A Day in the Life

Christian: How the job going? How much of the language have you picked
up? How's the food? Is there a night life? Let me know.

Sorry for not responding sooner. I got overwhelmed all of a sudden, stressed out, exhausted, ill. My to-do list forever teeming with things I said I'd do.

The job is going well. But a big change has happened in the past couple weeks. I work at a "talatat magazine" - a dusty storage facility for ancient Egyptian blocks attached to Khonsu Temple at Karnak. I'm not going to get into the history and significance of the temple here, but I will say that these blocks were re-used in different periods under different Egyptian kings such that many of them have inscriptions or hieroglyphs on more than one side, and such that one side can be right side up and then you rotate the block and the next side is upside down. Hmm. Up until a couple weeks ago we were working at a leisurely pace, I would photograph the blocks as they came to me. Before they get to me they must be removed from high stacks from inside the magazine, rolled out to our conservators where they dust them off and apply various chemical agents, epoxy on the parts that are falling off and then when they are satisfied they send the block off to our Egyptologists, who take notes on all the things they can: color, what kind of hieroglyphs or imagery or relief is present, what kind of state the block is in, etc etc. When they are all done they paint on some more chemicals "a patch" which must dry and then paint on a 6 digit number. After some minutes, the paint would dry, I would photograph it and then it would get sent back into the magazine. I was shooting 20-something blocks a day like this. With time in between to sit down with my workers and learn some Arabic with a child-size chalkboard and some chalk.

And then. And then word got around that we were working altogether too slow. 16,000 blocks at the rate we were working at would have taken about 4 years. We have 5 months left before my contract expires and they fly me back to America. So Ed, our Egyptologist friend stepped in and we began to brainstorm ways to speed up the process. I remembered in high school those nifty paint markers kids used for graffiti and had a photographer from John Hopkins bring over a dozen. Ed took the conservation paperwork and cut it in half, and lectured the conservators on how each block should take only a few minutes - especially blocks of no apparent significance - plain surfaces with nothing on them. And yes, there are quite a bit of these. Jay - said photographer from John Hopkins also dropped by the magazine to see what my process was and how he could speed up the photography element. So after all this - I'm now shooting 50-60 blocks a day - up to 70 sides. I know maybe this doesn't sound like a lot, but let me explain.

The blocks are heavy. Although they were constructed with the intention of one Egyptian man being able to carry it 3,000 years ago, nowadays most require two people to carry over to my table. Unless you want a hernia. Then the talatat face must be leveled. My table consists of a sandbox on top of a big screw so I can spin the block around to face it to the camera or face the 2nd side. The sandbox makes leveling the rock easier, as I can simply shift the level by shuving sand under one side of the rock, or propping it up with a wooden wedge. Sometimes this whole process takes all of 10 seconds. Sometimes it can take 10 minutes. Since some of the rocks are fragments, you have to find some indicator on the inscription of the rock as to what should be horizontal or vertical - some hieroglyphs, a seemingly horizontal line, etc etc. Sometimes you have to call on the Egyptologists to make this call, sometimes you don't, sometimes you make mistakes and you have to fix it in the computer, or, if the mistake is really bad, you might have to reshoot the block.

In any case, after the block is leveled, we use a mirror to make sure the face of the block is flesh with the camera lens. This involves having one of my workers (I'll talk about them below) hold up the mirror against the rock and looking through the lens and telling them to swivel the table to the left or the right until I see myself in the very center of the frame. It looks kind of like this:



Once this is set up, then we hang a board on the table (we glued a big fat magnet to the back of it) with the 6 digit number of the rock, a color patch, and a small scale to show the size of the block. Then we dust the black fabric off with a paintbrush and a blower brush. Then I shoot the rock. I've got the pavement spraypainted at various places to dictate where the camera should be depending on which way the rock is facing and the same for the Elinchrome lamps I'm using. Until recently I would do a lot of shuffling around, changing the power on the lamps or changing their position until I got the talatat lit exactly the way I want it. But since Jay came by, I've ditched this for the most part. Now I stick with the two to three lighting scenarios, sticking with the spraypaint marks on the ground and only varying this if the rock is exceptionally unusual (sometimes it truly is necessary, or the block is upside down because of fragile areas and has to be lit backwards and flipped in Photoshop). Right.

If there is more than one decorated surface, I do this all over again to the second surface, careful to label the various sides of the rock as A or B or C. I jot the rock number down in my Moleskin, the boys chalk a check onto the top of it, and it goes back onto a table until there are a whole lot of them to be carted back into the magazine and stacked in precariously tall stacks.

Like I said, it used to be twenty-something and now the numbers are more than double that, with the administration telling us that we have to double it again. For those that care, here is the number-crunch from my email to Jay:

"Shooting with Owen on Thursday we got production up to 59 blocks and 106 sides - our best track record thus far. Owen is going to try his best to shoot 2 days a week if possible and this will help to keep the numbers up... This week we shot 242 blocks/319 sides - if Owen could come twice a week and work out the patch issue, I would expect production to be up to 280 blocks a week - 1400 a month. If we have 5 months remaining that puts us in at 7000 blocks - add that to the 1700 or so we've done thus far and we're up to 8700." That's half.

I wish I could convey the manner in which we are running around like maniacs. I bust my ass so hard at work everyday that my butt cheeks chafe. That's a first. I actually have to apply baby powder to my butt after work. All of this doubling has definitely changed the nature of the job. Shooting twice as many blocks means I have to process twice as many - which made for a week of working on the computer until 8, 9, and 10pm. When you start work at 7.30 and finish that late it can really put a dent in you. Hence the sickness. The soar throat that never goes away. Irritability.

Before the doubling happened, I used to do a lot of other things like exercise, yoga, post photos, blog, take Arabic lessons, and ride bikes on the weekend and watch films and such. Since then, this has all been cut and my mood, noticeably, has done a bit of a 180. So the trick will be to find a way to keep the numbers up for shooting and processing but still have a life and get healthy.

Before all this I started writing about the job in more general terms. Read this as A Day in the Life before the "doubling" epidemic happened, when things were still pretty easy-going and life was pretty grand:

"There is a certain monotony to it I suppose, but you would be absolutely crazy to say my job is 'boring'. Yarko (dubbed "the Obi wan Konobi of photography in Luxor - quite possibly all of Egypt")



- a photographer who has been working for here forever took me aside one day to remind me that I have the best job in the world. He's right. I will try to explain to you why this is with little success but aside the point, I really hope my contract is extended so I can have another year here. I'm not ready for America and like many of my fellow-expats, I'm not really sure what the hell I'd do there. I have no interest in Graduate School at this point, or interning for some famous photographer, spending all day Photoshopping or keywording his nice pictures from Afghanistan (almost happened in PA with McCurry), in fact the only thing I can actually see myself doing/pursuing in the States is being a white-water river guide in the Canyon or somewhere else. The more likely route for my future is in another country, with my camera, or with some organization aimed to make shit better. But anyway, back to my job:

I get up at quarter to seven every morning, run downstairs for a glass of juice and a muffin, Ed makes some comment about the economy still being crap and what is your man Obama going to do about it, I scoff at him and grab my gear and jump in the company van, we (used to) swing by a nearby hotel where we pick up a group of Italian conservators, at least one of them having worked on conservation at the Vatican of all places. They all come wearing crisp white jumpers and I hear that at their site in Karnak they have nice little mats set up with nice lighting and tables with coffee and tea. Our space on the other hand is less neat I suppose, a tented area attached to the talatat magazine, where I shoot up to 30 blocks on a good day. This is the "monotonous" part, whereas every other aspect of it is not.

We jump out at Karnak where there's usually two dozen tour buses lined up and the morning light is pouring through the temple.





Tour guides buzz around us speaking everything from French, English, Arabic, Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Russian, and other languages I can't make out. We push through the metal detectors and the crowds with gear in hand taking in the same scene every morning.


I work with two Egyptian guys who are very dear to me. One is a 19 (now 20) year old boy by the name of Mohammed - a name which you can call out on any street corner and get at least 5 people to turn around.




I don't have time to do a full character analysis of Mohammed or even do him any justice here, but let's just say he is very smart, a rebel of sorts, and hyper-active. I have stories to tell about him that I will save for other posts - stories involving weddings, motorcycles, etc. The difficult part for Mohammed is not getting bored. He is forever telling stories, a mile a minute, to Dowop, then at some point during the day, when the last hour or two comes up, he gets bored out of his mind, sometimes sitting down with his head in his hands, clipping his fingernails, doing anything other than working. Which is fine, because at that point, Dowop can take over for the most part.

Dowop is a 30-something year old husband and father. His third daughter was born yesterday at 5am and he showed up for work. That is the kind of person he is. His wife was in the hospital. He stuck around for a couple hours until we told him to go be with his wife and new daughter.

Dowop is obsessed with the word "wahad" which means "one". It's wahad miraya (one mirror), wahad forsha (one brush), wahad mezan (one level), wahad Owen, wahad Sara, etnein Dowop (two Dowops, because sometimes he holds up the mirror and there are two of him - philosophical right?). Sometimes the wahad game gets a little old and unravels into absurdity - wahad wahad (one one), wahad kewayis (one good), and he will start talking to himself about various things with wahad in front of it.

Each time we saw Dowop last week we would ask him if the third baby is here yet, and he would say la lesa - no not yet. We jokingly told him that if it turns out to be twins he can give us one baby since he only wants one (wahad bes - just one).





Dowop is hilarious. He has definitive facial expressions and a way of talking and smacking his lips together and a definitive tone of voice that I wish I could convey to you. Sometime I'm going to have Owen video tape our breakfast so that I have a record of this.

Everyday around 10am whoever went out to fetch breakfast arrives back with a couple plastic bags heavy with goodness. For two Egyptian pounds (40 cents), we get a meal of kings consisting of a falafel-type sandwich called "tamia" - super fried bean balls



inside the most amazing pita I've ever tasted with tomato, lettuce, green onion, sometimes some white feta-like cheese, and always some fruit jam. All of this is plopped down on a plastic tarp on the temple grounds that we sit on and happily munch away. this is followed by tea with milk and sugar as we sit among ancient blocks telling stories and trying to communicate in broken Arabic and cherades.








The best is when tourists are wandering around and they see a bunch of Egyptian dudes plopped down on the ground, dipping pita into plastic bags of beans and jam and then see the lone white girl there, munching away. It all looks pretty funny.

How much of the language have you picked up? How's the food? Is there a night life? Let me know. Sorry, but this will have to wait till next time. 11pm is here and my throat is collapsing in on itself and my head is throbbing so I've got to call it a night. Sis - I hope this suffuses for never writing you enough or posting enough. Good news is me and Owen are going to get our own flat soon, which is going to improve our situation immensely. More on that later. Thanks to everyone for being patient and not getting too pissed when I don't respond to emails or write about "what it's really like". I intend to post to this religiously. Thanks for reading. Love, Fleur.

forever young

I have just finished watching the entire catologue of Gabby Miller's YouTube videos - everything from Pandas fighting in the gym, pandas in the library and at the lesbo club, to Gabby's grandmother wishing everyone a Happy New Year, reciting the Ballad of Yukon Jake or the player piano playing music recorded in 1922 from Millerama. For those of you don't know, Gabby Miller was someone I went to school with at Reed College. We met my Junior year when I returned from Russia in the spring, and then we lived together in a house called The Stables my senior year. She was and remains one of my favorite people on the face of the earth. Sitting here watching the videos, I have come to the realization, and maybe I've known it all along, that the people I met at Reed are people that will remain my favorites forever. There is something about the people I met there that make them most valuable. Aside from a particular best friend in Philly and my family members, they constitute that one circle of friends that I will always come back to. And now that we have all graduated and entered the real world, it's kind of funny to see where we all ended up:

Gabby goes back and forth between California and Vietnam, Serene opened up an art gallery in post-Katrine New Orleans, Sunny Daly is studying in Cairo, Egypt, Jesse is organizing lunch-ladies in Oregon and playing music, Layla is baking vegan goods in San Fran (as far as I know), Keith spent two years in Prague studying film, Babbits is living the dream in Portland at the Fridge soon to take a roadtrip with me across the states in summer 2009, Dan Denvir is living in Quito, Ecuador playing journalist/community organizer protesting all things evil and leading Caterwaul Quarterly (which I'm proud to help out with) while his girlfriend Thea holds down the fort in Philly studying for her PHd, let's see... Wilkes is somewhere on the West Coast getting his photography on magazine covers and being too busy to communicate, Julia Bean works for a neon light co. in NYC making rad signs for companies like Adidas, Jacob and Hana, who've got the most amazing track record of all: traveling from New Zealand, Indonesia, across America, and back again to Indonesia, etc etc.

But then there is also the extended network of non-Reed friends that I have kept in touch with: among them Laura - my friend in Germany, Bryan who has recently re-located to Columbia/Venezuela, Sean in NYC, Simona my friend in Morocco, and all my friends in Russia: Denis, Alexey, Albina, Rushina, etc. I feel well-rounded because of this.

I suppose living here amongst archeologists/adult peoples has done me some good in that I can pretend to be more like them, to begin to understand their mannerisms and speech patterns, to begin to take on responsibility and have a real job, but there is also the recognition - in a positive sense - that I know who my people are. My biggest fear, I know now, is being normal. I started to tell myself that I was "becoming adult" and slowly liking the idea of "adulthood" and accepting it as not so bad. Now I'm not being nostalgic in the slightest, I just want to state for the record that being away from friends for three years or so has led me to understand how much I love and respect them - for all their weird behavior, for the way in which you can't really guess what they are going to do or say next, and I will always understand this as the only way to be. It's ingrained in me and it was rather foolish to think I could take it out or tell myself that taking it out was the right thing to do.

What made me realize this? It was many things. It was the reunion with Sunny Daly in Cairo, it was watching all of Gabby's YouTube videos from way back then, it was sharing the stories of the good old days with a new friend, it was playing strip poker for the hell of it last night for the first time since that spring break weekend we took up to Canon beach back in 2005 with Gabbers, Layla, Gene, Jesse, and Isabelle. I do believe that I will remain a child at heart forever and I accept this with great joy.

80 birds with one stone

i started writing this a couple weeks ago and didn't finish it. that's what happens with most everything that isn't my regular work here at the American Research Center - or "arsee" as we refer to it in our daily laments and litanies.

i've gotten a lot of emails and been generally overwhelmed with my inability to respond. As I told my friend Bryan:

"Everytime I try to write an email I get derailed because I can't send it until its a complete thought and I never get around to making a complete thought. So now i'm like half a dozen thoughts backed up. I don't know if i can finish this thought because its late and i never get enough sleep. But i have a blog that I never have time to post to and only my mom reads apparently and at some point i'm going to just have to give up on responding to emails and respond to them in my blog. Then I can kill like 80 birds with one stone." So here goes. I will try to make this blog a place where I answer questions and capture what it’s really like.

4am my dreams are intermingled with the sound of Arabic prayers droning out of a loudspeaker. it's Friday morning before the Eid holiday, I've gone to bed just hours ago, and my dreams are drowned now in this muffled shouting. I am jolted from the mostly sensical world of my dreams into the sometimes nonsensical always magical place that is Egypt, this place that I live in and love. Allah Akhbar.

The prayers today are especially aggressive. It's "Friday's sermon" or "Friday's rant" as my housemate says. It sounds kind of like the 3rd Reich, a political rant, or a Pink Floyd song from The Wall. The megaphone definitely takes prayer to a different place. Pam, my housemate, is convinced he's screaming at the top of the lungs about how to slaughter goats. They are lined up now at the butcher's in the market, I saw 50 of them or so, driving by in our balidy bus last night, penned up and necks soon to be slit.

"Eid al-Adha" or just Eid for short celebrates Ibrahim's (or Abraham depending on which side of the fence you stand) near sacrifice of his son to Allah (or God). According to the Koran and not far off from the Biblical version, "the devil tempted Ibrahim by saying he should disobey Allah and spare his son. As Ibrahim was about to sacrifice his son, Allah intervened and instead provided a ram as the sacrifice. This is why today all over the world Muslims who have the means to, sacrifice an animal (usually a goat or a sheep), as a reminder of Ibrahim's obedience to Allah. The meat is then shared out with family, friends (Muslims or non-Muslims), as well as the poor members of the community. (Islam names Ishmael as the son who was to be sacrificed, whereas the Judeo-Christian name Isaac)." Thank you wikipedia.

Nicholas: On a scale of 1 to 10 you ask - how do you rate it in terms of magic?

At least a 9 or a 10. There is magic everywhere. Today it was giant hot air balloons being lit in great numbers outside of Karnak Temple where we work. Leaving the temple complex in the company van, I was so overcome by the spontaneity and the flame and color of it all that I had to get out of the van and tell my co-workers I'd walk home because I couldn't not take pictures. Owen, my friend in photographic jaunts, jumped out to join me. Children swarmed around to watch the torches inflate the mammoth rainbow billows as a dozen men struggled to brace the basket down to the earth, children circling in pairs and threes on bicycles and tugging on my arm to have their picture taken. If you have time to do things other than work, then you can participate in such magic everyday and that is more than enough.

Anxiety?

Maybe a 7 or 8 but it diminishes quickly, after a week or two its not so bad, and after two months its all but gone. I should point out that this is specifically Luxorian anxiety, as Cairo has its own version. Being home to some of the world's most amazing Egyptian antiquities, you can't escape the tourist culture here. The collective inertia of thousands of years of tourism has left a permanent stain on this town, and the initial weeks in Luxor can be crushing. You cannot leave the flat without being haggled by at least a dozen people.

The techniques of approaching foreigners, over thousands of years have evolved becoming increasingly more abrupt, short, and aggressive. The questions employed to hook a tourist into your service no longer require full sentences or even a verb, but instead consist of one word - they are more like demands then questions, from "BUKSHISH" with the gesture of an open hand (give me money) to "KALESH?" (want a ride in my carriage) and they are always repeated half a dozen times despite your negative or non-response. They come from children or from carriage riders, taxi drivers, shop owners, shoe shiners, in short, from everyone. At first, such behavior can be maddening. You have no way of waving off these hagglers, no way to communicate that you have been through this routine every day for the past two months and no you don't want to ride in their carriage/taxi/shoeshine chair, no way of regaining your invisible nature – something you took for granted back home.

Last week, determined to get out of Luxor for the Eid holiday, Owen and I planned a trip out to the Red Sea. We chose the more remote of the Red Sea venues, setting our sights on Dahab - which sells itself as the ideal backpacker/diving locale. Cairo confirmed my belief despite it's movie theaters & bowling allies on ships, i still prefer Luxor. One does however quickly tire of the haggling culture that seems to dart at you from every alley, cornerstore, horse carriage, cafe, and felucca dock in Luxor and so its really necessary to get away periodically. Once a month, I’d say, to keep it together.

Outside of its Starbucks and ex-pat McDonalds complete with kiddie slides, Cairo offers the rare opportunity to disappear into the crowd. It’s a strange sensation getting off the train from Luxor - you are no longer a walking neon wallet, fair game for any Egyptian in their favorite sport – which is intricate and employs jokes, lies, and the use of “brother” “friend” and other such things to suggest friendliness.
Each nationality triggers different lines, puns. Traveling with Owen, as soon as people find out he’s from Canada, they always use the “Canada Dry” line – they don’t seem to have much material here. America is a little more of a watershed – they almost ubiquitously mention Obama or Bush, and this is a fun game.

The opportunity to disappear into the crowd in Cairo is an immense relief – getting of the train it’s as if your humanity has been restored. But the smog, the game of frogger required to cross the street & the lack of nature will drive you out quickly.
Our company helped us organize a private microbus to Dahab. Although it ended up costing twice as much as we expected and broke my bank completely, I’d say it was still a good call – the public bus from Cairo to Dahab is known to make excessive stops along the way, turning a 7-8 hour drive into a 17 hour drive. Sounds kind of horrific to me.

So it was a bourgeoisie commute to a backpacker mecca I suppose – somewhat of a contradiction – we dropped over $200 to get from Cairo to the Red Sea – where our room ran us only $20 a night. The ride was bumpy enough to send you leaping out of your sleep every couple miles when the back of the bus jolted over a bump. We started with the AC blasting in our sterile luxurious micro-bus, a strange contrast to regular Egyptian life which is infiltrated with dust – the strong aroma of cologne wafting from our 3 escorts – hair slicked back with gel, forever sporting sunglasses and the same balady cassette tape playing over and over for the first four hours. All of this didn’t faze me in the slightest. The highlight was when we stopped for the restroom and I came out into the convenient store looking for TP and one of our guys was trying to ask me what I wanted, and seemed to communicate that no, they didn’t sell any TP. So I bought some cologne-scented wet wipes & left with a wonderful smelling rear. Then when I stepped outside to get back into the micro-bus the guy came up to me holding a rolling paper, assuming I had asked to buy papers to smoke hash in; I smiled & said no thanks, explaining that I had only wanted papers for the toilet. They then purchased another balady cassette tape, some mango juice, and cookies and we were on our way.

As the sun was setting the mountains moved in – everything dappled in red light and cyan shadows. By the time we got to Sharma Al Sheik – the huge resort town 100km from Dahab – a real life Las Vegas times Disney World plopped right down in the middle of the Egptian desert – it was pitch black. Egyptian drivers, by the way, turn off their headlights while driving at night, a practice which baffles foreigners, the running explanation being that they see it as a way of conserving battery power – and rely on laying on the horns and/or flashing their lights whenever approaching an oncoming vehicle/person/obstacle.

We fly along with the speedometer beeping – the sound only going away when we dropped below 120km up against the balady music it sounded like a hospital heart monitor, communicating that indeed we were alive, but at any moment a family on a motorcycle could appear on the road at the same time as an oncoming truck and the whole thing would just go down ugly.

Bryan: What are things like out there? Still enjoying it? Can you find beer? Are there any stories or series you're working on in addition to the blocks?
I am ecstatic to be here. Honest. The magic hasn’t worn out yet. My previous blog entry spoke of itches yet to be scratched, but I must admit, that at present, I think they are scratched. I really wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. It’s been a while since I’ve felt that way, so I’m just kind of waiting for the curtain to fall and wake up from the dream. I know that these things don’t last forever, but I’ve really got all my chips in on getting hired for a second year. Some of my co-workers say its wishful thinking to suppose they’ll extend the project and our contracts another year, but this is my deep and sincere hope.

Beer. Yes, Luxor is infamous for two beers: Luxor and Sakara. Both are mediocre but do-able. I’ve discovered a third beer called Nuba which really takes the cake. It’s a smooth dark beer that tastes strikingly like Newcastle. We’ve been trying to get our hands on the case of the stuff so that we have it back at the flat. Right now we’re finishing up the whiskey that we purchased at the airport on the way in. After that, it might get a little desperate. But you should know that there are bars here. Ex-pat bars.

Genesis – for example - this bar is the thing of legends – it’s run by a Ukrainian woman with typical Slavic temperament and a deadpan expression. Her two kids run about the bar – McKenzie is a two year old girl with curly locks who makes meowing sounds and tugs at her mothers skirt and the boy, a 6 or 7 year old, frequently beats everyone at pool, almost beating me the last time I was there. and she has a huge great dame which takes the couch beside the pool table as its bed. There is also a set of furniture upside down glued to the ceiling, sometimes birds can be seen flying around inside. also the tables are aquariums and they actually have a pool inside the bar which should soon be made available to the public. On top of all this they have karaoke, when the Ukrainian woman isn’t in a PMS mood, you can sing anything from Aretha to Amy Winehouse to Justin Timberlake. All in all, I am a big fan, but I still haven’t worked up the nerve to speak to her in Russian.

Alright. That’s it for now. I have a million more things to talk about, adventures in Dahab, adventures in work and in play, but I’m averaging 4 hours a sleep a night this week, so things gotta change.

PS - some dude that works in the kitchen who is our buddy gave me this gallabeya as a present which is bright orange and has a hoodie and says 7 ELEVEN across it with a buttload of sequence. America, just you wait.

un-scratched

but beneath it all there's an itch that never gets scratched. sometimes it feels useless to even start something that you know you won't finish. it's in every aspect of my life at this moment - living on the fly. not being able to properly respond to letters, to follow up with different projects/plans, not actually having human relations with anyone except a handful of egyptologists and one particular human being who is like a dream to me, moving in and out of what is real/ sometimes very dear to me, sometimes a total stranger. i am grateful for that. it's nice - this drifting, you just have to accept that it always comes with that feeling of something missing underneath it all. and don't fall victim to drink. once you've had one or two it will make the missing part swell until you can't keep it down anymore and it will start to seem like the only thing. i am not missing anyone in particular or any one place. i have been adrift it seems, for the last several years. a real live tumble-weed. there is also the knowledge that it will get scratched later down the line - that itch. that for now, vacations on the red sea with my unexpected interlocutor is enough to get me through the month. that bike rides through the town are enough to get me through the week. that an evening on the roof is enough to just push me through into the next day.

but reading this, dear reader, i realize that i have given you all the wrong impression. don't get me wrong, as far as my life is concerned, i've got 95% of the itches covered over here. life has always been for me a battle with the notion of "the grass is always greener" but never have i been so satisfied with where i am. i don't want to be anywhere else at this moment. i merely wanted to express the underlying sublime feeling that comes with this life. i like it very much. me myself and i.

it's time

to take a vacation. i will catch up with posting/emailing and all that from here:

thanks and giving

2.12am. forever exhausted. tonight was "thanksgiving" i remember a small piece of turkey within chicago house, i remember stellar mashed potatoes, squash, beets, and something resembling coleslaw. too many cigarettes. too many whiskey cokes. sakara. finally i discovered GENESIS bar and it lived up to all of its expectations: the cold-faced Ukranian woman running Kareoke and her amazing child, brown curls and puppy sounds, a gargantuan Great Dame dog passed out on the couch, my voice became shrill from shouting - there was Respect, I will Survive, Justin Timberlake, Oasis, BeeGees and many horrible songs, billiards, drinks i had no money to pay for, after the French mission, being tossed upon someone's shoulder multiple times. pressure points. twisted wrists. more beer. much love. french things i didnt understand. wigs. fake chest hair. these are the moments that seem like a dream to me.

the desert has miles and miles. i have to pinch myself to remember i'm alive. we will get to the red sea. we will swim in the salted waters. pinch ourselves again. beach.

i got paid

Not really. Just a small cash advance to get me through the month. My salary hasn't come through yet because of complications wiring to American bank accounts. At present I have $110 in my bank account. I had to pay a $200 termination fee to T-MOBILE (evil) for a phone that I had in the states for 5 months and that pretty much emptied it out. I am paying minimal loans, but come January most to all of my salary for a couple months will go into eliminating my grad school loans once and for all. Funny, I only went for one year, got no degree, but managed to accrue 30 grand in loans. This is unique to America really, and a real issue for the next 4-8 years of Obama's administration in my opinion. I believe they recognize how ridiculous the cost of American education has become.

I suppose I was somewhat foolish for attending Grad school for a year, but I like to believe that maybe it had something to do with where I am now. Let me remind myself that I am in Egypt. I am not paying rent. I am working my butt off as always, but what a place for adventures and photographs.

I don't want to meditate too long on the difficulties of making it as a photographer in the here and now, because I find myself in a beautiful situation at present, but I worry about the future. There will have to be some major thought put into it - whether its buddying up with a Travel Magazine or an Airline Magazine and freelance articles or really marketing oneself via Photoshelter or other such micro-stock sites or doing a lot of Weddings - but there is a way. In Russia, I enjoyed juggling working at a magazine, shooting corporate parties, teaching English, and DJing. And I barely scraped by - which is how I anticipate to live my life - barely scraping by. For now I have no problem with that. I imagine down the line I'll have to find a way to have a more stable income, but for my young life, this is fine.

My friend and mentor Sean McDevitt is a master of all trades: teaches at Pratt and Snow Farm (an arts summer camp in Massachusetts), works at a studio in Manhattan, DJ's weddings, bar mitzfahs, parties, and works as a Mac technician. All at once. And somehow manages to make art and have a great life and an awesome wife. I really admire that. He was the one who turned me onto photography and it is in that spirit that I'd like to follow. Some kind of Renaissance woman existence that combines white water, photography, travel and DJing. Mmm. Delicious.

goals

i kind of feel like i haven't taken a good picture since i've been here. now i know that's not true, but that's what this place does. there's an amazing picture around every corner, alley way, in every face, and on every doorstep. its everywhere. i've never been so visually overwhelmed before. today we took a ferry to the west bank - the other side of the nile, and then rented bikes for a couple bucks and rode them through sugar cane fields and down dirt roads, passing huge ancient egyptian statues as we went, boys on bicycles riding up next to us and having conversation, motorcycles whizzing by every other second, cats, dogs, women in burkas. this is where i live and i want to keep it forever. as always i have that horrible sensation (that i've had my whole life) like i'm letting everything pass me by. like i'm not stopping to get that (at least) one amazing shot per day. for me the photographer, this is a good emotion, it makes me stop. but for me as a person, maybe this is a detrimental emotion, as i quickly become overwhelmed by my inability to capture this place within a frame. that is my goal. i want my photos to be more visually complex, to be layered, to have puns, and give you immediate gut reactions.

thankfully, i think i can do this. i met with my boss this weekend, she came down from cairo for a couple days and she caught me at the computer attempting to remove every last spec of dust from a talatat block photo. we had been arranging to meet for days now and she just happened to graze by my computer. i barely got the words "Shari, I...." out of my mouth before she said "No. Sara, you don't need to do that." and that was that. the last two weeks or so I had been killing myself painfully editing each talatat block in Photoshop, removing dust, straightening the letter board, blah blah blah. And now it comes - freedom. I am no longer an appendage of the imac or the chair. I can be me again.

so i think my stomach is recovering and i will have time to go out into the market every day and that will be my goal. it doesnt matter how crap i feel - i will go out with my camera and my flash (because i need to learn how to properly use it in a crazy crowded situation) and i will get at least one ridiculous photograph a day. right?

Horizontal is the new vertical

It's 4.44pm on a Thursday - November 6th to be precise. It's about 80 degrees outside and extremely sunny. I'm sitting in the darkness of my hostel room with the lights out and the shade drawn where I make my permanent residence for the next 8 and half months, in the beautiful city of Luxor, Egypt. It is the place of dreams: smash India, the Middle East, and Africa together and imagine the possibilities.

I am stuffed, exhausted, dehydrated, intestinally destroyed, and elated. I'm drinking a re-hydration beverage that tastes like the ocean with sugar added and it will launch me into my daily one hour comatose sleep that happens after lunch and before dinner where I have epic dreams and wake up with a slow thundering heartbeat. Often its just a walk upstairs to get a towel to clean the photo equipment that leads to me falling asleep with all my clothes on and my industrial air conditioner blasting as donkeys hee haw and the collective prayers of a thousand men droan from outside my window.

Thus far I have had no time. And I mean it. Up at 6.30am each morning and out to the temple by 7.30am where I photograph talatat blocks until 2pm, these are "stone blocks of standardized size (ca. 27 by 27 by 54 cm, corresponding to ½ by ½ by 1 ancient Egyptian cubits) used during the reign of Akhenaton in the building of the Aton temples at Karnak and Akhetaten." Thank you wikipedia. The blocks can be dated around 1350-1330 BC (as I like to say "older than God") and feature a wide range of images, including everything from standard hyroglyphics to images of horses, cows, sacrifice, offerings, kings, and queens. The people I work with are versed enough in Egyptology that they can literally read the blocks as if they were a book - it's quite impressive. Indeed, I have been hired by the American Research Center to photograph 16,000 such blocks. I think everyone has recognized this to be impossible and I feel a little better about my inability to realize that goal. To do that within 9 months, I'd have to shoot about 100 a day, or one every 10 minutes. But each rock must be carefully wrestled from a staggering stack inside a cave-like magazine so that it can be documented, treated with various resins and chemicals, given a unique number, and cleaned before it gets to me, where it must be properly leveled, dusted off, and lit with the studio lighting to highlight all of its relief/detail before I can move on to the next rock. All of this under a tent in the desert of Karnak Temple.

The most amazing thing about working in this place is the way you are surrounded by mind-blowing artifacts and its not like they are always set aside as tourists attractions, much of the time they are just an inherent part of the landscape. Just outside the ARCE hostel for example is a huge trench that resembles a huge moat or a miles-long empty swimming pool with a dust floor featuring beheaded Sphynxes for as far as the eye can see. They are not set apart from the city, but instead intermingling with sleeping dogs, horses, children playing soccer and stick fighting, even karate lessons.

While I am completely overwhelmed and underslept I feel very blessed to be here. I love my day job. This is by far the best I've ever had it. Sure I don't have a long line of amazing work to brag about, I've scooped ice cream for famous people in New York City, served up delicious Jerk Chicken Sandwiches and Lattes at a cafe in Brooklyn, worked on an English Magazine in St. Petersburg and freelanced for the St. Petersburg Times and taught English to hip elite business men and women there. So this basically blows everything out of the water.

The challenge for me will be to make my time here work for me. I came into this job thinking I'd have too much time on my hands, that I'd take up some stoic monastic life studying Arabic and teaching myself to play the guitar in my room. The reality is I have zero time and I have to find a way to change my workflow around so that I can put aside time for myself - for exploring this place, photographing it, and other activities. I cannot get too wrapped up in my work to let the opportunity pass me by. Thus far it's been staying up until 11pm dusting talatat in Photoshop and straightening images and fixing backgrounds and black levels. I will meet with my boss tomorrow to figure out how I can do my job without investing 12 hours a day into it.

There is always a running list of extra-curicular activies to be had - beyond the little favors: printing some photos of the guys from work, helping the guy at Karnac with his Russian in exchange for Arabic, taking the birthday girl out for dinner, going to the market for necessary fabrics and accessories - beyond that there are bicycles to be had, to take a ferry out the West Bank (the other side of the Nile) and ride through the sugar cane and photograph, get some motorcycles and drive over the bridge miles down the road, rent a hot air balloon and sail a mile high above the city, which is caked in satellite dishes and epic sunsets. A trip to Morocco here. A jaunt to Uganda there. A New Years visit to St. Petersburg?

There is too much. Too much. And free cappucinos from the kitchen. Tuesday, actually, was the first day I actually resented not being in America. I stayed up until 2am to catch the first polls of the Presidential Election come in and then I was up at 6.30am watching Obama give his acceptance speech, almost in tears, before I had to run out to work. I would have liked to experience that in America, the excitement, but I'm getting it from all the over here, where Obama is championed by the Egyptians and they are still congratulating me on his victory. They, like the rest of the world, recognize what this means. Things are going to change.



I will be back in July. By that time, America will have gotten a taste of Obama-style government. It will be interesting to see if the same spark that is lit in the hearts of Americans and foreigners is still lit then, because as he said, the road ahead is long and hard, but I have every faith in Obama, his administration and the country's ability to bounce back. I, like Michelle Obama, would be one to say things like its not until recently that I've felt truly proud of my country. I know she's gotten a great deal of flack for that statement but the last 8 years have been rough and ideal-shattering. I want America to be regarded with respect and admiration again. I don't want to be associated with my country's abominable actions in Iraq and Guantanamo. Now, for the first time in years, I am proud to say that I'm an American, because I know that this image of us has changed. The enormous strength and convictions of one man and all the excitement, hope and positive energy he evokes has transformed the game.



I am excited about returning to America someday. I probably won't make it my permanent residence until my old age, but I love what's happening there. For now though, I like this life. I have always been interested almost solely in two things: photography and travel. If this is the way to do it then I'm sold. This place is amazing.

hi mom

for more photos of me on the roof of the hostel and other activities in Luxor, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ommphoto/

Day 1 & 2

(yesterday)

I have been running on adrenaline for what seems like days now although today was just day one. Really though, today was an eternity -- everything, literally everything blowing my mind. There is little time to write about it because there is so much to do. And this is how I like it. Non-stop. Jimmy-puff sent me a quote:

"There's been time this whole time. You can't kill time with your heart. Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still."

(today)

Well the sadness is gone. It disappeared immediately after the first night. I haven't had a sad thought since. Not one. Every thought is an exclamation point. A lack of vocabulary. A feeling of being humble. I feel like this will be the best year.

There are a billion plans: plans to trek out to the red sea and go diving in the world's best diving waters. Plans to rent a motorcycle and drive it to more world-class Egyptian ruins, plans plans plans. Everynight we all find ourselves on the roof of the Hostel where the sunsets are so epic and the stories are endless. Archeologists have crazy stories. Arabic comes about half a dozen words a day. I've got my basic greetings and numbers 1-10 down. In general, Egyptian people amaze me. They are incredibly kind and compassionate. Considering our government's actions in the Middle East I didn't expect such a warm welcome. And my job. I love my job. I'm working in one of the most amazing places in the world. I can't really describe it. There's just ancient Egyptian temples and blocks and hieroglyphics everywhere you turn, lying everywhere. It feels like I'm on some Hollywood set for Indiana Jones and its all there for you to touch. Climb on. Read. Interpret. It's one of those things you have experience in the flesh.

Time to go clean the gear of dust - to insure that it lasts this will be necessary to do almost everyday. Dust is everywhere and it is so fine - like powder. when you step in it, it bubbles up and covers your leg in a layer of soot.

I came into this thinking - I will have to learn to be with myself for a year, I will have to find ways to keep my mind and heart healthy - play the guitar, study Arabic, live the Stoic life. I was so intent on being careful to keep the lonely at bay. But I see that that will not be an issue. My days are full, and I don't need to look for any activities to busy me.

Day 1, Luxor Egypt

After commuting for something like 36 hours I finally arrived in Luxor, Egypt last night around 9.30pm. It is now 8.30am and I've been up since 6am. I was instructed to sleep - no working allowed on this first day, but the adrenaline of being here, the red light pouring in through my window and the time zone confusion woke me up at 6. I have to say it - I am thrilled to be here. Last night, my heart was heavy with travel and a bit of anxiety, I went to bed with a racing heart and my stomach raw. I wanted arms around me to take me into sleep someone to comfort me and beyond a few chat messaging sessions with my dear friends there was only me myself and I in my big new bed. I put on the ring my mother gave me, she had said, "so your father can be with you now" with his birthstone in it. When she had given it to me in the States I could not imagine wearing it, but now it has taken on new meaning. It is my protector in a sense, but also a way of not being alone. I have told myself that this year is for me, that it will be a meditation on getting my life together, on developing a career, on becoming more grounded and adult. This means, obviously, not fretting about men and boys and relationships and not meditating on lonliness. So wearing this ring, I almost feel like I've been married off, like I don't have to muck around in all of that anymore, that my goals are real and in front of me, guiding me through this place. Maybe it will also prevent some haggling out of respect for the sanctity of marriage. That would be an added bonus.

For now, I will try to get some sleep in before we go off to the temples where I'll be spending the next 9 months. Once Owen, the other photographer who travelled with me yesterday from New York awakes and eats breakfast, we'll be on our way. He was able to sleep in it seems.

More soon. Very soon. There is much to be said for this place.

sand falling

I am in need of sleep. Soon it will be take the train to the other train to take the cab to the house where the equipment arrives. then take a cab to the airport the next day to inspect the equipment with the other photographer. get it ready to cross borders. go back into town drink drinks. kiss a boys lips many times. as many as possible in one night. and oh my brothers. somehow fall asleep. to rise again the next day and return to the airport and fly many many hours and then sit at another airport many many hours to fly another hour to arrive and by cab to go to the place. the place which is the temple. and brothers. put your bags down, take a shower, and crawl under the covers. to awake alone in the room with the sun pouring in. this is the desert friends.

And in between all that - vote for Obama. Pick up business cards. Mail
cell phone to girl. Buy vitamins.

But for now. A poem.

To The Hand

What the eye sees is a dream of sight
What it wakes to
is a dream of sight

and in the dream
for every real lock
there is only one real key
and it's in some other dream
now invisible

it's the key to the one real door
it opens the water and the sky both at once
it's already in the downward river
with my hand on it
my real hand

and i am saying to the hand
turn

open the river

- W.S. Merwin

Airplane log: NYC to Istanbul June 2002

People can’t fly anymore without recalling that image of a 747 flying into the world trade. It’s an image perpetually fresh in our minds, a permanent picture-file catalogued in our collective database. When I look at the blank monitors on the plane, and everyone around me tucked away in sleep, wrapped up in identical blankets, knocked out by the lowered levels of oxygen, I see the image pop up on the screen again like it did for a week, playing on loop like a trendy new music video. DeLillo was right, we all get some kind of deep kick from watching human catastrophes on a large scale. The power of the present moment rarely reveals itself to America on any kind of intimate basis. People in China die. US embassies in Africa get blown up. The Palestinians send in suicide bombers. But New York is ours, they said, our king, with every rook, pawn, knight, and castle standing firm. New York goes down in the permanent archives.

I hate when they lower the oxygen. Everyone else falls into a coma but I just get a migraine. My head starts rolling like it does after days without sleep. Ideas spontaneously emerge in the strange space of a silent sleeping city, crawling through the thin air between the stratosphere and space itself. All of a sudden all your ideas seem urgently important. But it’s only because you are writing them under this oxygen-deprived cave-man condition. There is something almost ancient and holy about all of it. Back in the day nomads and Native Americans huddled around fires in tee-pee villages. Up here in the sky, purses and money pouches is our fuel. We jingle our jewelry and sleep; hibernate together, our ghostly breaths and nose-hummings mesh together into a celestial amen. We are the elite, we have gathered here to pray. We just don’t know it.

07.03.05

it is my task to not think of
you a hundred times a day;
to occupy myself with the quotidian,
the spiritual even,
but not you.
and if it comes up in conversation
by association or conjecture, "you",
it is to be a kind of mourning
a kind of letting go.
i wish there were a contract
that i could sign, telling me
in small or large font that
if my love were true enough,
that i could trust that my
number would come up one of
these dayz. that somehow by
default the sun would rise 700
days from now, & you would
return & i, i'd be figured out,
everything finally okay like a
bath filled with water warm
& ready for displacement.

january 2004

the sound of thunder can only
make me think that the
whole world is inside of
a huge paper bag.
the sky stretched overhead
like a plush electric-
blanket, quiverring with
the collective charge of
24 million energizer bunnies.
we all march around like
that, trying to look well-
acquainted to the earth.

march 2003

Angled & snipped
like paper snowflake
remake my heart
every day
origami heart
origami eyes
i shall not suffer the
same demons
i shall walk straight lines
the language of small talk is
leaving my lips
Jack Kerouac has moved in
again, colonized my ears
like honeycombs. dripping the
saliva of golden hornet-soldiers
Bukowski has moved in again.
Ginsberg. do not bite your tongue
at me sir. i'm repainting the
town brown. turning over the
soil & putting down new
bulbs.

shortcomings of mankind (may 2004)

1. airports
2. tv guides
3. elections
4. telephones
5. academia
6. suicide
7. crushes
8. college tuition
9. time crunch
10. stomach acid

saturday oct. 9th 2004

but every once in a while there comes
this most amazing day that unravels
out before you like a neverending red
carpet. you recall the memories like
they was last year and by the time your
head hits the pillow your cheeks
are flushed. heart embers still hot.
you sink into the other world
as easy as you sunk into
this one. there are good days.

wednesday, early August 2004

3 strikes. strikes
across the heart
and you're out.

three strikes
why did i even
attempt

i come home. come
home. you break my
heart everytime. you
make me cry. i had to
get drunk before i could
see you each time. bar
tender knew it was
bad news. i saw it in
his eyes.

maybe she is better. i can
accept that. the dark
eyes. the strapless shirts.
she's got it - i see it -
but it still doesn't give you the
right to sit there silent
& make me feel like i
don't exist - i guess this is
where people move on. they
say - i've got mine, &
you've got yours. so long.

i found you, in a city of millions. sitting at
the bar where jimmy said you would be sitting.
sitting with your lady love drinking the same
whiskey you always drank, discussing matters of
business. worried they'll make your life hell
for stealing half a bottle of olive oil. you
see me - greet me, but again there's nothing
to say. i just got back from russia
again & i'm doing the rounds.

yes, you're part of the rounds, believe it or
not - i don't know why now. there'll
be no more crawling back now, boy.
i see it now clearly as day - we can't
be friends in this world that's getting
more & more scatterred. my heart
thunders these days but i feel more
human walking the earth alone anyway
i don't remember how to walk with
someone else.

i wrapped my feet so they
wouldn't blister. i drank plenty
before i let my best friend call
you on the phone, but it's the
same shit everytime. the same
disappointment. do you remember
what it's like to be alone? i've
always been like this, since i
can remember. i can't afford you
making it all hurtful again.
so, yes. goodbye. i know you've
already said it years ago, in her
arms & eyes. but i say it now with
confidence. i'm broken. you have
jumped ship. it's tragic, but
the ocean is infinite.

so this is it, right? what day is
today? it's wednesday. early august. and
i don't think my heart breaks anymore
i'm at a loss for words, though. i don't
really feel like it's a sensation that's
even worth writing about either, because
life is so manic. schitzophrenic like the
weather, it's probably kind of like the
feeling you get from fasting for a
long time or being oxygen-deprived
from climbing at high altitude. it's
the spit in the back of your throat &
then suddenly your tongue is numb & you
are no longer the mind looking out
through your eyes. all of a sudden
your visual perception, you notice, is
now in a separate place from your
mental processes. as if someone
started projecting a movie in your
head from behind your eyes.
you never walked
into the theater, though. you never
even bought a ticket.

welcome to the desert

"Your a traveler at heart. There will be many journeys."

the grammar was off, but the fortune
cookie was right
as was Rushina when she told
me back in Petersburg
once you know what you want
clearly one thing above all
other things
write it down on a piece of
paper
it will come true
she wrote down: a man
i wrote down: Egypt

that feeling

do you get that feeling
once you've had a drink
and there's a couple in front of you
and they are all touchy feely
the guy is kissing her on the cheek
and rubbing her arm or holding her hand
i am getting to that place where i
really need arms around me
do you get that feeling?
like you are going to fall into the arms
of the first person that is acceptable.

sept 7

emptied out and alone like
every sunday morning. i
greet the world pale and
underslept from some
couple's couch or friend's bed
i carry a sense of lostness
that no one seems to
be able to relate to.
a visitor?
a future resident - regular?
how long can it last? a year?

plans

currently im thinking this:

take temporary residency in philly at my
friends apartment for 100 bucks a week
find stupid coffee shop/book store job
until i can land something decent

possibly fly to new orleans at some
point, end of october or other time
when serene is there
get introduced, decide if i can hack
it in a post-apocolyptic swamp

get back north. make plans. make more art
get a better camera, some lights
shoot some weddings do some
freelance
get a career
choose life
choose obama

fleur

what did i get myself into

first day of work and i already wanna quit.
ahh, so much for me and corporate america,
i was just trying to make a buck, but i
forgot i'd have to sell my soul

my day started at 6.30am, roll outta bed
and eyes are red. couldn't sleep of course.
make yourself pretty, put cover-up on the
poisen ivy leg scars. put on a nice
outfit. do your hair. grab the cold
coffee and pasta outta the fridge.
grab the directions. and go.
one hour drive on some treachorous
highway in american chas peak
-that's rush hour in russian.

i get there 45 minutes early,
drive around in my car for a nice
place to sit down and eat
something. there's nothing but
fastfood so i pass and go
to work. wait in the lobby for a half
hour or so reading a book. lady comes
down to meet me, brings me upstairs
to my cubicle. no one is around yet,
too early i guess. she has nothing
for me to do, except read an old
machine manual that some italians
made. i read that until the man
shows up. he gives me a little
tour of the G14 machine - the
one that makes the packaging for your
nice italian coffee with the valve
on it to keep it fresh

then i get about a 200 page manual
print out that i'm just supposed to
sit and read. it's straight up
just like machine parts - i can't
tell you how f-ing sleepy this is making
me. i've downed a whole canteen of
coffee and i have to go back for more
and they've got the air conditioning
up so high i've got goosebumps and i'm
tugging at my sleeves to keep me warm.


i watch the hours drag on. at five ocklock
i inquire about my hours, i can leave, i
am informed. i leave. i get outside and
realize that the car i borrowed from
my ugandan pal won't start. i left the
headlights on. i go back into the plant
asking random people for jumper cables.
nobody seems to be able to help and
the people who usually take care of it
aren't around. i almost start crying.
the idea of asking my mom to drive an hour
in traffic to come jump start this car
isn't appealing. somehow this ukrainian
guy pops up - igor. he's mutters something
about having some personal cables around
and we go for a walk. im like - "igor where
are you from?" he says "ukraine". "oh nice,
i speak russian." "me too" he says.
he's got a 29 year old kid it turns out
we walk out to the parking lot and he shuttles
me over to my dead car. "ok gde tvoya mashina?"
"where is your car?" we drive around to the
other side and after some fidgeting we get it
working and i thank the man in Russian, he says
"no thang" in Russian and i'm on my way.

an hour and a half later, after missing the
turnpike exit and screaming at all the drivers
passing me, i get home. exhausted. dehydrated.
depressed. my mom of course wants to know
how it went. i tell her it was horrible. i
start to cook a burger and i'm so hungry
i don't let it cook all the way. i dress it
with mustard, ketchup, gluten free bread,
tomatoes and i go out onto the porch where
i am alone and i start to tear into the
burger but it's totally raw inside but
i'm so frusterated i continue to eat it out of
rage and i'm simultaneously crying into my
burger and it's just getting messy and
then i get so angry i yell and spit it out
and get mustard everywhere. i lay my head
down on the picnic table and cry into the
wood.

i don't know if i can get up tomorrow
and do this all over again. when i got home
i wanted to call someone, but i realized i
really don't have anyone to call anymore.
my friendships have dried up. my relationships
have scattered to the wind. maybe i will
scatter to the wind. maybe soon.

visit to my sister's

Make a Smilebox slideshow

a logical impossibility

"You know, this happens a lot to Russians. The Soviet Union is gone, and the borders are as free and passable as they've ever been. And yet, when a Russian moves between the two universes, this feeling of finality persists, the logical impossibility of a place like Russia existing alongside the civilized world, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, sharing the same atmosphere with, say, Vladivostok. It was like those mathematical concepts I could never understand in high school: if, then. If Russia exists, then the West is a mirage; conversely, if Russia does not exist, then and only then is the West real and tangible. No wonder young people talk about "going beyond the cordon" when they talk of emigrating, as if Russia were ringed by a vast cordon sanitaire. Either you stay in the leper colony or you get out into the wider world and maybe try to spread your disease to others."

Absurdistan Gary Schneider , 2006

poem from high school

how dissappointing is
the end of my day
with what
tether of imagination
do i recall your
image
this is my illness,
charmer,
my time feels,
unimportant,
trivial
how easily do I
become distempered
by the good fortune
of my satellites
the elements
cutting down and nearing
that blood organ
the domain
of affections
tenderly snipped
you are a test.

Sun June 1st

Gotta write Denis a letter - apologize. I'm so out of it right now, trying to steer my head clear of depression. Keeping busy definitely is the key for me. I should explain how I've been unable to be productive without a computer. I should explain all the film from the Grand Canyon and Portland, just sitting around. About how Sobaka magazine requested a picture from me and I couldn't even send it because I couldn't hook up my hard drive to my mother's computer, and then when I finally got to a computer in Philadelphia, I brought the wrong harddrive. Many tasks don't get done like this.

I should explain the empty hours wandering around the city with Anastasia, with Wilkes, and with Tim. I was telling Wilkes - I guess life makes a lot more sense when you know that you'll go home and every night eventually that other person will be there - it makes life make a lot more sense. What is that that the kid in Into the Wild wrote? Something like "true emotion is shared emotion" I'll have to look it up.

Everyday I consider the possibilities - the next step. Someday it will be great to have a home, to have someone to come home to. Today I felt so unexperienced at life. I helped Tim move into a new apartment - a row home on a block where he's the only white guy, him and his brother and his brother's girlfriend. I helped these folks move, packed up the Uhaul, drove over the new place and unpacked it. And Tim's brother is 22 i think and he feels so adult. He's lived in Bolivia and his girlfriend is fearless - the way she drives the U-haul and seems to have already lived a whole life - you know, its like she's done all this before and this is her 2nd life. I don't know where all that confidence and i-know-what-I'm-doing feeling comes from, but I sure don't have it.
America is strange though. What I expected. I don't really know where to insert myself into it - I don't know if I"ll ever feel at home here - and I'm not saying that I'll feel at home in some other country - doubt it, I suppose it's just a general feeling of not belonging anywhere.

But what about this girl - this girl that was locked up in a basement for 8 years in Austria ( not the one who was locked up for 20 ). She comes out and she starts her own talk show. A 20 year old - she was down there from the ages of 10 to 18. She never even finished high school. I mean she was right about the being gutsy thing - about how you'll never grow if you don't present yourself with challenges. So I have much respect and I hope I can learn to live with dignity.

I should get back to the San Fran kids just in case - tell them I'll be available in July. I should do the job search on Craigs list and the other journalism search engines rigorously.

I should explain the feeling of being a renegade of sorts - running from one person's house to the next - from one city to another. I'll use writing and reading to heal I guess. and NPR. Folks behind me on the train speaking Russian - comforting - I will apply for the interpreter's job - I would enjoy that.

I would have talked to you now. on the train. but you are asleep. it will often be like that. calls will happen at the wrong time. i could not talk then with the noise of the hipsters on mushrooms in their utopian freak show, with the muffled mobile phone connection, with Wilkes sitting next to me, and the sun beating down on me. I'm sorry. I do miss you now, quiet on the train, in need of a shoulder to lean on, a hand to hold. But out there in the middle of all that mess, I am outside of myself.

a new life

I want a new life. I want a new life where I get up every morning before 9am and I accomplish things. I want a new life where I don't go online every 8 hours to fullfill the void that is my life. I want to be outside everyday, on a bike or running. Things are out of control at the moment. Every day I seem to be able to do less and less. I use to have an agenda and things got done, but now everyday my ability to set a task for myself and accomplish decreases and decreases. It's been raining for days. Last night I couldn't sleep at all. Up all night, turning over and over on the couch, going online to chat with friends and family, listening to music, I even took a bath after the sun came up but even that didn't feel good. Something is wrong. Just a couple weeks now, and I'll be in a new place with a new agenda. A blank slate.

you keep secret, i keep dream

“Y’know, I grew up in a different generation. I grew up after World War II, and boys did different things in those days. You went camping. You went hunting. You boxed. And the image of a writer, to someone starting off in those days was not some schmuck who went to graduate school. It was Jack London, Nelson Algren, Ernest Hemingway. Especially coming from Chicago–a writer was a knock-around guy. Someone who got a job as a reporter or drove a cab. I think the reason there are a lot of novels about How Mean My Mother Was to Me and all that shit is because the writers may have learned something called ‘technique,’ but they’ve neglected to have a life. What the fuck are they gonna write about?”

–David Mamet

old friends

One fine night back in March 2008, a bunch of old friends managed to get together at a bar. Some hadn't seen each other in years. Some had been in some silent war or grudge which prevented them from speaking. Others had recently fallen in love, others out. Some had plans to move back to America. Some had plans to move away. Some were horribly lonely and in need of a good time. But for a good hour or so, all of them were devilishly happy. Those who were down and out remembered that we're all in the gutter together. They laughed, knocked back a few drinks, and went home smiling. For the most part.

Cathartic

You probably think I'm miserable all the time. What a sensitive creature. So fragile and pathetic. But I'm not. I would rather not talk to you if you are just calling to say that you aren't coming home. Music blaring in the background. The voices of your bandmates. I would rather not talk to you because I've been in a good mood all day since we parted ways after lunch. And then you call and boom. Now I'm angry. I wish you didn't have that power over me. I hope in your next life you get to be with someone who's totally preoccupied with her bands. Who leaves you every weekend. Who's only in town half the time.

Your bandmates. I hope you like them a lot, because they're going to be the only thing you've got.

I'm sorry, though. Sorry I'm so full of anger. I guess you never really intended for me to hurt, and never really understood why I turn off the moment you say something that upsets me. Quizzical. Why I cannot look you in the eye. Why I answer all of your questions with either silence or a dead-tone one word answer.

So I guess I don't know how it's done - being my boyfriend. I couldn't tell you. It probably seems like everything falls under scrutiny. So you ignore it. You don't respond to my messages and I don't say them to your face. So we cast this silent war. SMS's, emails, silent lunches. Weekends with you in other cities.

Last weekend I got so drunk off the tall drinks and the graduated cylinders of Jagermeister that looked like blood, carried around by those girls in the skimpy little red cheerleader things, that I almost left this world the following day. I had to come back into the city in the morning to stroll around [read: teach English] with some important guy from Coca-Cola, he got me a slice of the salmon/broccoli kish and i touched it once with my fork and I had to excuse myself to go the bathroom. Sweating, heart racing, I washed my hands and swore to myself that I would not puke on this nice man in that cafe. Two hours later when he let me go, I got on the metro - rode until I got to Electrosila and had to get off. Again, heart started pumping and I stood up suddenly, as if something bad had happened. Breathing hard and standing near the doors. Wishing the people leaning on either sides of the doors would move away, in case the vomit starting flying. I tried to focus my thoughts, deep breath. Just a couple more seconds. Take it easy, now. Get off - walk around the platform until I think I'm ready for the escalator. OK, here we go. 2 minutes later I'm out. AIR. snow. sleet. cold. Don't care. I walk. I walk the 5 kilometers home along the highway.