On Monday I returned from a week in South Carolina — I drove to Clemson on Friday, hung out there until Wednesday, then drove with Jeff to his parents' house in Aiken for Thanksgiving. Andrés and Amy also flew down from Boston for the holiday. It was really cool getting to see so many of my favorite people, although most of my friends in Clemson were busy with schoolwork and so I actually didn't get to spend very much time with anyone. Still, it was a satisfying trip.

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The visit in Clemson was perfect. I didn't miss out on any visits, and I got to do all the things I had on my list: I watched Metalocalypse with Meg, ate at Waffle House, took pictures at the abandoned mill in Newry, finally hung out with Katie in person, went to Super Taco, spent a good amount of time with Alia, did an Irish Car Bomb with Jeff and Bobby, hung out with Kells, and even got to see Jenn, which I though would be infeasible.

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I got back from Clemson a few hours ago. I took two days off from work and flew up for Meg's birthday, and Andrés drove down from Orangeburg where he's interning. As expected, it was a really fun weekend. I've just finished posting all the digital photos I took, but I actually used the Holga much more than the digital camera, and I've still got five rolls and two sheets of film to develop. Those will be posted over the coming days.

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Cat sent me her pictures from the trip to New Orleans two weeks ago, so this seems like a good time to finally write about it.

I arrived on Friday evening, and, after some brief discussions of geography, we immediately set to drinking.

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Last weekend I went to Charleston to visit Jessie. She was having a "Periodic Table Of The Elements" party. The idea for the party is genius, and I had an idea for a fun costume (the excitingly historied-Seaborgium", interpreted as a robotic sea monster) but I ended up not having time to put it together. Jessie took me to Party City and we settled on a Noble Gas. The day was saved.

Originally the plan was for Meg and Meej to make the drive from Clemson for the party, but Meej ended up having schoolwork to do, so they couldn't make it.

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I finally posted about Meg and Amy's visit, but I back-dated it to help keep things chronologically consistent. I figured I'd mention it here though since it appears pretty far down the page and will probably be missed if you're not looking for it.

I'm currently enjoying the free wireless internet access available in the Ft. Lauderdale airport on my way up to Cedar Point in Cleveland, OH to ride insanely fast roller coasters with Cat and Bryan. On the plane today I was pondering filmmaking, and considering experimenting with it. I have the equipment and software needed and know how to do basic editing. When I started considering what I might make, I realized a big difference between filmmaking and photography that's probably obvious to everyone else; filmmaking is often fictional, where you create a story and have the actors interpretit. In contrast, photography (or at least, the kind that I tend to engage in) tends to be nonfiction; finding pretty things and capturing them. I might pose the person I'm shooting with, but the photo is still meant to be a photo of the person, not a character. One of the few times I actually came up with a concept and asked people to act it out was the My Arms, Your Hearse shoot. And those are some of the few photos of mine that I actually really like.

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The week with Meg and Amy was awesome. I didn't get to write about it until a while later, because I immediately left for the Cedar Point trip, so details are kind of sketchy in my memory now, but I wanted to get something down about it.

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Man, I've been getting behind in documenting my life. Spending too much time living it. OK, so Liz came to visit a few weeks ago, and it was an awesome week. Andres, Liz and I went to El Yunque and hiked down to the waterfall, although Liz didn't dare to jump down the first waterfall. Ah well, it was really scary my first time as well. On the way down, we stopped and ate awesome Puerto Rican food as is tradition, and then, exhausted and sated, drove down the mountain with the windows down and Sigur Rós enveloping us.

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Suddenly, it turns out Meg is coming down for the week as well. She called last night and asked if there was room in the house for one more. Minutes later, she had a plane ticket to come down tomorrow at almost exactly the same time that Amy arrives. Man, this week is going to be great. It'll sure be frustrating having to be stuck at work every day though. I'm trying to decide whether I should ask if I can come in an hour or two early so that I can leave early too. That'd free up more of the day when everyone is up and about, but it would mean I'd need to go to bed earlier too (or just drink lots of coffee for the week). I'll probably just do that.

Some bands or albums are inextricably linked to places, and usually cars, in my memory. Bad Religion - Stranger Than Fiction is driving in the Bonneville with Andrés and Bryan. NOFX - Punk In Drublic is hanging out with Bryan and Andrés when we were living in Estancias (particularly, all of us harmonizing along with Linoleum in the Bonneville while leaving the neighborhood). Goldfinger is driving around in PR in the Camry when I was in high school (particularly, passing by that no-name pizza place on Esmeralda). Snake River Conspiracy is driving around in Clemson in the Camry (particularly, looking for parking in the Calhoun Courts parking lot). Hole is pulling into the CVS parking lot in Ohio with Cat. OSI is walking along the waterway between my host family's house and the subway station in Japan. Cafe Tacuba is riding the subway in Japan on my way to class. The Cranberries is driving to El Yunque in Papi's Lexus with Andrés, Meg, and Amy last Christmas. Godspeed, Rachel's, and Thornley all bring to mind working at Xapiens, but we'll have to let them settle a while to see if they will become distilled down to a singular image like the rest.

Am I the only one who has such specific memories associated with music?