Midnight Society

Wee morning hours

2012-01-02T18:35:00.001-08:00

It's 5 a.m. In Bangkok and I can't sleep. It's the perfect temperature in Thailand in the wee morning hour before the sun rises; it's still hot and humid but there is a brief reprieve from the sun that seems to be up all day and never offers any shade.

An afternoon in Bangkok is like a day in Maycomb, Alabama, I imagine, except not at all quaint. What was that that Harper Lee said about Maycomb, about black dogs suffering in the heat and the women taking morning and afternoon baths to stay cool? Yeah, it's like that. Excepts everyone suffers in the heat and we don't have bath tubs.

But now it's lovely. The fans are sufficing, which is unusual, and I'm enjoying it so much I'd rather not sleep. This reminds me of those great early summer days in Omaha, like May or June when school just ended and I feel like I can enjoy the weather for the first time. I used to always wake up early and on days like these get up and go for an early- morning drive. I felt like the city belonged to me, with the streets nearly empty. I'd be tuned into KGOR but would be playing it quietly, as if singing Billy Joel above a whisper from a moving car would wake up the neighborhood.

I loved those days. You only get one or two in a summer. And I love today too. I certainly don't feel at any time of day like I own this city, though. Believe me. I have been out on the streets of Bangkok at every hour in all the weather Thailand has to offer (which isn't much), and it always feels like Bangkok owns me.

But that's ok for now. I'm not really in "Bangkok" as it were right now. I am on bed listening to the birds and waiting for the sun to come up. My roommate is asleep and it's the beginning of a new year.

Not a bad way to start 2012. Let's hope serenity is the name of the game this year. For all of us. Happy New Year everybody.

25 things before I'm 25

2011-11-19T20:20:00.000-08:00

After a margarita, a G and T, a sheesha and a chocolate lava cake, my two favorite lawyers and I hunkered down to make my list of 25 things to do in the next year and a half.

Some of them might be a little lofty (#1 Go to Africa, #5 interview Pete Seeger) but they are now written in stone. And by stone I mean they were written on the back of a Dunken Donuts bag.

It's kinda intimidating having goals. In fact, it's usually a goal of mine not to have goals. Like, now that I have them written down I have to do them. And even though I want to do these things, it's scary. Especially the bungee jumping idea.

Ah well, if I don't get them accomplished in the next year or so, they can be moved to my 30 before 30 list I suppose.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to teach me how to cook a meal or how to drive a nail properly it would be much appreciated.

A fleeting love affair

2011-11-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

So I’ve been out of the States for over a year now. And I hear these stories (mostly from Sophie) about this traveler’s passion. Where you fall head over heels for someone really quickly because you are both in such impermanent situations.

Well, I was super jealous of Sophie and all of the other backpackers I saw falling in love in hostels and on beaches.

I’m not so jealous anymore.

As it turns out, the impermanence of the affair is pretty painful.

As you can probably tell, I met a boy. And he was nice. And now he’s gone.

Rather than going into the probably all-too cliché details, I’ll make a hodgepodge of lyrics from my favorite songs (you can click the numbers to listen) to explain the last few days of my life. And then I’ll probably jump out of a window.

1. Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Who?
2. Getting to know you, getting to know all about you. Getting to like you getting to hope you like me too
3. I got a girl and I kissed her and then, oh Lord, I kissed her again. Oh, oh, kisses sweeter than wine. Oh, oh, kisses sweeter than wine
4. I’m so glad, I am so glad, I’m so glad I don’t know what to do. Would you be my little darlin’, would you be my dear, would you be my darlin’ be my dear?
5. You’re a flower that is blooming in the wildwood, a flower that is blooming just for me.
6. Baby please don’t go. Baby please don’t go. Baby please don’t go down to New Orleans, you know I love you so, darling please don’t go
7. Oh no, I can’t believe you’re leaving me. Stay with me, baby. I’m asking you, begging you please
8. I’ve never seen a night so alone, when time goes crawling by… I’m so lonesome I could cry
9. You gotta give a little, take a little and let your poor heart break a little. That’s the story of, that’s the glory of love
10. We’ll meet again. Don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again some sunny day

I'm off balance, Indonesia told me so

2011-10-06T04:52:00.000-07:00

So there I was, stumbling through a public park, my friends gently trying to assist me from getting from point A to point B. I was hardly able to take a step without losing balance. I know what you're thinking. I was drunk. Like stupid drunk. Like probably-should-go-to-meetings drunk. Well, you would think that, wouldn't you? And you would be wrong. You should be ashamed.

No, if helps the story, I might add that I was blind folded and there were dozens of other people there too.

It was Ollie's and my last night in Yogjakarta, my only night out in our 10-day whirlwild tour of the JRS projects in Indonesia (you guys rock, by the way). It was a brisk evening and the staff, God bless them, took us out on the town. We had dinner which was the best (and that is not an overstatement) duck i have ever eaten. Forget the forks, we just ravaged those birds like it was our last meal.

Then they took us to the town square.

If you can imagine dozens of golf carts covered in cartoon characters made of colorful rope lights, then I will not need to provide a picture. That's it. Golf carts and tandem bicylces all covered in rope lights for tourists to hire and ride around this tiny section of green space.

So we get there and Lars, a JRS guy, tells us that is tradition to blindfold oneself and to try to walk through these two enormous Banyan trees. Apparently people have been doing this for years but I don't exactly know how it got started. I imagine some enlightened Buddhist monk with a long beard first told some foreigner to do it to balance his chi or something. Or perhaps that's form a Karate Kid movie.

Anyway, we have a go. I'm up first because I stupidly am always game for everything. Walk in a straight line with my eyes closed, I thought. How hard can that be?

So JRS people blindfold me. I have the tree in my mind's eye. I can see myself walking through the two trees an making my wish. Ah yes, I forgot. Apparently you get a wish if you do this.

The first thing I notice is, not only can I not walk in a straight line with my eyes closed, I don't trust myself to walk at all. I am about to fall over with every step because I can't truly believe there is ground under my feet without seeing it.

But I keep going. And going. Until they just tell me to give up.

Now one might think that people would barely miss the trees. Or maybe run right into them. They are big honking trees, mind you.

But no, I walk straight for maybe a few steps and then somehow make a 90 degree angle and walk parallel to the trees toward the street.

And so does everybody else!

Now, I don't know the science or spirituality behind this, but something is off. Only one of the six of us made it through three trees. None of the rest of us came close. And some of those people were born and raised in Yogjakarta and have been trying for years.

So, in case I needed any sign from the heavens that my inner-balance is way off, I got it.

Thanks a lot, Indonesia.

Why Ricky Cheffer is the smartest person I know

2011-09-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

From a Skype conversation Sept 14, 2011

Molly

I am saving my money. I need to live on $60 a week

Not eating anything over $1.

Ricky

umm

is that...feasible

Molly

yeah

in Bangkok it is, sort of.

Eating less, eating a lot of rice.

Ricky

ahh

rice is nice

it will suffice

meals thrice

mice with dice?

that's my advice

Molly Mullen in a nutshell

2011-08-29T02:35:00.001-07:00

So I was perusing design websites the other day and I came across this award for best promotions. Usually corporations win it every year, but last year some guy won it for self promotion. He put together a really well designed packet for his resume and clips and whatnot.

I stole his idea and made the above PDF to go into my next job application, whenever that may be. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Alaska, in retrospect

2011-08-27T08:28:00.000-07:00

I learned a lot in my few months in Alaska. Like, don't moon the whale-watching boats on the weekend when the neighbors could be watching... I think it takes a year or so removed to see how an experience changed you. So here you go, a brief retrospective on my time on Shelter Island.

Two cool things happened to me there. One, I met Rick and Karen, the folks who own the farm. Secondly, I got to know my best friend, really get to know him, for the first time in the 20 years I've been friends with him.

But from getting to know them, I got to know a lot about myself. I always joke that what I learned in Alaska was how truly bad I am at outdoorsy stuff (no one up there would disagree) but I got more out if than that simple realization.

Let me give you a little context. We'd wake up and have breakfast, the three of us WWOOFers and Rick and Karen. Then we'd work. Usually just splitting and stacking wood or wood chipping or whatever else they could find for us to do. Then lunch, more work, then quitting time.

That, of course, was my favorite time of day. After work and before our dinner feasts. It was quiet for the first time of the day. The sun would start going down behind the mountains. Rick would pick up his guitar and play. In between playing, I'd get to hear him talk. About music. About his book collection. About moving to Alaska. About life.

If you're ever up that-a-way, have Karen tell you about the first time she heard Frank Zappa's "Dinah Moe Hum." Or have Rick tell you how he came to write his own verse to "You Can't Always Get What You Want," if he'll tell it.

I always knew I wanted to be a reporter but I couldn't articulate why. Spending a summer in a place with no distractions, and no opportunity to report on anything, I figured out what I love so much. I love listening. And I have been blessed to meet so many people worth listening to.

Right before Ricky and I left the island, Rick said that we weren't great WWOOFers. We weren't bad, but "we didn't really experience the magic of the island." I don't think that's true. Sure, I didn't hike around or fish in my off hours. I am the world's worst kayaker. But I got at least a little magic while I was there. I think Ricky did too. Just our own kind of magic.

Sitting in the wood-fired hot tub, Alaskan pale ale in one hand next to my best friend, watching the sun set over the mountains and the whales swimming by, that was magic enough for me. It's the only time where I had nowhere to go and nothing to do and was happy as a clam in the moment.

This city is trying to kill me

2011-08-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

Alternate title: How Doc Holliday is keeping me from quitting and moving home. Alternate alternate title: Fuck Bangkok.

So, I am writing this spiteful blog post from my bed, where I have been lying nonstop since Friday after work, except for two food runs and a quick trip to the hospital where they told me I have a throat infection.

I've had aches and a cough for the past day or so and my loathing for this city is growing with my fever.

But, I have made a significant dent in the new book I am reading, "They Call me Doc," a biography of Doc Holliday, who alongside Wyatt Earp and his brothers, fought the Cowboys at the O.K. Corral.

So when my throat got sore, and my temperature rose and I got all achey, my first thought was, "I have tuberculosis just like Doc!" followed by my second thought, "I have dust pneumonia!" It should become clear to you, the reader, with this insight to my thought process that I have pretty much been living in books for the past few weeks.

But reading these books is teaching me something. They are reminding me to tough it out. Don't let anything take me down. Nothing as measly as a polluted, superficial city 14-million strong can defeat Molly Mullen.

It's like the motto of the Last Man's Club, the men who signed an oath never to leave the panhandle of Oklahoma, no matter how bad the dust storms got. "Grab a root and growl." This was when they were eating mostly roots, beans and canned tumbleweed. Well, I too am grabbing a root and growling. If by root they mean chicken and rice and by growling they mean coughing.

Or as Doc Holliday supposedly said, "Die with your boots on. Die standing up. Die standing for something."

Well, I don't exactly stand for something at the moment. I'm not really standing at all (ahhh, I crack myself up). But these men and characters in these books have become my closest friends lately. And my other friend, Woody Guthrie has been playing on a loop with his "Dust Bowl Ballads," so I am taking their advice.

When I recover from this consumption, ok ok throat infection (sorry for the melodrama), I am heading back into work, I am going to continue to live my life here until my time is up. Because it can't defeat me. No matter how hard Bangkok tries, I ain't quitting.

Or as, the Last Man's Club would say, I am staying "until hell freezes over."

If anyone needs me, I will be in bed watching the commentaries on Jason Segel movies and listening to This American Life. Feel free to drop by. Room 104. It's unlocked.

You're invited...

2011-08-19T02:12:00.001-07:00

I was going through the fonts on my computer and for some reason several of the fonts reminded me of The Shining. So, I made an invite to the Overlook Hotel using fonts that I could probably never use for anything else.

A little background on the invite. The picture is of the Stanley Hotel, where Steven King wrote some of the novel. The bottom part is pink and gold because those are the colors of the ballroom and Wendy's "favorite colors."

Thinking about FDR...

2011-08-13T04:38:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading "The Worst Hard Time," A book about the Great American Dust Bowl, Yes. Carol, I was supposed to read it in your Advanced News Reporting class and didn't... I admit that. But I'm making up for it now.

Anywho, I'm getting to the part where Franklin Roosevelt brought the New Deal to the Great Plains. He saved our banking system, by backing up people's money with the Federal Reserve. More close to my heart, he plants trees throughout the Plains to try and keep our states from blowing away. His famous first 100 days were the kind of progressive action we were all hoping Obama could muster. I've seen those trees those trees that were planted. They have become part of our history.

So while I read this book, my close kinship with Nebraska is getting tied up with FDR for what he did for the Plains.

But while I read, I also remember going to a lecture by a historian who wrote the history of the American Civil Liberties Union. After taking us through a short history of breaches in civil liberties throughout the century, he stopped and asked us who was the single worst president for US civil liberties....

Well, he concluded, it would have to be Franklin Roosevelt. Some presidents suppressed freedom of the press. Others allowed Joseph McCarty to blacklist free thinkers. Nixon was just a (tricky) dick to anyone who spoke out against him.

But Roosevelt actually supported the Japanese Internment. More than 100,000 Japanese people, mostly US citizens were taken from their homes and put in camps during World War II.

Yeah, no duh, I know everyone knows this. But it's a weird quandary for me.

I mean, how much good can one president do in order to make up for that? How many jobs must you create or farms must you save in order for history to view you as a good president (seeing as how history only views presidencies in black and white)? Because in my mind, Roosevelt did the single worst thing a president has ever done (imprisoning tens of thousands of US citizens without cause based on race) but also did some of the best things in our history.

So that's what I'm struggling with while reading this book. I am trying to grapple with the idea of a man who was a savior to so many but at one point was ruthlessly un-America, whatever that means.

I guess at the end of the day, that's just it. He was a man. And we often expect our presidents to be something else. He was just a man. And this is just a book. And that was just a question.

Spontaneous Spelunking

2011-08-05T01:12:00.000-07:00

So it was our last day in Laos. We had accidentally slept 18 hours the night before and only had a few hours to do anything before catching our bus. We heard of this place called the Blue Lagoon outside of town and hired a tuk tuk to drive us there in the pouring rain.

After paying a few bridge trolls hellish fees to cross the river and having to switch tuk tuks because ours was falling apart, we drove through the hillsides of rice field and limestone cliffs like something out of King Kong's lost world or something. Except instead of a giant ape trying to kill us, it was a fat tuk tuk driver trying NOT to kill us, avoiding pot holes in the dirt road that had turned into a mud pit.

After a few miles, he backed up into this little bridge over a brown muddy creek. "Blue lagoon," he said, pointing. Damn. We miscalculated that one. It was neither blue, nor was it a lagoon, technically. Well, when in Rome...

So we paid the final BT the 10,000 kip to get over the bridge and decided to go wander around a cave instead of swimming in this lagoon in the pouring rain. We rented a head lamp (because we were too cheap to pay the extra dollar for two head lamps) and headed up this cliff with small stairs carved into it and loose bamboo railings leading us up to the entry. The stairs had become a small creek in the rain and it was probably my bad to attempt this in my flip flops and swim suit.

We made it onto the cave drenched, and were both immediately blown away. It was huge. It was like nothing I've ever seen. And of course, we had no camera on us (so these pics are from Google). We made it into the foyer of the cave, whatever that is called in spelunking terms, and there was a beautiful reclining Buddha there to greet us.

After that is was just darkness, with signs pointing us in one of two directions, "slippery," and "not slippery," or "danger." So we kept walking, climbing and slipping around until the darkness swallowed us, leaving us alone with our headlamp and instincts. My instincts, of course, led me to walk towards the sign that said "danger." Tom's instincts were to lead me away from there.

But it was crazy. Bats sleeping on the ceiling hundreds of feet above us, rain water dripping in rock formations that looked like monsters in the light.

Once we had enough of that kind of thrill seeking, we continued the adventure of trying to make it back down the cliff in one piece.

Back at the bridge, soaking wet, sweaty and nearly late for our check out, we decide just to jump in the lagoon. I mean, why not? It was freezing with rain water and although it looked like a small creek, you couldn't touch the bottom, even when canon-balling off the tree that stretched over.

Quick swim. Ride back to town. Check out of the hotel and make it to the bus just in time. And then we wait. 20 minutes. 30 minutes. An hour. Apparently things don't work exactly on time in Laos.

And that's when I check our 8 p.m. train tickets to make sure we'll make it on time. And there, under departure time, where an 8 should have been, there was a 6. Oops. There goes our train tickets.

Fine, mom, you were right

2011-08-04T00:05:00.000-07:00

So we arrive in Vang Vieng, what some sites call one of the most dangerous cities in Southeast Asia. Tom, my friend from grade school, and I are dropped off on the edge of town, at night, in the rain. No hostel or tourist in sight. Are we in the right town? Are we going to get murdered here?

So we walk. And we keep walking. Tom keeps asking Laotians who don't speak English where we should go. But their guess is as good as ours.

After a few turns down several roads we spot it. Neon lights and drunk tourists. We have arrived.

We park ourselves at a restaurant, bust out a little Connect Four laying on the table, order dinner, Beer Laos and ask for the cheapest hostel around. Luckily, the owners of this restaurant were cool and gave us the low down on a city and country that we didn't even bother to Google before we left.

Vang Vieng. Known for its limestone cliffs and it's drunken spring-break-all-year attitude. Most bars have "happy menus"

with magic mushroom pizza, weed garlic bread and opium tea. But mixing that with a tubing down a river with a fast current could leave people not so happy.

So yeah, mom, I listened to you. Tom and I were the only squares in town because I always remembered you telling me over and over again NEVER to mix drinking with swimming. So I expanded that to NEVER mix intoxicants with bodies of water. Check.

So, we stayed out of the water for the most part. We watched Brits and Canadians doing tricks into the river and swim to shore for a quick shot or a quick puff and jump back into the water that apparently is rife with pink eye. We decided not to become part of that crew. And Tom decided he didn't want to be the one to call my parents to tell them that I died by drunkenly falling off a water slide or careening into a tree from a rope swing.

So we mostly stayed inside and watched the rain. Played Boggle. Helped come up with questions for a Pub Quiz. Watched a bit of "Friends," which plays on a loop and most bars in town.

So there you go, mom. Making somewhat mature decisions, given the circumstances.

Bussing it in Laos

2011-08-03T02:25:00.000-07:00

It was about two hours into the drive, as the rain was setting in and it was getting dark, that I remembered Ollie's warning, "Molly, Laos is one of the most dangerous countries for bus travel. Don't travel on the local bus. Don't travel in the dark or in the rain." Oh shit.

So there I was, stuck in this apparent death trap. Tom, my traveling companion, is comatose at my side and I am preparing for death. When we finally arrived in Veng Vieng, I was surprised to be in one piece.

Now, this bus wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen. I mean, it looked good enough when we boarded at 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon. Sure, some of the windows were held together with duct tape. And yes, some seats weren't exactly upholstered, per sey. And, ok, it had seen better days. But I figured that being the only Westerners on the bus made us more local.

Nope, just stupid.

But we were fortified with baked goods and and Irish coffees, so nothing could get to us... even good judgement.

I was kind of "over" this bus thing when the chickens got on board. We stopped for about half an hour so people could load a dozen crates of hens and half a dozen crates of roosters on the roof of our beloved bus. At that point I was falling asleep, with my arm out the window, letting the drizzle cool me down in the Laotian humidity.

Well, after a bump in the road, I woke up with an arm covered in rooster poop. God, this bus ride isn't worth the money saved on a regular bus. But, the joke is on you, chickens. I'm going to eat you and your family for dinner.

So, like all my near-death experiences, I always think, "Hey, at least you got a blog post out of it."

Founders and greats of rock and roll: part 2

2011-07-28T00:29:00.000-07:00

These next two influencers of rock and roll are both as influential musically as they were socially. And their contributions to folk music made the 1960s America a world-class melting pot of folk tunes and ideas.

Harry Belafonte. I , as most people I know, first knew of him from the "Beetlejuice" soundtrack. But in 1956 his "Calypso" album was the first LP to sell over than a million copies. So I guess, all those suckers born back in the day knew him from that. On that album, he sang "Matilda," which is much better heard sung live than on the album because he made it a career trademark to have the audience participate in the song. He also sang "The Banana Boat Song" first on this LP. Fun fact about that song, the first time he ever sung it live on TV was on The Muppet Show, which kind of warms my heart.

Harry's music brought Caribbean music into the States to a wide audience and people began to listen to him. So he started talking. He raised funds all over the place and has been an activist in the environmental and anti-war movements ever since. And he can still sing, man. This one was drawn on the back of a receipt.

Pete Seeger. I know. I write about him too much. But he fits in here, when we're talking about influencers on rock and roll music. In 1936 he joined an arm of the US Communist Party and collected music to sing at union protests, migrant rallies and anti-war functions. He was edgy before it was cool to be edgy. He was called in front of Sen McCarthy and HUAC and blacklisted at the height of his early career. But he kept on singing. Or as he wrote to me in a postcard, kept on keepin' on.

On his banjo, which I was lucky enough to see for myself at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland (I know, why the hell is it in Cleveland?), he wrote "This Machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender." It was a response to Woody Guthrie's "This Machine Kills Fascists," which was written on his guitar. And I think these two statements really show the difference between Pete and Woody. Woody wrote something big, brash, slightly reckless and really catchy. Pete, wrote something longer, more thought out and ultimately, more easily to forget. You can hear, in all of his songs, from children's folk music to protest songs to pop covers, both honesty and true, palpable love in his voice. I drew this one on a packet of guitar strings.

I got to see him sing at President Obama's Inauguration and ended up in tears when he and Bruce Springsteen sang "This Land is Your Land." Apparently Pete insisted that they sing Woody's lesser-known third verse to the song about the evils of private ownership of land, and the more protest-ful fourth verse and the failures of government:

As I was walkin'  -  I saw a sign there

And that sign said - no tress passin'

But on the other side  .... it didn't say nothin!

Now that side was made for you and me!

...

In the squares of the city -

In the shadow of the steeple

Near the relief office - I see my people

And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'

If this land's still made for you and me.

My homage to R. Crumb

2011-07-12T02:35:00.000-07:00

So R. Crumb, the world-famous comic book artist, musician and music-lover made a book of his favorite blues, jazz and country artists, imaginatively titles, "R. Crumb's heroes of blues, jazz and country."

Lucky for me this book fell into my hands a few years ago (in that I stole it from a friend) and I devoured every page, every image and every song that came with the book. Thanks R. Crumb. And thanks to my friend who I stole this from, who shall remain nameless lest he or she realizes it's missing.

On that CD was Blind Willie Johnson, who I have written about before, among other people. Man oh Man, can that guy sing. On an episode of West Wing they talk about how his music is on the space shuttle Voyager to bring the blues to extraterrestrials. Check out the clip here and tell me you don't want to listen to all of his music.

Anyway, I decided that as an homage to R Crumb, and everyone in that book, I would draw a few of my favorite musicians. A nice notebook costs about $30 here. So in lieu of a new notebook, I have made my own out of scraps that I've acquired -- cereal box cardboard, receipts, a soap container, and a McDonalds bag that I, uhhhh, found somewhere...

So here you go: my first installment of Molly Mullen's founders and greats of rock and roll.

So Jack White in an interview was talking about his musical inspirations. He said he remembers when he first heard Son House and thought, "I didn't know you could do that with music." Well, that's how I feel about Leadbelly. When I was 15 Abby made me her annual Christmas mixed CD, which is always the best present of the year. It was Christmas Eve and it was snowing (which is unusual). We had a fire in the fireplace and things were winding down. She put the CD on and after hearing Pete Seeger and Joan Baez and others, Leadbelly came on. And I remember thinking, "Whoa. I didn't know you could do this with music." And he's been a hero ever since. He is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his contributions to the evolution of rock and roll, as should most 1930s and '40s blues musicians. This one was drawn on a McDonalds bag.

Son House man. He kills everything. It's hard to tell which is more moving, his guitar or his voice. It makes me want to move back to Mississippi. It makes me want to move back in time. Alas, listening to his records will have to do. I'd recommend listening to this one about three beers deep with the lights and AC off, laying on the floor. But that's just me. This one was drawn on a soap box.

Not a lot to say about Woody Guthrie. You know all those punks and hardcore rockers with that "I don't give a shit" attitude? That "screw the establishment" freedom of expression? Well, Woody did it first. And he did it better. He would walk off TV sets if the the producers were too bourgeois. He's ride the rails to find work that suited him. He'd write some of his greatest songs while getting drunk with strangers on a dock somewhere and never write them down. Just let them evaporate like the whiskey. His machine killed fascists. On top of being a punk, Woody is my idea of the quintessential American. Tough life. Outspoken. Loves the country enough to change it. This one was drawn on part of cereal box.

I heard someone the other day call Buddy Holly a 1950s pop idol. Jesus, man, does that make him sound lame. Please, this guy was no Justin Bieber. Buddy Holly is a rock-n-roller. His music was banned from white radio stations in the 1950s. He partied hard and died young, as good rock stars are supposed to do. If he is so 'poppy' then why would Modest Mouse cover him? Or why would Florence and the Machine cover him? Why would Patti Smith cover him? I rest my case. This one was drawn on a bookmark.

Last but not least. Cash, Johnny. His name is synonymous with badass-ness. I drew an early JC on the picture, with his infamous photo in the background of him giving the camera the finger. Hard rocking and redemption. That's the Johnny Cash story, and the story of rock and roll when you think about it. The man in black will always be one of my favorite musicians. Because he is the most honest person I know. The way he writes and portrays himself. The way he goes whole hog into "Cocaine Blues," and can turn around and put the same intensity into a gospel song, it's the opposite of posturing. He allows himself to be contradictory. He is one of us. This one was drawn on a McDonald's french fry container.

Anchor babies

2011-07-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show - On Topic - 14th Amendment - Equal Protection and Due Process
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So I was recently talking to a friend who is trying to get refugee status for her and her newborn so they can be resettled to a country like the US or European countries or Australia or wherever is less awful than Thailand.

"It's not for me. I can survive anywhere. But think of my daughter. She is stateless," she said.

Her daughter was born in Thailand. But the mother is from Ethiopia. Because she was not born in Ethiopia, she doesn't have an Ethiopian birth certificate. And because her mother is not Thai, she does not have a Thai birth certificate. A woman without a country indeed.

Stateless? Stateless, I thought. How in the year 2011 are children born stateless? It sounds to me like a problem that should have been solved by now. There I go again, having too much faith in humanity.

Well, mark that down for one more thing I take for granted in the States. Well, that and Heinz tomato ketchup. Every restaurant I go to in Thailand, I expect there to be tasty Heinz tomato ketchup on the table, and I am frequently sorely disappointed. But that is besides the point. I'm here to talk about statelessness and the good ol' US of A.

While I know that my home country (isn't it nice to have a home country?) has some major things it needs to work out domestically, and a plethora of problems abroad, it gets mad props from me for two reasons. We resettle boat load (pun intended, take that Australia!) of refugees, and we assure that babies born in the US are therefore from the US. No statelessness here, folks.

Having a home country is like having a home base in tag. I know I can run there whenever I need to and feel safe. And while it's exciting to run away from there every now and again, it's just as exciting to run back.

So there you go. God bless the United States for being just that much better than Thailand on domestic policy. Now if you could please just get your shit together on this and this and this and this and this and this. That would be great.

Drawin'

2011-07-06T01:08:00.001-07:00

This is Valeria. We work together. She begrudgingly let me draw her when we had nothing else to do.

Well if that doesn't just sum it up

2011-07-02T02:18:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading the last chapter of this book about protest music, and what do I find? I paragraph about Nebraska's own Conor Oberst. Take a read:

A few weeks later, the young Nebraska singer-songwriter Conor Oberst debuted a new song, 'When the President Talks to God' at New York's Town Hall. It is not, to be frank, a great song, -- it is callow, overstated and clumsy with anger -- but that very failure of poise spoke powerfully to Oberst's young, liberal audience. 'I can't think of too many occasions when I felt an audience so engrossed in the drama of a song,' observed critic Rob Tannanbaum, 'and I don't know if I have ever seen a singer project as much sincerity. There was a point when I thought he was going to start crying.'

Well, doesn't that just about say everything there is to say about Omaha in 2004?

I don't give a diddley bow what you think of my guitar!

2011-06-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

Picture, if you will, a 23-year-old American girl using a large wooden phallus (in lieu of a hammer) to fix a nail into place on a piece of wood she tore off her bed frame (that belongs to the apartment). If you pictured that, then you pictured the latter part of my Thursday night.

So I saw the above video on Monday. I proceeded to do two things. One, download all of the Jack White I could get my hands on. And two, build a diddly bow.

Well, as easy as he makes it look in the video, for someone who doesn't have scrap wood, strings, electric guitar pickups, etc. lying around, it becomes a bit more complicated. Well, doing anything in Bangkok is complicated.

So I Googled how to make one. I knew I wanted it to be suuuuuper cheap and I wanted it to be electric. In all the videos they say, "I just used this electric pickup off one of my old guitars and soldered the wires together! How Easy!" My thought was, "Uhhhh, what's a pickup and how the heck do you wire one?" Clearly, I'm at square one here.

So I Googled guitar repair shops in Bangkok. I saw one listing for a place called "Rockabilly," described as a hole-in-the-wall, middle-of-nowhere homage to Elvis. This was my place. Of course, there was no address, just a phone number of some guy who would meet me in front of a hotel on his motorcycle and take me to his shop.

Sure. Why not? At least I'll get a story out of it, if I don't get murdered.

So that's what he did. And I get to his shop and realized that "hole in the wall" was an overstatement seeing as how there aren't really walls. It's more of a stand, an old work table and guitar parts strewn about. But I knew I was where I belonged when I saw three photos of Elvis with the King of Thailand hung up. I have the same photo blown up to 5x6 ft on my apartment wall.

So I tried, in my most basic English, to explain what I was buiding. "One string?" "Yeah, and a pickup fastened to an output cable." "That's not a guitar. Why do you want that?"

Good question. Because I'm bored. And lonely. And I want to make noise.

So he and his assistant (who he calls "boy," even though he's a grown man) proceed to dig through drawers looking for rusted old pickups that might still have some life left in them. The found one that works and said they couldn't give it to me because it wasn't very good. "I don't want it to be good. I like that one." They looked at me and kept working.

I sat at Rockabilly with them for the better part of an hour while they hooked me up and then promised to bring my finished product back to show them.

Now all I have to do it build it... and learn how to play it. But I'm sure that's the easy part in comparison, right?

Couch surfing is nowhere near a dating service

2011-06-29T02:06:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, couchsurfing is a web site where strangers get to know other strangers by crashing on their couch for a night or two. It's a great way to travel cheap. On the couchsurfing site, it says in bold letters, "couchsurfing is not a dating service." Yeah, yeah. But if I could get a date out of it, I wouldn't be opposed.

Well, that was nowhere near in the cards for me.

Richeff and I surfed on our Great American Road Trip last summer in California, Oregon and Montana. We had a blast and keep in touch with our hosts.

So, like an idiot, I decided to pay the hospitality forward and let people stay in my cubicle of a studio apartment. And I now know that there is something worse than being alone. It's stuck being around couchsurfers who aren't the definition of a good time.

The first surfers I had were a couple from India who seemed pleasant enough. I went out to dinner with them one niht and then gave them the key to my place to stay while I was working in Mae Sot. Well, while I was in a dusty border town, saving lives and contracting Dengue, these two decided to commence in the strengthening their relationship bonds in my bed every night. I know, I know, what could I expect lending my apartment to a couple who only recently fell madly in love. But what added insult to injury was that these two love birds peaced out of my apartment before I got back and didn't even wash the sheets! Come on. Those love birds are horses of a different color. I mean, not to be to graphic about it all but as it is said in Dr Strangelove, there were some "precious bodily fluids" in places.

So I shook it off and thought my next surfer would be better. A Chinese guy. He called me up before 7 a.m. becaues he decided he couldn't (or simply didn't want to) find his way to my apartment, so I had to walk to the skytrain and get him. He proceeded to stay for six days and give me constructive criticism on a regular basis. On how I should have healthier water bottles. On how the vinegar I use to wash my face doesn't smell good. On how I act too much like a boy.

Thanks, brother. How would you like it if I came to your home in China, stayed for free for six days and ragged on all your stuff? It also turns out he was a bit of a racist and misogynist. Double fun!

Then, until last night I had three women from India. The "Debbie Downers." They couldn't find things on their own, they got lost, they didn't want to go into this big, scary city alone. They decided that India was better, prettier and more fun. Well, the joke is on them for leaving home then, I guess.

So I have officially made my sacrifice to the couchsurfing god. I have one more ocuple coming next week and then I'm throwing in the towel.

I'm sorry. I wanted to be worldly. I wanted to be cool. But it's just too much work. I quit.

But if you know of someone cute and single who is traveling through Bangkok sometime soon... I might get back in the couchsurfing game for that.

The art of being alone

2011-06-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

So I have been waiting for awhile to try and think of witticisms about Dengue Fever. And I am still at a blank. I didn't really gain anything from the experience and it turned out not to be a very interesting story. I was miserablly uninteresting for two weeks.

I did learn how to shower with one hand plugged into an IV. I learned that real best friends will internalize disgust when I'm talking about suuuuuper personal things with the doctor. I learned that there are only so many ham and cheese sandwiches one can eat in a week.

But really, the best lesson I started learning over my two weeks was how to be alone. See, I spend a good amount of my time trying to ensure that I'm not alone. I let socially deplorable couch surfers stay with me (next blog topic). I spend weekends at the office if I know someone is wrong. I let my heart skip a beat when I hear the sound of someone signing onto Skype. There is something wrong with ennegaram type 7's in that we're so busy being social butterflies and making sure that people like us, that we don't actually know how to be when we're alone.

But over my two weeks of being sick, I had to learn how to sit all day and all night with relatively no one around to talk to. This was a scary prospect. Usually the longer I spend by myself, the sadder I get.

So I sat. And sat. And sulked. And slept. And sat some more. And came out on the other side alive. Alive and alone, which I never thought was possible.

And I didn't actually lick it. I still hate being alone. But it's nice to know that my world won't self destruct if I have to sit by myself. So I've been doing that a lot lately. I recently came across a whole load of new music, so I guess I'm not really alone. I have Jack White to keep me company.

Yes, I know I'm pathetic

2011-06-17T02:37:00.000-07:00

Apparently there is this new life-changing series of iPhone apps. (I know, oxymoronic, but bear with me) With this new “Augmented Reality," you can see what is going on in your general vicinity: what people in the next apartment building who I’ve never met are tweeting, what restaurants are within walking distance, and what stores are having big sales. How did I ever survive without this?! It’s like the fun and excitement of walking around outside without having to bother with leaving my room.

Alright, you get the idea. I’m not exactly sold on this Augmented Reality business. But Ollie was so gung-ho about the whole thing, that I listened to what he had to say. At the end of the conversation, with me refusing to accept this new reality, he chalked it up to me being a luddite and moved on.

But that’s not exactly true. As much as I’d like to refuse to believe that I allow new technologies and arbitrary Internet trends to invade my consciousness, I can’t. I am not that pure.

Just yesterday my friend from back home, Ward, posted a news story about Omaha pastors who are preaching that being gay is not sinful. God bless them. Well my friend who is happily and boisterously conservative, posted this to his Facebook, commenting that it’s a sin to be gay and these preachers should not be ignoring this Old Testament Biblical fact (again, oxymoronic, I know).

Now, as Ward and I disagree on almost everything politically (and apparently religiously) I always post snarky comments on his hyper-conservative Facebook musings. I can have a laugh that we are so different and move on.

But this time I got sucked in. Facebook sucked me in. The Internet. Not proud to say.

I ended up reading the five million responses to his comment. Of course, being his friends, many share his view that being gay is a sin and you love the sinner and all that nonsense. As I read through the comments, I felt myself getting physically upset. My heart started racing, my palms got sweaty, I started shaking.

It’s as if I had never been aware that there were people out there in Nebraska who hold these beliefs.

My question is, how did I let myself get so involved in this conversation, clearly not targeted to me? How did I let these strangers have such an effect on my afternoon?

Facebook, man, gets you every time. The Internet has a way of scrambling my priorities. There are very real things when working with refugees to be angry about. But somehow I managed to get myself worked up over a Facebook stream.

So I’m tainted. I am ashamed to admit that Facebook affects my day.

But, I have never downloaded an app, retweeted or hash-tagged anything. And I have yet to augment my reality.

I’ll try to keep it that way.

In the mean time, I’m going back on Facebook to read people’s posts about painting their toenails, cooking mac and cheese or whatever they think is important enough to broadcast to their friends. And I will think it’s really, truly important information to have.

Kinda like rediscovering music

2011-06-08T05:06:00.000-07:00

(I would read this blog while playing this song)

You ever hear a musician that has been around (or has been dead) for years and think, "Whoa, how did I miss this guy?" It's kinda like discovering music all over again.

A brief background:

When I was interning for the Seattle P-I my sophomore summer of college, I spent a few evening shooting the breeze with Regina Hacket, the art critic for the paper. On her desk she had a picture of Woody Guthrie, smoking with his guitar displaying his famous slogan, "This machine kills fascists." I told her how much I love Woody Guthrie and she gave m the picture (which I still have).

Then she said, "I remember hearing his record for the first time and thinking 'This is music? I'm on board." He was who introduced her to the subversive, sexy world of music. She asked me who "got me on board" with music. Buddy Holly. Without blinking an eye.

I remember going with my dad to see The Buddy Holly Story at the Omaha Community Playhouse in sixth or seventh grade and falling in love with Buddy and rock and roll. My life has never been the same, obviously. Like everyone else on the planet, I grew up on rock and roll and it was Buddy Holly's ballsy guitar that started it all.... or whoever the guy was playing him at the Playhouse.

Fast forward.

I'm in Bangkok. In bed. With Dengue fever. I watch the Fantastic Mr Fox for the third time and wait until the end of the credits to find the song that they play during the dance scene at the end of the film. "Holy hell," I thought. "This guy sounds like a mix between Buddy Holly and the Beach Boys."

It was the Bobby Fuller Four, mostly a one-hit wonder for "I Fought the Law."

I spent the rest of the afternoon looking up everything I could find on him and downloading his tunes.

It turns out, like Buddy, he was born in Western Texas and worshiped Buddy Holly. Well, anyone who worships Buddy Holly is already on my good side.

So after Buddy died in 1959, Bobby Fuller, continued his legacy of early rock and roll, West Texas rockabilly style. He did so, with little encouragement after the British invaded, until his death in 1966 at 23 (same age as Buddy, oddly). He made most of his money doing Buddy Holly covers, but he slipped a few originals onto TV and records.

I don't consider myself a Buddy scholar or anything, but I know most of his tunes by heart and don't listen to him so much anymore because I think I am OVERfamiliar.

So I am so excited to find Bobby Fuller, who is like a reintroduction to Buddy Holly.

I would like to introduce you now as well. Three point five readers, this is Bobby Fuller.

1. "A New Shade of Blue" Now if this doesn't sound like anything but an homage to Buddy Holly's "Lonesome Tears," I don't know what does. They way he punctuates his stanzas with that pain in his throat, totally Buddy. And his guitar! His guitar is slow in this tune, but has that beautiful southwestern sound that Buddy perfected.

2. "My Own True Love." This is the southwestern style that so many of the early rockers missed out on, being from Louisiana and Mississippi. I thought Buddy had the market cornered on this. But it sounds like Bobby Fuller learned a thing or two.

3. "The Chase" A departure from his rockabilly style to do an instrumental surf beat that reminds me more of Tarantino movies that Buddy Holly. But you can hear on this track just cool his guitar is.

So that's it. Just figured I'd share my new guy with the world. As always, God bless rock and roll. And, not as often, don't mess with Texas.

What was I writing about, again?

2011-06-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

It's pouring outside. And lightning. It's a storm that, were I back home, would be dazzling. I'd want to sit on the porch and watch it, Coke in hand, with my parents. But, it's a daily occurrence here, so I just move on with my life.

Actually, I'm annoyed at the thunder that is so loud it shakes my apartment and the rain that draws in mosquitoes.

It's strange how something that used to be such a treat now has become a nuisance.

I was going to write about something interesting. Maybe something witty about my two weeks with Dengue fever. Or about that interesting Kurt Vonnegut essay I just read. Or about what I've learned about John Lennon and Phil Ochs lately.

Maybe later.

Right now I'm grouchy about the rain. And lonely. Worse than lonely. Afraid of being alone.

Well, time to watch Planet Earth, be dumbfounded by the greatness of the world around me and wish with my everything that I simply wake up in Omaha, Nebraska.

Looking for God in all the wrong places

2011-05-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

"Can a massage cause and irreperable harm?" craaaaack. "Can a massage KILL you?" craaaaack. "God I don't want to die here."

So there I was, getting the most painful massage in my life from a hulk of a Thai woman, trying to mind-over-matter myself out it, when, in a more gracious moment that lulled me into a false sense of security, she asked me about my tattoo.

"What is your tattoo?" craaaaack. ("Oooowwweeeee. God, if I survive this I'll do anything. I'll start going to church again. I'll stop rapping ODB in front of Jesuit novices. I'll stop cussing at those goddam cats that are infesting my building. Just let me liiiive.")
"It's from the Bible, about helping the poor," I said, hoping that would soften her heart enough to take it easy on me.
"Oh. Is it the time like on a watch, Mt 19:21?"
"No it is a chapter, a passage, like a page number."
"Is it lucky?" craaaaack. ("Are elbows supposed to crack like that? I hope so.")
"No, not for luck. it's more like lesson."

Then we stopped talking so she could get back to testing my threshold for pain. I was lying on my side while she carved her knuckles into my neck, wondering when the relaxing part was supposed to begin, trying not to be the first (sober) person to puke in her massage parlor, when I thought back to my tattoo. What was the "lesson" etched on my wrist? Not to get a tattoo on whim after a few beers? No, that's not it.

To be honest, I'm not actually sure what I am supposed to learn or reflect on whenever I notice it. The passage is about a rich man who asks Jesus how to get into heaven and Jesus tells him to give his riches to the poor and follow Him.

Well, I'm not rich. And I do follow Jesus (when I'm not in Pattaya). So what do I tell this interrogationist when she is practicing her enhanced techniques to get information out of me?

I guess I'd say that it is just a gentle reminder not to become too attached to things. If I truly want to follow the example of Jesus I need to live without and give what I can to others.

So, fewer spending sprees and massages. That's fine. It'll take awhile to recover from this one.

Let's have a quick conversation about toothpaste

2011-05-10T03:47:00.000-07:00

There I was, hungover, at a friend's house with no toothbrush, looking for some toothpaste to at least make it smell like I'd brushed my teeth (no judgement, you've all been there). And then I see it. Darlie's toothpaste. "Gee, that's looks a little off color... because of it's color," I thought. But I was not in the mood to think.

Then I'm at the grocery store, looking to buy some cheap toothpaste. Last time I bought toothpaste in Thailand, I got some weird sea salt paste. And, of course, the cheapest stuff was Darlie. I picked it up, looked at the smiling black man in the top hat, with the words "Smiling White" underneath it.

Now, the moment of truth, do my morals keep me from buying this minty minstrel paste? Or do I buy it for novelty... and because I'm broke? Well, I consulted my two friends. "No," one friend said. "Of course it's not racist. He's not even a black guy." Yeah, he's not a black guy and I don't have a dental hygeine problem.

So I buy the stuff. It's almost like if a membership to the Klan came in spearmint.

So, as Enid appreciated Coon's chicken in "Ghost World," I can appreciate my new Darlie toothpaste, a toothpaste that makes a killing in Asia, I might add. I get the box of toothpaste home and crack it open, to find Chinese characters on it. Ishow it to my friend, who can read the language and I hear, "Oh no. Yeah, that is racist." What did it say? "Darlie. The Black Man's Toothpaste. Smiling White."

As it turns out, it used to be called Darkie's Toothpaste. Who'da thunk?

Oops. But, I have to say, it's so offensive, I can't not use it. It keeps my tooth brushin' ritual nice and political. In the end, it just matters what my other friend said when I bought it. "Molly, that stuff doesn't work."

That should've been good enough.

Thanks Bob, I guess

2011-04-05T23:34:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Bob Dylan's autobiography for the second time. I don't mean to dwell, but I feel a little abandoned by him. I know, I know, he said over and over again that he wasn't the voice of any generation, and he never wanted to be followed.

But how could you write "These Times They are a-Changing" and not know that you were going to start a movement? He wrote these things, and we got hooked, and pulled out on us. It's like we had all these intimate moments together and now Bob is saying, "Oh, I didn't even know you were there..."

So the book really freaked me out. But he did contribute something to my life through this book: new music. I write down every reference to an artist in the book and I've been downloading some pretty good stuff. Here's my top 5:

1. "Rosie." The song is about a woman named Caroline, so don't ask why it's called Rosie. I've listened to this on a loop all week. Dylan, in the book, was talking about being inspired by field hollers. So I've been youtubing chain gang songs from the Mississippi State Penitentiary and got stuck on this one. That guy's voice should made him a mint, but no one even knows who he is.

2. "Ludlow Massacre." Can't get enough Woody Guthrie. If you thought you'd heard every massacre folk song, there's always another one around the corner! One thing bugged me in Dylan's book about Woody. He went on and on about how he moved to New York to be close to Woody Guthrie and to find him and learn from him. And the book skips and he's visiting Guthrie in the hospital. How did you find him? How did you meet him? What was it like meeting the man who you worshiped for so many years? We'll never know.

3. "White House Blues." I got stuck on Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers lately. I was supposed to be making a good pace through Bob Dylan's list of influences, but I spent a long time listening to and reading about Charlie Poole. He had a special picking style because he broke his thumb catching a baseball without a glove. He payed for his banjo with revenue from a moonshine still and worked most of his life in a textile mill. If that ain't an American folk hero, I don't know what is.

4. "Years Ago." Jimmie Rodgers is the yodeling god. I don't know how he does it. Especially on this track. He would die two days later, but you'd never know it listening to his yodel. When he was diagnosed with tuberculosis he went to New York City to record for his last three weeks. This is one of the few tracks he recorded solo. Sitting, because by this time, he could no longer walk. He died at 35, I just found out. Crazy. It seems like he had decades of music in him. But, I guess that's the way it is. Hank Williams died at 29. Buddy Holly 24. It's like these guys have too much in them to last a whole lifetime. No one could be that great forever.

5. "If I had my Way." Supposedly this is a Blind Willie Johnson song, although Reverend Gry Davis is performing it here. Whatever. They were both blind and both reverends, so it's all in the family I guess. I like all the closeups in this video of they way he picks the guitar. I don't get it at all, but then again, I don't play the guitar. Maybe Rick Bierman can explain it to me.

And, for the record, Bob. You were wrong on two things. "Sometime after that, the song 'Joe Hill' was written. As far as protest songs go, I had heard a few... they were all better than this one... Protest songs are difficult to write without making them come off as preachy and one-dimensional. You have to show people a side of themselves they didn't know existed. 'Joe Hill' doesn't even come close..." he wrote in his book. I don't know, Bob. You'd have to be pretty cold (or a Republican from Wisconsin) not to get chills when someone sings the line in "Joe Hill," "Those who they forgot to kill went on to organize." It's not preachy. It's ballsy.

And the second thing, Bob. Johnny Rivers' version of "Memphis" is not better than the Chuck Berry original. You can just forget about that. Chuck Berry's version makes you want to cry. Anything else is just pop.

Anyway, that's all I got on Bob Dylan. I'll leave him alone now. Apparently that's what he wanted all along.

Meet Mary

2011-03-28T00:00:00.001-07:00

This is Mary. I wrote about her in this story for JRS. After editing out a few embarrassing dangling modifiers, I think it turned out well.

Part Two: the blues

2011-03-10T05:08:00.001-08:00

So, as described in the last post, Bob Dylan likes my blog. Apparently, according to my dream, I wrote a great blog about blues music. Great enough for Bob Dylan to declare that I get the blues. Sooo... I'll try to make that dream post come to life.

... This is tough actually.... How do you explain the blues?

Listening to good, and I mean GOOD blues, I think, is a musical representation of what it's like to watch the sun go down in Mississippi over the river. Its notes smell like exhaust from old trucks and cigarettes from juke joints. If you close your eyes and listen to Robert Johnson or Blind Willie Johnson or Bessie Smith sing blues or gospel, it's... damn this is hard... it's like feeling your bare feet glide over a dusty, unvarnished, hard wood floor on a hot day.

Does this make sense? I'll try harder.

Let me explain. I didn't know music beyond a few tracks on "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou," until I moved to Mississippi. And, like everything else about Mississippi, this music changed my life. It was the first time I ever moved away from home, experienced anything outside Nebraska. And then I heard music. Real music. And it wasn't from a mix, or a link or a PBS video. I discovered it on my own, which is unusual. And I went to B.B. King's juke joint. And the town where Tommy (not Robert) Johnson sold his soul to the devil. And it was hot. And it was humid. And some parts of Mississippi were backwards. But I believed in it. Almost like religion.

Blues music pumps through your veins. You can feel it in your body like you can feel heartache or yearning. These voices will never get on American Idol; It's kind of like (apologies for all the similes) Lynda Barry, Abby's favorite comic book artist taught me. While it's not classically trained or even "correct" sometimes, it's a part of you. And it's in giving a part of you to the world that art is created. That is the blues. One person and his or her guitar, giving a part of himself to me and me experiencing it.

Now, I remember in the dream me listing songs. Because Bob Dylan offered to play "Church I'm Fully Saved Today," because I wrote about it in my blog. I woke thinking, "That's not blues, that's gospel." But it's the same to me, especially when blues singers do it.

So here's a few of my favorites:

1. "Church I'm fully saved today." as sung by Blind Willie Johnson. His voice makes me believe in something. He makes me want to believe in God even when I find it difficult. He makes me think of a small Baptist black church off a dusty road in a cotton field. And I want so badly to transport there and inhale the fervor and fire from the choir. The the song ends and I feel abandoned. What other kind of music can do that?

2. "Shake Sugaree" I don't know if this is blues or comedy or folk or what. But Elizabeth Cotton, Pete Seeger's nanny, sings this song like an angel. All of her other music is gruff and rough, and great. But this track is different. She is smooth, and melodic and I can't read her emotion. And there is nothing out there like it, like, Steve Buscemi said in "Ghost World," about the song "Devil Got My Woman."

3. "Devil Got my Woman" I heard this before I really knew what blues was, thanks to that movie, and I was on board. The scene where Enid just sits in her room, listening to the record, moving the needle back to the beginning every time it finishes. I get that. For me it was when I first got Canned Heat's "Sweet Sixteen" and "Bullfrog Blues."

4. "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" by Leadbelly. Abby gave me this track on a Christmas mix when I was 15. I played it out. It was a blues and folk mix. I memorized it. Probably one of the best gifts I ever had. She gave me a less popular version of his song. It's slower. More meloncholy than the popular version. It was originally titled "Black Girl," but when the lyric was changed to "My Girl," to make it more popular, it got it's new name. If you close your eyes and listen to his voice on the original version*** (which I can't find online), you can hear regret and dispair. You can tell he is going to forgive his woman and he knows she is going to do it again. And again. It's like finding out about love and loss without ever experiencing it.

Well, I guess that's it. If Bob Dylan is reading this, and if you dig it, you owe me a phone call. Well, actually you owe me some sort of celestial shout out. I'll be waiting. And I'll see you in my dreams.

*** In iTunes, under podcasts, search for the Black Media Archive. The original version is there for free.

Part One: the dream

2011-03-10T04:29:00.000-08:00

So I had a wicked dream last night. I know, I know, it can be a chore listening to people talk about their dreams, much less reading about them. But I swear, it's worth it. And I'll keep it short. Hell, I'll even give you the punchline early so you'll read to the end: Bob Dylan read my blog and told me he liked it. There are also planets involved, if that pulls you in.

Ok. Here goes.

My parents, sister and I are at a hotel. It seemed like it was on the moon, or on a moon of another planet because the stars were so visible and close by. On the roof of the hotel, my parents and I are watching the plate align. Now, they were not like regular planets, more like the planets from The Little Prince*** and they were REALLY CLOSE, like in on of those Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers from grade school, only less lame.

Well, I had to get Abby to come and watch, and get my camera, but the elevator wouldn't work and I kept getting lost. By the time I got Abby, who was having a meltdown of some sort, and the camera back to the roof, the sun had set, the planets were gone and I missed the shot.

"That's ok," Dad said. "We didn't come here for that anyway. We came for the concert, which is just starting now."

So we head to the concert, which I am covering as a photojournalist. And right as Bob Dylan is about to start his first song, tens of thousands of people in the crowd, a mad galaxy of stars behind him, he spots me. He leaves the stage, puts his arm around me, and says, "Are you Molly Mullen? I read your blog. You get the blues," and walked off and did his set.

Apparently this show was for rock gods, because then Carlos Santana walked up to me and asked who I was that Bob Dylan was talking to me. Like a douche, I said, "I'm a pretty big deal."

Then the dream faded and I woke up feeling, and still feeling now, like I had an intimate moment with Bob Dylan.

Boom.

***as a side note, when I redesigned this blog for my web design class, it was supposed to look like a page from, or inspired by The Little Prince. I always forgot to mention that.

Is this going to get me killed?

2011-03-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

I just put up a Craigslist ad looking for roommates. While I have been planning on this for weeks, I just got around to it now. I put literally no thought or consideration into it whatsoever, so I might get a bunch of serial killers posing as Aussie UN workers or something.

So there's that. Anyone want to guess a number about how many naked pics I'm going to get in my inbox in the next few hours? The person who guesses closest wins a collage of all of them!

Home

2011-03-06T19:36:00.000-08:00

So I skyped my family today. I feel homesick a good amount of the time, especially when I get to see everyone: Abby, Mom and Dad, Martha and Leo and Maryanne. But I am growing to appreciate my homesickness in a different way. I proud to have a home-base that I can return to. I am beginning to understand that it is a luxury not everyone has.

Working for JRS, and interviewing people, I frequently hear that people can never return to their countries. In order to apply for refugee status, you have to make the case as to why you can never go home.

So I just accepted that. I wrote what they say in my notebook and type a story, almost always including a quote about never going back.

I didn't think too much about this until last night, when I was having dinner with a friend who is applying for refugee status. We were talking about the food her mom used to make and how much I miss Omaha food. She said, "I bet you're pretty homesick here." And I agreed. Then she said, "Yeah, it's a scary thought to realize that I can never go home."

At this point, I'm going to stop taking Omaha for granted. I have something pretty precious back in Nebraska, and even if I''m not ready to lay down roots there just yet, I appreciate knowing it's there waiting for me.

So, yeah, as you all know, I can sometimes make Omaha out to be some sort of Plains Shangri La, but it's not Omaha itself that I love and appreciate so much. It's dad's cinnamon toast and the way he makes hot dogs. It's Mom's Christmas breakfasts. It's Maddy taking up too much space on the couch when I'm trying to watch Twilight Zone. It's having a fire in the fireplace in the middle of summer. It's Abby saying the same joke over and over again and demanding us to tell her how funny she is. It's Dundee. It's 50th Street. It's Ginger Cove and the cockerburls in the sand dunes. It's everyone and everywhere I have a memory.

That's home. And I love it and I miss it. And I appreciate it in whole new way.

Bioluminescence

2011-03-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

Let me tell you about bioluminescence. Supposedly, according to the experts at wikipedia, it's a chemical reaction called chemiluminescence that happens in plants and animals that cause them to secrete a glowing chemical.

Last weekend, I experienced said chemical reaction up close and personal on an island off the coast of Ranong, Thailand. Ollie and I were in the area for work and decided to check it our for the weekend. Beautiful. Amazing. Sleeping in a beach shack, swinging in the hammock for hours on end singing Harry Belafonte out loud to myself and anyone passing by.

Our first night, we went to a beach party. Rasta music. Groovy bartenders and westerners doing things the judge and Dr Harris would not approve of. On our walk down the beach to said get-together, I noticed little greenish glowing dots in Ollie's footprints. I thought it was wicked cool, but forgot about it.

After the beach party (which was actually a fundraiser for some burnt-out drunk on the island), I decided to pay tribute to Michael Stipe and go for a swim.

So we run for it, making a mad dash into the calm, black water, under some of the brightest stars I've ever seen. But I look to my right and every step Ollie takes into the water, he is surrounded by tiny lightbulbs. Like swimming fireflies. BIOLUMINESCENCE.

As it turns out, there was a school(?) of illuminated plankton in the ocean that day, and just by coming into contact with these invisibly small creatures, cause the chemical reaction that lights them up. I can't quite explain it. Just think of swimming in the warm ocean at night, unable to see where the horizon meets the sky, surrounded by a miracle of nature that you didn't even know existed.

It wasn't until the next day that I found out how bad an idea it could have been. Apparently sharks feed at night, and the glowing plankton attract them to their prey. That may be why we had the water to ourselves...

WHat?

2011-02-16T03:29:00.000-08:00

I have been in the mood for a few weeks now to draw a really good skeleton or two in my journal. I went online to find old 1920's cartoons of dancing skeletons when I came across these old Cab Calloway videos.

(Get's pretty good around 4 min. in)

(One of the BEST songs ever written. Especially because I think the word "infirmary" is one of the scariest words in the English language)

In that same vein, I have a list of the top 5 things they should definitely bring back from the 1920s:

1. Long underwear with the button-up behinds

2. Cough syrup with cocaine in it

3. Long cigarette holders

4. Giant radios

5. Creative, adult-themed musical cartoons

Look who moved onto my soi

2011-02-11T22:35:00.001-08:00

Giant snails moved onto my block. I want to make friends with them but I don't know how. Is it racist to assume that all snails have French accents?

We have new friends at work

2011-02-11T01:53:00.001-08:00

These things are yellow

2011-02-09T22:46:00.001-08:00

Dear Omaha

2011-02-01T19:05:00.001-08:00

While I was traveling in the North last week, I brought several magazines with me to look at designs and typography. Two of said magazines had Omaha references. And I feel like I need to say something about that.

Dear Omaha,

I am not writing this letter because I don't love you anymore, I just think we need some time apart. We have been together so long that I just need to see what else is out there.

I am not forgetting you or all the good times we had together, I just need time to breathe. It's not you. You are wonderful. So many great qualities. Steak. Family. the Old Market. It's me. I am just too restless right now.

So please, Omaha, stop leaving me messages. I don't need to open magazines in Thailand only to read about Warren Buffett going to Gorat's or Connor Oberst moving home.

Still, it will be hard. All of my music reminds me of you. When put iTunes on shuffle I hear "Turn the Page" or "Hello in There" or other songs that reference you.

So, Omaha. This is not goodbye. It's bon voyage. I'll be back.

Lovingly, tenderly, internationally yours,
Molly

Diakonia

2011-02-01T00:15:00.000-08:00

With all of my blathering on this blog, I tend to forget to update whoever reads this about actual significant things going on. Namely, this month, the Diakonia came out.

Diakonia is JRS Asia Pacific's publication that's been coming out since 1982.

But this one in particular is fantastic. Why, might you ask? Because I got to redesign it! Too much fun. God bless inDesign and (why not) Johann Gutenberg.

You can look at the pretty little PDF here.

But more than getting to design the thing, I got to contribute to it. Designing is fun, but writing is why I get up in the morning.

My favorite story wrote is this one. It's about Sri Lankan people, some living in hiding, others living behind bars, who are trying to be resettled to new countries. It was one of the first stories I wrote when I got here. I visited the Immigration Detention Center and visited the home of a Sri Lankan family. And when I sat down to write it, I just thought, "Whoa. This is what being a refugee is. Ok. I am on board." So perhaps you can read a little of my amazement between the lines of the story. Or maybe you can't.

My favorite story, experience-wise, was this one. Ollie and I traveled outside the city to see JRS's largest project in the country. It was first time in a refugee camp. Like for real. Like soldiers patrolling the boarder. Like bamboo houses. Like people fleeing real conflict. Like jungle. So that, of course, like every story I have written so far, was an eye-opener.

I dig this gig.

Pete Seeger, as always, thanks

2011-01-24T07:17:00.000-08:00

The headline of this could also be "Why some songs are more like prayer than hymns themselves."

When I'm in a funk, I try to think of what will pull me out real quick. I don't do funk. I don't do sad. So my fingers, without letting my brain come up with something, typed Pete Seeger into the search bar. This could be a dangerous choice, but my fingers were closer to my heart than to my brain.

Dangerous because Pete Seeger is more spiritual than happy. If I wanted happy, I should have gone with Tiny Tim or Buddy Holly. Pete Seeger opens your heart and if you're in a funk, you could be open enough for a dagger to get stuck in. You become raw and vulnerable.

That is why I say that he is like prayer... or even church. His music can break you down when you're alone and leave you exposed to the universe. Or, as in all of his videos, it is a communal experience where you learn about yourself and the world among other people.

Besides, he is the one who put the melody to the Bible verses that became a hit song by the Byrds "Turn, Turn, Turn." And he did popularize the hymn "How Can I Keep From Singing" so perhaps there is a literal connection.

There isn't much a point to this. And the hour-long video (above) is now over. I have been singing and whistling alone in my room, because as he said in the video "There's no such thing as a wrong note as long as you're singing."

So I'll leave you with this. My evening prayer, if you will. And I pray it for everyone who reads this. "Though it's darkest before the dawn, this thought keeps me moving on. Through all this world of joy and sorrow, we still can have singing tomorrows." I pray you all have a singing tomorrow. I will go ahead and sing myself to sleep.

Goodnight.

Fresh start to the week

2011-01-24T06:10:00.001-08:00

The Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays
Uploaded by The-Boomtown-Rats. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Bangkok, so far

2011-01-22T01:05:00.001-08:00

Alright. My long-awaited drawing of Bangkok. Really, the first thing I've drawn since I left Rome.

What is in this picture? Well, almost everything I've done here so far.

I have taken the BTS (sky train) all over town with the Manchester United logo on it. I just found out, by the way, that Manchester United is a soccer team. And Apparently, Manchester is a... city? I think.

Anyway. Also in the picture, thai massages, Chang, and Seasoning which my week nights usually consist of.

Reclining Buddha I saw with mom and Holy Redeemer Church where I should spend more time.

The Pink Panther which has become the butt of a few jokes. The river where I made my offering. Vistory Monument and Rangnam.

And (of course) JRS! I even drew the office in which I now reside.

So there you have it. To all my Omahans who read this. That is an accurate depiction of where I live and what I do here. So come visit!

Take me home, country roads

2011-01-19T23:32:00.000-08:00

If you've been to Bangkok, you see these monsters every day. They roam the streets of the city and swallow people along the road, depositing them all over the country.

Well, I was swallowed by one of these monsters last night. Outside of a KFC, I might add, so that I could renew my visa in Laos.

Sounds innocent enough.

Well, around hour four or five in this cramped minibus, with my Filipino cohorts singing bastardized versions of John Denver ("Country rose, take me home to the place I berlong/ Wess Verginieeee, mountain marma..."), I realized that I would rather be ANYWHERE else in the world.

In particular... home. Instead of shivering under that air conditioner, balled up in the back of a bus pretending to sleep, I could be in my nice warm bed.

I could be cozied up under my frayed turquoise blankets, listening to the cracks and pops in a Johnny Cash album while Maddigan stole more than her fair share of my twin mattress.

A winter chill would come through my paper-thin window and make me turn up my electric blanket and I'd rearrange Maddy so she fit perfectly in her little corner. I'd fall asleep while the record was still turning and know that I was where I should be.

OR, I could spend my night trying to explain the difference between "volunteer for a Catholic organization" and a "missionary." Yeah... that sounds better.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to get a few hours of sleep before my night of Laotian food, Beer Lao and not-so-silently crying myself to sleep.

There are no words

2011-01-19T23:20:00.000-08:00

This image speaks volumes.

Ollie and I were out at some jazz bar and after a long day, had run out of motivation to actually hold an adult conversation.

So we played a drawing game I used to play with Abby. Ollie and I each folded a napkin in half and drew an image and then we swapped and had to finish the picture without seeing what the other person drew.

What is INSANE is that on this napkin, we drew the same thing without looking! I drew Ollie riding on a dinosaur, and he drew that same dinosaur drinking a Coke Zero.

I don't know what this says about my life in Bangkok or my life in general, really. It just goes to show that living in this fine metropolis are two NGO workers who think dinosaurs are awesome. And I think that should bring comfort to every Bangkokian out there.

A note to Thailand

2011-01-18T18:12:00.000-08:00

Dear Thailand,

On my walk to work today I passed two dogs and a cat that stared at me with the only eye they had. This is a concern. While I am sure that your government is spending its money on more important things, but hear me out.

If the Royal Thai government invests in glass eyes for stray animals, you would create thousands of jobs for your people. Also, tourism could boost if people were aware of the eye wear. (get it!)

It's a win-win.

Sincerely,
An encouraging Westerner.

Top five thigns I love about my feet

2011-01-15T10:02:00.000-08:00

My good friend (who shall remain nameless to save his reputation, but who does NOT have an American accent) made fun of my toes.

In order to make sure my dignity stays in tact, I will present to the world what I believe to be my best foot features:

1. My pointer toe is longer than my big toe. Someone once told me that was a sign of wisdom. I never checked her sources, but I believe it. Someday that genetically ingrained wisdom will appear, and I will know it all comes from the toes.

2. High arches. This may mean that I need to buy arch support for my cowboy boots, but I could also be a foot model!

3. Scaling. Each toe from the pointer toe is slightly smaller than the other. It is perfect. Live a Verison commercial.

4. Slender. I don't have fat feet. I don't want fat feet. I don't have time for it. My feet fit snuggly in an average shoe and I appreciate that.

5. They are mine! I may have interesting feet, but they are my feet and that makes them exceptional.

How you know you are hanging with the coolest person in Bangkok

2011-01-12T01:55:00.000-08:00

He buys you this for Christmas

And then takes you here.

Quotes of the week

2011-01-11T01:27:00.000-08:00

I have gotten some amusing messages this week from the people I love back home. Here's the highlights:

You know what I haven't had in a long time? Fruit. I need to get some of that inside of me. I don't know who Ollie is. But he/she should think I am a god. So, I really respect vegetarians, but Paul McCartney stopped being awesome when he quit eating what? (Clue: The answer is not "Cauliflower.") I think dr. who is getting in her winter-depression mode. Anyway, so today me and isaac got into a feud with night flight pizza and it was awesome - partly because we didn't pay for the food... I’m on a walker for another five weeks. elvis is dead, molly. don't be so insensitive. Remember when stick stickley went off of the air?

How to save your sanity

2011-01-09T06:23:00.000-08:00

Step 1: Turn on the "Life Aquatic" soundtrack.
Step 2: Bust out those new glitter glue pens you have been saving.
Step 3: Draw a robot.

I drew mine with roller skates, but you don't have to. There are a number of features you can add. A jet pack perhaps.

Photos from work

2011-01-03T20:45:00.000-08:00

I realize that this blog might lead one to believe that I don't actually do any work. So, behold. Proof that I do have an internship and that I do work there. Below are photos I have taken for the web site or the publication (Copyright JRS).

Refugee camp in Mae Hong Son province on the Thai/ Burma border.

Pakistani community center

Burmese daycare center. The picture on the wall of Aung San Suu Kyi says "We will win because the only weapons they have are guns."

Hall in an apartment building for Burmese migrant workers. All of the rooms had rubber boots from working in the factories.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-31T02:31:00.000-08:00

Or, perhaps Bing Crosby's Mele Kalikimaka would be more appropriate.

Mom saved my sanity by coming to Thailand for Christmas. We stayed in an insanely swanky hotel, then took a TAXI more than two hours south to an island.

Who have we become?! We have become those people who use the word "winter" as a verb. We are people who critique massages because we get so many of them. We are the kind of people who become stressed about decisions like "Should I swim in the ocean or in the pool?" "Shall I snooze under the shade of a palm tree or work on my tan on the beach?"

We left a few days early because we were becoming everything we ever hated.

I crashed a motorcycle

2010-12-24T21:13:00.001-08:00

So mom made it to Bangkok. After a few days in the city, we headed south for Kho Samed, an island two hours away from Bangkok. We drank out of coconuts, swam in the ocean, got henna, played 50 games of Connect Four and went para-sailing. But the funniest thing to happen so far, is when I decided to rent a motorcycle.

Mom has been keeping her own documents on the events so far on the trip. I'll let her tell it.

Molly and I are on the beach – she’s singing Christmas Carols while Pat and Abby are bemoaning the winter I miss. Christmas trees don’t look the same when they aren’t real. Note to self- no more fake trees at Christmas – you were right Pat (revel in those words). A real Christmas tree is the luxury that comes from bearing a roaring winter.

Now, the story of the motorcycle. Molly nearly killed us and saved our lives in about a minute’s time. Molly will recount this is her own voice but here goes.

After much soul searching I agree to go on a Molly guided motorcycle tour of the Island (it’s only 6 miles long and 3 miles wide). She looks confident in her aviators and backpack and I just trust in her. The sales person – not so confident giving us a look and making sure we know how bad the road is. But he escorts us to the road and Molly gives the bike a try and just as I recall the concern about sand as traction for a bike she crashes into a car – it takes all of a minute.

The 7 in me is elated that we aren’t about a mile down the road. Today we boarded a taxi to see another part of the island but first we got a good look at the “road” of the motorcycle story – what the guy was actually trying to tell us was that as inexperienced motorcyclists there was to friggin way we would survive that trip on the bike. The road was horrific, pocked doesn’t begin to describe it nor does pot hole or chuck hole how about crevasses in the road. I guess someone had an eye on us because that had disaster written all over it. I’m glad we didn’t know it at the time.

So that's her version of the story. I will come back with a defense as soon as I have one.

Bananas

2010-12-19T07:09:00.000-08:00

This last year has been bananas (that is spelled b.a.n.a.n.a.s if you were unaware).

Yes, it's that time of the year again to reminisce on the past 365 days. Because I have no patience for writing about myself at length, and no one has the patience to read it, I'll comb through this past year in a brief timeline. (It has pictures so you won't get bored!)

1. New Years Eve 2009. Decorating the apartment for the huge blowout party. Isaac singing acapella. Sock hop at Hotel Frank.

2. New Years Day 2010. Waking up with half of my friends passed out on my floor. Chamapgne bottles everywhere. Breakfast at the diner. Brief encounter with a gal I hadn't seen since high school.

3. January 4. Decided on a whim to drive to Chicago with Niemann. Then decided on a whim to drive from Chicago to New Orleans in a blizzard with Richeff, Quin and Ed. Best. Road trip. Ever. Ricky's driving skills saved our lives. And Elvis saved our sanity.

3. Last semester of college. Editor in chief of the paper. Nervous about my last few newspapers. Decided not to go to grad school.

4. Mom's car accident. Her beautiful bug destroyed. RIP.

5. George got married. I was there. In a dress. And makeup. Got drunk with his parents. The cops came because we were partying too hard. Holla.

6. I finished the last issue of the Creightonian. And around this time came up with the crazy idea to turn the Men in Black series into a book (which is still on the way).

7. I graduated. And I survived Fr. Harmless' History of the Christian Church. And I decided to continue my education or look for a job. I thin it was around this time when Fr. Doll first ran into me eating pizza in the newsroom and said something to the effect of, "Are going to get a job when you graduate? Have you ever been to Bangkok?" I didn't pay attention and went on eating my pizza. I mean, where is Bangkok anyway?!

8. I went on a 4,000 mile road trip with mom. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Niagra Falls. Cape Cod. Broadway. D.C.

9. Route 66. Ricky Cheffer, other than being my best friend, is a road warrior. He wrote his final history paper about Route 66 and then saw it for himself. Missouri to California by highway. We camped in a lightning storm. Dicovered a new love for Will Rogers and the state of Oklahoma. Cadillac Ranch. Hiked around the Grand Canyon. Lost a few dollars in Vegas.

10. Drove the Pacific Coast highway. Ate my very first oyster. Couchsurfed. Pagan Solstice Party in Oregon. Seattle.

11. Canada. I hate you.

12. Somehow, Ricky and I wound up in Alaska. We farmed. Well, sort of. We hauled wood, mostly to be used in the hot tub. We drank a good deal of Alaskan beer, lived in a tree house, met Towanda and met my very favorite pagans.

It was around week five of Alaska when I got an interesting email from Fr. Doll. A year with some organization called JRS. It would entail me going to Rome and then wherever they wanted me to go for a year. Sure. I was failing at farming. I guess I have to suck it up and realize I may be more cut out for writing and designing, planted in front of a computer rather than trying to tame the Alaskan wilderness.

13. We took a 6-hour ferry ride to Skagway that will forever be etched in my mind... the parts that I can remember anyway. Since my parents and a few SJs read this, I can only say that I shave my friends' heads and played a good deal of blackjack.

14. We left Alaska and had a nail-biting experience with Canadian border police. Apparently they don't mind us bringing in a machete, knives, throwing stars, fireworks, booze and God knows what else into their country. But a small thing of pepper spray made us terrorists. I hate Canada.

15. I made it to U.S. soil. Got to know Richeff very well in cramped quarters couchsurfing in Montana.

16. Left for Rome. Met Seamus. Saw Ignatius' bedroom.

17. Now I am in Bangkok. I have new best friends. And a new love for Chang. I love it here. I love JRS. I can't believe I get to write the stories I get to write, met the people I have and seen the things I've seen.

This year was bananas. God bless it. And if I haven't said it enough, thank God he nudged me in the opposite direction of grad school.

I'm in a bad mood

2010-12-13T07:30:00.000-08:00

That's all.

Hot dogs and the holidays

2010-12-12T04:59:00.000-08:00

I want a hot dog like you wouldn't believe. Bangkok doesn't know anything about good hot dogs. They are served in won tons or with mayo. An abomination, really.

What I want is an Eisenberg kosher hot dog from the movie theater in Council Bluffs. I want it to come in a little foil pouch, bun and dog warmed perfectly, slathered with ketchup and mustard. Dad can add jalepenos to his, even if I secretly object.

I want to snarf down the dog during the previews and munch on M&M's during the movie. Preferably a horror movie.

That's the problem with Bangkok. No hot dogs or good scary movies... and no one to see them with. If you have never met him, you should know that my dad is the ultimate person to see a horror movie with. He'll appreciate every gory detail, every plot point and he'll explain all the parts I missed because I had my eyes closed.

So I guess I'm feeling a little homesick tonight. Maybe it's the fact that I've been sick all day and I have no one to take care of me. Maybe it's that there's no snow. I just know that if I were home, Dad would see any movie with me, and mom would scold us for enjoying the gratuitous violence. Maybe we could even talk mom into making us hot dogs on the stove. Grilled with love and topped off with melted cheese. Perhaps I shouldn't be listening to this song.

I guess more than hot dogs, I miss my mom and dad... but a hot dog sounds pretty good right now too.

Flight to Mae hong son

2010-12-07T07:21:00.000-08:00

So, I am on my first trip outside Bangkok, to the border town of Mae hong son to visit a refugee camp here. I am assisting in writing a story about JRS's education program.

A short flight. A tiny plane. An adventerous landing. All in all, a great introduction to Mae hong son, a Northern border town where JRS has been involved in refugee camps for over 20 years.

Life in Bangkok is tough...

2010-12-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

Trippin' down memory lane

2010-12-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

I realized, with the help of my new partner in crime, that every ounce of media I consumed as a child (made vastly in the 1980s) was completely inappropriate for children.

Consider, if you will, the case study of Pee Wee's Playhouse. It could be confused with a bad acid trip or a seizure, or both.

The Labrynth was sexually implicit material between a much older David Bowie and a teenage Jennifer Connolly, and -- I am pretty sure -- some puppets.

Anything Sid and Marty Croft made (H.R. Pufinstuf, the Bugaloos) was completely drug induced.

You may think I am condemning this stuff. But, hey, I turned out OK. So I completely support it. Besides, Dora the Explorer is turning the next generation into a bunch of wimps.

In conclusion, God bless Yo Gabba Gabba for being a voice of reason, or unreason for kids these days. Below are some pretty messed up videos that shaped my child hood... except the ones with Brittish accents. Those were not a part of my childhood because I am from America where we don't believe in England.

weirdddd....

2010-12-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

I had the trippiest dream last night.

I won't bore you with the details but it involved JRS, Creighton, newspapers, bubble gum, Ginger Cove and me. Throughout the dream, I would comb my fingers through my hair, wondering why it was still long. Didn't I shave it off? Or was that just a dream? Or am I just dreaming now?

Essentially what the dream boiled down to was what the hell I am doing with my future, a question I refuse to spend any time with in my waking hours.

In my regular life, I would laugh it off with a few beers. But, in this beer-less Bizzaro world, perhaps I should spend a few of my sober days pondering the question.

So... I cut off all my hair

2010-11-28T05:39:00.000-08:00

For my senior year of college, all my friends were preparing for the real world: updating their resumes in InDesign with crisp fonts, buying their very first pant suits and big girl shoes, setting up a LinkedIn account and eliminating those beer pong photos from Facebook.

I, on the other hand, grew my hair out -- didn't wash it for a few months -- and got a new tattoo.

It was right around month three of the oily, dredding do that I got a bit of a talking to from my parents, friends and professors about the "real world." I washed my hair, cut out a few snarls, bought my very first brassiere and was ready to take on the world as some sort of an adult.

Well, I am happy to report that I survived that and came to realize that it wasn't actually true. As it turns out, being myself is working out just as well.

So, I like foul language just as much as I did when I discovered it in fourth grade. I like short hair and I like beer. I also know how to write my way out of a paper bag, can take a photo in focus and hit a deadline. I think I can do all of those things hairless and happy and hold down a job.

An important announcement

2010-11-28T05:35:00.001-08:00

McDonald's delivers here. That is all.

Man up and cry

2010-11-22T11:42:00.000-08:00

As always, I learned something when I wasn't in the mood to learn anything.

When I am too tired, too hung over, too lazy, too hungry or whatever, I always try to tell myself that I never regret going to church. Last week was no different.

Fr. Peter, international director of JRS, was in town for one night and was nice enough to celebrate a small Mass for the staff. It was a long day, and Ollie and I had JRS stuff to do that night. My mind was not in the right place to pray or listen or open myself up.

But, God had other plans.

Fr. Peter was speaking about the Gospel and how Jesus wept for the fate of Israel. He saw the troubles His people faced in the coming years and the sin and the hurt and the pain. He loved these people so much that He cried for them.

I sat, thinking about this for days. Here is what I have come up with. See, I don't cry... or at least I try not to. I want to be the strong person. I want people to be able to cry on my shoulder, not the other way around. So the few things I have seen since I've been in Bangkok that have made me cry, I just give myself a few minutes and force myself to move on.

But, as it turns out, that isn't the right move. Like Jesus in the Gospel, I suppose I should allow myself to cry. Because it's through that expression that we can find compassion. So, if it's good enough for Jesus, I suppose it's good enough for me as well.

So, moral of the blog is this. Man up and cry.

Lights

2010-11-21T23:50:00.000-08:00

There are few words I can use to describe a night on the town with Ollie. Complete champion. Like Halloween in Bangkok, the Festival of Lights in Bangkok was an experience.

Highlights:

Beers
Tuk tuk rides
Tattoo shop for a consultation
floating our "offerings" down the river
Pheasant eggs
Sparklers
McDonalds
Hair cut

So... The Festival of Lights is on the 12th full moon of the year. Traditionally it is to pay respect to a water god, but now it's just an annual celebration with street food, music and contests. I didn't know until after the fact that it is just for fun, no religion involved. It's good to know, though. Because had it been a serious ceremony that I would have disrespected everyone there by knowing nothing.

We bought our "krathongs" complete with incense and a candle from a street vendor. I sprang for a yellow one, because I'm fancy. We stood in line with every other falang and had some gentleman put them into the water one by one. Very cool.

Designs!

2010-11-19T01:52:00.000-08:00

Checking out some different magazine designs, these were my favs.

Bangkok don't know nothin about Christmas

2010-11-18T01:14:00.000-08:00

As I was walking to work this morning, a mustache of sweat beads gathering above my lip in the humidity, I realized that it's kind of the Christmas season. I was reminded when I walked by a convention center and saw a towering Christmas tree on the lawn. It had perfectly spaced silver ornaments hanging from perfectly trimmed limbs.

Nice try Bangkok, but making it look that perfect means you clearly don't get it.

So, to all you Omahans out there. Please don't inform me about the Griswold-esque decorations people have sloppily hanging from their homes. Don't remind me how white twinkling lights on shrubs look under a fresh blanket of snow. And please don't list the Christmas songs KGOR will be playing 24-hours straight after Thanksgiving. I don't want to hear about it.

Besides, I won't be around anyway. I'll be getting a massage or $1 meal or enjoying any number of the things Thailand actually does right... just not Christmas.

This is what a Christmas tree is supposed to look like, Bangkok. Notice how you have to cut off 30 percent just to fir into the house. You have to tie it to the window because it's so lopsided. It is about the same width as length. Christmas is meant to be just a little bit tragic...

Girls!

2010-11-15T20:23:00.000-08:00

As I look out over the sea of dirty clothes where my floor used to be, the Beastie Boys come ringing through my head. "Girls... all I really want is girls.... to do the dishes, to do the laundry, to clean up my room..."

Sorry, womankind, but at this point in time, I just need a woman around who will be disgusted with me when I am not smart enough to be disgusted with myself.

Anyone want to move to Bangkok?

Top three songs to explain my predicament:

1. Girls -- the Beastie Boys
** quote above

2. A Man Needs a Maid -- Neil Young (thanks for reminding me, Abby)
"I was thinking that maybe I'd get a maid/ Find a place nearby for her to stay/ Just someone to keep my house clean/ Fix my meals and go away."

3. The Shape I'm In -- the Band
"Has anybody seen my lady/ this living alone will drive you crazy/ oh, you don't know/ the shape I'm in."

America

2010-11-14T23:36:00.000-08:00

For my 200th post, I'd like to write a few thoughts on my home. I have spent most of my life in protest of the things America represents and the things the American government does in our name with our money.

But something has been sticking in my brain over the weekend.

On Friday, I interviewed a Sri Lankan family for an in-depth I am working on. The parents, three daughters and aunt are recognized refugees seeking to be resettled.

When the 17-year-old daughter asked Oliver and me where we are from, I responded "America." she gave a smile and repeated what I said with excitement. I moved on to my first question and forgot about the moment, but I keep thinking about it.

I thought people stopped romanticizing the United States back in the Ellis Island days. I was puzzled to think this bright, young woman would think anything special about my country.

If I read the situation correctly, she may have some drastically exaggerated ideas about the US, but she may also have a point. Perhaps America really is to be admired. At least, in comparison to the region I now find myself.

I just can't think of why at the moment. All America has going for it my mind is that it's not here. I'll keep pondering.

Ah, to be 18 again...

2010-11-13T09:14:00.000-08:00

So I'm not a teenager anymore, although I still act like one.

After spending the last few days interviewing some teenage refugee girls, I realize I completely took for granted that stereotypical, American, Bruce Springsteen kind of teenage experience I really had. Below are the top five things I appreciate after speaking to people who were robbed of the classic high school experience.

1. School dances. I was always the last resort for my friends who couldn't get real dates. We'd get all dressed up and hang out at school. No pressure. Just dong the twist and then leaving early to eat at Burger King in tuxes and dresses.

2. Getting well acquainted with the back seat of a Buick. What a dope I was. But at least I had the freedom to make stupid decisions that have now turned into hilarious stories.

3. Cruising. Man, when I got that first set of wheels -- the bright blue Mazda minivan -- I was on fire. We loaded all the guys in the back, eating Sonic Burgers and blasting Ray Charles, Ben Folds and Immortal Technique. And let's not forget driving through random alleys at all hours of the night, street racing in or slower-than-molasses POS's, and flipping that SUV into a ditch in Iowa.

4. Dating. What a tragedy. I wince to think of the people I was interested in back then. I was actually seen in public with some pretty interesting characters on my arm. But what is being a teenager without the train wreck of your first love?

5. The diner. Saturday mornings at the diner. Throw a few dimes in the juke box to hear Otis Redding or Buddy Holly over some eggs and a Coke (yes, Coke for breakfast. Get over it). There was nothing more liberating than hopping in the car, license still hot off the printer, and getting to go out to eat with the guys.

So yeah I was spoiled. And after reading over the list, my life seems way more like "American Graffiti " than I make it out to be. Perhaps that's what makes Omaha amazing.

All in all, I now have a new perspective on being a teenager and deep sincere gratitude for my memories. I know now that not every 18-year old girl gets to make those kinds of memories.

Rambo

2010-11-13T05:27:00.000-08:00

So my first story with JRS is up on the international site now. (READ IT HERE) Regrettably, the only thing I knew about Burma before I came here was a vague geographical understanding mixed with the latest Rambo movie. That's honest.

So I spent last weekend reading and watching as the people of Burma were forced to participate in a sham election, controlled by the military junta.

The day after the elections, around 20,000 people fled Burma after violence broke out. They crossed the river into Mae Sot, where JRS (and dozens of other NGOs) work in refugee camps.

I wrote the story and then rewrote it every time I got new information, waiting to get approval to publish it.

What was interesting to me was the fact that I am now covering news with a strict angle: JRS. I am no longer at a newspaper with minute to minute deadlines. I am no longer writing for a general audience and I have to write certain things in a certain way.

While it can feel frustrating, I'm interested in figuring it all out, like a puzzle. In the mean time, I think I should re-watch Rambo... bone up on my knowledge about Burma.

Pete Seeger saves my sanity

2010-11-11T03:39:00.001-08:00

Consider this a bit of a response to my last post.

I knew I brought my favorite possession along with me for a reason.

Pete Seeger sent me a postcard. He knows better than I do. While his post card doesn't say much, I remember the letter I wrote to him. It was about how he inspires me to do good for others and work hard. He simply said "Stay well and keep on."

His post card sits next to Saint Francis' prayer in my apartment. So I shall. Keep on keepin' on. God will be with me, even if my only form of prayer these days is in the form of angry accusations.

Where is God?

2010-11-11T03:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I read part of the JRS online retreat. This section spoke about God being present with the most poor. It was a reflection about God's choice to become man, and be with us as a poor person. Obviously, there are dozens of examples in the Bible about God being with the poor.

My question is this. If poor people don't feel God's presence, then what is the point? Sure, God may be there. Sure, I can (attempt to) see God in poverty because I am privileged. But if no one in these situations feels God's presence any longer, then is God still there?

How long can one continue to believe that God will exalt the poor? I can believe it my whole life, because I have been given a free ride through life. I can believe that the poor are closest to God. I can feel close to God if I choose to walk with the poor. But what about each individual? Is God there for people who don't recognize God anymore? And, if so, how?

As always, my solution is a simple one. I am going to turn on some Van Morrison and eat a stack of Chips Ahoy. Perhaps God will self-reveal through chocolate chips.

motorcycle taxis and Thai hospitals

2010-11-08T03:54:00.000-08:00

I had to go to the doctor today. The cough I picked up in Rome (I bite my thumb at Rome) progressed into something a bit more disgusting. My coworkers politely suggested that I get medicine if not for me, for them.

So I rode sidesaddle on a motorcycle weaving through traffic, arrived at the hospital and proceeded to realize that I may be the most worthless traveler in the city.

Five solid observations from my day:

1. Instead of calling me Miss or Ma'am, the hospital staff referred to me as "madam." I think I like that better. Take not, America.

2. That feeling I get back home that people are laughing at me as I walk away is realized in it's full form here. Because they actually are laughing at me as I walk away. Every time. I am SORRY that I don't know my own weight in kilograms or my height in centimeters! I am 5 feet, 7 inches and 140 pounds. The way God intended. Because the American system of measurements, like God, is not based in logic.

3. I like how all of my pills has the Pfizer logo printed on each. They must think that's what makes Americans well: swallowing a healthy dose of the free market system.

4. Motor taxis are my new favorite way to travel. My heart leaps into my throat like I am on a roller coaster. But, unlike a roller coaster where the danger is false, I probably could get killed on one of these. And isn't that better?

5. Every time I see a person on the street wearing one of those swine-flu srugical masks, I assume they have the plague and automatically resent them for existing in public. Then I had to wear one in the hospital. You'd think it would have reformed my opinion. But it didn't.

Dancing at a lesbian bar

2010-11-07T07:26:00.000-08:00

This was not as fun as Jonathan Richman made it out to be. In fact, there was no dancing... just funny looks, bad music and all sorts of miscommunnication.

Perhaps starting off the night drinking with an ex-Jesuit is a sign of trouble. But that's how it began. I went out for a drink with two friends from work, where, after a few drinks we decided that we should make a dating website for ex-nuns and ex-priests. That is my million-dollar idea. Get on board.

Then my friend and I went down to some clubbing district where all the women looked... too hot for their own good. The kind of women who would never make eye contact with me.

We wandered down the street, slightly drunk and still in our work clothes against the hoards of sequined mini-dresses, up-dos and stilettos, until we found our bar. The women-only lesbian club.

I walked in and before I could try out some of my award-winning pickup lines, our waitress shuffled us over into a corner of the bar behind the DJ where we were seemingly quarantined from the rest of the women. Either because we were white, under-dressed or non-Thai speakers.

After wriggling our way back into the populace, our waitress came over and explained in broken English that another white woman just came into the bar, and sat her next to us. The poor French girl looked confused as to why she was forced over to our table, but the waitress looked very proud of her possible matchmaking skills.

Needless to say, we left early. Not that the Thia chick band attempt at "I Will Survive" went unappreciated. Sigh.

Halloween

2010-11-01T04:49:00.000-07:00

I ate a scorpion. I had my feet eaten by fish. I tried three kinds of Thai beer. All in all, not too shabby for a city that doesn't recognize the holiday.

I was nervous since I haven't met any Americans yet, that my Halloween would be a total bust. But luckily, Bangkok made a solid attempt at the holiday and the Australian and Brit I was with were troopers, considering we all had to work the next day.

First thoughts on Bangkok

2010-11-01T03:32:00.000-07:00

Hot. Humid.

Drawings from Rome

2010-10-27T19:56:00.001-07:00

While in Rome I doodled in my notebook and then colored most of them in later. Here is a sampling of what I like the best.

You wouldn't know by looking at this that it took me days and hours to complete this. I outlined Saint Peters when I was sitting in front of it my last day in town and decided that it was too much work to complete it. But, then I got to Bangkok and didn't have a TV or the Internet in my apartment, so there you have it.

Sophie and I listened to a lot of Simon and Garfunkel while in Rome. I think this quote from "Hazy Shade of Winter" fits well with our new missions.

I started drawing this on the train to Assisi. That's Saint Francis' Basilica in the right corner. My favorite place I visited in Italy.

Sophie told me that this one was kind of a sham, since I never actually had time to visit the Colosseum. I just drew this from a postcard. I apologize for the lie.

Ok, scrap my top 5

2010-10-25T23:17:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I recently gave my list of top five moments in Italy. I wrote that with a full 24 hours left to go in Rome. I spoke too soon. My last day in Rome was certainly the best.

Perhaps Sophie's blog post about it was more eloquent, but I'll try to explain it from my point of view.

Fr. Peter Balleis, the international director of JRS, told Sophie and I that he was going to say Mass my last night in town in a chapel at the Church of Gesu, the church for the Jesuits in Rome. We went to the Church and met up with some others from the JRS staff, and the finance officers from the African regions who were also in town.

We entered a building beside the church, wandered up some stairs and came to an old wing of the building, which is where Jesuits live now. Fr. Peter told us that this room -- that we were standing in at the time -- was the room where Saint Ignatius (founder of the Jesuits and a personal hero) lived and died.

We were floored. We were in the presence of God just by standing in his room. We got to see his writings and his clothes (the first black robe).

Then we entered his bedroom, which had a sign saying that is was reserved for personal prayer. Peter told us that this bedroom was converted into a chapel and that is where we would be having Mass.

It was too much. We sat in a circle, listened to the readings about working with the poor and gave the Eucharist to one another rather than forming a line to the altar.

It was personal and communal. And while I continue to worry that I am not accepting God into the present moments of my life, I experienced God in that moment. I prayed for Sophie's grandmother, who was being buried that day, her aunt and the work of JRS. I asked Saints Ignatius and Francis Xavier and Fr. Pedro Arrupe to look over us as we traveled to new locations.

As I sit here, in my new office with JRS Asia Pacific in Bangkok, I hope they continue to look over me because I am going to need it. And while I feel blessed to have experienced God's presence at Mass in such a holy and personal place, I hope I can experience God walking with me outside Mass, down the streets of Bangkok, into refugee camps and detention centers, in my present and my future.

The first black robe. In Lakota, "Catholic" literally translates to "Black robe" because the Jesuits were always seen in robes such as this.

The famous shoes that Saint Ignatius walked thousands of miles in.

2010-10-23T03:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Italy,

In a previous letter, I mentioned my concern for your beer. I stand corrected. Please remove Peroni from your taps and replace it with this. A word to the wise, Italy, a little bit of hops never killed anyone.

Sincerely,
A gracious American

Top five moments in Italy

2010-10-23T02:57:00.000-07:00

It’s my last day in the city and I’d like to go through some of the best and worst that Rome has to offer.

Top 5 best moments in Italy:

1. Does every day at JRS count as a single moment? I don’t care. I am putting it down anyway. Every day we got to learn more about our work I felt more excited and driven.

2. Visiting Assisi with my family. After two weeks wandering around the city, I loved getting to take the train across the countryside and visit a small town. And what better town that the birth pace of my confirmation saint?

3. My first weekend of wandering around the city alone. I was sad to see how sick Sophie was, but I loved riding the Metro solo and taking photos inside Gesu Bascillica, Saint Ignatius Bascillica, Saint Francis Xavier’s Bascillica, the Trevi Fountain, the Altar of the Nation. I had Bob Dylan’s song about Rome coursing through my veins all day.

4. Drinking beers with Sophie in Trastevere. We were hard-pressed to find a solid bar with good beer. While the beer was only standard, we buddied up to a great bar tender who reminisced with me about our trips down Route 66.

5. Walking through the Villa Borghese gardens at night with my family their last night in town. I didn’t know at the time that Sophie was bleeding profusely in our hotel room, so I ignorantly enjoyed the scenery with my family. The fountains, the trees, the statues all looked a little Halloween-y at night.

Honorable mention:

While this memory doesn’t make the list of top 5, I would like to honor the memory of Abby and I having a few drinks in Trastevere. She got a girly fruity drink at the beginning of the night. When I tried to order her a similarly fruity drink at the next bar, the language barrier got in the way and she got rum and pineapple juice instead.
Abby, remember our deal. I petted that Saint Bernard outside the bar, so you have to …

Top 5 worst moments in Italy

1. Getting back to my parents’ hotel only for the woman at the front desk to tell me that Sophie went to the hospital. She slipped on the street (completely sober, I might add) cut open her knee and had to get 12 stitches. My mom and I met her there and were surprised at how efficient and friendly all the staff were. Still, not the best way for my mother to spend her last night in town – reading the International Herald Tribune next to a bunch of sleeping homeless men in a waiting room for three hours.

2. Eating a crappy Italian meal and having to walk all the way home after. I thought my gut was going to explode. Of course, this restaurant was recommended by the hotel.

3. Getting lost. It was late. We had been working all day. All I wanted to do was find my parent’s hotel before they arrived and get some dinner. We wound up wandering around the area, never finding the hotel and most of the eateries were closed.

4. Sophie’s food poisoning the first week I was here. It’s hard to enjoy Rome when your counterpart needs to be 60 seconds away from a bathroom at all times.

5. My dad missing Gesu Basilica. We tried three times to get in to see the resting place of Saint Ignatius. On his last day he went up the steps right as the guards were closing it down. He explained that he as leaving in the morning and just wanted to go in for a minute, but they wouldn’t have it. So, he shoved his way past the guards, walked in and made it about 10 steps before the kindly asked him to GTFO. Way to go, judge.

Who I work for

2010-10-22T06:22:00.000-07:00

Below is the video about how the Jesuit Refugee Service came to about 30 years ago.

Today is my last day of training in the international office and my next stop is Bangkok. I hope I can live up to Pedro Arrupe's vision of what a JRS volunteer should be!

on Vimeo.

Italy is trying to kill us

2010-10-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Italy,

As a traveler, I have cause to believe that you are trying to kill both myself and my fellow traveler, Sophie. Your seafood gave Sophie food poisening, your streets caused her to slip and spend the evening in the ER getting stitches. Your beer gives me a death wish and rough hangovers.

Please cease and desist in your constant plot to kill us.

Sincerely,
A concerned American

Top 5 talking points with Saint Francis

2010-10-18T03:07:00.000-07:00

I went to Assisi yesterday with my family. It was my first Euro train ride, first time in the Italian countryside, first 300 euro cab ride and first time in Italy seeing something that actually took my breath away.

Assisi is the home of Saint Francis' basilica and his final resting place; and Saint Clare's basilica and her final resting place. First we went to Saint Francis' spot. The church was amazing. Huge. Colorful. Happy. It contained the kind of joy I think Saint Francis would love.

Then we went downstairs to the original Church Saint Francis built where his grave is. After circling the grave and having a good cry, I started to have a conversation with Saint Francis. Here were the main points:

1. Because you inspire me, does that mean I have an obligation to follow you?
2. Is money evil in ALL cases, or just the power associated with it?
3. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being an example of a rebel in the Church and your community.
4. Can I really do anything?
5. Please watch over me and guide me the where I am supposed to be.

As you may notice, most of the talking points were questions. I am still waiting on the answers.

On ice cream and God

2010-10-16T13:50:00.001-07:00

At dinner tonight, my roommate Osiris told me that I need to keep my ears open to God. As a former nun, she said she had listen to have God show her what she is in love with. For her, life is about living with the poor and working with refugees.

I told her, if only she knew how hard it is to truly get to a stage in life when I can even open my ears or my heart.

This has been my worry for months. Why can I not connect with God in an honest way? Why cannot talk to God and be open to God? Why can I not follow the Jesuit way of seeing God in all things?

While I have gotten down on myself for this, Osiris told me that God will tap me on the shoulder eventually. God will open my heart for me if I am unable because whatever I can't do, God can.

So for now, I eat gelatto, recite Saint Francis' prayer while I brush my teeth and try my best to keep God inthe present.

A note of concern

2010-10-15T07:44:00.001-07:00

Dear Italy,

As a non-Italian, I am concerned that your country isn't as beer-friendly as it should be. Please take note from your German and Belgian brothers that beer is supposed to have taste.

Sincerely,

A concerned American

Rome so far

2010-10-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight is my last night in Rome before my parents arrive. I hope I have a good enough angle on the city to show them around.

Above is the Vatican Fortress.

Today I shot video for a story in Southern Rome. It was interesting to be taking video of a workshop where I didn't speak the language. I guess I'll have to get used to that when I'm working for JRS in Thailand.

Top 5 things I have learned in Italy:

1. The Eucharist tastes different here
2. Some places you just can't go if you don't speak the language
3. There are travelers and there are tourists. I hope I fit into the former group, but Italians categorize me as the latter
4. An SD card can never be big enough and a battery never lasts long enough
5. It is possible to O.D. on pasta and pizza, even in Italy

Buona Sera

2010-10-14T02:02:00.000-07:00

I practically had St. Peter's Square to myself. At around 10 p.m. Friday night I wandered out of the apartment with my camera. While I pass by the basilica every morning and evening to and from work, it was certainly different seeing it at night. Perhaps it's because during the day there is an endless stream of tour buses, groups, and vendors clogging the street. In the quiet of the evening, I was able to just see the darn thing.

So, Rome is nice so far. Sophie was sick the first five days or so, which gave me to opportunity to see Rome on my own. I saw St. Ignatius' resting place at Gesu Bascilica and went to an Italian Mass at his church.

I am excited for my parents to come Saturday for a final send-off before I head out to work for the Asia Pacific regional office of JRS.

I am working in the International Office at the moment with a view of the St. Peter's from the street. I'm excited to go write my own stories and take my own photos and video instead of editing and sorting other people's.

It shall be a great adventure.

Final thoughts on Alaska

2010-08-01T20:25:00.001-07:00

I am leaving here tomorrow, about a month early and that makes me very sad.

I got to see a glacier, brew beer, catch my first salmon, learn about sustainable living and meet people I hope to someday be half as cool or smart as. God bless Alaska.

Rick

2010-08-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

I love Rick and Karen. This should be explanation enough as to why I love him, and loved my time here.

A few thoughts

2010-07-25T20:46:00.003-07:00

1. I have been bathing in ground water since I have been here and think that anything but a warm ground water shower is sub par
2. I will never get over my disgust of sun stars. Especially when we have to harvest them tomorrow to kill and compost in the garden. GROSS!
3. Sometimes I forget that the mountains are only five miles away when it's foggy for days on end. Then the sun shines and I say, "oh yeah. we have mountains here."
4. I now officially have the gardening bug. I will have a garden from now on no matter where I live.

That's all.

PHOTOS!

2010-07-24T20:37:00.001-07:00

RASPBERRIES!!!
Ricky and Janet chipping after limbing a tree. Apparently I was taking a break, hiding in the bushes.
View of the house from the boat. We eat and hang out in the main house, but don't live there.

View of the water and mountains from the fire pit next to the driveway.

Rainy day

2010-07-24T20:21:00.001-07:00

After a long day of beer making, we settled down to play some poker with the Alaskan bottle caps stored up. I got homesick and stacked my chips thusly.

campfires and saint ignatius

2010-07-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Last night we had dinner with the people from the farm in the meadow. We cooked fresh picked strawberry and blueberry cobbler in a Dutch oven over the fire, split pea soup and cabbage noodles. After dinner the two Ricks, the owner of our farm and the owner of the meadow farm, played the guitar for us. I got to sing along to Hallelujah, You Can't Always Get What You Want, and Sunshine Go Away Today.

While we were sitting around the fire, after days and days of rain and cloudy weather, the clouds split open and the sun shone over the mountains. It made me think about what I have been reading about the Ignatian exercises. The first step in the book that I am reading is to be open to God. That means to try and see God in all my work, all the people I see and have an open dialogue with God all day long. It is safe to say that I am struggling with it, but in that moment last night, I was completely open and able to see God in all things.

Day off!

2010-07-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

We got the day of yesterday, our first day off since we've been here. Rick had to take census workers out on the island so we got to go to town.

I actually forgot what it was like to be around people. For over a month it has just been around five people working around the property. When we went to Juneau to see the glacier and waterfall, it was crammed with people coming off cruise ships. It was strange.

Oddities about being in town:
1. You have to use bathrooms instead of going anywhere you want
2. People don't bathe outside. There was a beautiful waterfall and my first thought was what a great shower it was.
3. You have to watch your language. I have become all too comfortable screaming whatever I please at the top of my lungs since I know no one will hear me.

Some pics

2010-07-15T17:11:00.002-07:00

I have been trying to get photos with my computer of my life here. I wanted to post yesterday, but I was knee-deep in shit... literally. I cleaned a 1,000 gallon septic tank and can't seem to get the smell off me. Fortunately, everyone else smells the same.

view of the driveway and the ocean from the house

cedar baskets I weaved

clean socks!

What I am learning

2010-07-11T20:32:00.000-07:00

1. Living in a community is work.
2. It may in fact be worth the work as long as the people are great (which they are)
3. I can get along with anyone who likes Pete Seeger
4. Electricity is overrated
5. Some people can weave baskets and some people can't

The sun came out yesterday. We sat in the swamp water hot tub and wood burning sauna. It was the perfect end to a stressful day.

It seems like the sunny days we spend less time working and more time soaking up rays (it's sunny less than 60 days a year). That would be all good, but that means we save all the hard work for the rainy days when I slip on stumps and get damp and grouchy. We have been lading huge stumps and chipping and splitting them. Tough work. It makes me feel good.

Alaska so far

2010-07-05T22:39:00.001-07:00

Sooooo. I took pics with my phone but it isn't sending them. So you get to see my drawings instead!

The top one I copied from a past card and the bottom is the house. I don't live here but I eat my meals and hang out here. I live in the WWOOFer house up the hill. No electricity or running water in my house, but it is drastically close to a tiny house, so I want to see how I like it. You can;t read it in the glitter, but it says Whale's Eye Lodge, the name of the place I live. In the corner is the solar panel and the other corner is the chicken coop.

Don't quit reading my blog!

2010-07-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

Pictures will be up soon, I promise. Internet is spotty around here. We only get it when the generator is on or the sun is shining, and it's been rainy for a few days.

Ricky and I got here a week ago, greeted by two other WWOOFers and Rick and Karen, the owners of the property.

So far we have been having a GREAT time. I have learned that I am terrible at the following things: hammering a nail, cutting a straight line, insulating a ceiling, removing thorny bushes, making a path through the forest, moving stones and lifting heavy objects. Ummmm, I also forgot how to play Big Rock Candy Mountain on the ukulele and told everyone I knew how to play it. That's my homework tonight.

What I am good at so far: eating everything on the table, talking all night about Abbie Hoffman and Pete Seeger, hanging out, soaking in the hot tub by the shore, and going to sleep early.

I am learning a lot about solar and wind energy, building, rain water catchment and gardening.

More later. With pictures.

Seattle

2010-06-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

I missed Seattle.I forgot I missed it. It was weird sleeping in the same condo and taking the same walk down to the P-I that I used to.

We stayed in Seattle for two days with Derek and Andrea. I got to visit the P-I and see where they work from now. It still kicks ass. It's remains my homepage for a reason.

Seattle is great. Sleeping here feels kind of like coming home.

Now we are off to Vancouver, where apparently no one in the entire city has a couch. Wish us luck!

Oregon

2010-06-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Portland! We made it into Oregon two days ago and couch surfed in Coos Bay with a fantastic surf nut, Tony. If you're reading the blog Tony, thanks again for letting us stay with you!

He took us to a GREAT solstice party up river from Coos bay complete with a drum circle and huge fire. It was a wonderful way to spend the evening. Unfortunately, no pictures.

Yesterday we left Coos Bay and headed up along the coast through the Oregon dunes.

We road an insane dune buggy. Going down practically 90 degree angles, it felt like a roller coaster without tracks. Tons of fun.

We eventually made it up to Portland, where we're crashing with Ellen Stultz, another Saint Margaret Mary's survivor. We'll be here for the night and then make it up to Seattle tomorrow.

Redwood Forest

2010-06-20T09:59:00.001-07:00

We made it to the Redwood Forest on our way out of California. We looked through the tour book to find which forest to hike through and we saw that this one was special. They filmed Return of the Jedi and Jurassic Park 2 here. So this was our choice.

Just like at the Grand Canyon, I thought I knew what the Redwoods were, until I got there. I could live there my whole life and still be amazed by those trees. Gorgeous. Huge. Ancient. I wish I had a better vocabulary to describe what I saw.