School. Snow. State.

For the first time, I have a writing professor with whom I have previous experience. He taught my intermediate course in the summer wherein I saw legitimate psychosis and met someone and my life branched a little bit and I wrote a pretty good story if I do say so myself. He quite liked my work and I tried to pay attention through distraction and all that. And this fall I wrote a half-dozen stories and learned a lot in my bedroom and in airplanes and at Lucy's and became good friends with people here. And so now I've got him again and in the introductory sessions the class talks about how we define things like "Scene" and "Character" and all of that and I feel like it's really just him and I talking. And I've got more ideas than I'll ever be printing 15 copies of for this course, and though there's the usual roster I think this is going to be a very educational endeavor.But already: I have a low threshold for annoyance. Like there are homicidal chemicals wrestling with Buddhist ones in my amygdala and vas deferens.

Its snowing in Boise like it snows in Michigan in my dreams. And so I run back from class sliding on the pavement and jumping over things onto little dirt piles covered in snow and wish I had the youth or the BAC to take a good diving roll in it and stand up shaking myself off under the sickly orange sky.

A friend of mine in Texas now told me that she ran into a former MI resident that suggested, regarding Wayne State University, that "some of my friends went there . . they weren't very bright." I hope she gets to make him look like a dumb-ass. A lot of the people I look up to the most went there. And a lot of the people who were my friends and went to MSU or some privileged institution became conceited pricks and sold their souls. Motherfuckers never had to struggle for anything and then they have the audacity to tell someone that the name on their hardwork isn't worth a damn . . .

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Tragically Hilarious

Just finished my first submission for class. minimalism. I learned more writing this than anything I've written before, in that: it might not be any good. But I am quite pleased with it.

When I saw Van Gogh's and prowled his paintings in biographical order, I could see the growth from one to the next. At the very very least, I'm feeling pretty prolific.

Let me know what you think.

And oh yes, midget wrestling. And no I'm not an advocate. Student of my culture sort of thing. And I don't know shit about midgets.

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simple

A fantastic overview of the rest of my time in Africa.

Back to something resembling a grind. Two classes with substantial work right off the bat. But I've been hustling in the limbo since last semester and I've got a stack of things to submit. Learned to write something excruciatingly simple in this spare two weeks since returning.. I'll post it here next week after some strange-er eyes than thine have seen it. It's starting to seem that the point is to get as close as possible to writing 'nothing'. That is, our subconscious is not linguistic and thus our experience will not ever truly be captured, so our efforts to hang decorations on our construction are often futile. And yet the beauty of language is an end of its own. Strike a balance in the smoke.

A friend of mine is shooting a film that he wrote and stars in, check out the trailer:
Person of Interest


I don't have much to say that isn't directly related to writing. There is a group of hackers calling themselves Anonymous who are systematically dismantling Scientology, which pleases me to no end. For a minute there I was overwhelmed with a sense of "missing", not loneliness exactly because I've got people here now (not a tribe, but disparate individuals cast across the 208 that I genuinely like), but a futile reaching out in the early and late hours. I've settled into it now. It's one of those vaguely negative mental states that is beautiful and useful and finite.

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We're All Tanzanian - January 2008

I slept over most of Africa. Comfy in the plane eating hobby-kit meals and trying to read more than a page at once without passing into fitful sleep. Waking up, outside the tiny window the Sahara Desert is truly infinite and I dreamt of nomadic tribes who worship the sand. Believe as a primary tenet that the desert extends forever and whisper about the Ocean in hushed tones like they're guilty hope is that man will see some day see it.



After visas and walking across the darkened tarmac like drug-runners and tipping men in olive drab uniforms we drove in the dark across the dark continent. Such a strange way to see a new place. The semblance of farms. Little communities. Advertisements for cellular service vaulted up over the rotting husks of farming equipment. Tank-topped young toughs playing billiards under floursescent lights with disproportionate cigarettes in their mouths.



Beers and British holiday and asking the politest women you have ever met or ever will meet for favors. They shout at their co-workers in Swahili. They flash warm smiles at us. My body refuses to sleep for a dozen reasons that being awake does nothing to resolve. At 5am one morning I peer out the window listening to distant call-to-prayer and watch the upside down crescent hang there as the orange morning pushes its way onto the world. The sun rises and sets faster here, being near the equator the sun breaks the horizon at nearly a right angle. All of its fearsome velocity dedicated to moving up in that sky. A sentinel wielding a varnished wooden stick and wearing too many coats walks by on the esplanade. A few hours later I sit and write in the garden thinking about Burroughs eating supper from a tray in Mexico somewhere as he talks about Orgone with people who think he's insane. Outside of the sanctioned hotel, the real sounds of Africa in barking dogs and diesel trucks revving up hills. We do not see it until we're in the back of the Toyota headed for the gates.

The porters are mostly kids but they are tougher than you. They will carry their own pack of 20kgs, and your pack of 20kgs on their head, and a two-gallon vessel of water or kerosene in their hand. Sweating as we walk through the low, humid jungle. The most beautiful little girl I have ever seen in my life is toting a huge bundle of firewood and asking me for "somzing", anything. We make friends with two Dutch kids who wear blue jeans and would probably give them to you if you asked. I don't know what to say to their enthusiasm. You see, she never showed up. And despite what was said over Tuskers and delicious coffee, I feel that it is all my fault.

We walk through jungle. See monkeys and trees like you would imagine but moreso. At one point the thin stalks of some alien fauna rattle in the light breeze and as beautiful as they sound I can imagine lying there malarial and being driven insane by them. We literally walk under an awning at the first camp as torrential rain begins. Enormous hail. The metal roofs of the huts and mess hall rattling against the elements. Our hut less forgiving of personal space then a jail cell, the rain hitting our little patio so hard that the water bounces in under the door. We eat backpacker food out of little plastic packages that we pass back and forth. The groups next to us, not doing the "hard way" as our finances and egos required of us, are brought out freshly boiled potatoes, delicious smelling stews, real china, tablecloths, meals of several courses. They vaguely acknowledge their guides as their second thermos of tea or their extra loaf of bread is brought to them. I am, for perhaps the first time, dimly proud of my nationality.


The next morning. Over porridge and the chatter of half-a-dozen languages (you see there are many, many people climbing the mountain and staying in the little hut villages), a sunrise quite unlike any that I have ever seen, and would ever see until exactly 24 hours later. And then we begin to hike and every step is getting harder by midday. Porters say "jambo!" as they head in the other direction, well ahead of their group and finding the descent delightful. Our feet begin to ache. The environment is changing from jungle to heath and the plants are shorter. We stay at a high enough altitude that one many begin to feel sick. Everyone sleeps for a long time.

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Amsterdam-news years day

Amsterdam. No longer living historyless behind fresh paint. This place cobbled together out of something from each human tendency. So in the grey, achey morning we mind our step out into the leftovers of new year's celebration. Hazardous taxi rides threatening decapitation to what must be beautiful women tucked under scarves as we careen over drawbridges older than consumerism.
Out of the hotel sidestepping vomit and empty champagne bottles rolling in gutters. Into brimming coffeeshops to find a seat to smoke and caffienate for the whole day is rolling out before us. A look into the eyes of what passes for authority in my life now, and over to the friendliest drug dealer in my life of uncountable friendly drug dealers. Smoke my smoke like turning to fresh pages with this guy, you know the guy that signs my checks. And then out to stoned wander through a city growing familiar.



A language of consonants, and the throat. Young women with bills standing in window frames nearly naked and I'm freezing cold as we eat and traipse and find more places to smoke in. Unamerican thoughts finally processing themselves outside of america. I now think of grad school overseas: cramped apartments up several floors of teetering stairs looking over a garbage strewn canal, pale-skinned women talking to me and blinking through the smoke, books with pages barely clinging to their edwardian dust covers as I read pretending one can have a unique thought.



And the next morning we wake up and are told that Nairobi is on fire and that the road from the airport has been blocked by what are very likely righteous youth outraged and disappointed. And she's there. Seeing it, maybe. The sinking feeling in my gut entangled with some much larger one in hers. We think.
An entire day in Amsterdam Airport trying to change flights for safer ground. A million attempts at communication through every mechanism I can lay my frustrated hands on. I offer my kingdom for 5 minutes on the phone. I cannot offer enough.

An unplanned night in Amsterdam. Freezing under the logos of multinational corporations because where the fuck are we really? And public transit with the maternal instinct personified and more smoke and more alcohol because these things are not strange to us. We're now three drinking 6 varieties of identical Heineken and sprinkling hash on our joints way back in the corner there like we've been living here a decade and we're merely staying warm in the loooong night between leaden days. This city is a place to write poetry after port wine. A place to look down into your reflection in the canal's distorting scum of oil. Somehow a place that has made more sense to me than I assumed.


In the morning, Africa.

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