Maryland Madhouse

When I arrived in Maryland after a ten hour drive, I was bleary eyed. Tender red spots had appeared on the contact points where my limbs rubbed against the car, and my bad hip was being mildly cantankerous. I slipped off the highway onto Father Hurley road, driving past large apartment complexes until finding my own nook among nooks. Spotting my friend Doug, who was absent mindedly shining his business shoes under the first floor entryway, I happily got out of the car. He greeted me with a smile, a cold beer, and a new key to the small little domicile that we were now destined to share.

As I came to find in the coming week, my new residence was located in Germantown—a place that I have unaffectionately dubbed, suburban hell. Germantown is located on the far, far outskirts of D.C., about a 20min drive from the outmost subway point. To get into town requires the iron clad will of a metropolitan trekker, where traffic, standing lines, and pricy travel fees come into play. If I were to find employment near the Mall, where many of the Smithsonian Museums reside, my commute would require over two hours of daily travel time, and at a price of about ten dollars a day. In a given year, at full time employment, that would roughly equal 520 hrs of lost time and $2600 in travel fees. Yum. But moving any closer to the city would only get more expensive, at least when the cost of living is concerned.

Germantown itself is a spread out mass of franchises and strip malls, with no real identifying or unique features. All of the elements that I have come to dislike about America – the ever rush mentality, the copy clone appearance – it’s all blaringly represented right here. Only a week in, I’m starting to truly pang for Brazil, in all of its third world glory. I miss the friends and adventures, and fear losing myself to the absurd commonality of this menial kingdom.

But that’s just me despairing. Being in a new area, removed from your social circle, with nothing to do on your birthday will do that to you. Been putting myself in my own personal hell, lately, and its starting to wear on me.

But, anyway, on the brighter side of things, there are about a million cool things to do in this place if one can stand the travel. Doug and I hit Adams Morgan last Friday, running into the young, hip, bar hopping crowd of the city. It was my first subway ride, ever, and I was amazed by the underground track ways, the ever distant city lights, and the diverse crowd at our destination. We visited the National Mall on Sunday, checking out the National Archives, and the Lincoln Memorial—covering long distances on foot in the humid Washington air.

On the job front, I have decided to try and get at least some local part time work, hoping to avoid some of the daily commute. Interning for the Smithsonian, as I had originally intended, is currently out of the picture, having now missed the June summer deadline for applications. Yesterday, I applied for a full-time administrative position at a local area community center for the arts. The place was first on my list, being the closest thing to a cultural center/museum in the neighborhood. The position is full time, and pays 20 grand a year, which while being more than I’ve ever made at a job, is a pittance salary for such an expensive area (someone at a bar told me last night that the county was the second or third most expensive county in the country, next to Orangeville and Silicon Valley). As I look at it though, the job is way better than working at Friday’s, and offers me some much needed health benefits. I’ve been thinking about prostituting myself on the side, just to make a little cash. But that could be neither here nor there.

Spending most of my time in the apartment, getting resumes ready and looking for jobs, I am already starting to go a little out of my mind. If this job thing goes through, I’m going to start the indispensable extracurricular routine that has kept me grounded. I’m thinking of doing 3-4 days at the gym, one night of samba classes at the Brazilian American institute in NW D.C., one night of salsa classes at the art center where I’m applying, and kendo on the weekends. Best way to start a new life is to be swept away by its current, and I’m anxious to get myself midstream.

(Hitting Doug's favorite local dive, Jaspers, after the drive.)

(Dorm style living in a one bedroom apartment. Tough but necessary steps of a transition.)

(Trying to play tetris to free up some bedroom space.)

(The kitchen table has become my study.)

(Doug and I messing around last night. That's his hand by the way.)

(Crazy cats, to cool for school.)

Getting Married to a Phone

So I signed my life over yesterday. At least two years of it anyway. Realizing that there was a blank spot on my CV when it came to a home number, and that I will begin applying for jobs this week, I decided to take the plunge and get my first US cell phone. All things considered, I think I have held out as long as humanly possible. In Brazil, I was amazed by the flirtation and networking potential afforded by the device, and having purchased and madly used my first one there, I suppose I can never look back.

So here it is.

Beautiful no? I had to sign a two year contract with T mobile, which I swear was like throwing a wedding ring on my finger—just WAY TO MUCH COMMITMENT in my opinion. Considering the prison sentence, I opted to spend the big bucks and get the companies nicer model, the RAZR V3. It’s mp3 ready, blue chip worthy, and sports nice visuals and a camera. It’s one of the only all metal phones on the market, and is great for its slim profile. Seeing that I don’t carry around a purse or man bag, I must insist on something that will sit inconspicuously in the pocket.

For all of you better friends out there, my number is:

..............

This will not be left on my blog long, considering it is public. If you find a blank space between this and the last sentence, email me and I’ll send it to you.

And if you are an identity stealing scallywag, or a black hearted spammer, be forewarned. I’m on the do not call list, I live in a place where hiring a lawyer is like eating cheesecake – way to damn easy – and I have large knuckles and knack for kicking ass.

My birthday is coming up on Thurs, the 22^nd. If you are not one of those things, I look forward to your call.

Gone With the Wind

Lo and behold I reached Maryland last night and am now parked in my Germantown suburb apartment. With only a few hours of light under my West Coast belt, I have already come to marvel at a number of local touches—first and foremost being the diversity and frenzy of this place. Stepping out for a bite to eat, I was surprised to find myself a distinct minority, surrounded as it where by Latinos, Africans (of Africa), and Indian men and women in far eastern garb. In my opinion, uniformity offers predictability, offers boredom, so a step in the other direction is a good step for me.

I feel as I did when I first stepped into Brazil, when I awoke to the bustling streets of Salvador, and the many unknown worlds it offered. I feel overwhelmed – though in a good way – by the mystery of this place, by the sharp corners of its unfamiliarity. First days are always like stumbling around blindly in the dark, praying that you don’t run into anything too sharp or pointed.

My trip up too K-zoo was way more fun than it should have been. I stayed about a week, feeling the whole time like I was walking around in some distant memory. I insisted on keeping my homecoming unannounced, reveling in the far greater pleasure of a surprise hello. I jumped smiling into so many doorways—first my younger brothers, and then on into portals of the KVM, Wilgenholf, Doster, and many other great dynasties. I kissed old acquaintances, and shook hands with forgotten kings. Got a free lunch from Donna, Mandana, and Paula, and another by Bay (thanks guys!). Got to kick some serious Kendo ass with Terry—that was way fun. Got to throw a rip-roaring Kraftbrau horseshoe playing kegger with Alec—go bro. Got to kiss a number of lovely ladies at a bachelorette party, me being the only attending male—go team me. And with Eric, my good friend Eric, well we had a number of interesting adventures including my first Hooters experience, drinking a pitcher of Old Style Green Top beer before noon, and accosting random pedestrians with camera routines. All in all it was worlds of fun, almost enough to get sucked back into the Michigan mayhem once again.

But now, after a difficult but satisfied extrication, I now sit at (take note):

19932 Sweetgum Circle, Apt 14
Germantown, MD 20874-3781
USA

I have four months here, living with my college buddy Doug in an over-priced one bedroom place, and then plan to move closer to D.C. (in a three/four bedroom household with ERIC & SHEILA…..YES THIS MEANS YOU). I have a ridiculous amount of work to look forward to, including finding a job and applying for graduate school, all the while somehow making rent. I guess this means I can no longer play the gypsy card, that my life will become far more regulated and routine, but you can be damn sure that my adventures will continue. Life is only boring if we make out to be, and this boy hasn’t laid down his weapons yet. Nay, not quite yet.

(Ingleside Terrace. Alec's home and my wayward destination. This place has been a noted party den for years, and has provided many services to the Kalamazoo community.)

(This was hanging on the door to my room. I never quite had the answer to this one.)

(You guessed it. My feet.)

(Me and a noted trouble maker. She was my first girlfriend in the sixth grade. So fun to come back "home" and to reminisce.)

(Various peeps at my kegger. The guy in the red hat got his ass kicked later in the night by a Lakeside girl. Lakeside is like a treatment center for troubled teens. It's well known that you don't mess with the teens, and you don't mess with the employees. He thought it would be fun to tease her, and she returned by beating his face into the ground. I thought that the whole incident rather amusing.)

(um...yeah...no comment)

(Eric and I decided to f*ck around at the down town mall. We decided to be pedestryian gorilla terrorists. I assualted random people with my camera. Climbing stuff was a must too.)

(Ahhhh, good to be back in the states where fun is prohibited.)

(This is some of the random people I assaulted. I would just knock on random windows and tell people to smile. Try and catch the looks of suprise beneath the reflection.)

(Eric playing bum.)

(Drinking Old Style at The Green)

(We hit the museum and jumped valiantly through the tornado.)

I swear officer, she was the one that raped me!)

(After pool celebration at Mindy & Mandy's.)

(And who could forget, the blue moon finale.)


HA! I ROCKED THE KALAMAZOO!

Cheap Tricks

Ok, so, not too many exciting things going on in Oklahoma. I must resort to blogorilla tactics to keep my readership interested. Here is some more nice shiny morsels from my trip in Brazil.

(Ahh, dinner with friends.)

(Check out the sidewalk peace signs. Thought those were cool.)

(My favorite eyes in Brazil.)

(Pretty churches and streets.)

(Dancing on the precipice.)

(My first New Yorken friends. They make me feel so hip, being from a big city and all.)

(Shopping Barra. Probably the most horrendously designed mall in Brazil. First world prices in a third world setting. Gotta love it.)

(Tattoo: the most effective thing one can do to irritate your grandma.)

(Impressive trees deserve climbing.)

(Leo and lions. If it wasn't for their appetite they'd be like family.)

(Imagine that. I never tired of the beautiful beaches.)

Ok. Thats all.

Um...Holla!

Hello you crazy cats of auto customization, you sultry souls of vehicular refinery, welcome to yet another addition of Pimp My Ride. Today, we’re bringing it to you live, not from the L.A. projects or the Big A’s urban sprawl, but from the little known outlands of back alley Oklahoma. It is here, with crescent wrench in hand, that were going to take one man’s sad little Neon, and turn it into a shiny new whip, a “brand new ride”.

So, without further a due, meet your host, mechanic, and recipient of today’s show -- Leo.
Leo hails from a long line of car detailers and traders, who’ve selected and sold such fine vehicles as the Volks Station Wagon, the Cargo Van, the Barby Beach Cruiser, the John Deer Mower, and many other finely listed farm and utility vehicles.

Today, Leo is going to show us what it means to be cool (minus the cool), and how to turn a not so sexy stock car into a formula one roadway fighter. Let’s watch:

First, you need a can of spray paint.
Next, for application purposes, a small roll of duck tape and some cardboard.

Before this, however, it is recommended to give the car a good soak, scrub, wax & wash.

Then, after everything is prepared, you need to stare into a camera and do this:

And this:

$50 dollars and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken later, with a little seat cover, steering wheel mount, and a contact juggling ball, your car can look like this:

Plus some banging speakers and:

Bam!


Your ride is pimped!

I'd just like to take this moment to say, this is what happens when you get bored in Oklahoma.

Um...holla!

Off and Away

Well, I have returned. I sit in the same attic crawlspace from which my journey first began. My last few days in Brazil were incredible—Rio being the finale, and the true icing on the cake. In my final hours, I held hands with a monolithic Christ, I jumped off a nine hundred foot cliff, and I gave way to passion on a stormy beach until the rising of the next day sun. It was just as sweet as I intended it to be.

It is very strange to be back. I could list a thousand things which I notice more acutely now. The cars are so big, the people and the food equally so. Everything seems so clean, so neat, so ordered. It’s nice, to be able to sit back and relax, not having to focus intently on what people are saying or who is going to rob me.

What strikes me as strangest of all, however, is not how different everything is, but just how unchanged life has remained. I was only gone for four months, four measly little months, and yet I feel so different. Everything in Oklahoma, in the States, has remained in its place. My parents are here, the same people, working hard on the same daily things. My stuff lies unaffected, unmoved, if not for a bit of dust now collected on the rim. My car, my life, it is exactly how I left it, trapped in a bubble of static momentum.

And yet, amidst this regularity, amidst this collection of familiar things, I strangely feel somewhat foreign. I feel different than the person that left from this space—more full and more alive, like Dorothy stepping out of the whirlwind wondering where her Kansas had gone. My hair is ruffled, and my clothes torn yet everything else remains unchanged.

But this is a good feeling, and for me it reaffirms the necessity of such a trip. Having lived and breathed OZ, I return excited about my life, and confident in my ability to navigate through it. In less than a month I will be heading off to Washington D.C. I want to start up Kendo again. I want to continue working out at the gym. I want to save up for a motorcycle, get back into school, land myself a good job. I want to live and breathe the randomness of life.

For this adventure, and all that is to come, I am very grateful. For all you people who helped me get there, and who have lived with me on this journey—my heartfelt thanks. As one page ends, another begins, and I hope we continue to travel together on this great adventure.

These pictures speak for themselves:

Morning Thoughts

I woke up today staring up at the ceiling. My dreams were in English, the setting a world apart. Seeing the slanted red tile and the wood framing far above me, as my eyes slowly began to focus, it was only then that I remembered I was in Brazil.

I sit now in a tiny pousada room in the ocean village of Barra do Juco. A weed whacker is buzzing outside. The ocean breeze, carried not fifty meters off the beach, is playfully brushing my back. I’m listening to Afro Celt and methodically tonguing my teeth, hoping to dislodge the pieces bread affixed to my gums after my café de manha.

It feels good to write again. I got busy working on an article over the last few weeks, but it was all labor and no fun. I do prefer the freedom of my own thoughts, and the liberty to move in any direction as I descend the page. How fun it is to be the vessel through which other minds move.

Salvador passed behind me three days ago. The sweltering heat and constant hum of traffic was easily left behind; the pastel edifices, the friends and newly won familiarities were not. The hardest disconnection broke in my girlfriends eyes, when her delicate tears dropped from her face to the cold tile patterns of the bus station floor. All of life transitory, I reminded myself, all of it falls and passes on. Yet, even in this verity, I felt the sting of sadness as I turned my back and walked away. For the beauty that she shared with me, and the weighty reaffirmation that life is indeed worth living, I silently thanked her. Her smile and soft comforts will safely be guarded as little treasures, and the memories cherished and upheld as the best part of my trip.

As I get up and traverse each new day, the face of this country continues to change for me. It has moved from the once called undiscovered country—a heady and exotic place—to something a bit more mundane and close to reality. After four months, my Portuguese remains fairly basic. I am able to converse, to make jokes, flirt, and get by that which I need to get by. I lack wit and depth of thought, but have earned myself a voice. With this acquisition, and the constant realities I face in the day, I have begun to pick apart that which I expected would be and that which is.

Brazil is a beautiful country. The land is vast and green, the people given to a million shades. People love to sing here. They love to hold hands and kiss and live in the present moment. They are an emotional kind, and they drive, dance, and revel in this way. If you like sun and conversation, charged energy and a patriotic spirit, this is the country for you. To enjoy yourself, you must learn to deal with frustration. You must come to accept the failings of a clumsy bureaucracy. You must expect long lines at the bank, crowds and over flowing busses, beggars and street kids around every corner. You must hold tightly to your cell phone and your wallet, watch hungry looks and dark corners, and pray to god that random of violence and criminality does not strike at you.

We speak of freedom in the United States, freedom from oppression, freedom of religion, freedom from poverty. Living in Brazil, in a society which I believe is in fact much more free, I have come to understand that a great deal of our beloved liberty is born of control. People worry less here about the should of’s and have to’s. Stand or climb on what you will, no frivolous lawsuit will come to weigh you down. Signs, rules, direction, these are simply recommendations. Safety is a personal matter, and responsibility a choice. Sell what you want, even if it is copyrighted, build where you will, rob who you must. Here one can speak of greater independence.

In the end, freedom is choice, and will, and at its most unfettered level—chaos—opposing agendas and needs scrambling for gratification. Here you have less control, but more fear. Freedom of space yet more gates. Lovely liberated chaos. I suppose that which is better remains a personal choice. It’s just too bad that we don’t call our stars and stripes “freedom” for what it really is. Control can be a good thing, yet why all the pretenses?

But I digress. I only have about nine days left in Brazil. Before long, I will be in Oklahoma, back to the beautiful sunsets, waking up and wondering if it was all just a dream. Today I’ve got a meeting with the translation professor who lives in town. I’ll probably hit the beach, eat something fried, and drink some Skol. Barra do Juco is like a little surfing Mecca. My pousada is actually called the Koala Surf Motel and the owner’s son is a national champion. Life for me here is all about adventure, and I think I’m going to try and pick up some lessons from him. Then I’ll be off to Rio de Janeiro in a few days. Hang gliding off the giant rock domes is a city pastime, and if it’s not to expensive, I’m going to have to check that off the list.

In lue of more words, here are some random pictures to keep the kids entertained.

Hissss....growl....aggggg. I had a lot of interesting photos ready to post, but the damn upload isn't working on this comp. My apologies. I only got two out.

(Me and Taisa at the zoo. Who was the animal was questionable.)

(Just a short stroll from my pousada yielded this view. The city of Vitoria is to the right, just out of camera range. The place is like California with beach and mountains. It's really quite stunning.)