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“Sucking a condom up your nose is like standing on your head.” – Sagittarius

“Sex in Iceland is so advanced we have to stick condoms up our noses. Maybe you will develop that far in 2000 years.” – Leo

(Last Night)

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After five weeks of existential boredom in my small Bosnian town, having loved and lost (seriously, violently), I decided to go back to something I’m good at: meshing with English-speaking travelers. For a week I did this in neighboring Croatia, at the beach in touristy Dubrovnik, at the beach in touristy Hvar; later, I met friends from these four days at their hostel in Sarajevo.



For a time before this I’d felt an anger, the type of anger which creases your face when you think about it. This black cynicism wasn’t focused on anything specific. It was reflective of a lack of charity for the things surrounding me and probably a projection of my feelings for myself (a constant mental refrain: What the hell am I doing here?).

That night, surrounded by sharp and hilarious Anglos, calling each other by our star-signs and revealing more than is probably wise, I felt at peace here, satisfied for the first time in a while. We developed a catch-phrase: “What happens in Sarajevo stays in Sarajevo.” I wished I could oblige.

They left the next day. I am now back in Visoko, typing on my computer in my peach-walled hotel room. The calendar says I have six weeks left. Among my friends, the over/under for me staying here was a month. I’ve beaten the under. I’ll make it these next six weeks, I’m pretty sure.

Something’s changing in me. When I came here, I was horrified by the lack of organization on the project, I was wearing fancy sneakers, and I asked for a Macintosh laptop to work on (I received a 1999 Powerbook with a Swedish OS installed. I can laugh about it now). Now my sneakers are brown with mud and I have a new philosophy: “Let’s party for the apocalypse.”



I’ve started to hitchhike, and talk with the locals in my poor Bosnian more often. This mostly consists of me saying odlicno (excellent) and je sam gladan (I am hungry). I walk around town during the day instead of reading the New York sports pages on the internet. I’ve decided to be more open, and see where it gets me.



Until recently, I was bothered by my place in this zany project, I felt like it was splitting me down the middle. On one side, I needed to do PR/web reportage building up the project and extolling the dubious qualifications of everyone involved. On the other side, I’m still an editor at a New York magazine, I have a college education, and I’m used to thinking critically. It was a mess and I did neither well.

So I’ve decided to be of one mind. This was already the case, I was just lying about it. But I don’t want to be a cynic anymore. I’d rather be in love and be a fool than not be in love and be a fool.

I’ll start now.