march 5th 2008 wednesday 12:15 pm i went to my friend's apartment downtown yesterday. she recently won a bid on ebay for a 35mm olympus om-1 and wanted me to come over with my canon to take photos. while i was driving over it started to rain lightly. then after a few minutes it started to pour down heavily, stop after two minutes, start again, and stop. luckily, it stopped by the time i pulled into the back of the apartment. when i opened her door i startled two other friends who were sitting on the couch nearby. it was a nice surprise! i didn't expect to see either of them since they go to college elsewhere. spring break for both of us is this week, but i didn't know they were coming down. we decided on going down to the train tracks "close" behind her apartment. she told us it was going to be close since she was taking us through a short-cut. twenty five minutes later we were standing on the tracks. some of us had mud on our shoes and jeans. some of us were bundled up behind our thick jackets, hoodies, and scarves- it was that cold! i was wondering how much time it would have taken us if we were to go down the long path. what i did know was that i had accidentally crushed someone's empty heineken bottle with my left foot and stepped my right foot into thick mud while going down a small hill. getting my favorite jeans dirty weren't a concern at the moment because i just wanted to find the graffiti she said was "close." having learned once that 'close' to my friend doesn't really fit into my idea of 'close' i was prepared to walk and walk some more. which is exactly what we ended up doing. the wind started to pick up speed and was crashing against my face. if you've ever walked on a train track then you know it's not wise to walk backwards on it. at least, not on this train track. so i had to bear the wind making my hair go in every direction. we reached a bridge and graffiti was practically on every column holding up that old bridge. it wasn't until i took my first shot with my canon that i realized it looked like people either 1) were living there at one point or 2) currently came down there to have a place to sleep. maybe that's just a typical image under any bridge. i don't know. i haven't been under a lot of bridges! instant shots: TOP ROW: ms. pac-man, trashville two zero zero four, i missed the last train sunday BOTTOM ROW: abolish capitalism, so7 n.y., mixtape and bones r.i.p ?! it started to rain a little while we were under there so we stayed put with scattered paper, clothes, bibles, and what looked like a campfire. we joked around saying that we were going to light the remaining logs, but it never happened. i don't think i wanted to stay down there too long anyways. i was actually starting to get hot so i took off my scarf. i guess my body was trying to compensate for it being so cold outside. when the rain finally stopped we walked back along the train tracks, up the muddy hill, climbed over a fallen tree (as there was no way around since this was the "short-cut" we were taking), and walked down to my friend's apartment door. when we got back we drove to a hole in the wall diner. we met up with two of my friend's friends- my acquaintances. it started to flurry when we got our orders in. while i was eating my bun & cream (grilled honey bun & ice cream) i was hoping that the snow would stick to the ground instead of melting. it wasn't cold enough even though it felt like the conditions were right. we drove back to her apartment and watched the news. primarily cnn covering barack obama and hilary clinton. there is only so much political coverage i can handle in a day so after an hour of that i decided to leave. i drove in silence for a while. i dropped my film off at the nearest developing place. then i drove home with "future reflections" playing. when i got inside i climbed into my bed and fell asleep.