soc like a butterfly, run like a car leaving a schoolyard newly made -cum-graveyard
wow, that was a horribly awkward subject. well, i'll get there eventually and it'll make sense, even though the "joke" will still suck.
today i spent forever on my blog (as you already noticed), such that i lost a lot of necessary sleep. stupid me. then i went to Strawberry Fields, which of course you knew is the John Lennon tribute in central park. unfortunately, it's just a mosaic reading "Imagine" and it's basically always surrounded by people waiting to take pictures of it. central park is beautiful, though. i also went to the dakota building (obviously), but i wasn't sure if i was even at the right place, and i just basically left.
i would have stuck around, but i couldn't, cos i really had to get to 733 11th Ave (between 51st and 52nd) so i could go see today's taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. i really need to go to sleep, so this description is very abbreviated. the set is very small, the sounds are very loud, and everything went very quickly. we (two just-finished burkina pcvs and i) discussed afterwards whether or not jon was too hard on mccain, since he focused only on that and had no jokes about Obama. i think his job is to focus on the most ridiculous thing he can find, and that's obviously mccain. besides, the daily show shouldn't ignore mccain's excesses just because every other network does.
by the way, rachel maddow (mad-oh) has a new show on pmsnbc (don't blame me for that; katie couric said it on dave about a week after the network was created, and it's been in my head since then). that makes a grand total of two liberal shows on tv: hers and olbermann's. in case you have trouble telling which ones are liberal, they're the ones that say they are. that's because being liberal is good, so people are proud of it, and they'll talk about it. if they don't say they're liberal but you still think it, that's because you're not thinking clearly.
after the show we had a beer. i like beer. then hotdogs, which i also like. they went somewhere else (which was fine, cos they were spending more time catching up with each other than including me in the conversation), and i walked from W 4th to E 58th. i talked to chris for most of the walk, which was great.
i wanted food, but not pizza (at that point in the day, i'd eaten three slices of pizza, a nectarine, and five hot dogs), so i wandered around to find something cheap. no go. so i got more pizza, which turned out to be really good. the minute i walked in, the guy working commented on the barcelona fc jersey that i was wearing, cos he was from barca. the guy really really really liked to talk, but he was nice. i also talked to the nice czech girl working (yeeva, although i probably brutalized the spelling there) and the nice new yorker who's only here for another month cos he's joining the army. i told him to take care of himself, and he correctly said it's in God's hands. i hope he makes it okay.
before pizza, i bought from soy milk. a guy working at the grocery store recognized my jersey right away, too (er, first). his accent suggested that he was african, so i pointed out that the guy on the jersey is #9, eto'o (e-TOE), who is phenomenally popular in west africa due to his being from cameroon. (the other hugely popular african player in a european league is drogba, from cote d'ivoire.) i got that particular number because every other guy in africa was wearing that exact jersey. i told that to the guy in the store, and he asked where i'd gone. i said burkina faso and he flipped out. apparently he's from ouaga. i told him truthfully that i really like ouaga and that the burkinabe people are the nicest in the world. he was *so* happy to talk to someone who knew even a little about his home---so SO happy. i asked if he spoke moore, and the flipped out even more. it was endearing and hilarious.
when i was in central park today i correctly identified four african men (as opposed to black american men). they were bike-rickshaw drivers. first they honked their horn in that oh-so-african way, then they kept doing it. then they rode very slowly and very much in a group (this is when i made the call). then they started talking in a language i didn't recognize. then they got to an intersection and stopped together and hung out. then later one of them shook hands with someone else and after the handshake he touched his hand to his heart. this is a traditional, very normal sign of respect for most handshakes in western africa (although i like the snap better...and i might have seen one of those, too, but i'm not sure), so that was the clincher. i felt pretty cool to have called it so easily and early.
when i was in line i talked with some kids (i.e. mid twenties) who'd come down from connecticut for the taping. i do this sort of thing a lot. chrissy noticed it, and she dubbed me a "hit-and-run social butterfly." that's a pretty good description of me, though more violent than i normally like to talk about myself. what do y'all think of that one?
while i'm thinking of it, the germans have apparently never heard any dead baby jokes. this is judging by the fact that my last host had never heard of them. which brings me to the funniest joke i've heard on this trip, supplied by mr. david duckworth (burkina brand-new pcv). what's the difference between a ferrarri and a pile of dead babies? i don't have a ferrarri in my garage.
and speaking of cultural differences where the other group is really messed up, did you know that in minnesota the kids play a game called "duck, duck, grey duck"? how totally fucked up is that? next time you meet a minesotan, ask them about this---then tease them brutally, cos they deserve it.
today i spent forever on my blog (as you already noticed), such that i lost a lot of necessary sleep. stupid me. then i went to Strawberry Fields, which of course you knew is the John Lennon tribute in central park. unfortunately, it's just a mosaic reading "Imagine" and it's basically always surrounded by people waiting to take pictures of it. central park is beautiful, though. i also went to the dakota building (obviously), but i wasn't sure if i was even at the right place, and i just basically left.
i would have stuck around, but i couldn't, cos i really had to get to 733 11th Ave (between 51st and 52nd) so i could go see today's taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. i really need to go to sleep, so this description is very abbreviated. the set is very small, the sounds are very loud, and everything went very quickly. we (two just-finished burkina pcvs and i) discussed afterwards whether or not jon was too hard on mccain, since he focused only on that and had no jokes about Obama. i think his job is to focus on the most ridiculous thing he can find, and that's obviously mccain. besides, the daily show shouldn't ignore mccain's excesses just because every other network does.
by the way, rachel maddow (mad-oh) has a new show on pmsnbc (don't blame me for that; katie couric said it on dave about a week after the network was created, and it's been in my head since then). that makes a grand total of two liberal shows on tv: hers and olbermann's. in case you have trouble telling which ones are liberal, they're the ones that say they are. that's because being liberal is good, so people are proud of it, and they'll talk about it. if they don't say they're liberal but you still think it, that's because you're not thinking clearly.
after the show we had a beer. i like beer. then hotdogs, which i also like. they went somewhere else (which was fine, cos they were spending more time catching up with each other than including me in the conversation), and i walked from W 4th to E 58th. i talked to chris for most of the walk, which was great.
i wanted food, but not pizza (at that point in the day, i'd eaten three slices of pizza, a nectarine, and five hot dogs), so i wandered around to find something cheap. no go. so i got more pizza, which turned out to be really good. the minute i walked in, the guy working commented on the barcelona fc jersey that i was wearing, cos he was from barca. the guy really really really liked to talk, but he was nice. i also talked to the nice czech girl working (yeeva, although i probably brutalized the spelling there) and the nice new yorker who's only here for another month cos he's joining the army. i told him to take care of himself, and he correctly said it's in God's hands. i hope he makes it okay.
before pizza, i bought from soy milk. a guy working at the grocery store recognized my jersey right away, too (er, first). his accent suggested that he was african, so i pointed out that the guy on the jersey is #9, eto'o (e-TOE), who is phenomenally popular in west africa due to his being from cameroon. (the other hugely popular african player in a european league is drogba, from cote d'ivoire.) i got that particular number because every other guy in africa was wearing that exact jersey. i told that to the guy in the store, and he asked where i'd gone. i said burkina faso and he flipped out. apparently he's from ouaga. i told him truthfully that i really like ouaga and that the burkinabe people are the nicest in the world. he was *so* happy to talk to someone who knew even a little about his home---so SO happy. i asked if he spoke moore, and the flipped out even more. it was endearing and hilarious.
when i was in central park today i correctly identified four african men (as opposed to black american men). they were bike-rickshaw drivers. first they honked their horn in that oh-so-african way, then they kept doing it. then they rode very slowly and very much in a group (this is when i made the call). then they started talking in a language i didn't recognize. then they got to an intersection and stopped together and hung out. then later one of them shook hands with someone else and after the handshake he touched his hand to his heart. this is a traditional, very normal sign of respect for most handshakes in western africa (although i like the snap better...and i might have seen one of those, too, but i'm not sure), so that was the clincher. i felt pretty cool to have called it so easily and early.
when i was in line i talked with some kids (i.e. mid twenties) who'd come down from connecticut for the taping. i do this sort of thing a lot. chrissy noticed it, and she dubbed me a "hit-and-run social butterfly." that's a pretty good description of me, though more violent than i normally like to talk about myself. what do y'all think of that one?
while i'm thinking of it, the germans have apparently never heard any dead baby jokes. this is judging by the fact that my last host had never heard of them. which brings me to the funniest joke i've heard on this trip, supplied by mr. david duckworth (burkina brand-new pcv). what's the difference between a ferrarri and a pile of dead babies? i don't have a ferrarri in my garage.
and speaking of cultural differences where the other group is really messed up, did you know that in minnesota the kids play a game called "duck, duck, grey duck"? how totally fucked up is that? next time you meet a minesotan, ask them about this---then tease them brutally, cos they deserve it.