I am no longer traveling through Europe;
I am LIVING there.
Last night I moved into an apartment in the Osokorky neighborhood of Kiev, Ukraine, which means that for the first time in three and a half months, I have a place of my own.
And god DAMN does it feel good.
As much as I loved backpacking around Western Europe, being able to have a home base and just throw my shit somewhere (and not be sweating profusely while wearing a winter jacket in the deepest Metro station in the world, which is UNAIRCONDITIONED) is nothing short of pure bliss.
So with that, I can cross off another major life goal from my list… of major life goals:
To LIVE in Europe.
2019 was supposed to be a year with some pretty lofty goals in mind.
Travel around Spain for 3 months with no phone. Mission complete.
Live in Europe: now completed. Many of you may know that I have the ambitious life goal of wanting to live on all 7 continents. And with Europe, I’m finally more than halfway there. I lived in Asia for 3 1/2 years, South America for 2, and North America for, well, TOO LONG.
And although I may only plan on staying in Ukraine until the summer, I’m STILL living here. So I get to check that off the list on a technicality. Kind of like when I was a TV producer for NHK, and I had the goal of being on TV. And I wasn’t there doing a standup report for any of our news stories, but I did various voice overs on our international channel (NHK World) and I acted like a shady drug dealer for one of our stories on Mexico and technically appeared on television. So yeah.
And when you are hitting your goals, no matter how silly or trivial they are (i.e. my biggest life goal, which is to fly a jetpack), then it’s SO much easier to keep the momentum going and hit them all. Wanna know what my other goals this year are? To participate in and film the Running of the Bulls and La Tomatina (tomato war) festivals in Spain, to see The Chemical Brothers in Europe (already have tickets), and the one that brought me here to Kiev in the first place: to write a book.
If you’ve read any of my exploits in the past, you’ve heard me mention writing a book. And now, in the next 10 weeks, I’ll do just that. I even have a name for the book picked out. It’s:
You guessed it! Explicit Exploits.
So not to shit on anyone’s parade or anything, but when I go on the internet and hear everybody talking about watching gay superhero movies and gay fantasy TV shows, I get really confused, and equally detached. I wonder: how are people so enthusiastic about WATCHING adventure, when they could be out there LIVING one of their own? Your life is yours to LIVE, not to experience vicariously through a flat screen.
Escapism is fine, and there is nothing wrong with the idea of wanting to venture to other worlds through multimedia. But wouldn’t you rather GO to another world yourself? Wouldn’t you like to visit Italy, and see these massive marble structures and feel what it was like to be part of this civilization in the year AD 200?
Speaking of, I totally forgot to write a synopsis from my trip to Italy. But fuck it; anytime I do a review of a foreign country, nobody reads it, except one person from that country who always gets butthurt. Most people would rather be reading stories about banging pop stars or stealing police cars. Luckily, I got you covered.
The book writing process begins on Monday. I’ll give myself one more weekend to go banana-sandwich (and I’ll probably give myself the following weekend too. But one big bang is how I wanna go out before the book starts. I moved about 30 minutes away from the city center precisely because I don’t want to be tempted by the parties, the warming weather, the women. Oh my fuck—the women.
Ukranian girls are stunning. Bedazzling, even. No I haven’t had physical relations with anyone here yet—unless you count the girl who made out with me at a party last week and then went SPRINTING away from me when I told her I have a girlfriend. Of course I don’t have a girlfriend, it was a kind of defense mechanism that my brain fired off. But the music at the party was too good! I just wanted to dance. Don’t be putting your lips on my face when I’m trying to dance.
So with the weather getting good and girls wearing less and less, I will try my best not to let this distract me from getting my book done. Most of the Ukrainian guys I meet are like, “Yes, Ukranian girl very sexy. You can use her for fuck, but be careful that she don’t use you. If she tell you she love you, don’t trust. And don’t buy her fur coat.” Then I was like, “Who the fuck would just buy a girl a fur coat?”
That very day I heard a story about an American guy dating a Ukrainian girl long distance, and since he couldn’t be there physically, he had to express his love for her somehow. So you know what (she asked for and) he bought her? A FUR COAT! Ukrainian girls, if you are listening, NO FUR COATS FOR YOU. You will wear this bubble-wrap coat, and YOU WILL LIKE IT!
So that’s what’s happening in Ukraine right now. Also, the presidential elections were last weekend and the country elected a former standup comedian to be their new president. Even though he is quite clearly a Russian puppet. And yes I may have mentioned in my last blog that the OTHER candidate was the puppet, but sometimes you get the facts wrong. Welcome to the disinformation age, baby.
Last mention: I’m here until July. I’ll be going to Bulgaria and Serbia/Romania at the end of May. If anyone wants to come visit me in Ukraine, speak now or forever hold your peace. Once this book starts, I’m going hermit mode.
Oh, and HAPPY EASTER, SHITHEADS!
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