Oporation Dokotela

After a serious applications campaign, I have been offered a place for PhD at John's Hopkins, UNC Chapel Hill, and Harvard. All three of these schools are amazing. I mean, just the idea of reading and writing and being in community with smart people is giving me life (Current PhD students please do not trample on my dreams yet). But guys, Harvard is the one I know from TV. Wherever I end up going, having been accepted there is like my adolescent self climbing into the TV and hanging out with Rory in that episode of Gilmore Girls where she visits Harvard with her sister/mom. It's un-fucking-believable. 

Harvard rejected my application this time last year, throwing me into a serious funk. Despite all the self-helpy fall-six-times-and-get-up-seven stuff I know, I took the rejection to heart. I thought it meant something about my ability. But as one of my mentors said when I told him about the rejection - "with these things you must persist." So I did.

Pretty soon after the rejection I started getting up early to read and write, long before even looking at application materials. For the month leading up to the common deadline for all these applications I even stopped drinking wine you guys. WINE. (Before my friends expose me, I should admit that I took weekly breaks from my month-long break from wine). I even looked at poppers with a suspicious-nyana eye - what if they make me dom? why can't I just wait until after the deadline. Nkosyam. No, I worked, guys.

So I am allowing myself to share the news and acknowledge some people out loud because this thing is no small thing, as my dad said on the phone the other day: 

1. A classmate in high school who told my adolescent self in Science one day, after I had just told him my dream to study at Harvard: "you're not that smart". Later a second-year who late one night, in the first week of my undergrad program, told me: "you're gonna fail act sci". Guys but you brought some hateration into my dancery, hey. Modimo a le tshwarele. 

2. A maths teacher who was unimpressed with an A if "you should have gotten A+". A debating teacher who forced me out of the mortal fear of standing in front of people and speaking. An accounting teacher who taught me to do it again, and again, until it balances. 

3. Lecturers who were kind and generous humans, but merciless examiners. Your half-a-mark per point, formula sheet-less  time-pressure exams were never quite like the tutorials we had practiced. This was you greatest trick, and I never stopped being surprised by it. Hard work; thick skin; the virtue of a solid, middle-of-the road C; and the ability to work while crying, and other problematic coping strategies are what I walked away with there.

4. This reminds me. Because of a generous scholarship from the South African Actuarial Development Program, I had a free higher education at UCT. I had no debt and I wasn't forced to work for anyone when I graduated. I had a chance to experiment, and my experiments have brought me to an exciting place intellectually. So, ye #FeesMustFall.

5. Mentors, friends and colleagues who see more or demand more than I think I have. One who randomly invited me to his office after we had met in a seminar, and over months taught me how to write and publish an academic paper. One who I trust to look me in the eye, and with kindness, tell me exactly how bad a piece of work is. (She once gave me feedback on an essay that I had worked very hard on. It was so critical I had to take a very serious nap before looking at the essay again). One who hired me fresh out of grad school, and within the year, began sending me to do work with people much older and much more experienced than me. On one of these occasions, he encouraged me to send the meeting coordinator my slide deck just before flying over to Geneva. When I pointed out that I had no slide deck because I had not been invited to present, he gave me a new motto: "Sometimes you just have to invite yourself to speak". 

6. My family - who I am sure are not sure what I do. But they are sure it's good, and are happy that I'm happy doing it. In particular - my mom has been learning new things since I met her. Graduated with a masters at 50 something. Learned how to make hats now in her 60s. (They're fierce. message her. She is probably already your facebook friend. she taught herself that as well). There is a shrine to education in my parent's house. Every graduation we have ever had is shown there. If I remember correctly, there is even a picture from the day my sister graduated pre-school. We take graduation very seriously in my family - we are a graduating family. When I called my mom this week, she reminded me of my little sister' upcoming graduation. Specifically, she reminded me that at some point on that day, all of us will need to be in our own academic regalia in a room with an official photographer. This will be the next picture on the shrine. Im sure she is already preparing for the one after that.

6. My manfriend, who is part of my family, of course, but deserves a special shout-out because he got me a bubble machine for my 30th birthday. A machine for bubbles guys. Do you have one? If not, then how can you possibly know whether you are loved?

7. My reviewers and witnesses. You can't apply to grad school alone. You need people to apply with you - to write: "yes he capable" and "no he is not a catfish". In the hyperbolic US system you need people to do a little more: "make your PhD cohort great again!". Thank you for playing along. I also depended on people to review very boring documents for free: CV's, essays about my interests, even letters to the academics I fangirl. There is one academic I stanned for so hard guys. When I read her book, it was literally like "I prayed that she would finish / but she just kept right on / killing me softly with her song". It turns out she was not even as into me as I was into her - maybe that was part of the funk. Anyways, at least two of my reviewers read drafts of my aca-love notes to her and provided solid feedback. Imagine that level of commitment to the cause. I will pay it forward. 

Mylo and Shingi's Wedding

After the catholic service the South Africans had found the their feet and were now lobbing wedding songs into the air at unexpected times. We had spent the morning in a catholic service in Harare - uncertain about when sit, stand or kneel, about how to move to the joyful singing of the choir, about the prayers and responses, about the tiny bell that one of the priest's assistant's kept ringing. Who was he calling?

Even the "Our Father" was slightly different, but not so much that we didn't know what was going on. Like having sadza when you're used to pap. Now we were in a banquet room - a neutral space which through music, was turned into a familiar place. So SePedi songs sprung up out of nowhere, preceded the speeches of the father of the groom, and the aunt. The host, not to have his people outdone, would pointedly say: "Here in Zimbabwe we have songs too". The Zimbabweans in the room would take only a few seconds to deploy harmonies to remind us where we are.

Stains on my keyboard

Microwave popcorn butter
Gossip
Belle and Sebastian
Hot sauce
Tears
Wine
Rage
Coffee
Hope
Salad dressing
Lust
Elis Regina
Lonelines
Atchar oil
Audre lorde

Hopelessness
Escape

Holiday Pics

I recently read something about soundscape and music - that the work of composers is firmly grounded in place. This thing that I read (I forgot where) claims that the sounds that punctuate a composer's everyday life show up in her compositions. They leave an imprint on her, whether or not she is aware.

I was thinking about the every day sounds I have lived in and what they might have imprinted in me... not that I am a musician or anything, just that I was a-quarter-to-vacation and trying to think about things that are as far away from my work as possible. The question was on my mind just before I visited New York two weeks ago, which was great because I can't think of a richer soundscape than that city. For whatever reason, I have very vivid memories of sound in New York: Subway trains constantly base-drumming underground, Bachata blaring from apartment windows in Washington Heights, snow plows scraping the west side highway, snippets of conversation in languages from around the world.

So I went around recording snippets of sound, like photographs, in different parts of the city. I wasn't very disciplined so most of the time I forgot to make recordings. I was occasionally reminded of my task when I heard beautiful music, like a distant wailing I heard in the cavernous subway station on the A line at 180th street, or an electric guitar crooning "both sides now" while I was waiting for the Staten Island Ferry.

I am sharing some of what I got here.

Staten Island Ferry Building - 3:00pm 10 Dec 2015

Waiting for the ferry back to Manhattan from Staten Island. 

A Train Platform - 180th Street - 11am Manhattan 11 Dec 2015

Walking towards the music in the underground A train station at 180th street. 

A Restaurant - Brooklyn - 5:00pm 12 Dec 2015

A waiter intones the specials to us in a restaurant in Brooklyn. 

The Same Restaurant - Brooklyn 5:30 12 Dec 2015

Hanging out with my Zim family.

Melville, Johannesburg - 5:30 pm 21 Dec 2015

Finally back home in Melville.

A guide to armrests in economy class

1. Place elbow at base of armrest, against the seat. Be first. Be casual, but quick and firm. Let go of inhibitions. Over the course of the flight, swivel arm over contested armrest while looking away. Seem interested in the in-case-of-crash card, or your book, or someone sitting ahead of you. Do not make contact with adversary. Do not apologize.

2. If your adversary claims armrest first, do not lose hope. Gather all the things you need to gather. Switch off your phone, ready your book or your laptop,  secure your seatbelt, undo your top button, check for your life jacket under your seat, note your nearest exit, take your sleeping pill. Then wait. Be watchful. Lean your elbow against your adversary's. Wait for a mistake - a tightening of the seatbelt, a reaching for the crusty in-flight magazine, a scratching of the nose. He will make a mistake - they always do. When he vacates the base of the armrest, or cedes centimeters of ground, pounce. Casually, but firmly - like a firm but casual cat. Seem nonchalant. Hum the national anthem. Do not retreat: forwards ever, backwards never. Annex the base of the armrest.

3. Your adversary, if reasonable, will capitulate, sensing a power greater than his.

4. If unreasonable he will attempt to wait for you as you waited for him. But have you not gathered all the things? You planned ahead, and you are strong. You are a Masai warrior, a Buddhist monk. You will persist. You will cede no ground. You will take a nap without ever relaxing your tricep.

5. If resistant, he will attempt to re-claim lost ground. Do not be weak. Turn your elbows out. Interlace your fingers. Consider the clouds intently. Avoid eye contact. Invite no conversation with the enemy. You don’t need him. Did you not come to this earth alone? Are you not enough for yourself? Appear to doze off.

6. If belligerent he will attempt to make you uncomfortable with his arm-sweat. He will attempt to put your arm in his armpit or envelop you with his dank skin. You will feel a wetness of unknown provenance. (Is it his sweat, or mine? Or our sweat intermingling intercontinentally?). Do not be weak. Do not relax your tricep. Strange sweat is temporary. You will not die. Hum the song "Titanium" to lift the spirits.

7. If you have followed these instructions, you will reach your destination in full control of both armrests. If you find you have lost an armrest, reflect on your failures. Remember: not everyone was born to be great. Perhaps your divine purpose is to cede armrests to stronger strangers. Drink a bottle of wine in the shower, crying.

Beginnings and Endings (Part 2)

December(ish), 2012
Lake Merrit
Oakland, California

Almost 2 years ago, I entered an empty room with off-white walls and a view of the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge. It was a new beginning. A completely new start. I knew 3 people in the city and carried my entire life in two suitcases and an overstuffed carry-on.  There is something poignant about gathering a life into suitcases and an overstuffed carry-on, and leaving behind no traces of yourself.

I did it again 5 months ago. Up and left. Erasing myself and creating myself again. This time in match-box studio apartment in front of a lake. I own a bookshelf, a desk and a chair. The bed is twice handed down. Both past owners work where I work. If it could speak, I would ask it to be quiet. There is enough space for me and my two-suitcase life in my studio. I don't own any living things. It feels like home. When I was home (in South Africa) and I imagined home, this was what I imagined. 

I guess I am one for beginnings and endings. Middles are fine too -  life has more middles than beginning and endings, I guess.  I don’t dislike them. There is nothing like a new home, though, or a newly old home. A beginning and ending. I want to call it freedom. But that word has too many meanings in the U.S.

People are amazing. I have met many, and I have learnt how to make insta-friends. When you leave somewhere and end up somewhere else, far from anything you know, you make insta-friends. You meet people, become intimate real quick,  and next thing you know you are family. You cling onto each other because for some reason, its important to care for people and, to be cared for. Even if its just occasionally getting together to laugh about how smart people can get so quickly dumb when they speak about people who come from where you come from. Or sitting in the park trying to figure out why boys treat us like Michelle, the extra child of Destiny, when it is obvious that we are Beyonce, the golden-child. 

I have been willing myself, over the last few weeks, to be awed by my fortune here. Maybe its self-indulgent. My aim was to document this short and amazing moment in my short  life - and how unimaginable it was 7 years ago. How impossible. I don't want to take it for granted. But I also don’t want to make an it-gets-better-as-evidenced-by-my-awesome-life-I-love-myself-and-you-should-love-me-too video. Feel free to move on to something else. There must be something else more important on the internet.

Questions and 3am thoughts

About 3am - Monday February 21 2011
Washington Heights
New York City

1. Snow is ugly. And it is unpleasant. Why are you dreaming of a white christmas? 
2. Go-go boys are cute. But why do they always leave an oily residue on my fingers? 
3. You will never meet a nice boy at the club. Go home and watch a rom-com. 
4. Grey sweatpants are always ugly. 
5. Bhuti, why are you trying to sit next to me in the subway? And why are your thighs all up in my grill? Can you not press your knees together and look straight ahead like everyone else? 
6. Facebook is addictive. But at least I'm not on crack.

How to Survive Travel to Foreign Territories

A Concise List

1. Never catch feelings in a foreign country. 

1.1. If you catch feelings, surrender them at the airport. Leave them with half-drunken bottles of water, too-large for hand-luggage hand creams, seeds, agricultural products, meat products, and folded-up pamphlets of places you will never visit. 

1.1.1. If that fails, remember to forget his name - like the taste of the water, the smell of the airport, and the name of that place you happened upon drunk, or lost. The name of that place with the dancing lights and balmy wind; with that music that filled with your lungs; the salt-water and sunblock smell. The name of that place that found a new world inside you; that made you feel free. That place you will never visit again. Forget him like your forgot that name. Let him exist as an outline, or a blur, a rush of excitement, a there-thing. Not a here-thing. You are here now, not there. Get busy at work. 

1.1.1.1. If that fails, brace yourself for a slow death. Count the words in his messages. Count your words. Open a ledger. Balance his words against yours. Measure the distance between your "Hello" and his "Good Night"; your xx and his <3; his "Message Read" and your "Message Received". Measure the heat of his virtual kisses, the intensity of his longing. Measure the distance between dreams and realities. Measure every thing.

1.1.1.1.1. Realize the truth of the measurements one night. Drink red wine tinged with the salt of your travel-love tears. Play Hoobastank, Coldplay, John Legend in quick succession. Fall asleep on the couch.

1.1.1.1.1.1. Pour silence into your phone. Aim it upwards or in the direction of his city or at a picture of his face. Channel all the silence you can muster. Let him be overwhelmed by a tsunami of silence. Write a blank text message to him. Don't send it. Let him ache for your attentions. Deny him them. (Wonder if he is doing the same thing, or whether he noticed). Tell your friends how useless he is. (Know that he is not . Just human, and far). Concede nothing. Delete his number.

1.1.1.1.1.1.1. Forget him for months.

1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1. Remember him one night, drunk, and wonder what the fuck you were doing catching feelings in a foreign country. You were being ridiculous. Rookie Error. Never again. 

Do it again.

2. Pack lots of underwear - repeating underwear is undignified.

Khona

Where is my love?

Please return it

To where you found it.

I want it to return

To me from that place

Bring it back,

bring it back,

I want it back.

I have been loving this video because it is a conversation. New York Ball Scene gays with bo mme ba Lesotho are chatting about Ndebele art and Sarafina through Kwaito beats and Salif Keita's haunting wailing. These are just my associations, I am sure different people see/hear different things. 

As always, I am late to the party. I am sure others have finished writing about how awesome all of everything in this video is. I discovered the translation late. (Sometimes I purposefully fail to listen to the words of songs I love. I have been disappointed too many times - looking at you Beyonce.)

I also missed the poignancy of this song.  You wouldn't think that they are mourning a bandmember, a mother, a child, and a lover. You wouldn't think it is a song about death. It seems to be.

I guess it makes sense that it is as upbeat as it is tragic. Because we are a singing people. When we are happy we sing, when we are sad, we sing. When we are hungry or tired or bored, we sing.

heeelz

This morning I decided to come to work (I do it from a coffee shop ) in my black 50-something-inch heels. I had been admiring these heels for a while, in my room in my parents' house. How they make me feel tall, and sassy, and Beyonce. How well they work with the choreography from Her video for 'Grown Woman', the one from a live performance in Paris (there are different versions - that one is my favourite).

On a whim, I threw the shoes on and got in the car (I did not bring a sensible back-up pair). More dangerous than drag, I am just wearing (men's) jeans and a tee. And you know how butch, how straight-acting, how manly and indifferent-to-fashion I look in my jeans and a tee.

I am not sure why I am here like this (story of my life). I think it had something to do with how much of a waste these shoes are in my closet. Maybe it is  to challenge myself to reflect on whether/how I navigate spaces differently; can I move in Bloemfontein like I move in San Francisco or Cape Town? Do I move in the mall  like I move downtown? Questions of physical safety aside, how does someone else's gaze shape the ways in which I can use the thing that is most intimately mine to use - my body?

Sidenote: Judith Butler dropping truths about Gender

Here I am. Vaguely aware of the waiters gathered at the waiters station, the respectable  couple at the table behind me, the shop assistants whose cackles I only heard once my back was turned (people are terribly polite in Bloemfontein). I am acutely aware of old fears and anxieties and have discovered new ones (what if I fall? what if I meet someone I know?  what if everyone can tell that I don't really know how to walk in heels? What if they laugh at me not because they are blind to the demands of their genders, but because my fashion choices are TERRIBLE?)

Anyways. Here I am, serving you keletso-realness. Scared and anxious on the inside, but on the outside, smizing and werqing like  its Mimosa Mall Fashion Week up in this betch.

As you were.

Love Handles

I noticed today
in the mirror,
while forgiving
my rogue body-parts
for arriving
in the night
like extended family
with too-large suitcases

that if I turn away
and gaze back
and squint seductively,
it looks like I swallowed
a sexy clothes-hanger
which is now lodged
right-way-up
just above my waist.

It makes for fine handles
to hold onto
for the loving

of myself

"My vice - my secret pin which I should never reveal and never write down on a piece of paper like this - was getting in the last word. I didn't intend to trouble other people, only to enlighten them. On the majority of Mondays and Sundays and Thursdays and Wednesdays, and some other days of the week, I felt closer to the truth than most other people...

Granted: this conviction of mine had the potential to create bitterness. But silence, and compliance, any form or type of submission, were antithetical to the mission of a taxi poet. I preferred that others submit, instead, to the crackle of whatever truth flowed through me like the sparks at Parker's house in Belthorn Estate where they electrocuted many a sliding-door man who had slid away from financial morality. It was even possible that torturers, and truth seekers, and transport poets were united in pursuit of this strange crackle."

-- Imraan Coovadia, The Institute for Taxi Poetry, 2012

There's a whole world outside this. Shut outside. Kept out. Shutting this in... Don't stay inside and let your arteries harden, like theirs... What I'm asking you to look out for is - a moral sclerosis. Moral sclerosis. Hardening of the heart, narrowing of the mind; while the dividends go up. The thing that makes them distribute free blankets in the location in winter, while refusing to pay wages people could live on. Smugness. Among us, you can't be too young to pick it up. It sets in pretty quick. More widespread than bilharzia in the rivers, and a damned sight harder to cure.

 It's a hundred per cent endemic in places like this Donnybrook Country and Sporting Club, and in all the suburbs that you're likely to choose from to live in. Just don't be too sure they're healthy, our nice clean suburbs for whites only.

 - and your children. If you have babies... don't worry too much about who kisses them - it's what they'll tell them later that infects. It's what being nicely brought up will make of them that you've got to watch out for...

Nadine Gordimer, The Late Bourgeois World. 1966

This book was banned by the Apartheid government for 10 years beginning in 1975. That's how you know to read it.

"Tears are very close to my eyes," says Bhonco, son of Ximiya. "Not for pain... no... I do not cry because of pain. I cry because of beautiful things."

And he cries often. Sometimes just a sniffle.Or a single tear down his cheek. As a result he carries a white handkerchief all the time, especially these days when peace has returned to the land and there is enough happiness to go around. It is shared like pinches of snuff. Rivers of salt. They furrow the aged face.

Zakes Mda, The Heart of Redness

Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell

Leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.
--Marty McConnel

e·phem·er·a

əˈfem(ə)rə
noun
things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time.

Four foldable side tables that I put together to use as a desk
One wooden chair
One wooden coat rack
One box-spring and mattress
One inflatable mattress
One bookshelf
Six porcelain bowls
One pot
One frying pan
One kettle
Two wine glasses
Four glass jars
One wooden spoon
Four forks, four spoons, 4 teaspoons, 2 knives

I will be giving them away over the next two weeks. Let me know if you want to give them a new life in your home.

It gets better

Your time is coming
Arm yourself with love
Spend your kindness in the mirror
Read
Make your own family
Plan your escape
Dream
Leave an unkind friend
Spend tears wisely
Spill tears recklessly
Listen to the saddest song
Hope

Your time is coming
Struggle will make you beautiful
We are waiting for you

Beginnings and Endings

I love beginnings and endings. I am rushing towards one now, so I have come back to this place to share banal things with you, internet. I know you are almost at capacity , but just like the people who give you pictures and pictures of cats, I don't care. It's not about you.

I found this entry that I made on the first day I was in the United States of America. I was young, skinny, and full of hope. Now I am youngish, fatish and full of complaints about the world.

After about 30 hours of travelling I have arrived at our hotel. My first impression of Miami is that its like Durban except cars come at you from your blind spot (left-hand side) and they seem bigger than usual. There is a giant American flag flying at the top of a giant flagpole across the street from my window. 

I just had a bottomless soup and salad for $7 at a place called "Chilli's" in Bayside Market Place. The first helping could have fed a small family for 2 days. The fat could have fuelled a small car from Bloemfontein to Thaba Nchu.  

This morning when I ordered coffee from Starbucks (like in the movies), after asking for a small coffee, the lady behind the counter repeated my order to me as "tall coffee". "Excuse me ma'am," I excused myself (a little bleary from the long flight) "I ordered a small coffee". 

"Sir, our small is our tall" she shot back.

I'm supposed to share my hotel room with someone. I hope he is hot and gay, but either would be fine.

This has nothing to do with anything I wrote

Looking back at this moment, it is clear that this woman, having detected the sureness of a foreigner with a too-fast metabolism, tried to warn me about the fatsplosion that was to visit my then dainty hips. Alas, I did not hear her. There are also hints in here about the rest of my stay - giant American flags, hotties, gays, bottomless (or bottomful) things, etc. For later posts.

Aids Quilt

Today I saw a panel from the Aids Quilt. I have seen a few around the town - they are out for the first AIDS conference in the U.S. since 1987. Today I had an opportunity to really look at one. In the center, in bright block letters , "Papa". On one side 1952 - 1993. He would have been 3 years older than my mom.

I wondered about the love and the anguish in each stitch of that thing, and what it meant to today touch that thing woven from love, and woven from anguish. My mother keeps a set of about 6 ornamental teaspoons bound by 40-year-old masking tape. Her passed-on mother bound them, and she refuses to unbind them. Some of her mother's love, she says, is in that strange arrangement.

I wondered about the magic of things. Their power to transport us back to them, and to transport them forward to us.

I love
all
things,
not because they are
passionate
or sweet-smelling
but because,
I don't know,
because
this ocean is yours,
and mine;
these buttons
and wheels
and little
forgotten
treasures,
fans upon
whose feathers
love has scattered
its blossoms
glasses, knives and
scissors -
all bear
the trace
of someone's fingers
on their handle or surface,
the trace of a distant hand
lost
in the depths of forgetfulness.

--Neruda

Insomnia and stuff

Picture is from here

Its past midnight and I am devastatingly awake. I had planned to be good today; to go to bed at 10 (which became 11ish after facebook) and get up at 6 and write. I have a strange phantom burning smell going on. I hope its not a real burning smell. I don't think it is, it started over the Pride Weekend when, instead of making gay memories at one of the biggest Pride festivals I might ever experience, I was in bed self-medicating and making sure to cover all surfaces with a thin layer of aerosol-snot.  I also remember the phantom burning yesterday in the movie theatre. I have only just decided that the smell is burning (and not B.O., for instance) because I showered fairly recently and googled "phantom burning smell". It is a real thing. The internet says I should go and see a doctor, "preferably a neurologist" about it. I decided to stop asking the internet and to just go to bed and think about it tomorrow (after writing what I have to write).


This blog began as a travel journal-like thing. I came to the 'Murrica and felt compelled to share my experiences, etc. Then it occurred to me that a) probably few people care and b) writing about my time here in travelogue form might force me to be in tourist mode and not living-here-for-two-years-and-having-arguments-with-the-laundromat-guy-because-he-lost-my-bag-and-wouldn't-compensate-me-so-I-made-a-scene-and-stormed-the-fuck-out mode; you know, every day life mode. Anyways, I have experienced major changes recently and so I return to travel journal-like writing, at least for this post.


I just started a new job in Oakland, California. It is in the Bay Area, and it's close to its more famous cousin, San Francisco.  They say (or maybe I say) New York is to San Fran as Jo'burg is to Cape Town. One is a bit faster, one is a bit more beautiful. One is less frenetic, and one is less drug-induced. My job is to do research on gay men (and other "men who have sex with men") and HIV, and also to help improve access to services to gay men (and other "MSM") to health services amongst other things. A lot of my work will be focused on a few African countries, and it will pay attention to how human rights environments shape people's risk. It's all the stuff that I think about and blab about in my spare time, except now someone is paying me to do them, and I am in an organization of people who have amazing track-records at this kind of work. It's all very exciting. I am a fully-fledged professional gay now. I am gay all day.


 I have been working from New York until now. I am going to continue until the International Aids Conference in Washington DC (finally possible because travel-bans on HIV positive people have been lifted, but not travel bans on sex workers unfortunately) where I will learn a lot of stuff and meet a lot of people who do amazing things.


I think I have bored myself to sleep with all this writing by now (I hope it can be similarly useful to you). John, if you are reading this, sorry for being late, I am suffering extreme writers block for the things that matter, but not for the things that don't. I am waking up early to do that other thing. I cant even apostrophize.


Guys, it can get hot in New York. I even saw grown men wearing a nat waslap on their heads the other day. True story.


K




Oh, I graduated (yay!) so now I am an adult. And I don't know why I thought this post would be in travelogue form, or even what that means really. Such is life, etc.