical biz awwwwn. Rose and I shared a bed, where this cat was on it. I guess Brian and his roommate put this cat in random places throughout the house to frighten one another. It is something to be frightened of, I suppose!
[ROSE'S TUMBLR CAPTION: "Made it to Boise Idaho!"]

That evening was the first evening Rose and I shared a bed! SHE KICKED ME A WHOLE BUNCH! And stole the blankets. Haha. I was like, “Ohhh, no! Is this how it’s going to go down for the rest of the trip?!!” Luckily, it got better from there on out, though.

Thus concludes day one! YESSSSS!

subconscious idiot/genius.

i’m listening to… emil & friends’ new album, lo & behold. first time listening. haven’t decided what i think yet. interesting, yes, but i really loved the ep and this i am this far not that amazingly stoked on. dude is obviously talented as all hell, though, and doing something interesting, and i’m sure his live show hella kills…

i just woke up with some ideas that compelled me to actually physically wake up and do shit. ughhhhh i am ridiculous. see below for email i just drafted to gina because… my subconscious is so ridiculous!!!!!

so
as usual my subconscious is simultaneously being a major idiot and genius. for some reason, in one of my four wake-up-with-ideas states-of-mind this morning, i woke up with some idea for you to rearrange your room. clearly you don’t need to do this but i thought i’d pass it on…

i was thinking that if you turned your bed 90′ from the way it is right now, your bed could be used as some kind of couch for movie-watching, and where all your records are right now could go at where the foot of your bed is right now. the projector could go next to one end of your bed (the far end). would make your room bigger and your bed more a couch.

why the fuck am i thinking about this shit?

also kinda had to just wake up because i just had an idea for an art piece i would do. ugh. what the fuckkkkkkkkkkkkk! in any case, think i’ll pitch that piece to place sometime… woo sugars and candies and caffeines! makes the brain crazy but very productive! it’s sunrise outside right now! the sky is nice and pink and purple. looks pretty dope…

arf. arf. arf.

how was the rest of your night?

also, were t_____’ friends annoying yesterday? he apologized for their presences and that they were obnoxious, though i personally didn’t especially notice at the time…??

vivian

last night, we had a mini-party at our place that went til pretty late — like 2am or something — because rose and maddy are leaving. and cause i’m leaving for a month, a week from now. which is crazy!!! here’s the description originally posted for that party, although we didn’t end up bedazzling anything! i did manage to bust out the crazy shirt from camboria that lenny’s mom bought me, though, cause it is a hella bedazzled shirt with “burberry” written onto it in glittery rhinestones. pretty amazing…

hello fine ladies and gentleman residing in the greater portland area!!! if it would behoove you to join us for this eve of festive gathering and camaraderie, you would be very much a delightful and welcome addition.

vivian and rose shall be departing on a month-long cross-country road trip, beginning the 13th of september — which will culminate in rose “peacin out dis bitch whut whut”.

similarly, maddy shall also be “peacin out dis beeeeeyotcccccch!!!!!!!!!!!!” on the 11th of september, though her route will take her throughout the southwest and back to minnesota.

to celebrate their life growths, we iz sayin bai with potluck n dranx and steez. come by and hang oos.

OH YEAH AND BRING A PIECE OF CLOTHING N LEZ BEDAZZLE SUM SHIT. (YES, THERE IS A BEDAZZLER.)

BLING BLINGIN ENCOURAGED. THERE WILL BE STREAMERS, EVEN!

holla dolla. herndy verndy.

i also finally got robby and matt to meet, which i am particularly stoked about, since they both really like math and shapes, and are two human beings who i respect artistically to the utmost degree. both of their websites, respectively: robbykraft.com and mattleavitt.com (see also: interview with matt on redefine)

as i am currently sitting outside on our patio — it is 6:28am — i am being harassed by our local neighbor cat, aka (by shawn) scruffy cat. scruffy cat always wants the love and is totally cute as fuck, and i would be way more open to her hanging out and climbing all over me if someone would just cut her claws. she’s constantly scratching the shit out of me without meaning to, i’m sure, because she’s totally cuddly and all love. c’est la vie. man, troy has all the animals!! he has like three animals that are constantly running into his room because his door doesn’t latch. but that’s neither here nor there… just needed to say… it’s been quite a while since i’ve regularly associated with animals. it’s kind of nice.

might sublet prince rama’s apartment with rose, if they’re into it, and then i’d have a place in bedstuy in brooklyn, next to pratt, and that’d be hella rule. i think i’m going to have my apartment subletted too, so i would actually be saving money on rent and would have a dope part of brooklyn to live in (one i actually wanna explore, and really wanted to explore last time). this trip is coming together rad… all of a sudden a bunch of people popped out of the woodwork — acquaintances and such — who are contacts in detroit. also, a street photographer gave me a list of abandonments in detroit to check out, and was super glad to share. i’m excited as all hell. i haven’t taken photography for quite a minute because frankly, i just haven’t been giving a shit (seriously, that trip to vietnam turned me off on photography so hard even though i had some good images from that set)… but hopefully this time will bring me back to liking photography in the same way that i liked it when all-you-can-jet was going on a few years prior.

(side note: as of just now i’ve just added a new category to my sidebar: subconscious)

it was in a recent conversation that i discussed with rose that intuitive me knew “better” than reality me. she was skeptical about that and said it was dangerous, but i said it hasn’t proved me wrong yet. and it hasn’t, man. subconscious me has the BEST fucking ideas. meditative states and the spaces between sleep and wake are where i get the best ideas, easily, because waking me is way not that profound all the time. haha.

aaron and i had a conversation last week about that concept, as well, where aaron was talking about how maybe the fourth dimension was a connected interwoven “sense of everything being one”, which is interesting because i’m reading the tao of physics and i happened to pick it up again that day that aaron and i hung out, and in it it was simultaneously talking about how the fourth dimension for physicists was space-time, where time is on one continuum that is constantly flowing and constantly happening at once, and how for mystics, it is a “place” devoid of space and time, but is nonetheless moving forward. that same concept came up in conversation with troy and andrew last night, where troy was talking about how creation is what is constantly moving us forward in time — creation both in terms of human creation and universe creation — and it is something i intuitively feel. i lately had a conversation with andrew, after watching a documentary about the mayan interpretation of 2012, about what might potentially happen in 2012, should something actually happen. what i was talking about was a “balance” of sorts, because that’s what the mayans feel will happen, essentially, where an intuitive female power will start taking influence again, and the “western” mode of rational thought will stop being as dominating and important. i mean, if you look at the state of the world right now, it seems perhaps possible that the current trend of western hyper-logical thinking isn’t necessarily working on a global scale. and in terms of musical creations and artistic tendencies, there is definitely a return to less structured, intuition-based spontaneous creation without forethought. there is also a return to primalism of sorts. will all of this culminate at the end of 2012 into this insanely crazy shift of mental proportions? i dunno. it sounds crazy to believe that something might actually happen, but i feel it. but then again, this is what andrew said that his parents in the ’60s felt… that things seemed ever so crystal-clear to them and they thought, “if only everyone could get it and see things as we do…” but no one ever got it. but i dunno. that’s why i think 2011 is so bloody important and why there are many an idea in my head of things i need to accomplish by the end of the year (first and foremost being my book) because i feel they are important, particularly in this time, right here, right now. god, it feels crazy to feel that way. well anyway, back to what i was talking about. i was talking to andrew about 2012 being a potential shift in balance, and that that would perhaps lead to a small group of people who are intuitive and logically-minded to pave the way for positive change (like our group of friends right now… this is another thing that was recently touched upon… when we were at helsing junction, gina was reading a joseph campbell book, talking about cultural monads, and essentially, how, through the artist and music, we can make great cultural change because they are the ones who touch culture at large… and essentially, gina and i are doing this to some degree right now, along with many other people…) … … in response to this, andrew’s thought was… “if everyone becomes good, doesn’t that destroy the balance of all things?” and while i agree with that theoretically, i tried to give the example that although there is always the presence of good and evil in everyone’s lives, it is, after the existence of those things, a choice for one to figure out which route they would take in their own lives. the same set of circumstances thrust upon different people would yield different results. one might spiral downwards while another floats to the top. that kind of forward momentum is something that undeniably exists — the third aspect of what would otherwise be a duality. the third aspect is what makes the change, whatever that third aspect is. whether it be choice, or creation, or some kind of otherwise undefined forward-propelling momentum. (WHAT THE FUCK AM I TALKING ABOUT GHHAHFHHHHHHGAHHHHH!)

other than that, jeff was talking to me last night about how a lot of writers who are nobodies, such as i, and him, get friends to act as publisher, and that these friends will support one another. publisher would basically be… your friend prints your book and backs your product because they feel it is important, and it’s less vain than publishing your own shit and trying to push it on other people. but the problem is my thing is fairly lengthy and i don’t exactly want a chapbook… i want a nicely bound actual book. we’ll see. perfect-bound shit is pricey shit, after all. and i know that some people publish through lulu.com but i haven’t properly researched that just yet.

anyway. lastly. i wanna share a small selection of photographs from helsing junction that rose recently sent me from our trip that past weekend, cause they are nice. if anything, traveling with rose for the next month is going to result in one million thousand photographs! holy hell!

oh, and, generally speaking, i’ve been loving on this song so hard (see my review)

OH YEAH and. last edit for the morning as it just hit 7:00am… and i should go back to taking a nap since i went to bed at 2:30am and shit…

THEY RECENTLY DISCOVERED A DIAMOND PLANET THE SIZE OF JUPITER!!!

i found out about it from troy through this time magazine article but funnily enough i just realized this one person is following me on wordpress (thx mang) and he wrote a pretty in-depth post about it, if you wanna check it out here.

in other news, my “tags” for each individual post are getting more and more “out there” with every entry… haha.