THE ULTIMATE ERASER

in spite of all the damage

petit rant:

hey hi hello all you nurses, nurses assistants, etc out there. i want to clue you in to something: some people are actually like REALLY afraid of shots. some people cry when they even think about shots. some people need to curl in the fetal position to escape fainting when anyone talks about having blood drawn or maybe even if they SEE a red cross blood donation poster. okay. you understand? that is part one. part two: when you find out about part one, it does not, repeat, DOES NOT, help when you say "oh but we just use a tiny butterfly needle, not one of those elephant needles." oh no. please what the fuck is a fucking butterfly needle and why did you put that word into my poor poor needle tormented mind. my palms are sweating just typing this. once at a consultation to have my wisdom teeth removed (my dad talked me into this situation, i would have been happy never knowing what is to follow) and after i started crying about being under anesthesia the nurse or whatever she was says "oh but we dont use a needle, its just a catheter that goes straight into your vein and gives you three kinds of medicine" WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY AREEEEEE YOUUUUUUUUUU TALKINNNNNNNG TTTTTO MEEEEEEEEEEEEE. my friend sarah, just this past month, during a conversation about having blood drawn kept trying to put awful tidbits into my mind. I TRIED TO STOP HER! but nooooooooooooo i had to hear "if they can't find a vein in your arm, have them use your hand"


this is too much. i cannot finish this. my hands are wet and numb. the end. please world recognize and respect my fear and SHUT THE HELL UP. my brain can't take anymore evil imagery.












okay totally necessary to erase the evil. replace the evil. adios evil!

hang on to your hat

one of the main reasons i went to minneapolis was to attend the jack hanson memorial retrospective at intermedia arts. it was incredibly moving to see all of jack's work in the gallery setting and there were so many people there to show their support and see some incredible art. it alone was worth the drive.









there was a lot of beaching and even some mud in my minneapolis time. the mud was so excellent and i took more videos of walking in it, which you can find on my flickr. i now boast an excellent base tan, and if the weather ever starts actually acting like summer i will be supremely brown in no time.

















denise and i spent a neverending saturday together which involved but was not limited to: missing 3 busses, downtown minneapolis, talking to a stripper with a prison telephone system, getting lost on a 1 mile island, bonfire, friends who jumped off the bridge into the mississippi, vanilla vodka, bike riding in the sunshine, laundromats, and falling asleep in our pancakes. wow. it was intense! we went to bed at 9:30am! its been a very long time since that has happened and will probably be a very long time until it happens again.

i left minneapolis on monday afternoon and took a long but beautiful drive through northern wisconsin on mostly local highways.





crossed the michigan border into the UPPER PENINSULA and also entered the eastern time zone. it was no matter though because it still stayed light until past 10pm. i wish i could still be up there (get it?)





stayed at the hiawatha motel in escanaba where i slept in another king size bed and woke up early to buy some hand knit slippers that were being sold in the office (they were $3 each! i should have got more!) took a leisurely walk on the tip of the escanaba point and then had a big breakfast at the swedish pantry in downtown escanaba. did a bit of shopping at the SVdP and shoved off for my long (and majestic - crying multiple times from beauty and joy majestic) drive to ann arbor. i stopped at a lighthouse, i stopped to get a pastie (pronounced pass-tee - look it up) and stopped to buy a boomerang near the mackinac bridge, and before i knew it my eta went from 7pm to almost 9pm! here are some choice shots from the best drive of my trip.
























spent the night with my friend robyn, his wife summer and their two dogs pepper and iggy in their huge house in saline, mi, just outside of ann arbor, or A2 as its known there. had a few beers with robyn and talked about domestic life and then slept like a rock in their lovely guest room. this morning robyn and i went thrifting at value world (i bought 15 pairs of shoes!) and then had a quick driving tour of A2, which reminded me a lot of eugene, oregon. i told robyn and he said he felt the same way. funny!









the drive today, snaking through the blue collar towns of toledo, cleveland, and erie, was shorter than the past two days, but felt longer and i even felt like i may have been falling asleep towards the end of it.



now i am back in amherst, ny at denise's house. it is comfy and familiar and we played apples to apples and then i watched hannah montana with andie while she listened to taylor swift on her tiny laptop. now i am falling asleep making this blog thing and attempting to stay up to see macca on letterman. tomorrow i cannot shop. i have spent all my money and then some. i want to sleep in. i want to have a cute breakfast here with denise and lisa and andie, and then have a quick zoom across new york state to my house and bed and i hope my plants are alive. oh i really hope my plants are aliveeee.

well i hope you are all satisfied. are you?


my. eyelids. are. droopy.

adios amigos! xoxo!

you're old enough to change your ways

i'm too tired to blog!!!!
sorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry!


i have so much to share about so many special and majestic places!
about the power of humanity! about pockets of life! about crying from joy! about lake michigan the size of the ocean!

please stay tuned, maybe tomorrow night in buffalo, back in my homestate, the fancy will strike me to quantify this magic.

i've seen: nebraska, iowa, minnesota, wisconsin, michigan, illinois, indiana, ohio, pennsylvania, and the width of new york. tomorrow is more michigan, ohio, penn, and ny again. i am ready and willing. i am happy to rest in a friend's house in saline, michigan and be slightly buzzed from more than a few miller high life's. also happy to say i've seen the very place where those beers were created. american life is a jigsaw puzzle i can't wait to put together. the upper peninsula opened my eyes to real true unwaivering unyeilding and unforgiving life and its a good one. we just need the fuel. do everything with love!

(picture dump right into your eyes tomorrow, pinky promise)

with a vision of a gentle coast

hey there hi there ho there from sunny omaha
i am EXHAUSTED.
sarah is napping in bed and i am at ecremery in dundee because although i finally found a signal on her porch, my computer didn't have enough power and sarah doesnt have any grounded outlets to deliver the power to compy5000. bummer. so i'm sitting in the ice cream shop like a total nerd.

i am actually too exhausted to go into full detail about yesterday's drive and last night and today (so far) i do have pictures so maybe i will show you some of those?

tomorrow i am going back to minneapolis, hopefully arriving before dinner, and staying there until sunday or monday. i officially decided to drive through the u.p. on my way home and stay once up there and once with robyn in ann arbor, and then again with fernando's mom in buffalo. i am so excited to see new places and also not have to deal with chicago (hopefully ever again)

i will say briefly that yesterday was driving on i-35 south and then i-80 west and iowa wasn't as awful as i remembered it, but i wouldn't wish that drive upon anyone anyways. i am happy to rest in nebraska and think about how all these landlocked states butt up against each other like staggered bricks. iowa, nebraska, missouri, kansas. this country is a puzzle of greatness. let's all be america and hold hands forever. kiss kiss.



windmills and fields of opportunity (aka corn) in iowa.



this is obligatory. some exits had the kum&go listed as gas AND food. ONE STOP SHOP! loaf&jug is still the best one i've seen.





omaha. full of hills. believe it or not. sarah lives in a cute small neighborhood called dundee and she doesn't drive so she walks everywhere. its quite a strange place to choose to live when you have no car, but this is where she lives and this is where i visit her.



we saw jay farrar's band son volt last night at slowdown in downtown omaha. it was a great show and its a really great space to see a show.





lunch today at la buvette in the old market was delicious and it felt so nice to be outside in the shade. i ate the whole thing.



thrifting is happening. why am i buying? i can't stop! everyone has their thing. mine is piling up 300 pair of shoes and staring at the sheer mass of stuff i have plucked from the earth. rarrrrrrrr.

so i am ready to be done with this ice cream nonsense now. i may lay in sarah's bed and watch monterray pop and never even show my face to the bars of omaha. then again, i may pop into o'leavers for just a few hours to see if its as crazy as i remember and as people keep telling me it is.

omaha: who knows! when you cross the missouri from iowa into nebraska there is a sign on the bridge that says "nebraska: the good life!" i'll try to snap something on my way out tomorrow.

love y'all. check you next time!

driving down the street while four cylinders are setting the beat

hello and hi from the land of 10,000 lakes.
i don't know if i have the energy for the kind of post i know the day after the fourth of july deserves, and i apologize for that in advance.

i have to drive to omaha today. i wish i could teleport there. i had a fight with a friend of a friend of a friend in this bar last night because i told him i didn't like iowa and it turns out not only is he from iowa, but he bears the brunt of my saying i dont particularly love iowa for the ENTIRE STATE. i tried to explain that if he insulted new york state as a whole i wouldn't be offended because i dont live in the entire state. he said "i am iowa" i said "i am america, and i say 'fuck iowa'" that basically ended it. he said that was the best thing i could have said and everything ended on good terms. naomi wasn't thrilled. can't please everyone!

J4 was really excellent from tip to tail and we started things right with a summer garden brunch complete with a bloody mary and mimosa bar at chiara's cousin's house.







good thing we brought our appetites!

we stayed there much of the afternoon, it rained during the middle of it, and we had to take shelter in one of the many sheds that had been built from old signs. yes, it was as magical as it sounds. then the sun came shining again and dappled on everyone and everything and the angels sang sweet songs and everyone held hands.









then we rode bikes to a beach called "hidden beach" (which, i believe, is on cedar lake) even though i guess its not hidden anymore. it had gotten too late to actually get wet so we just layed about in our suits and talked to some people about life.




emily was excellent to give us a ride to nicolet (sp?) island where we watched the fireworks display from adam's friend johan's backyard. apparently its very private and fancy so that was cool. emily had never even been there!
then we went to this thing called the 10 second film festival which was crazy packed full of people and pretty funny also.



finally we went to the best place: nye's
i can't explain how good this place is and i was slightly offended no one had ever taken me there before because it is the PERFECT PLACE. there was a polka room where three elderly people were playing instruments and people were dancing and there was also piano karaoke with only like 100 songs where you write your choice on a napkind and hand it to the piano lady and then she points to you and sometimes she helps you if you forget the words. gosh it was great. i sang 'knock three times' and 'margaritaville' life is great.





okay nebraska is calling. i gotta get a move on. i wish the future was real and i could just poof myself over there. ALAS!

love!