The Bulgarian Bonfire Soirees

Eastern Europeans. Every time I forget my woes and start seeing life for its very few charms, it's in the presence of foreigners (or, in the case of Quebec, people foreign to me). Here in Alaska, young Eastern Europeans are brought in for the hospitality and tourism industry. They're cheap labor to the local proprietors and the kids get to come to America to suss out whatever it is Eastern Bloc-ers come to America to suss out. It's a win-win.

The season is winding down faster than a rig going 65 MPH is incapacitated by a moose on paved permafrost. And the RV park the clowns I work for put us in has closed for the season. The RV park's Eastern Europeans throw a party of sorts every night now. They light a camp fire and play bad techno/electronica/dance music. They've invited us Jeep boys to drink cheap beer with them and hang out around the fire. They burn anything they can get their hands on. I never knew Budweiser cans burn so well.

So at night, we hang out under the moon drinking the cheap stuff and chatting absolute nonsense. And I couldn't be having more fun. I hope they're out tonight, though Maria is on a flight to LA or Vegas or NYC and the rest of the Moldovans, Macedonians, Bulgarians and Russians are about to fly the coup too. Any day, as a matter of fact. Our group is bound to dry up quickly. And when it does it's back to the blanket feelings of underwhelmed-with-being. Bang! I fucking love moose, mountains and fire. I'll miss the the heck out of this place. But I gotta split!!

From bad to September

Feeling low. Low. The sun went from setting at 10:45pm to setting at 8:30pm. Northern lights were out again last night. They sucked. Today, 09/09/09, my rideshares headed south decided to nix the whole thing. Now I have to bear the burden of driving 5 thousand miles and paying for 5 thousand miles worth of fuel.

And I keep seeing moose splattered all over the place. I saw a massive rig with a dent the size of my extended family in it. And a blood splatter bigger than a Ford F-150. The last thing to go through the mind of the moose it hit? Its own asshole. Hanging out in the middle of the Parks Highway at whatever hour that happened, maybe its own asshole was the ONLY thing to ever go through that moose's mind.

I'm very excited to be leaving this place in under 2 weeks. But I'm still sitting with the unnerving feeling that I'm not going to be very happy anywhere else. Sometimes. Well, I think that I'm bigger than this brain. This body. This life. What kills me is the wants. I want to eat every day. Hunger is a pesky little habit. I want stuff. Maybe even a woman friend. Vey. Purple tennis shoes. A winning lottery ticket. A road bike with flat handle bars. A skill. A New York strip steak. A happiness maybe very few people know. Lucky kid that I am. To want to be happier and not healthier, or safer, or cleaner, or less closer to death. Lucky to be unhappy.

So I'm rolling down the Stampede trail and come to a calf moose trot right by me. Then the mama moose saunters in front of my Jeep. So I sit. And throw the Jeep in park and watch. I didn't do much thinking. I just watched. I suppose if I did think I would have wondered that I can't watch this sort of thing in Brooklyn. Or that I'm on the clock is this is helping me pay the bills. Or that this is the exact reason I came to Alaska for 6 weeks. Or how I'd be writing about my thoughts in another day or two. Writing about her and her calf. Writing about how each one of her mouthfuls of tree leaves equates to about 5 or 6 large salads at any deli anywhere. And then I actually did have a thought. I threw the Jeep into drive and motioned onward. But she squared me up. And I thought either she's not going anywhere. Or that I'm disturbing her meal. I put the Jeep back into park and hung out a while longer. Microcosm for my life? At almost 30, did I just throw it back into park? Am I idling on my trail?

What about you and your trail?

Pre tend

light towers commemorating 9/11

Thinking back, I'm a bit obtuse, aren't I?

You know what's annoyingly insensitive? Getting flaked on. Got flaked on twice over the weekend. Was supposed to go hiking and I knew I was going to get played, and things played out accordingly. Then, Sunday morning touch football gets canceled this week. Disappointment abounds. But it's cool. I poured beers for the Thomas Hooker booth at the NY Brewfest on Friday and the two different beers they had were a Blonde Ale and their Oktoberfest Lager. Nothing like shouting "Blonde Hooker!" or "German Hooker!" to a bunch of punch drunk beer heads. And, as the Hooker beer had to be the best at the fest, when I ran out of beer, I was allowed to drink beer from the other booths. Sweet intoxication wasn't too far behind.

Then the house party, byob style, was in full swing when I arrived straight from the brewfest. I haven't imbibed so much fucking alcohol in what seemed like months (though it's probably closer to a couple weeks). It got crazy when everyone hit the dance floor to hits from Wu Tang, Old Dirty Bastard and DMX. Yup, that's right, 1990's rap hits. It was so fucking insanely awesome. Until the police raided the place. They gave summonses to everyone on the roof (I had left the roof only minutes before the police showed) and anyone outside with a beer in their hand. I avoided the po-po completely, laughing my ass off to the lesbians getting down on the dance floor.

Best night I've had in a very, very long time. Not enough to compensate for the hangover hike I didn't get to go on or the Sunday morning touch football game, but I'll remember it until I find my next house party in a Brooklyn loft, byob style.

"I'm feeling high and I'm drifting/
mind on my business, nine in my britches/
I ride with ambition, push-up a hundred times for the ones dying senseless..."
Steele of Smiff N Wesson on Get back

Today I'm feeling:

cooperative

Over yonder

Why does it always seem like far away is so far away?

4:45am EST. U.S.A. v. N. Korea. Women's Soccer. Tuesday, September 11th. I've set my alarm clock!!!

"you want to stick me then put your best to it or die black/
we see you in Allah's kingdom, you try that"
Nas on How ya livin by AZ

Today I'm feeling:

like I shouldn't have tried "that"

Easy Pickings

"But it was mango season. The mangoes were cheap. They were cool, and sloppy with sweet spicy juice. To a throat rubbed raw by dust, by heat, by the choking soot of traffic, they were perfect. I was slowly beginning to realize that Afghanistan is a 1 percent country. The ninety-nine bad things are what make the one remaining thing so indescribably good.

"... That's Afghanistan. You eat a mango in a mine field. Things that are easy have no flavor."
Excerpt from The Kabul express by Patrick Symmes, c. 2003. From Outside magazine and The best American travel writing, 2004.

A bottle of about 32 sleeping pills will last me quite some time. I'd say about 3/4ths of a year, easily. However, I feel every time I walk into the drug store to re-up, there's less of a deal. I usually get the store brand because what do I care about quality? They could be made in China for all I know. I'm only using the damned things to self medicate. I usually swallow it down with a beer. When times get tough, I start building a tolerance to it. Today I paid 8 bucks for 32 doses. Which is more like 24 doses when I start doubling up in due time. I used to get the same amount, roughly, for half that. The other day I swallowed a dose and slept for 2 and a half hours, the only sleep I had in maybe a 54 hour stretch. But I'm far from sleepy. I'm functioning, doing push ups like madness and doing it without eating anything outside of nectarines too!

This human body is such a trip. It's all subject to the mind. I bet if amputees could train their brains, they could regrow their lost limbs. Then prosthetics would sell only to the weak minded. We'd have an amputee social stratification problem on Earth. Like Robert Frost declared how way leads on to way, the same could be said about problems. In this paragraph alone I've described how emotional problems could lead to drug problems and how physical problems could lead to societal problems. If I'm not a nectarine gone bad, then I must be fermenting.

"you know I gotta get away
fuck that, never let a nigga take me out my zone/
if he try then blow him/
and go 'ooohooooohooohoooo'"
Mobb Deep on Get away

Today I'm feeling:

nickeled, dime and quartered

Amzad

AzK, MD

I'm not afraid to say it. There are two men on this planet that I love. I love both of them equally. I love them like brothers most of the time, but there are some profound moments when I love them like I'd love a father. I'm assuming, of course. I've never known a father, so it's not like I know precisely what that love would feel like.

I feel a lot of pain. Sometimes I'm too selfish. And through it all, through all of my ugliness, I've never been jealous or envious or mad or vengeful of the men I love.

I love Amzad. He's smart, funny, light hearted, extremely kind, attractive, and poised to be great. He's also a good Muslim, and above all a great man. I only hope that one day I can repay him for being such an awesome being. I hope that one day I can show how much I appreciate this man's friendship.

No homo.

"Steam from the cup and snow on the path/
the seasons have changed from the present to past"
Feist on The Park

Today I'm feeling:

menstrual?

Mired in meager misery

It seems my life has gone trotters up. But, I've been contacted to substitute teach this Friday. It won't be fun, but I'll know what it is to have a pay check again, however meager.

The irony of life. I was comfortable in the ignorance of not knowing how much better things have gotten. Sorry for being so vague here. But, now that I learn how new and improved the new and improved has become, I feel spited.

"at your wake as I peek in/
look in your casket, feeling sarcastic/
'look at him, still sleeping'"
Jay Z on 22 2's

Today I'm feeling:

spited

But we all die in the end, don't we?

Derelict rhetoric

Urban sprawl, uptown, NYC

I guess it's possible to read one thing and see anything you want. For goodness sakes, there's a lip gloss song out that's getting serious airplay on the radio (and people are seriously listening). I'm not a professor. I'm not a photographer. I'm not an artist. I'm not a philosopher. I'm not a social scientist. I hope you readers don't take that with you when you leave this page. I write a minute's worth of reading a day with the hope that you there, at your desk job, can get a slice of entertainment during your down time. That way I feel encouraged that you'll visit me tomorrow and the next day. That's also why I post everyday. And with that said... I'll see you tomorrow, no?

"If everybody's a killer, where the fuck is all the punks?"
Joe Budden on Real life in rap

Spoke to the KFC ex-employee of the decade again! Wait a minute. It smells like cat piss in here. Whoops, never mind, it's me. I haven't washed this shirt in weeks. I digress. The KFC ex-employee is calling me. Not that I mind, particularly because she's a good looking woman, but she just made it clear that she wants a guy friend that's nothing more than a friend. Now, that's all good and fine. Except when it comes to me. I have a philosophy on the whole being friends with women thing. If you're reading this, Jenny, you're safe. You're one of the rare exceptions to this philosophy. But my deal is that I've got all the friends I want already. They're called men, and they're way better than most women are in the friends department. They aren't all that sensitive, and they don't linger on the phone. You have specialized men friends that fit several different needs. I have friends for basketball. Then I have another set for drinking. And I have a set for general socializing. And I have another set for miscellaneous crazy shit. With women, they think of themselves as all purpose. And besides that, I tend to usually find the woman friend that only calls when she needs something. Usually it's the "where's that pool hall we went to that time when you said that peanut butter only goes well with dairy products that are sweetened?" needs that I have to bear. Such a tragedy. Moral of the story, my time and effort is being wasted (btw, it was her brother who's married to her sister-in-law and not her who's married to her sister-in-law's brother... in other words, she's not married).

I haven't written a paragraph that long in ages.

Today I'm feeling:

futile

As in resistance is futile. I'm just not going to win. And crackhead's birthday is today. The crackhead in question being my brother, who is an actual crackhead in real life. Just saying, not actually wishing him a happy one or anything retarded like that.

A tall vanilla soy simpatico

Apparently cats are infatuated with tumbleweed. I've never seen my Kate, who's usually so miserable, so enchanted. Recurring theme of the month; simple pleasure.

Yesterday was the day! May is turning up aces. I look at the old adage as a metaphor for my life at the moment. April showers bring May flowers. Fucking eh! So, I played softball at Central Park at 9am. Came home and napped off my Cinco de Mayo hangover until around 2. Then hit the New School at 4:30 for a Korean function. I met a whole host of "new" Koreans. I say new in quotations only because they all say I've met them before. I can't keep track of the mofos. Good people.

By and large everything's vanilla. I still need some drastic change, but everything's vanilla.

Some more if you's?

If you didn't catch Spiderman 3 or 300 on opening weekend, or at all (although I did catch 300 on opening weekend, but it was just to spend time with someone and I didn't pay nor enjoy it too tough)...

If you don't live your life around a job...

And if you ambitiously start things only to lose interest and never actually see them to completion...

You and I may be simpatico!

Today I'm feeling:

strange

Hey, it's just a feeling. You feel me?

Cinco de Mayo!

Antique style... 'cause I love this one that much

"I don't follow any guidelines 'cause too many niggas ride mine/
so I change styles every two rhymes."
Jay-Z on 22 2's

Now, off to find me some Corona and tequila! Olé!

Today I'm feeling:

a little too sober

I know I shouldn't hit the bottle this early... but it ain't that early! You know?

All in ya grill!

Sean at the Cloisters, NYC, April 2007

Plastered, painted and balled like a bad ass. I'm NOT the shit or anything, but I knew it wasn't me. My basketball team is usually pretty bad. Teammates all have attitudes and are so moody. It's like playing basketball with the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (only less good). Had Mr. Imus "insulted" some male basketball players, there'd be no touching press conferences or multiple apologies. The men would man up and move on. But my basketball team is overwhelmed by woman hormone. Complain, complain, complain.

So to the point. I'd say 3 of the 5 non bitches on the team showed up for our game tonight. Me and two others. We played 3 on 5 for a whole half. We were short two players. But... we had absolutely no bitches. No complaints. We just balled our ass of. We were up by 12 points at half time. Then 2 bitches showed up and the other team started to cut into our lead. Handicapped by having "enough" players, we held on to win by only 6 but I took home a very solemn point. You can't play with women, even if they've got man parts.

Don't get me wrong, we beat a bad team. But we would have lost for sure if we had to play with that 5 for a full game. 3 men + 2 bitches = L.

Earlier tonight:

Non bitch teammate Matt: Yo, these fat bitches be acting like they skinny!

Sean: What you should have told her, before you hung up on her, was that you're hanging up on her not because she ain't trying to have sex with you but because she ain't skinny AND she ain't trying to have sex with you.

Today I'm feeling:

like I accomplished something

Yeah.

I'm alright

Fractured artwork at the Cloisters

Another maelstrom Monday. Actually, it's a pretty uneventful day (the few minutes into it that it took me to write this). Yes, my month is up! Finally. I endured idiot move after idiot move, and the whole flu thing, during a very tumultuous 30. I invite May into my life with open arms.

By the way, I think I got canned at work too!

Still, I've met gobs of folks. Folks who all look at life a little different from one another and a lot different from me. I've grown to know others more, and understand them too. If I'd have to salvage anything from the month of April, it's the couple bonds I've strengthened with those who offered me salves and ointments in the form of their ears and shoulders.

"And when you're holding me, we're like a pair of parentheses."
The Blow on Parentheses

Sorry, can't get that song out my gray matter.

April still sucked lizard scrotum!

Today I'm feeling:

anxious for May flowers and shit

Talk to me, y'alls. (By the way, the title is a pun)