Early Spring

K took me to her favorite beach not too long ago. It was early spring, still cold outside, and we had our winter coats on as we followed the surf. Along the dunes just to our right I could see tufts of beach grass. K told me that Piping Plovers, small sparrow-like birds, nested there. When the weather is nice, she said, you can watch them hop back and forth just at the edge of the ocean, waiting for the tide to bring them some food.

Philippine Independence Day

a slate.com feature...

http://todayspictures.slate.com/20060612/

No Parking

MOMA

New York makes me want to be a communist. Living in one very, very tiny studio apartment can do that. My kitchen is in one corner of my bedroom, and the bathroom is right next to it. My micro-fridge is under the stove. And I haven't had a real bed in years. Lauren lives with two roommates, and a couple of mice. And she parks her car on a different street every day. But then we get to spend our weekends looking at incredible art, and secretly, I think it may be worth it.

Pagbilao, Philippines

Pagbilao is around 5 hours south of Manila. This beach is surrounded by small cliffs, and beyond them to the west, a new coal-fired power plant.

The Greenpeace Report (takes a minute to load)

Central Park 2/12/06

After the snowstorm.

Tartine, 4/7/05

Yokohama, 1997

I lived in Yokohama for one summer, working odd jobs at a small firm. I stayed in the eastern part of the city, in my first real apartment. I had a tatami mat for a bed, and a classic Japanese ofuri bathtub.

When I wasn't working, I used an old, two-gear BMX bike to explore the city. It was tough to ride on inclines, but the heavy metal body picked up a lot of speed going downhill.

I don't know if Yokohama is a typical Japanese city. Less than 20 miles from Tokyo, there were certain things there I hadn't seen elsewhere: unexpected but beautiful fields lapping up against the city limits, pornography on TV every night at 10:00, dilapidated stores crowding against my apartment.

I liked the city. I was seventeen and trying to sort out my feelings after an aborted relationship. When thinking became too much, I'd take the bike out and look around, usually late at night.

I started smoking regularly and picked up insomnia that summer. But mostly I remember the rush of speeding down darkened streets, and realizing that the best part came from being alone.

Grand Central Station

$100 to fix the camera, $250 for the locksmith to unjam my door, and another $120 on books I don't need right now. But- I dropped my loose change at a CoinStar and made $50.

Sagada

Seven years ago, I went backpacking in the Northern Philippines with the guy on the very right. One of our innkeepers introduced us to someone who could find out-of-season mushrooms. He came back with a bag of soggy caps caked in horse manure. We scrubbed them in boiling water and made an omelet. We ate and waited and ate some more. Then John said, "let's feed the rest to the pigs." We ended up watching them all day. Now he's a philosopher.

Fulton Street Station

"It is not the tilted buildings or the blind alleys
that I mind,
nor the winding staircases leading nowhere
or the ones that are simply missing.

Nor is walking through a foreign city
with a ring of a thousand keys
looking for the one door the worst of it,
nor the blank maps I am offered by strangers."
-Billy Collins

Insomnia

I can't sleep and I quit smoking a year ago.

"We live in a profoundly degenerate world" (HST)

"Are you visiting?" an old lady asked. "Look at all that dog shit," she said. "It never used to be like this. When Beame was mayor the streets were clean. It was when Koch came that all this happened."

I told her I live here. "You can't imagine," she continued, "what it was like back then. Now I watch my step everywhere I go, you can't avoid it, there's shit everywhere."

I had been watching her. She came out of the darkness between the streetlights doing a little dance before she noticed me. Then she stopped and told me about the crap on the ground. I retraced her steps after she left; the sidewalk was clean.

The news was bad today and I think the world is a little less decent. But late tonight in New York, when she thought no one was watching, an old woman danced in the street as if she were much younger.

South of Union Square

Someone wrote "i love you" above the grate, but I think the arrow on the left is more interesting.

Broome Street and Greene

I like this bench.

Reconstructed Notes from a Journal: 8/21/01

We were on I-80 heading from Nevada to San Fransisco. We decided to stop in Reno a few hours before sunrise. It's the worst place on earth, worse than Newark. We parked at an Exxon and took three pills to stay awake and two to stay calm. A bucktoothed woman asked us to buy her a drink.

"Why not?" I thought, but she already moved on. Three beers and a pack of cigarettes for $10, and all the slots in the world to watch.

Of all things, I don't know why I thought about Aquino's death anniversary. Shot in the back of the head as he was exiting a plane 18 years ago. His speech was still in his front pocket: "I have often wondered how many disputes could have been settled easily had the disputants only dared to define their terms..."

I knew my endorphins were sinking to a new low, but that was fine as long as I could stay awake. A cop waved us over at a tollbooth between Nevada and California. I pushed the empty bottles under the seat as John rolled the window down.

"Transporting any fruits or vegtables?"

"No sir."

"Move on."

It was a beautiful morning, one of those small things, undeserved, that stays with you a long time.

New Year's Resolution #17

Dinner on a weeknight, beer in champagne bottles, a dozen cigarettes, friends laughing and getting sleepy at the same time.
New Year's Resolution #17: Take more pictures like this.

Rules That Don't Apply To Me

Maybe one day.

Elegy

I broke my fucking camera today.

79th Street

I have an old shirt that says 'a rolling stone gathers no moss.' I was wearing it one day when a guy stopped me on the sidewalk. "A rolling stone what?" he asked. So I told him, "gathers no moss." "What?" he asked again. I looked at him for a second and started walking. He followed and kept repeating, "a rolling stone what?" until it took on its own rhythm in my head, and I was disappointed that I didn't have the right answer.

Symmetry

This is the best part of my apartment. The realtor who showed the place to me was in her 60s. She was large, wore a white dress with floral patterns and chain-smoked. She was a hippy. She also thought Muslims should be deported. I kept my mouth shut and paid a 15% broker fee; she cut $100 off my rent.

California Stars

My friend recently sent me a mixed album. She made the cover herself. This was one of the songs on the mix:

Yo La Tengo
"One PM Again"

And if we don't leave today
There's no hurry anyway
I'm on the road here, safe at home here
So let's make sure we're sure
That it is reeling, and I'm pleading
Let's not make any sudden moves

By Train and Foot

I walked south until I was in the West Village. I threw away all the pictures I took except these two. I also found a great bookstore on the corner of 10th and Waverly.

Late Calls

A friend I've known for years called me late the night before. She said "I'm coming over," and I said ok. We drank and smoked and listened to music all night. As the sun came up we lay in bed and I had my arms around her. I tried taking her shirt off but she said, "You know better than that." She fell asleep while I was holding her; I thought about how hard it is to quit smoking.

Last Days of Winter

For the first time since they began keeping records, New York City had three consecutive years of 40+ inches of snow. As winter finally comes to a close, here's a picture of mud.

r.i.p. hunter

I was 21 when I first picked up "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." I didn't expect the book to surprise me. But there was one small line, buried in a hundred pages of humans acting like turds, one moment of lucidity when Hunter looks back on the sixties and remembers thinking that they were about to make the world a better place.

"We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. You can almost see the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." Rest in peace, Hunter