daines'n around

So, I'm back from Peru and after two days I've started to not begin conversations with everyone in Spanish. My flight got in around 1 a.m. on Friday, and the evils of money already came to haunt me in a way that forced me to go to work. Three weeks without pay is pretty difficult. Luckily I took care of all my debts a long while ago.

Today is my father's birthday and we went to the local Peruvian restaurant, which was very tasty. People get a kick out of my Spanish speaking since I don't do it with a 'gringo' accent, but rather with my swishy Portuguese accent. Someone told me I spoke with an Argentinean accent, and when I asked if they didn't think it was a little more of a Brasilian accent, they conceded that yes, it likely was.

Things are the same around town; same job, same friends, same televisions. The internet is definitely different. I don't have to pay for my time on it on an hourly rate, and my computer is much faster than those I was paying to use. I also have an English keyboard, which is much easier to type on than those funny Spanish keyboards. Who needs to use an n with a tilde over it enough for it to deserve its own key on the keyboard?

I'm glad Dani was able to share my letters through my blog, and I realize that my letters may not have answered everything you wanted to know. If you have any questions about my solo travels in Peru, or the medical mission, please ask away. I'm happy to talk about them all.

I'm editing photos and getting a few ready to put online, but three weeks of at least 100 photos a day makes for a lot of editing down and what not, so bare with me. The long weekend should make for a great opportunity to get a good chunk edited down.

I'm going through my pictures one at a time, but the most requested picture by far is indeed proof that I have not shaved in about two weeks now. Well, here's the proof.

This whole beard thing is starting to itch more than I thought it would, but I haven't given up just yet. Give it to the end of the long weekend I suppose.

I've been cleaning my room up, throwing away last semester's scraps of notes and scribbles of nonsense. I found one note that simply read: "Intimacy is the key ___" with some scribbling as if the pen had run out of ink.

I've also gone through the first four days of photographs, and found one that I thought I’d share already. IT was my volunteer day in the Operating Room. I took well over three hundred pictures in my time helping out in the operating room, and saw some things that I will never likely see again in my life.

I became accustomed to wearing the scrubs around the hospital in Ayacucho, and thought that I looked quite doctor-ish. I took the liberty to express my doctor-like feelings and one of the nurses laughed at me.

"Doctor, no. Orderly, easily."

I have no idea why she didn't think I looked like a doctor; maybe because of my silly grin every time I said scrubs, or how I ran away from the cesarean section after the baby was pulled out. I had no desire to see anything else come out of that poor woman.

Doctor Daines anyone?

Millions of people around the world suffer from AIDS, and the problem is not getting smaller. According to the San Francisco Aids Foundation between 800 and 900 thousand people are currently living with Aids or HIV in the United States alone. There is still no known cure for AIDS, but protease inhibitors allow those afflicted with AIDS to live much longer and cope better.

That is why this year; I will be participating in my second but the 19th annual Aids Walk San Francisco on Sunday July 17, 2005. Three friends and I have set a goal to raise two-thousand dollars for AIDS research and benefit to those suffering from AIDS. We will walk ten kilometers (roughly six miles) together with thousands of other people walking to earn the sponsorship and donations for this humanitarian cause.

Every little amount donated helps. Donations may be made at:

http://aidswalksanfrancisco2005.kintera.org/danielle

Donations of only $25 and more are covered online, but I can accept payments of smaller denominations personally. With your help I’m confidant that our generous donation to Aids Walk San Francisco will benefit many people. Thank you for your time. Please contact me if you have any questions.

-
Chris Daines

I became accustomed to walking 5+ miles a day while I was in Peru, and being home for only two days got me into the sedentary lazy mode that I had been in for almost the last year.

In an effort to ditch that laziness, I made my way to the local bicycle shop, and purchased myself a bicycle. I had threatened to do it for a long time now, and I finally broke down and made the purchase.

It is a red aluminum frame that really caught my eye. It is quite possibly the nicest bike I’ve ever had, and I get really happy to ride it. It is smooth and very comfortable.

Today is the second day I commuted to work by bicycle, and man my butt hurts. Seriously! Who knew the bumpy roads of Pasadena and about 6 years since I last rode a bicycle on a regular basis would leave me feeling so... sore. Someone referred to it as being "saddle-sore" which just made me laugh.

I'm still not yet adjusted to "real life" around here. I did manage to get some photos of the first two weeks at Ayacucho. Most of the photos with me in them were not taken by me. This set of pictures is not my documentary, but more of a travel-journal of sorts. Two weeks in Ayacucho, Peru

I've been watching a home in South Pasadena for more than a week now. It is kind of giving me a taste of what it would be like to live by myself. I'm liking many of the aspects of the solitary life: free rent, music as loud as I want, and I can leave my bike in the living room.

Being away from my room means that my Peru photos are just sitting there on the hard drive, waiting for me to pay attention to them. It means a lot of things are on hold. I'm finding out how people who live on their own never seem to find time to do everything that they would want to.

It is difficult to imagine that in less than a week I’ll be on my way to San Francisco for Aids Walk 2005. Shortly thereafter, I’ll be registering for another semester of school, and getting the last year of my bachelor's degree underway.

I really need to make a big list of things to do so I can do better things than sit and read a book and listen to music for four hours like I did earlier today. But it was nice to relax for once. I'll be back on my bike on my way to work in a few hours, and with no more butt pains, it promises to be fun. I'm thinking I may go off on a bit of an adventure after work if I’m not dead tired by then.

Things echo loudly in this home. Low voices and high voices scatter between the ceiling and the roof, making it seem as though a great crowd were present. I can still single a few of the voices out, despite the noises.

My thoughts echo around in my head similarly in this home. For the first time in years, I think of a future, a possible deviance from the subsequent unchanging lifestyle that I have had for the past seven years. Yes I have new jobs, new friends, new relationships, old relationships, new classes, new priorities; but when was the last time I could honestly say that I knew what it would be like to live alone?

This is what my mom fears most, being alone. This is what caused her to move every few months in those short two years I didn't live in the country. This, what I am enjoying so much.

Sometimes things change. Often, things stay the same. I don't want to be an echo, repeating what's been done and said. I don't want to live up to someone's ideal of perfection, or tolerance. I don't desire more than happiness.

"If you had three wishes Chris, what would you wish for?"

I didn't hesitate.
End hunger and the suffering caused by it.
Allow doctors to find a cure for AIDS.
Encounter true happiness and live it my best abilities.

"for all eternity?" someone chimes in.

Yes, an everlasting happiness.

The voices still echo around these empty rooms with no furniture. Thoughts and music fill the void when they subside. Change is a slow approach to a sudden realization that things don't need to remain as they are; the status quo is that time continues; change is letting go.

An everlasting fact?

I don't know... I haven't lived forever yet.

Pictures from the second half of my adventures in Peru are now online.
Cuzco

These adventures go from Cuzco, The Sacred Incan Valley, Machu Picchu, to Lima, and back to Los Angeles.

Riding my bike home from work yesterday, aroudn mile 8 of ten, my pedal broke off the axel. The walk pushing my bike seemed like an eternity. Hopefully this is covered by warranty.

San Francisco was fantastic, though I spent about half as much time driving as I spent there. My car is doing great for being 8 years old, and I'm sure it is going to last much longer.

A few pictures from Aids Walk San Francisco 2005 will show highlights. Mainly: that many people did the pottie dance waiting for a port-o-pottie, it is ok to wear a hood in the summer, and new televisions make any room look complete (ish).

I'm all registered for classes and my fall schedule is online. Hard to believe it is the beginning of the last year of my undergraduate studies at CSUN. No photography class, which is an absolute bummer. But i'll be working at the Sundial, our school paper as a photographer and writer. So I can make up my own assignments.

I'm feeling the creative slump. Being away from home must be doing it. Maybe not that, maybe it is just that all of my stuff is at home and i'm living out of a backpack again?

I've been working on the roof all morning, and I think i sweat a few buckets of water. at 11:30 it was:

They laid off fired one of my coworkers today. He has one of the most unique personalities, with all of its quirks and eccentricities, that make him one of the most compassionate and comprehending human beings I've ever met.

He is married happily to a beautiful woman, a few years his younger, and their child is about to celebrate his second birthday. Her pregnancy made her lose a position in Hollywood that she held for many years. Despite what they say about there being laws against that, it still happens.

Now, he's gone. No tears shed, but certainly some political resentment towards others who work here. He's always looking on the brighter side of life. He's always an example to me that no matter how down you get, or distracted from priorities, or put down by other people; there is always a manner in which we can overcome and grow.

I'd say here's to growth, but I'm really going to miss him.

There's an interesting hum in my head tonight. It isn't a headache, or a familiar tune. There is no audible hum that pounds at my temples, or even noticeable to those around me. Yet I still manage to fumble my way around other people.

I'm sitting in the warm home in South Pasadena, listening to my beans churn rapidly in the kitchen between songs on the stereo. My mind wanders between thoughts of sleep, beans, and conversations. Hunched over the keyboard, the sentences dribble out of my head and trickle to my fingers gingerly typing, deleting, typing, deleting.

I'd like to say I'm more introspective than usual, but that is not the case. I would love to admit that I do not dwell on simple things as much as before, but that is not true. I wish I could stop observing just long enough to hold on to a moment in person.

I sit here telling myself how I need to live, and feel things. I need to experience life and live it to a degree that makes me happy. The selfish thoughts flow quickly as I plan out my weekend, my month, my year subconsciously.

Music leads me cynically to believe that love is a fairytale. Songs of couples compared to books and bindings, not being able to live without the other, and just-so-circumstances could only exist in poetry.

But I do not feel the same for angry songs of bitterness and disdain. I know those traits in life are real, and lasting.

Then certain things happen, that throw away every foregone conclusion and anti-sentimental thought I have. I thrive off of this. Laughs and smiles, hands and skin, the rhythm of a tongue against teeth and gums, and suddenly a conversation is that much different, to me.

Things could be simpler, but then I think I would have given up a long time ago.

The dull thuds of an empty house seem magnified after you've had a party there. It was like two giant opposites. I have been taking care of someone's house while his family is on a European vacation. Last night was the mid-summer bash, and more than 40 people showed up. I was happy that the turn out arrived that high.

My "dance" music wasn't consistent enough to get people actually dancing, but it was good music anyway, so not many people complained.

All very different from the movie-watching, book-reading, video game-playing evenings that July has held for me thus far.

I did even grab my camera last night. I saw some old friends, made some new friends, and just had a good time overall. I slept for hours afterwards, and now I'm dreading the final touches of the cleanup. The big parts are easy, but it takes a few hours to see what's been left where, and what was done.

I've got two liters of root beer left over that I have no clue what to do with. Best I can figure is to just have another party. Woo!

sitting here alone
along these warm
soft seats
my arms don't
fall to my side

grasp on tight.
to my sleeves
cloth between fingers
for dear life

the music drones
banjo and drum
guitar and flute
lost and alone
the music croons.

when i'm alone
i have deciphered
all your designs.

when i'm alone
with my mind
my arms don't
fall to sides

when i'm alone
there is fear
i have none

i should be
strong stout sincere
but you know
you don't hear
me cry alone

Almost a month in Peru changed me. Two days at home, and I discovered my father volunteered me to watch a house in Pasadena, for another month. At long last I am back to my room. I am back to familiarity. I am back to the mess that I call my stuff. I had almost forgotten the so-called comforts of home.

That one-dollar raise I got about a year ago combined with my Christmas bonus and second job, enough to make ends meet has made me over the "need" line for financial aid at school. I qualify for loans, but I wanted to wait until at least graduate school before I started going into debt.

we fight destiny
to settle is surrender
in a world
so dastardly demanding
of unhappy beings
and unsatisfied egos

we stir the pot
filled with liquefied
dreams and desires
until a rolling boil
seasoned to taste
with hopes and tears

we mash the fruit
of a spoiled generation
filled with juices
rotten from the inside
and poisoned from the soil
which cultivates them

we sleep soundly
from the fight
waging war daily
against the inane
against the insane
against the immoral
against the tyrannical
against the hateful
against the profane
against the hypocritical
against the unfeeling
against all who
fight against mankind

Late Summer and Fall Plans

Aug 12: Dave Matthews in san francisco (for dani's b-day)
Aug 18: White Stripes at the Greek in Hollywood
Aug 29: school starts
Oct 1: Nine Inch Nails at the Hollywood Bowl
Oct 5: Sigur Ros at the Hollywood Bowl

Winter: find an internship

this weekend: Orange Country Fair.

woo!

When expectations are exceeded and hopes increase so does fear. Slow and steady wins the race ... so my father says, so my nursery rhyme says, so other people say. I guess baby steps from "What about Bob?" really isn’t something to be laughed at, too much.

The orange county fair fell through; I'll have to wait for next year. I had a free Saturday so I cleaned the house, which after a month in Peru and a month out of the house desperately needed it. Sometimes I think about complaining that my unemployed father and sister don't clean and leave it for me, but really it isn't too difficult, just not the most fun thing to do. I actually got the mop out and swabbed the hardwood floors.

Now if I can just get around to folding my laundry.

My bike is finally done with repairs, and I pick it up tomorrow. Happily, that leaves me with one month of consistent riding until school starts up and I'll only be able to go on weekends.

Late Saturday I also had the time to put together a little packet of photos we took at a church activity. With two dollars from all that participated, it covered light rental and I'm pleased with the outcome. Check out the photos and let me know what you think.