The J's

The J's in the journal shifting project are the worst. P was hell, but J is below hell, it's in fact that room where Satan sits chewing on Judas Iscariot, forever frozen into an icy lake (with apologies to Dante and Durer). There's Journal of the...everything in the fucking universe, then Journal of...everything in the fucking universe, then Journal of Applied...everything in the fucking universe. Plus, you run into Physics/Chemistry/Biology tomes that weigh as much as a toddler each and there's a wall of them and by the time you get through Journal of Applied Microbiological Chemical Physics your arms feel like rubber. But Gerald and I have kicked major ass the last three days, and are more than halfway done. Today and tomorrow we'll slog through another 8 runs of fixtures before I head to Honduras for five days. I'm due back to work on the project next Friday, but last night I was thinking Cha and I should see if we can fly to Mexico City for the weekend on the way home....Perhaps not.

Yesterday I was speaking French with Gerald--who's from Martinique--and I told him about smoking pot in Rouen with some Senegalese dudes who were partying because Senegal knocked France out in the first round of the World Cup, and how the cops saw us and joked with us about it but didn't care. Gerald told me everyone he knows in every city everywhere smokes weed (on fume du junque), and that the only "Western" country where the cops give a shit is the US. He's studying computer science here--he studied for four years in Paris previously, and he's a really cool guy who a couple days ago left his braids out and he's got the most amazing Afro I've seen in the last 20 years.