hybernation

i caught the flu last week, what i call the limone party effect. except i haven't been to limone this season, and the most partying i've done down here is splurging on a joint while sipping a small glass of amaretto. in any case, it all started with the sneezing two weeks ago. i thought they were just allergies, a possible sign that spring was going to bless the cote d'azur early this year. bikinis started appearing in my daydreams - me wearing a new one, sitting by the pool in the middle of february on an unusually hot day - and i started going through my closet to find more sun-friendly clothing to wear. but reality hit one day, sunday, and i woke up with mucous backed up from my nose all the way to my brain. meanwhile, hail and snow were coming down hard. so hard that the roads in monaco were closed. it marked the beginning of this so-called Turning Point i am currently experiencing.

boredom settles in quickly when you're sick. in between sleeping and blowing my nose, i found myself surfing the web intensely until i reached the point of having read and skimmed every website i could think of, reading variations of the same news over and over again. i got hooked in with the jeff gannon/jim guckert story. and once i was over that, i remembered that i had a paypal account. i wondered, is it still active? well, sure enough it is... enough for me to be curious of how the ebay market was doing these days as it had been over a year since i quit the racket of rummaging through pages of pages of women's vintage items (clothing, shoes, handbags, and jeans), "watching" items, and getting off on strategically placing my so-close-to-winning bid at the very last moment - according to the speed of my internet connection - before the bidding ends with not enough time for my competitor to place their counter bid and click the "confirm" button only to find out that their page uploaded too slowly, and yes, the bidding has ended with their being "outbid." needless to say, in the past week of "watching" items, i've won a pair of gloria vanderbilt heels, baby phat shorts, and a pair of jeans. so far.

aside from finding me staring at my iBook, i decided that i was finally ready to start reading fear and loathing: on the campaign trail '72. mackenzie had it in l.a. i remember him starting the book during our last days there. it took him a while to finish it. i think he finally did right before we took off for paris. anyway, the cover of the book is very distinct, and considering the subject of the book, the stars and stripes that decorated the skull on the cover haunted me: in one sense, i wanted to read thompson's take on the situation; but i didn't know if i was far-removed enough from our current situation to read it without sinking back into another one of those "depressing political trips." that was sunday night. the next day i read on yahoo, hunter s. thompson committed suicide. and now i can't seem to put the damn book down.

meanwhile - i mean, Meanwhile, i'm equally involved in observing the 101s of business a la mackenzie eisenhour. i call it a few things, like the rebirth of the french riviera, or bridgin the gap. but its real name is dead hippie.

and now, for now, it's the beginning of march. still rocking the kleenex, but it's hopeful. god bless the idea that one day it will be warm again, that the thought of thick, warm socks and long johns will be far gone, and i'll once again have my beautiful, soft, deep brown skin. i realize now that i never wondered what it would be like to know the true "winter." to actually experience it, (having limp hair, dry and pasty skin and being the source of non-stop static electricity - with no chance of having one of those hot days in the middle of a so-called winter, ditching work and hitting the beach) is a very depressing reality for me to discover. forever more, the key to my happiness will be to live in a place where the sun shines all day, and the temperature drops to nothing less than 60 degrees at night on any given day.

Our trip was different. It was to
be a classic affirmation of
everything right and true in the
national character; a gross,
physical salute to the fantastic
possibilities of life in this
country. But only for those with
true grit... ~ r. duke