but let's miss america

i find myself, once again, having to defend my race and the way i look. today, my very swiss looking cousin a couple of his friends, and i were trying to have a good, healthy night of unhealthy fun: eat, smoke some hookah, play some sing star and then go to a club and dance the night away.
everything went according to plan until the time came to go into the club. one of the cool things about switzerland is that there is no such thing as "drunk in public." you can get on a bus with a beer in your hand without a paper bag and drink it: no problem. this is relevant because i was walking to the club with a beer in my hand and when we tried to go in the door man was ready to let us in until he saw me with an empty bottle in my hand: "he has a beer, i'm not letting you guys in" and he closed the door without allowing further discussion.
bull shit, right?
obviously, it wasn't the beer; i could have easily disposed of the bottle and bought another one inside. The reason the doorman wouldn't let me and my 3 white companions in was because i'm dark skinned. and to top it all off, to add insult to injury, to add the drop that spills the cup; i have a piercing. my very swiss friends confirmed my thoughts on the matter.

so, whatever: we go to another club in another town and all is good until the doorman sees me. he asks me for further identification because "he thinks my american driver's license might be fake" i show him my train ticket which includes a birth date from official papers [e.g. my passport] but that's not enough. he then says that i don't "fit the profile for the kind of people that are in the club" a rock club.
we explain to him that i'm a rock fiend, to which he responds "i decide who comes into this club and who doesn't. he doesn't."
this has happened to me in my own country. in the dominican republic i have been denied entry to places, simply because i am dark skinned [of course cleverly disguised as "it's a private party" or "the place is full" and then letting people i know into the club]

so now, here i am: guilty of keeping people i care about from having a good time and dancing and drinking because of the color of my skin.

and americans criticise their country and minorities complain about reparations and unfair treatment, when in reality, compared to the rest of the world, we are very lucky we live in a country like the united states of america. the more i travel and get to know the rest of the world [and i never thought i'd say this] the more i realize that america is, indeed, the greatest country of all.

now i am homesick.

if there is a god, may he truly, fully, and unconditionally, indeed, bless america.

but hey, at least i bought a german playboy from a convenience store, and witnessed a car being consumed by flames.

what a great world we live in!

strange.
i'm letting small things bother me now.
things that, before, were part of who i am.
not that they didn't bother me before, they just bother me in a different way.
in a way that makes me want to do something about it.
my bottle of hand sanitizer laying down instead of standing in the little space between the emergency break and the driver's seat.
old cups of watered down coke in the cup holders.
trash in the car floor.
lights on in unoccupied rooms.
socks inside shoes.
belts around the waist of hanging pants.
shoes and other articles of clothing that i just don't wear.
the remains of dead skin left on the collar of a shirt.
things on the floor.
unmade beds with no one under the sheets.
it all just, suddenly, sends a small electric shock to my brain.
an electric shock that buzzes: "fix it. make it better. neat."
my mom says my life is finally falling under control.
i couldn't disagree with her.
as much as i enjoy disagreeing with my parents.
i wonder how long it will last.

drunk.
alone.
again.
clicking the "remember me" box on the sign in screen seems more like a plea than an option.

there are few things as discouraging as staring into a blank page with a heavy heart and no words.

imagination, i feel, is one of the things humanity has taken for granted.
without it, there would be no dreams, no hope, no drive to stay at work because we may get promoted.
without imagination we would have no patience.

i mean by what other means would i be able to win the lottery and move to louisville, open up a small video rentail place, which would also be a photography exhibit, in which i display and sell only-prints of my and other locals' works. get a studio apartment and have parties every weekend, in which people would have a lounge and a few cool arcade games to hang out by, plenty of alcohol, a jukebox, a small dance floor, and a movie room?

in what other way can i have the starring role in a real life movie-like scene in which two people who are desperately in love reunite for the first time in way too long, and to them words are nothing but sounds that express not enough, and so they tell eachother more than they know by smiling and standing there in silence for minutes that pretend to be hours?

how else can i sit at my desk, with greying hair and an unkept beard, smoking a pipe, translating a very succesfull european book that is about to make its debut in america; and my wife, who(although the years have given her wrinkles on her face and taken away the pigment from her hair), by her very presence, reminds me that i am the luckiest man alive, brings me a cup of tea. and while she places it down in front of me on my desk, she puts her other arm around me and kisses my head. then she sits next no me, in a rocking chair, knitting, or smoking, or reading, or pleasantly playing an instrument. and we are both happy to just be able to sit by eachother, and we smile. and we are happy, because we know with every inch of our hearts that we have found true love. and even though we live in a house made of wood, surrounded by trees and nature, we would want nothing else.

i am very grateful for imagination.

today, i'm going to write a venting post.
my horoscope for today was just all around low in everything. love, intellect, wellness... all that stuff. and that's how i felt today.
because the horoscope rules my life.
kinda like the number 23.
no, but really.
it's just one of those days where i feel like not giving a shit about anything and just saying "fuck it" to life and doing nothing. absolutely nothing productive. just sit somewhere and not think about anything and stare into the night and disrespect my body in some way.
not sexually.
legal drugs probably.

one of those days.

today, one of my friends said: "he's had a hard day... in life."

rose, a Filipino woman, on my newly acquired mohawk and nose piercing:
"what happened to your hair?...what did you do with your nose?
i liked you better when you were decent."
prejudice is a beautiful thing.
it's not even prejudice, though. she, and several others, is judging me after she already knows my character, and just because my appearance changed, she gets uncomfortable and upset.
it's really very amusing.
yet very upsetting.
i don't mind honesty, but pressure is a completely different thing.
you can say "I don't like it, but as long as you do..." it's a bit different when you insult someone and look at them with disgust.
i don't go around telling people that i liked them better when they lived up to my standards of decency.
maybe because i don't have any.
who knows.
this deserves more thought than i feel like dedicating to it right now.

yesterday, i found a bracelet that read "friends forever."
today, i lost it.

sometimes it feels like we are not going anywhere.

last night, i thought of patheity, and what exactly makes something pathetic.
i thought about how having the thought itself does not make something pathetic, but whether or not the thought is executed.
then, the deciding factor in what makes a person pathetic or not is whether or not he/she can recognize the patheity of the thought before its execution.
it's not abnormal to think about wanting to talk to someone who has ignored you for 4 months; it is pathetic, though, when you send her multiple messages hoping that she answers.
this thought recognized as pathetic and dismissed, would be within normalcy.
apart from the fact that patheity is a non-issue amongst animals, the ability to recognize something as pathetic is one of the things that separate us from animals.
being a human being, then, why is it so easy to completely repudiate my ability to recognize patheity and allow it?

today, i discovered that i am a fan of diving.
diving into the circle of staring someone in her beautiful eyes, while she smiles back at you leaning her head on her knee, which she has brought close to her body to keep warm, and loving it so much that you smile back, making her smile, which makes you smile...
and so on.
these are the moments* that they present in slow motion, or with a slight haze--maybe both, in movies. very apropos when you're a guy that wants to find a love that looks and sounds like a movie.**
it's all been said before.
diving.

*edwin mccain
**the postal service

today, i decided that love is supposed to be crazy, fun, childish and slightly retarded.
sounds great.

i am sick.
my olfactories are shot, thus most of my taste-- say, around 75%?-- is gone.
the remaining 25% is reserved for the faint, sour and salty taste of the phlegm that infests and hinders my every breath.
my body aches and, like my nasal passages, my mind and thoughts are clouded.
saturday, i went to six flags. i didn't do any of the rides because i felt that if i did not only would i regurgitate, i would also probably black out.
i did go through, though, with my regular day: work, ...that's it.
the fun part is that, when you go through a normal day, when your body has all it's energy concentrated on expelling whatever malicious germs you have in you, you see things with different eyes.
yes, i actually found a way to enjoy sick time.
look at it this way, this is your time to be in a different reality.
- you can feel sounds [it pounds into your head]
- temperatures are felt in a completely different way [heat is ecstatic and the minimum cold travels beyond your skin, through your bones, into your chest]
- while all these things are happening, you can't help but-- well, feel them, and so your mind is nowhere; and you get lost in yourself. all of a sudden, nothing is as comfortable and relaxing as standing, anywhere, staring into who-knows-where with a blank piece of paper as your mind.
- naps are trance like and easy.

so, next time you're sick, take a minute, and appreciate your view into a distorted reality.
it makes it go by a little faster.
and so on...

last night, i saw a shooting star.
and i loved it, and i cherished the time i was given to behold it.
too much to try to make a wish.

today, at the pool, a little kid kept trying to drown one of the counselors in training.
when she expressed her distress, he quickly exclaimed:
-"i'll save you! cpr!!"

today i said to the girl i have a crush on:
-"nice shades..."
-"they're my brother's."-
-"i can see myself in them."

then she walked away.
she must really dig narcissism.