New York Update 2

Have completed basic requisite relative duty. Grandma gave me a scarf she made and a beautiful blue and silver watch. These are the best presents I've received in a while. I can't get over this scarf. The colors are subtle and complicated. And sparkly! Also, last night I hung out with a couple high school friends - Ryan and his brother Shawn (Sean?). Ryan seems to be doing great, he's all a technical director at a college upstate with a long-term girlfriend and regular antique shopping. No babies or marriage either. A+ life dude. His brother, who I was never very close with because I didn't know how to talk to him but was vaguely intrigued by his weirdness (I'm a sucker for the hidden subversive kind of intelligence) has apparently been addicted to heroin on and off for the past 5 years but has been clean for the past couple months with a new girlfriend and renewed appreciation for life. I'm glad he's doing better now but it made me kind of sad. I still don't know how to talk to him, he's one of those self-indulgent types who's perfected the art of monologue conversation, so I know quite a bit about him but he still doesn't have a clue about me. Maybe it's for the best.

The 2 of them caught me up on some local gossip and I awake this morning with that strange feeling that comes from dipping too heavily into the past. Zoe got in last night so she'll help shake the feeling once she wakes up. I think my allergies kept her awake last night. Will have to buy her some earplugs today and thank Francisco tomorrow for never complaining about what must be extremely annoying. I don't know how to stop doing it, if my nose is stopped up I'll do anything to breathe through it. I don't think I'm even awake for most of the sniffling and snorting and blowing. I hate these allergies, when are they gonna go away?! What exactly do I have to do Ms. Planet? Our puny medicines don't work. Ever since Rotorua...that place messed me up good. Even now there's a tiny bit of fluid remaining in my lungs and a bit o the ol' sneezin going on.

Today am logging some more Dad time. Tonight is Francisco, tomorrow is Christmas. The pleasure countdown continues.

New York Update

Am in New York. Mom bought me clothes today, and then we proceeded to fill the fridge. Packin it in packin it in. Plannin and filling and talking and worrying, my mother's favorite activities. Oh Mom. It's good to see you, wish I didn't get so annoyed with you all the time. I'm at the point where I won't even try to argue, I just dismiss whatever you say with a huff or silence. I dunno what my problem is, years of habit I guess. We talk in strange ways.

It's good to have clothes though! Less good to have my period. More good to have Chef Boyardee. Less good to have winter. It's nicer here than it was in Seattle though.

I miss you Francisco! I can't wait for...everything. You, Zoe, Partykidz, Audrey, Mexican Food, Christmas, Zazie's, New Year's dancing, gossip, more family, less family, drunk family, hot tub-ing, highland house scabies, New Zealand in better colors, more traveling, the end of traveling. Not sure which point in time I'd most prefer to be at, as you can tell. An unsettling state.

Oh, I finally got to visit Archie McPhee in Seattle, after years of waiting. It was, as expected, a store full of cheapo wacky junk. Would be the place to go for a theme party or a childlike friend or Halloween, less good when you're trying to maintain a perfect 1 suitcase batting average. Will need to upgrade bag size here in NY. Was cool to finally see Kate in her home setting of post-LI life (never visited her in college, so have only seen her in unusual state of displacement during home-for-the-holidays times). Spent all my money there, a bit alarming but survival can be done for $0 dollars a day. I learned things in college, secrets of poordom, magic things. Also, through fasting, I learned humans don't have to eat every day. Problem? What problem?

Wonder if I can call Frankie yet. This time zone thing sinks a stinky turd in the corner pocket.

Seattle update

I don't know whether it's just shopping with my sister or what, but we keep spotting toys or things that had significant places in our childhoods. Yesterday we both bought those glitter wands with water and sparkles in them. I don't know if you remember them Zoe, but we'd stare at the damn things for hours, just tipping them back and forth. I was reading a great book last night but kept having to put it down to stare at that purple magic wand for a few minutes.

It's great being here. I went through a terrible time getting here though. My Auckland flight was an hour late, so I just barely missed my 1pm LA connection and signed up for standby. There were so many people traveling, combined with the electrical damage at the Seattle airport, so I couldn't be placed on the 5:20pm flight. I was finally placed on the 8pm, which was slowly pushed back in 15 minute increments. Once on the plane, the captain informed us we couldn't leave until 11:30 because Seattle could only accept 20 planes an hour since there was no RADAR working and landings were taking place the old fashioned, human-sight-powered way. Jesus.

But all that's a distant dream. It's just so rad to see my sister. All my recent worrying is gone for the moment. For lunch today she's taking me to get a great hot dog which is so badly needed in NZ. She's dating this boy Scott who digs her big time and he's the smart laid back type. Mental high five!

Alright, there need to be more poi options. Here's what I'm thinking: stretchy poi. Depending on the angle of force you apply, the poi could be made to move in more oblong paths. Also the spinning radius could change depending on the speed. And finally, you could do yoyo tricks and bounce them up into your hands or out to the side and back again easily. Another option is hacky sack poi. Maybe it already exists, but wouldn't it be fun to spin around poi and then kick the bean bag ening with the back of your leg? Much less painful and much easier for the beginner who wants to bounce poi off their body.

It is so so cold here. I'm eating pomegranates and clementines and drinking hot chocolate. This is the only sensible approach to winter. I've been dreaming about pomegranates for the last month but I'd forgotten how labor-intensive it was. Kate has these two rats and was letting them run all over her bed yesterday. It freaked me out a tiny bit at first, but then I was ok with not knowing where they were at every moment. They're ok. For rats. Rats are a lot like people. They have little human hands, eat what we eat, are super curious but also explore in small restricted patterns at first. Something about their mannerisms...much more human than cats or dogs.

HOT DOG TIME KATE LET'S GO EAT HOT DOGS.

milk tray

Yup, eating a milk tray. It's a cadbury thing. Wonder if I should bring home any cadbury products, or maybe tim tam cookies for people. Good stuff. Spent a while tracking down some wines I tried at the wine festival last month, so now my family will be getting some Martinborough wine for Xmas. It's pretty good stuff, some of it. You can get a really nice pinot noir or syrah out here for about $20 US. Also there's a sparkling wine you can get for like $10 and it is unbelievably better than what you would get for $10 in that category back home. I don't want to bring that home though, what if it exploded in my suitcase?

I don't have anything left to do for this trip. Dum dee dum dum....

Tried to battle Bank of America's customer service today and failed. I ended up speaking to 5 different people, the last one of which I think was just sick of me and told me the problem was fixed if I logged in myself (I couldn't). Got hung up on after listening to a conference call between someone in the rewards dept and someone in customer service. They kept getting more and more pissed off at each other and finally hung up on each other. I was left sitting there going, "Hello? Heeelllllooooo." Alright, kinda funny. Only one of the 5 sounded like he was stationed in India. I think the problem is there's just no where to go in normal customer service hierarchies if it's a technical error with the entire system. Turns out the 4 digit zipcode I gave for my new zealand address reaped major havoc everywhere, and the system ends up adding in a random zero to compensate. A zipcode is one of the 3 required identifying marks for redeaming Bank of America rewards points and you can't do fuck all about it. The icing on the cake was when I tried to re-enter my kiwi address online, adding an extra zero that I would at least know the location of, only to be informed a few hours later that I had to call (the same) number back because even though the form is there, they won't let you enter an international change of address online.

So I finally changed my official address to my mother's in NY. Fuck it. They are not ready to deal with a world traveller like myself at this time. I am getting my $50 gift card bitches and there is nothing you can do about it. I've worked these telephone customer service jobs and it's ridiculous how little control you have. You basically can do exactly what people do online. It's maybe the worst job ever, unless you work a place with slower calls and you're a student and allowed to study in-between calls. But I don't imagine a huge company like Bank of America is like that. It's brainless and repetitive and people are sometimes really annoying.

I was quite good at it.

Gloating lower brain processes

I woke up this morning with the weird suspicion that the lower, subconscious parts of my brain had just been chuckling about how the self-aware part of my brain thinks it's in charge, when really they push it around all the time without it even noticing they exist. It was disturbing. How do I make all the important life decisions and why do emotions get to push me around so much anyway? Who's in charge here? It would be nice to get a manual for this body thing.

Flying out in 2 more days. 2 days 2 days 2 days. Get to see Kate for 4 days, the rest of the family for 10 days, San Francisco crew for 10 days. Super fantasterifical. Then come back and be a nomad. A dirty dirty nomad. Am considering going to Kiwiburn and helping them set up as the kick off event to the farm workin. It's either do that or Big Day Out. Depends on timing, where kiwiburn ends up being, and whether I want to go to a music festival or a hippy art camping thing. I read last year's kiwiburn only had a couple hundred people so it might be a nice intimate thing, like the more laid back campouts. Christopher has snide words to say about the organizers, but even if they're all fluffy head-in-the-cloud types, there's gotta be some cool people mixed in. I just want to meet some new people that are not linked to weta, plus it would be cool to be able to organize with some kiwi burners for next year's burningman. Wonder if I can afford to go to both the concert and the burn.

Rotorua was nice. Geothermal activity was insane, I'm always way more interested in freaky landscapes and ecosystems in nature than I am in boring boring museum exhibits. It's much more interactive and there's some crazy stuff on this cute little planet of ours. I could watch that hot sulphurous bubbling mud for hours.

Mom's giving me a Christmas day in NYC as my Christmas present, with lunch at Second Avenue Deli on the Lower East Side. I can't think of anything better right now. Jewish deli in my belly, hold the capers, brown wax papers.

Ok, December

The future. Wooooooo! December 8, 2006. The most immediately preceding Thursday being a big Weta wrap party and all, causes this rainy windy Friday morning to be a slow one. I feel groggy. I bought the wrong pumpkin soup yesterday, but it's warm and I'm cold and can't really taste anything properly ANYWAY right now so it's workin for me. Also, I'm not a garbageman (they're outside in the rain doing their patriotic duty right now) and so I feel pretty good about myself. It's been real nice out lately, and I took advantage yesterday by being outside almost the whole day, so I don't feel bad about what I'm going to do today (Fuck all to be honest). Also yesterday I had a caffeine frenzied email and phone conversation with just about everyone I could possibly be seeing when I go home for the holidays. It was beautiful, I wish you could have seen it (You can, if you're the government. I'm still at that yahoo address. Go check it out. I DON'T do drugs.)

Clodagh has inspired me to go adventuring as soon as I get back here. Find a farm job or wwoof up north, find a way to get by and make a little money but just do it. It means separating from the boy for a while, but I'm not really doing much here, just consuming and having meditative walks and thinking about the future and going on cleansing regimens, which is great for like a month but I'm done now.

It would be cool for there to be a McDonalds delivery service. They'd call it the McHangover Helper and we would all be ashamed.

There's the yoga Xmas party tonight and Brenda and Kris are catering, which is pretty cool and the only reason to go. I'm really interested to see how their first gig turned out.

After the party me and F are off to Taupo and Rotorua for some long-awaited adventuring and romance. We'll get to see volcanoes, hot mud pits, glow worm caves, and go zorbing maybe. Also we will have a hot tub in our bedroom for sexy time. Hayley, an old Japan co-worker, says it's been nice and warm up there. I get to meet up with her too and see how the post-NOVA crash treats other ex-employees. Ever since contacting her I've been having NOVA nightmares. It's a terrible terrible place kids. Good thing humans are resilient.