the same ol'

Email to a friend

Looks like I owe you a good one, not sure if I can provide it though... we'll see, probably a medium length one will come out if I can get my thoughts organized enough.

This weekend was insane, went on a trek down an abandoned railway, well not really abandoned, but it felt that way when we were on the bridges that seemed like they wanted to fall out under our feet, a long long ways. We'll do the trek when you get into town for sure!! or another better one if I find one! Its pretty awesome when you find yourself skinny dipping under a small waterfall with dozens of indians around the corner, peering through the leaves tryign to catch sight of some western titties. We were the first westerners many of those indians had seen, ever... Insane cooking meals (or letting random indians do it for you) on railway tracks a hundred km from anywhere with no easy way down, passing through half km, pitch black tunnels, bats shrieking and flying through the air around my head... yeah, I'll see that your not disappointed when you get out here. I think the early morning bridge crossing where we couldn't see the ground (or lack thereof) and associative 100m of freefall beckoning from the 2ft gaps every other foot was also one of th ebetter experiences from the journey.

Learning to ride the motorcycle in this traffic has been an exercise in patience, humility, and thankfulness that I rode my bicycle like a madman in DC for practice... I'm sure you can't wait to test the skills on my 100cc powermobile. So many amazing places to visit, from abandoned railroads, to enormous temples with hundreds of thousands of people streaming through them everyday, enormous centuries old mausoleums, or just the daily markets where every strata of life pulsates and interacts in a strangely sensuous glimpse into the perversions of society. I personally love the most just walking around and exploring the tree-covered, pollution strewn streets of bangalore, where every second is new, no street the same, and every eye watching for some sign of western idiosyncracies.

I don't know what else to tell you, sorry for not updating my blog, I mean to more often. I've started writing a children's book based on the short stories I tell the kids in class and on the school buses, I don't know if I can describe the sensation of capturing a child's rapt attention, but if something exists to fulfill my soul, it may be the knowledge that my words and actions and passions fired the imaginations of these children to produce their own spectacular and uniquely intricate creations.

Ok, my time is running up, its great to hear from you bro, and about the housing, if you want to stay at the school, it may be difficult, because they took the extra bed out o fmy room, but I'll approach my principal (finally) and ask him if its ok, we'll see. If not, its fairly easy for me to set you up in cheap housing in Bangalore, close to the main party organs of the city (our trainee houses) and a lot of truly amazing individuals. Might even be able to grab you a spot in one of those organs if we plan ahead enough. We'll see.

I'll talk to you later my friend, don't stress, its quite useless and may even kill you.
Yeh Yeh

Safe in my own thoughts

I have no need for outside stimuli right now, the processes of my mind satisfy me fully...

Been reading Ayn Rands's book, Fountainhead, truly exciting the implications about mankind, and I think I'm a pretty strong believer in her idea of the glory of the individual when they are willing to be individual. Her other characters she is obviously biased against, but the idea, I really enjoy the idea!

However, I don't really feel like writing right now so we'll have to wait on my next rendition of the beggars walk.

Many strange thoughts, none straight, none real righ tnow, just there pretending to surface before climbing back under the rippled pane of consicousness

Its not easy when you're the only one who knows

The sun's heat devoured our desire to move. The young man with the creased wrinkles lingin his face has been standing too long in these hard rays selling cheap sunglasses. I want to hit him, but I know we'll get our price. He has not left. '200.' 'Ok ok, 250, its a deal, yes?' '200' 'Not possible, not possible, give me your best price...' '200.' Supporting Milena, making sure she doesn't up the price when I know he will sell at 200. Her long fingers examine the brown sunglasses which she will lose later, looking askance at me. I start to check their quality but the man interrupts me, pointing down the beach at the water. 'Look.' Flailing arms and a small head appear and disappear through the small waves 20ft out from the crescent shaped shore. Two men, one on a small boogie board head out and drag him in. The crowd gathers as we watch intently from afar. His collapsed form lays inert on the beach. The crowd watches as minutes pass. My friends and I lose interest when people wander away from the scene. One passing Indian casually drops an astonishing fact in a quiet but unexcited voice. 'He's Dead.' 'There's no way, I just saw him in the water!' 'He's Dead.'

My big toe leaves the biggest imprint as my feet direct me to the scene. As I get closer the impassive Indian faces gain detail, their puffy cheeks and dark eyes calmly watching the friend of the man madly pushing on his buddy's chest in a misguided effort of CPR. 'Can't anyone help me?!?' I'm the only person who moves forward, regret over my inaction earlier emptied into giving what I could to this ghostly figure at my feet. 'You can do the air, we'll do a 3:1 heart-breath count.' 'Ok, thank you.' We work. I misplace my hands, misplace the count, but his heart starts beating, he is alive. his eyes are sickening, his lips covered with a greenish yellow paste of beer and seawater. I could not do the breath. The ambulance arrives, but noone will help us carry this fat indian man with the gross mouth and barely beating heart. 'This is someone's life you assholes!!' My cry guilts a couple of them into motion and we drag and carry him to a waiting car half a kilometer away. He was almost alive when we put him in there. I hope he lives. It was his first time on the beach.

Can't swim

I don't even know how to sum up the events since the past post... so the highlights, then maybe some details

Watched students take tests for two long boring weeks in which I read the entire harry potter series, still not impressed...
Said goodbye to my best friends in India for the first time
Got on a bus for Chennai where I had a wild pool party with people from around the world at a mansion on the beach
Ate wonderful pancakes and fish in Mamallapuram and wandered empty streets and empty beaches on foot
7 hour busride back from Chennai, chilled around Bangalore for 12 hours, then 17 hours on a bus to Goa, baneful roads
Knowing noone, without my guidebook, somehow managed to find the cheapest place to stay, Villa Fatima, as well as finding out the prices more than quadruple during the high season starting on Monday
Visited a massive beach flea market where everything seemed to be 50 rupees
Met my friends who trekked it through the rain to make it into the hotel when they should have taken a rickshaw
Saved a drowned Indian man's life using a garbled version of CPR
Finally set my poi spinners on fire and only hit myself a couple times
Ate delicious food until a fish poisoned me and put me on my ass for a day
Barely made three buses from hell for 2 hours (still sick), a train for 15 hours (from hell), and a couple more buses 1-2 hours into bangalore, so cramped and contorted sleeping on the floor
Saying goodbye to my friends again, but I found a great (superexpensive) Italian restaurant that I've passed almost everyday for the past four months

Details to come late...

Falling down stairs

My friends are leaving me, and I've already written so much today, I'm having trouble coming up with the words to express my sadness and dismay at having to regenerate another set of comrades to tackle the coming months. Of course I could always just pretend I'm not in India, refuse to meet anyone new, and sit on my ass with my thumb inexpertly placed below me. But I don't feel like that, so I'm off to the races... BTW, Anjali is in Bangalore, we hung out last night, its been 17 months since I've seen her...WTF

17 hours

The sun beat down hard. Paint has flecked away from most of the visible surfaces leaving dark reddish brown patches. I don't want to think about where I am. Seventeen hours on this bus. No road with bumps or holes of the same size. I'm getting tired of this. And her voice, filling all the available space with its peircing strength. I have to be careful anger doesn't come over me, I don't want to hurt anyone. Its been like this for too long. I don't like her. She is not my type of person or friend. Skinny farm muscle hiding insecurity with an obnoxious siren.

Uncountable light beams bounce off the tapestry of Kerala's green kaleidoscope landscape. We walk down the muddy path to the waiting boat. It is long with an iron pointed tip protecting its wooden nose. Covering it is a wicker mesh supported by bamboo struts. I take one of the light brown wicker chairs and wait with the others, talking softly. After a few minutes a small man with dense muscles takes the 5 meter bamboo pole and pushes us away into the murky green water. The only sound comes from the lapping of the water and the beating of the sun on our protective roof. The boatman walks backwards, pushing the boat forwards. We all relax into deeper states of contentment as our minds release the tension of the Indian cacophony. I look into the water and see small fish following us hoping for small bits of bread. A small indian boy next to me throws them their desire. We slide into a green island. A large pile of half coconuts withers to our right. The boatman walks over to one of the palm trees leaning over the water, ties short lengths of rope to his feet and hands, then climbs the tree, raining coconuts down on us for a few minutes. After he comes down again he takes a short sickle blade and cuts off the top of each coconut and gives each of us our own fresh coconut milk. The clear milk slides down my throat, cooling my insides while avoiding my dislike for other coconut products. The milk keeps me awake for the rest of the day.

Singing in the rain

Epiphanies are cool, especially when they're yours

Ganesha's trip

I've been places, places that smell, places that rot, places that smell and rot at the same time.

Only 13 hours on a bus... I told myself I could handle it, and it really couldn't be that bad, comfortable seats (relatively speaking), only slightly tattered, and the smell on the inside was generally better than the smell on the outside. We exit the city, taking the average route of a comptetent bus driver "almost run over rickshaw driver, brush past a couple pedestrians slowing down slightly to make sure they aren't getting up to call the police, test springs by finding the largest potholes possible..." Normal busri..d...e.... Night falls, the speed increases, the amount of trucks on the road increase, motorcycles and small cars mysteriously disappear to hide until the sun brings safety again. The wolves prowl the highways of India now. Slow moving oxen (transport trucks) are too large for them to hunt alone, but this certainly doesn't stop them from trying. This ferocious struggle is the epitome of the simple game of chicken repeated over and over again all night long... the bus driver moves out to pass one of the slowmoving oxen, yet notices that an oxen actually occupies the space he is trying to move into. Rather than moving back behind the first oxen, the wolf increases to impact speed, actually manages to decrease the width of the bus, and slides around the first oxen while deftly avoiding the second one by mere milliseconds (I tried to count the seconds it took before the trucks flew past us in the opposite direction, filling the space we had just left... but I didn't have time). Style points go to those busdrivers who can actually shave paint off the passing trucks and even more extra points if you can hold a conversation with someone behind you, taking time to maintain eye contact for emphasis on key points. This game moves into hyperdrive when you have two busdrivers (wolves) who are trying to pass each other on a slightly narrower than two lane road, with oncoming traffic, in the rain... breath deeply, close your eyes, pray...

We make it to Bijapur, right on schedule, a few years stolen by stress-induced panic attacks, and slightly jealous of all the indians around us who are stretching after their pain free nights of sleep, but alive.

I missed the puddle of shit waiting maliciously for my foot as we stepped down, my friend Valeria did not. Funny though, when she took off her shoe to wipe it off, somehow it had managed to spell out 'Welcome to Bijapur!' Capital letters and exclamation mark included. It still stunk.

The streets are surrounded on all sides by pigs, dogs, cows, rats, mosques, and people, people of every color as long as you only look in the "dark brown" light spectrum. In towns sometimes unremarkable for their lack of things to see, this one looked to be quite special in this regard, yet appearances are decieving, or rather, they're not decieving, the town looked, smelled, and acted like shit, but there were some gems beneath the surface (visible for kilometers in every direction)... Ruins from medieval centuries, Moghul and Arab mausoleums standing dozens of meters tall, Mosques that fit thousands of people, manicured gardens surrounding domed stoneworked temples of impressive symmetry considering they were built almost a thousand years ago... All of this you would have been able to see, and more, except my camera is broken (anybody who wants to start a charity fund to get me a really nice digital camera so they can experience all of this vicariously, feel free)

And then the busride home, which we almost missed due to an especially delicious mouth burning meal, yet saved the torture of an extra ticket by the grace of god, a cell phone and a slow rickshaw, then 20-25 near death experiences to put me to sleep from fear-induced exhaustion.

Good fun...

More to come...

Evan

Don't trust the mob

Its easy to say, and seems like a pretty simple formula, but really, they're decieving, especially when you can't speak their language, they have a monopoly and even though they have posted prices, these are arbitrary to both them and the local police standing around. After my experience I think the police were actually confirming that the mobsters/boatmen were charging enough to complete payment of their bribe for the day.

Along those lines, I spent 12 hours on a bus, charged triple prices ($2.50) for a boat ride around a dirty river to see waterfalls that were easily 1/3 of the size anyone advertised. I'm beginning to think in India, if they actually do advertise themselves, then there really is no need to go. However, if you have to find out about it, or ask questions of the locals to force them to give you the knowledge, well, at that point you can be fairly well assured the object/location of desire will be absolutely amazing, if it doesn't really really suck.

The moral of the story is, never trust anything someone on the street says unless they are already agreeing with you, and then only trust them halfway...

A good night's sleep, but...

Man, there's nothing like 5 billion mosquitoes to interrupt a badly needed night's rest every half hour. And as soon as you turn on the freaking light, they're gone like the wind, man its killing me (literally, I'm losing pints of blood). Luckily I'm getting some of them back, there are quite a few little spots on the wall I"m unsuccessfully hoping will drive away the other mosquitoes when they recognize their sisters.

Bastards.

Teaching is fun when all you do is give them a good project, see them get excited, then start writing letters as they run and do their own thing. At least thats what I think.

First things first

I tell a story about whatever I want to children between 6 and 12 years of age most days on the busride into my daily inebriation test. 4 hours of sleep doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore, well, it never did, but I'm getting tired of running on a quarter steam, so its time to recharge the batteries for a week or so.

I think my brain is in the middle of one of those gastronomical nightmares you can only find in India...

This weekend, to some waterfalls, I don't really know where, but I know they cost money to get to, money to eat at, and money to get back from, so they better be good, because money is not something I have. I would ask if I could ride on the top, but I know the roads and especially the highways around here, and its definitely not worth trying to do anything without a soft seat and two or three handgrips.

The flower party last night was pretty lowkey, reminded me of a Mexican parade mostly... But I had the most amazing meal (too much of the most amazing meal as I found out later when I couldn't move) It was this Curry/masala dish called kaja masala... and consisted of a light brownish thick curry sauce/gravy mixed with vegetables and fried cashew nuts. My god, I thought I was in heaven, a light taste somehow mixed up with a heavy texture that managed to stimulate all the olfactory organs, and every taste bud I thought I had lost over the years. Nothing like indian food to wake up the cuisiniere in you.

Tired...

Celebrity

Its unfortunate when you can't find a copy of the national newspaper prominently displaying you under the title "The Party Never Stops," but when you are travelling 13 hours in the direction of the middle of nowhere, basic services like street signs, sanitation, lighting... etc, are hard to come by, much less the more advanced civilization traits of being able to find a current copy of a newspaper. But regardless, I have found the copy, and there I am, on Page 3 (the celebrity page), with a few of my good friends, filling up a good portion of the newsprint, and far larger than the more obscure former Miss India, or Pop Star Deep "insert indian word". I must say, its nice knowing you have notoriety no matter what country you go to... Unfortunately, it seems not only debutantes, but children, children's parents, teachers, principals, principal's wives, and busboys also read this section of the newspaper, so when I was bombarded by comments regarding my expose, I was slightly baffled, until I read the story and its portrayal of the people who never really stop partying, even in the middle of the week. Then I began to get worried...

Need to start posting more often

Not posting enough about the craziness thats going on around here, even though I'm often on the internet, but I'll try to do it more often, let you know about the crazy monkeys that randomly appear on the side of the street and then start chasing me with shotguns and wicked knives (no that was a dream)...

Maybe I should stop...

Still alive...

Hey all,

I don't recommend agravating elephants, drinking the water, or travelling with fast drivers who don't recognize restraint when using their horn or the road. Any of the above can lead to trampling, massive exodus of fluids, and crowds of angry citizens seeking revenge, respectively.

To flesh out this description... it may be considered fortunate that I am still alive (exaggeration must be taken into account with this story).

I went on a spectacular animal-filled safari last weekend, well... technically speaking it would have been a spectacular animal-filled safari if monsoon weather had not washed out the roads. Fortunately, I had the wonderful chance to sit in the back of a jeep scrunched and facing three other people as I attempted to fit my anguished knees into places that cause contortionists to quit in protest. All of this while travelling on highways designed by demented civil engineers who must have practiced mine warfare during their time in the army. So after this 5 hour midnight inferno, we arrive at the park, fall asleep for an hour, wake up to find a monsoon had washed out the roads... so we decide to jog a little. Not recommended in a national park with wild elephants, roving (seemingly irritable bison), and the odd tiger or two. Innocent of all these thoughts, we jogged an appropriate amount, and after returning to our steadfast jeep, proceeded to watch in shocked awe as the elephant we were disappointedly watching disappear into the forest come charging out with the firm intent of flipping over the jeep and feeding the soon to be mashed souls to his feline friends.

Safari trail washed out... watch out for leeches when walking through leech-infested forest (follow recommendations for high boots, do not wear sandals...), do not lose helljeep when needing to return to Bangalore in a timely fashio, expect helljeep to lose himself.

Well I survived, and thought I would make it through the week until yesterday some bad water finally caught up with me, climbed inside, and on its quick exit, took every last parcel of good fluid with it... i recommend avoiding dehydration and the accompanying fever, vomiting and other "side effects." No worries though, I have some anti biotics (cipro) and a lot of good people to take care of me, almost to the point where every teacher in the school (almost all women) have coddled me into eating some of the nastiest nonreactive easily digestible fluid known to man.

We'll see how this weekend treats me, but the children have been wonderful, they're beginning to understand I'm not going to be a pushover teacher who gives them easy workloads, but they are taking to my interactive teaching style.

Everything moves slowly in fast motion

Life in India moves in a bubble, and the speed is all relative... on the street everything is super fast, but when you compare it to a western country, things are moving super slow, maybe this is why drivers from asia have so much trouble in america, its not like they're bad drivers, I would put some of these guys in a formula one race, if they raced at 40km an hour, much faster, and I start getting very worried for my health, especially in buses

My first big email

Well, for those few of you who were still holding out on the longshot that I was going under in the first week, I'm sorry to burst the bubble, but I have now survived more than 7 days in India. Well, almost, yeah, I guess it has been... god it has seemed like so much longer.

I guess I might as well give you the highlights and then tell of some little quirks I've noticed along the way.

I got on a plane on the 20th of June, and started the first leg of the trip to Tokyo Japan. If some of you are considering trying to change flights in Tokyo, please make sure you use your common sense, read your ticket flight number, and get on the right flight, regardless of the printed time. That way you won't end up like me, stuck outside the comfortable bubble of Japanese orderliness, being pulled off the wrong flight to the right city at the right time, like a Japanese Kobe cow being pummeled by 4'5" stewardesses. Apparently these stewardesses come standard with your regular Japanese airport, because regardless, they all were the same height. Well, hypothetically speaking, say you miss your flight, have nowhere to stay, find a temple to hang out at, meet some Japanese cooks, participate in a Shinto temple with huge drums, and find out their is an entire 70ft tall pagoda dedicated to peace, well, then you might have a day like mine.

Singapore was cool, too clean...

Chennai was the exact opposite, pretty dirty, dilapidated, the airport smelled of urine, oh, and before I forget to mention, anyone you see once you are in a motorized vehicle, is trying to kill you and eat your heart for courage. Surprising in this normally peaceful country but I saw several barbeques and I think they mean business. Did anyone know there was a Saint Thomas, and he was an apostle of Jesus, and best of all he has a church in Chennai built over his tomb. I didn't know... but now I do, and so do you.

Getting on trains out of Chennai is hard, it seems that every other civilized person in the city is trying to do the same... it could be the pollution, the 95 degree nighttime, under the fan temperature, the thousands sleeping on the streets, or the fact that everyone is trying to kill you, but most people are trying to leave... beats me, but it took me an extra day to hightail it out of there, and I had to leave at the crack of dawn. Also make sure you're looking at the right track and train before you try to find your coach by walking a half mile with 70lbs attached to your back and body.

I ended up in Mysore, a beautiful place with palaces, temples, beautiful markets teeming with pickpockets, and musical fountains next to a 1912 british dam that lit up at night in a concerted attempt to attract every mosquito as close to me as possible.

I liked Mysore.

I arrived in Bangalore a few days ago, and met my contact after a couple hours of sitting on some marble steps, a couple thousand people staring at me, and at least a few hundred taxi cab drivers giving me that inquisitive "please let me take your money" look. Over the past couple days I've met more people from my organization, AIESEC, ate a lot of delicious food, and had a generally terrific time hanging out with people who spoke English (quite amazing how that can spritz up a day).

I just visited my school where I will be teaching today... insane, out of this world, unlike any school you could imagine, especially in India. Try and picture a setting with Spanish style terracotta housing, on a closed campus, with manicured gardening, in a resort style layout, with little kids half as tlal as me running around in every direction. Then add to this picture constant construction of a larger building behind these buildings, and an even larger building behind that. If you're having trouble, you'll have to take a look at some of my pictures... I'll try to do the place justice.

It should be amazing.

Some things about India you should know...
Most people are truly nice, and willing to return a smile if you're willing to give it, they will know you are smiling at them because they will have been staring at you for the past 10 seconds speechless
All of these kind people would gladly kill you once you are on the road with them
Do your best to avoid crossing the street
When crossing the street begin praying, look both ways, finish praying, look both ways, begin praying to an Indian god, follow someone else, preferably with them in harms way, and try to make sure you can keep them in harms way the entire time by switching sides halfway across the street.
Eat everything, drink nothing that you can't twist the lid off of. Don't eat anything washable
Meet everyone you can, they all want to meet you, and will extend conversations with awkward silences in order to still be seen talking to a white person.
Have fun.
There are many more idiosyncracies, like the art of avoiding beggars and swarms of children, to the zen of figuring out what the hell type of english someone thinks they are saying, but we will save these for later. I wish all the best, and be thankful for crosswalks that people pay attention to, and median lines that people adhere to, you have no idea how lucky you are.

schoolin schmoolin

I'm enjoying life, well, what life you can have when you're stranded at a school 25km outside Bangalore (the city I'm in), live in a 12ft by 12ft mansion, and constantly having to ward off an ex-champion Indian athlete who adopted me as a best friend within minutes of meeting him and calls me his "dear"...

But seriously, the cafeteria style food is delicious, wholesome, and utterly the same from meal to meal, sometimes varying in the consistency of the curd they (literally) force me to eat.

I just read through this email, and I may have painted a bleak picture, this is absolutely the opposite from the truth. Granted, I can't communicate with people in anything more than broken english after the teachers leave, but this has its benefits, my singing voice has improved, as well as my punching form, and I no longer have to tell people I don' t like them, I just glare at them until they go away.

In truth, the school is amazing, I feel like I'm on a miniature resort under construction half the time, but when the students are there, its a little jungle of monkeys running around eager to learn, and when they leave, its super peaceful once you drone out the sounds of nonstop construction. The campus is large, and could easily hold over a thousand students, although I think they only have between 4-500, and there's a large basketball court, tennis, weight room, volleyball net, table tennis, anything you could ask for.

The students have all been very receptive to my teaching style, once I brought out the brass knuckles... haven't had a problem since that first incident. They really have taken to my teaching style, which is quite different than the other teachers, or even any teacher's Ive ever had, very expressive and genuine with a lot of random trivia to back up my drivel.

In any case, I am loving it, I wish I could have a big fat juicy steak, with a plate of fries and ketchup (red robin would be perfect), and a portable jetpack for getting across streets, but I am surviving and loving life. I'm heading to the jungle this weekend to see how many leeches I can attach before passing out, and don't worry, I've already been warned that the waterfall we're going to should not be jumped off of, so I most certainly will not.

Bangalore finally, but still journeying

This will be short, because I'm going to write a longer one on Sunday, but I'm in Bangalore, I will be moving again soon to the school, and life is still pretty crazy, I've met some very cool Indian people, the Aiesecers who I will be dealing with on and off for the rest of my time here, and other interns who seem like good peeps.

More details to be filled in later, but hopefully I can get my internet working so I can put up pictures and the like, otherwise I'll have to figure out some other way to do this audio and photo sharing.

Did anyone realize India was crazy?

I feel like I may not be the first one to realize this, but I am definitely the first me to realize this, and it truly is unbelievable, I wish I could describe it to you in words, photos or audio, which I will try to do, but there is no way possible that even a fraction of the degree to which this country has surprised, astounded, and scared me shitless can be conveyed through any medium other than a person's actual presence. That being said...

I could tell you something to the order of, "holy shit, half the day we were driving in the opposing traffic's lane...!!" but you might not think this is so bad, it certainly doesn't sound that way to me, so let me expand the description a little. We have in India, these little taxis called autorickshaws, I rented one this morning to buy a ticket at the train station, now I imagined my life was in danger the night before when I arrived (speaking of, I've only been here 24 hours, it feels like a year), when I was in a taxi weaving through traffic like an insane chicken playing soccer with its head cut off. This was nothing, instead, this "auto" is a small cage, intended to trap you until you either forfeit the required amount of money, or your life, when a slightly larger "cage" barrels into you because the driver decided to cut across a 5way street with his eyes closed. Luckily I gave my driver money before he reached that zenlike state of driving, but what we did do took a couple years off. Imagine driving on the wrong side of the road, passing a bicycle with half a family on it, prevented from braking by the "auto" behind you, and quickly approaching a 10 ton bus with literally 130+ people hanging from every side. Try and imagine a way to avoid it... I couldn't... so my life passed before my eyes and while it was doing so Kumar the driver pulled off some magic, and I missed it, every time for the countless times I almost died, I could not figure out what kind of magic he was doing. But I think it had something to do with the cigarette he was constantly smoking or cell phone he was using.

Anyway, saw some cool stuff, one of Jesus' apostles tombs' is here, Saint Thomas, so I checked that out, shoes off, in this crazy pure white church in the middle of the most dilapidated part of town...

My brain is frying, I'll write more later, but I got some good pictures of some indian kids, here is part of an email I sent to a friend earlier...

I miss everyone at home right now, or rather, I would miss them all if I wasn't scared shitless everytime I leave an airconditioned room (of which there are fewer than you might think). I'm in this city called chennai, and the fucking place is the dirtiest, smelliest, craziest-driving, dilpidated hole of a city that i have ever been to. Think Mexico, then think of how nice it would be to be in the shittiest part of Mexico if you were here. That said, I thinking I'm starting to like it, although if I were to hire peopleto work for me here, the first one would be a masseuse to get all the stress from almost dying every few minutes. I really am beginning to understand what they meant when they said, "you will find god when you get to india." Speaking of God, I visited a few of his pals today, from all sorts of religions, most of them unpronouncable, and also the tomb of St Thomas, the only other catholic other than St Peter to have a church built on top of his grave (according to their description). There was this cool cat cab driver who used and abused my kindness, which I allowed because it was my first full day in India, I hope he feels privileged that I let him take advantage of me, because he was the last one. But I basically used his services for the entire day, and he used me to check out some tourist shops (from which he got commission), but I didn't buy anything, to the chagrin of every single one of the vendors, but I managed to assuage their dismay at my ingratitude by telling them I would be back the next day... I actually have a 6am train to another crazy place, but it'll be air-conditioned (this is also the last time I get to spurge a little while travelling, I figure its ok while I get my feet under me, but today I already changed hotels because the one last night was raping me), which is good. Anyway, I can't begin to imagine how to tell you what this has been like, but I'm going to be uploading some audio descriptions from my days so at least you can hear and see a small portion of how crazy this situation is, I've been taking a few pictures and I use my little mp3 player to record my experiences while walking and driving around.

I can feel my brain energy fading, and I may need the rest of it to make it back to my hotel, I hope you are well and I hope you don't mind if I post this up on my website http://lifelikeschaos.nomadlife.org.

Does the luck hold up?

Well, I would say that you would not believe, but I think you would, knowing me...

You know how everyone was telling me "now Evan, don't miss your flight... Evan, make sure you make your flight... Remember to check your flight Evan..." Funny how you all jinxed me! I appreciate it, because of your constant recriminations, I missed my flight.

Apparently, the flight I was supposed to get on was a joint venture with ANA (acronym unknown) and United, and was scheduled to leave earlier than what my ticket said, this normally would not have been a problem, except for the fact that where my flight was supposed to be, was the exact same flight, on Japan Airlines... same plane, same destination, same departure time, everything, just two different terminals and a whole bunch of confused looks.

Imagine my surprise when the 4' 9" lady I just handed my ticket to comes running up to me, grabs me from where I'm about to set down my bag, and says in quick unintelligible English... "a;sldkfsjadf dafdsa asdflkj" and so I, quickly realizing that my only chance to get to Singapore is quickly fading away, attempt to shrink in the hopes she's got the wrong person. I think the only thing going for me was the feeling of dreamlike lucidity that had been pervading my entire trip so far... and with that hypnotic state in hand, I languidly ran after her with my once-heavy bag floating on my shoulder.

To my and their astonishment, I had somehow completed a 40 min walk to another terminal gate and departure zone, without one person stopping to question me at the multiple checkpoints why I had a United Airlines flight heading towards a domestic online carriers area. Naturally, I can not blame anyone but myself, because I also made the same error, but honestly folks, whats the deal, am I really the first person to become lost like this, it seemed like everyone I passed who looked at my ticket gave me a strange look (unbeknownst to me, never having seen strange Japanese looks until I was given the same look with knowledge of my error in hand), and then waved me on, it seems that once confronted with a dilemma never encountered before, all of these Japanese froze, thought, froze again, then waved me on. Only once I was on the wrong plane, all the way on, did they finally realize (to my detriment) their error, and then proceeded to freeze and try to think while holding up a flight I could have easily fit on if it happened to be in their procedure book. However, this is not to say I'm disappointed, I made the error, and cannot blame anyone else, and their customer service once they figured out a procedure, was very calming and helpful, its just too bad it took so long.

So longer story shorter, I get the same flight for the next day after some more confused looks (which I now recognize), and I set off for Narita to book up at a guesthouse. Still in a daze, this becomes difficult because, while I know where it is, I pass by the sign, maybe, roughly, approximately 7-8 times, confused bewildered, and angry, until finally I call the place again, talk to another confused soul who can't understand what the hell I'm thinking, and then walk a block, to find the guesthouse right next to the sign I had looked at every single time I passed by the block... Irritating to say the least.

Boring details of night... Boring details of night... Flat mattress, good sushi, good sushi, freaking good sushi! Tasted like roasted marshmellow that slid off your tongue, collapsed in your mouth with a taste of chocolate, all while managing to look like a dark oversized piece of birdshit. Delicious!

Get to bed early and wake up to the sounds of traffic buzzing past the guesthouse incessantly and I figure, shoot, there's so much traffic, I better get up before it gets too late, I might miss my flight... not much chance of that at 7am when my flights at 5:40pm, but I decide to stay up. After a little brushing up on my Japanese, I head out into the big blue world, and realize its only blue because its raining so hard, and its actually grey above that if you could look up for long enough to see the sky without getting water splashed in your eyes... so I head back in, steal an umbrella, and go for it, tourist map, camera, and notebook in hand. This is when I realized, in Japan, I think they make umbrellas to fit the Japanese... luckily, I did not feel like dry legs very much, and so was not perturbed by the sloshy feeling everywhere.

Now I must tell you, I did not expect to like Japan, everything so far was not so much a let down, but more, a simple satisfaction of low expectations. This was until I reached the temple, and finally found the solitude I needed to rest my soul after weeks of turmoil... This redemption of the luck I knew lay within, and perhaps its not so much luck as my inability to hold still while travelling, but by god, it was amazing (mom I got some pretty good pictures that i've been editting in photoshop, well not much, but I've been changing the raw settings as I convert them, and they've been turning out pretty good, I'll have to get your opinion though), these temples ranging in age from just a few years since being, to more than a millenium for the oldest.

I walk a few km in the rain, and thoroughly drenched, empty stomach (best to contemplate I think), find these temples I read about. Stunning. And in the first one I walked into I found monks performing a ritualistic offering of wood and fire to their Buddha to the spine-vibrating waves of massive drums, with keen whistling providing a backdrop to the monks' highpitched intonations. I don't know how to describe it in words, and I wish I would have recorded it on my mp3 player, which I started using later to describe things as a I wandered. And wandered did I, far and wide through manicured forests and along shallow manmade lakes, with immaculate 3 meter shrines hiding behind large cedars, choosing not to follow the path of their brothers, who often sat on rocks in shaded waters.

One of the next temples was a 100+ foot pagoda built in 1987 and dedicated by world leaders to the pursuit of international peace. I must tell you, the fearsome Buddha and his guards certainly made me think it was possible... I actually met my first other westerner while wandering around barefoot through this many muralled mirage of tapestried halls and high latticed ceilings. Shannon, this lady on her way back to Seattle from a five week stay in Vietnam, finally let me express some of the sensory overload bashing my brain into humbled submission. We talked and shared and had a fabulous go around for a quarter hour, and then departed our happy ways, content in the knowledge we were not the only ones astounded and impressed by the magnitude and beauty of these temple grounds... I can go on for awhile about these temples, but i need to get to Singapore.

I get there early, plenty of time, get more confused looks as I explain to the ticket lady my situation before she issues my ticket, and she still doesn't quite get it, and so put me in the class of people who don't give themselves enough time to get to their flight... and gave me specific directions and instructions about making all the way out to the gate, telling me how long it would take and pointing me in every direction... I'd hate to see the Japanese I dealt with given a real "out of the box" situation.

I help this girl get her luggage up above me, and it turns out she is a Poli Sci graduate like myself, getting her PHd from Princeton in Comparative Political and Techonology Transfer studies between major Asian economic states. She also did her undergrad in Int'l Relations, so we talked for most of the flight, well half the flight, then we both fell asleep until we were woken up by some turbulence doing its best to test the bolts on the wings. Hopefully we can stay in touch, although she's a little worried about my plans to become president coupled with my realpolitik slightly eye-for-an-eye political views.

I get into Singapore, and of course, low and behold, my reservation is gone at the hostel I planned to stay at, but I talked to this nice lady at the tourist office (the best tourist office I have ever visited) and she hooked me up, and as I'm about to grab a taxi, she waves me over, introduces me to the owner of the hostel who dropped my reservation, who took me in his car to my new hostel... craziness, he's pretty cool and loves Whistler too.

The Importance of being Procastinatory

In most ways dull lifetimes are enjoyed by all those who prepare too much. Where is the anger and frustration of realizing you have to turn your car around two hours after you leave to grab the wallet and cameras that were inadvisably placed behind the flowerpots... Why would you forgo the stress that not having medical or travel insurance until the last minute always brings...

I think if you are always prepared, you may always be satisfied, but you are rarely happy, you never experience the sense of relief when the police walk away with someone else, and everything actually does work out. Where is the elation, the surprise, the joy, the pure relaxation that can only come after you have been so stressed, frustrated, angry, and furious. Its simply not there.

Now granted, there are some things you would rather prepare fairly ardently for... skydiving out of a plane for instance, a good time not to procrastinate on the packing of the parachute until you're in the jumpline. Another may be scubadiving, probably don't want to find out at 200 meters under the ocean that you accidently filled the O2 tank with N2.

But when it comes to the everyday mundane aspects of life, a little stress is necessary for a person to feel alive. Everyone knows the boring person that everything goes right for, but that noone wants to hang around. Personally I'd rather be challenged under stressful conditions when an important choice needs to be made that could have been made long ago and prepared for, and decided on, with repercussions measured and weighed... well I'd rather try and figure out all that junk in the few seconds before the judge asks ME for MY alibi. Sure my memory of my "alibi" may not hold up, but whatever, its all in good fun, and far more interesting than figuring it out beforehand (although this may fall under the "be prepared beforehand")

I just think those people who are always prepared for everything are missing out on the excitement of finding out something about yourself in the moment, which becomes easier the more you practice, and practice makes perfect.

Yeah...

India??

Time’s a ticking away, I feel like that big hand in the sky is looking at me like a tiny speck of dust that needs to be blown out of its protective clockcase and into the big, dirt filled expanse of the world. Or something like that. It just seems amazing that in only a few days I’ll be taking off from a slightly dingy airport terminal in a 40 year old plane to explore places that have so many people the residents must think I am an idiot for thinking I’m on an expedition. Luckily this determination is almost unanimous even among the people who do know me. Yet its time to test the bloody waters and hopefully no more giant Mako sharks come to visit me, one is more than enough. Just a few more things to collect before I head out into the blue yonder (how many departure references can I make), a few pounds of saltwater taffe, life preserver for any stray tsunamis that roll a couple hundred miles inland, personal defense robot for all the viciously combative peace-loving Hindus, water purification plant because I don’t want to have to boil water everyday, midget, hand grenades, samurai sword, antiballistic missile launcher (sans missiles…that’s illegal!), calculator for calculating stuff, polar bear and monkey repellent.

That oughta do it. I’m kind of expecting my first encounter with Indian’s to proceed something like this…
4pm: Land at the airport, check contents of all my bags and make sure contents are secure, prepare for thievery test…

4:15pm: Depart plane and walk towards baggage claim, collect bag, 10 rupees for baggage watcher, notice left shoe gone, its ok, I brought another, but when I prepare to put it on, prevented by strange advanced foot disease mysteriously doubling size of the foot and turning it orange.

4:30pm: Limp into customs, almost denied entry until they realize I didn’t contract disease on the plane, pay customs agent 150 rupees to stamp passport with smiley face, prepare to put passport back, notice half of the pages have been stolen out of passport.

4:35pm: Look around, oddity in vision, reach up with my hand and notice right eyeball has been surgically removed, search through laptop bag, realize mouse was left when they stole my laptop and input the mouse ball into my socket

4:40pm: Bump into Indian police officer, bribe him to leave me alone, begin recovery from kidney operation

4:45pm: Find ATM to withdraw more Indian rupees, watch in disappointment as ATM eats card, do a 360 turn looking for any help, return gaze to ATM to watch it calmly walking away.

4:50pm: Realize foot infection spread to other foot after right shoe was stolen by ATM machine as well.

4:55pm: Sit down on my bag in despair, land on the ground, ass is cold, delighted to find out pant pockets have been taken without having ripped the pants

5:00pm: Begin wait in line at US embassy behind other orange-footed stranded shirtless Americans, notice my eye itching, grasp that it must be the mouseball, ask the passing thief taking my security belt for some hand oil, told he was busy and couldn’t be bothered, pestered him some more, finally he gave me my lotion he had stolen from me, squirted it into the socket to lubricate the ball, surprised by the cry of indignation from the migrant pigeons taking up roost.

5:01pm: Feet meld to ground, become new sidewalk exhibit outside US embassy, resigned to commercialization of myself.

Great sleep

Luckily for me, preparing for the LSAT is the easiest thing in the world, I had the test down flat, easy money, nowhere for it to hide, that is… until I got sick a week before. Two times a year… that’s the average amount that I get sick, and one of them has to be a week before one of the most important tests in my life!!!!! Well, luckily I had enough time to recover, or should have, but my body didn’t seem to agree, so I spent my birthday, a valuable week of paychecks, and most of my allotted time for future education preparation, all bundled up on an admittedly fairly comfortable couch.

The night before the test was ok and I managed to handle the residual sickness and stress, and had a fairly sound sleep, except for the eardrum that kept on pressurizing so I couldn’t hear anything, the fact that my dog pissed in my bed, which I found out after noticing that my leg was wet (and seriously pondering whether or not I had pissed myself from stress, which I hasten to point out I’ve never done, and ruled out because of the localized wet zone around my calf, something I could not have done in those pajamas without matter transmission piss control, a technology they should really think about pursuing), the realization after I took a bath that somehow water had spilled all around the house, and the goddamn soon-to-be mangled squirrel that decided to act as an informal alarm clock for 2 hours at 5am… The perfect sleep after a week of sickness, exactly what I needed for a 6 hour exam…

Inbetween elation and...crap

Soon, it will all be over, and soon (although a little later), I'll be on my way to a whole new world, although without aladin or jasmine. I wonder how they're doing these days, I'll be Aladin got a job as a maintenance worker at the palace after the princess discovered how entirely different their lifestyles were when the big A-boy caught and slaughtered a dove for lunch, on the new silk chair... or something like that.

Got my visa for India, but they stole some money, I'm going to bomb the country... reasonable and equitable response I think!

LSATs, if I don't talk to anyone for the next week, forgive me, I'm trying to set up a good life for myself with a 3 hour test, I figure I've fucked with the rest of it enough, I might as well try and get this part right, I owe it to myself.

Ohhh... so tired... again

Changes

Email: indiaevan@yahoo.com
www.kodakgallery.com: indiaevan@yahoo.com
skype: indiaevan
MSN: Spirerain@hotmail.com
yahoo: evanpulabuba
AOL: GWmasseur

Thats about it for now

I'm so tired

All I want to do is finish the decision I've finally made, I vvawant to buy da camera, and any funds I can collect from various types of trashcans and sidewalks will probably help me in the cause. I'm going for a Nikon 8800 because of its compactness comparred to a digital SLR and versatility, including movie features, long zoom, and close to wide angle... Well, who cares about money when you are trying to create memories, which one will last you longer in the "long end?" And for someone with as poor a memory as me (yet possessing the ability and smarts to make money easily when needed), I think the choice is obvious, or is it.

So the cost negative benefits maginifetsss.... cheaper, lower quality, larger, easier to get stolen, more apparent, less money, 300 dollars goes pretty far over there... Ug I'm so confused, but I've made my decision and I just have to figure out a way (tired as I am) to stick by it.

Ah enough of this babble, I recognize it for what it is

To India!!

So in case you don't know or haven't found out because I haven't talked to you in too long, I'm going to India for almost a year to teach at a private school. I'll be in Bangalore, in South Central India, 100+ miles from the coast so anybody worrying about tsunamis, don't, there's plenty of better things to worry about!

Bangalore is a pretty large city ~6 million people, but I'll be in the suburbs around 15 miles out. I'll be teaching English Lit, American culture/history, and Basic Chinese (sometimes they see your resume and they pick the oddest things) at this school;

www.gearschool.org

If you want to know some more about India, well, you can't, but here are a couple sites just in case

www.virtualbangalore.com

http://india-tourism.com/

I'll be over there for hopefully 10 months, although I'm still working on my Visa, and I'm going to visit as many places in the region as I can, however, after 10 months in India, I may not have enough money to get back, so if you see a skinny guy walking down the street with a raggedy beard and tattered backpack, make sure to give him a second glance, chances are I could use a ride. I'll be getting paid about $100 a month, so anybody who wants to send me a care package, friendly letter, or food of any sort, feel free!

If you feel like getting in touch with me, there will be a couple ways, I'll be using this email address as my primary Spirerain@hotmail.com, and if you want to call me, hopefully I'll have regular internet access (once a day) and worst case scenario is once a week, but phone cards run about 8 cents a minute from www.nobelcom.com, although there may be better deals out there, I haven't searched much.

A better idea though (contingent on me finding good internet access), is to use VoIP, thats basically talking over the internet....FOR FREE!!!! Go to www.skype.com and create an account, and search for my name or ID (Spirerain). You can talk to anyone in the world for free over the internet, or you can add some change and call anyone's phone for fantastic rates (better to find a phone card for india still though if you're calling to a real phone). But seriously, this program is tight, and its FREE!!!!

I'm going to be taking a digital camera and will be posting photos up on www.kodakgallery.com with my name Spirerain although you may have to use my email Spirerain@hotmail.com as a login to view the gallery. You may have to join to view my album, sorry if this is a hassle.

One more thing, I'll be doing these things called "podcasts", which are basically online radio shows made by the average joe, similar to "blogs." So I'll be giving details of my life in India and you'll be able to hear me as well. You can find out more about podcasts at www.podcastalley.com, some of the people there are really funny. Give it a shot.

Long time

Its true, I the mighty Juan Gonedigo de San Marcheviato, will proceed to dig this ditch of enormous size, breadth and capacity, in order to allow the passage of the mighty ship that I see not too far in the distance. Most people might think it impossible that one man and his trustworthy steed of stainless steel wheels could not possible manage this daunting goal of moving 5 million cubic yards of topsoil and limestone. Yet, none of these naysayers know of my secret weapon, the inconquerable drill bit that I attach to the mighty phallus hanging sturdly from my groin. It is so mighty in fact, that I simply attach the diamond coated covering, line up on the desired trajectory, and begin looking at the pictures of erotic postures I have neatly lined like the ubiquitious carrot-on-a-stick-in-front-of-a-donkey routine. This occasionally proves difficult because of my lack of arms, but the mighty Juan Gonedigo de San Marcheviato will not countenance failure for such measly hindrances as no arms or legs, I have...the drill...

(Subsequently in this story that probably should not be continued due to its irrelevance to any pertinent fact of any insignificant period of time, Juan attempts his magnificent feat, falls out of his wheel chair onto the ground, proceeds to dig straight downwards, until his magazine is torn to shreds by friction, and rather than valiantly saving the cruise ship that is uncontrollably running aground, he manages to "pound" his way through the fuel hull, causing a spark right as he punctures the third hull of protection, causing a cascading river of fire to envelop the cruise ship and seep out onto the last preserve of the almost extinct, imminently rare, spectacularly beautiful, talking iridescent snapping turtle. Juan has since been brought up on charges of willful destruction of national and private property, extinction of endangered animals and habitat, 1st degree manslaughter, public nudity/indecency, and the hospital sent him to the collection agency for not returning the wheelchair, which amazingly, was actually protecting the last turtle from the flames until a chance boiler from the cruise ship landed on it. Juan has been convicted of all charges postmortem, because he did not show up to court to defend himself.)

Shaved my head

Now I have to lose weight and smoke crack... the chores the chores the chores

A new Hope? A new beginning

In work

I think my brain has officially died, and left what remains of muscle memory to handle whatever mindless numbing functions I'm supposed to be doing right now. I also think this typing is my attempt at resuscitating myself, but I don't believe its working....working....worki....w.....

WHAT THE FUCK

I CAN'T SLEEP! I DRINK TO GO TO SLEEP AND IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!! Fucking body, I mean, its hot and sexy and all, but won't fucking listen to my commands to go to sleep, or maybe its my extraordinarily large brain, too much shit going on all the time.

My knee hurts... but more of an empathetic pain like when you are watching one of those crazy japanese videos and just as they're getting shot in the stomach with a cannonball, one of the dudes tries to avoid smelling a fart from the guy next to him and gets nailed in the nuts... maybe not like that

I'm just so tired, why won't sleep come to me any other time than when my boss is walking by the office.

Just not fair

Alt forms of energy

I always wondered why there hasn't been more adoption of alternative forms of energy production. I think its the inertia of big business striving to maintain its hold on all of us... man do I hate MNCs (hypocritical because I want to manage one someday).

Some major strides are being made with Solar technology, it seems a new type of panel has been developed thats far more efficient than current technology (>50%) and could provide the first feasible steps for utility-based solar energy production. They say a field of 10,000 sq miles could produce enough power for the entire country.

They work by using mirrors to concentrate beams of light on a single spot, and using the heat energy to create usuable energy (maybe through steam, can't remember exactly), It'd be cool to see more ideas like this prosper. I wish more people around the world would accept the idea that solar energy was a viable source. Its as if people at the turn of the 19th century were to say, well these cars don't work very well, we should abandon this exciting new technology before it gets off its feet.

There's so much unused energy cascading down from the sky every day, what a waste when you consider how many hydrocarbons we burn in our mad obsession with oil and its byproducts. How many natural resources could be saved, pollution avoided, exploitation nullified if we took our eyes off the black gold and bent our minds to the task of these exciting new theories and technologies. What if every building had a large solar panel on its roof, how much energy saved just there, if coastlines employed tidal generators to harness the power of the tides, geothermal plants to take advantage of venting steam. So much energy that goes unused, and simply evaporates into thin air.

Weird dreams

I died in my dream... this isn't the first time, but it was definitely the most vivid. Walking down a beach in Mexico, I found my family and strangers pointing up at the sky at flights of planes flying in straight lines through banks of clouds, but that wasn't what the were pointing at, they were pointing at two black dots moving swiftly through the atmosphere. As they came closer, they looked like huge black combs, obviously alien aircraft.

Now I remember, thinking in the dream, "I have seen way too many alien movies, and very rarely do flights of aliens come in on peaceful missions" so I grabbed my sister and started running away from the beach. I saw over my shoulder the ship land in the beach and people start to approach it, so I ran even faster. Far in the background I could hear sounds like those of phasers on Star Trek in the distance, so I knew shit was going down, I picked up my sister and ran even faster.

All of a sudden I knew things were turning worse, because people started screaming and running in the same direction as me, luckily I was ahead of them, but I think I may have accidently dropped my sister and kept on going, I'm not sure about this part, but I know I didn't stop. Just when I thought I might have outrun the fire turning the landscape a fiery smoky red, I saw the ground erupt around me, and I felt my last thoughts burn up with me as I died.

Then I was floating, in a reddish-whitish-black netherworld...with no substance and nothing around me.

I woke up, and fell back asleep, and was still floating in this ether, but only being half asleep by this point, it was weird because I felt a strange pressure on both sides of my ribs, pressing firmly down. Firmly enough that I woke myself up to end it, and when I fell back asleep it began again, continuing for an undetermined amount of time.

The craziest thing was, I had the dream over again after I finally left the ether (I decided to wake up for awhile and debated what it would be like to die rather than lay there and feel like I was dead). This second time I had prescience and knew what was going to happen, so I took a tank of air and dove to the bottom of a pond when the world decided to burn up.... This changed the entire rest of the dream when I finally surfaced again....

This was definitely a crazy night of dreams

Gotta love TV

The Awards Season... It can't be said enough, you got to love when all the high powered lovely and ugly people in Hollywood get together to celebrate their own ability to stunt the average person's creativity through massive influxes of their own contrived make believe.

I personally like my own life and the ones I read in books much better than the ones I see on TV. I kinda feel bad for those who spend half their lives pretending to be someone else, and the other half avoiding people who are infatuated with that fake personality.

Too much time not being yourself, unless by the very virtue of this being you life, it is you being yourself, and then I definitely don't want to be like that.

I need to curl up with a new book...

Man o man

Walking has been a bitch, and I ran out of the good meds so I'm back to the over-the-counter stuff. I don't think the flights of stairs have been helping, although its a medical fact that if you hurt or break a bone, feeling pain in it will make it heal faster, unfortunately I have bone, ligament and tissue all fucked up so I may not pursue my goal of winning a halfpipe competition by next week... If it wasn't a combination of all three it'd be so much easier, just flesh, just bone, (well not just ligament, you're always screwed on those) I'd be just fine, what a bitch

Onto brighter things, I've been 90% accepted to an Indian traineeship in Mumbai with United Way, the big holdup is on the payment part. They're a little bit sketchy on the accomodations and salary, and from what I've researched, what they're offering should provide enough for 2 meals a day...tops. I'm just worried because they seem so quick to jump on my query for information, its time to delve a little deeper.

Women...

Erg...

But partying till 5 in the morning IN Seattle is always a plus, god knows we have enough coffee to keep us awake.

MMMM

I think bagels, really, are one of the more important features of life, and when you can add cream cheese, you might as well stop worrying about those "what is the meaning of life?" and "who am I?" questions, because just dropping yourself into the luxury of creamfilled delicious bread hardened by a woodfired oven over a period of minutes creating a scrumptous piece of art whose taste is only intensified by the charring effects of the toaster....

Yeah, so I'm either high or drunk, you'll have to guess

Life is good

I got a job for two weeks, its sunny, clear, almost 28 degrees farhenheit, and women like me (some of these points up for negotiation)....

I had crazy dreams last night and my knee only bled a little... can't ask for much more from life than this, maybe a pet gorilla, but thats an ideal situation

Now all I have to do is figure out the rest of my life, a task i'm planning on revising every day for the next 80 years

1st rule of going to the doctor

1^st rule of going to the doctor:

If the doctor says there is a chance “complications,” always investigate these complications as thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly as possible, and then do a websearch

Its yesterday, and I’m in surgery to take out a screw put in place during an old surgery from about six or seven years ago, and the process should take no longer than 30 minutes and probably only 15, if you choose to believe the medical profession. But by now I know that they are all in collusion, and I’m prepared for Murphy to rear his ugly head, and right on time to the minute, the asshole showed up.

By now I’ve met the medical staff attending me and I’ve had my local anesthesia to numb up my knee, I feel I don’t need a general (the type where they knock you out, rape you and leave you to wake up in a Mexican cemetery with no idea of why your boxers are on your head) because I have a ton of errands I need to get done, and I feel like driving myself to them. The whole freefall feeling General anesthesia gives you hampers your ability to stop for old ladies at crosswalks, natural vindictiveness also seems to have this effect. Doc has made the incision over the screw and has placed the screwdriver in its position so I figure the “only ten seconds of moderate pain” is about to begin.

2^nd rule of going to the doctor

If the doctor feels he isn’t going to deceive you and explains you might feel more than a slight “poke” or “jab”… RUN!

…about to begin. Little did I know the act of unscrewing metal from bone with no form of anesthesia is a little like a herd of buffalo tapdancing on your knee, poorly. The doctor then pronounced that I’m “lucky to have such hard bones,” and proceeded to further explain that my “lucky bone” had broken the head of the screw off with half an inch of stainless steel shaft sticking out of my knee. This was also the point where I found out the other inch of the screw was still inside. Soon after this our friendly doctor asked if I was “ok” and told me he would have to do a little more work. Unfortunately I trusted him, and naturally, he proceeded to take a chisel and hammer and attempted to “open up a little space” around the bone. Ten minutes later, I was about to ask about the lights flickering and strange shapes bouncing around on the walls when out of a pain induced fog I heard a distant foghorn softly. It said, “Evan, how are you doing? Are you ok?” To which I answered in the affirmative, and then as an afterthought, the foghorn whispered “Are you in pain?” I nodded my head, but the only people who could see that were the shapes on the wall and I was not entirely sure they were real yet, so I replied… “Well of course, you’re chiseling at my bone and I have local anesthesia for my skin” I’m not sure how forceful this was but I’m pretty sure it was slightly sarcastic so I guess I’m “lucky” he stopped.

3^rd rule of going to the doctor

Always find out exactly what little improvisations are going to be happening before going under general anesthesia.

Now that my knee feels sort of like a sculpture and mostly like a coal mine, the amount of nurses and doctor’s double, I know this is not a hallucination because their eyes were different colored and none of them could get the damn IV in my arm right… they all tried. Finally, three vice grips, a pair of pliers and an anesthesiologist later, while bags of tools are being emptied onto the bed next to my leg and distant voices are murmuring “nope, this didn’t work either, hand me…that...um… thing over there,” they attach the gas mask and I’m blessedly out.

I wake up, find out my recovery time has been doubled, I have a large hole in my knee, my ligament had to be “cut a little” to make room for the drills (plural) and I have a nice new prescription for powerful painkillers along with my stainless steel screw washed of all the blood. And because I couldn’t walk straight, they said I couldn’t drive, so I couldn’t run my goddamn errands!