Venice
the third night i was in Venice i had swapped out partners from Conrad to Sherri and she knew someone in town. a skateboarder boy or maybe man who brought us to a squathouse somewhere in a part of town i hadn’t been to. there was a french (i think) polka band playing and wine was being sold by the pitcher and we drank a lot of it and i think i remember a really cute guy maybe in a white shirt who was in the band and the toilet was pretty much a hole in the ground which i would get used to four or seven days later in Istanbul. the next day i woke up with my first hangover in a long time i think i’m pretty sure i felt bad about myself but we ended up having a good day at the Venice Guggenheim museum and it changed my perspective about a lot of things. it’s interesting to think about these memories. i’m eating a granola chocolate cranberry cookie. see…

thinking about Africa tonight. it was such an amazing experience and i kind of forgot about it the past week. traveling is so inspirational its just a different sort of high altogether.

we passed a mosque and i heard the Call to Prayer which reminded me very much of our time in Istanbul and its quite beautiful and high pitched and rips through the air with demand and the very next block we passed by a Christian church during service which was alive with song and dance and there was a buzz of electricity and faith amongst the packed crowd and i just watched out of my window of the car and it all happened within two minutes time and was right out of a movie.

i wrote this yesterday or the day before and i was in a different place altogether and today i came back to my place and i can’t believe that was just this morning i was there or was that last night and now i’m here and today is still today…

i’m eating pizza and cake simultaneously. if you read that last sentence quickly then it looks like i’m eating pizza and cock simultaneously or at least that’s where my mind goes. its black forest cock and margherita with mushrooms added and they taste pretty fucking good together even though my stomach is about to explode. my favorite combination of things i put in my mouth is coffee and a joint and when i’m smoking cigarettes then one of those too. i broke down and bought a pack a couple of days ago, they are called Roosters and they have no filter and its just paper and tobacco and when i take a drag the loose tobacco sticks to my tongue and teeth and i have to lightly spit out the bits and pieces kind of in this pttht pttht fashion and then i take another drag and do it all over again and i wonder if there is a way to avoid this. and the cigarette goes quickly and tastes really good. well, definitely not bad at all because some taste awful but i always feel that cigarettes that aren’t made in America are just better maybe less additives or something but i can’t say for sure i’ve never looked into it but i like the sound of it. i smoked a lot of cigarettes last night and after dinner we went out to the courtyard and saw a giraffe in the distance and we were like wow and then the she spotted us and started walking towards us and we watched as she silently came to us with that long neck that doesn’t move and that slow stride super cool and quiet and then she was right in front of us and brought her head down to right above our eye level and then i noticed the eyes big round gentle and we started feeding her pellets and found out her name is Lynn and then Helen came over and we fed her and it was the coolest thing and we put pellets in between our lips and they would give us kisses their dark purple tongues licking the food out and then hours later talking about chimpanzees and bonobos and yes more wine please and more drags and pttht ptthting and laugh and giraffes made of rubber sandals and it goes on and then i wake up and my tongue looks like the giraffes. i officially had on too many bites of the cock i mean cake. i will be a good girl and not eat bad things for a week now. i actually say this inside my head.

…here today while today is still today i had hash browns for breakfast and hash browns for lunch the second time with ketchup. this morning there i had an almond croissant and here i wish i had chocolate. i had a meal in space today or yesterday i don’t know if it was breakfast lunch or dinner because i didn’t know what time it was where we were and all of the window shutters were shut.

 

the tide is high, higher than usual.  i ask Mulei why and he says because the new moon is coming and when its a full moon the tide is even higher. i ask why again and he shrugs his shoulders and says the fishermen say so. i trust the fishermen too. i like Mulei, he is one of three or four staff members here and he wears lots of cologne or aftershave and a beautiful mint green kikoi shirt. i am the only guest at the hotel, its kind of been that way the whole trip due to the fact that its low season. he tells me there are two seasons here, rain and sunshine. i am here during the rainy one, but so far there has been barely any and at the most convenient times like right before bed . there is white sand for miles and miles and the water is three shades of blue depending on the depth. the shallow part seems to go out for a long while and there are fishing boats thumping in the waves. it sounds like heaven. he tells me that the coral reef keeps all of the big fish out so not to be afraid of sharks and i decide to swim in the Indian Ocean with no fear which is different for me considering i don’t like to be in the deep end of a swimming pool by myself for too long. i always psyche myself out once i dip underwater, think i’m going to open my eyes and see a crocodile or the jaws of Jaws but this time i figure fuck if i made it to Kenya on my own i can probably take four feet of warm salt water on. i love the idea that salt water is an antiseptic and hope it clears up some of the congestion on my forehead. it is an extraordinary swim and i dry off with sunshine and wish this was a nude beach. they tell me that it is are many Muslims along the coast so i decide against acting on this thought and settle for untying the back of my bikini and lay on my stomach. at dusk the water and beach and sky all go a blueish white and it looks cold but it isn’t.

the coast is enlightening, i marvel at everything, passionfruit in my salad and sea urchins and the tides and the coral reef and the baby monkeys and the millipedes even the big red ants. nature. this is the first time in my life i have taken such an interest in nature. it’s nice to take a step away from sex and all of that. i am horny though, these days i’m not used to going over a week without some sort of sexual activity and during my massage i fantasize about her rubbing the coconut oil all over her juicy black skin and transferring it to mine by getting on top of me and sliding up and down and it continues from there for the duration. afterwards the sunburn on my shoulders snaps me out the sex haze and Mulei breaks a piece off of an aloe vera bush which is right next to us and i apply some and it instantly cools my skin and i marvel over this.

i snorkel today, go out on a boat to the reef with three fishermen one of them has amazing feet that i can’t stop staring particularly the right one the big toenail is split in two and half grown in and they look rough and calloused and i’m used to this on men’s hands and its an interesting cultural difference and i like it. i always like men who have a bit of roughness on their hands, means they are hard working or at least working. we watch the coral through the glass bottom of the boat and then jump into the water. i don’t know how to use flippers and swallow about twenty gallons of salt water and the fish are beautiful and one little female zebra keeps right in front of my goggles she is yellow and black and magic. i ride back to the hotel on a camel. it isn’t noon yet and i wonder what will i do with my afternoon. and what’s for lunch.

i wake up this morning and after brushing my teeth and tweezing my eyebrows go to the yoga area with a mat and meditate some. i listen to the waves and monkeys but fall out every few seconds and  i feel a little Eat Pray Loveish, and i guess it pushes up some feelings and i’m having a self conscious day i don’t know if its pms or if i’ve just had too much time on my hands to reflect but i am questioning myself now, as an artist or a “writer” as a woman and i ask myself do i lack conviction and purpose and could i be anymore self absorbed and is that okay? i guess because my work is all about me me me i am beginning to feel badly about this, like others that i am reading on this trip who write with a message (Close to the Knives – thanks Walt)) or make up stories that are really interesting (i finally finished Cider House Rules, man, what a storyteller – thanks Pat) and i was just reading about a graphic novelist, Allison Bechdel, who has finished her second book about her relationship with her mother, she is a lesbian and her work is often about her parents and i mean, that is substance. i feel like fluff. can i grow comfortable in these shoes? i write to my friend Kevin with all of this and he is fortunately up but that makes sense because its either one or two in the morning somewhere and his response comforts me so i stop thinking about it as much and drink some hot coffee instead so hot it scalds the roof of my mouth and i just wasn’t expecting that in such a warm climate. good to know that people appreciate hot coffee in all walks of the world. it tastes amazing here, i drink about five cups a day more or less not that i’m counting or anything.

i acquire a joint along the way and smoke some before i i walk the beach and i am glad that those self conscious thoughts hit me before i was stoned. it is far more enjoyable this way. i listen to Leonard Cohen and Radiohead in my headphones. i like changing the story behind In Bloom, Radiohead’s last album. i first listened to it last spring in London and in true fashion it was cold and gloomy and i always visually related the album to the color grey. now i see sea foam green and its a nice change and i listen to it not in a new but different way and the title makes more sense. a fisherman comes up to speak with me as i walk, i know he’s a fisherman because he tells me so and after a little conversation he asks me if i like giraffes the best because i resemble one the way i am tall and thin and the way that i walk and i can see what he’s saying and i lie and say yes and he seems satisfied with that answer like of course it is it only makes sense. i don’t know if this is a compliment or not. at the office Doris tells me that there are forty two tribes total in Kenya. i like Doris, she’s the hotel manager and she is warm like all of the women that i have met here but with a bit of sass and loves to talk and tells me about her daughter and how she is staying strong and not going back to the child’s father and we talk about this for close to an hour next to the Ocean and i don’t know if its the soothing accent or her wise words or both but i feel quite moved and strong myself. i like Doris.

for dinner i have the best fish i have eaten since Jamaica and feel a little bad for downing the guy right next to it’s home but that’s nature and the sound of the waves just keeps on giving and we listen to more Leonard Cohen kind of obsessively and i look up again and see The Milky Way and yes indeed that is the Little Dipper.

 

in loving memory of my Grandpa, William Petzel, who comes from Wisconsin and loved to (in his own way) sing this ditty on Santa’s lap every Christmas Eve since i can remember:

My name is Yon Yonson,
I come from Wisconsin.
I work in a lumber yard there.
Everyone that I meet
When I walk down the street,
Says “Hello! What’s your name?”
And I say: My name is Yon Yonson
I come from Wisconsin.
I work in a lumber yard there.
Everyone that I meet
When I walk down the street,
Says “Hello! What’s your name?”
And I say: My name is Yon Yonson…

Grandpa, you are now in the light you are everywhere and i can see you in the skies of Kenya. i saw you all day above the ocean and then the mountains. i celebrate this experience in honor of you. and to my beautiful Grandma and my wonderful family i am with you.

we drive for a long time, from Nairobi to the Lumo wildlife sanctuary. it is hot and uncomfortable in the car no place for me to put my left arm either holding the handrest above the door or out the window. this country is far better smelling than India that’s for certain. we see zebras and giraffes along the way. it is beyond amazing and kind of unreal. i ask George, my tour guide, whether his tribe celebrates Christmas and he said yes and then tells me that they “throat” goats and cows as celebration and then cook the meat and boil the intestines for a big feast. he tells me a great story of a Kenyan couple from his tribe that moved to Boston and throated a sheep in their backyard during the holiday. a goat wasn’t accessible. they had no idea that they weren’t supposed to do that in the states and the neighbors called the police and they were arrested and then fined. we laughed and laughed as he told the story. they had no idea that we consider that animal cruelty or torture. then i look up just as we are passing a teenager holding a live chicken for sale by the side of the road. he is the first of four. i ask a lot of questions about humans being slaughtered by lions and am fascinated while he tells me about the man eating lions of Tsavo and how a python could kill a human by suffocating and breaking it’s ribs then swallowing whole and wouldn’t be able to move for about a week until the body digested. we then pass a prison and i want to ask if prisoners ever try to escape and get eaten by the wildlife but don’t and stare at a couple of giraffes instead and ask if i were stuck in the bush all alone would i survive the night. he tells me that fire would be my best bet to keep predators away and i make a monster mental note just in case i get dropped in the thick of it.

Naomi is the woman at the reception desk, she is beautiful and friendly and her voice sounds like velvet milk and i could listen to it all day and keep asking her questions so she will keep speaking. the hotel is high on a hill and there are huts for rooms. my windows and walls are made of screen and canvas and there is a balcony where i can stand and see Mount Kilimanjaro at sunrise. the white tip pokes out behind another group of mountains and it literally takes my breath away. i didn’t even know i had it in me. the Tanzanian mountains are to the left. we wake up very early and go on game rides to search for the animals of the bush. scanning for lions reminds me of good thrift store finds, if you look hard enough and are patient, you will score. we have seen so many creatures already, ostrich and water bucks and baboons and gazelles and wart hogs and giraffes and many herds of elephants. they are the color of the red soil instead of the grey i was expecting because they roll around in it to keep cool and their skin looks really nice against all of the green brush. and lots of birds, so many species of birds. there are a species George calls yellow necks and they are everywhere and remind me of pigeons in Manhattan.  we go on a bird walk today with the ornithologist Jonathan and i realize i have no idea how to use binoculars.  my favorite so far is the secretary bird which has feathers up the leg and ends high so it looks like it’s wearing a mini skirt and the feathers in the back of its head are fashioned like a secretary would wear  her hair and George tells me that they walk all sexy like, he does not use these words, and that they kill snakes for meals by pounding and smothering them with their  feet.  sometimes i forget to look for wildlife because i’m too busy admiring the clouds in the sky there are so many different formations and i can see dark clouds and what looks like dust below them every so often where it is raining and then breaks with large streaks of sunlight popping through and if i do a 360 turn, which i do, every few feet the sky is different – blue or white or milky or dark or foggy or golden and everything below is mint or forest green and then the brick colored soil and it all works so well together and here comes that magical feeling again. we have dinner under the stars tonight and i sped a great deal of it looking up and recognize some of my seventh grade science fair constellations project up there and leave with a neck cramp and a curiosity as to what the one with the bow and arrow is called. or was that one of the dippers? i really should know this i think as i zip up the door to my room.

 

 

i tend to get this tightening in my stomach that makes me want to fly far away from it
and i do
and i am and the tightness is back because i’m so far away
its like i’m not yet disconnected after all it has only been half a day or night depending on where here is and i still have another plane ride ahead of me
and because i’m halfway but not actually there i’m not yet connected to what i’m flying to
its a limbo of sorts like i’m jealous when i see that a friend went to the Kraftwerk show via Facebook but i feel this at Heathrow airport eating a croissant and my next thought goes to Nairobi which is where i’m flying to and the animals i will see upclose and personal and i start thinking hard about these mixed feelings and come to the conclusion that i have issues and am glad i’m back in therapy.
like i said limbo. but less so than times before because at least this time
i know. if that makes any sense at all.
everyone on the plane looks famous or at least familiar and it reminds me of New York and i’m happy to be here and not there and the first time i look down out of the window it is all clouds beneath and i have no idea which country we are over and i get excited and i think its a special moment. i keep having to pee which is not abnormal and why i always take the aisle seat but my neighbor and i didn’t switch after take off although we discussed it and this is the second time i have to go and she is asleep and i think of crawling over her but decide against it of course i wouldn’t and think and hope that if i open the shade she will wake from the light it is two here i don’t know what time it is there or where i was before and it just doesn’t fucking matter i have to get used to that feeling i don’t have to turn on my phone or check to see if he emailed i just want to be there in that moment or the moments to come so i open the shade and now we are above a sea and i like to think about sharks and pretend that the white moving specks everywhere aren’t waves but creatures that would swallow me whole or rip me in two if i were to fall in the water and all of the sharks everywhere for miles and miles look so magical and i have another special moment and feeling and she still hasn’t used the restroom not once and the pretty flight attendants keep passing out orange juice and water and tea which i always accept because hydration is important for long stretches in the air and i have this way of singing thank you like in an overly polite fashion when i’m outside of the states which annoys me to no avail every time i take a new beverage and so i see that she has shifted a bit and her eyes have opened and i lightly tap her shoulder and give her that sad sorry face and she shakes her head and gets up and when i leave the toilet she goes in after me so perhaps i broke a mental seal and i remember that from highschool me and my friends holding our first pee at a keg party for as long as we could so we didn’t break the seal. we liked that term a lot and this is the first time i have ever thought about it since. i’m trying not to sleep so i will crash long and hard tonight but that’s not going to happen so i take short naps which are quite refreshing and i look out again onto the desert and i am in awe because i am above Africa it is African desert and it is beautiful and i have another moment. i get the feeling that this whole experience is going to be special and i can’t wait to be there. and hours go by and more liquids are ingested and pissed out and the last time i peer down it is dark and Nairobi looks like a Light Brite creation and its magnificent and i get emotional and my neighbor has just taught me how to say hello in Swahili.
and now i’m here.