caught on film

matt just sent me evidence that clearly shows us being rocked at this concert. see me? top row, second picture from the left. asian honeys in front. i'm wearing a beater, beat red, clearly rocking out. that's matt and his sister louise in front of me. yeah, i know i called fifteen-year-olds "honeys". you should be used to me anyway. seattle's fine. sort of a functioning madness. so it goes. peace, i gotta write my thesis. it's due tomorrow, then i promise i'll get better stories and write down the ones i have and i'll be a better friend to you.

phil

timmy

I started emptying the scraps of paper out of my bag left over from vacation, cause there were a few people from the northwest i wanna get in touch with. i look at most of the names and think "aw, i remember this one. we sure had fun. i should write more emails." but there's two names in there written on the back of a crêperie i never went to (so it could be literally any crêperie) and i don't recognize either of them. but one of them lists a website, and it turns out he's a musician in seattle. cool, right? i almost wrote him until i found his photos page. you should check it out yourself, because it contains the sissiest image ever recorded by man. top-left, take a look. yes, that's a rainbow on his cheek, and you're right, it is streaked with tears. i seriously don't recognize this guy, and i don't know what i was doing hanging out with such a total pussy.

oh

right, i forgot the original reason i wanted to write a post. i got a new email address: phillipao@gmail.com. this should work no matter whether i'm going to school or working or giving up both to go screwing around in south america.

arienne and sara

photos

holy shit i just found out all the photos i wanted from granada and toledo were already on my computer. i just couldn't see them before. pictures are so important to remembering experiences, and i feel like i've just recovered one of the best weeks of my life. there's one of me posing with a pair of quebecoise. lemme see if i can make blogger put it up. ok, it's up. you should see it below this post. nice, eh? they're very pretty, as well as intelligent, independent, and open-minded. and we got to hang out for one night in granada. you can just sense that some people are good for you. and you can't stop to think about what great friends you could have been if only you had more than just one night because there are too many people, and if you're moving fast enough to see good ones like this, you're moving too fast to keep them around and i think that's the hardest part about traveling. the hardest part is opening yourself up to one person after another and having to leave them all, and there's no question of whether you'll see them again because you won't, so you don't say anything about how the situation makes you feel because we all know how poor we are in time. if someone brings it up, it just hangs in the air and makes everyone uncomfortable, because we were trying not to think about it so you do the only polite thing and take a picture and you all smile how you want to be remembered, not how you feel at the time because all you feel is rushed and sad but you can tell how we feel anyway. it's in the existence of the picture, not in its content. it's how late we were and how we were running to the bus station already, and how we totally forgot or ignored all that when we saw them sitting here and threw off our packs and took a picture.

there was a nice group of us in barcelona that had to break up because ilonka and june had to go home to holland, and ollie and i walked them to their bus stop and helped them carry their bags, and they really wanted mcdonalds before they left, and ollie bitched about it to no end (for good reason) and he was extra bitter-sounding because he's british. and ilonka told him he was going to miss them, and of course he denied it and she said "if you weren't going to miss us, then why walk us to the bus stop and eat shitty food with us instead of getting decent food and going to the beach?" and ollie couldn't say anything he just got a sheepish look on his face and that's how we all knew he was going to miss them.

sorry if you wanted to say goodbye to me and i didn't give you the chance. please don't take offense. i've just had to say a few too many goodbyes lately.

fuck the south

read fuckthesouth.com and come back when you finish. i'll give you a minute.

ok, what did you think? tell me if you get the chance, but here's my reaction. this guy really got me mad.

i'd ignore the site entirely if this wasn't exactly the kind of attitude i get from suburban chicago kids who pass blanket judgments on everyone south of I-80. george bush is aesthetically a texan, but his politics are northeastern old money. the faceless multinational nasties, war-mongering carpetbaggers, and blissfully unaware consumers who support them from the safety of their SUVs are mostly concentrated in the northeast (and chicago). (and california). my point is this: no, i don't think you can blame religious conservatives in the red states for "what's wrong with this country." the american animal is way more complex than that.

you know what i like about the america i see today? i like that it's becoming latin. and it's happening independently from and in some cases in spite of what's going on in the national consciousness. i like that we helped make mexicans so poor, and they're responding by showing up on our doorstep.

i'm self-conscious to post something that makes it obvious what i've been reading and who i've been speaking to, but here it is and it's honest.

northwest siiide

i'm out here now. seattle. my weeklong tour of the country was great. spent a final two days with matt and ben (my champaign boys) and roy and andy (my chicago boys) and christine (my girl, through it all) in chicago. matt and i met up with his little sister louise and spent four days in san diego. hell of a town. we almost went to mexico for a night, but that's fine, because by god i'm going next year and who knows for how long. louise is a nice girl, less crazy than her stupid brother but just as fun and definitely better looking in a bikini. i got one night with jessica and bonk in LA and was made to realize that the more i travel (or is it simply the more i experience?), the more important old friends become. and now i'm here. rental car, temporary apartment, one week until work starts. i'll keep living out of a backpack for as long as it takes, but the big bed is mine for a month. i have my own kitchen. closets. free internet, laundry. i haven't been this alone in nearly four months. tomorrow is the fourth of july. i'll probably check into the hostel down the street and make some friends to drink and blow shit up with. have you ever seen a truer sign of addiction to human contact? something about it isn't right. maybe something about avoiding myself. some sort of insecurity maybe, maybe the same thing that makes me dislike sleeping alone. on the other hand, i'm happy for the opportunity to get some writing done finally.