What the fuck is that? Egg babies?

New York, Pt. 3 

I saw a video on the internet of a guy hopping around subway tunnels and the Williamsburg bridge.  I pass over the same bridge many times and think climbing it would be a cool thing to do.  I set it as a goal for before I leave.

I've been tired and getting over my body attempting to be sick.  I don't particularly want to do it, but feel I no longer have a choice as I've devoted myself to the idea.  I leave Olivia's at one.  I ride to the bridge and lock my bike to the railing on the cycling path, near the intersection of the pedestrian and bike paths.  I cross to the pedestrian side with the lesser traffic and head to the supports.  A few people pass by, but not enough for me to wait long.

I hop over the fence onto the trusses and crawl up, pulling myself through the intersections between them. My camera rests on my back and hits the girders as I move through.  Two stories up I'm able to bypass the barrier blocking the stairwell and use it the rest of the way.  I wait in the corners for breaks in traffic to climb, lest some overzealous cab or truck driver calls me in. There are two dead birds on the walkway.  I can't determine if they were killed by a bird of prey or by running into the bridge.  

I reach the top of the stairwell and find the ladder leading to the top of the bridge is locked.  I hold a keychain light between my teeth as I try to open the combination lock reading "7777."  "0000" doesn't work, and I try some easily identifiable numbers to no avail.  I think about going through the 9,999 combinations to get to the top, but get frustrated and quit in the first hundreds.  In the space through the latch I see graffiti from those who succeeded in getting where I couldn't.  I wonder if they knew the combination or if it was added after their visit.

I sit on the cat walk and chief, just to say I did.  I begin taking pictures and stabilize my camera on the railing and my leg.  It's difficult to get low light pictures of the city on rounded, shaky surfaces.  After the novelty of being up there wears off, I head down.  I hop down the stairs, pausing again with the flow of traffic.  I nearly step on one of the birds in my rush on the way down.

I transfer from the stairs to truss.  I have trouble determining how I should get through the gaps in the girders.  I hang my camera in front of me and lower myself through.  Halfway down a truss, a meter maid drives down the path in their buggy.  I'm high enough to be out of sight and wait on the steel beam, giving the meter maid what I think is enough time to pass.  I climb down and jump over the fence.  My fall shakes the path.  I look over to see the meter maid's tricycle idling as he talks to two guys.  There's no place along the path I could have been to get behind him without passing me.  I immediately break out running in the opposite direction.  I realize this is more suspicious than the sound of my landing and start walking.  I continue to alternate between running and walking as I distance myself from the buggy.  It's too late to seem inconspicuous, but he isn't chasing me either.

I come to an opening in the path out of sight of the meter maid.  I contemplate jumping the fence again to walk down some stairs.  I don't know if it dead ends and decide against it.  Once completely out of sight, I break into a sprint.  I think about how much further I can run on account of this trip and about how far behind me that meter maid might be.  

I reach the end of the pedestrian path and retreat to the park at its end.  I stash my paraphernalia behind some vines in a corner and sit at a bench.  I take off my beanie and open my jacket.  I text a friend in preemptive celebration of my accomplishment.  The meter maid does a circle around the park.  He sees me and stops.  I look up and then back down to the text conversation indicting me of my actions.  He passes and I collect my goods and walk to my bike.  I ride back and get lost for an hour, but am glad I'm not arrested.  I think about the association between drug use and risk taking behavior.  That night I dream about people breaking their legs falling.

Drug Use and Risk Taking Behavior 

Drug use, beyond its bullshit spiritualism, is related to a change in perception.  The adrenaline and stress of an illegal or dangerous activity is a perception altering experience similar to drug use.  It is a feeling beyond that of common experience.  There are not many normal conditions that are life threatening or require hypervigilance.  Climbing unsuspended above a a highway is a good reminder of one's mortality.  Normal thought does not include the prospect of death or danger, so those that do cause an appropriate physiological response.  I don't know how often they do drugs, but thrill seekers always claim to do it "for the rush" or whatever cliche they're using now.

Deviation from the normal form of cognition is novel and engaging.  Often, risky behaviors and drug use come with the some rudimentary understanding of the risks involved.  Without any statistical or experimental data or the desire to find any to back it up, I think those more inclined to dangerous or risky behaviors are more inclined to drug use, and vice versa.

It was not only necessary for me to climb the Williamsburg bridge, but I felt I should smoke atop it as well.  Doing dangerous things or being high is removed from normal perception.  Alcohol has the benefit of legality, but everything else has the added benefit of risk.  The fear of being caught is as perceptually altering as the drugs themselves.  One of my most memorable moments now comes from an underpaid douche in a tricycle and the prospect of my essence smeared along the road.

New York Kill Count
Rat: 1
Small Bird: 3

I'm Covered in My Hair

New York, Pt. 2

I turned twenty-two today and my license expired.  I have to hope that no one looks at the expiration or are sympathetic to my situation.  I'm rarely carded now on account of my beard.  One of Olivia's friends is surprised when I tell her my age because of it.  A few grams of hair seem to add years to my face.

Olivia's friend, Lass Etahae, and I spend the day at the Natural History Museum, and it's awesome.  It's the perfect place to celebrate my birthday: amid taxidermied animals and Teddy Roosevelt quotes.  I'm glad Lass is patient as I nerd out on everything in the museum, explaining taxonomic differences between protostomes and dueterostomes and spewing anything I knew about the animals on display.  It ruled.  All I want to do is talk about biology forever.

After the museum, we return to Olivia's and the two of them fix a simple, home cooked meal.  I like the novelty of eating something home cooked in New York, or maybe I like the fact it's free.  We end the night at a barcade where I spend too much money.  It's a bar with old arcade games and I play a game with someone who shares my birthday.  It couldn't have fallen on a better place this trip.

The next day I get lost in Brooklyn and end up in the Hassidic community.  I go back later to take pictures.  An aryan with a facial hair gets a lot of uneasy glances around that area.  I could be projecting, or taking pictures there isn't common.  I start near a vendor selling materials for the religious holiday, Sukkot.  He's the second person to ask if I'm Jewish.  He says I can't take any pictures of him but I should get some of his wares and company banner.  He hustles me to agree to email him the pictures.  I don't know how I feel about giving him free advertisement after he orders me to take more pictures of his truck, or his bags full of sticks, or the Hispanic goy working for him.  Olivia throws out the paper with his email and I avoid an ethical dilemma.

There are beautiful women everywhere dressed in conservative spotted dresses and scarves.  All of them are with skinny, dweeby guys with curls and trench coats.  Olivia concurs with my statement.  I want to grab each of these girls and tell them how much more fun I am than their religious devotion.  Religious fundamentalism is despicable if only for the fact that it keeps these girls out of the general population.  I understand you're maintaining your cultural population, but at the humanitarian cost of confining these girls to their square clothes and marriages to guys with funny hats.

I ask a teenage vendor about the reeds he's selling.  He asks if I'm Jewish and says he doesn't speak English.  I can't tell if this is a way to ignore gentiles or if he actually can't speak English.  It seems genuine when he stumbles over sentence fragments to talk to me.

Isolation and Identity 

This isn't the first time I've seen complete isolation of a group from society.  In Virginia I went to an Asian buffet and asked the waitress where we were.  She didn't know.  How can someone live in an area and not know what it's called?

On my visit to Chinatown I see a precesion for the anniversary of the foundation of the Chinese Republic.  There are officials waving from balconies, uniformed guards marching with a flag, and onlookers saying things I can't understand.  Some of them seem interested, some indifferent, and the rest annoyed.  I have no knowledge of any of the cultural background information required to understand this.  Within a few city blocks are completely autonomous cultures separate from the majority.  

Most of the Hasids in Brooklyn have lived here their entire lives, but retain the same Central European pronunciations of their grandparents through their insular community.  I can't imagine the kind of confinement needed for that.  I guess at some point it's voluntary based on a cultural pride or lack of desire to assimilate into common society.  Although there are things like Rumspringa and the drug problem with Hasidic teens.  Without adequate cultural exposure, a sudden ability to endulge in vices can be destructive.

I think my confusion comes from my views on cultural identity.  It's not difficult to find people bound to their culture or race.  Ethnicities populate neighborhoods, fly flags and banners, and open a pub.  They subscribe to an identity in whatever word they place before "American" when describing themselves.

My ancestors are from the Midwest, but I'm not.  I have no exposure to distinctly German communities and I'm not sure I'd want to.  "German American culture" sounds boring, and I'm not Irish enough to jump into the drunken mob of half Irish who cry whenever they hear The Pogues.  I can't appeal to any cultural identity of my own.  Even my living in Florida makes me question my identity.  I've been raised in a state in the geographic South, but not The South, constituted by an urban majority of people from the North.  I can't even follow any demarcations across the Union.  I'm a Yankee to Southerners and not included in the South by Northerners.  I'm a non-regional American with no significant identifiers other than being from the East Coast.  That's why I took this trip, because fuck the West.

I've come to accept that my identity is one of a generalized American, lacking any connection to some country or ethnicity beyond that.  I'm from Florida and share the same cultural experiences as any white, middle-class kid from the suburbs, save for some environmental variation.  Anyone who watches media relating to an American experience not tied to a specific region has a direct exposé on what I and millions of other kids grew up in.  I used to despise the idea of this commensurablity with a white-bread generalized majority.  It's my identity, accessible though it may be.  I don't feel the need to do the typical thing of ethnocentric people and reduce my identity to what fraction of my genes are from which plots of land.  I'm not one thirty-second Cherokee or Czech, as though that would matter.  I'm not Irish or German enough to give a shit about either.  I am distinctly, categorically, and completely ordinarily American.  Maybe that's boring, but shut up, because you don't know shit about where I'm from that you didn't get from the T.V.

Brita Water Filter Juice

New York, New York

I ride through Newark and understand a little better people's opinions of Jersey.  My own doesn't change. I take the train into New York.  It's a short ride past huge swaths of graffiti and exposed stone from where they blasted away the hillside.  It looks like a geology presentation held together with mesh wire and then vandalized.

I'm not able to find a subway station with an elevator before rush hour.  I ride from Manhattan to Brooklyn completely geared up.  I'm staying with Olivia, my roommate from last year.  I meet her other friends who are all coincidentally staying with her at the same time.  They're neat and mature and I dig that.  We go to a bar where I realize I haven't eaten much that day and am starting to get sick from a contaminated joint in Philly.  The next day I feel worse and am glad for the reprieve from riding as I accompany Olivia and her friends around the normal city sights.

I visit Occupy Wall Street.  It's crowded with shirtless hippies, idealistic students, and teenagers trying to get laid.  There are piles of clothes and cots set up as makeshift homes for the protesters.  Scattered imagery of peace symbols and Che Guevara abound as an off beat drum circle lets out periodic yelps from its performers.  I run into an acquaintance I knew from Orlando who came just to be part of the protest.  There are a few people who seem knowledgeable about the issues with informed opinions, but most look oblivious and are just groovin' off the positive vibes and chakras, man.  It feels like Burning Man but with T.V. cameras.  Police surround the barricade of protesters, each carrying a dozen plastic restraints, while annoyed businessmen glare at the crowd from the boundary.  I've already expressed my thoughts on protest, but the whole event seems ineffective.

In the subway station a man kicks over a panhandling drummer's collection tub and the money lands on the track.  The panhandler follows the man who ignores him.  The drummer is funny and talks shit well.  New Yorkers aren't mean, they're just forward.  I'm staying in Williamsburg which has a drastically different population from Manhattan.  I've seen more trendy people here than anywhere else, many of them fashionable in ways I can't even comprehend.  I saw a guy with a curly quiff and unkempt beard wearing a punk shirt and dirty work overalls; I couldn't tell if it was ironic or what he genuinely liked.  I'm not sure what to make of these people.  Either the hipsters here are on some next level shit or will inevitably be embarrassing tarnishes to family photo albums.

Irony

I'm writing this from bar in Williamsburg.  It's exploiting my basic desires: every beer I buy gets me a free pizza while a show about bikers plays.  A lot of the people here seem genuine about what they like, but every now and again someone passes in front of the bar in an outfit I can't imagine as being worn with genuine intent.

One of the pervasive characteristics of my generation - or more specifically hipsters - is their reliance or propensity toward irony.  Rather than become apathetic and morose about the perceived futility of modern life, this group embraces things not valued by the majority of society.  Dorky glasses and NASCAR shirts are hiptacular.  Obviously untrendy by definition, the ironic designs taken by hipsters tend to be tacky in such a way to make a statement about the person for whom the design was originally made.

Life is futile and sincerity shows you aren't aware of that fact.  Instead of the angsty, emotional, reactionary rebellion of grunge, indie culture uses irony as its crux.  I'm not sure what started this initially, but as is the case with myself, it makes complete sense if irony is a defense mechanism of nerdy kids.  You can make fun of someone for being sincere, but if they do it first it takes the sport out of it.  Saying you already know your outfit is stupid makes it more difficult to criticize.  But from this comes weird confusions of what is sincere from meta-ironic.  Is this art legitimately good or good by pain of it being legitimately bad?  It's hard to keep up with what to like for itself or for the sake of irony.

Maybe it's a response to modern culture.  Like some stupid Warholian reasoning of common society constituting what is cool, but not for the reason they think.  The welder in Minnesota thinks that wolf shirt is appealing and says something about him while the hipster feels the same because of the welder.  It's an expression of intellectual superiority as the welder won't understand what the hipster wears, but the hipster thinks he does.  Vintage shops are popular spots because of the old, lame shit they have, so hipsters can buy it and compliment each other about finding such a boss Sweet Tarts belt buckle.  It's tacky and garish but shows your devotion to finding cooky and obscure shit.  I want to say it's banal and bullshit in a contradiction that would highlight exactly what I'm talking about, just toward hipsters rather than the majority.  It's mostly bullshit, but what else do you do?  Wear sports jerseys or utilitarian beige?  It's not opposed to society, but based off it in a different way than normal.  Society then bases itself off of alternative fashions which leads to the indie alteration of those, potentially spiraling into a circle of bastardization that hopefully won't lead to something as grotesque as the 80s.

Yeah you, twat.

I hate having to figure out what the basis of my motivations are, so I generally assume they're sincere.  But even in my writing I second guess my thoughts, or something.  I think it's easier to confuse people about your reasoning when you don't understand it yourself.  My sincerity might only be to the irony that identifies me as a hipster.   It could just be tribal mechanics funneling people to stick with their cultural clade.  I wonder what clade the guy with the poofy, curled mohawk and capris fits into other than "unemployed shithead."

I talk to a twenty year native of Williamsburg.  We walk around and he tells me about the development of the neighborhood.  He points at an expensive coffee joint that used to be a metal foundry.  He deems its patrons twats.  I run into similar twats later, walking near the abandoned sugar factory discussing urban planning and how the land is best divided.

The gentrification here is shameless with million dollar lofts feet away from rusted junk yards.  I don't know how I feel about it all.  Obviously it's an awesome place with lots of cool places and people, but the migration here was caused by a desire for culture.  Once the neighborhood is gentrified and reassigned as a hip place, it loses that initial culture in exchange for that of the migrant horde's.  That's all good, but the original culture upon which the migration was based withers and disappears.  It's some sense of living in a place that's "real" or just not suburban.  Nirvana, or Rage Against The Machine, or whatever bullshit counterculture bands became just as commercial as any of the shit they rallied against.  So why fight it?  Embrace the mundane consumerist culture but do so with a sense of understanding and pretentious superiority.

It took me coming to New York to buy a shirt from Orlando.  It's a tank top from Universal Studios with a design they haven't used since the early 90s.  I would never think about wearing a Universal shirt now with a  current design, but this appeals to me with it's outdated neon colors and the way it shows off my farmer's tan.  There's something about it being old and not currently worn by the people who would've originally bought it that makes it attractive to me.  Or it's the fact that I wouldn't have worn it in its own time.  I guess it's ironic.  It's cool because it's lame.  I'm never sure, though.  I envy those deities who are able to operate on four meta-levels of irony, while I can barely maintain the one.

Bitchin' Miata, Bro

New Brunswick, New Jersey 

I've not gone far into Jersey, and granted I haven't seen Atlantic or Jersey City, but it doesn't seem so bad.  I mean, I get it, there's a lot of urban sprawl, but good Christ, for the collective shit people take on Jersey you'd think it wholly composed of rapists.  Parts are pretty and parts are poor, but on the whole I see little difference between it here and any other state.  I understand it's not the best, but she ain't so bad.

My friend grew up in this town.  The people here are either Hispanic, or hate cyclists, or both.  I don't realize I can stay with my friend's family until I've arrived at my host's house.  The host and her roommate express themselves through internet memes and loud 90s pop music.  It's intolerable, but they're nice enough.  I go to bed early, sober, and having no great desire to spend more time with those giving me shelter.

Nostalgia 

Hurray!

For my hosts, these banal 90s hits are humorous and attractive.  It recalls for them a time less predominated by responsibilities or obligations.  No one in the house was past middle school when these songs were released.  It's not the songs themselves but the feeling of nostalgia that comes with listening to them.  I'd like to say it's ironic but I think it's more infantile.

Before heading to Tampa to live, I sat in my Oldsmobile in an old chiefing spot in Orlando and smoked   It had been years, and I'm not up to date on the latest state dependent memory research, but not long after partaking I was overcome with intense nostalgia and a sense of deja vu.  My nostalgia wasn't limited to the thoughts and feelings of the previous times spent there, but to the nostalgia I felt at those times too.  It was less about the emotions I felt each time than the similarity between them at different instances.  It's an enjoyment about how at different points individual characteristics vary, but in essence I'm the same nostalgic stoned dude in the same spot I had been before.

The difference between my hosts and I is that I'm aware of the comforting role nostalgia plays in my thought process.  They think playing Destiny's Child and N'SYNC at the same decibel level as a jet fighter is legitimately entertaining in it's own right.  The comfort here is in recalling a more childish, less responsible period.  I get it: you guys like shitty pop music, but simply alluding to something doesn't make it funny, and remembering your childhood won't make your current responsibilities disappear, you fucking babies.

New Jersey Kill Count 

Bunny: 1

Chipmunk: 2

Dog: 1

Mouse: 1

Opossum: 1

Skunk: 1

Small Bird: 5

Squirrel: 2

Turtle: 1

Unknown: 7

The Point is that Clamenza is a Fat Fuck

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

Mr. and Mrs. Wernak give me an apple from their tree in the backyard.  I've never had one better, but it could have just been that I was hungry.  It lacked pointy bits and I can totally conceive of someone eating the entire thing.

Going to Newark yesterday I had to cross a narrow, two lane dam shooting loud torrents of water down some fifty feet.  It was terrifying and beautiful.  Today I had to cross a mile long two lane bridge into Philadelphia and there was no beauty about it.  The slums here are different than those in Baltimore.  It's possible they're just less pervasive or squalid.  Philly is overrun with homeless crust punks with dogs, though, so I guess they have that going for them.

I don't have a place to stay and begin my quest to find one.  I ask around and go to hip places.  By sheer dumb luck I run into Philip Lahaed.  He's dressed in a cycling outfit, as am I along with my geared up bike.  We start talking and he tells me he's taking a tour down to Florida and then over to New Orleans.  He's excited to be able to put me up for a few nights.  He's a weed dealer bike courier and I'm amazed at my luck.  He's an organizer for the Philly naked rides and doesn't hesitate to change in front of me.  I wish it was cool to get naked around other people.  I think I just want to show people my dick.  Philip complains about his current situation:  he's boning this girl but it's not really substantive or emotionally engaging.  I argue eating anything is better than going hungry.  Unbeknownst to me she is my waitress the next day.  She's filet mignon and apparently not the only course.

On my second night Philip dresses in extremely short khakis, black leggings, and a neon orange jacket.  We ride our bikes around much of Philly's empty streets making deliveries.  He went to the dentist that morning and needs to have some extensive work done, which means spending a lot of money.  He's going with two others on his tour and is nearly broke.  He calculates that he'll be able to spend about six dollars a day.  I'm averaging twenty between major cities and thirty to forty a day in them.  His trip is going to be radically different than mine.  Philip seems very smart and plans to get his M.D. and Ph.D. but currently attends a community college.  I wonder about who is smarter.  I can't tell if I'm thinking too much into it or he knows something I don't.

Intelligence

Aristotle said that there were three kinds of motivations: for wealth, for gratification, and for wisdom.  Wealth is simply another form begging of gratification.  Gratification is fleeting, temporary, and probably not virtuous.  Seeking wisdom is the best for some reason, but I always figured it was Aristotle being self-congratulatory on account of his seeking wisdom.  I think that might be the case, but he could have a legitimate point.

Without getting into whether intrinsic value can exist to begin with, I find myself judging more complex systems as more valuable.  That is, regenerative or reproductive processes become more valuable as they stack upon one another, if only based on their statistical rarity.  Psychologic processes are based on biology, based on chemistry, based on physics in that if any simpler system stops functioning so too do the complex systems based on it.  Sapience is more valuable than solely life, but life more than chemistry.

It could be egocentric, but I think intelligence different than any other adaptation, such as sight.  Intelligence is self replicating and self seeking, whereas sight can become more precise or expansive but not self replicating, unless you could have some sort of weird sight that seeks to see.  Frank Yang argues that consciousness could be something that existed before the universe as a way for it to comprehend itself.  I don't agree, but it's a neat way of thinking.

If a machine was made with the sole purpose of becoming more intelligent it's conceivable that if its physical form remained intact, and given the necessary resources, it would be able to increase its knowledge indefinitely.  It would never reach any one underlying truth of the universe because of infinite regress, but it could follow the same pattern of creating a new system at a certain level of complexity in the system prior.  The concept is easy to grasp, but the content of this new formation is impossible to determine.

As humans dependent on biologic forms, it seems unlikely that we'll ever attain this hyper intelligent state.  If we are, however, able to create a machine that could exponentially increase its intelligence it would lead eventually to a level of replicative complexity currently unimaginable.  Possibly anthropocentric, it's disappointing the thought of humans reaching their pinnacle in artificial forms, but the intelligence inherit in us finds the whole of itself more important than that of its biologic container.  As a cell dies for the body, so too can the biologic for intelligence.

I have a discussion with a graduate of Harvard and MIT about systems and their applicability to most things.  He's writing a book about the nature of systems both biologic and physical and how they can be used to solve practical problems.  I'm able to talk to him and understand his cognitive process.  I feel from him no condescension nor pretension as we discuss cerebral, subversive media and how a sense of fear in safe situations allows for a change of perception.  The difference between us is the same as between Philip and I: we keep up knowledgable conversation in spite of our different academic records and backgrounds.  Philip isn't less intelligent than me and I don't feel significantly less intelligent than this MIT guy.  We are able to retain a normal, intelligent conversation without any patronization nor large gap in understanding.  I begin to think that an academic background does not determine intelligence, only the raw amount of information one has.  Our separation in academia originates more from our initial motivation and foresight rather than pure cognitive capabilities.

In his own way, Philip is more knowledgeable about himself and what he's doing than some of these uptight, overachieving pricks getting straight As at John Hopkins.  They've worked for a grade, unquestioning of its significance since kindergarden.  Philip goes to community college because of poor performance before, but seems to know exactly what he wants and why.  Work ethic be damned, he's more knowledgable at least about his motivations than some of these to be lawyer shitheels.

Machines may obtain a greater factual intelligence, but wisdom seems to come from understanding one's motivations for doing what you are.  And have you ever seen The Terminator?  Robots are goddamn terrifying.

Pennsylvania Kill Count 

Cat: 1

Dog: 1

Mole: 1

Opossum: 1

Turtle: 1

Unknown: 3

Baleen Whales Vomiting

Newark, Delaware

It's been cold and rainy since I entered Virginia.  The Northeast hasn't been helping me to like it.  The cities are cool, but Jesus, stop it.

I arrive and am welcomed to Newark with heavy accents and a quiche.  My hosts Mr. and Mrs. Wernak are polyglots from France and Columbia respectively.  We go see a long and slow Korean movie at the university theater.  It's attended entirely by Olds.  The average age was double that of my hosts.  Mr. Wernak is a professor getting his doctorate in mechanical engineering and wears his jacket inside out.  We discuss cultural and linguistic differences and they tell me Americans hug a lot.  I fucking love hugging and do so frequently.  I ask them if their thoughts are ordered in a certain language.  I'm unable to differentiate between my thoughts and language as I only have the one.  They conclude they do not unless they have to express the idea in that language.

I make a point to hug them both before I leave.

Delaware Kill Count 

Mouse: 1

Small Bird: 1

Snake: 1

Araby

Baltimore, Pt. 2 

It's starting to get cold and I'm questioning my logic in traveling North in the winter.  It's raining and windy and miserable like D.C., but the atmosphere seems more appropriate here.

I ride around the city.  I'm unimpressed with the aquarium, a result of fishing around a peninsula my whole life.  I make desperate, last minute bids to find the living equivalent of my fears toward women.  Having given up I go to a diner for a burger and milkshake.  I recognize one of the waiters as the bassist of the girl's band; the very same who I thought cockblocked me earlier.  I tell him about my journey.  He tells me the girl I'm looking for dates the keyboardist.  I request he tell her I came to Baltimore with the intention to ask her on a date or tell her she was cute.  I regret doing this before my food arrives as I have to sit awkwardly and exchange awkward glances with him.  I'm relived.  I never had a chance with her so I don't feel like the attempt was a personal failure.  My opinion of the bassist is also altered.  I thought he had cockblocked me, but now figure he didn't want to change plans with his host in Tallahassee.  Even considering the outcome, I feel accomplished for finding an unlikely connection in a big city.  I imagine I've made someone feel flattered, or at least mildly uncomfortable.

It's difficult for me to describe the depth of love for my hosts.  It's a lot.  After three days and a few nights I feel like I've known these people for some time.  Linden, the host with dreads, verbalizes how it's odd I'm involved in their lives here for a short time.  I try and explain that these quick forays into others' personal lives are the nature of the trip.  That being said, every time I get comfortable in a place it's difficult to leave.  I'd always like to stay longer, but have to remind myself it's a trip and not a migration.  

Marie, her friend, and I get stoned.  I watch her friend attempt to eat an entire apple from the top down.  He's a big, gay dude born in Germany with a proclivity towards Grey's Anatomy.  From my understanding, in Germany eating an entire apple is commonplace and the norm.  I argue that you can't eat an entire apple on account of its pointy bits of bone around the core.  He can't eat the entire apple because of its pointy bone parts and says it's a weird apple.  I eat an almond to see if I'm still allergic, as I found at the beginning of the trip.  I am and my ears and throat itch for awhile.

On my last night in town we go to a party full of art students.  It's large and boisterous and the cops arrive quickly.  People from the party follow us back to the house and establish a new party there.  Not long after the same cops walk into the house and break it up.  Linden and I talk to the cops.  She might have come off a little lippy to the cops who become a tremendous shitheels.  They take our information and make threats of fines and jail time to me and the tenants.  They mention my legal culpability being the only of age person there and thus responsible for anything that happens to anyone.  After Linden's roommate and I calm the cops down, they leave giving us a warning.

Before the cops have left the door, Linden is crying into my shoulder.  Her roommate returns from locking the door and we console her.  She says it's her first experience with cops.  We explain that you have to be obsequious as it's important for them to feel powerful.  She says she feels bad about my being threatened with charges and would have paid any fines.  I explain things like this make the trip interesting and that I was aware of the distinct possibility of my being arrested along this trip.  Linden has lost her phone in the confusion between parties and we go looking for it.  We don't find it.  I stumble through an apology about the band girl and go to bed. I don't make it clear I felt bad because I had I crush on Linden.  I'm not sure I expressed this to her well or at all during my stay.  I wonder if I purposefully sabotage myself in these situations so I can romanticize them later.  She says she'll read the blog.  It doesn't take much courage to tell someone you like them over the internet.  Sorry dude, but I was crushing pretty hard on you for the whole stay.  I figure I've either now doubled the number of girls in Baltimore who think I'm flattering or creepy or halved it.

Linden gives me peach cores to plant along the rest of my trip.

Sophogyny

Being raised by a single mother has made me equal measures feminist and misogynist.  Value can be attributed to anything, but from a biological and reproductive perspective, women have a greater inherit value than men.  That does not imply that men are devoid of value; theirs is determined by their utility to women.  Women's sexual success and evolutionary worth are found simply in their existing.

This doesn't mean that women can't be funny or clever, but it's not necessary for their reproductive success as is the case with men.  Men - aside from physical prowess or stability - are measured by their mental alacrity.  All of these characteristics, however, are tied to the service they provide to a mate.  The difference is the most attractive human man is not always the brute alpha male.  It's become more important for predominantly monogamous humans to look to traits fitting for child rearing and stability than just fighting back that fucking panther that won't leave us alone.  In both cases the female retains the right to choose.

It's contrary to the current conception of gender roles and probably the reason I don't get laid.  I don't do the normal, patronizing mutation of self required.  Instead I preemptively put every girl I meet on a pedestal.  I feel like it's demeaning to pander for sex and probably not fair to the other person.  In other words, I have placed myself in a perpetual friend zone and will never bone down again.

I'd like to say that it's more important to get into a girl's head than her pants, but I don't usually agree with female intuition.  I've never valued sex highly enough to let it change my personality, which means I don't get it as often as I'd like.  Being yourself is supposed to be an attractive quality, but it's less so when yourself doesn't get laid.  Normally I make fun of people for seeking personal validation by serial dating, as if filling a void  of some strumpet will fill a personal void in yourself.  I don't usually feel the need for a relationship like that, but on this trip I am definitely searching for validation.  I don't care if other guys think what I'm doing is neat, I need a girl to take notice of the fact that I'm in awesome shape and am doing a stupid, ridiculous thing.  I worry that my chances on this trip will reflect my chances upon my return, and that bothers me.

If nothing else though, I think I like Linden because she likes my music.  I ruminate on what I desire in a women and usually think intelligence or attractiveness is the deciding factor, but the real determinator is whether they like my music.  It's a more fundamental expression of my tastes and personality than anything else; a shared interest in that usually means a commonality in other things.  A girl that likes the same pattern of chords as I is more appealing to me than some stuffy cunt that doesn't but can understand my heady philosophic bullshit.

But good God, these girls don't know what they do to me.

Maryland Kill Count 

Deer: 1

Dog: 1

Frog: 1

Monitor Lizard?!*: 1

Opossum: 1

Raccoon: 1

Rat: 3

Small Bird: 3

Snake: 2

Unknown: 4
*Based on later research I think it was an otter.