Before i say anything directly relevant to this post's title, i first want to thank my lurking yet diverse, international readership for taking the time to read however much you have of these pages since i started writing again this spring. Recently someone in Kenya found the blog, which set my little swahili meter all aflutter (Habari gani, rafiki?). Can't imagine how s/he ended up here, such is the nature of gratuitous search engines... In general i have a hard time wrapping my brain around the immensity and intensity of our global-in-scope digitized communication networks and often feel like Kobo Abe's character in The Box Man, looking out looking in seeing not being seen. Nowhere close to being a real journalist, the only thing i have to offer is a view of the world based on how i, personally, perceive and experience it. It's honestly amazing that people i've never met, in countries i've never been to, find what i share here even the slightest bit worth their/your time - again, thanks a lot whomever you are, making me always want to do better at whatever it is, exactly, that i'm doing in this space.
Today is the 4th of
July, it's 6:00 the sun is rising over the Caspian Sea and i am about to go on the road for while, starting in Istanbul and then to some as yet undetermined place(s) on the Balkan peninsula. Towards the end of August, i'll be writing from Mongolia (yet another peculiar locale for an aging renegade american anarchist). Choosing this date of departure was my attempt to tap into the karmic American freedom thing, enjoying my independence after being ruled over for the past 6 months by a readily arrogant & tyrannical, conventionally paranoid Brit, someone who apparently believes that empire is part of his national genetic heritage. It's been a long, long time since i've been able to venture out into new, unknown territory without a set plan, open (within reason) to total spontaneity. A real trip, a little taste of freedom for freedom's sake. Obviously this means a bunch of travelogue is in store, but since every hostel and hotel in Europe advertises free wifi these days, i expect to stay more or less abreast of Qadhafi's European conquest, unrelenting zionist mayhem in the Med, bursting pipelines, sinking reactors, etc etc etc whatever my friends on facebook tell me by acclaim is important at any given moment (4 people posting the same story moves alert status to red).
Otherwise re my blog, i've been putting together a couple slide shows to add here (the Picasso interface is time consuming + likes to freeze my computer), have started checking/updating all the links and streamlining the tags because they've gotten out of control to the point of meaninglessness. If you, dear reader, happen to have your own blog or other type of website, i'm more than happy to put up a link to it here.
So, that's all for now. Farewell Azerbaijan: the ridiculous high heels, relentless honking of horns and my oh-so-patient neighborhood merchants, still unsure what language i speak except that it's definitely not theirs. Onward to the new Ottomans and the old school Greeks! Instead of telling people i'm an English teacher, now i can say i'm not a taxpayer (for a while, anyway). If that strategy backfires, i'll say that i'm a blogger and if that comes across as opportunistic and self-aggrandizing, there's always the ultimate fallback: human. Have independence, will travel.
Today is the 4th of
July, it's 6:00 the sun is rising over the Caspian Sea and i am about to go on the road for while, starting in Istanbul and then to some as yet undetermined place(s) on the Balkan peninsula. Towards the end of August, i'll be writing from Mongolia (yet another peculiar locale for an aging renegade american anarchist). Choosing this date of departure was my attempt to tap into the karmic American freedom thing, enjoying my independence after being ruled over for the past 6 months by a readily arrogant & tyrannical, conventionally paranoid Brit, someone who apparently believes that empire is part of his national genetic heritage. It's been a long, long time since i've been able to venture out into new, unknown territory without a set plan, open (within reason) to total spontaneity. A real trip, a little taste of freedom for freedom's sake. Obviously this means a bunch of travelogue is in store, but since every hostel and hotel in Europe advertises free wifi these days, i expect to stay more or less abreast of Qadhafi's European conquest, unrelenting zionist mayhem in the Med, bursting pipelines, sinking reactors, etc etc etc whatever my friends on facebook tell me by acclaim is important at any given moment (4 people posting the same story moves alert status to red).Otherwise re my blog, i've been putting together a couple slide shows to add here (the Picasso interface is time consuming + likes to freeze my computer), have started checking/updating all the links and streamlining the tags because they've gotten out of control to the point of meaninglessness. If you, dear reader, happen to have your own blog or other type of website, i'm more than happy to put up a link to it here.
So, that's all for now. Farewell Azerbaijan: the ridiculous high heels, relentless honking of horns and my oh-so-patient neighborhood merchants, still unsure what language i speak except that it's definitely not theirs. Onward to the new Ottomans and the old school Greeks! Instead of telling people i'm an English teacher, now i can say i'm not a taxpayer (for a while, anyway). If that strategy backfires, i'll say that i'm a blogger and if that comes across as opportunistic and self-aggrandizing, there's always the ultimate fallback: human. Have independence, will travel.
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