13 May 2008.  2:15pm. I sit in the dilapidated hallway of the ramshackle building the Facultat de Lletres is stuck in.  The once white walls are graying, cracked and webbed with the lines of age, plaster crinkled and breaking off into tiny chunks that haunt the corners.  The outline of a garbage can is etched into the wall in front of me, almost like the flash shadow of a bomb.  The can itself is on the floor, tipped sideways, spilling crumpled papers in a blast patter l...

11 May 2008. 1:57pm. Ever since I heard her play for the first time I was captivated by her - her wild hair tossed about her head, the strange way she would sort of strut while she would play. But most of all, I was entranced by the music - the vibrant, enchanting music. Hiromi. Finding out exactly where she was playing and when was no small feat. You would think that googling the Vic Jazz Fest would yield results - and you'd think exactly wrong. But after some concerted effort, I f...

It's been a long time since I've shat out an article of randumb thoughts.  Maybe it's about time.  (Maybe I'm just delaying typing the next journal entry, because I'm lazy.  But then, I'm typing this, so I don't know how accurate that portrayal would be.) -- Emmy Rossum, please make a new movie.  You're amazingly delicious to look upon, and it's been too long since Phantom of the Opera .  I know you were in that Poseidon movie, but it looked dumb, so I haven...

09 May 2008.  11:31am. A thought: When in a group of comfortable friends, when within comfortable, known territory, when immersed in your own comfortable culture (are we seeing the 'comfortable' trend here?), it's almost impossible to define oneself. Why? Because when the things that make you you are shared by the group, are blanketed throughout the area, are disseminated through the surrounding culture, they no longer make you you - they make y'all y'all.  (Stupid ...

One of these days I'm going to get caught up with posting these. It probably won't be until I'm done writing them.  When I'm home.  In July. -- 06 May 2008.  8:27pm. The sky is dark, clouded, full of pregnant cumulonimbi ready to burst and shower forth mountains of wet progeny as I make my way through the thinly-wooded park.  The smoothed rocks on the uneven path are slick, and my shoes slip and slide as I attempt to climb the steep incline. Back home I wouldn'...

Some of you may remember when I posted a couple of weeks back about whether or not you use Twitter , and that I had started to do so.  While the 'community outpouring' was less than I hoped, it was basically what I expected. So I've been using Twitter for two or three weeks now.  And it's been pretty cool.  I mean, it's nice to hear what all these different people are up to.  There's a pretty cool group of people hanging out around there, and I'd encourage more of you t...

Am I pathetic or what?  I can't for the life of me give a title to this poem.  It's a sonnet, incidentally. But hey, classic forms of poetry seem dead anyway.  Most poetry you read is dreadfully constructed 'free verse' that's basically just crapping words out onto the page in whatever 'structure' you want and calling it a poem.  You're not Octavio Paz, people - don't even try. But yeah, this is an old-school Italian-style sonnet.  Eleven syllables a verse, fou...

03 May 2008.  7:33am. We walk along the Rambla Nova, edging our way through the dense crowd.  The sun burns a bright blue, hot and oppressive in the white sky.  She walks in front of me, constantly looking back at me with those entrancing, sparkling eyes and smiling. Finally the crowd seems to thin a bit and I work my way up alongside her again.  She says something I can't make out and suddenly grabs my hand.  I'm surprised by this development, but I'm certainl...

Another chunk from my journal.  It's not as travel a journal these days. -- 01 May 2008.  1:07pm. I've been thinking a lot about Foucault lately. Not something I necessarily do of my own free choice (it's not like he's Kierkegaard or something) but it's what I'm doing, nonetheless - slogging through his essays as if my life, and not just my grade, depended on it. I was thumbing through "Truth and Power" today, and I stumbled across Foucault's definition of truth - throug...

I don't even bother doing a quick paragraph on the top of these anymore.  I figure, if you're reading this and you don't already know that these are excerpts from my travel journal, you must not come around my blog much.  Kick your shoes up!  Stay awhile.  Say hello. I'm afraid pretty much everyone already knows the deal-io, here. -- 26 Apr 2008.  10:11pm. My phone rings early this morning, and I'm miraculously still asleep.  (This has to be a record for...

24 Apr 2008.  6:28pm. What is it about the empty page that has suddenly become so imposing? I've sat here staring at this blank notebook with nothing but a date and a page number written for almost an hour. What's happened? Maybe that's just it.  Nothing worth mentioning has happened since the last time I wrote in here. Boring, boring life. But at least I'm alive - I like that better than the alternatives at this point. Why do I like that better, though?  I'm ...

19 Apr 2008.  11:34pm. The sun burns hot and heavy as I walk slowly down the densely-populated Rambla, cautiously weaving my way through the crowds to the large statue overlooking the sea.  My bangs are sweaty, clumped together and sticking to my forehead.  (I really do need a haircut - I'm shaggier than I've ever been in my life.  Plus, why is it that my brow sweats more than any other single part of my body?  I think it's the need to dissipate all that extra heat bu...

Yeah, man.  Rant on. -- 18 Apr 2008.  11:42am. As much as I missed my Mediterranean, I'll tell you what I didn't miss - Pervy McPervington. Perhaps my repeated use of this nickname for him is childish and rude, but it fits him on both levels so well: He's childish and rude, so turnabout is the fairest kind of play; and He's a total, one-hundred-per-cent pervert. After a week away from him, I started to rationalize away the odious feelings ...

I'm still a couple of weeks behind in my postings, but I haven't written as much as I did when I was in Madrid.  (You all realize that was like twenty pages of crapola from there?  Wowzers.) -- 17 Apr 2008.  4:02pm. The blessed sea spray splashes on my toes, washing away the sand and stealing my breath in its chill. Oh, how I missed her. Though it's a cold, clammy day, I can't help myself.  I dive in, eager to be enveloped by her again.  She's freezing but...

14 Apr 2008.  3:43pm. Some days I miss home - real home, not Tarragona-home - more than others. Today is one of those days. Maybe it's because I don't have anything to occupy my time - I should've bought my return ticket for Sunday night rather than tonight because 1)nothing is open on Mondays, and 2)I'm broke anyway, so I wouldn't have been able to find anything free to do besides exactly what I'm doing - still chilling in the park. Maybe it's because all this 'alone ti...