Tucson Day Trip or Miss Jen iii

Went to Tucson today with Adam.

Met with Lesley, the Peace Corps Recruiter.

Found out about Fellows International. Can get giant tuition forgiveness for Peace Corps service.

Love Falafel.

Miss Jen on phone. Coffee tomorrow, no dinner.

She has to babysit.

Told her that I want to take her out sometime also. She said sure.

Miss Jen II

It's Thursday and I'm on my way down to the bike shop to work on the 1973 yellow Schwinn Super Sport that a customer had given us the week before. I had promised the bike to a cute girl that Adam, Jose, and I had met at Cartel the week before. I'm walking to the back of the store, through the double doors and into the thick air of the warehouse area where there is no air conditioning. Through the rows of metal hooks I see the faint lemonade paint and the post-it note with my name on it. It's heavier than I expect, and I emit a low grunt unexpectedly while lowering it to the ground. The cracked gum wall tires, void of air, slide along the dusty treated concrete as we push back through the double doors. Hospital doors. Operating room. A rebirth seems imminent, and excitement begins tugging gently.


I hoist her heavy skeleton into the grabbing arm. As I'm wiping down the steel frame, it occurs to me that this bike completely outlived its significance before I was even born. Ten years or more of existence prior to obsolescence, and twelve years prior to my own arrival. I work through the bike slowly, noting the good condition on its metal, and the surprisingly good mechanics. It needs just a little love for the wheels, and the headset has to be completely repacked. The once slick grease has turned now to gum and sticks hard. New tires. New tubes. New chain. Grease and oil all around. Finally it's coming to a close.


I'm scrolling through the contacts on my phone now, and the worry tugs at the back of my throat a little bit as I am not seeing "Jen" anywhere. I remember now, and I zip down to 'Ms Jen (bike)'. I hit SEND a little too soon. I haven't thought of what to say yet. She isn't answering. Four rings. There she is. The conversation stumbles, but it's hard not to come out on top. I tell her that I'll call when I leave my house to go to Adam's dinner party. I'll drop it off on the way. No problem. No, it's on the way. Okay, I'll call you. Bye.


She sounded so professional on the phone. "Is that the bike shop which is located upon the corner of Southern and the 101 freeway?" she asked. Not really, not so many words, but memory seems to be so.


I change my shirt and wash my face. I grab the blue tie which looks like a church window, and the short stack of vinyl that I'm taking to Adam's. The bike is three pieces, and already loaded in the back half of my car. I call her as I pull on to Margo and head towards University. I should have just taken Priest. I know exactly where she's describing. Broadway, just before the 101. There is limited parking, but there's always limited parking when you live across the street from a park. I drive past the house so that I can turn around and face the proper direction. She is in the open garage, but didn't see my drive by. I slide up to the curb and pop my trunk. She sounds excited when I pull the frame out and stand it upside down on the sidewalk. I slide the wheels in with expertise, but realize that maybe she needs a tutorial. I took for granted her knowledge when she told me that she was piecing together a bike at the co-op. But her question speaks to inexperience: "So when the wheel has that lever on it, that's known as a quick release?" I take the wheel back off and show her how to do it right. How to adjust the brakes with extreme prejudice if need be. I warn about the wet wet chain and its staining intentions. Enough business.

Ms Jen: "Are those tires new? I hope you didn't spend too much fixing it up. Can I pay you back for them?"
Me: "Nah, I get all the stuff wholesale, so it really isn't very much."
Ms Jen: "Well, I feel like I want to repay you. Can I take you out for coffee?"
Me: "Yeah, that'd be great. I'm always down for a cup."
-we talk about nothing in particular...she comes back to the point-
Ms Jen: "So next week sometime then?"
Me: "Yeah, how about...Tuuuuuuuesday night?"
Ms Jen: "Yeah, that should be fine."
Me: "What do you think? Dinner?"
Ms Jen: "Yeah, that'd be nice."
Me: "Okay, awesome then."
Ms Jen: "You're vegan, right?
Me: "Yeah...is that a problem?"
Ms Jen: "No! I'm really down with vegan food. I love the places around here."
Me: "Okay, great, we'll go somewhere awesome then."
Ms Jen: "Well so thanks so much again, this is so awesome."
Me: "You're welcome, but it really isn't that big of a deal."
Ms Jen: "Well, can I give you a hug at least?"
Me: "Of course!"
*hug*
-now normally, this would be the exit point, but unexpected nervousness is too exciting to leave alone-
Ms Jen: "This is so perfect. I'm moving, and I was really hoping to have a bike when I moved."
Me: "Why are you moving? This place looks pretty rad." (the yard is really nice, and the neighborhood, too)
Ms Jen: "Oh yeah, it's great, but I sort of have to. The family is expanding."
Me: "..."
Ms Jen: "I live with a family. She's a schoolteacher, and she is pregnant now, so they'll need to the room."
Me: "Oh, raw deal."
Ms Jen: "Well, the original plan was that I'd leave in July, and then my friends had this house in South Scottsdale sort of, so it all works out pretty well actually. And now I have a bike, so it's perfect."
Me: "Well, excellent...Anyways, I should probably be going now, I need to get to that dinner party"
Ms Jen: "Oh, okay...well, thank you again so much, seriously"
Me: "No worries."
-hug-
Me: "Okay, I'll call you next week."
Ms Jen: "Alright!"
Me: "Bye, have a good night."
Ms Jen: "Bye, have fun at your party."

I drove off then. She was wearing the long short things that Leslie wanted more of, and a green t-shirt. Her body is unlike my normal preference, but I am drawn to it. Healthy. Curves, I think. But it isn't just her body. Her skin is the color of summer, or culture, I'm not really sure. Her freckles are each deep abysses into which I fall endlessly. She seems legitimate and enthusiastic, maybe even excited, and that has shed onto me as well. I don't know why I fall so easily, but I don't really care either.

Miss Jen

I'm having some coffee with Adam y Jose the other day at Cartel. Costa Rican Soy Au Laits for myself and Adam. Blue for Jose. Miss Jen sits down. I'm in love, naturally, as I fall in love with every girl I see. We all four strike up a conversation of sorts regarding random things and whatnots, as well as stuff or something. I agree to buy her love with a bike. (A customer at Landis donated her sweet old school yellow Schwinn the other day, which I accepted graciously). I am going to fix up the bike and then call Miss Jen and be like, "you owe me some mad sex." Nah, I won't bribe her. Or I will. Depends on if it will work or not.

Wink i

I went out with Wink, sort of. We met up at Xtreme Bean, which is an ass awful coffee shop in south central Tempe. They used to be an excellent chill spot with good art and talented baristas, but now they are all assholes and their coffee sucks. Anywho, I left with enough time to stop off and get a flower, as that is my custom. This proved to be harder than expected as the first place I stopped had nothing worth showing to anyone. The second place also had nothing. The third place (I'm already like 15 minutes late at this point) had nearly nothing, except for those individually wrapped roses with all the shitty white stuff and whatnot. I threw all that bullshit by the wayside and stripped some of the dead leaves, so I just had a single rose. Roses aren't really my deal, but I was out of options.

I rolled up and saw her chillin at an outside table. She had an iced tea sort of thing and was on the phone, but hung up when I walked up. We sat there and talked for like two hours maybe, and she had to go to some thing. She invited me to her birthday party/concert the upcoming Saturday night, but warned me that she was going to get drunk like crazy and that it probably wouldn't even start until like ten. I said that I'd go (I didn't go).

Impressions: Nice girl, and more or less smart. Has some back story that may be interesting. Not my physical type, in general. A little too smart ass or something; not coy at all.

We'll see. I think that we might go on an actual date this coming week.

Reevaluating the shit

It is part of every responsible person's duty to periodically reevaluate their feelings and decisions on various experiences. For myself, this includes past relationships, conversations, career plans, and personal creeds. Of course, the most obvious things for me to reconsider occasionally are Julee, med school, and straight edge.
The Julee thing is fairly open and shut. I think that I maybe should have stuck with Danette that night at prom, but then everything nowadays would be upside down. I don't know that I'd even be able to have this sort of reflection. I'd probably be a kinesiology student still, for instance. I don't know, it's impossible to say what could have been. I still occasionally miss Julee, but I am mostly glad that I'm away from her. I have developed a new taste for women, and a new appreciation as well. I see now that if I were to meet Julee NOW, I wouldn't be all that interested in her, really.
Medical school is too vague to talk about. I wonder if it is the right decision, but I don't think that I'm ready to commit to either side.
Straight edge demands reflection. Any reason that I have for STAYING straight edge will probably be different than any reason I had for BECOMING straight edge. I wonder if I'm not depriving myself of something, as opposed to protecting. I still generally view alcohol and drugs and casual sex as detrimental to spiritual fulfillment, but is it really so black and white? Small amounts of alcohol or weed can actually have beneficial effects on the body (and the soul, according to some), so why do we take such a hard line stance? Should not the stance be against getting drunk as opposed to drinking? Is it true that you can not have an honest opinion on a situation to which you are unexperienced? Because I've never been high, can I really say that I don't see any spiritual betterment in doing so? This is not the same thing as abortion.
Someone who has never known love cannot say that it isn't important to them, I don't think. Someone who has never had sex cannot say that sex is not important to them, unless they throw an asterisk on the end of that statement. And what about the word love? In an effort to retain the sacred aspect of SOMEthing, I used to hold back my affection. I was separated. Kisses considered too valuable. Sex considered distant. The word itself saved for unique situations. Maybe we'd be better people if we didn't overload that word, or put too great of expectations on it. Why can't we redefine love? People claim that using the word too often devalues it. This may be true, and in fact probably is. But that's why we have poetry, isn't it? We can prove the level of our love (love is a spectrum, after all) by our actions, more so than we'd ever be able to with words. Sometimes it may be better for us to tell someone we love them, even if we don't LOVE THEM. Why is there some weird quota involved here? It feels like we attribute the word to a feeling we had with someone at some point, and then we only use it again when we achieve the same feeling or something greater. If we do THAT, I fear that we might be OVERvaluing the word. Why not just love everyone, but be aware that perhaps we love some people more than others, and that the word may not always mean the same thing every time we use it? The danger lies in the interpretation of the word by the other person. If I tell someone that I love them, they may not understand exactly how I feel. Once again, poetry comes into our lives and demands that single words only superficially represent the way that we feel. Didn't Adam tell me that the Japanese don't say "I love you," but rather use a word that basically means "loving" or is a verb for a loving feeling experienced at that moment? This makes more sense to me. In this way, we are not locking ourselves into a designated height of expression, but rather just saying "At THIS moment, I feel something for you that it tremendously positive and enjoyable." However, I wouldn't dare say that to a girlfriend who just said she loves me, lest she cut my testicles off.
So what's the point? Love is transient and subjective. How we feel at any point is only how we feel at THAT point. If I'm laying next to someone and I feel my mouth forming the words, "I love you," maybe I'll just say it. Or maybe I'll preface it and protect my own future heart by saying. "At this moment, I feel love for you." It's hard to say.
Is the whole straightedge thing similar to veganism? I don't know. I feel like since I have already categorized the animal products industry as a negative thing, I cannot partake at all. In other words, I've decided that it is bad, so for me to support it would just be hypocritical in the most damaging way. It isn't even really possible to say, "veganism is too hard, I'm going to just have a little bit of cheese now and then," because I know that it ISN'T too hard. Or maybe it is, but I like to think that we ought to allow things into our lives that we know are hard, because it makes us better. If it really IS too hard, then you don't just throw it out the window. You strive and strive for it, and actually do the best that you can. You don't just SAY that you're trying your hardest. I mean, I think that I'd rather you didn't try at all than to lie to everyone and lower your standards. The point though is that I don't necessarily consider alcohol and weed to be the same as like meat and fur. The meat and fur are damaging and destructive in their production, and my consumption thereof only encourages that. My support further enhances the idea that man has been given unchecked domination over all of creation. That we can decide who dies and why. We're all just creatures. Weed and/or alcohol are only as bad as the people who consume them. Getting drunk is damaging, but is DRINKING that bad? Some of the most respected and peaceful peoples in the history of peoples enjoyed the occasional drink (or smoke). Who else might I be? And besides, people who are straight edge are usually just scared, honestly. Scared of various things, but scared nonetheless. Maybe of their past, or their family's past. Maybe of the future, or a lack thereof. It's hard to say.

Havasupai Trip: Wednesday

We wake when we wake. With the sun, I suppose. I have fantastic granola in air temperature soy milk. Very good. Kind of weird though. We prepare slowly, and I strap Chaco sandals to my Camelbak.

The end of camp is punctuated rather dramatically by Mooney Falls. It is the tallest fall that we will see.



To get to the bottom of Mooney, we must descend a rather treacherous path made even more so by my mother's slow movement.




(this one is a shot from the bottom up, the chains are for climbing, as it is pretty much straight up)

We hike past Mooney into some dense greenery that is sort of ridiculous. It is all dominated by what appear to be grape vines.



We were hoping to get to Beaver Falls, but my mom didn't want to do the second chain climb, so we turned around (there is a second - more intense - chain assisted climb later on in the hike to Beaver Falls). We stop and have lunch before turning around.


(this is where we stopped to take a shower)