SCHWEEEEEEEEET!!!!!

in an internet cafe in venice. this is my new favorite city. last night was the beginning of carnival. it was one of the best things ive ever experienced. people everywhere. drinking. partying. we were part of a large group of gatecrashers who tried to get into the main party but we left when it looked like we might get trampled. id love to write about everything that happened, but this place im in charges and the euro is kicking my ass. ive had two pastas dishes and lots of chianti. the pasta for dinner last night was the best ive ever had. being out of the usa is humbling, exciting, worrysome, frustrating and exhilarating all at the same time. there arent many americans here, none that we met anyway. the red wine flows like crazy and its goes down smooth. tonight is round two. chip and taylor (the two friends i am traveling with) are napping right now. i am about to join them because i didnt get any sleep. i was very hyper from all the activity combined with all the espresso and the fact that my body still hasnt adjusted to the time change. usually i go to sleep around 2 am, which is 11 am here. we are staying with a really nice lady named julia. shes a translator and speaks english better than the three of us! she is making pasta for us tonight. taylor says shes a great cook and i dont doubt it. so much to say but the clock is ticking. im very excited to be in europe. i want to see more, but at the same time, i could stay in venice for a very long time. its hard to explain. anyone whose been here can attest to that. to anyone reading this at home, i hope things are well. i hear long beach got hit with a big storm. its chilly here, but not nearly as bad as i planned. i am comfy if i wear plenty of layers, which i am doing all the time. venice has entered my blood and consumed my soul. no cars, no bikes, no scooters, just thousands of people walking everywhere having a good time. except for the two drunken american assholes who fought on the street late last night. fucking americans. i can go on for days. this is a magical place, one that i wil return to before i die or the city floods, which im told is expected to happen in the next 300 years. we took a small gondola (gondole for the italians) and it was amazing. venice is for lovers. small, well behaved dogs rome. but no cats. thats a bummer. ive seen two kitties since ive been over here. im jonesing for more. what else? so much to say so little time. theres talk of going to a city called verona after we leave here. exciting. i could get lost in the city as it is very inspiring. so many thoughts running through my head. makes for good writing. in a perfect world, id live here, drink wine and eat pasta and write. i know my time here will surface in a story somewhere someday. it has to. there is no more poetic place than venice. and plenty of vegetarian food to boot. viva italy!

SHITTY DAY

It's 7:30 p.m. I'm finally in a good mood and am afraid if I write about my day I could slip back into a bad mood. Oh well, here goes...

I leave for Europe tomorrow. As you might guess, that can cause an insane amount of stress. I slept in as long as I could because I knew I wouldn't have that luxury for two weeks. I got up and made my coffee and got a bit of work done. Sent off stories, wrote two new short pieces and pitched a few more. Ya know, the usual.

Then I called Rite-Aid to fill my asthma medication. Can't go to Europe without them. Turns out I am fresh out of refills on my Azmacort, which I'm supposed to take twice daily. Rite-Aid tells me to call my doctor's office, so I do. The woman tells me I need to see a doctor. I beg, but there's no other way. She told me I could get an appointment in less than two hours. Funny how that works. If this wasn't an emergency, she would have made me come in in two weeks. I had an hour to kill, so I did my daily routine of dishes and sweeping.

Stopped by Chip's to get some cash he owes me. He's going with me. We're both excited and went over last-minute things we think we might need.

I get to the doctor's office. Like I've said before, FUCK YOU SEAL BEACH. I can't stand this shithole of a beach community. All these rich fuckers think they own the goddamn world. They don't. This velour suit wearing hag just has to hum along to the terrible waiting room music. I'll never understand people who do this. In my younger days, I let stuff like this slide. But as I get older, I am slowly inching toward becoming the type of person who tells annoying cunts like this to shut up. To make thing worse, she couldn't hit the right note to save her withering life and wasn't even humming along to the right parts. Humming for the sake of humming.

The doctor was fine. Blood pressure, eyes, ears, say "Ah," all the good shit. I tried to run out on the bill cuz I don't have health insurance (more on that later), but they caught me. Luckily for me, I got some sort of discount and had to pay only $81 for my visit. Some discount.

I stopped at Whole Foods for last-minute munchies and went to the bank. I was third in line but it took forGODDAMNever. Some chatty brat was asking all kinds of questions to who I thought was her grandfather. Then she called him dad and I understood why he was as irritated with his five-year-old daughter as much as I was: He was far too old to have a kid that age. Her questioning everything got to me. I wanted to put a piece of tape over her mouth and give her dad a rubber so not to make that mistake again. This is why I don't want kids. I'm far too selfish and irritable to have to answer stupid question after stupid question.

I get home and I'm two hours behind and down $81. Eat lunch. Missed Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption. That coulda calmed my nerves.

I went to Rite-Aid to give them my doctor's notes. They tell me it'll be 30 minutes, so I go home and play solitaire. They called and told me they didn't have the Azmacort. Tension begins to rise. I ask them to call one of them hundred other Rite-Aids in Long Beach to see if they have any. A minute later they tell me the one in Belmont Shore has it. So I go to mine (on Cherry) and get the other prescription. Then the fat-ass white trash lady hands me my doctor's note in case I need it at the other one. It's 5 p.m. and cars are everywhere. I get to the other Rite-Aid. They gave me my medicine. But it's the wrong one. The Cherry Rite-Aid gave them the wrong info. I call Cherry Rite-Aid and tell me that they have Azmacort in stock. Tension and frustration now elevated. All of this is delaying my trip to the gym, which is important because the next two weeks will be unhealthy. I get there and again I'm hit with some bluehair shithead in front of me in line. He's buying a bottle of wine at the pharmacy and complaining about the price. "Sign says $7.99. You're charging me $14.99." My time at Ralphs grocery store taught me one thing: When the customer says the sign says one thing and the register says another, the customer is always wrong. Usually what happens is an item is in the wrong spot. Or it's for a particular size, shape, brand, etc. Who knows what happened with this guy, but he was slowing down the after-work rush. Finally it's my turn. She rings me up and...$161.99. For a fucking asthma inhaler. I tell her it's usually $30. She checks with some guy in a lab coat. Real official. He says I haven't filled my medicine since last May and that, at that time, I was still insured by Blue Cross. That's bullshit for two reasons. 1. I take this inhaler twice a day. I've re-filled it at least three times since May. 2. My health insurance, when I had it for all of six months, ran out the day I quit my last job. Which was LAST FUCKING FEBRUARY! I told Mr. Whitecoat to fuck off and didn't buy the only thing I really needed. Four Rite-Aid trips is all a guy can take. I told them staff their to go fuck themselves and walked out. I had the inhaler in my hand and was tempted to just leave with it, but I ain't going to jail the day before I'm flying to Europe.

So I'm down $81 for a doctor's visit that I didn't need and about four hours of my time. Time that could have been spend doing something much more productive. I went to the gym around 6 p.m. and it's packed. I only got 30 minutes on a bike because everything else was taken. Now I'm doing laundry and feeling better. Had I written this when I got home from my final Rite-Aid trip, I'm positive I would have used more profanities.

I don't vote, but my ordeal today makes me want to cast a ballot for Clinton just so I can get health insurance. We're the big bad United fucking States of America and we can't make sure all of our citizens don't pay $81 to see a doctor and $161.99 for an asthma inhaler. Unreal. Truly unreal.

Needless to say, I'm super excited and nervous about this trip. I have a feeling this could wind up breaking my bank account, but I'll deal with that later.

I have to pack. Guaranteed I'll forget something.

We're gonna be gone for the Super Bowl. I hope there's a bar somewhere with that on. Could be surreal to watch such an American past-time in another part of the world.

But hey, the Lakers won last night.

LATE SUNDAY NIGHT

Not much going on, which makes me wonder why I'm typing...

No Lakers tonight? 6:30 Lakers games are a tradition.

I'm leaving for Europe in about 60 hours. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. Or scared. Or excited. All of the above and then some. I've had a gnarly pain in my gut since last Monday night. I think it's the trip.

A friend came over and my talked blogs. Real exciting, I know. He told me about a site (that I'm absolutely not linking to or mentioning their name) that is like Google for people's addresses and phone numbers. I'm not on there (yet), but my girlfriend is. Thing is, they got all her old apartments and not the new one. Now that I say this, I'm sure it'll be on before I got to bed just so someone can spite me. Creepy? Very. I found the name of a girl I dated right out of high school. Victoria M. We saw The Full Monty and kissed in my truck in the parking lot of her condo complex. Anyway...people think I'm crazy for not registering to vote, or having a credit card, or a cell phone, or signing petitions, but my name's not on there, so who's laughing now?

I wrote two poems tonight. Both are good and might be posted here later. Like anyone cares.

Linking to the District and writing about Scientology can really boost a guy's blog stat counter. It's taught me a thing or two about this blogging world and how to go about it. Turns out I should be writing about shit people might want to hear about. I always though the minutiae in my brain was interesting enough. Maybe I'm wrong?

Flight leaves Wed. morning from LAX at 11 a.m. That means I've got to get up early because normally I'm up no earlier than 11:30. I've been going to bed earlier the past few nights to get adjusted. But I'm killing that streak tonight.

Now for something relevant...Two more teens killed in Long Beach last night. I know, I read LBReport.com. There's been an unreal amount of killings in Long Beach during the first 20 days of this month. I'd be great to say the right thing, but I'm afraid that doesn't exist. There's no silver lining in two kids gunned down by alleged party crashers. Whether it was random or not makes no difference, there's just nothing to say, nothing to do to make that go away. I won't pretend to know what the people involved are feeling. I wake up every morning (or afternoon) and have some coffee. I read my newspaper and get some writing done. Very casual. Very dull. But that coulda been me. I coulda been hit this Friday at the Reno Room or last Friday, ironically enough, at the Reno Room. It coulda been someone I know, someone I love. Reincarnation sounds wonderful, but I can't live this life hoping to hear the opening bell of round two. Life is a first-round knockout so let's come out swinging and get ours before it's too late, before someone takes ours and makes it theirs. These kids, fuck, who knows? I didn't know any of them, but I can safely say they were taken far too soon. My high school days weren't the best days of my life, but they probably weren't the worst either (that was middle school). I'm just getting good. It took a long while, but I'm almost there and I'm 28. Let's hope these kids got there before I did and did something with themselves while they were here. I try not to be a pessimist, but it's hard to keep a positive mental attitude when there are a small percentage of people who fuck it up for the rest of us. Most humans are decent, I'm convinced of this. But decent people don't make headlines. Assholes do. It's the assholes, fuckers, jerks, idiots, rude asses, dipshits, morons, theives, liars, killers, rapists, predators and stupid we've got to watch out for.