"Mariposa Traicionera" by Mana

This is my last free weekday. I guess I'm ready to go to work. I have to keep reminding myself that while this may signal the end of my wandering days, it does not mean my travels will stop. I get 18 days a year of vacation, but I have to accumulate them. This means that by this time next year I'll have enough to go back to the Middle East! Land in Egypt, bus to Sinai, boat to Jordan and then dick around that country for a bit, then cross the border to Israel and see why all the fighting and then fly out of Tel Aviv! I've met many Israelis on the road and I hate all but two. Because a lot of them have just finished their compulsory military service, they've got a lot of pent up energy, which comes out as aggression. Plus, their history (of surviving as a self-sustained state completely surrounded by neighbors that want to get rid of them) makes them very defensive and proud. So I'd like to see what Israelis in Israel are like. The food's supposed to be great.

OK time for breakfast.

Today's tasks
1. Mail J. three CDs: "Music" by Stars and two mixed CDs
2. Pay $35 parking ticket by phone
3. See if S. wants to have lunch
4. Buy a messenger bag
5. Return overdue book to the library.

"Did It" by Academy

So this is the beginning of my last week as a slacker. My last day of full-time employment was March 22nd, 2004. That feels like a lifetime ago. These are the things I'd like to accomplish to properly say farewell to one lifestyle and usher in the next:

BODY
1. Buy 4 pants, making sure they fit the crotch properly, may need alteration
2. Buy 5 shirts, making sure they fit the shoulders properly
3. Buy yuppie messenger bag (for newspaper crossword puzzle, library book, organizer)
4. Buy socks, maybe dark gray, black
5. Consider buying a yoga pass: $300 for 30 sessions, to be used within a year
6. Work out and shower vigorously, wanting to exude: Young, healthy and alert
7. Eat healthfully: good chunks of chicken, carrot juice, blueberries, salmon, wheat-bran-dates-raisins-almond-type cereal with soy milk, jugs of room-temperature water
8. Set alarm clock at 6am

BOOK
1. Revise the remaining 4 chapters
2. Continue to send email to (harass) the San Francisco and NYC agents. "Do you like what I've written? Do you think there's a market? Do you think I'm sexy? Will you buy me dinner?"
3. Set a reasonable deadline for sending out proposals: Maybe give it 'til the end of the year to get an agent and if not, then pat myself on the back for doing my best

BRAIN
1. Look into Traditional and ROTH IRAs
2. Decide when to die, as that will determine investment strategies

"Bila Engkau" by Flanella

This blog ends August 15th.

I got the job.

Sure I'm excited. I'm also a bit sad.

In Buddhist philosophy the first 25 years of life should be dedicated to learning and experiencing all sorts of things. The next phase is about creating stability for yourself. I read this a long time ago, probably sometime in high school or college, and always kept that in the back of my mind. I'm sad that this phase has only a week left. But I've also gotten the chance to see and learn a lot of things. I feel lucky about that, so I guess it's OK.

"Obscurity Knocks" by Trash Can Sinatras

I got published on Boots 'N' All a story about Varanasi, which is the filthiest city in the entire world. It also happens to be one of the holiest cities in the entire world. I thought about naming the chapter "Holy Shit" (because there is cow shit everywhere) but reconsidered due to the ever-growing Hindu population. I also love the city:

Despite the fever, the pollution, the noise, the shit, the unrelenting force of touts and beggars outside my hotel, there was something about Varanasi that kept a fat kid's smile on my face. There is no good reason for anybody to like this place and yet Varanasi's improbable charm--its intangible secrets--draws travelers in and keeps them from leaving.

Earlier this week I got an email from a lady asking for travel advice about India in light of the monsoon that hit Bombay. I told her not to go, to spend the money on a big TV instead and on ordering pizza every Friday for the remainder of the year. This morning, I got my first legitimate fanmail from somebody named Abhishek:

I read your story on bootsnall, it was interesting and caputured my attention for the span - as it was quite a long story.

What kind of underhanded compliment is this? "Dear Mr. Long-Winded & Unskilled, I really expected to be bored by your story, but I managed to survive the read." Throw me a bone, Abhishek. And while my sense of pithiness was lacking, my ability to tell apart the two sexes was apparently worse:

...Also a small gender error you have made below about the sacred and holy Cow - A cow is never a male - it's always female and thus always SHE - you have repeatedly referred to the Cow as HE!!..

Abhishek

I can tell from Abhishek's peculiar English (mainly his reliance on the present perfect tense mixed in with the highfalutin "thus") that he, or she, is probably one of these rich-for-a-third-world-country Indians who are intensely proud and protective of their country. Respect. Thanks for the email.

"Breathe (2am)" by Anna Nalick

Breathe is something I can't do at the moment. HR Lady is calling my references and my stomach is in knots and I last felt like this:

1) Lining up to take the Teen Jeopardy test with hundreds of kids.
2) Flying from Heathrow to Athens knowing that I'd have to figure out the city at 3am.
3) Preparing for my scholarship/film school interview at USC, knowing the 30 min talk could very well determine my entire life.
4) Worrying that somebody was pregnant and it was probably my fault.
5) Knowing that no matter what I did, I was going to be threatened and scammed out of money crossing the border from Ecuador to Peru.
6) Trying to sleep for the first time in my apartment at USC and wondering if the neighborhood was as dangerous as people had said.

I'm very nervous right now but I'm secretly enjoying these ripe sensations.

It's 11:30 at night. I hear death metal from the house on the corner of the street.

There was an older couple that lived in that house. The husband died. The wife kept on. She kept up her gardening. Statues of elves and dogs, plastic pinwheels, neat piles of mulch and pretty flowers reflect her refusal to wilt. Three days before Christmas, she'd bake cookies and send all her immediate neighbors a heaping paper plate wrapped in green or red Saran wrap. My favorite is chocolate poured and hardened over a stack of short pretzel sticks. She continues to do this.

About two years ago a new man began to show up. Occasionally, he'd water the lawn late at night. I'd see his jeans below the chasis of an old white Ford pick-up. His torso and face were blocked off by the lifted hood.

I assumed with his increased visits that he was their son. Their loser son, the one who never got married, the one who got in the habit of drinking, the one who tried to move out and move on, relying on an array of random jobs, like security guard and the caretaker of indoor plants in a nice office building. He is thin, he is bald at the top and the rest of his hair is grown out. He pulls it all back into a ponytail. He prefers old t-shirts whose sleeves have been ripped off.

It is nearing midnight and another peek through my blinds shows some lights are still on in that house. The windows are open, but it is a warm night. There is nothing strange about that; it is summer, we are inland and earlier today the large digital thermometer at the nearby bank said it was 96 degrees. The music, the screeching riffs, the panicked rhythms, the lung-compressing bass, burst through these opened windows. I believe the blood of somebody I probably have never seen is being sprayed in that living room.