Elliott C. Back: In Aere Aedificare

I was imed today by a 19 year old girl Beila, who decided because she wanted to, to send a stream of non-stop photographs of herself. At any moment I expected it to become an enticement for an adult website, or some other kind of spam, but she signed off and I have the impression that this girl was just bored. She wanted to see my photo so I sent her lots of pictures of Wendy and I.

Here’s the text bit of the convo… so weird. Names have been anonymized:

(10:50:17 PM) Beila: hi r u mick
(10:50:30 PM) me: oh hai lololololol
(10:50:43 PM) Beila: r u mick
(10:50:52 PM) me: im not
(10:51:07 PM) Beila: ooops sorry then who r u
(10:51:13 PM) me: elliott
(10:51:15 PM) Beila: im beila
(10:51:16 PM) me: i don’t think u know me
(10:51:26 PM) Beila: got a pic elliott ?
(10:51:43 PM) me: yes… but i have a feeling i am too old for you
(10:52:32 PM) Beila: how old r u
(10:52:33 PM) me: You look like my little sister
(10:52:40 PM) Beila: u serious
(10:52:41 PM) me: I’m 23, Beila.
(10:52:42 PM) me: Yeah.
(10:52:47 PM) Beila: im 19
[random images come my way]
(10:53:26 PM) me: who took it?
(10:53:26 PM) Beila: how old is ur sis
(10:53:30 PM) Beila: my dad
(10:53:32 PM) me: it’s a very interesting composition
(10:53:37 PM) me: my sister is 17 now
(10:54:00 PM) Beila: can i see ur pics now
(10:54:07 PM) me: Sure, let me see.
(10:54:42 PM) Beila: whos the girl
(10:54:49 PM) me: that’s my girlfriend, Yunming
(10:57:23 PM) me: So what’s all the photos for?
(10:57:34 PM) Beila: i dunno
(10:57:42 PM) me: bored huh?
(10:57:44 PM) Beila: just like sending them
(10:57:53 PM) Beila: u got more
(10:59:25 PM) me: I am running of photos I want to send you.
(10:59:31 PM) me: But I’m finding this highly amusing.
(11:01:40 PM) Beila: those were all old pics
(11:01:52 PM) Beila: this is wat i look like now
(11:06:15 PM) Beila: i g2g im tired bye
(11:06:20 PM) me: cya

I’ve had friends send me much racier pics than this:

So I sent her things like this:

I suppose in the end it was just a young teenager trying to express herself. What’s odd is that the photos she sent were not all of her–some were disconnected social dialog. Try and make sense of this, these 20 or so photos which were sent to me seconds apart:

WHAT IS THIS!??!?!?!?! I can only assume it’s a weird expression of independence, sexuality, deviance, and what I will unfortunately label “emo.” But, why am I the victim of her stream of consciousness? I’ll never know

Happy 777! Apparently tons of people are getting married today, but not me. Wendy’s not even in the US right now, so it’s pretty difficult to do.

So I decided I would go out jogging this evening, right? It was about 11:40 PM when I left, and after about a 3/4 mile of running I passed by a car with four young black dudes in it sitting on the side of the street doing nothing. For some reason they thought it would be amusing to make as much noise as possible at me as I passed by, which I took in stride. After 1.5 miles on my way back, these guys were still sitting in the same spot… making the same noises at me. So, I keep running and throw the usual NY shut up signage at them, which incites them to follow me. Four dudes. In a car.

I’m thinking, “Yay what a lovely day for a drive by” as one of them waves something shiny, but not a knife and way to small to be a gun in the air, and I duck down an alley and wait for about five minutes in someone’s backyard until they disappear. While holding a firm grip on a borrowed but heavy shovel. Better safe than sorry, right?

I carefully scout out the alley and surrounding area and slowly emerge, finding them quite gone. I see quite a few patrol cars in the area, and a special tactical unit mobile base truck (it sorta looks like a firetruck) zipping around, so I feel a bit safer. When I get within a half mile of my house, the tac unit pulls over and the cop says, “Hey, were those guys in the car chasing you?” So I gave him the story, couldn’t tell him who they were, but that there were “four cats” as he put it in the vehicle, told him one of them flashed something at me, but I didn’t see it clearly enough to tell what it was.

Turns out the cops saw me getting pursued and duck down the alley and lost me! I guess if waiting five minutes without moving is good enough to lose cops its good enough to lose thugs, heh. Scary day. I don’t think I can sleep tonight!

Wendy, hugs plz!!

Coming home from vacation is totally weird–not just a little weird, but totally so. My home doesn’t feel like my own place to live anymore, without Wendy around. Also my home is so much messier than the hotel we stayed at. I can’t believe that I don’t have easy access to laundry, a clean room, etc. And I haven’t dared to look in my fridge yet, I am scared of what might be living in there.

I have to shelve about 2-3 dozen books which are lying around the house, clean up a large pile of boxes, unpack my suitcases, send Hannah her birthday gift, vacuum, clean out the fridge, and do laundry. I finally got my spam comments deleted, and my 1600 emails read. And, you’re thinking this is the most boring post ever, so I should start talking about Hawaii.

Hawaii, was better than great. So many firsts to always remember and cherish. My first time to that State, the beautiful tropical paradisio that it is. My first time Parasailing. My second time at a Circus. My first time smoking a cigar (DR, not cuban). And so, so much more that I can’t write it all down here. The vacation relaxed my soul, bonded me more closely with my girlfriend who I unfortunately do not get to spend a lot of time with, and was just plain good fun. I got some sun, ran around the beach, ate good food!

Tomorrow I have to make a dozen calls to apartments in Brooklyn, NJ, and downtown NY. Ideally a place in NJ seems best, as it’s close to work (30m max) and much more affordable. Living in Queens is exciting and generally nice (see upcoming post), but I want something with 1/3 of the current commute and to spend less money. Every $200 not spent on housing can be $200 I pump into the student loan repayments. Now that I’m an adult and responsible, I want to increase my personal equity and reduce any debt as fast as I can so that when Wendy graduates I can be ready for her.

And guess what–I’m still not completely unpacked. July 4th here we come

After late night fun with hydrogen peroxide bleaching kits, I ended up looking like this:

No laughing, please!