December 31st, 2004 §
- Guggenheim
- In the morning we went to see an excellent Aztec exhibit at the Guggenheim. There was something really magical about it that I can’t put my finger on. They just had some really interesting pieces. Maybe the audio tour tied everything together enough to bring life to the people these objects belonged to. It certainly brought life to a lot of the things I had read in my archaeology class.
- MoMA
- After the Guggenheim we went back over to MoMA and got in line again. We had to wait a while because they weren’t letting people in until 4:00 P.M. but the good news was that it would be free. Once we got inside we tried to rush through and see everything as quickly as possible, well, some of us. We soon lost sight of each other though but eventually ran into one another again.
- I was happy to see the original “Persistence of Memory” by Dali (almost cried), which was much smaller than I expected it to be. I also saw Starry Night by Van Gogh. There was a really nice Pollock piece and I fell in love with Kandinsky (but didn’t get a picture of the piece I liked most from the “Four Panels”).
- Chinatown
- Jacqui did some more shopping in Chinatown and I struck up a conversation with a stranger (she was reading manga and alone), but only for a short while. Jacqui showed up and took over the conversation as she does at times then the girl left with the friends she had been waiting for. I don’t remember her name but she was working for a publisher and wanted to be an editor someday. Slightly ironic.
- When Jacqui finished shopping we got some Times Square supplies at this asian store. I got some Calpis but they didn’t have any mugicha. We also got this huge can of Asahi. We walked around some more looking for a place to eat and I bought this little figurine of two asian people having sex.
- We had some great food at the restaurant Pho Viet Huong that we went to. I got a curry shrimp dish and Jacqui got a dish with pork and long beans (I love them so much). One of the best parts of the meal, however, was an avocado shake. Vlad grudgingly said he would try it but fell in love after his first sip. It is such unbelievably good stuff.
- Times Square
- After eating we took a train over to Times Square and the cops directed us to our grid. We went to as far to the right of the block we were fenced into and we could see half of the ball. While waiting for two hours I read some and listened to mp3s. It got pretty packed and some stupid college kids were trying to get the crowd to hop (I’m pretty sure the were affluent and out of touch with reality). When the new year finally came the ball dropped and disappeared from our view half way down, but I was there. It was nice to share that pagan ritual with so many people in collective unity.
- Best Birthday Ever
- It was such a complete day. The best birthday I have ever had.
December 30th, 2004 Comments Off
- MoMA
- We woke up pretty late and made our way to MoMA. There was a long line but it moved pretty fast. Once we got in, though, we decided to come back the next day because we wouldn’t have that much time. Since we were there we looked around the museum shop, which was pretty cool.
- H&M
- My sister wanted to shop at this store she likes so we went there. They had this red and black thing going on with the fashion in the main room. I went upstairs and spent a long time updating my journal notes. Then I read some. Then I looked around. Then I tried to find her and Vlad without success. Then I walked around outside. Eventually talked to my sister and she said she’d be finished in a bit. Then walked around outside some more. It was so boring.
- Dinner with Fernando
- Vlad had tried to get out of dinner with his uncle but was not successful. We took a train to the Bronx and his uncle Fernando showed us his office then we had dinner and he showed us his other office. It was interesting to ride around the Bronx and see all of the different Latino restaurants. The restaurant we ate at was Tierras Colombianas. A lot of us got this dish with spiced steak, fried pork, and plantains. Unfortunately, they were out of beans so we got an extra egg. I really enjoyed have an all Latino cultural experience.
- We stopped by another of aunt of Vlad and chatted for a bit then saw Fernando’s place in the basement and he drove us back home late in the evening. If I had known how things would transpire I might have made my own way early on, but at least I got a free dinner out of it. I found an open WiFi connection back at the apartment and spent some time online then chatted on the phone with Kristen.
December 29th, 2004 Comments Off
- Drove to New York
- Relatively long but not bad. No problems crossing the border though it was backed up and took quite a long time to actually get to the gate. It was fun to see the snow disappear when we got into the states. I watched outtakes from Napoleon Dynamite on the way and read. The car seat got my ass wet for some unknown reason.
- Vlad and Jacqui argued about who should read the directions when we got into New York but we eventually made our way to Vlad’s aunt’s house in Queens. It was a pretty nice place.
- Went to Times Square
- After we took everything in we took the subway to Times Square and walked around. After we were there for a while Vlad asked how I liked New York but I didn’t think I’d seen enough to give an answer, especially since Times Square is just one big advertisement.
- While exploring we went to this Sake Bar and had hot sake, hijiki, and edamame. It was a really cool place inhabited with actual Japanese people.
December 28th, 2004 Comments Off
- Another Lazy Day
- I didn’t do much this day either. More reading. Jen stopped by on her way back to Chicago from her spa treatment. Violetta made us a wonderful lunch and we talked about our philosophical beliefs. I explained my existential and moral nihilism to her and she said that her instinctual response was to feel sorry for me, which I found to be quite precious. For deep personal reasons (Jen is a recovering alcoholic) Jen sees the universe laden with meaning and purpose. I explained that I, on the other hand, understand that events such as our meeting are well within the bounds of statistical happenstance and so, while I regard them to be special, do not receive them in any transcendental sense, partially because to do so would be very egocentric.
- IKEA
- In the evening I went to IKEA with Vlad and Jacqui. Like Wal-Mart, Vlad is also in love with IKEA. We looked around at stuff forever and I entered into some kind of socialist furniture trance at one point imagining how all of the items I saw would look in a future home. All I had to keep me alert was looking to see how many of the products were made in China.
- It was my first time to IKEA and I didn’t know that they all had places to eat in them. I got some potatoes and swedish meatballs.
December 27th, 2004 Comments Off
- Snowboarding
- Violetta made a mountain of sandwiches for us but they came in handy. It took us a while for us to get to the resort but luckily we weren’t one of the 15 accidents that happened that day on the road we used.
- It took a while to get through the lines and then we had some training. We learned a crab walk of sorts and then practiced going down the hill with the board in horizontal position. It was quite fun.
- We had another session on the big hill. The snow lift was pretty scary, mostly getting off, but it wasn’t that bad. We were out there for quite a while and I fell a lot trying to go down the hill. I learned that it probably would have helped to have practiced what we learned from the first session for a while.
- Violetta’s Home in Canada
- Back at home Violetta told me about how at one point she had gone back to Romania and didn’t connect with the people there, partially because they were not polite. When she got back to Canada she felt like she was glad to be home and realized that a shift in what home meant to her had taken place.
- She also talked a lot about how everyone was pumped up for being Romanian when they were growing up propagandistically but really the rest of the world didn’t know who they were. It was funny to hear about some of Iban’s experiences there so long ago, such as the Romanians showing him a refrigerator thinking he didn’t have such technology in Ecuador, and think about how iconoclastic it must have been for Violetta to date him.
December 26th, 2004 Comments Off
- Lazy Bones
- We had planned on going skiing but we all woke up late. I had trouble sleeping during the night for whatever reason (I don’t think it was the snoring) so I played heavy catch up.
- Boxing Day Madness
- We stopped by an electronics store and it was so hot and packed. The snow outside was terrible too. I can’t imagine having to drive in that slush everyday. People’s tires were spinning in the parking lot. There was a big mountain of snow they had plowed into the middle.
- Wal-Mart
- We also went to a Wal-Mart to get warm pants for skiing. Hopefully it will be the last time I ever shop at Wal-Mart. Mayhaps that can be my new years resolution.
December 25th, 2004 Comments Off
- Low-key Christmas
- In the morning I ate a curious Romanian item for breakfast. It was some type of meat, maybe pork, encased in cold clear gelatin. It didn’t taste bad but it was kind of weird. Cornelius hand fed his son Bogdan even though he’s pretty old. He said, “He’s my baby!” Violetta asked if it bothered me that they were speaking in Spanish and Romanian, which I thought was sweet.
- Didn’t do much throughout the day. Mostly some reading. I think I watched some Dave Chappelle. It didn’t seem as funny as I had remembered it being but he’s still a genius.
- Gothic Christmas
- In the evening my sister took me to the last Absinthe night at the Vatikan. Before going to the club we drove around a bit and I saw a bunch of glitzy stores, the big university in Toronto, and the hospital that Vlad works at. It didn’t really look like any city I’d been in before. The closest analogy was maybe the magnificent mile in Chicago.
- There weren’t that many people at the club but it was still fun and I got to dance. One of the weird things was that it was all ages so there were some really young kids there. My sister had three glasses of absinthe but it didn’t make her see anything.
- I practiced talking to strangers and it went quite well. My trick is to talk to people who are alone (later I realized/remembered that this is also what Mormons do). The girl I talked to, Jen, ended up being from Chicago where she is a midwife and ironically is a regular at Neo. She was on her way to a spa further north and had stopped by the club on the way there.
- My sister left for a while to get some food then came back to pick me up and invited Jen back to the house with us. We talked some more and she told me that she had planned on crashing wherever she could for the night rather than pay to stay at a hotel for a few hours so she just stayed the night.
December 24th, 2004 §
- Rambling Ann Arbor
- I rode around Ann Arbor a bit to try and find a place to by fake butter spray for Jacqui. While doing so I ran across the University of Michigan, not to be confused with U of M – Ann Arbor. One of the buildings had gothic architecture similar to the University of Chicago.
- Abandoned Detroit
- Border Hijinks
- I wanted to take the tunnel but I got routed to the bridge instead (but it was pretty so I was glad). Then I had to back out of the toll gate to get cash from an ATM at the duty free shop. Finally, I went onto the truck side at the crossing and quickly ate some bananas I remembered I had. This guy came out to yell at me.
- Long black empty
- The trip from Detroit to Toronto was pretty boring. Just a long drive through empty space. I listened to some interesting NPR type programming at one point though about inclusive expressions of holiday cheer. Yay Canada! There was also a good song about a kid who didn’t think he was getting anything because he farted on Santa but then he learned that sometimes Santa lets one rip too.
- Pre-Hijacked Pagan Holiday Dinner and Gift Opening
- I met Vlad’s family and we had dinner. The ceviche was wonderful, as was everything else. A woman dating my relative George Moncivais said that she would move to the states if they were able to give her the same health coverage she gets in Canada.
- At some point we congregated in the kitchen and got onto the subject of religion. Violetta knew about Zoroastrianism and the Coptic church, which was impressive. I explained Scientology to Jacqui and she thought they were pretty nutty.
- Napoleon Dynamite
- I finally got to see the wedding scene and then we watched the whole movie. It was still very funny and I found myself laughing in expectation of certain scenes, such as, “Your mom goes to college!” Haha, I still laugh thinking about it. It was Vlad’s gift to Jacqui.
- Channel scan
- I did some channel surfing. Haven’t done that since I went to visit Chris around the beginning of the semester.
December 23rd, 2004 Comments Off
- Got some bills ready
- I woke late but after a shorter amount of sleep than usual to try and get a start on things.
- Went to campus
- I was going to mail my bills and drop off a form, but the office was closed. I left the form in the mailbox and still dropped off my bills in the mailbox though. I was going to get some books but HSSE was closed too. Oh well. There was snow everywhere.
- Drove to Ann Arbor, MI
- I cut east across Indiana to Ft. Wayne then went north up to 94. Around the time I turned onto 94 I hit some bad snow but it only lasted for a bit. I’m sure if I’d gone toward the lake and then gone east it would have been like that for a much longer part of the trip.
- The drive wasn’t too bad. It went by fairly quickly and I only stopped to get gas around the beginning. The roads were pretty clear and I didn’t really get scared too many times. The scariest times were when the light glazed the screen over and it was hard to see anything.
- Stranger’s party
- I met Denise who I started talking to through Friendster and went to her friend’s party. Everyone was quite nice. We played Catch Phrase much longer than we should have and then I chatted with Denise and Theresa while Theresa’s husband played a bunch of old school r&b and rap. Theresa is into surrealism so I told her about the paper I wrote on paradigm shifts using the history of surrealism.
- Denise’s band of friends had all met through working at Lowes (except one) and the setting was reminescent of a bar with the alcohol and smoking only in someone’s apartment. It was interesting to catch a slice of this collective life that had been randomly thrown together.
- Long talk
- After the party I went back with Denise to her place to crash there for the night. She told me about her struggles to finish school and such, having switched from psychology to political science/philosophy. I rambled on about a number of subjects, introducing her to my ruminations on pleasure. I said that she should approach her studies as a relationship and that acquiring knowledge of social theory is like learning a language.
December 22nd, 2004 Comments Off
- Cleaned
- I figured there wouldn’t be any work, so I spent the day cleaning. It was nice to clear everything that had collected over the semester.
- Nap
- Reading
- Really getting into this Jameson book on postmodernism.
- More chatting
- A friend got home late and stayed up even later as we chatted…