Wednesday, June 13th

Jesus Christ, has it been a busy two weeks. I swear it has been non-stop since the beginning. In the time it used to take me to schedule a community meeting I've applied for no less than four jobs, gone through all my old clothes, organized all the things I sent home, cooked about fifty times, driven on the freeway, and gotten my hair cut no less than three times. But more on the hair later. First I'd like to talk about my rude awakening to the debacle that is American Culture.

Let's start with the supermarket. Now I'd gotten used to supermarkets during my stay in Amsterdam and overcome my somewhat irrational fear of the multitude of choices. When I came back home I decided to take it nice and slow and do what I used to do in Port Vila: walk down every single aisle and look at every single item for sale. And that's what I did, I walked to the store and looked at each individual food item. It's fucking absurd. Who needs over 25 different brands of peanut butter to go with 36 different kinds of bread? Do we really need milk to be broken down by fat content in .5% gradations? Is someone going to have a stroke over 2% milk when they realized they had not purchased their normal 1.5% milk? I was fine shopping in other countries because I thought "Hey, I'm just passing through, it's not such a big deal. Just keep focused and buy the zucchini." But here it's absolute madness. Everything comes in low fat, low sodium, no sugar, light syrup, chopped, diced, whole, or masticated. And that's just the packaged food which I try to avoid like a rabid third grader with one eye. But at least they have lots and lots of vegetables, which are also huge and equally distracting.

After I exited the Albertson's of Perfidiousness and made sure my body hadn't gone into shock I decided to press my luck and check out the Target next door where my body did indeed go into anaphalactic shock. It's HUGE! All the progress I had made in desensitizing myself to food selection was nothing compared to the selection of everything else in the world for sale. As I was looking at DVD's with actors I didn't recognize I met the mother of a kid I went to high school with. I managed to stammer out a few sentences before getting uncomfortable and saying goodbye. As I walked home I was thankful there isn't a Walmart close to my house. I'm afraid I'll get lost in the store and be found dead weeks later next to the camping goods.

Shortly after my trip to the store and a few other equally traumatic experiences: freeway driving, seeing an old friend leave for Oregon, etc., I finally decided to get a hair cut. So like a complete idiot I made an appointment with a local stylist, thinking that she could cut men's hair that was over 3 inches in length. Unfortunately, American's (unlike Netherlanders) can't cut men's hair and keep it long at the same time. Why? Cause in Holland long hair is normal in guys, in the States it's a pre-existing condition that will deny you medical coverage. Since this woman cut about a centimeter off my hair the first time I went back hoping she would fix it.

I was so wrong. I walked out with a girls haircut but hey, at least I still had long hair. But I can't go walking around with hair like a girl so I got it cut again from someone else and now my hair looks better but is much shorter than I'd like. Whatever, I'll live. Then I saw the date and realized that in a parallel universe I'm actually sharing this time with someone at San Diego Zoo, laughing at the monkeys and recognizing the tropical flowers at the botanical garden in Balboa park. However, in reality I'm actually stressing over jobs and credit cards. And then I think about the stores, the movies, the shiny devices that beep, whir, and have flashing lights; all the things that distract us and allow us to put off dealing with emotions. There's a point to this rant somewhere but I think it got lost between the low-fat and the all-natural-old fashion peanut butter .