My Non-Ambitious Ambition

things i miss about grand rapids.

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:16:33 -0500

1) being around people who have known me for years.
2) pita house.
3) proximity to lake michigan.
4) g-rad, nest, the daac, the uica, and the whole community of people that surrounds all that.
5) terrain that is mostly flat and therefore easily bikeable. (biking in a mountain town requires more physical capability than i can even dream of.)
6) riverside park.
7) cheap rent and no tourists.
8) coffee shops where you can smoke inside. (oh, morningstar! common ground! kava house! damn non-smoking laws in asheville!)
9) the farmer's market.
10) gaia cookies.

things i don't miss:

1) too much snow for too long.
2) the price of cigarettes. (mine were $7.50 there, here they're $4.20.)
3) not much of a radical community to speak of. (asheville is kind of a punk/anarchist hotbed.)

so, the thing i'm getting at is that even though i love it down here, i've been getting homesick for grand rapids lately. i can't afford to come visit, because it's expensive to live here and hard to find jobs, so i'm barely scraping together rent each month. hopefully i'll be back for christmas, but who knows?

i'm thinking of y'all.

yeah, asheville!

Sat, 31 May 2008 12:54:35 -0500

the more i move, the further in the past grand rapids feels. but i still tell lots of stories about people or places there, it still has a special place in my heart. one of my friends might be going up to michigan at the end of august, so assuming the timing doesn't conflict with the portland zine symposium (which itself assumes i'll actually have the money saved up to fly out there), i'll be coming back to visit then.

but now! life! i live in asheville!

these are my roommates.

this is my awesome bedroom.

this is aiden loving the back porch.

these are two of my friends and our back porch.

this was part of our may day festivities.

yeah! it's really awesome!

moving to asheville.

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:51:40 -0500

my dreams have finally been fulfilled: i'm moving to asheville!

a month ago, a friend and i found the perfect apartment. three bedrooms, hardwood floors, clawfoot tub, gas stove, front porch and back balcony that span the entire house, with the most amazing view of the mountains. the top floor of an almost-all female punk house where three of our friends live downstairs, right on the edge of downtown, with an empty lot next door turned into an enormous garden. we found a third person to live with us, who was moving down from new york, and we were ready.

then it was taken by some women who had looked at it before, and we were heartbroken.

but while i was out there this past week, we found out that the women had backed out, because it's not done being remodeled yet, and they needed somewhere to live immediately. the original friend who had planned on moving in had already found a place, but i took rae (the new yorker) to look at it. she loved it, so we signed a lease and paid the deposit. but we still needed to find a third person.

the next night, i went bowling with one of the women who lives in the lower level of the house, and met her friend courtney. the first thing she said when i got in the car was, "so, i hear you might need a roommate?" she turned out to be absolutely wonderful, an anarcha-feminist vegan who loves to cook and is super pumped about our idea to have a weekly craft night. we talked to her for a while, and told her: definitely. you can move in.

so over the course of 36 hours, everything came together perfectly. we got the apartment and then found a wonderful housemate to join us. the apartment will be ready sometime in the beginning of april, and we all have places to stay until then.

we're going to put a little table on the back balcony, the one with the view of the mountains, where we can sit with our typewriters (we all have one), drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. we're going to have a housewarming tea party with vegan finger sandwiches and mini vegan cupcakes when we move in.

i'm finally moving to asheville, the only city i've ever been to where i knew immediately: this is home. i belong here.

travels of time and space

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:34:30 -0500

now that i'm back in raleigh, michigan feels like a strange, sugar-induced dream.

has anyone else ever felt that way? to leave somewhere, make a very satisfactory new life elsewhere, and then return to the first place? it's unsettling. i can't keep things straight in my mind. someone asked if i'd ever been to mojo's (the piano bar) and i said, "oh, the burger place?" i kept comparing things in my head - common ground is like cup a joe, whereas four friends is like third place. i would be sitting in my parents' family room and think, "i want to read that book," and go upstairs only to remember that my books were all in raleigh.

and now that i'm back, everything is unsettled again, thrown back into this life that i was used to, feeling strangely as if i had never left. granted, i was gone for less than two weeks, but those two weeks felt like a long time while they were happening. now i walk into the house and people are cooking dinner, some random kid is sleeping on our couch, attila's building a fire in the fireplace. i simultaneously feel like i never left, and like i've been gone for months.

i can't keep going back. it confuses me too much.

i'll be home for christmas

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 15:34:33 -0500

it's a little early to start thinking about the holidays, but not if you have to buy a train ticket soon.

so, i haven't written in here since june. i feel guilty. i've been trying to immerse myself more fully in life here, because when i think or read too much about grand rapids, i start to miss it. and since i'm not moving back, it's rather useless. but i will be back for the holidays! probably 12/23 through 1/2.

so in case anyone is interested, things are going relatively well here. it's finally cooled down! i got a scooter at the end of august, a honda metropolitan, and i don't really drive my car anymore. it's awesome, and really fun. work is hard, but i think i'm going to survive. the house is good, we had two new housemates move in at the end of july. we've started a radical mental health collective, and an eastern north carolina earth first! chapter. i quit smoking last month. i got my septum pierced a few weeks ago, right before i went to the southeast women's herbal conference, which was amazing. i'm probably going to move to asheville in january, or shortly thereafter, to live with two really wonderful friends that i have there.

and i guess those are the highlights.

a good weekend to be home

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:57:09 -0500

i didn't realize until i got into town that this saturday is the bizarre bazaar, and the earthworks festival. i'm excited. i've already eaten at gaia and pita house (i have yet to find anywhere in the world with comparable falafel) and little africa is in my near future. even though grand rapids loves its drama, it's still good to be back.

next stop, asheville

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:18:29 -0500

i went to asheville this weekend and had a fucking rad time. met so many amazing people, hung out with old friends, had a blast. i love that city so much. i think i'm going to move there when i'm done with my year of americorps.

and even if i can't find a decent job there, the vista position at warren wilson will be available next july. so i could just do another year of americorps... except instead of a tiny women's school in raleigh, i could do it at the most badass hippie college in the south.

life in spring

Thu, 17 May 2007 11:40:12 -0500

i know, guys, it's been a while. i've been having fun. doing things like...

hiking

and hanging out with cool anarchists.

ludington, raleigh, biloxi

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 23:47:35 -0500

i scanned in some more old negatives. this was a good weekend.

also, i got a holga roll back today, which i started on spring break in misssissippi and finished last friday.

global warming rally

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 11:13:22 -0500

yesterday we tabled at the global warming action rally on the capitol grounds. it was pretty fun. we provided the radical presence... advocating for hitchhiking and dumpster diving instead of just using compact fluorescent light bulbs. also, geri climbed a tree.

really really free market

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:07:36 -0500

last weekend was pretty damn sweet.

on friday i went to a barbecue at the flint house (ACRe's male-dominated, drunk counterpart) and then walked downtown with those kids to go to some cool gallery openings.

saturday, i went to the really really free market in carrboro. i got rid of some extra stuff i had laying around, and came back with a box of green pepper plants and some good zines. we went to the weaver street market for dinner, and browsed the internationalist, carrboro's infoshop.

i woke up early on sunday to help geri and attila do a presentation about ACRe at the quaker meeting. it was cool, they seemed really receptive to what we're doing here, and a couple of them want to get involved. then geri's parents took us out to brunch at the irregardless cafe, which was delicious.

these are from saturday, at the RRFM.

biodiesel, erica and skhi

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:05:56 -0500

first critical mass of 07

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 19:02:59 -0500

critical mass died down here for a little while, and they haven't had one since last year. so a couple people decided to start it back up. we started with 12 people, and picked up 5 along the way. it's no chicago or san fran, but for raleigh, it's pretty good.

gavin didn't come with us, he just stood in the yard and looked like a badass. it's what he does best.

my bike getting friendly with attila's

at the bell tower, where we started from.

after we left the bell tower, the first thing they traditionally do is ride in circles in the roundabout over and over, pissing off all the cars waiting to drive through. a woman rolled down her window and yelled angrily, "what are you doing?!" dante yelled, "taking back the streets!" we all hooted and hollared and yelled at the cars before driving off and riding around downtown.

and convening at the end before going home.

chickenhead

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 00:00:31 -0500

old photos

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:49:28 -0500

i got a scanner today. so i decided to scan in some old negatives that i didn't have on the computer yet.

this is one of my favorites i've ever taken. i've been meaning to scan it for almost three years.

i never even printed the rest of these. but now that i look at them, i like them a lot.