I am at the home in Las Vegas where Troy lived from the age of 13 to when he moved to Reno in his early 20’s. It’s interesting being here, and it has been a fucking hell of a trip this past two weeks. I’m not sure where I am mentally right now, but… Troy’s step-sister Tara was here earlier. She said she had been thinking about him a few times in the past couple weeks which basically meant that he was perhaps going through some difficulties that would later work themselves out. She pulled him aside to a private room for a second when I first arrived, just to tell him something very quickly. I’m not sure what..

Troy insisted that she give me a reading. What she reads are moods. She told me that she felt that there was something going on between Troy and I that was perhaps due to stress because of someone being tired, but that I was really hard to read and she could not figure out exactly where the stress was coming from or why, but that she felt it would work itself out soon and that all would be fine. Said that she felt that he loved me very much, and that I was very good for him – almost in a nurturing, motherly way – though he may sometimes say and do things that make that seem to be not the case. Continued later.

there are a shit ton of things i should be doing, none of which are this.

i’m listening to… snowman’s absence.

yesterday, gina and i went to get a soul guide reading from this local lady in town. you can see her website here, and we got an intuitive reading and a flower essence consultation. she describes these services with the following words:

Intuitive Reading
I offer myself as a channel for spirit to those who seek a deeper understanding of themselves, and who desire to develop trust in their own wisdom and connection to spirit. People seek consultation with their guides for a many reasons, such as for help in decision-making; questions of life purpose; cultivation of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health; healing issues of lack; and deeper understanding of love and relationships.

Flower Essence Consultation
Flower essences are a subtle, yet profound, energetic medicine that helps to support the deep transformational work of personal growth. I use the essences to address the spiritual and emotional realms, which then vibrate outwards to affect the physical and mental realms. Flower essences are not contraindicated for any medical condition or drug, and are safe to use with infants, children, adults, elders, and pets.

is this shit a buncha bullshit? well, a year ago i might’ve said yes, but i would have been open to it. now i am more apt to believe it, though i will assert that i maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. regardless, though — whether she talked to my spirit guide or not, i gained helpful things from the session. and either she is a hella banging psychologist or she is just psychic, which is also in that whole world of just fine and dandy.

firstly, though, some pics.

[1] (right) costume i made for intuitive navigation way back when. bedsheet. lucy did the MOST amazing dance while wearing this costume. speaking of, i need to do laundry today… woke up into a nosebleed and have to do that shit. god, i hate doing laundry. shawn told me that i was the person that did the least laundry ever. what can i say, i’s filthy. but anyway. i might bring this to burning man next year… ha!

[2] (below) me, sitting in this coffee shop i am at, with the flower essence that was prescribed to me. therefore, i will begin with the flower essence and its elements. i will begin by saying that shayne told me, “i cannot even impress upon you how rare this is.” evidently, she checks in with your guide and gets the recipe from (in my case) him, and he prescribed me a bunch of gems, for grounding purposes. most people don’t get much grounding materials, i guess. and it’s also interesting because before i went into it, i was mentioning to troy that i was very curious what flower essences i would get because floral things frequently, frequently make me nauseous — especially lavender. i’d never mentioned it to her, though. below are some meanings… of, firstly, lavender, which i was not prescribed, and secondly, all the other things that i was prescribed.

LAVENDER

Positive qualities:
Spiritual sensitivity, highly refined awareness.
Patterns of imbalance:
Nervousness, overstimulation of spiritual forces which depletes the physical body.

The Lavender flower essence helps those souls who are highly absorbent or spiritual influences. They tend to be very awake and quite mentally active, with a strong attraction to spiritual practices and various forms of meditation. However, they often absorb far more energy than can actually be processed through the body.

“High-strung” and “wound-up” are words typically used to describe such personalities. They especially suffer from afflictions to the head, such as headaches or vision problems, and neck and shoulder tension. They are quite often plagued by insomnia or other nervous maladies.

Lavender first works to sedate and soothe such persons; at a deeper level, it teaches one how to moderate and regulate one’s spiritual-psychic energy. In this way the soul learns to use its highly sensitive capacities in balance with the physical needs of the body.

maybe that makes me sick because i am soooooo not plagued by insomnia and am soooooo not high-strung… now for the things IN my bottle.

GUARDIAN (FLOWER)

Guardian helps you create a powerful force-field of protection in your aura and environment. It contains Covellite, Devil’s Club, Round-Leaf Orchid, Stone Circle, White Violet, and Yarrow. These essences enable you to claim your energetic space, maintain your grounding, and feel the protection of strong, healthy boundaries. Guardian also contains the essential oils of Hyacinth, Litsea Cubaba, Tangerine, Lime and Melissa. These oils enhance the protective and grounding qualities of the essences and add uplifting notes of joy and playfulness. This spray is especially useful for those of us who are highly sensitive. We often feel our sensitivity is a curse instead of a blessing because we don’t know how to keep the energies in our environment from penetrating and depleting us. Guardian reminds us that we are the source of our own protection. It connects us with our inner light and helps us radiate this powerful energy outward into our surroundings. This helps us stay open and sensitive, while feeling sealed and protected.

PYRITE (GEM/CRYSTAL)

Energises the lower chakras, promoting grounding. Helps one to see the reality of a difficult situation. Uplifting & emotionally balancing.

HERKIMER DIAMOND (GEM/CRYSTAL)

Powerful cleanser for the subtle bodies and energetic structure. Opens higher chakras promoting clarity of perspective & development psychic gifts. Stimulates connection and the ability to be in harmony.

RUBY (GEM/CRYSTAL)

Ruby has a profound impact on the heart chakra and helps the development of spiritual balance and divine love.
Emotional/mental – Ruby is universally applicable for all emotional issues related to the heart chakra. It provides illumination into areas of procrastination within the personality and stimulates the development of self-confidence, decisiveness, negotiation & leadership skills as well as the development of unconditional love. This essence will promote a greater degree of stability and balance within the personality, which will stimulate a desire for forward movement and spiritual growth.
Energetic level – The energy of Ruby impacts the heart chakra, heart meridian and heart chakra nadis. It also aligns the mental and spiritual bodies, which stimulates spiritual inspiration and divine love.

LAPIS LAZULI (GEM/CRYSTAL)

Emotional/mental – Lapis Lazuli helps those who have shy, introverted or retiring personalities through its ability to stimulate spiritual & personal self-expression. It also promotes the release of buried emotions and hidden fears.
Energetic level – Lapis Lazuli has a major impact on the throat chakra and the energetic blueprint associated with this chakra point. It aligns the etheric, mental & spiritual bodies and strengthens all the meridians. Lapis Lazuli is also a very potent cleanser of unwanted energies from the energetic blueprint.

ANGELICA (FLOWER)

Positive qualities:
Feeling protection and guidance from spiritual beings, especially at threshold experiences such as birth and death.
Patterns of imbalance: Feeling cut off, bereft of spiritual guidance and protection.

Angelica flower essence – The modern human soul suffers in a way which is unique and tragic, for it must face profound spiritual isolation and separation through living in a materialistically dense and technologically abstract culture. The Angelica flower essence addresses the soul’s experience of compression and restriction by quickening the thinking and perception processes.

The soul becomes more able to perceive and discriminate its connection to the subtle sheaths surrounding the physical world. Angelica flower essence especially encourages the individual to develop a relationship with the spiritual world, transforming an overly abstract or intellectual viewpoint into a genuine feeling for spiritual presence and spiritual beings. This awareness is particularly enhanced for that group of spiritual beings who immediately border the human kingdom: the angels.

Through a living relationship with the angelic realm, the human soul receives guardianship and guidance in daily affairs, and protection at times of crisis or during threshold experiences. This feeling of being protected and cared for is of enormous importance to the inner life, giving the soul great strength and courage for its work in transforming and healing the world.

Angelica flower essence is broadly indicated for many flower essence formulas and is particularly important at threshold times such as birth, death, festival celebrations, or other major life passages.

flower essence descriptions are from this book and website and the rest are from this website.

the herkimer diamond (different from diamond), guardian, and angelica were the things that stuck out in my mind the most when she was describing them. she mentioned that the herkimer diamond was to help with opening the third eye, the guardian with opening oneself up spiritually while still protecting oneself, and the angelica was a hollow-stalked plant that facilitated direct contact with the spirits.

so. man. i dunno. that shit sounds crazy but then the stuff she told me was kind of even more maddening. and it very much covered things i have been thinking in just this past week.

the session began with her and i just shooting some shit and i felt totally kind of anxious and unsettled for some reason. it was weird. gina’s description that she had passed onto me of “native american lesbian” kept sticking out in my mind and it was super annoying and i couldn’t figure out why that description wouldn’t let itself go. thank god that we soon did a meditation… a heart meditation… and she told me to envision breathing in gold to my heart and then breathing out the negative things. i pictured gold swirlies being breathed in, black swirlies being sent out. helps to visualize. definitely calmed down a bit.

before the session, she had asked me to bring a form that i’d filled out. in it it asked what issues i wanted to work on, but i didn’t have any particular issues to work on as i feel like i am generally pretty “good” in life right now… i just said that this was a big year, spiritually and mission-speaking, and that i wanted to know what i should focus on. she asked me what it meant that it was a big spiritual year, and i basically just ran down everything from being bummed out in the beginning of january to a love spell in february to a succession of “lovers” that then turned me onto writing, a new mission for redefine, and finally, love. she asked me what it meant to me to be “spiritual,” and i just said a sense of connectedness, and the idea that what you think or intend are very much things that you can make happen. kind of a weird answer, the second part, but that’s what came to mind.

she also told us beforehand that there would be a purging session afterwards, if necessary, where i would get a chance to speak about everything that had been told to me. and she told me i could do whatever while the session was going on, but i didn’t really end up moving from the same spot anyway, so enthralled i was.

she took a moment to call my guide, but he came in a matter of seconds. i guess he was readily available (and gina’s was apparently already there before they started, and shayne said she had to ignore her for a while while they were chatting about things).

so dude appeared to HER, and the whole time, she was looking off in the corner of the room so that she could see the vision. from his description, he probably looks something like this dude (these are pictures of lao tzu, and it’s actually REALLY interesting because i have been weirdly directed towards taoism in the recent past). i actually had wanted to ask at the end, during question-asking time, if dudercopter was chinese, but i didn’t. but i mean seriously. the dude had purposely set himself up in a “scene” that he wanted me to see. again, i wasn’t seeing the scene directly; shayne was translating the scene TO me from what SHE saw.

the scene was this: he was an old man — “so old,” shayne made sure to say, and that he had a really long and thin beard. i don’t believe she saad what color. i also feel like he might have had long hair but i also think that may have been an assumption i made. in any case, she definitely mentioned that his robe was REALLY soft, and that it was a grey or periwinkle color (seriously, lao tzu pics, wtf!). she said he was holding a giant stick, and that he was stirring a pool of water. the water was not that wide across, but it was REALLY deep (shawn told me later that evening that that was “dangerous,” which seems true hahahah).

okay, so funny, there was that visual, which stayed hilariously in my head and definitely made me giggle when it was first thrown down.

oh man there’s so much to write and it’s hard to keep track of it all in one go. bits and pieces keep flooding back to me randomly throughout the course of the day but i will try to make some bullet points… everything stated below in parts one and three is what he, my spirit guide, said to me, about me. there are some of my thoughts inserted in-between, but they are clearly denoted.

PART ONE: THEORY
- i am an “old” spiritual soul.
- i see a lot of things before other people do.
- he mentions weariness, and this ties into how i was feeling last week after the redefine site was put up. i was basically thinking that it — everything i was doing — was completely pointless because it is not reciprocated. the basic idea of the whole thing was that i need to get grounded. i need to get a deeper sense of myself so that i will have a firm foundation on which to grow these ideas that i have.
- my greatest ability is to be able to sit back and let things happen as they are and then cut in when the moment is right.
- that i should not only look forwards but look backwards… and not just inwards, but backwards. and not just personal backwards, but historical backwards.
- lots of calling me a visionary. which is, i mean, totally awesome… and that i’m very good at executing ideas and visions. definitely got the sense that a lot of my ideas are not necessarily my OWN ideas, but that they were visions that i am simply carrying out.
- i am a force for “positive change”, with regards to meeting where the “collective unconscious” wants to go. seriously, those words were used.
- that i affect a lot of people, or inspire people to do small things.

PART TWO: PRACTICE
- so the whole time the list of theoretical things about me was going on, in my mind i was like, “where is the practical advice???” and of course it went there, and was phrased in a way i would phrase myself, as in, “so what can i do about this?” there were two “solutions”:
- meditation. “three times a week” or whatever i decide… he didn’t say meditation in specific, but said “sit,” which is interesting, since that is a buddhist term… but yeah. just pre-slotted times for sitting, and that i should envision myself growing roots into the ground while i do it (i did that last night and it was like an endless root tunnel going downwards… just one stalk… was interesting). i think it was with regards to this that it was stated very clearly that this was advice for me, and ONLY for me. it might’ve been something else, though, but i think it was with regards to this.
- looking into my ancestral past. i fucking knew this was coming the whole time which is totally crazy too, and it is something that has really, really been on my mind (no hints towards that at ALL when i was talking to shayne). said that i have a very, very, old spiritual family, outside of my immediate family, and that i should look into it to get a more solid foundation. because having that knowledge will give me the ease to know that it’s not just me, but that it’s something i have known for a long time. i mean honestly… it’s weird. i’ve been thinking about this stuff a LOT because i feel like the way i react to things is fairly “learned.” like… i just naturally am super taoist, and it’s truly without trying. it’s just the way i am. and it has no doubt been trained to some degree but it’s also just… a thing. has always been a thing. so i dunno if there’s taoism or buddhism or something in my past… i’d wager that there probably was just because of like, the fact that i’m chinese, but yeah. it’s curious. i’m working on figuring out how i can figure that out.
- solutions for family, because i had mentioned beforehand that i felt like family was the one part in my life that i felt not that amazing about, and that i had taken it upon myself to kind of change them and try to make them more positive people. the advice was… after i did the sitting, i would get a more solid sense of self, and that that would make it so that whatever negativity they threw my way would no longer matter because i was so rooted in myself. and that being rooted in oneself allows for the expansion of one’s compassion, and that i would grow more compassionate because of it, so that the compassion would actually take me to another level where things that they would do and say would be beyond me, basically. that is f a s c i n a t i n g and definitely the best advice ever, and things i have considered doing, but so good to have it given as kind of a directive so i actually have more incentive to do it.
- it was also noted that i should not pay attention to the immediate family who are stuck in decision-making through “fear,” because they are not my true spiritual heritage, essentially, and that there is more to be found in my spiritual lineage.

PART THREE: REFLECTION
- time for questions. says that i should ask anything because that’s what he’s there for. one of the questions i asked was how to balance a sense of ego versus a sense of doing things because i felt like i should do them because i’m in a position of power to do them. i zoned out partway during the response, unfortunately, but the part that did stick with me was the idea that, you are not better than anyone else. you are just doing these things because that’s your soul’s desire, and other people don’t have the same path of desire. i also really wanted to ask some joking question but didn’t for some reason. also asked about my spiritual family, and what that meant exactly, and what their role was. i forget the response.
- i am on the right path.
- “love is good.” but make sure you can ask for what you want. which is totally interesting because that is definitely the only problem, really. and that i make sure that we grow together spiritually as opposed to separately. with a stress on spiritually.
- dude wants me to contact him directly, which from the sounds of it is super rare. he basically said, “i want you to know that you can talk to me anytime.” supposedly i should just, when sitting, try to ask questions and not try too hard, and if the answers come, then they come and i’ll have known they come from him, and if not, i just didn’t do it that time. which is um, interesting, and super taoist… seriously though, everything that has been coming up lately in life is the most taoist ever, including recent classes doing tai chi and the whole approach to that…
- he explained the “scene” he put himself in as the last thing. the water he was stirring described my unconscious, which he was stirring up so that i would notice it.

anyway, i think that’s enough for now.

not gonna lie…

parents were just here, visiting me, in portland, for a few days.

what can i say… the first couple days were fine, even pleasant, even, though it has to be taken into consideration that it was mostly pleasant because of what it wasn’t — that it was pleasant because i had expected worse and gotten dished out less than “worse.” but hey, standards are standards, although they may not be extremely high. so there’s that.

this particular evening, we went to shandong in portland. first time going to that restaurant, and i must say that i was quite very stoked that there is! indeed! close-in! portland! good! chinese! food! shandong was half americanized, but in a really good way… it was authentic although it catered very much to americans. so i am into it. the dan dan mian (which i will now make in the future nearest) was of particular note, and they have a really good koreanized jja jjang myun… so i’m into that, too. i will definitely be going back, oh yessss. so excited. funny that it is down the street from the ambassador — this really funny chinese food / karaoke place that troy and i went to on our first date. dare i say the ambassador even had a better chinese eggplant dish than shandong, and i’d say the ma po tofu, too? i dare. funny fun fun funs.

anyway. when the parents came, we did some hefty driving, first to silver falls state park — apparently in the amazingly named city called sublimity. that place has like this trail that is 8.5 miles long and goes through 10 waterfalls. the north falls were AMAZING because they fall from pretty high and then have a seating area behind them that is carved into the rock and is basically a circular section looking out onto the opening of the rest of the park. hard to explain — will have to snag a photograph from the mother who actually took photographs — but yeah.

yesterday, we went to astoria (pretty pointless, i must admit) and then to seaside, which looks totally different in the summer! last time i went there was in the winter, or fall or something, with sherry and tinwin. i don’t feel like half the shit that was open this time was open then. i bought a shit ton of salt water taffy. some that was super cheap and some that was more expensive… i must say… more expensive salt water taffy is WAY better than cheaper salt water taffy. the chocolate peanut butter ones i got (more expensive) had real peanut butter and just generally hella ruled. the other kind all kind of tasted artificial, and very little like what flavor it was supposed to, no matter what flavor you got…

the rents met troy and really, really liked him. and generally, they gave everyone a good impression when in a public setting. i feel bad in some ways, because hanging out with them too much makes me turn into this ugly, ugly person that i am usually never like around anyone else; it is just that they are so, so, so suffocating, and negative… and there’s so much a reason that i broke away and live on my own and will never go back. i mean… it’s nice to see them occasionally, but rather horrible to feel like i am constantly being judged and micro-managed. i felt bad in some ways that troy would ask me how my day was — when the rents were here — and i could kind of only answer in the negative because it was a negative… because whereas usually i can make shit roll right off my back, in the case of my immediate family, it is truly, truly something else. i just can’t let shit slide in that way. it’s just not possible… everything is just such, such a far cry from who i am. i am the opposite of planning out every second of my day, of worrying about every little thing… and though i care about those things sometimes more than my friends, the degree to which i’ve scaled it down from my origins is like… almost insurmountable.

but anyway. originally my dad had really not wanted to go to dinner because he thought he’d have to pay for everyone, but he ended up footing the bill, though i have to say that literally the reasoning he gave me was (said in chinese): “it looks better this way.” and yes, it did, but… yeah. i mean… i pick up the details that may get lost in translation but i suppose in every family and with every set of facades, only those who were really in it know the truth? and there are a lot of things i could say but suppress. today, i found myself taking deep breaths a couple of times to get a double-take and to not say things that were biting and unnecessary… but those deep breaths and second thoughts only accounted for like, 2% of the things i probably did end up saying, or the bad attitude that i gave off when i shouldn’t have… i don’t know, man. i don’t know. it’s something i have to work on… because yes, they are in the wrong, but i could act better, too… i could take the attitudes that i take in other aspects of life… of going with the flow… of letting things go… and apply it to these difficult familial situations, as well. i’m learning…

i haven’t updated in a while, so this is a complete brain dump.

my parents met troy a couple nights ago and were quite stoked on him. (we went to blossoming lotus, and i was rather surprised that they kinda liked it… but i was glad to give them the new experience because it was their first time eating at a place with food that said GF — gluten-free, R — raw, and … something else i forget… dad said it made him poop well… dad loves to comment on toilets and bathroom facilities… seriously…) anyhoot. troy seems like the type who would probably please any parent. but seriously, they had nothing but nice things to say about him, which is good. dad even went as far as saying he was pretty good-looking, haha. it’s funny, though, because dad barely said anything to him — but, as troy was pointing out today, of the three things dad DID say to him, one involved inviting him to taiwan in november. which is pretty hilarious. like. dude. we’ve been dating for a month! luckily, i can say these things to troy, and dad can say shit to him (like tonight at dinner: “take care of my daughter!”) amongst a table full of 7 other friends (robby, rachel, shawn, andrew, christopher, rose, gina)… and troy won’t get frightened away. haha. i guess that’s good. the other night at blossoming lotus troy thanked dad for paying for dinner, and he said, “it’s family!” and in a lot of circumstances it would be truly head-in-the-hands “fuuuuuuuuuuuck” — and in this case it was subtle and he barely heard it, but “take care of my daughter!” today was definitely met with a head-in-the-hands reaction on my part and a lot of laughter on everyone else’s part. luckily, it was funny enough that it wasn’t uhhhh hugely awkward. it’s just funny because money is such a “thing” with the rents, and such not a thing for me… they said multiple times, “troy seems nice!” to which i would respond, “he’s the best!” and mom would respond with something like, “the best should still need to know how to earn money!” once, dad said, “i hope he makes enough money to take care of the both of you!” or that “he knows how to plan for your future!” and… firstly, it’s like, dude… we have been dating for a month… secondly, it’s like… dude, we split payment on a lot of things, and i do that with all guys i date… and thirdly, it’s like… dude… we’ve been dating for a month. haha. even if it feels like longer than that…

a couple days ago troy and i went and had a picnic at colonel summers, and i started telling him about a dream i had about george clooney. when i initially told gina this dream, she said, “troy is kind of a george clooney,” and it was only until i started telling him this dream that i began to realize that fuck, the dream kind of was about him, or something. what happened in the dream was that the police were looking for george clooney in this city with super narrow streets and high walls (kind of like siena in italy, or something). they looked for a really long time and could not find him. finally, i think they stop looking, and i run into him. i jump up and hug onto him, like a koala bear, and am bawling FURIOUSLY. i have never cried like this in a dream or in real life. soon thereafter, he lets me down or something, and says, “but i am going to see you in a couple days!” and i instantly start laughing. end of dream. this was when troy was on tour… totally was about him… and i don’t know why i didn’t realize it until that moment when i was retelling it to him. sooooooooooo weird. sooooooooooooooooooo weird.

life is funny, anyway. shit just pops out and punches you in the face and you’re just like… whaaaaaaaaaaaat. there have been no use of words like the “L” word — whatever — but there certainly has this feeling of just this thing being the realest, easiest thing i’ve ever had. it’s pretty fucking crazy. i am really, really happy.

in the work world, too — life is good and easy. i pretty much have not had to look for graphic design projects in a really long time, and everything is just… easy… and it’s good… 2011 is the most magical of years. and i’m just trying to figure out the best way to round the rest of it out. for starters, beginning in mid-september, i will be embarking on a cross-country road trip with rose, who is moving out to new york. it will be something else, i am sure. until then… i have a little more than a month (man, time is flying, again) to do a million things… psychedelic things… helsing junction farm sleepover things… camping under the stars things… loving life things… eating food things… soaking in everything wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful things…

i’m ready.

OH DUH. it is to be noted that last saturday, rose, gina, robby, andrew, and i went camping and found an amazing, amazing, amazing situation for ourselves. these are robby’s photographs from his iphone. see below. OH MY GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

basically, gina / niko’s friend bobby had a space out in southern washington that he shares with this hippie retreat place… they have a bunch of land friends can camp on. we had a bonfire and basically slept under the stars — no tent — and then went hiking the next day. gina destroyed her really awesome sneakers hiking in the river. ah man. it was good times… there were a lot of s’mores eaten. probably too many s’mores. but it happens…

campground area:

but yeah. we found a really amazing swimming hole with a waterfall. below are pictures from it. pretty much there was life before the waterfall and life after the waterfall… haha.

robby tried to dive into the river with us but then froze to death (0 body fat) and then had to get out. as for andrew and i, we went close to the waterfall and it was seriously 2x closer there. like, it was cold when we got in, but when you got near the waterfall it was some serious shit. afterwards, the four of us were so cold we were seriously retarded. for starters, we could only — in andrew’s terms — “shrimp” to the shore… as in — we were walking upright when we went into the water but crawling on all fours when we got out. it was also like a three mile hike into the waterfall area, through rivers, and while it was slightly challenging and uncomfortable on the way there, on the way back we were seriously being so retarded… practically falling off logs… i felt like i was way closer to nature because of the poor decision-making skills i’d newly possessed: rather than going over a set of fallen branches, for example, i would crawl in between them and find my face now inches from ferns i would have otherwise simply risen above… it was strange, profoundly strange, deliriously delightfully naturally strange. high, high, high!!!!

adventures from parents and portland.

[1]
Me: It’s a good time to go over the bridge!
Mom: Are there so many bridges because of the river?
Dad: No, there’s so many bridges because of the mountains. Stupid question!

[2]
Me: There’s a really big bookstore! Is that of interest?
Dad: No.

Went to Toro Bravo with the parents. Oh, so delicious. They were less critical than expected and actually found my apartment somewhat decently nice. Amazing. It’s just funny because the 716 apartment permanently scarred them into thinking the worst of the worst (since that was, after all, the worst apartment-living situation ever, ever, ever!)

carebear strikes again.

mom’s original email:

Hi! Phil and Vivian,

How’s everything? We are doing fine. If you need to contact me, just send email to me. I can find Roxanne’s email address, say hello for us.

Mom

my response, part one:

things are good! really busy!
where are you guys now and what is the latest thing you’ve seen?

my response, part two:

you know what would be fun.
i think from now on our emails should all include 2 thing that have recently happened which have made you happy, and 1 thing you’re looking forward to!!! OKAY??!
[ [ [ [ [ PS - PHIL DID YOU EVER GIVE THEM MY PRESENT?????????????????????? ] ] ] ] ]

i’ll go first.

- COMING UP: i’m looking forward to seeing everyone at jeremy’s wedding this weekend! not looking forward to giving wedding $$$ ;p
- PASSED: my friend just gave me a bunch of images of his artwork. you can see it here… it’s the trees! he started with a single brush stroke (japanese sumi ink) and then added the trees after the basic shape was formed. they’re all differerent and all really incredible. see here.
- PASSED: we had an alice in wonderland-themed picnic in the park last sunday…!! i made a dress, kinda. here are some pictures:

heck yeah! i will make you bitches think positively!!!

>>>

in other news.
it’s funny to have recently met the swahili people because they are so much on the same page… i mean, they even say “so good,” which is pretty much just really super ridiculous. cosmic.

today i went to a lecture that troy (yeah, troy, but not the los angeles one) invited me to about science versus belief. it was interesting… interesting in that… i am also trying to bridge science with spirituality, but the route the dude (a chemist who basically reworked entire theoretical physics models to fit his worldview…) took was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo far removed from everything i’ve been thinking though the basic topics are still there. as is the basic notion of duality… so… i can say he’s astute, but i disagree completely with EVERYTHING he said, and it was maddening because there were people in the audience (“audience”) who were really quick to accept his theoretical model though his graphs and charts meant NOTHING at all and had NO value… and one guy behind me was saying, “you just have to realize that people are idiots and the majority of people don’t know what’s right!” and that was his argument against the current theoretical physics models. it was kind of sickening and really, really disturbing. anyway, the fact that he is a chemist — an extremely rigid form of science because as blake said, “it’s generally figured out and is a complete science,” only adds to the fact that i think what he’s saying is crap. furthermore, he would say stuff like, “that just doesn’t look right to me,” and that was essentially his justification for that stuff being ‘wrong’ and his model being ‘right’. man, i swear, you can manipulate data in any way to construct the reality you want…

anyway, i’m going to los angeles this weekend for jeremy’s wedding. i am going to call up troy. i rather doubt he will meet up with me… or even responsd to me… but i’ll try anyway. other than that… oh right, xinlei got engaged. aaaah! everyone!

and lastly, one more thing. after last friday’s chemical ingestion session with blake, the next day, I BECAME A PRO BIKER! seriously, though. i went to research club the following day and was biking circles in ladd’s addition with no hands. weirdest fucking shit. it just magically clicked and now i can bike huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge stretches and blocks and blocks with no hands. and i don’t even have to think about it. it’s super easy. second nature. makes ZERO sense. i dunno what clicked or why, but something clicked. SO WEIRD.

blake also leaves in a couple weeks for montana and then the east coast, which is kind of a little strange. i don’t think i’ll realize just how strange til it happens, though…!

i also opened a new bank account with wells fargo because they don’t charge you the same amount in ridiculous fees that chase does. the banker who opened my account was really quite fun. he also told me a banking joke — of “which there are not many” — but i guess people at wells fargo say that “chase chases all their customers to [us]“. har har har.

anyway. exciting things coming up. i’m finally lighting a fire under my ass again, at least a little bit…

all things are manageable.

i’m listening to… george harrison!!!!! mostly these tracks: “what is life” / “if not for you” / “i dig love” / “hear me lord”… so goooooooooooood.

i don’t want to sleep, but i have to, cause i’m in new jersey and kinda getting bitched at by grandpa who randomly popped out of his bedroom. it’s around 10:45pm pacific time, aka 1:45am eastern time, aka, still not my bedtime! shit!

life is fine, good, great, though the arts blog on redefine has been neglected lately. gotta queue up a buncha posts tomorrow. sorry, family, time, you’re going to have to wait slightly! i’ve got shit to do, omg!

family time is but a forced interaction, largely, anyway.

i feel good being this cog in this machine. but only because it’s a machine i don’t understand, and can’t.

started re-reading “journey to the end of the night” from the beginning, so i can finish it in one sitting and not get distracted by other books intermittently. fuck. the writing is amazing. like, i seriously have to put it down every so often to be like, “fuck. genius.” this is maybe a problem, because no matter how much i improve, i will never get there. i wish i had studied writing in college… or art… i dunno… why… i never… i dunno. college. what a wash. not that i didn’t like sociology, but in retrospect, i would have done a lot of things differently. i feel like lately i am constantly at odds with which portion of myself — art or writing — is more important, and more me, and more significant. historically, writing has -helped- me more, but both have the same amount of cathartic quality. i am mediocre at both, but think better in terms of artistic visions… so i feel like that’s the route i should take, yet at the same time………………… question mark! question mark! børk børk børk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [ http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Bork ] < uncyclopedia is seriously GENIUS. not sure how i never saw it until yesterday.

new lingo:

oOgley mOogley / gOogley mOogley = great cosmic coincidental bliss
herndy verndy børk børk børk = great cosmic unbliss and confoundment

tolerance.

i keep thinking the level of tolerance my parents have for things that are different will change. it never does… IT NEVER DOES. IT NEVER DOES.

no matter how much they travel, everything just solidifies already-existing beliefs, i feel like. fuck. today i eavesdropped on my mom’s conversation with a friend and she was bad-mouthing the american government saying something about how if you never work a job in your life you will get free insurance but if you do then you have to pay a lot, and that’s why some black people don’t work. FUCK. and she’s essentially like, “might as well not work then! because you get screwed if you do work!”

FUCK. FRAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. i in my family is so weird. i mean, a lot of people fit in weirdly with their families. ugh. but it’s horrible.

i spent some time making them a present. basically, i have this book with 501 cool places to visit in the world, and i’m giving that to them. and i added little pieces of paper with stories from my trips to these various places… my brother was like, “they’re never going to read it.” and i’m like… “yeaaaaaaah. but i like to aim high and then be disappointed.” pretty accurate sentence — on both my part and on my brother’s. shit. i also included a dvd with photos, as an accompaniment to the book. meh. never gonna be read in conjunction. what’s. the. point. ugh. yesterday i told them their present would have to wait, because it was being made, and my mom scoff-laughed at me. so rude. i guess part of me does think that maybe i should just buy them something vapid, like a crystal, or a bouquet of flowers, or a sweater, because that’s what they’ll enjoy. i guess i give things i think people would appreciate because i would enjoy it. but that’s not the case, is it? hmmmm. rethinking is necessary. i guess the point of giving gifts is pleasing the end-user; therefore, i should maybe spend less time doing things i think are cool and more time figuring out things they think are cool… right? ugh.

give me work.

i’m listening to… the beatles. like, all day today.

give me work. i actually signed up on elance for once in my life because i need work. today it dawned on me just how broke i am. then it dawned on me that i have a lot of shit. that idea dawns on me all the time. but it dawned on me even more because alex and lenny dumped all of my belongings on me and stuffed my trunk full of them all yesterday, and as a result, now i have even more stuff. i’m trying to read all my books so i can get rid of the fucking things, but i can’t really read them fast enough. what’s more. my parents are moving in like, october or november, so i have to go home sometime during that period to help them pack stuff up and move and figure out which of my own shit i wanna get rid of and stuff. so it’s like a constant cleansing. which is good, i reckon, but also totally blah at the same time. moving away from childhood homes always seems like a weird thing. albeit that’s more a high school home, but that’s childhood memories by now. kinda weirds me out to think about. also kind of weirds me out that i have so many of these possessions sitting here that i really strongly feel i can’t get rid of them. my possessions are mostly broken down like this:

[1] electronics. computers and printers and typewriters and sewing machines and all sorts of bulky bullshit.
[2] art supplies, papers, old art projects. all kinds. all across the fucking board.
[3] books. like i said. trying to read them so i can get rid of them, but that’s kind of silly, isn’t it? can’t read fast enough, like i said.
[4] music-related stuff. make that cds, records, and now keyboards.
[5] snowboarding stuff. that shit is just huge.

what i have pared down a lot on is clothing. i don’t really own that much clothing anymore (although i do own a shit ton of stockings and socks, but those are fun and small?)

dude, i’m reading this book i got in the mail. “the last living slut” about this girl who was a major groupie up until really recently — like, 2006… it’s really fucking interesting how easily she throws around the word love when referring to these random ’80s hair metal musicians (grode). and the descriptions she gives about groupie culture is just so weird. i didn’t know that kind of shit was still actually pervasive. cause bands are dimes a dozen these days, so waddafack. anyway, she writes it all pretty much the way she thinks it, i guess, but as you’re reading it, all you can really think is like, holy shit, this girl is insane. she sets herself up to be hurt by player rockstars time and time again. makes 0 sense.

total hilarity.

went to a metal show tonight. awesome. why did it take me so freaking long to go to a legit metal show? that shit is hilariously entertaining. and i mean that in the best of ways. it’s just a really interesting subculture that comes off looking so serious but really is not that serious at all. sure, there are the legitimately angsty people involved in it, but some of them just seem like really nice dudes, and you can tell when they’re hamming you up between songs.

when we first got there, sacrificial slaughter were playing. they seemed pretty goofball, but i liked it. then it was vital remains: not bad, not bad. then it was warbringer, and they had a lot of hype supposedly (as a hot topic band, apparently), but i really quite hated them and found their music really boring. micah and i listened to two songs and left. then pestilence! pestilence was AWESOME. evidently, it’s their first u.s. tour in 16 years… i’m not sure where they’re from. ah, the netherlands. anyway. their bassist ruled… and their music was just way more complicated than that of everyone else. it actually seemed like they have probably been doing it forever, which they probably have, too. rules! i had a good time. also funny were t-shirt slogans… and patch slogans… and all sorts of cheeziness… like… (these might not be verbatim).

“who needs god when you have satan?”
“fuck food eat pussy”

maybe some others will come to me, in the night…

i woke up this morning thinking that i need to attempt to make music. i’ve been super turned off by the creation of music because i was forced to play it growing up and hated it because i didn’t want to play piano… but it seems like a waste to not just try and embrace it now that i’ve more or less come to terms with the fact that my childhood is/was out of my control. in any case. time to focus on music-making…! (money would help in this situation, but uh… yeah, no.)

recap central: turkey, day six: pamukkale / hieropolis / antalya.

tuesday, april 28th, 2010.
The next day, we headed to Hierapolis in Pamukkale first thing in the morning. First off: lovely grave sites! Woo! Is it a bit morbid to be walking around grave sites and shit and taking photos? Probably. They were really cool above-ground graves, though. We went there REALLY early in the morning and beat every other group to the punch, which was really nice. In fact, a lot of our tours were planned in such a manner that we were the first groups there – quite an advantage, especially in the more crowded sites like this one.

There was one particular one where people had crossed into that had a warning sign that said bad luck would befall all who crossed into it. Dun dun dun! (Below)

An earth-covered tomb.

A building that was collapsing. A particular tour guide crossed into it and was having his group hanging around inside it, even though there were signs everywhere saying not to go in there. Al saw him and started having an argument with him in Turkish about how he wasn’t supposed to be in there, and the other tour guide denied that there were signs, even though we were all staring the sign saying you couldn’t be in there. He came over, saw it, and then said he was trying to respect our group by not going in the same section we were; Al said not to respect us, but to respect the site so that it could be saved for our children. Ha. When they left, everyone in our group clapped. One lady in their group thought it was cool, I guess, and she waved as she passed; another guy, at the very end, stuck out his tongue at us. Haha. How old are you, man?!

Random pics:

In fact, the most interesting part of Hieropolis were the tombs, and then this theatre, which was a traditional Roman theatre. The differences between Roman and Greek theatres, Al taught us, are as follows:
1) Roman theatres have a height difference between the lowest level of seating and the stage, because they had gladiator matches; Greeks did not.
2) Greek theatres were built into cliff-sides or something whereas Roman theatrs weren’t.
3) Forget.
4) Forget.

This was pretty fucking impressive stage, I must say. It was pretty intact, and they had guards on hand. Theft is a huge problem in some of these larger archeological sites, which is pretty nuts; Al had mentioned briefly that some larger museums hire people to illegally dig up finds, and that’s pretty messed.

On the way there, we walked through a trail and there were a SHIT TON of snails being crunched. It was really quite horrifying, if I do say so myself. :[ One was crunched by the person right in front of me, and I definitely heard the sound clearly and saw the remains. Blah. I ended up trying to save every snail I saw – I ended up saving two – but Ed and Kirk started doing it, too, making the grand total 4. Too bad those snails will probably end up back on the road to be crunched on a later date anyway, but who knows. Maybe not.

Cleopatra’s pool is this swimming area – you have to pay to enter – which has ruins on the bottom of it. A little bit nice, but nothing super special.

Next up, The White Cascades of Pemukkale. Really cool. I saw a bunch of little tadpoles in this body of water, but didn’t really think they’d be full-grown… but then I saw this little froggy (really little – smaller than a penny)… it was floating around in the water, which I initially thought was a little sad, but later on, I would discover that that was a great thing. Stay alive, little froggy!

The water and calcium deposits formed these nice little bathtub-like things of water. They were pretty warm. Massive photo shoots ensued.

So yeah, it went on for a really long time, and a lot of it was dried up. In fact, the park people had created a bit of a canyon to divert what little water there was into certain areas; most of the bottom parts of this were all dry. Kind of a bummer. Along the way, I was SUPER paranoid, because there were TONS and TONS of smushed mini frogs. It was really kind of disturbing. There was one frog being tossed around by the water, like he was stuck in a waterfall. I kept saying it was “horrible,” and some guy passing by said, “Well, save him, then!” so I got out a business card and he jumped on it and I tried to pick him up to bring him to another place, but the problem with picking up frogs is – their first instinct is so jump. So he jumped off the card a couple times, and splatted pretty hard once. He was still alive, but I’m not sure for how long. I saw another frog later on, and I tried to put him on the card, except when I poked him, I saw that his little intestines came out… ;[

Group photos!

Just some texture shots.

Charles decided to put a tadpole and a frog in one of the bottles, but then got bored of it and threw them away. I wanted to rescue, but wasn’t sure what to do with them, so I just left them. He threw the bottle in the trash; I picked it back out. The frog’s intestines had come out. :[

Honey, yogurt, and poppy seed dessert at a later lunch buffet stop. Pretty expensive at 5 lira, but it was delicious. I’m going to start eating plain yogurt with honey.

Drove to Antalya next, which was a beach town on the Mediterranean. Our hotel had a super nice view of the ocean… tried going swimming right away in the ocean but it was too cold. Then we tried the pool, but there were a buncha creepers staring at us.

Random hotel photo shoot.

We were staying in Antalya for two nights, so that night, we decided to go look for some hookah / shisha action. There were a whole buncha places on the main strip. We invited our parents along. Big mistake. Anyway. Got elma (apple) –flavored hookah, and it was pretty good. Played a whole bunch of checkers – well, Sherry did – with random people like my dad and her mom and her dad. I think checkers is boring as SHIT. Like, so boring!!! Anyway, some hookah pics:

Funny word.

Fancy buildings.

The facade of our hookah place.

LOL!

The hookah lasted fucking forever, and the ah-yees were freaking out about us not bacterially disinfecting the mouth of the hookah because the worker had to suck on it initially to get it to work. Even though we had plastic mouthpieces. Stupid, man. It’s not that big a deal. Whatever. Sherry’s mom was also SUPER fascinated with how it worked because all of the coals and tobacco are hidden, and the guy had to take the stuff apart to show her. I don’t even think we ended up tipping him, which is fuccccked. Anyway. At some point, my dad lost checkers against Sherry and decided that we all needed to return back to the hotel because it was – oh no – like 9:30 and “getting late.” We refused; the hookah wasn’t even done yet! He then said that he would play Sherry in checkers, and if she won, he would leave and we could stay. We didn’t agree to the terms, for starters, but he kept talking the entire time like those WERE in fact the terms. And then Sherry won, but he still demanded that we all needed to leave. We said no. I was PISSED. Finally, Sherry’s parents said they’d stay with us; my parents and Shariah and Charles left to go back early. Stupid. We played checkers with Sherry’s parents for a while and then my parents came back later on cause they felt bad for making Uncle Stewart and Auntie Ruby stay being to accompany us while they went home. Meanwhile, I had super tobacco’d myself out because I never smoke anything, and I was pissed, and no one else was smoking, so I was smoking a SHIT TON of hookah. I would pay for it later with some sickness and some throat pains, but for the moment, it was excellent, and I actually got a tobacco buzz for the first time in my life. It felt weird. Anyway. GRRR. So pissed. We started walking back, and I will admit that I was quite pissed the whole walk back and thinking how my parents are ridiculous and are like little babies and how I travel all the time by myself and they’re not around to freak the fuck out and ruin my time. The next day, my mom asked me if I was mad at my dad from the previous night, and I said, of course. She said that I’d understand when I had kids, and I said, “I would never do that.” Because I wouldn’t. it’s ridiculous. He’s like a 12-year-old throwing tantrums and shit. So weird.

When we got back, Sherry’s parents invited her to go downstairs for a drink. I decided to stay in the room and have some alone time, which was nice. I watched mindless television – freaking “High Tension” was on, actually, in original French with Turkish subtitles – so I watched that and concluded I don’t need to watch it again, haha. Because I kind of watched all of the part that gives it away. Ah, well. In any case. I painted my nails and vegetated, and it was much better. The hookah had TOTALLY made me tobacco-nauseous, so it was a good thing.