today faculty from the university and myself sacked out in the airport greeting students. handing out packets of information and house keys. making sure they know what street to take their taxi to...... etc... etc... never thought i would intentionally wait around in an airport for ten hours.....mostly it was a good chance for me to read and receive lunch and breakfast paid for! not to mention having the strange feeling that i was supposed to be going somewhere. whenever in the airport this is what i am used to. heading away or to some different or familiar destination. i made myself eat a piece of pizza to convince myself that i am staying here in Italy. so far i have had two pieces of pizza. both in airports. i'm working myself up so i can endure something fantastic outside of airport quality.. don't want to rush into anything for it may be hopeless to find higher ground....but anyways pizza really isnt all its cracked up to be. i mean so much bread and cheese. sometimes it just sits in your tummy like piece of highly dense unshaped lead though without all the poisonous attributes. i prefer blending spinach in water and drinking. much easier to assimilate! my friend Kathy would call it pond scum....maybe this is why i love turtles so very much. (but roscoe.....or i mean robby...yeah robby man...its still a tasty piece of pizza pie even the airport stash is a stones throw away behind Martini's)

lately there has been a cultural festival happening in Florence based around the democratic party here in Italy
http://www.festademocratica.it/?gclid=CObDhffUwZUCFQuH1QodmVEyRQ . with a short five minute walk from my house all sort of things to see and do. a cheap fifteen minute shiatsu massage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiatsu , live music, all sorts of ethnic foods, ancient Vespa scooters on display, a game where if you kick a soccer ball into one of the holes cut into a green painted board with nets behind you win a prize, art galleries, book stores, installation films, democratic debates..... a crazy elderly bearded man playing a self tuned and eccentrically built guitar....oblivious of the world singing from scribbled notes with colors of paint and expressionist lines adhered upon canvas nearby, flanking him from side to side..with an ancient top-hat color beige and matching disheveled broken-in suit jacket and pants......probably the creator of the universe as far as i am concerned......................you will find them from time to time as long as you keep more then just your eyes open.......

the first night i came to the festival my flat mate encouraged me to go down to see the Wailers and the hippies of Florence. the property is of a castle built in the mid 16th century and is surrounded by a giant wall with an emptied trench reaching far bellow...yesterday i had mt first coffee here in Europe at the festival from a modern little coffee maker on display where you put a plastic container inside the top (like a creamer) and viola instant hot very potent coffee with a mysterious thickened brown foam on the top.... with the visual appearance of hot chocolate...it took me a bottle of water and a good thumbs worth of fresh ginger to get the taste from my mouth. reminded me of the last time i was here you could vend instant pasta on the streets corners......still searching for those again.

finally settled into an apartment with this instillation/video artist named Andrea
http://www.myspace.com/ciboideale .....what i know of so far is that he projects films onto melting ice in public spaces. dealing with questions and topics concerning the environment. he is a big fan of good simple Italian tasting food and is a writer of poems and likes chocolate very much. kind of reminds me of the fraggle rock....maybe one of the more sleepy of the characters...but somehow seems to get the most done......... or ALF. yes maybe he is like the ALF. but with less center of attention.
ok confession....i think that everybody reminds me of the ALF in some way shape or form. maybe it is my bias from childhood and my strange affinity for puppets. maybe i presue an exsistance that hopes to live up to the morale and ethics of the melmacian race......ahhh... those were the years. when one could see a freshly debuted ALF episode from the genuis and ingenuity of NBC and writer Paul Fusco. maybe someday television will take back what it is most appealing. aliens merged with stuffed animals and house pets...... brought into the human characature of an elderly man and the innocence that of a child......brilliant!