Managua, Nicaragua

Warm winds
and cool nights,
taco dinners, served on a
drooling man's cranium,
songs sung in Spanish,
next to a lone guitar.
Yesterday, yesterday,
a cheapass margarita
a Tano or two,
¿para ochenta cordobas?
Si, why not? because we are Americans.

Because we are Americans in Nicaragua
we will drink,
we will drink una cerveza
even though it tastes like shit
and we won't get drunk from it anyway
It doesn't matter, we will drink it, in a casino,
at eleven thirty before noon
because we are Americans.

We will pay $1500
to stay in a beautiful hotel
a hotel with marble floors,
and apple-spearing murals
and a majestic pool, with majestic
bronze pool boys.

Because we are Americans,
we will be suspicious of the natives,
that they will steal
from our spoiled, sassy mouths,
we will point to the graffiti on the walls,
the ones that say "chinga" o "puta"
and we will laugh, too busy to see the ones that say
"FSLN, viva la juventud"

We will speak in broken Spanish
to the meseros and tienda owners,
trying to learn culture,
proud that we can regurgitate a few words
that we happen to remember
from high school.

We will get stares from the brown boys,
on the streets selling fruit,
weaving between moving traffic.
We will play doctor and patient,
we will give the sick medicine,
we will tell the ones with tumors
that they have pink eye,
we will give the children ibuprofen
when they have bad dreams
and no one will care,
because we are Americans,
and we have no liability
in this beautiful sad country
with its beautiful sad people.

They will tell us they love us,
because we are rich,
because we are beautiful,
because we are tan,
because we are Americans.
When we ask them,
do you like Americans?
they will laugh politely
and say,
"Si, me gustan americanos."
And we will believe them,
si, we will believe them,
because we are Americans.

Monster in my shoes

Currently listening to The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One by Neutral Milk Hotel. Hearing simple but addicting guitar chords makes me want to play.

Tonight I am in Covel, being zero-productive because all I can think about is how much I cannot think. There are overdressed Koreans everywhere and I'm writing delusional things like alleles being activated by acetyl-CoA...guat? Tomorrow night I'm going to chop off my hair and roam the streets with my roommate at night. I like reactions.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Monster in my nose

Currently listening to Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend. Yes, Wes Anderson influences all!

Tonight I am in Powell, being half-productive because all I can think about is how unbelievably sick I am of school right now. I accidentally got some Monster up my nose and now I feel like some dummy on Jackass. Jeez, I am so ready to go to Nicaragua. Hurry Father Time! I grow impatient.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Part I

Currently listening to Nick Drake's Pink Moon. The perfect song to accompany a moonlit-midnight cruise in a Volkswagen Cabriolet? Marketable.

Ajlouny sat Indian-style at his desk, his lanky knees dangling uncomfortably over the edge of his arm-less chair. He clutched his open book, its pages illuminated a marigold-orange by the emollient glow of the setting summer sun. Outside his window, he heard the gleeful yells of boys and girls frolicking. He guessed they were playing something dumb like freeze tag, or Red Rover, or even worse, Seven Minutes of Heaven. He hated that game. He knew somebody made it just because they thought putting the words seven and heaven together was the most clever thing in the world. He hated that, when people put the name before the game. Without a second's thought, he drew his curtains (which unfortunately were much too short for the length of his window) and sat in darkness, only a lonely strip of sunset light left to guide his reading. Still, he preferred this to the paintings, the Dorian Grays his window never ceased to illustrate. He hated his window. It was the only thing that connected him to the outside world.

Life

Currently listening to the silence called Powell.

Life, I guess,
is the agonizing torture
of vomiting
nomenclature, scaffolds,
and unethical values.
Fluorescent beams that blind,
through the reflection
of death on paper,
gobbling innovation
with every sigma, every pi, every
negative little spherical...spheres,
screaming in your ears,
(deaf by unwarranted silence)
MASOCHIST!
Linus Pauling,
you masochist,
you masochist cascade creater!

You and me,
we are masochists,
we are geniuses,
at best.

Sophomore slump

Currently listening to God Only Knows by the Beach Boys. The musical manifestation of what so many people have told me about love.

God is a concept, by which we can measure our pain,
I'll say it again,
God is a concept,
by which we can measure
our pain,
I don't believe in Henry Ford,
I don't believe in catechism,
I don't believe in miracles,
I don't believe in Jolie,
I don't believe in politicians,
I don't believe in La Llorona,
I don't believe in capitalism,
I don't believe in fellowships,
I don't believe in utopias,
I don't believe in balance,
I certainly
don't fucking believe in Nelson.
Please go and pump
your breast milk elsewhere.

Wild berry jam

Currently listening to Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths. Classic.

I have cosmic plans for myself when I get old. Plans that don't entail me wasting away by a window, lusting for youth like the youth lust for age. If I am an old fart, then I will be a self-sufficient old fart.

I have cosmic plans for myself when I get old.

I will build my own house atop un arbol and si, I will live in it. Cuando los brazos del hombre Sol alcanzan para mi, yo alcanzare para el tambien. I will wake up to los ruidos de vida en la naturaleza, and through a naked window, I will feel the warm embrace of the sun and the cool shadow of the leaves, wavering back and forth upon my face as an easy breezy Japanesey wind dances an exquisite ballet around them. I will make wild berry jams and dill pickles and preserve them in jars with caps as red as the heart of a flame, o quizas, como la llama de mi propio corazon. The wooden oak planks below my feet will creak with adventure as I slowly dance across the room, imagining myself braving the plank of Never Never Land, about to plunge into the enigmatic depths of another dimension. When I am bored, children will come visit me after school. I will teach them the ways of colors and words and notes and they will teach me the ways of life. We will explore the forest below, rolling off hills like funny-looking tumbleweeds and venturing across babbling streams, their waters honing our spirits like they hone the stones and the pebbles. When el Sol becomes weary of us and night approaches, we will race back to the treehouse to catch the last glimpse of orange and gold sparkle and flit across the top of the tallest trees. La Luna dira a mis hijos, "Ninos, regresen a sus casas" and they will listen and go home. Todos menos una. Una nina cuya cara nunca me olvidare. She will remain with me into the darkness of la noche. We will take our blankets and lie on the porch of my treehouse. And we won't be able to sleep because the moon will shine brightly on our faces like an abnormally large flashlight. But that's okay with me. Si, that's quite all right with me. Because if I close mis ojos, even for one small second, I suspect she might leave me for good.