Category Archive

I’m leaving Santa Monica. Just confirmed with the flatmate. On the eve of possibly securing a job in an agency. Yum. Only recently have I grown close with my neighbors.  Israelites. He’s a furniture maker, they’ve got great kids, and he smokes. He’s got a lot to teach, and they’re fucking amazing parents.

Laughing the other day, like never before. I’m working on a company re-brand for an agency, a sort of trial run to see if I can cut it.  One of those moments that are few and far between - (if you think about that phrase, that makes SO much sense clarity. It wasn’t an out of body experience, but my vision and perspective had shifted outwards. I was, for a few minutes, able to observe myself as an outsider, examining where I was it, what I was doing. 24, thinking creatively, branding an eco-friendly company, with zero experience.  I realized that that’s exactly what I wanted, years and years ago. I swear. I saw myself doing this, no, merely wished I’d be doing stuff like this - and there it fell, right into my lap, a gift, my narrow minded self not paying attention.  It was hysterical.  How often are we so focused on the now, living mechanically, unable to see those moments of beautiful clarity.  It calmed me down instantly, seeing that what I’ve hoped for was being put in front of me. And however it pans out, it was a cherished 240 seconds.

I’ve been using sunscreen regularly. I read on Wikipedia that sunblock only prevents penetration of UVA/UBV rays. It doesn’t really protect against melanoma. Even 45. And 70. We’re all screwed. Starting with the fair-skinned, freckled, pale Jews.

Not so sure about Thailand. Gonna need to check the weather. Willing to even hold off so that I go during the down under summer. What’s the point? I guess there are more places. honestly now. you’re being evasive. What’s the real reason? I want to travel with someone, a partner, a lover. What a way to see the world. And to be with one person. For that long. You’ll either kill yourself or need to buy a wedding band in the duty free shop.

And creativity on demand is tough as hell. Mark that. But shit, I do think I am ready for this.

it’s 3:34.

1.  the mustache is gone. the molester look wasn’t working out.
2. i’m applying to advertising school. so i can pay cash. and get a portfolio. and produce stuff. is it possible to teach creativity? perhaps i am unpopped kernel. ad school is the microwave.
3. i am the king of procrastination.
4. i want to travel. and travel i shall. new zealand. australia. thailand. join the protesters and fight the chinese in Lhasa. Dalai lama here i come. make me some lentils and i will do your bidding.
5. i’m traveling. hence, the move out of santa monica, back to the valley, airports, planes, trains, and australians. Los Angeles, you were never mine to begin with.
6. It’s hard to be creative on demand. never realized that.
7. I’m listening to a lot of Cut Copy. they are the shizza and you should pandorize them. or last fm them.
8. why did i buy all this stuff? why do i still have it?
9. my brother gil turned 23. i made him a card with using pictures of a jewish orthodox laundromat owner. the copy: not your average hyphenated american. he laughed. i enjoyed making the card. its my zen time. tell me when your birthday is and I’ll make  you one. i just need a few magazines to chop up.
10. it is sunny. and it stopped being so fucking windy. what is with you. the palm trees a mile away are still standing, but dancing, leaning, bending  in her graces.
11. it’s time for us all to stop worrying and start living.
12. that about wraps it up.

christ it’s 1:18 already? been up writing, working on the ad school app, flirting with creative directors and such; my mom has a migraine. and a sinus infection. the brothers and I have offered to get her green many a time, but she’s persistently resistant. so i drew a bath and pressed her eyebrows to relieve the pressure. She says it’s working. I say more drugs. Pharma or medicinal.

God, decisions decisions. I feel my creative juices to be running lower than ever have before. Which is strange, because I haven’t been writing this consistently, or working on being creative as much as I have in recent weeks. What do I need? to explore, travel, see more. I’m feeling India. It’s feeling me. it calls me, while I’m sleeping. naked. under the covers. wearing nothing but my leg hair.

I’m really excited for the food.

I am in somewhat of a crux though…If work doesn’t pan out, I’m doing these applications then getting the hell out of this country for a while. Till school starts. Hopefully. And if that doesn’t work out as I’ve planned, then, so be it. I’m tired of all this planning.

On the lady front…Things are good, complicated complicated complicated.  I wish I had experience in this whole relationship thing..Or at least more practice. I question whether I’m doing things right. Where the fuck is the manual? Nowhere.  If you could win a rabbit, rabbit or habit, rabbit or whales. it’s funny. i’ve made  my fair share of mistakes in past relationships. Did I learn from them? Am I doomed to repeat them like a bad re-run of Who’s The Boss? Me: filled with hope that my intentions are coming through loud and clear  on the relationship radar. that and a fair understanding that I’m not perfect, I need a fair amount of training and being told what to do (which, let’s face it, is hard for a semi-control freak like myself), and patience, patience, patience. I don’t get things right the first time, but try to repeat my mistakes. before they’re too late.

confused. I need the forest. and space cookies.

something to get you through the day. sounds like the end of the world, aye?

life is crazy right now.  i am vaseline: spread over the city of angels yet still not lubricated enough, ripping apart on 5 hours of sleep (damn the electric clock!) the headshakes from lcd monitor systems pulling my eyeballs out of their sockets and pinning them to the back of my skull.

kenneth burns’ wwII doc, ‘the war’, is on pbs. check your local listings. 

i sat in my first class today in 2 years. it was fun. you appreciate learning more when you’re older, i think. and single out the annoying girl who sits in the front row and asks too many questions.

my newest favorite site!! fwa. artists and developers only.

i finally learned how to convert psds into html. havent done it yet, but i think i figured it out. yay. its time.

i miss being jewish. happy sukkot.

new days. office lighting. halogen headaches. beef jerky lunches. shops on abbot kinney. aaron is tired. but busy is sexy, right? life is out of the samsonite, unpacked somewhere in marina del rey. life is fighting an hour of traffic, skidding on highway pavement. breathing exhaust from automobiles and supply chain trucks. its meditation time. or time for learning spanish. como estas? que es esta traffico? mi rompe le palle… life is whole, whole is life.

so like, who reads this thing anymore? just me, perhaps, i suppose. i always get thirsty late at night. she’s calling me.

the eskimo is samsoniting it again, along the coast of southern california and the gorgeous coastal spots of tijuana and ensenada. im writing from santa barbara, visiting friends, eating thai food, hiking, the sort of detox one’s body demands after going through a 3 day debauchery binge cruise provided by carnival cruise lines.

limitless food, long lines, peoples of all different types, frat boys, bachelorettes, wet t shirt contests, and an abundance of crap sold by merchants hawking 8 dollar sombreros without a peso in mind. it was like spring break in a taco bell bathroom. add some silicone enhancements and then throw as much as possible away, dump it in the ocean, the sink,m wherever, as long as you throw away.

a cruise is like las vegas on a yacht. sorry. somehow that sounded a lot more poignant in my head. but its definitely an eco disaster. they do re-use plates, cutlery, dishes…but the food, my pelicans..so much food gets tossed its insane. and its not good! happens when you cook in thousand quantities.

the eskimo got a job! i’m gonna work for a design company! in santa monica. rub your hands and your heads together…i shall be moving soon. the commute is killer. the job is killer too. context: former = bad, latter = good. i’m starting as a junior project manager.

no go watch flight of the concords! and get diseases from monkeys.

santa barbara the city the city of everything normalcy familiarity wordness to flagstaff the hippie heat of the farmers market crushed blackberry and sun dried tomato cheese please ‘thanks for the vegetables!’ so we can eat lunch. to sante fe alberqurque we’re stepping in this bus. oh the bus, moishe’s mobile compressed trapped heat sleeping in contorted and distorted shapes the bodies of these determined fish in a fishbowl under inspection by the 8 mm makeshift breakfasts and mobile blogging avocados the where to goes on this, this endless road of nothingness and green pasture, god’s heartland and america’s armpit. here we go now, here we go now, in oklahoma city, dead center, the new eco beacon for the townsfolk. sweat steam barometric aromatechtric pressure rising, rising, rising— 

tonight is lag b’omer in israel. shimon bar yochai, famous kabbalist rabbi dies on this day hundreds of years ago, so all of israel’s youth gather and light massive pyres all over the city - chemically traeted and stained wood, plywood, shipping crates leaned against each other smoke pillowing throughout the sky its nice and bright but i’m suffocating, my mind choking in its own head rush of a bonfire, burning since thursday when i had to say goodbye yet again to the familiar…

the desert, the stillness, the air, the sand, the emptiness and fullness of it all, the simplicity of everything - whatever residual love of the arava valley desert i’ve been so faithfully cultivating in my heart has begun to decay at shocking uncontrollable speed.  tonight i stood amidst a mass of carnivores and barbecues,  surrounded by apartment buildings so tightly spaced together the moon was hiding. i was out in a park and yet claustrophobic, my only solace found in the advice of a friend, who said that ’simplicity is within, not out.’  i took a few more breaths of toxicity and left.

leaving lotan, leaving israel, the return to america, the orange walls of flame i saw tonight have reached up to chest level - i’m exhausted and running on auxiliaries right now - we’ve the swallowed stage everybody. its amazing how easy it is to get plugged back into the matrix, isn’t it? life was so simple, so slow, so nice just 72 hours ago.  affirmations were set, goals were made, and now like passing tel-aviv traffic on friday afternoons the priorities have shifted in space, alarmingly not as lucid as they once had seemed. and why? just when direction was being set and realized, does the prospect of an environmental graduate program frighten me? i researched the school (u of michigan) for a few happy minutes later but had to close the window. my focus has to be on leaving this place, processing what i already left, and figuring what to keep and take with me, and what i must leave behind.

it really is a hard space to be in, as i’m sure you know by now. being between countries, awaiting flights to transatlantic destinations feels like your heart mind and digestive tract is being ripped apart. like y2k you just want the bullshit to be over with already.  tomorrow more fun goodbyes, some serious meditation and no meat. i really want my strength back.

So i promised a post about my trip in Jordan, so here goes everything, and nothing, 20 minutes before another kibbutz dinner of cucumbers, tomatoes, and goat cheese.  second things second, i feel compelled to apologize for the sudden deterioration of my writing since I arrived at the kibbutz. My theory, though yet unproven, is that it has something to do with a search for a middle vernacular around here; hebrew because I’m not fluent, english because i like speaking with israelites, and sometimes hebrew just fails.

there were four of us. healey, marc, julia, and the eskimo. we set out for eilat to change money, and crossed the border quite easily and made it into aqaba. our taxi driver tried to convince us that aqaba would be entirely sold out and wanted to drive us to petra immediately. he tried and tried, literally during the 20 minute ride into the city. scamming and negotiating, bargaining and haggling is a central vertebrae in every jordanians spine. you can bargain over water, taxis, hotels, gas, restaurant food..everything except entrance into petra.

jordanians are nice. very nice. nicer than israelites, generally. i pointed at a boys falafel to get directions, and without flinching he presented it to me so i could grab a bite. thanks, but no thanks, kiddo. a group of rich kids from amman, capital of jordan, starting filming and interviewing us near the falafel stand, and from there adventure began. they made us call their mothers, view pictures of themselves on their hi tech mobiles, and insisted we dont pay for anything. they were nice, and one of them beat me in an arm wrestling match.

the next morning we bussed it to petra. i didnt sleep much the night before, so it was nice to play catch up against the jordanian west mountain valley.  its odd, and very cool, to go 1/2 hour east and end up in an entirely different culture.something we miss in america. (canada isnt a real country)

petra kicks ass. we got a 2 day pass and it wasnt enough. its ancient passageways that lead to the main siq, are full of chinese tourists, brits, jordanians, and us. donkey carts an camels make runs transporting tired, elderly, heavy, or rich travellers. the great beauty in petra lies off the beaten paths..it really is up to you to discover the essence, and you’ll only find it if you go where others don’t, where its a little more uncomfortable, but in the end worth. props to marc for keeping me forward.

then it was back to work at lotan. today we played with poop. tomorrow? who knows. for more pictures, check out julia’s blog!

so everything has changed.

the farm is what i expected, and more. ill try to paint some pictures for you.

it is separated into 2 groups. running the actual farm are israelis, mostly coming from kibbutzim or moshavim settlements from all over, doing a year of national service before the army, serious hippies who prefer to spend their time tending to our small herd of goats, roosters, and lone horse. one girl, shlomit, is somehow related to the late great shlomo carlebach. born in the golan heights, she comes from a family of 9 children and ran away from high school and has been living on the farm for 9 months. they are quiet folk, sabras who are eager to teach me the benefits of a vegetarian diet, israeli slang, how to cook cabbage and make lentil soup, “tea” steeped just with lemongrass, sage, and zatar (all from the farm), and build houses from mud, hay, and wood.

i am dirty here. very, very dirty. i live in a dome, 9 x 9, an acre away from the main house with the other group. 2 jews with a penchant for farming and living “the minimalist lifestyle” came to the farm, gave a presentation, set up a few dome homes, and started growing growing growing everything in season. yigal, the 26 year old, is a skinny, reclusive english lit grad from columbia…he misses shakespeare but has been living by himself in a dome for about a year. his partner is shoshana: talkative, happy, happy to farm, has been living in israel since 16. she created her own, private farm at 21, an accomplishment that makes me feel so small, even more aaron small, in comparison. the dedication and committment to a lifestyle, a vision, and a way of life that these israelite Thoreaus breathe is stuff you only read about in books {or eskimo blogs}.

in the domes we are without water, electricity, bathrooms. we’re up at 6, working from 7-12, cabbage till 1, work till sunset. thursday i hiked with gaia and carlebach about 10 minutes in our backyard and ran into a herd of 150 cows. gaia played her didgeredoo and i had a few staring contests with some of the longhorns. they won every time. we sat on a fantastic pine tree that i mean to climb next time we’re there.

so whats been running through the eskimos head? this struggle, this momentum has sprung forth, a clear distinction has become apparent, namely this question of reality. as i sit with the compost crew after dinner smoking a sage cigarette (all-natural and like everything else we eat, it’s from the farm) i ponder “what is the real world?” is it us? in here? at the farm? or is it with ‘them,’ out there? perhaps reality is exists subjectively, there being 6.7 billion realities in the world, never staying static, shifting perpetually in this circulating artery of time. but then, what feels more right, more real for me? its true…we are without internet, a bookstore, coffee, film festivals, and renoir…but we do have clean air, grass and earth as our floor, the trees as best friends, and the chance to play an integral role in nature, survival, and this cyclical system of life on earth.

“everthing comes back to the circle.”

im not making any calls yet, but its become even more apparent to me how humanity must seriously reconsider its priorities and objectives while on this earth. we are living with this self-destructive propensity to be content with the way things are, and have our grandchildren pay the price for our actions.

the question remains then, where to start?

im heading back to the farm tomorrow. ill be there for about 2 weeks. its also supposed to rain. come find me. i’ll be in the dome.

I count 7 one thousands. If my 6th grade science class doesn’t fail me, that means the storm is 7 miles away. I wonder if the Israelites count storm distances in miles or kilometers. Something to look up later.

It’s very pretty here..My aunts backyard of kumquat trees (maybe she steals those from the neighbors), astroturf floor, and wooden outdoor furniture set (perfect for my mom’s endless afternoon jasmine tea) is getting pounded by the rain. And just when my Israelite cousins adamantly reassure my brother and I: That’s it! winter ees ovehr! another flash flood hits central Israel. Rain is rain, water is just water. We spent a good 3 hours at CafeNeto, my brother’s favorite (and only) coffeeshop a few blocks away from my cousin’s house, where he made friends with Yael, an english speaking waitress.  We sketched eachother sketching eachother, and played with Maayan, our almost 5 year old cousin who would fare well in some sort of Baby Einstein contest. She’s hilarious, independent, likes making cat noises, and won’t let guys, inluding these 2 familial idols, come close to her unless she permits. She never hugs without reason. It’s frustrating when you want to eat her but she decides to draw abstract kites and cakes full of candies that taste like olives and marshmallows.

It’s farm time on Monday. “I need some extra clothes that’ll proabably get destroyed,” I told my aunt. My uncle gave up 2 sweaters and his old army sweatshirt, that’s superwarm and allegedly unwearable in the United States. Who cares? Is Border Control really EVER going to dig through someone’s luggage and confiscate a sweater?  Plus 2 are the pants from the shuk in Tel-Aviv.

Craziness, madness.  First of all, the market, in certain areas, smell. It’s a mixture of first-rain asphalt, crushed bananas, dusty antiques and piss. Second, everyone shouts in the shuk. You might think that the watermelon and fake designer shirt vendors are shouting composed, meaningful sentences in the shuk but the truth is very different.  Here are some conversations I’ve picked up, and the real message.

“My brother! You son of a bitch! What are you eating for Shabbat?” (I’m bored here, I haven’t sold a scarf yet, how are you?

“Grapes! Three shekels for a kilo! They’re good for the digestive system and diarreah (I need to get rid of this stuff. It’s late in the day and my feet hurt. Oh also, I need to check my email)

“Everything is half off! Girls, girls get in! The good watches are in the back!” (More Americans from birthright. I can finally get rid of the stuff I bought on wholesale)

The farm, the farm, the farm.  Sometimes I feel like Indiana Jones in temple of doom, when asked by his friend during the middle of a plan what happens next, responds “I don’t know. I’m making this up as I go along.”

I’m asking myself now: Does everything need a purpose? Sometimes it’s just instinct and gut that takes us there. We should try to listen to them more often. They know what they’re talking about. No concrete goals for this part yet, just that I’m excited to meditate and be alone, working, planting, building with mud. We’re bombarded with messages all day. I’m excited to turn them off.

And now the mantra I need to live life by!

Slow. Down.

went on a short adventure to tzfat with will and lindsay, bussing down and spending the day visiting kabbalastic painters, who manage to somewhow sell mystical inspired contemporary artwork, had great shawarma in a lafa, sipped coke for the first time in months and had that familair sugar rush you hate but love, and got involved in a drum circle with a hasid named yaniv who builds jewish temple-era instruments.

tzfat is an eerie city. birthplace of kabbalah, home to many gravesites, hippie travellers, failed artists…but it’s great, intense, quiet at night, wringing this strange powerful aura of fervent, roots judaism that is truly intoxicating and dangerous dangerous. time stops in tzfat. when you’re there, it’s like nothing else matters besides you and your personal connection with god, which according to the kabbalists i met while there, is something we’ll never understand. and they left it at that. its all one and the same.

this place, this country, im beginning to understand fairly quickly, is so damn abrasive and pushy to an extent i’ve never experienced. new yorkers don’t bullshit; they tell it like it is and are going places, but they’re not assholes about it. it’s like everyone in israel is trying to get somewhere, trying to do something (even if it’s just sitting down drinking coffee with a friend, like true semites), and will beat anyone down in their way, whether or notthe innocent bystander is in their way. driving here is insane. my cousin ohad was explaining how patients in ambulances with life-threatening injuries don’t make it to hospitals because israelis don’t show right of way. maybe they should write AMBULANCE on the front and have flashing red lights on top. it’s really retarded.

the club last night was difficult to. chess bar was, i’m guessing, built originally by a moron, and went no further reconstruction. it’s narrow as hell, the bathrooms are in the back (i’ve never been in a place where the guys check themselves out longer than the girls) and more packed than the upper west side subway at rush hour. i accept it for what it is, but it’s kinda frustrating, mostly annoying.

the friday nights here are what i enjoy most, tho. everything shuts down and the entire country, if it were possible, breathes out all the panic and competition during the week for just a few hours.

then it starts again on sunday!

wow wow weewah! i sit on my aunts minimalist yet still plush burgundy couch gypsy kings in my ear, hail outside watching an arabic film about corrupt politicians, everyone looks like saddam hussein (before he was hanged) shabbat has just started, life is beautiful among the grape leaves a drive to tel aviv to pick up hungarian cakes soon soon i build an entirely green city with my cousin’s simcity 4.0

where to start? bear with me. days separated by //

//slept about 40 minutes maximum on the flight over to ben gurion airport, sat next to ariel beery, sperjewblogger, researched green design companies from wired magazine, took notes for future job reference

// it’s raining. bussed to kiryat shemona and kfar gileadi, which are about 8 Km from the lebanon border, then starts the hail // paint bomb shelters with crew, lots of trippy mushrooms, stencils get discarded pretty quickly / b-ball with the kids, a 3 vs. 8 with one feminine looking kid named michael, nicknamed the “egoist” / security guard at nursery/elementary school metula, border town, insists on showing a group of us from where the katushya rockets fell. he takes us to playground, points across gates at hills about a mile away: “here is hizbollah. see? that’s the hizbollah base. the rockets fell here, and here, and they shot at us here. these are the bulletholes.”

rats in the shelter, by shabot robot will

/ I ask the residents: ” what else could we do to help you in metula?” “your presence here is not something to be overlooked.” a broken woman in her mid forties responds. // i make friends with our security guard, evgeny, 23 year old guy who fought in special forces, spent 3 months in an ashram in india, doesn’t talk much but when he does he speaks truth! // more bomb shelter work: butterflies, camels and caravans, sunsets, genies, turtles, mario, animals from noah’s ark, more mushrooms // self discovery :: i am allergic to gluten. it gives me gas and hurts my stomach. // 39 volunteers saw down burnt trees, make room for clearing in park naftali / mahpach: social activists practice intentional community building in kiryat shemona. young adults, anticapitalists working around gov’t bueacracy to help citizens. i’m gonna look into volunteering for them in a few weeks / festival with hadag nachash, marissa, dancing, almost making it on stage, can’t find a drum, sleep for 4 hours // bus ride back, trains to here, to there, to herzliya, now it rains it rains it rains and i prepare / i got accepted into the green apprenticeship program, yay! its beautiful here. gray light and white thunder, falafel traffic, arabic videos, plans plans plans. patience is a virtue.

thanks for pics shabot

Walked from 81st to 34th. Apparently this is a lot for New Yorkers.

Ground Zero, a big gaping hole in the heart of financial district, the city, massive reconstruction

Sushi with a friend from 8th grade, phone call to SB, trapped in a mall, lost in the subway system

“Is this the way to the Lower East Side?” “No. You’re in Tripeca” “What the hell is Tripeca?” “Go East, man, head in that direction.” And later, “Which way is East? You from New York?” Yes. “Are you sure that’s East?”

I stop in a kosher bakery, finally here. 3 Hungarian seniors, females, keep checking me out. Who is this guy with the funny red ear flap hat and the blue bottle, and why is he drawing us? In the corner, right next to me sit 5 older men speaking Yiddish, rapping Yiddish, yelling at eachother in Yiddish. It’s like a jewish poker game, but you have to be grouchy, drinking only ONE cup of coffee and over 76 to play. I ask them what they’re talking about, what is keeping them so wrapped up in conversation, and get no response. Okay. Moving on.

Synagogue searching in the LES. 45 minutes and no culture to show for it. Not even a knish. All I see: dim sum, noodles, fake Gucci purse vendors, electronic stores, and Monsoon, a hot Vietnamese restuarant. The Jewish centre? More like Big China…land.

Squished like a sardine in the subway going uptown, sidetown, diagonaltown. “Stop pushing me” the overzealous possibly drunk woman in a sari yells at me. “I’m not…They’re pushing me…It’s my first day in New York I’m from California I know I probably taste good but please don’t eat me I haven’t seen Mount Rushmore yet.”

new york is new york, and i feel like a kid in a candy store. brooklyn, in retrospect, feels like the calabasas of LA: mellow, rich, lo-key, lots of families. ive moved spots to somewhere called the upper west side, home to lots of jews and flanked by a really big ass forest park, which makes me happy.

this city is pumping, alive, reminding me of tel-aviv, with more christmas lights and fewer savage drivers. i went shopping today with ariella, my host and neighbor from the encino hood, (we made a seared blackened pepper ahi tuna salad which rocked my intestinal world) and had to stop and soak it all in: jews light a huge menorah (what is it with this jewish necessity to light huge public candelabras?) a father and his pimply son leave circuit city with matching new computers, bars open up to that city smell, a man in a black suit wrapped in a tweed scarf leans over to his date, her mouth connected to the bottom portion of her cell-phone at ‘i violini’, he begs for attention and when that fails, leans back and smiles in resignation. and the movement. the movement of everything, towards everything.

it’s hard not to feel cool in new york. i don’t understand it. the city, the atmosphere, the attitude, the history, it just seeps into my skin , and i absorb it like tomato paste in a pot of white basmati rice.

so i got quasi confirmation yesterday about the desert permaculture program at the arava institute, in the negev desert of israel. so strange, how close this voyage is starting to follow the story of the alchemist. santiago, my young shepherd, following the omens and letting the camel take him, always landing in the right place. i guess it all depends on outlook. i’m convinced i have some sort of ADD. thats why im not a fan of road trips, long plane flights, routine, asparagus (because they’re weird looking and lets not forget to mention the effect on pee-pee scent), and long term commitment. but that’s all changing. i feel activated, for the first time in a long time, perhaps since college, to do something and devote years of my life towards a goal. thinking strategically about our effect on the earth and how better to handle it is just cool, exciting, creative, and needed. thats how i can contribute. and i met someone, who though knowing her for a collective 72 hours or less (probably less) i remain intrigued, fascinated at what could develop. i firmly believe in affinity. it’s a great word, and in my young age, a suitable substitute for ‘love,’ a concept i’ve still yet to understand. i imagine its somehow related to selflessness and sacrifice, but since i haven’t had to make those calls, i’m not fully sure. but interested. definitely interested.

life is good. go eat some cookies.

Why do I always forget stuff? I blame it on the 2 hrs sleep I had my last night in Boston. Joe and I cooked green beans and mushrooms for th next day, shaved our heads, packed like mad cats…and I left a hi-tech thermal and a purple polo shirt at his place. I know, i know, they’re just shirts, but shit, I’m running low as is. My roller suitcase, in case you’re wondering, is composed of the following:

6 boxer shorts
1 Ex-Ufficio 6 week boxer brief..It’s awesome, absorbs odor, sweat. They are really kick ass, highly recommended.
8 pairs of socks
Italian leather shoes coated in pig fat for water protection, Running Asics, Chaco Sandals
5 shirts
1 mafioso hat, 1 over ear beanie which gets kinda itchy after prolonged use
1 patagonia fleece (with windwall technology

brooklyn: west indies immigrants and carribean pirates fighting on the street no cops come out to intervene though the police station is around the corner / i get scooped up by a bearded member of the tribe on eastern parkway, become the 10th man for his minyan, discuss legalization of marijuana with his 22 year old wife (who is also a mother and cool as all hell ) / witness the gentrification of nyc - 800 unit condo complexes built next door to the brooklyn dentention center, a comunist era prison in the heart of the arab quarter / eat fantastic black lentil soup, sip overpriced coffee, expecting to bump into jerry seinfeld and george costanza on the street, spilling coffee on one of them and devising a scheme / feeling NY : i gotta get into a fight, play music on the subway, and go to an upper west side jewish singles event / staying in prospect park (near crown heights, headquarters of chabad, home of matisyahu, and others) with my friend shulie, checked out the art museum, saw photos and babylonian scupltures / it’s dirty, people are friendly, its not that overwhelming, the cafes are uber:cool they have a lot of bridges here that lead straight in to the heart of the beast.

gonna go find out what this whole big apples thing is all about. stay up.

i’m officially jetlagged. its not pretty. staying up, watching crocodile dundee I and watching joe’s roomate play madden (i was never into sports games, just WWII shooters) fill my nights till 4 am. Youtube, another killer filler.

It’s taking a couple of days for the brain to fully register and characterize the term “new england”. first of all, i think that that term is not slightly off base. why? one, bostonians don’t have terrible teeth. two, bostonites eat foods other than fried fish and chips. what does resemble my stay in London is the bleak, dark synergy flowing through this segregated, formerly inundated, revolutionary dated town. theres a sad feeling in this town, the citizens searching for pleasure, laughter, and signs of happiness with a slight guilty conscience, glancing at the sounds of smiles abashedly. my hood is about 40 minutes from downtown, so ive been training it a bunch to and fro, sadly, without the fro. i think im gonna get another haircut tomorrow.

clam chowder here is something else. then again, i cant say that im a chowder expert. i wonder if someone has that job. chowder tester. a chowder evaluator. a chowder chowder. crab legs though, do not have my endorsement. i do not vouch for crab legs. you hear me?

its funny how traveling forces you to ponder things you havent thought about or touched, or to analyze and understand trains of thought from new perspectives. i picked up a book, cradle to cradle, today at borders with my gift certificate. i also tried ben and jerrys ice cream today on newbury street. 8 different flavors. man was the parlor girl nice. anyways. sustainability. ecology. i think ive found my calling [for this week]. no, seriously, for the first time i’ve found something i want, am excited, and willing to sit through, years of professional study. i want to build summer camps that teach kids to think green, to figure out a better marketing strategy for sustainability, fair trade, and using less; i want to discover small changes that produce long lasting change; i want to travel and study and speak and learn and do it all over again.

im moving to the desert.

here’s a first: 17 degree weather.

another first? barhopping in downtown boston in said weather, and feeling my face slowly peel off. Isn’t vaseline just deluxe sized chap stick? I could use some about 12 hours ago.

last night was difficult. the weather, the plethora of pizzerias, trains going and coming, cover charges at college bars, jet lagg, chafed thighs (god bless you extra strength gold bond), excessive beanie wear permanently compressing my hair into my scalp, sharing a bed with a best friend - all those pale in comparison (and trust me, i’m a pale expert) to this now familiar sensation of loss and crisis which plagued my head last night. it’s the abandonment of so much of what i know, so much of what i’ve got, for the unexpected, the next, that unknown road i struggle to see. i
the best analogy i can offer: santiago, my young shepherding friend from andalucia, who leaves a cush job tending his flock in spain to search for the pyramids in egypt, who only within minutes of arriving loses all his money to a thief, and thinks nothing else but to return. go read the alchemist.

at some point life’s main highway gets too easy, to routine and an offramp appears. a detour which isn’t really a detour. look up. the GPS can’t be right all the whole time. it doesn’t know the map. the map is in our heads, in our hearts. it’s what i’m tuned to these days. its a great station.

red brick buildings, crowded trains, northface jackets with no 2 alike, a holocaust memorial in the middle of town, john hancocks tomb, the continental army grounds, hawks that kidnap squirrels, seasonal beer, buffalo wings, ponds that have frozen over…it’s cold, but not that cold.

stick around. i live for this. gotta back to the igloo. love, the eskimo.