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AussieAri's weblog
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last modified Dec 22, 2001 at 22:31
It’s all a faceparty.
We tried to dumpster dive but it seems the people here are too wise to the ways of urchins- the supermarkets dumpsters are all connected to the stores and are a solid barel of metal.
So if you were going to NY for a two days, one night, staying off of Central Park, what would you do?
With a liquor store that delivers, but with no wine at the grocery store, only beer served till 3am and the liquor store if you want wine, closes at 10pm. There's so much cotton wood it looks like snow, “Texas Hot!!” mean a hot dog that may have jalapenos in the sauce on it, there are no non-smoking apartments, but no smoking in bars. We've got gay owned plumbers guaranteed to be on time and to smell nice. The Buffalo gay men’s chorus has way to many tenors, but what can you do with a bunch of marys? The highways are used as main roads because they invested a ton of money in ‘public works’ after everything else went down the tubes, almost every two lane road has one lane that suddenly become a parking lane or turning lane and there are no signs to tell you so, even if it’s a one way you're going the wrong way on. 'The Beach' are those slightly wide banks along lake Erie where you can pretend you're at the ocean but never catch a single wave. Remember: the Canadian side is always cleaner. Above all, do not think that the NY city mentality is just for NY city, it's for every city in the state! Go ahead and cuss and honk and litter!
And if you wear a cowboy hat, they'll all gawk at you.
(sung to the tune of "If I Were A Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof)
If I wuz ah wite lade, (wite lade)
I wuld sit aroun’ and lounge aroun’
and wach de Price Iz Write,
all dayh lowng I’d sit up on de phone
ordrin stupid stuff from QBC.
I wouldn’t be on welfare
my ignant ass husbun would ‘ave a jowb at Du-pont
maybe Chevron orh Bayhur Assperin,
some’in besides Taco Bell.
I’d dress up e-ver-y month
ahn go to de Popano club
ovuh’on Central Mawl,
I wuld belong to the Episcopalian church
an haf chirrens at A an’ M
I’d be so sedidid and secuhre
in dah knowledge dat
I wuz prowper and perpendickulah
an talk real nice
dat would be the most ignunt part of awlll!!! MMmmmm!
If I was a white lady
I would probably be down heyah
ad duh PTA raisin’ heyull
my husband would be listnin to country music,
he’d be drivin’ ah stupid pick-up truck
we wood live ind ah double wyide mobile home,
I’m glad I’m not a wyyyyytttteeee laaayyyydddeeeee!!!
-Shirley Q. Liquor
Often, when i think of johnnies who have left the college (or been kicked out, or just disappeared), it's "I wonder what ____ is doing?....i mean....besides a lot of (*insert drug of that person's choice*)."
why are the fire doors made of wood?
Remembering Reagan.
We made it to Buffalo, NY, in the ’87 Honda civic hatchback with her dog and the two hedgehogs. It took 4 days from Denver. Along the way, there was no use in looking back.
Here’s the run down: Nebraska was flat and stank of cow often and was particularly hot the day we passed though. We just couldn’t catch a cool breeze. As we stopped for gas e was putting her bra back on and a scruffy middle aged man was intently looking at our car from his suburban. He commented on how expensive the gas was and then kept on looking as e struggled with whether or not to put her bra back on in front of him. After an odd look from me he said “I’m just looking at your rack. On your car. I need to get one for a road trip I’m going on.” We then drove by a hokey tourist trap bridge over the interstate dedicated to the pioneers, most of whom might as well be called ‘the intruders and defilers’. We wandered around downtown Lincoln and ate at a Greek Gyros place. The city didn’t have much to give its visitors. All the college kids were out on the town and they all knew one another. We went to bed in the back of the car in some suburban neighborhood. I found I often preferred driving in the morning as opposed to the night.
Iowa had rolling land the broke the monotony of Nebraska, cornrow after cornrow, each state got more and more lush. The roads of Des Moines are to be avoided at all cost, and though you can’t avoid Des Moines driving through on I-80 DO NOT STOP THERE. These people have a most spastic way of naming roads than anyone else I’ve encountered. Otherwise, the only perks I could see to living in Iowa are: 1) Deer are overpopulating the place = venison, it’s what’s for meat = really nasty long bloody road kill streaks with large bits of carcass on the highway, though that last bit’s not a plus 2) Iowa city with it’s progressive young college folk of many disciplines. We stopped to visit Nick who gave us a much-needed shower and then we went out for dinner on the town with her classic languages major friend. Fun conversation was had and we even found the local women’s bookshop named ‘Ruby’s Pearl.’ Where we got stuff by blood sisters/ladies sewing and terrorist society.
In Illinois we stayed in a motel in Joliet before Chicago, and got bumped up to a large two double bed room because when we went to see the room we had originally been given it was dirty, the TV was on and the bed wasn’t made. Hum…someone slipped in and the clerk didn’t know it. We didn’t stop in Chicago as we ran the edge of Illinois. Ah well, I will have you yet Chicago. There was much construction on I-80 around Chicagoland that delayed us and there the tolls and fares began.
The pretender’s Ohio was playing in my head as we drove through the place but since the interstate really just carried us along and there was nothing scenic, the song didn’t really hit a chord except for the line ‘I went back to Ohio, and my pretty countryside, had been paved down the middle, by a government that had no pride’. I completely forgot (and also happened to not read the signs) that St. Mary’s was in the state and so was Denea in it. I didn’t get a hold of her though. We sent the night at e’s uncle’s in Canton. It was nice, her cousins are interesting and her uncle is easy to talk to. I’d forgotten how younger children just want to show you everything they have, the things of their lives and what’s dear to them- and also the tricks they can do. Unfortunately there was an owl in the vicinity that sounded quite like my alarm clock and so throughout the night I was randomly woken up by it and tried to figure out if an alarm was going off somewhere.
The bit of Pennsylvania we skipped through was not worth mentioning. An old lady was working behind the counter the gas station’s Subway. I was polite to her and she called me ‘sweetie’ amongst a bunch of irritated fat arsed people that didn’t look at her when she served them. It sucks to be old and have to work when you should in fact be resting in your old age and wisdom being cared and honored by your family, or at least that’s what struck me at the time- there is some amount of ‘earning’ this old age I think, and though I don’t know her at all, I figure she had anyway.
In NY all was lush, flowers in hordes along the highway and they were mowing the two-foot tall grass. If I just looked at the land I could imagine myself in England. A couple of young women in a new mustang rode alongside us on the highway, we were a little confused when they showed us a box of ‘rainbow’ something or other cracker that they had and jubilantly smiled and waved at us. Then we figured it was our rainbow sticker on the car they were so excited about. Yay! Queers! We waved back and off they sped. Buffalo was moist and hot when we got there. We encountered several crazy-assed NY drivers and it made me exceedingly nervous to use the interstates through town or to think of what the next three months will present as far as driving goes. Because we’re in the burbs and considering how things are set up here, I doubt I’ll get to use a bicycle around here. They use highways, byways, and interstates like other metroplexes use main roads. Sure it cuts down on non-local traffic and keeps the suburbs quiet but holey hell is it a huge confusing tangle. We saw my father who showed us the left over office furniture he’d be able to lend us for the summer and we settled the apartment and moved our meager belongings into a garden level apartment that would go for at least 1200 in Santa Fe. We’ll be getting the furniture on Monday and no more sleeping on the floor thankfully. The place we’re in is huge- 700+ apartments on 40 acres. It has quite a few useful amenities. I’m impressed with the pool and the punching bag in the gym. The free Internet and faxing is also nice.
So after this weekend it aches here, it’s both the obvious and stranger little things I have missed out on that make it ache. How mum’s scar has and hasn’t healed, how she isn’t using her diaphragm to breath in, the things she will never be able to eat again without complications, the device she has to hook her face up to each night, how harsh and gone her once operatic voice is, the 21 inches of tubing through the chest connecting to the heart in a person 5’2”, the color she turns after her treatments, her hair getting left in the sink, dad’s refusals as much as his allowances. At least the cats haven’t changed. But then there’s having brought e here to this, I feel sorry to have done it but who knows if things would be any better if we were apart. Yeah, i'll be fine.
> June 1, 2004
>
>
> College grads put out fire near Vallecito
>
>
>
> By Patrick Armijo
> Herald Night City Editor
>
> A group of 17 recent graduates of St. John's College
> in Santa Fe proved to be Johnies on the spot Monday,
> containing a fire that had broken out on a third of
> an acre above the Pine River Campground, located 3½
> miles north of Vallecito Reservoir.
>
> The recent grads were at the Penn Ranch near the
> campground celebrating graduation with classmate
> David Penn, said Penn's father, Bill Penn.
>
> Thomas McBee, one of the graduates, spotted the fire
> about 3 p.m. while out with Bill Penn and fellow
> student Eric Brunn helping with an irrigation
> setting.
>
> Bill Penn returned to the ranch house, where most of
> about 20 students were lounging around the porch and
> living room.
>
> "I called for guys with shovels," Bill Penn said.
> "One of the girls reminded me that: 'Hey, girls can
> handle shovels, too.'"
>
> Penn led the crew, mostly consisting of philosophy
> majors looking for graduate schools, to the site.
>
> "When we got there, it was hot," said James Francis,
> one of the Johnies trading Plato for a shovel. "Our
> main concern was a spruce tree. If it burned and
> fell, you could see the fire spreading along the
> ground."
>
> The recent graduates spent about half an hour
> battling the blaze, and had reduced it to embers
> when a crew from the Upper Pine River Fire
> Protection District arrived to douse what remained.
> A message left Monday with the fire district was not
> returned.
>
> Suzie Zlcek, one of the graduates, said, "There were
> so many of us, we felt pretty comfortable that we
> could handle anything that got out of control."
>
> Zlcek said firefighting could definitely be a
> career, as liberal-arts degrees can be limiting in
> the job market. But she plans to look at law
> schools, too.
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