Further Playbackitizations and Rewindenings of the Reminiscent Sort

This is the latest installment of my weak retrospective attempt to cover my ass for not blogging for a month and a half. To be perfectly fair, I have been very busy and incredibly tired -- anyone can attest to that. This week itself is a testament to that fact, I have spent every moment of it writing, singing, adventuring, and partying and we aren't even through Saturday. I have been out at bars every night this week, sampling fine pints of Staropramen and delighting in some amusingly Danish covers of American classics.

More importantly, being out in bars downtown practically guarantees my proximity to the shawarma that I crave at practically every moment here. My gripping condition is in such advanced stages that I have visions of my next lunch break before I've even finished the pita sandwich itself.

Since you last stared disinterestedly into your monitor and smirked internally at my grossly overwrought style, the epic battle between man and machine (being me and my bike, respectively) has raged on and come to a tense armistice. First the metal fiend took my shorts, followed by me robbing it of its gears in a dish-best-served-cold manner, as chronicled in my previous post. On Thursday, however, I escalated the battle to a devastating and anti-cathartic plateau when I peddled so furiously in first gear that the chain slipped itself of the hellish teeth of this bike's gears. And so we now both lie in wait, biding time and gathering strength until both parties are in sufficient shape to advance our hostilities.

The weather has, on occasion, deemed it appropriate to not spit in the face of springtime and actually be nice, which is much appreciated. Wearing shorts, cleft as they may be, is a pastime of mine that I had forgotten the joys of in what seemed to be the longest winter of my life this past year. Canoodling and other boat-based shenanigans has abounded on those nice days, and bike rides down to the shoreline have been a staple source of contentment for me.

Musically I've been inexorably drawn to old classics that I never really knew I loved until now. I've always been big on the Rat Pack and slightly more modern interpretations like Michael Buble, but it was the re-discovery through some ostensibly divine machinations of a batch of duets between Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong that has really hit me in my brain's heart. These songs are meaningful and present in a way that surpasses musicality, they are transportative and transformative with regards to the listener in manners untouchable by most music of our time. At least it's that way for me. I defy anyone foolish enough to contradict my enormous brain to let themselves experience The Nearness of You or Stars Fell on Alabama and tell me that they haven't been taken to a place of wonder 3 minutes and 35 seconds long, the topography of which rises and falls in ways that common cartography can't possibly hope to encompass.

I'm considering putting out invitations to famous chefs to concoct a dish for me that artfully entwines the subtle, lofty and rainy-Saturday-morning flavors of waffles with the faith-inducing, life-fulfilling alimentary oeuvre of a rare cut of sirloin. I know it's possible -- the popular south'ren culinary combo of fried chicken and waffles will serve as my proof of concept.

I'm gonna pause here to give you some time to google "alimentary oeuvre" and collect the pieces of your shattered conceptions of the assumed limitations of language.

I don't know, guys. I don't know how else to encapsulate my experience here. Telling you where I've been or what I do on a daily basis, with the exception of my travel break which I will hopefully get to next post, would be an entirely fruitless endeavor. I am simply living here, the hours pass and the nights go by and I couldn't be happier about those truths. There are situations that are difficult, awkward or otherwise trying, but they are a part of the fabric of this place and time as much as the incredible ecstasies I've been privy to while here.

I lament having to miss the last semester of many of my friends at Grinnell, but I will be upon them with a ferocity unknown to man or beast soon enough (the 19th).

This is all I have time for tonight, perhaps tomorrow will dawn on some more musings.