Steps to Open an Account

... "So I do all the paperwork for you and you come back in fift- minutes"...
... "Was that fift-EEEN or fift-Y?"...
... "Fiftee-e... just a little while you come back okay?"...
... "I know, but fift-EEN or fift-Y"..
... "FiftEE"... "nnN".. "Do you have anything you need to do in town for a while?"
... "Fifteen?... fifteen, like one-five... or fifty, like five-zero?"
... /puzzled look/...
... "fifteen" (Holding up one and five fingers...) "or fifty" (Holding up 5 and a fist)
... "?"...
... "Ummm... tell you what... I... uh... I'll just come back in the afternoon... I actually have someplace to be... in a little while so... you open back up at 2:45 after lunch right?"
... "2:45-3"...
... "Okay great, I'll just see you then"...
... "You want a bancomat card as well?"...
... "Yes, that would be great..."... ... "ciao"...

Night on the Water

... Staring into a starry night's sky, drinking a 5 euro bottle of wine... waves crash into the beach just down the cliff from where you sit...
... imagine stress relief like the passage of the moon slowly sinking to the horizon...
... sleeping to the cool breeze blowing in from the water...
... a complimentary buffet breakfast and no rush to check out...
... a book I've been dying to read...
... sitting on a private beach... with a warm sun... and a free morning...
... these are the kinds of things that an unheard place like Sermione has to offer...

... It sits on a peninsula... maybe a mile north to south but only 100 steps wide... A little Venice-like city is jam packed between these two shores... and you drive through the whole thing to get to our hotel... a drawbridge the only way in... through a medieval castle set up to divide the strip of land in two... on tourist lined sidewalks... past the greatest gelato spread we've ever seen in the whole entirety of italy... right to the doorstep of an ancient Roman Villa... our hotel... Ideel.

Cruise Control

... Val Gardena... a stretch of towns in a narrow valley all connected by one major road... Plays host to a World Cup of skiing every December... There's a giant statue of a skier set up in commemoration of the annual world cup event here... That is my starting point... rev up the car till then... put it in coast... see how far I go... the tricky part is a traffic circle... where... I've come to decide... the only way to beat it is to go the wrong way and cut off the big loop... not too risky because you can see if there are cars coming into the circle for quite a ways... it's just this pesky moral code/rules of the road that I can't quite shake... And the end goal is to make it all the way from the rink to my home without touching the gas once...

Awkward Time

There are certain... situations... places.... stores... where even the best of friends, if they happen to meet, by accident, on separate errands... can never spawn productive conversation... that even these best of friends are caught wordless... awkward as a first date... casual greeting to weird goodbye... because so intent on your first goal... so private... ... ... and so disconnected is this friend from your first goal... so unwelcome... that only for want of politeness you speak to them at all... to decrease rudeness you linger... and you speak of weather, and NFL football... but all you really want to do is the first thing you have in mind... that lingers in the background...
... Not, for example, a doctors office where you know you should not linger... Not on the street, because a wave might just do... it's shopping centers... gyms... where you still see them... are close to them... keep running into them... and the whole time you really don't talk because they're just not part of your supermarket route... and so... in decency you arrange a further meeting at some coffee house at some later date... want to or not... I'll see you there...

What's Your Addiction?

To apire to addiction. It goes a little something like this. You're entertained. You get used to it. You think about it. You worry about it. You work your life around it. Your crave it. Addiction. It absorbs you. You absorb in yourself. A jerk to everyone around you in the way of... Rush through everything else you do to get back to... Caught in a spiral of a lost job and empty pizza boxes cluttering your room until... Your parents cancel your World of Warcraft subscription. You yell and scream and threaten to run away forever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc

Find a new addiction... repeat...

For cocaine or heroine... addiction is documented science... your body goes through chemical changes... it adds on more neororeceptors... it changes what your body thinks is normal... in essence... the drug is required by your body in order to reach what it thinks is homeostasis... without it your body screams something is wrong...

But crazy internet person contends that the process is not just for good feelings... but normalcy...

Anger... Bitterness... Pity... Happiness... experience them enough times and it will become a normal state... a normal reaction... so eventually a bitter person won't feel normal... they won't feel homeostasis... unless they have these bitter emotions attaching themselves to neuroreceptors... a jogger won't feel content unless they get that rush from working out...

And thus we make ourselves slaves to our emotions... we are trapped in our ruts... our habits... the reactions we have carved out in our minds... and thus we make ourselves happy in the worst of situations... fearful in the best... angry over nothing... we place ourselves into bitterness because we need it... we put ourselves into the victim because it feels normal... emotionally... our body craves it like food...

Because we have trained our body to think is normal...

So the next time you see someone trapped in a state of despair... or pity... or anger... or jealousy... the next time a person's reaction doesn't seem to fit the context... realize... possibly... that they might be as hopelessly trapped as a heroine addict...

Relaxing

A fisherman walking up the stream that runs through our town. Fly-fishing. Hip waders. Mountains surrounding. The line darting back and forth as he casually climbs up the shallow water...
... Peaceful...
... I doubt that I could ever enjoy doing it. I'm sure it looks better than it really is. Wet, slippery rocks. Fighting agains the current. Cold, tired... But if I was sipping coffee watching him fish... I think it would be pretty cool.

Val Gardena

I challenge myself when I write... to overcome the obstacle of words... I hate, I hate, I hate... wanting more... words that begin with... I can't describe it... won't do it justice... you had to be there... these products of a lack of creativity... I've never fallen back on those lines... intentionally... And while some must go... I dearly hope in my writing... very little is lost in the medium... to try to give them the same view... the same sense... the same emotion... as it was to live it... make the light as bright as possible... the mirror polished the best it can...
... But I may have met my match... here are jagged cliffs towering over green valleys... Here are waterfalls in every direction... houses built in the side of cliffs... sheep grazing on green meadows... farmers cutting down grass by hand... beside audis and BMW's... beside wireless internet stores... beside vineyards... It's like nothing I've ever seen before... here I don't want my words to get in the way of this place... it has to be seen... felt... lived...
... I might have to start using the camera again... maybe even step up to the new video camera... if I must...