rustle onward these thoughtless days
It's been more than two weeks since I was in Albuquerque. It's also been maybe two months that I've been single. I haven't had too much time to reflect on any of those with much schooling to jump back into and the changing of the seasons has started added on to my already taxed system. As of now, I'm fending off a cold and am taking it easy for the weekend, making sure I'm more than on top of the rest of the assignments I need to deal, which are largely memorizing passages and mastering the difference between Russian hard and soft consonant sounds. I'm probably a little bit more miffed than usual since there was supposed to be a brief diversion with a potential new friend, but it would seem that I've been stood up. There have been actually two other instances with this, with different people, and I'm honestly baffled that some of the initial reactions to dealing with this is to be "more understanding and sympathetic" to the other. In an era of constant connectivity, somehow a message stating things might have to be putn off until later due to some circumstance is a bit too much to ask for. I'm also being prodded that if I cease expecting so much out of others (like common courtesy), that I wouldn't be so disappointed. It amuses me in a way that it would seem we're evolving into a culture of making excuses for one another. But enough of that for now; I'm sure my current dissatisfaction with humanity is going to fade once the school week starts again.
So my trip into the Wastelands has been long overdue, about five years as fallenfromashes reminded me. Seeing as things are good deal more stable and I can get more vacation time from a much more agreeable department, my next visit is not nearly going to be as stretched far apart. fallenfromashes picked me up at the airport and we went to fill my gullet with the green chile I've been missing and we had the chance to catch up a bit before I had to meet up with my family, the first time we had all been in the same room in about four years, and then make our way to Truth or Consequences, where my parents are residing for the time being.
While the city itself continues to sprawl, despite lack of water and the economy being as it is, Albuquerque remains otherwise unchanged. The passive aggression that characterizes so much of the Pacific Northwest made way for open hostility of the inhospitable desert, where even with new crosswalks and streetlights, drivers are never to be trusted. My reacquainting myself with Albuquerque began with me wondering whether or not to test a driver in abiding by the crosswalk signs, leading me to racing across the street instead, only to hear a sound, akin to ten cats having their tails stepped on simultaneously, that I'm going to assume was the word "faggot." I didn't have the chance to recolor my hair proper and thus I looked probably the most conservative I think I ever have and during my stay there I had been openly insulted by drivers and passerbys more times than when I had lived there. Bear in mind, I lived there during a time when my dress was much more garish and I openly wore make-up. That sort of thing, however, is still fairly common in Albuquerque. You will see more boys in eyeliner there than you will in Portland and that was interesting to me. The times could just be getting much more conservative. It's bizarre looking back at the '90s as if it were somehow a bazaar of self-expression, because living through it, it certainly didn't feel that way. Even weirder was the sight of hipsterdom and "indie" culture, something you could go to Albuquerque to escape from, but as fallenfromashes said, upon showing me the "Hipster Dinosaurs" drawings floating about on the web, it's either reached a critical mass or that it's on its way out. Driving around with a soundtrack of 200 Belgian choirgirls singing the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under The Bridge" was uncannily suitable.
I'm trying to find a suitable way to describe T or C, the town that was supposed to become the boomtown of the Space Tourism race. The Kids In The Hall have regrouped to do a mini-series about a Canadian town shooting for hosting the Olympics in 2025 or somesuch and the plot of that show eerily mirrors what town has gone through. The folks of T or C are now waking up to realize that they've been swindled, that space tourism ISN'T going to be what it was hyped up to be, and some really shady folks have made their way out with a lot of money taken from the pockets of folks who really don't have any. I don't think it's acceptable to swindle people out those large amounts of money through the changing of taxes and various laws and other questionable methods, but I do think there is something to be said about how those folks should've known better. The town itself is sleepy, utterly devoid of youth, and serving almost like a retirement community where aging hippies and old conservative squares co-exist doing their best to pretend the other side isn't there. Every bar, restuarant, and shop, for whatever reasons, was named after an ocean creature of some kind and an awful lot of seafood restaurants lined the main road.
My parents themselves have not changed so much from the last time I saw them. Considering the arguments I got into with my dad before we decided not to speak with one another, things went amicably but that was largely because I knew not to talk about anything really going on in my life. He never once apologized for broadcasting to an anonymous audience about how embarrassed and ashamed he was to have me as his son but agreed to take me back into Albuquerque without any qualms. That is, perhaps there is some unspoken agreement that I will always be some terrible human being in his eyes. Before leaving, he tucked in my bag a copy of "The ABCs of Economic Crisis: What Working People Should Know." It amused me to find out later when fallenfromashes noticed the book in my bag, that she and her roommate are actually acquainted with one of the authors. The book itself, despite some specific statistics and other stuff related to the specific terms and functions of economics, didn't tell me anything I didn't already know or otherwise anything I wouldn't have agreed with. I still don't know exactly what kind of person my dad assumes I am, but otherwise, things remain relatively unchanged. I've not spoken with him since I've returned and I'm not sure when I will next. Right now, I'm deciding to keep my distance since I'm too far in have things stumble and crash. The last thing I need is to fail a test because I've been stressed out about fighting with my dad over something ridiculous.
Upon returning to Albuquerque, whereupon I spent the duration of my trip with fallenfromashes, we prepared for a weekend's worth of Halloween parties. Needing to exorcise some of my negative feelings towards Portland in a more constructive way, I decided to base my costume this year on something that would satirize what is described to me as the "Portland spirit." Seeing as the infamous Paul Bunyan statue that gets so often manipulated and included in flyers and any advertisement showcasing Portland is actually only a short walk away from my apartment, I took inspiration from it to dress as a lumberjack, a homage to Portland that would have been deemed cheesy even by Portlanders' standards. Paul Bunyan stands in between a bank and the MAX station and overlooks a strip bar, but whilst he's smiling and keeping his head away, one wonders whether or not he's nervous and acting shy around the nude girls or, perhaps, maybe he's not interested in them at all. I knew that upon donning my costume, I'd look like something of Village People out-take and that was part of the joke too, a jab at the bisexual-in-theory-but-not-in-practice attitude that so many a Portland boy seems to adopt. As I suspected, the joke I was playing translated much better in Albuquerque than the responses I got here. Even better was the accidental theme produced when fallenfromashes dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, making me the Woodcutter by default. The twist in the theme is that it was made very clear that Little Red did NOT need anyone's help in handling the wolf and in her basket, she decided to take the wolf's puppy, a puppet she had lying around, as a kind of spoil of war. The puppet and I apparently bonded and various pictures were taken showcasing my ability to give inanimate objects personalities (seriously, had I grown up in the Czech Republic, there's a very good chance I would have trained to be a professional puppeteer). Had the puppet been able to fit in my bag, I would've brought it home with me.
Otherwise, there's a good amount of catching up I'll have to do. More should appear when the time allows for it. Right now, some listening exercises, a bit more homework and cooking, and some dancing meat, courtesy of Jan Švankmajer, to help me get my mind off people I'd like to strangle.
So my trip into the Wastelands has been long overdue, about five years as fallenfromashes reminded me. Seeing as things are good deal more stable and I can get more vacation time from a much more agreeable department, my next visit is not nearly going to be as stretched far apart. fallenfromashes picked me up at the airport and we went to fill my gullet with the green chile I've been missing and we had the chance to catch up a bit before I had to meet up with my family, the first time we had all been in the same room in about four years, and then make our way to Truth or Consequences, where my parents are residing for the time being.
While the city itself continues to sprawl, despite lack of water and the economy being as it is, Albuquerque remains otherwise unchanged. The passive aggression that characterizes so much of the Pacific Northwest made way for open hostility of the inhospitable desert, where even with new crosswalks and streetlights, drivers are never to be trusted. My reacquainting myself with Albuquerque began with me wondering whether or not to test a driver in abiding by the crosswalk signs, leading me to racing across the street instead, only to hear a sound, akin to ten cats having their tails stepped on simultaneously, that I'm going to assume was the word "faggot." I didn't have the chance to recolor my hair proper and thus I looked probably the most conservative I think I ever have and during my stay there I had been openly insulted by drivers and passerbys more times than when I had lived there. Bear in mind, I lived there during a time when my dress was much more garish and I openly wore make-up. That sort of thing, however, is still fairly common in Albuquerque. You will see more boys in eyeliner there than you will in Portland and that was interesting to me. The times could just be getting much more conservative. It's bizarre looking back at the '90s as if it were somehow a bazaar of self-expression, because living through it, it certainly didn't feel that way. Even weirder was the sight of hipsterdom and "indie" culture, something you could go to Albuquerque to escape from, but as fallenfromashes said, upon showing me the "Hipster Dinosaurs" drawings floating about on the web, it's either reached a critical mass or that it's on its way out. Driving around with a soundtrack of 200 Belgian choirgirls singing the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under The Bridge" was uncannily suitable.
I'm trying to find a suitable way to describe T or C, the town that was supposed to become the boomtown of the Space Tourism race. The Kids In The Hall have regrouped to do a mini-series about a Canadian town shooting for hosting the Olympics in 2025 or somesuch and the plot of that show eerily mirrors what town has gone through. The folks of T or C are now waking up to realize that they've been swindled, that space tourism ISN'T going to be what it was hyped up to be, and some really shady folks have made their way out with a lot of money taken from the pockets of folks who really don't have any. I don't think it's acceptable to swindle people out those large amounts of money through the changing of taxes and various laws and other questionable methods, but I do think there is something to be said about how those folks should've known better. The town itself is sleepy, utterly devoid of youth, and serving almost like a retirement community where aging hippies and old conservative squares co-exist doing their best to pretend the other side isn't there. Every bar, restuarant, and shop, for whatever reasons, was named after an ocean creature of some kind and an awful lot of seafood restaurants lined the main road.
My parents themselves have not changed so much from the last time I saw them. Considering the arguments I got into with my dad before we decided not to speak with one another, things went amicably but that was largely because I knew not to talk about anything really going on in my life. He never once apologized for broadcasting to an anonymous audience about how embarrassed and ashamed he was to have me as his son but agreed to take me back into Albuquerque without any qualms. That is, perhaps there is some unspoken agreement that I will always be some terrible human being in his eyes. Before leaving, he tucked in my bag a copy of "The ABCs of Economic Crisis: What Working People Should Know." It amused me to find out later when fallenfromashes noticed the book in my bag, that she and her roommate are actually acquainted with one of the authors. The book itself, despite some specific statistics and other stuff related to the specific terms and functions of economics, didn't tell me anything I didn't already know or otherwise anything I wouldn't have agreed with. I still don't know exactly what kind of person my dad assumes I am, but otherwise, things remain relatively unchanged. I've not spoken with him since I've returned and I'm not sure when I will next. Right now, I'm deciding to keep my distance since I'm too far in have things stumble and crash. The last thing I need is to fail a test because I've been stressed out about fighting with my dad over something ridiculous.
Upon returning to Albuquerque, whereupon I spent the duration of my trip with fallenfromashes, we prepared for a weekend's worth of Halloween parties. Needing to exorcise some of my negative feelings towards Portland in a more constructive way, I decided to base my costume this year on something that would satirize what is described to me as the "Portland spirit." Seeing as the infamous Paul Bunyan statue that gets so often manipulated and included in flyers and any advertisement showcasing Portland is actually only a short walk away from my apartment, I took inspiration from it to dress as a lumberjack, a homage to Portland that would have been deemed cheesy even by Portlanders' standards. Paul Bunyan stands in between a bank and the MAX station and overlooks a strip bar, but whilst he's smiling and keeping his head away, one wonders whether or not he's nervous and acting shy around the nude girls or, perhaps, maybe he's not interested in them at all. I knew that upon donning my costume, I'd look like something of Village People out-take and that was part of the joke too, a jab at the bisexual-in-theory-but-not-in-practice attitude that so many a Portland boy seems to adopt. As I suspected, the joke I was playing translated much better in Albuquerque than the responses I got here. Even better was the accidental theme produced when fallenfromashes dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, making me the Woodcutter by default. The twist in the theme is that it was made very clear that Little Red did NOT need anyone's help in handling the wolf and in her basket, she decided to take the wolf's puppy, a puppet she had lying around, as a kind of spoil of war. The puppet and I apparently bonded and various pictures were taken showcasing my ability to give inanimate objects personalities (seriously, had I grown up in the Czech Republic, there's a very good chance I would have trained to be a professional puppeteer). Had the puppet been able to fit in my bag, I would've brought it home with me.
Otherwise, there's a good amount of catching up I'll have to do. More should appear when the time allows for it. Right now, some listening exercises, a bit more homework and cooking, and some dancing meat, courtesy of Jan Švankmajer, to help me get my mind off people I'd like to strangle.