she has a camera for a heart

line dry

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:23:04 GMT

ember embryo

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:55:55 GMT

I am ridiculously in love with this right now.

before after

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:00:56 GMT

things that i will miss

(hint: I suggest that, right after you click here, you go make a cup of tea so you can let all of it load)

"before"

Djavan would be proud.

Name that ear.

Mother's

Impressive.

Pan's Labyrinth

Chiquita Banana

hyperdrive

(or the way it really did reflect like that)

Old World
the things that took up much too much of my life, were beautiful but made me feel trapped, the days of pages held together with ultimatum-equations and the decreasing number of calendar pages between then and free, and the scribblings of telephone booths and phone calls right before chemistry class, and spiral-bound exhaustion pulling me up out of bed at six in the morning. I didn't understand it then, but I do now, and I'm grateful and bitter.

motes

that one always gave me pause -- is that a demotivator? in a school?

i'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony

(it's all you need, it's everywhere)

I do like this

I like this, too

glass is a fluid

Otherworld

I'm still not sure what this means, but it sounds like a lot of fun.

stained glass irises

Work
or, the only thing that was consistently fun all summer even though there were a lot of futile stargazings and a lot of attempts not to grimace with sleep deprivation while dancers bitched.

here's to SculptabobbyKhiela, Cameron, Courtney, Aslan, Zeke, Fergie. I miss you guys and I appreciate the insane sanity I was graced with from 7 to midnight twice a week. I'll see you next year. Keep kind of scaring customers, and being interesting folk to talk to, and easy to get along with, and the best coworkers ever.

Need: foot-in-a-bag, or some defoliant.
(but Maginnis said that you'd have to be very patient and very stupid to get bitten by one of these.

disco ball in empty cookie bag

It's the Virgin Mary in melted ice cream!

(they smell so good.. i love just opening the box and inhaling)

Aslan is very peaceful. He's a weirdo (aren't we all), but he's incredibly chill and understanding.

Another masterpiece by Poet.

party hats

Cameron bought a nerf gun every day after school for the first few days. On my last day of work (for the year), he brought it to the store and we made couples play William Tell (I had an apple) for 10% off. It was one of the funnest days I've had.
I'm really going to miss getting paid to play with ice cream, draw pastel peaches, dress up in a cow suit, sing, coax customers into shooting each other with nerf guns, watch people tap dance or sand dance or play guitar or belt opera, listen to life stories and relationship drama, play with dishsoap, attempt to bake cookies on the candle holder, listen to music, and attempt to eat malt powder.

(all the world)

not home

run for the thicket, bambi! ..ow! stupid.

home

(they do have potential)

is heart, sun

(bitter)

(sleepy)

dunce

toashty! (don't tell me you've forgotten THAT nightmare sequence)

me: cool.
dad: what?
me: i'm going to get my camera.
dad: why?
me: to get a picture of the toast.
dad: ok. you're...weird.
me: *blurrily photographs toast*
dad: whoa! that looks COOL! i don't even know what that IS! you could show that to someone and be like "what is that?" and they'd say "i dunno.. some guy dancing in an.. orange room." that is WILD.
(my dad is cute)

unsent

ceiling van der Waals

black sun

broseph and friends

kabloomers

banana freckles.
freckles make me weak.

augh i love you

sqyuirmy

3>

there is no such thing as unique poetry anymore

pieces of sky

(harbinger of skulltulas)

(shake your tree)

Richard and Schwartz (lol.. when I think about her, she's got a really cute name)

starcrossed

Joy, asleep, before I met her. I took a picture because I thought her hair was cool.

Don Quixote

I was about to say "this is the nicest girl ever" because she was.
Then I realized that, in the last two months, I have met several nicest-people-evers.
Don't think that nice is normal, don't let it become expected, go unappreciated. They're in close-knit groups scattered everywhere in towns where other people ignore you or keep to themselves.

Raindrops keep falling

Joy is inspiring.
I didn't exchange any contact information with her whatsoever, even though we spent hours talking on the bus. She was supposed to move to Denmark late last month. Wherever she is, I hope she's doing well.

"I don't know what that building is for.. the name sounds so useless."

boys will be boys

(and this last stretch of time was spent with ears buried in Bob Dylan, brain soaked in energy drink, limbs restless)

legal

and then,

white shirt and blue jeans, and i with layered t-shirts freezing dripping from Greyhound.
there is a pile of rocks in the driver's seat (i knew it), spiky hair and one of those five-o-clocks that lasted several weeks.
upside down picture of blue sky and traffic cone,
but this is the stop at the scenic overlook, where we walked on the rocks and the shade was too cold.
even in summer the north feels treacherous-cold to me, but sort of in the way you'd feel weird around a werewolf when the moon wasn't full.

it thinks it's so Superior

Grand Marais.
(try telling me you won't miss this)
(I could almost live here.. what does that say about the place?)

(anisoptera)

evinrude

thimbleberry

thimbleberry.. these were awesome. raspberries grew up here, too.. were much more common, but not as fun.

plus lemon sorbet

(think of)

couchsurfing Minneapolis
(after the door closed behind us we grinned and grinned and grinned mad-crazy sea creature hippie grins. hyenas that happen upon a dead family of zebras, if you will.)

Dawn has the coolest cat ever. I don't remember its name, but it would jump on her face in the middle of the night and push everything unfamiliar off the countertop.
This is one of us trying to rescue the garlic.

her house was cool too - everything came from thrift stores, or the side of the road, but she'd set it all up to look like she'd bought it all as a set

gold fleckles

couchsurfing St. Louis

this picture utterly fails to convey how incredibly cute Tim was. incredibly cute and Polish and polite and shy and genuine and kind and hilarious.
the evening found us in his basement, among drumsets and guitars, watching Planet Earth with Tim and all of his roommates.

most random house ever

this is just like the pope in Brian's house -- when they moved in, it was there

alien computer

City Museum -- have you heard of it? I'm not sure when, but a guy bought a large warehouse in the middle of town, allegedly planning to sell it later for a profit. But he built a treehouse-like structure inside for his kids. It was awesome, and soon the guy's neighbors started to come by, then other kids, so eventually I guess he sold it to the city. It's like a giant playground made out of found objects.

Mrs. Frizzles loses it.
"I knew I should have stayed home today," says that poor bespectacled kid.

airplane ribcage suspended, and i feel like pinocchio.

patty mcgrossout

will the endeavor work?

here we are, in St. Louis, in a giant onion around 5 stories up. It is a beautiful day.

Shirley you're joking

vintage

kaleidoscope people

arch: only the second most interesting thing in St. Louis.

couchsurfing memphis

battleground

bottleground

this definitely gets categorized as one of the best days of the year. that's Remi and his guitar, Genevieve ("she's my baby"). Remi is from Paris, France, and he came to Memphis to learn more about the blues, which he played for us on guitar while singing in French-accented falsetto. His French ID looks absolutely fake and he started cussing in French when we talked about tarantulas.

(never better)

(i know that i am meant for this world;
my life has been extraordinary)

"are we in heaven?"
(unsettling sun)

she leaves

the most expensive thing i've ever paid for, and for completely selfish reasons.

entre les trous de la memoire

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:46:03 GMT

4:00 PM on Friday: I got my camera back.
6:00 PM on Saturday: by this time, I had taken 200 pictures.

Here are probably only about 85 of them: (things i left out: a LOT of pictures of sorbet, a few big pictures of my room, some stuff you shouldn't be laughing at)

around the room, in tiny pieces
(as christopher columbus sees it)
I have started to see my room as if I'm seeing it for the first time. I've become fascinated with things that I used to see every day. I realized that a lot of stuff in my room was given to me by other people, is displayed just to remind me of other people. Some of you are going to see some familiar stuff in here.

an alternate universe of an alternate universe.
(Ruidoso, circa 2000. pretend you live here)

bellybutton.

gnomerson

(my surroundings)

we smile a lot here

L
(New York City, circa '06)

Micah
(Renaissance Festival, October 2006)

I love this.
Jimmy stood in his house, doing his daily routine of bending his upper body out of the window. As he looked up from a pocketwatch he inherited from an Alice in Wonderland character, an apple fell out of the sky.
If it's falling at 2 m/s, and the window is such and such hectares, or whatever, where the hell did the apple come from?

hold me

about this clear in my head

Drea
(Momoko, pretty sure Christmas 2002)

Rachel Trudell
(Graduation 2006)

Aunt Bev
(vampire bat feasting on white elephant.. supposed to be a good luck sign)

(chad, email 2003/2004)

(haha, Ben)

(not the pink one)

Puffalumps. No, not a rare infection. Weirdass chunky pastel varmints that probably went out of style in the late eighties.

(some downtown Methodist church, 2004)

Emily
(2005)

(long ago, in a land where side ponytails weren't only for Napoleon Dynamite girls)

Leah
(2003/2004?)

you, you

mom painted this for me a long time ago
(Madison, oh bunnyton!)

you, you

Papa John,
(March 2007)

Aidan
(2002, 2003)

Khunya
(2004)

Mere and Liz and Ben

yes, a fixation with small green things

like this

BRMG
(Lake Tahoe, 2001/2002)
(34)

Ben
(arguably, Christmas)

you, you
(Graduation, 2006)

(this deck became very well acquainted with the palm of my hand in 2001, was carried in pocket and backpack for pickup games of ERS [i miss that, badly. all other card games are boring])
(and here's to my suicide king, ruler of all the ruddy numbers)

Zeke drew a strawberry, but I thought it looked like a skull so I helped it out by giving it a creepy face.

look closely. you think THAT'S weird?

who is it.

Oh, Geo, the havoc you unintentionally caused.

Oh, pickled girl.

walls

I remember the way the trees seemed to grow up from the floors themselves, roots grasping at the wooden panels. The stones I remember have turned to ice in my mind, and his hair into green leaves. I remember wearing nothing. I remember all of the books, all of their titles, and my attempts to forget them all.
I remember the sky, blue above the ocean, above the city, reflected. I remember how everything rushed in, went up in smoke, and floated away in a yellow hot air balloon. I remember one picture tucked into the corner of a mirror, but each room was empty except for that and us and a crooked attempt, centuries too late, to right a wrong. I remember that we were at sea-level and had not quite yet learned to read.

you know who you are
(or maybe not. arguably, me neither)
(happy something, happy back turned)

always, the taste of walking up stairs

next to you under stars.
(but can't change them)

and a star to steer her by
(astronomy, cartography, and the verdant notion that it was all worthwhile)

May

(happy something)

work

Pretty much sums up how I feel, my own frustration with illegality and frustration with uninformed supporters.
(Maria, full of grace)

put your insides on ice

preferably, mango

dylan, door

she's hot

other

I think baby roaches are cute. Gross, but cute. Like babies.
(those oversized antennae)

I'd want to say that Chad would like this (or some of these)
(but most of them are pretty inappropriate)

notes, doodlage, what's evolved from the feelings journals L took from me years ago and hasn't yet returned
(dust and dried ink)

happy anniversary, piece of paper.

the self

(I know, right?)

seconds

Thu, 22 May 2008 04:27:55 GMT

amy's

introspectroscopy

every morning, green treehouse cathedral

room = my glasgow

complicated, pointless, pretty, an unbalanced attempt at balance. hey, sounds familiar.

i found these on the ground and they are so cool. they remind me of goldilocks (no, not frank)

the window by my seat in class

fingers wear stripes

backpack

a farewell of sorts

when i come back, they will have built it.

jump over

two baby doves i found under sorin oak

lie down look at moon between fingers and stars against scribbled sharpie flowers, here is dizzying every morning skeletal after coffee (and watching the sun rise finally, waking up the sky in loud colors).

Q said this is a columbine

does this remind anyone else of the hands on Pan's Labyrinth?

(yesterday belongs to this bench)

for richard

(hey Richard, if you see this, remember that seis pros shirt I let you borrow a few years ago, and you took it to NY and made it smell like incense? I let Ben borrow it this time, but he's probably not going to make it smell that great)

leaf, leaf, leaving

you know kids are living here:

spider picture (L, watch out): http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i56/rollmop/picture4370.jpg

spotting a shadow, i made them be eyes

"come on, we're not done!"

ben did a handstand while i held him up. bunny.

bunny with bazooka

"hate seeing you in that hoodie"

"I love how whenever Jesus is depicted with his dad the carpenter, he always makes a wooden cross."

It is nearing midnight and Mr. and Mrs. Ezekiel can't figure out how to tell Isaac that the party is over.

[i made it down the coast in seventeen hours
pickin' me a bouquet of dogwood flowers]

(ginger)

"famous dave's: world famous ribs" and we were like "yeah right" but they were the best ribs ever.

cream cheese on waffles is bril

(they made a statue of us)

mother mary holding a hobbit.

Mary's toes

Mary's other toes

Jesus' toes

noraheart

looks like in the little mermaid when ursula grows a million and gets stabbed by a boat.

birch pages turning

another spider picture: http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i56/rollmop/picture4591.jpg

Uh, Jesus? don't look now, but... there's a crucified you floating above your head.

so simply put

at the blue bunny factory. there's not much difference between that and

this.
no, kidding. it was admittedly okay, but i'm no convert.

overclocking ben:

i enjoy how the title of this book just cuts straight to the point

ben waiting for pizza

ben waiting for pizza

pizza worth waiting for. deep dish ftw.

harley davidson sign floating like a weirdo angel over the water.
scariest nice hotel ever.

hawnk!

Lake Superior

WARNING: bowser's castle

no really. look at this.

inside of kaleidoscope

the boy with kaleidoscope eyes

but he could get used to the unnaturally natural darkness, and he feels like he can breathe in a place so quiet you can hear the earth breathe with you.
and even though the paralyzingly humanless expanse makes me feel more claustrophobic than anything, he feels he's been freed from the forest of highrises and fast-forward antpeople.

roof rains sun

blue and white and blue, up there, always.

birthday fudge!

{in a world that shunned spectrums}

one of their main selling points: "yuck!"

mikey

a plethora of best-evers

Thu, 22 May 2008 04:07:01 GMT

Am always really bad at this, not posting for such a long time that they come in bursts requiring two different posts (i could technically put them all up in one, but i care about your computers).

Zoë's face
Michelle Flanagan inspired.

this face does things to my face that only faces could do
(i just love her)

this was the first time Z had painted a face.

jaundice

This is a bony leaf that got tangled in a strand of hair on the christmas lights. I like it, so I left it there.

Food, food, and "food"

raw rolled oats with honey and cinnamon

"this is so great.. it tastes like brownies" -- Ben, waking Emma up to show her a mess I made out of grape nuts, ice cream, nutella, peanut butter, and possibly soy milk or coconut or something. I wasn't eating ice cream or chocolate at the time, so I couldn't tell, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't as good as he said it was.

they call it the love apple

check the reflection on the knife

what follows is a million pictures of a ginger eating a coconut popsicle.. the kind he bought me but ate all of before i could get to them. that is pretty much how he rolls.

my favorite part of an orange is that little pattern inside of the stem part after you pop the stem thing off.

america's finest news source

these are apple straws on a spinach salad full of curry, cashews, and vinaigrette. goes crazy well with fried tofu.

many dark chocolates and a green tea chocolate:

(every little thumb print)

i bought this sushi just to photograph it. i ate it, of course, but i bought it to take pictures of.

at Liz's

antics

this is 3. you do want to hear her story:
http://nearer-yet.livejournal.com/45609.html

weerw weerw! there is chaos on the streets! the force is out in.. force tonight. police cars and firetrucks are driving back and forth across the snow, dodging badges and fire hydrants. holy crap!

tulip

house

Nobody's sure why we have this. I grew up reading it in the kitchen, always with the same question boggling my preadolescent mind: she'll cook your WHAT?! WHAT DOES SHE COOK?

Boulder

wake up, elliot

[sunrise over smoke stacks in the midwest, the beauty of this abandoned factory.]

Boulder from the top of Mt. Icyhell Penguinslide

he's got the whole world

there was a mine for these crystals on Mt. Icyhell

Jesse is a beast

please don't take it away

crepe dj

tell me you're jealous

crinkle

airplane held together

and from her heart, a briar

castroville

the landscape looked so much like something out of Lord of the Rings that Zoë decided to give us her Frodo look

that's me

and that's my twin brother

how the sky was almost purple

I drew pictures of our adventures in the guestbook.

easter bunny sighting in San Antonio

home for easter

my mom is really good at drawing.

gold

silver

all of the ice cream and chocolate i'd been saving up since lent.
yes, i still practice lent even though i'm agnostic. it's my favorite holiday.

making faces

a momentary lapse, which brought on

ruinage

ehe, here's to zielsdorf

kerrville and fredericksburg

ben makes breakfast.. overeasy eggs with hand-crumbled corn flakes on top. it's actually really good

i really like this

you know who's cool?

"i'll give you myapple" [sic]

when we walked out of the restaurant, we saw a carnival that seemed to have materialized while we were having lunch.

oh oh, my lad, oh oh, my lad!

you'll notice that there's only one kid on the crazy bus. i'd rather fall off the birthday bus than ride the crazy bus alone.

we chilled with a fly on her lunch break

note shadows

L and I were sharing a cage. Notice how calm she looks. I wish I had taken a picture of the cage becoming a cement mixer of death, with rocklike objects flying around inside while our brains were laughing on G's.

it looked kinda like that, except there were bars covering everything.

fredericksburg:

and the open, lost world scares me, but there's something about that sky

"i want Mrs. White, because she's got a buttsheild"

matthew in bekah's hat

what a goober

real live cuckoo clock.

inside his wallet

a captain crunch

i met this woman

she had three dogs who she talked to and told us about as if they were her toddlers. i was like, "this lady is a little bit scary," because she wouldn't stop talking about her dogs. so i asked her why she had paint on her hands.
"well, come see, I'll show you."
i was scared, but then she led me to a room full of paintings.

apparently, she's a really amazing oil painter. she taught me how to make reflections, trees, and skies.

bekah

cutest couple ever:
we ran into them at the gas station (small town?) and they'd bought kites

you know who's cool?

something so beautiful

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:44:20 GMT

in which Lena takes me all over Boquete in search of an available piano, and we discover a church with a sucky keyboard

"but you were knocking me down with the palm of your eye"
(i miss the live version of that song....)

she told me "fear is the heart of love," so i bailed on that ridiculous excuse for an answer to life.

Lena is a very fast learner.

something about sunlit ascension, and how each corner of this sleepy little town seems to hide something so beautiful. there is something beyond the rich buttery scents wafting from bakeries, and the household catastrophe noises whispered by open doors, and the rain trailing down shiny streets slithering with stray dogs. in all the crevices, in all the places people forget when they live here all their lives, in places the sun ignores or perhaps lingers on too long, there is something so beautiful.

at home (sort of) in the pension marilos

this is the stash. i used up a drawer to hide my food from the angry ravenous ladies.

ross in adrienne's hat. i don't remember what the dogs were called, only that they were quite pleasant and had terrific fleas.

seasoned pots
(can you imagine needing this many?)

a single tool is necessary to make lunch.
and hey richard, this isn't my old bones-of-the-innocent knife. this is ANOTHER one i found. just as dull, but not as rusty. it's an upgrade -- maybe if i keep looking, someone will drop a machete.

mangrove-planting time

the sand at the edge of the shore acted like fresh snow, and it was hilarious and impossible.

lost

this bit reminds me of jesus.

regretfully, whole foods doesn't have this. or breadfruit, or pifa, or tomato de puta, or this crazy red-seeded fruit that was really good, or probably fresh coffee beans (which taste terrific) or this:

yeah, guys. go home and eat your apples and oranges. and cry.

lothlorien

cathedral
(where is saria?)

vast.
yes, right inside the beach with the weird quicksand was a forest with weird fruit. and then on the other side was another beach. it sounds like a boring fairytale, doesn't it?

can you see it?

It reminds me of 80s techno music videos and their ridiculous grand entrances.

Stephanie

volcan baru
this is the highest point in Panama, and the only place on earth at which you can see both major oceans.
usually, it's so cloudy that you can't actually see them. but if you go early in the morning, you may have better luck.
longest, most intense hike ever.

favorite animal sound: myaaaaah.
i wonder how sheep sneeze.

1up

soup and ramen

it looks like she's slicing her fingers off, but actually she's making stir fry on top of a volcano.

Adrienne is the greatest.

had to wake up at six in the morning. the few of us who were able to move at this hour dragged ourselves up two miles of steep trail to the summit.

it's a coati! on the summit! weird!

of course there's a cross at the very top?

sunrise over the atlantic... stretch of islands there is bocas. at about this time of day it should be largely hung over.

and to the left we see the pacific.

This is Roger, a British retiree badass. He's somewhere between 60 and 70. He snowboards, rides horses, hikes up mountains, and has so many stories (about brawls in British pubs that started because of the song "Yellow Submarine," or soccer, or how he met his wife).
Roger's oldest son killed himself two years ago at the age of 40-something.
Roger also spent his sister's last months with her in Australia when she had cancer. "It was nice," he said, "We didn't get to talk so much when we were young, so it was great to finally be able to spend time with her. And Australia is beautiful."
And now he is on the top of the highest point in Panama at seven in the morning, singing something to himself and eating chocolate.
The short time I spent with him gave me the impression that there was nothing he couldn't do, and that there was very little he was afraid of.
I want to be him when i'm 70.

Also, he used the greatest terms.
"When you're old, you stop beating around the bush. If it's shit, you say shit."
And he said hot dogs tasted like "pickled pony peter," and instead of saying "it's going to rain" or "it's going to pour rain," he said "it's going to piss rain."

these were fresh strawberries before they met Volcan Baru. a backpack can act as a rock tumbler, apparently.

Afton

dream it

the new way of the few way

and many late evenings were spent under these pillars, tapping into wireless internet and turning the volume up on something beautiful and acoustic until it echoed through the empty shopping center.

panama the third

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:44:26 GMT

flowers, echinoderms, and unnecessary et ceteras

bocas del torro

this is Mary Ann holding a drumstick of coral

brittle star

brittle stars. these move in the most amazing ways. i have little videos, but i don't know if i will upload them.

the tiniest crab. actually, i saw a hermit crab smaller than this, but the camera wouldn't focus.

ruins left by leafcutter ants

Lena is always energetic and positive.

little suction cups feeling out fingerprints, sticking to my palm.

si bheag si mhor

doodling gets very extreme when i am not sure what i'm taking notes about.

this plant reminds me of Bob Marley

so cute and random... very non-western advertisement.

I found these on a tree in the graveyard

Georgia O'Keefe

okay, you know you're somewhere else when right next to the street there is a musty moldy melvin tree.

completely inconspicuous.

trails of leafcutter ants clip along roadsides, through fields, anywhere. they're easy to notice.. it's like a tiny army waving little green flags.

This is the hippy house. They made it as conveniently self-sustaining as possible.. the lawn is made of clover and doesn't have to be mowed, the house itself is up on stilts so it's kept cool and few bugs get in. It has a lot of windows, none of which have glass, so a breeze comes through. And the residents spend a lot of time eating coconuts and drinking rum.

This picture was painstakingly set up, and I'm not kidding. Jaybles was walking by and I made him back up, stick his hand out, etc etc. That's Afton's face by the way. And that's the Caribbean out there, by the way. I've been to a lot of beaches, but that's the most beautiful one I've ever seen.

It's difficult to describe the way it felt out there.. it was like retirement. That's not something any of us had ever experienced. It was like summer vacation, but we felt like we never had to return to school. Oh my god, the wind and sun and sky and waves and sea-anemone-sway palms. But then Lauren got bitten by a crab.

This is called a tomate de puta. (What's with the puta fixation down here?) (Maybe because it was inexpensive but good?) It had the texture of a tomato but was sweet and sourish, like raspberry lemonade.

Words fail to describe La Coralina.

And it rained and stormed but the lady gave us towels and a ride into town.

Breadfruit. I found it on the ground.
(supposedly the breadfruit tree is in danger of extinction, also)

I showed the cook my breadfruit and she said she would fry it for me.
Half the people who tried it said it was awesome, half of them said it was gross.
I liked it fine.

And in hotels on the edge of the beach, one could look through broken floorboards down at fish.

This dog is still alive. She resembles the one that the gang met in a bar one night and lovingly christened Rabies. "En Inglés, Enfermo!" The town was so small that we saw the dog again and again. Supposedly her real name is Susie, but I haven't heard anyone call her that.

A street vendor sold me strawberry jello with ice cream on top. It was interesting.
(=[ that's the only ice cream I've eaten here, because it makes me miss Amy's)
(hey, if anyone goes to the Amy's I work at, tell Poet I miss him and I'm still having dreams about work)

Blowfish Taco Bar. Afton and Ross had a taco-eating contest here and they gave us free stuff both times we showed up because Afton and Ross were such generous patrons. And also, Kyle showed the bar guy what an Irish car bomb was and the waitress tried one.

weirdiest

and then while waiting for the bus we were all sitting bored under the trees, so I took pictures of people and leaves

Ross

Afton is very aware, and tries to remain positive even when stuff is making everyone angry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVHxXAoGz80

Afton

Lauren

Megan

Lena

Adrienne, Afton, and Lena. Afton slept in the aisle of the bus.

Kyle slept in the very back on top of the luggage.

driving by Fortuna again.. This is the main area of Fortuna. That's really literally all there is. That blue building is a bathroom, and one of the other stands is closed. It was basically three stands that sold the same things -- food.

bus: *breaks down by the side of the road*
Afton: have any of you guys seen Little Miss Sunshine?

Boquete
lots of flowers and lots of rain.

it's just a convenience store.

It reminds me of a strange insect or the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland.

(only chess pieces allowed in chessboard land)
(?)

"There are worlds within worlds, Crysta. Everything in our world is connected by the delicate strands of the web of life, which is a balance between the forces of destruction and the magical forces of creation."
(:D cheesy early-nineties movie... i miss it)

speaking of cheesy, this reminds me of
"a tree star."
"it is very special. it will help you grow strong."

{we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking down the drain}

I have a very valid reason for writing on my food this time.
Three, four, five women live in the Pension and do the housework. There is one community fridge. The women eat our food. Mary Ann had a head of lettuce but when she was going to use some for lunch it was gone, and the women were all sitting around the table eating huge salads. Lena bought peach wine and when she was about to open it she saw that only a cup was left. So when I bought tomatoes and apples, I didn't want them to vanish.
Solution?

They bought 200 beers for $50 or something ridiculous like that, and filled up the community fridge with as many as they could fit.

Also, they've started to measure things in beers. Like, everything.
Megan is five and a half beers tall.

Once, when stopped by the side of the road in a van full of 20 people, we were waiting for one guy to get directions:
Ross: this van has like, 180 beers of people in it.
Chris: yeah, and we've been waiting here for at least two beers.

Panama, again

Thu, 31 May 2007 02:20:20 GMT

I actually really like a lot of these.

Fortuna

every day, without fail, from four to six or seven it would pour.

little people door.

this is Megan's eye

"that bus looks like the easter bunny threw up on it" -- Ross

Ross's eye

Quinn took this picture. "Becca, look at this bridge! Take a picture!" but I was in the back of the bus so I handed it to him.

I got this plus like, three more banana chips and another weird potato thing for 30 cents.

the bus ride was 7 hours. some people played sudoku, some people tried to start singalongs, some people made attempts to sleep, some people asked everyone uncomfortable questions about their past relationships, some people told ghost stories, some people got drunk.

Mary Ann's legs pwn Carrabba's trophy-display of bruises. She also has a wicked scar on the back of her leg from climbing through a barbed wire fence. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," she said. Legend has it that at the time she was very drunk.

that would be it.

Stephanie

these are raspberries.

Mitch Dieringer.

Quinn said this was his favorite.

times a million. everywhere.

Afton

the kitchen in Fortuna was always busy. people made tea or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, eggs, whatever. and at night some girls would play spades for hours. i never played spades. i killed biting flies.

this was the best part.

there were bugs everywhere because the windows didn't close all the way. and each night was so excruciatingly cold, but all we had were thin sheets and thin clothes. most of us only slept for four hours a night, and couldn't fall back asleep because we were curled into uncomfortable balls to try to keep out the cold.

Fortuna was cold, beautiful, rainy, and boring as hell. The nearest phone was four miles away, and we had no car, and it was up hill. There was no internet, no television, no radio. The United States could have been eaten by a giant duck and we wouldn't have known. This lack of everything and a way to escape forced us to deal with each other (and a slew of bugs). Everyone agrees that it was a necessary bonding experience. And then we stuck clothespins on Ross's face.

It's a pineapple plant.

I took this picture for you, Emma. Maybe we should put it on our fridge.

Mary Ann's nemesis.

This is some sort of tomato, but it tasted citruslike.

I found these blue berries on the ground, asked Quinn about them, he had no idea what they were.

hummingbird eggs

but
it did happen

reminds me of a lan

this plant is called "hot lips" or even "whore lips"

Panama's only indigenous palm tree. yes, it's a palm tree.

winged victory

channelwood

rhino energy drink

Kyle and the walking stick.

that lighter stretch out there is the caribbean

Bocas del Toro

Bocas kind of sounds, smells, and feels like a good pirate movie.

Yeah, that's all for now.
Stay sane, guys. Love.

Panama

Thu, 24 May 2007 18:27:22 GMT

I am on a Macintosh computer and it hates me. Also, I’m writing this in a Word document, and the spell check is in Spanish so pretty much everything I’m saying has a little red squiggly line underneath it. I just thought I’d share that. (And when I typed “i am on,” it automatically changad it to “i amo n”)
I really don’t feel eloquent at all right now, but here are a few pictures of the >700 I’ve taken so far.

on the way

This backpack and suitcase are the only things I brought. They are both stuffed completely full. I showed up all hardcore, with only practical clothes and only practical ítems, and then all the other girls brought a million little dresses and straighening irons.

Mikel. Ugh, whenever i type “Mikey” it changes to “Mikel”.

“Oh man, that lady’s hair is so cool!”
“It looks like the back of her head exploded”
“It looks like she’s part of a coral reef.”

Laptop in backpack, laptop case folded up next to laptop.

:D

last of the US. After awhile, there were no islands, and looking up was the same as looking down.

:DD

random desk in customs

Panama City

airport, dark. As soon as I got out of customs, one of the professors hugged me and everyone else. It was cute. it was one of the four hugs I’ve received since i’ve been here

and then Libby climbed on the parking garage.
Libby is strange. The first night there, she got really drunk and dragged a tree into the house.

best microwave ever

a lizard happened on the window.

the buildings out there is a small portion of the Panama City skyline

Those red things are actually leaves. There are three white flowers inside.

Kyle is pretty out-there but he’s mature and responsible, usually. He can speak Spanish well, and when we go places he makes sure none of us are lost or stuck in town without a taxi.

fuidem

Supposedly the culture is type-B. Most people looked like they had free time. Dads playing catch with their kids, groups of women just taking a walk or chilling under trees.. everyone’s pretty leisurely, even in the big city.

Professor Quinn likes this picture.

Fancy restaurant, not ridiculously expensive.

I got octopus, rice, and a salad for $10. The salad was pretty much like someone ordered a fast food burger without the bun or meat, but the octopus was excellent.

“Hey guys, come look at this! It says “bling bling” on it!”

Then six of us got into a taxi. We actually did the same thing yesterday, but with seven of us. I had to ride in fetal position on top of two people in the back.

rainforest 1

reflection of canopy in leaf

everyone, this is a really cool picture of a spider.
L, this is a really scary picture of a spider.
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i116/articled/neque/picture170.jpg

From the top of the canopy, we could see Panama City. How did we get to the top of the canopy of a rainforest? We were lifted up in a big shark-scuba-guy-like cage hanging from a crane. It swung back and forth, making some people ill.

more Panama City

I got all this for $8.. apples were $0.15 each. And don’t worry, guys, they were okay to eat. This is a city.

breakfast of champions: dry cereal and energy drink

this is one of the 5 or so gigantic bugs that Chris found. Last one he got was a rhinoceros beetle, which he put in a plastic bag in a plastic bag in a plastic bag right before we drove here. By the end of the drive, the beetle had ripped through all three bags. If Terry Trudell were a bug.......

Mary Ann likes this picture.

Panama Canal reflected in Morgan’s glasses. The Panama Canal is actually really really cool.

oh, rain

But now I have to leave, so this should suffice. There’s more, but it will wait.

Spring Break II: Return of the King

Thu, 04 May 2006 03:25:41 GMT

Like Radiohead teeth.

Icy fangs chewing the world.. a whole new meaning for frostbite.

Then we play Scrabble:

This is Meredith putting words together for no reason.
Donovan won every game of Scrabble.

"Are those song lyrics?"
"No, she's just being emo."

"Okay, what is emo.. I keep hearing about it, but what does it mean?"

I don't even remember the answer. Hah, try describing anything.

My brother is a really good snowboarder. I tried snowboarding for about an hour a year ago. My sense of balance hates me. The sky is very pretty from on top of a mountain, but I never noticed it until then, because I rarely lie on my back in the snow so much when not attached to a board.

Suncatcher

Some things really are amazing.

It took awhile for me to build this. An ice palace is quite an upgrade from an igloo.

Think of the insurance rates though..

No two are exactly alike.

Yeti roof

This is snow on the windshield. It covered the whole car like a wedding cake.

"i can feel it reaching out and moving closer"

Mud

"asked myself what it's all for..
and you know the funny thing is that
i could not answer"

These lamps look very beachish to be in the mountains.

We played Cranium three times that week, and my team won every single time.
First time, we only won because Meredith and I are psychic, and because half of the yellow team was intoxicated.
I had to be Louis Armstrong once, and I started singing "It's a Wonderful World" but my voice wouldn't do that and it just sounded like Andrea when she quoted gruff people. I miss that girl. My teammates didn't even get it until an excruciating verse later. What a wonderful world.

Another car ride, another amazed Becca taking the same pictures over and over again

Free

Crazy gas prices

Snowstorm. Doesn't that sound so foreign?

albino dreadlocks

snow is heart

(the trees carry on a hushed conversation, and I look up at them and feel like a little kid in a hospital waiting room)

Lake Tahoe

Those chunks of snow are riding on our windshield.

I rolled up the window when I saw a huge truck coming, and that's good, because it slung muddy slush onto us. Muddy slush, however, looks rather pretty in lacelike trails across an already dirty window.

When dad drives through tunnels, he always honks the horn to be deafening and juvenile.
When my cousin's friends go through tunnels, they hold their breaths (and then everyone tickles Patrick so he can't hold his) for reasons unknown to me.
When mom goes through tunnels, she acts like a normal person.

This is Mount Rose, the mountain we ski the most often at.

"with songs they have sung for a thousand years"

I'm in love with winding roads (you get a little bit closer)

I made Meredith take this picture from the top of Mt. Rose. That silver stretch out there is Lake Tahoe, as far as I know.

Fall says hi to Spring in Winter.

Clouds look at their reflections

Things I love:
roads
the sky
mountains

I am still in awe.

Here's a promise kept.
Also, I only have one friendship bracelet now. So, you know, nudge nudge.

The upstairs cafeteria at the ski lodge is empty.

Sunset happens earlier than usual here because the sun doesn't have to sink so close to the horizon to find a place to hide.

The gorgeous brother

Ceiling of a place we ate at

A weird looking cloud everyone saw on the way home

I made Donovan hold the icicle while I took the picture. "Hurry.. gahhhh!"

This snowman's name is Jessica.

These were the only two means of sustenance in the kid's kitchen. I never saw either of them being consumed, though I think Captain Morgan was partially responsible for the outcome of that Cranium game.

I think I started a trend. Awesome.

D models Vy's silly headphones.

It feels like an attack.
"we don't know which but we got to run"

They photograph Tim's mouth for this next picture:

Yeah. Beautiful, Vy.

In my room again, I'm feeling lost. I write until my hand feels like it's going to fall off. So with my left hand, I dial Collin's number on my cell phone and sit in my room and talk to him. I forgot that it was midnight in Texas, but Collin is awake and not busy, so we talk for an hour and a half, until my writing hand recovers and I think it's probably time for sleep. I later found out that everyone else was downstairs chugging chocolate cream pie, brownies, and ice cream. But honestly, long conversations are richer than chocolate.
Later, the kids swaggered back in and I could hear them from behind the door. They were telling Mikey that he looked exactly like Johnny from the OC. Vy pulled up her computer and found an episode and paused it at a shot of Johnny. "See?" she said. And then they made Mikey pose like in the picture, and Vy got her camera and photographed it.

"Let's make someone else be someone now!" they said. "I look like Bruce Lee," said Tim. A few people agreed, and somehow Vy had pictures of Bruce Lee on her computer, and made Tim pose. "Stick your lips out more. No.. not that much..." Bruce Lee's mouth in the picture was open, bearing teeth. He looked like he was going to punch something. Tim's mouth was open, bearing teeth. He looked like he was going to kiss something.

Okay, who else?
Diana said I looked like a girl from Lost (score?), but Vy had no episodes of it (score!) so I didn't have to undergo that. They said Donovan looked like some guy from Grey's Anatomy but it wasn't striking enough. The paused shot sat there while we thought of something else. "Hey, he looks a little like this guy," I said jokingly, pointing to a blurry, grumpy extra walking behind the other people in Grey's Anatomy. And so Donovan posed like "Extra #5" with Vy's scarf and hat.

"This is the best night ever." - Vy.
"I feel like I know famous people! Or.. two famous people," Vy said.
Then she decided to tell Johnny's life story to Mikey, "You live in a shack, your dad's dead, your mom's a nurse, you wrecked your car and lost your surfing contract, then you fell off a cliff with a motorcycle and died."
"Aw," said Mikey, "that's pretty terrible."
"It's not as bad as Extra #5's story!" said Donovan.
Even as I crawled into bed at two in the morning, I couldn't sleep because I was laughing so much.

I really like piles of people.

We fly again.
We arrive in Arizona, where our cousins live. Dad only had one sister, but she has five kids. Taryn was married in November, and she and her husband had come by to visit with us. Sheena is going to get married in May, and her fiancee was here too.

I sit upstairs writing and watching the sun set outside of Kelsey's window.

We used to wake up at one thirty in the morning to play barbies with our cousins, because we rarely get to see them. We would only spend one night.

This dog's name is scruffy and it is a girl. Dogs are colorblind. This is a good thing.

All dressed up an no place to go.

I remember sitting upstairs looking off the railing in the middle of the night and exchanging weird dreams with Taylor, my cousin. He's not here though, and I haven't had any weird dreams lately anyways.

"Taylor's gone so you can wet his bed." -- my uncle to Mikey, who I doubt took advantage of that.

It's a normal temperature here, for once. The fan looks like a snowflake.

And again we play Cranium. Sheena draws this for "mutation."
We play other games too.
This is the first time I've ever played Catch-Phrase. I get the word "Love."
Surrounded by new happy couples and other people who are strangers to my cynicism and self-doubt, I manage "this is the greatest thing in the world." All of the couples and a few other people shout "ice cream!" in unison. "No! It's better than ice cream!" I say, slowly losing my faith in humanity. (And also in my own skepticism.)

my brother is a hottie:

flying again:

We get back in Texas the next day. The mountains and cliffs have all run away and eventually the green meadows follow. Soon, as far as the eye can see is dead grass. No sparkling ocean or mountains or skyscrapers or even maybe some trees. I don't know what the name of this town is, but we stop here often, on our way west, and I never like it.
Jesse once said that in West Texas, you could go outside and watch a dog running away from the house, and go back inside and go to bed and wake up the next day and still see it, further off, with nothing between you but a few grey weeds. I have a feeling that watching dogs run is probably also the most interesting thing to do here. And I can kinda relate to the dog too, for trying to run off.
"keep Lubbock flat" - t shirt.
Oh well, at least the shivering has stopped.

And then I kicked the bucket.

I mean..
And then we're home. And look at that green. Spring must have had a birthday while we were away. So my mind's been used to white snow and grey shrubs, but I think it must have been less green here last time. There are clovers on the ground, and it's St. Patrick's Day.

I make Mikey hold the clover while I take a picture, because his hands look cooler.

spring:

this is my beautiful backyard and it now looks like a fairy hollow

mere's:

(this reminds me of my skin)

lovely brother again

And because my birthday existed, here are some old pictures of the Becca of Yore.
They're big, so you'll have to click on them.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i56/rollmop/f47b0a6b.jpg
Some things haven't changed. I still laugh a lot, I still stick my hands in my mouth, I still have rolls of pudge on my arms, I still wear stripey onesies. Okay wait, a lot of things have kind of changed.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i56/rollmop/BP0004.jpg
Me being amazed by life hasn't changed.
(Hi Alex, I look like Erin Thelen here)

Quotes

Mikey; Why is the weather so bad?
Dad: It's George Bush's fault.

Donovan: And you remember them, right?
Patrick: .....
Me: Yeah, I remember Patrick. He tickled my mom.
Patrick: What? I did not!

Donovan: Hey Mikey, remember Patrick?
Patrick: *looks daggers at Mikey* I remember you...
Mikey: I remember Patrick. He tickled my mom.
Patrick: Okay, when did I tickle your mom? I haven't even met your mom!

"Aunt Leesa is my hero. She said I could eat pie for breakfast." - Mikey

Leesa: (Terrance's mom) go get dressed, guys
Terrance: go get trashed?
Leesa: I didn't say that!

Terrance: *trying to fix the TV* it has to be the extension cord.. there's no way they'd have a TV this crappy here.
Donovan: You're wrong. They do. And you're looking at it.

Patrick: Are you Cathy?
Me: ...?
Donovan: Becca Cathy Orf!
Patrick: What?
Donovan: You know.. how when you're mad you say the person's full name?
Patrick: That's not what we do in China. We just cuss.

"The keys aren't here. They're in my pants. I'm not wearing my pants." -- Donovan, on the phone.

Donovan: *reading my notebook(!?)* "I scattered Gormy's ashes. Morty's body is nowhere to be found"-- wait.. what is this?
Me: They're spiders. I killed them on accident so I cremated them.
Patrick: Can I have a spider?
Me: I don't have any with me.
Patrick: How big are they?
Me: *dearly wishes she had brought Ytormy's ashes, so she could just give them to Patrick because hey, it's a spider.. was...*

Mikey: I miss videogames.
Meredith and I: I miss my mom.
Mikey: I miss videogames.
Meredith and I: I I I miss my mom.
Donovan: ... whoa. How did you...? I miss videogames.
Meredith and I: I miss my mom.
Donovan: I miss videogames.
Meredith and I: I I I miss my mom.

We're all playing scrabble:
Me: Is it my turn?
Anyone else: No.
(this happened about a zillion times.)

Mikey: Hey look guys, I balanced my tiles on the top of the tray!
Me: Oh, that's cool.
Mikey: *starts singing out of nowhere* Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.
Meredith and I: *are used to this and start singing along absentmindendly*
Donovan: ...?
Mikey: *right after the song* I WISH FOR A PONY! *blows the balanced scrabble tiles all over the board and smears the words*
Everyone: ?????????????!

Donovan: Are those lyrics or something?
Meredith: No, she's just being emo.
Donovan: Okay, I always see that word emo. What is it?
Meredith: *points to me*

Ted: How are you liking school?
Meredith: I like it but.. =[[[[ I lost my 4.0!
Ted: Psh, what is it now, like a 3.99?
Meredith: 3.98 =[[[[[[[[[[

Mikey: I brought my underwear, that's all.
Donovan: That's all? You're gonna ski in your underwears?
Mikey: What, you don't? You ski commando?
Patrick: He's 15 and he knows the term commando!
Mere: He has two older sisters you know.
Me: Don't hold us responsible, Mere!
Patrick: Y'all go commando?
Mere: I mean.. uh.. *dashes for the door*
Tim: *comes into the room* Did someone say commando?
Patrick: Those three go commando all the time. ...I didn't even know girls did that.

Patrick: Where's Cathy?
Donovan: For the last time, that girl was not my cousin.
Patrick: Wait, who was that other girl then?
Donovan: That's Meredith, she's asleep.
Patrick: Well, who is Cathy?

Mikey: Donovan, I can't watch you play Spider Solitaire. It's like.. watching a loved one die.
Donovan: What?! It's not at all like watching a loved one die!

Me: *yawn*
Mikey and Donovan: *back away in shock*
Me: What?
Mikey: Whoa.. I thought you were going to puke...
Me: I yawned. Not in technicolor.
Mikey: What was it.. recarpet the igloo.. HEY! We should build an igloo and then puke in it!
Donovan: What? ...why?
Mikey: Okay, we'll do that tomorrow.
Me: Okay.
Donovan: ...why do you want to puke in an igloo?

Terrance: I'm not surprised when Donovan does stupid stuff.
Meredith: Aww, don't worry Donovan, I'm surprised.

"They're almost happy." - Mere
"Almost happy? They're frick'n crying for joy over here!" - Donovan, of the cards while playing spider solitaire.

Me: *recites an old drama exercise:* As I passed through Arkansas I saw a saw that could outsaw any saw I ever saw. If you pass through Arkansas and see a saw that could outsaw the saw I saw, I'd like to see the saw you saw.
Mom: ...okay.

"Bye. Thanks for tickling my mom."

Spring Break I: The Fellowship of the Ring

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 23:50:34 GMT

(I finally got this one. It's long, so proceed with a good connection and some free time.)
(This post is for Chad [you'll understand all the random jokes], Alexandra [I hope this one makes you happy too], Zoë [that eggplant is growing mold], Collin [nimloth], and all of the people who went on the trip [thanks for making me and probably everyone else laugh].)

(And this has a lot of writing in it. Like, a lot. Don't feel obliged to read it all.. though I think some of it's pretty funny. It's actually been immensely edited.)

Spring Break,
I left the cold and the real for the really cold.

We sit in caramel chairs in the airport in El Paso, waiting for the wind to die. Bored of the incredibly cheesy kids cartoons, I stare at a yellowed map that takes up one wall. Astoria stands out as always. There's the song again. I get it stuck in my head every day.
A row of clocks is on the wall, one for each US time zone. The Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zone clocks have second hands that glide swiftly and surely across the numbers. Zulu time clicks militarily. Eastern time is frozen.

(this photo reminds me of Zoë)

We take off finally, and it's not long before the snowcapped mountains rise into view. It's fifteen degrees outside of the airplane and my hands are freezing. I try to write a letter to L but I can't move my hands so the words are just squiggles on the page.
It's so cold that moving at all hurts. So we circle what turns out to be Las Vegas. I recognize some familiar space needle thing but the name of the actual building escapes me.

I'm in a t shirt and my hands are still defrosting. I'd kill for my hoodie or at least a camera. There are neon signs right past the airport, of casinos. Beyond them are looming blue mountains, surrounding the vast sprawling city like a natural fort.
We step from the airport into a shuttle, (the driver smells like cologne and cigarettes,) then from the shuttle to the city itself. I used to be afraid of getting stabbed every time I went into a casino, I remember this one restaurant in a casino we went into and the chairs there were red leather and I always leaned forward because I thought someone would stab me through the chair. I was a very irrational little child. I guess I still am. I watched my blurred reflection in the hotel's elevator.

On the way through the casino to the hotel, I spent less time looking at the tacky lights and clicking icons, more time looking at the people gazing intently at the numbers and pulling the side levers. Nobody really looked like they were enjoying themselves. There were very many middle-aged, grumpy, frumpy women who acted as bored as if it were a steady job instead of a deafening cacophany of ripoffs. There were people who wore so much makeup I had to try not to laugh.. Even young women with half-circle drawn on eyebrows and painted on lips and huge princess Jasmine eyes with fake eyelashes. Long stick-on nails clattering against the buttons on the machines. We passed by a fountain and saw a galaxy of change at the bottom - even some dollar bills. It seems like you'd make more money swimming in there than playing the penny machines.

(At the restaurant that night, I opened my fortune cookie. It read, "You constantly struggle for self improvement."
Cookies are good at stating the obvious, though this struggle is at times very passive. I guess everyone would fit into that fortune.)
We walked across a road that seemed to be paved with beer cans as we headed back to the airport the next morning. And it was cold, my fingertips were freezing, but I skipped down the sidewalk with my short sleeves on and it felt on the edge of normal.

(Here's Sin City from above)

I wish you could feel this. This openness, this weightlessness, this inescapable cold. Surrounded by nothing, sandwiched between mountain and sky, with so much room to fly.

Our shadows climb across mountains graced and laced by snow and spindly pine trees.

I love the view from the sky. A cloud's-eye view.

I love the sky from the sky too, like being face-to-face instead of just looking up.

We sail with the antigravitational clouds. These wings aren't wax.. and even Icarus could survive up here: though the sun makes oil spills on nearby clouds, the thin air is far too cold to melt anything.

"i'll climb through the heavens on feathers and dreams
cause the melting point of wax means nothing to me"

You know, I bet Chad understands more vagueries in here than anyone else does.
So, mister, I hope you appreciate them.
And also, while I'm at it, happy birthday and thank you for giving me all of this music.

The atmosphere above Minden is familiar to me. It reminds me of the recurring dream I used to have about the dinosaur chasing me. That's weird.
But it feels so cozy.. something I grew up around that I really should not remember as vividly as I do.

Vertical... cowmonkey'd! (%%%:D)

Runway (lights are the deepest blAHH STOP THAT!)

The following were taken on the car ride through town and up the mountain:

I love this place. It's almost claustrophobic with all of the mountains, like being really close to someone's face.

Nimloth's sapling

It seems so surreal and open-palmed, begging for Yann Tiersen music.

ephel duath

Silver linings.

This is one of my favorite pictures.

"sunlight... harry could almost cry at this simple gift.. of the universe."

The road wraps around the mountain and we can see Reno crawl into view below us as we ascend.

At the condo:

That's the moon. The camera and the moon aren't friends.
"And down the sunny beach she paces slowly,
With many doubtful pauses by the way,
grief hath an influence so hush'd and holy"

I love how the camera complies gracefully with the picturesque mountain ranges and captures so perfectly the way light falls out of the arms of the clouds, but I try to take one picture of a nearby lodge at night and the camera decides to get all drunklike.

Our relatives have a timeshare in Lake Tahoe. We stay with them in the condo, which is already furnished.. We've come here almost every year for as long as I can remember. I recall doing yoga last year in the same upstairs place as we once played fairies.

"Are you gonna be a writer?" Donovan asks, reading over my shoulder as I type the day into a notebook program on Meredith's laptop. We're listening to the Amelie soundtrack and it's dark, and there are screams and video game sounds upstairs.
"No."
Some silence, some typing.
"It seems like you're just building all of this up to an inevitable doom," he said.
I type "And then I died." at the end of the paragraph I finish.
"Oh come on, make it more poetic than that," he says.
I erase "And then I died." and I am about to write "And then I kicked the bucket." when he says, "write 'And then I kicked the bucket.'"

The first night at the condo, my cousin's friends were being insane and hilarious. Diana wanted to go sledding around midnight, but didn't want to go alone. She asked if anyone else wanted to go, and several were restless but not up to sledding in the dark. Mikey and I remember the VIKING time and grin rib-breaking grins at eachother. They played Hide and Seek (just two people at a time.. one would hide, one would seek [and often the seeker would wind up punching the hider when they found them])

On the first day, we were snowed in. No skiing.

Snow makes a crunchy sound when you step in it, like stepping on graham crackers.

And when it's falling, it makes the softest sound. Like a feather brushing against your face. A faint sort of whisper, almost a song. You have to hold your breath to hear it fully. Heartbeats are louder. I'd walk out there when I was bored and stand so still just to listen to the sound of the snow.

And these, of course, were amazing.

We played with a sled in the snow. I wore a t shirt, a hoodie, jeans, and tennis shoes. And I slipped and covered half of myself in snow. I walked back inside to get at least some gloves, but once I got back inside I could hardly move. It's funny to think that a lot of people use spring break to escape snow, and they're off getting tans on sunny beaches. And I'm sitting in this condo on the stairs, covered in snow and shivering and loving it.

Mikey poses with the sled.
See, when I say VIKING... well, yeah.

In which I remember that actually, my sister is a looker:

Oh yeah, and she's also kind of creepy.

Mikey and Donovan come in and grace the lense.

Meredith, trying to look like Mikey did in that last picture, and Mikey helps by posing her.

Teh Butcher

Emo.

I like leaning against corners. The walls feel like they're hugging you.

My brother's awesome.

And weird ideas for pictures are pretty cool too.
I said "touch noses" and instead of touching their noses to eachother's, they just touch their noses with their fingers.

Okay, maybe it's not (giggly awesome) Mere that's Benjamin Franklin. Maybe it's her glasses. Observe.

He looks like a crispy crispy backseatsman.

Becca is weirded out.

Donovan set this picture up, and I think it's my favorite one of the entire trip. Wackos.

Meredith set this up.

Mikey set this up, but he didn't mean for his head to be there.

I love how Meredith is the only normal one.

I'm talking to Donovan, and out of nowhere I go "Oh man, can I take a picture of your eye?"
Because I do things like that, obviously.
This is blurry, but he's got really awesome eyes. You'll just have to trust me on that one.

Then Diana decides to try and get a good picture of Donovan's eye, because now that we all see it, it IS really awesome. I see her camera with the view of his eye on the screen, and I tell her to hold it up so I can take a picture. Donovan gives a crazy look for effect.

Yeah.

On the drive to Mount Rose, Mom and I wave at the horses we pass while they munch peacefully on grass.
In the ski lodge, old favorite 90's and 00's songs are playing.. Jewel, Coldplay, Lavigne. Meredith, in the clumpy ski boots, slides down the banister to get to the ground floor.
I had 23 stuck in my head.

While I'm sitting in the ski lodge and looking out the window at pillsbury doughboy kids waddling around on their tiny skis, everyone else is having crazy fun.
Mikey reported to me afterwards that while getting off the lift, Terrance caught his board so they couldn't pull away from eachother and began to spank Mikey relentlessly, screaming "peanut-butter-jelly, peanut-butter-jelly, peanut-butter-jelly with a baseball bat!" And Mikey yelled and they both ran into a wall of snow. And the people on the lift behind them fell down while trying to offload because they were laughing so hard.

So, I've got enough pictures and words from this trip for at least one other entry, and I may split that into two to be considerate to your computers.
Sorry this is so late.
Next wave will show up later.

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 23:13:05 GMT

add to be added. or whatever.