Baltimore MD. Me and the little lady are out at the Wushu Team Trials. Good time to get out of town and get a little perspective - travel does that. I've been to Baltimore several times but never this part and not since I was 20. One of the things you notice is that the trees, birds and people all look different. The architecture is very brick and square. With so many states in proximity you get a strange feeling of borderlessness and a colonial east coast/southern identitiy vs a state identity. In CA we are deep in our state - one that has a distinct personality and is not close enough to other states for us to get a feel for what they are all about unless we go to them. Not that these don't have the same personality but the physical closeness of so many states can be felt somehow.

Adjectives to describe this place; Swampy, Smoky, Economically Depressed, Lush, connected with narrow roads. There are very few street signs and highways have few turnoffs. Once you are going, it just keeps going until you are there...Making wrong turns is bad.

All of the electrical and phone wires are above ground. I think most of SF's cables went underground 20 years ago? It's something you don't notice until you see it differently. Contrast.

I guess it's simply our nature to compare and contrast things in order to know their signifiance to us. SF may be an alien jungle to people from here. I have a few friends from San Jose who refuse to come up, too crazy to drive and they get lost. I like having a difficult home. If the requirements for success are higher and I don't get caught under a street sweeper then I guess that's a form of environmental fitness.

Started reading The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand). I'm not sure if I am intellectual enough! It's damn precise and everything is intentional. Takes a lot of focus. I never believed Walt Whitman (leaves of grass) really had any meaning except what the reader imagined but after reading some of this one I realize there is a greater concept that every line reflects - as far as I can tell the idea of self determination and creation of self in the face of an upbringing that values law and tradition to the point where we cannot even see with eyes not already looking for a familiar form.  I told my teacher once I couldn't interpret Whitman because there were too many possibilities. I thought he agreed at the time.

Let me just add this for the record.


Pizza is not good. Pizza is shit. Everyone loves pizza but pizza SUCKS!

It's all cheese, it is oily, it dessicates you so when you eat it at 3 am you sleep like shit. Eat enough pizza and you get fat and smell wierd.

Damn pizza for seducing me time and time again! I rebuke you!