wireless
un named numberplate
marlboro butt
backwards cap
clean air bus
cellulite thighs
hot keys
scrambled keys
bald head hippie sweater old timer womaniser
razor scooter
street kid
three dollar bullet
purgatory
slashed knees
armenian hair
life-in-a-backpack
badboy wants badgirl or badboy wants dumbgirl
useless stupid jargon
bitch magazine only 5 bucks
play the game
nail varnish scratched off in equal levels on each hand
cruzing around santa cruz
trader joe
trader hoe
hybrid electric
eleven thousand dollars
kittens free to good homes
stream free online
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Monday, 9 August 2010
I like watching our neighbours emerge from their houses in the morning. Still sleepy, and in the universal pyjama attire of an old tshirt and chequered bottoms, they put the cat or the trash out. Or check the mailbox.
The Santa Cruz sky is as white as March in Brighton and even though the pacific is only two blocks away, i can never smell its salty tang in the air. I like sitting here on the wooden porch on a broken chair, drinking yesterdays coffee and smoking a cigarette.
One of our housemates is an idiot. He will approach Jeff and ask him in the sweetest kind of passive aggression if he has yet fixed the internet or done the washing up. We joke about approaching him and kindly asking him to stop habitually smoking four hits from his bong before 10am.
Last weekend we took a trip to Yosemite National Park to hike and cycle. We climbed to the top of Vernal falls, an immense gorged valley littered with boulders and rainbows. There were telltale signs that it was once a glacier. I felt pleased with myself for being able to recognise the geographical features.
The top of the fall was epic, ethereally so. If it weren't for the hoardes of hikers who joined us, i would have suggested to Jeff that either we jump to our deaths or cry at the opposite side of the valley for answers.
The Santa Cruz sky is as white as March in Brighton and even though the pacific is only two blocks away, i can never smell its salty tang in the air. I like sitting here on the wooden porch on a broken chair, drinking yesterdays coffee and smoking a cigarette.
One of our housemates is an idiot. He will approach Jeff and ask him in the sweetest kind of passive aggression if he has yet fixed the internet or done the washing up. We joke about approaching him and kindly asking him to stop habitually smoking four hits from his bong before 10am.
Last weekend we took a trip to Yosemite National Park to hike and cycle. We climbed to the top of Vernal falls, an immense gorged valley littered with boulders and rainbows. There were telltale signs that it was once a glacier. I felt pleased with myself for being able to recognise the geographical features.
The top of the fall was epic, ethereally so. If it weren't for the hoardes of hikers who joined us, i would have suggested to Jeff that either we jump to our deaths or cry at the opposite side of the valley for answers.
Friday, 30 July 2010
rex
Yesterday i made a friend. We met as i was walking down pacific, having just embarrassed myself by becoming attached to a bench via my oversize multicoloured cardigan while also trying to lose a strange ginger boy who may or may not have been following me.
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I walked past a shop, and crouched by the window was a girl with a huge rucksack and interesting clothes. Her cardboard sign said something along the lines of 'spread the love' and she looked about my age. For some reason i made a beeline for her and thrust five bucks into her hand. I asked her what was going on and she didn't really give a straight answer so i opened my bag and took two cigarettes out. We smoked. We immediately got on well. She described herself as a 'street kid;' her wide set blue eyes and laid back smile momentarily selling me the idea that being a street kid could be fun. Momentarily. I could tell that she wasn't quite there (and later learned that she wasn't, for a number of reasons). We walked to SubRosa, the local activist centre and chatted over dollar coffee and looked at a couple of zines. Rex grew up in New York city. She got kicked out of school and spent a little while in a very small Christian reform school. Her and her boyfriend had slept rough at some point. She told me a story about how they once got caught with a few wraps of heroin and sent to jail for the night. 'Have you tried dope?' She whispers to me while packing a bowl with the remains of some spliff she found. 'No' I answer. 'Good,' she says. I watch her fill her pipe with weed and offer it liberally to a couple of skinheads eating bananas and realise that by dope she meant smack. She mishears my question and answers that she first started taking heroin at 12 or 14. I ask her why she takes it and she says 'because it makes me so happy.' I ask her how often she takes it and she replies 'whenever i can.'
This bizarre, lost girl had hitchhiked all the way from New York to California. I wonder now, what was the rush to get to cali because it had only taken her three weeks and now all she was doing was hopping from town to town meeting other 'street kids.' I could tell by her somewhat healthy appearance that she couldn't have (yet) been completely consumed by the drugs, and her ability to travel alone with no money proved some sort of coherence. She'd succeeded to run away from whatever she was running away from. I couldn't however, tell if any of this was true but instinct told me that most of it must have been because she never said anything in a way that wanted a reaction from me. She spent the five dollars i gave her on cigarettes for both of us.
Somewhere along the way she'd met a guy who claimed to be an NBA player. He'd given her a ride and as much oxycodone www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone as she could take. As they drove along he'd started vomiting onto himself, dehydrated from all the opiates. Before multitasking his driving and his purging, he'd promised Rex a job with 'plants' at his place, with a roof and 10k salary.
We walked to the beach. Rex wanted beer. We passed a couple of street kids and chatted to them. There was a girl making a mermaid's purse bracelet, and a guy holding an acoustic guitar. The guy looked as if he was playing a game of 'lets be homeless' because he was really clean and upright. The girl looked similar, except her shoes were missing, revealing muddy toes.
Rex and i sat by the boardwalk in the golden sand, drinking beer and talking. I told her about my home in London, and my university in Brighton. I told her anecdotes about my friends and about my year as a vegan. I told her about my far away parents and asked her about hers. They'd didn't speak to her anymore and neither did her brother or sister. We did cartwheels and dipped our toes in the pacific ocean, our cheeks and noses reddened by the afternoon sun. We walked along the boardwalk, watching holidaymakers queue for rides and eat overpriced pizza. Rex asked me if i'd tasted deep fried Oreos or funnel cake. Only the latter, i replied. Rex stopped passers by and asked them for change/cigarettes/food. Nobody gave her anything because she is a homeless person and they are on their vacations. Somewhere along the way Rex and i got separated as we walked together. The fat noisy crowd seemed to swallow us up- i got spat out a few yards ahead of her. I looked back and saw her asking a guy for a cigarette, and further back a security guard closing in on them. I slowed my pace and walked alongside Rex and the security guard, who i guessed was escorting her off the boardwalk for begging. I looked down at the empty golden sand and impulsively jumped down to walk along it for a few moments. When i climbed back up, Rex was nowhere to be found.
View Larger Map
I walked past a shop, and crouched by the window was a girl with a huge rucksack and interesting clothes. Her cardboard sign said something along the lines of 'spread the love' and she looked about my age. For some reason i made a beeline for her and thrust five bucks into her hand. I asked her what was going on and she didn't really give a straight answer so i opened my bag and took two cigarettes out. We smoked. We immediately got on well. She described herself as a 'street kid;' her wide set blue eyes and laid back smile momentarily selling me the idea that being a street kid could be fun. Momentarily. I could tell that she wasn't quite there (and later learned that she wasn't, for a number of reasons). We walked to SubRosa, the local activist centre and chatted over dollar coffee and looked at a couple of zines. Rex grew up in New York city. She got kicked out of school and spent a little while in a very small Christian reform school. Her and her boyfriend had slept rough at some point. She told me a story about how they once got caught with a few wraps of heroin and sent to jail for the night. 'Have you tried dope?' She whispers to me while packing a bowl with the remains of some spliff she found. 'No' I answer. 'Good,' she says. I watch her fill her pipe with weed and offer it liberally to a couple of skinheads eating bananas and realise that by dope she meant smack. She mishears my question and answers that she first started taking heroin at 12 or 14. I ask her why she takes it and she says 'because it makes me so happy.' I ask her how often she takes it and she replies 'whenever i can.'
This bizarre, lost girl had hitchhiked all the way from New York to California. I wonder now, what was the rush to get to cali because it had only taken her three weeks and now all she was doing was hopping from town to town meeting other 'street kids.' I could tell by her somewhat healthy appearance that she couldn't have (yet) been completely consumed by the drugs, and her ability to travel alone with no money proved some sort of coherence. She'd succeeded to run away from whatever she was running away from. I couldn't however, tell if any of this was true but instinct told me that most of it must have been because she never said anything in a way that wanted a reaction from me. She spent the five dollars i gave her on cigarettes for both of us.
Somewhere along the way she'd met a guy who claimed to be an NBA player. He'd given her a ride and as much oxycodone www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone as she could take. As they drove along he'd started vomiting onto himself, dehydrated from all the opiates. Before multitasking his driving and his purging, he'd promised Rex a job with 'plants' at his place, with a roof and 10k salary.
We walked to the beach. Rex wanted beer. We passed a couple of street kids and chatted to them. There was a girl making a mermaid's purse bracelet, and a guy holding an acoustic guitar. The guy looked as if he was playing a game of 'lets be homeless' because he was really clean and upright. The girl looked similar, except her shoes were missing, revealing muddy toes.
Rex and i sat by the boardwalk in the golden sand, drinking beer and talking. I told her about my home in London, and my university in Brighton. I told her anecdotes about my friends and about my year as a vegan. I told her about my far away parents and asked her about hers. They'd didn't speak to her anymore and neither did her brother or sister. We did cartwheels and dipped our toes in the pacific ocean, our cheeks and noses reddened by the afternoon sun. We walked along the boardwalk, watching holidaymakers queue for rides and eat overpriced pizza. Rex asked me if i'd tasted deep fried Oreos or funnel cake. Only the latter, i replied. Rex stopped passers by and asked them for change/cigarettes/food. Nobody gave her anything because she is a homeless person and they are on their vacations. Somewhere along the way Rex and i got separated as we walked together. The fat noisy crowd seemed to swallow us up- i got spat out a few yards ahead of her. I looked back and saw her asking a guy for a cigarette, and further back a security guard closing in on them. I slowed my pace and walked alongside Rex and the security guard, who i guessed was escorting her off the boardwalk for begging. I looked down at the empty golden sand and impulsively jumped down to walk along it for a few moments. When i climbed back up, Rex was nowhere to be found.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Middle of the road
Sometimes, i feel as if i am teetering on the edge of something incomprehensible. We need purpose. The human condition is at times intangible and littered with dead ends.
I only recognise these distractions on certain days. Dead days. Days when i don't want to be conscious, days when i can make myself sleep from midnight through to eight through to midday through to three. I can sleep almost non stop on these days, only waking to drink a completely useless coffee, eat some bread and cheese, watch a meaningless television program.
On those days i don't stir. Unquenched, i find it is easy to fall back into the depths.
For the life of me, i cannot understand why this happens. A few months ago these Dead days were every day. Even taking a holiday in France didn't awaken me. I would hide from everything, and as i woke up in the morning i would sense pangs of guilt, especially if i'd slept besides a friend. Scared that while they slept i'd dragged them away from the happy shallows and deeper into the same place i'd found myself trapped in.
This morning, Jeffrey asked me to go outside and do something. He even said please. He said i should take a walk somewhere, if only for a while. I recall my mother requesting the same, and my councillor. I wonder why, at 22, i can't tell myself to do this. why it is so agonising to even think about opening my eyes.
It seem obvious now that i am finally somewhere, albeit a pretentious coffee shop at least it is somewhere. Against a landscape of classical music and buzzing chatter and the bored young baristas and their whiny american accents and the wide eyed toddlers hugging their mother's slender legs. Glaring at their surroundings. When my eyes meet a toddler's eyes i feel sad that they have so much to go through and even when they've been through it all they wont have any answers.
I only recognise these distractions on certain days. Dead days. Days when i don't want to be conscious, days when i can make myself sleep from midnight through to eight through to midday through to three. I can sleep almost non stop on these days, only waking to drink a completely useless coffee, eat some bread and cheese, watch a meaningless television program.
On those days i don't stir. Unquenched, i find it is easy to fall back into the depths.
For the life of me, i cannot understand why this happens. A few months ago these Dead days were every day. Even taking a holiday in France didn't awaken me. I would hide from everything, and as i woke up in the morning i would sense pangs of guilt, especially if i'd slept besides a friend. Scared that while they slept i'd dragged them away from the happy shallows and deeper into the same place i'd found myself trapped in.
This morning, Jeffrey asked me to go outside and do something. He even said please. He said i should take a walk somewhere, if only for a while. I recall my mother requesting the same, and my councillor. I wonder why, at 22, i can't tell myself to do this. why it is so agonising to even think about opening my eyes.
It seem obvious now that i am finally somewhere, albeit a pretentious coffee shop at least it is somewhere. Against a landscape of classical music and buzzing chatter and the bored young baristas and their whiny american accents and the wide eyed toddlers hugging their mother's slender legs. Glaring at their surroundings. When my eyes meet a toddler's eyes i feel sad that they have so much to go through and even when they've been through it all they wont have any answers.
Monday, 5 July 2010
The fourth of July
The last few days have been nice.
I got to experience the 4th July (Independence for the yanks from us horrible colonial brit scum). It was actually really lovely, i avoided raging nationalist chants of USA USA USAAA and got to meet Jeff's family who live in a multi story log cabin in the middle of a redwood forest. Aside from being a truly wonderful bunch, they fed us delicious non-hotdog related food. It was great. And there were fluffy yorkiepoos (yorkshire terrier x poodle dog) running around.
Saturday we bought things for our home: pots and pans, spatulas, a chopping board and a coffee maker to help in the battle against Starbucks. We arrived home, hungry, to our armenian housemate making a feast of barbecue which was only digestible with the aid of cigarettes on the porch and talk of raccoons.
That night i had nightmares about the pea green seaside house being invaded. People with shotguns. People who could morph into us and shoot us. In these dreams no one was safe and every hiding place crumbled and fell apart.
Jeffrey's good friend Zack took me for sushi and showed me around a few of Santa Cruz's attractions including a point where you could view surfers, waiting by the dozens for a wave like bored sharks. Then i walked through downtown watching the hipsters and sometimes joining them in their activities (talking to a charity worker and inventing a lame reason why i couldn't possibly donate to their save the whale cause while proceeding to walk into the nearest vomit expensive pretentious hipster essential summer 2010 uniform boutique). Shades essential.
<3 peace (bleeeeeeaaarrrghhh!)
I got to experience the 4th July (Independence for the yanks from us horrible colonial brit scum). It was actually really lovely, i avoided raging nationalist chants of USA USA USAAA and got to meet Jeff's family who live in a multi story log cabin in the middle of a redwood forest. Aside from being a truly wonderful bunch, they fed us delicious non-hotdog related food. It was great. And there were fluffy yorkiepoos (yorkshire terrier x poodle dog) running around.
Saturday we bought things for our home: pots and pans, spatulas, a chopping board and a coffee maker to help in the battle against Starbucks. We arrived home, hungry, to our armenian housemate making a feast of barbecue which was only digestible with the aid of cigarettes on the porch and talk of raccoons.
That night i had nightmares about the pea green seaside house being invaded. People with shotguns. People who could morph into us and shoot us. In these dreams no one was safe and every hiding place crumbled and fell apart.
Jeffrey's good friend Zack took me for sushi and showed me around a few of Santa Cruz's attractions including a point where you could view surfers, waiting by the dozens for a wave like bored sharks. Then i walked through downtown watching the hipsters and sometimes joining them in their activities (talking to a charity worker and inventing a lame reason why i couldn't possibly donate to their save the whale cause while proceeding to walk into the nearest vomit expensive pretentious hipster essential summer 2010 uniform boutique). Shades essential.
<3 peace (bleeeeeeaaarrrghhh!)
in loving memory
i am,
a) sittting in the corner at a cafe called Pergolesi, which was apparently and is evidently 'hipster central'
c) looking longingly at the website for Santa Cruz's activist centre about two blocks from where i am sat.
d) tired but will rollerskate japanese pork fry tonight.
C) in a bubble, an empty bubble
x) in shock about Christopher Hatton, 22, A beloved student who took his own life last Tuesday, on the Sussex downs in Brighton.
Although Chris and i weren't exactly friends, we started doing the same degree back in first year. There were only five of us enrolled onto Environmental Science. Chris and i laughed together when we realised we'd both promptly changed courses one week into our degrees. I used to see him around and we'd catch up. I saw him about a month ago and he avoided my eye contact- which is the same response a friend of mine experienced when they bumped into him recently.
It's a strange feeling knowing that someone on the periphery of my student life is gone and that they chose to end their existence at such a young and flourishing time.
However i feel unable to have one opinion; the path to his morbid conclusion seems clear to me yet it also seems heartbreakingly unjust. It angers me to know that no one and nothing stopped him yet i also know that slipping into that state of mind is fatal because of its crippling silence.
Still, i feel shocked that it happened because i've never known anyone who committed suicide.
a) sittting in the corner at a cafe called Pergolesi, which was apparently and is evidently 'hipster central'
c) looking longingly at the website for Santa Cruz's activist centre about two blocks from where i am sat.
d) tired but will rollerskate japanese pork fry tonight.
C) in a bubble, an empty bubble
x) in shock about Christopher Hatton, 22, A beloved student who took his own life last Tuesday, on the Sussex downs in Brighton.
Although Chris and i weren't exactly friends, we started doing the same degree back in first year. There were only five of us enrolled onto Environmental Science. Chris and i laughed together when we realised we'd both promptly changed courses one week into our degrees. I used to see him around and we'd catch up. I saw him about a month ago and he avoided my eye contact- which is the same response a friend of mine experienced when they bumped into him recently.
It's a strange feeling knowing that someone on the periphery of my student life is gone and that they chose to end their existence at such a young and flourishing time.
However i feel unable to have one opinion; the path to his morbid conclusion seems clear to me yet it also seems heartbreakingly unjust. It angers me to know that no one and nothing stopped him yet i also know that slipping into that state of mind is fatal because of its crippling silence.
Still, i feel shocked that it happened because i've never known anyone who committed suicide.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
mace
After yesterday's crazy tramp episode, i now have my very own bottle of pepper spray to keep me safe. To be honest, i'm more afraid of myself owning a bottle of liquid that could cause excruciating pain. someone might look at me funny in the supermarket. a passing dog might not wag its tail appropriately..crikey..watch out california.
i am living in a pea green bungalow called Seaside. It's off a street called Younglove. My housemates are all outgoing college guys who talk with that laid back californian slang. They do summer school, go running, drive cars, climb trees, eat pizza, hang out at shops waiting for the girl they fancy to notice them, listen to lo fi. One of them is armenian and his girlfriend's name is Anoush, the name which i'd have been given if my father had had a choice.
People smile at me when they cycle past. Shop assistants want to know how i am, why i'm here. Whats with my accent...why do i say cheers so much, why am i in america? How the fuck did i meet Jeff? Tokyo, that's cool, they say.
Sitting on the wooden porch at Seaside, i can see the mailbox is empty because the little red flag isn't turned up. The doors really don't have letterboxes. Police are everywhere, rolling about on hench motorbikes. Apparently it's a bigger offence to jaywalk (cross the street at a red light) than to smoke weed here.
Every morning the surroundings are fogged up and cloudy with a damp mist which has completely evaporated by about 12. And then its time for coffee, iced or not. And the beach. Or smoking another cigarette on the porch.
Restaurants close early. Streets become no-go areas after dark. Colourful homeless people with guitars/wheelchairs/trolleys mince about looking for spare change or an ear to listen to their tall tales of travel and war and illegal activity. I guess everyone has a story to tell, even the 200 stupid idiot girls i walked past outside the cinema who'd slept there just so they could see Twilight 2 when it opened. Lame.
Yesterday i walked along the wharf (pier) right to the end. While Jeff works 8-6 i have all the time in the world to meander about, thoughtful, thoughtless. Small gaps in the wharf's wooden slatted floor reveal huge orange starfish clinging to the seaweed smothered supports. The constant echoed barking from below tells of Elephant Sealions with slippery grey skin and unnatural looking mouths. Sometimes you see their streamlined yet clinically obese bodies slip past in the water. Beyond them and beyond the wharf are groups of young surfers splashing to the nearest buoy on body boards. Or they could be lifeguards in training since they all wear red shorts/costumes. Like teen baywatch. Their ungraceful splashes disturb the surf which is otherwise as smooth as polished brass, tin foil, rose petals, cellophane.
i am living in a pea green bungalow called Seaside. It's off a street called Younglove. My housemates are all outgoing college guys who talk with that laid back californian slang. They do summer school, go running, drive cars, climb trees, eat pizza, hang out at shops waiting for the girl they fancy to notice them, listen to lo fi. One of them is armenian and his girlfriend's name is Anoush, the name which i'd have been given if my father had had a choice.
People smile at me when they cycle past. Shop assistants want to know how i am, why i'm here. Whats with my accent...why do i say cheers so much, why am i in america? How the fuck did i meet Jeff? Tokyo, that's cool, they say.
Sitting on the wooden porch at Seaside, i can see the mailbox is empty because the little red flag isn't turned up. The doors really don't have letterboxes. Police are everywhere, rolling about on hench motorbikes. Apparently it's a bigger offence to jaywalk (cross the street at a red light) than to smoke weed here.
Every morning the surroundings are fogged up and cloudy with a damp mist which has completely evaporated by about 12. And then its time for coffee, iced or not. And the beach. Or smoking another cigarette on the porch.
Restaurants close early. Streets become no-go areas after dark. Colourful homeless people with guitars/wheelchairs/trolleys mince about looking for spare change or an ear to listen to their tall tales of travel and war and illegal activity. I guess everyone has a story to tell, even the 200 stupid idiot girls i walked past outside the cinema who'd slept there just so they could see Twilight 2 when it opened. Lame.
Yesterday i walked along the wharf (pier) right to the end. While Jeff works 8-6 i have all the time in the world to meander about, thoughtful, thoughtless. Small gaps in the wharf's wooden slatted floor reveal huge orange starfish clinging to the seaweed smothered supports. The constant echoed barking from below tells of Elephant Sealions with slippery grey skin and unnatural looking mouths. Sometimes you see their streamlined yet clinically obese bodies slip past in the water. Beyond them and beyond the wharf are groups of young surfers splashing to the nearest buoy on body boards. Or they could be lifeguards in training since they all wear red shorts/costumes. Like teen baywatch. Their ungraceful splashes disturb the surf which is otherwise as smooth as polished brass, tin foil, rose petals, cellophane.
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