being part of a group

I went outside on a little picture taking trip today. I want to photograph the Hasidim in this neighborhood (or at home in Brooklyn). I think they are beautiful. I like the outfit, I like the bangs and side-curls, and I like the hats. Actually own haircut resembles the chavas and I like to dress in black also. I don't care for the women's style however, which tends to feature tacky, modest clothes and blue eyeshadow. I like when I see the Chasidim running down 9th avenue to catch buses to Deal and Monsey. I want to take pictures of that but Ihave thus far been too shy, and it doesn't happen today anyway because they go home before sundown. So this morning I walked over to B&H and was standing outside trying to capture them on the move but I only got a family of Pakistanis, then I went into the store and took a couple pictures. I felt very conspicuous though and I didn't want my objective to be obvious to anyone. So I left and just took a couple shots of 33rd street and the building where I work.

I just read Rolling Stone and this article about Larry Brilliant and Google. I enjoyed the description of Google as "the first psychedelically informed superpower... The core mission comes right out of the psychedelic atlas: a vision of super-connectivity and superconductivity which is a hallmark of the psychedelic landscape." This encapsulates how I think about the Internet too and why I love it. I have a feeling it's related to God or ultimate enlightenment somehow. This is why I started blogging and stopped writing in my private journal. Sometimes I think God hears everything we write on the Internet.

Every person will suffer and die, says Buddha. Michelle just called. She inadvertently got a dope dealer's number because she was with her client when the client's dealer approached them in the park and she said the only way to get him to go away was to write his number down. Lately I have felt an increased level of trust toward Michelle and faith in her strength and ability to fight the disease of addiction. I even got her a little present and a card to celebrate her 8 months of h-free living (that is, since her last relapse- her overall clean time is several years) as of today. But this story disturbed and annoyed me. I wonder if she'll keep that phone number just to torture herself.