Wagon Wheel

My Roommate and I went downtown to the Farmers' Market today.

Just imagine a beautiful sunny day, small white tents, ordered in a conveniently ambulatable cluster in the park blocks - a strip of green in the midst of a moderately-humming small city early afternoon.

Inside the Market,
There are enough trees to guard the little world within the city. I didn't have my camera or I'd post a picture, but build yourself a memory of fresh produce, handcrafted breads and cheese, bottled cooking spice mixes, sunlight coming in warm patches through the trees - neat white tents with congenially chatting perusers walking past, stopping occasionally like bees finding flowers. Put yourself back into that height at which you can barely see over the counter and everything on the other side is a new magic to consider. Add a milling crowd of colors and blended conversation. In the center of it all, make a space for people to sit and eat together, and give them a band to listen to. All acoustic: guitar, mandolin, banjo, violin, stand-up bass and let the singers be middle-aged or older men with mellow smooth-grained wooden voices.

It was after I sent myself off to find a drink to go with our pecan-rosemary bread and blue-veined soft cheese and before I found the little boy selling lemonade for 50c a cup with his father in the open block of grass a few blocks south.

I'd been enjoying the music from the band like an appropriate soundtrack, but suddenly it seemed more familiar. Was it?.. yes. They were playing Wagon Wheel, which my mind has adopted as a CoOp anthem of sorts.

I had to stop and lean on my bike while I listened. And I had to sing along.


Headed down south to the land of the pines
And I'm thumbin' my way into North Caroline
Starin' up the road
And pray to God I see headlights

The scene behind my eyes, halfway through the first verse, was no longer the light and airy arrangement of colors and sounds on a Saturday afternoon, but rather a not-quite-dimly lit kitchen, dark outside the wide wall windows, smelling of after-dinner an island amid college. We sit together, on the floor, on the couch, together with our music. The room is warm with recently-turned-off oven, drying dishes, and the body heat of a shoulder-to-shoulder music circle. Between us, we've got overlapping patches of a bluegrass band: banjo, mandolin, violin, harmonica, our voices, and - oh yes - the washtub bass. We've lived together for months, cooking, cleaning, and working with one another. We have just a little longer to enjoy our time together.


I made it down the coast in seventeen hours
Pickin' me a bouquet of dogwood flowers
And I'm a hopin' for Raleigh
I can see my baby tonight

One of the things I've been considering more is the inevitable physical changes that we move through and that move through us, that separate and limit us in many aspects, but that we each pick up and move with in the course of living.

The time we shared together is over. It is time for the next CoOp to begin their time together. It is time for each of us to move into the lives ahead of us, but every now and then, by chance or careful planning, we find each other. The CoOp is passing to other hands, but we have joined the ranks of CoOp members of Christmas past and present, if you will.

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama anyway you feel
Hey mama rock me
Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a south-bound train
Hey mama rock me

I knew the song would have to end.

Richard Dickinson said the reason there was never enough time was so you would choose which things were more important to you. I think good things have to end so you can have time to appreciate them, before, during, and after. .. and so that new and different good things can come along. They all need their time and place, and their ending. To every thing, there is a season, and a time to every purpose...

But, this song always opens up to that previous time and place, where the refrigerator is full of Nancy's Yogurt containers, kitchen is full of company, the potatoes taste like rosemary, I sit closely ringed by friends and family, and our cacophony of voices and strings are bleeding through the windows into the night.

This song, more than anything else I can think of right now, makes me feel home. Wherever I am, hearing it feels home. Many other things make me feel at home or like home or remind me something comforting.


And I gotta get a move on fit for the sun
I hear my baby callin' my name
And I know that she's the only one
And if I die in Raleigh
At least I will die free


As the present began to fade back in around me,
I considered that if I were to die sometime soon, I would like them to play this song at my funeral. Because whatever form I continue in, I will finally be going home.


So rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama anyway you feel
Hey mama rock me
Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a south-bound train
Hey mama rock me


The band walked off,
I picked up my memories and put them back into the past,
and continued into a future in which I would buy 2 cups of lemonade from a lemonade stand managed by a little boy and his father.

Reality Check

A friend of mine told me about a plot with someone else to buy matching tshirts and stand around like those environmental or political canvassers, but with a different message.

Excuse me sir, what delusions do you have at this time?

If you have a moment Ma'am, what script are you enacting today?

What role are you trying to fill?

What spots of reality are you avoiding?


I told her about my plan to make a desk calendar that would ask you a different thoughtful question everyday. The idea is that it would be a tool for people to think around their current world with, enabling some interesting conclusions and conceptual developments.


I should note that,
whatever happens and however I deal with it,
that is reality, and there is something true to be learned from it.

I have always found reality to work out when given a chance. We are always finding new or previously avoided aspects of reality, and incorporating these into our present understanding is often difficult. But so long as we keep incorporating, I don't think we'll be disappointed. And when we inevitably are, because it takes us time to process these things, I don't think we'll stay disappointed. There is so much to learn.

e-$

Pre.Script
The first tangent on this post is better and much more informative than the post itself


***

This is a more seriously considerable topic.
Perhaps some internet natives and economists could determine how it might work.

Internet Money.

I don't mean how you use your credit card or PayPal for online shopping. And I don't mean how people will pay real money for World of Warcraft items.

I mean a reasonable response to the amount of work and services that many people provide for free on the internet. There are articles, blog posts, downloadable shareware, ... virtually tons of useful things that real people provide for my relatively ignorant benefit.

Consider:

a man who has an actual job and a family, but has been closely following certain political issues which he makes accessible to others through his carefully maintained blog.

Or someone who devotes a good amount of their own free time to coding free software for download by the masses.

These people are not being paid for the helpful services they render, but it would be great if these people could be compensated without having to sell ad space on their websites.

It would also be great if I could easily and painlessly donate a small amount of money to them. But currently, there's a minimum transaction which can take place online because of the way credit card companies run their operations.

Wouldn't it be great if I could easily click something to transfer possibly fractions of a cent to someone who's internet service I found especially helpful? It would be simple for me, and if the person has a broad enough reader or user base, the fractions of a cent would quickly ad up and make it more possible for them to continue donating their time and energy to providing that service.

The fractions could gather in that person's online account and they could use it themselves for donations, online purchases, or even transfer to a real account if the amount exceeds some appropriate minimum amount.

I think that some version of this idea, modified so as to be practical, would be a really great tool in shaping the direction of the internet as an exchange information and services.


Maybe I'll convince some Econ major to write a thesis about this. Then it will seem more reasonable and somebody with the means and proper ability will set it up ...

Strange Tortilla

hah. weird..

Keeping Portland Weird

First,
after the fashion of so many great discoveries,
I accidentally created an interesting snack.

Feeling hungry, having cheese and crackers on hand, and trailed by a thought bubble depicting a friend of mine making a snack of microwaved cheese on bread (cheesy bread!), I put a few slices of white cheddar on one of those little Breton crackers and stuck it in the microwave. For 30 seconds.

Yes, that is kind of long. ideally, I would've done like, 11 or 12 seconds. But it's one of those microwaves where as soon as you hit the '1', it starts itself up for 1 minute. I am not patient enough to figure out how to stop it from doing this and usually just mentally subtract my desired amount of time from the 1:00 and manually override the microwave when I see fit. There is also a button that says 30sec. This one is useful if I am concerned that I may forget to stop the microwave soon enough (yes, this is actually a valid concern)

So I hit the 30 sec button.
And walked off to put something away in the bathroom, allowing all 30 seconds to elapse. I figured the cheese would just be very melty and very hot and I would suffer for this by trying to eat it too quickly.
I was wrong.

This is what I found in the microwave:



The cheese did not just melt over the cracker.
It solidified in a bubbly crispy lace pattern.

This is interesting because the cheese lace pattern part is actually an acceptable fancy appetizer. You take a baking sheet, spread some oil on it, and arrange shredded cheese in a small flat disk pattern. When baked, the cheese becomes this lacy crispy cheese chip.

Apparently, you can do the same thing, but on a cracker in the microwave.




Also,
last Friday:

Hearing of a strange occurrence to befall the fountain downtown, I biked over:

Just some pudgier-than-usual looking people loitering by the fountain. I suppose, Portland was ranked as the Fat Capital of the US a while back wasn't it? (Come on Milwaukee!)



Oh, but then:



I think there was supposed o be an official beginning,
but when 1800 hours came and no such signal was forthcoming, a friend of mine jumped up, yelled "PillowFIIIIIGHT!
and that was it.


And I saw this cool shark-looking car on the way home.



I wonder if the lady behind the car saw me take the picture and knows she's in a photo somewhere. I wonder how many photos I'm in the background of.

美

The most beautiful collection of online games I have ever seen

Chai Tea and Tai Chi

I have successfully produced an imitation of the delicious beverage which first gave me any reason to appreciate tea.

Chai!
here is the recipe I used
except we decided to add a clove.

My greatest discovery was that the smell I remember so distinctively from good chai comes from cardamom.

My version is not perfect by any means - there is much room for improvement -
But when I master the chai tea, I will have achieved another level of self-sufficientness, and will feel even more invincible. Now that I have ample ingredients, tea/coffee shops will have no power over me.
...Not like they did before, but sometimes their offerings of chai seemed rather attractive (In which case I would pretend that they didn't use milk).


Tangentially, I started taking Tai Chi as a PE class because the other class I was interested in was filled, and when I read Tai Chi in the course offerings, I thought of the Simpsons episode - I think the Powder Blue Crayon episode - in which, when Homer asks Lisa how she relaxes, she responds oh, you know, chai tea... tai chi... but I never really knew what tai chi was. Here was my chance to find out.

Having taken it, I declare Tai Chi to be awesome, wonderfully relaxing
and, greatly entertaining.



On an unrelated note,
My roommate and I have suddenly realized that the internet will not always belong to us. Someday, the next generation - perhaps our children - will inherit the tubes and omg what if they find our old LJs? Unless they do some kind of massive system memory wipe, the things we write now (and eventually forget about, or forget passwords to) so will be accessible by our kids
weird.

Insh'allah

We watched Nature on PBS in my home when I was growing up.

I remember seeing a show in which a species of desert ant was described. This ant often worked during the day and had very long legs to keep it just a bit farther away from the scorching sands it skittered across in completion of its ant-ly missions.

Because of the amouint of work in such an intense environment, said Nature, the worker ants lasted only for 3 days. A lifetime spelled out by two or three cycles of light and dark. They literally burned out. Three days in which to expend their energies and do all their work.

Tonight,
after music in the canyon,
I sat around a table, discussing various issues - biking, computers and internet services, particular economic spheres, etc - with 3 white male Americans whom I'd only known to any significant degree in the last year or two. It occurred to me that it was the first time that I was consciously aware that by no prior organization, each of us had spent time in a 3rd-world ...or, Developing, if you will,... country, not in North America, and understood the conditions, difficulties, and aspirations of an entirely different, high-poverty people group.

All around the table, we were privileged white American college students,
but we were privileged white American college students with a social conscience, with an intention to create and direct the future for ourselves and for others, with opinions about where we were and where we could go as well as what should be avoided.

We are talented, smart, well-intentioned, with a vision of the kind of changes we'd like to see in society,...

And I thought there had to be more of us out there.
Somewhere else, there are talented, smart college students with an understanding of another culture, another class, of poverty and progress in other countries and in their own. They are poised on the lip of something great and mobile for the world. We are. And with enough people on this edge of power and responsibility, bringing with them a social consciousness and understanding of the experience in other countries,
this is something great.



My prayer tonight,
which tonight feels more like a desperate hope,
is that I will be granted enough time to use the skills I already have,
and develop the talents I do not yet have,
for the greatest possible good.

There is both so much,
and still so little time
in which to expend my energy.

God willing,
no part of me shall go to waste.

Summer Solstice

The Summer Solstice is one of my own personal holidays.

The longest daylight of the year
The digits 621 in that order
The way that " June 21 " looks, smooth and liquid like a milky white pebble (and a little blue).
A drop of water resting on that calendar day.
Other cultures had in their architecture aspects that revealed their secrets on this day.

My Dad would point it out every year.
That it was the longest day and that we should do something special.

He would also point out the Winter Solstice.
It seems appropriate to celebrate the march of days working up to this point.

And now,
the days will get shorter.
Even though it is still early summer,
to me, the summer solstice foreshadows December.
Just as every day was reaching for the sunlight which this day has crested,
now every day will inevitably recede toward winter, towards the the day which is most enveloped by night.

And so many people around me will not notice.
But I know. Now we're headed for December, for cold and dark. But, it's a natural cycle, and another great adventure.

It is not depressing or sad in any metaphorical sense.
It's another changing process.
Now I look forward to the day when the sunlight will begin again to make it's push for summer. It's a constant revival.
And always,
another great adventure.

Since May

(This post is blocked like the rest of the blog, with most recent material on top)
(to be edited...)

***6.16.07***

During my stay in California,

I visited the Pacific Aquarium and saw this fantastic creature:



I visited the house of swarming puppies



and CalTech









This unearthly blinding portal seems to be following my world like a subtle knife...
Perhaps I should try approaching it next time.



This is the Portland I discovered upon my return



This blog has now spanned 2 trips to California.


***06.02.07***
Alumni Reunions Weekend

observed by these clouds





Oh, Reedies:



and they looked to me like armies of fireflies,
tiny pins of light in speeding clouds






***perhaps a week later***


Not long after, I was biking home and just turned the corner when on the trail ahead of me,




The sky between the trees yawned open into brilliance






unobscurable brilliance








It seemed reasonable
that this time, the often-walked trail might have at its crest an entry to another world.

And I wasted my chance with photographs

the sun removed itself from the perfect window, back to its proper place, sinking in the sky as I finally walked my bike toward it.



And, speeding home over the gravel,
I considered what an adventure it would be, after having lived so much,
at last to die



I'm sure such thoughts are biased by the brilliance I'd witnessed
and if I were actually dying,
the toll it would take on my body might make me feel differently. I suspect it will not be like walking into a sunset.

But there come those times when I feel so full of alive, that dying doesn't seem much different.


***05.18.07***



The clouds just before sunset were amazing.



but,
turns out the sky was on fire.



of course we had to take pictures of it









***later***

I like this trio of flowering trees.



This is a rough approximation of what I wanted to post
In the mid-afternoon, the sun comes through in such a way as to specially descend upon these trees. But I was never there with a camera at the right time.


05.15.07***

























***05.14.07*** Commencement



This made me feel rather detached.























I suppose these commencement photos are conspicuous by their lack of... people (excepting the stiltwalkers in the previous one).

***05.13.07

The inside of my door:

















and a note I got a while ago



which has come true

***05.11.07

Tessa Hulls painted this mural as part of her Thesis





She also has a mural in one of the bathrooms, inspired by Jack Kerouac’s
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved. The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”


***05.05.07***

Lawn Party

















And a Gentlemanly game of Badminton