For the last year, i haven’t been able to see a friend or family member who hasn’t made some comment about my weight. My old roommate was the only one who was humorous about it – “i’ve seen 80% of you; where’s the other 20%?” Most of my friends get uber worried, telling me i look skinny, while others, including some of my family members say i look great and refer to my college days as my fat years. Realistically, i don’t think my weight has changed that much – i just started actively dancing and bouncing around instead of vegging in front of the computer.

But then i came back to my college town, good old Providence, and have proceeded to gain at least 5 pounds in the last week on my traditional food tour. I mean, no wonder i gained an absurd amount of weight in this town – the food is !fabulous! Now, i should point out here that i despise eating with an adament passion… it’s just something i have to do on a daily basis so i do it with much frustration. But in Providence, i love eating… and i find myself waiting until i can bear to put more food in my stomach before going on to another one of my favorite restaurants… So far this week:

Geoff’s: my favorite sandwhich shoppe.. mmm.. the Juggs – hot turkey, special sauce, cranberry sauce, bacon, lettuce and other extras on a bun. This restaurant used to be comprised of all of these really bitchy boys who would give you shit the moment you walked in the door, which of course i loved… It gave me someone to argue with without getting into any trouble because if you were a big enough asshole back, they gave you your sandwich for free.

Nippon/Sakura: my favorite sushi restaurant. They serve non-fishy miso soup, amazing seaweed salad, hot edamame with the right amount of salt, and the best sushi bit ever: temporahed yam in a maki.. damn is that good.

Bagel Gromet (Gourmet): you got it – a real NY bagel toasted with their own garlic & herb cream cheese…

Cafe Dulce Vita: Copa Maria 1 – a hot peanut butter and chocolate brownie with vanille gilato, complete with an atmosphere that Buddy would be proud of… I mean, where else but Federal Hill can you hear full on mafia talk outta people my age wearing tuxedos and sporting some major attitude? It’s like you walked into the Sopranos and it’s just too entertaining. Oh, and don’t forget the pear nectar or the vanilla milk..

La Creparie: a crepe with nutella and bananas topped with powdered sugar…

Oh.. and then there are the falafel places, the breadsticks at the CIT from the evil corporation (only in Providence though), the yumptious pad thai, the fried pita chips that i can only find in Store24 on Thayer Street and quite a few other delectables. So my tummy is puffy and pleased and needs to leave Providence before it explodes….

y’know? i’m in a bit of a personal mode for a bit… so i’ve kinda been on pause on these ramblings, as they’ve become all personal because i cannot react to the large quantities of social input that i’m currently experiencing in a public manner… i cannot consume more digital content and stay content. it’s time to go offline for a bit whenever possible… i will come back.. i just need a break.

oh, and besides, i have to admit that all of my digital feelings are a bit cranky right now. never do work that the CIA is interested in.

After wandering through the fabulous state of Utah (who knew it would be so beautiful!?!?!), i’m now in Santa Fe, working. Ah yes, sometimes fun just has to be put on pause for a bit of a reality check. We’ll be spending a few days in this town before doing the mad rush back to the east coast. Yes, mad is the best description as it will be 36 hours of driving and we’re allotting about 50 hours to get there…

Santa Fe is such an adorable little town.. it’s been a while since i’ve been here, although i really enjoyed my last trip. Then again, there was someone special here. Although it’s funny to think that my eastward entrance/departure is always mad rushed. The last time we came to Santa Fe, Jon and i were too scared by Texas so we rushed here, totally exhausted and utterly crashing. I guess that Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc. are just not that interesting when there are more desired targets.

My headspace got a bit muddled by my digital reappearance last nite. When i came to the Media Lab, there were two sponsors that i did not want to work with for ethical reasons. Well, it seems as though my old advisor is going to continue my work (without really discussing it with me), done by other people, because one of those sponsors wants it. To make matters worse, she’s been getting involved with all of this Homeland Security crap. I remember a year ago listening to her bitch about an old colleague who let his philosophical values down to work for a mega-corp and has kinda turned into that mega-corp’s lackey, not really doing research anymore, but trying to please for money. It seems as though the same thing holds now. Money runs the acadamy and i’m even more horrified to be associated with it all. At least now, i can associate myself with V-Day and i will continue to associate myself with Brown. I’m through with MIT, as it offends every sense of ethics that i have. I’m also through with doing anything “scientific” in the academy because there’s no such thing as scientific research… it’s only the pursuit of the technological and scientific inqueries that will make people either rich or powerful. I’m quite disgusted…

On other news, i think that i’m going to put down my party days following an upcoming festival. I still love the music so much… every time i sit down and zone out to psy, i see things in another dimension… it gives me such great joy. But just as i’ve wandered to other dimensions in my listening, so have others.. and they are not a shared dimension. Boston has been full of a lot of pain for me, much of which is associated with unnecessary drug-induced drama. I’m tired of interacting with people who are deceptive because they live on a different planet. I’m tired of interacting with this form of drug culture. I didn’t realize how fabulous the drug culture that i knew back at university was until i started seeing it in “adult form.” I don’t want to be one of those cracked out people, and i’m tired of seeing them all of the time. Moving away from Boston will mean moving away from a lot of what i associate with it, and i think it will be a good thing. I find myself slipping into avoidance and self-indulgence and i haven’t felt truly connected to people in quite some time…

As the road flattened last nite when i exited the Rockies, i had a long conversation with myself, directed in part to my best friend. Change is a good thing; awareness is a good thing. I’m finally moving on rather than just running away, and this too is a good thing.

Oh.. and in case you’re wandering here randomly, my blog has not contained links to much as of late, because i’ve been quite disconnected and not reading… Thus, it has turned a bit internal, for those who know me and have this peculiar desire to know what’s in my head since i’m so bad at communicating… Sorry if the self-indulgence seems peculiar…

It’s so funny to feel so offline like i do at this moment. I mean, i check in every few days or so to check email, but it’s not like the connectivity that i’ve become accustomed to. I’m not sure whether or not i miss being online… i certainly despise the constant “you have 479 new messages” esque notes that i get whenever i log in.. And splitting them into 4 different email accounts does *not* ease the pain…. At least i’ve been ignoring one of them which has acrued over 1000 messages since i haven’t dealt with it in a week. ::sigh::

Of course, being offline is when most of the adventures occur, the ones that i should share with the brave souls who venture to this page for no good reason. I mean, i could rabble on about the Jelly Belly factory or Burning Man, but i doubt that i could give it justice in even sharing it… Not just for the reader but for myself. I mean, how do you distill an emotional adventure to a series of words that are meant to express the unexpressable? Not only does it seem foolish to try, it feels like the explanation corrupts the memories. Some memories are just meant to be kept inside, to be stored for a glimpse of joy and happiness. But needless to say, it was fun…

Following the most magnificant burn (not the Man, silly, but the Temple), we ventured out of the playa and onto the open road, for a full day of Nevada to land in yet another ludicrous town: Vegas… Coming back to reality is a bit tricky because there is responsibility and needless to say, it stands strong… So we slept, did laundry, visited the Body Shop (for all of those post-desert products to ease the pain) and i worked worked worked. But it’s all good.. it’s still nice and relaxed… Tomorrow we go back to camping and pretty scenary. Of course, nothing will be so glorious as a sunrise on the playa with a bit of glimmer in one’s eyes and a backdrop of crazed heads bouncing to a glorious set of psy. Although there is one more festival to go.. and for that one, i will be accompanied by my best friend and most favorite plotter which brings me such glee.

I have no idea what is happening in the world (that is the email account from which i have refrained) nor am i even certain what is happening with my beloveds (because i’ve been doing more soul searching than connecting). After flicking through Glitter on the pretty color box, i realized that the nation has kicked into “one year later” mode which made me glad that i’m avoiding everything… although it reminded me that i want to avoid the City like the plague when returning east.

Through avoidance, i did get two peculiar email messages this week… one from folks at Google wondering if i was interested in a job (::raised eyebrows::) and one hooked on phonics message with a cryptic drug-induced apology that refers me to Bukowski’s Women, Chapter 93. Sadly, i do not have said book (and neither did the local Barnes & Noble) so if any reader out there possesses such title, could you drop me a line to give me a synopsis of the chapter? I read the book… but i don’t know my chapters so very well.

I have been coming to terms with my relationships of the past year, trying to understand what is real and what isn’t. It’s interesting to get an apology, cryptic as it might be, but i’ve also come to accept that i just cannot stomach any more bullshit, deception or cruelty. At the Burn, i ran into an old roommate of mine who reminded me of a lot of things about myself, about who i used to be… I miss that person. Boston has hardened me, made me despise things, made me distrust people and thrown more bullshit in my way covered over as the typical drama. There’s something amazing about passion and desire, something about eternal optimism. I’m tired of the people who long to be cruel and hardened, to be deceptive and bitchy, just for protection. It makes for a pretty sorrowful environment. There is no need to substitute touchy-feely-connectivitity for sketchy lust, but i do prefer that to the coldness that exists out east. My collegeate bubble has finally burst and i’ve started to realize the conceptual vacancy of reality. That said, i’ve also realized that i would prefer to reconstruct my prefered environment than to accept this reality as eternal.

Life must be full of joy, not pain.

Travelling is not very good for blogging or reading email or doing anything typically productive. Thus, as per usual, i’ve been doing minimal online time (although it does take me at least an hour every time to get through my email… ::sigh::)

Traveling has been most wonderful in that personal breathing kind of way. It’s a nice little reminder of everything that is out there, of how i don’t need to always be so loud, of how to sit back and just watch a few things go by. I’ve enjoyed it. Fusion and the absurdity was a quiet little reminder of how difficult underground culture is. So many people are so angry as a result of it; i just feel pity for the organizers cause i know how hard it is to get that shit together… and i know that they did what they thought they were supposed to do. That’s always a challenge.

San Francisco is San Francisco. It’s great to be back though and this time i’m trying to look at it with that critical eye of where i want to live. I know that i need sun which basically means either the Mission or out in Berkeley… i just don’t think i could deal with the greyness all of the time. But watching my friends search for housing does not look like fun. 🙁 Too bad. Seeing friends is both fantabulous and exhausting. I’m just not in a place where i can deal with a lot of emotional strife – i’ve been too engrossed in my own and i’m trying to come out of it. I just don’t have the energy to think on that level, not because i don’t want to but because i’m so precariously surviving as it is. The last few months in Boston tore me apart in way too many ways, both on a work and a personal level, leaving me angry and bitter and horrified at the magnitude in which people could be inconsiderate. And for the first time in my life, i didn’t want to talk about it, to anyone. I spoke briefly with a few closest friends on the days that i felt buried, on the days that i wasn’t sure if i could get out of bed. Basic survival. But since then, i haven’t wanted to speak to anyone. I realized how powerful communication is, how important it is, what happens when it is broken. But i also realized that there is no reason to burden outsiders with the communicative incompetencies of my own life. I guess it’s a part of growing up – turning inwards. But to do so, i can’t deal with others, which makes me feel guilty.

That said, it is good to see people. My dearly beloveds. Talking, cookies, hottubbing at Frogs with massages, all of the precious things that make San Francisco so magical in my head. But i’m also aware of the daily stresses of everyone around me. It makes me really wonder if i shouldn’t just go to Hawaii for a while before coming out here. Self time. Sanity time. Yoga and breathing, inwards looking, spirituality, the whole nine yards. Hell, i can’t even really breathe in this city right now, emeshed in people’s chaos. ::sigh:: On the other hand, it is Burning Man time and this city lights up like a schizophrenic octopus on fire, balancing the world, slippery arms not properly grasping the different responsibilities so that emotions come crashing down, seeping from the different dangling goodies.

Ah Burning Man… next week… I too have been preparing, but in a typical way. Silver and pink. Two more pink hats, a set of pink cowboy boots, silver body paint. I keep thinking i may go outside of my norm, but i really just want to be comfortable, low key but still me… besides, there’s still pink and dude, the pink cowboy boots are *HOTT*… i’ve been eyeing them for over a year now… mm.. mm.. mmm…

And now.. i must work.. because life continues to be a balance.