i live in eastern europe.  that’s what i decided pretty much today.  and i’m talking eastern europe with the wall still up and the barbed wire and the armed guards and what have you.

people trying to build hot air balloons in their basements just trying to fly out of there.

anyway, last week was supposed to be my vacation but i knew all along it wasn’t gonna work out that way.  cause i think like a captive eastern european as well.  but besides that, the weather turned very rainy and i began to refer to everything as “foggy bottom” and “boggy acres” wherever my sister and i traveled.  my sister was nice enough to drive me past many homes for sale.  the homes are very cheap in the pennsylvania countryside.  the problem arises when one thinks about actually living there and perhaps maybe even finding employment.   but besides rain and fog and snow flurries and the cinders on the road, i developed a cough.  (the cinders are interesting, they use those in lieu of salt to make the roads less slippery - everytime my dog came in from a walk i had to do a complete undercarriage towel job just to keep the drops of black water from covering the kitchen floor).  as for the cough, i still have it, a very weird bronchial cough, deep and long and strange.  i drove back here on wednesday and have been sleeping mostly since then.  it is now sunday.  i am still capable of walking my dog albeit briefly, and i did manage a trip for groceries.  basically i wallowed in self-pity and tried to think up ways to improve my life, all at the same time.

yesterday i grew so tired of groceries, i walked over to the polish deli with my last twelve dollars to see what i might buy. this polish deli is a source of constant curiousity for me.  everyday its smokestack fills the neighborhood with the mouth watering odors of smoked meats.  unfortunately for me, i similarly think about poland during those years of concentration camps and smokestacks spewing tragic smoke.  i cannot separate myself from these thoughts.  but the reality of the polish deli is that i walk past it often, and see many fresh deliveries of meat, cut up and ready for the smoker.  they make fine sausages and hams there.  i don’t know what they call them, but once in awhile i find someone who speaks english inside, and they wait on me.  yesterday a young man with little english sliced me up some cheese and some ham, and i fished a giant gherkin from a barrel, and that was dinner.  it was six dollars.  i  also ate the ham and cheese just now for breakfast.  and there is plenty left.  everyone in town gets their meals from that deli.  you walk in and they have a hot food line, and a cold deli and a regular market set-up.  you can get pierogis with onions and roast pork and mashed potatos and gravy and then the lady tells you, that’ll be three-fifty.  three dollars and fifty cents.  the prices are eastern european as well.  everyone is speaking polish except for me.

i would say this is all great but really it’s not.  i love the food, but i don’t want to live in eastern europe.  i have a mediterranean background and i miss it so.  i need a drier sunnier climate.  the salty pork-based foods are delicious but i crave some colorful vegetables once in awhile.   this place where i live is not a picturesque city.  i’m surrounded by some dark forces.  last month i mentioned to my russian sister-in-law that i still wanted to get married and have children.  (i just say these things to see what the reaction would be)  she told me it was too late.  i’m too old for such things.  there isn’t much optimism around here, in other words.

today i’m actually starting to miss my old days as a southwestern artist.  i could go back to making little wooden boxes and clocks.  it wouldn’t be so bad.  i have enough savings now so that i could buy a little shack somewhere and crank up the old woodworking equipment.  it would have to be in new mexico probably.

but i won’t do that right this second.  right this second i’m being as patient as i can, waiting out winter.  i figure it’s almost up when february ends.  the bulbs i planted last fall are starting to poke through, and though i’m happy to see them, i wish they would wait a little while cause i don’t want them to get caught in a last minute snow storm.   i’m waiting my turn to bust out as well.  i have just six months left on my sentence, and i have already justified an early dismissal if i need to take one.  basically i just haven’t a clue what to do next or where to go.  i’m lost.