Lauryn Hill - When It Hurts So Bad

"when it hurts so bad
when it hurts so bad
why's it feel so good."

exams.

i am on the verge of being completely murdered by my classes. i need to lock down immediately.

"it wasn't the cubs' fault when that douchebag grabbed the foul ball either but they still don't get a world series ring. there are no asterisks in this life, only scoreboards, and ours is currently reading 'fucked.'"

wilderness notes

ascending into a cloud covering the top of a mountain is an amazing experience. i've always wondered what the inside of a could felt like. now i know. imagine it was raining and then all of a sudden time stopped, so you had millions of tiny raindrops suspended in air. as you glided forward in space (perhaps on a chairlift!), you met all of these small drops while their brothers simply stayed in place.

the briefest images can instantly remind me of completely vivid and immediate experiences. examples from vermont:

driving through the fog - much like driving through the fog on the autobahn into munich from vienna. fucking exhilarating, even at 20kph. it took complete faith to keep moving along that road, trusting in god that there wouldn't be a two-story eighteen-wheeler barrelling towards italy. this morning as i drove down the west side highway the hudson was blanketed by a completely thick fog - i couldn't even see the water, much less new jersey. ships at sea in that weather = complete faith.

pulling by the side of a pitch-black highway road recalled the desert expanses of the red centre. during the day everything was surreally tomato-red against a blue cloth sky, but at night it was deathly quiet and cool, too many stars on a black sky with barely perceptible washes of indigo and fatigue green. the night light gave everything an eerie glow, almost industrial if the landscape weren't completely barren.

a small bridge over bumblefuck river reminded me of evenings in guadix in the summer - isabel, spanish girls wearing black and holding calimochos in the plastic containers that, despite seeing filled with x chinese soup later in my life, i would always associate with spain.

Chinatsu Ban

thursday

my first trip into soho since a long time. passed by la esquina, shady shady place - they have an outdoor service area. imagine a roadside dairy queen in northern jersey with prison-meeting-type booths. still, probably a pleasant outdoor experience. the restaurant itself is small and unassuming, but the real draw is the vaunted underground bar/cafe where ny's most hipsterish convene like cess to a drain. walked up lafayette from canal to prince. the streets are sunny and pleasant by day but unbearably dark by night. the blocks became more and more "sohoish" - you know, dark brown shopfront facades, cobblestone streets, fire escapes, etc. passed by savoy, one of ny's most fantastic restaurants on one of its smelliest corners. honestly, that corner reeks. i came onto broadway by the scholastic and began thinking of roxy. soho broadway, for all my non-ny readers out there, is gorgeously chic and full of life, with cabs whizzing one-way past huge tapestries and two-story store windows covering mannequins and gigantic faces. wondered if roxy still lived on spring. wondered if she was employed. wondered if she was single. went into the apple store - they had a deafeningly loud DJ in there who happened to be completely AWESOME!!!!! i chatted with her, her name was E Frank (really Ellen Frances).

ellenfrancesidontlikeit.blogspot.com

beats sicker than mark foley. saw a devastatingly gorgeous tall modelesque hispanic woman who laughed when i reacted to a song change by lifting my head and shaking my ass. i scanned her hand for a ring (none) and got her name (angelica).
after apple i took the train up to columbia to start the night.

i will miss these nights the most when i am having them in asia next year.

xoxo

BOS-JFK

here's a poor decision i recently made. caught up in amazement over jetblue's $55 one-ways from boston to new york, i rashly purchased one for monday afternoon. when i called my father to tell him i was flying down, he said "flying? i mean that's fine, but why didn't you just take the bus?" hmm. good question for which i don't really have an answer. in addition, the flight got in to far-away JFK rather than close and clean LGA. however, i will not make the same mistake again this year, as i am now saving every possible penny for my upcoming postgrad jaunts through asia and africa.
after rushing in a cab to the airport, i was confronted with long lines and bullshit. lacking a government-issued ID, i was subject to someone writing "no gov't id" on my boarding pass and a very thorough patdown. i made it onto the plane and we took off. the plane was surprisingly empty and i spent the flight watching direct-tv.
after touching down in new york i took the much-maligned air-train to the E. upon getting off the air-train i was surprised by a five-dollar fee. paying at the end of a ride always feels so wrong. anyway i hopped onto the subway and took the horribly long 1.5-hr ride back to morningside heights. that'll be the last time i fly boston-ny on my own dollar.

the end.

Tatsuya Ishida - notes from THE RESISTANCE

"Back when I was a kid I could never figure out why my stomach hurt, not realizing that it was the jalapeno cheese nachos I had the day before. My attention span just wasn't developed enough to put those two things together. The peppers didn't even figure into my thinking--I mean, geez, it was yesterday, that's like forever ago, and as far as I knew the stomach ache was a brand new, completely separate development, a mysterious phenomenon that sprang spontaneously into being. It had the character of divine intervention, the pain taking on epic proportions, without beginning or end, and accordingly I'd get all moral about it. I thought I was being punished by some higher power for being bad. I'd be on the toilet doubled over in agony, apologizing to God for some unidentified transgression. I'd be there blubbering to myself, 'Sorry, I won't do it again. Whatever it was I'm so sorry...' Now, decades later, having blossomed into a mature and magnificent powerhouse of rationality, when I get stomach aches, I'm like Sherlock Holmes, man. I break the shit down. What did I eat? Was it those falafels? Was the meat bad? Am I allergic to meat? Did the waiter spit in my food? Was he a terrorist unleashing a biological attack on my person? I'm like those forensic fuckers on CSI. Very methodical. Very analytical. Shit, now when I have religious experiences I immediately retrace my steps, try to track down what series of events led me to this euphoric spiritual illumination. I investigate, gather information, and hypothesize, in a cool and detached manner. It was probably those blueberry waffles. They were heavenly."

Beau Sia - The Color of Scarves

your lyrics make it hard
to hear folk songs.

I am haunted by
what I remember of your hugs.

my hand misses
the bottom of your back,
where your ass begins.

who breaks up
with their soulmate?

we are in a movie.
we see the same moon
from different cities.

our emails are a tragedy-
they reveal our pride too well.

I can't escape
avoiding the places
you disapprove of.

I'm as lost as that last line.

you infect my poetry readings.
no one is allowed to have a crush on me.

I want to let go of you,
but the problem is
I already have.

quotes from the underground

"i want to write, but more than that, i want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart."

- anne frank

the world is melting

i swear, i am losing my mind. i was in the shower when i saw adrian's orange bar of soap slip sideways off the holder, so i shot my hand out to catch it. i blinked and saw that it had not actually moved. the same thing happened in the gym with patrick's nalgene of water and in the dining hall with a shaker of salt.

i must be going crazy.