Nadia's last night

last night (this was originally written last Saturday), Chantal, Nadia (Chantal's visiting Friend from Oxford), and I went to the Empire State Building,
which has both beautiful hallways
and leathal weapons disguised as tickets. (Mine sliced my finger).
There are apparently two viewing levels 86th (16$) and 102nd (30$)... and as we are all college students and can do math, 14$ for 16 levels is a bit steep when you probably have an almost identical view.

And what a view... we had come just as night had gotten dark (circa 6) and the skyline was as gorgeous as the westside was frozen.

(The Chrystler building, apparently referred to as a SHE whereas the Empire State Building is referred to as a HE according to Chantal)


(Three other landmark buildings, the two closest are near/on Madison Square Park (NOT GARDENS) and the furthest is in Union Square.)
(the green is looking up the spire of the Empire state building from the 86th floor observation deck)
(Us three)

(a view west towards Pennsylvania Station/Madison Square GARDENS {the dark drum shaped building near the center of the photo, and Macy's on 34th street with the christmas tree lights decorating the exterior {bottom right})
(a view northwards towards the GE buiding (blue) central park (the large darkened rectangle seen behind and on either side of the GE building) You can also see the Bronx (most of the lights towards the top) Queens (those towards the far upper right) and Harlem (the bright straight avenues right above central park))


Double take as we leave the observation deck.

The Empire State building from a few blocks south

Subway entrance hit by a vehicle.


ANGEL BUM!


In Union Square we got to play with the snowflake lights... they react to your movement, if you step on them they run away or swarm you. There is also a mode that allows you to play soccer with the lights... or snowflake hockey if you'd rather. It was alot of fun and I felt like a little kid... :-)


After these pictures, I ran uptown on the subway to go to an art show sponsored by the archdiocese (free wine and food... very good ;-) ) stayed there for like 30 minutes and ran back down... now I mean I RAN... so round trip it took about 1hour 20 mins... when I got back we watched the Tenacious D movie... which wasn't horrible, but could have been much better.

Edification

There is little more edifying, than having attractive women find you attractive. Easiest example: I was just approached in a diner (I'm currently eating my after-mass breakfast at 233pm) by a beautiful woman and told I'm cute.

Also, I've had some sketchy internet lately, so I've not been able to upload pictures... I hope to find a good connexion in a few minutes and upload a blog...

Every year

Every year I grow older, I wonder what the hell is happening?
Part of every year seems to be much harder than the last, every year more tiring and painful than the last. I don't know what the deal is. Every year I feel like I can't be broken anymore without dying.
And this year has been no exception. I've never felt so abandoned, so homeless, so unable to even do menial tasks.
There are so many things happening right now I don't know how to deal. I'm all alone in a city of 8 million. With the occasional guest star I use as a distraction.

I'm empty and being emptied more. A desert being sucked even more dry.

I just need someone here. But everyone is gone or going. I need a motherly embrace, a friendly caress as I let go. But I have no one to turn to.

I wonder how long this loneliness will last.

First day of snow

Today at 1020ish, I saw my first NYC snow... It was light and didn't last more than a few mins, but I'm hopeful for the rest of the day. I'm not really sure why, but the first day of snow brings hope. Brings the reminder that the world is brand new each day, and though you still have the struggles and pains of yesterday, it'll all be okay. And just maybe the answer to your hope is around the corner.

Dr. update...

So I had my monthly check up Friday... and after four hours I was finally done... Three hours of waiting and an hour appointment. Where I had blood drawn, and an x-ray scheduled for Tuesday... (I've been more congested and a few other minor issues).

So that's another joy in my life right now (sarcasm). Amongst other things like papers, classwork, living in hostels and other confusing things I'm not handling as well as I'd like.


Gah.

blogacklog

so i just went through several months of pictures sorting them out and deciding which to post... so now I've narrowed it down to 47 contenders... and will over the next few days decide how to post them... current idea is to make a few "history" posts and one "beauty" post.

But... not doing either tonight :-)

back to multimedia!

so here is my first drawing on my computer... using the tablet feature and a sketch software, this was a quick one, (i.e., a few minutes) of me trying to fig the thing out and I think I like it!

Drunk eyes

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 18:10:20 -0500
So I'm walking around manhattan drunkenly, not because I've had alcohol, but because I just switched from wearing glasses to wearing my contacts. I had been wearing glasses for the last month or so because my contacts had been lost in the mess that's my friend's room. But today I decided to try once more to find them to great avail.
I never realised that glasses distort your vision so much that your eyes have to get used to them.. Anyhow as I'm crossing countless streets on my way to mass, I should probably be more observant.

Crazy computer crud

so I just spent the best part of the day rearranging my purchase, calling the company, and having them call me and I think it's finally over...

In the end of it all, I got a worse warranty than the one that really sold me on the purchase because the one that was really good turned out to be a website error, then that warranty was upgraded due to the fact the worse warranty didn't exist either... but only marginally upgraded and i didn't have to pay the difference in cost, well i did, but I'm getting refunded. yeah that was complex now wasn't it... and trust me the phone calls were even more so. That was the simplified version.

I spent a few hours today calling or waiting on the phone to talk to one of the representatives of the sales or credit department. And I even had my grandma call the company. (Which by the way helped quite a bit).

And now... due to it all my comp may not arrive until monday, because of all the delays, and I paid for 2nd day... because it was supposed to arrive on saturday at the latest...

GARRRgh
Tigerdirect.com is the company.
they have really cheap prices, and good reasons for what they do, but too much bureaucracy and too many mistakes! (they are usually rather good, but I've had a few other minor probs with them.)

Newegg.com is by far a smoother experience.

Computer YAY!

I just bought a tablet PC which I should be receiving in 2 days... YAY! The greatest thing about it is that I now have enough frequent flier miles to get FREE FIRST CLASS upgrades on all my domestic flights! And I'll be blogging with picutures more often! And I can handle classwork easier (the most important reason and only reason I really bought it).

Endings

sometimes when you're defeated, the most courageous thing to do is shrug, admit it and walk away.

And sometimes I wish I was courageous.

I miss kolkata

11/8/06
229pm
Confessors...
Its so unsatisfying/painful to go to a bad confessor. The cold business like manner, the standard penance, the "how about a blessing instead". When all you really want is the comfort of the Son of God... His wounded side, torn back, bloodied brow. The compassion that calls the world's a bluff.

How will the world ever be converted without holy priests... Those lovely men called to be in persona Christi?

I'm often selfish in my prayers, not in that I pray for myself, but in that I don't pray nearly as much for others, especially those in most need of my prayers... The leaders of the Church (priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, the pope, etc.) and the obvious faces of our Church (religious).

In the meantime I'm going to look for a nice holy confessor, not just convienient ones.
238pm

New york rudeness

So people think nyc is rude, unfriendly and cold, but they're far wrong. Nyc is perhaps the singly most polite city ever I've lived. Countless times a day people say excuse me to me, sans sarcasim and with genuine apology. Despite the constant rush and mass of people, and popular acceptance that bumps in crowds happen, people genuinely try there best to be polite.

The nyc of my generation is a new beast, much more cuddly, though noticably bigger and fastly turning into a non-native city, a foreign born first generation cute and cuddly american monster.

Tb update

Apparently my tb is in remission due to the drugs... I'm in the drs now and just had my follow up xray... Now waiting on word about what drugs and for how long I must continue them.

The cold arrived earlier this week.

The cold arrived earlier this week,
10/25/06 1207pm
filling the vacant seats occupied by southerly winds last. Next week will bring spring weather I'm sure.

This city is change as much as a thought unchecked.

Everyday I find myself anew.

Yesterday I held back 62 years of tears, as I stood beholding the child's faces of war weary british soldiers. They came unintentionally to rescue me, but instead they beautifully cried. They gave us food, tents that would cook anything you want. All I wanted for two weeks was boiled potato. They setup tents of doctors, but aside from my sand papery throat my only ailment was emotions I can't understand streamming from my eyes. And that only lasted for a few weeks. This tattoo I'll will hold one day as a badge of remembrance, a chance to tell two kids in a falafel shop about the place where my parents, and my brother and my sister and my brother and my sister and my brother and my sister all died leaving only two sisters of a family of ten alive. One day it will be my duty to tell of auschwitz. But today the beautiful faces of crying soldiers touches me.

A month ago I was a young travelling catholic trying to discern. Following prayers and hopes, not committing for fear I hadn't heard His voice yet. Not knowing if this is where I was supposed to be or if I was to fly off to lousiana, california, india, france or ireland. Now I sit on the third floor of a hostel typing by hallway light knowing this is okay. Knowing that God is taking from me the comfort of home. That I might understand homelessness. That I might be comfortable in it. I'm 26 and now homeless, smiling that God has been so gracious to let me be. A month and a half ago I saw death. I saw the living spectre trying to devour masses of people. Masses of forgotten street, bridge and station trash suffering fatal wounds. Smelling of dead flesh rotting, of unrine and shit in their pants or wrapping come clothes... Seeing old faces beaten by time, uncared for except by four or five passing strangers... I never had a home never seen a bed or felt sheets. I haven't eaten fresh food in years. Trash is my staple as much as insult and abuse. My friend was beaten by the police to death, he was blind and couldn't move when they told him to. They smile when they claim his death 'yeah I did that'. I'm just an old man of 60 knowing that i'm deserve to be treated just once as a human before I die. I'm the 25 year old hispanic drawn to India, and thrown into doing a job I fear, a job that I can't do... I cant ... I'm not worthy, they deserve someone holy, someone loving, a doctor a nurse, but God's sake let me do the laundry... That all I'm good for... Trust me. I'm the 25 year old who noticed this man, fragile, weak, smelling of shit and maggots... I'm the unsure man who asks some friends what to do. Mother's house... I'm the confused boy washing a man twice my senior as a smile of dignity beams forth from a sandpapered face. I'm the confused boy who doesn't know what to do as he starts dying with joy on his face, following orders from those wiser. I'm the man haunted by the beauty of a human dignified enough to die in a bed with cotton sheets, but tenacious enough not to die on a rail platform.

Tonight I slam some in a poetry club in nyc. My words speak of my youth and my now, the guns, thugs and pains of growing up in the wrong part of Brooklyn. I'm black but would it matter if I was brown? We live in the same place. What if I was the white mother of a biracial child. Broken with the stares, insults and burdens of loving a black man . I grew up in the hood, I had a bad life, so what? I spin my words into songs of hope and stories of love. Touch my face, I couldn't be more real. Hear my voice let it bring you to my world. My story rivets both my own body and the coffins of my past.

This is how I live. Moment by moment, shelter by shelter, story by story in the city that begs at her door "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
108am

Beauty, oddity, and real life rabble-rousing in NYC and DC

So NYC is definately fun, most sundays I get to see several cast members from SNL, Conan, and other TV comedy shows for free doing improv at the Upright citizens brigade (second awning in the picture).Every sunday we arrive circa 7-715 with hopes of getting actual "tickets" but generally resigning ourselves to stand by... both are free, but getting tickets when the line is long is risky, it means that you might get a really bad position in the stand by if you don't get tickets... though almost everyone in the stand by gets in (I don't know of anyone being turned away). The only draw back of standby is that you have to sit inline for 2-3 hours and can't leave (we actually do send out some scouting and foraging parties to grab grub for us all).

This is the stage of the UCB theatre... (it's flush with ground level) I usually end up sitting on the ground right on it... instead of a chair (better view as the chairs left over when standby gets in are not primo.)
This is Rosh and Chantal at central park... for a while when the weather was good we'd go to central park and claim to study between classes... if you were in such beauty would you really study?
I found this funny... it's the ice cream machine in the dorms... "hmm... which ice cream do I want???" "Ice cream sandwich, chocolate eclair, White castle burgers, candy center crunch, creamsicle, reese's bar, klondike?? Definately White castle"
This is Chantal... She asked for it... really really she did... no lie, ask her!
There was a festival in little italy a bit back that we went to... it was cute and had a really impressive opera singer, but was basically food stands... nice lights though!
This is the girls on the bus as we headed down to DC... we missed the first bus at 6pm and ended up taking teh 7pm... but that gave us time to find some chinese food in china town, nyc... as the bus was a china town to china town express. the ride was fun and filled with nutella, gatorade and other fun things like the toilet door behind chantal openning constantly and belching it's hideous stench into our polite conversations.

When we finally arrived in DC, Chantal and Rosh were attacked by a rather large puppy demanding that we adopt a pet.
This was outside Union Station in DC... I really like the bird in midflight.
This was inside. I really liked the light falling in.
This is the Capitol... we couldn't figure out how to go in, and the Brits really didn't want to... they apparently aren't at all interested in American Government... I don't blame them. The majority of Europeans I know really really really dislike Bush. And that also seems to go for New Yorkers.
This is Rosh, Reflecting at the reflecting pool outside the Capitol.
This is chantal getting wacked in the face by the map during a sustained gust of wind.
That's hetti hiding from the Capitol police... chickens are good at camoflage.
We decided while walking through one of the sculpture gardens to walk into a sculpture... and rosh came up with the idea for this fun shot...
We met a squirel during our lunch outside of an art museum that loved chocolate chip cookies from subway... but he couldn't hold his cookie... after eating a little bit he ended up running around and did a 360 spin in the air... too much sugar...
this is me in the Hirshorn... I love this shot... and Hetti had to get in it as well, but she was cooler than I and only is showing a leg.
This was in the Hirshorn and was a bit trippy... I don't know if I like it enough to want it in my house or if it makes me sick at all... but I what was I saying? I was confused by the colours...
Chantal decided to squash the washington monument...
Hetti decided to eat it...
And rosh won the coolnes competition by making it come out of her mouth.
Hetti also learned how to fly on the trip.


And then I went somewhere I hadn't been in over 20 years... the vietnam memorial.

I'm pretty sure I found my grandfather's name... but oddly when I went there I realised I didn't know his whole name... only that I'm Edward the second, Manuel the third, and Alonzo the nth... odd how something so common for most families to know is lost in families that struggled. I'm pretty sure it was Alonzo, Manuel Bustos from San Antonio, TX... If I would have had his death letter with me still I would have been able to corroborate his Unit affiliation also... but I think I have the copy in Iowa still... not sure.



We managed to hit almost all of the major monuments... and got to see the needle at dusk... it was beautiful.
AndI'm a freak.
This was a pretty shot from when we walked around the tidal basin...
(Jefferson memorial)
we also got aquainted with the DC metro system... it's a bit complicated compared to NYC where you pay only one fare for how ever long your ride is. In DC you have to figure out how far you are going, station to station, then where you want to return to, then add it up and put that much money on your card... sounds easy... except when you enter a station, it's really hard to figure out where you are going exactly (being new to the city), and then trying to find the station location on a rather impressively large board of names, do math and then figure out how to pay is a bit taxing... luckily the metro workers were nice and helped out.
the first night (friday night) we went to the Georgetown area after hearing from a DC cop (who was from Russia via a stint in NYC) that there was food to be had in Georgetown... so we caught the subway and hoofed it over... noticing all the college students dressed up to go clubbing. We ended up walking trying to decide what to eat, when we finally decided on this american-mexican restaurant (I don't even want to call the food it served tex mex...) I went online on my Cellphone and found out about a cool rooftop after getting a review about it... so when we entered, we were about to be placed downstairs, when I asked for the roof top (not knowing exactly what that was) and promptly being rewarded with this cute little roof top area in nice cool weather. The food was on the better side of okay, the service was okay, but it was a nice place to chill. Towards the end of our meal, the downstairs was flooded with a sorrority party... and girlish screams could be heard everywhere... sometimes I'm really happy I've never dated a sorrority girl... I think I'd want to kill myself if she behaved like that around me.

my cellphone came in handy again the next day in discovering another cool place... this beautiful park...



we stumbled across it as we were trying to find a place to eat the ice cream we bought (I'm quite notorious for eating at least one or three servings of icecream a day!)... Earlier in the day we had eaten at a rather tastey new orleans cafe and found an incredibly cool area of dc (the name of which escapes me right now). After sitting in the park, eating ice cream and studying abit, we headed out, but decided to head back as my cellphone/pda once again saved the day and directed us to a series of jazz clubs in the area (louie armstrong used to play near this park) where we were directed to a really cool bring your own beer, food, etc. club that had an incredible atmosphere, good music, and a great reason to exist (to propagate jazz and education on Jazz... it was a nonprofit initiative of several groups).... the place had four distinct but continous "zones" the first was when you entered, a few chess tables, the second along the right wall was dinning tables, on the oposing wall was couches facing the stage, then as you went in further, you stepped down a few stairs into the last area which was the club... several small round tables with chairs, dimly lit, as music from sax, piano, bass and drum vibrated the air that surrounded people seemingly suspended in a trance but also seeming so alive that their realness seemed to verify your existence.

Few times in my life felt more like a movie or a dream.

The next day we all slept in again, checked out and headed downtown where we meandered abit, was unimpressed by the minuteness of the white house and then headed back to NYC.

quick note

so, if you haven't noticed my blog looks different... it crashed... again... so while i'm currently too busy to be bothered with trying to rewrite the code here and there, I'm leaving this canned one up... enjoy. also it's been almost a month since I last posted! I'll definately get on to that soon...

Brooklyn bridge

9/25/06
535pm (i should be in class, but instead I'm on my way, taking the subway)

Have you ever entered a place and realised that the employees genuinely want you there, more than any of their other customers? I just had this odd experience and then found out both of them were texans, one having grown up in brownsville, the other living and frequenting the same bars I did in austin.

Crazy, random, new york.
540p

capital break

9/24/06
655p
This weekend was fantastic, I spent it withtwo beautifu brits in our nation's capital. We realised early last week that we had a three day weekend, and decided to do a random road trip. It was great fun, from cheking out the public mnuments to viewing a smithsonian modern art gallery to walking along the potomac under the stars and planes flying low overhead. We also had chances to walk though more industrial ghetto areas (our hotel was in one) figure out the public transport system, visit georgetown in search of good eats (the alamo grill? Is okay, and mostly worth it, but make sure you ask to sit on the roof) and accidentally run amok in adams morgan.

Adams morgan was perhaps the most fortuitous of our trip, in finding a nice new orleans style restaurant that actually was somewhat akin to cajun and creole food (though not so much that they served ever trendy café du monde coffee instead of the true louisiana staple of community coffee.) and though they asked if we wanted beignets to "complement" our meal (when have beignets ever been a complement to a meal? Aren't they more of a separate snack meal usually served with coffee and chickory?) I forgave them as the food was quite good and rather reasonably priced.

After our dinner we walked around a bit, grabbed some maggie moos ice cream (akin to marble slab and amy's ice cream) and headed to perhaps one of the most incredible parks ever stumbled upon. (pictures will follow when I get to a computer and am not sitting on a bus typing on a pda). It was gorgeous set in a part of town which has still remnants of former wealth, but now mostly an african and hispanic neighbourhood of the lower working class. The site apparently was an alternate location considered for the whitehouse.

It had whispering water steps, grand views, greenery, ponds and other beautiful things that turn studying into a relaxing occupation and one's body a tad satisfied and a great deal lazy.

Later on, I stole away into our enemies bathroom (starbucks) and then regrouped with the girls to review the attack plans for the night and assess the one most likely to lead to success.

We decided to search the historic u street district (which fortunately was a stonesthrow away) for signs of jazz. (Duke ellington and various others played here.) After being turned away from various bars due to minimum ages, and having a bouncer in th very HEART of the district swear there was no jazz around (there were a few next door to his place in fact) we were finally directed to two possibilities that might cater to all ages... The first sounded a bit like they were using sythesizers and also had a steep cover ($15)... So we decided to trek to the last choice which proved a fair distance away. But also proved to be an amazing gem; HR57. The place was all ages, served wine, beer, and dinner and had three distinct, but comingled atmospheres. From the music club, to the social lounge to the chess parlour, the place offered quite a bit in moods and pleasures.
The jazz was fantastic as well, with a pianist that as chantal said "is perhaps the most animated" any of us had ever seen.
And the food by the way was delish... Fried chicken, collard greens, and red beans and rice for $6. Oh how I miss the south sometimes. Chantal being our token veggie friend had to eat some veg lo mein from a nearby store, which she said was quite good.

We also managed to keep our tradition of oversized large cups (aka, the various plastic containers you find in grocery store salad lines) alive and well with the intoduction of a half gallon of oj and a liter of sparkling water from the neighbourhood wholefoods. (we were allowed to bring in our own food and drinks, and alcoholic ones had a $3 per person "corking fee" that tough reasonable coupled with our severely mild interest in drinking quashed any chance of us buying spirits at the store to the south.)

All in all this is a long post, its 737 and I'm on a bus from chinatown to chinatown (dc-nyc) for 35$ roundtrip... My finvgers are tired and my friends need some attention. So au revoir.
741p

gifts added to insult

9/20/06
1258pm
But others made fun of the believers, saying "these people are drunk" ~acts 2:13

Its odd to think of faith as a cross even though Jesus said it would be. He promised us great affliction great struggle and our own crosses.

He promised pain where other faiths promise escape.

If they insult you, remember they did it to me first (paraphrase of some gospel).

Insults. We're to expect them and embrace them as the Fool embraced and kissed His cross.

But how hard it truly is to embrace something our dignity rejects, and that our sense of rights, our feelings of justice finds utterly detestable.

Especially when it comes from the very place He said it would, from the faithful (they will persecute you in my name). Perhaps instinctually one wants to assume that it is only "in name" and not "in reality" that they persecute us in His name, but perhaps our instinct is wrong! Perhaps it is just as he said "in my name", for is it not so that all things come from God?

And that is precisely where the persecution and insults of true believers are clearly seen as gifts, truly great gifts of humiliations.
113pm

what what and what not.

9/20/06
248am
I incessantly tear at newspapers looking for both mischief and a place to sleep the night, week and possibly month.
Maybe weekly rent in questionably safe harlem or unsavoury southern bronx is the way to go? Or perhaps nightly rent in hostels? Either would be cheaper than rent in a traditional and difficultly gained appartment in lower, midtown east, or upper east side manhattan. Which are the places I want to live.

I'm tired of having my life divorced from the people I want to be near. From the people my age, and who know what it's like to be a twenty something, moderately affluent and in new york.

This city is magical, if you have enough money or luck to live in the midst of it all.

I'm too old to not live my life to the fullest, to live life focused on trifles on issues and things so small they hardly dignify a person. And what is money to someone who knows God will always provide?

When you live far away you miss out on the perchance happenings that always seem to require stumbling blindly and unto something magnificent.

I stumbled unto something I didn't expect in the least. Something I actually decided to actively resist. A girl. I have had several women in this city give me the all too long stare of interest coupled with the smirk that advertises availability and interest. Several have tried to talk to me, several have put out what they see as safely ambiguous flirtting that is not ambiguous and thus not truly safe.

But this one found a backdoor. I've not quite figured out which door I left open, but apparently I did leave at least one open. She very very different from who I am now, yet at the same time so similar that I've never felt so cared about, so cherished by anyone i've ever dated. She can't figure it out either, as a similar confusion is about her head.

Yet worst of all she's one of those small islanders that we rebelled against ever so many years ago to gain our obvious deserved independence.

Anyhow this is me signing off from the throne room in jazz on the villa in harlem.
318 am.