We didn't end up backpacking at all, unfortunately.  I woke up with a stomach bug, which Jenna started feeling a few hours later.  It seems to just have been a 24-hour thing, but the result was that we were in no shape to hike.  So, we're just going to try to do the hike in Iceland without the benefit of overnight experience.  I feel pretty confident in our equipment at this point, and if we can't make it for four whole days, then I guess we'll do it as long as we can and catch a bus back to Reykjavik.  It's not remote, it's not dangerous, and I need to remind myself that I'm probably getting my jimmies rustled for no reason.

To catch up: before we left Pennsylvania, Jenna and I were conscripted to pick blueberries with my mom and step-aunt.  The three of us together picked like 24 pounds in a couple of hours and it was a lot of fun.  Later in the week, my mom took Jenna and I to Pittsburgh, along with my step-sister, Gwen, for the purpose of partaking in the joys of Kennywood, western Pennsylvania's biggest and best amusement park.  We were treated to a really remarkable meal at the deceptively humble-looking Coriander.  I feel like it takes a lot to impress my jaded Indian food sensibilities, but I was impressed with the expansive regionally-divided menu, especially the Indian Chinese section, constituted by Chinese food as interpreted through the Indian subcontinental palette.  Probably in my top 5 Indian meals.  Kennywood was fun, and since we arrived early on a weekday, it was relatively uncrowded.  It was cool to spend some time with Gwen, who I don't see very often, and my mom also seemed to have a really good time.  Kennywood has built some new rides since I was there last, notably the Sky Rocket, which takes all of 11 seconds and goes from zero to 500 mph in 2.6 picoseconds and puts you through 15 loops, or something.  It was real cool.

We drove to Jenna's place near Boston a few days later.  I've been working on a short story, playing video games, and reading A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava, incidentally one of the finest pieces of fiction I've ever laid hands on.  Jenna's been vegan-baking up a storm - challah (regular and pesto), apple cider donuts, hamentashen, scones.  We've been getting the last of our shopping for Europe done here, as well.  Jenna's friend Mariana accompanied us to Nantasket Beach last Thursday.




It was a strange day to go to the beach - the coolest day in a week at least, and kind of gray. On the plus side, it was much less crowded than it would've been on a nicer day.  We all swam a little, despite the less-than-tropical water temperature.

Jenna's parents took us into Boston to see the Institute of Contemporary Art.  A lot of the galleries are closed for renovation right now.  They gave us each an extra ticket, but with us leaving on Tuesday, it's unlikely we'll see the rest of it.  There was a non-permanent Josiah McElheny exhibition on display, and a couple of permanent galleries open, where picture-taking was prohibited.  McElheny's whole thing is an obsessive interest in infinity and astronomy, represented principally through the use of glass and mirrors.

Josiah McElheny, Early Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely.  Count the skinny jeans reflected in the frame.

McElheny's Drawings and Photographs for a Chandelier, 1965.  This is not my picture; I was unable to get decent photos of this piece, but it was on display at the ICA.  I liked the complex-yet-clean diagrams on the top quite a bit.

Jenna and her mother, Tracey

I cut off my dreadlocks last night.  After months of debating with myself about it, I decided I was being stupid about the whole thing and just did it.  I'm not sure if I feel better about it or not.  I've come to realize that I want to impress someone with how punk I look much less frequently than I want to interact without an off-the-bat handicap with normal people.  I've never been interested in the same things as those around me, but giving visual expression to this feeling of difference isn't what punk means to me any more.  At least, it's something I want to be able to put away sometimes (besides my tattoos, with which I'm still happy).  Anyway, I have a job, an apartment, shower regularly, and don't drink - who am I kidding by looking like a squatter?  I wrote a post on my personal blog a while ago about my former habit of being absolutely filthy, and how it related to my psychological inability or unwillingness to partake in the ordinary pleasures of life.  I think that dressing punk is another symptomatic expression of this neurosis.  I've spent a lot of time wearing spikes, sometimes literally, to guard myself against - well, I'm not sure.  If, by looking different, I avoided putting myself in the misery of social interaction, then I risked nothing and lost nothing.  This isn't very healthy, of course, because risking nothing, you also gain nothing.  In this light, cutting my dreadlocks off is part of a long thaw, wherein I end up looking like a real boy, rather than a Mike Brodie subject.


Huge shout-out to this vegan Nutella-type-stuff found in the Shaw's kosher foods aisle.  It truly is a bright morning.