i'll · sing · you · to · sleep · every · night · this · week.

The roads in New Mexico, at least these highways I've been on for a half dozen hours, maybe longer, have enough loose gravel laid around on the face of the pavement to build another road. Enough gravel laid around to make the underneath of my car look like mutilated tin can, shot up by the bee bees of a shotgun shell. I haven't pulled over and given it a peak but I can figure so much just by the tune repeatin like a scummy record. Click click click, tick tick WACK. Small dings on the metal before a monster of a thump I can feel through the cushion of my seat. Some rocks hit so hard I shake a bit, don't ask me how the gasoline ain't leakin from its tank. '83 must of been a quality year for American made gas tanks, that's my only guess. I gave up trying to get the radio loud enough to tune out all the thumpin. The clicks and the wacks, and all that, have become my New Mexican theme song, no point pretending it ain't there. 
Curious who else is out here driving. This ain't no main freeways and it isn't leadin to any Indian Casinos. Not ones makin any money. this road is a nothin road. Because I'm pushing towards Texas don't mean there's purpose in this drive, either. This road leads to nothing in particular, crosses state boarders, goes up and down in elevation, but except for the diner with the fine cherry pie, I'd say 4 hours back, we're talkin road and sky and not much else. I missed the turn to El Paso yesterday evening, if I was looking for a quick start, or some quick trouble, maybe just a bit of a good time, I could have headed there, I wouldn't be so damn East as I am, in the middle of nothin but dry fields and dusty air, startin up the slick side of the Guadalupe Mountains. Haven't been here for 20 years and it's about god damn time. There's another car every 35 minutes, blowin the opposite way I am, headin from no where to no where else, and I'm curious what's on their minds. How they block out the sounds of the gravel thumpin like it is. What they's exactly running away from. Not to say I'm running. This is too casual to be considered a run. I'm too old for any of that.   

I am sitting on my sister´s boyfriend Pablo´s bed, watching spanglish with him while h plays guitar and I use his new labtop. The city of Quito is 9,500 feet high, located in the midst of the Andy Mountains. I flew in at 12 am last night, this was after I wasted 6 hours in the houston airport drinking expensive beer. I thought I had cheated the system by buying a bottle of vodka in the duty free store. I would then purchase cola, mix the two, and help the time fly by. I am obviously not the firt person to think of this idea, because when i bought the vodka, she only gave me a peice of paper that claimed the booze as I got on the plane. so now i have a full bottle of vodka, sky 0rance, to be exact, 10 dollars in the airport, crazy. anyway, the flight to quito I sat by a beautiful 22 year old louisianan medical student. I would have sat by her freckles for the rest of my life, let alone 5 hours. I hardly talked to her, instead I wrote poetry and listened to my music, which will both last me longer then a half conversation with a southern broad. I stepped foot into the airport and quickly felt sick. like food poisoning. My mother said I would most likely get sick, but that´s just rediculous. I think it´s the elevation mixed with a bug. Pablo and his sister picked me up and took me to the only TGI fridays in the country. I drank water and smiled, then asked to call my sister. I thought it would be easier to explain to them that I was throwing up in the bathroom, if she did it. I go into the bathroom and the floor is freshly cleaned, and very wet. I don´t want to get my knees sopped, so I try to do it standing up. It didn´t work out as well as it did in my head, and before we left I am quite sure I trashed the nicest bathroom in Quito Ecuador. I felt bad, but my stomach felt worse. I woke up this morning and felt the same, but Pablo wanted to show me the place, so I told him I was better. I stood on the Equator, which is exactly as exciting as you´d imagine, but it´s something I had to do as a lame tourist. we then drove for awhile, up and up and up. until we reached a place that takes you waaaay up the 2nd largest volcano in the world (I think thats what I read) I have no idea how high I ended up, but it´s the highest Ive ever been. the sun feels like no other sun Ive ever felt. I am going to burn, 6, or 7 hundred times in the next month. cool. Not much else to report, Pablo is a ganster, much like my self. His passion in life is guitar. He´s obsessed with soccer (me basketball), he enjoys a good beer, most any time, and he dislikes school. He can´t memorize well, so his english is very poor. my spanish is very poor. We rocked as a pair. the best conversation we had was when he was trying to explain to me how much he liked my sister, and that if he mves to spain in the next year like he hopes to, he wants to take her with him. I felt like he was trying to ask for my approval to marry her down the road, and I could tell he was a little nervous talking about it, so he was struggling to get it out even more than normal. I had a hard time not laughing, not at him just the scenerio. I loved it. not to sit here and have a pablo bashing party. My spanish, though I can understand other alright, is pretty awful. and rediculous, especially if you take in to account that Im traveling to a spanish speaking country, not knowing spanish. pretty ignorant really, but what you gonna do about it? I plan on learning what I can as I go on. I´ll be alright. I leave at 6 am (it´s two hours ahead from pacific) for the islands. I don´t know if my sister, has internet or not. I´ll report when I can. take care

Brent

I leave for the Galapagos islands at 4:30 tomorrow morning. plane leaves at 630, then goes to houston. stays in houston for 6 hours, then goes to Quito, Ecuador, where Pablo, my sister's boyfriend I haven't met yet, will be waiting for me with a sign so I know who he is. We then will head to his parent's house where his mother is is anxious and nervous to have me come. she wants to make sure I'm very comfortable, so she's heading into the city to buy "KFC and Coke Cola for evening, Pizza Hut and Coke Cola for morning." I told my sister to let them know I'll eat anything they serve me, and that I'll be no trouble in that sense. In the sense of drinking to intoxication and taking off my clothes, I may be trouble, may be, I can't lie. Pablo's father knows how to say two things in english, how are you today? and I love my wife very much. The mother doesn't speak a lick. Pablo can speak well enough to talk to me, and if I talk slow and less like a stoner or an obnoxious sexist drunk, he can understand me also. His sister, who is around 17 I think, speaks the best. Pablo is nervous to meet me because he has the impression that I'm some kick ass guitar master with butt rock solos and the like. and he's afraid if he doesn't look like he rocks enough, I won't be impressed. so he told my sister that he is very excited to jam with me, and he's going to take me around to some cool places to see, like the Equator of our fine Earth. the next morning I'm flying to the island where my sister resides, santa cruz. I stay there for a few days then we take a boat to another island. this island is the one with the craziest wildlife, like penguins, and those dragon dudes. I'm hoping to see a battle between the two. like twenty penguins verse two dragons, but the penguins were trained to fight. Moving along. My sister has some business there, teaching a seminar or something, then after a week or so we head back to my sisters island and stay there until I head back to Quito. My sister is taking off work and coming and us two and pable are driving around equator for a few days, then I head back to the states, and have a 9 hour lay over in texas. crazy. for my lay overs, I'm going to be calling people so I don't go insane. yeah. I'll hit the bars and drunk dial from houston texas. top that for a couple tuesday and sunday afternoons. then I'm home june 11th. cool. I'll have internet sometimes. I'll either write here, or write on my live journal, or copy and paste the same one. I'll put the date on the subject, and if its the same date, don't waste time reading the livejournal and the myspace. I felt as lame typing that as you did reading it. crap. alright, i'm off to bed. good night to you.

Brent

look what andrew made for his class. sweet stuff

so I have my computer hooked up to my nice stereo system. I also have my turntable hooked up to it, it's the main reason for having the stereo. So I'll be sitting in my room and feel like listening to an album. if I have it on record, I'll bust it out on record, even though it quicker to play it from my computer. and then if i'm listening to a song on my computer, and I think of something I want to hear, I'll put on the record instead of finding it on my cmputer I'm already sitting at.

so my thought is, why are records that much better? why are they so "gansta" if I will, and I just willed, you know what I'm saying.

Ok peace ouuut.

from now on, I'm going to post something called "THOUGHT TIME" every once in a while, maybe every day, maybe twice a day, maybe only twice a week. you see what I mean man? it could literally be any time. (but there are literally hundreds of colored markers). SO I'll just write "THOUGHT TIME" in the title box, and be prepared to read a thought I am currently having, below. it could be a sweet idea I have, it could be an invention, something Im mad about, food that sounds good, an interesting fact (that I did or did not make up). you get the idea. cool man. here, lets try it out!