Marmalade Daydreams

It's been rather exciting lately, go go go, and i've found myself walking the city streets, ears and eyes wide open, taking in the extraordinary unconscious performance that is New York; new appreciation for a place is always found as one's routines break up -- unfettered by the filters of habit, our senses can freshly perceive data uncolored by schematic expectations. As the summer breezes roll off the water, depositing their moist onus and renewing the City's birthright of uncomfortably humid summers, just payment for construction of a coastal megalopolis of asphalt and steel, they also wipe clean my sensory organs and I hear the City's heartbeat, see her breast gently rise and fall, as for the first time.

Yes, the school year is (thankfully) wrapping to a close -- it's been a great year for me at school [thanks in part to following through on my promise of doing lots of hands-on science activities with my students this year, I have the (sometimes begrudging) respect of four out of the five classes that I teach, which ain't bad], yet it is always a pleasure to feel it wind down, for the countdown to shift from the number of days til summer to the number of periods left (thirteen) until I am again sole proprietor of my days (for the length of two moons' cycles, anyway).

And preparations are thick for another summer adventure -- I have the prescription for malaria prophylaxis (always a turning point in my perception of planning, it makes me realize that i really don't have many days left til i'm on the plane, and that if anything's going to get done, it's gotta happen now. The rough game plan is as follows -- going to montreal for a long holiday weekend (canada day til the fourth) a couple of days after i get back to nyc, i fly out to sanfran, spend a few nights with friends la bas, and embark for (surprise) bangkok. I swear that this time I'm not staying any longer than it takes to get a visa and an overnight train ticket for laos (do you hear me Thai whiskey?). Maybe ten days in the Republic of Lao, spelunking, bicycling, gawking at temple architecture, and reabsorbing the pineapple vibrations of the tropics. That ought to be enough to get my fix, so sometime around the end of July I should be on a bus navigating red dirt roads (well, maybe mud if the monsoon has any say) across the border to China. A month in the Himalaya of Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces -- get some real glacial action before they're gone. Stay tuned, dear readers, and if you've been to this part of the world, why aren't you giving me recommendations? I want to know about Mama's Guesthouse! What's that awesome hike you went on? How do I order the noodle soup? (actually, I know that one -- I point and smile like I'm mentally challenged -- it's allowed me to vault many language barriers).

I still don't know how to end blog entries. You don't say goodbye, right? I always want to wish peace unto the paths of my loved ones. How bout a quote?

"Curiosity is the cure for boredom. There is no cure for curiosity." - Dorothy Parker

Just got home from seeing my friend Pete from high school (he's the second one from the right in the front row) play at the Beacon Theater with Dweezil Zappa, Napoleon Murphy Brock, Terry Bozzio, and Steve Vai and I've got perma-grin. Will have a hard time falling asleep tonight, and tomorrow am planning on doing a lab with the students that requires a whole lot of prep work before hand. I wish my future self luck on that endeavor.

Just got email that my ticket from San Francisco to Bangkok has been confirmed. Doctor will tell me what shots I'll need -- happy that i'll only need malaria meds for a couple of weeks, as I'm planning on crossing the Laos-China border by the end of July and heading for the mountains. Very excited for majestic upheavals of rock, not to mention good food and adventures in public transportation.

Fatigue beckons from her chthonic lair. Be with you shortly, darling.

Delicious. The Goddess giveth, and She taketh away.

It's 6/6/06, a momentous date for those who put significance in numbers (and why not, as our brains are but pattern-creating machines), and I had to convince my students today that it was not the end of the world -- I told them what I knew of Revelations, what with the three-headed beast and the four horsemen and the 144,000 and the streets running with blood; one girl said, 'you're scaring me mr. stein', and i said, 'hey, it's your bible'. if anything, i think I may have inspired a few kids to look critically at the amalgamation of beautiful & bizarre myths called the Christian Bible.

My dear friend Jesse is in town and, while we took thirty minutes to visit our mutual friend Sol in his Crown Heights apartment, Jesse's father's car got towed. This meant that I had the distinct experience of yet another trip to the NYPD's Brooklyn Navy Yard impound lot. I once began to write a piece about this place, as every detail about it screams with the contempt of bureaucratic institutions for the individual, a piece of the Eastern bloc right in our backyard, but I grew too full of animosity to complete it. A few choice details: the sign posted on the inch-thick glass, 'WELCOME TO REDEMPTION', hilarious juxtaposed with the joyless municipal workers and the 'no left turn' sign posted devoid of irony as art on their wall; the stench of the rotting stinkberries rising about you from the blacktop as you wait for the police van (which smells no better) to escort you to your poor car, stranded in a sea of seized vehicles like animals at a shelter waiting desperately for imagined owners; the orange ticket on your windshield, a final fuck you from the authorities after paying one-eighty-five for the privilege of the tow.

But all worked out within our timeframe, and I was glad to be able to share the delightful misery of the place with a like-hearted soul who can rejoice in uncommon pains. I got dropped off at my favorite beerbar up in Williamsberg (yet further proof that the brightest sparks of light flourish within the great darkness) where the brewmaster from Heavyweight, an amazing Jersey brewery, was showing off his favorites on the occasion of announcing the closure of his largescale distribution (though he plans on soon opening a brewpub). Tasty offerings included an herbal 'viking' brew full of fruit and foresty flavors, a smoked ale tasting strongly of coffee, and a porter that reminded me of nutella without the sugar. I met an older swedish woman who's well-traveled, both in internal and external voyages, and we spoke of desert hotsprings and internal martial arts. Lovely.

Anyway, I'm new on this blog scene, without a good sense of how long to make these posts. I'm going to stop this one here. Much love to the peeps, had a great time up at the Hamilton 5 year reunion (saw good old friends, laughed with and about people i haven't thought of in years, and stuffed myself well with the incomparable vittles of Vernon, NY's Only Cafe), looking forward to Bonnaroo next weekend (music festival in Tennessee with a huge lineup), and to further travels in asia this summer.

Peace.