Nothing lasts

Eight days left in Gouna, Egypt, the artificial paradise on the Red Sea where all the food tastes the same, no matter which restaurant you go to.

The big heat will be here in a month or so, but I will be long gone by then.

I went to Moods yesterday for a late lunch, early dinner; their burgers are expensive but quite tasty, and I have never had stomach problems after chowing down there.

There was a sort of folkoric whirling dervish dance interpretation around 5PM in honor of the late owner, who passed in late September, or perhaps it was early October.  Egyptian hotties with partially unzipped denim shorts came for the attention and to pay their respects, always aware they were being looked at as they teased the borderlines of decency. The marhoom’s son, Ahmed, was there, and I said hi to him, then left.

The dancing, at the least the part that I stayed for, was rather amateurishly lame, but hey, the kids had fun.

The guy with with the white Tee walks around with the confidence of ownership at a privileged young age

My mother seems to be doing okay after her operation, and I will be seeing her in NY in about a week.

Ah, Gouna.

I shall miss you, and I think my stay in Egypt has been wonderful.

Especially with all the weight loss, which is now noticeable. People now seem to think I am much younger than my real age.

I’m back, the real me, not the fat guy you see in the header pic of this blog. It’s all this speaking in Arabic that burnt up all the calories as my brain scrambled on overdrive to find the words that I once knew.

I was looking forward to seeing Manhattan again, but after reading Jeremiah Moss’s book, Vanishing New York (here is his blog), I am not that excited any more. Giuliani and Bloomberg gutted the crazy mad city I once loved; and the absentee rich who snapped up all the remodeled condos finished the job.

I was lucky that I lived such a long time in New York City when it was alive with young, poor artists and writers and musicians, and not simply a magnet for greed merchants.

Like Gouna, it’s become a place where people with money come and go like transient shadows and no one hangs around very long because it’s always about the other place the one over there not this one except for the next few days or weeks and then it’s see you next time always a pleasure it’s been so real but now I have to go get some lavage it’s all the rage you know only the best people in the best places get it done and if the reef ‘s dying that’s not my problem.

After spendng a few days in NY I’m returning to Florida and reuniting with my beautiful wife.  I don’t know how I am going to take to living in America again after the long period of being far away from that whole toxic scene that is only redeemed by its delicious John Le Carre-ish elements of shady international intrigue.

But nothing lasts forever, except my marriage to the one and only Zouz!

It’s time to go back.

I want to see my wife.

I want to live in a house that I’m not renting. I no longer wish to pay for watering the gardens of houses that other men or women own. For one thing, these gardens are absurd: this is, after all, desert country.

I want to have eat normal American food again, like Chicken or Meatball parm subs. There is a new storefront space that just became available in downtown Gouna near the Ebaid supermarket.  I think if I lived here, I would open a totally over the top Americana 1950s-style food (burgers, dogs and fries) and drink place, with an old school juke, that I would call Pulp Fiction. It would make a mint. But the ingredients and offerings would have to be authentic, which is nearly impossible here: it’s not that you can’t import them (except for the beef and taters which are fine here), it’s that the radin tourists who come wouldn’t fork over the 300% or whatever luxury tax to bring in stuff like real sodee fountain pop and Bud or Guinness on tap, because in the end what they really come here for is discount if not outright el cheapo fun in the sun, and would resist paying the vigorish for the good stuff, even if the price would be the same as in, say, Frankfurt, and a thousand times better than the local swill.

Not to go all xeno, but I’ve about had it watching International CNN cover news and weather reports and sports from countries that I don’t give a rat’s ass about.

More importantly, I want to drive my SUV, a nice, roomy American car.

I want to buy American Listerine with alcohol in it, so my mouth and throat get the germ-killing rinse out every morning.

I want to watch the NY Jets on my HDTV after they draft their franchise QB.

I want to paddle on my Alii SUP in clear aquamarine waters.

I want to flat pic my Santa Cruz guitar.

I want to access political web sites without being blocked, and watch full MSNBC shows instead of these YouTube clips.

I want to  write my novel using a desktop comp with a large, high res monitor, instead of this annoying travel Chromebook Plus.

I want to ride my bike.

I want to talk with friends who speak American English as their first language, instead of this hybrid, inauthentic Gouna-speak English — these infants of the so-called elites who send them to “International” children’s schools then the AUC of course will never end up knowing who or what they are.

I want to walk again on the beautiful sands of Jupiter Island and take new pics of Ozzie the Osprey, whom I miss.

I may return to Gouna in the Fall;  I’m leaving that option open if the orange pig and his hate-peddling demented acolytes go completely unhinged as Mueller-centered speculations progress beyond the level of talk show engendered intrigue.

We shall see.

Tic toc.

The blue wave is coming.