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1981 by Ben Lalisan

Don’t care what you think, it was a great year.

"We all tend to imagine that great things come from people doing great things, but I think most of the time great things come from people just fucking around."

Thing a Week Redux

(Source: twitter.com)

Crystal Castles, Not In Love.

Love it.

"While marriage has fallen among younger people, the probability of getting married at some point in life still remains at about 90%."

For Many Adults, Marriage Can Wait, Census Shows

"SELDOM has an election victory tasted so bitterly of defeat."

Venezuela’s legislative elections: A Pyrrhic victory

Amen.

Travels Debrief

I’ve just spend a month traveling. It was basically a combination of fortunate smaller trips that together made a great one:

San Juan (Puerto Rico)

An island full of flavor. With a duality incorporated to every aspect of life: latins in a anglo-saxon context. Business potential that could be the beginning of something or the end of something even bigger. I’ll be back.

Miami/Boca Raton

Friends that are family and real family you see less than friends. Things have changed but the love remains the same. When you have no answers you might as well listen and learn. Hope I was quiet enough.

Boston/Gloucester:

Amazing how good memories can still make you sad. Still, great friend from different places. Best wedding speech I’ve ever heard —including movies—, thanks Jake.

Istanbul/Göcek/Athens:

Borrowed life, might as well enjoy it. Get some friends together and postpone all problems, what can go wrong? Exactly. Don’t forget reality, but leave it behind on this trip. Look around and just smile, it very rarely happens this easily.

London/Paris:

The meaning of family. Brady Bunch and Flounders combined on a happyfest. Blame globalization or politics, we where not designed for distance relationships. Europe reminds me of many things I miss, but also of a loneliness I don’t.

Back to reality, don’t forget fantasy

Just wrote this to somebody as part of an email, but soon realized it applies to myself. I’m 3/4 of the way on a month-long trip, but as usual, I’m changed:

As you get back to the real world and laugh at what was said and try to forget what you think you heard; don’t throw all of it away. 

Remember some of the crazy ideas, and —even more importantly— some really fascinating plans. 

In any case, from traveling comes clarity. Don’t waste the investment. 

Trailer for Somewhere by Sofia Coppola.

The most beautiful trailer I’ve seen since the original Where the Wild Things Are one.

A Month in the US of A

Jumping over the Atlantic

It been about a month since I arrived in the US after leaving Norway.

The first week in Boston with my family was a welcomed vacation. The days leading to it where tiring mentally and emotionally and the safety of being with my parents and sister was uplifting.

Boston sans University

Boston holds a special place in my heart. My two years there where really amazing, and most corners have a fun memory attached to it. This was my first time after three visits that nostalgia didn’t get the best of me. I just looked back and smiled.

I like nostalgia. It’s usually is the result of a extremely happy memory that is not easily replicated. It does hurt a bit, but in a good way.

Grunge and Starbucks

After Boston it was off to Seattle, where the most concrete part of my almost non-existent current plan lies. The results won’t be seen for some time, but the trip was still worth it. It reminded me lots of Austin -with its yuppie feeling- and any city with such a great science fiction museum¹ gets my eternal love.

I finished reading Enders Game on top of the Space Needle, this is something I will never forget for some reason.While I don’t know the significance, someday I hope to find out (or make it up).

Train South

Since I was already on the West coast, and I still had the adventureness feeling that Wolf and Nav radiate, I decided not to fly straight to Miami and take a train to San Francisco.

The Coast Starlight boast a scenic route all the way down to Los Angeles. The views are pretty, and the train itself is not half-bad, but what it lacks in speed and amenities compared to any European train, it makes up for in the friendliness of almost every passenger.

I got to met some interesting people along the way, among them: a surfer dude on his way to pick up all his stuff to move back to Portland and help his mom, and older guy who reads Greek novels and visited Caracas 30 years ago, or a sad looking girl that really doesn’t seem to want the train to stop ever, but has a lot of Kindle questions.

I don’t know if I never tried hard enough in Norway, or if I was in a very touristy train ride, but I never experienced this easy friendliness back there.

The City, for a Day

Afterwards, San Francisco was as inviting as ever. A city that looks you in the eye and tells you:

“I know you don’t want to be a tourist; stay a while longer”.

But isn’t the right time yet, or so I hope.

Welcome to Miami

Bienvenido a Miami, a place too messy to be American, but too organized to be Latin. Accents, customs and food seem all-too-familiar, yet at the end of the day, it’s a very different place.

Everyone is pretty, too pretty. The boundaries of sexiness are pushed at both ends of the age range. Some want to start right away, and others don’t want it to ever end.

While people in Oslo seemed to be fit so they could enjoy life, here it seems that fitness is a byproduct of trying to be beautiful.

Facebook Live™

The good thing is that there are friends here, great ones. The Internet let’s people keep in touch, but distance matters and changes things. You need to see people, friends and family in real life, not just in HD or commenting on their photos.

✈ to Home 1.0

On Friday I head to Caracas. My best friend is getting married and I couldn’t be happier about his happiness.

Plans continue to happen around me, and it makes me a bit envious. But that doesn’t change that I like what I see.