Well so ends 2 solid weeks spent in the drunken whirlwind, and I’m back on the road again. I guess I started the process in attempt to spend “quality” time with all my friends in two social weekends surrounding a weekday trip to Bill’s Cabin after “the” wedding. The wedding went fantastically, but it was some point at the cabin when we were drinking heavily on a floating dock instead of quietly contemplating the beauty of nature, as normally tends to happen when people like us take acid, that I realized how much I’d not quite come back to normality since my Asia trip. And what a beautiful thing it was. I had initially thought that Thailand was a crazy place, and that my trip to Thailand was like stepping through the looking glass into a world where anything you want comes true. Looking back, that’s one of the most naive things I could have ever said about the place. Thais automatically consider you the stereotype of the Western Traveler, to which I eventually bent to. No matter who you come in as, it's very difficult not to leave as the party-hearty individualism-craved On The Road type see-everything do-everything traveler.
New York, on the other hand, consists of just about every other type of subculture personality. Whether it's the Pakistani DirtyWaterHotDog seller or the Bridge and Tunnel "Do what you gotta do" people, there are way too many people you could potentially speak to in English to be able to generalize them all. But they still try. And since the only thing a New Yorker can use to generalize you is usually your first impression (of which race and accent have a lot to do with), they so often use your first impression to react to you in whichever way they deem appropriate. For example, when I first moved to New York 6 years ago, I was overwhelmingly upset at how bitchy and downright rude everybody was. In retrospect, I had approached every new person I met on the street with an air of discontempt at how rude they were supposed to be. Naturally, they were rude straight back at me. On this recent trip out there, I had just finished travelling a world where everybody who spoke English was a kind and talkative, interesting, person. I couldn't help but get overly talkative with every deli worker, coffee guy, cab driver, street bum, and anybody else who spoke some sort of English. This time, however, everybody was rediculously nice to me. I know they couldn't have possibly changed that much, and considering I just spent 2 years out of the city, I figured it was me that changed. I guess I just realized that New Yorkers tend to reflect you straight back to yourself. The same thing probably happens in most other places around the world, but in those places there tends to be some kind of blanket kindness applied to just about everybody (who's white). New Yorkers are the only people I've found to have the balls to react to you exactly as they see you, and I've finally figured out the best way to be seen.

The New York trip culminated in a 24 hour booze session which, as Melissa later described me when I came home at 5 in the afternoon, I ended up so drunk it looked like I was on ecstasy. Fortunatey I wrote a delerious email to Jael which, when quoted in full, would propably provide the best description of what happened that night/day. Also, I'm too lazy to write it out again...



Fucking hell do I have a story to tell about last night. It's a good thing you emailed me while I'm still drunk from a full days and nights worth of drinking and it's only 4 in the afternoon, so you get to hear about it. The whole crew went to Mcsorleys last night and then a few stragglers went to some karaoke bar later with mikey the bartender. Then they all left and I was hanging out with mikey and his sometimes-gay east village irish/scottish bartender crowd (which is probably one of very few of those around) getting free drinks until about 8AM, by which point some guy made out with me and I apparently turned him down in a way that no straight man has ever done and he stormed out of the bar and fell asleep. So I finally got on the N train to get to astoria by 8, and as the train approached I spotted some way-too-fashionable girl with the wraparound Channel sunglasses on the train ahead of me so I casually stolled into that car and before I knew it ('cause I was drunk enough to be charming, I guess), she invited me to Bumblefuck queens (way out past Flushing) to watch her get her nails done. Then it turned out that the nails people were all Vietnamese and I sang the Vietnamese national anthem with them and told them my charming little bits of Vietnamese that I knew and put the girl to sleep, and then suddenly she loved her boyfriend. By 11AM we bought a fifth of bacardi and a bunch of cola and we were all sorts of flirting again, even though she turns out to be a methadone addict. Hot. She totally won me over when she said she was going to give me a guest pass to her gym and instead agreed to try to walk to manhattan. One hour and two bars later, she told me she'd find us a ride to the subway, and the next thing I know we're in a big ass pickup truck with three guys (two with their shirts off, one of who was actually named Rod...honestly) and she told them that I was her cousin and started massively flirting with the driver, basically biting his neck while he was driving and making him promise her that he'd take her to the most expensive restaruants in Greater New York on their first date, all while staring me in the eye giving me "look what I can do" winks, and all of which I had to approve because I was her cousin...then she started making really super sexual gestures at me and eventaully said she had to whisper something in my ear, which turned out to be her toungue, to which I shouted "I really don't think Grandma would approve of that!" and everybody else was buying the whole cousin thing until then and she totally cracked up. I beat her at her own game, it was awesome. But before then she had REALLY led on the driver and took his phone number (making a point not to give her own one out) for the date that was all just a ploy to both get us to the subway station and to fuck with me. I was totally enamoured, and totally looked past the stupid and annoying things she'd been saying all night (fuck, man, I'm kinda embarrased for still going after her after she said "Wow, you've been to India? That's in Africa, right?" Ugh). Anyway It's 5PM and it was a fucking awesome day and I think I'm goinng to stay a little longer in New York now.



I spent the next day in a stupor and left the day after that to see Rita (which didn't work out because her entire half of pennsylvania was completely flooded) and then to DC. DC was pretty, athough I drank the fountain water during the floods and ended up with a very nostalgic case of Delhi Belly (pissing out the ass). Ah, India. I spent the past few days with Chris in Chapel Hill, NC and now I'm in Asheville for the 4th. I went to some beer garden bar to watch the Italy/Germany game (sorry, Deuchland, I thought you already learned you can't win them all...) and picked up some girl named MaryBeth, whom i'm meeting in an hour. We're going to watch some bluegrass outlaw rock band that sounds like fun before I make my way further back West. Oh, the traveling life. I'll be so sad to see it go. But after that day with the subway girl I was glad to know it's not over yet. Anyway, I'm off....