I am alive!

[lapsedmodernist]

In short:
I am in Quito, I arrived late last night. My flights were (objectively) fine. Subjectively, though, I completely freaked out during my NY to Miami flight. To counter my absolute conviction that I was about to die RIGHT THEN I kept eating xanax, and by the end of the three-hour flight got so fucked up that when it was time to deboard I happily walked off the plane without my camera bag, (contents of the said bag included my very expensive mini-DV cam, my newly purchased AT lavalier mike, the lomo camera (I dedided on that one), my digital camera, and about a million wires that are necessary to run all of my equipment). I slowly cognized this fact halfway to another terminal (and by the way, Miami International is like the airport version of Los Angeles on the inhuman sprawl tip), nearly had a heart attack, but about twenty minutes later after tears (mine), laughter (the customs officers) and several confused phone calls (American Airlines representatives), the bag was repatriated to me.

The side effect of my continual freakout en route to Miami was the fact that by the time the plane for Quito took off, I had no energy left to freak out, and kind of floated in my xanax haze for the next four hours, periodically idly contemplating the possible reasons for the near-constant turbulence. For the last hour we flew along the line of a sunset the colors of which resembled nothing so much as a silk skirt I bought in New Orleans a lot time ago: intense fiery orange and subdued pidgeon blue-gray.

Quito is pretty high up in the mountains, and I forgot how thin the air was here. I woke up a few times during the night literally gasping for air like a fish out of the water. Now I feel a little stunted, despite (or perhaps because of) my 14-hour sleep. I have only the haziest ideas about finding an apartment, but it also does not help that everything is closed today.

Hopefully the next update I post will be from the comfort of my new place. But probably not.

Over and out,

anthrochica "in the field"

Comments

[trochee.livejournal.com]

I take it you're flight-phobic. My sympathies. Glad you won't have to do that any more for a while, and that you were able to recover your camera gear right away. Let's hope that losing the camera bag is not the flavor of the surprises granted you during this trip.

good luck finding the new place!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

terribly flight-phobic.
erm, actually I have to fly to SF in a little over a month and then back here, so that's soon esp. since I am someone who manages to avoid flying for a year at a time (and I did serious look into taking a boat to Ecuador).
OMG. This Cybercafe is playing "Welcome to Miami" by Will Smith. I must leave NOW.
You should, like, give me your email address...easier for dialogue since I don't know yet how often I will update this. mine is lafemmnica [at] aol.com

[alice-ayers.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you're there safely. fairymelusine and I said a quick safeflightpleasedon'tdie prayer last night, we neglected, however, to say a noweirddrugexperiencewithluggage prayer.

Weirdly, I absolutely love flying but the flight to Vancouver will be my first in almost two years.

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

Oh god, you love flying? You don't do it often, do you? I tolerate it, but deep in my heart, I loath it, even if I still do like the fluffy clouds. That and landing in Seattle, but that's about it. Wait, that and the soothing complimentary tequila on the aeromexico flights. But that's really it. Oh, yeah, and the aerosingapore... I'll shut up now.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

you love flying? you are crazy. I am envious that you are going to vancouver...and I appreciate the prayers...I have a semipermanent address now, too, which I will post next time because I do not remember it yet (and house with Big Yellow Wall and Art Nouveau gates does not really help anyone who is not me).
miss you.
xo.
n.

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

I am alive!

Hooray! Alive, and, equipt and enxanaxed! Glad to hear it.

What altitude is your fieldsite at anyway?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

well, I think the altitude in Quito is almost 10,000 feet. Rio Napo is in the lowlands, and I don´t remember having any problems breathing there.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

through part of the summer...not sure of the definite dates yet.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Hi, Kathy,
I will add you to my friends list but I am going to keep this comment screened (I like to preserve some degree of anonymity and apropos´journal is mostly locked so I feel free to namedrop there). It sounds like your interests are right up our department´s alley. So you met F. and R.? Did you get to talk about your interests, what sense did you get from them? E. is an amazing, brilliant academic, and one of the nicest people I have ever had the fortune to work with or know. If you have no opportunity to meet her, but would like to work with her, maybe you can email her and arrange to talk over the phone or something, I believe that's quite standard in grad school applications.
If you have any specific questions with regard to your application, email me at lafemmnica at aol.com. but mainly what I learned from being rejected from there the first time around and being accepted the next time was that the essay has to be very specific, vagueness is not in your favor, and you have to know the professors' work and show how your interests fit with them specifically. Do you want to be in the media program?

[never-the-less.livejournal.com]

you made it! i am also terribly imporessed that you made a live journal entry already -- you are indeed addicted (whatever, I would have done the same).

hope you are well and have recovered from your xanax/flight anxiety combo.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

Welcome back! Glad you got there in one piece more or less. Even without fear of flying, airplane travel sucks hard enough to bend light, so ... well, my sympathies. And good luck with the new place!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

thank you

BTW

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

So, What's Quito like? (Besides the thin air).

Re: BTW

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Very beautiful...I am going to jot a brief entry about it later today or tomorrow...I don´t understand how one day away from the internet (yesterday) resulted in, like, barrages of email overloading my accounts.

Re: BTW

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

I don´t understand how one day away from the internet (yesterday) resulted in, like, barrages of email overloading my accounts.

That's because you entered a different chronotope.

Re: BTW

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

ok, with that comment you just proved that you are obviously my long-lost twin.

Did your penchant for phrasing things thusly also amuse Chair greatly (he seems to think it's funny when I do that, and periodically when reading my papers will ask "is that a real word or did you make that up?")

Re: BTW

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute, wait a minute... the CHAIR thinks you make up words? Actually, I think chronotope is a real word that I learned from The Chair Or Someone Like Him. And then promptly forgot until it came in handy.

I'm intrigued by the thought of having a long lost twin. I had just figured that we had the kind of mysterious karmic connection that would make for a long subplot in a Bollywood musical. (I'm not sure if it would be the one with the really big dance number.)

Re: BTW

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

well, no, not chronotope, although he occasionally seems nonplussed by my fondness for using chronotope when talking about 9/11 etc. But occasionally I will pepper my papers with an anthrochica original like "diachronically challenged" and he'll be, like, "is that a term or did you make that up?" then I will argue my case for the term, and if I do it succesfully he lets me get away with using them.

And ALL Bollywood musicals have the large Dance Numbers. One of my favorite moments on Buffy ever was in season 1 or 2 when the Scoobies watch a Bollywood musical without subtitles on TV and then Willow does a synopsis of what's transpiring therein.

Okay, we can be Karmic twins. Doesn't that sound like a Bollywood action film? Well, I suppose you are more adequately trained for such things than I am, although if I could just fucking find someone to teach me how to throw knives properly, my life would be a lot better.

Re: BTW

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

he'll be, like, "is that a term or did you make that up?" then I will argue my case for the term, and if I do it succesfully he lets me get away with using them.

He's such a pushover...

Ya know, someone once tried to teach me to throw knives, but I really didn't get the hang of it. She was kind of a lunatic, though. I guess you might have to be.

I, however, while not a lunatic, am definitely diachronically challenged.

Re: BTW

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

"He's such a pushover..."

Not really, it's more like he seems perpetually very bemused by me in a way that I don't entirely understand.

Well, diachronically challenged, as I originally coined it was a gendered term, because really it was a heuristic for understanding my ex, but then I realized what a powerful idea it was, and how applicable to the Bush administration Project. So I don't know if you want to identify as such. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that you are, in fact, diachronically challenged. Tell me, why do you think you qualify for that definition.

Re: BTW

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

Oh... the natural disinclination toward punctuality. The cultivation of procrastination as an art form. On the other hand, if the term generally refers to your ex and the Bush affiliated cabal, then I think I might not fit in. Unless procrastination and tardiness are your main objections to both. (That hasn't been my impression based on your posts, though).

Re: BTW

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

oh no no no.

I originally defined "diachronically challenged" here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/anthrochica/53243.html

it was part of the argot that myself and my at-the-time-two-best-friends (what an awkward grammatical construction, one of them is still my best friend, the other one I am no longer on speaking terms with) came up with.

It is actually applicable to the Orwellian "narrative" of events provided by the media during the last three years, more even than the Bush administration, that has its own perverse sense of history via Fukuyama, and I, guess, his protograndpa Hegel. See the case of Sheikh Khalid Muhammad who died in a highly flamboyant fashion, writing Allah's name on a cave wall with his blood, then was captured alive a couple of years later, then either was captured again, or died.
see this for reference:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/anthrochica/56271.html

Re: BTW

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

I'll go to the posts in a minute, but I had a blinding revelation as I was cooking dinner. By diachronically challenged, you mean those fucking assholes who do or say some totally fucked up, damaging thing and then just pretend that they don't remember, and anyway that's no reason to make assumptions about whether or not to trust them now because they don't hold grudges, not like you.

Am I right? Guess I'll go to the link to see...

Re: BTW

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

Okay... close, but... what useful vocabulary!

[hadaly.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear you made it without too much pain, and that you got your hands on some Xanax. I had checked the medicine cabinets here for Vicodin, but came up empty. It was great to see you before you left, btw. Enjoy!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

thank you for looking...I did okay with the xanax...probably if Vicodin was added to the mix, I would have walked off the plane without any of my luggage...or not gotten off the plane at all. Just slept there peacefully dreaming of Shangri La until the plane flew to Lima or wherever the hell it was going.

hello

[mauliva.livejournal.com]

have you found a place yet??.. as i told you before you can find info posted all over the place... but in case you need any help write me
p_bejarano@yahoo.com or call me 2474 611

Yeah QUito is pretty high... you'll take a little time to get used to it.. Drink a lot of water and don't think about going to any mountain yet.. heee :)

take care

Re: hello

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Hola!

I replied in your journal...