Archive for the 'travels' Category
Boil it, Cook it, Peel it, or Forget it!
Tuesday, May 1st, 2007I am floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Here are a few observations after two days at sea:
The ocean is huge. I was expecting it to be big, but this is ridiculous. At least one of our two 8500 horsepower Enterprise r5 engines has been chugging away continuously but we have barely cleared U.S. waters. Maybe truly understanding the human scale of the Pacific Ocean requires experiencing the seventeen days it takes to cross it. I am immune to sea sickness. The sway is comforting, like a mother rocking me to sleep in her arms. This is also an example of why the sea is great for people who like metaphors. Or smilies. Anyways, I always feel tired here. And it’s hard to run on treadmills, especially since I am not good at running on treadmills that are not floating over ocean swells to begin with.
Lots of common sayings come from the sea. Like “passing muster,” for example: we all have a muster station on the ship and we take muster every day. It’s just like attendance, but for the sea.
I am the most useless person on board the ship. Except for perhaps the doctors, who have done nothing but treat seasick cadets who should grow some balls and ease their minds a good metaphor–it’s all mental. I have been told that I will become more popular once people get smart to the fact that I am the guy that sends pictures back home. Still, my job is ridiculous and I feel ridiculous taking it seriously. I have been shy about asserting myself in a reporterly type of way. Also, I need a fact checker.
The ocean is blue. Incredibly blue. Like paint.
Protected: Be better with you.
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007Close your eyes and sleep.
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007New York City:
When they get you down the middle they will really go after you.
Monday, December 25th, 2006Drain cleaners: the dangers you need to know about.
Sunday, December 24th, 2006Christmas Eve. The most boring night of the year. I couldn’t even find an open grocery store, so instead of running an errand for my family I listened to Joanna Newsom’s new album the way it was meant to be heard: in a dark corner of the Super Fresh parking lot locked in my mom’s brand new SUV.
Joe and Anna announced their engagement at Rich’s Other Place on Friday, which is as good a place to tell your friends you are getting married as it is a place to cut high school. She wore black gloves until the unveiling and I am glad to report that Rich’s grilled corn muffins are back to the excellent standards of ten years ago. It was actually the first time I met Anna. Even if I didn’t like her, I would obviously never trash talk her on the internet, but she was friendly and I took to her right away. A smart woman makes her fiance’s best friends feel welcome. I can see what Joe sees in her.
After breakfast, Joe and I bowled a three game series and played six games of air hockey. He bowls with his dad’s old eighteen pound ball, heaving it in to the air as high as possible so that it lands with a left hook. When hit just right, it detonates the pins with a furious explosion to hell. Any other time it splits them. On Friday, though, he was rusty and I beat him with a reliable 13 pound house ball that apparently used to belong to a Chun C. Chung. Back at my house, we realized that Joe never signed my senior yearbook and so I handed him a pen and he got his big chance. I had almost forgot what it felt like to have friends who know the way to your house without directions. (Not to downplay the significance of Ben, who probably still needs a map for his own special reasons).
That night, Shal and Ammora joined us for drinks at the nation’s second largest mall, where she works (and had just personally completed $33,000 in home theater sales). Our server has a thick, juicy Philadelphia accent but there was an unsettling lack of smoke in the bar. Side note: apparently in Philadelphia proper, there is now an official smoking ban. I went down there last night with my cousin Rebecca to investigate and I am happy to report that at the Locust Bar–on tenth at Locust, where The Rascal and I used to get loaded when she was still nineteen–there is not only smoking, but an ashtray at each table.