let's open up a restaurant in santa fe.
I've been terribly remiss at keeping this current -- it seems that it is difficult to find time to be at a computer when so much is going on. I've been journaling a lot on my bus rides, and I'm excited to have a ton of material to sift through and sculpt into poems. One of my goals for when I move into my Brooklyn writer-haven is to submit another batch of stuff -- and this time I'll be more organized and write down exactly what I'm sending out. When "at the museum" got picked up by Frostwriting, I realized I didn't really remember where else I'd simultaneously submitted. I'm also going to work more on my Miriam Reyes translations and polish a group of about three poems that I can send out.
Anyway, here are some places that I've been since I updated last:
* Santa Fe, NM
-- Stayed with Sarah, a friend from college, who is opening up a coffee shop soon. While half-asleep I suggested a name ("The Green Bean") that she liked, since it's going to be focused on organic food as well as coffee. We also hung out at St. John's College, which I see as a bizarro-Sarah Lawrence because its gender ratio is precisely inverse to SLC (75%/25%) and everyone is required to take the same courses instead of having absolutely no general education requirements. At the same time, we share the conundrum of how to respond to the "what's your major?" question at cocktail parties (and family reunions, and on airplanes, etc). The question requires a quick gauging of whether or not the person is actually interested enough to hear a full explanation of academic ideology or if they're just making conversation.
Traveling from Chapel Hill, NC to Santa Fe, NM took a full 48 hours. Greyhound stopped service to Santa Fe about two weeks ago, so after spending about 46 hours riding south and then west through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, I took the Rail Runner train from Albuquerque to meet Sarah at the station in Santa Fe. I've really gotten into long bus rides. I have felt for my entire life like I haven't had enough time -- and suddenly, I have all the time in the world.
Notably: one of Sarah's friends is a St. John's student who lives in a tent in the mountains to save rent. I think that's fantastic.
At the Greyhound station in Albuquerque, a hobo recognized me as his own kind. I had set down my sleeping bag in order to buy a popsicle, and I noticed a hobo looking at it very closely. On the outside of my sleeping bag, it says that it's good for temperatures down to 40 degrees -- about as warm as it was in Albuquerque at the time. (The temperature drop was sudden, so New Mexicans were panicked. All day walking around Santa Fe, people in stores told me to keep warm.)
Then we had a conversation that went like this:
HOBO: "You keeping warm?"
ME: "I am. Are you?"
HOBO: "Glad to be inside the bus station. You sleeping here tonight too?"
ME: "Nope, taking a bus up to Colorado."
HOBO: "It's even colder up there. You might need to get a new sleeping bag."
To be fair, I hadn't showered for a few days, so I did look a bit more unkempt than usual. According to one friend, being taken as a hobo is proof that I'm traveling right.
* Colorado Springs, CO
Went to stay with Alysse, who was two years ahead of me at Renaissance HS and who I hadn't seen in six years. She's been married for five of those, and so I also got to meet her husband Austin, who is about to get out of the army. He showed me around the army base and took me as close as we could get to Norad. The three of us also spent a day going to Bishop Castle, which is a really amazing place. Essentially, a man named Jim Bishop decided he wanted to build a castle by himself, and then he did -- despite not having a background in architecture or anything like that. The castle itself is beautifully strange. If I ever work for a fashion magazine, I will do a shoot there involving couture gowns. Jim Bishop is a strange character also -- he continually posts signs about how we should wake up, stop trusting the government, and recognize that 9/11 was an inside job. We overheard some excellent rants from him.
* Denver, CO
Went to meet Diane, a friend of my mom's. I learned a lot about Denver public schools and met one of the students that she counseled at the high school. This girl lives by herself, and recently had a baby and transferred to a special school for teen mothers that has day care at the school as well as lots of classes pertaining to motherhood and child development. She realized after having her baby that wants to become a nurse, and has a plan to take college classes once her daughter is in kindergarten. It's hard for me to imagine having a baby at 16 -- there's already so much to do in high school and college -- so it's impressive to me that she's still going for what she wants and not letting the system get her down. I also spent a lot of time playing with Diane's two adopted dogs, who are super full of love. In talking to Diane I realized that pet-sitting and dog-walking might be a good option for me to pursue in New York. We also took a trip up to Red Rocks Amphitheatre, which is a natural stage with fantastic acoustics up in the mountains.
To be continued.
Anyway, here are some places that I've been since I updated last:
* Santa Fe, NM
-- Stayed with Sarah, a friend from college, who is opening up a coffee shop soon. While half-asleep I suggested a name ("The Green Bean") that she liked, since it's going to be focused on organic food as well as coffee. We also hung out at St. John's College, which I see as a bizarro-Sarah Lawrence because its gender ratio is precisely inverse to SLC (75%/25%) and everyone is required to take the same courses instead of having absolutely no general education requirements. At the same time, we share the conundrum of how to respond to the "what's your major?" question at cocktail parties (and family reunions, and on airplanes, etc). The question requires a quick gauging of whether or not the person is actually interested enough to hear a full explanation of academic ideology or if they're just making conversation.
Traveling from Chapel Hill, NC to Santa Fe, NM took a full 48 hours. Greyhound stopped service to Santa Fe about two weeks ago, so after spending about 46 hours riding south and then west through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, I took the Rail Runner train from Albuquerque to meet Sarah at the station in Santa Fe. I've really gotten into long bus rides. I have felt for my entire life like I haven't had enough time -- and suddenly, I have all the time in the world.
Notably: one of Sarah's friends is a St. John's student who lives in a tent in the mountains to save rent. I think that's fantastic.
At the Greyhound station in Albuquerque, a hobo recognized me as his own kind. I had set down my sleeping bag in order to buy a popsicle, and I noticed a hobo looking at it very closely. On the outside of my sleeping bag, it says that it's good for temperatures down to 40 degrees -- about as warm as it was in Albuquerque at the time. (The temperature drop was sudden, so New Mexicans were panicked. All day walking around Santa Fe, people in stores told me to keep warm.)
Then we had a conversation that went like this:
HOBO: "You keeping warm?"
ME: "I am. Are you?"
HOBO: "Glad to be inside the bus station. You sleeping here tonight too?"
ME: "Nope, taking a bus up to Colorado."
HOBO: "It's even colder up there. You might need to get a new sleeping bag."
To be fair, I hadn't showered for a few days, so I did look a bit more unkempt than usual. According to one friend, being taken as a hobo is proof that I'm traveling right.
* Colorado Springs, CO
Went to stay with Alysse, who was two years ahead of me at Renaissance HS and who I hadn't seen in six years. She's been married for five of those, and so I also got to meet her husband Austin, who is about to get out of the army. He showed me around the army base and took me as close as we could get to Norad. The three of us also spent a day going to Bishop Castle, which is a really amazing place. Essentially, a man named Jim Bishop decided he wanted to build a castle by himself, and then he did -- despite not having a background in architecture or anything like that. The castle itself is beautifully strange. If I ever work for a fashion magazine, I will do a shoot there involving couture gowns. Jim Bishop is a strange character also -- he continually posts signs about how we should wake up, stop trusting the government, and recognize that 9/11 was an inside job. We overheard some excellent rants from him.
* Denver, CO
Went to meet Diane, a friend of my mom's. I learned a lot about Denver public schools and met one of the students that she counseled at the high school. This girl lives by herself, and recently had a baby and transferred to a special school for teen mothers that has day care at the school as well as lots of classes pertaining to motherhood and child development. She realized after having her baby that wants to become a nurse, and has a plan to take college classes once her daughter is in kindergarten. It's hard for me to imagine having a baby at 16 -- there's already so much to do in high school and college -- so it's impressive to me that she's still going for what she wants and not letting the system get her down. I also spent a lot of time playing with Diane's two adopted dogs, who are super full of love. In talking to Diane I realized that pet-sitting and dog-walking might be a good option for me to pursue in New York. We also took a trip up to Red Rocks Amphitheatre, which is a natural stage with fantastic acoustics up in the mountains.
To be continued.