love at the laundromat.

yesterday i went to the laundromat. i love the laundromat. there's something oddly calming about watching your clothes spin around in big, old dryers, seeing that one pesky pair of bright yellow undies spinning around in the whites... it's almost hypnotizing. i always bring work that i never do. yesterday, instead, i documented my time there, in hopes that someone else could also appreciate the charm that is valley laundromat.

enjoy.

directions on a napkin.

there's something so simple and gratifying about being with old friends. and being from a small town. we stick together, we appreciate things, we're honest with each other... and it's refreshing. i woke up this morning on a futon beside my best friend of too many years. we recounted the night, laughed, and walked outside to an endlessly blue 65-degree virginia mountain day. the ride home, even though i still managed to get us lost, was uplifting. there was something so comforting to look out and see nothing but the sky and mountains ahead of me, and in my rearview, my best friend singing loudly in her civic.

i put all the windows down in my jeep. i sang along to my ipod's davematthewsdispatchclaptonsublime mix and felt good that my hair was satisfyingly wind tangled. i felt infinite.

transcontinental tshirt.

i'm taking a class called global economics and world economy. in the class for the past two weeks, we're supposed to have been reading a book that my professor refers to as simply "Travels of a T-shirt." which, made me excited. excited enough to pick up the book yesterday and then to be letdown by the rest of the title ("in the Global Economy") and then question why i thought it could even be mildly entertaining judging the rest of the books i've bought for the class (Global Capitalism, The Ascent of Money, Free Trade Under Fire, The Market System...).

regardless, it made me think. unfortunately, not so much about the global economy but of a traveling tshirt i myself had the chance to wear. i bought it, ironically, with some money i got for selling a book back, at the beginning of the summer. it somehow became everything my summer was... on the days i had off, i would put on my lime green bathing suit, my cutoffs, and the tshirt and make it a point to only go places i could ride my bike to. happily i would ride downtown to take pictures, ride to the market, ride to the river with friends, ride to lunch dates... it was perfect. the tshirt was lightweight, loose-fitting, and kept up with all of my adventures. one day in particular i rode to 711 to pick up a slurpee before going to belle isle with a friend. i got 20 ounces of everyflavorbutcoke as always, and when i came outside i realized that it would be quite hard to ride all the way there with one hand. i drank down the slurpee enough to tilt it into my cupholder and headed down to the river. once the road flattened out, i felt safe enough to reach down and grab the slurpee and continue enjoying it. i was slurpping away when BAM! a surprise patch of richmond cobblestone popped up. and consequently my slurpee top popped off. and my bright reddish slurpee popped up all over my tshirt. i laughed. hard. and then got out my tide pen and took care of my tshirt and went on to have a lazy day relaxing on the rocks by the river with some good conversation.

my tshirt, i think, enjoyed my travels. i wore it in the airport when i flew off to start the best semester of my life... and then continued to wear it for the first 4 days in spain until heathrow airport decided to send me the rest of my luggage.

my tshirt came with me to morocco. one evening we were out on the beach at sunset and decided to go for a swim. i tucked my tshirt and cutoffs safely beneath my rainbows and dove in in my limegreen bathing suit. after a while, we got out and ran up to our stuff... to find the only thing that had somehow blown away was my tshirt. i ran in the direction of the wind and searched up and down the beach. after a while i finally resigned myself to realizing that my travels with the tshirt were done, and our travels from then on would assume different paths. i think about it every now and then, where it may be, who could be wearing it and what they are doing in it, my transcontinental tshirt.

and i smile.



banana!

reasonable offer

so my first day of classes went as the first day of classes always goes for me... no matter how much i prepare, or think i've prepared, i always begin the semester with some inevitable failures. this time, for example, i forgot it was in fact tuesday and not monday. so i arrived on campus knowing only my monday schedule... and, well, the day went on from there.

i did, however, have a defining moment as i sat in a seminar class i decided to pick up about an hour before the class began. i slipped in the back a few minutes late, and sat down beside a boy who introduced himself as mike after i asked, and had little else to say after that. the class is one of those after-you-take-this-you'll-know-exactly-what-to-do-with-your-life classes, even splitting the students into two tracks, one for those who want a career and one for those interested in grad school. which, of course, leaves those who aren't sure feeling... well, trackless i suppose.

towards the end of class, the grad student who was teaching asked us to take out a sheet of paper (i owe you one, mike) and write our names, the date, and this question at the top: Who Are You?

does it get more ambiguously blunt than that? honestly. somehow though, after my initial reaction, i knew exactly what to say. my hand scribbled as fast as it could on the paper, hardly able to keep up. and after the 2 minutes alotted to summing up our entire beings, my paper was full. and messy. and my mind was still buzzing with more things to put down.

i glanced over at mike's. he had 3 bullets, and what appeared to be a rubber pen.

refreshing, you know? to know yourself. i recommend it.


on another note, i love the random stuff people actually try to sell on craigslist...
especially in blacksburg.

perpetual lateness.

is it too late to post a christmas photo?




not when it's this fantastic.

benches.

i'm a sucker for good conversation. i really am. so much so that i often find myself getting into bed at 5am after a few glasses of wine and more words than i can account for.

i was bored yesterday and before i knew it i was reliving every part of my daytrip to sitges. i re-sampled the cava, re-saw all the artwork, re-felt the sand in my toes and re-explored every part of the charming town. and it was uplifting and intoxicating and left me right back where i am now.


i found myself the other night sitting in a faux-warm starbucks across from a friend and drinking a latte. and there was an old man sitting at the counter. i observed him, his interactions, his conversations, for about an hour. and i found myself wildly jealous, somehow. he was a portrait of satisfaction. he sat there beside his wife, drinking his grande brewed coffee, reading the sunday paper and catching up with the employees. when he was done, he said goodbye and see you next week and the two of them left.

i realized that my plan for that evening was to drink something soothing, enjoy some good conversation, and laugh too loudly. instead i was concerned that i was at starbucks rather than supporting a local shop. i was letdown that the coffee in america could never compare to cafe con leche and that in general i wasn't greeted in spanish. or greeted at all. i was irritated that i saw three people from my high school. i was met with the weight of a well overdue but sufficiently overdone conversation spotted with drawn-out silences and unwelcome melancholy rather than the lighthearted inspirational one i was hoping for. i left saying goodbye to no one, walking beside no one, and couldn't shake the shattered image of the friend who had been sitting across from me, the ex-lover/boyfriend/person who used to make me whole.

i need to shake this. i'm going to the thrift store.

laundry.

what i attempted tonight for 15minutes, approximately:
notaseasyasitlooks.


i've come to the conclusion that i must not like to sleep. i have no idea why i tried to occupy my time folding a dollar bill (which, if i might add, i used a five) to make it look like an item of clothing, but i thought it would be really neat.

...

i got stuck around step7 and then got frustrated and then confused as to why i wasn't in bed considering i have to wake up early and realized mr lincoln probably prefers life not as an imitation miniature dress shirt anyway and decided to update my blog.

which, i've tried to do. since... well, since my arrival back in the states. but it kept making me sad. i'd open it with ideas i couldn't wait to post, but then i'd remember the reason i started a blog, glance at my pictures, hear my voice from across an ocean.... and it made me sad. i miss it.

and, to account for my blog drought i have more than a webpage worth of memories and stories. so let's talk.


until then, a bit of irony:
i'm back in blacksburg now and have been for almost a week. yesterday i asked where the washer and dryer was in our house considering i couldn't find it, to which deanna laughed and replied, "hope you like the laundromat".


... somehow i'm craving my oh-so-complained-about tiny spanish washing machine and clothesline on the balcony. and everything else that was barcelona.