Coming of the Euro

December 21, 2001

the empire’s new dough

 

 

What did I do today, you may ask? Probably not. I went to the bank here on Mytilini. This is worthy of note simply because I purchased a bag of euros, for a piddling 5.000 drachmas. I will now be able to remember the first time I laid eyes and hands on the new coin of the realm. Had a chance to heft it, shake it around, finger it, see how it will handle on the road.

I think that every economy has one coin which is the “shilling” or “florin” of its day. That is, one coin which guarantees for the average street beggar or other soul dwelling at the bottom of the heap a fighting chance at acquiring some piece of indispensable piece of matter. A loaf or bread, a jug of wine, thou.See what I mean? Judging by its design, I wager that the 50 cent piece will become that sort of coin. It is durable, it has serrated edges, it has a secret compartment that is a gateway to a parallel universe. Few people know this, outside the circle of the Illuminati behind this whole thing. I dare not say more.
Out, oh master.

(note from posterity: How could I know that the one euro coin would become the modern florin? It didn’t seem fair at the time. It was too valuable.)

Long Time Gone

December 18, 2001

view from the veranda mytilini

 

Long time gone.

How do I sum up the course of my existence since the last entry in this document? Why should I try.? At the moment, my son is lying on the bed howling. This is not his usual thing.Now I have picked him up. Now the torture and angst  and the great howling anguish of being alive in samsara has ceased for a moment. Now he naps in my lap as I write these words. I am on the island of Lesbos, near the capital city, Mytilini. This is where the boy and his mother now live. I suppose this is where I live as well.

Well, well, welly well, how did old guido end up right where he started from? You may well ask. It has been a hell of a time since last I wrote in here. I have been all over the world, I have up and left to pursue greener pastures and younger women, I have voyaged to the further reaches of my definition of self, and wondered just where the hell I was and how I had arrived there.

As one may gather from other information on this site, I have spent a lot of time in Italy this last year and a half. I have been floating around that country like a lone bean in a turbulent bowl of pasta fagioli. Then I have decided that this boy sitting here in my lap was worthy of my attention and care. Now he sleeps on my chest. Awwwww…..we say. He stinks. I smell infant fecal matter. Thus it goes, I presume. It is certainly tough to concentrate upon sending error messages into the ether when a being so simple and complex demands one’s attention. Oh my oh my does the mind ever go into a giddy whirl to contemplate all of this mortality and birth and re-birth. Enough of this shit.

There are some journal entries later, dating from when I purchased my laptop. Before that all was ignorance and outer darkness.

Here I am, miss me?