My Old Blog

Tonight I cleaned my “apartment”. It looks better, but not too much different really. Hmm…I think I’ll take a picture of it.

So…here is a rundown of the things you see in the picture. Are you excited? I bet.

Item #1: The acoustic guitar is from Austin. It needs one of the frets fixed. I’ve had it since college.

I have been saying that I am going to play at an Open Mic night, so last week I went to one to see how good everyone was. It was out in the middle of nowhere at this seafood restaurant. I sat down and had a beer and saw this guy that looked like a lounge singer. It was Scottie Mitchell who I used to play music with at Clemson. I hadn’t seen him in a decade. Crazy!

He was still playing all the time and had several bands going…told me to come hang out. I think I will, but don’t think I will be playing any guitar with him. I’m not better, and probably worse, than I was in college. If he’s been getting better for the last decade, I don’t deserve to play with him. I can watch and drink beer though. His friends were nice.

Item #2: The blanket I slept with in college and took with me to Taiwan. It is a handmade quilt given to me by my relatives that live in Atlanta. Thanks! (Sorry I don’t call more.)

Item #3: An ugly lamp that used to sit in the living room of the house where I grew up in Easley. Of course it doesn’t really give off light like that….trick of the photo.

Item #4: My computer monitor where I am now writing this post. Next to it is my other computer monitor. Sometimes I have both of them on at the same time. When I got the other I figured it would be cool to be able to surf the internet on one screen while having a file browser up on the other. In the end though my brain doesn’t process like that. I’m too accustomed to one screen so I usually leave the other one off.

Item #5: The chair I am now sitting in. It is a Recaro seat designed for an 18 wheeler. Someone my dad sold fabric to gave it to him, and he, in turn, gave it to me because it was just as comfortable as the other chairs I was looking to buy. I’m still holding out for an Aeron though.

Item #6: A throw rug from India. I got it to give away to Jeffrey Galloway, but I ended up giving him one I liked much better. I bought it from Dilli Haat.

Item #7: A Sam Adams beer. Said beer is now empty and I have replaced it with another one which looks pretty much the same.

Item #8: My electric guitar. I play it sometimes, but not as much as the acoustic since I like to sing while I play.

Item #9: To the left of the #9 is the box of organic granola bars I mentioned buying in my last post. They taste ok. The soy chips were much better (which is why they are now gone).

Item #10: A picture of me in Taiwan about to jump off a rock over rushing water onto another rock. I think Ross Donaldson gave me the picture in a frame he got from a night market.

Peter ran into Ross out of the blue in the Delhi airport not too long ago….that’s nearly a decade since Taiwan. It isn’t as much time as had passed between Scottie Mitch and I….but it sure is a lot further away. What are the chances? Seriously…that’s freakish.

Item 11: There is no item 11. I think I’ll go to bed for the night. I’m tired. (The bed is on the far right of the picture on the other side of the chair.)

I went to the grocery store the other day just to do something different (most everyone knows I eat out every single meal). I bought some beer, sunflower seeds, organic granola bars, soy chips, pomegranate juice, and some chocolate.

I hadn’t actually bought a bar of chocolate for me to eat in years. I don’t really eat candy, and I don’t like sweets. I like bitter and salty foods mostly.

So I got the darkest, bitter chocolate they had, 70% pure cocoa….and its awesome. I had no idea how good chocolate could be. I actually read an article yesterday that said chocolate is better than kissing. I wouldn’t say that; however, it is really good.

What else is going on? I lost in tennis for the first time in probably 4 or 5 seasons. I am going to a wedding this weekend, and to Mississippi the weekend after that. A buddy of mine just bought a house boat. Sounds like fun. I love the water.

I got really tempted the other day to go buy an XBox 360 so I got a friend of mine who reviews video games as a part time job to give me some computer games to check out since he gets them for free. I’m playing Max Payne II. I think its pretty cool. I like the name Max Payne. Very clever.

Next week I plan (thought I’ve been planning for quite a while), to go check out some open mic bars. I want to go play somewhere I think.

I haven’t been sleeping very well lately and my eyes look so tired all the time. I can’t really figure out what to do about that. I’m not that sleepy during the day; I just look like the walking dead. I guess it doesn’t matter.

Also, I am so thirsty these days; which is weird. I don’t drink (I don’t think) any less than I used to. I checked into the whole “you should drink 8 glass of water a day” common wisdom. It turns out that its a fair rule of thumb (on the high side) to replace what an average person loses in a day, and there is little downside to drinking more.

However, the real measure (most doctors say) is the color of your urine, and whether or not you feel thirsty all the time. I would say I drink around the 8 cups and my urine is fine, but I’m still thirsty a lot….at least more than I used to be.

Anyway, there is no resolution to that. If I’m thirsty then shut up and go get some water. Its not like its unavailable. I just think its strange.

I’m going to go eat some more chocolate and go to bed.

Two years ago at this time I was in Peru, on the Inca Trial. Not that I am particularly longing to be there….I have 30 some-odd days of vacation this year if I want to take them. I can go back to S. America if I take a notion. I think I will only take 15 of them (which is still three weeks…the rest roll over to the next year). That’s enough. Work doesn’t suck that much.

I just happened to look at those entries from Peru since I was cleaning out all the “penis enlargement” and “buy viagra non-prescription” spam I get in the comments section (yes…not only do you get spam email…but they spam the comments on blogs too).

So two years ago I wrote an entry called “Permission to Feel”.

Here are some quotes:

“I have been in Cuzco a few days now, waiting for the trek….relaxing and seeing nothing in particular. It is morning and I am at a small cafe with Inca walls taking a breakfast of pancake and coffee…”

“Last night I had very strange dreams and this morning I have a low mood and feel almost invisible; just my pen, coffee, and the low yellow light of the cafe. It is very bright and clear ouside…a beautiful day…”

“I am not saddened or frustrated by my sadness. I do not wish away this mood. I am happy to be sad and lonely.

It is only now, far away from my life, that I am allowed to be sad. Traveling gives me permission to feel however I like and thus allows me to feel at all…I also have the liberty to allow the mood to run its course…to let it wash away whatever it is here to do.

At home I cannot afford ill moods. I cannot allow the moods that make up my emotional dialogue to run their course…and so they don’t. Whatever they are trying to tell me is lost…”

Hmm….very true. Worthless, but true. Since I am now at home….as I stated in Peru, it is hard to allow yourself time to really consider what you’re doing. Perhaps that is what your death bed is for???….such good that it does there.

Anyway, I dug up a picture of Cafe Vayaroc, where I was sitting when I wrote that. You can see the coffee, and my journal in the background:

I’ll leave you with this absolute ridiculousness:

So….to completely ruin the mystique: the building on the left is the town church, even though the lot on behind me looks like its been bombed. The guy on my right is actually counting coins in his hand that people have paid to let you take a picture with his bird….which I’m sure is his solely for the purpose of photos with tourists.

I was just waiting on the bathroom. Its was like 7:30 in the morning and the road we were riding on disappeared off the edge of a cliff 30 minutes later. They’d recently had a landslide.