curvaceous lips

12.26.14

There was pleasure driving to Dubai at eight this morning on an empty road; arriving at the Dubai Mall to an empty underground parking lot, walking past shops still preparing for the day, gates raised high enough for employees to crawl under, and then to find two books and a couple of magazines at the largest bookshop on the peninsula, to find a coffee shop later and indulge in western sensibilities and then return to Al-Ain and shop unsuccessfully for a tie-clip and belt, successfully for two white Marks and Spencer t-shirts, cigarettes, smoked salmon and having a hot dog and fries at the New York Fries kiosk before finally crossing the border and returning to a quiet grotto.  Such freedom to go and do what I wanted to at my own time almost felt normal, something I did five years ago with reckless abandon.  Such selfish indulgences, God forgive me for enjoying life for a few hours and not weeping for humanity’s utter eternal misery.

The lighter-usb gadget worked well and there was music each way, windows down, temps comfortably Decemberish, the rich red sands of eastern Al-Ain beckoned me to pull over and take photos but I didn’t.  I will probably not take a single image in the city again, Lord knows I’ve done that hundreds of times already, but dune lips enticed with their smooth timeless curvaceousness.  There are no sands like these on the other side of the fence, but there are mountains and we will go there soon, perhaps next week, the first or second day of the bloody new year.

I bought Thomas Pynchon’s latest book Bleeding Edge, the first and maybe only Pynchon book I’ll ever purchase but I read the first page and understood it so we’ll see.  I also picked up Doris Goodwin Kearn’s hefty bio of FDR and his wife, No Ordinary Time, and the December issue of Harpers and the year-end issue of the Economist.  I’m so thankful to have good reading at my disposal.  Fucking eh, it’s one thing to be denied companionship but to take away the pleasure of escaping in the pages of great writing would be too much.  I also decided not to bring any booze across the border.  I just don’t like feeling like crap when I drink.  Still, sobriety can bum. 

Whenever the doorbell rings I know it’s a beggar.  This time the woman in black has a toddler, a cute chubby girl who takes my offering and says shukran.  Before I close the door she looks at the door to mine left but mother pulls her away. 

I never make resolutions and there’s no reason to start now but I have to be proactive and move towards the goal that leaves me aching to be somewhere else.  Where do you want to be?  Where I am happy.  The world is such a bummer place and I know so much of my ‘happiness’ depends on people, can’t I be where I am doing what I am good at with people who will inspire me to do good?  Is that too much to ask for?  I don’t think so.  So, how can you reach that habitation, that utopian field of dreams.  What a gamble it would be, wouldn’t it, to go to that place, find a job and then take classes I need to make an income doing what I am good at.  It’s a great gamble if you consider this,  you become so dejected quickly, remember where you are now, I mean really, you read 24 books this year, countless magazines and newspapers, where else could you do this?  You’re talking me out of it, dude.  And returning to school?  Is Leuven out already?  I can’t move forward without the transcripts.  Sigh.  What to do.

Was it a little strange that all week the morning skies have been clear except for Christmas day?  This morning it was clear.  I considered going out on the twenty-fourth but the skies were clear.  And I wouldn’t have gone out yesterday if the skies were clear but they weren’t. 

The 2002 Honda has 457,600,000 yards on it.  At 120km per hour it was a smooth ride except for the odd popping, clinking noises underneath.  I didn’t lower the volume to Creed to discern causes or location.  I tired of thinking what I’d do if the car broke down.  I don’t have a number to any garage that could tow it back to where I don’t know.  These were awful thoughts and the more I thought of them the worse I feared so I turned up the music and put my faith in God.  God.  A colleague asked if I was attending the presentation given by the university’s new insurance company Thursday afternoon.  “I don’t believe in insurance.”  The priestly colleague to my right quipped, “you shouldn’t have insurance if you believe in God.”  And if you’re healthy and you don’t live somewhere where health care is expensive.  Ya, if you got kids I guess it helps.  If you don’t make enough money, I understand it helps.  I don’t know a single Nepalese with insurance and yet they live to a healthy ripe old age. 

That’s what’s happening in America.  Constant weather changes, poor eating habits, too much tv, too much farting around and they get sick.  Americans need insurance because they get sick and they bring it on themselves.  A Nepalese gets sick and eats some medicinal herbs growing in a field close by.  They aren’t stricken by the same bring it on diseases Americans afflict themselves with.  Cancer, damn.  I haven’t met a single Nepalese who has had cancer.  What is that all about?  How many Americans died of cancer 100 years ago?  Margaret Fuller’s father died very young of a type of cholera from working in his fields.  Damn.  And those diseases don’t appear in Nepalese rice fields?  Nope, not anymore at least. 

Lays has a new potato chip—Labneh and mint.  They taste sort of like sour cream with of course mint.  Yum.  I needed something to go with this diet pepsi and profane Indian whiskey.  Why the hell are you drinking it when you could have brought back a bottle of Mr. Jamesons?  I know I know.  Maybe I should pick up something tomorrow if I go to the six pm mass.  I need to go.  I’ve missed the last three Fridays. St. Mary’s is celebrating Christmas on 9 January, I believe to accommodate the Orthodox though I didn’t know there were many if any.  They don’t have a mass listed among the dozen languages celebrating.  What is the language of the orthodox?  Greek?  Russian?  Are there Orthodox Americans who speak their own ancient English, a pre-Elizabethan, pre-King James, pre-Chaucer discourse where they meet secretly in the catacombs of Kentucky and New Hampshire whispering Christian treacheries, pre-capitalism, pre-Milton Friedman, a true commune that’s probably legalistic and explains why they still gather underground shunning everyone and everything to light candles made from bees they catch by hand.    

Ya, Indian whiskey makes me vomit.