Realization #1:

I am probably the only person in the world who actually *enjoys* having no life.

Seriously.

I feel really productive right now. I'm watching movies I've been meaning to see, I'm cooking exciting foods, I'm getting out of the house a lot, I'm exercising, I'm making artsy shit for myself and my friends, and I'm planning a gigantic European/Asian road trip. And the truth is, I would not have time for most of these things if I actually had a life. Sad, but undeniably true. Occasionally I get jealous of my roommates, who have people to hang out with, and I'm so thankful I have them around for fun human interaction, but in many ways it is kind of comforting not having to worry about 20 bajillion friendships. I like not having to micromanage people. I like knowing where I stand with the people around me, and while it would be nice to have a lot of flitty new friends to hang out with, I'm mostly just happy that I have a few close friendships. And I'm happy that one of those people is living 3 feet away from me! Huzzah!

Ok. So that whole thing sounds like a massive rationalization. I suppose in some ways I am trying to make myself feel better about my current situation. But for the most part it's all true! I guess I just find it miraculous how good I feel these days...I find it sort of absurd that I am not terribly depressed.

Anyway, I had a terrific day today. I got up late (Oscar was obnoxiously batting at my door), made my breakfast specialty (eggs a la cubana), and then hopped on my bike. I actually had a hard time convincing myself to ride today - riding through downtown to Lyndale (where I was going) makes me really nervous, since going there requires going uncomfortably close to two major highways. Lyndale is one of two major streets in the Southern area of the city, and it's always packed with traffic going way too fast. And if you're riding there from anywhere North of the city, you usually end up encountering hoards of cars exiting the highway, forcing you to ride hard and fast, since most cars aren't really looking for bikes when they come off the highway and are driving way too fast to stop. It always freaks me out having to get over there, but I managed to make it over there without killing myself so whatever. My destination was the Highpoint Center for Printmaking (http://www.highpointprintmaking.org), which was hosting a Free Ink Day in honor of the Day of the Dead. And let me tell you I had so much fun it should probably be illegal.

Seriously, it was great. As soon as I came in the lady at the front handed me a sheet of lino to carve, plus a free pin and sent me on my way. There were tons of families with kids and everyone was busy getting covered in paint. After I carved a skeleton lady with sombrero into my sheet, I then printed off a bunch of copies in twenty different colors. I also made a bunch of prints of work other people had done - the staff had carved a bunch of Day of the Dead themed one including skeletons playing baseball, on the moon, and riding fancy bikes. It felt so good to be participating in something totally fucking free and totally for the community. And it was so busy! There were all these little kids twittering about, as well as parents, hipster college students, middle aged peeps and you know, everyone in between. There was also a pretty good mix in terms of race...which is nice, since it's obvious High Point actually reaches out to the community around it, not just rich white liberals. Um, yeah.

So that was pretty awesome. The rest of the day was boring and requires no comment.

Fin.

Wanderlust & Laos plans

So, I neglected to mention this in my first post, but I am currently in the process of planning a "round the world" tramping trip for next year. Yeah...I have basically decided that as of June next year I am going to be a full time traveler at least until Christmas 2009. The decision to do this has been a long time coming: when I first graduated I considered spending a year teaching english abroad in India or Bangladesh but obviously that kind of fell through. I've always known I wanted to do something non-traditional while I am young and untethered, but it wasn't until this month that I actually started thinking seriously about just picking up and heading off into the proverbial sunset.

What really did it was my discovery of Colleen Kinder's "Delaying the Real World: A Twentysomething's Guide to Seeking Adventure" (http://delayingtherealworld.com), a book which I first encountered at the Career Development Office of my school sometime in June. I was intrigued by the title then, but I never got around to actually reading it so a few weeks ago I located a copy of it at our local library. And god, did it set me off! The book is basically a guide for how to say "fuck you" to cubicle jobs and take off to see the world. Now, I think Kinder gets a little carried away with the whole - see the world! screw real life! line - after all there are very real reasons people get jobs like those, but reading her book was just what I needed to push my schemes of traveling from the back of my mind to the front. It really made me realize that I have never wanted a common life, and that the only way to pick up and jam your finger in the air at the whole corporate, 9 to 5 system is to just, well, DO IT. So I'm going to. Another good thing about the book is that it convinced me that you don't need a lot of money to do this, and that it is quite possible to *also* do some good while traveling on that kind of trip. Which was good for me, because I often have a hard time with travel - in my mind it sometimes seems like a selfish, bourgeoisie endeavor, especially done American style. When I put down the book after reading it straight through in one day I decided my plan for next year is to travel half way around the world. Anyway, I'm sure you'll be hearing plenty about my upcoming plans and my incesant wanderlust - after all, one of the main reasons I started this blog was to have a place to catalogue my pre-,during, and post-trip experiences.

However. The *real* point of this entry is that I've found a place I really want to visit! The place is the Viengxay caves in Laos (visual supplement below). Apparently the limestone caves housed thousands of Laotians who were hiding from the Americans during the Vietnam War. I know that sounds kind of macabre, but I'm fascinated by pretty much any insurgency that successfully manages to stand up to the American government, and I'm curious to see this place in person. If only to get a glimpse of what humans create in desperate situations. According to wikipedia during certain parts of the war the caves contained up to 23,00 people, and housed bakeries, hospitals and even a theater! Now that the political unrest has calmed you can actually visit the caves...which I would love to do.

As it turns out, I have been thinking about visiting Laos a lot recently. A few weeks ago I read a glowing travel blog which described Laotian culture as extremely easy going and congenial. So when I read the short little blurb about the Viengxay caves in Budget Travel (which I've taken to checking out from my local library) I got even more excited.

I know Loas is a developing country and it may still be dangerous to visit as an Westerner, but I think Americans tend to be far too wary of countries that lack Western technology and development. More often than not they make up for it in warmth and willingness to reach out to foreigners. From what I've read Laos seems like a really beatiful, quiet country...and I like that it won't be swarmed with Americans and luxury hotels. I think feeling uncomfortable and like an outsider is one of the most valuable aspects of travel. I like that I won't be able to rely on there being American backpackers or Europeans to spend time with, because it will require me to connect with the people who actually live their lives there. I also think putting yourself in a situation like that helps you to understand just how difficult it is to be an immigrant in your own country.

Anyway. Enough about that. I think planning future travel adventures is almost as exciting as going on them!

So it begins!

This marks the first entry in what I hope will be a blog chronicling my various misadventures and travels. Lately I've really felt the need to capture and put down what I see around me - maybe because everything feels so transient! Moving to a new city and starting "real life" has been a lot more eye opening than I thought it would be really...Little did I know graduating from college would instill in me not disillusionment and confusion, but a furious sense of wonder and awe in the face of the massive world I now find in front of me. It seems like every day I discover new things I want to do and see and my appetite for new experiences seems to grow and grow every day. Jesus, if I had known I'd have so much time and the world was so full I would have fucking dropped out of college ages ago! Anyway, since I arrived here in Minneapolis, my new home city, I've found myself wandering (and trespassing!) all over the city, and I wanted to have a place to document all the junk I've seen. I wanted to have one place to compile pictures, thoughts, whateve.r So that's what this little blog-y thing is for. Twoohoohoo!

I don't intend to update super frequently, or to write lengthy entries detailing every thought I have and every moment of my day. In fact, I was a little trepidatious about starting a blog period. I had shied away from it until now because it seemed way too easy to get obsessed with the whole "blogosphere" concept, which I find obnoxiously pretentious not to mention small-minded. All the petty internet bickering and nit picking and UGH. Spare me. Don't get me wrong...I'm not one of those romantics who curses the downfall of "true" experience in the advent of the internet age. I think the internet is one of the most amazing, democratic things out there! Do I love googling Paris Hilton sex tapes at 3 am? OH YES I DO!!! The ability to reach websites from every tiny corner on earth at any time of day is probably one of the most terrific things to exist in this world. 

That said, on a personal level I think I feel better when I'm living...how do I put this...in 3-D. A lot of what I've been doing is turning away from the easy, 2D things I've taken for granted in favor of real life things that let me put my face right in the middle of all the goings-on. Right now I'm all about the microcosm, the minute, the local, the unknown, the undiscovered. That extends from everything to what I eat to where I plan on traveling. Let me just give you an example: instead of downloading music for free over the internet (which god knows I love, both for its ease and its price tag), I have taken to checking out CDs from my local library (which has a surprisingly good music collection). I get to have a physical object (cd, case, liner notes, etc.) in my hot little hand. And I've discovered that being able to touch and "see" the music I'm hearing makes me feel like I'm getting more than just recorded sound - after looking at the cover and the lettering and the liner notes the band has included, I start to associate images and a certain mood with the album, almost as though through osmosis, that I couldn't have gotten from just downloading the music. 

ANWAY, I'm not doing this so I can put one more "cooler than you" notch in my belt or so I can secretly feel better than everyone who downloads music on the internet...it came more out of a simple discovery that being a child of the internet age has sort of muddled my sense of context for a lot of things, and so I've set out on a crusade to contextualize my world. I want to know how we went from The Jesus and Mary Chain to You Say Party! We Say Die! It comes out of my own desire to understand all the stuff I see around me in a way that makes sense to me.  

The weird thing is, documenting this turn towards slowness in my own life VIA the internet seems right, if only in some roundabout way. In my own mind, it makes sense that I would at once blend a turning back towards slow things (food, music, books, films, etc.) with the hugeness and generality of the internet. That seems like the perfect summation of the current moment we are in. 

And with that, onward!