things and stuff, pt 2

i finished Infinite Jest, was pretty disappointed. i started school, am withholding judgment for now. berkeley is fine, my neighborhood is the safest I've lived in since i was 18. when i walk home from the BART late at night, alone, it smells like flowers and i can see the stars and no one bothers me. my neighborhood is 100% aging hippies with like a lot of equity in their homes and serious gardens which they water a lot despite the tremendous deficit in this state. inexplicably most places in california, water is included in the rent. meanwhile in the east coast you're charged for water and yet there is so much lately that neighbors are calling the skeeter police on each other to come suck up the festering pools just laying about. weird. lately i've been on a kick of watching movies about san francisco. i just watched 'the wild parrots of telegraph hill' and 'the Bridge' which were both depressing. i just netflixed Bullitt and Dirty Harry. i also recently started a subscription to the sunday Times because i figured adults read the paper and i'm like half an adult so why not. i can't seem to get through it in a week, altho i totes make time to read the wedding announcements which are hilarious. everyone getting married in new york went to the University of Pennsylvania. my brother went to the University of Pennsylvania and hated it there and joined a goth/metal frat. also, i planted an herb garden finally.

the emancipation of auto tune




i can picture Phoebe in like a sequin halter top and suede hot pants dancing on the bar at Big Bear to this.

new digs

this is my new studio in berzerkley. check out the TWO OVENS and ENDLESS BUILT-INS and fire escape ouside HUGE SOUTHFACING KITCHEN WINDOW where i'll be growing HERB. s. hahahaha california marijuana joke hahahaha.







life is a highway

hey guys, i'm in california, san francisco to be exact, staying with a friend while I adjust to poverty, anomie, and psychic desolation. i mean grad school. the trip out here was pretty rad. first i drove from kansas city to boulder and saw some trippy storms on the plains. then i hung out with a friend who I'd interned with on the Hill a long time ago. We went to the Kitchen for sustainable/local type veggie snacks and cocktails (thanks for the suggestion Emily). the next day we drove to Salt Lake and had dinner with another DC friend and then brunch the next morning at this little vegan place, Vertical Diner, in the industrial section of town, where I ordered cream with my coffee bc i'm dumb. Then we drove thru the salt flats and took dumb photos next to the 'Tree of Utah.'


























We stayed at my family's house in Truckee, which is north of Lake Tahoe, for 4 nights and it was awesome. We grilled and read in the hammock and rented sea-doos on the lake and went hiking around Emerald Bay and drank beers overlooking historic Truckee and watched scary movies and didn't see any bears and i dominated at monopoly.


Then it was time to come down the mountain and so we drove to San Francisco and picked up my boxes at the Emeryville Amtrak station, except for 1 which they lost temporarily, then came back to the Mission district and drank beers. The next morning we walked down 24th St and got really delicious coffee and bagels at Philz and watched all the active San Franciscans take advantage of the street closures for Sunday Streets.

since then in the 2.5 days i've been in SF I've: had my car towed and got a ticket, been lonely, got kinda drunk twice, and ate a burrito. things are looking down. also, yesterday i looked at 4 different apartments in the East Bay, mostly in north Oakland. its kind of a shitty place. today i'm looking at smaller and more expensive places in Berkeley. hopefully by the end of the week I'll have found something decent, preferably with a tree or two and no drivebys.