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.