... worms

have you ever heard the sound of say, a stereo, when the frequency is mixed with that of a cell phone interception? throughout my day, when i am expecting a message from bobo, i will have my phone on during work which also requires that i have a handy portable CD player for those rather sterile listening exercises.

anyway, the sound. it has a rhythm to it. and i cannot quite get it out of my head. i bought a new dictionary the other week because i decided that i no longer wanted to be a human dictionary for my students to look up and possibly find an incorrect entry. they seem to appreciate it.

so today, upon waiting for a student that decided he would rather miss than take a test, i found myself fingering the useful, if not a bit simplistic, list of basic english words. and then i found the "new words" page. A group of lingo "which have recently appeared in the English language [that] will continue to be used in years to come while some may disappear from the language." (Cambridge Learner's Dictionary: Cambridge University Press Third Edition, xviii).

i found EARWORM (noun): a song or part of a song that you hear again and again in your head. i have to say that i have never heard this word before today. yet, i tend to suffer from it on a kind of heightened level i think. kurt zimmerer always called it "song poisoning". he would say, "fuck...i've got song poisoning again!"

getting back to the stereo/phone: it makes this noise which constantly reminds me of the beginning of B.B.D. (Bell Biv DeVoe)'s "POISON". that kinda scratchy, bad early 90's beat that was the thang at the time. but this is where it starts to get nerve wearing: the song morphs into D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's "PARENTS JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND". i think the worm has been growing inside of me. bobo always has said that i have a worm of some kind.

okay, i've said it...maybe i should get some help. or just turn off my telephone.

velocious thoughts 01: drivin' that train...

bathing in the mid-afternoon summer light, i feel swept away from moment to moment by the sheer force of the oncoming breeze. breeze is too light of a term. probably gale would do. it's okay, i think as i correct my inner-thesaurus. the brisk wind is conveniently cutting the heat that has engulfed the air. the water. the land. the now fertile land will no doubt be a whistling hollow of tumbleweed and bergman-like emotion sooner than...





...but i push that aside as the relief of finally casting off the last minute of the slave bell. putting away the supplies, the endless mountain of papers and books and sounds and wires. i head to the stop and await the first leg of my three-part daily voyage home. it is 4:30. my eyes begin to tear. perhaps it is the vapor substituted for air extracting any remaining drops of moisture holding my contacts to my pupils. am i perhaps in overjoyed awe to have completed yet another repetition of the one before? no, i think. it's not so bad anyway.



it is the no-sleep option, i conclude. it has not been for a lack of exertion. pushing the lids closed for hours, hoping that nature will do that thing of slow but assured dozing and finally crashing. twisting and turning. naked. no sheets, hardly any pillows really. a three-foot fan endlessly oscillating slightly above the mattress on the floor scheme that bobo likes to call japanese-style. yet rustling about in pools of wetness without the desired sensual explanations leads to restlessness and yes, no sleep.

maybe that will explain the overwhelming amount of angst i have felt since half-four until i reached my box so little time ago.





the bus can never be on time. time, for that matter, seems to be a very obtuse concept in general here. i will not compare one for another. i am not interested nor do i share a feeling of superiority or anything as base or vile as that. however, the desire to be home made the minutes tick by slower until they seemed to have completely fell into a long slumber of cigarette breaks and cellphone conversations. as the assigned time to board the bus had passed forty minutes prior, i gave up hope of making the hourly train on time. so i looked forward to an hour of station-people watching. which can be interesting, except when you begin to see the same people on a daily schedule. reminds me of a re-run of a spin-off that you would hope to never remember again. but for some reason it is there, like chicago's you're the inspiration or videos by tiffany when i was twelve. remember that really bad song by chicago that was one of the theme songs for karate kid 2 and you see karate kid boy and girl on some waterfront with a horse? yes, it is that bad.




...one thing i can say about the experience is that i can understand very high-pitched-quick-sounding italian over an intercom announcing train arrival and departures. call it a gift.



upon waiting, i do what i typically do nowadays that would never have happened in the states: when needing comfort, i run to a mcdonald's. yes, sometimes, it is that bad. but there is something so reassuring about it all. the velocity of service, even in italy. the confidence that what i am about to gorge on will be one hundred percent garbage. i know. and i do not care, really. it is a need. not a want. it is different, therefore acceptable. forever shall i be cast from the anti-globalist marches and waste performances. i am a european supporter of american imperialism. sorta. as i sit under the neon electricity and listen to the mcdonald's info radio/pop hit station saying something very radio-voice-effected-speech-like in italian, i notice a couple a few tables away from me. he is definitely worth looking at. i say that only because he has a shaved head. nothing more. but he is with her, so i do not really give it more of a gawk except for the occasional glance as they seem planted in their seats without trays of empty mcroyal deluxe boxes or cups of no-ice coke, hanging out in the local mickey d's, lips locked onto one another for what seems to be endless amounts of time, or at least until i scooped up the last drop of special sauce from the bottom of my container with a heavily salted fry.



subtle. i thought. but then i thought that maybe i should not be a bitch. i too like to display publicly how i feel about bobo. but then again, sometimes i wonder if it is not more for political effect since we certainly aren't in kansas anymore. i looked away tired of having these ridiculous thoughts. and then tired of always having that cranberries song pop into my head when i tell myself not to have those ridiculous thoughts. then i wonder: perhaps it is better to have ridiculous thoughts than to have a song in my head of a group i saw five times whilst living in new york. then i think: why did i waste my money when i could have seen so many other really great bands? shut up, i say in silence as i grab four fries, and dipping them in ketchup, happen to move my eyes in the lover's booth once again. the french connection is over and now it has moved on into dermatology. and suddenly i feel nauseous like i am watching something from degrassi junior high or maybe porky's or perhaps...weird science. all i could see was shaved boys fingers in pimple-popping position on her cheek, pushing his two greasy index fingers together over her white and red complexion. or maybe it was my greasy hands that i was thinking about shoving these surprisingly crispy and hot fries into my sore mouth. sore because i have successfully bit the same spot inside my mouth three days in a row. should that be telling me something? i had to excuse myself from the table. and since no one was around, i simply just got up.

stick.

i don't even want to know the temperature. why is this enjoyable to people? are they crazy? what is so wrong with cold and wet? at least you can bundle. you can close windows. layer. layer. layer.

it's a i-don't-like-italy day. why is it impossible to have something run on time here? and since trains are not cheap, why does one feel like part of the tribe in some brazillian jungle train with body temperatures increasing the car to crazy digits with no air conditioning and overcrowding? i know i sound like an imperialist. this is what hot weather does to me. i get cranky.

The Maddening, part one

it's rather odd what you recall as a child when you're no longer in the bracket that still gets you into, well, everything for free. like the merry-go-round. perhaps that is a bad example as i don't recall going on one in my early years. but i can envision it as a kid because i did so when i wasn't. the swirling. it might have been fun, bobbing up and down, swirling around the center, going nowhere without seeming to care or think. just laughing and looking at the ones not on the ride. that would have been me, really. on the side, watching the thing in its endlessness. its pointlessness, i would shrug and roll my eyes when i was that age. or probably younger. but that's not the point.

the images, the memories that flash like a spinning something. a wiffle ball or being on that vertically pleasurable horse. seeing her every ten seconds or so in a bit of a haze. a glimpse then she's gone again. like the motion of the ride. like the people watching...a glimpse and then it's over.



perhaps that's how memory works. in momentary flashes without recall as to why. mostly by association. but maybe not. i do remember the picture hanging on the temporary walls. or i should say the walls that were always changing. or more like we were changing into other walls all the time. but that portrait, that painting was present regardless of where we parked our car. pitched our tent. grew the moss that would not grow for long.

or maybe it's even funnier to combine these individual rations of the past and create a decoupage. a collage of nonsensical maligned garbage that seems to feel comfortable and perfect, at least in the moment of thinking them. like the picture hanging on that non-descript Victorian wall.



the house was big. of course i didn't have a clue what Victorian was at that point. that that painted lady would not only breathe but seep into the skin and infect and influence. it was in the air, in the water...it was and is everywhere. the still and stagnant feeling of discontent and fear. staring at it. it looking like those rothko's i like to see when i visit the tate. big. grand in size, larger than me. but it wasn't. at least not that i can recall. but the people that stood so elegantly in the cross-hairs of the canvas. right in the middle, ready for the final shot. the moment of the kiss. the eternal kiss. her melodious dress drifting smartly down her exaggeratingly lean figure, fulfilling the perfection of the breasts that were cupped around his hand. his hand that continued to attach to her left side and grow into the mass of man that stood firmly and handsomely behind her. the one in control. the one holding her. she pressed up against him in his tails and white tuxedo tie. the kiss that would last forever.



i stood there glaring at it behind the screen of the gauze-like curtain, probably tan in color. hiding there, hearing their voices in the other room. me with my underwear on. holding. clinching. squeezing. the feeling of lack of control. no, i was not going to do it. it was dirty. it was not acceptable. the picture seemed to glare at me as my eyes closed. another passing movement. it would go away, i hoped.

another plus to being a gay couple in the centre of heterosexuality...

waking up from my usual snooze aboard the hour-long commute from bologna to parma yesterday morning, i glared out of the window to notice day 5 of the deluge drenching the otherwise barren italy. i was beginning to question the story i was brainwashed with as a mere lad: that god provided the rainbow to his earthly children as an eternal promise that no longer would he allow the floods of the heavens to pour down and destroy his miraculous yet inherently evil creation.



as i made my way from the train station to the bus stop that normally is a leisurely and quick stroll, i began to wonder this particular morning what was going to be more interesting: hoping that my pants would air dry in the ice box that seconds as my teaching facility or endeavoring to explain to my 30-something students the meaning behind the cats and dogs raining from the sky.



the morning was trudging along and the coffee dispenser couldn't seem to provide enough stimulus to prevent the occasional drooping eye. i didn't have much to complain about. at least i went to bed at a reasonable hour. bobo, alternatively, had been shoving an art history book in his face and practically had completely swallowed it by the time he actually saw the pillow at 3 in the morning.

Wake me up when you leave, He instructed painfully as he snuck under the covers.



two hours passed and i did as he asked. though knowing the feeling of no sleep and high expectations of performance is only a somewhat dismal prospect leading to resentment and apathy. at least for me, that is.

his exam was at 9:00. always the optimist, he was convinced that he would do embarrassingly on it. from the week long prep including his occasional rampages of irritation and lack of sex, i kinda had a feeling that, as usual, he was full of shit. either way, i insisted to hear about his results at the soonest possibility.

a few hours later, i heard the familiar Nokia beep interrupting my lesson, informing me that i had received a SMS.



Yo! 30/30!!! is all that it said. my heart was full and couldn't wait to meet him in the centre for a night of celebration.

we had made plans the previous week to have dinner at Casa Monica, a little nook of a restaurant with a pet cat that stole the attention of all of the diners. made me think of jack.

when we entered the restaurant, a man was in the doorway and for a few minutes i imagined that there was a line to get in, so i endeavored to patiently wait our turn. at a closer look, i noticed the familiar flowers that were bunched in his hand and his attentive watch to the patrons of the restaurant. unlike in the states, businesses don't seem to mind if solicitors pass through their shops or restaurants and offer people various goods. one of the most popular, especially on an evening in a romantically-prone atmosphere, were lilies, daisies and the usual rose.



i often wonder where their warehouse is located that provides for the endless bunches as well as how successful they are in providing enough sales to have a "lucrative" evening.

but what has often bewildered me even more is the ingrained machismo-homophobia that is as natural as the loving heteros at the next table. not once has the older pakistani meandered to a table that consisted only of bobo and myself. if we have a girl with us, certainly the wilted rose is shamelessly pushed onto us, sometimes a few times within an hour. at our restaurant experience of the other night, i noticed that the man was even approaching tables entirely of the female sex.



what i didn't feel, however, was any sort of outrage...a demand of equal consumer opportunities. though not surprised, it did just remind me that laws can change or not change. but sometimes i question if minds can do the same. on the other hand, i guess it is just one less thing that i have to wave my hand away in this market of dying flowers and fake fendi's that is as part of the country as the food and monuments that cause so many to flock here.

sorry, that blog has been disconnected...

it's half-way through the year. a time to relinquish the old, dirty, grimy mess of a blog that was tinted with sadness and angst and move on to another possibly dirtier, messier and angrier message. but perhaps with love and flowers and birds chirping in the oppressive summer air filling our shallow breathing lungs.



i blame the death of odessa for my excuse to not write anymore. i also blame the fact that i have become a bit of a cog in the unending works of english teaching these days. more to come...



i guess if the truth must be spoken, another reason for not getting to the writing is the fact that as i see the simulated white sheet glaring blankly in return, i often cease up. not that i don't think i can write. well, there's that too. i'm lazy, i think. or perhaps i'm using that as an excuse.



no more excuses. this is my life. this is what i want to do. so i why not start right now.



i believe all photos were taken over my birthday weekend at bobo's place in the dolomites, specifically pinzolo. so, yeah, they're a bit dated. but who cares?



the time is going by. italy feels like a strange extension of myself now. although a bit foreign still. i'm beginning to get the lingo down. though speaking is another beast all together, but it's coming along. 10 months in the boot. and 2.5 years for the two of us.

the day is good, i think today. the weather is perfect: rainy. the mood is refreshing and light. i feel like conquering something. maybe that's why i'm on here now. i hope it lasts. how does one force himself out of the bog and look what is going on now rather than what has occurred? i don't know. i want to find out though.