Entries this day: Arrival_in_Kalamazoo Dream Eminem_dream Milk ali_babas food_co-op museum_of_science volleyball zzz

Arrival in Kalamazoo

12:20am EDT Friday 11 October 2002

I have just arrived! Joana is going to give me a tour of campus.

5:54am

Joana gave me a tour of campus and I told her stories, prompted by names of cities so far on my trip. At 2:15 or so she went to sleep and then I fell asleep reading an interview of foreign affairs expert Thomas Friedman in Rolling Stone. Just woke up, finished the interview, going back to sleep.

Dream

9:20am EDT Friday 11 October 2002

(dream)

Walking with Barbie maybe, and came across a house under construction. I needed some 2x4s to use as stakes in my house to help me sell it. Inside the garage of this house (not mine) I found some pieces of 2x4 about 4 feet long with pointy ends to use as a stake. Found four pieces. Also found 4 smaller pieces to be used for something else.

Barbie motioned for me to wait, as I had began to walk out the door; she wanted to wait for Dr Dre who was also in the garage getting some stuff that he needed. While we waited, the owner of the house came into the garage and caught us stealing his shit.

He asked what was the next thing I intended to do with the boards I had.

"Um, go to my house and use them as stakes." I had decided not to lie and get myself in more trouble.

He asked if I had been there to his house previously.

"no"

"really?" he asked, as if to make sure I hadn't forgotten about it.

"yes I have never been hear before. Today is my first day."

"You didn't steal a shirt from me that said Marathon on it?"

"no, but I read abotut it in the newspaper."

"Anyone could have heard about it on the news" he said, trying to make that statement implicate me.

I made a joke, yeah Barbie said the samething, "if I..they stole it they could just look down and know what it said on the shirt." She had said 'I' but I switched the word to 'they' at the last minute to keep him from thinking she was really talking about me.

"He tried to use magic marker and make it look like a top ten countdown."

"Reeealy? I did not know that." I considered this next part before saying it. "With all due respect, this shirt will be a lot mor valuable after it's been so famous."

He rolled his eyes.

"I know this is not the type of publicity you'd like to get, but it's true."

He said something about fifty dollars for the shirt, but I thought he was offering to let me pay fifty dollars for the wood and let me off without prosecution.

"Okay" and I reached for my wallet because I had fifty dollars in it.

He looked confused.

I was all, "I thought you were offering to acept fifty dollars from me so you wouldn't prosecute me."

No response.

"I'm just trying to stay out of jail. If fifty bucks will do it, then that's fine."

He considered a moment and then accepted the offer, but then said something like , "blah blah blee bloo and your friends won't be implicated."

I was all, "what?"

He spoke again, but this time it was different, so I recognized I was dreaming, and woke up and kept my fifty bucks.

Eminem dream

9:43am EDT Friday 11 October 2002

I met Eminem in a previous dream. I don't remember details except that we had met that day and were becoming friends.

Milk

10:08am EDT Friday 11 October 2002

I'm so thrilled to discover soy milk in my magic box!! I drank one last night on my way from Oberlin to Kalamazoo, and this morning Joana offered me some cereal.. except she had no milk. "I've got some soy milk in the car!" Wow how totally perfect is that?? Thanks to Janette for such a wonderful magic box.

So she is sleeping now while I took a shower and am now internetified.

ali babas

12:02pm EDT Friday 11 October 2002

I'm at lunch at Ali Baba's on Kalamazoo Mall, a brick one lane one way street, the history of which was summarized on some concrete podium base thing at one end of the street.

Weather is beautiful for walking bright sun through brilliant blue sky and trees full of leaves considering the idea of changing hue for the winter.

To order lunch I requested the "least expensive high protein meal; I don't care what it is." Result = a greek burrito with lamb, tomatoes, pickles, lettus and some mystery sauce.

12:42pm

Lovely lunch.

I randomly started reading the phone book and found a page of missing children "Have You Seen These Missing Children?"

Missing children is certainly no fun for everyone involved. There are lots of missing children in these surrounding states, I'm sure.

So why, oh why, is one of the missing children still featured here when by now he is 29 years old? He's 2 years younger than me, and has been missing since he was 5 years old. How possibly could this age progressed picture be accurate? How possibly would his family and him have anything in common to talk about? Any ties, any bonds, anything? It just seems weird to me.

food co op

1:38pm EDT Friday 11 October 2002

Super awesome thanks to Jenny at People's Food Co-op, downtown Kalamazoo's only natural grocer who bought me an apple for lunch.

I went inside when I saw "food co-op" thinking, that's exactly what I need! But they often work on a scale more like lots and lots of food, like word for an hour and get 5% off $100 worth of food purchased or something like that. I was all, "hmm. I was hoping more along the lines of ones of dollars instead of hundreds of dollars."

She bought me an apple without anything expected in return. I'll write her a letter from somewhere.

museum of science

2:02pm EDT Friday 11 October 2002

I'm at the Kalamazoo Museum. The peeps at the front counter greeted me and after a short conversation said I should check out the Trail of History, for there is a letter written by someone that's really interesting.

"Who?" I asked.

They didn't want to give it away.

"I see.. the mummy...." I said mysteriously, for we had just previously been talking about a mummy on level three.

2:35pm

Wow.

I'm only on the first floor of the three story museum, checking out three new interactive things I hadn't previously seen at a museum. They have the tornado simulation (cylinder of air with fan on top and vapor (dry ice?) emitted from the bottom), which I've seen before, but they also have three other things:

1) Glass half sphere about four feet in diameter with water filling the bottom spherical half. A variable speed fan above the water whirls the air around inside the thing to simulate no wind, or wind wind, or storm winds. The water sometimes whips about and splashes within the sphere. Cool stuff.

2) Glass full sphere about two feet in diameter, with sand filling the bottom quarter, and the rest full of water. The sphere itself may be spun by hand (only on vertical axis), causing the water and sand to whirl around in possibly fun ways.

3) Vibrating rubber mat with sand on top, simulating the earth rumbling, according to the sign. Not variable speed vibration, but I can press firmly down on the mat and stop or dampen vibrations on a certain area, causing patterns to emerge in other places. Not nearly as cool as the violin bow on metal, but still pretty cool.

Okay, upstairs now.

2:55pm

Aight. I'm in the Trail of History, and I haven't seen a letter yet. Will I miss it? There is plenty plenty plenty to see and read here. Lots of hidden elements. Presumably a letter so cool will be a featured part of the exhibit.

4:26pm

I gave up a long time ago on finding that mysterious awesome letter. For at least the past hour, I've been building a two motor, four wheel car, that can run on this track they've got set up. Six little motors to choose from, and a whole pile of K'nex toys to build with. Thing is, they only build well in two dimensions. They don't really have a piece that will support structures radiating out in all three dimensions. Getting over that hurdle is what took the longest. I never really did it; I ended up making two cars and rubberbanded them together kinda like a train.

Talked to a cat who just got back from Japan doing some research. He works in this museum now and today is his first day. They told him, "go out and play with stuff." So that's what he's doing, exploring the museum.

5:02pm

I successfully built an arch out of foam blocks designed for such. However, this was quite a challenge more than I might have expected. Haha to the sign that said, "can you build an arch by yourself? of course not!!" and then went on to say some bullshit about teamwork. haha. The guy whose first day was today said, "good job!"

I've left now because the museum is closed. Those who were at the front desk are gone; I may never know who wrote the letter I never found.

volleyball

6:54pm EDT Friday 11 October 2002

Two dorms competed in volleyball outside and Joana got me grab and run on her board card. I played the first prequel game that didn't count and it was way fun. During the best of three competition, Crissey (Joana's dorm) won the first game 21 - 17, then they lost 21 - 4, then lost 21 - 17. Awesome fun, just like my college days!

8:40pm

Joana and I just watched The Princess Bride.

zzz

2:43pm EDT Saturday 12 October 2002

After watching The Princess Bride, Joana and Caycee wanted to have a party. Josh (?) Caycee's boyfriend was all, "you can't have a party without some preplanning.."

Josh doesn't live nearby, so Joana and I went upstairs to someone else's suite (Brent and Greg?) where some people were studying, and some were zombified by the TV and/or pot. Once the studiers quit studying (not that they finished, but they were all, "well I'm not going to get any more done tonight"), I kept offering games we could play Silent Football, Mafia, Dead Fish, Truth or Dare, The Jackie Purdy Game, Two Truths and A Lie, and none of those fully materialized, but a few of us played 2 Truths and a Lie.

Then about five people came back from seeing "Red Dragon" and I blurted, "were you amazed by how the bad guy..." and I tried to not give away any of the movie, but I did and I felt dumb, but maybe no one else cared. I hope not. Oh well.

We went to the room where people were mostly hanging out and then they all went to a strip club on the rumor that a girl from their high school was working there. They left and Joana and I chatted with some cat whose name I've forgotten.

Then we went downstairs and cut up magazines to make a collage, but I was pretty much too tired so I went to sleep on the futon.

- - - -

Next (this) morning I learned that Joana didn't get to her room until late because Caycee and Josh were still there past 2:30am, when she fell asleep on Meagan's bed.

I don't know when (or how she knew she could) go back to her room, but that's where she was when I got up this morning.