Mid-Something 20's!

or hotdayyymmmmnn, 3 blogs in 3 days.

I received the following email yesterday from my good friend:

"So I think the mid-twenty somethings are a time of existential angst,  pre- mid-life crisis and a strange transient place lacking any permanence for the middle class. I mean, just for the fucking boushey kids"


(Boushey is one of my favorite slang terms I've learned, along with 'clutch' as in, "That's so fucking clutch" clutch= really awesome/exciting. Clutch is something I can't pull off saying, without getting strange looks. But Boushey, it's become one of my favorite words)






Ok, so I spend my time with mid 20 somethings, recent college graduates, who are all really intelligent and really funny.  While it leads to a chaotic work environment, it also leads to funny photo ops and intense conversations and an understanding for our place in life at the current time. Which, is really really nice. We all believe strongly in education and helping others. I am sharing the following photo  because it perfectly describes my daily environment (and also, because it was 'office floral day' and that concept  is hilarious to me for some reason)







So, to conclude, floral day+crazy slang+this awesome cee lo song= a magnificent monday





Seriously, this song is kind of mushy in a cheesy wonderful way and it hits the right chords.

While I was back, a lot of people asked me what Texas was like. So, I will show you in the best way that I can:


Pair the vibe/tonality of this song and feeling with winters that look like this:

The more I'm here the more I realize Austin is still the south. It's not the deep south, and technically, Texas is its own region, but I still know I wake up with subtle social differences I notice right after coming back from Washington. Here, I can't escape in-your-face-racism (talks about the confederate flag and "White Pride",  Robert E. Lee statues and gentrification, people constantly asking what race you are) extreme poverty or people who don't understand sarcasm and approach difficult situations with passive rhetorical strategies.

However, all that said, moving away from any comfort I knew, friends, family, familiarity, and immersing myself in complete solitude, has been, and will be, one of the best decisions I will ever make. I encourage everyone to do something similar.

And now, a message from George Strait: 

Saturday Night in the Vegas Airport

I typed this sitting on the floor of the Vegas airport, I haven't edited it but I like it



The Las Vegas airport looks as if it were the basis for the first season, some sort of B—grade cable-going pilot episode of a Sopranos spinoff. There are brightly colored neon lights surrounding the top of a faded soft pink wooded ceiling, curvy cursive blue and red neon letters spelling “cocktail lounge” and “Las Vegas Restaurant and Bar.” There are pockets of noisy, gold and white gambling machines with the old pull down levers. There is patterned blue and pink carpeting worn from foot traffic. This is a place of movement; it is the grey area that exists solely to give meaning to the destination. And, it is in the middle of the fucking beautiful Nevada desert’s nothingness and open space.

Flying here from Washington, I saw the Sierra Nevada range at sunset from 39,000 miles above. They were orange and red and beautiful. They are kind of beautiful that punches you in the gut and gives you a reminder of your temporality; they taunt and tease you with their seemingly timeless geographical aesthetic. In fact, they were so beautiful that I forgot about the old man next to me puking as the plane took off. I forgot about how I only have 2.5 hours sleep and I forgot that I have still have 6.5 hours travel time, 2,300 miles away to travel and a shit ton of work to do when I get back.

I had a strange flight here besides the man puking six inches away from me in a garbage bag. I proceeded to pass out against the cold window and waking up with a bag of plane crackers in my lap. (Which, were given to me by the old man who was puking.) I had strange, hilarious flight attendants. These are kind of people authors make as characters in novels. This is precisely why I am writing this down. These are the strange, wonderful days that happen too far in-between because life is lulled by redundancy, predictability, aided and coddled by routine.

When I arrived in Vegas, while the plane was taxiing, the flight attendant sang, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to the passengers. She had a soulful southern voice and she KILLED it in that good way. The other flight attendant, Clarence, is up for the ‘flight attendant of the year award.’ He is a Vegas live-in resident, a fifty something, almost retiree, with leathery-like skin and frizzed orange dyed hair, carrying more sass than Oprah. I’ve never laughed at a joke a flight attendant made. The plane seemed to reverberate laughter a good portion of the way.

When I was exiting the plane, both excited to be in Nevada for the first time, and happy to be away from puking, I passed a man in a knit pool decorated sweater. There were eight balls, stripes and solids. I complimented him on his sweater. His response, “Thanks, I also like to play pocket pool.” I am pretty sure he had on a toupee.

I then immediately discovered my flight had been delayed 2.5 hours. With some time to kill, I gambled away $10.00 and sipped on a whiskey sour mourning my loss with luck. I noticed the disproportionate number of old folk in sweats as I caught a buzz.

***

Back track to last Tuesday, the day before I flew out, my friend were sitting on my hammock discussing the idea of flying. He told me his worst fear is the world running out of fuel and not being able to travel any longer, about how he thought the world would feel as if it were shrinking. It made sense, in the late night daze, kind of way.

A day in the life of-

or Video Gems

I woke up yesterday morning with headache that would kill and a lingering thought that I lost my computer. (I eventually found it hidden in a drawer in my living room wrapped in a blanket, why I put it there, I don't know... but it made sense at the time)

The latter point should be noted, because without it, I would not of found some worthwhile links:


Because my students openly think I am a communist:


Cee Lo circa 2001:



And finally,

Picnic Tables and America

or Patriotism Spurred by Too Many Lone Stars on Cold November Nights 

The seven of us look like an advertisement for some sort of modern-day racial diversity, post-graduate overeducated underclass poster as we sip on our PBR tallboys and Lone Stars.  It’s 12:30am and it’s cold.  This is the first time I had goosebumps since August. We all sit squished together on cafeteria unstained style picnic benches.

I don’t know how it happened, and I don’t know why, but it did. We started drunkenly discussing how wonderful America is. “America is the best culture in the world” and “I fucking love America” were all  words that fell out of our lips. Perhaps even direct quotes.  This remains poignant to me because a) most of us are first generation college graduates b)half of my friends deal with  american racism on a daily basis and c)we spend 45+ hours a week working in a failing educational school system  with junior and seniors in some of the worst  performing schools in the country. For those of you who don’t remember, I tried to play “I love America” game on the fourth of July and failed. Miserably.

Four months later, I never would of guessed I would of been sitting there on that Saturday night. All of us  see forms of poverty, illiteracy, undocumented families,  intense class gaps and students who have been enrolled in school for 11 years and can’t write a coherent essay or think critically. And, still, we all sit on wobbly unstained picnic tables, the cool November air keeping our beers cold, the clear sky an indicator for our miniscule place in time and we just fucking love America. I don’t know how else to say it, but the patriotism seeped out of us.

I find this situation both odd and heartwarming. Not only are we seven individuals, some of whom who graduated from some-name-dropping Ivy Leagues,  (but I argue that it doesn't really matter) we are all intelligent and educated people. I've had so many conversations about what is "wrong" about this country (this list can go on and on) but I have rarely taken time to appreciate it.   

They then started singing a rendition of 'We are the Champions' and  'America the Beautiful' . The hipsters, needless to say, didn't appreciate the music, perhaps because we were drowning out Lou Reed. I wish I was kidding. At this point, I had sensory overload. The Texan Ego needed more room sit and I got up and ordered another Lone Star.

Cliches are hilarious when they're true.

Neil.

Today, is Neil Young's birthday. In honor of one my favorite (if not my favorite) singer/songwriters:

Then


It's been pouring rain all day.  The rain always makes me nostalgic for the West Coast and times past as I drive along long stretches of highway hearing the rhythmic beating of the drops hit my car as I progress forward. I seep nostalgia.  However, the constant muggy 60+degrees,  hot-on-your-skin-stick-humidity, intermittent with  sun rays piercing through clouds that stretch over the entire sky; this serves  a reminder of my current place in time. Petal to the floor and progress forward.


I've been listening to Neil since I was 15, through high school, college, post-college woes and now, as I  drive along a Texan highway at 65 mph pondering how I ended up in the one state I always used to make fun of. I sometimes look at my life and wonder how I ended up driving along the current road, at any given place or time, the movement says it all.  The feeling of freedom and solitude seep through and replace the nostalgia as  I left the comfort of friends, family and familiarity in the dissipate in my rear view mirror, 2,300 miles away.






Cheers neil,


Now (such a great song)

Failure!

or How I have failed at the art of blogging

Dear Readers,

 I apologize for being an untimely and random blogger. I have failed at telling wonderful narratives, and I have SO MANY incredible things to write. Working 50 hour weeks, putting the finishing touches on graduate applications, studying for the GRE's and trying to reconstruct my own subjective time has taken my blogging down.

Until then, here's some Young Galaxy-

Hair

So I was out the other night (ironically at a hip bar) and they played this song:

For those of you who don't know, this is Willow, Will and Jada Smith's daughter.
Aside from being an arguably sexual metaphor this incredibly creepy seeing as she is NINE years old.

The conversation then went to this movie, "Good Hair"




yeah, these two things are not connected... but hey, its ok.

Falling down Stairs

My friend sent me this today. It's an amazingly well done ad about domestic violence from Germany.
The imagery can be slightly disturbing, but hey, domestic violence isn't pretty or fun, and the ad is aimed to reflect this idea.