Hello all,
I'm currently stuck in travel hell. I'm not sure what it is, the place, the company... ok I'm pretty sure it is the company.
Look, sorry to be so blunt, and maybe I shouldn't write about this on here, but some people I've traveled with in the past year have driven me crazy while traveling with them.
It seems that traveling can either bring out the best in a friend, or the worst.
People you thought you knew perfectly well, yeah scap that. No way that you know them, not until you have had to deal with airline delays, bus transfers into the middle of nowhere and tube lines not running. Once you've done all that, perhaps you have an idea of who they are. At least what their traveling personality is like.
Perhaps it is because I do so much of it, but when I travel, I'm here to have fun. Experience the adventure, see the sites...
I couldn't think of a worse way to spend a day than getting all in a twist about the little things that can, and believe me, will go wrong.
At this point I'm seriously considering going home early. And further more taking the person I really care about on a vacation just to see how his personality deals with all of the ins and outs of international experiences.
What a mess and what a poor idea. Lesson learned. I will be so much more careful about who I choose to go on vacation with in the future.
Note to the next person on my flight benefits - BE NICE and be prepared to have fun, otherwise you are officially not going with me anywhere.
Desperately yours,
A
Monday, September 14, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
And Now Our New Place
We found a cute little one story walk up in Prospect Park that is just perfect...now that we've painted :)
The walls are now "lilac machiato" and the ceiling and trim are pure white. The carpets I could do nothing about - green, but with the lilac I must say I don't hate them as much as I used to.
Come and visit people! We now have a cozy house to let you stay at! :)
Our House...
Ok so last week I moved out of the crazy social experiment I had gotten myself into called SurrealEstate in Bushwick Brooklyn.
The morning before I packed everything up I went around snapping some shots of the insane setting I had been living in for the past three months.
Thought it was freaky enough to share so here goes...
Monday, August 24, 2009
Our House...
Ok I know I haven't posted in a while, sorry busy with work, love, life etc. So to catch everyone up I'm living in this intentional community called Surrealestate in Bushwick Brooklyn.
When I moved in at the end of May I was living on the first floor. Though part of the house (three stories in all) 13-1 is not part of Surrealestate. Some call it Succeedestate because well they succeeded a while ago from the other two floor and the intentional community.
That floor was a disaster to live on. The first week of residing in the building I attempted to clean the most used communal bathroom which I was betting had either been deemed a space for some sick art show or a science experiment – either way it had to be detailed. Hours later it looked just as it did when I started the clean up project. No dice – too many people and not enough of them cleaning.
Other social drama made living there a lesson learned in what not to do so at the end of August I moved upstairs.
After being voted onto the island as it were, I’ve been living in a larger and much cleaner room with two windows and a loft for storage space. Brilliant. With a few exceptions. The people who lived here before had a very open door policy so my room is hang out central a lot of the time – and my windows look out onto the back porch – i.e. the ongoing party that is Surrealestate.
Other than that, the house drama has not stopped, just changed in its tempo – and somewhat important – the way people deal with it.
Classic me I jumped into this situation without knowing what I was getting into. Learn as you go seems to be something I’m still doing and not really thinking about enough. Oh well, something else to work on.
Alright so – intentional community. What intention – well if you ask me they are still figuring that out. I would say at the moment it is mostly to party. But they do work on consensus based system and not knowing what that was at first, I’m learning quickly.
Honestly, I think at this point I am more of a fan of voting than I’ve ever been. However I will say that I like how respectful people can be of others and how they make it a large point to include everyone’s view points in the decision making process.
Downside – still living with a crap load of people who don’t really like cleaning up after themselves and like drama way too much.
Upside – the people here are mostly very cool, really loving and very fun to be around. It is great living with a bunch of cool people and I do enjoy coming home…most of the time.
Growing up I always wanted to have tons of brothers and sisters running around – I guess I got my wish
Work is good, although I don’t really have enough of it right now. I’m taking a trip to Ireland and England in September so that should be fun. It will be another first for my New Years list of firsts - Ireland and staying in a Hostel. Never been to Ireland and never stayed in a Hostel before.
Happy to say that I was also able to provide my Mother with the opportunity to go to Paris again. She left this evening and hopefully will have a great time with Mark her husband on their tour of France.
In other news I’m really, really happy in Brooklyn and living the life I’ve made for myself here. Of course I still miss my friends in other places, but I’m still able to get back to NC at least to see a lot of them which I’m consistently grateful for.
I’ll post pictures from my trip to Greece in July soon as well as my trip to Ireland and England at the end of September.
Oh and my pictures for Restaurant Guru.com are up as well.
For pics please visit www.flickr.com/lifeartfriends/
I promise to write more often as long as you all are still reading this.
Hugs to everyone!
When I moved in at the end of May I was living on the first floor. Though part of the house (three stories in all) 13-1 is not part of Surrealestate. Some call it Succeedestate because well they succeeded a while ago from the other two floor and the intentional community.
That floor was a disaster to live on. The first week of residing in the building I attempted to clean the most used communal bathroom which I was betting had either been deemed a space for some sick art show or a science experiment – either way it had to be detailed. Hours later it looked just as it did when I started the clean up project. No dice – too many people and not enough of them cleaning.
Other social drama made living there a lesson learned in what not to do so at the end of August I moved upstairs.
After being voted onto the island as it were, I’ve been living in a larger and much cleaner room with two windows and a loft for storage space. Brilliant. With a few exceptions. The people who lived here before had a very open door policy so my room is hang out central a lot of the time – and my windows look out onto the back porch – i.e. the ongoing party that is Surrealestate.
Other than that, the house drama has not stopped, just changed in its tempo – and somewhat important – the way people deal with it.
Classic me I jumped into this situation without knowing what I was getting into. Learn as you go seems to be something I’m still doing and not really thinking about enough. Oh well, something else to work on.
Alright so – intentional community. What intention – well if you ask me they are still figuring that out. I would say at the moment it is mostly to party. But they do work on consensus based system and not knowing what that was at first, I’m learning quickly.
Honestly, I think at this point I am more of a fan of voting than I’ve ever been. However I will say that I like how respectful people can be of others and how they make it a large point to include everyone’s view points in the decision making process.
Downside – still living with a crap load of people who don’t really like cleaning up after themselves and like drama way too much.
Upside – the people here are mostly very cool, really loving and very fun to be around. It is great living with a bunch of cool people and I do enjoy coming home…most of the time.
Growing up I always wanted to have tons of brothers and sisters running around – I guess I got my wish
Work is good, although I don’t really have enough of it right now. I’m taking a trip to Ireland and England in September so that should be fun. It will be another first for my New Years list of firsts - Ireland and staying in a Hostel. Never been to Ireland and never stayed in a Hostel before.
Happy to say that I was also able to provide my Mother with the opportunity to go to Paris again. She left this evening and hopefully will have a great time with Mark her husband on their tour of France.
In other news I’m really, really happy in Brooklyn and living the life I’ve made for myself here. Of course I still miss my friends in other places, but I’m still able to get back to NC at least to see a lot of them which I’m consistently grateful for.
I’ll post pictures from my trip to Greece in July soon as well as my trip to Ireland and England at the end of September.
Oh and my pictures for Restaurant Guru.com are up as well.
For pics please visit www.flickr.com/lifeartfriends/
I promise to write more often as long as you all are still reading this.
Hugs to everyone!
Monday, May 11, 2009
Finally Peaceful
Hello All,
I've been told that some of my friends actually read this blog of mine, so I thought I would check in and post some new and happy news.
What's new?
I'm working a ton. This whole month I fly out to Paris each trip I have. No Amsterdam at the moment, but that suits me just fine. More chances to practice my French and more bottles of Vin Rouge to try :)
Other than that, I'm moving to Brooklyn. I know it is a thing with me, if I'm not happy somewhere, I deal for a few months and then pick up and leave. I'm somewhere around 25 moves in the last nine years - but one of these times I'm going to settle down. Some day - but not today :)
I'll post soon about the new place (I'm so excited about it but haven't actually signed anything yet so I don't want to jinx it by writing about it).
NY is good, but not what I expected. Someone said to me "You move to NY not so much to stay there, but to see if you can survive it. And you have, brilliantly." This made me feel a lot better and I think it is somewhat true. I had wanted to live in NYC for years - since I was quite young and though I had tried to be practical about it, still had a somewhat romantic outlook on the place when I moved there in November. Months later I have been through the puppy love phase, moved on to the hating it phase, went through the disappointed and bitter phase and now I've moved on to the "it is what it is, I'll make the best of it, love what I can about it, and eventually move back to NC" phase. Much happier with this last outlook.
Trying to convince myself that NY really was the Bohemian paradise I always dreamed it would be and I wasn't there enough, cool enough, or looking hard enough to find it was exhausting and frustrating in the extreme. Although I might not have found something that is indeed out there and I may not be cool enough to fit into it whatever that IT is - I'm ok with that and have stopped stressing over a lost dream.
Now I've found a few friends, some cool artists and have settled into a more accurate reality of NY I think.
NC - still loving it. Something about this place keeps me coming back. Yes it is safe and I do have tons of friends and family here that I miss when I'm away, but I also find that it has some cultural offerings if you will that so many other places don't.
I've decided that whenever this company is done with me (I'm so not going to be done with them first - I LOVE my job) that I will move back to NC and try my best to do the settling down thing I've been avoiding - or trying desperately to avoid - for years.
It isn't going to happen tomorrow, but I found that once I made the decision to move back here I felt at peace with where I am now and what I'm doing, more so than I had in months.
Other than that - hmmmm. Love life = me and only me. I'm very happy with this and happy to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.
Divorced? No not yet and I've decided once again to let him handle the paperwork and the cost. I'm probably going to change my mind about this again, but for now, I'm ok with it. No need to get divorced this second, I'm not in a terrible hurry. Not yet anyway :)
Travel? Yep I'm going to Greece in June to shoot a wedding with my good friend Danielle and then kick around a few islands for a couple of days.
Then in September I'm off to Bali (hopefully stopping off in Hong Kong for two days) with my good friend Steve. I'm really thrilled about this trip because I've dreamed of going to Bali for years! I would love to just take months to backpack around Bali and Thailand and hit more of China on the way back to the states, but sadly that will have to wait for another time.
All in all, life is good. My friends are amazing, my family as supportive and loving as ever and my dog though not listening to me anymore (my mother has way more treats in her pockets than I ever do) loves me and seems happy to see me when I can get home to hang with her.
Hugs to everyone, and hopefully I'll catch up with all of you in one of the cities I frequent soon! :)
I've been told that some of my friends actually read this blog of mine, so I thought I would check in and post some new and happy news.
What's new?
I'm working a ton. This whole month I fly out to Paris each trip I have. No Amsterdam at the moment, but that suits me just fine. More chances to practice my French and more bottles of Vin Rouge to try :)
Other than that, I'm moving to Brooklyn. I know it is a thing with me, if I'm not happy somewhere, I deal for a few months and then pick up and leave. I'm somewhere around 25 moves in the last nine years - but one of these times I'm going to settle down. Some day - but not today :)
I'll post soon about the new place (I'm so excited about it but haven't actually signed anything yet so I don't want to jinx it by writing about it).
NY is good, but not what I expected. Someone said to me "You move to NY not so much to stay there, but to see if you can survive it. And you have, brilliantly." This made me feel a lot better and I think it is somewhat true. I had wanted to live in NYC for years - since I was quite young and though I had tried to be practical about it, still had a somewhat romantic outlook on the place when I moved there in November. Months later I have been through the puppy love phase, moved on to the hating it phase, went through the disappointed and bitter phase and now I've moved on to the "it is what it is, I'll make the best of it, love what I can about it, and eventually move back to NC" phase. Much happier with this last outlook.
Trying to convince myself that NY really was the Bohemian paradise I always dreamed it would be and I wasn't there enough, cool enough, or looking hard enough to find it was exhausting and frustrating in the extreme. Although I might not have found something that is indeed out there and I may not be cool enough to fit into it whatever that IT is - I'm ok with that and have stopped stressing over a lost dream.
Now I've found a few friends, some cool artists and have settled into a more accurate reality of NY I think.
NC - still loving it. Something about this place keeps me coming back. Yes it is safe and I do have tons of friends and family here that I miss when I'm away, but I also find that it has some cultural offerings if you will that so many other places don't.
I've decided that whenever this company is done with me (I'm so not going to be done with them first - I LOVE my job) that I will move back to NC and try my best to do the settling down thing I've been avoiding - or trying desperately to avoid - for years.
It isn't going to happen tomorrow, but I found that once I made the decision to move back here I felt at peace with where I am now and what I'm doing, more so than I had in months.
Other than that - hmmmm. Love life = me and only me. I'm very happy with this and happy to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.
Divorced? No not yet and I've decided once again to let him handle the paperwork and the cost. I'm probably going to change my mind about this again, but for now, I'm ok with it. No need to get divorced this second, I'm not in a terrible hurry. Not yet anyway :)
Travel? Yep I'm going to Greece in June to shoot a wedding with my good friend Danielle and then kick around a few islands for a couple of days.
Then in September I'm off to Bali (hopefully stopping off in Hong Kong for two days) with my good friend Steve. I'm really thrilled about this trip because I've dreamed of going to Bali for years! I would love to just take months to backpack around Bali and Thailand and hit more of China on the way back to the states, but sadly that will have to wait for another time.
All in all, life is good. My friends are amazing, my family as supportive and loving as ever and my dog though not listening to me anymore (my mother has way more treats in her pockets than I ever do) loves me and seems happy to see me when I can get home to hang with her.
Hugs to everyone, and hopefully I'll catch up with all of you in one of the cities I frequent soon! :)
Friday, April 10, 2009
Seen On My Corner
In my room I have two windows. One of which is just above my bed. This is where I do most of my thinking, people watching, reading, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes.
In the past few days I have seen some remarkable things out of my window.
The first of which I didn't get a picture of it (damn!) so I will have to just tell you about it.
It was late and this guy stumbling down the street had obviously been drinking for a while. In one hand he carried a brown bag with no doubt a 40 inside. In the other hand he carried a chair I assume he picked up from the community dumping spot just up the way. At first I thought he might have thought the chair a good find and was taking it home. I soon saw that instead he was periodically using it as his personal resting place. He would stumble along for a while then get tired, place the chair wherever he happened to stop, sit down and start chugging more of the 40. With some swearing he got back onto his feat and proceeded to stumble on his way. Priceless!
The second remarkable thing I've seen in the past few days happened this afternoon. It is good Friday and it seems that the local Catholic organization took it upon themselves to have a parade down our street. Hundreds of people singing hymns and a loud speaker mounted on top of a four dour sedan blaring out scripture inbetween the songs. I'm guessing at some of this as it was all in Spanish, but I don't think I'm far off.
The pics above are of the parade.
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