Everyone should live in China at least once.

my day with sunrise, sweating it out with udon, a walk in pacific heights lusting after house furnishings i never knew i needed, green smoothies, and a visit to four barrels.

it was all cowboy boots and country songs, open skies and neatly endless fields of corn, funnel cakes and frozen custard, and oh-let-me-get-you-some-pie, hunnay. 

who knows if virginia really counts as the south?

it doesn't matter what it counts as. it matters what it "feels" as. 

life moves slower, the gentlemen are gentler, the sunsets are deeper. though my heart has been breaking for months, i found it difficult to remain heartbroken here. just heartsick for the open road. 

weekend notes:

- spontaneity may breed a bit of carelessness (read: no cutting utensils, no sleeping pads, lack of matches?)  but it sure does allow for creativity (read: bite your potatoes in pieces and spit them back out into foil, son)
- with a bit of patience, some ingredients thrown in foil cooked over a fire can be damn good. especially after a whopping party bag of chex mix for appetizer
- waterfall treks are always worth it
- give thanks for the sunlight. give thanks for the sunlight. give thanks for the sunlight.
- cold builds character. i'm still waiting for my character to build, but there you have it.
- the beginning of spring can look a lot like autumn
- look at the bareness of trees in a different light- the lack of foliage gives way to the sun streaming through
- with most uphills, there will be a downhill. take your time.

because it is spectacularly random and curious, i wanted to share the list that amanda shared of all the notes we created during our 18 days without regular internet to look things up. she took notes on the various topics we discussed and wondered about while being unable to do a google search.

here's just a tiny part of we came up with:

1. What does the fox say?
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE update: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/what-sound-does-fox-make
2. What is the name of the Star Wars robot?
   C3PO (yeah, Rose!!) note: we thought of this question when we determined that i would make a good ewok. after hours of hiking and some brainstorming, we finally remembered the stupid robot's name. hah. 
3. Tell me more about Afrikaans (origins, uses today, etc.)?
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans
   
   Afrikaans /æfrɪˈkɑːns/^[3] is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia, and to a lesser extent in Botswana and Zimbabwe. It is an offshoot of several Dutch dialects^[4] spoken by the mainly Dutch settlers of what is now South Africa, where it gradually began to develop independently in the course of the 18th century. Hence, historically, it is a daughter language of Dutch, and was previously referred to as "Cape Dutch" (a term also used to refer collectively to the early Cape settlers) or "kitchen Dutch" (a derogatory term used to refer to Afrikaans in its earlier days).^{[n 2]}
   Differences with Dutch often lie in a more regular morphology, grammar, and spelling of Afrikaans.^{[n 4]} There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility between the two languages—especially in written form.^{[n 5]}
4. Marriage citizenship test 
   Sample questions from NYT: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/marriage-test/?_r=0
   More sample questions:http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/fiance-marriage-visa-book/chapter13-20.html
5. US Citizenship test - did you pass?
   20 Q's that will be graded: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/03/12546953-could-you-pass-the-us-citizenship-test?lite
   100 Sample Q's:
   http://cltr.co.douglas.nv.us/elections/100questiontest.htm
6. Mr Jones Lyrics meaning - verdict: about a real person (via Wikipedia)
   The primary topic of the song itself is perhaps how two struggling musicians (Duritz and bassist Marty Jones of The Himalayans) "want to be big stars," believing that "when everybody loves me, I will never be lonely." Duritz would later recant these values, and in later concert appearances, "Mr. Jones" was played in a subdued acoustic style, if at all.^[2] On the live CD Across a Wire Duritz changes the lyrics "We all wanna be big, big stars, but we got different reasons for that" to "We all wanna be big, big stars, but then we get second thoughts about that," and "when everybody loves you, sometimes that's just about as funky as you can be" to "when everybody loves you, sometimes that's just about as fucked up as you can be."^[4]
   The song is often interpreted differently. Some believe it is a thinly veiled reference to the protagonist of Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man",^[5] a theory supported by the lyric "I wanna be Bob Dylan, Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky." Others^[who?] have suggested that Mr. Jones refers to flamenco guitarist David Serva (Marty Jones's father), although the lyric "she dances while his father plays guitar" seems to suggest Mr Jones' father is another separate character within the song.^{[citation needed]} Another possibility is that Mr. Jones is an imaginary friend, or Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols.^{[citation needed]}
   In a 2013 interview, Duritz explained that the song is named for his friend Marty Jones, but that is about Duritz himself.^[6] "I wrote a song about me, I just happened to be out with him that night," Duritz said. The inspiration for the song came as Duritz and Jones were drunk at a bar after watching Jones' father perform, when they saw Kenney Dale Johnson, longtime drummer for the musician Chris Isaak, sitting with three women. "It just seemed like, you know, we couldn't even manage to talk to girls, but if we'd — you know, we were just thinking if we were rock stars, it'd be easier," Duritz said. "I went home and wrote the song."
7. Black sheep origin? (via wiki)
   In most sheep, a white fleece is not albinism but a dominant gene that actively switches color production off, thus obscuring any other color that may be present.^{[citation needed]} As a result, a black fleece in most sheep is recessive, so if a white ram and a white ewe are each heterozygous for black, in about 25% of cases they will produce a black lamb. In fact in most white sheep breeds only a few white sheep are heterozygous for black, so black lambs are usually much rarer than this.
8. Are penguins monogamous? - Sounds like some are for several seasons.
   Many penguin species are monogamous and may stay with the same mate for several breeding seasons. And penguins make very good parents. Both the male and female care for eggs and chicks.
9. Why do penguins shake their heads? There may be other explanations, but here is an interesting one - penguins were interested in us? (http://www.sciences360.com/index.php/courtship-and-breeding-cycle-of-king-penguins-5224/)
   Despite the fact that mate selection is female choice, the males do display a short courtship behavior to get the attention of the female penguins. Male king penguins will raise their flippers and point their beaks toward the sky in an ecstatic way to catch the eye of one or several females. If a female shows interest, she will stand face to face with the male. Both of them vigorously shake their heads. After this occurs, the male will strut around swinging his head from side to side. Many people refer to this as “the advertising walk” of the male king penguin. After this victorious walk, both the male and female face each other again in a sort of dance by shaking their heads while stretching up and bending down in sync with each other. They will also become vocal as well as clapping their bills together.
10. How do penguins defend themselves?
    To protect themselves from the cold, emperor penguins huddle together in close groups. To protect themselves from killer whales, they depend on their very skillful flippers to swim very quickly, darting back and forth in the water. Because killer whales cannot turn quickly, this gives the penguins an advantage. The penguins quickly head to shore because once they make it to land, they know the whales can't get to them. They don't have much in the way of protection from leopard seals so the only thing the can do is stay alert and remain in a group with other penguins, knowing that the leopard seals will go after any stragglers.
11. What is the type of fruit that reminds me of sweet potato?
    Sapote - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapote
12. Coochie Face song from the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (get ready to be weirded out)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpxysdGFwyM
13. Why does the default camera vs video on iPhone look different?
    I can't figure it out.

For a year during which I passed two springs, I really have insisted on going to places to test myself against the extreme cold.

Armed with travel talismans and a passport for which we had to buy a plane ticket for (yes, getting your passport mailed to you same day is like buying a seat for it on an airplane), I watched Orion's Belt appear to my right at 5:30pm as we traveled northward. The sky is deep purple and the Adirondacks are piled softly with snow.

My passport, from which I had to tear out two visas to make room for more stamps after Chilean customs officers scolded me for not having room, sits warmly in my right pocket. Every "meal" we have eaten today has involved at least one food covered in chocolate. The trees, our old friends, line the sides of the icy roads and greet us with branches wide open.

So, wide openly we go.

(a happy new year awaits)

i guess, wherever we are traveling, and in whatever direction, and towards what (a destination? an emotion? power? a goal?)- we all want the same damn thing.

when we were driving to Vermont, i liked that the windows were down and the leaves would greet us mutely in less than muted tones of yellow and red. in between bouts of launching into off-tune singing of whatever was playing on the radio, i stuck my fingers out the window (the way my parents always scolded me about not doing!) and wove them through the air.

the passing coolness would ripple across my skin, and giddyly, stubbornly, i kept my fingers outside. equal parts full, and filling.

i checked outside.
leaves still reaching toward the sky like my grasping fingers.

something mended at that moment at the same time, something else broke. something along the lines of hearts, and walls.

it is so very quiet when the wind dies down.

it is strange how the wind can be at times strong enough to topple you, and at others as gentle as the ripples it creates in the water


we walk the beaches when the tide is low, talking about the existence of soulmates, how best to roast marshmallows, our favorite vegetables, how to tell the difference between a male and a female king penguin, and other important inanities. the eternal sunshine spoils us, as we find sunsets that stretch interminably into the hours of 10 and 11 in the evening.

i have never had so much time to think.
as you can imagine, all-day hiking and sitting in a car are pretty thought-provoking activities.

tells a lot about a person, what occupies their mind during the longest hours of daylight. tells a lot about a person, when they choose to speak and when they choose to be silent. when they choose companionship, and when they choose to walk alone.

it does feel like the end of world, facing the straits of Magellan. emotionally and physically sandwiched between it all.

the solitude is profound. the windy cloudiness settles on the shore and accompanies me on my walks.

Even beer tastes good after being on the road for 32 hours straight. Safe and sound in Punta Arenas having beer for dinner with brazilians and Chileans watching the fútbol game. So far south that the newspaper is called "el pingüino" And the sun was still not finished setting at 11pm. My head hurts and it's too cold to shower but damn don't it feel good.

There is no graceful way to spend hours in the airport by yourself. After a few laps back and forth the international terminal, during which you've exhausted inspections of every souvenir in every store and also reek of every sample perfume in the duty free store, you finally are left only with your thoughts. Travel seems to be the final frontier of journaling, reading, true introspection- even if somewhat forced. 

The mountains keep me company as I float between types of consciousness- as does my ubiquitous pink daypack.

Inevitably I end up reading books or watching movies with sad or moving endings, and I feel like an animal in a glass cage as other passengers pass by my tear-streaked face.

Eventually your ass starts hurting from the hard chairs and it helps to change the scenery every now and then. I laugh with K over skype that now I know how Tom Hanks feels in that movie where he lives in the airport. Only difference being, I would use sriracha on my saltines in lieu of ketchup.

I'm sinking into a deep brown couch right now. A full 24 hours has now passed in transit (transience). Silhouettes of waiting passengers are prominent against the window. The air here is thick with anticipation, of impatience, of weariness. I contemplate from a distance, choosing anticipation over the alternatives. 

all things converge. (as S. used to say, everything that rises must converge - and everything is definitely rising, since there was nowhere to go but up)
the world is so small in the end.

my friends asked me if, for once, i will write about my travels. i thought about the appropriateness of this blog title that i've carried around for years.

as i prepare -- at the absolute limit of my multitasking capacity -- to leave for three weeks to travel across Patagonia-- i make phone calls, send messages, receive letters, cram clothing into tiny packing bags, try out public transportation in my dear yet unwalkable Houston, deal with past accidents, consider matters of the heart, try to be a good employee, and other frantic activities.

i get both wildly excited and appropriately anxious as i start writing messages and participating in dialogue entirely in Spanish (stretching the limits of my "fluency"), and i know that i'm possibly in way over my head as i plan to have a stranger who is a friend of a friend pick me up from the airport at past-midnight when i arrive, and then somehow return me safely to the airport on time for my next flight at the end of an 8 hour layover. there are, of course, only certain acceptable and available activities between midnight and 8AM that i can think of. and at the end of my journey i'll somehow make it to the meeting point where i'll join my friends for a camper van journey towards the End of the World and beyond. oh, and there will be penguins.

i keep up, however slowly, with the very-colloquially-Peruvian conversations. i even successfully make some jokes. hope against hope, i decide to test out this theory of mine, about the goodness of people. also, what the f? i keep saying i won't choose places that are cold, and yet here i am going to Penguin territory.

there are some friends with theories that more crazy things happen to me (both good and bad) because i take gambles and risks that most people gape at. and, honestly,  i can't imagine any other way to live this one life we've been given.



2013 has thrown a lot of shit my way. i'm throwing it right back.

alright, world. gimme what you got.

--
ps- from previous post:

“Let them think what they liked, but I didn’t mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank — but that’s not the same thing.”

- Joseph Conrad

some new photos posted.
I.

with blueberries, somewhere in the middle of maine

“And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

there was a boat, and there were only small amounts of wind. the water was too cold and the air was barely salty enough, and we paused too long for lack of breeze.  but, well, nothing worth anything ever happens without some amounts of interruption. there was music at night, my toes against his thighs. We walked and stood in line, we ate pastries and pasta in the wrong but ever-so-right order. At night, the dark knight appeared as well as so many questions in our fingers. 

and, well, there was only one way to find out the answers.

II.

driving, autumn in vermont

it was more of an exhalation than an entire breath-

we were unprepared for it. but we folded it until it felt small in our hands and held it quietly in our mouths while exchanging questioning glances. 

it felt too late. but really, it was exactly how i had hoped. it was gripping, the humor and the exaltation. no roof, stars, impatient water, interminable road, infinities that felt familiar, unbearably tangled hair, warm hands, muddy dashboard. 

and blue. 

“If something anticipated arrives too late it finds us numb, wrung out from waiting, and we feel - nothing at all. The best things arrive on time.”

- Dorothy Gilman

Additional notes:
- tatami, umami, chirashi. unagi, nigiri vs sushi vs sashimi
- lure, in a boat-like state, lure, in a lake-like state. champagne flutes
- running in the rain, and scaffolding lessons. i can run now?? no, at that realization, it turned into leaping through the rain.
- dancing in the humidity, everyone celebrating a roof over their heads, "sweet & vicious," we can make it!, dancing on the coffee tables, dancing on the stairs
- so much green
- the leaves changing already
- the first day of autumn, man. when love is born (we swore to each other that spring is overrated)
- angel food cake. "holiday" watching. dreaming
- the full moon. moon cakes.
- clouds. "scenic overlooks"
- hours in the car. hours.
- curiouser
- and curiouser


also, from a project by Miranda July (I love that they described it as "curated intimacy", the author Etgar Keret writes:

Asthma Attack

When you have an asthma attack, you can’t breathe. When you can’t breathe, you can hardly talk. To make a sentence all you get is the air in your lungs. Which isn’t much. Three to six words, if that. You learn the value of words. You rummage through the jumble in your head. Choose the crucial ones--those cost you, too. Let healthy people toss out whatever comes to mind, the way you throw out the garbage. When an asthmatic says “I love you,” and when an asthmatic says “I love you madly,” there’s a difference. The difference of a word. A word’s a lot. It could be “stop,” or “inhaler.” It could be “ambulance.”

some notes:

- open mic night,
- a suggestion of desire,
- an approach with almost familiarity, "he has great taste,"
- flight from manhattan on the back of a motorcycle from the 1980s, past the Hudson river
- "i feel the wind in my hair"
- fire escapes and champagne,
- vines,
- exposure,
- sleeping on planes, (more like hallucinating),
- dark, red-lit bars,
- sweet georgia brown asking for a little respect,
- and the bowery electric,
- (“There is really one city for everyone just as there is one major love,” she wrote). In her diaries, she expressed her joy of landing in bohemian Greenwich Village, “where all night long typewriters click, people sing in the streets, hurdy gurdies go all day and the laundry boy reads Turgenev. - on The Diaries of Dawn Powell, the New Yorker
- "i hope we fall asleep here."
- we were lit. broken. healed.
- the shape of it all. a peninsula, or perhaps a fjord,
- eyes in the dark. hands in the dark.
- falling asleep on air mattresses and waking up on the ground,
- identity, i guess,
- twenty-eight and counting,
- "broadway is dark tonight" and i am living it, i am here.

new york city scares the fucking shit out of me. and i am absolutely, wretchedly, in love with it. it sounds, aptly, much like the rest of the things i've fallen in love with over the course of my lifetime.

there is something singular about the way new yorkers write about the city.

its unforgiving nature. the heat rising from the cement. the cold seeping into the veins of buildings and people. shitty window unit A/C (what? there is no central A/C? laments the stupid houstonian). how no gentlemen will wait for you to get on the elevator before they push their way in. (wait, how no gentlemen exist?) the pollution. the endless subway stories, the endless assholes. the traffic.

yesterday i spoke with someone who left new york city 20 years ago. her entire face lit up as i talked about the City, and like teenagers talking about their first caramel frappuccinos, we chatted excitedly about it for 15 minutes (even though we were supposed to be talking about boring business things).

time passes differently there. you can touch the time, it's thick  and substantial with urgency and impatience. maybe that's why i like it there.

even the way the sunlight falls on the side of the fire escapes casts different shadows.

and, aren't we breathless the very moment we land? the decision is, the good kind of breathless, or the exhausted kind...

there are times to sail on sailboats and not have any internet or phone connection.

there are times to be absent.

there are times to break silences

there are times to know the difference.

“Never mind if he calls, the places you get
through inwardness take time, and to drift
down to the shore of the island, you know
by the sand moving, even the coarse sand here
It’s hard to say if you can even stand up, there
but there is blue sky, and blue water tipping up
the same distance from you as your face. Its face
goes further behind the eyes, without weight
or haze, and the horizon is just a change where
from going deeper you go wider, but go”
— Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge (via cassie)

“The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it.”

- Stanley Kubrick

Also, many people ask me how I manage to travel so much. Two very important things- I choose my travel partners and who I go to see very wisely (okay, and sometimes not so wisely, but I learn quickly from those experiences), and I also try never to pay for unnecessary hotel rooms. Which means I have a lot of strict rules for myself as a guest. Design*Sponge has a nice article about choosing travel partners and being a guest in someone's home. They hit a home run with some fantastic rules of thumb.

I read today that "the gateway drug to making is breaking" (Cory Doctorow) and I started thinking about that in terms of relationships. How perhaps sometimes we don't know how to fix something until we break it into pieces, and suddenly the puzzle becomes clearer. It's not always the case, and sadly sometimes we break it a little too messily to fix but. It's a thought.

And, in response to my question about whether or not one can write good poetry when happy, my friend's incredible response:

i think most poems are written while happy, but just recounting the melancholy in appreciation. in my experience, most writers are most productive when happy. seems to be a myth regarding the sad writer type. solitude is often confused with sadness i suppose. 

i have all sorts of expletives that i want to say right now. though i might offend you... all i could think of when i read this was "jesus fucking christ"


Alberto Ruy-Sánchez's III. Concerning Time in Mogador

III. Concerning Time in Mogador

Nineteen

They say that according to the calculations of the most ancient African astronomers, the sun slows down when it passes over Mogador, lingering there more than any other place on the planet. That is why time is measured here at a leisurely pace and things in the world are perceived differently, with a certain throbbing intensity.

Twenty

Because time in Mogador passes differently under the sun than in the shade, and with even greater distinction from day to night, very infantile elders and extremely wise babies may cross our paths, as well as meticulous lovers who in the blink of an eye can cover an entire body with deep caresses and kisses that last a lifetime.

Twenty-one

Even the sand in the hourglass falls differently here, at times very quickly and at others more restrained. Each hourglass is believed to carry an internal wind that controls the shifting of its small dunes. And they say lovers with a penetratingly slow touch acquire and develop an inner wind that commands all their movements, setting, in particular, the cadence of their urgent caresses. 

Twenty-two

In Mogador, the heart is considered the most precise clock, or at least the most respected, not just for its consistency but for its ability to distinguish the profound nuances of each instant. It is a clock that falls in love, becomes frightened and aroused. Those skipped heartbeats become milestones of life shared by more than two and at times by all. The history of this city is measured by inflamed hearts. The rhythm of blood in the veins, what one poet called “the music of the body,” is a kind of national hymn for the Mogadorians. And making love with a very erratic heart is how it is best interpreted and sung, to such an extent that at official ceremonies foreigners are amazed to hear the most patriotic Mogadorians nearly moan their hymn with an enthusiasm more amorous than warlike.

Twenty-three

Another clock that is very respected in Mogador is the sea with her moving insistence. The waves rise and fall against the walls, sowing in the city a stubborn sensation of the constant rhythm that touches everything. Here, the moisture on the skin, on clothing, in corners, books, and even the air are a clear measure of time. In Mogador time is liquid. They say it calms thirst and eases the penetrations of lovers. And so the gesture of anointing a lover is often accompanied by a fluid smile and the saying, “To love, give time.”  

Twenty-four

The waves and tides are pendulums of that expansive clock of the sea. In Mogador, lovers sense that their city expands within that immense saline clock, and desire incites them to caress bellies and backs like an undulating swell. And they enter each other like tides obeying the moon, embracing with enthusiasm the magnetic allure of the stars. To love, here, is to measure time.

“Let me touch your time with my hands,” is a common but rather desperate saying, used to request a much longed for intimacy. But if someone here brashly tells a lover, “give me time,” it is considered an obvious act of pornography. For some it is insulting, while others find it very exciting. Time in Mogador leaves no one immune.

Twenty-five

Singing and dancing is yet another way to measure time in Mogador. The heart is a bass drum or, if you prefer, castanets hidden deep beneath the skin. It is a kind of ritual guitar: the gambri, with strings like arteries. Time dances in the veins of lovers and expands its volume when the uncontainable blood swells the sexual organs. And it beats and beats reinventing the rhythm of the clave (one, two, three, one-two). They dance to measure scattered time, to discover it in the body of others as in a broken mirror. And, if everything falls into place with a certain grace and finesse, the moment arrives when the time of one person is within the time of the other. And they say that a clock is within another clock when lovers are united and chime in unison to the beat of their hearts, as if dancing. But it is not advisable to coincide with absolute precision, absorbing the same fragment of time, for that is when time stops, like a heart stricken by a severe case of arrhythmia.

Twenty-six

Every day in the squares of Mogador, the story is told of a pair of clandestine lovers who began making love in an excessively rushed manner, beneath an old staircase in the marketplace, under the shadow of an ephemeral wall of flour sacks. And when, with haste and reluctance to part, the couple finished their “quickie,” more than twenty-seven years had past. Their respective spouses had remarried and their children had moved away. Unbeknownst to the lovers and without them ever being exposed, the flour that shielded them had become loaves of bread. “The inevitable happened,” says the storyteller of the Square of the Snail, “and it is not the first time this has happened in Mogador: the excessive impatience of those who desire burns the surface of time, which as everyone knows is as smooth as silk, and lovers fall into one of the abysses of the calendar. The same kind of abyss of time that always leads us to believe, whenever we are making love, that only our love is eternal.”

Twenty-seven

They say, with rhythmic insistence, that time in Mogador is another entrance to the body: an open and deep sex, a long good night, an appealing mystery. An apparition.

geez. inundated.
why travel?


“Ms. O’Brien describes her young self this way: “I was ravenous. For food. For life. For the stories that I would write, except that everything was effervescent and inchoate in my overexcitable brain.” She desired, she says, to be “drawn into the wild heart of things.”
— Edna O’Brien,Seeking the Ardent Life. O, joy! To the wild, wild heart of things!

And, from Pico Iyer:

“I travel because I feel that the world is much larger than my ideas of it. Every stereotype dissolves as soon as I set foot in Syria or Cuba or Vietnam (though not North Korea) and, sitting at home, I’m usually in a perfect state of ignorance and complacency. Living in rural Japan for more than a quarter of a century now has taught me that questions are much richer and deeper than most answers, and that the more I live with someone or something, the less I know of them. So maybe I travel and write to get past the dangerous illusion of knowingness. I’m ever more keen to acknowledge the mystery in everything, even my prosaic old self.”


“As Thoreau famously said, it doesn't matter where or how far you go - the farther commonly the worse - the important thing is how alive you are. Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.”


“So it is that Lonely Places attract as many lonely people as they produce, and the loneliness we see in them is partly in ourselves.”

“Finding a sanctuary, a place apart from time, is not so different from finding a faith.”

“...home lies in the things you carry with you everywhere and not the ones that tie you down.”