The Search for Existential Truth

at long last

2008-05-29T19:03:21Z

train pictures!

http://contactdustin.googlepages.com/picsTrain.html

well, all's well in edmonds, washington. i've been trying (and failing) to secure an apartment for lindsay and myself. when i'm lucky enough to find a cheap, nice apartment in an accessible part of seattle, it's either "available for immediate move-in" or "NO CATS" or "elderly couples with children preferred".

if it seems absolutely perfect - not available until later in the summer, pets fine, low rent - then i manage to find some way to screw myself over. last night, for example, i called about a "deluxe studio" without amenities (i figured i could get by without them) and completely blanked on my own phone number. the transcript of that awkward voicemail goes something like this:

"i can be reached at...ummmm....uhhh....sorry... mom, what's my phone number? ("how should i know?")" click.

so my outlook right now is not good.

Five/Five: Bodily Functions

2008-05-28T06:11:24Z

SHITTING: I didn't have the privelege of shitting on the Empire Builder because I was constipated almost the whole way. (I guess that's what happens when you sit down for 48 hours on end. Your slowly forget how to poop.)

But if I had shat on the train, it would have been an uncomfortable experience, to say the least. Amtrak's bathrooms are quite small. Picture a Honey Bucket (that's what we call outhouses in the Seattle metropolitan area). It's cramped, it smells gross, the floor is coated with poorly aimed piss. Now imagine that same Honey Bucket on a moving vehicle, its size cut in half. That's an Amtrak toilet. There was so little room that I couldn't stand up and brush my teeth in it without whacking my elbow on one of the walls.

PISSING: But claustrophobia isn't all you have to deal with when using an Amtrak bathroom. Pissing in these bathrooms can be a grating task - if you piss standing up, that is. Because the cars are constantly bucking around on the track, it's impossible to aim. No matter how hard you try (and I tried hard) you can't get all of it to land where you want it - namely, in the bowl. It ends up on the toilet seat, on the floor, on the walls, in the sink (remember when I said these bathrooms were small?). Eventually, I realized that sitting down is a good way of dealing with this difficulty, and did that the rest of the trip - but until I got to that point, it was a little rough.

FARTING: Sitting down for hours on end without shitting takes a toll on your digestive system. Stomach aches, indigestion, gaseousness, bloating, constipation, diarrhea - you can expect at least a few of these things to happen to you on a normal two to three day cross-country train ride. Fortunately, I was spared the diarrhea this time around, but I was not spared the stomach aches, the constipation or the gas. (Sorry, Jess.)

THROWING UP: Throwing up on the train can be tricky, because Amtrak seats are not equipped with vomit bags and Amtrak bathrooms are located on the ground floor, next to the luggage racks (there are no bathrooms located on the second floor, where the general seating areas are). So if you wake up from a nap and realize that you have to vomit - and now - your only option (short of vomiting all over your seat or into your neighbor's lap) is to vomit into your purse, your hat or the train safety brochure.

Luckily, this issue never came up while I was on the train. But I feel like it must, every now and then, for some people. Sometimes you just have to vomit, after all.

EJACULATING: Hmmm.

Well, that's all I have to say about the bodily functions, the Empire Builder and train trips in general, so I'll be going to bed now. If you're interested in gazing blissfully upon my pictures from the train trip, I'll be posting these online relatively soon.

Four/Five: EXTREME TRAINS: The Empire Builder

2008-05-27T06:49:37Z

Amtrak gives all its lines cheesy names. Mine was called "the Empire Builder". I guess this is because it connects civilization in the East to civilization in the West. Anyways, "the Empire Builder" (in spite of its cheesy name) happens to be one of Amtrak's most famous lines - so famous, in fact, that the History Channel decided to make a documentary on it while I was en route to Seattle.

Don't gasp. This wasn't as exciting as it sounds. There were no celebrities involved. (I looked for Ryan Seacrest, but was incredibly disappointed.) They didn't interview me, either (though they did people near me). Every now and then, a cameraman (followed by a mildly resentful looking bald guy whose job was to hold the light) would walk up and down the aisle, filming passengers as they did their crossword puzzles in silence and shared travel-packs of Oberto beef jerky with their seatmates, but every time they approached me, the cameraman would mysteriously turn the other way. (Maybe this is because I was making a peanut butter and banana sandwich in my pajamas at the time.)

On the first day of our two-day journey, I saw the host of the documentary (a brown-haired guy I hadn't ever seen before) interview our flight attendant, a bespectacled (possibly gay) man who took his job as a train attendant way too seriously. The host had just said, "The hardest part of the job for Amtrak employees is keeping passengers happy." Then, as the train attendant explained how he contended with this obstacle (free pillows and friendly customer service!), a guy somewhere behind me burst out laughing and said something along the lines of, "I'm not happy. Amtrak sucks."

It was pretty great.

In general, I thought "EXTREME TRAINS: THE EMPIRE BUILDER" looked like an incredibly lame documentary. The writers were obviously trying to make it seem all "extreme", even though it really (really) wasn't. The customer service wasn't great (sorry, Amtrak), the food was overpriced, we were constantly late (freight trains always get priority when there are conflicts on the tracks) and there was no coffee or tea on Day 2 because all of the electrical outlets in the snack car broke simultaneously. So as the documentary's nondescript host struggled to depict our train as a mighty force and a builder of empires, it kept revealing itself (to me, at least) for what it really was: a cheap piece of shit owned by a company that can't afford to maintain it and doesn't care about keeping its customers happy as long as they continue to buy 21-dollar steaks from the dining car and purchase extra seats for their oversized musical instruments.

Tune in tomorrow, for the shocking conclusion: BODILY FUNCTIONS!

Three/Five: Have Sandwich Ingredients, Will Travel

2008-05-25T06:32:21Z

For those of you who don't already know, I love peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Most people think they're weird, and won't touch them. Still others loved them as kids, but grew up. I never did. If anything, my love for peanut butter and banana sandwiches has increased with age.

I think it's safe to say that I've eaten at least one peanut butter and banana sandwich every day for the past three or four years. They're just so good. So - naturally - when it came time to prepare meals for my three-day cross-country train trip, my first inclination was to bring peanut and banana sandwiches - as many as I could fit in my bag.

Unfortunately, the peanut butter and banana sandwich has a few tragic flaws which make it very difficult to travel with. One: it's fragile. Give a peanut butter and banana sandwich even the slightest press and your once delicious meal has turned into a smelly pile of brown glop. Two: bananas rot - fast. Let a peanut butter and banana sandwich sit out for a few days and even the most carefully protected subjects will start to smell like God-knows-what.

The only way to get around these flaws is not to make yourself a peanut butter and banana sandwich until a couple of hours before you eat it, and then nurture it with love and affection until it touches the tip of your tongue. So when I set off for Penn Station, instead of packing a gazillion Seran-wrapped peanut butter and banana sandwiches - which would have had messy consequences - I filled a discarded Foodtown bag with peanut butter and banana sandwich ingredients: a jar of peanut butter, a peck of bananas, a loaf of white bread, a plastic knife. What I didn't realize, at the time, was how weird I would feel when it finally came time to make my sandwiches.

I was in a small park in downtown Chicago when the urge for a cold, satisfying PB&B first hit me. As quickly as I could (because you can't just ignore the craving for a PB&B once it sets in), I found a bench, unzipped my backpack and laid all my sandwich ingredients out in front of me. That was when it hit me: I was making a sandwich in public.

If you haven't done this yourself, you can't know how strange it feels. Every time someone passed, I felt as though I could hear them thinking, Did I just see that kid pull a loaf of white bread out of his backpack? Did he really just cut up a banana?

The more I thought about this, the more paranoid I became. I struggled to remember a time in my life that I had seen someone else make a sandwich in public. But I couldn't. I could remember seeing people at rest stops make multiple sandwiches to share with their families - but never in my life had I seen a seemingly normal looking person pull out enough ingredients to make fifteen sandwiches just to make one for themselves.

Sure enough, everyone who passed through the park as I made my sandwich looked at me. How could they not? What I was doing was incredibly strange. And it was strange again when I did it the next day, on the Empire Builder to Seattle. And strange the next.

I don't know what the moral of this story is, or why I felt like telling it, but here are some of the things I think you should have taken away from it (in case you weren't really paying attention, or were only skimming the story up until now):

(1.) The most pleasureful sandwich-making experiences always occur in the privacy of your own kitchen,
(2.) Removing a jar of peanut butter from your purse, handbag or briefcase is weird - no matter what the extenuating circumstances, and
(3.) I will do almost anything for a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

Tomorrow: "'EXTREME TRAINS': THE EMPIRE BUILDER"!

Two/Five: Vignettes

2008-05-23T19:34:00Z

On the train, you learn things about the people you're sitting near. It's inevitable. People who travel in small groups talk amongst themselves as though there's no one else around. You hear what they say. You make judgments about them.

Then there are the old people - well, they're usually old - who take the train specifically because they're lonely and need someone to talk to. Watch out for these people. They'll spill their guts out to whoever happens to be sitting next to them, completely unfazed by polite signals like picking up a book and leafing through it, or turning away and looking out the window, or closing your eyes and pretending to be asleep. They don't care whether or not you're interested in what they're saying, as long as you appear to be listening.

On my train journey, I hardly spoke except when spoken to, but I still got to know several people. They were kind of strange, but then, don't you have to be kind of strange to pick a two-day train trip over a three-hour plane ride?

Pinstriped Pajama Blazer: Never talked to this guy, except once: he had been playing chess on his brand new desktop computer when a message popped up that said, "Your battery is getting low. Would you like to revert to Power Saver mode?" (I asked him if he meant "laptop" and he nodded and said he did.) He was completely perplexed by this message, loudly asking me, "What on Earth is this? How do I make it go away?" (It had just gone away by itself.) "Where did it go? Was that important?"

Martin, Martin Rogers: The first thing I noticed about this guy (well, it was kind of hard not to) was his outrageously pretentious laugh. It was like something out of "The Great Gatsby". I turned around, curious to see what this guy looked like (seriously, if you had heard this laugh, you would have turned, too), and there he was - Martin, Martin Rogers, a balding, white-haired man wearing a dress shirt and slacks (yes, on a train). He was sipping from a miniature bottle of red wine, guffawing at jokes (his, hers, whoever's) even when they weren't very funny. Later that night, I overheard Martin discussing the texture of a 21 dollar steak he had just consumed in the dining car with the guy sitting one seat in front of him. "The food on these trains is really quite good," he assured him, laughing pretentiously.

The next day, I overheard Martin telling a soft-spoken North Dakotan boy that he was on his way to Montana to drive buses for Glacier Park. "Give me a call if you're ever in the area and I'll give you a ride," he said. (The boy said he'd try.) For the next forty-five minutes or so, Martin, Martin Rogers continued to bore this boy (and anyone else in the car who'd listen) with random facts about Glacier Park, Glacier Park's buses and Glacier Park, Incorporated, the organization which maintains and operates (but does not own) Glacier Park's buses.

Jess: Jess from Minneapolis, who I sat next to from Minneapolis to Glacier Park (Martin's stop!) seemed to have no idea where her life was going. She was en route to Glacier Park to be a housekeeper, but didn't "do" housecleaning. "Like I totally don't clean, so I don't know how this going to work," she said. What did she do, you might ask? I know I did. "Oh. Medical illustration," she said. "I want to make diagrams for science textbook companies."
"Really?" I said. "That sounds awesome."
"Oh, well it isn't," Jess said. "I kind of hate it, actually."
Sounds to me like Jess has some soul-searching to do. I didn't say so at the time. It wasn't necessary. She already knew, and besides, I'm sure she probably thought the same thing about me. English and music?

The Old Lady from Calospell: The old lady from Calospell got on in Whitefish, MT and didn't say a word to anyone until we had reached the Cascades. So when she asked me, "Where are you headed?" I had no idea that she was secretly one of those old ladies.
But she was. Oh yes. For the next couple of hours, this old lady said almost everything that occurred to her. She told me about her house in Calospell, the kind of plants that grew in her garden, a great buffalo burger she had one summer in California, the time she shot an elk. You wouldn't believe the kind of things that this woman remembered, and thought to mention. "I was sitting in the living room knitting with my husband, who was watching TV, when I heard a noise. I said to my husband, "Did you hear that?" And he didn't hear it, so I figured it was nothing and went back to my knitting. But then I heard the noise again, and so did my husband. So he went to the window and pulled aside the curtain, and you know what we saw? There was this little baby bear there making its way across the lawn, and it had two tags in its ears, and my husband, he said to me, "Why do you suppose this is?" Of course I told him that they meant it had been captured twice in town before; we should call animal control." By the time I got off the train in Edmonds, I felt like I knew almost everything about this woman, her life in the wilderness, her husband (now dead), her four children and their spouses, what schools they went to, what they studied, what they're doing now, how many kids they have... I could have told you about the old lady's favorite department stores in Calospell (you used to have to drive all the way to Missoula), or how long it took (on a good day) to get there from her house.
I swear to God, some people (mostly old ladies, but younger people too) just will not stop talking to me. I don't know why. (Do you?) Maybe it's because I've spent so much of my life listening. Maybe it's because I'm unwilling to be mean to a person who seems to have good intentions at heart. Or maybe it's because I lead these people on by seeming to enjoy the respite from silence. I swear I just don't know.

I also met a one-eyed man who was traveling to Alaska with his son, but he wasn't very interesting. To be honest, he reminded me a lot of my Grandpa. And yours. He was just your standard old guy, except for the bit about having only one eye. Afraid of flying. Knew a lot about nuclear power plants. You know what I mean.

Tomorrow: "HAVE SANDWICH INGREDIENTS, WILL TRAVEL"!

One/Five: Last Day

2008-05-23T05:21:18Z

Me leaving

Leaving New York is like ripping a piece of duct tape off your face. It hurts like a son of a bitch for a few seconds, but the anticipation is worse.

The two to three weeks leading up to my departure were full of goodbyes, and as the day of my departure drew near I became increasingly aware of the fact that I was leaving. Every time I did something, no matter how mundane - turn in a final paper to a professor's box, poop in the downstairs bathroom at Pless Hall - I'd think, "This is the last time I'll ever do this." In the store fronts and sidewalks and park benches I would see reminders of old memories: I would think, "This is where I enjoyed that amazing falafel sandwich" or "Ah, this is where Wendell and I drank Snapples." But in spite of all this mental build-up, leaving New York was easy. It only took five minutes.

"We're crossing the GW Bridge," said the old man into a silver Motorola Razr he couldn't figure out how to use. "Hello? Are you there? Who is this?"

I remember thinking, I'll miss this. I felt a pang of sadness. But it was too late to turn back, and besides, I knew that I wouldn't if I could have. I knew it was time to leave.

LAST DAY IN NEW YORK

Breakfast challahs

On the last day, Lindsay and I woke up very early to make breakfast challahs. It was amazing. Then, at noon, we went to the Veggie Parade with Azz. The Veggie Parade (for those of you who do not know) is a time for New York's most radical vegetarians to come together, insult non-vegetarians' lifestyles and take pictures of each other standing next to strangers in giant vegetable costumes. I took a couple shots of Azz and Linds standing next to a partially shelled pea; then, because it was starting to rain, we went to Kimmel and sat on chairs in the lounge. It was quiet and I was very tired.

I remember thinking, "This is the last time you'll ever sit in this lounge. Make it count."

I didn't, though. Couldn't.

LAST DAY, PART TWO

Afterwards, L and I met Elise (L's roommate) at the Food Fair in Brooklyn. It was raining, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. I didn't get anything because I was still so full from the challah-fest, but Lindsay got a guava empanada and Elise got a canoli. They both looked quite delicious, which I'm sure they were.

OUR LAST LAST (NO REALLY) LAST HURRAH

After a much-needed nap at 888 Union Street, Lindsay and I met up with Wen, Shea and Azz at an amazing restaurant called "Vegetarian Dim Sum House", a vegetarian dim sum house which is known for its vegetarian dim sum. There we drank cups of tea, ate treasure balls and reminisced about bygone eras while struggling to eat greasy balls of vegetables with cheap plastic chopsticks.

After dinner (which seemed too short, as last dinners tend to seem) Shea and I said our sad goodbyes on Pell Street. (I imagine Shea is probably in London right now, admiring Rufus Wainwright's hard, slender body and his cutely tousled hairstyle. Farewell, Shea!) Then the remaining four of us walked to Babycakes, a small but cozy bakery in New York's gritty Lower East Side. We had mini-cakes in the corner, which were good (but the bottoms were wet).

Later that night, Wen and I said goodbye in a park as the sun set behind the surrounding buildingtops. We hugged so Azz could take a picture of us hugging, but she got mad at us when we didn't cry. Then Wen, eager to catch his train and get on with his life as a stylish Manhattanite schoolteacher, disappeared down a tree-lined boulevard and was swallowed up by the city sunset.

After Wen left, Azz, L and I - I think we were kind of scared to part - decided to walk up the Bowery and go to Trader Joe's. (I needed snacks for the train; Lindsay, as usual, needed chips and guac.)

But we couldn't put off goodbye forever. We couldn't even put it off for an hour. Before we knew it, the three of us were standing in the shadows outside the sliding glass doors, trying to find the right words to say goodbye with.

We couldn't find them, though (if they were even there to find), so we gave up and went our separate ways. I realized that I would really miss New York.

It's still sinking in.

Tomorrow: "VIGNETTES"!

i'm back from italy!! part two

2007-06-07T23:04:44Z

i haven't been inspired to write much lately, or even compose. creativity is boring. in that spirit, i decided to sift through all the pictures i took in italy, resize them and post them here on livejournal, for my many friends and admirers' enjoyment. it took me, like, three and a half hours, including all the boring commentary, but i don't regret doing it. i mean, what else would i have done? worked on my piece? lol.

i need a beer.

so this is what happened. i flew to london. not that i was actually going to london or anything. in fact, i was only flying to london because my ticket had told me to. it said that if i flew to london, i could "connect" to another plane that was headed for the city i really wanted to go to. so i did would any normal traveler would. i trusted my ticket.

that was my first mistake. never trust a paper ticket.

when i got to london, i was told by the security guard that i would have to check my computer, because apparently they don't "do" the "one carry-on + one personal item" thing they do everywhere else in the world. i was pissed, but in the end it turned out not to matter. when i tried to check my bag, the man behind the british airways counter said, "oh. it looks like all flights to italy have been cancelled for today. sorry."

yada yada yada, i spent the next 36 hours exploring london with 50 pounds of luggage.

a hurried stroll in london-town

my jolly ride on the tube

the view from the expensive yet relatively unpleasant st. giles hotel

this is what i had for breakfast at heathrow. (ah! the memories!)

here are some pictures of the monastery i lived in.

this is the exterior. it was kind of grand.

this is the communal bathroom. (if you glance to the right, you can just make out the communal sink and the communal rolls of toilet paper.)

these are the communal showers. (a lot of them were broken, and some of the doors did not close.)

this is where i slept with two other men.

as you can see, living in a monastery is not quite as awesome as you might have imagined.

generic pictures of alba

this was the view from the communal bathroom. that building with all the bars on the windows was an abandoned penitentiary.

a bustling street market.

vincafe! (or, affectionately, "vin") it was the hip place to be for some reason.

i ate a lot of good food, too. here are some of the things i ate in italy that i took pictures of.

this is pasta.

these are breadsticks. they come with every meal. and that's acqua frizzante in the background. they have it in the u.s., too, but in europe, people drink it more frequently.

pizza funghi. yum.

desserts! the two desserts visible on this table were worth $700 alone. the lemon thing is actually a lemon shell filled with lemon sherbert, and the cup of brown and white stuff in the background is actually the best tiramisu i've ever consumed.

delicious italian beverages

juice!

caffe! if you were to plot all the bitter things i've put in mouth on a little graph, this stuff would be way off the charts.

cappuccino with a smiley face in it. awwww.

estaTHE, pesca! i came up with a good slogan for this stuff: "like snapple, but worse!"

vincafe cappuccinos! the best i had in alba. i thought the little <3 things were a nice touch, even though they look like testicles.

concerts

chiesa san domenico. for a small town, alba is pretty well-cultured. they have clothes stores, restaurants, attractive young people and at least six spectacular cathedrals like this one.

they played bolero. (but the soloists ran out of breath.)

random stuff

my favorite ATM in all of alba.

an italian garbage truck. look how small it is! well, i thought it was pretty cute.

at vin with allison and chuck, two awesome composers.

get a load of these big loaves of bread.

goodbye, alba!

finally, some random pictures of my 'hood - brooklyn, ny

this is supposed to represent me, gazing thoughtfully out of the train window on the ride home.

my favorite subway station in brooklyn: smith/9th street. it's a little gritty, but in a good way, and the views are inspiring.

awwwwwwwww, a wet cat!

2007-05-21T03:20:37Z

this isn't my cat, but i thought it was kind of cute. enjoy!

dustin's new house

2007-04-17T15:42:17Z

come to my new house in windsor terrace, brooklyn, new york! it's a two story brick building (kind of british, actually) with front steps and a porch - perfect for smoking on! it's got three big bedrooms, a big, clean bathroom adorned with patterned tiles - perfect for partying in! - brand new appliances, a porch, an island, natural light, air conditioning and creaky hardwood floors (walking across them for the first time filled me with spasms of delight). and it's only a short walk from the "hamilton parkway" subway stop in brooklyn!

there's virtually no reason not to visit! (except for the fact that we haven't moved in yet.) so drop everything you're doing, no matter how important, and get yourself to brooklyn!

lindsay will treat our first six visitors to mike's hard lemonades.

to snip, or not to snip. that is the question.

2007-04-10T04:38:12Z

should i cut my hair?

i think i want short hair again.
but i'm not sure.

am i?

argument for:
it's just hair. long, short, black, blue - who gives a shit?

argument against:
what if i cut it and everyone is all, "hey, you cut your hair," and, "oh, you cut your hair." you know what i mean? i don't know if i can deal with that.

to ease your decision-making process, here is a computer-generated image that approximates what i might look like with short hair, for those of you who don't remember what i looked like freshman year.

there are no known risks associated with this survey, beyond those of everyday life.

so this is the new year

2007-01-02T04:56:28Z

and i don't feel any different.

last night i went to a crowded house and rung in the new year surrounded by friends and red plastic cups of champagne and looza. it was loud and tense and satisfying. i walked up a hill and reached the top just in time to see the last firework of the new year rise from the top of the space needle. then it was a long walk to my car. i thought about "life" and the "big questions": who i "am", where i'm "going"... that kind of stuff. tipsy strangers said, "happy new year, dude." (kind of a lot 'em, actually.) i thought, what an interesting moment. i'll write about this in a livejournal entry.

new year's is a "love-hate" holiday for me. i never look forward to it because it generally ends up with people hurting each other, having sex with each other and falling down laughing, "i swear i don't even feel tipsy!" but i always look back on these moments fondly. i guess i like the fact that every year begins and ends in chaos. that's the way it should be, i think.

i'm gonna go watch "fargo". later, folks. and happy new year! (to those of you who survived.)

2006

January: It's still raining: A new year's musing
February: A sad, gory little tale
March: READING IS COOL
April: sunday afternoon epic
May: this weekend (like, on sunday i think)
June: death to magic eyes
July: a tale of two cities, a small town, a few rivers and some trees
August: i have no needs lol
September: this summer's summary
October: conflicts, interests, short sentences
November: feliz dia de los muertos!
December: thought

jaded_laughter @ 2006-11-27T22:35:00

2006-11-28T02:35:46Z

i went to virginia for thanksgiving, because my aunt and uncle who i hadn't really seen in ten years were like, "you should come visit for thanksgiving", and i said yes. a whole load of really interesting things happened to me in virginia, but i'm pretty sure no one who reads my livejournal is interested in actually reading about them, so i'm not going to talk about my weekend in the south at all.

here are some pictures of it, though, in case you feel like looking at colorful representations of intangible places and things. because i'm a kind and generous and loving person, i wrote captions for them. it was a lot of work.

WEDNESDAY

this is philadelphia. yay! it was stormy.

this is wilmington, delaware. yay! still stormy.

somewhere between wilmington, delaware and this place, i fell asleep. then i woke up. then i looked out my window. "egads!" i mused. "such melancholy structures, these." (that's what i sound like in my head.)

they went on for miles and miles on both sides of the train. "what god-forsaken place is this?" i wondered. it was

BALTIMORE (C)2006, starring tom cruise. directed by Steven Spielberg. original score by John Williams. titlecard by Dustin Peskuric.

still stormy.

some woods in virginia. it's a little bit out of focus. apologies.

ABINGDON

main street.

tiny cabin.

AUNT'S HOUSE

this is not my aunt's house.

this is the neighborhood my aunt's house is in.

this is the neighborhood next to the neighborhood my aunt's house is in.

this is my aunt's house.

this is the view from the kitchen, the living room, dining nook 1 of 2, the backyard and the adjacent empty lot

i awesomely helped to wrap the garlands around these banisters.

SECTION 4

some calming virginia scenery.

TRIP BACK

staunton, VA. not stormy.

this is a picture of trucks in a field. i call it "agony".

feliz dia de los muertos!

2006-11-01T05:58:11Z

yesterday was halloween! i hope it was much less horrible for you guys than it was for me. i had to write a five page paper about brazilian music and globalization, have a piano lesson, go to classes, read dante's "purgatorio", and die of exhaustion.

on a happy note, i think trick-or-treaters go from "store to store" here instead of "house to house", like i used to do back in the 'burbs. i saw kids in costumes coming out of the sex toy shop across the street with candy.

this just in. it's still summer, babs...

2006-08-22T22:30:25Z

i'm borrrred today. it's cloudy and cold - not exactly the best day for exploring or selling lemonade to grown-ups in the cul-de-sac - and i already had one hot beverage today, so i feel stupid having another one already when it's only 3 o' clock.

this is officially my first week of unemployment, and i'm really digging it except for the "being bored" thing, which only happens occasionally, and which i can pretty easily look past when i focus.

so far i've been able to read a lot and write many pages of ridiculous, incoherent drivel; listen to a CD (yay!); watch episodes of 24 andn Monk because TV is good for you (by the way, 24 is great! buy the first season set - or borrow it from me - and start watching today!)

well, lots has happened since my last update. last week i lived in a large house in seaview, washington. it looked like .

inside it was very large and had many gazillions (read: 6) of bedrooms, which were all named. (mine was the "julia wallace room".) for instance, the frederick room was lofty and bright and had its own bathroom. it was

awesome.

but i decided to pick the tiny bedroom next door to it, because sam also wanted to sleep in it and i wasn't in the mood to fight for it. besides, the julia wallace room had a super view of the backyard, whose sublimeness i attempted to capture with

photograph.

the beach was beautiful but also very cold and wet. swimming was a little bit excruciating as well as, apparently, quite deadly, so i had to content myself with writing things in the sand and drinking sodas.

anyways, i'm tired about writing about seaview, so here are the rest of the pictures of my adventure. enjoy!

people drive on the beach. who cares if it's dangerous? it's legal!

the house had its own little private trail to the beach. (this is it.)

oysterville was tiiiiiiny!

this is the port of ilwaco and the floaty things in the water are boats.

ocean.

astoria bridge. seaview, long beach, ocean shores and ilwaco are all resort towns - meaning no one actually lives in them, so the "city centers" are silent and empty. it's kind of depressing.

but people live in astoria! they even have tall buildings with fire escapes. (not pictured.)

a corner. i liked astoria.

a hill! yay! astoria has hills!

waterfront.

goodbye, house in seaview!

THE END

BONUS SECTION

this is the BONUS SECTION! hurray! if you like reading a lot, or if you're a nosy person, you'll have gotten this far into my entry. this section exists for two reasons. one, because there are these weird bear-man statues literally everywhere in vancouver, BC, and i think everyone has the right to know

wtf

and two, because i think a couple people have asked me what being a mailman is like. now, i never got a picture of me with or in a postal service vehicle, but i did manage to take these bad boys without feeling extremely stupid. i even turned it into a collage, for your viewing pleasure. (it's in

)

okay, i'm sick of livejournaling. bye.

a tale of two cities, a small town, a few rivers and some trees

2006-07-09T06:45:24Z

downtown minneapolis: skyline;

i'm always a little hesitant to post huge quantities of pictures online. no matter how you scratch it, they're not necessarily interesting for other people, they take a lifetime to download and they disorient your computer while you're trying to make it do other things.

but i like pictures. so here, to spite my every reservation, i have caved to the temptation and posted a huge pile of them.

these are pictures of minnesota, as i perceived it last week with my good friend lindsay erickson from anoka. the collection includes, but is not limited to, photos of minneapolis, st. paul, anoka, the mississippi river, lake calhoun, the mall of america and coffee.

dustin and lindsay bike to anoka, and it is quite hot;

anoka mochas;

the mississippi river;

my feet, the rum river and some ducks;

kenwood, minneapolis;

sculpture garden;

basilica;

the silver building you might be able to make out on the bank was designed by the same guy who designed the emp in seattle, and the dancing house in prague. surprised?;

st. paul;

a "post"

2006-05-05T17:20:21Z

i just wrapped up my spanish final. it was a'ight.

only one more test left. y luego...¡a mi casa en washington voy!

I went to London

2005-11-23T23:08:38Z

And it was everything I ever dreamed it would be!

—

That last one was me in London, feeling pleased with myself. I'm standing in front of the Tower Bridge (not the London Bridge, which is completely unremarkable). I thought the city was fantastic. It was very much like a hilarious European version of New York. Instead of "Exits", they had "Ways out". Instead of "trashcans", they had "rubbish bins". Instead of "right", they had "left". It was great.

Teatime is almost everything envious Americans make it out to be. It's not quite as popular as I would have hoped (no, but Indian food is), but apparently professors and businessmen and politicians of all sorts still hit the town for "high tea". We decided to stop at a random hotel for a cream tea special, which cost six pounds. The scones were delicious though, and they gave us a lot of butter and jam, so it was almost worth it.

Looks like Big Ben really exists. (For all I knew, Hollywood was making it up.)

Buckingham Palace. I guess it really exists too.

The streets of London are a beautiful mix of the old and new. Where Prague is almost exclusively composed of historical monuments and New York's two or three historical monuments are plastered with enormous billboards and blinking ads, London strikes a pretty nice balance.

I've wanted to take this picture for so long.

The most unexpectedly cool thing about London were the black (red/yellow/green/blue/Sony) cabs. In the background you might be able to make out the dim outline of a double-decker bus. Those were pretty cool too.

Harrod's: the Macy's of London, and, in the foreground, a "tube" entrance. (That's British for "metro".)

The whole time I was in London, I couldn't stop thinking about Harry Potter. So I thought I'd take a walk to King's Cross Station and see for myself what it really looked like. Turns out it's just an ordinary train station.

OR IS IT?

to ease tortured souls.

2005-08-24T17:19:32Z

If you have not already taken the test, please click the "Back" button now.

----

FOREWORD:
Number 5 was the only one I didn't really expect anyone to get. You'll see why in a sec.

1. The answer was B.
Here's a challenge. Use "HCTARCS" convincingly in a sentence. Read A, C, D and E backwards. They all make new words.

2. The answer was E.
Except for "wrath", all the words here contain an "SH" sound. Isn't that mind-blowing?

3. C.
A, B, D and E all have irregular plurals. (Medium > media, Flora > florae, Cactus > cacti, Vacuum > vacua). The plural form of "sinus", however, is pretty regular: "sinuses".

4. B.
The most popular right answer. A, C, D and E come from the Latin root "a-" ("from"). Meanwhile, "abysmal" comes from the Greek root "ab-" ("without").

5. D.
I made a mistake with this one. These words were all extracted from the names of rich and famous comic strip artists. Witness:

-Bill Watterson (note the mistake)
-Gary Larson
-Charles Schulz
-Scott Adams

So I guess if you could get 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 right, you'd still be intelligent.

6. B.
These are all anagrams, except for "SWIRL".

---

If you managed to discover a more compelling pattern in any of the above sets (except for no. 5), you may still be able to redeem yourself by letting the public know.

MEANWHILE, HERE IS WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MY LIFE:

With any luck, my visa will come tomorrow! Here's to hoping...

Speaking of Czech visas, I leave the state in a mere 6 days, and I still have so much to do! I need to do about a month's worth of laundry. I still haven't picked up my last two paychecks from Safeway. (I need to do that today.) My room is a mess and I haven't packed. Oh! And I need an adapter, so I can plug my computer into an outlet when I get to Prague. (Note to self: buy one.)

It's hard to believe that summer's almost over and in less than two weeks, I'm going to leave the country. Time must be nonexistent.

How smart are you, REALLY?

2005-08-23T17:31:45Z

I've devised here a little self-test. Find out how well your brain detects connections between thoughts!

The idea is simple. Find the pattern, and then decide which word does NOT belong. Careful now. They're tricky little bastards.

1)
A. SPOOL
B. SCRATCH
C. STRAP
D. CAT
E. DENIM

2)
A. WISH
B. CRASH
C. CHAFE
D. TRUTH
E. WRATH

3)
A. MEDIUM
B. FLORA
C. SINUS
D. CACTUS
E. VACUUM

4)
A. ABOUND
B. ABYSMAL
C. ABUSE
D. ABSTAIN
E. ABSTRACT

5)
A. ARSON
B. WATER
C. CHAR
D. WAVES
E. DAMS

6)
A. FACED
B. SWIRL
C. SAW
D. VALE
E. ALBEIT

The only passing grade is a perfect score!

EXTRA! EXTRA!

2005-02-04T22:25:12Z

My website is officially up. You may visit it if you wish if you follow the link the below (follow the link! follow the link!). Or you could click on the "My Website" tab above, if you're into doing things the unconventional way.

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~drp261

Please have fun at my site, and try not to be offended when I say things like, "Jews are stupid." (I don't say anything comporable) However, if for some reason you are offended, I'd love to hear about it. Send me a nasty e-mail. (Don't worry, I won't post it on the site for everyone to laugh at...)

Anyways. My brain is bursting with HTML commands. So I need to eat a banana.

jaded_laughter @ 2004-08-23T00:16:00

2004-08-23T07:20:07Z

I expect this first entry will be short.