March 2006 Archives

that means maybe in french. which is irrelevent but i've had little sleep in the past two days so that's what you get.

here are some middle easty pictures. one of egypt, lots of israel, and a mess of jordan including petra. peut-etre. whatever.

enjoy them or face our wrath, punk.

and, in majorly brain electrifying news, my father-in-law sold bartlebee's truck after five agonizing months. he sold the truck. the truck is SOLD. for money.

which we now have.

that rocks.

i haven't got much time. i need to get back to the beach. to the rolling waves, from gentle sweeps to tumbling bruisers. which will come next? i need to find out.

i've left israel. the weird enclave of jews in the desert. where they so obviously belong and don't belong simultaneously. i've left jordan, where we once again felt strangely at home amongst the muslims -- wandering aqaba, winding down sand-painted wadis in petra, dancing like an idiot around the rec room with mosleh with a gallabiyah around my head (pictures, alas, are forthcoming). feeling at home and welcome; that is until waiting in the airport security line i notice Mein Kampf for sale at the book stall.

'cause you never know when you'll want to read Mein Kampf.

we stop in dubai and wish we hadn't. it's like vegas but without all that bothersome gambling or the irritating possibility of escaping quickly to california. it's like a mall hatched from a packet of sea monkeys. just add water. we prefered the airport to dubai.

but whatever, because now we're in sri lanka. i have tons of lousy things to say about sri lanka. here they are:

at night, for about an hour, the mosquitos come out.

the only good things i can say are it's absolutely gorgeous, surrounded by white sand beaches, coconuts fall from the sky, the beers are large and only a dollar, the people -- when you wave at them -- break out in face-consuming smiles, and the whole place is deliciously uncrowded by tourists. it's like a calmer india populated by buddhists.

we may never leave.

so you better start planning your trip to come visit us here.

i wrote an article. for money.

it was about the time i went to space with a llama named fernando and together we battled the spoon battalion with a sharp stick and a puddle of melted butter. it was awesome.

i had to kind of tweak it slightly though, since i was writing for InterFaithFamily.com. in the end it read less about space and more about visiting israel with bartlebee. she's not jewish. i am. ergo, we are an interfaith family.

i got the gig because i'm world famous and chapters of my yet-to-be-released travel book have been sweeping across the net. and my mom works for them.

i think it came out well. i got to make an analogy about hassids and martini bars which is a tricky thing to do and perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. grabbed that mofo by the horns! i think the editor liked it so maybe she'll ask me to write some more articles. and then i can "have a job" and "get paid" and "eat."

speaking of having a job and getting paid and eating, MCfrontalot has a new song on his site. it's about his dog and he uses the phrase "street chickin" which i may have made up. or he did and i got it from him. i really can't recall. i think it was me. either way i'm famous and street chickin is on me.

street chickin is what we called anything the dog found on the street that she considered food. it's a fairly wide range of items.

did i ever tell you about the time she puked up three gallons of seawater and fifteen jellyfish? boy. that was gross.

yes. sure. i'm in israel. but i'm not writing about israel. i have barely journaled at all this whole week. i'm not sure why. interesting things are happening. stuart took us to see the barrier wall at abu dis and told us stories about my parents before they were married. fran showed up and made us laugh. we watched an entire season of grey's anatomy and half an episode of lost.

(bartlebee remembers the name of every single character on lost and yet she mocks me for remembering lines of dialogue from obscure films! oh, the humanity!)

the bad news is that we're leaving israel tomorrow, and more specifically, the hospitality of the z-k's. we're both a bit wary of heading back on the road. it is daunting. i be daunted.

but we're off. tomorrow, the dead sea and hopefully to aqaba (by land). aqaba is in jordan. the day after, we hope to make it to petra and see the pretty rocks. then, as quick as our behinds will take us, we zoom to the beach.

i'm sure i'll start journaling again then. if not, it won't make much difference. i'm the only one who can read my handwriting and i'm pretty bad at it too. roger looked at my journal and asked me, "what code is that?" ha ha.

anyway. just thought i'd say hi before we left the land of free internet.

yeah. i thought this entry was pretty boring, too.