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[edit two months later] Finally pushed back into the write; I've had my fill of Gainesville. I just re- opened my blogger page and stumbled upon this bit that was never published, and in true masochistic fashion, we'll just go ahead and publish it all. Though I have marked a few edits, flushed out some facts that are more interesting in hindsight, which we all know is 20/20.
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Talk about reverse culture shock.
Okay, I think I will.
First of all, I was supremely positive that selling the dodge before leaving the country was a God sent Idea. If that's true, we are ruled by a cruel, godless deity. It wasn't until that I needed to do...well, anything at all... in the hell of scorched asphalt called Orlando that I realized I might have been a tad hasty with that decision.
It would have been okay if those hellish animals in Barcelona could keep their hands to themselves. You would think that two locks and a saddle protector would be enough fortification to leave your only vehicle parked outside for a few hours in broad daylight.
Though I regretfully didn't realize that there were roving gangs of mechanics ready to strike at any given second...
In the immortal words of Scot from a backwards village that has nothing better to do with it's time that shoot seagulls with sniper rifles, "You never fuck with another man's vehicle."
not even as late as lunch, I stepped out on the balcony for a cigarette, looked down at the street and my handle bars had been wrenched from their proper home, and my brake lines cut. So it goes.
Though the Wheels of {Ka}rma do inevitably reverse direction. After the ravaging of my dearest Bici and our adventures together in the streets of Barcelona, I was given a couple of things.
First: A Interest in Cycling.
Second: Enough near disaster to move me to learn how to control almost every possible situation.
[edit 10/10/2008]
Flash to the present, the two things were indeed enough to spin the wheel of karma. It was fate that took me to an mournful, and for me awkward, gathering of bike nerds at a memorial event for a felled fellow who was lost in a kayaking accident. I was just there for the free food.
Turns out that the Gainesville Community Bicycle Project, or The Kickstand would welcome weary bike-less travelers such as me. The Kickstand is a non-profit bicycle repair shop that focuses on the education of the community about the bikes they are riding and how to repair them. The past couple months I've spent in their shop when I could spare the time to pretend I know what I'm doing and listening to those that do. Though, the time there has shown me the sweet spots, taught me to talk the talk.
Through some major Craig's List wheeling and dealing I got a new beauty. A powder coated Schwinn single speed; her name is Gwen Stacy (Jones-Kearfott of course). As soon as I upload the pictures, There will be a plenty.
That and I just stepped up into responsibility there at the GCBP. Supposedly I am now the Grants co-ordinator. Since I don't have what it takes yet to be a student at the University of Florida, and I didn't get in. It's the best I can get for the time being.
No complaints here though. I've embroiled myself deep into the prediction that the imminent collapse of American society is nigh, and I believe I have forsaken my formal education. It might have been nice to have mulishly raced towards Law school, blindly chugging away only to spill out the other side of life with nothing really but a fancy sheet of paper with my name stenciled in calligraphy, only then to realize that that sheet of paper is absolutely worthless. If Lawlessness inevitably prevails, then what's the use?
There is nothing more that the University of Florida could give me I couldn't get from a library card, the great and all encompassing Internet, and a calligraphy set.
I think I like cooking more anyway.
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In the long run, I think It'll be alright. Gainesville is only a breath away. Furthermore, I have set off on some short term money making ventures in the commodities market of Orlando. That though is something entirely different. I never though I would stoop the the level of those animals. Though, I guess it's the law of the jungle. After spending so much more money than I expected in Barcelona, I have to do what I must to get where I am going. It's eat or be eaten.
[edit]
It's true. Is only a breath away from Orlando, the same way that Naboo is only a breath away from Tatooine.
The truth is, in making that step, I've lost my breath. The going here has truly gotten Weird.
So far the past two months have been hellaciously face paced, fast based. Break neck phase flux is utterly rampant.
Seemingly, I walked into a booby-trapped house. I knew from the get go that it was all too good to be true, and there is definitely no such thing as a free lunch. Though through all of the turmoil that has taken place below this roof in dire need of repair, and above the fun house floor I've learned an important lesson about people. Trust no one, the truth is out there.
Wait, that's the X-files.
People that publicly display their prejudices, secrets and sex lives can't be trusted, and with them everything is a political play. Living by and for the opinions of the people around you is bad business, and those that do it are aberrations. It turns out that the floor of this house was not the only thing that was slanted.
I can still see the ghosts.
Between Slander and security deposit scandals on the home front, a denial letter letter from the "Berkley of the South", The Events of the Tropical Storm Fay, The inevitable breakdown of Die Übermensch, and being driven insane by the incredible charm of a spice-mining ex-stripper in love with a dead man, the past two months for this American's life has been stranger than fiction.
I've always had a penchant for exaggeration, veil and nuance though, so who knows.
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The trip across the Atlantic was harrowing, to say the least. In the depths of trans-Atlantic travel fear: battle-fatigue and hopelessness start to set in. After spending two days with no sleep in preparation a layover in a foreign country, even an English speaking one at that, things gets freakishly ugly. Never before have I experience so much confusion trying to speak to someone who is using my mother tongue. One would think that it would be a relief to come back and read and speak in a language that I am comfortable with. Though the Queen's English is glaring and overly polite.
Unfortunately, when I got to the gatwick airport (which is in a no-man's-land of Sheep and quiet desperation- 30 miles from the center of London) all public transport was closed, along with every shop in the airport. An Airport is a lonely place after all the foodsellers and duty free shops have shut their gates. between the hours of 11pm and 6am, the place is a hellish pit of cold tile misery. All I really wanted was a few airplane sized bottles of Wild Turkey. Though all I found were bodies strewn along the benches and floor making the place look like a war zone to my sleep deprived brain.
Making my way through the back woods labyrinth I was afraid for my life; all I wanted to do was hunker down, and get a few hours of sleep. Instead I sat up for several hours talking to a Canadian girl with the same brutal layover. The company was nice, but that plus the nicotine led to skull hammering insomnia.
After sunrise, I had a breakfast of a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. 6 pounds. two more for orange juice, and another two for a cup of coffee. the conversion from Dollars Euros to Pounds is a cruel process. 70$ = 50 Euro = 36 pounds.
The Flight wasn't bad. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't stand the horrible swill that was playing on the in-flight screens: Drillbit Taylor, 21, or The Other Bolyn Girl. Couldn't read; I just kept scanning the same lines over and over without actually comprehending what they said. So what else was left to do other than jabber incoherently until the flight attendant (all of whom are brutally polite) gave up three Johnny Walker Rations (nice considering I had already gotten two bottles of red wine and a few beers from the other)
I was set and ready for sleep that came only in short machine gun bursts speckled with horrible dreams of falling out of the sky to jolt me awake just before deep sleep .
When we rolled up on the Grand Ol' US of A, I was bleary eyed, over-caffeinated mess. My stomach, also, was upset also from the sugar I had to use in the black trash they called coffee on the plane. I was shaking, I look like I was either powerfully ripped on crank or suffering from Delirium Tremits. Walking off the plane in oversize aviator sunglasses ready to go to battle with the oppressive Florida sun (after not seeing it in any form for almost 30 hours) I must have been the perfect candidate for a 'random' drug search. The entire time those wolves were knoking/shaking/opening everything I owned, i could practically hear the slap of latex the gloves would make against their flesh as they were fitted on their ogrish hands. They didn't even have the respect for my passport to speak English to me, which i thought was Bizzare, but I played along even though I looked like a fool... I can barely speak any Spanish at all.
After our bonding session, them looking at all of the pictures in my camera, several small private conferences between the officers just out of my ear shot about my cigarette papers and tobacco and analyzing the meaning of all of the tiny knick-nacks that I can't help but to travel with I felt like I had made brand new friends. Eventually, it became evident that I wasn't a native Spanish speaker, which made them very upset...and my new friends became very serious indeed. Questions about my dignity, my sanity, and the veracity of my story resurfaced. Not enough people understand what it is to be absurd. Though after two hours of trying to get to know me on a personal level, and me trying to dissuade them from getting to know me "inside and out" they finally gave up the ghost.
After meeting my brother who had been waiting for me for two hours next the Starbucks in The Orlando International Airport (I.E pouding coffee like a true caffeine addict) only tragedy lay ahead. Alright fine, that may be a little bit melodramatic. Not tragedy, but there was no respite in my future. as soon as we got back to my parents house, I immediately had to unpack, and repack for a 12 hour road trip with my entire family in a Toyota Corrola. These 3 days of travel through three countries, an ocean and five states were among my most blurred and horrifically smelling days in my entire life. Telling, also were these days. I reached a limit of sanity I never knew I had; A level of delerium no drug could provide.
Days in the mountains of Tennessee though are always weird and wonderful. Madness brews in those hills. These stories though are classified, that's the way they have to be when your family is ensconced in American Secrecy; though Veil and Cryptic language usually slips right past these drunken swine, so I'll say this: Over these five days that we spent in Appalachia, three of them were in Virgina in a house surely wiretapped, the paranoia was rampant. I had to constantly remind myself that Virginia is for lovers, and the FBI or the State Department has no concern for small drug violations. The other two days were in the aptly named Haven, the house on the mountain. These two days were spent locked in a desperate board room meeting with no one taking the minutes. The cigarettes smoked themselves while a Gentleman demanding he was from the land of Tajikistan, in workout pants a vest that was several sizes too small and a fake mustache debated intensely with a grizzly bear the origins of the infernal foam machine.
EPIC journey would be one phrase, though cannot capture it. I was reduced to nothing, on the ground praying to ever see something as beautiful as what I was hearing. I couldn't even open my eyes, much less stand.
