.:wanderlustmedia+dot+org:.

ohhhh boy. it’s been a week- & then some. realized last night i’d been

behaving as if i were joined to alex @ th hip. where do i begin?

finally hiked/ walkd into pfarrkirchen today- a roundabout way by

breitenbach & furcht (?) that made it about 15 or so kilometers- maybe

16,

so just about ten miles…it’s alex’s turn to be under th weather- just

as

th weather clears & he gets ready to go back to hamburg w/ his new

girlfriend vanessa, who came down for a visit last thursday. we’ll board

th

inter-city together tomorrow, i change trains for weimar @ fulda…

maybe i shd do something like a chronology…

so i took th train from amsterdam to munich on tuesday. met christopher,

alex’s hometown bud & th ultimate party machine, running on coffee, beer,

cigarettes & a new infatuation every other day. in

th week & a half since i met him, i’ve only seen him eat once: last

night,

when we got some pizzas to go from ‘il cavallino’, a kitschy-elegant

trattoria that seems to be th only restaurant among

th downtown pfarrkirchen strip of pastry shop-cafes…

i’d had half a bottle of macon for w/ a late lunch salad & cheese plate

on

th amsterdam train, & a tomato soup & some tortellini w/ th same canned

tomato soup for a sauce late in th evening, close to arriving in munich.

anyway, i caught th christopher bug- had a big hefe-weizen & a shot of

tequila @ a student-run bar known as ‘manhattan’, on top of th tallest

dorm

in th student residence compound, & got kind of chilld on th windy

terrace

looking over th town talking to amy from detroit…it was nearly four in

th

morning by th time we arranged our sleeping places & i woke up on eclipse

wednesday, august 11, w/ a bad sore throat…nursed it w/ an

echt-bayerische

breakfast of weisswurst, pretzel & sweet mustard, then alternatively

‘oohhh’d’ & ‘awwww’d’ along w/ th gathered crowd as clouds played w/ th

visibility of th event as totality approached…

trouble w/ th yahoo mail server, it seems. a posting to hans-peter in antibes never made it- cdn’t save th

draft, cdn’t send it- i kept getting a ‘document is empty’ box…
ANYWAY-got sick again- though i’m really weirded out, i’ve just had this fatigue, malaise, achy joints, no sore

throat, no head cold- super-dry scorched earth burning pain in my sinuses, though…but then i started noticing

symptoms intensified after meals & i started wondering if i was having my recurrent problem w/ bad bacteria in

my gut-candida or any of those other non-pathogenic non-problems to western medicine… so i got some vicious

natural echinacea extract, & started eating garlic toast w/ every meal, putting garlic in my peppermint tea,

even…seems to be helping…feel better today…also searching out for pineapple juice…maybe

gentian…golden seal… yeah, back in bayern, driving in to th family farm from munich, frau schachtner,

alex’s mom, got me fresh sage & dried peppermint from her garden…still, being a total stranger, i didn’t want

to be too weird about food, so i had a diet of mostly pork, dumplings & cucumber salad for th ten days i

visited…i think i was mostly over th cold in couple of days, but th heavy food & strong coffee i brewed for

mself got me trying to do my running maybe a little too quick on th draw, & blowing buckets of snot to th wind

just about ’til th end of my stay…
guess i mucus’d out & i’m @ th other extreme end of things now… meanwhile, back in bayern…i felt well

enough those last few days to go out dancing w/ alex, his girlfriend, vanessa, who came down from hamburg for a

couple of days, wild&creizy guy christof, & surrogate family matriarch michaela- micha for short. boy, i

breathed more second-hand smoke in one night than i had in my previous year in puerto rico! -oh, i did make a

dancing fool of mself by mself a few days earlier in passau…they played that ummm- i’m not sure if it’s th

jacksons or just michael-y’know- ’shake yr body down to th ground’?
& BTW, we had a nice little ‘family’ meal of takeout pizza & i sprung for a great montepulciano, not abruzzese,

but from le marche…& was read my first ‘gummy bear’ oracle- i cdn’t help but think of christalía- it was her

particular kiddie candy addiction holdover & i don’t think i’d heard of gummy bears before or since them- well,

this one german nut has workd out a whole oracle where you pick five- one for each color- & th color pattern

tells you where you are & what’s happening- i-ching w/ candy, though even more in-th-moment, i don’t think you

can ask about any specific concern, though i may be wrong. well, it pretty frighteningly accurate about where i

am in my life, & my particular brand of caretaking codependence! i tell you, uncanny. so th upshot is, i’m

family now. we will see what obligations & privileges that might entail…i’d love to go back for another

visit. th waitress @ ‘il cavallino’, where we got th pizzas & wine, was a dark, almond-eyed italian beauty from

th region just north of calabia (or puglia? calabria, i think…) & i can’t seem to get her out of my mind.

maybe i was born to be an adult-child dirty old man… lovey-dovey/lovey-dovey all th time…dj=(8{>

lost my shape/feel like an accident
* david byrne
billy pigrim has come unstuck in time
* kurt vonnegut what a drag it is/getting old jagger/richards
no man is a nomad who fails to follow th season of his flock. i lose my thread,
my narrative drive, my focus- ‘emptiness is nothing but form, form none other
than emptiness’:
what is spiritual, what is not? to borrow from th ‘prajna paramita’:
it has no legs, no tits, no ass, no dance, no kiss, no home, no force…
no company, no solitude, no skin, no flow-
no root, no flight, no net, no fall, no reach, no peace…
there seems to be no place for me in this world but six feet under
i drift my best as a restless guest, as i wander lost in lust…
no path, no exit out of myself but six feet under- it’s a chore
& an overwhelming effort just to stop wishing & wishing my life away!
what’ll i do/what’ll i do?
i seem to be running out of time w/out ever
having gotten th hang of sex w/ somebody else-
guess i’m solo for th duration: always on th road alone again naturally…
all you need is- d=(8{>

did you call for me, my darling?
i mourn my loves one town, one roof @ a time

th children’s circus offers its high-wire homework
one last night before th big top folds its tent

i seem to find my place only as i launch into headlong flight
weak knees screaming long after a cobblestone takeoff, my path
bobs & weaves among th shapeshifters of twilight
(th silky mane of an aloof beauty turnd away faces me as th dense beard of an intense, smoking charlie manson

double- while i pass a fearless hedgehog momentarily become a crouching cat…)
weimar is royally drunk on that sparkling culture money-
leaving not th slightest laundered trace
after th last worn-out avant-garde gesture dies down in th alleys

w/ out clearly markd boundaries, it’s a party for th well-off & th young-
each in their tacitly appointed quarters

from th distance of some early history
th heart of a leaning continent pumps passion into our limbs
to sing my skin awake- an ugly, catatonic prometheus, good looks
draind by th shadows of dreamless entropy

still i thank th size of life, smearing its coursing flow far beyond my petty desires & their obscure,

haphazard satisfactions…

a flying leap to th present & a very, very slick internet cafe @ weimar

train station, maybe th only public(?)internet access in all of

thüringen? …mini towers under th table(!) -flat screen monitors from

siemens (one of their sponsoring partners, along w/ bitburger brauerei,

consors discount broker, ecrc, msn & pioneer electronics…) -another

flat wide screen for video over th bar…espressos @ 3 marks-

not*that*bad- but quarter liters(half pints?) of sparkling mineral

water are th same price…

peter suggested i try some shop or business in town for an alternative

possible access, but it seems like a long shot to me…a likelier

option, to my mind, wd be if k-heiner can be my passport to access thru

th university…we will see…

ah, well, this cool slick place runs on windows nt, & th five terminals

for client access are linkd to their cash register & even (if i

understood right) their tv-video terminal, seemingly hardwired to

mtv-deutschland (th eagles just performd their taped reunion version of

‘hotel kalifornia’…) when i first came by last wednesday, trying to

meet my self-imposed mid-week (mittwoch) newsletter deadline, their

network crashd while i waited for an available terminal…if i got th

story right, the thing runs from a local server right here in th

manager’s office, but he was nowhere to be found & an hour & a half

later, when i gave up & started on my hike to buchenwald, they still

hadn’t managed to raise (microsoft deutschland?)tech help on th

phone…

so this is friday afternoon, th beginning of th big goethe birthday

party, it’s 3 marks every 15 minutes for access- 12dm/hour, nearly five

o’clock, peeing in my pants, spent too much time as usual doing office

work, but it may have bn work it- got a moderately organised address

book @ yahoo & i can save working drafts here, so…yahoo looks better

& better…if i can shake off th sheets early enough tomorrow morning,

i can try to begin filling in my narrative gaps, müunchen to

johanniskirchen to weimar…

luv, luv, luv=(8{>

> ohhhh boy. it’s been a week- & then some. realized last night i’d been
> behaving as if i were joined to alex @ th hip. where do i begin?
> finally hiked/ walkd into pfarrkirchen today- a roundabout way by
> breitenbach & furcht (?) that made it about 15 or so kilometers- maybe 16,

> so just about ten miles…it’s alex’s turn to be under th weather- just as

> th weather clears & he gets ready to go back to hamburg w/ his new
> girlfriend vanessa, who came down for a visit last thursday. we’ll board
th
> inter-city together tomorrow, i change trains for weimar @ fulda…
> maybe i shd do something like a chronology…
> so i took th train from amsterdam to munich on tuesday. met christopher,
> alex’s hometown bud & th ultimate party machine, running on coffee, beer,

> cigarettes & a new infatuation every other day. in
> th week & a half since i met him, i’ve only seen him eat once: last night,

> when we got some pizzas to go from ‘il cavallino’, a kitschy-elegant
> trattoria that seems to be th only restaurant among
> th downtown pfarrkirchen strip of pastry shop-cafes…
> i’d had half a bottle of macon for w/ a late lunch salad & cheese plate on

> th amsterdam train, & a tomato soup & some tortellini w/ th same canned
> tomato soup for a sauce late in th evening, close to arriving in munich.
> anyway, i caught th christopher bug- had a big hefe-weizen & a shot of
> tequila @ a student-run bar known as ‘manhattan’, on top of th tallest
dorm
> in th student residence compound, & got kind of chilld on th windy terrace

> looking over th town talking to amy from detroit…it was nearly four in
th
> morning by th time we arranged our sleeping places & i woke up on eclipse

> wednesday, august 11, w/ a bad sore throat…nursed it w/ an
echt-bayerische
> breakfast of weisswurst, pretzel & sweet mustard, then alternatively
> ‘oohhh’d’ & ‘awwww’d’ along w/ th gathered crowd as clouds played w/ th
> visibility of th event as totality approached…
>
> (a suivre…) luv, d=(8{>

> > is there such a thing as a quiet, smoke-free internet cafe in asterdam?

> > seems highly unlikely from th accumulating evidence…i wd hazard to
guess
>
> > it’s bn a process of diversification for th smoke cafes- from pinball
> > machines & pool tables to higher-end client base profit expansion
> > seeking…& blah blah woof woof to you, to quote th late great
> mr.hendrix…
> > boy, for a small country th dutch sure seem to do things in a big way.
> there
> > was a big gay pride boat parade yesterday worthy of a dutch version of
> > ’south park’- big official floats w/ everybody & their maiden aunt’s
> little
> > motor lauch getting in on th act…got a bit of nice footage out of it
> even
> > if i did get a little wet out in th dutch drizzle…
> > spent th rest of th afternoon making up for missd lunch w/ a burgundian

> > dinner- ardennes pate followed by roast lamb in mint & honey sauce-
washed
>
> > down w/ glasses of belgian lambic- that’s liquid sourdough to th
> > uninitiated- beer fermented spontaneously on th grain’s naturally
ocurring
>
> > -umm are they still yeasts? i wd guess so…
> > meanwhile as i sit here struggling w/ my pseudo-journalistic vocation,
> > online travel journals seem to be proliferating all around me. a cursory

> > peek @ neighboring & surrounding monitors show hotmail & yahoo to be th

> > services of choice…

reiten reiten reiten

und der mut is so müde gworden und die sehnsucht so gross…

-r.m.rilke

another mittwoch & no answers, one week layover(ha) in nyc to shop for

scrambling sandals, better hiking shoes/ sturdier trail running shoes, some

light raingear…all i’ve bought is socks & sockliners & a pair of support

orthotic pads, that’s about it. not th most confident, comfortable consumer

& customer, tho i am slowly becoming an educated one (‘@ sym’s, an educated

consumer is our best customer’)

so many little hurdles to configuring my virtual writing desk & electronic

post office- hotmail lets me save a draft to continue work- i’m still not

sure yahoo offers that possibility, excite definitely does not. but hotmail

has no easy way to copy addresses off a posting & into their address

‘book’-

has no way @ all except 100% manual off-my-scrap-of-paper data entry…so

i’ll save this draft here (hotmail) & forward it to mself (both excite &

yahoo) to see about editing a bit ummm- tomorrow morning @ ceybercafé in

soho when i go check my compuserve account…try to attach th old kfeen

13/hebdo.amStrand friends & audience(!?) adresses & finally renew my

writing

discipline…

i was hoping to time my visit here @ cyberfeld’s w/ a bite or a coffee @

‘borgo antico’ next door- michele maritato, co-owner & chef, had a great &

inspirational story about hiking down & back up th grand canyon (besides

zion national in utah) & th food is as good as th conversation- th night i

had dinner there, i made up for not having bn eating my greens lately: a

cold spinach & fennel soup, sauteéd dandelion greens & artichokes & grilld

calamari on arugula & white beans! hope i’ve got my ny friends excited

enough to go for a visit & say hi for me! all th best to all, especially my

fellow pilgrims & wanderers this extreme weather summer of ‘99…

lovey dovey lovey dovey all’a time…d=(8{>

Wednesday th 16, 06.1999 (20h58) they just played my theme song for ‘83-
‘like a break in th battle/was yr part
in th wretched life/of a lonely heart-
now I’m back on th train/yeah
back on th chain gang…’
…except that christalía, th love of my life, @ one point shockd me by declaring we were-’@ worst- mortal

enemies’!(-@ best, ‘boyfriend/girlfriend’ -?? how dull, how pedestrian- how bewildering for such an otherwise

smart & passionate woman…how telling??)
…I wd’ve thought @ worst, we were still on th same side- grudging allies thrown together by force of wild,

absurd circumstance… I was so naive- so blind? I had no idea there was this war (to th death!) between men &

women!
* still am not quite over that one…afterwards, things began to fall into place- ‘all is fair in love &

war’…& my mistrust & sense of having been taken advantage of grew & grew…
* my first run in nearly a week, I needed it baaad, it provided some reassurance- I started out in fear &

apprehension: my last run was in th sweltering suburban twilight of caparra last thursday, & I don’t know if

whether because of dehydration from th extra heat & humidity, or gulping icecold seltzer as soon as I finishd

an excruciating minimum thirty minutes & stumbled drenchd in sweat into th house- but my heart went into this

double time- I don’t know if it was tachycardia, extrasystoles, palpitations or *what*- all I know is it must

have been nearly five minutes of fighting to keep my breath slow & deep & th anxiety from mounting &

aggravating th whole thing…then th occasional skippd beat over th next hour until i had a big warm(!)bowl of

noodle soup… (wed th 30th- 1328h- blew th morning…)
sheryl crow rubs it in over & over thru th headphones- ‘a change/will do
you good’
…procrastinating on returning this slick machine (powerbk G3- cd i find
one of these for under $2k in nyc?)…on going to auxilio mutuo hospital &
see if i can process health plan membership before my imminent
departure…on closing my account @ santander & buying traveler’s checks…
like th charles grodin character told th ‘bounty hunter’ played by deniro
in ‘midnight run’-
’sometimes, (sometime?) you(ll?) just *have to* let go…’
you better find/somebody to…d=(8{>

Wednesday th 26, 05.1999 (17h14) mittwoch: midweek midmorning heats up into midday, sinks into th midafternoon

of midlife… is this song over? what’s left, then?
th winds blow hot but gust cold
as fast approaching first of June
brews midyear tropical storms in th midatlantic…
prozac season is here again…
th braces have come off & my receding gums reinforce th feeling of being fourteen going on sixty-five: years of

negligent dental hygiene have taken their toll in creeping periodontal disease…
Friday th 28, 05.1999 (11h56) hey, love of my life! is yr beauty finally up from its slumbers & on th march of

time?
* because paradoxically & ironically enough, yr prince here has nodded out in th face of his frightfully fading

charms… our places have been switched, our gender roles reversed while we blinked furiously, struggling to

focus our attention & seeking to recognise an ally of our desires among th shadows dancing in th twilight…

oh, are you a tareyton smoker? wd you rather get yr eyes blackened for staking yr claim to one constricted

lungful of pleasure than be wholeheartedly thrilld @ th renewed opportunity to breathlessly peel off layers of

proudly hardened cultural callus from our wary pink innocence? listen, here, now, listen: every fiber of my

being calls to you-asleep or awake, frequency vibrating out & up to a blinding, deafening ring beyond cosmic

fusion or down to a single flat cycle wave beneath th threshold of sensory perception-stripping down to my

sunset silk thong in th crowded dakar dance club only to surface into some hungry daybreak hole in a frozen

nantucket pond of my dreams every tinymitochondrion hums its energy furnace w/out a moment’s rest-fueling each

& every living & dying cell in this curving body to its perfect dissolution-every dancing helix, every bonding

burning biochemical enabler hones th spiritual electron stream of desire home to yr name all you need

is…d=(8{>