Don’t be afraid to die, be afraid of not living. -Tim Barry I can’t believe an entire month has gone by since the last time I published something … Continue reading On the topic of life and death
Tag: trippy stuff
I guess I can’t say “winter is coming” anymore
This morning I woke up in the middle of the sky to an intercom voice announcing initial descent into Newark, New Jersey. I opened my eyes to see the sun peeking over the blanket of clouds and immediately resented the East coast for being three hours ahead of the time zone I’ve grown accustomed to.
After eating, napping, and somewhat acclimating to the modern splendors my parents house has to offer, I remembered that today is the winter solstice! Had I remained in Mount Shasta where I belong, there is no way in hell I could have forgotten such an important day.
The shortest day of the year, and a new moon on top of that!
Learned to let go of the things we can’t control…
Left ’em behind, and followed rock & roll. This morning I saw a man dressed in a button down & tie for the first time since moving to Northern California. … Continue reading Learned to let go of the things we can’t control…
too much horror business
This past weekend, I made my first trip back to Seattle since coming out to the farm. In addition to visiting a very good friend from Jerz, I was delighted to encounter some pretty horrid anxiety attacks there.
This was completely unexpected. I used to live in a city. My lifestyle is heavily based on interacting with friendly strangers and sometimes making stellar connections. What gives? I do not know for sure, but I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that I’ve been living in the middle of nowhere for the past two months, with a small circle of less than a baker’z dozen people constituting my entire social life..
I also wasn’t used to the traffic. The congested roads which seemed to be swallowed up by all the buildings surrounding them. The pervasive gray dampness. And all_those_people. Sweet jebus.
My friend and I went to see Mirah perform at a Cathedral Saturday night. I was already really flustered and starving by the time we arrived. I made some major mistake at the parking garage, which prompted the lady working there to chase my car down and scream at me. I have been learning so much at the farm that information such as “how to use parking garage” just started slipping out my ears. I apologized profusely to the nice lady and explained to her that I don’t use parking garages very much anymore, but “I can milk goats, now.”
Aaaaaanyway,when my friend started walking slowly up the church aisle in search of a good seat, I straight up froze. I crouched and hastily crept up behind my friend like a fat kid trying to sneak into the kitchen, grabbed her shoulder, and begged her to sit in the back row with me. “I’m really sorry,” I said, “but I’m kind of freaking out here.”
Mirah’s angelic voice swirling around the cathedral definitely helped me calm down fast, as did the lollipop I had snuck in with me. Lollies help me focus and relax for some reason. It also felt wonderfully impish to suck on one in a church.
I carried my leatherman and a bandana in my pockets and noticed that the people around me smelled more like flowers than animal poop. I sat on the floor in a hotel room full of soft, cushy, CLEAN pieces of furniture. I worked mushrooms and/or goats into every conversation.
So, yeah, it was kind of weird, but overall a great trip to the city. I remember my first drive from Seattle to Royal City. As I passed through the mountains (btw- the drive East through the Cascades is way nicer than the drive West), into the vast emptiness on the other side, I thought to myself, “oh man, there is NOTHING out here!” This time, I saw the open space and felt it welcome me like a giant warm blanket fresh from the dryer. I let out a sigh of relief and felt happy to be in the place I’ve chosen to plant myself for the next 6 months. I don’t know if this weird spazzy behavior will continue for future trips into the city or not.
In other news, I’m eating so much freaking goat milk/cheese/ice cream/whey from Penny that I think she believes I’m her kid.
oh, goats
what are dreams for anyway without the guts to live your life that way?
Totally traveling right now, which kind of makes it difficult to publish blog posts, so thanks for being patient. i have been getting a little stressed out by fussing with this tablet i m typing on and the bluetooth keyboard can bite me so please excuse the excessive typos here Still rolling around, but have made it all the way to the northwest so it’s slowed down a lot. Here is a quick overview of where I’ve been the past few weeks… I left on Feb 1 with an amazing friend who lives in Seattle but I met once while i was still living in brooklyn/ the period key is only working when it feels like it, i guess/ traveling across the country with a person i hardly knew but still trusted well enough was a wild adventure of its own that i didn’t really feel the magnitude of until we parted ways/ people have been telling me my life sounds like a movie and I LOVE IT First stop- Pittsburgh, PA/ we went to a fun acoustic show at this house called the pit-bull palace It was full of stellar musicians, including this inclredible dude Robby Lester who fed us pizza and beer and let us crash at his house! He is a great musician and all around sweet dude who i HIGHLY recommend supporting in any which way you can/ link below is for RobbyS bandcamp there were also pitbulls <3 
luvinz From there we drove thru the worst weather of the entire trip to CHICAGO to stay with my friend’s friends who were also super awesome 
this is my travel buddy who i’ve affectionately nicknamed spooky/ just like mulder/ after two days in chicago we stopped in OMAHA, which i have no pics of and it was dark the entire time we were there then we moved on to COLORADO- stopping in Windsor, Denver and Boulder/ we visited my grandparents in Windsor but i neglected to take pics with them or the delicious ravioli they made us for dinner because i am a JERK but here is a marvelous sunset and a nice shot of Boulder that I kind of like 
Then we took a side trip to SANTA FE, NM simply because we both love it there and it’s the best place i’ve visited so far 
the photo on the left is a terrible shot, but i needed to document my friend’s ARBYS craving because i knew i would have a hard time believing it/ i’m also a JERK/ so here’s a turtle to make up for it he ate it, too!!! it’s okay, i eat rocks and intestines sometimes then we went to the general Vegas area to visit spooky-family and bought some gas and breakfast for dinner at an alien brothel 
crust-mobile And then we took a gorgeous drive across northern Cali 
and landed in ARCATA where we stayed with overwhelmingly awesome, fun and lovely friends of a dear sweet friend of mine there is just so much love here <3 
be_gdata_player
and then we played twat trivia and our team came in DFL 
i blame the dudes for questioning my hymen knowledge and then we made it up to SEATTLE 
this is my face with a huge gigantic wall of colorful gum in seattle my two week of getting to know a stranger/friend within the confines of my car **and anywhere we wanted to take it** ended on VALENTINES day so we decided last minute to get dressed up an go to a vday prom show 
not pictured are the freakin SWEET cowboy boots spooky inherited during family fun time/ you’re just gonna have to trust me- they rock/ i have some seriously awful hat head goin on here so please tell me I’m pretty ;) Thanks. Well, I think that’s it for now. I just closed down a cafe working on this post so I think I’ll just save my solo leg of the journey for another time. This probably wasn’t the kind of trip review you were expecting, or maybe it was? Either way, if you want to hear more I’d be happy to go into details over coffee or a phone/skype thing. I’ll be getting to the farm next week and will probably be a lot easier to get a hold of. Love
I cannot deal with inserting a youtube video right now so please go listen to highway kings by the bouncing souls!!
January 19, 2012; The NYU Psilocybin Cancer Project
It’s a Saturday night, and I’m sitting around watching a lecture. This is not at all related to any of the classes I’m currently taking. BEAT THAT NERDINESS!
Lonely ghosts of crazy people
So, after the exhaust pipe fell off my car on Valentines Day, I was forced to have it repaired, which was horrible news for my wallet, but in effect has left me with a vehicle that’s actually safe to drive >10 miles at once. To celebrate, I drove to Philadelphia this past weekend to visit a friend!
Long solo car rides are perfect opportunities for semi-focused introspection, so I spent most of the trip down there pondering the causes and effects of isolation. Some of the most brilliant, creative individuals in human history have fallen somewhere on the hermit spectrum, so I was thinking about which came first. That’s it. No answer.
This was probably sparked by my own period of social hibernation over the past couple of months. I haven’t been a total shut-in, but definitely prefer to spend my free time obsessively reading, writing, self-reflecting, listening to music and watching The Fabric of the Cosmos on NOVA over and over again :)
Anyway, this topic was totally appropriate for the day, because my friend and I decided to take a tour of Eastern State Penitentiary, where the whole concept of solitary confinement originated!!!
Some pictures:
This was my second time at ESP, but my first tour. I’ve gone to the Terror Behind the Walls haunted house, which is really awesome and highly recommended. My friend told me that they have a rockin’ audio tour narrated by one of my all-tome favorite weirdos, Steve Buscemi <3<3<3 We almost cried when we learned that the audio tour wasn’t available that day, but the actual flesh-and-bone guide was enthusiastic about his job and cute enough to distract my attention. I’ll have to go back again for Steve.
I honestly thought it would be scarier during the day than it was at night with a ton of zombies walking around. As many know, I’m legit afraid of ghosts. Like, I need to sleep with the lights on after seeing a Paranormal Activity commercial.. but even with the spooky, overcast sky, I was more focused on the history behind the building and the experimental rehabilitation institution it was initially designed to be.
Toward the end of the tour, our guide asked the group to think about which we would choose:
a) A relatively sanitary room with an hour of fresh air in a personal yard every day spent in complete isolation. No contact with other people at all, not even prison guards. No music. No speaking. The only book you got to read was the bible.
OR
b) Overcrowded, nasty prison with a common outdoor area and much, much smaller rooms.
I thought about this, and I think I would go with choice a, just because I’m curious. I want to know how long it would take me to go completely crazy. I’ve gone to a few music festivals and developing countries, so I know I could handle overcrowded, unsanitary living conditions.
But even at my most reclusive moments, I’ve still been surrounded by people. I can only imagine the kind of freakiness that begins to unravel when a person is truly shut off from others, and I’m really intrigued by it. I kind of want to try sensory deprivation, as it seems like a safe way to experiment with this without catapulting myself into a place I’ll never come back from.
What would I do if I had nothing but a room and a bible? As I suggested to my friend, probably a lot of meditation and parkour.
Completely unrelated: I went for a 7.5 mile out & back flat run on Weds and was “lapped” by a pudgy dude