21 may -- tirana, albania // meeting lorenc

21 may -- tirana, albania

a boy bathes in the river in western tirana.  men and women pack the streets and sidewalks.  older men wear  loose, short sleeved collared shirts and polos.  younger men wear tight t-shirts.  the old buildings are faded.  cherry merchants stand every two hundred meters; a large, bulging plastic bag sells for 110 leke -- 80 cents.

19 may -- podgorica, montenegro; various, kosovo

19 may -- podgorica, montenegro

a young woman walking her large dog invites us to her apartment for tea.  we are initially wary but follow her.  in the apartment, her boyfriend, a very thin young man sits shirtless at the coffee table watching soccer highlights and rolling a joint.  his face is gaunt.  he used to live in los angeles but was deported after immigration services discovered that he was attempted to secure a sham marriage.  he seems resentful despite openly admitting that he paid a woman ten thousand dollars to marry him.  his girlfriend appears to understand.  it is a bizarre situation.

he asks where are going next and we tell him peja, kosovo.

'pec,' he says, suddenly alert, 'why are you going there?'  we didn't answer right away.  'it's filthy.  it's a filthy country, the city, the people are filthy.  it is still very dangerous.  you will be attacked.'  he is practically spitting.  we steer the conversation elsewhere.  we are not attacked in kosovo.

18 may - kotor & perast, montenegro

18 may - kotor & perast, montenegro

on the bus old women converse with jutted jaws and knobby chins.  one has swollen legs, varicose veins in her feet, from many years upright.  her ankle is wrapped to hide the ugly, heavy.  her husband wears light red.  the creases in her face spell long forgotten words and syllables, suns, moons.  the women wear simple shirts of solid colors.

15 may -- zadar/dubrovnik

dubrovnik, croatia

note: the following travel posts are mostly observational and all non fiction and written in buses and will be further polished and developed. that's why they might not be good.

15 may - zadar, croatia

it's dalmatian. the cigarettes are so cheap they're almost free. i sit on the base of the statue outside of the bus station and a man in a sporty polo and sandals bursting with toes approaches me and expects one -- he doesn't ask. i comply and offer my lighter. he pats his breast pocket. maybe i owed him one in another life. i silently thank him for his patience.

there's sand and hay-colored grass. i hardly understand any words.

a clever trick

a clever trick

i have a locket guess who
is inside?

your mother.
no :)

your grandmother.
no :)

your sister.
i am an only child :)
you told me you had a sister
i tricked you :)
you fell for it :D

is it you?
:)

a poem about cleveland

East 59th and Chester

~~

Here we find ourselves at Chester and

East

Fifty Ninth.

On our southeast corner is a large

abandoned lot.

On our southwest corner is a large

abandoned lot.

Guess what is on our northeast corner?

a church!

there is a church!

On our northwest corner is an

abandoned lot.

During the winter it is covered in snow and

boot prints.

We kneel and pray

IN JESUS' HOLY NAME AMEN.

good weather bonus multiplier / who is hiring

there’s a multiplier, like a bonus multiplier, for how much better paris is in nice weather compared to the cold, grey cloud in which it was enveloped for the december-march doldrums.  it’s somewhere between 3x and 10x and still tbd and not exaggerated.

everybody is outside playing.  old people are hanging on benches, packing squares, spitting philosophy and politics and nonsense to anyone who will listen.  crowds that usually packed barber shops and cafés are spilling out onto sidewalks and stoops.  kids are actually playing.  man.  it’s great.

there’s a canal in the northeastern part of the city called le canal st. martin.  in january, it became my staple running route, and as the weather got nicer and nicer, punctuated by my return into three days of 70 degree sunshine, its banks have been flooded with the parisian youth, hands full of wine and cigarettes from afternoon to early morning.  It's lively and fun.

the reboot

readers, fans,

after quitting my job and returning to paris from a monthlong trip to the united states to replenish my body's need for family love, plutocratic market capitalism, and pabst blue ribbon, i've decided to reboot the NJiT blog.

in the words of one of the greatest anti-heroes of the mid-2000s whose movie had a trailer that was significantly better than the movie itself (at 0:46),


more to come soon.

yo i wrote a thing for vice

happy valentine's day!

slipped a lil piece on parisian undocumented rose sellers into the Valentine's Day slate of releases on VICE.

big changes / becoming friends with the soju man

well

i had anticipated that the blog post following my last would dive deep into what i’d begun writing -- uncharted paths, disorientation, adjustment, existential crises, etc. this still might touch on that, but life has changed dramatically since i last checked in, team.

i made friends