WALKING ON THIN ICE

smith as duchamp with duchamp - collage by lady

duchamp as smith with duchamp

essaouira day 20

tried to turn on the light. couldn’t find the switch. “the rats have moved the switch again.” found it. light came on 2 seconds, burned out. “light just burned out - probably cuz the rats moved the switch.” “that’s okay, we have a new bulb.” “yes, but the new bulb’s screw in. this one is twist in. and the dead lamp light bulb is push in.” what is it with this place? we have no refrigerator, no hot water, no oven, but we do have 3 different light bulb insertion philosophies in 6 very small rooms. and a major pre-existing dust bunny dirt farm - we could grow crops in here.

walking through the main tourist street in the medina, lady scurried by an angry shouting man reaching down to pick up his knife from the ground. he lurched into my path. without pausing, i eased him aside with my hands and kept going, thinking as i did that that looked like a knife handle in his hand. nothing happened, but it does make one wonder after.

later, walking in the tourist plaza, we ignored a vendor, so he yelled “fucking bitch” at lady as we passed. i didn’t hear it, but probably wouldn’t have done anything anyway because it’d be a lose-lose situation for me.

welcome to morocco. though, as lady says, “actually that’s not fair because most people here are so nice.” it’s kinda like life. you chose your toxins and you takes your cancers - we’re all one big walking talking toxin.

guess that makes george w. bush a walking talking texan toxin. but at least with him, time will provide the antidote to the moral disease he is. unless cheny has bush assassinated just before elections so he can claim a terror attack, declare martial law, and cancel the next elections. cheney’s the only guy i know makes darth vader look good.

essaouira day 21

was to get up at 4 to wander the starlight, but at 3 lady awoke to write - told me to go to sleep. i dove back in like a hot knife in a soft maggot. slept for 9 hours. dreamt of being fêted by artists in london with an interactive masked performance party and hugs and dinner and laughing dancing - all lead by blue 7, an american we met in krakow who fronts the urban-jellen test, an avant-garde garage art rock cabaret band. no one knew who we were or what we did, so i couldn’t understand why they celebrated us.

woke up with my heart beating normal - so add lack of sleep to stress and too much coffee and bad diet and too much salt and not enough water as causes of arrhythmia. i haven’t had 9 hours of sleep in 9 months. usually get 4 to 6. too many strange beds, too many short beds, too many lumpy beds, too much fear and loathing for peaceful long-lasting sleep. lady says i’m old and the old need less sleep - if that’s true, i’m either not old or am abnormal. i expected to learn a lot about my inner self and lady and varying cultures on this journey, but i never thought i’d be my own health science medical experiment as well.

lady probably let me sleep because i got snappish with her yesterday. i’ve been snapping more often lately. no excuse, but contributing factors are moroccan stress, bad diet, lack of sleep, and 6 days of being sick with a cold (it’s almost gone). i am lurking below low on inner reserve - morocco depletes my physical and psychological while filling both spiritual and mental.

no one gets along all the time every day when they’re together 24/7 - not even us. the fact she’s not murdered me in my sleep and fed me to the rats proves we’re not doing too badly.

yesterday lady found an alley inside the walls that leads up to castle-like fortified ramparts with cannons and a 200 degree view of a very angry west south sea. gorgeous stuff. going to put on more clothes and go back. we’d almost found it before going another way, but stopped 2 turns too soon. told her there was no need to go back cuz we’d already been there. she smiled, so we went anyway. glad i was wrong - this is special. going to see if it’s open for sunrise. guess it’s all in how you look.

we start our 11th month traveling today. considering what i’ve endured along the way, i’m way healthier than i thought. gained half a pound yesterday. 34 more days of morocco - i will survive. now if i can just get through 3 weeks of camping in scotland, then the two months in london and france and my wife’s underpants will be a breeze.

and as much as i whine and complain, outside a hippie drug house i moved into in baltimore in 1968, this is the most interesting place i’ve lived. i don’t care much for our apartment, but i love where it is, and the magic of living within the walls of an old arab city. if you’re going to be a poet artist philosopher humanitarian comedian, this is the place to be.

smith as jesus - collage by lady

jesus as smith