Idle Wordsbrevity is for the weakSleeping Is Giving In- January 24, 2008 I discovered bedbugs and modafinil on the same eventful night a little over a year ago in San Francisco. I had just moved back from China and was staying in a dingy Travelodge on the corner of Valencia and Market streets. I had a song in my throat, a dream in my heart, and - thanks to a pharmacologically more adventurous friend - four 100mg Provigil tablets in my wallet. I was about to discover that I also had a sizable bedbug colony under my mattress. Modafinil, of course, is the wonder..http://idlewords.com/2008/01/sleeping_is_giving_in.htm The Second World- January 17, 2008 The defining characteristic of a Second World country is the non-absorbent napkin. From Moscow to Valparaiso, if your caf napkin is a square of waxed paper that takes grease from your lips and spreads it to the rest of your face, you can be certain of encountering the whole constellation of other traits common to those industrialized countries where people make less than $20,000 a year (specifically: clean but strong-tasting running water, the Ford Fiesta or its local equivalent, new trains..http://idlewords.com/2008/01/the_second_world.htm Rosario- January 12, 2008 The best bus ride in my life was in Argentina. I needed to cross Patagonia, from Trelew to the town of Esquel in the foothills of the Andes, on an overnight bus over gravel roads. My only point of reference was a backbreaking Greyhound bus trip across the United States taken when I was nine years old, and I was ready for the worst. Instead I found myself in bus heaven. The seats were giant mattresses spaced so far apart that the seat back in front of me was shrouded in a blue haze. ...http://idlewords.com/2008/01/rosario.htm Nuevo Ao- January 9, 2008 Porteos greeted the new year by fleeing the city as fast as gridlocked roads could take them. January is the month Buenos Aires takes its summer vacation, and the destination of choice is Mar del Plata, a seaside resort I have never visited. Given my love for crowds, heat and strangers' children it sounds it would be my own personal Mordor. "You can't even see the sand for all the people! It's an absolute madhouse!" Argentine friends tell me in horror, as they pack up their cars to head...http://idlewords.com/2008/01/nuevo_an_o.htm |