Kablammo!

Today’s update comes to you fresh from the slush-covered streets of the Big Apple in the form of a big ‘thank ye kindly, sirrah’ to P-Mack (Ed: P-Mack — Thank ye kindly, sirrah!) and then some pictures I’ve taken over the course of the past week.

• Two au pairs and an illegaal
• Wacky trapeze-centric antics from Webster Hall
• Still life: church with stoplight
• Some very lonely looking bicycles
• Snow falling on cedars Second Ave
• Snow-covered cube
• Same cube, different angle
• The Foundation Building looking strangely majestic

Song of the Moment: «El Salvador» — Athlete

“Hang in there,” indeed. The NY Eesti Haridusseltsi koosolek ja hääletused, which was just as boring as it sounds, had been scheduled to take 2 hours. Three and a half hours later, I’d had enough and decided to just go downstairs and get some dinner. That’s where I met two au pairs and an illegal immigrant, cool people all around.

In other news, Webster Hall is actually a pretty decent place; it’s just too bad that drinks cost $8. Eight bucks for a beer! Cheesus, that’s worse than at a baseball game.

In other other news, it turns out the Esto population of Allentown, PA is at least double what I thought it was previously. Maybe even triple. Who knows?

Song of the Moment: «Snakedriver» — The Jesus and Mary Chain

Well, if I can manage to not fuck this semester up like the last one, and if I forget about Dublin this summer and take some make-up humanities classes instead, then I can actually graduate as an ME this year. Thanks, Prof. Wei, for the registrational and 12-creditive judo you had to perform. Assuming all goes well, soon I’ll never bother you again.

Song of the Moment: «My Favourite Game» — The Cardigans

I can unhesitatingly state that The House of Sand and Fog is a very good movie, and I can hesitatingly state that this semester will go well.

When I stepped off the bus in New York a few hours ago, the temperature was something like 15°F. Sound cold? It felt like t-shirt weather compared to Mont Sutton a few days ago, where it was a balmy -30°C. “New York’s got nothing,” I said to myself. That was before I realized the heat was off in my building for some reason and my apartment was really fucking cold inside. Curse you, fate.

In other news, snowboarding is a fairly painful and difficult endeavour. Having learned my lesson, I will endeavour to stick with skiing in the future.

In yet other news, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Bob Barrett.

Having a keg (!) of Guinness somewhere means you end up leaving much later than you expected to. I’ll have to keep that in mind, for future reference. Also for future reference: the White Rose diner in Highland Park seems to do awful things to my digestive tract.

And now it’s time for me to go on a ski trip. Wheo. After patiently explaining to my mother that I know how to pack for this trip, what with this being my fourth time on it and everything, I very cleverly packed in what may be the worst possible fashion. I won’t need anything besides jellybeans this week, will I? For my sake, I sure hope not.

Catch you suckers on the flip side.

Wow, this was a very strange set of interactions just now:

1. 1/9 12:12am
   MESSAGE from 26-5060
   REDACTED: (using AOL IM)
   not much, im watchin the ring in my room, ive been throwing up and shittin all day-feel better now-just weak
   (You can reply)

   Ok, I say to myself, just a random text message via AIM somebody mistakenly sent to my phone. Kind of funny, but I’ll just ignore it.

2. 1/9 12:15am
   MESSAGE from 26-5060
   REDACTED: (using AOL IM)
   what you doin tonight?
   (You can reply)

   Ok, I say to myself, now I have to IM my new friend REDACTED and inform him of this mistaken identity, so he stops sending me updates on his influenza or whatever.

3. narrator: hey, i just got a text message from you – sorry to hear about the throwing up and shitting, but i have no idea who you are
   narrator: you must have sent it to the wrong phone number
   REDACTED: yeah i just realized it..haha sorry
   narrator: haha, it’s no problem
   narrator: take it easy
   REDACTED: you too
   narrator: feel better
   REDACTED: thanks

   Slightly funny, I thought. Maybe you’re different. Also, note that while ‘narrator’ and ‘REDACTED’ may, in fact, be actual AIM usernames, they’re simply being used as pseudonyms above.

Cynthia Hartling, thank you. I may just make it through this.

Song of the Moment: «Woke From Dreaming» — The Delgados

Every chance I’ve ever had, I’ve blown.

All my wounds are self-inflicted.

The previous entry notwithstanding, I had my keys all along. It turns out I was just a fool like that.

To those of you who embarked on wild goose chases at my behest, I thank you heartily.

What else is there to say?

Doves lyrics notwithstanding, words can be quite fucking awful, much worse than the sticks and stones they are so often compared to. Sticks &c can at least put you out of whatever misery they put you through, if the wielder has the patience to continue wielding. Words, on the other hand, even the kindest and most sincere, can’t ever erase the sting of a properly chosen set of previous words, thanks to the gift of memory. Why is it that the most hurtful words are usually ones that the speaker tosses out flippantly because he has absolutely no conception that they could possibly hurt anyone? Beulah has the right idea.

I can’t decide whether it’s sillier that your state of mind, behaviour, and life can be changed by idiosyncratic temporal arrangements of pressure perturbations localized at the eardrum or that they can be changed just as much by minor changes in brain chemistry. How free can your will be when it can be so easily influenced for better or worse?

The world needs a superhero whose special power consists of being able to drive anybody to suicide by telling them exactly what they least want to hear. He could team up with the superhero whose power is to know which fetuses will grow up to be evildoers, so the two of them would form the world’s most vilified and underappreciated force for good and justice.

Song of the Moment: «Don’t Forget to Breathe» — Beulah