Still the Walrus

I stumbled across this little gem today:

This cries out to me with the voice of a thousand angel babies. In my last post, I expressed my affinity for maimed animal parts hanging prominently in my home. This is a chance to right a terrible wrong—a shot at redemption. However: I am savvy to the earth's position in relation to the sun, and how our path as we hurdle endlessly through space around a feebly burning ball of compact elements has been arbitrarily organized into a series of evenly divided sectors to make sense of the abstract and limited concept of time. Therefore, I know that our current position has been designated an appropriate one in which to affront one another with falsehoods and pranks in an attempt to mock and ridicule... Harumph. As if it were even real. As if I would even want that patrician beast's fuzzy noggin ennobling my harrowed heart. I won't be had again. I won't.


I can't.

I...

.

...want

...

I'll be right back.

I Am the Walrus

I’m not actually a walrus, nor do I think the person that wrote that song was.

Throughout time, there have been great ideas. One of those is craigslist, and related classified sites. Through them, I have made some highly worthwhile transactions and obtained some great products at a collectively reasonable price. Of late, I have been scouring a local site with a classified section called KSL. See, I moved a few months ago. The apartment to which I moved was unfurnished. This was nice because I felt like a big boy, but ‘twas less than ideal because furniture can be expensive and difficult to obtain. This is where KSL comes in; KSL has a free section, where people post things for free. Like without cost. Through this, I’ve been able to track down decent furniture for said place. With enough diligence, someone can furnish an entire apartment literally for free. This is great for financially strapped young dudes, of which my roommates and I are several. And this is what I did. I was able to furnish my entire bedroom (mattress, box spring, dresser, desk, bookcase) for approximately $15. I feel good about this.

In this search for furniture, I sifted through a lot of postings for free things. Not long ago, I came across something that would change my life forever: a taxidermied walrus head.

What?: my first response. NEED: my second and overriding response. Of the strange and bowel-curdling things to find on the internet, this was one of them, and it reigns supreme. Of the things I find on the internet and want but don't need, this is a big one, and it reigns supreme. How did someone obtain this? Where did it come from? Why was it a thing? I had so many questions; I was twitter-pated. But I didn't need answers. All I needed was that walrus head.

I immediately texted the seller. "give me your walrus head," was my desperate plea. After 2 excruciating minutes, they hadn't responded and I couldn't risk being beaten out by another. I called the number; it went straight to voicemail. By this time I was in a panic. I writhed on the floor where I waited, pressed against my couch and circumstance. My crumpled body lie rung by helplessness, subject to the will of another. But there was no return to ignorance—I'd already seen too much. I couldn't just pretend that there was no walrus head and that I'd be happy without it on my wall. I'm just not that strong.

Minutes turned into hours, hours into hemorrhoids. Finally, as if respite from a heavenly messenger, the familiar buzz of a text shook the couch near my tear-drenched cheeks. "come pick it up$20." To this was reduced my humanity.

Encouraged by the contact, which glimmered as a beacon of brightest hope, I pressed on. I questioned the price (having found it in the free section), but decided that if he weren't willing to barter, $20 was worth foregoing a lifetime of regret. "mountain dew bottles work best," was the response.  

… ?

I tried calling a couple more times, hoping to arrange the exchange before this man produced any more words, which only stood as a symbol of the separation between me and my one true desire. After continuing to call and reaching only a blank line, a confused child, and a strange one-sided conversation with a grown man, a disheartening reality began to vie for my attention.

Among the nice things about KSL is that it allows for many people to contact each other that wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Among the downsides of KSL, and internet-based interactions in general, is anonymity: an inability to interact with people face to face makes some of these transactions strange and uncomfortable, to say the least. It also allows for fake ads to be made with real numbers, and the perpetrator can walk away scot free. But the perpetratee is left to walk alone, forever held in tow by what might have been.

O Walrus mistress! O Cruellest of fates! O Heartless and cunning tricksters—Hear my lament! For such is the cry of a lover's scorn, wanting nothing of her own, yet left only therewith...

Eventually I accepted my suspicions as reality. Turns out the whole thing was a hoax. The ad was taken down shortly after my calls, and I was quickly able to find the exact same image that captured my heart merely minutes before on a google image search—an image that I thought represented something uniquely personal, something wholly mine. But an image near the top of a google image search is anything but.

I sat for a while, silent as the emptiness that had come to replace my boyish gumption. It's hard to lose something you hold dear; but sometimes it's harder never to have held it at all.

I sent a text to the number that was the source of my disdain—a disabused yelp into a mockingly indifferent void. In it, I offered congratulations for a prank well pulled. But the text was carried on the wings of heartache, borne on the winds of sorrow. And I hope they felt it.

Sometimes we are defined by the choices we make and the life we choose to live. Sometimes, just as defining is the life that passes us by, despite our ever reaching, ever yearning.

I am not the walrus, and I will never be.

I've Been Away, Pt. 3

This will simply be my overall impression of the trip, 4 months after the trip:  Amazing, to say the least. But I never say the least. Not on the internet.

One thing that I really enjoyed was getting to know a different part of the country. My first visit saw me spend the vast majority of my time in the capital of Santo Domingo, which is in the south-central Dominican Republic. This time I was stationed in the north. When people hear I’ve been to the DR, the first thing that usually comes to mind is the beaches–they ask me how they were. For the longest time, I’ve had to tell people I didn’t know; beaches do not line the entire island, and there aren’t many nice beaches close to my side of the capital. But this time, si. The north is where some of the most beautiful beaches in the country are located, and I got to go see them with my very own eyeballs–I’ve never been one to borrow eyeballs. My eyeballs tell me that they look just as nice as the postcards in real life, if not better. The north also boasts many mountainous regions–which are also quite beautiful–, and a much more laid-back approach to life. All of these things dieron gusto.

Another thing I found to my interest was getting to know different aspects of the country and culture–specifically education. My first trip was fairly focused in purpose, and the education system was not on the ledger. This time, my trip was also focused. But education was on the ledger. It made up the entirety of the ledger, being the ledger. I’m going to look up the definition of ledger to make sure I’m using it correctly.     Yup. It was interesting to see the role that education played in the lives of many of the people I came in contact with, and to see the ways in which its administration was failing or helping them. Growing up, I was immersed in an education system. I was not, however, savvy to its structure or mechanics. As I grew, I did not become much more aware. But going somewhere where something you grew up with is completely different makes you think about it. So I thought more about educational systems in general: what makes them, what makes them effective, inefficiencies, etc. All of this helped me to understand the people and culture more, as well as my own. All of this dio gusto.

Another aspect of the country that I got my first real taste for/of was that of tourism. Being with the beaches made for a much different experience. Living in Cabarete was very different from living in Santo Domingo. Suffice it to say that, although I was not a tourist, I felt very much like one. And that got me thinking about tourism and its effects on… well, lots of things. Tourism can be good in the sense that it tends to help the economy of a country or area. Tourism can be bad in the sense that it can harm the culture of a country or area. When one’s economic livelihood is dependent on a particular demographic, one caters to said demographic–this is a concept that is at the very heart of capitalism. Industries like tourism tend to be focused on economic and not sociological factors. Sociological factors, however, continue to exist and be affected, whether they be taken into consideration or not. It was interesting to me to consider the ways in which local tourism affected specific aspects of the life and culture there. Having experienced Dominican life outside of a tourist hotspot, it wasn’t difficult to recognize the differences.

I guess having new and swell experiences was the major theme of and takeaway from this trip. Again, living in Cabarete was different than living in Santo Domingo. In some ways, this made me a little bit sad. But mostly because my time in Santo Domingo was so great. I don’t know if I was expecting or even wanting it to be a very similar experience, but it differed in a lot of ways. However, the difference gives me reason to love and be thankful for both. In Santo Domingo, I got to live the life of a Dominican:  I lived in typical Dominican neighborhoods, among typical Dominican folk. I would have an apartment that was of the same quality and on the same streets as the Dominicans that lived there. We shopped at the same places, used the same transport, ate the same stuff, walked the same roads, lived with them in their circumstance. Naturally there were some differences, but for most intents and purposes, I was integrated. I loved that, because it gave me a pure and unadulterated look into these people’s lives. Coupled with the fact that we would go and speak and eat with them in their homes, etc., I feel like that was living the life of a Dominican–that was getting a true taste of the culture. At least as much as an American pelirojo can. In Cabarete, I got to relax and explore a little bit more. I spent a month in one of the windsurfing capitals of the world. I stayed in a relatively nice hotel. Most days, there was hot water. I got to appreciate the breathtaking beauty of the country. I worked with students and teachers in their schools and learned about the educational system that governed their early lives. I got to haggle and explore and seek more personal and intellectual pursuits.  I got to adventure. In both places, I worked towards something that was extremely meaningful to me. I met some of the best people. I got to know new places and new things about a new culture. I got frustrated and I learned and I grew.

The DREAM Project is a cute acronym for a non-profit organization. At first, I thought it to be a little cheesy. But after having participated, it truly was a dream come true. It really does help and capacitate these kids to rise above what can seem like a difficult and insurmountable circumstance. And even from a purely personal and self-centered perspective, it was a beautiful and surreal experience–one that, in ways, can help me to rise above difficult circumstances all my own. Dream on, you crazy dreamers.