walrusmuse's Xanga

New post Up at OKC Herbivore.

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:26:34 GMT

http://okcherbivore.blogspot.com/

thanks folks.

Dustin.

Holding The Home Life

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:42:33 GMT

Hello all! Been a long time since i have posted much, been pretty wracked with all kinds of work and travel-and obviously to all my friends, becoming a husband.

A story.

Sunday night, after getting home very late Sat. night from Chattanooga, a weekend of being gone with Charlie and the guys. Sunday during daylight was a rush of waking and getting ready and managing our tiny bathroom, to hurl ourselves to St. Paul's, into the much saner arms of the Eucharist (somehow a cosmic paradox is comfort when workadays are stuffed with doing), and then to the arms of Bridgeway, 20 minutes north.

That afternoon, Becca was at work, and i was working with Judson T. on a new recording of Mantra Mantra songs, kicking off a few weeks of arranging and tracking.

My suitcase was vomiting into our living room, a gifted mug from Cinci Christian University, a couple of headbands, the usual clothing detritus, my sub-3 ounce baggie of body cleaning supplies, a scarf, and some clothes from the previous weekend trip. While trying to wrap my head into the raw demos and song structures, i was also noticing a non-stop flow of mucus from my nose, with a headache mounting. For some reason i decided i should track this new music on a new and quite complex software program i was deeply unfamiliar with.

So, evening settles, Becca returns, Judson leaves until the next day, and we head out to find a sunday night dining option, bereft of time, motivation, and groceries for cooking.

Two slices of pizza in the Paseo later, we return to watch Eagle Vs. Shark (featuring Jemaine from Flight Of The Conchords) on my laptop, my first iTunes rental.

At some point past this movie about an impossibly but actually benevolent Kiwi (New Zealander, not fruit), with Becca right next to me, i realized how much of a gift it was to have her right there, while i collected a Patagonia range of kleenexes with a snotty towel plateau. While her very lovingkindness and not caring of my sickness is priceless in itself, it was also the fact that i was terribly not ashamed of my state in front of her. the worry of how i looked, acted, appeared was nowhere near. i realized i am free to be slathered in mucus around this person and not be afraid. not only not to fear, but to be loved, valued, as my own nerdy and scattered and unsure idealistic self. She even lets me get organic peanut butter. with the nappy oil separation.

so to all those approaching marriagedom, like TwentyMiles, beware that your defenses will all get laid low and dusty, and it is gloriously normal the whole while. And my wife Becca is the best person on Earth or beyond.

peace to you all. Dustin.

The New Dwelling!

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:52:24 GMT

So, here is my new flat, soon to be Becca's and I's (after Jan 12-which in case you didn't know, is when we get married peoples!).

We are in Jefferson Park, Oklahoma City, in the Brentwood Terrace Apartments. Amazing place, finally got everything loaded in with a whole lot of help from my sis, her husband Andrew, Becca's folks, and my amazing parents.

Please pardon the random boxes and things, as maybe i have too many books and they have yet to find a home in our home...

alright. here's the tour.
This is N Robinson, looking south towards downtown, 23 blocks south.

The hood.

Our arches, very sexy.

Our courtyard.

Our entryway thingy.

The living room. Yes the fireplace is swell.

The couch and tv/NES/turntable/DVD setup.

My desk, until i get a desk.

The fireplace up close.

The view down the hall...

Our dining room. of sorts.

the kitchen.

The bedroom.

The bedroom part deux.

The loo.

Alright. gimme a call. come see the new digs. Peace.

Dustin.

Hello again, long time.

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 02:43:25 GMT

apologia pro vultus penitus
9-30-07

Greetings to all, it has been a long time since I have posted any rants on here, mostly due to busyness, but also due to fright at the fact that what I say can be used against me by people I don’t know, which sounds very paranoid and unlike myself were it not for the fact that people close to me have had recent negative experiences with gossiping and the like. So who knows.

Please bear with the length, I know it does not reward our short attention spans nowadays-not the least mine, who has been wanting to write this for a few weeks now.

Sooo, long story short: during my sophomore year at OBU, I took an English class based in London for two weeks. At one point we visited Canterbury Cathedral (go read Chaucer if you wonder what this has to do with English) and attended Eucharist there. Being barely familiar (more like Romantically inspired), I took Communion and though very clueless to the whole ceremony I did sense the Holy Spirit.

Fast forward to about a few months ago, I began to attend Sunday morning Eucharist at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in downtown OKC, after combining it’s closeness to my house with my environmental and neighborhood idealisms. Becca and I both have been three Sundays now, and three Thursdays, and have enjoyed the process though things are very new to both of us, though I speak for myself here.

The desire to do so rests with the long-trendy respect of liturgy that has been prevalent in non-liturgical churches for probably ten years now. It is very fashionable to some extent to have elements if not some sort of full liturgy at points in the year for contemporary-looking churches, usually non-denominational or similar. I have been boiling in the desire to gather under the Sacraments since my trip to Canterbury, though I have not save an odd Christmas Eve Mass at St. John’s in Edmond or two. So instead of paying lip service to it, I wanted to honestly approve it.

So I dove in, reading a lot to learn about the little idioms that the Episcopal Church speaks (the EPUSA being the wing of the Anglican Church in the US), including the Book of Common Prayer, and the various rituals of a Eucharist service (bowing, antiphony, hymns, crossing, etc.). I watch the people around me to learn when to do various motions, none of which are mandatory, but most of which fall into somewhat of a pattern or specific place in the liturgy.

I imagine the ideal personal church situation to be a combination of Sunday or some Sundays/Holy Days spent in liturgy and the rest at housechurch/non-denominational church based things. I don’t pretend that the earliest churches looked anything like cathedrals, but I feel very strongly that a: we are not in first century Palestine/Roman Empire, and b: our disposable church buildings and pieties of drabness make anything contemporary churches do more righteous. And I won’t begin to talk about churches that look like malls or movie theaters. Aesthetics and stewardship are not zero-sum issues.

Part of what has drawn me to take part in the Sacramental church to some degree, is recent events that have estranged close friends from close friends, from my home church. It has little to do with me, and I have not been censured in any way, lest some gossips find fuel. Though I sin daily (probably hourly is more like it), I have no grievous issue with any local church.

Anyways, things have transpired to make me feel watched out for, because of my middle position between parties, some of whom have an unspoken, and thus very pernicious suspicion that I am somehow corrupted by one side or the other. So I have driven into the bread and wine, the long-forming and formed prayers of the Anglican Church, as a refuge of sorts, among a people whose desire (at least idealistically if not really) is to allow constant meditation on Sacraments and prayer, Scripture and history, Spirit and current issues, coming from the act of Communion and prayers of the Church year, with readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, New Testament, and Gospels.

While the Episcopal church is hardly a serene place in the macro view, walking into St. Nicholas’ chapel, or to the main cathedral for physical worship-crossing myself to seal the prayers, kneeling, standing, singing, speaking, eating, drinking, all together with other believers-this is a peaceful respite from several things I constantly carry in daily life;
-traveling that prevents any sort of normal schedule
-visiting hundreds of churches a year, most great, some saddening
-dealing with people speaking ill of friends-to an egregious degree, and obvious lies at that
-personality driven worship
-emotion driven worship and sense of Holy Spirit (emotion engaging=healthy, emotion driven=temporary)

Since I have been attending Eucharist, not with intent on confirmation or any sort of membership at the time, I have caught suspicion from many places, and I speak openly here because I probably speak to mostly friends. Suddenly I think gays should take over the Church, I have no emotional content to worship, I worship idols, rituals, books, there is no Scripture in the church, there is no worship in the church (worship=contemporary music), etc.

Let me quickly address these. I offer my basic assumptions: the Church of Jesus Christ is an extension of the elect people of God, chosen as the nation of Israel, the Jewish people, not only the political state (see Romans, Torah). The Roman Church is the mother church of the three main threads: Roman Catholicism (and its many orders), Eastern Orthodoxy (many threads under there), and the Protestant Churches (myriad forms here). All three of these are full and valid manifestations of God’s people, included in His promise through His Son (see Ephesians 2). I know these might be controversial, sorry. I believe Jesus is the true revelation of God, and if not the only, then the only full sacrifice to the one God for sin and relationship. I affirm both the Apostles and Nicene Creeds.

Some day I will post some thoughts on homosexuality but here is where I stop right now: it is not a defining issue for the Church. Christians are not people who aren’t gay. This is getting ridiculous, and downright evil, because it sneaks in the door of purity and becomes bigotry and exclusion. The Church over the years has been shamefully ignorant and exclusive of homosexuals who deal with a confusing sexuality and who have many decadent cultures to choose from (as do most straight believers who are decadent in other more socially acceptable ways like wasting hours on television and the Earth on giant homes and cars). The Church is here for good news, that is what Gospel is. Dealing with sexuality is very complex and embarrassing, and the Church has only exacerbated this. The Episcopal and Anglican church has taken some leadership (though it is variegated among each diocese and even each parish) in the messy act of compassion. Most churches in OKC would prefer to not have to deal with something so messy and welcoming gay believers, of which there are many, no less or more welcomed by Jesus than selfish believers, violent believers, bored ones, dishonest ones, gluttonous ones, hypocritical ones, etc.

The Episcopal church has languished under the messy act of compassion, and made some mistakes, which no churches are immune from remind yourself. They are to be helped and not shunned, shame on those who do for such an attempt at the same mercy that brought us into God’s fold, who were once aliens-foreigners to His promise.

Enough of this-homosexuality is not a centre piece of the Church, in any fashion. It has been blown out of proportion again and again by both sides of the coin. Jesus said no words about it, none. He said many about mercy, many about self-righteousness. Nor should we ignore it, but looking back, the brave men and women who stopped bigotry against Jews, women, blacks, etc. are the heirs of the inheritance of the same man who stopped bigotry against us-non-elect become heirs of God’s promises. I have few gay friends and I am ashamed of this, not proud. I hope I can be less hypocritical as well as many of us.

As for the Holy Spirit being present in liturgy, where things are set, done in a pattern, and not individually, let us peek at a few assumptions non-liturgical churches generally have about one another. When I left HHBC for Bridgeway, I carried memories of being slightly cautioned in my new place of more charismatic (read:disorderly, flighty) worship. The long strand of denominational authority does not exist on most non-denom churches, and this makes nervous the denominational ones.

Now as I simply engage the Anglican church (not leaving Bway in any sense mind you, it is family and home), I am cautioned that things are too ordered.

Notwithstanding the occasional anti-intellectualism of my home church and Baptist background (birthed from dualism, old dualism…), where my skepticism is apparently supposed to be cured by disengaging my mind (as if it velcros off my body somehow), or the occasionally fluctuating forms of worship (somehow denoting authentic Holy Spirit movement as if God has ADHD), or the occasional lack of exegetical Scriptural study, the occasional judgment of Holy Spirit anemia because of lack of charismatic gifts (that I fully embrace but rarely manifest), notwithstanding those, the Sacraments are somehow viewed as dry and weak in comparison to fully extemporaneous church activity. ( I emphasize occasional because it is only that, and I fully defend and love Bway church, it is home, please don’t misread me).

All of these above issues are addressed well inside the Anglican/Epis church, though often the excitement and freedom of non-denom or other low churches is missing in the history and makeup. I do not ignore this, and I think at this point the church is incomplete on both sides due to this.

However, it is a truly anemic soul that sees not the Holy Spirit in the liturgy, in the 400 year old creeds and prayers of the Book of Common Prayer (also some newer prayers from 1928 and 1979), in the hymns and refrains showing the story of the Eucharist in full detail and glory, in the communal kneeling and standing and antiphonal readings where individualistic Western Enlightenment Deist worship is snuffed out! There is no pull yourself up and worship God how YOU want to worship God-it is impossible! The communion of all of God’s people is what happens, irregardless of your individualistic notions, not ignoring them, but consuming them in Jesus’ story. It is not how YOU worship God but how HE compels you and gives you a way to worship Him.

The rituals of crossing oneself-sealing with a simple act the prayers and names and blessings you recite, receive, and remember. It is only empty form if it is emptied by you.

The tasting of the “gifts of God for the people of God,” the bread and wine, our holiest act of worship in the history and present of the Church, terribly demoted and made cursory by some, worshipped idolatrously by others. The whole service is a story that finds its pinnacle in the communion of the Sacraments.

Please know I do not go to visit this parish because I am running away from any negative thing. I merely am beginning to notice the positive things given by such an unfamiliar form of worship. It will probably never supplant a humble housechurch based congregation, but I also think I might not be without some sort of Sacramental worship either, especially as someone with little rhythm to spiritual and church life.

Likewise I abhor the idea of church-shopping, it is the same individualistic slop so many of us fall into with church, myself included.

I don’t know why I say all of this, recently a good friend was hurt by gossip among Baptist ministers. Gossip I would go on record as reminding everyone it is not even remotely true. It is a terrible sin. More dangerous than the main sins we so easily rattle off because it infects from the inside, it damages our intratextual fabric, it becomes immunodeficiency syndrome within us. When people gossip of my compatriots and myself, I can live with it, I know my self and my friends and revenge or ill-will only creates a Middle East of our social groupings, eye for an eye, etc.

Yet when my friends begin to be dishonored, I will not stand for it, and call upon the ages of Amos, Hosea, Ezekiel, and the like to render truth and honesty to them. Not behind the back underhanded gossip.

Nor will I stand for the disposed of the Church (read:homosexuals) to be constantly battered away from our doors, our tables, while we increase our wastefulness and getting of more things, confirmed by our self-rightousness.

Nor can we allow those who go to the front lines of ministry to be snubbed by the Church, like the Episcopal Church.

Nor can ignorance of other’s rituals be allowed to create bigotry within our own Church! This is serious, when we love one another little-how can we love anyone else!? Does anyone think that Bway, LifeChurch, HHBC, St. Paul’s, First Methodist, First Pres, St John’s, etc does not have distinctives that are extra-Scriptural, not really essential but treated as such? Every church does, and little good does it do to disparage one another. We can learn and be pointed in our critical thinking, but not hateful or bigoted denominationally, how ridiculous can we get?

I would love comments and questions, but please no hatred of your own or another’s congregation posted on here, I will remove it. If I have done so in my above words, I am misread then, and I apologize and will repent and redraw my words if I must.

“If the hunters danced whenever they chose, then the days would all just be alike, and I’d have no holiday at all.” –The fox, The Little Prince

Seeing Things

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 23:06:20 GMT

Yesterday i walked a humid, still tolerable afternoon into a grocer in Edmond, to deposit my paycheck at my local bank. After passing the bright market of flowers, the high school kids half bored, half empowered at their check-out lines, i strolled up to the line of folks getting their first-and-fifteenth-of-the-month on. All the same, all level at the eyes of the security cameras and faux-wood counter of the bank office, we stood clutching another half-month of food, car payments, gas swipes.

In the ensuing sheer joy of survival for another fifteen days, with the three day buffer zone of a high checking account balance ("time to buy a new record, or a new book!"), i walked to the mechanical doors, benign and intelligent enough to open for me, amiably, as i approached.

At the background noise of the candy machines, that during my childhood somehow morphed into temporary tattoo, sticker, and mini action figure machines, there were two girls, probably early middle school age. My mind on the tent sale at Randy's M and M's (5 bucks for Stranger Than Fiction!?), i was woken from the reverie by the odd sounding address of me as "hey! excuse me sir...could you tell us what this means?"

One girl held aloft a sticker of the fish used by innumerable sticker companies to fill with either Jesus, Darwin, Truth, or another easily braggable and controversial figure/idea. This fish, however was filled with the word "Icthus," in Greek letters save for the empty Theta, which looked like a big "O." Notwithstanding the lazy Greek font, i replied to them that it meant Icthus, which was the Greek word for fish (now it is Psaria, in Hellenistic Greek it is Icthus). They seemed satisfied enough to place the sticker on their bikes. I added that it stands for Jesus, and i think they understood me, though i neglected to go into the whole secret code of the early Church mythologies.

I also neglected to blabber on to them about how odd it was to pass two strangers perplexed by a long-dead language i happen to have a degree in, at a grocery store, in suburban Edmond, Oklahoma. The rest of the evening was all the more odd and compelling for it.

D.

Rent can mean torn

Wed, 09 May 2007 03:58:18 GMT

i need a job. one in addition to the half job i have now.

i'll keep this short. i can offer a liberal arts degree with practical experience in a wide range of creative arts.

i am looking for some writing, freelance possibly, journalistic and/or esoteric mostly, and it doesnt need to recompense a full time job amount. i have a flexible schedule, and am supposed to know when my schedule makes me absent a few months in advance but this rarely occurs.

current journalistic fascination: how to help urban renewal without total gentrification and reversion to theme park neighborhoods, especially in the young renewal of OKC.

likewise, anyone need an album produced or played on?

if you own a cafe or vegetarian restaurant, i am also open to work with you, if you would have me part time a lot of the time.

alright. that's it. peace to you all.

Dustin.

p.s. i am serious.

Shtories. C'mon, Say it aloud. Shtories.

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:18:54 GMT

So a few weeks ago now, i traveled to Lock Haven, Pennsylvania to play drums for Jami Smith, filling in for her regular fellow, the illustrious Corey White. Upon arrival, three of us decided that since we brought our decent cameras, the four hour drive to NYC was worth it. we rented a car, and through much maneouvering in all manner of small town airport Pennsylvania, we began a drive to the City at about 10.30 pm. We had to leave NYC at about 6 am to drive 3.5 more hours back to Harrisburg, PA, to catch our flight home.

I sat behind the wheel in New Jersey, and as the city began to shine over the sprawl crawling out like a lit bleed from the GW Bridge, i began to get chills. Sure enough, i found myself behind the wheel in the city of my dreams at about 1am, pulling down onto Riverside Pkwy.

The three of us cranked the music, pulled our hoodies over our heads, and generally figured we were actually dreaming, not really spending the whole evening, awake since about 4.30 am that morning, in the city. As we rounded the curvaceous Batter Park City and the Ferry Port, i began to get excited at the mere prospect of driving my way around New York without a map, from my memory of the beloved chrome canyons. Keep in mind i am an idealist prig who loves public transit far more than driving. i look forward to the day when i can sell my car and ride trains and buses. but i loved driving in the city, possibly because the traffic was near nil. and i loved finding my way by signage and memory, getting lost in the bridge paths, and finding all kinds of cool passageways.

we took photos from all kinds of spots, parked illegally several times, ate gyros (pita and rice for me!) about 2.45, hit stoplight patterns just right (a unique rush down 6th Av at 4am!), and were still convinced it was a dream.

about 345-4am, i dragged my companions over to Williamsburg, which they had never gone to, and we found an amazing view of midtown, but onyl after we parked the rental (a Malibu) in a sketchy drivepath at the edge of an abandoned pier, just west of Kent St. (i know for the residents it is a nice daytime get away, and i have been to one nearby before during the day). but at night it is a wasteland lit by the construction lamps of nearby high rises (insert spitting sounds here) being built. we climbed through a fence into a large dirt yard, inhabited by one single lounge chair, with graffiti on one side.

we made our way to a fence cordoning off the waterfront, and we climbed, Jack Bauer style, belly to the ground under the links, passing our tripods through with our cameras. In the chilly, 35 ish weather, we snapped up every dot of light from midtown, the moon on the moving water, and i stood there staring for a good 5 minutes. in my soul rose a true sense of desire to give my life for this city, but it also could have been the pita and rice combined with lack of sleep and cold wind from the East River.

i maintain that God was and is slowly moving my life (meaning having enough money) into a closer orientation with the city. my heart is already there. just got to get some cash.

Anyways, we made our way back into Manhattan, got coffee at Esperanto in the Village, spoke with some characters in there, one who demanded that we never take his picture, and then we set off to drive home, at about 6.15am. by the time i was cruising along the row houses of the backside of Jersey City, trying to find a way to I 78, the snoring began from my compatriots in the back seat. By the time i was glancing back at the city in my rearview mirror, the tires clucking along the Pulaski Skyway, flying over marshes and warehouses of Newark, their sleep was champion.

i scanned the radio to stay awake, all three and a half hours to Harrisburg, high on New York all the way.

Beginnerings.

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:17:55 GMT

i want to write a book, and if not a book then a guide (every somewhat reading person knows that if a book is directly pragmatic then it is actually a guide, and less than literature).

if not a book, then a guide, and this guide will be called.....

THE OKLAHOMA CITY IS NOT LAME GUIDE TO OKLAHOMA CITY.

(see, it's a guide after all)

the reason i feel antsy to write this is that i think the secrets of Oklahoma City are coming out.

i remember growing up in Edmond, always complaining that "there is nothing to do here!"

then i began to travel often, and fall in love with Brooklyn, London, St. Petersburg, Taos, California, Chicago, Boston, etc. yet as i returned home from these cities, i realized that i loved the surprise of our city.

surprising is the one word i give to describe Oklahoma City. surprising if you know where to look.

when one goes to NYC, one expects to be able to go get a beer at a place under the street where 80's obscurities are blasted on vinyl while skinny jeans dance like white kids with black kids, you can sip your Hoegaarden or Leffe at 6 bucks a tap, and then walk outside at 2am to go to another bar, this one filled with ironic country music and PBR, then to yet another, filled with tapas and Brazilian DJ tunes. after this, it is 4am and you decide to get some pizza or Levantine food, good news, two such spots are right at the corner...and belly full, you hop the train down to Ground Zero, then hop the train back to your hotel or flat for a night well done.

yet in OKC, this sort of life is nigh impossible, and no one expects to be able to wander into a gallery in a quasi-Spanish cum New Mexico arts district, at about 830 at night, while walking off a dinner at a pizza by the slice spot down the street (i mean, walking in OKC, actually walking!? for funsies!?)

let's say you wander into this gallery, and inside is a bearded man of about 45-50, kind eyes, but silently smug. he welcomes you in, the door is open, and you and your friends wander aboutthe small space looking at the art. turns out he and his wife are Quakers, she is an artist working in Marian textile imagery and pastel landscapes, he is an immigration attorney, and one of his friends who wanders in also that night is a worker for the OKC ACLU who is responsible for the Tin Drum controversy in OKC. (http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/1997-July/080537.html)

So, we have a remarkable city at our doors when we walk outside. i make no attempt to hide my love for the very fabric of the urban center, though it still contains a lot of needs by way of homeless left hopeless on one hand, and in sheer gentrification and materialism by way of development on the other.

so perhaps i can start writing this guide online here, and help to silence the complaining coming from the corners of our city, as surprises are around every corner (literally, since we are such a sprawling city).

however, i know i am contributing to the decline of surprise...by naming some magic right in front of you.

the secrets are out:

Sitting in the Buzz Cafe today, eavesdropping on a conversation about business in downtown, how different we were from Chicago and NYC, how much safer, less traffic, better parking, and all in the CBD!

Walking through the newly neon colored and mapped Underground, being renewed daily, and seeing it on the cover of the new Gazette.

Deciding whether to go to the advance screening of Reign Over Me, or to the Art Museum to see Le Petit Jerusalem.

Seeing a girl walking downtown, a parcel in hand, with ipod earbuds in, quickly pacing through traffic and enjoying the soundtrack to her life. Just like a true Manhattanite. In OKC.

Changing.

A Rant. Not about Russia either.

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:38:50 GMT

for those tired of photos from Mother Russia...too bad, one should never grow tired of seeing the Neva River or Tverskaya Ulitsa.

but anyways, i take comfort in one small fact, and in the larger provenance of life, it is indeed a small fact, but here it is.

for all of the slam that Oklahoma City gets from its more "progressive" ("pissy" or "complaint" would be more apt) residents who decry the cowboy/red state (whatever that is) culture, just take heart that you are not in Arkansas (who repeatedly dumps chicken shit in our Oklahoma Rivers, see http://www.factoryfarming.com/Rapsheets/tyson.pdf and http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcrights/5oklaread7.html) where apparently vegatarians only eat salads and are something akin to an ugly zoo animal...where you want to be polite to it, and say it is cute, but really you are wondering why they put it in the zoo...?

maybe i am just being proud of my home, or just grouchy because i actually had Jerusalem Cafe a few days ago in KC, and since then all veg food seems sallow and tasteless (Arabs, Greeks, Indians, and Jews have a much better take on vegetable food than do Protestant estounidenses...). Let me proudly say i haven't had this problem in OKC, while we might not be Boulder, CO, we at least have some diverse character that more hippy and veg friendly towns don't have, because our diversity includes Stockyards City, it includes NE 23rd Street, it includes the Paseo, Little Saigon, Capitol Hill, S. Agnew, NW OKC Golf groupies, Edmond soccer moms, and Heritage Hills snob Democrats. all of us are in it together, and everyone still has not enough self awareness to be ignorant of one another on purpose.

actually this rant has nothing to do with what i started on...but just serves to love my city. and to say to all carnivores out there, we veggies (and keep in mind i am not vegan, nor have i been doing this a long time so i'm hardly an ambassador) do eat more than salads. and yes, i miss bacon.

and for all of my silliness about eating, remember that half of our planet, if not more, has trouble making a meager three meals a day. i think we have thrown away more food from our bus in the past week than a lot of people eat in a month. i'm not exaggerating. and i will try to change this for our next trip. i know the whole "people in Africa are starving..." thing gets old, but until we do something more about it, umm, people in Africa are still starving. people in OKC are even starving.

alright. peace to everyone out there. sorry to be heavy. serve in joy, go in peace this Sabbath.

dustin.

More Russia...

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:34:16 GMT

well, so i guess it is already time to go back. the lack of winter at home now is nice but it makes me long for some icicle's dangling like scud missles above my head. oh Cold War where are you when we need you?

here are some more pics. thanks for tuning in.

Leningradskaya Station, in Moscow. where i hopped the train to Piter.

State Historical Museum, Red Square, Moscow

Kremlin and State Museum.

Cathedral at Peter and Paul Fortress, Piter

Me, Aunt Sarah (not my aunt, my friend Jacquie's), and Renat

Rastrelli Column, Piter...sorry for the angle, don't know why it is doing that.

SS Peter and Paul Fortress, oldest part of Piter.

Cafe Idiot, a local blessing. best Borsch, honey pepper vodka, and black bread around.

OKC...just because it is beautiful. and to keep you on your toes...

the unfrozen portion of the Neva

the Winter Palace and Neva, frozen.

Bridge on the Moyka Kanal.

Me at Cafe Idiot.

Me arriving in Moscow, going straight to the heart...

me and the Neva River.

on the bank of the Neva at the Fortress

who else but the grandaddy, VI Lenin, embamled.

The Krasnaya Strela, "Red Arrow," the train i took to Piter. much better than the train i took to Moscow back. keep in mind i am with three strangers, who speak no english, and beyond my very small conversational skills in Russian, it mostly means a lot of pointing and sleeping in a ridiculously hot compartment. otherwise very nice.

Red Square...apparently sideways.

Signs at Kennedy Airport.

St. Isaac's Cathedral, Piter.

The GUM, a gigantic mall right on Red Square, actually super beautiful. i ate dinner here a couple of times.

The GUM again.

My flat in Moscow, at Godzilla's Hostel. Zdrastvutsiye IKEA.

my flat in Petersburg.

St. Basil's, the most beautiful church in the world. to me anyways.

again.

Noch.