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Pikerfromthesticks
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Name: Alex
Interests: Good Movies, Books written in the first person (Palahniuk, Ellis, Coupland, Klosterman), Music. All music, with an asterisk that excludes Crunk and Nashville. Cities (New York, Chicago, The Twin Cities, Milwaukee, New Orleans) the great outdoors, playing guitar, dabbling in piano and much much more!
Expertise: Sleeping through the day, Feigning Interest in Politics, Healthy Paranoia, Bad Dancing, Being the asshole for the common good, Going with the Flow, umm... Oh Yeah, I like to think I'm good at writing, but in reality, I have no idea. I can cook a mean plate of spaghetti.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
9/8/2005
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| Oh Ed...Anything But Blue...Summer's come and gone and fall is finally here.
2007. I couldn't have dreamed this one in a thousand years. What a
strange year. You gave me so much and very little will ever be the
same. If I would have predicted summer in April, I wouldn't have
guessed this. I would be dead fucking wrong.
But lately, that's just fine by me.
I got a place with two friends on the third floor where the skyline
appears bright and luminous. Cranes outside blink their anti-aircraft
lights in flashes of red all night, nearly indistinguishable from the
pinkish hue that casts itself in perfectly striped lines on my bedroom
walls. I work in a restaurant down the street where for the first time
in my life, I am the minority and that's just fine by me.
My
life exists in a twelve block radius. I own no car or bike, but leg it
through the neighborhood at the pace of life, able to take it all in.
The leaves have changed and swirl around me on the street which never
fails to get a smile. It makes me want to carve pumpkins.
So I
started collecting records and reading in so much free time as the TV
collected dust. I bought plants and posters and drank whiskey and wine
until I had my fill. I kept my pack small and strong, with always
enough time for everybody. I hung out in smoky jazz bars with red and
blue lights, far, far away from the scene.
There was a beat to
my days, with the tempo turned up a bit as of late. Give me a walking
bass line and snare, something I can turn the lights down low for, pull
my hat over my eyes and just groove to.
Then the school year
started and things got busy, but part of me thought that was okay.
Streamlining to a lean existence can be so satisfying sometimes.
I want to take up a language. I want to play piano. I want to tend
plants. I want to cook elaborate meals from scratch. I want to help
whomever I can. I want to fold a thousand paper cranes, just to set
them ablaze for the hell of it. I want to walk that highway 300 miles
back to the north country. I want to read until I fall asleep. The warm fuzzy feeling I get now and again is that there's time to do these things. So I might as well hop to it. See you space cowboy. | | |
| AyeThursday I hopped a train up north past nuclear reactors in large green fields that go whizzing by the second real train ride of my life. It gets dark, so I can't stare out the window as much, which gets me down a bit but in a flash
we're in Edinburgh. I finally made it here. Not a single bit of me is Scottish, but somewhere inside wanted to see this place.
So, we all drag our bags through the darkened, empty medieval streets where a nearly full moon peaks out now and again behind blue clouds over the high stone buildings and you get the feeling it has looked this way for a long, long while.
After settling in to the hostel, the scene gets a bit to American for our brief stay in this foreign land, so Sarah and I break off to stray from the beaten path. Every crack and crevice leads to hundreds of steps winding this way and that through buildings older than my native country. On a balcony of sorts, overlooking the street, we find this quiet bistro that curiously serves up some of the best Mexican food I've had. Sometimes life throws you curves like that. Finish out with a nice quiet pub overlooking people stumbling home.
Bright and early the next day we hop a blue bus off the Royal Mile with a driver named Fergus who's wearing a kilt. Okay, now I'm in Scotland. We keep driving further outside the city into the highlands past ruined castles and monuments of stone that are the business as usual to the people of the towns that go about their daily Scottish lives. We play frisbee outside a medieval castle.Gawking at the mountains, I realize that someday I would like to live near a mountain range. Just long enough to get beyond the wide eyed stare stage. I would like to get to the point of knowing these seemingly mythical landscapes in every detail. Where they become a given, just another background detail. Because I can't get anything done when I'm just staring out the bus window.
Eat lunch on cliff face in the Isle of Skye where the green mountains go into the clouds one day. Play some more frisbee near lochs and glens of all shapes and sizes. Rebaptize myself Scottish in the waters of Loch Lomond. Get tipsy in a pub in a fishing village. Drink a lot of scotch. walk along the beach until it starts to downpour so we hop back on the bus. Drink from a stream that legend says will grant you a wish. Stay in a hostel near Loch Ness and see a lunar eclipse while walking to a pub nearby. In the morning, no nessie sightings so I skip rocks instead on a beach a few miles down from where Led Zeppelin wrote "Stairway to Heaven" at Allister Crowley's mansion. Dance around like idiots in a five thousand year old rock structure while singing drinking songs. Walk through village after village, ruin through ruin, misty Scottish landscape through misty Scottish Landscape.
I would like to be a Scot.
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| Now Feels Like the Only TimeRush Hour London gets to be second nature, just hum "Level" by the Raconteurs and watch every one seemingly step on the same foot, left, right, left, right all the way down to the tube platform, scurrying off somewhere but then again so are you. Friday morning, and I use the term loosely, starts with the grinding and buzzing of my phone set to vibrate on the wooden dresser nearby. Good English morning indeed. Grab a cup of tea and meet a friend for authentic Indian food while wandering double decker style all over Norf Luhn-dohn. Catch a tube to the War museum in Southwark, which is really cool but short. Lots of old pictures and posters from the Battle of Britain. Cannot resist urge to buy large poster of Churchill smoking a cigar and holding a Tommy Gun. Wander around the southbank before crossing Tower Bridge to hook over to the Fire Monument for a bit before calling it a nice relaxing day. Saturday, Sarah and I catch a Victoria Line to the end of the line, Brixton, where I keep humming that Clash song. Wander the markets which are all blasting reggae, walk along Electric Avenue and hum that song. We decide to walk up to the next station, which turns into walking all the way back to the London Eye and up through Westminster, another great afternoon. Sunday is Chinese New Year, Year of the Pig, so friends and I head to Chinatown for the parade, which is short, but well worth it. Plenty of two man dragons, chinese dancers, and loud banging drums. Get a little nervous when Brad lifts Sarah on top of a phone booth to see better, but am relieved when the one rozzer who gives a damn tells her to please get down, but can't help smiling and giggling. Make dinner that night, Spaghetti and Sangria and stay up late talking with friends and flatmates. That's about it. | | |
| OleAfter a bad pub night in Wood Green, I've got my sunglasses on even
though its not quite sunny out. Me and the roommates, plus some friends
are hopping a train to Luton for a flight out to Barcelona.
A few hours, I'm on the sketchiest landing ever and the wings are
shaking from side to side from the wind off the mountains. My hands
grip the seat handles so tight, my knuckles turn white.
Our hostel is right in the middle of the gothic quarter, where the
streets are narrow and winding. The view out of our barrack-like rooms
looks into this big plaza off of La Rambla. Lots of palm trees and
sunny, sunny 70 degree weather. Our group eats dinner at this Pallela
place on La Rambla complete with giant mugs of sangria. For giving them
so much business, we get two more mugs for free, which the sides of the
tables race to finish with several long straws. My side wins.
Back near the hostel, me and Sarah go out with her roommate to meet
some of friends of hers who take us to a club called Mojito where we
drink Mojito's and realize we can't keep up with spanish night life
around four or five in the morning so we catch a cab home.
The next day we walk around the beach of the Mediterranean and the port
nearby, visit the Picasso museum before wandering a bit more near the
port. I even have time to catch a relaxing cigar in the sun between the
old, old buildings before catching a flamenco show, which is really
intense but kind of goofy near the end. Good stuff.
In the morning we all rent bikes, which go great through the old city
and warm weather. We stumble upon some random parade where they are
carrying large figures presumably from the bible. I think. We bike
across town to the Gaudi park which we climb much to our delight. We
keep stopping to get group photos in front of incredible views that we
think are the top, but we keep rounding the corner toward more. We
finally come to a large stone tower with three crosses on top that we
climb up to see everything. I mean everything, all the way to that
blue, blue water. All we can do is sit and stare at it for awhile,
completely and utterly satisfied.
Back in London, the snow has melted and the temperatures back to normal,
which is not to bad. A few train rides later and we're back in
familiarity. I loved Spain. I'll be back soon.
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| Pound the PavementSaturday I woke up and had the itch. You know, you just can't sit still, knee bouncing, head bobbing, the whole shebang. So I dress for the moderately cool, with a smirk for my midwest family and friends in the cold, cold nights. Hop a Northern tube to Camden Town where I drop into the World's End for a quick pint before turning my music up as loud as it will go and getting as purposely lost as possible in the winding shop corridors. Sunglasses on. Real hip all right. At the insistence of a roommate, drop into Cyber Dog, the only clothing store/genuine rave that I can think of. Watch the go go dancer behind the check out counter for a bit before ducking into a comic shop. Buy a pretty sweet shirt, very paramilitary chic. Meander into the tube towards Angel, where I get out and leg out around the east end. I walk through 150 Ipod shuffle switches. Eat lunch by the river Thames. Walk up tower bridge toward Southwark and Lambeth, where it starts to get dark and I realize I've been walking for about four or five continues hours. Catch a train up north. Meet some folk at a pub in Wood Green, where my roommate gets really drunk and friends this guy who may or may not have been in Black Hawk Down. We all just kick it until the place kicks us, so we stumble back down Alexandra Palace. The lights of the east end can be seen sprawling for miles at the top of the hill. It was just another weekend. | | |
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