Just a beautiful Tuesday sunset view from the balcony of yours truly 
new kicks came in. expect to see these bad boys for the next 7 years 
Can’t say I really know what’s going on in this pic, or what I’m holding, but the crocodile bar is rather fantastic 
just nardi and the ladies, you know how I be 
a day at the schwimbad hehe. Not tan at all yet, but getting there 
The rains have begun… 
The waiter form the crocodile bar agreed to a game of chess. 4 hours later, we reached stalemate. Then he blew me off the board two games in a row in 10 minute timed games. Also had the most powerful tobacco these lungs have ever consumed. One puff of his rolled cigarette had me seeing stars no cap. Is this caption too long? 
wide angle lenses are awesome, looks like we’re in looneytoon land or whatever that videogame was back in the day. Toontown! Yessss. Bruh it looks we stopped off for a layover in goddamn toontown in this pic, I love it
When I was eight, maybe nine, the older kids on my block were playing football in the street. Two-hand touch, I believe. They were probably like 15, so just a bunch of snot-nosed acne-junkies, but to me they were straight up adults. Proabably even more adult than the actual adults I knew in my life. Hell, when I look back, it still feels like they’re older than me; there’s just a palpable sense of order when you’re a kid, everything is so defined, carved into stone as the way things are in such a way that hardly ever manifests itself again when adulthood actually comes. Anyway, these older kids were whizzing the ball up and down the street, and I was riding my bike close to them. When I got some courage, I actually rode the bike between the two teams. This was a street, after all, right? Am I in the wrong? I tried to time it so I would only cruise through in between the plays, but as the game went on, I grew more bold (and definitely more annoying), trying to whip through at the last second just as the one older kid with spiked hair said “hike!” and the teams would collide in the road just behind me. Then, finally, karma struck.
More specifically, the QB finally had had enough of the kid zooming around on his annoying little bike. “Hike!” was called, I was still in the road, and milliseconds later the spiraling edge of the pigskin burrowed itself into my cute little cheeks, exploding me off the bike and into the pavement. Now, it probably wasn’t so dramatic as that, but I remember this ball hitting the side of my face like a nuclear ballistic missile. Of course, tears instantly welled up, and I was embarrassed as all hell because obviously crying in front of the older kids was the lowest of the low. I hid them as best I could and scurried away back into the chainlink fence of my rocky yard, and my mom met me at the side door of the house. The kids were saying something when they saw her, probably something like “it was an accident”, but the look in her eyes said she obviously thought that was baloney. I guess she had been watching from the kitchen window. She hugged me and examined my face and saw nothing was terribly wrong. She asked if I was okay and I think I reluctantly said yes, but I was definitely still mad/confused at why that fucking scumbag would do that. And I guess my mom saw that too, because the next thing she said was “well, why were you riding through their game?”
I get the feeling this story reveals something about why I am the way I am, and not in some overly simplistic or defined way, but in how I myself am now mildly unsympathetic to the wounded idiots out there, riding between older kids’ football games in the street. I was comforted, for sure. But I was also told “yeah dude, you kinda had that coming”. And even then, I don’t think I could disagree. I don’t think there’s a real lesson here, I’m not about to spout off about personal responsibility or something, but I do often find myself talking under my breath like “what did you expect?” at a variety of situations when people are disappointed or angry. Not sure whose world I’d rather live in though, mine or theirs, because they seem to feel happiness in direct proportion to the level of these (in my opinion) misplaced, sharp disappointments. Meanwhile it can seem like I’m stuck at the top of the bell curve, hardly registering either of the extremes. Maybe I ought to start dredging up my emotional, hard-packed soil and see what disappointments I myself can dig up, and open the whole thing up to greater ecstasy as well. Is that how it works?
Anyway, it was a solid week, the beginnings of summer, and the last week before the crazy wedding/music festival/wedding shenanigans get underway. I worked some, sorted out some visa stuff, and Vici got her MA thesis grade back as well…. Gang she also got a 4.0!!! I feel like the government owes us money or something. But that’s why we went out to Krokodil the crocodile bar and had some drinks with her friends. Then on Sunday a couple of my friends came over and we worked on Project Frankfurt, drank some cocktails, and had a nice Tajine dinner that my girlfriend prepared. It’s all coming together.
How’s your early summer been? And yes all of May is summer, just as all of September is. Summer is 5 months long and I refuse to accept any other reality.
See you tomorrow,
Nick
Nick Denardi 