more from american hotel

the american dream still hooks me, even when i have abandoned the underlying nature of the same semblance of other dreams compiled from american romanticized imagery of european transience.  like that time i was in rome following a ragged cat, and decided to get on a train to civitavecchia to catch the ferry to sardinia. while in the waiting area for the ferry, a fat man with a bird in a cage sat next to me. he stunk the way fat men stink in the summer when they don't shower for awhile. i couldn't take it. so i got up and bought some french cigarettes and a pair of six euro sunglasses to replace the Persol's I bought in Rome two years prior but lost right before I got on the plane, and right before I was separated from my job at the firm back in new york. 

this trip would be different this time. this time i didn't need the nature of the american self to support an identity that i would rather have given up somewhere at JFK.  (funny, people in LA don't dream like this. they dream a western-pacific dream stuffed with an americana that feeds souls to the hungry kids in welfare and meth towns in southern illinois.) but this trip wasn't that different. i was still starved for a few moments to slip away and lay on the beach before shopping for something, then taking snapshots of the mediterranean that i could post to social media back home to prove i had abandoned the american dream. 

this worked less well when the pilots arrived fresh from hong kong, pure american blonde ignorance pouring through the ruddy face and flat blue eyes of my friend kyle's co-pilot. he overran the city with drunken midwestern rants and attempted seductions at too young italian girls. i wasn't him. but i couldn't escape the identity complex i tried to abandon.)

i stopped in corsica too. for two days or so, no one i met spoke english. to the corsicans, my deep tan translated into italian (the only other blondes around were germans and dutch who can't tan and only burn). i got through on my choppy italian i picked up from lessons i stole off of an internet filesharing service.  in corte, at the mountain peak town on the island (a lost stretch of the alps),  i hiked up in the dry trails high above a stream and jerked off while staring at the peaks,  shedding off another layer of new york while feeling the rush of wind and burning sun, energized by the anticipation of being spotted by some hikers. afterwards, i got dressed, then hiked back down to the stream, took off my lululemon yoga shorts again, but this time just laid down in the cold water and spit.