.:wanderlustmedia+dot+org:.

break away from louder company to fall
back in my hammock on th hollow’d shore
before hot wind dies down into stale air

at full sluggish tide a sea of oil gleams
flat under th blue half-moon tangled fast
in branches hung with sickly midnight

aimless motion by any other name would not
rock you to sleep nor shake me awake but nudge
us lovingly over th crumbling cliff’s edge

i play catch-up at best & at worst i second-guess
my truest instincts false to prop th mute
fractured fort ’round th wary waiting child

Subject: amStrand: august moon-june!

my light step on this world serves to underline it yours
(how many hard-earned soles should i refuse to wear?)

night is home to th track of my voice, dipping
into stagnant shadow for vague clues to watery north

ever-bound, late infinite moon!
perfect cool decay burns pure paradox out, yet

drain surrender victorious, moon of my heart-
full-hollow home stealing sunlight to feed desire into shelter

we limp into each other’s embrace (we kiss identity blind?)
we fall short since we climb too long. we remember next.

my light step on this world serves to underline it yours
(how many hard-earned soles should i refuse to wear?)

night is home to th track of my voice, dipping
into stagnant shadow for vague clues to watery north

ever-bound, late infinite moon!
perfect cool decay burns pure paradox out, yet

drain surrender victorious, moon of my heart-
full-hollow home stealing sunlight to feed desire into shelter

we limp into each other’s embrace (we kiss identity blind?)
we fall short since we climb too long. we remember next.

Subject: th n- incident: prologue

once upon a time…

- round about midnight last march 27, which happens to be my birthday, to be more precise-

n- & her girlfriend b- flew into luis muñoz marín airport in isla verde from canada.

a month later, not quite to th day, i found myself e-mailing th following note regarding th fallout

from what proved to be an exhausting, frustrating week…

To: dmost@magna.com.au

Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 1:59 PM

Subject: official sos

dear d-,

sorry to trouble you about this, but n- has been a little less than diligent about saving & forwarding all transaction records regarding expenses related to her trip here for th photoshoot, causing me no end of anxieties & complications when it comes to organizing a track record for accountants & other paper chasers.

could i trouble you for a copy of yr receipt for fedex charges on shipping th wedding dress?

if i may vent a bit, i’m still on square one regarding officializing wanderlustmedia or even being able to file my taxes

‘doing business as’ & every initiative i take to develop projects with friends only seems to deplete my dwindling emergency cash funds w/ precious little to show by way of results. aarghhhh. so how are you doing?

all th best, davidj=(8{>

it takes seven days to round out th week
(a patriarchal repeating grid…two morning trinities
fold a squared cycle to break th lunar month down-
wotan’s hinge closes north, hermes opens rome)

another saturday night-
my first run in fifty days: thursday made it seven weeks since my last
-barely nineteen minutes, not even two miles…

it’s a struggle, beginner’s mind…room for clutter & search.
is it th new moon? cudda mighta shudda checked-?
online missing th sunset, then rush to close th house & warm up

domingo de gallo, rooster cockerel doggerel crow-eat-crow sturmy sonday:
tio jaime celebrates his eightieth birthday at his daughter’s house.
lunch was served around five: beef & ham & rice & caesar salad

momday, momday- playing watertricks
on my growing tommy lapcat
i recover my practical joker w/a nasty streak

i’m just beginning to see/now i’m on my way- tuesday afternoon-?
(dreams & heavy morning, grey wash & blur) repent, repent!

midweek again- unexpected tropical storm dean bearing down
th very evening my aunt selected for th memorial mass ahead of ma’s eighth anniversary
…brother javier just called to cancel our drive into san juan…

thunders’ay night felt fine because i finally ran again
much better- 2m/3.2k in 2o minutes
-plus a couple hundred extra meters after missing my road mark

tgif. but i had too much wine enjoying my menage-a-un:
found some dried shiitake mushrooms & a gorgeous head of radicchio
en amigo supermarket (lo mejor al mejor precio!)
-so i stirfried a mostly mediterranean medley of veggies
for a big semi-oriental marco polo bowl of penne primavera

ess ay tee you ar- one more saturday night’s alright for fighting song…
seems to be th day i give in & have a second espresso. but i didn’t run. ayayay.

…after mezzanott/zze, tonight becomes wedNextday!
not th middle member of what god hath joined!
still, love, still let no man put it, tear it asunder…

(certo, nicht wahr? osip mandelstam:)
‘our life stands upon a base so thin
& th language of rejoicing is so poor…

everything happens & happens once more
& nothing is sweet but th moment of recognition’
-arc-hit-tech-chewer? overarch-king…eye-dee-awelogie?

totality & finality: ‘death’s at th bottom of everything’
-th paperback writer searching for his friend harry lime
in postwar vienna played by joseph cotten is told
by th british occupation officer played by trevor howard

full-cycle midwoch & ’round mitternacht again, again…on th beach…
‘call me aimless- er, ishmael!’
(i remember a talk by polish theater director & theorist jerzy grotowski where he made a point that reaching a

goal
meant dealing w/ th loss of yr stated aim rather than gaining anything)
all too quickly i’m back on my coffee habit & frittering unfocused energy on old self-distracting routines…
walking, not running. today i managed two ’supersets’ of my five-exercise abs circuit. champing at th bit.

golden seal applied topically every night th last four nights or so has done wonders to bring down what was

left of lingering
inflammation. th strange & scary part is that at th center of th ring of shrinking but still rubbery-hard

lymph nodes, th still
feverishly warm center of bacterial debris from enduring infection feels soft enough that a careless jab might

break th skin,
deep enough that half of my thumb might sink into pus & lymph without finding solid flesh.
auughh! (to quote charlie brown) where’s my quad or th sartorious that connects to th pubic bone & crosses th

thigh
to reach th outside of th quadriceps & got worked so hard as i forced my turn-out in dance class, lo! those

many years ago??
too too terribly attached to this instrument & vessel- how do i let go? is this part of th process? awareness

of
th perishability & contingency of ’causes & conditions’…

midnight come & gone…earlier, don tite curet alonso (composer of numerous popular latin music classics

beginning
w/ boleros in th ’40’s, guarachas in th 50’s & 60’s & that catch-all hybrid called salsa since then) was

featuring
th late, great cuban sonero beny moré on his radio show. one old bolero i had never heard began,
a medianoche comienza la vida
a medianoche comienza el amor…
(life begins at midnight/love begins at midnight…)
-& i remember guessing at th german for midnight as i wrote last week & mixing it w/ th italian ‘mezzanotte’,

which i love th
sound of, that double zzzzzzzz, & sliding it into ‘mezzanozze’ which, as far as i know, is a nonexistent

made-up word which
might mean something like ‘mid-wedding’- or maybe, ‘half-wedding’? -in spanish, you see, ‘medio’ means both

‘middle’ &
‘half’! -i forget th word for ‘half’ in italian, but guessing from th french, in which ‘milieu’ means middle &

‘demi’ means
half…hmm- ‘la moitié’ means th half of something. ‘demi’ i used only as a particel, i believe…hey

hans-peter-david, can you
help me w/ this? are you still visiting for a week or two sometime this month?? does no news at this late date

mean plans
never firmed up? give a holler sometime!

i discovered a wonderful, gorgeous site by a young, vietnamese-born woman travel writer:
www.wanderingspoon.com
i’ve been working on making my own curry powder from scratch lately & she’s been doing this long trek focusing

on curries
beginning in singapore, thru vietnam, thailand & ending, of course, in india…but maybe i’ll leave that for

next installment-i
only just browsed her site & started on th older articles th first time. i want her curry diary to light a good

fire under my butt
before i start writing on cuisine!
happy trails, y’all! d=(8{>

Subject: hebdo.convalescent

monday july30:

need to find a new bulb for th wall fixture in this room. it burned out yesterday between a couple of power outages triggered by some intense thunderstorm activity. all i have to read & write by is a table lamp- little better than a nightlight, what w/ th 25 watt bulb dr.dad puts in all fixtures as cost-saving measure.

been having cous-cous w/ chick peas for dinner since friday, after nearly three straight weeks of lentil soup. three weeks under th wandering- jaundiced?- clinical eye of der guter doktor, five weeks since i first noticed th marble-sized lymph node close to th groin on my inner left thigh. as th swelling slowly goes down, a ring of four or five hard nodes can be made out surrounding a soft center under drying, wrinkled purplish red skin, w/ something more like a tiny blister than

a pus-filled pimplehead on th edge of that area. as per dr.dad’s fairly plausible & logical theorizing, one lymph node,

most likely th locus of th original infection, collapsed & burst under th onslaught of bacteria, (virii? dr.dad insists on questioning th generalized assumption that bartonella henselae is th cause & agent of infection in cat scratch disease…)

launching th mounting high-fever crises as my defenses scrambled to contain th damage.

tuesday last-

javier is coming into town, actually going to th cockfights in isla verde. he offered to pick me up on his return & help

w/ th move back to th beach house. eight in th evening, maybe? i’m not sure about arriving late at night to a refrigerator full of rotting blueberries & whatever else may have been sitting, blooming, fermenting or making itself at home in th beach house these last 23 days…aimless randiness & inertia- after three weeks off coffee, my tolerance to caffeine has gone down so far a cup of green tea kept me up reading until sometime past two-thirty this morning. fittingly enough, i’ve been slogging through a rather idiosyncratic spanish translation of ‘th magic mountain’ by thomas mann…of course i didn’t wake up until nearly eleven so i’ve been out of sorts all day…

mittweek august premier- (approaching mittzanotte…)

sure enough, when my dear kid brother finally turned up a little after ten he was lit like ben franklin’s kite, high as

th rockefeller center tannenbaum. he had sense enough to suggest staying th night & leaving th drive for today, but

at one-thirty in th morning, after th usual ranting argument that only ended (but only temporarily!) when dr.dad shut

th door to his room roaring to be left alone- to read himself to sleep- javier was still asking for my latest financial statement, insisting i figure my losses, change brokers & get out of stocks as best i could FIRST THING IN THE MORNING.

it was a l o n n ng day today. long, hot & full of traffic. at least i got th basic errands done: i stocked up on bread, grains & breakfast cereal at freshmart in hato rey, then paid (part) of th phone bill back in th san patricio area. javier had not changed th oil filter in his ford f-150 in five (count em, FIVE) years & between a fairly long wait & getting th job done,

hi-tech jiffy lube took just over an hour. sweltering two-thirty in th afternoon by th time we got back to th house to catch a bite, gather my stuff & hit th road. dr.dad arrived just as i was throwing th last of th vitamins & bits of food from th fridge into a plastic bag, so w/ th old emotional push-pull we didn’t get on our way until quarter to four. heavy traffic everywhere- even all th way out on th toa baja straightway, at th entrance to th town of dorado, on th ramps to get on

th expressway…one last pit stop for further grocery shopping at xtra before finally arriving to find th old wheelbarrow

& th hammock hung between two palm trees i was looking forward to lounging in had been stolen. ah, well…home, bittersweet home…environmental activist robert kennedy, jr. & n.y labor leader dennis rivera were released from

th guaynabo federal pen today after serving a full month for th civil disobedience act of trespassing on navy property;

th navy is scheduled to begin full-out maneuvers, including old-fashioned (read outdated, ritualistic) w.w.II -style amphibious landings, in vieques tomorrow…

it’s already two weeks i’ve been sleeping under th bare concrete beam helping support th roof over my cluttered

pie-slice of
a storage room… we moved here th summer after i turned 17. i had given up meat & insisted i wasn’t going back

to san
ignacio- th jesuit prep school- for my senior year so i was preparing for a test on european history to

complete
th requirements for a GED diploma from th puerto rico departement of education…i had expressed a preference

towards
a spherical dome for my mom’s family dream house, & this was taken into consideration w/ th outcome being an

oversized
round concrete bohio- call it a modern native puertorican bungalow?
th contractor had been somewhat negligent, cutting corners here & there (my dad wanted to have this house built

for an
unrealistic $30thou, back in ‘70 or so, & it took a sometime trumpet player from cuba to say he’d bring it in

for just 5thou
above. th realistic bids were between 55-65 thou…) so- we were painting, dyeing doors & closet shelves,

helping dad put up
bookshelf units w/ writing desks in each of our pie-slice rooms for a fair part of that summer of ‘71…there

may have been
bigger unfinished jobs i forget- for example, my dad has been working on sealing th leaky cracks in a

careleessly set
concrete roof ever since then…i remember living on yogurt w/ raisins, wheat germ & honey; & pizza w/ all th

veggie
trimmings from shirley’s, our local parlor.
by september 7 i was on a flight to spain under th care of my dad’s cousin diego, who was a medical student in

santiago de
compostela. a little distance from th bad influences & i would be back on th straight & narrow path in no

time…
but that is, if not a whole other story, at least a very different part of th tale.
fever is gone by now. it subsided slowly over that first week, climbing up to th neighboorhood of

38-39C/100-102F
every night at first. being in dr.dad’s care, i remembered how i had learned to self-medicate at an early age:

if i felt under
th weather & tried to exaggerate my symptoms in order to stay home, my temperature was taken. if i was not

running a fever,
i was given a decongestant spray, maybe some children’s aspirin & written instructions as a reminder on dosage.

der guter
doktor’s protestations to th contrary, attitude & method have changed minimally in 30-40 years…
i brought all th wrong things from vega baja. there was nobody else here to make a salad, & since th vegetable

crisper & fruit
drawers in th fridge are chock full of dr.dad’s mangoes, th chicory was dead of frostbite by th time i had

energy to think of
using it. dr.dad’s food offerings consist mostly of a couple of frozen stews microwaved w/ parts from some

fresh-killed lamb
he got as a gift some months ago. i had some chicken soup of jeanette’s during th first couple of
days. maybe some yogurt. at some point i gathered my strength & mixed th last of th chicken soup w/ some

leftover chick
peas & lamb & put them to boil w/ a fresh onion i had javier fetch from titi elba’s (so when was this? when
did javier drive over?? a week ago last thursday- july 12?) plus one of th wilting carrots i’d managed to

gather…
that’s been my dinner for most of th last ten days- i’ve kept a bottomless pot of lentil soup going since then-

freezing it
overnight, thawing it out & adding whatever fresh veggie it could use a new helping of.
oh, my lymph nodes! i can stand & walk for about ten minutes at a time by now. what was a well-defined golf

ball not quite
half-buried in my thigh is now a squashed, old tennis ball- irregular edges, hardening where i imagine th lymph

nodes are,
softer & tender where there is pus or other liquid debris from what seems a still active infection: skin is

bright red, & th area
is hot w/ localized fever. th only other doctor to come by & see me was dr.dad’s closest friend, th

pathologist mica.
dr.dad is adamant that any puncturing to take a sample for analysis, any attempt at drainage, will result in an

oozing sore that
may take two to seven months to heal. so i’m supposed to be patient & wait until th node (or nodes, may be more

than one
involved) necrotizes: dies inside me & is reabsorbed. i tell you, like a survivor of th bubonic plague.
stay tuned!

…everybody’s got their own personal agenda regarding my illness & its management…i got a hold of dr.dad

late monday night
& he insisted, as part of a rant against th pharmaceutical company racketeers, that cheap old tetracycline was

all i needed to
set me right as rain. when th malaise & feverishness woke me up around six th next day, i phoned cousin tate’s

dad, tio jaime
th pharmacist, to see if he could help me w/ any of this. i ended up driving him into town by seven-thirty,

right on time to
open for business. i accepted his offer of coffee & sipped it outside in th morning light, taking deep breaths

before finally
settling into a corner chair in th waiting room to tate’s office while morning tv blasted away at th growing

number of
appointments joining me. th doctor came in from seeing hospitalized patients in th neighboring town of manati

around ten,
ten-thirty.
i got called to wait in an examination cubicle after some further waiting, & after some further waiting still,

climbed on
th paper-covered table & settled in for a short nap, cut short by tate as he burst in & proceeded to throw a

small tantrum
about not starting on th antibiotics, & about getting dr.dad involved. i had to make a choice about who i

wanted to treat me,
who i was going to listen to & make my primary care provider…
to summarize: i let myself be talked into doing a seven day cycle of augmentin after all, on th off chance

something other than
cat scratch disease might be at work…
had to come into town again thursday & saturday for further tests requiring blood samples taken on an empty

stomach.
meanwhile, fever crises grew in frequency & intensity.
saturday, july 7th, after going over th last of th test results w/dr.tate, i stopped for lunch at ‘mi casa’

restaurant. by
three-thirty, when my brother javier showed up w/ his fiancee, i was thanking th owner for some enteric coated

aspirin to
gulp down w/ coffee & dessert. i felt sick enough to move my next dose up an hour to six-thirty & motivated

to finally
locate a thermometer in th house. my temperature was up to 40C/104F.
sometime between seven-thirty & eight, javier gave me a ring: tate was w/ him, they were on their way to th

fights & a
tribute to tito trinidad in barceloneta. alarmed at th high fever, th good dottore suggested i drive myself to

my dad’s in san
juan so i might at least be under observation. i was feeling too sick, weak, & dizzy to attempt it- & was still

too proud to
admit it- i pooh-pooh’d tate’s offer to drive me & he decided to put th fear of god in me before hanging up:

‘it’s yr life- or yr
leg, who knows. anything beyond low-grade fever brings into question th cat-scratch disease diagnosis. i’ve

done what i
can.’ javier promised to call back as soon as they made it to barceloneta, & i spent two hours counting every

minute,
regretting my stupid pride th moment i hung up. around nine th fever broke- on th upside, to 104.5F/40.3C.

couldn’t raise
dr.dad, either. i made my peace then & there: ‘maybe i’ll fry here on earth so i can go straight to heaven. i’m

in yr hands.
i trust i’m somehow safe in yr hands…’
tio oscar had my dad’s fiancee’s phone number, & although th machine picked up there, too, having talked to

oscar helped
a great deal. ‘well, an abscess may have formed. you just have to have it looked at as soon as possible.’ th

one positive,
calming voice…from another sick man who had to struggle to speak up…
around ten th fever finally started to ease down. i was thankfully falling asleep around eleven-thirty when

javier finally
called.
th next day, dr.dad & his fiancee jeanette drove over to help me gather a few things- including th cat- & bring

me to der guter
doktor’s place, our dark, dust-filled suburban flying saucer of a family home…