2005-05-24-0323Z


These goddamned Mexicans are getting on my nerves. Every fucking day I go through TJ to the border, one or more of these assholes has to make some stupid remark. "Cowboy" because of the hat. "Bin Laden" or "Jesus" because of the hair and beard. Lately, because I shaved off the mustache to make drinking easier, it's "Lincoln". I felt like saying "Lincoln was an asshole, and so are you" but didn't want to push my luck.

About 1/4 of the way through Nabokov's Glory. Most of the pressure is off on my programming jobs, so finding more time to read. Like Martin, the protagonist, I'm living the life of the idle rich, only minus the money.

Tried to find the nudist area of Silver Strand Beach today, but no luck; once I was far from all the other beachgoers, however, I peeled and took a quick dip. What looked from a distance like a couple of illegals on the prowl for a quick buck, a common sight in New Mexico, kept approaching the place where I was, and I put off running to the ocean for a while until they turned away. It wouldn't take long for them to grab my pants and run, leaving me naked and penniless. But once I'd dressed and walked back to the road, one of them followed me. I picked up a piece of bamboo or other reed and continued walking, then the person called to me -- in the voice of an American female. Oops. Turned out the land I was walking over was a game preserve. Endangered species, even the military from the base next door wasn't allowed in. I protested that I hadn't seen any sign to that effect, and she cops this attitude like I'm some kind of idiot, as it was so "obviously" marked off with these flexible plastic sticks stuck in the sand. I said they didn't mean a thing to me. Anyway, now I've been warned. Big deal.

Thinking it over later, I wished I had said something to the effect of "That doesn't surprise me, most areas are off-limits to the homeless. Talk about an endangered species." Anyway, what they're doing is very likely ridiculously ineffective anyway. We as a culture are destroying anwhere between 50 and 250 species per day, depending on whose estimate you want to believe. What are they doing to counteract that? Sticks in the sand. Sticks against the river, as Daniel Quinn says. One killer wave and their whole preserve disappears anyway.

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