before it is obscured by the sands of time, the glorious ring tan i received in the Dominican.

through hours of deep pondering, i’ve concluded that school is a drag because i don’t appreciate my classes. yeah, i may find art courses boring and stupid but sometimes i have to remind myself that it’s far better than having to take math or science (sorry, but it’s true). so, on that note, i am hereby forcing myself to enjoy school.

i’ve been trying so hard not to treat women like objects that i’m beginning to treat objects like women.

congratulations, Julia and Manny!

i know you most likely will never read this but the shots from your wedding have been my best so far, by far. be excited!

punchout!

walking to the L, i saw a bunch of finches pecking at a half-eaten buffalo wing laying on the ground. stupid cannibals. though i must admit, it got me kind of hungry.

then when i got on the L, the only other people in my car was a brother and some white lady (outbound, 7am). as the train ambled past Pilsen rooftops, a cell went off. both picked up their phones but the white lady won. you should’ve seen the look of disappointment on the black guy’s face. it really ripped your heart in two.

so i keep post-its in my camera bag where i can quickly write down little bits of “inspiration” for later elaboration. sometimes things come to me when i wake up in the middle of the night and i usually pull the pad out and groggily jot it down so i don’t forget. well, i’m looking right now and i apparently scrawled the word “DIARRHEA” on it at some point last night.

diarrhea?!

i think i’m going to purchase a view camera within the next five years.

Dominican Republic - on hiatus until i can put more thoughts down

regular life started back up this week. on mondays and wednesdays, i wake up at 6:00am, leave the apartment at 7:00am, work from 7:45am to 12:00pm, take the L back east for class at 1:00pm til 3:40pm, then another class at 4:00pm to 6:40pm. it’s like being trapped in a giant box full of cacti and shaken about.

okay, sleep time.

Dominican Republic - Part IV: living conditions

as stated in Part I, we stayed in a largish building that we later learned was the town meeting hall. the “locked” front door gave way with a good push and the compound was surrounded by a chain-linked fence whose gate was secured by a padlock that required only a firm tug to open. at least it looked safe.

the building was powered. sometimes. we would enjoy a couple of hours of juice and then it would suddenly shut down for a few hours. it really wasn’t too bad since we didn’t really spend all that much time in the joint.

groundwater was pumped periodically into a cistern located near the fence and we had to bucket it into a drum for our using pleasure. floating in the water was sediment, bits of plant life, what appeared to be a few aquatic insects here and there, gravy, very small rocks, and other assorted things that float.

because there was no running water, the toilet had to be flushed manually by quickly pouring a bucket of water into the bowl. open up the tank, stop your toilet from filling, and try the bucket thing sometime. you’ll be amazed or at least amused. showers were also taken with the ubiquitous bucket but was a practice i was marginally more familiar with. washing our faces and brushing our teeth was done with drinking water for obvious reasons.

when it was time for bed, we laid out thin sleeping mats and strung up mosquito nets. though the place was crawling with insects, the mosquito nets made everything alright. it created a feeling of security and privacy though in reality it provided little of either. occasionally, one of us would unwittingly trap a mosquito or spider in with us for the night and wake up with a dozen red spots on each leg.

but we didn’t care. too much.

Dominican Republic - Part III: the grub

we ate very well during our time in El Limón which, ironically, had no lemons whatsoever. among the most common foods served at any given meal were plantains, rice, beans, plantains, chicken, plantains, plantains, avocados, fish, plantains, and finally, plantains. so, as any fool can plainly see, we ate tons of avocados.

plantains are the jolly green giants of the banana family. as stated previously and restated for a second time in redundancy again here as well too, plantains are larger and greener than an average banana. they’re also much tougher and not nearly as sweet, giving them culinary properties not unlike that of potatoes. the result is plantains at every meal in a veritable cornucopia of forms.

for drinking, Dominicans seem to be infatuated with a powdered drink called “Zuko.” while the mix itself already yields an insanely sweet concoction, they can’t help but add another two metric tons of sugar to give it that extra little steel-toed kick to the face.