the chalice of glory

FUN FACT:
I  used to make simple cartoons in my free time. Now in my free time... I make skirts, shirts, books, write novels, play video games, chores... clean my room. Hey. I'm responsible now! Anyway, I think this cartoon is 3-5 years old. It was a simpler time.

Hate:

Why am I worried that my kids won't fit in at school when I don't actually have kids yet? Why do I fear the assassination of Obama more than I ever even thought about the possible assassination of Bush?

Jacob (amalgamation of the things I know)

Jacob always had a funny way of saying Jell-O. She never knew why, but every once in a while he would say it, randomly prompted by a question or by his own thoughts, and she'd think of being surrounded by orange gelatin--of how hard it would be to see the world if she was encased in orange. She knew not why. He was a good foot shorter than she was, even though they were in the same home room, together. Indeed, Jacob was the shortest boy in their grade. He always walked to school--his mom was a nurse or something--and he'd hold onto the straps of his comparatively over sized green back pack so that it dug into his back and so he could stand up straight like his parents were always telling him to whenever he slouched over his plate at dinner.

She didn't like to pay attention to Jacob. Something about his face distressed her. In the seventh grade she would reflect that she felt uncomfortable looking at him at this time because he was just starting to grow a uni-brow and looked like a normal hued Frankenstein. In the seventh grade he began coming to school with small bandages pressed between his eyes. He was much taller by that point and when other students asked what happened, he could tell them confidently without worrying that they'd think poorly of him.

But in the fifth grade, she did not like paying attention to Jacob. This was sometimes incredibly difficult. He sat next to her in math. He would fidget, but not in any organized fashion. He didn't bounce his knee, or rhythmically click the nice pen his mom had stolen from her office at work; he didn't rock back and forth.

He would hit the desk with his flat palm every so often, but she could never tell when it was coming. And every time he disrespectfully slapped the cheap white plastic table, she wanted to scream at his face. She wanted to grab his glasses and throw them at the math teacher she didn't much like because he was old and short and annoying and she hated his sweaters. She would hold her left finger in her left ear so that she couldn't hear the sound as clearly. By the end of math class her hand and her ear would be hot and sweaty and she would be very angry. She would try to count to ten like the counselor with the blonde hair and black tights had suggested when she was in fourth grade and her homeroom teacher had forced her to see someone at the school after she had pushed her best friend into a locker so hard that her best friend had cried.

They were still best friends, strangely enough. But she had started to learn how to control her temper. Still, Jacob was more annoying than the counting backwards from ten and breathing slowly, calmly, could alleviate. That is why, when he asked her out during recess in the fifth grade, she had laughed  non-stop for almost half a minute, before she had said no.

"If Men were more important, it wouldn't be Women & Children First"

Family vacations. Necessary. Heartwarming. Etcetera. But on the darker side, family vacations have the potential to be quite boring. So, I'm sitting in a hotel room watching Cash Cab and I've seen enough episodes to come up with a testable hypothesis. See, Ben Bailey is the host, and at the end of every ride, he hands money to the group, but he always hands money to the person sitting in the same seat. This seat is the one closest to the left side of the cab. The person is almost always male when the group is of mixed gender. This person is also the lead answerer, so his (and potentially hers, though in the last 17 games I've watched, it has never once been the case if a man was in the cab) answer is the final answer. It strategically makes sense, since the game show host and driver can't easily access the person sitting directly behind him. But still, I couldn't help wonder if there was something more nefarious at play on the mean streets of New York City. Perhaps Ben Bailey is a subtle sexist.

But no, Ben Bailey isn't the culprit here. Etiquette is. "Ladies first," as it were, dictates that women enter the cab first and have a far greater chance of sitting all the way within the cab and unable to be the lead answerer and the main receiver of prize money.

Miscommunication

Thank God for Nick Matchen*!

Turns out the reason I have no friends isn't because I'm anti-social (though my agoraphobia is getting much, much worse, I can assure you, but you'd have to come over to my house and well, yea, maybe you should just stay away). The real reason I have no friends is because one of my text messages was misread (I'm pretty sure this is the case, because I remember it vividly in my mind, though perhaps I mistyped a sentence and the syntax was severely violated). What I meant to say and what I thought I said was:

Being black is not equivalent to being poor and not having a father.

What was read and what my ex-friend thought I said was:

Being black is harder than being poor and not having a father.

Oh! Where is Kenneth Burke when you need him?! I bet he could fix this mess in a jiffy, if only because he would be overqualified to settle this dispute (he did write Philosophy of Literary Form; I doubt he would be amused by Texts from Last Night).

It's odd, actually. My only ill-feelings result from my ex-friend misreading my text message and assuming I would argue: "being black is harder than anything else." God knows why. They're non-comparable issues, really. Completely incomparable. I'm offended that she'd think I'd think that. But now do I get upset because I think she thinks I'm a crummy human being (sad)? Or do I get upset at her for being incapable of reading sentences (anger)?

Sadly, I can not get into actual fights with people because I have severe PTSD from the good old days when I'd fight anyone and/or was exposed to a lot of fighting. My general feelings are either sadness or apathy. If I ever feel happy or angry, well, bad things happen. 

This argument is similar to the time when I was thirteen and got in a fight with another thirteen year old about what was harder: being Jewish or being black. With maturity, I guess I could hazard a guess at that answer, but I am still under-prepared to fully understand the situation. Just like I'll never know what it feels like to be poor or not have a father. I guess I could try to figure out what it might feel like, but I don't really want to kill my father, I don't want to disown my wealth, and I have other problems that I may as well deal with. Does this mean I don't relate well to humans? Probably. Or maybe it's because I am very honest: I will never understand what her life feels like.

Kenneth Burke would agree with me. I wish there were more crazy scholar rhetoricians in the world. *sigh* Alas, rhetoric isn't the powerhouse it used to be, and as a result, being a rhetorician is kind of, incredibly, disarmingly, alarmingly, very, pretty, lonely.

Oh well. I don't feel bad that I no longer have any good friends at home. I feel worse that I was misunderstood. I have trouble communicating, it would appear, with people who are not me. I feel angry about that, but only about that. I still haven't cried. A lot of things happened in the last week that I think could have made me cry. A lot of things I would've and probably should've cried about. But nope. Dry eyes.

Sadly, my ex-friend will probably never read this, but it's been a good thought process. And any blog entry where I can bring up Kenneth Burke is probably a good idea. Furthermore, I take back my other blog entry "black baby boy." Though I do still question how not racist you are. But I question that with everyone. It's very disarming. But it's not something I'd expect you to understand.


*Can you die from sarcasm? Because I think I'm trying.

The people on the train car I had selected were in various levels of decomposition. Some people might call this sleeping, but it's not the same. Mouths slightly ajar, the muscles weakening with age that would hold the jaw to the upper mandible. Eyes open but thoroughly glossed over, or hidden behind obscuringly thick glasses. I'm still young. Why did I get on the express?

Crazy Young Elora... become Crazy Older Elora Now!

CLICK ON THIS! IT'S HILARIOUS!

Fun fact: I do a bad job of forecasting my future, especially with events that deal with intimate relations.

For example, as a freshman in high school, a fresh fourteen year old, I assumed that I would be getting to second base within the next year. WHA?! As I remember, I couldn't watch people making out in movies until I was... 18? And I didn't have my first kiss until I was 15... so clearly freshmen have no fucking clue what they're talking about.

Didn't get to second base for another... four years!

Above I've posted a link to an entry I wrote when I was 19. It guessed that I would be a virgin into my late twenties. All I can say for that is.... "not... accurate."

So I guess I'll just follow this trend and forecast when I'll be getting married, because that seems to be the hip new thing everybody in my age group is doing. I will be married by the time I am 24. Either in July or February.

That is three years. Okay. Ready.... Go!

finish

dear car,

our intimate time together has now come to an end. i know there are probably plenty of appropriate songs i could sing for you, luna, but one in particular just seems right:

open your eyes
i see, your eyes are open
wear no disguise for me
come into the open

when it's cold, outside
and i hear your name
hold on, to the night
there will be no shame

always, i wanna be with you
and make believe with you
and live in harmony, harmony
oh love
always

melt in the ice, for me
jump into the ocean
hold back the tide
i see, your love in motion

when it's cold, outside
and i hear your name
hold on, to the night
there will be no shame

always, i wanna be with you
and make believe with you
and live in harmony, harmony
oh love
always
[x2]

-Robot Unicorn Attack

this is not to say that i think of my car as a unicorn. though i do think of my car as a great tool for my imagination/escapism-tendencies. without my car, freshmen year of college probably would have killed me. my car has also saved my life by being amazing. i also sometimes pretend i'm flying a fighter jet. and sometimes, well... we'll just keep that as a secret between me and my car.

thanks for the 2,435 mile trip. it was lovely. just like you. just like me.

hot girls in convertibles... the american dream.

closure

the last full day in hamilton, new york. my last full day on the east coast. it's beautiful here. i love rural areas. more and more do i feel like i should work here, open a medicine shoppe here. great place to have a family, i imagine, or if that falls through, a great place to write.

 I tell Becky that this path promises closure. This is the site where my biology advisor (but before she was actually my advisor and was only my ecology professor) took our small class to study plants and soils and I found everything about the class so absolutely fascinating. I never knew there was so much to learn before I took that class: Ecosystem Ecology. We stood among acidic Hemlocks with underdeveloped under stories; we placed PVC pipes in the soil to measure carbon dioxide flux; we placed up nets to catch falling leaves. And Becky, Becky was one of the first friends I made at Colgate, thanks to our affiliation with the Swimming & Diving team.

 the pond here, at a site called "Bukus" (though it is probably spelled much differently), seemed to me the site of great biodiversity. I spotted at least eight functionally different insects above the surface of the water: skimming, flying, floating, flitting. Closer inspection revealed many types of insects and vertebrates below the water's surface.

 I was dragged past the buoys that sectioned off the small amount of swimming space available. Pond mucus abounded, and the thought of me making contact with it while floating, barely, in my inflatable raft, made me want to leave even though I was being captivated by the mirror-like qualities of the large pond.

 Purposefully planted tiger-lillies.

 who stays in this house? life guards? but there's no one on duty.

 Mirror-like. Clouds crashing into sand.

what a day.

The End of an Era and Other Cliches

I've never liked myself more than I do now. Is that weird? I feel like that should be weird, or perhaps I've finally escalated out of teenagedom and can now accurately assess myself and my place in the world. I love it. I've done several things in the last week which my prior incarnations would have had fits about. But thinking back on them, they seem harmless, and here's the kicker, logical. Me? Logical? Have I finally become the pragmatist I've always dreamed of? Or perhaps I have just gotten better at rationalizing feelings and deciding how to proceed from there. Nevertheless, I've learned how to be me, I've learned how to anticipate my ill behavior. I have had rational discussions with myself about how to proceed. I find this incredibly exciting/hilarious.

Weird. So the thing I learned most about in the last four years was myself. I guess in the next four years I will have to either a) learn more about how I interact with other people or b) learn more about medicine. Either way, it's an exciting time to be Elora Apantaku. Thanks road trip! If I had been in the vacuum of suburban life, I probably would have never discovered this about me.

I leave for home tomorrow. I am sad. I am happy. It is a great ending for a novel, in that I am 1) returning home 2) leaving the reader uncertain about what path I may choose but 2b) they know that it will be for the better and not the worse.

Thanks for reading.

A Little Lam(b)

I'm on the lam. I'm a runaway. I like running away.

The first time I ran away, I was eleven. I stayed in that park for four hours. Then I came home. Nobody noticed I had even left.

Since then, I've run away from bad test grades and people calling me a bitch. I've run away from awkward situations, and I've run away from creeps, people walking too quickly behind me to have anything other than murder on their mind.

But I've never run away from home. I've driven away from home, mad and tipsy and vengeful and stupid. But I've never set out on foot like I did when I was eleven. Now that there are cell phones and people always can reach you, what's the point?

the obvious truth of Dionysus

What kind of music is this?

Watch "Colby Reunion 2011 - Band" on YouTube

So three weeks ago, my little sister, Erisa and I were watching the Colby reunion events, and got captivated by the band they had. I learned that a banjo is special because it has strings laid over a drum! Genius. Anyway, got a good video of the magic which is (insert appropriate genre title) music.

Route 20

Cat's Meow

There's a Cat's Meow in Glenview, IL. This is a Cat's Meow in Sherburne, IL. They have nearly identical signs. I wondered if they were part of a chain store, so I walked into the one in Sherburne and looked for things that smacked of familiarity. Unfortunately, I hadn't been to the one in Glenview since I was a little kid, and all the things I remembered about it consisted mostly of Beanie Babies. Do they even make those anymore?

Bacon. Eat. Repeat. Give me a number 6 please.

I have very interesting mourning patterns. I have yet to cry, yet I have managed to vomit (not alcohol induced), eat nothing all day (sadness slows my metabolism further), dance around the edge of sleep, watch bad television, drive UNDER the speed limit to random central new york destinations, and finally consent to a massive amount of Mickey D's goodness intake. Fascinating. I have also drafted the outline for a fantastic-reality novella. Still haven't cried. Maybe my ducts are broken.

you, a person. I, a drunk. 7+ drinks deep/2 hours=where am I now?

She's beautiful. She really is. There's nothing wrong with her, per se, but there is something wrong. You wouldn't know it instinctively, you might never know it at all. But, if you were very adapt at reading emotions, you would see, like I have seen, that there is something wrong.

It's not even that it's wrong, per se. It is unusual.

I feel like it's a caricature, her entire being. It's a girl, like many girls I have written about, who have always and always will question their importance--their import. They are the ones most susceptible to eating disorders, the most likely to marry someone for money over love, the ones who have trouble making up their minds for decisions that will most likely disrupt their running narrative, which is sad but constant and uplifting and full of pep talk-esque sayings. 

Life is existential crisis. You learn about yourself, your tentative and short-lived self, as you march slowly on, thinking of what you have accomplished, if your accomplishments aren't things like "prepare a nice dinner," or "eat a nice steak." You quest for the answers, but you never know them. Not yet, at least. There will come a time when you understand yourself completely, but that time is not now, for you are still barely out of the teenage years, and your identity is defined not by yourself but by a long list of many, many adjectives, aphorisms, and images you keep present and vivid in your head.

Categorizing the vivid details as helpful or not will not help. What is most important for me at this moment is to convince one writer, a poet maybe, that their lives are choppy but nevertheless tied together by important threads that make them who they are and not who they were born to be.

It's love. It's love that has made me think of such a person, obscured by other details.

But that person, and I, work in a simulated personality where the hilarious is in odd-phrases, not so much the sad tales, the perfectly maintained narrative.

I can't say I love you. I can't say that I know what makes you you.

But I'd like to know. I need to know. And finally, I'd expect to know.

Love Letter. Subject: Feet.

I burnt my right hand, my writing hand, so this'll be short.

Burned. I have burned myself once before. I was 8. I was a little chemist. I had learned that glass was made from quartz and I also knew, from my elementary research,  that quartz was in sand, along with the sodium bicarbonate skeletons of shells--mostly mollusk and crustacean. It was Oregon. Family reunion. I had found a bark tray, onto which I could place a mound of sand, and placed it in the fire. Growing impatient, I had pulled it out to see if it was working--if a physical change was occurring in the silica crystals. But the wood was like firewood by then and my hand flesh burnt, my curious fingers singed. Throbbing, my hand plunged into the nearby Pacific as my dad yelled at me. I was never the cautious one. I was always the closest to death.

Tonight, it was cooking with unfamiliar kitchenware that caused me to burn my hand again. At first, it was an annoyance, and only that. Then it became a conversation starter, as I wrapped my hand around cold, bottled malt beverages and a huge, and unwieldy bag of ice. Finally, it burned, the pain like I so vividly remember thirteen years prior. Tightening, throbbing, waves of pain. When I finally looked down at my right hand, I noticed the raised white outlines of the burn, a burn pattern I remembered picking at once it finally became somewhat painless in third grade. I remembered that first night of the first time I had been a burn victim, age eight, lying on a couch in a rented, vacation apartment, holding my hand in a melting ice tray. I'd wake up, again and again and again, to find my hand not submerged in water, or being frightened by the lack of iciness of the remaining ice tray. I welcomed the sunrise as the time when my parents would awake and help me with my problem, a problem I didn't understand medically, but a problem I was nevertheless fascinated by. Even though I would never complain directly to my father about an injury I had self-inflicted, knowing he would hate the silly personality that had resulted in severe harm and the lack of stoicism I displayed when I sought comfort, having him just glance at my hand and not rush me to a hospital or offer to shoot my hand full of lidocaine would be satisfactory enough for a surgeon's daughter at any age to continue living somewhat care-free.

Too similar, was and is this burn pattern, however. I thought about the last incident, and how, at that time, I didn't have diabetes. I had been a healthy child. This had been a small scar that would heal. Too similar. I stared at my hand now, in the fluorescent lights of a bathroom, then I felt my throat closing around a whimpered "no" as I bent my knees and crashed down on the tiled floor. "No. no. no!" I kept sobbing, my face contorted into a Luke Skywalker-esque emotion, reminiscent to his response in episode V, of Vader's claim: "I am your father." Luke's face wasn't pretty. Nor was mine. My hand looked just like it had as a child. It was the same degree of injury. I had inflicted the same amount of pain on myself. I was an idiot. No self-respecting daughter of two self-respecting surgeons suffers the same pain twice. All my life, antiobiotics and topical pain-killers had flowed fresh from my parents at any sign of injury or discomfort. It was when I was without them, however, that I learned how to feel vulnerable when my physical body began to topple the psychologically upheld walls of my tangible being.

The first time I had cried at college had occurred when I had walked back from our crappy student health center, the threat of swine flu bearing down on the east coast, with no one, no one medically qualified, who cared about me as anything more than a college student. I was a diabetic. I was anemic, I had eczema, psioriasis, depression. I had asthma. I had a battered body. Would they give me the extra care I required? Or would they just let me die as a casualty in the impending pandemic?

But what forced me to feel emotions with my physical pain wasn't my scaly and now scarred right hand so much as my feet. Stretched out in front of me, tapping the white tiled wall, I realized in that instant that I wasn't going to heal the damage diabetes had wrought me, like my youthful hand had healed the damage of a curiosity-induced burn. I was a goddamn fool. I only had one body. And my favorite part of my body was my feet. Luckily I had never burned them, never walked across coals to spite them. But they, like my hands, were super sensitive. They were so beautiful, and what was I doing for them? Nothing. "But I love you so much," I said, speaking to my feet over the sound of rushing cold water against my upraised hand, flopping in a white, porcelain sink. I pushed them against the toilet bowl to get a better look at them. I had recently gotten a pedicure and blue toe-nails looked back at me, expressionless. "I need you so much," I thought about how fast I could run across fields and over small hills, how my feet had managed to get my over-stretched, awkward body to race into the air, defiant of everything I had previously known as a swimmer unaccustomed to moving on land. I loved my feet, I really did. I stood up and looked at a mirror, my red eyes outlined behind my white glasses. I glanced down at my feet again. A large, pronounced vein created a semi-circle arc on the tops of both my feet. They reminded me of the scars flippers, or more specifically, Zoomers, had left on my feet during swimming. My feet had become cut up. But I smiled, sadly, saying, "You made me so fast. I was faster than anyone else when I used you. I was the fastest. I was the best."

I sat back down, hand still extended above my head as if I was waiting to be called upon by a professor. Who would say that their favorite part of themselves is their feet? No one. I hadn't heard a single person. And suddenly, the cruelness struck me and I bawled. I lost myself then, uneven to even say words. Why would God knowingly put my feet at high alert with a disease like diabetes, knowing that I loved my feet more than anything else? Hadn't he seen the picture of me, age five or six, in Hawaii, smiling next to a bronze statue of an Oriental dragon, in a cute little dress, my feet folded over themselves? I have seen that picture. My feet are huge. My older sister would laugh about them. She would use them as insult fodder. I was such an odd child. Everything about me wasn't right. But my feet, that was something quantitatively wrong with me, as I quickly grew into a size ten as my sister stopped at seven. My little sister would join along in taunting me, because she was young and impressionable and small-footed as well.

There are many amazing things about me, I realize now, as a rational adult. Physically, I also have a beautiful face. I have a nice, or hilarious, laugh. I am tall. I am somewhat skinny. But my feet will always be special to me. Diabetes threatens them. Feet need protecting when you are a diabetic. I thought about what a bad diabetic I had been. Did I even know what my blood sugar was then, as I cried, sunk into a corner in a strange bathroom? No. I didn't. I was horrendous. I wiggled my toes. I cried harder.

"I don't know what I would do without you," I whispered, tears touching my lips. Then I yelled, slightly louder, but not louder than the rushing water in the sink: "I couldn't live without you."

Odd thought. I stood up, cognizant of both the innappropriateness and righteousness of the things I had said to my feet for thirty minutes, confined in a college house's bathroom. I promised then and there, that not only would I never think disparaging thoughts about anyone without the ability to walk, but I would marry a podiatrist. I had to. I would check my blood sugar regularly. I would stop eating teddy grahams. I would stop drinking soda, even the fancy, yuppy soda with real cane sugar that gives carbon dioxide a bigger burst and tickles your nose. I would do whatever. Yes, whatever. I would do everything my pretentious, but much needed, and at that moment, much missed, endocrinologist advised. As long as I had my ten toes. I needed them to support me. I needed them to work.

If I couldn't feel, touch, twiddle, write, or caress with my fingers, fine. But I would always need the ability to run on my feet.

Writers are Crazy

I can't remember when or where I heard a statement containing a similar statement, but the following seems to be true:

"Poets have a lot of sex. Writers never get laid, and that heartbreak is evident in their writing."

Which is why I don't consider romance novelists real writers. Seriously. If they know the intricate details of sex to such detail (that's definitely redundant), than they are having way too much sex to be considered writers.

Meanwhile, I've begun reading the fiction submissions for my writing workshop and I've found a really interesting theme: obsession.

Seriously. Usually I assume I'm crazy for the level of interest/love I have in other human beings. It's an interesting contrast to my general, unworried and uncaring outer demeanor. No. But I have been obsessed. Most people I've obsessed over wouldn't know it. Some might have a general idea. Others might assume I did when really I didn't (I dated you. I didn't much care for you, though). Regardless, I was validated as I anxiously read over the stories written by writers in my group. Of the seven or eight authors I've read, three of them have written stories centered around the unhealthy obsession of their protagonist with a member of the opposite sex they knew in lower education that continued for at least ten, if not more, years.

HAH! The longest I was ever obsessed with someone was four years. In that time, I dated other people. I really wanted him to like me. I was in my mid-teens which is pretty ripe for beginning level obsession. I got through a summer by bribing myself to go to swim practice with the thought of seeing him there. My heart sank, was crushed, every practice he did not attend (I didn't really like swimming at that point, clearly). I, like the characters in these three stories, wanted to know everything I could about him, to the point of minor snooping around his house (though I never stole his personal journals, though I think I tried to access some of the stories he was also writing at the time). I didn't know how to deal with this attraction, because it wasn't simply sexual. Though, I suppose it mostly should have been. I was amused by the way he smiled and how he was always so much not like any other type of person I had ever met before. He was also younger than me, which jumpstarted my, by know well-known, trait of predating on younger men.

Irregardless, unlike the characters in these stories, I got over him quickly. He must've been asexual... or gay. Either way, he wasn't interested in other girls, and I, being incredibly jealous, was left with nothing to be upset about. (Fun fact: I get really fucking jealous to this day. I hope that goes away soon, because it's very dangerous... especially when the people you usually get jealous about are physically far smaller than you).

So I got over him. Also, I fell out with his parents. I'm going to be honest, I was crazy in high school, so I'm not really friends with anyone from that time in my life. But I miss him. I wonder if he still obsesses over video games. I wrote a story, not about him, but using his house as a backdrop. It seemed appropriate. I didn't have a lot of friends, especially friends of the opposite sex. It was an exciting, terrifying, and ultimately, frustrating time in my life.

BUT I'M NOT CRAZY IN COMPARISON! It took me four years to get over him. Who knows? Maybe if he gave me more to work with, I would still be obsessed with him to this day. Or maybe he was a helpful example of how to get over the many people I've had the opportunity to be obsessed with in the years after him.

It's easy to get obsessed. Most people have pleasant things about them that you can convince yourself you love. Truly. Madly. Deeply. But it's also easy to get over obsessions. There's a lot of people in the world. Only a writer, who is moved more by emotions than logic, who is destined to stay among the humanities for the rest of their life, could assume that obsession works this way, in decades rather than months, years. I suppose that is comforting for me. Despite being regularly described as attractive and pleasant, I am still offensively single. Obsessions get me through the years. I get obsessed with people like I get obsessed with new gadgets, though. I can only imagine us doing so many unique and exciting things that touch on your hobbies, hopes, and fears before I get bored, and I run out of new ring-tones and backgrounds to apply to you.

I am very curious to see if these authors actually drew on their own experiences to write these crazy stories. If so, it only proves the above quotation: Writers of extended prose are sex-deprived, and thus, better writers than poets.

Anyway, I will leave this post with a link to one of the Ultimate teams favorite songs: Obsessed With You by The Orion Experience. As I recently said to someone, "I know your middle name, but I do not have a lock of your hair." So I guess I will always be capable of obsession, but never of the crazy, life-changing obsession that at least 1/3 of short fiction writers apparently experience in enough detail to write at least ten pages of it in an (I hope) entirely fictional way. Maybe I'll never be a great writer. But at least I won't get restraining orders thrown against me or waste my life moving to some random city to be with someone whom I am in a one-way relationship with.

I Hate you Dad

1. You like Fathers day.

2. You don't like Fathers day (go to B, C).

B. Your father is an alcoholic (go to IV).

C. You can't stand your father's lame jokes, general attitude on life, his sarcasm, or his success in comparison to your failure (go to IV).

IV. Stock up for Fathers Day! Open Sunday Noon to 6 PM.

Blue Moon, Thank You

 

Let's be honest. Most of my blog is written under the influence. Sometimes it's only mild, maybe a drink at dinner an hour ago. Sometimes it's a tad excessive, as in, I just finished two beers and I'm feeling a little queer. But either way, I wouldn't say I need alcohol to be creative, but I never feel more creative than wearing a dress shirt, boxers, a blazer, and one of my many pairs of hipster glasses, listening to Fela Kuti with a fancy drink in my hand. Love.

So here's to Grand Cru. It caught my eye in Wegman's, and I needed to try it. Blue Moon is the only "beer" I enjoy (though to be fair, I like all wheat ales).

In the Belgian tradition, a Grand Cru is brewed for special occasions.

It's a Wednesday. I don't think today is very special. But this beer is delicious, so thanks Blue Moon.

Love for always,

elora

TMIO (too much information overload) ?

So things are getting pretty bad (and by bad, I mean tolerable). I am crashing in a study room, which is more than fine, but it has no windows. It's harder to sleep in a room with no windows than one might think. I don't understand it either. Though usually when I wake up in the middle of the night, I only fall back asleep when the sun starts rising.

Well, in any case, I'll try to get back to road trip blogging. I just haven't moved a whole lot in the last couple of days. Things were so bad I actually played video games for a large portion of yesterday. I only own Portal 2. It's SO MUCH FUN! Anyway, it's really funny in that, oh god, it's kind of like Better Off Ted, the television show with Portia de Rossi set in a company called Veridian Dynamics which engineers, tests, and produces horrific scientific inventions. (FYI and TMIO: io9 did a positive assessment of the show). Weapons of mass destruction, office chairs that increase productivity by being offensively itchy, red meat from a test tube--of which the unfortunate taste tester said: "It tastes like despair."Anyway, Portal 2 takes place in an almost completely abandoned factory. They have the funniest signs though. Yesterday I completely lost my mind while reading the following:

KNOW YOUR PARADOXES!

in the event of rogue AI

1. Stand Still

2. Remain Calm

3. Scream:

"This statement is false!"

"New mission: refuse this mission!"

"Does a set of all sets contain itself?"

The dichotomy of "Remain Calm" and "Scream" really just did me in. Anyway, after suffering a really weird fucking day yesterday (which I would talk about explicitly except it was pretty inappropriate... and boring... that's a really odd combination isn't it, oh well), I was inspired to make my own sign. It's not nearly as funny, but it does help me not stab myself.

In Case of Emotional Trauma:

1. Do Not Stab Yourself.

2. Repeat.

Quickly, this becomes very Irrational

I'm pretty angry. I have failed as a homewrecker. What's that? Why would anyone want to be a homewrecker? You're right! I am actually happy that I failed. But the competitiveness in me is still pretty upset about this, and will be for quite sometime.

Oh well.

I'm a little bit like Kanye West in that I can twist any bad news--or any information, really--and make it a positive message about me. It's probably my best character trait (no. best character trait: smile. but that's physical). So what I'm thinking about now isn't that I was bested by a very unattractive girl mismatched with a passable guy in a long-term relationship, but rather, thank god I'm not with a barely passable guy who would probably just cheat on me with someone even hotter (hah, yea, impossible). Also, thank god I'm not with a passable guy because I'm probably a lesbian anyway, and sure, I guess I should much rather prefer being with a passable girl.

 But even more importantly, I don't want to be with anyone unless I'm going to marry them. I'm almost 22. I can't afford to fuck around anymore. Dating is for people who have nothing better to do. I'd very much prefer to get started on a family before I become a family practitioner. Maybe a little after, but certainly soon (well, in like five years). Dating's a distraction. I know this because...

If you weren't dating her, there's no way you could have been distracted from me.

Think about it.

Let's get married.

new jersey

Dear New Jersey,


I love your signs. You know the ones I mean... on I-95 south? You know... the ones that "enforce" your new laws concerning mobile phones. Haha. You're so funny, New Jersey. You have that coy humor I wouldn't trade for the world... even New York City. How did you come up with the very self-aware phrase?:

NJ LAW:

PUT THE CELL
PHONE DOWN

How do you just know that everyone who sees that is talking on the phone (or in my case, playing Angry Birds?) You're just so smart, New Jersey. That's why I love you, even if I have to drive through inexplicable Bronx traffic at 1 in the afternoon, and past at least four bottles of what is clearly urine to get to you.

King of Prussia

Largest commercial area in America!!! Yay Pennsylvania!

Went on a shopping spree to urban outfitters and (gross) Macy's. Also, huge question... Do Frango mints only retail in the Chicago area? What a shame.

I love Pennsylvania. There are baby deer here!

Connect it. Cut!

This morning I woke up in New Haven, Connecticut. I was on a couch. I wasn’t wearing pants, or a bra. Thankfully, I had a sleeping bag draped over me, but just barely, because the night had been aggressive and hot, and my L.L. Bean sleeping bag was designed for 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The night before I had been questioning this logic: is it safe to stay in an apartment, with five guys, on a couch, in barely pajamas? My answer, expedited by my heavy dosage of sleeping pills (I’m on three Benadryl now), was yes, without a chance for any further questions.

It helped that the apartment was usually inhabited by twenty-something female law students, thus all the rooms had a quaint, feminine charm which was comforting in a way I did not expect New Haven to be. I was calmed by the pink and girly handwriting, the Feng Shui of scholarly young women, and the paintings which were, no doubt, from IKEA, but which still held things in focus which women are cultured to believe are good for them: flowers, romantic landscapes, beaches. Four Izze® bottles of different colors decorated a shelf, one of the few barren ones, while the others were dense with law books with boring titles: Constitutional Law, Law for Dummies, TORT! [Exclamation point added for excitement]. I was particularly amused as my host, on an aside, introduced me to one of the sub-let-ers, engaged with his computer at a desk in the corner, half-hidden behind a door with a small sign sticky tacked to it: Well-behaved women rarely make history.

So I woke up to a tall man asking me if I knew how to lock the doors to the apartment. 9:30 AM. Construction had been blaring outside my opened window for some time. I had woken up just barely an hour earlier when two- or three- or who-knows-how-many people prepared breakfast for themselves before escaping to summer jobs, though, at the collegiate level, I suppose they could just be called jobs. Not quite careers, but almost. I had recognized that the sun was now up, and bright, and I had rolled over to protect my face, my eyes, from the sun, while also, somewhat conscious, re-draping the unzipped-by-this-point sleeping bag around me, or at it's most minimum of coverage, around the parts of me that I didn't want any strangers seeing in the morning (read: my entire body).

It is impossible for me to wake people. Not impossible. But I hate it. People either 1) look ugly when they first wake up, far less attractive than should be possible or 2) act very dismayed, displeased, and full of hate, when you wake them up far before they wanted.

I was fortunate this morning, because I was 1) fairly well rested (even though I slept on a couch!) 2) not completely hideous. Even more fortunate, I managed to put on a bra without completely undressing (fun fact: that’s not that hard to do). Anyway, I mention all of this only because after everyone had left the apartment, I sat down on the couch and guess what I did for the next two hours:

A)   Wrote the opening lines for a novel I’ve been thinking about.

B)   Blogged.

C)   Read Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island on my Kindle.

D)   Played Angry Birds.

If you guessed D, you’d be right. Who knew I could be so unproductive. It must’ve been the heat. Must’ve been.

Around 1:20pm, Max, my Yale host, gave me a speed tour of New Haven, or at least, the parts of New Haven that were important for Yale University. It was beautiful. I have now seen Princeton and Harvard, and even though Yale is usually always third in ranking, it is the most beautiful, hands down. The Princeton science halls are quite nice, if only because they have a very modern feel to them (they must’ve been constructed in the last twenty years), but if you want the archetypical college campus, Yale wins, hands down (Harvard was far worse than the both of them). It is not surprising that Steven Spielberg chose Yale for Indiana Jones’ affiliated university in the fourth movie. Below is a picture of Yale’s equivalent to Colgate’s Hall of Presidents, which was depicted fictitiously as a dining hall in IJ4.

This is a picture of Yale’s quadrangle. I really liked the sheer number of trees on their campus. Don’t ask me why. I suppose Harvard also has a lot of trees, but they seem small and sickly. It also does not help that Harvard is in a busy populated Cambridge, so any trees are muted by the many sounds of Massachusetts’ drivers: sirens, honks, screeching brakes.

 Absolutely stunning. What I found very curious about Yale is its size: only about 4,000-5,000 undergrads. And yet, the buildings were ginormous. Literally. Even if one was mindful of the post-graduate students, the square feet of places to study seemed to far exceed the number of studying scholars. What an endowment.

Lastly, it was discovered that, indeed, Connecticut drivers are bad drivers. Panicked flashbacks to my harrowing jaunt on the Masspike revealed in retrospection that there had been quite a few Connecticut license plates jostling past me at 75, no, 80, miles per hour. All in all, I give Yale, like the entire city of Boston, a B+. Impressed.

Then I packed up and awayed myself to Fairfield, Connecticut, which is conveniently only thirty-minutes away. Speed limit says 55? No it doesn’t, go eighty. All the while on I-84, I kept expecting to see the outline of New York City. It occurs to me now that Connecticut is truly a bizarre place. I expected Fairfield to look like Winnetka on steroids. I was saddened to see that it was just a nice town. Oh well. Here are some pictures:

 

I’ve enjoyed getting casual tours of famous east coast cities. I keep wondering if I could ever give Wilmette the same treatment. Sadly, I doubt this to be the case. The Midwest is not as walk-able as the east coast. And there’s about 100 years less history (a rough average). Anyway, tomorrow is Pennsylvania! One of my favorite states!

I'm learning a lot about Chicago from walking around Boston. It's kind of like learning more about someone by thinking about all the things they're not. Or by looking at their friends, and seeing how they've chosen people to compliment their own deficiencies (A man is known by the company he keeps--Aesop Fables). Could Chicago and Boston ever be best friends? Tentatively. For one, we both have disproportionally crazed fans compared to the success of our professional sports teams. Well, I don't know. I may be speaking more on Chicago for that one, since Boston seems to be doing quite well in the sports department. Your baseball team has won the world series twice in the last ten years? Okay, you must be doing something right.

Fun little aside: I was at Cook's Liquor store in Hamilton, New York. The two people who run the place are always really chatty. Unfortunately, the last time I went in, the man was less jovial than one should be, selling hard stuff, the best stuff, to the soon to be bibulous masses of the small town. Surgery, impending. Diabetes. But he is a Cubs fan. And wait, yes I know what you're thinking: "That poor man, his life nearly done with him, cut short by complications, and he's a Cubs fan, a highly engaged Cubs fan, too? How could God be so cruel?" True. But! Blustering through all the dark humor wafting between us, I said after his comment about being ready to die, for I wasn't going to let my favorite liquor salesman just bite the dust: "You can't go yet, the Cubs still haven't won it!" I bet Cubs fans outlive other fans by a few extra years, just so. 
When the Cubs finally win, there will be a huge depletion of the senior population.

Most apparent to me was that Boston was tiny. Sure, it wasn't fun walking from Cambridge to the Southwest end, but it was doable. Imagine walking from the border of Evanston to the Southside, 95th street? You'd be exhausted. Sure, Google maps says it's only an 8 hour walk, but still. Boston is a tiny city. Population wise as well--600,000 something in the urban area. Tiny. For the longest time I always only had New York City as a comparison for the awkwardness that is judging the size of urban centers. In which case, comparing NYC to the Chi, Chicago is much, much smaller. I guesstimated that by size alone, Chicago is only one-fifth the size of NYC (in reading Wikipedia, however, it turns out that Chicago's area is precisely 1/2 that of New York... which leads me to wonder, why does Chicago look so small?).

But Boston... as I walked around Boston, it became apparent that Chicago is enormous, a spectacle onto itself. A triumph of steel and metal over a truly large space of what was once purely prairie (so I imagine, but that, too, might just be my over-romanticized ideal of what Illinois was without the country's third largest city bearing down and building up on the shore of Lake Michigan). Boston is a college town (albeit one composed with the students of at least 10 higher education institutions... Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern, Lesley, Berklee School of Music, Tufts, Emerson, Suffolk, and a few more Umass schools). Chicago has schools, but not nearly as high a density can be found there (we have Northwestern, Loyola, DePaul, U of C, UIC, Columbia, Malcolm X, then IDK). Boston has a river (which you can swim in), Chicago has a lake (which you can only sometimes swim in). Both have airports, but Chicago's is bigger. Boston is full of Bruins fans (which are bears, who knew?) Boston is where I am. But Chicago is home.

Mfa

Dear diary,
After walking six miles in oppressive urban heat, we finally made it to the museum of fine art in Boston.

<3lorapantaku

Oh! Flaneur!

Within the past week I've introduced a habit that seems a little weird. Well, not weird, really. Strange, a bit. It's odd, really. Or... anti-social. Not anti-social as in "I don't want to see anyone," leads to agoraphobia leads to fear than hatred than the dark-side of society (i.e., terrorism or reality television), but anti-social in the this is not what well-socialized people do. Yes. If there were etiquette classes available to young ladies such as I, I would have failed them faster than I failed accounting. Etiquette, like accounting, is something that seems like it would be an excellent way to devote one's time, but like accounting, is terrifically boring and not important for every day life. Still, I'm always impressed by people who know the rules well, but not well enough to know how to find loop-holes (for this reason I don't like lawyers... or anarchist's for that same reason).

So what's the big anti-social activity I've adopted as a perambulatory creature, becoming second nature, habitual, as I roam small cities from the West Coast best coast all the way to Boston? Touch. It's offensive to many people, public health directors who work for the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and WHO (World Health Organization), employing visual artists to create signs that strongly suggest against something that seems so very human. Unfortunately, if you contract H1N1 or whatever new blight qualifies under the "pestilence-designed-to-signify-Armageddon-for-the-un-rapturable," you are no longer afforded the same rights given to say, a newborn baby or a grandmother (both of these are examples of a type of person in society whom are often hugged or snuggled). In fact, you're not even considered human, rather, you've become a vector, like a mosquito carrying malaria or a paramecium carrying Montezuma's revenge. So as is a common warning threatened by the guards of the Orange County Prison: "No touching! No touching!"

However, I'm not sick. Nor am I attempting to touch sick people. I'm just... touching things. I think this first happened when I found myself at a Whole Food's in Boulder, Colorado. I was like a kid in a petting zoo where all the animals are 100% organic, vegan, or packaged in some form of hyper-stylized container. I'm a sucker for packaging, so easily am I swayed by aesthetics. Most of the new foods I've ever tried, I've tried because they've come in a cardboard box or glass bottle I just couldn't leave the store without. Color, contrast, font, minimalism. Combine that onto a glass bottle and it's in my hands. We spent a prolonged period of time in that Whole Food's, trying to make sure that we purchased everything just right for the woman of old money that my family friend now works for. In the lull's between, "How do you know if a nectarine is a peach or if either of them are good for purchase?" and "What is Chuanr-style lamb and is their cumin in it?", I would wander aisles and daydream about how fancy my future life would be with all my food items tasting as delicious as they looked on their boxes. *Sigh*

A week later, I'm in Boston. Not as clean as Boulder. It's hot. I can smell sewage wafting around unfortunate street intersections. Not as pleasant, no. But it's a very walkable city. And it's early summer (at least, as small talk will have you believe, it feels like it, since winter lasted wicked long in this part of the country, and pretty much everywhere else in this country, too). Flowers are in full bloom, that's what made me pick up my habit of touching things. Because a lot of my walking has involved passing residential areas, I have literally had a encyclopedic-worthy amount of inflorescence variety at a distance not exceeding my outstretched hand. But it didn't stop there. I wanted to touch leaves, too, the tubular off-shoots of bromeliads, airplants. Than bark. Trees line streets, but for what reason? Beauty? Aesthetics? But is not some part of aesthetics more than just appearance? How does the bark of an oak feel against a tentative palm's caress? Then it was the tips of fences, from heavily galvanized to suffering and rusty, protecting an area sectioned off by bureaucratic means, clearly, because no artist or homeowner would let even something so utilitarian fall into such visual offense*.

Soon it was the objects of public transportation, and here is where things get dirty. Hands. So many hands belonging to (on average) half as many people, use the subway, or "The T" to get from point A to point B. Now, etiquette dictates that many of those people will not touch everything that is touchable. They wouldn't want to. But etiquette isn't something we are necessarily born to follow. So while I may be touching things that very few people may touch, probability alone dictates that someone, too, must have, prior to my poking, touched what I was reaching out to touch. Little things like the overhead bars are objects of design that everyone ends up touching, to combat the awkward stance of passengers while cars de-accelerate, accelerate, de-accelerate, accelerate. But then, while riding the escalator up from the city's depths, I noticed small little circular, upraised chrome colored pegs that were just a little away from the large black strip that doubles as a hand-rail. What was their purpose for existence? I didn't care. I touched one. I touched the next. I continued as the escalator slowly dragged me closer to Porter Square. Advertisements and anything that glowed also became the fascinations of my hands, well, mostly just my right. It's a trouble maker, I'd think. How many diseases, coughs, sniffles, viruses would I pick up from letting my hand execute its own freedom as it saw fit?

*Get it? It's a pun! That fence is offensive!

Boston skyline

This is the view from a roof on Bay State road. I love the giant Citgo sign: it's Boston's answer to Time's Square.

pictures from cambridge/boston, massachusetts

Harvard Square. John F. Kennedy Avenue seemed geographically appropriate. I kept trying to figure out what cities Boston reminded me of. This square felt like New York City. 

 

 Recently updated, the Cambridge Public Library was a testament to modern aesthetics. Still, it felt quaint as I opened up my Kindle and continued reading Imbibe by David Wondrich.

 

I feel like you can tell a lot about a neighborhood's commercial health by the aesthetic appeal of the signs for non-chain stores. Even, sometimes, for their chain stores, as is the case in Freeport, ME where all buildings must be built with a similar Nor'easter style (consequently, their McDonald's has a unique charm).

 

view from the massachusetts avenue bridge

Dinner tonight was at a Ritz-Carlton apartment. The view was spectacular. The only feature to change to truly make it breathe-taking would be to move the building to Chicago. 

  We walked about three miles from Cambridge to the Ritz-Carlton, during which we decided to stop off at a salon to get Mani-Pedi's. I was adventurous, and taking a hint from my older sister, decided to go with a sea foam green for my hands. I was surprised that I liked it, and continue to like it even now.

For desert, Katrina made a vary viable variation on pies that was vegan-accessible. Blend a large variety of nuts together to make the "crust," then add layers of sliced strawberries and puree'd dates and strawberry slush. Then freeze it. Worked out surprisingly well for a non-bake pie.

The "T"

This is the Boston version of mass transit. I have been assured by my host that since it was the earliest extensive subway system built in America, it's wicked slow.

Boston!

Writer's Retreat

I'm spending the next couple of days in Cambridge, Massachusetts, fresh off of a weekend spent at Colby College reunions. I've got my own basement room in a nice apartment in a residential city. I am only qualmed by the smell of napthalene that pervades the stairwell leading to my guest bedroom. However, after discovering the smell was naphthalene, a compound I had to identify for my organic chemistry lab, I was enthused more than upset. Hurray for chemistry! What does napthalene smell like, you ask? It smells like old people, or at least their breathe, that comes to inhabit most of their knick-knacks, heirlooms, and belongings. It smells like moth-balls. It smells like the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, of American Indian exhibits and stuffed African Elephants.

@ June 3rd

Driving on the Mass Turnpike is like being stuck in a bad marriage.

Turbulent flow. Physics. The problem with the Massachusetts turnpike, if analyzed from a pseudo-scientific standpoint, is its two fundamental characteristics: 1) three lanes 2) erratic driving styles and 3) bad roads. If, for example, there were road signs that asked for slower drivers to pull into the right lane, as is done in New York and many other New England states, then perhaps we'd see self-organization similar to laminar flow. Unfortunately, three lanes further complicates the lack of mandated organization.

I won't complain further about this, save to say that by not having a more configured thruway, the pike is at a heightened risk for accidents, traffic jams, and daresay deaths.

If analyzed from an emotional standpoint, driving on the mass turnpike is a lot like the moment when you realize you're stuck in a dead-end marriage. Mind you, I've never married, but I have read enough novels with married characters and listened to enough fiances to understand the fears imbued and lost in marriage.

I know you. You're a small green Volvo sedan. I've been driven off the road by cars like you, dust and dirt flying up, churned up by my wheels. I've been hurt before.

I can only change lanes as easily as I can change topics, divert our conversations to distract you from the laundry, the kids, our retirement. I'll worry about that later, just as I'll eventually build up the courage to drive the car to the shop for an oil change. The damn lighted icon always catches your attention from the passenger seat, but I couldn't fucking care less. What's the worst that could happen? I'll pull over when smoke builds up the courage to erupt, with melodrama, from the hood, obscuring my view of the road and for a moment, forcing me to drive with my instincts alone. Just as I'm sure I'll reassess my life when you leave our house for the the final time. Forever.

I think I'd like that.

You're a green Volvo. Sedan. I find you boring, in the rare moments when I am serious with myself. Mesmerizing is the quality I tell myself you possess when I am trying to prove that I'm in love with you. A constant, looping mantra--spoken into rearview mirrors, recited in reverse, committed to memory through carwash. Yet even still, I don't know if you have a V6 or V8. We've been stuck in traffic now for some time. I can't even remember how things got this way. Was it that first time you cried or was it rubbernecking another car's crash?

You slow down. I speed up. I don't think we're going to crash, but I don't trust you anymore, so how the hell would I know? You've almost merged into me twice now so I keep my distance. Still, I'm mesmerized. In the cars behind me I can feel drivers growing anxious if I don't stay close to you. I'm disrupting traffic. It's worrisome.

Review of June the 3rd, dictated by my Samsung Android Infuse 4G phone

I have important thoughts milling around in my head (milling doesn't seem like the right verb... but this aside only stands to support the weight of my eventual claim). Unfortunately, I'm too tired to actually communicate effectively. So I am going to hold off writing creative non-fiction (namely the two shorts, entitled: "driving in massachussetts is like being in a bad marriage," and the less awesomely titled, "lost in traffic."). I will, however, share some videos of me singing and/or ranting in my car. Technology is a many splendid thing.

This was the first experiment. The sun was setting over central new york, I was feeling creative, and I was listening to the CD I had stolen from my little sister with all classic rock/reggae hits from the 60s and 70s.

I don't know how I managed to drive on the Masspike and record my last will and testament, though they should really make that a pre-requisite for getting onto it.

Hahaha, the phone is upside down, and also in my GPS cradle. Portland was having an art walk, so consequently... there was traffic in Portland. Weird. Also, dreadlock'd people, LGBTers, hipsters, preps, east coasters, all possible flavors of interracial couples, foreigners, and artists of every division were just roaming the streets.

Things I Love Today:

1) waking up to the sounds of construction, hypoglycemic, and the brief confusion that comes with awakening in a strange bed... this isn't home? no, you're 700 miles away from there.

2) my GPS attaching to my windshield

3) my ANDROID phone. if it's not an iPhone, well, it's probably a much superior Android phone with superior voice recognition software and GPS features--also the grooviest animations a phone could ever possibly have (at least until 6G).

4) Portland, Me. I want a boyfriend or a girlfriend from Maine. No on 1: Protect Maine Equality!

5) Not dying on the Masspike. Massholes! Also, Jersey drivers... WTF?

6) My face. You've been in a car for 18 hours in the past 48. You should look a lot worse.

Portland, ME

Temperature and time are important in Maine. Important enough for their own fancy building.

Massachusetts

Pictures From June 2nd -- Driving into the Moonrise

Today I left my home in West Wilmette and headed eastward. It was 9:21 am when I got on I-94 east. Meanwhile... I decided to take a ton of pictures while driving. It made the drive more enjoyable, even if it took a while to get used to how much attention I could pay to the pictures and still drive successfully (turns out, not much). 

I also played the alphabet game... by myself. It occurred to me that a great advertising strategy would be to put up billboards with either:

Q

X or

Z

With your company's name and the exit it could be reached at underneath. I would totally endorse that.

 

Metra vs. the Kennedy

 Metra vs. Chicago Sky

Chicago Bear # 71: Idonije, apparently, a Hero

Sears, I mean... Willis Tower

I always miss the Chicago Skyway, so I end up driving through the south side. This sign struck me as particularly amusing.

I love how 1960's chic this sign is. 

No traffic... Just a ton of construction.

Fight Deep Vein Thrombosis! Put your foot on the dashboard!

O-hi-O! Sounds like the world's best orgasm. It isn't.

my mind was on orgasms throughout Ohio because I was listening to Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. She was discussing the feasibility of sex in zero gravity. (It's not feasible.)

CLEVELAND! Most remarkable for it's 35 MPH curve. Also, a good half-way point between my house and Hamilton, NY.

The WHALE BUILDING! It's in Cleveland, I don't know why it has whales on it. But I'm really glad I got this picture... There was traffic. Seriously, very stop and go... at 45 mph. You're welcome for this picture.

A less exciting... 40 MPH curve!!!

ERIE, PA is welcoming me? I feel like the luckiest girl in the world!

 

Buffalo, NY. A place of power--hydraulic power to be exact, and lots of power lines. 

 

Sun setting in Central New York.

So I spent my day driving into cold fronts and towards the moonrise. It's an odd thing, really. Racing ahead of the weather. Two days ago I was in Colorado. I flew on the back of a windstorm that originated in the American plains and wrecked Chicago. Yesterday I drove around my home, still standing. And today, I outpaced the front. Very odd.

Another interesting aspect of spending a day in isolation, I began reading signs as if they were in conversation with me. An artistic sign that looked like this:

No
U
turn.

Read by me sounded like an ultimatum at the end of a very long argument:
"No, you turn."

Driving through Cleveland I was listening to "Hold the Line" by Major Lazer. It's one of the more cinematic songs by Major Lazer (if you listen to the longer, unedited version). A car, a beige and blue, mid-size sports utility vehicle, drove in front of me, with a vanity plate reading "Move Now." What? Was this car talking to me? A police car was four or five car lengths behind me. What and where did I have to move? I guess I could technically... no. That would be wrong. Wouldn't it? I'd break the law, wouldn't I? What would the repercussions be for my actions as of yet still undone?