Today I spent in the relative calm that is Manhattan, no bombs, no bullets not a genocide in sight and for once I felt.......out of place. I love NY, I love it so much I travel back every three months to catch up on the exhibits at The Met, to watch a Yankee game, to have good Italian food hard to find a descent place in Indonesia. While on the road in Asia, I pined for NY but as the years pass by I find myself more stranger than anything else, while NY'ers were dealing with 9/11 I was in an airport in Bangkok when I heard the news, I was gonna return to watch the Yankees in the playoffs. Instead I spent the post season in Kabul. As I walked the relative calm of the West Village I find myslef thinking about what was happening half a world away, I know that life moves on, that war and famine stop while I'm away, but I find the relative life of lattes and Kenneth Cole shirts a bit......ridiculous now. Perhaps like an old favorite tee shirt I've outgrown NY, perhaps NY is made for the young and ambitious. Perhaps, my bureau chief was right that the longer I stay at this the more I'll end up 40 in a bar in Manilla and alone. Perhaps this was the life I was destinied for a life less ordinary but also lonely. Perhaps the life I chose is one that requires of me to surrender any dreams I have of a happy typical life. Thus making my cynicism is less naturalo and more of a natrual defense for the inevitable. Perhaps the one thing that needs to be fixed or heal is myself...which brings me to a more complex and scarier question.....will I find someone who will?

On a side to yesterday's blog I would like to reiterate that I am not trying to find in love with Amy Beth just an old friend reconnecting....She perhaps proves to be more interesting the more I think about her, while my Manhattan typical day stroll I had lunch with my firend and photographer Micha, she asked whats on my mind and wondered if it needed therapy, my answer was a girl who fascinates me. To which she said, "uh-oh". It wasn't like that I'm just fascinated that someone like her avoided the pitfalls of society which shows she's a strong girl and most importantly secure in herself to not see her worth in a bikini. Micha said it happens alot and I said really? where? not in NY....she said no more like SF and Wal-Mart territory....(the south). I hate Cali and I can't stand the south....guess I'll be looking for my "soulmate" elsewhere...I hear Eastern Europe is nice.....always had a soft stop for HUngarians and Czech girls..hi Susie hi Lenka, miss you girls......espically you Lenka...heh he hehe

I'm not toxic....just searching still sad...I thought the search was over...cue "Truly Madly Deeply" now.....

It has been too long, needless to say being a Toxic New Yorker doesn't pay the bills hence me in Africa, which by the way while we await pictures of Baby Suri there's a genocide going on and its more than Sudan....but I digress, this blog is about being me...the non-professional me. This is about the manic, somewhat bi-polar me...and this me just go back into contact with his first love.....Amy Beth no last name stalkers you know....anyways.....needless to say 117 countries, 6 continents later I've come to 4 conclusions about life 1. I will die (sad I know) 2. There is a GOD 3. I'm not HIM and 4. Amy Beth is still breathtakingly beautiful.....which is good and bad....
Good because lets face it we all like beautiful people, I know I'm a hypocrite, bad because I'm not good looking which doesn't mean anything but I digress...next paragraph please..

Amy was in essence the hottest girl in school in whatever school she went too....and here's a secret shes also smart...I know this because Amy could have not gone on to college she could have married rich, she could have moved to South Beach and be a swimsuit model, she could have just lived her life as a beautiful persona nd get stuff thrown at her, good free stuff, trips to Aruba and diamond necklaces...but no, Amy defied the odds. See, the odds say that people by nature take the easier route in life, people tend to go and do something easiest for themselves, but not our little Amy, she graduated college and got a Master's in Education and is a teacher.....nice. In the, Jesus Christ 16 years since I last seen her, she has defied the odds. Now if we put aside the beauty she is by far and large one of nicest people I've met, she doesn't curse or that may have changed now, and she loves children and she has one of those smiles that makes you feel sad because its a smile that makes yours look dumb....I would say that even without the beauty I'd still have a thing for her.....moving on.......

This isn't an all out I'm pining for her story..no no......even I know theres a better chance of peace in the Middle East than I your hero dating said hot chick....one look at her myspace page confirms that the genetics Gods screwed me over big....no this post is about how 16 years changes a person. I'm proud that Amy defied the odds, that she didn't sit back and follow the hot girl route I've seen and dated....dating a model bad thing......like owning a sports car, looks great on the street but man what an insurance bill. Rather this blog is about the different roads one takes how the choices we make determine the eventual outcome.

There may be a Grand Scheme, a Grand Design, destiny even, and I am reluctant to believe in soulmates, which by the way Amy still believes in which is the cutest thing I heard this year. To believe in soulmates is to believe in fate, now we may be destinied to find our soulmate but fate being a vindictive person that she is may say to bad little man, your soulmate just walked past you and you didn't stop and say hi. Kinda like destiny can take you to the door but you still have to kncock and go in right? But she still believes in soulmates which in turn made me thnk long and hard about the cynicism that overcame me recently. And that caused me to rethink the soulmate thing...perhaps I've yet to find mine? Neruda didn't find his till he was in his 50's....Then again Hemingway never did.....

So what does this mean for this toxic New Yorker, will I give up on sarcasm and perhaps go back to my lovey dovey ways? Probably not but I may have coffee with Amy......and that will make me smile....and in the end sometimes a smile is a good start.

So what is the moral of this little story, just when you think you have people all figured out someone always surprises you, the best thing about the human race, and as we all know surprises are a good thing.