Aaaaaannnd where back!

THANK YOU ALL
SO MUCH FOR WRITING IN
YOUR FANMAIL ITS MUCH APPRECIATED

BY POPULAR DEmand im blogging again!

Um......so I lost my brain just now. When I find it Ill get back to you. Here somes stuff.

Imagine space. Imagine the biggest thing you can imagine and make it a million times bigger. Imagine a million Earths all right next to each other. Imagine there are billions of identical galaxies with identical stars and identical planets and identical Earths and identical Yous. Where is the limit of your imagination?

This is bad bad stuff. This is the same old wall over and over again. Maybe Ive lost my imagination? Maybe its never coming back? Maybe its all this green stuff that is limiting me.

How can I know? There are a million billion variables involved in everything, but I want to know them all. Its impossible to. So why try? Yes, I am rambling. I am trying to put my thought patterns in type so I can identify the loop, then see where to get out of it. Like a song you have stuck in your head, but get stuck in a 30 second loop of it because the end seems to lead into the beginning. You’re not sure where the end and beginning are, and you don’t know where your messing up, but you just keep missing your exit, some subtlety you’re overlooking which will let you out of your loop. Happens with thoughts a lot.

So, since I don’t seem to be going anywhere, and since whenever I think too seriously about why I want to do something I end up sitting in place and sucking my thumb, I’ve reached an end point, or perhaps a turning point.

Maybe I am approaching being a perfect Daoist, since whenever I decide to do anything I realize it is silly. Anything that involves a decision is already silly. I eat because I must and seek shelter because I must. After all that stuff, all my urge is just wanton wanting and meaningless trifles. So I can sit in place and not move and even forget about drugs and stuff and just be at peace……

But why is peace a virtue? Why is movement bad and non-movement ideal? The universe urges movement with every single atom, vibrating and flying and aching to do stuff, get excited, get grounded, lose an electron, gain an electron, oxidize, balance, osmose, diffuse, MOVEMOVEMOVE….

Aaaaaannnd where back.

In other news. Life is smelly and nobody really listens to the Beatles anymore. Its sad.

So whats in it?

Its drifting, its drifting and it hits some crazy species and they analyze it. That’s it. Aliens

enjoying human culture when we’re all dust. So dust….

ANYWAYS

So how bout that wasn’t this a nice party listen we should really hang out sometime don’t forget your coat hehee yeah it’s a bit early but I gotta get to bed yeah, o looks like the cab is here, Okay better not make him wait eheh yeah, no problem, really I had a great time yeah….uh okay….yeah uh huh no problem. Okay. See you later.

Oh man did you hear that shit.

What were they talking about?

Eric you write like you talk!

Well I think like I write, and I write like I talk. So there it is!

Ugh

Delete is a good word.

Snooze is another good word.

Dragon. That ones nice. Makes you go RaughH a little bit. Like a Dragon goes.

And so my head is heavy.

I can’t write. It wont happen.

Okay

the wall disappears

I am only what is appearing on my screen

I cant think any faster than this.

I am limited by the speed of my fingers. I should learn to type. Why not?

Youll be doing it forever. Really the way you type is inefficient. Why does that mess you up. Doing things like necessities. Hey I got it that time. I guess I can visualize the word. See. Now I started visualizing.

So this is a stream of consciousness narrative. I am at my desk.

This is a record of most of the thoughts I am thinking of.

I can hear the sounds of birds and girls playing volleyball. I think.

Or just being Chinese.

The Dragon Pipe is to my left, caked ash inside.

I keep thinking about my electron fart that’s out there on the internet to just kinda linger amongst exabytes of data until the servers its on are long dust, until they’ve been corrupted by so many format transfers that they are no longer readable, but people don’t really mind that much, cause it’s the future.

See, add enough time and everything goes away. So what have we to hold on to?

That woody allen bit from Annie Hall is awesome…

10 yr old woody and his mom are at the psychologists office.

Mom "HE WONT DO HIS HOMEWORK!"

“Its all meaningless” - Woody

“But what does that have to do with YOU?!?!?!” – Woodys jewish mom

So yeah. cool!

Sorry for teh double spacing. Friggin Blogger. Formatting bugs should never happen ever.

Meditations

So I woke up on Day 3,
after having a very uncomfortable night-time bathroom experience
featuring a Chinese squatter toilet (read: hole in the ground) and a receipt I happened to have in my wallet...

So I was thinking bout "missing home."
While I'm here in Xi'an,
I periodically get a pang where I miss my nice home in Shanghai,
where I know where everything is and where to get good food and where I know some people.

But then while I'm in Shanghai,
periodically wonder what it would be like to be home at NYU,
with all my buds and Bobst and Washington Square and the whole deal.

But while I'm there I periodically want to go home,
and sleep in my own bed, see my family, and eat home food.
Except if I spend too much time there, I start to lose my mind.

So, These places are real,
but I also see them almost entirely through the lens of my memory,
as if these places are in my head.

Then which is "home"? Are any of them? Is my sense of comfort and at-ease just so completely fractured that no matter which one I'm at I'll always need something from another place? I always have to keep moving as I get my fill of one place and need what another can offer?

Or maybe the only home is when I'm on the road, with my backpack and my own mind for company?

Xi'anananananananananananan

So Day 2, and the rest of day one.

I been taking lots of pictures and those are the coolest part of all this,
BUT
writing is fun too.

The fact that everyone here is an only child is really fucking weird. Think about it, no teammates,
its the two on one parent-defined reality for your entire life. Scary.

ANYWAYS
So I was right, I did here hebrew, and after I visited another tyourist trap I introdiced myself to the group of Israelis and boom: family. So I hung out with this group of Israelis last night,. smoked, it was all good fun. Then thismorning we all toured this hot springs place together, after which I went to Terra Cotta army. Which was pretty crazy. I smoked beforehand but lost my bud there, so now I'm on empty...alcohol only. Pictures pictures....

So then I took a train home.
At the last minute last night a room opened up at the hostel and I found somewhere to stay, so Im all settled.

Yesterday I met this Architecture student cause he was sitting next to me at a restaurant, and tonight I met him and a few of his friends at a bar near his school and he told em all about Xi'an and the life Chinese. Awesome Awesome.

Then I came back to the hostel and got more drunk. Ive been doing lots of thinking about all this too, but I get to write about that later.

Its kinda weird how much Shanghai feels like home these days...

Adventure Time

So! I Arrive in Xian!
Alone.
The train was three tiered. like, a wall, six beds hanging, three on each side of the wall, a little space, and then another wall... and when I say tiers its cause the beds looked like bookshelves....maybe 4 feet wide. Of course, there was beer and ramen being offered constantly for purchase, and I felt right at home.

I had to stop reading my book at 1030pm when every
(I mean EVERY) light in the train turned off for bedtime.
No, I did not have a personal switch. I saw an on off slide on the side of the light itself,
but it was the on/off for the light-cover, which fell on me after trying it.
So then I lay awake in bed for two hours alternately sweating under my sheets or freezing directly under an air duct.
Then I was woken up by EVERY old chinese person on the train talking at the top of their voices. at all of a quarter to 5.
Then I got off the train and life was okay again.

There was also a sad little smoking room in Shanghai railroad Station...
just wanted to remember it....

SOOOOOOO
I got lost in Xi'an,
got ripped off by a muslim noodle guy,
Peed in a bathroom which was four holes in teh ground separated by dividers but not doors,
and were all covered when I got there by four chinese men squatting.
It. Was. Crazy.

ANYWAY snap to present
Im in a hostel
in teh heart of Xi'an,
and I just heard hebrew. SO MUCH hebrew.
Wherever I go, Israelis beat me there.
CURSES!!!

so then I went to an internet cafe
and got fried on their backporch while watching an old man bath a dog
while a rooster crowed every few minutes.
CRAZY.Nesss.

and then I went to this crazy garden with stone tablets. Pictures wil have to wait till I can get an SD card reader.

Oh yeah,
and the hostels full so I still have no place to stay, but Im banking on this party I was invited to to find a host.

WE SHALL SEE!!

Travel Blog Spring Break: GO!

SO!
Sorry it sbeen too long since I put a real post up.
Ive been doodling and dreaming and stuff,
and thatll all go up soon enough

BUT! It is spring Break, and I'm going on a trip to Xi'an.
My friends all grouped up to lame places spring break,
or I have no friends,
but either way, I'm off to see Xi'an.
I don't know where I'm staying and I don't have a plan of what to do and I dont know anybody there except a dude I met on CouchSurfing. ADVENTURE!

Where is Xi'an? Shanghai is on the southeast coast of China,
and Xi'an is a bit north and about a third of the country west.
Xi means west in Chinese.
Its a 20 hour train ride, and I get a bed and EVRYTHING! very cool!

Anyway, so since this is gonna be a huge adventure Im gonna be blogging about it every day
(or as often as I have internet access)
Should be tres cool!!!

LIVE BLOG! YAY!
New Post tomorrow?
~Eric

Is anybody watching?!

Is anybody watching whats going on out there?

All the protestors
all the human rights activists
who were opposed to the anti-Hamas Israel operation Cast Lead.
What have they to say now?

Hamas is now holding all of Gaza hostage.
All of it.

Israel has agreed to open all its blockades.
release 392 LIVE HAMAS TERRORISTS
some with Israeli civilian blood on their hands,
in exchange for ONE live soldier.

thats it,
then end of the Blockade, Gaza has an economy again
the humanitarian crisis is over,
your people can eat.

Just let this one guy go.

But they say: We can hold him another year, and see what you'll offer us then
Meanwhile, they gain face in the Arab world,
for getting the Israelis to offer so much on a deal.
And they keep their wildcard.

I mean JEEZ...
Israel has already released so many terrorists its crazy.
Its actually insane.
The world is insane.

Its like walking past a wild dog,
and it just barks at you.
You dont know why,
you dont know this dog,
but it wants to kill you!
It just wont stop barking at you!
And Everyone around you is just like,
let it off its leash, if you let it off its leash it wont actuallly bite you
even though it sure looks like it will...
And then you say sure, I guess we could try it
and let'em off the leash...
and they try to kill you.

And you fight'em off,
put the leash back on,
and wonder jesus that was stupid,
why did I think this time would be different?

More pics - treasure

Hey dudes,
there were some crazy museums in the Forbidden City
with all sorts of really awesome treasure.
Here the pictures are:

This is a solid gold sphere with pearls to map all the stars and constellations in the night sky.
It's the only still-existing gold celestial sphere in the world.

A beautiful scene carved out of a single block of very rare blue jade.

From 1720, a Jade figure of an Arhat, whatever that is.

This is a video of some of the Commie guards walking around the forbidden city. There were a bunch of them all over the place. Note the last dude in line holding bananas.

Since the weather was nice we went for a 1am stroll near Tiananmen square, where we saw two green uniformed guards doing straight line back and forth patrol. We were just walking by (nervously) when he stopped and asked us what we were doing. We told him we were just walking (unaware if we were breaking any laws.)

We sat down at a nearby lampost and then he came over and asked us again what we're doing, so we said Just sitting the weather is nice. I asked him if he always works so late at night, and how longs he's been in the guard corps. He responded with surprising friendliness, and a 15 minute discussion later he had insisted on giving me his email address and he'd given me a Chinese name:

李芫龙

So now I'm chinese.