I’m in one of my fits where all I see are her eyes… and all I can hear is her voice, and I can’t breath, I can’t function.

I was in the shower (yes water still burns like acid) …waiting for the shampoo and conditioner to do it’s thing…and as I’ve mentioned before. The shower is one of those places where you can’t escape reality. You can’t escape yourself. It’s just you and your memories accentuated by your scars.

I recalled the 1st time I was shot. I had almost lost my arm and I was pretty much a bloody mess of mangled flesh. I lost friends and co-workers. I was one of the fortunate ones and did my best to save those I could.

I had taken a lot of glass from the explosion in front of us and it tore right through our armored convoy. I cut my self on the broken steering from the backseat I tried to get us out alive. Life is not a video game…driving and shooting is not my specialty.

We used to drive around thinking we were untouchable. We had been touched and laid scattered about.

The story is not what I’m getting at…much more happened that I won’t get in to.

What I am getting at is the next day in the hospital…I had my laptop…I was talking with Elizabeth and…we carried on as though nothing had happened. I wouldn’t dare tell her for fear she may worry. She was having problems at home and I tried to be supportive, but Lizzy does what Lizzy wants. I loved how strong headed she was.

This was our reality…over the years I’ve been cut ,stabbed ,tortured ,shot , hit by cars, dragged from cars, had everything from grenades to rpg’s to rocks lobbed at me. I had lost friends, and people close to me and attended than anyone’s fair share of funerals. Yet I never told her. Shit even my parents tried to kill me. (this I may have told her when we 1st met.)

I wanted to protect her.

In the end the thing that hurt the most…was what she did to me. It was the most traumatic ting to ever happen to me…and I’m still recovering , If you can call it that. My reality has just been so warped, so entirely fucked up that I failed to even grasp how normal people go about their lives. Normalcy is a fantasy which I feel I will never attain. I aspire for mediocrity.

There are no scars to remind me of what she did. Only the fabric of life which seems to strangle me, remind me. Some say get up, get on…those whom have not met Elizabeth. Those that have will testify as I do…one meeting is a life changing event. She shatters lives with her smile.

¶ 2/26/2005 02:17:00 PM //

Obligatory shot of the Christos Mobile. They rolled down their window... talked up every one.





A few moments later their security detail found them and well media showed up so they took off...this rickshaw drivers seemed to tag along for the ride/police escort.

¶ 2/26/2005 12:50:00 PM //

Testing...trying out hello

¶ 2/20/2005 03:59:00 AM //

Why plagues me

There is so much discontent in my heart and I do not know why.

I assumed heartbreak as all this was set off by the breakup however…

The pain it lingers, I feel it is not all to be directly attributed to Elizabeth.

I feel like a solider who has lost his way, and who fights for causes for wars that have decided long ago.

I think of her and my heart seems to gasp for air, as though it can not breath and I am saddened at what could have been. However I have accepted reality and respect all her wishes and untimely feel this action, although be it not for me, for her was the right decision. I could not imprison her to a life of my politics, my family, myself.

I find myself questioning my actions constantly; this is what time has afforded me to do.

I feel like the sand of time and running through my hands and I am seeking to solve the riddles before they all run out, The cancer, it shows now more predominantly depending on the fashion I wear my hair…I’ve stopped worrying about my hair. I let it grow wild, I don’t always comb it…it makes for more bad hair days, but why should I care?

I do not care what society deems of me, only that no shame is brought forth upon my family name, hence my never-ending run from it.

I do not know the reasoning to my madness and it vexes me. I try to consume my idle time with good for humanity (with the occasional raping and pillaging of mankind via Grand Theft Auto…I am man, yes I am.)

I don’t sleep any more…it’s been more than 4 days…I think, I can’t recall for sure the last day I slept. I try to sleep at night and originally contributed the lack of sleep due to the faulty electric blanket…however now it seems I am awake as though there was some sort of urgency my mind is conscious mind is neglecting.

I find it very hard to go to sleep, and it’s not for the nightmare, I have grown to embrace death, to embrace my nightmares as they are apart of me. I have accepted my fate, yet I can not sleep.

I take sleeping pills with regularity during the day and yet still I find myself wide awake, I do not know why. I used to purposely not have sleeping pills in the house. I always thought, if I did I would be too tempted to take them all.

I can’t say the temptation is not there. To drown myself in alcohol , and subsidize my pain away with fistfuls of sleeping pills. I marked the year…I don’t have many left…however I told myself I Would make a consensus effort to live…however it is just so difficult.

I can’t say it enough….Elizabeth was a wonderful dream…

Elizabeth was a period in my life which now I have a hard time believing even existed.

I never took it for granted…

Now… I can not sleep, it has been over 4 days… I go through 8-16 sleeping pills a day and still nothing.

Even if I do sleep… I have the nightmare of being killed to look forward to.

If I sleep…I die every night.
If I stay awake…I have this billboard mocking me every time I go through the tunnel

¶ 2/17/2005 12:45:00 AM //

For years my faction has tried to hide our family from the public façade, going as far as to sue search engines and such,…google me and you find vapor.

I however may be the cold chill in the air that leaves a trail of condensation.

When I give, I give anonymously, when I get in trouble, my legal staff expunges the public records , when I face a tribunal… it never existed, when I apply for anything it’s always via an alias.

We try to be ghosts, happy with roles as puppeteers as opposed to public figures. We have a in house pr department for that sort of thing and designated factions of the family which handle the public aspects…diplomacy has many faces…our portion is a bit more secretive and thus …you will never see our face.

I made the mistake of volunteering at 2 (of many) organizations I should not have.

The 1st place I had just the year before made a sizable contribution to, as had (not to my knowledge) what seems to be my entire faction of the family…brother as well. Thus during the orientation period I was introduced by the director him/herself (I’m trying not to leak too much here). The person giving the presentation seemed a bit surprised and I was singled out.

Initially I feared the mishap with the application had caught up and now all the area non-profits think I’m on the run for war crimes or something of the sort. I was given coffee on silverware, (not really a custom in the US as it is abroad…well with tea) I was then handed a leather bounded portfolio of the organization and an orientation from the director themselves with there administrative staff. I stopped them shortly and asked what gives.

They had recognized my name from a list of donors and instantly recognized me as my father’s son. I didn’t know if I was shocked, appalled, or flattered. I had donated to them anonymously and with no strings attached though from here on out I will have my legal representation administer all donations with the contingency of absolute anonymity.

I left them a check on my way out letting them know I would not be able to volunteer my time without a certain level of anonymity. Which had been shattered as they had pulled me out of a pool of volunteers, alerting everyone on staff at the time, the presenter, as well as the lot of volunteers who had showed up to orientation.

Had I continued there I suspect there would have been a tradition to treat me differently and thus rumor mill would be sure to turn.

The 2nd organization …this was all my fault. I had never given to them however they are a division of a company which once employed me and under which several ‘incidents” had occurred. All records and files had been sealed however the rumor mill once again had been turning in my absence thus…I was recognized by a handful of staff members and once again singled out.

I found out I was bit of a legend at the place,…though not in exactly in a good way…more of an indifferent, notorious way… IE early Arafat, to some a freedom fighter, to others a terrorist. I was confronted with both sides of the fence and thus had to, with some humility resign my name and bowed out.

I will have my personal legal contact them to remove and traces of my process there.

So far volunteering has cost me a small fortune in legal expenses, which I am sure would have been much better spent as contributions unto themselves.


On the plus side I did get my fiscal analysis back from the accountants today…good news and bad…income went up by 15% …actually last week I had a huge gain in all my stocks…I don’t follow however two of my stocks just soared and I’m worth 20% more over all

Anyways…15% increase in income (though I don’t work) yet a 151% increase in taxes…I’m sort of dumbfounded…I know I donated more than I had to but…151%!

Legal fees shot up as well...amazingly in a year I didn't try to find Elizabeth. (read: Interpol) operating expenses also all went up. ...meh

There are lots of interesting details on the reports…however I’ll save them for myself.

I am my fathers’ son.

¶ 2/15/2005 01:57:00 PM //

This was really just amazing.

Met the artists...MANY pictures to come.

I've insanely been busy... Many posts in the works...Taught my 1st class....Sort of.

still can't sleep,...Still taking triple dosage of sleeping pills to just get a nap.

More later

¶ 2/13/2005 05:53:00 PM //

Incoherence rules the day! (and the post)

I donate a fairly large sum of money every year. I try to disguise my generosity as a ploy for tax relief…but truth be know…I actually don’t keep much for my self any more….yes there is the new multi million mansion ….however that was a technicality.

I donate anywhere from 45-75% of everything. If my parents knew they would be furious…however my grandmother seems to be happy about it the last time I saw her , I ran her over to JFK. (I sort of mentioned the tsunami and she asked)

I really don’t need money...or care for it…I find myself giving away a lot of items…to friends or random strangers even. (Craigslist etc etc) Just today I gave away a wireless mouse and a case or 2 of Heineken.

Last month I gave away a car…a few months ago I gave away 400 ipods…and then I recall a few labtops, a sony wega ..well suffice to say I give away a lot.

I find that I can get by with amazingly little and had it not been for the new place I could live on 15kusd a year….now I need closer to 120k usd. The taxes on the new house are roughly 42,500 usd (ouch).

I find that there is nothing I want…I can’t name a thing off the top of my head…well maybe new dress shoes…but that’s almost laughable.

So, in an effort to be more proactive in my giving I decided that in conjunction with donations I should volunteer.

I had done some work in the past however they were literally war zones. I was in a different element here.

I found that the day prior I would toss and turn hence my new addiction to sleeping pills...and then the day of
I would just be an incoherent mess.

The 1st place was to build a server for a aid outreach organization… I spent a few hours and nothing really got done. I tried to fix an older machine and pretty much failed, and left an install disc to bring them up to XP…and I was asked to submit a proposal. 2 weeks later and I have yet to hear anything…thus I am assuming it is a bust.

The 2nd place was sort of an intermediary agent. You would enlist with them and they have a massive database of who needs what. I was considering teaching computer literacy to the disenfranchised however …I just felt so out of place. Every one there was sort of a super model/ do-gooder. Every one in the room was just so nice, and so helpful and I Was once again a incoherent mess.

I messed up on the application and filled in a portion of the question without fully reading it. Along the lines of investigations by an employer…So I eluded to the incident in the Balkans and a friendly fire incident (bogus) however then the question went on to read “regarding child abuse”….So I crossed out what I had written and naturally they asked my about it and I had to explain. It was just so incredibly awkward and I cringe hen I think about it. Hopefully I won’t have to go there again, and I have signed up for teaching a class. I hope it goes well, the thoughts turn my stomach even now.

The 3rd place was the largest…however they were the most welcoming , the most involving, so on and so forth. I felt more comfortable with them above all others. Even their activities are not too far from my main residence. I eluded to the fact I would be driving over and would use the garage in the area…and I was told that I was free to you their lot and park with them, that there would be, well I hope it will pan out. It certainty gave off the best vibe. I signed up for an even in late February.

I sometimes think that the hermit approach is the best…give lots of money and make the problems go away…However then the guilt starts in. I’m not sure what I want out of it all if anything at all.

Part of me says to network…but why? What connections could I possibly gain that I would even need? The 2nd place seemed geared towards the neo-New Yorkers , but I’ve been here for years.

Part of me (most) just wants a situation where I can put my head down and work, The 3rd provides much more opportunities for this, however at the same time the sense of community is so abundant.

I don’t know why…however I am giving this all a very open and trying chance. I will even go as far as to follow up with the 1st place, and possibly making cash donations to the palaces that don’t need be. However I will admit it does hurt a bit.

The last place I also found out has a 2.4Musd budget shortfall and laid off 20 employees…so I may make a donation in the ball park to get them out of the red…as a one time commitment.

It always seems that a lot of my problems go away by throwing money at them…why not other peoples problems as well?

I am the true example of how money can’t buy happiness, and money can’t buy love, and no amount can ever get back Elizabeth…so why bother with it?

If only my heart would heal itself I could find the will to live. Rather than seek these distractions.

Why am I more comfortable in a motorcade being shot at than at a volunteer organization? Why do I feel a stronger kinship with Russian mobsters than outreach volunteers?

Meh.

¶ 2/02/2005 03:15:00 AM //