!!Brazy Clog!!

Muir Woods in 20 Minutes or Less

2010-04-15T19:43:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend I ran in the craziest race ever. It was a 25K/15M trail race that started on the beach, went up a mountain, dipped down into a ravine, continued back up the mountain, and then wound back down to the beach. The first 3 miles were straight uphill, and I spent the rest of the race leaping over fallen trees and small creeks, ducking under felled Redwoods, and generally trying not to trip and tumble down the mountainside (although I'm sure my time would have been much faster). I even climbed up a ladder drilled into a rock-face. The course contained everything an intrepid explorer/runner could hope for: old gold-mining trails, tiny waterfalls springing from moss-covered boulders, a grove full of ancient ferns and spindly Redwoods, mountaintop fields swathed with purple wildflowers, and that California ocean mist pervading all the micro-climes. Best of all, I ran through places that contain some of my favorite California memories. Pan Toll Ranger Station, where Maria and I spent the night on my first California camping trip, was where the race's First Aid Station (a very happy place complete with bananas and Gatorade) was located, and the halfway point was in Muir Woods, where I took Kate and Julia right after getting them married! It was a fantastic race (and my first in 6 years!) and a great way to say goodbye to California. Even better was my satisfaction in completing the 25K. I was only going to run in the 7 mile, but at the last second (almost literally) hoped into the start line with the other 25Kers. I ended up placing 15th. If the SRs ever need a getaway runner, I feel like I could fit the bill.

Travels

2009-11-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

Appenzell Region, Switzerland

Cinque Terre, Italy

Schwyz, Switerland

Mary Tyler Teresa

Evil German?

Nope, awesome German!!

Nomadic Thoughts on Transient Lifestyles

2009-09-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

So recently I have been getting really into tiny houses. Mostly because I feel that perhaps, someday, I could actually own my own very, very tiny house. Also, I have been thinking that perhaps having small, mobile structures would be a really great way to go for the beta version of the SR Commune. Anyway, tinyhousedesign.com and tinyhouseblog.com are two of my new favorite websites, and I have pulled a bunch of my favorite images of various types of tiny houses for your viewing pleasure. I hope this gets the old wheels turning in all of your minds. Also, click on any pic for a link to their original postings.

Teardrop Bike Trailer

Haus Boat

Awesome Gypsy Pod

More Gypsy Awesomeness (technically a sheep wagon)

Art Shanty Project

In case we are ever really destitute

A Find

2009-09-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago I went to a zine expo, and as I wandered around flipping through various zines, I stumbled upon a gem! This little zine, titled "Remainders" and created by Susie Cagle, has a full page spread dedicated to displaying the various luncheon treats served at Harrisonburg High School. Needless to say, I totally lost any vestiges of self control that I might normally possess, and let my eyes get that crazy look in them while I yelled, "Oh my GOD, are you from Harrisonburg??" Susie Cagle looked a little frightened; I am sure that my wild expression confirmed in her mind that chicken fryz can do long-lasting damage to a person's (in this case, mental) health. She explained (to my disappointment and probably to her relief) that no, she was not from Harrisonburg, but that HHS's website posted pictures and descriptions of their lunch menus online. Long story short, I had to buy her zine.

Something I May Have Forgotten to Mention

2009-02-27T17:08:00.000-08:00

My roommate, Cherie Saulter, and I have been very curious about the recycling culture that thrives in our neighborhood. A few months ago we decided to interview and photograph some of the people bringing their bottles and cans to Alliance Metals, one of the recycling centers nearby. In December we were chosen to have our "photo-documentary" project shown at Rock Paper Scissors, the small community arts space that I work at as a bookkeeper. It was a small show, and sort of put on by our friends, but it was still pretty cool to see our work up in a public space.

Our display was pretty awesome. We hung the series of photos up, and underneath we had a shopping cart full of cans and bottles. Several of the cans contained the interviews I had gathered, and so people had to sort through the recycling to find the stories. Below are a few of the photos that were shown (taken by Cherie), and the artists' statement that I wrote.

Rita

Danny

What Would Freud Say?

2009-02-16T00:59:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamed that a certain male friend of mine, let us call him Ax, was in my kitchen cooking, without the aid of clothing. Only it took me an excruciatingly long time to find out whether he was fully naked, or just topless, because kitchen islands, hundreds of them, kept blocking my view of him below the waist. It was like being trapped inside of a horror movie where you are running through corridor after corridor trying to escape a killer, but instead, I was trapped in the set of a Playboy spread from the '60's, where furniture, or bowls of fruit are always blocking the "naughty bits" of the models. I kept turning the corner of one kitchen island, hoping to find the truth of the situation, only to find more wooden islands! Finally I turned the last island; I was horrified: Ax was standing there, scrambling eggs, fully in the nude. "But Ax," I said (feebly trying to frame the direness of the situation), "I live with 15 other people, and they aren't that kind of hippie!" He smiled and put on an apron.

Later, in the same dream, another friend, let us call her Egg, appeared in my kitchen sporting a top-hawk with pink pigtails at the bottom. She also had a septum piercing and some rather monstrous biceps. "Why Egg," I said, "your muscles are looking very large," and walked off feeling confused about whether I had been properly mapping the development her character.

What are my possible analyzes of these dream scenes?

A. I find kitchens to be extremely frightening places

B. I am afraid that my friends are nudists and bikers (the motorized kind) and have been shielding me from this knowledge for years

C. That I will someday be trapped by efficient storage spaces and doppelgangers of my friends

I was glad when it was morning.

A Thanksgiving Adventure

2008-12-01T00:06:00.000-08:00

So it seems that I am starting my own tradition of going camping for holidays. Last year for Christmas, Meg and I went to Point Reyes and had ourselves a glorious time. This year, Max and I went camping at Sunol Regional Wilderness for Thanksgiving. And while there was no turkey, there was a landscape to satiate much deeper hungers (there might also have been some very fine dark chocolate to help address that whole holiday food decadence thing). But the best part of the trip was that we were able to bike there, with all our camping gear in tow, in only two hours!! Rad!
Here are some pictures, taken by Max, of the Ohlone Trail, which we hiked the first day:

Halloween in California

2008-11-12T00:13:00.000-08:00

Up until this point, I have done a very good job of not posting about Lobot. To become and stay a part of the Lobot community has been a decision that has impacted my life more than any other that I have made in the past year and a half. There is a lot that could be said about these people with whom I now share most things with, but I guess the most telling thing I could say is that we all love Halloween.

We love Halloween because it is a holiday that gives us an excuse to prance about in elaborate costumes that we have made out of trash and fabric; we love Halloween because it gives us the freedom to create new identities for an evening. We love it because it is not about family or religion or responsibilities. We love it because it is about antics, make-believe, and cavorting.

I cannot even begin to describe how much people at Lobot love Halloween. So I won't. Instead I will simply share some pictures. They are, supposedly, worth a thousand words anyway. Thus, I will let them speak for themselves.

Except to point out one thing: my costume is very scary. I am a haunted house, which is a very frightening thing to be. Much more frightening than say, a cuckoo clock, which is not frightening at all, and therefore not something I would ever be for Halloween.

all photos donated to Brazy Clog by Mark Deutch

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

2008-08-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

Is the title of the commencement speech* that J.K. Rowling gave to the Harvard Alumni Association. Watch it here. It made me very very happy (which means I cried).

*brought to my attention by Max

Due to Technical Difficulties

2008-07-15T00:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in one hundred billion years. Fortunately, I am back. You may now resume your adoration of my blog. By which I mean: please let me bribe you into being excited about Brazy Clog again by posting sweet pics! By which I mean: I have the most amazing friends in the world, and this summer I've had the extreme pleasure of participating in the weddings of two of these phenomenal friends of mine. And here are a few pictures I have of these momentous events:

2008-03-06T00:51:00.001-08:00

found somewhere on the interwebs

My First Art Show

2008-02-23T23:19:00.000-08:00

was actually a success. here are some pics of Wendy's and Zach's work.

I'm all over it

2008-02-19T00:19:00.001-08:00

Check it out. I am a curator in an art walk. What does this mean? It means I get to: pretend I can make fliers, boss around artists much more talented than myself, be super stressed-out, and get really excited.

Master Lib

2008-02-05T23:30:00.000-08:00

So because of a lack of planning on my part, my students' activity for today's class was writing mad libs. They came out pretty well, although they all used various forms of the word poo a bit more than I would have liked (this is what happens when you forget to be extremely specific in your direction-giving to third graders). Anyway, I just combined my lib with Dave's (Dave is my intern--yes I have an intern), and my student Estephany's in order to create the Master Lib. Here is the result:

The Day My Hair Grew 10 Inches

One kind-of sunny day, I was walking to Sanchez School. I felt really happy. Suddenly, an alien appeared in front of me. It had fat ears. I jumped back, and then I gave him a hug. Then my pet manatee, Blubber, appeared and started talking to me. “Why did you hug that alien,” he asked. “Because he is ugly and smelly,” I said. I felt weird about the whole situation. After talking, the alien, Blubber and I decided to go get ice cream. However, when we got to the parlour, the only flavors they had were Toasted Dandruff, Broccoli, and Worm-slug. We chose Broccoli. It tasted like gross toenails! As we were walking out of the ice cream parlour, we met Hannah Montana, and then I found one million dollars. We bought a crew of tiny pirates with the money. After that, the alien said it was getting late, and he needed to go home for dinner, so we all said goodbye.

New Blog Hotness

2008-01-18T11:53:00.001-08:00

So, as some of you know, I've started teaching an after-school writing program in a public school in the Mission. I've taught 4 classes at this point. After the first week, I didn't think I'd last the month. I was told I was the devil on several occasions, that I was fat, I had a big nose (I told you Sara), and that my class sucked. I had girls hitting each other and trying to drown each other in the puddles on the playground. But this week ended with one of the girls saying, "This was so much fun!! Can we do it again?? At first I thought it would suck, because it was writing, but it was awesome!" Oh hells yes. I molded their little 4th grade minds and they loved it!! Anyway, I'm starting a blog for them, in hopes that the prospect of seeing their writing "published" will motivate them to write more. They come up with some pretty amazing stuff when they actually try. I think anyone who enjoys reading my blog will probably love theirs, especially when you think of me standing in front of them, encouraging them to stop beating each other and to instead tell me more about where the zombies live....

Sea eats sky, Sky eats Meg

2007-12-29T11:02:00.000-08:00

So the spirit of Christmas sent me a Meg for the holiday season. It was a good Meg, and we went on many adventures together.
We went on adventures through the city where we found buildings full of strange art pieces, other buildings with pictures of people we did not know (but felt we might) flickering on the walls inside, alleys full of vegetables and mittens, a bar with absenthe that made our insides tingle, and a shop where we found a wonderful disguise for Meg (she appears to be a Newsie fit for a wedding when wearing it).

We had adventures in the country where we tromped and romped around places where the land touched the sea, and the sea touched the sky, and we touched all three. In our wanderings we found a slug the width of my thumb and the length of my hand, red mushrooms the size of breakfast bowls, herds of elk, and a lake with giant white pelicans dipping in and out of the water like rocking horses, fish jumping in their throats.

We dangled around on a trapeze, rode bikes, and cooked brussel sprouts. We yelled, whooped, and sang.
We had a wonderful time.
But then she walked out my door and was swallowed by the sky, which spat her out onto the streets of NYC.
I will miss her.

Fixieeee

2007-12-13T00:48:00.001-08:00

About to buy my first fixieeeeeee. Pretty fucking excited! Think the vid sums up my feelings on the matter pretty well...wheeeee!!

Macaframa SF Track Bike Promo

2007-12-13T00:46:00.001-08:00

Max Jacob's Shoes

2007-10-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

So for one of my many internships I co-curated the literature read at Intersection's Independent Press Spotlight Series. I got to read a lot of amazing writing and here is one of the pieces that I absolutely fell in love with (although it was not ultimately chosen to be read). It is written by Ray Gonzales and appears in Issue 20 of New American Writing.

Max Jacob's Shoes

They were found after his death by someone who needed shoes. When this man plucked them out of a mountain of trash, Max Jacob's shes came alive. They fit this person as if truth had never left and he slowly walked away from the filth. It took him a few days to realize he wore the shoes of a poet. The black shoelaces started talking to him in his sleep, the poems drifting out at night, floating beyond the man's bed to recite themselves to life. Max Jacob's black shoes glistened as if they had been shined yesterday, the sleepy man looking over the edge of his bed as the talking shoes tapped a clicking message that said a man who wears someone else's shoes is a man who knows how to get along in life. When he put them o n in the early light of dawn, the shoes quit reciting poetry and led the man to a quiet church Jacob would have never entered. The new owner of the shoes went into a church for the first time in over thirty years, the shoes echoing across the silent sanctuary where a surprised priest waited, sensing the approach of Jewish shoes. After the stranger revealed his sins to the priest, he emerged from the dark confessional and looked down at this bare feet. He went back into the tiny chamber, but Max Jacob's shoes were gone, their hushed disappearance casting a steady light of awareness on the barefoot man, the helpless priest, even the two mice in the sanctuary who revealed themselves to no one that night as they busily gnawed on a pair of twisted shoelaces.

2007-10-24T02:19:00.001-07:00

My friend Wendy is an amazing illustrator. She likes to sketch people while she is riding on the Bart (the Bay Area's equivalent of the Metro). A week after I first saw her drawings, I went to a zine festival. And then I came up with the idea of riding Bart with Wendy, writing the stories of the people we saw while she sketched them, and turning our work into a zine. This Monday we did just that. I am excited and extremely nervous at the thought of people (other than the 10 people who read this blog) reading my writing. But it is good to feel excited and nervous.

So this is the beginning of my first Bart story:

I sit down next to a man so small, so dainty, so calm and contained that at first I think he's a woman. He is old despite the fact that his face is void of wrinkles except at his chin and at the corners of his eyes. He has good skin—it is slightly yellow and as I look at it longer, I begin to think there might be a faint tint of green to it. You can tell by his rounded shoulders, the single whisker growing long from under his lower lip, and the way he takes up almost no space on the bench-seat that he is old.

A Veritable Army of Mayhem

2007-10-18T23:42:00.000-07:00

Two days ago I acted as shepherdess to 44 small girls between the ages of 5 and 8. I led them through art activities and lunch, onto the public bus system, to Presidio Bowl, and back to their school. At one point, we almost missed the bus. We could see it approaching from a distance, and we all took off running as fast as we could after it. I can only imagine the sense of hilarity and dread that must have quickly consumed the bus driver as he watched 44 small, brightly colored bundles shrieking and swarming towards his bus. It was like a scene in a war movie:
The battle-worn captain of the bus sets his jaw and watches as a veritable army of mayhem storms toward him with (almost) a hundred tiny feet. He imagines taking a long drag from a cigarette, exhales, and they are upon him.
But the best moment of the day was once we were actually on the bus, riding back to school. Pointing to the shells of sunflower seeds a previous passenger had left behind on the windowsill, one of the girls whispered to her friends, "Look! Baby clam shells!"

Last Week

2007-09-25T01:25:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday I smelled like crayons. Like a waxy Tumbleweed, or maybe a Raw Sienna. I noticed this while reading poetry at a desk that didn't belong to me. I read a poem that shouted, "Ambient fish fuckflowers bloom in your mouth...Alien fish fuck fodder loose in your ouch!"

On Wednesday I took lessons from Francis about how to wiggle my finger while moving my arm but not my wrist. She was helping me devise a plan about how to get my rent back from my crazy roommate. (The wiggle shows attitude, while the stillness of the wrist demarks a seriousness over the matter at hand.) "Giiirl, you don't need that bullshit. You just tell her you have NO problem taking her crazy ass to small claims court," ::wiggle wiggle::. Francis does not take shit. I sometimes do, but on....

Thursday I somehow managed to get all of my security deposit back from my roommate and then get the hell out of my old place. I am unsure whether I wiggled like Francis taught me, but I did get my way. After getting my way, I crashed onto the couch of AgroChris. AgroChris asked me if I remembered the house rules. I did, mostly. They include not opening the door for anyone I do not know, and refusing to let police into the house unless they have a warrant. There is a cheat sheet posted by the door in case I forget the rules. AgroChris is an anarchist.

On Friday I got locked out of the house. I spent the night on top of AgroChris's roof, which was cold, but I decided much better than sleeping inside of a house containing an Elizabeth.

On Saturday I secured a two month sublet at Lobot, an artists collective in Oakland. To seal the deal Nat and I high fived. I felt very happy and possibly incredibly relieved to have a place to live that was not on the couch of my ex-boyfriend's ex roommate. I might have become even happier upon contemplating that my new home had a silk screen workshop, a bike workshop in the making, a huge gallery space, and puppies.

Sunday was a day of rest. I made tomato sauce with AgroChris, played Scrabble, and drank some cheap beer.

Then I started over again.

Ugg

2007-08-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

"That's O.K., I didn't want to go anyway. I'm just going to go home, lay down, and listen to country music....the music of pain." ~Xander, Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Or watch horrible, outdated WB T.V. shows on DVD. It's been a rough few days.

Joan Rivers at the Logies!

2007-08-19T12:59:00.001-07:00

Week of Crazy

2007-08-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

So it's been a pretty fucking crazy week. It all started when my friend Max came to visit from New Orleans. I think he brought the insanity of New Orleans with him, but the nature of the insanity (which in N.O. usually originates from things like being drunk, homeless, and so fucking hot that you just want to rip off all your clothing) got mangled in the flight over here and rather than it resulting in parties with lots of smelly, half naked kids, I was bequeathed Joan Rivers.
What?!??!?
That's right, Joan Rivers.
But let's backtrack a little. So since arriving here in the Bay Area, I've been attempting to hook myself up with some totally sweet internships (because I love working for free). One of the places I applied to was Magic Theatre, which only produces brand new works. Almost everything they do is a world premier. Last week, they gave me a call. They informed me that they were very impressed with my application, that I was obviously a very eloquent person, but that there was a lot of departmental restructuring going on, and they wouldn't know if they could use me until after Labor Day. However, they said, there was this one little project that they needed immediate help on, and if I was willing, they saw it as a great way for me to get involved with Magic. And that project was Joan Rivers.
Joan co-wrote a semi-autobiographical play about her life and is premiering it as a workshop at Magic. However, since she is used to doing improv and stand-up, she was very nervous about memorizing her lines, so she wanted someone to be available to go over her lines with her at the drop of a hat--and that person became me.
I was terrified. I felt like Andy in The Devil Wears Prada. I was hopelessly unfashionable and ignorant. I was going to be bad at everything and even mess up the coffee orders. And she was going to be a fashion goddess, cruel and unyielding.
Turns out she is actually pretty awesome. She calls everyone "my darling" and showers them with jewelry from The Joan Rivers Collection (which apparently contains magical powers to placate even the most savage boss, an observation I made after she gave me a bracelet which I was supposed to give to my manager in order to get out of work that night so I could run lines with her instead). She is a Jewish mother and a gay man mashed together and fused with collagen. She is hilarious.
So I spent a week going into San Fran, biking up the biggest hill, and then elevatoring to the tallest tower in the nicest hotel so I could sit in Joan Rivers's penthouse suite, look out over the entire city, and rehearse lines with her while a flock of people hovered around, putting on her makeup and doing her hair.
At the end of the week, after Joan did nothing but shower me with praise, Magic decided I could have an internship with them. And then Intersection for the Arts called and told me that I could have an internship with them too. So now I have internships coming out of my ears, which makes me worry about my sense of balance. But whatever.

Other craziness in my life?
Well, I decided to leave Elmo Thief and Rainbow Bright, as Sara most interestingly calls them. I gave my notice last week, and am now frantically searching for a new place to live. They were not pleased, and I do not care.
Going for housing interviews also provided me with some grade A insanity. The highlight was interviewing with some guy that told me that the house held bi-annual tantric sex parties, and while I was not required to attend, I had to be o.k. with letting my bedroom be put to use.

But at the end of the week all is pretty much well. There were some great moments during the past seven days including:
Teaching Max the vegetable game, with excellent results. He did an ace asparagus.

Climbing up to the top of Buena Vista Park, a small neighborhood park in San Fran, after some hellacious housing interviews and knowing that I live in (ok, actually next to) the best city ever.

Taking pictures with my camera phone!!! Check out the quality!

Disco Inferno

2007-07-15T01:06:00.000-07:00

So The Crucible, one of the local arts education centers, had its annual Fire Arts Festival this weekend. While getting inside the gates was mad expensive, you could walk around the perimeter and still get a pretty good view of everything that was going on. There was a smörgåsbord of pyro-entertainment including a fire opera called "The Fire Odyssey" which The Crucible's website describes as "Blending industrial fire theatre with ballet, opera, hip hop, aerial dance, fire performance, and more....the Fire Odyssey brings together an amazing cast of dancers and performers to create an epic as Homer never imagined it." I'm sure he never did.

However, one of the most entertaining events of the evening was a version of Dance Dance Revolution called Dance Dance Immolation. This is a form of DDR where contestants are clad in fire proximity suits. This way, when they are blasted with jets of fire for making the wrong move, they don't turn into a pile of ash. Pretty fucking sweet. Especially for the audience.

Yayy!!

2007-07-13T05:07:00.000-07:00

Today I landed a volunteer position at the YBCA!!

East vs West

2007-06-25T18:00:00.001-07:00

About 3 weeks ago I flew back in time a few hours and then our pilot spied the spot where the mountains and the ocean come together and knew it was time to land. So land we did, and now here I am in California.
Things that have happened since I've arrived?? Not too much. I went to stay with a boy named Jamie who came highly recommended by a certain gang of Asians I sometimes run with. We got on fabulously (when we weren't haggling like old women over who got to use his bicycle) talking long and late of drugs, DJs, and dharma. I then left him to move into a warehouse space I fell in love with.
The space and I are still in the throes-of-passion stage of our relationship. Unfortunately, my feelings towards my roommates are much more tepid. They are pretty chill, very neat, smell pretty, and own lots of useful things like blenders, toaster ovens, and garlic presses. But they are not the most imaginative of people. Which, is sort of what I moved out here for: imaginative people. I keep telling myself that, once I make friends of my own, the normality of my roommates will matter not. However, whenever I go to Berkeley Bowl and see the army of weirdos that work/shop there my tummy gives me funny sensations which I think are telling me that I am lying to myself. But then I think about how I could fit a baby elephant into my warehouse, and I feel conflicted. I kind of wish that a cracken would just rise out of the East Bay and consume my roommates, forcing me to recruit replacements. I would find people who could install a trapeze, and would would want to use the space for painting, trampolining, screen printing, bike repairing, anything except furnituring. Which, unless I act fast, is probably what is going to happen. But maybe I underestimate them...Elizabeth did install a darkroom.......

But enough about them. More about me. I also found a job. This is good as I have been laying down scary sums of cash. I am a barback/hostess at a small mexican joint. Again, I feel slightly conflicted. Hostesses are girls with day jobs that like boys with tats and problems. So they decide to work at a bar/restaurant twice a week to get closer proximity. Barbacks are the girls WITH the tats and the problems. So now I am both. I guess this means I am going to start masterbating a lot more.

So I guess right now I am still sort of transitioning between my East Coast self and my new West Coast self. The worlds I am bridging are pretty different. But I think there is only one I am in love with. So I guess I'm just gonna have to ask that fucker to dance!

2007-05-06T19:47:00.000-07:00

So it's spring...time of twitterpation. For most members of the animal kingdom this means time to get hot and horny. For members of the Teresa kingdom, however, it means time to start getting hot and homeless. Yup, so recently looming in my path was that decision that I seem to be making at an exponential rate: whether to stay or to go. For a while I thought about staying in NOLA. I had a hot pink sign taped onto my bike for a few days that read, "Hot bike and skinny girl looking for roommate." There was also a sign that read, "Roommate needed: Bikes and Dykes apply within," but that didn't last long b/c I got embarrassed at thinking about what my customers might say to me when they read it. Anyway, for various reasons, I changed my mind, and decided to stick with the moving to the west coast plan. So, I've started sending out emails in response to SF craigslist posts. Here's my most recent (I haven't heard back):

Hello Queer Friendly/Union/Socially Conscious House!
My name is Teresa and I would love to come live with you.
I will state up front that I am not currently living in San Fran, but before you totally write me off, allow me to share ridiculous amounts of information about myself.

First the stats:
age: 24
gender: female
ethnicity: skinny white girl
status: my true love is my bicycle even though it sometimes hurts me bad
pics: flickr

OK. Now that you've got my stats, let's go on a date (gawd, I hope my hair looks ok):

QFUSCH: hey
me: hi!

QFUSCH: So what brings a skinny white girl like yourself to San Fran?
Me: Well, a few years back, I was on leave from this sailing voyage thing that I was doing, and I came to San Fran for 2 months to see if I could make this sort of on-and-off-again relationship I was having work. The result was I ended up falling out of love with the boy and in love with the city. I was hooked big time, and I've been fantasizing about living here ever since.

QFUSCH: Huh. So you're a sailor?
me: Well, I spent about a year sailing on a tallship after I finished undergrad, yes. Most recently, though, I've been living down in New Orleans and working at the Habitat ReStore, a store that resells used and donated building materials to the public in order to support Habitat for Humanity. Before that I was wandering around in South America for 6 months, and before that I was living in DC. I move around a lot.

QFUSCH: So are you going to flake out on our house?
Me: Totally not. It's been 3 years since i've spent more than 11 months in the same place. I am ready to spent a significant amount of time in one place. I really want to focus on "improving myself." No, I don't mean learning how to blend eye makeup and walk posture perfect. I mean I want to work on figuring out what I want my career to be and acquiring mad skillz in that direction. I've been working on my commitment issues in preparation.

QFUSCH: did you just say "mad skillz?"
Me: ummm. I'm a little nervous, ok? But anyway, I need to get home to bed, but I'd really like to talk with you again sometime. I know you have a lot of other people that are totally courting your ass, but here's my number: 202-492-3488. If you think I'm not completely lame, then maybe we could talk again sometime, and you could tell me a little more about yourself.

Brokeback Hogwarts

2007-04-21T21:33:00.001-07:00

Key moments to catch:
a. Mooney's gay-dar
b. Cedric mouthing to Harry, "Ron?? I don't understand...I'm so much better looking."

Too Much Booty In da Pants

2007-04-20T19:57:00.000-07:00

Sign I posted today at work:

Dear Customer:
Please don't be tearin up our shit.* Ya heard?
Sincerely,
The ReStore

Next week's edition:

Need to get some junk in your trunk?? Just ask one of our staff members. We'd be happy to help.

*modified to "stuff" after seeing Chris reading his bible during lunch break (witnessing this caused me severe Catholic guilt pangs over using profanity in the ReStore).

Extry Extry!! The Social Retards Get Married!!

2007-04-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Shocking but true. So the social retard clan is growing. However, a lot of us have not had much interaction with the significant others that will be assimilating into our group. So, in order for the rest of us to feel better acquainted with these individuals, I am posting a fact sheet on the social retards to be.

Jason
--he farts a lot
--he likes to sing hymns
--he gets grumpy when he's tired (sound familiar?)
--he goes to sleep at 10:30
--he's a bit clumsy
--he likes farms and Kansas a lot
--he treats most people he meets with respect
--he wanted to be a herpatologist when he was a kid
--he knows a lot about cow reproduction
--he milks goats on the weekend
--he's addicted to lifting weights

Trevor
--he is a sailor
--he likes bananas a whole lot
--he wants an army of midget minions
--In his youth, he formed a Ghostbuster club
--his least favorite work party project is scraping the mast
--his favorite Star Wars character is currently Obi Wan
--he has octopus boxers
--he would choose ants as his insect pet of choice because they could eat off the faces of his enemies
--he thinks Caroline is a hot tamale

Julia
--she plays the flute
--she farts a lot too
--she loves Ben and Jerry's ice cream
--she also likes anything chocolate
--she has a pretty pair of teal underware
--she does not like writing papers, but she does like learning
--she is addicted to YouTube
--she does not like eggs
--she likes to read while she poops
--she liked to play in the sandbox as a child
--she does not like bananas in her oatmeal

How much this is??

2007-04-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

I hear this question at least 6 times a day. My customers point to couches, floor tiles, light fixtures, used paint cans, some with prices, some without. But "How much this is?" is not just a simple question of price; it is how my customers introduce what they hope will become a dialogue of worth.
My customers use many ploys. "But today's my birthday!" exclaims Miss Joyce when I give her a figure. (Considering how many birthdays Miss Joyce has a week, it's amazing how youthful she is.) They appeal for my sympathy with comments like, "Look, it's got a little crack here. Can't you take a few dollars off?" They try to pit the employees against each other with comments like, "No, no. Chris says it's only $10!" They even make shit up like, "You forgot my discount." What discount?? And while sometimes they make me feel like I am running a daycare center rather than a store full of donated building materials, I am sort of in awe of them for their ability to engage.
While the cross section of people that walk through the ReStore's doors is pretty diverse, there is one thing that these people all have in common: their incredible willingness to display and employ their humanity. My customers are as delightful, as self-absorbed, and as quick to laughter/indignation/temper-tantrums as small children. And they know it but are not afraid of it.
Perhaps their lack of inhibition stems from the fact that they are from "The South." Perhaps it is because they feel they have nothing left to hide after living in a football stadium for days with 15,000 other people, who like themselves, were suffering from shock and exposure. Or perhaps it is because after listening to politicians argue endlessly and without result over the worth of their communities and homes they have decided that these things must not have much value to the American public and, with nothing else left, they have decided to try and cash in on the value of their humanity in order to rebuild their lives.
If only we knew what that was.
How bout $4 dollars off that lamp?

On my way home

2007-03-25T01:38:00.000-07:00

tonight the air smelled of cracked pepper and honeysuckle.

Sex and Rainbows

2007-03-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've been having some trouble coming up with answers to several questions concerning my "direction in life" that keep plaguing me. So I decided to ask a unicorn. Here are a list of my questions, followed by the responses given by a virtual representation of a cardboard unicorn:

Q: What would a unicorn do if it wanted to go to Grad school but was afraid of going $30,000 dollars into debt?

A: Chase a rainbow

Q: What would a unicorn do if it found itself extremely sexually frustrated?

A: Pose on a windy cliff

Q: What would a unicorn do if it wanted to bicycle across the country with the rest of its cool unicorn friends, but had no money?

A: Whinny and rear

My analysis of my unicorn's advice? Well, chasing a rainbow could be interpreted to mean that I should chase after my dream of going to get an MFA. Find my pot of gold, that type of thing. But while rainbows are beautiful (like dreams) they are also fleeting!!! OH NO!!! Does this mean that my desire to go to grad school is only fleeting and illusory??? Something that will disappear after I have been there for a year and dropped 20 grand?? Shit!! Ok, don't freak out, lets move on to the next question and gauge this unicorn's savvy......

Ok. So my horny unicorn would pose on a windy cliff. Pretty solid advice. I think that means my unicorn would "get out there." Much better advice than, say, "impale a newborn." Oops, I mean evil things...

Speaking of impaling evil things, that would be MUCH better advice to solving my bicycle dilemma than "whinny and rear!" I mean, at least impaling shit would allow me to work out my frustrations in a productive manner. "Believe in miracles" would also be good advice. Whinny and rear?? I think my unicorn is more sexually frustrated than he wants to admit.

Conclusions?? Don't ask unicorns for advice. All they can think about is sex and rainbows. Also, imagining unicorns riding bicycles and wearing helmets is fun. (They would totally be riding pink and purple Huffy's with streamers.)

Spider turds are more exciting than my blog...

2007-02-12T23:13:00.000-08:00

Sigh: It's true; I apologize. I should be hung from a high hurdle and harangued for my inattentiveness to my blog. But I have an excuse!!!

Since my blog will no longer be about my travels in the Southern Hemisphere, and I can no longer use the lure of the exotic to dupe people into reading it, I have been desperately trying to decide upon the new Purpose/Intent/gimmick of Brazyclog. Unfortunately I am still at a loss. I have ruled out baby seals, baby pandas, and the selling of celebrity locks as possible gimmicks. Which leaves me without much material. Which is why I need YOU, dear readers!! Please clap your hands and say I DO believe in brazy clogs! Or just post suggestions on the sort of thing which you would expect to find in the very braziest of clogs.

So, to give some closure to this ridiculous post, and since I feel I should offer some insight into my newest surroundings and experiences, I am going to leave you with a brief excerpt about New Orleans from Naked Lunch:

"So we pour it in a Pernod bottle and start for New Orleans past iridescent lakes and orange gas flares, and swamps and garbage heaps, alligators crawling around on broken bottles and tin cans, neon arabesques of motels, marooned pimps scream obscenities at passing cars from islands of rubbish..."
~William S. Burroughs

The Last Hoorah

2006-12-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

So this will be my last post from South America (although I think I will keep up the blog as I am seriously considering moving halfway across the country and away from everyone I know).
I have no idea what to say. I can´t think of any way to really sum up the past 6 months. I don´t think it would be possible. Instead I think I will just put in an excerpt from one of my journals. I was in a national park on the Caribbean coast in Colombia at the time, and although the entry is not meant to represent a summary or a conclusion of my trip, I do think it captures the feeling of living in a surreality that i´ve been harboring for about 6 months now.

My time in Tyrone was really like being inside of a piece of a Gabrielle Garcia Marquez story. His yellow butterflies were everywhere and as their yellow cream wings fluttered through the air, opening and closing like the eyelids of the surprised, I found myself wishing for a love that spawned butterflies....

The soft yellow of the butterflies was offset by the lush green of the ivy-like plants that crept along the sand towards the ocean. Their long tendrils looked like the fingers of the jungle that lay behind them, lazily unfurling as if to stealthily reclaim the few meters of sand that dared escape its clorophilic clutches. But even these greedy fingers were beautiful with their tiny purple flowers blossoming everywhere.

Laying on the beach and looking up, I watched the silhouettes of angular seabirds wheel through the sky like pterodactyls, looking for their next meal. The boulders next to me seemed to support this daydream, their giant masses and sharp edges suggesting they were not yet worn by time....

Mud Volcanos and the like

2006-12-03T18:11:00.000-08:00

Speedo Update

2006-11-20T13:48:00.000-08:00

I´ve decided that my Speedo is like God in a blue spandex sort of a manifestation: powerful yet flexible, all encompasing. I don´t know why they can´t make women´s bikini bottoms like this.
Also, I am a huge fan of Joe´s idea of cladding zombies in bikinis. The Incan Zombie Commune will wear Speedos when they give their educational talks to world leaders. Why? Because they can. And because nothing says F the man like wearing a neon colored Speedo, especially if your flesh is undead.

Pah Pah Paradise

2006-11-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

Other than having to deal with one particularly pushy hotel owner, my week on Providence was wonderful. The island is tiny and populated with people who speak a very strange mix of Spanish and Jamacain style English. It is surrounded by coral reefs and the warm, calm water of the Caribbean. The buildings are brightly painted wooden structures covered with hammocks and disgarded nets and floats once used by fishermen. Some of the trees are covered with old anchor markers and styrofoam floaties which look like giant nautical christmas tree balls (one could envision the Dr. Seuss fish gathering around a christmas tree of this sort). There are mangrove swamps and lime trees abound. You catch giant land crabs at night which look disapprovingly at you with raised purple claws when you shine your flashlight at them. You can climb the mountain in the middle of the island, which is gaurded by hundreds of lizards, and when you sit on the top, looking out over the island and the sea, you feel like the Swiss Family Robinson in the scene where the family is sitting on their mountain lookout, quietly surveying the pirates invading their island, right before they start chucking coconut explosives everywhere. There are horse races on the beach on the weekends, and rope swings tied to coconut trees that dangle temptingly over the waves.
So yeah, it was pretty fucking fantastic. I spent my time getting my dive licence, zipping around the island on a moped, fending off men (detraction from general experience), working on my tan, watching alot of HBO at night, and eating as much fresh fish as possible. I saw manta rays, eels, giant lobsters, and tiny crabs with gangly legs that looked like spiders or like those weird wire head massagers. It was a great week.

Oh ps!! I´ve decided that the next time I want to freak out and run away, I am going to go adventure diving off of Malpelo island, another UNESCO world heritage site whose waters are home to schools of over 500 hammerhead sharks. Anyone want to get their dive licence and come with???

You might smell like vanilla, but you´re still a gorilla

2006-11-20T10:26:00.001-08:00

Ways Not To "Get the Girl":
(yes, this is a mini vent session)

1. Propose to come visit her in her hotel while your wife and 8 year old child are in the room next door. If she points out the fact that you are married and have a child, DO NOT proceed to give her the speech about "living in the moment."

2. If you are a hotel owner, do not personally come into a woman´s room (unasked) at 3 in the morning to wake her up for her 4 am bus ride.

3. Do not lunge at a woman while having a conversation with her.

4. If a girl leaves the door to her room unlocked when she goes down the hall to the bathroom, do not enter her room univited expecting her to find you a pleasant surprise upon her return.

5. No hissing. Or whistling.

After a particularly difficult week of being the only single and only white female on a 2 mile stretch of island, I thought I should create some guidlines for the men of South America as to what is appropriate behavior when talking to western women. Or any women for that matter. I would also like to dedicate the song King Kong (Attack of the Egomanic) by Kudu to the egomaniacs of the world, and point out that while you might smell like vanilla, you can still be a gorilla.

She wore an itsy bitsy, teeny.....WEENIE BIKINI!!

2006-11-03T16:52:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh!!!
So somehow I managed to loose my bathing suit bottoms. And as I have a ticket for a plane that leaves for island paradise tomorrow morning, I figured I needed to remedy this situation. After 5 hours of maniacal shopping for a bathing suit in a 3 story mall (scariness) and finding nothing but thongs, and grannie bottoms, I got desperate. There was a Speedo shop in said mall, and although that was the first place I went, I found nothing I would vaguely consider clading my body with there. But I was thinking inside the box. Four hours after my original attempt, I returned. And I went directly to the children´s section...specifically, the boy´s section. You see in Latin America the girls all wear thongs and the boys all wear speedos, otherwise known as weenie bikinis. But the weenie bikinis are exactly like the bikini bottoms that say a girl from the United States would be looking for. I plunged in, much to the distress of the salespeople. They tried explaining, in a very polite and perhaps slightly patronizing tone, that those bottoms were for children, male children. I just smiled, nodded, told them that, yes I was aware of that, and continued pulling lycra bottoms for the wall. They began to look seriously worried at this point. ANd started searching through the women´s section trying, in vain, to find something that was not a thong for me.
Sort of long story short, I triumphed and found the perfect weenie bikini. It´s just my size. The sales people were horrified and I was greatly pleased with my purchase. I also learned that ambiguity is not quite as cool here in Latin America as it is up north and even things like bathing suits have clear gender demarcations. Ah well. Just another day well spent as the crazy gringo. But now off to the beach!! Fishes beware!!

Zombies, Pineapple Explosion

2006-11-01T17:07:00.000-08:00

Hmm so where was I? Oh yeah, I was sandboarding in Peru. Well since then I went to visit the national museum in Ica, home of several completely intact mummies. Ica´s dry desert climate had managed to preserve both their hair and skin. There was also a rehydrated hand from about 1100 A.D. (pictured) and a headress of dreadlocks that measured about 4 feet long. I arrived at the museum at about 6pm, an hour before closing, in hopes to avoid large groups of people. I suceeded, for about 10 min. After having the entire place to myself for said 10 minutes, a school group of about 40 twelve-year-olds invaded the museum. They were loud, they giggled, they took pictures with the flash on, they flirted with each other, they made me feel like a tight-lipped librarian that wore glasses on a chain. I wanted them to stop flirting, shut up, and show some respect. I started feeling really sorry for the mummies. I mean, these guys had been promised eternal life, power, and splendor. They were going to become gods. Instead they had been unearthed from their tombs of gold and silver and placed in a museum where they were housed in cheap glass cases, labeled with laminated index cards, and displayed before giggling kids with Mickey Mouse cameras. I started hoping that the mummies would become zombies, break out of their cases, and chase off the 12-year-olds. It would have been pretty awesome. Then I started fantasizing about the life of these zombie mummies. Highlights included:
1. Zombies setting up a zombie commune in the desert, which would subsequently become named a UNESCO World Heritage Site (as all the cool stuff in South America is). They would do things like make free zombie love with each other, perfect their children scaring techniques (to be used for child-correction purposes only), talk about the old days, and other stuff that zombies do when living in a zombie commune.
2. The zombies hosting a series of educational talks with the world´s most renown professors, archaeologists, historians, etc, in which they would clarify the cultural customs, mythologies, and everyday practises of the ancient Peruvians.
3. Zombies eating the brains of all corrupt leaders of the world. I think that could keep them satisfied for a while.

Anyway, after Ica, I headed back up to Lima so I could fly to COLOMBIA!!! which is where I am currently. This place is awesome. I am currently in the capital, Bogota. The streets here are filled with graffiti, posters for shows, life. There is a huge blackmarket of books, which takes up about 3 blocks, and everything is cheap. If you ignore the fact that everyone is slightly paranoid about getting mugged, it is pretty fucking awesome. I am investigating various places where I can get certified to dive, and I am looking forward to finally basking in sweet, sweet warmth. Fuck yeah. Viva Colombia.

Sandboarding

2006-10-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

Look at meee!!!!!!!

(I promise I am actually sandboarding...it just looks like I am trying to salsa down a giant dune)

The Salar in Bolivia

2006-10-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

So I am back in Peru. Bolivia was amazing, and I wish I had more time to spend there. The highlight of my trip was visiting the Salar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt flat. It is approximately 4,085 square miles wide and is the remains of a prehistoric lake that dried up around 40,000 years ago.

There was an island in the middle of the salar that we went to visit filled with cacti and fossilized coral. I as i walked around I amused myself by envisioning that at night little iridescent, translucent ghost fish swim around the dead coral; sort of mimicking the way the humming birds swam through the air, hovering around the cacti during the day.

There is a small area of the salar that is still covered in water. It grows during the rainy season, but last week it was just the size of a small river. But living in this small salt river were about 50 flamingos. Don´t ask me how flamingos can live 4,000 meters in the air, in the freezing cold (it reaches 20 below in the winter nights), hundreds of miles from the ocean. But they are there.
After seeing the salar, we drove through the desert that inspired Dali`s paintings, saw a pink lake, and a forest of more fossilized coral.

I also found out (after I finished the tour) that the reason the tour companies can afford to buy the Land Cruisers that shuttle the tourists around the salar during the 4 day tour is that they double as cocaine couriers. The salar is in the South of Bolivia and sort of runs along the border of Chile. Many of the companies pack a bunch of cocaine into the cars and later give the packages to the families that we stay with at night so that they can take them across the border to Chile where the coke is sold a quadruple the price it would be in Bolivia. Hmm.

The other highlight of my time in Bolivia was my trip to the collective mines in Potosi. Our group bought a bunch of cigarettes, dynamite, and coca leaves (the leaves that are used to produce cocaine) for the miners and headed up. Potosi is the highest city in the world and so the miners, while underground, are all working at altitude. They work 8 to 13 hour days and don´t eat anything other than coca leaves while they are underground. The miners also carry out all the minerals under their own power. Some of them carry everything on their backs. Others have carts that they push along the tracks that run through the mountain. About every 20 minutes we would hear a distant rumble and our guides would start yelling at us to get off the tracks. Suddenly out of the pitch black two or three guys would apparatein front of us, running at full speed and pushing their mineral cart in front of them.

After crawling through the mines for a couple of hours, we gave an offering of coca leaves to Tio (spanish for uncle) and then sat around drinking with the miners who were getting off work. Tio is a lump of minerals formed roughly into the shape of the devil. The miners always give him cigarettes (he likes filtered best)and coca leaves as gifts. They believe that he governs the space under the mountain and that by giving him offerings they can ask for favors (i.e. safety or prosperity). Every time we took a drink of the 99 proof alcohol that the miners like (yes, we were still underground at his point) we first had to poor some of our drink on the ground for Tio. The next drink went for Pacha Mama, or mother earth. And so on...

So that was Bolivia. Ghost fish and lakes, devils under mountains, cocaine and coca.

Mary North Face

2006-10-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

The other day, as I tottered across the Bolivian border at a surprisingly slow pace, I started wondering how on earth my backpack had gotten to weigh at least 35 pounds. So I did a mental inventory of my belongings and discovered that, in fact, I am much more like a travelling art store/library that can camp out in the wilderness for several days at a time (you know, so I can supply the llamas with crayons and reading material) than like a normal backpacker.
Here is a list of things found in my backpack that will startle, amaze, and suport my previous claim:
1. Can of spray paint of that mint green color that is found in older bathrooms
2. Manilla file folders for making stencils
3. a bag of 90 white plastic doves that normally belong on the tops of wedding cakes
4. a compass the kind for drawing circles, not the kind for finding your direction, although I have one of those too
5. several notebooks for journaling and general scribbling
6. exacto knife again for stencils
7. about six tiny tubes of super glue and one tube of something that i think construction workers use to glue pieces of buildings together when welding fails
8. eight books
a. a book of literary criticism that focuses on travel writing that I sort of stole from the DC public library
b. a spanish childrens book about Lorenzo the penguin, who totally kicks ass and is my travel hero
c. Peru guidebook
d. spanish dictionary
e. spanish coursebook
f. spanish verb book
g. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (hopefully not indicative of my social future)
h. guidebook that focuses on trekking

How do I fit all of this stuff, along with a tent, a camp stove, a sleeping pad, clothes, two bags of dried beans that I have had for at least a month now, and various other odds and ends, into one single backpack, you ask?? My only answer is that Mary Poppins and North Face must hace some sort of contract going on.

My Wannabe Hero

2006-10-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

This is how the spirit of Joe Thornhill saved my life in Bolivia.
I met met Joe´s Australian double yesterday. He is dark, slightly hairy, has big eyes and long lashes, likes to drink, is quite jovial (unless incised, for example by corrupt police officers, at which point he beings to yell and make large arm motions like an out of control windmill), and he saved me at the Bolivian border checkpoint.
Let me explain. I didn´t have an entrance stamp for Bolivia (the Peruvians failed to give my passport to the Bolivians at the border crossing, resulting in a lack of official stamp). I, however, was unaware of this. About an hour past the border, everyone had to get out of the bus in order to make a ferry crossing. The bus was put on a barge, and everyone had to stand in line getting their passports checked before they too were ferried across the river. This was the point when it became obvious that I had no entrance stamp. I was detained. The border officials told me I had to pay $150 biolivianos to get the stamp. I became angry. Crossing the border is free. This was extortion. I was not giving into this intimidation and corruption. I was a tower of righteous strength. I also did not have any Bolivianos to pay them with, even if I wanted to, and there were no ATMs in this town, rendering me penniless. I argued some more with the police. At this point, I, the tower, started to crumble rapidly as I watched my bus floating down the river, further and further away from me, with my backpack on top of it. I started to become desperate. I pulled out my wallet, opened it up and dumped all my change on the desk. "I have nothing!!" I yelled. The police told me I could leave my passport with them, go to La Paz with my bus and come back the next day to pay and retrieve my passport. I laughed manically at them and told them my passport and I do not separate. At this point the bus had reached the other side of the river. I was ready to start crying.
And then I saw an angry Joeseph Thornhill flailing and yelling in an Australian accent. The same thing had happened to him, and together we took on the Bolivian Border Patrol. He did his windmill flail and yelled in English. I looked small and angry (as I often do) and interpreted everything in my totally kick ass Spanish (which consists of about 40 important nouns and unconjugated verbs). Eventually we gave in to the corruption and he paid my fee, saving me from having my passport confiscated.
Lessons learned?? Dont leave the border without first checking all stamps. Also, get to know Joe Thornhill and make him love you (just buy him a beer, a nice one). It will pay off when you are about to be deported from Bolivia and his spirit appears in an Australian body to save you.

Happy Makes Me a Modern Girl...Angry Makes Me A Modern Girl

2006-10-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

So I have some anger problems. It´s true. I think it´s a result of having Irish-Italian blood.
But it´s what makes me a good barback and what propelled me through college even whilst wallowing in despair. It´s why I love punk music, even really bad punk music. (tangent coming) All those bodies writhing around feeding and bouncing off each other´s sweaty anger. It´s release and transformation. I fucking love these photos taken by Edward Clover. They show people flying, overcoming gravity. They show people ripping apart their bodies in attempt to release eveything inside. Punk wraps up all the gutteral and raw, blasts it through huge amps, and creates motion. To me punk is motion. And (for me) motion is freedom (thus my love of things like running, travel, and the bike). It moves people in the crowd to dance, break things, to want to do something. It propells. Sometimes it just propells people into a drug/alcohol induced blitz, but sometimes it does more. It is corporal and cerebral. Anyway, I greedily horde my anger (for when I need propulsion), and I love punk.

Most of my anger is self induced as well as self directed. I get indignant and sometimes enraged when I feel like I am being held back, not achieving things, wasting time, stagnating. Worse still is when I start dwelling on how I have no idea how to get what I want; I only have fledgling ideas that flail hungrily about in my mind. So anyway, the old fury was starting to flair up again. I was getting really fustrated with myself for not taking intiative and engaging in something that would make my trip more than just a escape from DC (albeit a total awesome one). I was not being creative, sponaneous, agressive enough. SO I started thinking of things that would make it more. I came up with the idea of collecting indegenous stories in hopes of publishing a trilingual book. Pipe dream, I know, but something to work for. So, I am working. Probably I am just doing a lot of work for nothing. But fuck it. Why not. It has made me a lot happier. It has been amazing to watch these people get excited when they understand what I am trying to do. They have sung for me, let me stay in their homes, watched me play games with their children, and allowed me to photograph them. So I might not get published, become famous in the literary world, and thus get to have hot art-fag sex on top of elephants while researching my next book in Nepal (although I am still hoping). At least I can know that I tried to push myself further and understand these people more than the average tourist. And for that I give myself two hells-yeahs.
Anyway, another thing that I thought would help to elevate my trip status to "totally kick-ass" would be making street art in all of the major South American cities I visited. But I am shit at drawing and I don´t really have access to photoshop to make cool stencils. What to do?? Well one day my love of the odd brought me into a strange little shop selling notebooks, hairspray, sequins, and plastic figures of things like fat angels, doves, and St. Francis. Doves...I bought a hundred tiny plastic doves meant for things like weddings, baptisms, ...and the streets of Cusco. To me they were perfect...hopeful, peaceful, beautiful. So last night, after hitting up the bars, I came back to my hostal drunk and ready. I set out with doves and super glue in my backpack. I had grand visions of a hundred doves flying along the wall that followed the street up to my hostel. I started glueing........my fingers together. ::Sigh:: The glue was completely liquid and slid off the plastic doves like water off a duck. Also, glue (even super glue) doesn´t work so well for attatching things to dirt walls. The dirt just absorbs it. Go figure. So I ran out of super glue after about 5 minutes and 10 doves. So yeah...I need some practice before I become the next Banksy. But it´s a start...and I still have 90 doves left.....

2006-09-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

So recently I´ve been wandering the countryside asking people to tell me their traditional tales in their own language (Spanish, while the official language of Peru, is not the indigenous language of the country; Quechua, the language of the Incas is the native language, and it is slowly disappearing.) I think the highlights of my wanderings have been a slightly drunk old man telling me 3 wonderfully vocally animated stories, a 13 year old girl insisting on singing traditional Quechua songs for me (I think she was slightly tone deaf), and receiving about 30 handwritten stories from the 5th and 6th graders of the Chinchero primary school (complete with scribbles, loads of white-out, and color-pencil drawings of flowers). So, while my findings/recordings may not be the most professional, I think they are extremely representative of the people here: flawed, quiet but bursting to express, drunk from the headiness of the Westernisation in their land (and the resulting displacement of their own culture), subtly intricate, and beautiful.

(the pic is of a girl I saw standing in the street as I was walking back to Ollantaytambo to get the bus to Cusco)

And now off to Bolivia (before I get deported)!!!

Pipe Dreams of an Old Maid

2006-09-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. How could a girl on a 5 month travelling binge possibly, for even a moment, be unhappy (reference 2 blogs ago). Ok, so I admit, I was being a bit of a weiner. But hear me out... Sometimes, even in the midst of amazing travels one can feel things other than pure bliss. Sometimes you get tired of always being singled out...or single. Sometimes, like during 30 hour bus trips, or while bedridden for days with a mysterious jungle fever, or while sleeping in the middle of the mountains without a tent, you start to think it might be nice to have someone to talk to (not to mention to help you ward off the encrouching death which you are sure is coming after you). But if you are picky about who you want to share certain spectacular experiences with and also have a rather active imagination, then being alone isn´t too bad. But then you get to Cusco. In Cusco everyone is beautiful, everyone has money, and everyone has a partner (who is also beautiful and loaded which means they get to eat at all the amazing looking restaraunts that serve things other than rice, potatoes, and eggs). And then you start to feel a little lonely. Perhaps a recent converstaion with the amazing Ms. Sullivan about two of my travel dreams will explain:

Dream 1
me: well wouldnt it be great to sneak into macchu picchu at night and have wild traveller sex with this amazing free spirited person that also has a tent and speaks spanish and has a great tan and bod from all his mountaineering?

Charlotte: wait please tell me you actually did that

me: and then you go tramping around together being unconquerable?
no this is my dream
i havent been to macchu picchu yet
...
Dream 2 (with reoccurring themes from Dream 1)
me: i want to collect indigenous fairy tales
and you know, publish a trilingual book of peruvian fairy tales
and then i will be a famed author
and then some hot writer man will find me and we will fly away to india and have wild nomad sex on top of the backs of elephants and in the himalayas

Charlotte: oh man nomad sex
i love your idea.
sounds like you'll need some ethereal photos/illustrations to go with the text.

me: yes mamam

Charlotte: then i'll be a legendary book designer and be having hot art fag sex on top of rolls royce cars.

me: lol
so thats my dream
of two
the other being hot nomad sex partner
i think my small freakout was that i wasnt finding said partner, and i felt like it was my fault for not being spontaneous or outgoing enough or something.
Like anyone else would have had found, seduced, and birthed like 8 nomad offspring by this time with this nomadic sex god.
......
So, yeah I know, I´m retarded for being unhappy b/c I haven´t found a NSG(nomadic sex god). But such retardation (also known as dreaming big and being rather uncompromising) also leads to things like running away to Peru and sleeping in guinea pig huts, so its not all bad. But in the mean time, if any of you out there happen to run across any NSGs, tell them you know this slightly crazed, slightly agressive, super amazing girl who also happens to be rather nomadic down in Peru. And give them my contact info, ok?

!!Photastic!!

2006-09-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

I finally got a new memory card and thus went a little crazy today with the cam. Here are two photos I took today (from the market and ruins near Pisac--a small town near Cusco) and one of me holding a baby croc from my jungle excursion.

2006-09-08T16:04:00.000-07:00

Hmm, so its been a while. OK, details:

1. I was working at Pilpintuwasi, the animal shelter/butterfly farm. The animals were really excellent. There were 8 monkeys that drove me crazy. They were thieving little bastards that stole my contacts, my headlamp, my toothbrush. I loved them. Florian was a monkey with a full body fro who, every morning, would lay on top of the mosquito netting that covered my bed and, sucking his thumb, would watch me wake up. Chavo was also a monkey with a full body fro which, while slightly less poof-tastic than Florians, was bright red. Chavo enjoyed grooming. As in both being groomed and grooming others. The little fucker had a death grip too. One minute you would be peacefully playing with one of the baby monkeys, the next you would have a bright red blob firmly attatched to your head pulling out imaginary bugs, hair clips, and perhaps small clumps of hair as well. When you finally detached him you would immediately have to begin to groom him in order to distract him from recommencing his hair plucking activities. This, however, was much more fun as he collapsed, purring his monkey purr, into your lap. There were other animals there too including taipirs, a jaguar, baby crocs, parrots, giant turtles, a giant anteater, and a hidden sloth which I didnt know existed for a week. My tasks there varied from cutting down giant plants and feeding the animals, to taking tourists around. While the owners and I did not get along, I think this was still probably one of the best experiences Ive had so far.

2. Jungle tour via canoe. I saw giant sloths, a giant otter, pink freshwater dolphins, a giant prehistoric looking fish that leap out of the water, snakes, crocs, and a flocks of macaws. There was a herd of about 300 wild boars that my guide and I snuck up on while they were eating. I felt like I was in the Lord of the Flies. I also went swimming in piranha infested waters which, much to my enjoyment, totally freaked out the lame American couple that ended up traveling with me for part of the way. The husband tried to out bad ass me, but after he got nipped he got out. He never made it in past his knees. HA.

3. Currently in Cusco being a lame ass. I should be booking my Macchu Picchu transport, but I am currently not feeling up to it. I am so sick of dealing with people running up to me on the street yelling, "gringa, gringa! tour good price!" that I am just ignoring them all and procrastinating. oh well. And I have finally contracted some sort of weird stomach something. I think I was feeling cocky and also starved for nutrients, and somehow I just started eating unwashed produce by the plateful. Its nothing bad, but I keep letting out these really foul smelling farts at inopportune times and theres also the mild stomach pain. I keep thinking about Meg and her story about how she disrupted an entire church congregation with her farts in Mali. It makes me smile and feel slightly less bad.

So yeah, thats me. Feeling farty and slightly crotchety. You should all feel very bad for me and send me lots of emails. adios...

Tight Beats

2006-08-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

So I recovered from the fever of death.
my thoughts as to possible causes:

1. I was bitten by a massive mesquito loaded with malaria. Because he was riddled with virus and I had just started taking the malaria pills, I had a reaction.
2. phantom disease
3. Poisoned by pool water.

What is option 3 about, you ask? Ahhh, let me explain. Well it all started a while ago, now. I needed to get to Iquitos (were I am presently stationed). To get to Iquitos, I had to get to Yurimagus, where I would catch the boat to Iquitos (a three day journey). But to do that I had to go on the busride of hell. This bus ride started with the bus being 4 hours late. Once boarded, I realized that all the seats had been sold out towns ago, all seats, including mine. I was not the only person in this predicament. There were about 4 of us. The others were headed back towards the drivers cab. I sat in the aisle. Suddenly I was rushed by the other seatless. They pushed me back and started hissing at me while gesturing towards a seat with a small child in it. I realized they were all doubling up or hiding behind other seats. What was going on?? Then I heard someone else boarding the bus. There was more hissing in my direction, now by all the occupants of the bus. I squished in next to the children (there were 3 of them now, displaced from other surrounding seats). As soon as I did this, a policeman entered from the drivers cab. I understood now. Inspections. Ridiculously, we passed. For which, I, along with the rest of the crew, was incredibly grateful. No way was I waiting around another 12 hours for a less crowded bus. Once the policeman got off I, along with the other displaced, headed back towards the drivers cab. We all took seats by the driver or on the bus steps. These people were thrilled to have a gringa in their presence. They all started asking questions. Was was my name? Where was I from? What kind of music did I like? What about Guns n Roses? Did I like them? So, I spent the first 5 hours of that bus journey trying to sleep on the steps of the bus while it decended from the mountains via a series of hairpin turns. Oh and all the while "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Hotel California" where blasting at max volume. I think this was my bus¨s way of trying to make me feel at home.
By around 3am enough people had gotten off the bus so that I could have a seat. That bus journey lasted for a total of 48 hours. By the time I got off my body was a painful lump, limp from being squeezed, unmoving into small spaces for almost 2 days. I was also rather dirty and very hot. But this was insubstantial. I had read in my guidebook that there was a hotel with a small pool. This was what I needed. I pool with cool, sparkling waters with which to rejuvinate my body. I found the hotel; it did in fact have a very small pool. One with a thin layer of insect carcasses floating on top. But I cared not. I was going for a swim. I could not even be disuaded by the fact that I had no bathing suit. So I went swimming, in my underwear, for over a half hour, in a pool of dead bugs. And I loved it; it was great, and also the possible reason for my mysterious illness.
Anyway, I finally made it to Iquitos (my present station) and I should be at the butterfly farm by tonight.

Anyway as a parting gift, I am attempting to put up some links to SUPER DOPE BEATS!!! Check em out bammas!!

HOT!! Its like James Brown goes to Ethiopia. All the lyrics are in Amharic. By Alemayehu Eshete & Hirut Beqele.
temeles

A tight mashup of Ghostface Killah and Ghostland Observatory done by Car Stereo(Wars) called ghostface observatory.
car stereo

Another really good remix is one I def cannot get a link going for. But try to find it somewhere on the web. Its the Beyond the Wizards Sleeve remix of "Young Folks" by Peter Bjorn and John, featuring Victoria Bergsman (the lead singer for The Concretes, who I am crazy about--her voice is soo good)

ok thats all for now folks!

2006-08-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

Recent conversation with a nice old man who owned a bakery

me: can I have some cake, please?
old man: hello,what is your name?
me: Teresa
old man: And where are you from?
me: the united states
old man: you are pretty, but you have a bad president
me: (laugh) yes. I don´t like him. he is bad.
old man: something, something, cuba, something
me: mmm. yes Bush is a bad man.
old man: more somethings, cuba, somethings.
me: mmmmmmm. How much does that cake cost?
old man: one sole.($.30)What do you do?
me: I work at a bar
old man: you are not an artist?
me: umm, no. I like writing, but it´s very hard to get a job writing.
old man: by yourself, yes. You need a group, a union. Then it is possible.

I like old men. They sell me cake and make wise statements about how i need to join a union....aka a CRAZY ARTIST COLLECTIVE!!! Damn people. Even an 60 yr old Peruvian man gets it. In order to have orgies, be the zeitgeist, create an art revolution, stick it to the man, and other such activities, one must have a group. (mom and dad: don´t worry, I¨m not really into orgies, it just sounded good).

ok. Anyway, I have a fever of a million degrees and my whole body is in pain. So no more blogging for the day; my drugs are going to wear off very soon. Here are some more pics to make you happy, and hopefully my fever will break soon and I will be able to write you a witty, detailed account of the past two weeks so that you will stop sending me angry emails about how I am being a very irresponsible blogger who obviously does not care about the blogging needs of the people back home, how could I be so insensitive, damn it.

On the boat to Iquitos

From the window of the bus to Chachapoyas

2006-07-29T14:36:00.000-07:00

So after riding buses for 26 hours straight, I am finally in the place I need to be...almost. Uggg. I missed the last taxi to the small village (Tingo) outside the big village that I am currently at (Chachapoyas), which is where I need to go to visit the ruins of Kuelap. I have already finished both the books I brought with me and so I am now wasting time on the internet to keep myself occupied. So I am just going to make a blog of randomness.
Randomness:

1. Yay for anime. Why this sudden love for Japan´s legacy to the rest of the world?? Because you can understand what´s going on, no matter what language it is in. For example, most conversations in anime cartoons go like this:

Charater 1: Oh my god!! Your hair looks so good spikey and purple!!
Character 2: I know!! And it looks even better when all those moving lines go through it!!
:::MOVING DIAGONAL LINES!!!!! ACTION AND EXCITEMENT!! WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THE LINES STOP???::::
Character 1: Man those were some awesome ninja moves that you just did.
Character 2: I know. I never noticed you were part turtle.
Character 1: That is because you are stupid, despite being Japanese and having super sweet nija moves.
Character 2: Oh no!! Here comes the evil witch on her hover craft that is really just a circle (we don´t know how she does that)!!!
:::MORE ACTION AND MOVING DIAGONAL LINES!!!:::

And now you understand why anime is awesome (especially when you are bored and waiting for buses in Peru)

2. Yay for the Washington Post running an article about artist Mark Jenkins. The article is also posted, with pics, on wooster (but it takes some scrolling). DC ain´t got much in the way of an art scene, but it´s got Borf and Jenkins, and they are both pretty bad ass.

3. Yay for me getting to volunteer at Pilpintuwasi Butterfly Farm and Animal Orphanage! Apparently they just got a new baby tarpir which according to Gudrun, one of the directors of the farm, looks like a walking watermelon. Personally, I think tapir looks more like a watermelon crossed with Alph, but thats my opinion. Regardless, they are pretty damn cute and I get to play with one!

Other things I have found amusing/interesting in my wanderings of the net:

Succinct op-eds. by one of Clinton´s former senior advisor.

Ghost bikes.

Happy Trails

2006-07-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

Highlights of the Inca Trail

1. After an 8 hour day of hiking away from everything and up a giant mountain figuring out that my fuel canister had no fuel in it, rendering half my food supply inedible (this is the first day)

2. Being taken in by a very kind, although very drunk, Andean man. I was given access to a fire pit and a place to sleep. Fortunatly, my designated sleep spot was indoors. Indoors on the ground with a horde of 10 very excited guinea pigs. One of which sounded more like a elephant with a nasal infection than a guinea pig.

3. Seeing birds that looked like they belonged in the ocean in a marsh on the top of a 4,400m mountain.

4. Sleeping in the middle of some ruins in a feeble attempt to shelter myself from the wind. Later getting up at 3:30 am to keep hiking because I was too cold to sleep and figured at least I´d be warmer that way.

5. Not getting bit by rabid dogs

6. Snickers, granola, and soy milk for at least 3 meals

7. Loosing feeling on my right hip from my backpacking rubbing against me

8. Sections of the trail being almost perfectly intact

9. The Andes (not the mint)

The Incredibl(y Retarded) Journey

2006-07-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

As children, my sister and I were huge fans of the Disney Channel. Among the fantastic selection of movies that the Disney Channel aired (on loop) were some high quality adventure movies. Of course there was Goonies. But there were two others:
Homeward Bound: the Incredible Journey (my sisters favorite)
and
The Journey of Natty Gann (my favorite)

I feel like these preferences in movies are actually quite telling about both of our personalities. Maria chose the movie with the cute, furry, domestic animals that accidentally get lost by their owners and make a 9 kabillion mile journey home via the wilderness. They battle bears. They persevere despite their domestication.

I chose the movie about the abandoned child that decides to run away from her evil foster family (in my case D.C.) to find her father somewhere in Alaska (read: father=destiny, Alaska=Peru). Natty has a knife; Natty hops trains and befriends a wolf that attacks evil men; Natty is hard fucking core.

Now, knowing this integral piece of background information about my movie tastes will explain my following agenda.
I have decided to do this portion of Inca Trail without a partner and with no tent (ok, so I wanted the tent, but it was mildly expensive and really fucking heavy). Obviously, I, like Natty Gann, am hard fucking core. However, unfortunately, unlike Natty I do not have a wolf friend to eat evil men. Also, while I have a knife, it is not large and scary and good for stabbing rabbits with, like Natty¨s. Hmmmm.

Which brings me to the real reason for this blog....if there is not another blog entry within 10 days, can someone call the authorities? My trail runs from Huari to La Union in Northern Peru..... thanks!!!

Insane in the Membrane

2006-07-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

So here´s The Deal yaaa´ll:

Past:
I just finished up a 3 day trek into the Cordillera Blanca mountain range in an attempt to summit a peak called Pisco. Well, Pisco kicked my little white ass. Or perhaps it was the three ginormous foreign men that I was trekking with. Or maybe it was the lack of oxygen. Anyway, between the three my ass was grass. On the last day of our trek, after waking up at 12 am and climbing until 4:30 am, I finally had to give up, turn around, and hike back 4 hours. This made me sad. But what made me happy was that I made it up 5,250 meters of the 5,752 meters that comprise Pisco. Other things that made me feel ok about not reaching the top?? 1. Everest base camp lies somewhere around 5,500 meters (this varies about 200 meters in either direction, depending on what internet source you check) so essentially I was only 300 meters away from making that, which I think is pretty incredible 2. I blew all the boys away when it came to ice climbing 3. I have over 4 months to remedy a failed summit attempt; bring it.
Present:
I am chilling in Huaraz and contemplating trying to create some sort of project based on what I see during my travels with "art as survival" as a possible theme (fuck! I am such a nerd!)

Future: I plan on heading out in a few days to follow a stretch of the Inca Trail, or Inka Naani in Quechuan. Apparently, the trail North of Huaraz is in fairly good condition and the countryside is amazing. Unfortunately, at this point in time I have no partner and no tent. So, I might be doing this alone(which I wouldn´t mind)and sleeping wrapped in a tarp(which, at altitude, I would mind a lot). Hmm. Well adventures i wanted.....

Huaraz

2006-07-15T21:48:00.000-07:00

Me Ice climbing

Me on the way down from Pisco

Sunrise in the Mountains

Lima

2006-07-07T20:31:00.000-07:00

So I was talking to some lady yesterday and she asked me where I came from. I said "Los Estados Unidos" and she got all excited and started bobbing her head enthusiastically and repeating, "Oosa! Ooosa!" After being rewarded by looks of general confusion on my part, she explained that instead of saying " U.S.A." that Peruvians run the letters together producing the mysterious "Ooosa." The phonetic associations I make with Oosa are as follows:

1. an Uzi (the gun)
2. oozie, as in an adjective for something that oozes

It somehow pleases me greatly to be a representation of a word that conjures both of these associations simultaneously. Perhaps because I start picturing myself with my deranged pigtails as a sort of swamp thing toting around an Uzi, and it makes me laugh.

Anyway, I am leaving Lima tomorrow for Huaraz, a town at the base of the Cordillera Blanca mnt range.

My plan is to be a yeti and gallop around at altitude in the mountains for a week before setting off for the jungle. We will see how that works out.

Poo Poo Peru!!

2006-07-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

Well, hot damn here I am... in Peru. And what am I doing? Am I hiking Machu Picchu?? Am I sand boarding the dunes of the southern coast? Am I perfecting my Spanish while hanging off an ice cliff of the Cordillera Blanca?? NO!!! I am pissing off EVERYONE in my hostel by making mad mad love to the free internet here. Uh huh. mad love. I am really taking entirely too long. But it has not been in vain, because I have finally created the much anticipated blog!! yay!! So please come visit often...I promise to have tales of adventure, stupidity, and general Teresaness soon....