To trout, we're all equal

I would rather spend my time flyfishing than to be doing anything else.

This statement has been proven true by friends, fishing buddies, and ex-girlfriends. I say this without a hint of pride nor shame. It's just a simple fact.

I've made a conscious choice that I'd spend at least one major holiday a year away from civilization. My own way of shutting down the system.

I've spent Christmas days alone on frozen Washington rivers, New Year's on some lake in Idaho, and Thanksgiving on a feeder stream in Montana. I'd park at a trailhead, load up my ruck, sleeping bag, flyfishing gear, high-cal protein bars, water, first aid kit, then and I'd hike until I found the most secluded, promising spot where I could set up camp and fish in complete solitude.

It was bliss. I mean, to be able to hear your own thoughts, to be absolutely comfortable with silence, to see your breath silhouetted against the night sky as you lie in a pre-warmed sleeping bag, not a single man-made noise to interrupt your thoughts, no concerns with bills, rent, mortgage, college loans, alimony, traffic jams, exams, and what you're gonna have for breakfast. It's you, your frozen surroundings, the warmth inside your coccoon of a sleeping bag, your fluffy wool socks, maybe a stick of beef jerky, and the gurgling noise of the river.

I smile as I think of these things right now.

In the morning there's no alarm clock to wake you, no blaring horns outside, no bedmate to nudge you to get up and do "stuff", no need to go to the gym, no need to even take a shower. You get up because the trout are rising to minute aquatic insects, sipping or slurping them off the surface of the water and making that distinctive sucking-popping sound. And you gotta cast to them before they change their minds, specially in the winter when the freezing water induces malaise in trout; with the early morning sun their only "boost" for surface feeding most of the time.

You crawl out of your bag, take a leak in the frigid air outside, put your fleece layers on, finish off a protein bar, take a swig of good whiskey, brush your teeth, put on your waders, slip on your fingerless gloves, don your fishing hat, and grab your flyfishing gear. Then you stroll down to the river's edge to see if you could fool a trout or two with flies you tied with your own hands.

You tie on a fly, the tiniest one you have in your flybox, you hold your breath and your heart starts thumping in anticipation after you made your first cast. (If you don't feel this anticipation, you have problems that isolation, nature and trout can never cure; seek professional help.)

It is at this moment that I feel like I am one with everything in the universe: I am neither rich nor poor; neither a monk nor an atheist; neither a learned man nor an illiterate; neither here nor there. I am just another living entity pitting my wits against another that has evolved to disregard everything that I AM.

Most of the time the trout gets the better of me. But that one instance when I make a connection between his aquatic world and my terrestrial existence through the artificial fly I made myself, it means everything to me.

The joy brought on by that ephemeral contact between two worlds---it could sustain me for a lifetime.

This is why I fish...alone.

And this is why I am happy.

Why I Hate Leaving New York

I ordered "steak" salad at this hotel I'm staying at in the outskirts of Pittsburgh (Embassy Suites). Sirloin on top of a menagerie of greens, according to the description on the menu.
WTF did I get? Some tough meat on a bed of lettuce, covered by french fries(!!!) with the whole thing blanketed by a thick layer of---get this--- MELTED FUCKING FAKE CHEESE!!!

Jesus Jones, people! Make up your goddamn mind! You can't be serving up ultra-fatty, hyper-calorie SALAD! I've travelled the world and this is the first time I've seen something like this.

And this evening, the two other segeants with me on this training mission ordered steak. "Twelve ounces of juicy T-bone goodness," the menu says. I warned them: they didn't listen...Yup, what they got were half-inch thin rubbery meat insulated with ketchup. Heinz ketchup, of course. 8-Oz steak served with gooey ketchup. Lots and lots of ketchup. For $18.

I had iced tea, went up to my room, opened up a can of protein shake I brought with me and chugged it. That was my dinner. We're going to Wal-Mart tomorrow to get provisions. Failing that we have MRE's at the training base.

I've been in this town for eight hours and, God, I miss New York...

"I'm a Freakin' New Yorker! And We're Nice!"

My SUV has finally given me A problem---with this heat and the distance I have to drive to and from work, my SUV's AC causes my car's engine to overheat when I turn it (AC) on for more than fifteen continuous minutes.

So, at around 1530 today on Northern State Parkway in Long Island, I had the windows down, with the outside temp gauge at 103, sweating my balls off as I tried to fight traffic to get to the city. I had a throbbing headache to top it all off.

Then, somewhere near Uniondale, I saw an old man standing by a disabled car frantically waving at passing cars. Of course I had to stop. Heat-induced headache or not, I am still a freakin' soldier, people. It's my job.

I pulled up a few yards in front of the car. I noticed that he had his entire family in the car. His wife was sitting in the rear with their baby grandaughter. His daughter (the driver) was hopelessly attempting to change a very flat rear tire and had given up after half an hour in the heat.

I asked her to keep the AC in the car on and if they needed water. She said OK, and they had water, thank you. So off to emergency road assistance work I went...

Damn that gravel was hot! But someone had to crawl halfway under the car to jack it up. It was an old (mid-90's) Toyota sedan with maybe six inches of clearance underneath.

Somehow I managed to change their tires. I burned my forearm on the exhaust and I cut my finger in the process when my grip slipped from the sweat as I pried the busted rim from its bolts.

The whole thing took about twenty minutes tops. I had taken off my uniform top and my undershirt was grimy and completely soaked with sweat. My head, of course, was now pounding. It felt like my brain was late for a MENSA symposium and was trying to get there by busting out of my skull.

The daughter was very grateful. She started to shove cash in my specific direction. I adamantly refused. "No, ma'm. I don't want your money. Use it to buy some decent tires instead. Not that Goodrich crap you had on!"

She kept insisting that she must repay me somehow. So I said, "You're Indian, right? OK, buy me an authentic Indian meal next time you and your husband are in the city." She agreed to that compromise. I gave her my email address.

Before leaving she said, "We've been trying to flag motorists down for half an hour and no one would stop! It's terrible! New Yorkers..."

With sweat running down my forehead stinging my eyes, my left forearm starting to get unberably painful, and blood still coagulating on my cut finger, I replied in the nicest possible New York manner. "Ma'm, I stopped. I'm a freakin' New Yorker---and we're NICE!"

Then I walked back in my car and drank half a gallon of water.

Nude Vacuuming in New York City

When I first came back to New York in the summer of 2003, I stayed at a military hotel/hostel on Lexington Avenue and 37th for about three months (it was way more affordable than renting my own place). It is arguably the safest lodging in the city. l left my Oakleys and my cell phone in one of the TV rooms one evening and found them at the concierge desk the following morning. There's just something about being around military people that makes me feel at ease somehow. I'll trust them more than civilians 99 times out of 100.

Besides good camaraderie, the place has decent bunks, a communal kitchen, TV rooms, hot water, shower stalls, and a well-stocked library overlooking Lexington where servicemembers and their guests often congregate. The computer with free access to the internet was also located there.

It was while I was in the library late one night that I witnessed this apparition across Lexington. I had to rub my weary eyes a couple of times just to make sure I was not hallucinating. Could it be? It's impossible! Who does this shit?! As hard as I tried to convince myself that this was not happening, I was staring at a woman with long dark tresses VACUUMING NAKED at 2 o'clock in the morning right in front of her window with all the lights on and the curtains wide open.

She was doing a great job of it too, from where I was ogling her. Back in forth, tugging on the cord, moving furniture around, and even using the attachments. A perfect picture of domestic hygiene ...in the buff.

She did this domestic chore au naturel for about half-an-hour. Afterwards, she went to take a shower. How did I know? Well, she walked out back into the living room with a towel wrapped around her head---still lusciously naked.

Needless to say, I went to work that day exhausted from lack of sleep since I savored that nakedness till she turned in around 4 am.

This phenomenon happened almost every night at around the same time. It was something I eventually looked forward to nightly as some sort of relief from everything that was going on around me at that time, least of all the war in Iraq. I found out that not only did she vacuum naked, she watched TV naked, she played with her cat naked, she smoked naked, she ate pizza naked, she talked on her phone naked. And yes, she touched herself naked (though it could have been just a very prolonged scratching near her genitalia) a couple of times.

Okay, at this point, let me remind you, perverts, that I happened to be a night owl myself. I did not make it a point to stay up way past my Army bedtime just to be a peeping tom. Besides I was not peeping, I was flat-out sitting in front of the hotel's big windows enjoying her show, and flipping through the TV channels whenever she became obstructed (this is when I began to develop my deep aversion of walls, curtains, cats' big fluffy tails, and pretty much everything opaque. Damn them all and their light-blocking characteristic!).

Then, on the second week, I saw her packing big suitcases. Naked, of course. I thought, uh-oh, where the hell is she going? Then, an hour later, she began dragging these huge things out of her apartment. She emerged in front of her building. I noticed she was having a really hard time with one of them. Being the humanitarian that I am, I couldn't just watch anyone suffer a hernia when I could have lent a hand, you know. So, one very early morning in August two years ago, I found myself yelling across Lexington Avenue these fateful words: "Hi! Do you need help?"

Thankfully, she said, "OK."And that's how I got to know her name and her phone number.

Unfortunately, she was moving to Florida very soon. All was not lost though. She still had to go back to New York to tie up some loose ends. She told me to look her up in a couple of weeks. Which I almost forgot to do---until about two weeks later when I saw lights in her apartment right around midnight.

That's when the fun really began because as she started vacuuming nude I called her up...

Another Reason Why I Love New York City, My Home

Crossing the GW Bridge from Joy-zee was gruesome this afternoon. Yet it was nothing compared to the FDR Drive. And just when I thought I'd reached the point where I was ready to abandon my car and huff it back to Astoria, a couple of things happened simultaneously that made me realize how fortunate I am to be a New Yorker.

Somewhere near 125th Street Ginsberg's "Howl" came on the radio. I mean, it WAS Ginsberg performing the first public reading of his seminal work. I'm not much into poetry but there are a few I really enjoy. "Howl" is right near the top of that short list.

As I sat in that oozing Friday evening traffic, I found myself reciting the poem with feelings. I was transported to my "happy" place. Until I saw the guy on the side of the street fucking Minnie Mouse.

Yup, a bare-chested guy with a baseball cap on (Mets, I think) had the three-foot tall Disney icon by her hips, bent over at his crotch, and giving her ferocious bunny thrusts as cars zoomed past them. He was giving it to the oversized rodent as if no one cared about this public display of bestiality and trademark infringement.

I never finished "Howl" because I was howling for real for several miles afterwards.Great poetry, bestiality, screwing the (Disney) corporation---you won't find them in any other place. Not all at the same time, I mean. In public.

To that demented ballsy Mets fan, this passage is for you:"who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may"

Random Thoughts on a Soggy New York City Day

Originally posted last fall (2005)

You know what's fun? Freeballin'. Specially when it's a choice.

You know what's not fun? Freeballin' 'coz you're too lazy to do the laundry.
So for today, since it's like a typical autumn Seattle day here, I'm packing two duffel bags and washing my honorable mentions and my unmentionables.

I have to walk my dog Vinnie this morning some time. Man, it's not gonna be fun: she hates the rain. If she feels one droplet on her head she starts violently shaking to get rid of it. Imagine thousands and thousands of it all over her. It's like dragging an epileptic blur on a leash. Last time I walked her in the rain we covered one block and she was worn out from all the air-drying. Stupid dog.

Speaking of Vinnie, last night I was trying to make her respond to her English name to no avail. She simply won't listen to "I came." Oh well, Latin name it is.I was going to put new tires in my car but my old tires are so worn out I'm afraid to drive it in this rain. "80,000 miles tread life," yeah, right. Kiss my bare ass Michelin man!

Yesterday was the last time I'd eat pizza out of the five boroughs of my beloved city. I paid for two slices and I ate half of one. It was offal, I mean, awful! If I wanted all that cheese, all that tomato sauce, I'd have ordered lasagna. The pizza should be a thing of simple beauty. Ask Ray's. Thin crust, a thin coat of tomato sauce, a "SPRINKLE" of mozzarella, and maybe one topping. Somewhere in this simple process 99% of pizza joints in this country gets it screwed up. The dough is too soggy, too much cheese, too much tomato sauce. And to cover it up--literally--they bury all this mess in toppings. 'Ey, I got your stew-on-a-dough right here!

An army buddy of mine came to visit last month. He had never been to New York City. Of course, prior to his arrival I warned him about the preponderance of hotness here. I did so 'coz he was cooped up in the boonies of North Carolina for about a year training for the SF: I didn't want him to injure himself swiveling his neck trying to eye-ball the endless parade of hotties everywhere. Sure enough, first thing he did as soon as we went to Central Park for a run (best way to cure jet lag), he was doing the chicken head. I stopped the run to give him another briefing. I said, look, you don't have to track targets once they're out of your 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock cone of vision. Two reasons, I told him. One, you literally will sprain your neck or bump into a pole or another person esp. when you're running. Two, once the hotness is out of that cone, another one, sometimes a bevy of them, will replace her. He never mastered it. On his third day here he did eventually bump into someone in Union Square. They ended up having sex.

It goes to show, what the hell do I know?See you when you get back, battle.

New York City Cabbies ARE Sissies!

(Originally written by yours truly in November 2005 when I was on temporary duty in Germany)

Yes, them words are fighting words.But it's true. I thought-- prior to getting a cab with this German Dale Earnhart--that New York cabbies were ballsy (as opposed to downright suicidal like Manila and Lagos cabbies are). Well, like every other time (accdg to my ex), I was wrong.

I missed the last bus to the barracks by about thirty seconds, which in Germany means I missed it by thirty minutes. So I had to take a cab. Like everything here in Germany the cabs were in proper dress-right-dress formation exactly fifteen meters from the bus stop. I got in the first cab of the formation.

The handlebar mustache should have been my first clue that this dude was not your normal cab driver. I sat in the front passenger seat. He gave me a wide grin, asked me if I mind him smoking, and pulled out one of them stinking French jobbies even before I could say, 'Yes, I mind.'

He was decent enough to roll down his window which prompted me to do the same on my side. He reminded me to buckle up, which I highly appreciated as the safety non-com in my unit.

Then he asked me something which I have never heard a cabbie anywhere on the planet asked me before: ARE YOU READY? I nodded my head...which after five seconds was pinned against the right side of the headrest as he made the first turn.

See, being a driver myself, I'm used to how vehicles are supposed to go around ninety-degree corners: slow down as you approach it, don't hit the brakes too hard, then, if you can, accelerate near the end of the turn. Well, Herr Handlebarr took that first corner like the German military went after the French in WWII: hard and fast. No braking, no regard for the other lanes and no tire squealing either. After G-forces let go of me and my head actually felt its normal weight again, I turned toward him and was about ready to say something like, 'WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!' when he non-chalantly commented in heavily-accented English, 'I love the US Army.' Is that why you want to kill me, I thought.

Before I could respond, another corner enticed the LeMans impulses in him, and off we went again. I truly believe that there was a straighter route to the base but he intentionally took the most convoluted one in order to put his Mercedes through its maximum paces (he certainly did not do it for money since we agreed on a fixed fare of 6 Euros).

After, the fifth or sixth turn, I started to relax. This guy might look like the Red Baron sans the red scarf but he knew what he was doing. He had his left arm permanently perched on the open window holding his cigarette. He only used it for the turn signal and when he was making those hairpin turns. He had to somehow grip the wheel while he's shifting gears. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention he was driving a stick like everyone here does. And the whole time he was talking in "Gib-lish." English mixed with anything which produces gibberish to me. I just nodded my head everytime I thought I heard inflections suggestive of a question. Which is why, I think, he made a 40 mph U-turn across six lanes of traffic in front of the main gate: 'Sir, do you want I try to cut off about two dozen speed-crazed German drivers coming head-on so the fully armed German commandos guarding your gate will know it is I, the greatest LeMans driver to never make the first cut, dropping off, in screeching splendor an American soldier? I certainly do not want them to think it's a suicidal car bomber, you know.' Yup, I nodded and smiled not comprehending.

Search lights went on, dogs started barking, and I thought I heard automatic weapons being cocked, as I staggered out of the Red Baron's low-flying bi-plane. Danke, I muttered. With a flick of his left hand, fingers still clamped hard on his cigarette, he waved goodbye.I put my hand over my eyes to shield them from the bright "party lights" and proceeded to walk slowly towards the gate where I knew their shepherds were just waiting for an excuse to masticate on my limbs (German shepherds are just 'shepherds' here, like in China where there's no such thing as 'Chinese food'--it's just food).

One of the guards must have recognized me because the floodlights were turned off and they were all very friendly when I finally got close enough to show them my ID.

I apologized for my delicate arrival. They, smiled and asked, 'Was it the driver with the mustache?' After I nodded they all just laughed. Apparently they knew him and his antics. He keeps them alert the whole night with the way he drops people off at the gate.

I thought, I don't think a turbaned cab driver from Pakistan, coming to a screeching halt in front of any US Army gate in the US or anywhere else in the world will live to do it again.

But then again, no one should...unless you're the Red Baron of Hanau.

I will Kayak the East River

Yes, despite my training as a medic, against the advice of my own doctor and my entire battalion, contrary to logic and all that jazz, I will get in a kayak and do a loop around the great island of Manhattan. I wanna see if it was really worth all those beads the Europeans got it for.

I believe pelagic fishes can't be all wrong. There have been constant healthy migrations of striped bass, blue fish, false albacore and yellowfin tuna up and down the Hudson/East River these past dozen or so years. Hell, I've caught a few of them with my fly rod. I figured if the stripers could survive the waters off the coast of the UN Building and the outflows of the Brooklyn Navy Yards BEFORE procreating there's no reason why I can't live through a couple of eskimo rolls if I have to.

I wonder how long it would take me though. Then I have to consider the tides. They could get pretty hairy. Look like Class III rapids in some areas. I remember when the first triathlon was held in the city. The swimmers ended up getting swept downstream by the strong current on the Hudson. Some of them got slammed against the barnacle-encrusted bottom of the pylons where they had to get out of the water for the running portion of the event. Man, it wasn't pretty. They came out of the water with gashes on their legs and thighs. My buddy who was in it commented later, "Thank, God, we were going WITH the tide!" With his neoprene suit providing buoyancy, all he had to do was lie on his back and the current took care of everything.

But I digress. No, I do not. See, if these triathletes could swim/float the Hudson and lived to swim another day, I don't see why I should even worry about coliform bacteria, PCB contaminants or fecal matter in the waters off my beloved city. Damn it, it's unconditional, the love I feel for this city.

Yes, I will kayak the East River---cholera, cancer and shitty water notwithstanding

The Elusive Parking Spot

For months since I moved into the neighborhood I have coveted this particular parking spot. It was right under my window, next to a functioning street light. It was THE perfect spot. But for some reason, there was always something parked in it except for Thursday mornings. It was as if it was being staked out by the entire 'hood. I have tried sneaking up on it at dawn on a weekend, in the middle of the day on two consecutive weekdays, the evening before labor day (everybody drives out of town for that weekend, they say)---no luck.

And it's not just the same one or two vehicles every time either. Why I even saw a damn U-Haul truck there one day! Obviously, just when I was not around, it opened up to the whole driving universe. So I gave up on someday relishing the feeling of simply looking out my window and seeing my car safe and sound in THE parking space. Then last Sunday morning I finally found it sans anything. The joy I felt was, I'd say, similar to that experienced by those hardy pioneers trudging westward when they first gazed upon the plains of the Midwest: Nothing but wide open space.

Man, I made a U-turn like my car was a uni-cycle. I gave it the best parallel parking maneuver a driving instructor could ever ask from anyone. I believe I got misty-eyed when I finally looked down on it from my apartment window. It was a beautiful sight. The first thing I did when I got up this morning was to part the curtains and admire my handiwork. That parking space belonged to me. Its length was tailor-made for my car: two feet separated the front bumper from the crosswalk and at least sixteen feet behind was the fire hydrant. I couldn't have asked for anything better. I was prepared to not worry about my car (I've had to park it around the corner everytime where I could not see it) until Thursday morning. It was bliss...ephemeral bliss, as it turned out.

A dear friend called me from out of state this morning. She was flying in at La Guardia this afternoon. Could I pick her up, please, if I wouldn't mind.It was a dilemma only New York City car owners could empathize with. People--and I say this without a tinge of guilt whatsoever--I considered risking a very good decade-old friendship as I gazed longingly at THE spot where my car was parked.In the end, emotion prevailed over logic: I slid into the car seat with a heavy heart right after lunchtime. Through teary eyes I watched in the rear-view mirror as THE spot, my parking Nirvana, faded away.

Friends are a dime a dozen. Parking spaces in this city, they're as rare as true love. Choose wisely.

I saw myself across the street at Central Park

I was probably on my third mile running my usual loop at Central Park yesterday when I noticed them. They looked out of place. At least the parents did.

Just when I thought I had become the perfect cynic I've always wanted to be, the sight of this family across the road from me as they waited for US to pass through hit a nerve somewhere inside me. I wouldn't call it pity exactly. I still am trying to sort out what emotion it was that actually stopped me from finishing my run. Maybe it was the juxtaposition. Or maybe it was the realization that somewhere along the way I have metaphorically crossed that road this family was trying to cross without me wanting to or even knowing about it. Then, one day I suddenly turned around and I am now on the other side looking at THEM.

Okay, this is what I saw: An immigrant couple, most probably Mexican, with a child of maybe five or six, holding hands waiting for a break in the endless stream of bikers and joggers zooming past them so they could get into the park. The man was probably in his mid-twenties, short and stocky, dressed in a yellow t-shirt, blue jeans and non-descript running shoes. The woman had long black hair, even shorter than the man in height, wearing a blue dress and dark-colored shoes. In a different setting I would probably not notice them at all: this is THE quintessential city of immigrants. However, when every one else around was running in shorts, riding their bikes, with earbuds on or chatting jovially with each other without a care in the world (it belongs to THEM anyway), a couple who seemed very hesitant to claim their right to use the crosswalk and trying mightily to keep their daughter from stepping on it would always grab my attention.

As I slowed down to a walk, I kept looking back at the three of them. And I wished that someday that little girl grows up knowing that she has the right to use that crosswalk as much as every one else. Like I do now.

Like WE do now

Welcome to my world---Now Get out!

I am tired of paying money to a personals' web site just to blog. So here I am among other cheap bloggers doing this for free.

I don't know who the first reader of this blog is going to be (well, the censors). But I hope you will get something out of this experience and will spread the joy OR aggravation to those you believe are literate enough to read well-constructed English sentences.

I will also post pictures of my beloved city New York City, pictures from my job (I am a medic in the US Army), and pictures of my many travels. I will not post naked pictures of anyone, unfortunately.

So, here we go...