take deep breath, forget it

I have mentioned this before, but I have days where I see things that are tough.amazing.hilarious.devastating, and I have to admit that these things mess with my head/gut a little. But the thing that is most difficult for me is the transition from these environments:

A crack *home*- where people are laying across broken kitchen chairs and staring through you--where your client (dopefiend/ sex offender, but beautiful and sweet) needs help with his diabetes medications (and everything else!!) and their friends begin crying "I know I'm smart, but I think I'm going crazy...can you help me?" They are vulnerable and share their lives with you, and you try to help...

Driving to find a "safe" check cashing location with a client to avoid drug dealers who are on the lookout

Yoga class, where the woman next to you is passing gas and whispering to herself and to you she says, "I'm not gonna let you kill them" (haha this one was funny)

Hugging the sober-for-4-months-wants-to-be-a-mother-and-not-a-crackhead/prostitute client because she has been sober for 4 months and she has hardly people to tell

--It messes with my head to go from this to:

downtown NYC. Hippster, fashionista, marketing bullshit. Where status wafts around like a required sensibility. I can do it somedays, but other days, I just can't handle it. Maybe I will get used to it, but I'm not really sure if I want to.

That's all on that.

You 5-6 people reading this should check out the funniest guy on earth, ricky gervais at his website

His podcasts are also really funny


My sister Tracy was also in town last week. She like NYC and wants to move here, which would be cool. She gave me ideas for decorating my house so it doesn't look so poopy.

The End

Arsenal sucks. LOST predictions

Can I just humbly suggest that Arsenal FC are a bunch of tickwomping, hooligans who can't win a decisive match to save their own jobs.

LOST final season prediction: final epsiode morphs into a Survivor finale with the mysterious guy who never ages as the host. Locke gives up so he can eat peanut butter. Jack faints into a fire. Kate actually kills someone-- that person being Walt--she shoots him while he is dunking a basketball as he become mega-athletic and muscular. JJ Abrams makes a cameo as a native in war paint with star trek designs. I can't wait.

I'm able to post such nonsense because I have internet at my apartment now.

and looking forward

"Six feet of land was all that he needed"
-Tolstoy


Before I am put to watch over my 6 ft of ground, i have a few ambitions

and in no particular order:

-dance on all 7 continents
-learn to play the piano
-have a piece of writing published
-hang glide over a jungleous-mountain wilderness while screaming at the top of my lungs and not holding back the tears
-laugh so hard i have to get rid of the clothes i was wearing
-make my own clothes
-be a farmer
-take a good picture
-keep talking to myself, people, animals and other inanimate objects
-read a book to my kids or someone's kids
-with nothing on my mind, in a rocking chair, on a porch, i would like to just sit

feel free to share your own ideas

Yeaer in Rearview

Looking over my 2010 shoulder, last year was a fairly interesting one. Let me give you a summary:

Dec 31-Jan 1- New Years in Seattle with friends

Two words: Family Game

Jan 4 through March 7- Lived in Urubamba, Peru

I learned a little Spanish, met a some great people, lived at 10,000ft, worked at 11,900ft. Stood out (like always) on bus rides full of Quechuan people--whose lives have been the object of my thoughts lately, and I haven't yet decided whether they should be helped by us, or if we are the ones who need help.

March 11- June 26- Spokane, WA

Living with Parents. Sleeping on couch in basement. Using hot tub often, if not more.

June 27-29- Interview in Queens, NY

(parked my truck in Queen Anne, Seattle) to JFK, NY on red eye interviewed for a job in Jamaica, Queens, slept at Motel 8 took bus to Boston, MA stayed with friends, walked the freedom trail and back to Seattle slept on bench in airport, woke up found truck and drove back to Spokane in time to watch Hoopfest

June 29-Aug 12- Spokane, WA

Relaxation. Red Lion Hotel. Looked for jobs. Parents couch. Accepted job with Pathways to Housing in East Harlem. Preparation, etc.

Aug 12-15- Spokane, Bismark, Chicago, somewhere in Connecticut, NYC

Took this route with friend, Evan who was kind enough to detour on his way to NC

Aug 15^th- Sept 20^th- Upper east side Manhattan- started job in East Harlem—a quick subway ride up to 125^th street station- steep learning curve, crappy, small room and weird roommate offset by starting my own life, 5 blocks from central park, exploring NYC, getting lost, finding myself far from everything that I knew, but finding myself loved. Stress, stress, stress.

Sept 20- Dec 22- Astoria, Queens

moved into my own apt. Work, work, work. Fun and lots of learning. Getting to know Harlem and the Bronx. Also spent Thanksgiving in Durham, NC with friends.

Dec 23-29 Spokane, XMAS

Back to Spokane for Holidays

Dec 29- Present- NYC

As a bit of a bonus, here are some of my top memories from 2009:

#3 re-using my own toilet paper Urubamba, Peru

(I’m almost positive it was my own)

3a- Macchu Piccu with two old friends Peru

3b- Cuzco with my Peruvian brothers

#2 my interview trip to NYC…can’t believe I did that, it’s long story, but I’m giving myself a pat on the back for that one

2a after sleeping in the seattle airport, taking the train to my truck and making it halfway back to Spokane, I decided to brush my teeth because my mouth needed it. Spitting out the toothpaste at 75mph is the same as drooling down your neck, arm and seatbelt

#1 This isn’t so much a memory as a reality—the reality is that no imagination is more interesting than real life. Come work in my job and you will find out why…

1a- taking ____ to the doctor and then to a local Cuban restaurant to eat and watch america’s funniest home videos

1b the cross-dresssing, drug peddling, scam artist/dental hygenist on the first floor of my office. Get paid to get your teeth cleaned. Figure that one out!

1c- the smells, the people, the history—they are all good memories being made

Thanksgiving in NC

Don't worry I'm watching plenty of football and eating lots of food in Durham, NC with Dave and Evan for Thanksgiving. I took a day off work and flew down here for some needed rest. So far I've seen a little of Durham and walked around the Duke campus. We watched Gonzaga eek out a win against Cincinnati last night to win the Maui invitational, which was the first time I've watched TV for an extended time in several months. It was great, but I do not have high hopes for the Zags this year. We're having Thanksgiving dinner with some friends of Evan and Dave this afternoon. I will be returning to NYC having been refreshed, and will be ready to get back on the job. Next up, Xmas in Spokane.

In the news

I don't have internet or TV, and haven't been keeping up with the news, but today I did some laundry, and picked up a copy of The Times while my quarters went to work. I sat on a chair in the sun and read about the shooting at Fort Hood, the Health Care reform passing in the House, people living in poverty directly on top of enormous oil fields in Iraq--these were all in the front section--in the other sections we had stories about "the decline and fall of the bachelor pad" in NYC, 40 pages in the Auto section, some sprawling story about Sesame Street or Big Bird, etc. In between these stories were ads about the Yankees recent victory, music events and real estate.

If you take a train from Brooklyn and get off up in the Bronx, it's like reading the weekend Times. You see so many things that are so different that you get weary just from traveling across that spectrum--from weighty and interesting to trite and airy--and then back again. It's hard to see things that you dislike existing so close to the things that you think are more important. fashion should go to hell. hell should leave the people alone.

And what do you do about it?

You update a blog and make split pea soup. yep, that's definitely what you do.

new place + lost in the bronx

Welp-

I will finally be moving out of this 70 sq ft piece of garbage room and into my own apartment. I found a small 1 bdrm apartment in Astoria, Queens, which is quite a great place, I do say. Hopefully next weekend I will be up early on Saturday with a Uhaul van moving my stuff and getting furniture. Right now the only things in the apartment are a refrigerator and a bed, but I am so proud that I forced myself to by a shower curtain for the bathroom, which I would normally put off doing for a good while. I doubt there are many people on earth who hate shopping for home decor more than I do, but since I'm going to be the one living there, and will have to show it to people, I'm going to attempt to make my own home respectably decorated, organized, etc.

For the most part, I haven't had too much trouble finding my way around. But I often, and far too consistently get lost in the Bronx. We finally got a GPS in the cars last week, but before that I was driving around and getting stuck in traffic with way too many things left to do, and not enough time to do them. Wait, that's the job no matter what, but it makes it worse if you discover that you accidentally crossed the Triborough Bridge into Queens when you have a clients blood you had just drawn, which is only good for a certain amount of time--that is not fun.

Also, I am trying to decide whether I want to get a TV or internet in my place. I'm thinking that I won't. But maybe I'll give in.

that's all