And just like that I am calm.

A week ago I was wracked with anger. Last Wednesday I was bursting to cry out of frustration and helplessness. I felt like shit and I felt like was shit. My father and I were at the gym working out together. He noticed something about my manner that was different. Possibly the way I held my head. Possibly a distance in my eyes. I spewed my angst. He acknowledged that I have been a dark thing recently but also noted that he and my mother have noted improvement and are proud of my composure under the pressures of the economy and other known stresses upon me. We went on to exercise especially hard that night and I considered all these things.

I continue to be amazed by the lack of response by management for the Sudan job. With every email of follow-up I send, it goes to a couple of people. Almost three weeks ago I got an unprompted email saying that they were in their final stages of planning. Since then I have emailed a variety of emails with statements, comments and questions and have received nothing return. There still is a lingering hope. But, generally it is a distant consideration. As for the other job, I am surprised by their silence. I'd like to think that it's well known that though I don't envision my future extending on in an industry such at that, I will give it 110% while there. This is what I did when my tasks involved faxing endlessly and connecting wayward calls with the proper people. In a job that is more challenging than those doldrums, my integrity will give them what they want. Or, maybe they've read my hysterical statements of last week. Frankly, that would suck. As I walked to the market late last night to get some milk, it dawned on me that maybe someone there reads this and with that realization I slapped my forehead and continued onwards into the darkness of the night for a dinner of mac 'n cheese plus milk and pomegranate shower gel. Or maybe I'm being paranoid. Talking with others who work there, hiring is infamous for dragging their feet. It's only been a week.

In the meantime, I'm finally enjoying my free time. Tonight I redid most of my photo album - not linked elsewhere but viewable here. Furthermore, I feel my senses and creativity returning.

I was able to get a few passes to an advance screening of Where The Wild Things Are showing tomorrow here in overcast Fresno.

Today I found on the Islamic Cultural Center of Fresno website that they have classes in Farsi. So, I've requested information on when they begin again and am very excited about taking them every Sunday 11:30-1:30.

I'm excited about the future and look forward to whatever will come.

Time for some Captain Love pampering.

We just got in a new shipment of Captain Love. Be the first on your block to feel the warm embrace of Love. Supplies are limited, kids, so shake out your socks and run down to your local participating Five & Dime now!!

...it is difficult to feel accomplished when you're not accomplishing something that matters to you. Doing something "for your own good" is rarely for your own good if it causes you to be less than who you really are.

While we were trying to nail and screw together the 8x8 foot frame that will support the floor boards to this doggie platform, I slipped and gashed my finger. Extremely well oxygenated blood flowed down my finger and dripped off the tip. Bandaged, I continued working. This was on my index finger of my right hand, my hammer hand. So, it was aggravated with every swing or manipulation of tools. By the time I was able to shed the bandage, it was clown nose red throughout. Now it aches and a redness around it combined with slight swelling makes typing difficult.

I just wrote a letter to an international development organization that I was recommended to several weeks ago expressing my predicament. I didn't go into details though about the pros and cons. Basically I stated that on Monday I may have to accept a job unless I hear from them positively. Initially this job description stated that we'd start in early October but as of today, the first of that month, they haven't finalized preparations so I am in limbo.

For two months I've been aching for a job and now I am on the cusp of getting one and I am anxious. This job is at a place I used to work. I know everyone there. I like almost everyone there. The job is a step up and interesting, probably. The pay is very good considering it is in Fresno. What is there to complain about?

In a conversation with a friend yesterday, I told her that it is good on paper. But, it's not enough. I went on to tell her that I see vividly all the good in this job. But, I also can't help but see the bad just as vividly. "It is only a year," I tell myself. In the first interview I gave my word that I would stay at least a year. But, a year means that I am further away from the skimpy network that I have begun to build. I wouldn't have gotten recommended for this job in Sudan if it weren't for my trip to Kyrgyzstan. Things are difficult enough now but in a year I will be in a worse situation. Furthermore, I'm sick of compromising for the sake of survival.

The weather has cooled. Walking across a parking lot yesterday at Target, I felt pangs of anxiety looking at what I subjectively consider the soulless artless environment I will most likely tread water in for awhile ~ all for the greater good.

The level in the small bottle of ouzo is getting too close to empty but I take a swig and enjoy the licorice essence coating my mouth. Gus Gus mumbles in my ears. The day was hotter than it seemed it would be. Yesterday I had my second interview and left feeling energized. I am poor in interviews. I have poor eye contact and babble. Words escape me and I have the sense that I am vibrating. When it concludes, I loathe to shake hands with anyone because my hands are wet or if not wet, sticky. But, I feel that despite all the above being true about this event, I did well. And that makes me proud. Additionally, the assignment I've been given has bought me time and that pleased me. I was afraid that he'd offer me a job. I don't want this job.

Slowly my room is getting bigger as I sell off my stuff. To date I've brought in over a thousand dollars by dispensing with collectibles. Dad asked if I would regret it later. I told him it doesn't matter. I don't want stuff. It is a pity that I'm receiving less than value on these things.

I started researching the topic I'm to write on in order to prove my ability to hold a thought. Though I was told that there is "loads" of available information, I'm finding it hard to locate much substantial. I will most likely push this off until the weekend out of exasperation. There is insufficient concentration.

I love the packaging of the Ouzo of Plomari. It is a delicate bottle that itself is not so interesting. But, it comes in a cardboard tube with a painting of a mermaid on it. In her hands is a garland of sea grass and pink flowers. A ship is in the background flying what I think is the Icelandic flag. But, that doesn't make sense because I bought this alcohol at Duty Free in Athens. I go to my bookcase and find my world atlas and find that I was wrong about it being Icelandic. What I was thinking of was Finland but that is the inverse of what I see. So, I look up Greece and find that this is the flag except without the stripes. This was a very good purchase, the Bartholomew Mini Atlas World. It looks new but I bought it in 1997 after coming back from Kyrgyzstan the first time. Funny that it looks so good since I've referred to it an absurdly huge number of times. I suppose we treat well those things of perceived value. The gilded edges of the pages show the book's wear. The world has changed since I bought this book. East Timor is not listed here.

Talking through issues in the last year, I've discovered countless times when I haven't listened to the alarm in my head. I wasn't unaware. I just didn't pay heed but pushed forward with my own agenda selfishly or equally as common an occurrence, selflessly. The alarm is screaming, distracting me. But, I feel I'd be a fool if I'd be mindful of it. I don't want this job.

Four years ago, my father and I labored in the sun to dig through hard-pan in order to make a deep hole into which we would pour gravel and sand so that his dog would have a nice and sanitary home. Sparks flew up as metal tools struck the ground. Sweat flowed. Our muscles fatigued quickly. Nothing much became of it after that. The dirt we'd pulled out morphed into permanent hills around the yard. Poor drainage created a smelly pool that frequently was muddy and thus not where Maggie would stay. Today we built a platform for her. Instead of digging down we've raised her up out of the muck.

Brilliant.

Last time I saw her, she looked horrified and petrified. Stage fright?

This article by Thomas Friedman caught my eye this morning:

Do we owe the French and other Europeans a second look when it comes to their willingness to exercise power in today’s world? Was it really fair for some to call the French and other Europeans “cheese-eating surrender monkeys?” Is it time to restore the French in “French fries” at the Congressional dining room, and stop calling them “Freedom Fries?” Why do I ask these profound questions?

Because we are once again having one of those big troop debates: Do we send more forces to Afghanistan, and are we ready to do what it takes to “win” there? This argument will be framed in many ways, but you can set your watch on these chest-thumpers: “toughness,” “grit,” “fortitude,” “willingness to do whatever it takes to realize big stakes” — all the qualities we tend to see in ourselves, with some justification, but not in Europeans.

But are we really that tough? If the metric is a willingness to send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and consider the use of force against Iran, the answer is yes. And we should be eternally grateful to the Americans willing to go off and fight those fights. But in another way — when it comes to doing things that would actually weaken the people we are sending our boys and girls to fight — we are total wimps. We are, in fact, the wimps of the world. We are, in fact, so wimpy our politicians are afraid to even talk about how wimpy we are.

How so? France today generates nearly 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants, and it has managed to deal with all the radioactive waste issues without any problems or panics. And us? We get about 20 percent and have not been able or willing to build one new nuclear plant since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, even though that accident led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or neighbors. We’re too afraid to store nuclear waste deep in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain — totally safe — at a time when French mayors clamor to have reactors in their towns to create jobs. In short, the French stayed the course on clean nuclear power, despite Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and we ran for cover.

How about Denmark? Little Denmark, sweet, never-hurt-a-fly Denmark, was hit hard by the 1973 Arab oil embargo. In 1973, Denmark got all its oil from the Middle East. Today? Zero. Why? Because Denmark got tough. It imposed on itself a carbon tax, a roughly $5-a-gallon gasoline tax, made massive investments in energy efficiency and in systems to generate energy from waste, along with a discovery of North Sea oil (about 40 percent of its needs).

And us? When it comes to raising gasoline taxes or carbon taxes — at a perfect time like this when prices are already low — our politicians tell us it is simply “off the table.” So I repeat, who is the real tough guy here?

“The first rule of warfare is: ‘Take the high ground.’ Even the simplest Taliban fighter knows that,” said David Rothkopf, energy consultant and author of “Superclass.” “The strategic high ground in the world — whether it is in the Middle East or vis-à-vis difficult countries like Russia and Venezuela — is to be less dependent on oil. And yet, we simply refuse to seize it.”

According to the energy economist Phil Verleger, a $1 tax on gasoline and diesel fuel would raise about $140 billion a year. If I had that money, I’d devote 45 cents of each dollar to pay down the deficit and satisfy the debt hawks, 45 cents to pay for new health care and 10 cents to cushion the burden of such a tax on the poor and on those who need to drive long distances.

Such a tax would make our economy healthier by reducing the deficit, by stimulating the renewable energy industry, by strengthening the dollar through shrinking oil imports and by helping to shift the burden of health care away from business to government so our companies can compete better globally. Such a tax would make our population healthier by expanding health care and reducing emissions. Such a tax would make our national-security healthier by shrinking our dependence on oil from countries that have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs and by increasing our leverage over petro-dictators, like those in Iran, Russia and Venezuela, through shrinking their oil incomes.

In sum, we would be physically healthier, economically healthier and strategically healthier. And yet, amazingly, even talking about such a tax is “off the table” in Washington. You can’t mention it. But sending your neighbor’s son or daughter to risk their lives in Afghanistan? No problem. Talk away. Pound your chest.

I am not sure what the right troop number is for Afghanistan; I need to hear more. But I sure know this: There is something wrong when our country is willing to consider spending more lives and treasure in Afghanistan, where winning is highly uncertain, but can’t even talk about a gasoline tax, which is win, win, win, win, win — with no uncertainty at all.

Last night I shot out into the night in a deliberate urgency to return home. The windows of the town car were down a bit, the din of wind rushing through the small openings reverberated, the luring shoosh of tires on asphalt heard muffled in the background. I had my earphones crammed into my ears, an audio book serving to blot out the thoughts that have been haunting me recently. Listening to the woes of industrialists in the libertarian philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged, I used their angst in a vain attempt to mollify my own. To the greater degree is worked but it took a lot of energy to keep my mind on track, to listen, to lose myself in the drama of an endless succession of monologues.

The roaring wind made me think of standing on a platform in blustery Astara, Azerbaijan staring at the Caspian Sea. A stray dog crouched up on me from under the cement edge startling me. He looked beaten down, his eyes full of fear and urgency. I had nothing to give him and felt bad, sorry for this poor beast. A few hours later, I had my driver take me back to that spot where I hoped to find the German Shepherd to give him some of my left over fish kabob, but he was not there anymore.

Today I packaged up a large number of items I've successfully sold off. Surprisingly, sales are decent and a few items that I've shipped out have actually made me some money. That is to say that after working it out in a spreadsheet of cost of item when I purchased it from the distributor minus listing fees plus s/h charged minus actual shipping plus selling price = profit/loss and a few items have brought a profit unlike how selling went several months ago when I was trying to clear things out quickly. This bout of productivity came after church. The service was a waste of time which is a huge disappointment because I very much want to get involved in a church and take part in activities. This is only the second time I've gone, the first time being over six months ago. On the outing, I enjoyed the service so now we are 1 up, one down.

But, after such a concentrated period of tedious work, I felt psychologically exhausted and after a few false starts, went for a walk this time without musical accompaniment. On friday, I went through the motions of job searching, becoming more and more pressurized by the seeming futility of it all. So, I ventured out into the 95+ heat in tight jeans with no sunglasses but an iPod cranking out tunes. Usually I listen to audio books or podcasts but this time I felt that I needed to rest my mind or at least don't give it more fodder for depression. Regularly tugging at my scraggy goatee, mustache and side burns, I meandered in a general direction of downtown San Jose, my translucent desire to visit the neighborhood of brick buildings near the HP Pavilion spurring me onwards. Instead I found myself on a somewhat familiar street, an oasis of businesses in this dreadful sea of suburbia. With thoughts of my presumed failure to land a long-term but still temporary job in Sudan dragging me down I then wanted to find a bookstore to rest in as well as drift away in the sanctuary of words and pictures. But, the only one I found was a really cute shop that only caters to children. This wasn't of any assistance to me especially since I wanted to look at language books of Arabic. Then and to a much lesser degree now, I still hold out some hope that I'll get an email or phone call offering me a space on this election monitoring mission so I wanted to get a jump start on language acquisition. Exhausted by this point ninety minutes in, I kept going seeking that goal.

Eight days ago I was startled to find a message on Facebook from a friend of mine asking if I was interested in going to Sudan. Someone from the Carter Center had asked her for recommendations on people to serve as a long term there and so this woman from Serbia contacted me. Thrilled, I replied immediately and received a message back the next day from her saying that people whose opinions she trusts in the OSCE give me high marks and so she thought of me when asked. The next day I received an email and attached job description and responded immediately.

The roar of silence.

I returned from my walk after nearly three hours exhausted and took a shower to rinse the literal crust of salt off of me and then napped before going up to San Francisco to a bar where a friend of a friend was DJing.

Today's walk was only about two hours broken up by 15~20 minutes at the gym where I got bored with pumping iron very rapidly. During that time in transit to and fro, I saw four people on the street.

This is why I find suburbia to be corrosive. It is true that cities have too much cement and feel on one level dead because of this. San Francisco from the street seems to have so little greenery and partner that up with the bleak weather makes for a awful soup of unhealthy living. From the air, though, you will see that the trees and flowers are abundantly hidden in the center of blocks, the buildings that make up apartment complexes and houses serving as castle walls to the treasure within. What serves as a counterbalance to the appearance of cemented over paradise is the quantity of people walking to a corner store or to the bus or train stop or simply down the block to visit someone. Driving is naturally discouraged due to the horrendous parking situation. I read recently about cities that charge citizens huge fees to own a car and I am all for that provided that the policy makers back that up with alternatives which, sadly, San Francisco fails at.

Also because of the closeness of living in a city, in my experience people socialize more or at least differently. Placed in a position where there is shared space, you must talk and talk often turns into other interaction. Granted, relationships often don't turn into friendships but at least there is communication. Suburbia, on the other hand, I feel isolates. Whereas people who live in small towns or the country come together for reasons including to dispel the loneliness of isolation, denizens of the suburbs have the worst of both worlds. They have personal space which city dwellers lack but not enough to pull them out of their shells.

Suburbs rot our souls, our bodies and our minds.