UPDATE:

I killed all my plants.

Moundville, USA

Seriously.



Some sexy Paul "Bear" Bryant fans.


Church sponsored tail-gating!

Since yesterday marked the first football game of the season, Samuel, Emily, Jesse, & I dared to venture out of Tuscaloosa to Moundville, Alabama.


This town's namesake comes from a series of ancient mounds created by Mississippians centuries ago. You can read more about it here.


After watching a fifteen minute informative video, we hiked through the ancient city's plaza to Mound B, the tallest of the mounds.


We walked through the nature trail searching for access to the Black Warrior River & eventually found it. We took our shoes off & walked up the river's creek & saw lots of cool spiders!






My camera's batteries died so I didn't get any cool photos of the spiders. You'll just have to imagine them for yourselves.

CALL FOR WORK!!

I'm putting together a collaborative project where people send me postcards with poems on them.

You can use the space of the postcard for original poetry or send a longer piece on several postcards.

If you're interested or know someone who is, please inquire as to where you should send the cards!

I'll be binding this into a book for my collaborations class this semester & want as many cards as possible! The final work will be then sent to Switchback HQ so you Chicagoans can see the work, if you so desire.

All work is welcome!

Planty-wants

So today, Emily (from Sacramento, rides a road bike) who lives two doors down invited me to join her on a trip to the nursery. It was fabulous. I got a few pots to go along with a meaty, fragrant oregano plant,


a pink elephant ear,


and three ferns: a Boston, an Asparagus, and something else with dime-sized leaves.

ADORABLE!

I also plan to have an herb garden, but everywhere seems to be sold out of herbs! Damn progressives!

A Day in the Life of Clementine Horsetooth

This photoshoot took place over the course of four hours:



















She stole my spot!!


FINALLY! She moved!!

Southern Documentaries

Last night Jesse & I watched "Small Town Gay Bar," a documentary which explores a few gay bars in rural Mississippi. It's incredibly interesting. The secret subculture that is created in these small towns is what I find most amazing; these people seem to struggle ultimately between their private lives & public lives.



I couldn't find the trailer online to post, but you should Netflix it or something.

This morning I watched "Hell House," which is a doc filmed in Dallas about a church that uses scare-tactics within a haunted house in order to help "save" teenagers from sin. What goes on in the haunted house is abominable. It is implied that it is a girl's fault for being raped (both by her father & later at a rave), that all homosexuals will get AIDS, and that a woman who chooses to have an abortion will ultimately bleed to death out of her vagina. Seriously!


Here's a low-quality video of the hospital scene from the documentary:


There is one shot in the beginning where the preacher is standing before his church's sign & the way he is positioned looks like the sign reads, "The ass... of God." That part was pretty great.

Cruel & Unusual Punishment

Clementine was casually eating some Purina in the kitchen while I was in the living room, when she bolted with wide eyes & tried to paw at something on the floor. It was her first roach! It ran under the lintel of the linen closet, but as I opened the door, boot in hand, it ran under the laundry basket. Jesse picked up the basket & I smashed it to near-death. Half it's creepy legs were twitching as Jesse picked up the bug by its antenna & showed Clem was her mission will be for the next three years.



A photograph of our deceased friend in perspective. He was still twitching, the fucker.


Then Jesse proceeded to say, "Don't tell me not to do what I'm about to do," as he wrapped the bug in toilet paper & sprayed it with Axe deodorant (yes, there is more than one use for that shit). Then this:


We flushed the flaming animal down the toilet. It wasn't that satisfying.

For my enemies.

I dedicate this web log to all the roaches I am going to kill over the next few years. So far today I have only killed one roach, however, the sun has not yet set.

Yesterday J & I had to drop off the truck at the truck place. Go figure, it's 5 miles away on the side of a six lane highway. So, we throw our bikes in the back. The google maps directions stated that the car ride should take 13 minutes, however, the street signs along the highway are only as big as my forearms so we drove twenty minutes past the street we were headed for originally.

Once we arrived at our destination, we realized that we would not be able to ride our bikes very far. We rode to the end of the parking lot, then dared to continue riding them at the right edge of the shoulder of the highway. Our emergency exit strategy was to fall into the ditch. We had to dismount when the shoulder ended, climb over the metal guard rail, and walk our bikes through tall grass. Once it was safe enough, we would ride again.

This went on for the next five miles. It was 90 degrees outside. We walked through the industrial part of town, which doubles as (you guessed it!) the impoverished part of town. While the adventure was incredibly annoying, it showed us a part of town we may never have seen. Tuscaloosa seems to be quite segregated, which I suppose is no real surprise. (I hope I don't sound like a northern ass.)

So today we went on an excursion to the Shell station in order to buy a carton of cigarettes. The first station we stopped at (it was relatively close to our place) was closed for inventory. So we traversed to a main highway-ish intersection near the Target/Home Depot combo. We again had to walk/ride along another highway for a few miles. In our pack was only 32 ounces of water to hydrate us, which we had quickly finished a while back. Once the mecca of Shell was in sight, my spirits were raised. And we got there only find out it, too, was closed for inventory.

We took a new way home, trying out side streets, exploring this strange little town. Stopping at a shady driveway across from a local gas station, we drank fresh, icy water and rejuvenated. We headed down 37th St, turning down one side street, then another, then another until we ended up at the same highway we walked/rode our bikes down a mere 24 hours prior.

It wasn't funny then, I assure you.

The first night we were in town, we were ridiculed by students for riding bikes. Now the actual town seems to be ridiculing us! Coming from one of the most bike-friendly cities in the nation to a town with zero bike culture is more of a culture shock than seeing Japanese men reading comic porn on their commute. The only bike shop in town has closed temporarily.

I am upset.

At least we have internet now.