Cousin Sighting

I saw a cousin last night, and thought I'd share:

I was driving, Kyle was riding shotgun, and Matt was in the backseat. He had a laptop case with weed in it. As we pulled into a parking lot, our cat slid through the open window and escaped. Someone had left a holigram running in the parking lot, and Matt didn't realize it was fake. It was a woman dressed as a nurse and she was asking Matt what he thought about this kitty (motioning toward a holigram cat rubbing up against her leg). I can't see her front but I know she's a kitty porn video, and I'm laughing at the look on Matt's face cuz he still doesn't know its fake. Then I'm gripped with horror at the thought of there being kitty porn people nearby while our cat is missing.

The dream also included a hotel that could blast into outer space like a rocket, a suggestion from our friends that we meet up in Jersey for a wedding even though none of us have anything to do with "Jersey", Owen Wilson as a lifeguard at the pool I belong to (which is in an occupied zone, or maybe a green zone right near battle lines, I could watch bombs and planes and then go swimming), a bat belonging to Owen which I found laying in a bell, exhausted and perhaps wearing shorts, and which I returned to him, and a clarification of the term "Morty" as in "Show it to Morty and he'll show it to God."

Taliban Grace

Anyone drop like a fly at the marathon? Sounded brutal.

Lucy

Call that a depressing Personal Profile?

Underweight yet flabby MWM with terribly itchy eyes seeks like-minded MWM to commiserate over total lack of time to do anything but clean up after messy babies and do laundry once in awhile. No fatties.

Personal profile

SWM. Overweight. currently in the middle of midterms right now. Per Rubb's request has been listening to a ton of Toots on Pandora. Recommends RJD2 station for some chillout study music. Recommends repeating in mantra: there is no limit to how much information I can put in my brain. Best studying gets done when he goes to the library stacks where all of the old books are, he finds it inspiring. For those of you who care, is currently enjoying a cocktail of an anti-parasite medication, an anti-biotic medication, a pro-biotic medication to enhance naturally occurring bacteria, and Prilosec for stomach acid. All-in-all he still prefers gin. Believes Millennium Cousin award should go to Deekyle for their Youtube webpages, modern building pictures, and thousands of other electronic-savy contributions.

Rubb, I accidently left both of the Peru maps at your house. Do you have them? Can I have one? I will listen to your previously posted music selections.

happy birthday sean, etc.

today we celebrate the one year anniversary of sean becoming a person and dee having probably one of the stranger birthdays of her life. happy birthday sean and dee and almost kyle.

www.flickr.com/photos/seanmsmith

true story

the year was 2003. i was probably high. our chinese food had arrived with a small chinese food box full of awful pastries. The word COMPLIMENTARY was written on it in large letters. we had been having very minor problems with our neighbors, mainly them just banging on our wall when the music was too loud. there was only one logical solution.

so i pooped in the box. climbed up their wall and put the box full of pastries and poop on their balcony.

one member of this blog has the necessary skilles to repeat this experiment. climbing skills, neighbor problems, and experience pooping in a box.

that is all

Sean dancing...

...and his mom at the same age...

Moving beyond the previous post

If one were paying attention to the news lately one would notice that the media is reporting on an armed gunman running around Madison threatening to kill. This is, again, an example of there being nothing else to report on in Heartland, USA, and the media blowing it out of proportion. A depressed kid called a suicide helpline and threatened to kill himself this somehow turned into a Virginia tech-esque madman.
In other news my stomach is fucked up. It has been since Peru. I am constantly talking to doctors. All that we have come up with so far is that I can't drink alcohol, drink coffee, or eat anything that is not sawdust. For those of you who didn't know my habits before, they were as follows: binge on whiskey, binge on coffee, then over-eat Mexican food. This new diet strays from my intuition. I was fortunate enough, however, to take a chit in a large plastic container and spoon it into four tiny little vials. The procedure goes against everything that you have learned since you were an infant: Don't play in your own chit! Bryan would have puked just chiting into the larger cup.
My apartment is awesome. I put together a rocking chair, stained it, sanded an end-table, and stained it. There is something incredibly mind numbing about doing minor woodworking. I highly recommend it. Two other stress relieving techniques that I have found are listening to Milt Rosenberg of WGN radio and Pandora Radio while I shower. If you haven't tried Pandora you should now. Fall is coming!

420

Congrats to Kyle for the 420th post. Fuck yeah, getting stoned kicks ass!!!!!

Bits of Kyle

About a month ago our car was broken into while it was parked at the Detroit airport, just days before our move out to Boston. My CD collection was swiped, and the thieves were nice enough to scrape and bend the door and window frame before busting out the window. A nice Detroit-style “good bye” for us.

Ok all of you architecture junkies, what do you think of this building? I walk past it each day. I have mixed thoughts. Mostly “Bitchin!”, but also a little “Wahhh?”, and occasionally "Hmm, I'm strangely aroused."

We live next door to the most popular sandwich shop in Arlington, MA. The sandwiches are delicious and so is the convenience. It’s trouble.

My favorite new food is a whoopie pie. It treats me well.

Am I sweaty and stubbly enough for you?

Green Lake Chillin

BLOG SAVES BOY, BOY NO LONGER TALKS TO HIMSELF

Like a lunch-less portly fellow reaches for puddin'...
Like an AIDS patient scratching his splotchy skin...

I reach for the blog!

Viva el Tequila!

Alright, I'm finally settled down in Boston and I'm back in the blogging spirit.

Let's get this train a-rockin', cause blog come a-knockin'!

Errr...

Yeah!

Blog Salvation

First off, I'd like to congratulate Dee for her new job in her new city. I'd also like to offer congrats to Rob and Jake for taking the next step in their respective educational pursuits. Also to Kate for entering into her final year of school at DU and Molly for being the last cousin in high school. You guys are all smarter than I. Kyle I have no idea what you're doing but kudos for whatever it is, whoever you are. Maggie is also doing something very cool but I don't know if I'm supposed to tell anyone yet although Bryan knows so I'm sure everyone else does.

Anyway, the point of this post is that the blog is in miserable shape and I'm vowing to do my part to rescue it. I'm going to employ a three part plan:

Part 1: Begin with a new blog name to be unveiled later this week.
Part 2: Recruit as many cousins back to the blog with.......
Part 3: .....the promise of a very clever, possibly hilarious post.

So to anyone who may possibly still be reading this, the blog is back on and even if I have to do every post myself it will survive. It has to!

PS- Just so I don't get shit for omitting anyone. Congrats to Bryan and Adam for setting their respective wedding dates and securing future cousin parties. Yay to Jeremy for continuing to keep it real, assuming you still are. And a shout out to Kerry and Ryan for being fellow pot smoking parents.

I GOT A JOB!!!!

I wasn't going to apply for anything until next semester, but an opening came up at Boston University and I gave it a shot, so...I got a job! If the blog weren't in such disrepair, this might not be worth a post, but tough shit, you get to hear about how I got a job!!!!

This be the place: http://www.bu.edu/celop/

I'm gettin $60 an hour to teach a language I've spoken my whole life. Fuck yeah. This is why I don't moan about paying taxes.

On my way to campus I sat next to a guy who just got back from Iraq (Rimaldi) that day, still in his uniform and carrying his duffel bag. He was a Navy SEAL, and pretty high up in the ranks. He just had to talk - HAD TO - about all the weird shit he was going through, and all I could think about was that scene from the beginning of Apocalypse Now where Martin Sheen goes nuts in the hotel room until he sees some blood. He was itching to get back already; I felt bad for him. My cousin's boyfriend is also back for a few weeks, but he's only been there since March and seemed much more well-adjusted. Hopefully his deployment won't last too much longer.

capitol peak

i seem to have started a slump with my poorly worded attempted praise of america. glad you enjoyed it matt. thought i'd nwo break it with some good old adventure.

jake and i climbed capitol peak yesterday. it's considered the most difficult 14er in colorado, and i must agree after spending 13 hours on it. it's hard to describe. there was probably 4 hours where a single mistake would likely mean death. i'm still rattled from it. while climbing it i asked myself repeatedly why i do these things, but afterwards i know. i believe life must be judged in retrospect, and sitting here in a leather chair enjoying a sandwich and the memory, i'm glad i was clinging to those rocks yesterday. this might be the last of this kind of madness for a while for me. might not.

i wrote a trip report for 14ers.com
http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=3525

how is everybody?

America the...

For many of the previous years I have declared myelf anti-America. I believed we were the center of a growing focus on external wealth and power, the stress capital of the world. And our stress and greed are contagious. We simply should not spend our lives working jobs we hate to buy shit we don;'need, and America's influence can only increase this trend throughout the world. Plus all the small reasons. The war on drugs. The questionable leadership. That we spend so much more on wars than health care. Thet we're arrogant as a country and as most individuals.

While all of these reasons are still present and problematic in my mind, for the first time in my alert life, I now consider myself proud to be an American. Peru was lacking something, something hard to really pinpoint, but something essential. Charisma, individuality, openness, opportunity, hope, and zest are all words that come to mind. The combination of all thse gives us some sort of radiance, a shine to our eyes and smile. The people there were just kind of beaten down and expressionless. It is possible that the presence of a Mcdonalds , once the symbol of our negative ifluence over the world, might actually brighten their faces a little. And there were no Mcdonalds where we were. Our reach is far more limited than I had imagined.

The simplicity of life in a small town with no televisions is a beautiful thing. It's something I had idealized. But the simplicity of life in a small town, with access to information and the understanding that you can leave and pursue something bigger if you wish to is far greater.

Peru2

Where were we...

Despite sicknesses from the other two travelers, one (Jake's friend) of which resulted in a return to the US and some time in the hospital (pollo loco), we did manage to get to that hike outside of cuzco. We traveled uphill along a lush river meadow to about 14,ooo feet, where we encountered a town that didn't even have a road within 5 miles of it. Their 'houses' were made of piles of rocks, the nice ones had roofs made of grass. They spoke Quecha, the language the country spoke before Columbus' "discovery", as did many of the small mountain town people we would later meet. After this difficult 15 mile hike, we got on a bus back to Cusco, which of course didnt have seats for us. It did, however, have a hog-tied goat, a bag of chickens, and a pig in a bag, attached to the luggage compartment (tied to the roof).

We left Cusco and spent a day in Lima. Lima has 8 million people, most of whom are very poor, but we found a cool kinda hippy disctrict. We walked along the beach for most of the morning, and had mystery meat sandwiches. As my cousin showered that afternoon, I wandered out of the hostel and met up with some peruvians and a swede, and within 5 minutes of walking out my door, was staring down the barrell of a cup full of peruvian tap water and san pedro, a psychadelic cactus with mescaline. The swede considered himself a shaman, and proceeded to tell me the way of things for the next several hours, and eventually gave me more san pedro, and a cryptic map to the world he insisted should be tattooed on my heart. He dropped a lot of wissdom, mostly about the power of love and the sun. I liked his phrase "soy un otro tu" (i am another you) quite a lot.

Huaraz was absolutely beautiful. Cool little mountain city. Nestled in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range, the hightest tropical ranger in the world, with a peak towering above it at about 22,000 feet. Found a nice hostel with a great view. Went to a soccer game, whose highlights included the swat team coming out to protect a player on the other team, and a man in the stands near me repeatedly attempting to light a home made celebratory bomb but being too drink to do so. Also sun burn. We then spent 3 days hiking by ourselves, which involved beautiful camp-sites, views of glacier capped mountains and bright green lakes, and making it to 17,000 feet, dominating colorado's highest mountains depsite being only a pass through to the next valley. It also involved repeated encounters with bulls, and a severe altitude induced panic while trying to sleep at 15,000 feet. It was among the worst I've ever felt, definitely the most home-sick.

We then spent some time enjoying Huaraz, and found a restaurant called chilli heaven which was the perfect antedote for bland peruvian food. We wandered into a climbing place at one point, trying to scout out another mountain journey, and walked out with our entire remaining 9 days booked with a 5 day trek up to 6000 meters (about 20,000 feet) that included another 18,000 foot mountain, and an additional 3 day training hike. I became quite depressed by the revelation that we would be spending the entire remainder of our vacation suffering up mountains, and we decided to skip the training hike in favor of a night of drinking where we discovered liquer de coca and drank an absurd amount of it. we also drank some coke based energy drinks, as we were apparently in the midst of some strange liquid coke binge. Also a day of rock climbing at a real cool sport, where I learned some skills that might later save my life, and a short day hike to another beautiful lake, where we fell asleep because it was after the night of drinking. Also considerable dreading turning to excitement over the summit journey.

Summit Journey:
Day 1, easy 4 mile hike up to base camp with mules carrying our shit. Turns out the guide is a big stoner. Decent weed. Base camp is above 14,000 feet, and has something like 50 other tents, yet every dingle person there was asleep by 7pm. Tocllaraju towers above us.
Day 2. Climb mt. Ishinca. 18,000 feet. Very very very hard. hardest thing i've ever done. leave at 4 am, 7 hours up hill, either carrying a bag of metal, or using it to climb. deep breaths stranglely unsatisfying. none of our equipment fit properly, and the metal spikes that attached to our shoes (crampons) were surprisingly difficult to maneuver. We made it though. The view from the top of the other glacier mountains made it almost worth it, but on the way down, hurting like hell and left behind, I decided I didn't want to climb the 6000 foot peak, it just didnt seem as fun as drinking more san pedro with my friends in huaraz. upon arriving to the bottom, and experiencing some heaven in the form of my feet dipped in the cold stream and an orange, eaten like an apple, I decided I might as well go for it.
Day 3. Even worse. Hike the incredible steep and rocky path up to high camp (17,000 feet). By far the biggest backpack I've ever carried, food, tent, sleeping bag, clothes, ski boots, ice axes, crampons, climbing shit... fuckin sucked. Decided again that I was going home, i just didnt have what it takes. Decided again that I might as well make a run at it. Needed to fix my mind though, replenish my strength reserves. Spent the next several horus sitting bymyself in my rented down turqous and pruple coat, melting bags and bags of snow, repeating to myself that I would make it, I would make it, I would not be deterred by exhuastion. Whirled myself into quite an excitement, and slept only about 2 hours that night. Felt ready.
Day 4. Up at 4, prepared to suffer, completely ready, composed, willful. We find a slow hiking rhythm in the dark, going so slow that you almost rest while walking. the slightest move, such as pulling up the harness, leaves you exhuasted for several minutes but you keep walking. I alternate between thinking of the bed, complete with naked kelly and feisty doggy that await me, and the idea that it is my swarn duty to push my little headlight spot on the snow up the mountain, while singing Tribe. Push it along, just push it along, all you gotta do is push it along... The sun rises, we're about half way there, and i'm starting to run out of energy, I can't eat, but I'm close. We keep pushing it along, and arrive at the last pitch, which gives Toclliaraju its "Difficult" Rating. over 60 degree angle for about 80 yards. We can hardly hear the guide's instructions for tying our harnesses into the rope over the howling wind, which scared my cousin like crazy, as he works in a climbing gym and understood just how many fundamental climbing rules we were breaking. I was just happy to be almost done. We climbed up the wall, clinging to the moutnain for some 15 minutes in the middle as the guide pulled up the rope we had just clmibed and set it up again near the top. My cousin had another big freak out after seeing the poor excuse for an anchor and nearly headed down 30 meters short of the summit. But we fucking made it. I kissed the snow at the top and nearly cried. cousin was deeply shaken, convinced we were lucky to be alive and going down would be even sketchier. incredible view. survive the down-hill, sometimes elated to be done, sometimes completely drained, struggling to take the next step. then we got to high camp, packed our shit, and put those fucking bags back on our baks, and I really didnt think i'd make it down. got left behind again, and kinda fell apart. we were basically jumping from boulder to boulder, down a steep hill, with 50 pounds on our backs and no energy, and I just couldnt do it. I fell about every 10 feet and struggled to get back up every time and wanted to cry. at some point a peruvian porter sees me and offers to help carry my bags, for free, because I clearly cannot. quite a blessing. I tell myself I earned it by going through hell and still trying to focus on enjoying the scenery. We sleep at base camp and I felt basically indifferent. didnt have the energy for emotion. I no longer hated looking at the mountain, became almost infatuated with staring at it, just thinking and feeling nothing.
day 5: back downhill, mules carry our shit, we smoke a bunch, and I say goodbye to the rural peru with aheavy heart. i wonder more about why I put myself through these sufferings, and have a good answer, but thats for another blog. I had (and still have) a very clear mind and increased confidence. That night I met a cute little columbian archeoligist and learned how to salsa dance...

(cant find cord for camera right now, more pics available soon)