i am on a fence.

i’m listening to… radiohead.

went up to seattle this past weekend and had a really good time. it felt so good to be up there, though i can’t remember the last time i was up there. this entire year has felt like an eternity, and while i think i definitely have been back there sometime within the past six months, it feels like a foreign entity now… and i suppose it rather makes me sad.

when i first went up, i checked my long overdue po box and it was majorly filled. beginning to feel bad about even having one and doing so minimally with it, but whatever…

i’m in a weird mental state today, as it goes. having some relationship weirdness that is partially me, partially him, partially difficult surrounding circumstances. no fun………………..

i rideshared up to seattle on thursday with some random lady offa craigslist. she was really into astrology, which i found surprising because it seemed that she was [possibly] easily weirded out / bummed out on people. she had said that she picked me because i seemed the least creepy and said that some people who wrote back seemed creepy just because they would give one line emails or something. maybe i just have a high creepster tolerance. i dunno. found it was interesting that she worked in non-profit mental health-related stuff and was weirded out, though, cause i seem to feel like that kinda employment is kinda built for a “anything goes” mentality, but perhaps not. oh yeah, she was a sagittarius, too, and was basically using me as relationship counselor… which is totally fine… she is just basically in the midst of a break-up with her boyfriend of eight months or something, and, well, yeahhhhhhh. we kept starting to talk about other subjects and then she would bring it back to relationship stuff, so i just kinda figured that she really -neeeeeeeeeeeeded- to talk about the crap. so it goeth.

met up that night with rachel and ryan for dinner at purple dot, and it’s just funny because they hang out a lot now. went to ryan’s afterwards and did i can’t remember what whatsoever cause it wasn’t particularly interesting… neighbor boys came over to shoot the shit and then eventually the nurses boys showed up after driving two straight days from minnesota or something. was nice to hang, and james, john, and i slept in the living room. sleepovers are the best thing… .. . oh but yeah they got their shit confirmed on some stupid t.v. show and were bummed because aaron’s family had told him that it wasn’t in the show. we watched the show the next day, and it turned out it actually was… it was just during some party scene and so quiet that it was barely even audible, and we knew what the song sounded like, too! ridiculous. and they made tonsa money offa it. ridiculous how much budget those people have. and the tv show was super dumb, about vampires and ghosts and dead ghosts kissing girls’ boyfriends. seriously. puuuuuuuke.

went to lunch with lenny in the afternoon and it was pretty great catching up. he has just recently come back from singapore and had $100-a-day budgets to spend on food. so jeally. went to an ethiopian restaurant called zobel and i actually thought i had already used my restaurant.com voucher but evidently not. it’s funny, i had purchased tons of their vouchers previously… one of the participating restaurants that had decided to no longer participate and i got a voucher in exchange. to redeem the voucher you needed to click on some link that said, “redeem voucher,” and i did that, but opened it in a new window. i exchange it without a problem. then i realized i didn’t close the o.g. voucher and clicked on it and opened it in a new window again… and it worked…! i could have done that probably an infinite amount (but i didn’t). funny, though. i still have tons of them. i’ll use them all sometime… maybe… still got like 14 more… went crazy one day…

the nurses show at the sunset was really fucking amazing. second to last show of their tour and they totally killed it so hard. best i’ve ever seen them. and seattlites were dancing and singing like mad!!!!!!! the show was really good. a lot of fun. and these two dudes on either side of me were giving each other really intense stares and i happened to be in the middle and was amused by them, and eventually, late on in the night, when the show was over, they were playing oldies music and the dudes made me do like ballroom dancing crap with them and were spinning me around and stuff and i have no idea how to do any of that stuff, so that was fun/weird… and they were like fighting and trading me off, jokingly, and it was pretty amusing for sure… what a fun time… i was in the most social mood ever that night and freaking was talking to tons of strangers and asking questions in the way i do when i’m feeling social. it’s weird how when i’m extroverted i am SUPER extroverted and don’t give a shit, and when i’m introverted i’m SUPER introverted and can’t talk to anyone (which was how i was last night at matt’s party at the church in portland… so did not want to be there and so did not want to talk to ANYONE… blargh… though there were compounding factors, in this situation…).

oh right, and i talked to the wife of the dude who mixed the nurses record and just randomly decided to ask her is she knew of anyone who did past life regressions (because she had slipped in a small comment about how there were faeries everywhere around us)… and she told me that she didn’t, but that she really wanted to do one, because she has had really vivid memories of past lives ever since she was younger… she said that in one of her lives she remembers it was 1290 or something, and that she was inside a stone house and she could look outside the front and the back, and some guy came and brought her furs in exchange for sex. in another one of her lives, she was like an 18-year-old in world war ii or something, and she said, “i wasn’t a hero or anything” — he had just gone to the front lines and gotten shot immediately and was dying. she said that the last thought in his mind was that he had a betrothed waiting for him at home, and that he felt horrible because she thought he was coming home but he would never be. fascinating.

troy and his band had gotten one a while ago from one of their friends, and i guess what the lady had told them was that the four of his band members had been together through many lives and always traveled together, but that he was not really a human? and that he was an akasic record keeper? but that he decided to be human because he found it more interesting, or something. fascinating. here is a summary of what an akashic record is, from wikipedia…

The akashic records (akasha is a Sanskrit word meaning “sky”, “space” or “aether”) is a term used in theosophy (and Anthroposophy) to describe a compendium of mystical knowledge encoded in a non-physical plane of existence. These records are described as containing all knowledge of human experience and the history of the cosmos. They are metaphorically described as a library; other analogies commonly found in discourse on the subject include a “universal supercomputer” and the “Mind of God”. People who describe the records assert that they are constantly updated automatically and that they can be accessed through astral projection[1] or when someone is placed under deep hypnosis. The concept was popularized in the theosophical movements of the 19th century and is derived from Hindu philosophy of Samkhya. It is promulgated in the Samkhya philosophy that the Akashic records are automatically recorded in the elements of akasha one of the five types of elements visualized as existing in the elemental theory of Ancient India, called Mahabhuta. In Buddhism it is taught one reason that people knew Gautama Buddha had attained enlightenment as a Buddha was because he was able to remember all of the details of all of his past lives by accessing them on the akashic records. The term akashic records is frequently used in New Age discourse.

i suspect that i definitely had some middle eastern associations personally. or egyptian or something. i wonder if/when i finally get one, they will tell me that. i just posted this question on facebook: “‎… suppose you were to hypothetically remember one (or more, if you please) of your past lives. What would you think you were?” — i wonder seriously if anyone will respond, haha.

anyway, after the nurses show… the lead singer of stupid really horrible band they were touring with (d_m_n_nt l___) came over to our place with some groupie and there was some canoodling in the freaking nasty ass bathroom — and ryan seriously has the most nasty bathroom. ughhhhhhh so gross. and it was like 4:30am and they were still there and we were all like wtfffffffff go awayyyyyyyyyy. and that groupie friend had another friend with her who was biting the bullet so her friend could be nasty and was definitely totally bummed, for good reason, of course…

anywayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. had a really long walk and talk with aaron and that was fun. we talked a lot about the subconscious being outside of time… he basically had a dream that turned lucid… and generally, when you’re lucid in dreams, everyone else is still kinda a dream person. in this particular dream, he passed a dream character and started a conversation with that dream character. he asked the dream character if they were bothered by his manipulating the dream environment, and i guess the dream character said something like, “honestly, yeah.” and aaron asked him what he was and how many of him there were and the dude said five billion or something. interesting. aaron’s conclusion is that dream life to him is almost just as important as waking life… cause the amount that you can bring conscious life into dream life (lucid dreaming) and dream life into waking life (just remembering it, in general) is almost about the same, and not one is more real than the other, really… it’s fascinating…………………….

anyway, i don’t know what it all means, but i feel great about my good friends and how everyone i am associating with is rather mystical these days. i don’t know, i don’t know, i don’t know, but i think that it’s a generally good thing.

take this aldous huxley intro quote i just lifted from the perennial philosophy which i just picked up again:

“What we know depends also on what, as moral beings, we choose to make ourselves. ‘Practice,’ in the words of William James, ‘may change our theoretical horizon, and this in a twofold way: it may lead into new worlds and secure new powers. Knowledge we could never attain, remaining what we are, may be attainable in consequences of higher powers and a higher life, which we may morally achieve.’ To put the matter more succinctly, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ And the same idea has been expressed by the Sufi poet, Jalal-uddin Rumi, in terms of a scientific metaphor: ‘The astrolabe of the mysteries of God is love.’…

The self-validating certainty of direct awareness cannot in the very nature of things be achieved except by those equipped with the moral ‘astrolabe of God’s mysteries.’ If one is not oneself a sage or saint, the best thing one can do, in the field of metaphysics, is to study the works of those who were, and who, because they had modified their merely human mode of being were capable of a more than merely human kind and amount of knowledge.”

— Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

is it strange or egotistical to believe that spirituality only shows itself if one is a “good” person? perhaps… but from the people i know who seem to be privy to that knowledge, it certainly seems to be a true thing…? or maybe it’s just because those are qualities that come with a general openness. unclear. unclear.

oh also, last note. totally had the best fucking cupcake ever at cupcake royale. i always love cupcake royale but this was next level, even for them. a super light angel food cake-type cupcake with a whipped tiramisu cupcake (called the
“stumptown tiramisu cupcake” — this one is soaked in coffee, too…). i mean, seriously, like, the best cupcake i’ve ever had in my life. it’s so ridiculous. i mean, it’s so good i’m going to post pictures of it. i don’t do that shit, man. i don’t do that shit. SO GOOD. I AM GOING TO EAT IT FOREVER (the seasonal pumpkin cardamom one was OKAYYYYYYYYY).

we you me i.

i’m listening to… sex life! niko’s band!

we’re doing pretty good, you and i, people our age, we and us.

partook in a potluck last night for the nurses’ boys going-away-on-european-tour thingy. it was fun. good people abound! good food, too, even though i didn’t eat that much and didn’t even contribute anything this time (i did cut some fucking pizza that i didn’t make, though). oh wait, i brought some chocolate goldfish graham crackers. i’m good for something! james made this fuckin’ amazing! amazing! amazing! vegan mac and cheese (his notes: “use some bragg instead of tamari, flour + tofutti sour cream instead of tofu, and waayy less water and this will tiger-upper-cut your munchies.”)

can’t even tell, man. so good!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway, life has been mostly good, i guess. parts of it would maybe drive some people crazy, but i’m feeling pretty okay. it comes and it goes.

planned parenthood later for an annual checkup. just haven’t been in like, years. poor practice to not do that. i need to also get a physical while i’m at it, sometime. maybe i’ll make an appointment for seattle next monday. i should get on that… yeah. on it.

got some anti-malarials in the house. apparently there’s the one we’re gonna take, which is affordable but a pain in the ass and often gives women yeast infections >__> (doxycycline). there is also one that supposedly has a chance of making you go batshit insane (a friend of a friend actually did go temporarily insane because of it), and another that costs $5 a day. schnikes. we’re going for the doxycycline, naturally. rawr.

pretty excited for my se asia trip, and at the same time, wary for what might be different when i come back, because i’m having such a good time here. that being said… this trip is supposed to change my life in a positive way. i hope it does.

other than that. what else.
- hung out with vincent moon of la blogotheque yesterday.
- going to a film screening for karl lind tonight.
- been listening to a lot of singer-songwriter music, which is really, really a funny move for me.
- been eating super fucking healthy, minus occasional bouts of dark chocolate consumption.
- finally discovered i weigh 116 pounds right now.
- been asked out by boys i don’t necessarily want to go out with, all the time.
- starting the 365 day project tomorrow.
- going to seattle for bumbershoot later this week.

HACKS.

i leave you with this amazing/unreal annie lennox video for “no more i love yous”, which we were watching yesterday:

recap central: toronto, ontario.

Wednesday, October 15th
Woke up the next morning essentially to John screaming, “ROYGBIV, WHY WOULDN’T YOU LET ME SLEEP???” Haha. Probably one of my favorite lines someone has said to me! So funny. Personally I slept soooo well, like a baby! But I guess no dice for James and John. We eat pastries and mofe at a nearby place, and I have no money really, so I’m going to eat the leftovers from IHOP the previous day, which had been in the pretty cold car, but the Nurses guys literally will not let me! I mean, it really did LOOK scary, but I’m quite certain it wouldn’t have made me sick! Because I’m Chinese! C’mon now! John insisted on giving me a half a bagel instead, though. Whatever. Busters.

John trying to sleep in the car after not sleeping the previous day…

We stop by a truck stop and try to get poutine, butttt…………………….. we’re deciding between spaghetti sauce poutine and another kind, because we figure gravy poutine isn’t vegetarian. Turns out spaghetti sauce poutine wasn’t vegetarian here, either. Shoulda known, considering it was a truck stop. Ah, well, Aaron and I eat it anyway. Also eat some ketchup potato chips since it was the guys’ first time eating them, and 3 out of 3 Nurses agree that ketchup potato chips are fucking awesome!

We get to Toronto and I don’t really remember the rest of the trip there because I didn’t write down notes like I did for the other days. Oops. The Drake Hotel is a nice ass venue, like the fucking Doug Fir, kinda. I get a payout this evening, woo!! Eat fries and gravy for dinner next door at some place.

Their friends from Toronto — bunches of them — and some guys from fucking this one band I forget at the moment — oh yeah, Born Ruffians — are there. I run the merch table a bit. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

We eat poutine afterwards, and it’s derish. But my diet that entire day consisted of, potatoes, potatoes, and more potatoes!! So horrible!!!

—

Thursday, October 16th

Aaron and I stay with Luke of Born Ruffians that evening and James and John stay with another friend. We have to meet the guys at the van at 8:00am. SOOO EARLLLLY.

Aaron’s cold morning blanket pose.

They have to load their gear and all this junk this morning… James is still rendered sickly dead in the car all the while. Haha.

So, I have the day in Toronto, and they head off to Chicago after we get some coffee. Le Loup guys happen to show up at the same coffee place!

I head over to some coffee shop and do some work and hang out for the morning. Then I start walking around. I plan my day around — having to go to the Greyhound to drop off my backpack, then going to Medieval Times in Toronto! Hail yes! Throw in some mentally destablizing events, and it was a bit of a blur of a day.

The walk to Greyhound and back is mostly unexciting, but on the way to Medieval Times was pretty decent…

This park was amazing. The lawn was like barely ever walked on, I guess, so everything was covered with teeny tiny spider webs which were gleaming in the sunlight since the sun was going down. AMAZING! Seriously, one of the cooles things I’ve seen ever, although I couldn’t document it well with photos.

This is some weird club.

Medieval Times, outside!

Medieval Times hand dryer?!

Medieval Times, inside! It was a bit weird being in Medieval Times all by myself since everyone was with groups of people, but um, whatever.

<img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_RqrWKVC07xM/Stt3Z9rw0wI/AAAAAAAAVss/Cf-84LodrK8/s512/DSC_0360.JPG"
The yellow knight was the knight on my side of the room, and he was hilarious. His crowd was easily the loudest, but best of all, he had this dopey Keanu Reeves smile going on. LOVE IT!

KING!

Some epic shit, no?

The veggie plate I got for dinner was way better than what the meat eaters got. It had hummus and pita, a corn kabob I think, some potatoes, etc. etc. There were some girls next to me who got it but didn’t know what hummus was! WTF! MMM, craving hummus… the meat eaters got like. Ribs. And chicken wings. Like… zero veggies. It’s kinda ridiculous…

I had to leave the show early, and headed to the Greyhound to catch my late night bus to Montreal!

OTHER TORONTO POST (WRITTEN WHEN IN TORONTO) HERE!

recap central: montreal, quebec.

Tuesday, October 14th
The next morning, James‘ phone had the weirdest ring tone and it was like church bells chiming, and I’m like, “Where the hell is there a church in the middle of nowhere?!”

We go to IHOP and get greeted by menus with belly button ham!

Driving through Connecticut and Vermont (?) to Montreal = most beautiful stuff!! Aaron drives while John ends up using my computer, so I sit up front with Aaron and he grills me and asks me a million ridiculous questions about things people do in China and about what celebrities I would choose to be with if I had to choose. Silly questions that I don’t really remember, but it was stuff, like, “Do people in China brush their teeth?” would be not a question that’s out of the question… I say my celebrity of choice would be Brandon Boyd, and he says that maybe in old school era Brandon Boyd woulda been cool, and that’s what I meant, really, but I guess Aaron has a friend now who knows that Brandon Boyd is dating this super young model girl? No idea. He DOES suck nowadays, though.

Anyway, we honk at the Le Loup guys while we’re driving to Canadia cause we pass them, and they don’t seem to notice, which is hilarious because well, there’s not that many freaking tour vans driving from Connecticut to Montreal! We see them at the border, and I’m smuggled across, weeeee!

We arrive to the Montreal venue, Il Motore, late because Google Maps is wrong (which is hilarious, because Xinlei tells me the next day that I should beware of Google Maps in Canada because it’s inaccurate). It’s also hilarious because the Le Loup guys also used Google Maps and did the exact same getting lost moves as we did, EXACTLY!

When we first get to Montreal, we see this speed bump sign, and below it three old people are walking real slowly, so Aaron says that each bump represents an old person. Really funny. (Not that funny in written retrospect.)

As we’re unloading the van in Montreal, I’m helping them hold open doors, and John and Aaron are constantly screaming, “ROYGBIV, HOW DID YOU GET ON TOUR WITH US!” ROYGBIV turned into my new nickname, along with Bel Viv, which I’d hear before, but ROYGBIV was best. Although it turned into ROY at some points, and ROY is a wee bit less exciting, haha.

They got apparently a real yummy veggie meat sandwich but not I, boohoo, because I didn’t get a payout from that venue. Cheapskates!

Everyone sat down during the show, which was a little weird. I got a bit drunk cause more free drink tickets since James was like, dead.

Played the drawing game with Aaron and really embarrassed him cause I guess I was a bit loud during Le Loup’s quieter parts, oops, whatever. There was massive talk of getting poutine afterwards since, well, Montreal = POUTINE! But no dive because everyone’s way tired afterwards. Bummer! We get a super expensive hotel on the way to Toronto, and they wouldn’t let us say we only had two people because there was no back entrance; there was only one entrance that went up through the front desk, and I guess the front desk lady was mean-ish.

It was a tonna money, so I tried to give John $40, but he wouldn’t take it even though he should’ve. So I ended up giving him $30.

Everyone’s happy as crap in this picture, because someone set along this funny rap remix of Nurses’ “Caterpillar Playground” and it was really funny, goofy, and I dunno if I’d call it good, but whatever.

OTHER TORONTO POST (WRITTEN WHEN IN TORONTO) HERE!

recap central: cambridge, connecticut.

Monday, October 13th
Work in the morning at the coffee shop next door to the New York Loft Hostel, which I rather like. It was funny, though, as the coffee shop was playing really mellow ambient music and then all of a sudden started playing this super loud crazy orchestral music, and everyone in the coffee shop was looking around and staring at each other and laughing. It was a cute moment of collective confusion. That’s a good band name! Cute Moments Of Collective Confusion!! Might even be able to do without the Cute… depending on what kind of band you are. ANYHOOT.

That day, I walk a mile to the apartment where the Nurses guys stayed the previous night, and it’s time to go to Cambridge, Connecticut.

The drive is GORGEOUS!

Yay, rainbow! I think John drove.

Aaron attempting to watch “Breaking Bad” on my laptop…… it took forever to buffer, though. FOREVER! They had started watching the previous day, I guess, but they had started right where I’d ended, so I couldn’t watch. I’m dying to finish that show! Ugh!

James was totally sick and dying of consumption! (I don’t even really know what consumption is.)

I think this was at a rest stop or something. Condoms and chewing gum and… diotame bismuth???

Show that evening at T.T. The Bear’s was real awesome. A couple of their old friends showed up, and I guess it was a major surprise!

James had a funny fever dream as we were arriving to the venue, where he was sleeping but knew that we had arrived at the venue, and some guy was grabbing him by the neck and growling, “1979!”… so, I decided to ask the bartender about the year, to see if there was any significance to it, but no dice. I think she mighta thought I was crazy! I got free drink tickets, too, as well as free food, hail yeah! I was actually making money being on tour with those clowns!

Cool show and good vibes… they did a couple of interviews, and I guess one was awesome and one was majorly goofs. We went next door to another venue after they performed, and I had this yummy tofu sandwich from really nice Persian people! Drove to the hotel afterward and it was fucking freezing, so we were running to the hotel room! Fucking cold!

Woke up about a zillion times throughout the night, and Aaron totally took the longest pee of the century. In the morning, he was like, “I dunno if I dreamed this, but, I think I took the longest pee ever last night!” and I’m like, “No… it definitely happened!” because it woke me up!

recap central: new york, new york (part one).

Dude, all my adventures in New York are kind of a messed up blur of events, so unfortunately, this won’t be all that neat. But deal!

—

Friday, October 9th
Arrive there, I think, and HsuHan has told me that HsuKen is in town with lady friend, so I meet up with them in the yuppie shopping area, and they go shopping and we go shopping and I buy a couple things. Not too much to speak of. My hostel is fine, but I think I get a lotta weird bug bites from being there… hrm. My roommate Stewart is this British guy, and he seems pretty cool, but I can only stay in that hostel for that evening because the rest of the weekend is all booked up, so I have to change hostels. We loosely chat about going to church on Sunday because there’s this awesome gospel church near where the hostel is in Upper West side of Manhattan. That night we go eat pizza, based on Judy‘s recommendation, and it’s delicious! That’s about it, though.

—

Saturday, October 10th
Walk around Central Park with Stewart in the morning and then we split paths. He’s supposed to call me the next day regarding going to church, but he never does! Ass! He went to a miscellaneous white party that evening with random people from the internet so maybe he ded.

Go eat lunch with Jesse [Jensen] and his girlfriend, Fara! It’s been like, five years since I’ve seen him, so it was nice. Him and his girlfriend are really funny and cute together, but are kinda unshy about PDA… ;x Apparently a lot of their friends hate hanging out with them because of that. Jesse goes off on how he hates Brooklyn and when he was there the other night screamed about how people in Brooklyn are ugly and poor or something. LOL! Guess it’s the newfound lawyer in him?

After that, I walk around Central Park a bit. Find some markets. This guy makes this cool paper holder stuff out of polymer clay… there’s the clothespins behind them that when you press them, make the mouths open. SO NEAT! Such a cool material…

BAD ASS.

I very much enjoy this picture since it’s fairly plain in itself.

They’re hardcore about haunted houses in New York. Wish I coulda gone to one…

That night, I stayed with Don [Vu] and Van [Vu] and Phil, Tammy‘s boyfriend, in Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Their place had mice! I slept on the couch! I actually SAW the mice, too, which was a little weird, but whatever.

We went to eat at some Japanese restaurant, and it was quite delicious. It felt like being in Japan again, which was cool, and the menu was hilarious. Wasn’t cheap, though.

I just ate some takoyaki (was saving money and trying to not be a huge fatass).

Afterwards, they gave us a cup for using with the cotton candy machine. Score!

—

Sunday, October 11th
The following night, I was staying with Judy and Doug! For the day, we walk around and explore Brooklyn. They live in a nice, homey part of town.

Get some mothafuckin veggie pizza which is real nommy! New York pizza rules!

They’re going to go to the show with me at nighttime but we find out that it’s freaking sold out. Aaron tries to see if he can get them on the list but there’s no space… I get on the list, though. But before that, Aaron texts me and lies to me saying that there’s no way they can get me on the guest list because Muse’s bassist is in town and took all their guest list spots. Which I was like, “What? That’s weird,” about but it didn’t occur to me that it could possibly be a blatant lie. Turns out it was in fact a blatant fabrication. A pretty good one, at that. -__- To kill time with Judy and Doug, we get some yummy cupcakes that I’m going to bring to them because Aaron’s birthday was the previous day and he’d never eaten gourmet cupcakes before and that’s a crime (although these cupcakes were, in my opinion, not so good as freaking Cupcake Royale, which I still maintain has the best cupcakes, although people beg to differ).

Anyway, that cupcake shop also has these cakes in a cup… just basically really creamy cake they mash up into a cup. It looks really godamn good! The place is closing by the time we get there, though, so we just munch down and finish up. Then we go putz around this bar and stuff. Just chat. Play some Connect 4. Hollar! Then we go visit their friend’s house — some old musicians — and they pick up some stuff. And since they can’t make it into the show, they go home after that (bummer! But it was a late show anyway and they are early risers for work, so they probably wouldn’t even have seen Le Loup’s set anyway. Ah, well).

I get to the Mercury Lounge to meet up with Aaron and John and James.

Sold out show which must be a good feeling. It was a really good show, perhaps the best I’ve seen them ever, although I guess Aaron felt really weird about it. Went for an aimless walk after their set cuz that’s what Aaron and I do a lot of the time we hang out, and he was talking about his girl problems a lot. Good fun times.

Later on, I’m hungry, so I wanna eat some falafel… so we go next door to this yummy falafel place which makes them SPICY — a thing I’ve never had. Aaron teases me nonstop about how I eat and it’s embarrassing and really messy and self-conscious-making. Post making fun of me, he goes off on some hilarious really long monologue tirade about how he needs to do interviews for me (like for Micachu) and pretends to be a businessman trying to help me succeed and yadda yadda and he says that he understands that I like who I am and don’t want money to change who I am, etc. etc. but that if I just let him do interviews then I’ll have more success than I know what do with, basically. It was a totally really ridiculously long joke where he played some character, and he definitely really got into it. Ha.

—

Monday, October 12th
Wake up and head to Coney Island! It’s in southern Brooklyn and is just a skip and a hop away from Judy‘s place, so I head there by myself. After that, I meet up with Judy to give her back her key and then head over to the Bushwick neighborhood where my new hostel is. Bushwick is this really cool (and really small) neighborhood where there’s a whole lot of fun artsy stuff going on, and the New York Loft Hostel is located there. Really awesome hostel, which I highly recommend. It’s not for people who don’t like being in a central location, though, but it is definitely for people who like going to New York just to hang in Brooklyn. Far as I’m concerned, Manhattan kinda sucks. Brooklyn’s where it’s at, dawg. (Although just by sheer quantity of things to do there are at least a few good things to do in Manhattan.)

Didn’t get to eat the highly regarded Nathan’s cheese fries at Coney Island because I was stuffed already. I bought some hummus from the supermarket and ate the shit out of it — while walking, while hanging out on the Coney Island Boardwalk with the seagulls… yum! I love hummussssssssss! Coney Island was more thriving than I’d anticipated; I thought it would be closed for the season but there were definitely people walking around. Not that many people, mind you, but that’s fine, really. It’s kinda small and sad, and I don’t think the average person would find it all that entertaining, but I did, for sure.

Aaron and I were supposed to hang out that day, but he was impossible to get a hold of! Turns out he was chillin real hard at a friend’s place literally like… within a mile from my hostel. Which is kinda funny.

Anyway, I checked into my hostel in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, which I really like cause it’s really small and artsy.

Anyway, I think I walked around and explored Manhattan for a while since I hadn’t really explored it proper, and it was alright.

The giant Toys R’ Us was funny…

Jeanette used to do PR for this company, and it’s ridiculous they have toy phones as well as real phones. WTF!

Indoor ferris wheel at the Toys R’ Us.

Their bathroom ruled. Ha!

Hilarity on the subway. Britney SPARES!

Tried to find a nommy dinner by way of aimless wandering but everything everywhere I went looked really good but was super pricey, and I eventually settled on this Indian food hole-in-the-wall that was pretty delicious but kinda ghetto… like, they had all the plates already sitting there, probably for hours, and when you ordered, they’d heat it up. It was fucking good, though. I’m a bit obsessed with Indian food lately. Not sure what the deal is. I used to just think it was okay, but since I started loving paneer, I started really, really loving the SHIT out of Indian food. MMMMMM.

—

(OTHER NEW YORK POST FROM WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED IN NEW YORK)
(OTHER NEW YORK POST FROM JFK AIRPORT, ALSO)
(OTHER NEW YORK POST FROM BROOKLYN)

so useless today.

sitting at tan coffee shop in toronto, and i am completely worthless today. on top of sleeping for only like three hours, i’m just……. in another fucking world and my mind is complete trash. :\ too much to think about! aaaah. unfortunately, it’s all private knowledge. you aren’t privvy to it. unless you’re one of a few privileged humans…!

plus side: period’s here! not preggers!
downside: period’s here! gotta go get pads :{

plus side: medieval times has a branch in toronto! sure, it costs $50, but i think i’m there tonight. followed by an overnight trip on the mothafuckin greyhound to montreal.
downside: it’s going to be rushed! really freaking rushed. show starts at 7:30 and is like, two hours long. bah.

MY BRAIN IS MUSH
MY BRAIN IS MUSH
MY BRAIN IS MUSH

total mush. so useless i am today. i’ve been at the coffee shop for the past……………….. i wanna say………………………………. four hours. and i’ve done pretty much nothing except for chat. brain is not working on higher brain functions today. i need to go for a walk. really soon.

by the way, yesterday’s diet consisted of:

bagel (half of john’s) for breakfast.
poutine (with meat, omg) for breakfast/lunch.
potato chips for lunch/snack.
fries with gravy for dinner.
poutine with gravy for dinner/snack.

POTATOES POTATOES POTATOES
every.
fucking.
meal.

so digusting, haha.

parted ways with nurses this morning. they’re off to chicago. i’m off to montreal. tonight. post medieval-whatever-the-fuck. times. yeah.

french canadia canada canada!

not much pictures to speak of, to update of, to something something something!

motherfucker! i’m in a venue in montreal. it’s called il motore. i dunno why i am quite so tired but i am tired as bones, jones!

granted this isn’t exactly the right poster, but close enough!

feel so weird in the minds.

on tour with nurses for a couple dates from new york to montreal, not so many, but it’s cool and exciting to see shows by a band in numerous cities when the band is a band that is actually good… it’s cool to see how stoked people are to watch them perform, for sureskis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

exhausted, exhausted.

crazy google maps gave some massively insane directions!

it’s cold as balls!

need more clothes!

need to shower? nahhhhh.

and then what? who knows!

i’m confused! my brain is on vacation! it’s like a haze of something something.

sleep, need more sleep, need more sleep sleep sleep.

mmm. i’m sitting in the back room of this venue just rambling. i have so many pictures and thoughts to update from my however long of traveling but yanno what, i don’t feel like it! that shit is gonna take forever!!!!!!!!!!1

dude, it’s like 3′C here — like 20′F!! CRAZY SAUCE! so cold!! so much colder than i’d expected! so not enough clothings do i own!! insanity! sheer mind-boggling insanity!

haven’t really written shit in ages. it starts, here, with portland, oregon.

recap central. this is going to take a muthafuckin while. son.

thursday, september 17th, 2009
was bumming around seattle and headed down to portland with peter for musicfest nw! son! had some fucking wristband problems because the willamette weekly office closed by the time we got to portland, and so i had to call a publicist chick and arrange some shit. i got a vip wristband, holla! which ruled! and peter got some really random wristband, and we couldn’t figure out what the fuck it was, but it worked! just in time for explosions in the sky! woulda been a bummer if it hadn’t worked out, cause that was the ONE band peter REALLY wanted to see. for me, it was okay, but i was tired of standing and couldn’t see anything, so i sat half the time. and kinda coulda fell asleep, don’t remember if i actually did or not. stayed that night at micah‘s house! they had a fucking rad ass set up! we each had a bed to sleep on! not really sure what that was the case, but MOTHAFUCKIN RULE!!!

friday, september 18th, 2009
journal notes based on recap i wrote on my ipod touch:
- woke up
- cuddled furiously with cat: micah’s cat, harvey (named after two-face), is hellzaz cuuuute.
- drove to lloyd center: to hop on the max / leave peter’s car there.
- taco trucks downtown: actually, i had a veggie sammich.
- park to eat (metal detector guy): there was a guy scavenging the waterfront park for who knows what.
- walk to rei: picked up my backpack, yay!
- willamette (not williamette!) weekly office: yeah, i didn’t know it was actually willamette weekly, so i felt like an idiot mispronouncing it about a zillion times. went to the office and got an extra set of wristbands! kinda (details forthcoming).
- streetcar: took streetcar for free, wee!
- powell’s: stopped by and read sedaris for a while.
- post office: had to mail some shite. actually, thought i did but didn’t have the address, so i just bought envelopes instead for future mailings.
- furious quest for pencil sharpener: so i could put up these art printouts. no dice.
- get back to car! no keys!: a fucking nightmare! peter dropped his keys “in portland somewhere”! holy shit!

[[ for some reason the notes skip some shit here, which is just crazy!! here's what happened in between... ]]
had to give alex and jimena coffee, so they were near lloyd center and were going to meet up with us, but oh no, the car’s locked. luckily, they had triple a, so they got a tow paid for. unfortunately, fucking volkswagen has crazy security precautions and they couldn’t unlock the car because it would set off the alarm for life or something. mofos. waited around for peter’s friend to pick us up. crap, i forgot his name; that’s some bad form! wtf is his name… time to dig through emails… oh yes, sam. anyhoot, we planned to stay at sam’s for that night, but first we saw some shows. 9:00pm: say hi (eh); 10:00pm: monotonix (eh, same ol’ same ol’); 11:00pm: bad brains (they looked very sleepy); 11:00pm: mount eerie (good… well, their darker stuff was good, anyway); 12:00am: japanther (i thought they were okay before but today it was kinda meh); 12:00am: the long winters (we only caught the encore of their set but holy shit, it left me fucking speechless for a bit. i wish i had fucking recorded it. why didn’t i record it? i can’t even remember. something about conserving battery for portugal. the man the next day because i’d forgotten to bring my camera charger. but i REALLY should have recorded it.); 1:00am: two cow garage (the band was ridiculous, their fans were ridiculous, but it was all quite entertainingly ridiculous. just look at their name for the love of god!)… anyways, after the show, went home and crashed. back to notes.

- guy askin bout y asian girls don’t like brothas: as i was walking around downtown during show times, some black guy stopped me and asked if he could ask me a question about asian girls, and i said, “sure,” and he said, “why don’t asian girls ever talk to brothas?” and i said, “i’m talking to you,” and he said, “yeah, you are, but you’re probably on your way to meet your white or asian boyfriend,” and i’m like, “nope, i’m not on my way to meet anyone,” and he’s like, “you drink?” and i’m like, “not really,” and he’s like, “you smoke bud?” and i’m like, “sometimes,” and he’s like, “you want some?” and i’m like, “nahh,” and he just left without really saying anything. lol.

saturday, september 19th, 2009
- woke up
- read sedaris: his new book is one i’ve been whittling away at every time i go to powell’s bookstore. i’m more than halfway through it and will finish it within a couple more trips to powell’s, i guarantee it!!!! sam and girlfriend had it at their house, so i read it first thing in the morning.

[[ notes end again ]]
sleep setup was not a bed, but it was couch cushions laid on the floor with sheets and sleeping bag on top of it. it was actually pretty godamn comfy. could not complain. what’d we do today………….. bummed around for a long time. interviewed john gourley from portugal. the man around 4:00pm and there was some crazy guy who kinda interrupted our interview. but it was all in good fun and mr. gourley is a little too ridiculously talented and kind and good-looking. kind of. ridiculous. like, really. how can one human have so much! anyhoot. it was a swell interview. ate some thai food with peter after. mmmm. nom. dude, i think. i’m so confused about what happened when, haha. saw some music at nighttime. 8:00pm: dr. loomis (whatevers metal girl-fronted shit); 8:00pm: drug rug (it was okay); 9:00pm: crom (uh… can we say amazing? fucking hilariously filthy lead singer! — see peter’s review here); 9:40pm: portugal. the man (definitely a fucking good live act, although i think their old stuff is more adequate for uber showmanship than their new stuff — see video here and here); 10:45pm: the get up kids (i’d wanted to see a couple songs for nostalgia’s sake, but i saw part of one and it was MEHHH); 11:00pm: church (second time seeing them… pretty damn entertaining); 11:00pm: grouper (ambient music is okay to listen to but kinda boring to watch); 12:00am: om (fucking amazing — show review here). went home, instantly crashed. oh yeah, turns out peter’s car won’t be fixed until monday or something. so we have to figure out a way back home or something.

having some fun inside of the doug fir.

some fun outside of the doug fir.

sunday, september 20th, 2009
time to gigga-go!!!! had to get some car shit taken care of cause turns out like, third-party companies can make copies of peter’s key but volkswagen can’t. what kinda shit!! ridonkulous. so we go to eat thai food — which rules — and then do that shit. meet up with aaron, john, and gina briefly while they’re eating brunch at some totally hoppin spot cause i didn’t think there’d be a chance to meet up with them, but turns out they’re going to see the chapman swifts — as we are — that night. so i’ll see them later, but lunch was fun. hung out at sam’s for a while doing some work, and then just went to the chapman swallows at nighttime before leaving town. aaron, john, and gina met us up and we all had a fun old time watching crazy birds diving into a chimney. every year, during september, these birds live in a chimney for a while, and they just fly out of the chimney in the morning and into it at sundown. aweeeesooooommmmmmme!!!! SEE PIC! (did not capture the complete awesomeness.)

i’m such a schoolgirl.

3:06am
I’m listening to… Nurses.

This evening, Hojo, Graham, Tiffany, and I went to see No Age at the Triple Door. As a part of the Seattle International Film Festival’s annual “Face The Music” program, No Age basically did a live score to the film, The Bear. I don’t feel it was as good as when Kinski did it, but it was pretty solid. :} I had a bit of food coma and almost fell asleep during a part of it, but luckily, I didn’t. Hah. The Bear is a weird ass movie. It’s fucking amazing, some of the footage they got, of bears all up in human’s faces, roaring like crazy and shit, and then just backing down like it wadn’t no thang thang. Freakish. There was also this part where the bears at mushrooms and tripped out which was pretty bizarre and random, because it was literally just like, three scenes of the film where they used stop motion claymation crap, and the rest was normal… I don’t know why they chose to do it. It was largely enjoyable. And the food at the Triple Door is fucking GOOD.

After that, Graham and I went to the Halogen Gallery and the Roq La Rue and checked out some amazing art. I reallllllly need to update Redefine’s art blog ASAP. Hah. Max Kauffman was in town for a show at the Halogen Gallery, so it was nice to meet him, and Robert Hardgrave was there, and I haven’t seen him in a long time, so that was nice, too!! :}

Then we went to Healthy Times Fun Club, where Yair was playing a Big Spider’s Back show, but unfortunately, he was supposed to go on at like 9:00pm or 10:00pm and he didn’t end up going on until 12:15am-ish. Haha. I shoulda stopped back over but it was late. :L It was my first time to Healthy Times, though, and it very much reminded me of The Smell, and was really cool! SO CUTE. Four people live there as well, and they were offering free chips and chili!!! And cost was donation-based. So godamn cute. I would love to have something like that in my living abode. So awesssssoooooommmmme. It’s a pretty fucking solid venue, too, sound-wise and some of the shows they have in there are pretty legit. Also got to meet the guy who runs SeattleDIY, which is awesome. Was hoping to stay around for Universal Studios Florida (I’d actually heard their music before and liked it) and Yair’s set, but because it was so late starting and we had to go catch the Nurses show, didn’t get to.

Nurses played at some house show that was like, right off of Rainier Ave, at this new-ish house venue called The South Pole. A chick opened for them (and some other bands, but we got there at 11:00pm and it started at 9:00pm)… she was basically just a loopstation, guitar, distortions, mic. Some songs were good. Some were not. Simple.

Nurses were really fucking solid, though, and I’m glad they lived up to my expectations. Definitely going to interview them in a couple weeks when they come back to Seattle, or in Portland early next month. Hoping that I won’t need to make the trip down to PDX. ^O^ I was kinda scared to talk to Aaron, the lead singer, before leaving that house party thing… and I’m always fucking super awkward about talking to bands after shows haha. Rarely smooth about it. As we were leaving, though, Graham went and told them the show was awesome, so I was like, “Ah feck, I guess I will, too,” especially since the group had thinned out a little by then and he was no longer being mobbed. Turned out to be a jolly good time with lots of stupid jokes that snowballed into ridiculousness. LOL. Someone said the word “hambone” and soon every other word ended with “bone”. It was silly.

That’s all. Fucking awesome.

I’ve discovered, randomly, that there’s this certain pattern of speech that I find really attractive, and it makes me instantly attracted to people who talk that way… and then in retrospect, I think about it, and feel like all those people are kinda similar. It’s a very factual, very to-the-point, very confident style of speaking. Haven’t pinpointed it yet, but it’s interesting.