to the galapogos and back-part 1

first in quito, ecuador the capital city where me and Y- a friend from grad school decide to hire a guide/driver to take us to octavalo which is 2 hours away. we get mil-ton. mil-ton is quite friendly and knowledgable in his hyundai suv and off we are to octavalo. he is also under the impression from the scattering of spanish i speak that i am fluent. i deny this but mil-ton just looks at me with this sad face and says why you lie to me? Y rolls her eyes in the back seat. i had noticed a faint whiff of alcohol but decided to ignore it or rather deny it- its 10am and i must be mistaken. after arriving in octavalo we decide we will meet in an hour and when we regroup its obvious that mil-ton drank his lunch. can i drive i ask. only if you speak spanish to me- you are so-o beau-ti-ful when you speak spanish. si i say, no problemo as i slide into the drivers seat. are you mad at me? dont be mad at me? mil-ton babbles. omigod so this is what marriage feels like- i feel trapped. i start to talk to him in my 12 words of fluent turkish for spite. are you mad at me? he says. for 2 hours on the way home in between dosing off and asking me to commit to him, i get a barage of personal questions. i invent things. i work for the government i tell mil-ton. i cant tell you exactly what i do for then i would have to kill you. and any family members that you care about. i still like you he says...

galapogos islands

i'll sleep when im dead

always loved that saying and always tried to live by it- i mean i will never get today back no matter how long i live. so i try to say yes to as many things as possible. but sometimes sleep overtakes the best of us, or even me and i dose off in inappropriate spots/times. be that as it may, this is not about sleep -its about the lack thereof. being up for 26 hours in a row, and trying to hurry to get to the airport does not make the best alignment of stars and of this i was rudely, expensively made aware of. CRASH as i plowed into the back of a 2005 suv. fuck i said along with the six other george carlin words. damm im gonna miss my plane ran through my head as i got out of the car and apologized profusely and repetitively to the point of perseveration to the driver in front of me. my first real car-- a 97 honda civic-- was deceased. it stood no chance against his. he took photos. i apologized. he said he was late for his tennis appt. i apologized again. my social skills became real focused and narrow. i apologized. i called my insurance company. she asked me which insurance he carried. i said i didnt get that information. i apologized again. i slept on the plane...

sally lightfoot crab

where was i the last 10 days?

sheep

Why of course the people don't want war....That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Hermann Goering
(Nazi officer, during his Nuremberg war crimes trial)

disable

interesting term.
a person can be disabled, or you can disable a bomb or an electric circuit.
disable- to weaken or destroy the normal physical or mental abilities of; incapacitate.
when i was younger the neighborhood bully would disable me by throwing me on the ground and sitting on my chest. now that i am an adult (and he is in jail), i sometimes disable myself when i imbibe too much alcohol. i am disabled when i am sick or emotionally drained and unable to function at my optimum. all of us are disabled at one time or another to a greater or lesser extent, acutely or chronically (see bush, george w).
i have no great words regarding people who are more permanently effected by the vagaries or brutalities of life. my friend who has just had a stroke is now beginning to sense how disabled she is. previously too confused to process what was happening to her she was almost comedic in her conversation. now that some of her circuitry has been taken over by other sections of her brain, she is beginning to understand what has transpired and what she has lost. she is tearful and scared and disabled. as my cousin (previously disabled from crack and crack hos and having lost almost everything except a very few understanding kith and kin- but thats another blog- and is now climbing his way back out of the primordial sludge) says 'life is arbitrary, brutal, and short' sounds pessimistic and upon first glance it may appear so but i look at his statement as realistic and therefore all the more justification for living as thoroughly as i can. i am learning everyday how much i have.

trapped

so i sit on hold (47min) with violent thoughts bubbling thru my grey matter thinking of how to malign small animals, taunt the disabled or influence the formative years of small children (in an evil way of course) -but i cant leave the phone....(49min) and i think i should just get a big leaf to fan myself when they shut the electricity off...i despise them.

electricity

well i guess i need it, i mean i guess i could do without the lights and fridge and all but i surely couldnt give up my ac or my stereo. so im awaiting on disco? music hold (due to heavy call volume my wait is estimated at a mere 25 min- so i say- what a nice time to blog!) for a con edison rep to get on the phone and exchange words with me about how there are going to cut me off if i dont pay the bill...threats, threats, and promises....i am only motivated to do something about this bec they gave me a deadline. its not that i dont want to pay my bill- believe me i do -yup sure do- but i think they seemed to have switched accounts on me. my friend ben in grad school however could not pay his bill bec he had no money- we never quite figured out where it all went- but it was grad school and there wasnt much to go around. so we lent him a flashlight so he could find his way around his dorm room at night, ben the autistic savant, brillant but oh so off kilter. what does kilter mean anyway? having time and willing to save y'all the trouble... kilter-good condition, proper form. and ben is certainly the poster boy for off kilter. lets see what to do with the other 23 remaining min? 3 of my friends are in the hurricane katrina quagmire. and if you look at the definition of the word it truly fits both ways- 1.land with a soft or muddy surface that yields when stepped on. 2. a difficult or precarious situation. one of them is a physician who is staying in mississsippi to help out. and those people really need electricity more than me. then theres my 35 y.o. friend with the stroke who had a second stroke in the hospital yesterday. hopefully only a small setback in her road to recovery- but crap, yesterday on the neuro icu, seeing her i really felt like crying. realizing it wouldnt do any good, i didnt. instead i just dealt with the tsunami of nausea recognizing the vulnerability of us. Buckminster Fuller said 'sometimes i think we're alone, sometimes i think we're not. in either case the thought is staggering.' phenomenal man, phenomenal life if you ever want to look him up. those #$%&*$*@!! 34 min on hold!!