The holiday seasons are an interesting concept. Everybody who's related decides that they should all get together, back in some location that they unanimously decided to leave (by and large), and try their best to get along, sometimes for an extended period of time. Now, that's fine and good, except that in most families, this getting-along stasis was never achieved when everybody lived together. IN most famlies (that I know), everybody getting along means everybody not seeing each other regularly. Therefore, the precedent is bad. How is a family going to get along well during a holiday season when they never succesfully did during any other season when everybody was living all together? So, in the spirit of the holiday season, everybody tries and hopes that for a few days, everybody can put aside their differences and forget the past and focus on making right now a good moment. Easier said than done. It inevitably leads to dad yelling at mom over some minor incident, or sister punching brother in the arm because, like always, he's a total jerk. Therefore, the families getting together for the holidays premise is flawed. Assuming that your family is like mine.
Fortunately, we avoided the whole issue this year by all being spread to the four corners of the world. Lilith is in Oregon, mom in Potsdam, dad in Ottawa, Rebecca with me, and Gabe in Phuket, Thailand. Right now, I'm hugely worried about Gabe, because him being in Phuket, Thailand, during Christmas means that he was in Phuket, Thailand during that huge earthquake in the ocean, and that he was in Phuket, Thailand, during the huge tsunamis that destroyed much of the city (apparently). So keep Gabe in your thoughts, even if you don't know him, because he was there when it happened, and we haven't heard from him yet, and basically I'm about to have an aneurism from occupying my mind with him so much and this typing and reading the news and waiting for the time to pass so I can call my parents is the only sort of therapy available to me right now. Also, if you know anything more about it, send me an email or something. I'm going to go and try to find some internet I can steal so that I can read the news.
-Donald

PS I just got an email from Gabe. He managed to survive the first wave in Phuket, even though he was on a boat on the pier. His boat was one of the only ones that made it. He got away from Phuket by bus before the second wave struck, with his baggage and money and passport and everything. Amazing, even more so considering the horrible tragedy that befell so many other people in Asia that day. Extreme luck, for which I thank whatever force responsible. I'm going to go nap now.

Now for the real holiday message. A little bit more than the smidgen I was able to type yesterday (Christmas) while I was stealing internet from the Apple store down the street from my house on the way to the video store and having to go to the bathroom in a powerful way. I was really getting in the spirit of sharing. Specifically, I was in the spirit of Apple Computers, Inc. paying for my hugely fast internet connection for just one day. I figure that’s the least they can do to help out a poor recently powerbook-less quasi-expat. Especially on Christmas. I don’t think anybody minds.

But I digress. Which I do a lot. I also write “But I digress” a lot. There’s a pattern here. Hopefully it’s not recursive, and all future posts won’t be locked into a cycle of me digressing and then commenting on how digressive I’m being in general. That would be really boring. Not at all the high standard that this blog normally achieves.

But I digress.

Ha! I’m just kidding.

It’s the holiday season. Hard to miss it. Montpellier gets lit up, well, like a Christmas tree during the holiday season. They hang these ornate light sculpture things over ever major street in the center of town (pictures are coming, I swear), and plant Christmas trees in the stone in the Plazas and spray everything with fake snow (that, fortunately, doesn’t wash off in the rain). There are all of these booths set up downtown, where they do things like get the whole town drunk tasting different local wines for 1 Euro a person, or sell local artisanry, such as glass jewelry, olive paté, and sausages drowning in hot string cheese. Basically what you’d expect. A very high standard of entertainment and consumption. There you have it: the holiday season.

Rebecca (oldest, wisest sibling) and Tim (oldest, wisest sibling’s boyfriend) are visiting for the holiday season. This is great for everybody involved. They come from Nantucket, which is more expensive in the low season for two than Montpellier is in the holiday season for four people. So they stay in our apartment (on the futon they so graciously purchased), and we guide them around town and generally speak French for them. It works out well for every concerned party. Not that we’re concerned, mind you. But I digress.

Oh well. My hot chocolate is finished, so that means I have to close up Anna’s fancy computer and go send this post off. I hope that everybody’s holiday season is awesome. And by awesome, I mean totally sweet.

Joyeuses Fêtes!

I'm back from the computerless abyss. My options were get a new computer, or leave France. Anna, bless her soul, upon hearing this, decided that it might be a good time to get that iBook after which she's been lusting for a long while. You know, to have a nice computer and to keep the boyfriend from actually having to abandon her in France for a piece of (admittedly finicky) technology. I know, it's geeky and sad, but that's where it stands. France is great, but not so great that I could stay here and do absolutely nothing computer or music-related for four months and justify that personally or to the world at large. Voilá.
I guess that I'm going to have to catch y'all up on what's going on. Because I'm running on the assumption that you care. Because any other assumption would lead me to stop writing entirely in the blog. Duh.
Okay, so a month ago I hitchhiked to Spain. There's so much to say about that that I'm so super-daunted that I'm not going to really be able to say much, except for in random installments, as it relates to some other topic that happens to come up in my mind. Here was the itinerary: the first day, I went from Montpellier, France to San Sebastian, Spain, by way of Foix, Toulouse, some town just outside of Toulouse, Bayonne, Biarritz, St. Jean-de-Luz, and Irun. The highlight of that trip was being insulted (good-naturedly) by several drunken tri-lingual border-dwellers as they trotted me to the train station and smoked hashish and bragged about the two legs of cured ham in the back (which were admittedly quite impressive) that they'd won in a card game. Classic. Then, from San Sebastian, I (and a friend Alex Marvar) hitched to Santiago de Compostela, which is the west coast of Spain just above Portugal, by way ot Bilbao, Oviedo, Aviles, and some other random sides of highways. Much tuna fish, chocolate, tea, and peanut butter consumed. The way back was more southerly than the northernmost coast, passing just north of Madrid before heading back to San Sebastian and taking a train back to Montpellier. In all, the trip was one week, a hundred euros, and many many friends made. Send me an email, if you want to know more, in a more timely fashion than sometime indistinct within the next two months or so.
Do you follow?
Pictures on the way, but I have to set this new computer up properly, so it may be a week or so.
After Spain, I tried and failed to get a job here. Which is for the better, because it goes contrary to my visa to work. Keep an eye on my music, though, because I'll be updating that regularly. Because making music is precisely the kind of thing I should be doing here.
Then Anna and I hitchiked to Lyon, just a few days ago. You know, just because. Hitching with a girl, coincidentally, is way easier. We never waited for longer than five minutes, and got to Lyon, which is 400 km or so away, by about 4 PM. Pretty solid travelling time. Also, we got to ride in an 18-wheeler. Which is key. More on that later, too. Lyon is fucking gorgeous, and awesome to boot. By which I mean totally sweet.
Now, my sister Rebecca and her boyfriend TIm are in town for the Christmas, so we've been touring and eating and drinking. Fun.
That's the basics. I'll fill in the details in the short time to come. Gotta get the facts out of the way so I can start focusing on something more interesting. It's just the way I work. I hope that everyone is doing well and being safe and having happy holidays or whatever it is you do where you come from.
-D

Back from Spain

Hi all,
I got back from Spain around 15 hours ago, and slept for 12 of them. Shit, there's so much stuff that I could talk about that I'm probably not going to get to any of it. My head's swimming so rapidly that I can barely concentrate on writing coherent english phrases. Maybe that's because I've had to be so comprehensively trilingual recently that my brain's turned to tapioca.
Okay, for the record, hitchiking is not on the way out. You can still do it. Just don't stand on the side of an interstate. That's illegal almost everywhere, and dangerous to boot. Also, don't do it at night. But otherwise, if you've got a good face and you're clean, somebody will pick you up. There's all types of people. I managed to get myself from Montpellier, France, to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and back to San Sebastian, Pais Vasco, before I got too tired and took the train home. Go in pairs, a guy and a girl, if you can. That helps everything right along. Never solo as a woman.
My computer is broken irrevocably, expensively, and for good, I think. That means that this blog and the other will probably be a lot less complete in the time to come, either until I get a new computer, or a job, or whatever it takes to get reliable internet around here. Sorry. That sucks right now, because I have a lot to write, but I'm not willing to pay for the hours of internet cafe access that it takes to write it. Sorry. I'm really really pissed off about my really awesome computer not working, by the way.
Okay everybody. Start sending me letters or calls or something, because until further notice, my internet presence is going to be way low. Maybe it'll be a good experience for my soul. I doubt it. It'll probably just continue to piss me off.
But it'll be pissing me off in France.
love, Donald

Okay,
I'm packed. I leave tomorrow morning. Wish me luck.
-Donald

As in the other blog, it's been a while since I wrote anything. There's no real super-good reason for this, except for the fact that I probably have nothing interesting to say. Not that that's going to stop me today. Hold on tight.
Here's a bit of news: my good friend Paulo who lives in Brasil is now serving my music, as well as the musics of various other super-awesome totally independent to the max bands all over the world that everybody needs to know about, online. You should all go there and download everything. It might be a bit slow, apparently his ISP is "sticking it" to him. But it's worth the wait. I think you'll be able to figure out which stuff is mine :) Also, I now have a link on the sidebar (Seasac Records) where the Ugly By Now link used to be, because that's also where the Ugly By Now stuff resides these days. Much much music for free! And it's updated often often. I'm currently putting a track up every few days or so, but we'll see how long that lasts.
I was sick yesterday. So I figured out how to write graphical applications for Mac OS X. There's this thing called Cocoa, and it contains the power of white magic. Let me rephrase that. There are these things called Powerbooks. When you can get them to turn on, they are like God machines. Apple can quote me on that, provided that they give me another one that turns on consistently. Having to do a Cirque de Soleil balancing act, with a laptop poised on my fingertips, pressing various buttons, while I chant in tongues, in the park, every day, is hard on my social profile. Do you hear me, Steve Jobs? Are you out there? You want the French to like me, right? By the way, whiskey and soup and tea and Emergen-C take care of being sick. It's mostly the whiskey is our take on the matter here in Montpellier.
Being in the park with my laptop is like a social event.. Curious people ask me things like, "Does the internet come from the air?" or "Hey, is that WiFi (pronounced weefee in French)?" or "Where did the sleek-looking God machine come from?" or "Want some hash?" when I sit in the park with it on my lap, furtively stealing internet so as to download tracks by Miss Kittin and post blog entries. I answer yes yes yes. It feels good to be so positive. Although, I have to turn down the hash guys. Just not my thing.
I'm going on a hitchiking trip soon. I'm planning on getting around northern Spain and southern France. I'll probably not be updating the blog while I'm gone (like the last week of November), but with any luck, I'll have some good stories to write when I get back. You know, to keep everybody riveted to their seats, pressing "update" frantically in the hope that maybe I'll have posted one more, just one more, while you were reading the last.
Hasta entonces.

I'm reading a book of short stories by Jorge Borges, called Fictions (at least, that's what it's called in French). One of the stories in this book is called "The Library of Babel." It's funny how, a day or two after writing this post, I'd find that many of my thoughts and sentiments have been visited already by greater thinkers. Anyway, read that story, and consider these last couple of posts supplemental reading. The book is great, by the way, even for those of us who are reading the French translation, and who don't speak French very well. It's more entertaining than the biography of Adam Smith, the "father of economics." Trust me.

Addenum

This occurs to me a day after writing the other post, though I'm posting them both on the same day:
I mentioned before how, when dealing with complex issues, simple unambiguous statements and platitudes are simply not sufficient to gain an understanding, let alone a glimpse into the solution to, a problem. This is due to the fact that simple, single words cannot wrap themselves sufficiently around complex issues. This is part (a small part of a large whole) of the reason why I dislike George W. Bush, and his style of politics, so much. He tries to make issues that are unfathomably complex seem simple, by creating a world where his three words that he says about any particular issue are all there is to know about that issue. This is not the way I would go about solving anything more complicated than a simple algebra problem; it's not the way I would hold a relationship, and it's not the way I think the ruler of the United Three Countries of America should run them. Words like "terrorist" and "crusade" are so incredibly loaded and ambiguous that we should worry when they come out of the mouths of people in power.
Disheartening, that a majority of Americans are so fearful that they'll allow their lives to be run by such unproductive ambiguity. It's so much easier to tear things down than to build them up, and I'm sad right now, as I'm sure much of you (who've been able to wade this far into my dribble) are, that America is going to have to see so many more things go wrong before they can start to go right (left?) again.

Words

Ever wonder about words? It happens a lot learning a foreign language that you have this wonderful idea, but no words with which to express it. So you look for some other way to say what you want to say. Instead of "High Icelandic is spoken in falsetto," you might say something like, "In Iceland, they speak strangely in the court." Both of those are true statements, and they both sort of mean the same thing. Often, you'll leave a conversation wondering if you really communicated anything at all.
It happens a lot that my Spanish or French isn't enough. And, learning these languages, I notice that it happens a lot in English. You never think twice about it. Somebody doesn't understand what you say, so you try to say it in a different way. But have you ever left a conversation feeling as though you never really said what you meant, so what could the other person possibly be thinking about what you said? Almost as if you'd been speaking Spanish to a Portuguese speaker, only not so extreme?
Words are simply a medium of communication, much like music or art or holding hands or exchanging glances or sharing some sort of special hidden philotic link. It's common human nature to hold words as the ultimate in meaning, but this isn't true. How many times have you felt a feeling for which there was no expression, no single word that really sufficed?
The fact is, no word really suffices at all. Words are containers for ideas. Take a simple concept, like apple. Everybody agrees that an apple is an apple. Or do we? I think of a Red Delicious. Do you think of a Granny Smith? If you say pomme in French, are you talking about a potato, or an apple? If a concept as simple as a noun can be confusing and ambiguous, what about an emotion, like love? What about an adjective, like great? The fact is, no two people have exactly the same idea about what any word means, but we conduct our daily lives on the assumption that we all do.
Often times in the later stages of a budding relationship, I'll find myself arguing semantics over issues. I'll end up not actually arguing an issue, as in whether I did indeed leave the toilet seat down or forgot Valentine's Day. No, I'll be arguing what I mean when I say neglect, or something to that effect. Because at some point in a communicative relationship, you've got all of the easy problems solved, and you need a little more subtlety in your communications to simply understand the nature of the problem you're discussing, let alone the solution. Complicated problems require specific, focused solutions, and at a certain point single words or unambiguous phrases simply don't suffice to create understanding.
Talking to people is like an asymptotic curve in mathematics. You say something, and once it comes out of your mouth it's What You Think. From that point forward, each time you say it, you try out different word combinations and it becomes more and more What You Think, and less and less ambiguous for you. Eventually, you find the shortest combination of words to communicate what you feel is the essence of what you think. Approaching that asymptotic curve, as it were. Cutting the corners off of a square eventually makes a circle, if you do it enough. Thinking in this way is second nature when you're speaking a second language, but it's important to keep it in mind when you're speaking your first language, too.
-Donald

ugh.

Okay America,
I spent much of today carting my computer around Montpellier, trying to get some of that sweet sweet free wireless internet in the rain so that I could know about the election results. I couldn't ask French people; the answers I got varied from "I'm watching cartoons" to "I don't care about that." Some people did care, but they weren't of much help, so it's to the internet I turned.
My point is that I spent all of this effort just to find out that Bush won the election, and America hates gay people, among other things. What the fuck, America? It's like you want me to stay here. I might have to seek political asylum or something. Bush? Banning same-sex marriage? It turns out that America is indeed short-sighted (although only by a 3% margin), and that things are going to have to get much worse before they get better. But we all knew that already. Of course, y'all reading are the choir to whom I'm preaching. But what the fuck? That's all. I'm going to go drink some wine.

PS I thought the map with Republican states in red and democratic states in blue that they had on CNN really summed up the situation in America. "Yeah, I never would feel really comfortable in those red states," I thought to myself as I perused the chart. God Bless the Three United Countries of America.

Anna and I just got back from a week in Spain. The little French schoolchildren have their 1.5 week break for All-Saints Day, which coincides closely with Halloween. We would learn after our trip that French children are now prowling the neighborhoods in search of candy on the night of October 31st, much like their American counterparts. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My point was that after one week of teaching, Anna gets an almost two week break to do things like explore countries to the south of France.
This trip was important to me, because as most of you know, I lived in Spain around one and a half years ago. Our trip itinerary included (exclusively) Granada and Barcelona, both cities in which I'd spent considerable time, and cities of which I had very fond memories. So, the question is, are these towns going to be able to live up to my mental image of the way they used to be? Was I totally wrong about Spaniards being out so late, partying more, everything being cheaper in Spain, Barcelona being gorgeous, Granada being twisty and turny? Are these cities in reality just like Montpellier, France? Or are they boring after having seen a little bit more of the world? Kind of important to my internal sanity to establish some sort of answer to these questions.
To make a long story short, I was right. Spain is cheaper than France, and Barcelona is beautiful, and you can still get tapas for free in Granada, and the Alhambra really does kick ass, and the Sagrada Familia is still under construction, and a million other things that I remember still exist. My spanish came back, after a couple of awkward days of franglespañol being the only thing that would leave my mouth. I've not gone insane, and France really is a lot different from Spain, so I'm justified in being surprised by how my expectation of living here was so off base. That furthermore justifies why I had such a culture/life shock experience in the first (quite long) while here in France. This is good. It allows me to move on.
We took pictures. Go see them.

I've made passing references before to how similar I think America and France really are. How this is the real reason why our countries have a more-than-passing distaste for each other, overall, etc.
Today, Anna and I went futon shopping. Because, you know, if we're going to be the hostal, we need the bedding. Fortunately for us, aforementioned shopping is being split-financed by various family members who are going to be visiting in the future sometime. The whole thing works out because they pay less than for a hotel, and we get to have a futon. Of course, nobody gets to have any sex at the house while people are staying here, but no plan is perfect. I don't think Anna's mom and grandmom will mind.
But I digress. To get this futon, we have a couple of options. We can go to Futon Boutique in town, or The Universe of Slumber, etc., also in town, or we can go to the larger, more corporate stores out of town. The suburbs, as it were. So like good anti-corporate world-crusaders, we checked the local, private businesses first. Because they're close, and if it works here, why go somewhere else? Well, that didn't work. Beds are exceptionally expensive in those places, and our sense of community only goes so far. So we went out into the suburbs.
This is what blows my mind: it was exactly like suburban United States of America. In Lattes, Montpellier. I felt like I was in Woodbury (Minnesota) again. There were malls. Everything in English. Huge huge huge department stores, that sell everything. I shit you not, there was a department store (called Carrefour) that is even bigger than Home Depot. Home Depot! The warehouse super-monster to beat all space-wasters, and there are stores in France that are even bigger! I realized that the French are importing our culture, but I never thought Europeans would be putting up a fight on the "who takes up more space" front. I thought that battle was over.
So basically, I'm disillusioned about this. I thought that, of all things that Europeans might be wiser than Americans about, space-consciousness would be right there at the top of the list, and keeping money local would be, like, second-top. To be fair, the French government mandates that big department stores be closed on Sunday, to give the little guys a chance. That's a step in the right direction. The next step would be to not follow Sam Walden's example. But hey, we bought our futon there. Torn between our morals and our bank accounts. Our sense of community goes that far, apparently.

Some towns, you meet them, you fall in love, you never want to leave, you're enchanted. All the rest of your life after you've met, you're happy when you're there, and when you're not, you always harbor a (perhaps secret) desire to go back, to be with the city you love. Other cities, you meet them and you think "Well, she's pretty cool." You feel perhaps indifferent at first, but after you've been together for a few months, you start to realize a change. You're smiling more when you're together with your city. You're signing letters to the city "Love, Donald" instead of "Sincerely, Donald." You have secret places that you share, and fond memories together. You realize that a bond has developed, and maybe someday you'll leave, but you'll always look back happily, and you'll never regret the time that you spent together.
Sometimes, you'd see a town like Montpellier and think, "How could you meet this town and not fall in love?" I'll tell you one way. You get here, and you've got other towns on your mind. Towns where you know people and places. You think, "I've been in so many towns that I love, how could this one really take me and hold me?" And, for a while, this blinds you to the truth of your surroundings. That this town really is all the things you wish for from a town. Even though other towns have fit the bill in the past, this one's here, now, and it works too. After a while, you develop that slow bond, but your preoccupation and hesitation at the beginning has kept you from falling flat out in love. Perhaps that's for the best. Falling flat out in love can be detrimental; it's easy to burn out, to forget what you ever saw at the beginning after the passing of time. Platonic love, friendship love, seems to last longer.

Bonjour tout le monde,
It's been a while since I wrote. No real reason for that. I suppose there are lots of things to say, but last time I sat down to write stuff, it ended up being a preachy sermon about not creating social heirarchies and I deleted the whole thing.
Here's some news: my digital camera works again! I took it apart with a mini screwdriver, and put it back together again, and now it turns on! There is some magic involved in not knowing what you're doing and making something work again just by fiddling with it. Same thing "works" with my computer. Maybe it's the same thing with my entire life. Anyway, Anna and I went to Avignon, and took some
PICTURES
there. It's kind of ironic that the first set of pictures from Montpellier, France, actually come from some other town. But just wait, some more will be on the way.
I hacked my first wireless network yesterday. When I upload this post, it will most likely be from the beautiful Parc Rimbaud, just down the street from my house. This beats, for example, sitting in the street twenty minutes from my house in the middle of downtown, with lots of people around, (and, coincidentally, just across the street from an internet café) just to steal wireless. I think we all agree that parks are better than crowded streets with pooping pigeons overhead for stealing internet. And, of course, the park certainly beats paying for internet. Gasp! Why the hell would I ever do that? When my time is worth so little, and I'm so poor? But don't worry, if any one of my free wireless links goes down, I know of five others that I can use at any point in time. It pays to be wireless savvy. Specifically, it pays about 1.50€ an hour. Which, coincidentally, is about what you make playing in the street, depending on the day of the week and weather.
More later, I'm going to go steal some internet.
-D

We've been eating strange things here in France. This is not because the French are strange, or because we particularly want to try super-different cuisine. It's motivated entirely by price-consciousness. The things that are the absolute cheapest to buy, to eat, to wear, etc., are those things that are used most regularly by the denizens of the area where you happen to want to be buying/eating/wearing/etc. something. In America, eating crackers with brie and Nutella for breakfast, eating salami and roqefort sandwiches and drinking wine for lunch is not the kind of thing one normally does particularly on the cheap. But that's the kind of thing we're eating here, because brie is the cheapest cheese that there is here. And wine, litre for litre, ranges from about as cheap as water (for what would cost about $8 a liter in the States) to about as expensive as soda at a restaurant (what would be a $20-$30 bottle). Of course, there's really expensive wine and cheese and other things, but, as always, they might as well be on Mars, because I'm not about to pay for them.
But try to find a burrito in France, and if you have any success at all, it's probably going to taste strange, and it's definitely going to be expensive. This makes sense, but the net effect is strange. Hey, at least we're eating, which is a big step up from poor people everywhere else. I think I already ranted about how rich the French are, at least here in Montpellier, compared to the Americans with whom I come into contact (most of whom are definitely rich by world and sometimes American standards). So I'll spare y'all.

My gadgets have been a real pain in the ass lately. I don't mean to complain; it seems like that's largely what I've been doing since I got here, but let me just summarize: My camera stopped working. I dunno. It just doesn't turn on. Of the two phones I brought to Europe to use, one doesn't get any signal (I think it's an America-only phone, contrary to what I believed), and the other is blocked by a Canadian phone company, and unblocking phones is illegal in France. Fortunately, my dad's been kind enough to take on the task of trying to get his phone company to unblock the phone there in Canada, thus allowing me to have a (really nice) cell phone in France without having to buy a new one.
My computer is a riot. For one, it won't turn on reliably. I take that back. It turns on semi-reliably, but not when you simply push the power button. No, you have to (get this) unscrew several of the back screws, then turn the power on, then hope that the screen turns on, then screw the screws back in. It doesn't go to sleep anymore, either. So every time you want to take it somewhere, this process gets repeated. Also, either the European power system doesn't sit well with this computer, or all my unscrewing has de-grounded it, but I get mild shocks from the exposed metal parts of the case where the paint has worn away. Ah, the joys of old laptops. I'm going to retire this one when I get back to the states. But hey, free wireless internet is a blessing, and just as close as any internet café. Ironically, there's one internet café with a free wireless hotspot just across the street.
Oh well, I'm still surviving, which goes to show how non-essential to life those items really are. However, I hope nobody was holding their breath on pictures, because between Anna's camera being stolen a couple of months ago, and mine ceasing to function, and our budget not exactly accomodating a new camera, it might be a while (Christmas, family members?) until any visual account of our voyage will take place.
Keep us in your hearts, though.
peace out.
-Donald

All the cars in France are the same.
I counted, one time on the street, while Anna was in the store buying sandwiches at 10:00 PM after a hard night of scrounging in the streets for house supplies. Among the items we found: two pots for cooking, some cups, a wicker chair, a knife. But I digress: while Anna was in the store, I counted cars. 9 out of 10, the same type. Different brands, years, sure. But all the same. That hatchback, small, Euro-style economy size with the decent gas mileage and surprising cargo space, if low headroom. The rest are trucks or rich people driving cars that look like '85 Mercedes sedans. I literally can't tell the difference between tens of manufacturers and makes of cars.
They all look the same. I guess that's the style that works. And the style that works, if it works, is applied uniformly here. Look at the hair, or the clothes. Everybody in the latest fashion, which means everybody wearing the same uniform. The one that says, "Don't mind me, I'm hip and up-to-date. Nothing to see here." Or they wear the uniform of the concerted nonconformist, the one that you get at the non-conformist store next-door. And not just clothes, but hairstyles, lifestyles. But it's just a uniform. This is a by-product of rich society. When you have the luxury to be bohemian, to be a beggar, or to be a pinstriped businessman all with the same amount (or lack) of effort, it follows that the distribution would be uniform between them. But they end up looking the same, because the approach is the same: buy the latest thing, discard the old. Where does it go? Right in the street, for the taking. That's what we're finding out.
The beggars here look like everybody else: wearing nice clothes, but asking you for money. I'm thinking, "Are you sure you shouldn't give me some money? You see, my supply is limited, and the dollar-Euro exchange rate is pretty pathetic these days." On the one hand, it makes me feel good busquing in my normal clothes; I'll not seem out of place. But sometimes it feels like everybody is an impostor. So, basically, I feel right at home here. Same as in the States. Come visit!

la france!

Hi all,
You (the people that actually know me who read this) are probably wondering why I've been incommunicado for this last while. If you weren't, well, at least I have a reason. I moved to France, you see. I'm writing this on my laptop in my new apartment just off the center of Montpellier, FR. The town is in the south of France, about 1.5 hours from Barcelona, Spain, and about 4-5 hours south of Paris by train.
The apartment is right next to the town center, and it's beautiful, and all newly redone, and not too fantastically expensive. Definately less than a hotel ;-) We had it secured within 28 hours of arriving here. That's not to say that it wasn't extremely frustrating finding it! Even though it was unfurnished, between finding (nice!) things in the street and extremely nice neighbors and landlord, we've got a bed and a table and some chairs and a hot plate, so really the only things we need are a fridge, and an oven of some sort. That's pretty good, for no money thus far! At least we can cook, eat it on a table, and then go to bed. That's some pretty important stuff that one takes for granted when one is not travelling.
I've been using lots of exclamation points. That's to imply that I'm excited. Actually, I should write that we're excited, because none of this would have been possible without Anna, her french, her patience, her money, her companionship. She's the one who got everything done. I just haul it home. They call me "muscles."
The address:

Donald L. Anderson
244 Rue de St. Maur
34000 Montpellier
FRANCE

That's probably enough for now. I'm going to put another post when I get a phone number. And, of course, I'll write more and more and more, as time goes on. Send me an email, or your address if I don't have it, and I'll write you letters. It'll be great!
paix et amour,
Donald

Two Things..

Don't use a Windows computer. Have you noticed that it totally sucks? Normally, I try to stand the middle ground on these issues, but there are better options, people! Did everybody keep using the Ford Pinto after they found out that the fuel tank could explode? No. Your fuel tank is exploding, people.
Also, I put up some new pictures of a trip I took with friends Anna and Daniel to Montreal. Go and see them, if you crave visuals.
paz y amor,
Donald

Anna and Donald Go to France!

As you might have noticed if you were really closely reading this blog in the last month, the whole tense of all of the verbs in the introduction paragraph at the top changed from "we" to "I" at some point. That's because this blog was originally supposed to be both mine and Anna's, and we'd post our travel musings here. But then I wrote a whole bunch, and Anna felt like this blog wasn't hers. So we made another one! Donald and Anna Go to France! This is where you can read up about our adventures/see our pictures, etc. The especially keen among you will notice that I put another link there on the sidebar where you can get to it as well. Yay! More ways to waste your time, while simultaneously informing your personal relationships with me and/or Anna K. Przybylski! Life is good.

Montreal

I went to Montreal (pronounced "mon hray AL") yesterday. A preparation of sorts for going to France (you know, because they speak french in Montreal...). Every time I drive into Montreal, it's this logistical driving nightmare that involves half an hour of frustrated driving (I accidentally wrote "deriving," which would be even more frustrating), ending in randomly ending up exactly where I want to be. But I'm not writing just to complain (contrary to popular belief). I just like writing (parenthetical phrases).
Montreal is sexy. It's big. It doesn't feel law-abiding in quite the same way that the rest of Canada does. There's a bit more of an edge to the city. Like people are thinking a bit harder, or giving it their best shot, as opposed to coasting by. Something like that. Something to differentiate it. Going in the beginning of September, it's almost easy to forget that the whole city is encased in a block of ice for six months out of the year. But, unlike some American cities I know, they really make good use of their summer when they've got it. Bodies wall to wall. I like that. Sexy wall to wall bodies. Well, maybe not all sexy. But good enough, for Canada.
In other news, I'm painting and scraping paint off of things ("which is it?" you say. I say "Both."), like for money. That's a hoot. Anna's here. She's really great. We do things like go for walks and canoe and (potentially sometime in the future) go for bike rides, and have french lessons, and cook dinner, and chat and roll around on the floor. These are good things. These days that's what it's all about: maximizing the good things and trying to avoid/deny the existence of the bad things.
Okay everybody, repeat after me, "Everything is fucking great. Bad things have no power here" (make sign of cross with your fingers and wave them around in the air).

Muse-Meister Muses More

I've noticed that some people play up or down, depending on the team they're playing. They'll just barely scrape by, your worst game ever, playing against the losers, but you give the real good players a solid run for their money, and sometimes they win and sometimes they don't, but they tried their best. There's something about seeing those other people play well that makes them play well, but they forget when the other team sucks.
Then, there are those people who always play at the same level, regardless. This is typically a very high level, in my experience. You may remember these people as the ones who ruthlessly trounced you playing badminton in high school gym class, and had no remorse about it whatsoever, even though you were just being nice and you let the scrawny ninth-grader in on your team. Those people went on to be Olympic athletes, or gas pumpers, depending, not on their consistency, but on their original level of quality.
I'm one of the former. By virtue of being surrounded by all of these wonderful people, I look really good in relief. I'm that scrawny ninth-grader, who just played the best badminton game of his life, because y'all were nice enough to put me on your team. So keep up the good work, people. You're making me look good.

Here's a good one.

I was going to leave my dad's apartment in Toronto yesterday around 2:45, to catch a 3:20 train. I was going to meet dad out front. At 2:20, he walks in. "Are you ready? Apparently, some guy took a woman hostage at the train station this morning and it's all taped off, so we should leave early in case there are any delays." Or something like that.
It turns out that yesterday morning in Toronto, this fellow, enraged at his wife and under a restraining order to stay away from her and from guns, brings a gun into the store where she works (across the street from the train station), shoots at her (misses), then beats her. Later on, when identified by the cops, he takes a hostage (in front of the train station), and fifteen minutes later gets shot in the head by a sniper. Apparently, the negotiations weren't going well.
When I was in the train station later that day, the police tape was still up.
So a little creepy, if random, incident. It's good for me, I suppose, that it happened earlier in the day, and not when I happened to be around. Also creepy was how normal life seemed to be in the area, considering that somebody got shot there hours before.
Here's where I say something pithy to sum the whole thing up.

I was going to write something fantastic. The only thing I required, after sitting down at the computer and logging on to Blogger, was a fantastic idea. Damn! It didn't come!
I will simply say, then, that salmon filets go well with dry Riesling, some arugula, and bacon bits. I will say that Toronto is a nice city, if a bit unorthodox for my St. Paul and New York-addled mind. My dad has a great apartment. I'm really excited to see Anna (she comes in two days! Thurdsay at 4:20, barring any flight mishaps!). I wrote two songs yesterday morning. If I get enough encouragement, I might record them and give them to you. Otherwise, I'll put them on my next album, which, if you've been keeping track, might be a ways off.
People are fascinating. In this city, they look at you ever so briefly, and then look away. Like, if you were going to approach them and start talking, they wouldn't be totally surprised, but they won't give you a look-down, or a hello, or care about you unless you're going to make some effort. It amazes me how this is different in every city. In New Haven, it's studious how people don't look at you. Like they'd prefer it if you didn't exist at all. Like it would make their life better to walk alone down the street, and keep from being molested. In St. Paul, you say "hello" to many people you see on the street, and give a friendly nod or a smile to everyone else you see. But elsewhere, this is considered rude, and off-putting. That's fascinating.
Time to go.

Update

In case y'all were wondering why the title blurb changed in tense from the "we" to the "I," that's because Anna and I are soon to have a fo' real joint blog where we'll be posting the France stuff. More on that later.
paz fuera,
D

Boy,
I'm not very proactive about updating this blog, comparing it to some of my friends blogs, or whatever people who don't want to think that they're writing blogs call them. But that's not going to stop me from only having something to say every few days (such as that is), and subsequently only updating this one sporadically. The theory is, once I enter a strange and foreign country, I'll have more to say, or at least be taking more pictures, so I can put up links to those.
Ahora, estoy en Toronto. It's nice, I guess, but I've really only been here for a few hours. The drive in was confusing, because driving into Toronto is like "forest, trees, highway, big high rise, forest and trees, high rise complex, more trees, cemetary, more trees, downtown Toronto." That's strange. I guess I expected something more like, "trees, fewer trees, ugly industry, residences and stores, ritzy stores, downtown Toronto."
My dad lives in downtown Toronto. This is cool, I guess, but I've really only been here for a couple of hours, so how am I to know? I went to an italian restaurant, and had a nice couple of glasses of fancy Chilean wine and some pizza that was good. I played my album for my dad, and now I'm watching TV and letting the wine sink in, until I fall asleep, which will most likely be soon, tempting and time-consuming internet and TV aside.
The Magnetic Fields are a good band. Love, Music, Wine, and Revolution. The only thing I'm missing is the love and revolution today. Perhaps tomorrow. I've only been here for a few hours, so what do I know about the love/revolution scene in this part of Toronto. Love is on the way, though, because Anna flies in on Thursday, Dios-willing. So everybody make sure that you've got your minds on a safe and uneventful flight for Anna on Thursday afternoon, after around lunchtime Minnesota time, and through 4:00PM east coast time.
peace out.
D

PS: Robin, if you're out there, I'm listening to the mix I made for you. Did you like it?

The Album's Up

I'm at my dad's house in Ottawa, which means that I'm now on an internet connection fast enough to put the latest album up on the internet. Go download it! Send me an email with your address if you want a hard copy, and we'll chat. Let me know what you think! I'm going to bed now.
peace out.
-D

Woe Is My Computer

I've not been on the internet much, for a couple of reasons, since I got home.
Reason number one: modem. Man, modems are not suitable for what I like to do on the internet. Namely, download music, upload photos, generally not sit on my ass waiting for hours at a stretch. So I simply check my email, the one thing where speed difference isn't noticed, and leave.
Reason number two: my retarded computer. Well, it's not retarded. I'd hate to hurt its feelings by implying that it is defective in some way, but the fact that I have to loosen screws on the back of the computer simply to get it to power on is a little cumbersome. I believe that the empathetic among you would agree. However, once I've convinced the Gods that it's time for my computer to power up, it purrs like a kitten and I've got nothing to complain about in the world. At least, computer-wise. And generally complaining about everything is a bit tedious, even if you do have a blog and you think the whole world cares. Still tedious.
The other side benefit of having my computer back online is that soon, I'll be able to put my latest album up on the internet, for everybody to listen to, if they so desire. I was going to write, "for your listening pleasure," but that might possibly be presumptuous. You might hate it. Or you might think it's not easy to listen to, but think that that's a good thing. Far be it from me to limit the possibilities. Anyway, it's recorded and produced by Latif Learned, so it sounds really good.

Leaving Nantucket

I leave Nantucket in 7 and a half hours. Well, maybe 8 and a half hours. I'm not really sure. What I do know is that I have to get up really early, and then drive to Potsdam, NY. For those not familiar with their East Coast geography, and furthermore disinclined to consult an atlas, the trip from Hyannis (sp?) MA, which is the mainland port, to Potsdam, NY is not trivial. Something like 8 hours. Not exactly a huge road trip, but nothing to scoff at. But it's cool; we have David Sedaris on tape, and my CD collection, from which we will listen to about 2 CD's, is my guess.
So, the things I'll miss. I'll miss the beach, with the real ocean, and big fat naked old people. And sand dunes with craggy grass. I'll miss funny cobblestone streets (though I won't particularly miss the tourists that inhabit them). I'd say that I'm going to miss Rebecca (eldest, wisest sister), but she's coming with me. I'm sure there's more, that I could come up with if I sat here agonizing over what exactly it was. But the way of it with missing things is, in a week or so, the things I really miss will pop up unbidden, triggered from some unrelated thing. And I score a point. A memory point. He who dies with the most, wins.
I finished the album today. Perhaps in a little bit, I'll post it on the internet. But I need to make a suitable web site; I don't even have a mockup right now. And I'd hate to spend two months on an album and then have a really shitty web page for it. So be patient. In all likelihood, I'll post MP3's first, and put up a real web page later. But if any of y'all want a copy, just send me an email or letter, or give me a call, and I'll make you a copy. If people I don't know want one, send me an email and I'll make you a copy. Donations are nice, but I don't expect them from friends. Just people I don't know. That way you can pretend you're my friend, because in lieu of supporting me emotionally, you're supporting me financially.
I put up some pictures of Nantucket and such. That is all.

Best pun of the week: Malackluster College.
That is all.
love,
Donald

Some announcements:
I'm done with Explo. It's over. Yesterday morning, I said goodbye to the three people who were around that I cared about (without getting their contact info! shit!), packed up all of my things in the course of 20 minutes, checked out, and drove away with Rebecca (eldest, wisest sibling). Tired, and really ambiguous as to whether I was happy or sad about leaving. Today, I'm still not so sure. But the fact remains that it's over. Seven weeks normal time/fifteen years summer camp time of my life foot! Away.
I revamped the Explo photo page, without really adding any new photos. But there are more comments, and y'all can rest assured that I'll be taking more and better photos of Nantucket: the addenum to summer camp.
I have no cellular phone anymore. My personal one broke, and ran out of service simulataneously. If you have been trying to contact me on this phone in the last seven weeks or so, you've been out of luck, as you may or may not have noticed. Anyway, if it's urgent, in the next month, I'll be in Potsdam, NY, and you can email me to request the number there, as I'm not going to post it on the web, readily available though that information may be.
Ugly By Now is back on the web! Go and get all of our music!. I'll post a sidebar to this page, so you can return from here if you lose the link, etc.
I hope, from the vantage point of my (seemingly interminable) travels that every one of you is having an experience worth remembering, and furthermore that I'll hear about these things someday.

It's 1:15 AM, and I was supposed to stay in all night. I'm on duty, after all. That means that I have to stay in, in case some kid has some emergency, or misses his mom, or just wants to chat. That's fine and good. However, in all of my six weeks here, I've never once had a kid come into my room after 11:00 PM check-in, for any reason at all. And tonight, it's raining. Tropical Storm Alex, perhaps? Making its way up the coast a little early? The first storm of the season. Anyway, it seemed prudent to strip down, strap on my lanyard, put my prox card in the pocket of my swim trunks, and run around in the rain.
Gosh, Donald, when you put it that way, it sounds like so much fun.
So here I sit. It's 1:18 AM. My hair's wet, but the rest of me is dry. Naked, because I can't summon the will to put any clothes back on for the 15 minute interim between wet and cold and bed. Not tired, because when I get more than six hours of sleep, I feel like I'm overly well-rested, like I'm wasting my day. I could be doing productive things, like writing mass emails for almost nobody to dubiously read.
Today I learned that I'm in charge of 21 kids, sixteen years of age, who cannot stay silent for longer than four seconds. Four seconds! That was the record tonight. It's 1:20 AM, and I can hear them upstairs thumping. Unable to remain quiet even for somebody else's sake. Fortunately, I'm being productive, and not trying to sleep. On the other hand, there's the last vestiges of a tropical storm outside, trying its hardest to lull me to bed. But I'm not tired. Not yet. Nothing's clicking. Nothing's saying "go to bed."
1:24 AM. Press return.
It would be funny, I'm sure, to watch me, or anybody at a computer alone in a dorm room alone at night, naked, trying to think of something cogent to write. Sitting, scratching at my belly (it itches!), playing with my eyebrow hair, scratching my head, my neck. Funny in the queer way, not the ha ha way.
Here, I'll put up some pictures, and call it a night.

Some days you sit down at your computer and you have a thousand emails from long lost friends, and you have no time to look at any of them. Other days you sit down and write a million emails, and then get none for a week. This is the way of it with email.
Some days you sleep so little it is arguable whether you napped or slept through the night. Other days you sleep for hours and hours. In either case, you can end up feeling well-rested, or extremely tired. Some days, you can't help from yawning even though you know that you slept well. This is the way of it with yawning and sleep.
Some days, you feel on top of the world, even if you have no reason. Other days, you have a reason to feel good, life is good, but you don't feel good anyway. Other days you feel bad because you've done something wrong. Or sometimes you do something wrong and don't feel bad. This is the way of it with feeling and right and wrong.
Some days you can be creative, write a poem and make some little origami out of paper and brighten someone's life with a witty comment, all without giving the situation too much consideration. Other days, you try your hardest, and only come up with sitting on the couch with an anxious feeling in the pit of your stomach, reading a book you don't want to read, waiting for time to pass so someone else with a better idea can show up. This is the way of it with creating.
Some days you're in love, and so positive that everything is fine, and you feel enriched and complete. Other days, you know you have love in your life, but need to be reassured. And on other days yet, the love you used to have ceases to exist. Or you feel like it might, and you're scared. This risk eats at you internally, and you doubt if you should have ever loved at all, if only to cease that feeling. This is the way of it with love.
Some days when you're happy, you need to listen to someone else's sad music to prolong your happiness. Other days, happy music will stop you from being sad. On still other days, you need to be depressed, maybe cry a little, listen to something horrible, and see that through to the other side. This is the way of it with sad and happy music.
The choice of what day today is, however, is random. It's up to the whim of some air current, or something in the water, or perhaps the way someone close to you felt yesterday, or this morning. There's nothing to be done about that. This is scary sometimes, and other times it's obvious and inevitable. Some days things are clear and some days things are not. This is the way of it with days. At least, in my experience.

Summer time.
It's summertime, and I'm on summer-time. Newton said that time moves in an inscrutable forward direction, and it's up to us to measure it clicking away. Liebniz, however, said that time is a fluid entity, and our measurement of it defines its rate. I'm inclined to believe in the latter definition. For instance, my time here at Explo happens whether I want it to or not. I turn around, I look down and look up, I check my watch and I can practically see the hand flying around. Anna in St. Paul tells me, however, that the days are moseying right along, time moving like sap on a Maple. Are we experiencing the same time? Is it like the inside and outside of a record, moving slower and faster and at the same rate, all at the same time? It makes sense, Minnesota being at the center of the record, and the coasts moving faster, but all at the same time. Maybe that's what's going on....

P.S. I may have made up that stuff about Newton and Leibniz

More Summer Pictures are up.
I'll post some backstory later, but I wanted to let y'all know.

Man oh man, read the news in Spanish, and look at what you get:

I'm scared. I'm very scared.

Hi all,
There's a new (small) set of pictures from my summer job up.
Go see.

This is a hoot. Apparently, this company did a survey of the music to which IT professionals listen, and it fell into categories based on what kind of computer work they were doing. My favorite is the top item; it says lots and lots to me. Also interesting is that I fall somewhere between Linux and Database Admin, which is interesting because I'm a Linux guy whose current job involves database administration. Aaah, it's so nice to see that I fit into the stereotypes. MMmmm, stereotypes. Of course, this survey was done of like 200 students in the UK, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. But what would you be doing reading this without your bag of salt?

• Job: Microsoft-certified professionals

  
  Favoured genre: Mainstream pop
  Top three bands:
  Britney Spears
  Dido
  Beyonce

  
  
  
• Job: Security

  
  Favoured genre: 60s "Alt" Rock
  Top three bands:
  Grateful Dead
  The Doors
  Hendrix

  
  
  
• Job: Linux

  
  Favoured genre: Electro
  Top three bands:
  The Orb
  Underworld
  Kraftwerk

  
  
  
• Job: Developers

  
  Favoured genre: Heavy Metal
  Megadeth
  Iron Maiden
  Slipknot

  
  
  
• Job: Database administrators

  
  Favoured genre: Indie
  The Smiths
  Haven
  Suede

  
  
  
• Job: Project manager

  
  Favoured genre: Rock
  Pink Floyd
  Queen
  Rolling Stones

  
  
  
• Job: CIO/IT director

  
  Favoured genre: Classical
  Mozart
  Handel
  Vivaldi

  
  

So.
Well well well. It's been a while, fair internet. And readers. Friends. Family.
Time stretches out like the rays of sun over water at night in Trinidad.
(do you like the simile?)
Here's another: I work like a king, eat like a dog.
Family motto notwithstanding.
(ask an Anderson, Learned, Greer).
This is a life full of excitement.
(how could you be around 700 high schoolers and not feel energized?)
So much tension, planned and programmed release.
Like bursts of machine gun fire: intense, premeditated.
Music keeps me going.
Ask me for a mix, and ye shall receive.
It's the new Donald.
Tired, happy, warm, content.

computers computers computers computers beers beers kids red tape computers computers computers computers hang out hang out yearn yearn love computers beers kids kids kids kids tired tiired bar bar beers bar computers sleep beers sleep dream love yearn computers computers sleep beers red tape love support beers computers

So Yale..
It certainly is what one would expect, isn't it? Yale. It's big and expensive. These buildings, some built during the Depression when labor what cheap and people had time, reek of having too much money and nothing to do with it. They actually pour acid over new buildings and renovations to make them look more "lived in." That's "kind of freakin' wierd."
My summer job is at Yale. It's called Exploration. It's a summer camp for rich high school kids, where they're taught by college kids (and recent grads) about things, and they get to live on the Yale campus and have sex in bushes. You know, kids will be kids! Ha ha ha! It's indicative of my situation that the song that makes me smile at the end of the day is "A Journey to Reedham," by Squarepusher, off the Big Loada album. If you can get access to a copy of that (IE you're near Paulo Casaes or Taavo Smith), I recommend listening to it. It makes me smile, anyway. Every time.
The East Coast is a real hoot. There are whole cultures here that seem to have missed my portion of the East. Like the culture where it's okay to be an asshole, and a really bad driver. Or where name-dropping gains you social status and admiration, as opposed to the general disdain of your family, friends, and peers. But what would the Ivy League be without name-dropping? I'll leave the bemused, worldy answers to you, my friends. It's to bed I go.

Thoughts

This trip is taking a long time. I remember funny things about it. I
remember the way the louds look in New York, and I realize how
different they are from the wispy, rambling clouds of the Midwest. The
clouds here are thicker, more substantial, they create layers and
layers in the sky, so that you get this great sense of depth. In the
Midwest, you get a sense of the space, but never the depth of the
clouds and the sky.
I remember a lot of things about today, but none of them stand out so
much as to bear description. The old lady who ran the place at the
Potsdam Greyhound Station, carrying her phone around wit her in case
anybody called for a ticket. The dense green landscape of the
Northeast. The gaggle of teenagers talking loudly on their phones to
their friends from Boston, only minutes away. The friendly fellow who
got on just before Lake George, where the moment my cell phone got
reception again, I got a call from Anna in Minnesota. The first time I
had said anything since I got on the bus!
I had to change buses twice to get to Boston, and changed bus lines,
which is confusing. I thought I was riding Greyhound, but I arrived on
Peter Pan. I thought that was a brand of peanut butter. Once in
Boston, I got a call from the person who was going to give me keys.
After taking a cab to her place, I spent another hour or so trying to
get here, where I sit in a friend's apartment, while she's away. I'm
so grateful to have a place to stay after all of today! It's a
wonderful privelage to have good friends, and that's all I can come up
with at this point today.

Moving Again

Here I go!
Tomorrow I go down to New Haven, the armpit of Connecticut, also known
as the home of Yale University, on the next leg of my summer
movings-around. It's funny, logistically, because they (the employers)
want us (the minions) to be in Norwood, Massachusets in the morning
this coming Sunday. I don't know about the other people working this
job, but it's kind of hard for me to get anywhere in Massachusets at
10:00 in the morning, coming from Northern New York. I think of it as
my first test, like I was Indiana Jones in pursuit of the Holy Grail or
something. Except the Holy Grail is actually a dead carcass, and all I
want is money so I can go to France. Only the penitent will pass.
Gee, I already talked about how Potsdam is nice, so what's left to say?
Let's talk about France for a while. Anna's and my plan, in case you
haven't heard, is to live in the south of France, Anna teaches English,
and I write tons of music, and we both tool around and have fun. God
willing, this will become a reality. Every day that it doesn't fold
under and get lost in the abyss of pipe dreams past makes it that much
closer to becoming a real thing. I certainly hope that it becomes a
real thing. The next big obstacle is actually purchasing the ticket,
which will come soon, I hope. I certainly do hope.

Potsdam

Potsdam has this way of sucking you in. Every time I come home, I'm
surprised to see who is still here, who has moved on, who has come back
from moving on. Almost all of my friends, from here or not, are in
some state of life transition right now, but it's interesting to see
how the ones from Potsdam always make sure to stop back before
beginning the next leg of their journey. It's like, we have to make
sure that at least one part of the world remains the same before we go
off to experience something else. This town is the litmus test for the
world.
On the other hand, it's always a little different each time I come
back, in its small way. Cowen's Country Store moved down the street,
into downtown proper. This is a big deal, because I had them pegged
for the kind of people who would run the store in that location until
they died, and be done with it. But no, movers and shakers they are.
The fence at the sorority at the end of the street is down. The music
store has more guitars, Stratocasters all of them, so many
Stratocasters! little things change for me. All the kids at the high
school have familiar last names and faces, but I don't know them at
all.
I ran by the school today, and was comforted that even though there's
not a soul I know attending that school, and my old teachers by and
large have made an exodus since my class left, that things are still
being run as usual. That's why I go back to Potsdam; it's my way to be
sure that, no matter how fucked up my world gets, there's still a frame
of reference, a town with neutral PH, waiting for the next catastrophe
to pass. A glacier could move right over this town, nobody the wiser.
That's why i come home.

Air

The best thing I ever hope for when travelling is an uneventful flight.
It seems like it would be a little greedy to ask for a flight that
lands early, or doesn't have any people on it. I hope for flights
where there won't be too many people scheduled for the flight, so
nobody gets asked to not be on the plane. I hope for a line at the
ticket counter that's small enough so that I don't need to fly to
Newark, New Jersey, instead of Chicago. I hope that, when we get onto
the runway, the plane doesn't turn back around and take us to the
terminal. I hope that when I'm in the air, Northwest's entire computer
system doesn't crash and burn, leaving me to become a frozen carcass in
the Northwest G concourse in Detroit. Unfortunately, all of these
things have happened to me at some point.
Today, it was the ticket counter. Apparently, Northwest thinks its a
sharp idea to replace their human tellers with E-ticket machines. The
problem is, nobody can figure out how to use these machines. Thus, the
lines grow longer as people gradually ascertain that, no, they don't
know the secret Mason handshake, and no, they don't have $3,000 to
donate to the United Way, and that they would rather be in the line
where there's a real, surly, overworked person at the other end. It's
like Big Air is trying to remove some of the last shreds of
accountability from the flying process. This is crap. Already, if the
plane is late, it's nobody's fault. If your flight is cancelled, it's
nobody's fault. If you have to sit on a hot plane for seven hours
while everybody in the cockpit jokes about what a good trick they're
playing fooling everybody into thinking there's actually a problem,
that's nobody's fault. Now, they want to make it so that if you don't
even get your ticket, nobody is to blame but you. It's a brave new
world, folks.
On the plus side, I feel super-secure now that there are two more
securiity guards at the checkpoint. Anyhow, that's all of Donald's
dispatches from the airport. Cheers!

Yes, that's a mohawk. Not a faux-hawk, like some of you believe. The real deal. The point is moot, however, because I cut it off yesterday morning. Reports on my reasoning for cutting it off vary from me being whipped to me being whipped (Anna hates mohawks, it turns out). But I maintain that it was actually my intention all along to simply shave my head, and the mohawk was just a little fun for Grand Ole Days. For those of you who don't live in the twin cities, that's like the county fair, except on the main shopping drag in St. Paul. The city's sweaty, overweight, pale, recently wintered hordes go out into the street to eat things like deep-fried pickles, deep-fried oreos, and deep-fried snickers bars, in addition to drinking beer and listening to bands. It's a hoot. So long story short, even though I had the mohawk for only a day, more people saw me sporting it than will see my shaved head in the next month.

Hi to everybody who is probably looking at this for the first time! I just sent out the one and only mass email I plan on sending out, to inform you all that you should look here for news of me. I realize it's slightly narcissistic to think that people on the internet want to read about my daily exploits, but I don't actually think that they do. This is just for family and friends, and if you're a random internet surfer who happens to like my random spewings, then so be it. That's fine with me.
I'm still working on that photo page; I'll post a link when it's up. For right now, I'm pretty sure the Macalester link on the left still works. Off to dinner..

I look around the room, and see an ever-increasing state of disarray. Indeed, it seems that the move is less far off every day. Like most major life changes, the significance of not permanently residing in this city still eludes me, and probably will continue to do so until well after I move out.
I don't have a desk. I'm typing this on a laptop sitting on top of my other computer, in the corner of a room that bears fewer and fewer fingerprints of my living here. My bookshelf is gone, the books in boxes on the floor. I'm going to mail my computer home in short order. The amp goes to California with a friend for safe-keeping while I'm in France. That's it. The rest fits in my luggage, and goes on the plane.
It's not depressing, really, just kind of increasingly austere. It's as if, instead of making a clean cut with this city, I'm a tooth dangling around in the side of its mouth, kind of hurting and waiting for the courage and the right time to be pulled out completely. I've got to say, though, that the biggest bummer is having to pack up my stereo. What's a music grad with no amplification? At least I've still got my headphones.

What is it about a movie that makes you want to be like the people in the movie for the three or so hours following the movie? So I watched Benny and Joon, and now I've just the urge to, you know, mash potatoes with tennis rackets and iron my grilled cheese sandwiches, like Johnny Depp did in his utter coolness. But after I watch something like Enter the Dragon, all I want to do is kick and punch. So what is it? And why doesn't it stay longer. Like, if I could maintain my kung-fu sensibility for two days after watching The Matrix, I might be able to get some real ass-kickin' done. But three hours is just enough for a sore groin and then bedtime. And you can't just watch a new movie every three hours, because then you've got to spend all that money on renting movies, not to mention that there are only so many Kung-Fu movies out there. And your momentum is ruined by sitting down for an average of 1.5 hours. Maybe I should read a book about Kung-Fu, because that lasts longer. Hmm.

Postscript:
My irony doesn't follow as well on "paper" as it does when I'm talking out loud. Maybe if you could all just imagine me gesticulating wildly, so I don't have to insert images into my text. It ruins the flow.
peace out.
-D

I never thought the pressure to write in this thing would get to me. I guess this is why most people keep their diaries private: to avoid having to impress anybody but themselves. Are other people so much more profound that they can write in a diary all day? Or is it that all diaries are terminally boring? Hmm... This is more of a log, I guess, because it beats writing mass emails. If I were you, the friends and family of mine who ostensibly read this business, I'd prefer not to get unsolicited emails from Donald all the damned time.

Back to diaries, I guess you only hear about the diaries of people who consistently have a lot to say, or are so profoundly bored that they are slowly descending (ascending?) into insanity. Like Antarctic Explorers, or Anne Frank, who was a little of both.

I went and saw Harry Manx last night. For those of you who don't know him (which, unless you're Canadian, is a high probability), he's this blues fellow out of Toronto. He plays one seriously mean guitar. You know how some guitarists are really good at, say, playing solos, and others make the guitar sound like four instruments playing at once? He's in that latter group, like this slidey-blues/indian raga thing. Not to mention that on top of that he actually does play four instruments at once, if you count his voice. He's got the guitar, this floor pedal thing that supplies bass drum sounds when he taps on it, a harmonica, and singin'. He's big in Canada, take that as you will.

Graduation

So I graduated this friday. That was entertaining. The funny thing about
graduation from college, at least my graduation from college, is that
I expected it to be anticlimactic, but it wasn't. It was a big deal. I
suppose that it's a testament to the college that they managed to give a
little weight to the ceremony, but nonetheless, I was impressed.
Of course, navigating a weekend with my parents, Anna's parents, basically
everybody and their mom was a chore requiring little sleep and much in the
way of logistics, but that's what you get. It's funny that during finals
week I slept 8 hours a day, but during senior week, when ostensibly I should
have no work to do, I got 5-6 hours of sleep a night. Maybe it was my
sleep-induced haze that lent gravity to the ceremony.
All that for a piece of paper. It doesn't even say what my majors were. Just

Donald Latif Anderson
Bachelor of Arts

Boy, you'd think that after that kind of courtship I'd be married to the arts,
and not still playing the field. I dunno. I'll be posting pictures of the
ceremony shortly.
-Donald

I'm Done! I'm Done! I'm Done I'm Done I'm Done!

I turned it in! The last paper! It's in the office, for better or worse.
Seven pages of computer science mediocrity. Not significant in length, or
theme (Agent-Oriented Programming Paradigms). Significant because it's the
Last Paper I Ever Wrote For College!! Done done done! I'm
going to play guitar in the sun! Do a cartwheel!

If you want to hire me, please send me an email.

I know that I just linked to it a couple of days ago, but y'all should go back to the Ugly By Now web site, because we just put up the first real studio album. It's the Graded Advance EP. You'll figure it out. Just go!

life is lumpy
life is it anyway?
life is unfair
life is still a cabaret
life is a show time
life is unfair an unofficial 'malcolm in the middle' fan resource site
life is so strange
life is good � and are registered trademarks of life is good
life is for everything foundation is no longer active
life is free
life is sweet don't cry
life is journey ? all right reserved
life is a sensible diet and exercise program by kris
life is art e
life is a dream a synopsis of the play by calderon
life is one of the "great places to work in the twin cities" st
life is winky september 09
life is a mess
life is an education
life is peachy hola

More me!

So here's the link to my Macalester Web Page, which basically serves as my photo posting site, because they give me space online (unlike some blog hosting web sites). It'll be there until I graduate, at which time I'm an alumnus, and they kick me off of their network, and give me a forwarding email address.

Hop on over to this site to see some of the music I'm involved in making. (it's the link that says "Ugly By Now").

Hi all,
I've got this up and running (actually, that's super-easy - go to www.blogspot.com to get one of your own), but it won't be until after school is out that it becomes interesting. So the clock's ticking... See y'all in a month or so.