reposting after deleting after posting originally late at night and not so sober.
Therapy is like surgery. Except, instead of making a clean, sterilized incision, the "surgeon" just picks at the scab and the ingrown and rotting stitches from past attempts until he pulls something loose and the wound gapes open. Then he picks through the entrails remarking at how very INTERESTING it all is. Then the timer dings and he hastily, slightly embarrassed at the miscalculation, wraps you up in a coil of thick gauze and sends you, leaking through the bandage and oozing out the sides, away, wishing you a lovely week.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
whooooeeeee. nothing to see here folks...
Another long pause. I think the poor writing in that previous post made me stop wanting to write for awhile. In case I left you hanging, I made it through the woods on the motorbike and spent an amazing day with elephants, antelopes, baboons, crocodiles, and warthogs at mole national park. I met up with the frat babies again a few days later in Kumasi where we confirmed how little we have in common but had fun for a little while nonetheless.
Now on to the new news-
The last few months (correction: MONTH. Turns out i've only been back for a month!) have been a little rough. I was stoked to go away for a while in the hopes that I'd shed some of my growing but belated teen-angst and anxiety about my life, and I did. The problem is that it mostly came rushing back upon return, a nighttime ambush, taking me by surprise this time.
There have been some high points for sure, a much needed and amazing 4 day visit by my best friend and favorite person, time with the fam, new exciting job and paycheck, etc. But for the most part things feel pretty unsettled and scary. I graduate in 3 1/2 months and will be thrown back into adulthood after a 18 month hiatus. Time to move again soon, likely to another place I'll embrace half heartedly while clinging to some OTHER place that may or may not exist in real life as I've built it up in my mind.
Also rushing back was the daily struggle for confidence, independence, security, while frequently being faced with the same mistakes I make over and over. Desperately wanting to be better, to stop doing the things that tangle me up inside while saying with a straight face that I'm good enough the way I am, that I should demand and accept only the best from other people. Is it even possible to have both?
The utter disinterest with meeting new people, flirting, batting my eyelashes. The complete inability to fantasize kissing let alone going to bed with the funny, scruffy, just-my-type charmers who I do manage to meet.
The deep unspoken, almost un-thought scratching little fear that maybe this is what the first stages of losing one's mind feel like.
This is the trouble with blogs, or at least this one. They are too naked, too maudlin, too melodramatic to be a good read. In Burkina Faso, after traveling by myself for weeks, I realized that I was changing in my room at the campement with the door wide open and the people in the courtyard could likely see me. At that moment I was sort of struck with the surprising and freeing notion that it didn't matter in the slightest whether a couple of Burkinabe musicians and French tourists saw me naked, that that fact would not have the slightest negative implication on my life. In that vein, I've been going "naked" in other areas of my life too lately, and I guess this is one of them.
Apologies:)
Now on to the new news-
The last few months (correction: MONTH. Turns out i've only been back for a month!) have been a little rough. I was stoked to go away for a while in the hopes that I'd shed some of my growing but belated teen-angst and anxiety about my life, and I did. The problem is that it mostly came rushing back upon return, a nighttime ambush, taking me by surprise this time.
There have been some high points for sure, a much needed and amazing 4 day visit by my best friend and favorite person, time with the fam, new exciting job and paycheck, etc. But for the most part things feel pretty unsettled and scary. I graduate in 3 1/2 months and will be thrown back into adulthood after a 18 month hiatus. Time to move again soon, likely to another place I'll embrace half heartedly while clinging to some OTHER place that may or may not exist in real life as I've built it up in my mind.
Also rushing back was the daily struggle for confidence, independence, security, while frequently being faced with the same mistakes I make over and over. Desperately wanting to be better, to stop doing the things that tangle me up inside while saying with a straight face that I'm good enough the way I am, that I should demand and accept only the best from other people. Is it even possible to have both?
The utter disinterest with meeting new people, flirting, batting my eyelashes. The complete inability to fantasize kissing let alone going to bed with the funny, scruffy, just-my-type charmers who I do manage to meet.
The deep unspoken, almost un-thought scratching little fear that maybe this is what the first stages of losing one's mind feel like.
This is the trouble with blogs, or at least this one. They are too naked, too maudlin, too melodramatic to be a good read. In Burkina Faso, after traveling by myself for weeks, I realized that I was changing in my room at the campement with the door wide open and the people in the courtyard could likely see me. At that moment I was sort of struck with the surprising and freeing notion that it didn't matter in the slightest whether a couple of Burkinabe musicians and French tourists saw me naked, that that fact would not have the slightest negative implication on my life. In that vein, I've been going "naked" in other areas of my life too lately, and I guess this is one of them.
Apologies:)
Monday, August 11, 2008
a start....
Here's a start at least. Part of a day in Ghana. Apologies if it sounds like amateur porn.
------------------------------------------
The wind was sharp and cool, and I was glad of the scarf that tied my hair back as we rushed along the gravel path. I tipped my head back to marvel at the brightness of the stars, drunk on the wind and my own fatigue from the past 24 hours, something that seems cliche only now as I write this, at the time it was breathtaking. I was seated behind 15 year old Ramon on his rickety but astonishingly fast moped and we were speeding through the woods at 70 kilometers an hour, the headlight from the bike the only light visible aside from the stars.
Ramon's left hand left the grip on the handlebar and snaked back to settle on my thigh. "I have a boyfriend." I announced. Silence. No movement. "We're getting married." Ramon wordlessly returned his hand to the handlebar.
I thought of the events of the previous day and the endlessly rotating cast of characters. 24 hours earlier I was on a bus heading from Bobo Diolasso in Burkina Faso to Hamale, just over the Ghanaian border. I had spent the previous 2 weeks almost entirely alone, in a fog of my own thoughts surrounded by swirling unfamiliar people and languages, so I was thrilled to see the two obviously American tourists boarding the bus in front of me. Somebody was trying to load a rusty stove onto the coach roof (yes, really) and it fell on the foot of one of the Americans. I made my move. "Get your Tetanus shot?" "Ha ha. You're American?!" They appeared as relieved as I to have company so we squeezed into a 3 seat row and set about speaking as much English as possible. They were fraternity brothers at Northwestern, on a 4 month graduation-gift trip around the world. They were smart, attractive, and friendly in an incredibly disconcerting way that seems to come too naturally to those born of wealth and status.
At the border we shuffled on and off the bus at various checkpoints on both sides, until the last stop, immigration. It turns out that one of the frat boys didn't have a visa for Ghana, and since, in Africa, All White People Are Relatives or at least traveling together, the immigration officials took all three of our passports and sat us down together. They told us the boss was home sleeping, so we would have to wait until he arrived. The boys tried unsuccessfully again to explain that I wasn't traveling with them. After 30 or 40 uncomfortable minutes, the boss came in, looking wild-eyed like someone had woken him to tell him about the discovery of a new species of humans. "Americans!!" he yelled to us. "I want to go to America!" After round after absurd round of pleasantries, he finally told us that we could get our passports back the next morning, but we'd all have to take the 5am bus to Wa, 4 hours away, so Mike, the visa-less fraternity brother could get a visa at the immigration office there. We would be accompanied by an armed border patrol officer to make sure we didn't try to escape. And we'd have to buy the officer's bus ticket and lunch. Deal.
(okay just posting this because it's taking too goddamn long! more soon...)
------------------------------------------
The wind was sharp and cool, and I was glad of the scarf that tied my hair back as we rushed along the gravel path. I tipped my head back to marvel at the brightness of the stars, drunk on the wind and my own fatigue from the past 24 hours, something that seems cliche only now as I write this, at the time it was breathtaking. I was seated behind 15 year old Ramon on his rickety but astonishingly fast moped and we were speeding through the woods at 70 kilometers an hour, the headlight from the bike the only light visible aside from the stars.
Ramon's left hand left the grip on the handlebar and snaked back to settle on my thigh. "I have a boyfriend." I announced. Silence. No movement. "We're getting married." Ramon wordlessly returned his hand to the handlebar.
I thought of the events of the previous day and the endlessly rotating cast of characters. 24 hours earlier I was on a bus heading from Bobo Diolasso in Burkina Faso to Hamale, just over the Ghanaian border. I had spent the previous 2 weeks almost entirely alone, in a fog of my own thoughts surrounded by swirling unfamiliar people and languages, so I was thrilled to see the two obviously American tourists boarding the bus in front of me. Somebody was trying to load a rusty stove onto the coach roof (yes, really) and it fell on the foot of one of the Americans. I made my move. "Get your Tetanus shot?" "Ha ha. You're American?!" They appeared as relieved as I to have company so we squeezed into a 3 seat row and set about speaking as much English as possible. They were fraternity brothers at Northwestern, on a 4 month graduation-gift trip around the world. They were smart, attractive, and friendly in an incredibly disconcerting way that seems to come too naturally to those born of wealth and status.
At the border we shuffled on and off the bus at various checkpoints on both sides, until the last stop, immigration. It turns out that one of the frat boys didn't have a visa for Ghana, and since, in Africa, All White People Are Relatives or at least traveling together, the immigration officials took all three of our passports and sat us down together. They told us the boss was home sleeping, so we would have to wait until he arrived. The boys tried unsuccessfully again to explain that I wasn't traveling with them. After 30 or 40 uncomfortable minutes, the boss came in, looking wild-eyed like someone had woken him to tell him about the discovery of a new species of humans. "Americans!!" he yelled to us. "I want to go to America!" After round after absurd round of pleasantries, he finally told us that we could get our passports back the next morning, but we'd all have to take the 5am bus to Wa, 4 hours away, so Mike, the visa-less fraternity brother could get a visa at the immigration office there. We would be accompanied by an armed border patrol officer to make sure we didn't try to escape. And we'd have to buy the officer's bus ticket and lunch. Deal.
(okay just posting this because it's taking too goddamn long! more soon...)
Sunday, June 1, 2008
so long!
Hello there ladies and gentlemen. I am officially a shitty blogger. But I'm also headed out today to Accra, Ghana (by way of the Netherlands) for a couple of months so I thought I'd give a little shout out to ya'll.
I'll have access to the internet for most of my trip so I'll post here every once in awhile to let you all know I haven't been eaten by a wildebeest. I will make a sincere effort to make those updates less painful than most boring travel updates, but we shall see. Also, if I don't have your address, please send it to me! I'll send you things in the mail!
Thanks to everyone (especially my amazing visitors) for such an fantastic spring and I'll see you soon!
I'll have access to the internet for most of my trip so I'll post here every once in awhile to let you all know I haven't been eaten by a wildebeest. I will make a sincere effort to make those updates less painful than most boring travel updates, but we shall see. Also, if I don't have your address, please send it to me! I'll send you things in the mail!
Thanks to everyone (especially my amazing visitors) for such an fantastic spring and I'll see you soon!
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
solo road trip 08
I'm such a bad blogger, which is odd considering my generally self-absorbed nature. Lots of excellent things going on, but today I am preparing for SOLO ROAD TRIP 2008. I'm pretty thrilled about 21 hours in the car with just little old me (though is it bad that I kind of wish Eloise was coming?).
It's going to be very excellent. I've loaded up the ipod, dug out my AAA card, and found the title to my car on the 30% chance it will break down on the way to Minnesota. I also bought postcard stamps so if anybody wants a postcard from whatever freakish or adorable town I land in to buy gas, let me know! I've been practicing my postcard haikus!
During the course of the 21 hours, in between swooning over Ira Glass and Ben Gibbard (shut up), I plan to do the following:
1. Calm the fuck down. About Ghana. About what happens when I get back. About how I wont feel like a real adult until I can learn to keep my f-ing room clean.
2. Get really excited again. About Ghana. About my trip to Minnesota. About what happens when I get back. I'm thrilled and stoked and kind of scared about things but it's all pretty exciting.
3. Not think about land reform in Kazakhstan.
4. Sing really loud and off-key to some god-awful Tom Petty song.
5. Hold conversations in my head with you.
It's going to be very excellent. I've loaded up the ipod, dug out my AAA card, and found the title to my car on the 30% chance it will break down on the way to Minnesota. I also bought postcard stamps so if anybody wants a postcard from whatever freakish or adorable town I land in to buy gas, let me know! I've been practicing my postcard haikus!
During the course of the 21 hours, in between swooning over Ira Glass and Ben Gibbard (shut up), I plan to do the following:
1. Calm the fuck down. About Ghana. About what happens when I get back. About how I wont feel like a real adult until I can learn to keep my f-ing room clean.
2. Get really excited again. About Ghana. About my trip to Minnesota. About what happens when I get back. I'm thrilled and stoked and kind of scared about things but it's all pretty exciting.
3. Not think about land reform in Kazakhstan.
4. Sing really loud and off-key to some god-awful Tom Petty song.
5. Hold conversations in my head with you.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
superstoked
Things are good lately. I met with the team of folks heading to Ghana this summer and I'm pretty stoked about it. There are 5 of us total. 1 Ghanaian Physician's Assistant, 2 Nigerian Public Relations Manager, 1 South Korean woman straight out of undergrad, 1 American writer/researcher who works at the NYU school of the arts...and ME.
The 5 of us will have a month to interview people in the slums around Accra about their water needs and usage, then we'll spend the fall coming up with a proposal to the water authority on how to service those areas and a proposal on how to price and fund the service AND a report on how global warming will affect the service in Accra over the next 30 years. Whew! I'm starting to get a little nervous.
The 5 of us will have a month to interview people in the slums around Accra about their water needs and usage, then we'll spend the fall coming up with a proposal to the water authority on how to service those areas and a proposal on how to price and fund the service AND a report on how global warming will affect the service in Accra over the next 30 years. Whew! I'm starting to get a little nervous.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
my favorite place in mid-town
This is Deno's Party House/Colon Hydrotherapy, at 30th and 8th. Apparently they have jello shots served by bikini clad waitresses downstairs and all natural enemas upstairs. What more could a girl want?
Friday, March 28, 2008
I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities for the first time, and as much as I hate the super-trite overly used "best of times, worst of times" line, it might sum up this week pretty well. (also that Dickens guy, turns out, can write!)
Bad was getting into a big sad fight with my best friend. Bad/embarrassing was throwing up after spending all of Saturday afternoon perfecting my bloody mary mix. Bad turned Fun/Embarrassing was locking myself and all of my guests outside while brunch was cooking away on the stove inside. Luckily the stoop was sunny, by some miracle the bloody mary mix was locked outside with us (though I declined to partake), and the ranchero sauce was happily simmering away when we finally broke back in an hour later.
Pure excitement is getting ready for my Ghana trip (though randomly losing my passport also falls into the BAD category, mostly). I'm planning to stay in the NYU dorms for a week, rent an apartment in Accra for a month, then spend the rest of my time travelling (hopefully). I'm thinking of trying to travel north to Burkina Faso and Mali (turns out Timbuktu is in Mali, who knew?) which means I need to inoculate the bejeesus out of myself with shots for yellow fever, meningitis, typhoid, hepatitis and on and on. Should be a blast. Let me know if you have a particular hankering for a postcard from anywhere.
Other great things include finding my favorite scarf and $1400 I forgot I had. Not sure which I'm more excited about.
I am hopeful today will land firmly on the "best of times" side. (which means, if you have any bad news for me, prob better to wait until tomorrow). Sad fight is over, going out for a long run in a bit, then fun drinking with some new friends later.
So that's my self-centered update. Comment away;)
Bad was getting into a big sad fight with my best friend. Bad/embarrassing was throwing up after spending all of Saturday afternoon perfecting my bloody mary mix. Bad turned Fun/Embarrassing was locking myself and all of my guests outside while brunch was cooking away on the stove inside. Luckily the stoop was sunny, by some miracle the bloody mary mix was locked outside with us (though I declined to partake), and the ranchero sauce was happily simmering away when we finally broke back in an hour later.
Pure excitement is getting ready for my Ghana trip (though randomly losing my passport also falls into the BAD category, mostly). I'm planning to stay in the NYU dorms for a week, rent an apartment in Accra for a month, then spend the rest of my time travelling (hopefully). I'm thinking of trying to travel north to Burkina Faso and Mali (turns out Timbuktu is in Mali, who knew?) which means I need to inoculate the bejeesus out of myself with shots for yellow fever, meningitis, typhoid, hepatitis and on and on. Should be a blast. Let me know if you have a particular hankering for a postcard from anywhere.
Other great things include finding my favorite scarf and $1400 I forgot I had. Not sure which I'm more excited about.
I am hopeful today will land firmly on the "best of times" side. (which means, if you have any bad news for me, prob better to wait until tomorrow). Sad fight is over, going out for a long run in a bit, then fun drinking with some new friends later.
So that's my self-centered update. Comment away;)
Monday, March 24, 2008
i heart the subway
I am among the minority of people who do not listen to some sort of ipod or other music player on the subway, and instead I usually just sort of people watch. After more than 7 months of regular ridership I can definitely say I'm only more enamored of the people and events of the New York Subway. In fact, although I rarely even have conversations with the people on the subway, it's rare that I go 2 days without falling in love with a fellow passenger. Here are a sampling of stories from the couple of weeks. (perhaps the next post will be about taxis and the cab driver who fed me guava)
1. Gang Warfare of the anti-inflammatory variety.
Bed-Stuy is a pretty rough place, and right now there's an underground war as fierce as crips/bloods or biggie/tupac ever was. It's apparently a war of the headache medicines. The makers of Tylenol have plastered the Franklin Ave stop (my stop) with giant posters advertising their particular brand of pain reliever. Not to be outdone, some hooligan or young scamp has defaced each and every poster, scribbling out TYLENOL and writing over it in big black marker: BAYER!
This kind of escalation can only lead to something bad. Next thing you know somebody will be in front of our elementary schools slinging Advil (sugar-coated!) Luckily my "Rite-Aid Acetaminophen" was hidden carefully in my purse or who knows what might have gone down.
2. Like Retarded Retarded. (and $4 to anyone who can name the movie reference).
Today, I was riding the train as it pulled up to Jay Street and I saw a man waiting to get on who clearly had down syndrome. He was unaccompanied and looked just like all the other riders, jacket, backpack, headphones. For some reason I was struck by his confidence and self-assurance, striding onto the train, taking the good seat, getting out his headphones to start listening to music. My mind started wandering and I thought "huh. I wonder if this is normal or if he's just particularly advanced." I remembered Corky's girlfriend on Life Goes On (yeah I'm an asshole) had a drivers license so maybe this type of independence is totally normal and I'm just out of the loop. Then I realized that his headphones were tangled up. He sat there and slowly and methodically tried to untangle the cord but just kept getting them more tangled. This went on for many many torturous minutes and once in awhile he'd sigh loudly, put the headphones down, and just hold his face in his hands for a few seconds. Then, he'd start up again. He worked on the headphones from Jay street all the way to Spring street, a good 14 minutes of subway riding. I was in agony. I wanted to rip them out of his hands, fix them (it was easy to tell how they could be untangled), hand them back, and be done with the mess. You could tell he was in agony too. Eventually I noticed I wasn't the only one watching, there were at least 3-4 of us on the edge of our seats, trying to decide whether to help, hoping he'd finally just fix the damn things. We all wanted to cry.
Then... Success! suddenly, the knots magically untangled. The man put the headphones on and instantly his face went from deep concentration and frustration to pure joy.
3. Last week I got my leg caught in the train door. It took 4 people to pry the door open to free me. That's all you get.
1. Gang Warfare of the anti-inflammatory variety.
Bed-Stuy is a pretty rough place, and right now there's an underground war as fierce as crips/bloods or biggie/tupac ever was. It's apparently a war of the headache medicines. The makers of Tylenol have plastered the Franklin Ave stop (my stop) with giant posters advertising their particular brand of pain reliever. Not to be outdone, some hooligan or young scamp has defaced each and every poster, scribbling out TYLENOL and writing over it in big black marker: BAYER!
This kind of escalation can only lead to something bad. Next thing you know somebody will be in front of our elementary schools slinging Advil (sugar-coated!) Luckily my "Rite-Aid Acetaminophen" was hidden carefully in my purse or who knows what might have gone down.
2. Like Retarded Retarded. (and $4 to anyone who can name the movie reference).
Today, I was riding the train as it pulled up to Jay Street and I saw a man waiting to get on who clearly had down syndrome. He was unaccompanied and looked just like all the other riders, jacket, backpack, headphones. For some reason I was struck by his confidence and self-assurance, striding onto the train, taking the good seat, getting out his headphones to start listening to music. My mind started wandering and I thought "huh. I wonder if this is normal or if he's just particularly advanced." I remembered Corky's girlfriend on Life Goes On (yeah I'm an asshole) had a drivers license so maybe this type of independence is totally normal and I'm just out of the loop. Then I realized that his headphones were tangled up. He sat there and slowly and methodically tried to untangle the cord but just kept getting them more tangled. This went on for many many torturous minutes and once in awhile he'd sigh loudly, put the headphones down, and just hold his face in his hands for a few seconds. Then, he'd start up again. He worked on the headphones from Jay street all the way to Spring street, a good 14 minutes of subway riding. I was in agony. I wanted to rip them out of his hands, fix them (it was easy to tell how they could be untangled), hand them back, and be done with the mess. You could tell he was in agony too. Eventually I noticed I wasn't the only one watching, there were at least 3-4 of us on the edge of our seats, trying to decide whether to help, hoping he'd finally just fix the damn things. We all wanted to cry.
Then... Success! suddenly, the knots magically untangled. The man put the headphones on and instantly his face went from deep concentration and frustration to pure joy.
3. Last week I got my leg caught in the train door. It took 4 people to pry the door open to free me. That's all you get.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
go do this thing. because i said so.
Hi there folks-
So, I know many of you might know this already but-
One of my dearest friends has just published a comic book, and it's pretty damn good, and you should all give up the two grande latte's this week and buy it for yourselves.
You can look at the comics and order the book at www.ifpthendirt.com. To buy it just click on the little button that says "store".
So you might be saying "uh, crystal. wtf are you doing reading comics (or comix if you are uber hip)?" And don't worry. I haven't gone crazy. But this book is actually pretty great. Each copy is hand made and really nicely put together and chock full of comics that, one way or another, will leave you in tears. Also they are each hand numbered and look pretty bad-ass on your "shelf of bad-ass shit".
Seriously though, it's good stuff. Half of you will read it and subsequently change your opinions on censorship, but the rest of you will want your own copy.
So...have at it. I promise I don't get a commission.
xoxoxo.
So, I know many of you might know this already but-
One of my dearest friends has just published a comic book, and it's pretty damn good, and you should all give up the two grande latte's this week and buy it for yourselves.
You can look at the comics and order the book at www.ifpthendirt.com. To buy it just click on the little button that says "store".
So you might be saying "uh, crystal. wtf are you doing reading comics (or comix if you are uber hip)?" And don't worry. I haven't gone crazy. But this book is actually pretty great. Each copy is hand made and really nicely put together and chock full of comics that, one way or another, will leave you in tears. Also they are each hand numbered and look pretty bad-ass on your "shelf of bad-ass shit".
Seriously though, it's good stuff. Half of you will read it and subsequently change your opinions on censorship, but the rest of you will want your own copy.
So...have at it. I promise I don't get a commission.
xoxoxo.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
springtime in new york
Why hello there blog! Apologies once again for the long hiatus, it's been a busy month (and a half) for me. Perhaps this blog will be more of an update than an attempt at decent writing and then if I can start posting regularly I'll do more interesting stories, topics of discussion etc.
Anyhow--February was the usual roller coaster. I gave myself until the end of the month (thank you leap year) to figure out a set of things. Although I think I did pretty well over all, and came in just under the wire on a few clutch decisions, life has somehow figured out a way to dribble over into March. So, although I'd like to report that I've got it all figured out and all my shit is together, well...that might take until the middle of next week.
Here's what I've got so far-
1. I quit my job. Sort of. I'll be leaving the ol' movement at the end of May. Luckily it doesn't actually take any sort of acknowledgment or response from one's boss in order to officially quit. Otherwise it would just be my little one hand clapping or solo tree falling into the forest into eternity here in NYC and they would keep paying me. (that last part would be okay I guess)
2. I'm spending a good part of the summer in Ghana (maybe all of it!). At least I'm about 90% sure it will be Ghana. (In case you are wondering and don't have a map handy, Ghana is in West Africa, at the bottom of that chunk that sticks out on the top left part of the continent. It's on the coast and supposedly the people are really nice despite not having much water or healthcare) It could also be Ecuador or it could be Ghana AND Ecuador. Either way it will be a blast and don't worry, I'll get all my vaccinations. And I promise to bring you all back cool shit with vaguely racist or patronizing overtones like carved african masks or voodoo dolls and you can pretend to be grateful but will be slightly too embarrassed to display them in your home.
3. I'm staying in my apartment next year. I heart bed-stuy and I heart the idea of living in the same place for more than 12 months, something I haven't done since high school. I'm pretty sure eloise hearts the idea too, as much as she has loved all of her road/plane trips and foster parents. Anyway, what this really means is: More Visitors Please. You shall come and we shall stoop sit and drink cold beer in the sunshine and chat with PJ about his jeweleries and it shall be glorious.
4. Hmm. I might not have a 4. Or maybe I do and it rules but I'm just keeping it a secret. You'll have to come see me to find out.
Okay Drew, happy now? You better comment on this sucker.
Anyhow--February was the usual roller coaster. I gave myself until the end of the month (thank you leap year) to figure out a set of things. Although I think I did pretty well over all, and came in just under the wire on a few clutch decisions, life has somehow figured out a way to dribble over into March. So, although I'd like to report that I've got it all figured out and all my shit is together, well...that might take until the middle of next week.
Here's what I've got so far-
1. I quit my job. Sort of. I'll be leaving the ol' movement at the end of May. Luckily it doesn't actually take any sort of acknowledgment or response from one's boss in order to officially quit. Otherwise it would just be my little one hand clapping or solo tree falling into the forest into eternity here in NYC and they would keep paying me. (that last part would be okay I guess)
2. I'm spending a good part of the summer in Ghana (maybe all of it!). At least I'm about 90% sure it will be Ghana. (In case you are wondering and don't have a map handy, Ghana is in West Africa, at the bottom of that chunk that sticks out on the top left part of the continent. It's on the coast and supposedly the people are really nice despite not having much water or healthcare) It could also be Ecuador or it could be Ghana AND Ecuador. Either way it will be a blast and don't worry, I'll get all my vaccinations. And I promise to bring you all back cool shit with vaguely racist or patronizing overtones like carved african masks or voodoo dolls and you can pretend to be grateful but will be slightly too embarrassed to display them in your home.
3. I'm staying in my apartment next year. I heart bed-stuy and I heart the idea of living in the same place for more than 12 months, something I haven't done since high school. I'm pretty sure eloise hearts the idea too, as much as she has loved all of her road/plane trips and foster parents. Anyway, what this really means is: More Visitors Please. You shall come and we shall stoop sit and drink cold beer in the sunshine and chat with PJ about his jeweleries and it shall be glorious.
4. Hmm. I might not have a 4. Or maybe I do and it rules but I'm just keeping it a secret. You'll have to come see me to find out.
Okay Drew, happy now? You better comment on this sucker.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Fresh!
So, new semester, new classes, new work to do, new resolutions. Today I am feeling "fresh" even though I'm also a tiny bit overwhelmed with the work I have due this week.
Anyway, a new topic. Some of you who know me well know that I can be a little stubborn, that I sometimes latch onto an idea (or person?) and keep pushing, usually way past the point of rationality to try to make things work out the way I want them to. Generally, I think of this as, minimally, annoying to my friends and definitely not very zen (It's better to free yourself from desires, right?) but I'm also a little reluctant to go too far down the road of 'whatever happens happens'.
Today I was listening to the third best song by my good friend Leonard Cohen, "Bird on the Wire". In it he sings:
I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
He said to me, you must not ask for so much.
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
She cried to me, hey, why not ask for more?
It's a pretty big oversimplication in the song, but the question sticks with me. Better to try to be happy with what I have, or else risk being constantly unhappy and disappointed? Or, better to keep trying trying trying trying because, well, who wants to end up with nothing?
For me the jury is still out. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?
Anyway, a new topic. Some of you who know me well know that I can be a little stubborn, that I sometimes latch onto an idea (or person?) and keep pushing, usually way past the point of rationality to try to make things work out the way I want them to. Generally, I think of this as, minimally, annoying to my friends and definitely not very zen (It's better to free yourself from desires, right?) but I'm also a little reluctant to go too far down the road of 'whatever happens happens'.
Today I was listening to the third best song by my good friend Leonard Cohen, "Bird on the Wire". In it he sings:
I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
He said to me, you must not ask for so much.
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
She cried to me, hey, why not ask for more?
It's a pretty big oversimplication in the song, but the question sticks with me. Better to try to be happy with what I have, or else risk being constantly unhappy and disappointed? Or, better to keep trying trying trying trying because, well, who wants to end up with nothing?
For me the jury is still out. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?
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