Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

How does one start the next narrative? I do not know, yet here I am.   I'm back in Greece after a blissful month in the South of France.  There, I had elongated days filled with walks, stone fruits bleeding with juice, and the clicks of heels along smoothed cobblestones.  Of course, I stopped in Paris for a few sunsets, and then I spent nearly a month in Aix.  Knowing me as an urban dweller mainly thriving from smog and city noise, friends were keen to watch me as the days rolled by.  I have a hunch a few had bets I would lose my cookies and run back to the winding streets of Paris with panhandlers and pickpockets, tourist queues, and the endless noise and complacent stress of city life.  Instead, as the days lingered, I found a rhythm and solace within the small town.  Vendors at the market started to recognize me; the cafe I went to for iced coffee treated me as a local after my third visit--realizing I was there a long haul--as I blundered my F...

The view from my terrace.  Do I ever have to say goodbye? It's funny how a language comes back in an instant.  At the end of June, I hopped on a Turkish Airlines flight for Greece, and in that course of life, I found my barely used Turkish coming back as I heard the stewardess talking to each other and passengers.  On that flight, from NYC to Instanbul, I was in the middle seat between two dudes taller than me.  They were both the most polite and kind passengers I've encountered in . . . well, forever.  One insisted on helping me schlep my tote bag to the overhead compartment (my bag of medications, yes . . . and that's embarrassing to have that many prescription drugs for two months).  The other made sure I was left a flight bag and water when I dozed off.  In essence, it was a good combination.  I read, slept, and watched some blah movies.  We all did.   As the flight carried on for nine hours, I responded to the stewardess in Tur...

When summer began, it came in with a series of blows destroying the crops in their wake.  Looking back it paints like a series of farm stands, succulent and fruitful from afar but upon closer examination, the wells of fruit have wilted and rotted under the sun's eye waiting for the next unsuspecting onlooker.  Well, technically that was the end of spring and beginning of the upcoming season.  A couple of months later I'm waking up front the jolts, gasping for air, and--as usual--looking at the changes, carnage, and circus of it all. The summer began with learning a cousin died . . . Another one this year.  This one, one I was fairly close to for years and years died at 49 . . . On his bathroom floor, I hear.  Lessons of the past I don't have it in me to go into, he and I parted angry ways half a decade ago.  Addictions and misgivings left a lot of the be said.  A lot to be desired.  Damage was done, to everyone and especially me, and with h...

As life goes, last summer I found myself looking at the heartland's horizon, and this summer I'll be duplicating and extending some of these travels.  And with that, I have thoughts.   Yes, I was in the American Midwest, rolling my economical car forward, with iTunes blaring, and some flavored water at my side.   In a poetic manner of speaking, I woke up and found myself on the road.   Though, as we all know, the realities of life don't afford for that.   Instead, I had spent weeks planning, crafting ideas in the wee hours of insomnia on my Pinterest boards, and I had prepped my car.   I had ample data for my GPS, I had a cooler with bottled water and a couple of sandwiches, I had carrot sticks, and I had a somewhat curated playlist.   What that came down to was my asking friends for road trip songs and adding their suggestions to my questionable music library.   I planned to stop and see some old friends, from college and before, but as...

There's an adage about looking into someone's bathroom cabinet to see a portal to the soul.  The neatness of shelves, the products within, the nature of the hidden beast.  In theory, you'll find the not-so hidden caches of hillbilly heroin and combos of STD creams and fungal disinfectants.  I, like scores of others, don't keep my pills in the bathroom cabinet.  For reasons of science: the changes in room temperature can distort the little gremlins I pop daily to the fact that I keep them on a dresser to see when I first rise and last lie my head every day.  Though, that adage .  . . It's about the secrets, the components, and and the matrixes that make a life. Perhaps my medicine cabinet looks run of the mill.  Perhaps it's a tale of the weary soul . . . an ice bag, band-aids, dental floss, vapor shower tablets to breathe when the next round of bronchitis sets in, heat pads for muscles unable to move on their own, q-tips f...

As any honest jet-setter will tell you, not every locale is splendid and storybook exciting.   Sometimes a stop along the way is just that . . . a stop, a meander, a moment.   Last spring I spent about a week in Romania.   I was there for a professional conference, but as with how these things go I also squeezed in some moderate sights along the way . . . as most travelers do.   Yet, this petite country on the edges of the once Communist impressed Eastern Europe and on the fringes of the old Ottoman Empire and nestled at the base of the Balkans served more as a conversation piece.   Unlike Rome—during the 2012 Christmas season with marzipan delights toppling counters and market stalls and Vatican City abuzz with clergy seemingly dancing in the unusual snowfall of the festive air, Romania was more of a cup of tea on a porch swing and not a debutant’s ball. I arrived in Bucharest, on a spring evening, and after the airport and hotel drop I wandere...