London To Massachusetts To Florida

Thanks To The Lidgley's
I met with Nina at about 8 o'clock, persuant to our agreement to meet at 7 'o clock this evening.
I suppose that she might be running on Russian time and was actually 9 hours early.
Karrie came along, ostensibly to meet Nina, but also privy to the knowledge that Nina was to give me money, as per our agreement.
Karrie, who had risen from the ashes of sleeping all morning with an empty vodka bottle laying by her head, had somehow procured a 4 pack of beer, of which 2 remained.
She said that she had run into my friend Doug, who had "drooled all over me," and given her "a couple of bucks."
While I waited for the hour to change to 7 'o clock in Moscow, Karrie became overly amorous, rubbing my shoulders, nibbling my ears and licking me like a dog.
It was hard for me to push out of my mind the thought that it might have been related to the money which I was about to recieve.
Nina showed up and gave me $125 dollars. This was significant to me because of the fact that the sum was comprised of every denomination of cash, down to a five dollar bill. This made it seem like she had scraped it together, and maybe even given me every last cent that she had. 100 dollar bills don't send this same message.
Karrie was almost comatose by the time 8 'o clock and Nina rolled along. She didn't perhaps make a grand impression upon Nina, who had already read some of her incoherent letters from jail.
Nina gave me the money and then I went to the Chinese restaurant for some simple white rice. Karrie was by my side, step for step.
I bought the white rice, which I always buy from that place, having allergies to soy and other constituants of their fare. I could almost read in Karrie's face a bafflement over why I didn't just "throw down" and order the most expensive feast available, sharing it with her, of course.
I don't change my ways, just because I have a little bit of money in my pocket. I don't go "hog-wild" and wake up broke the next day like the likes of Karrie, who figures that she can just go out and get more money the next day, like ringing a bell (to quote Chuck Berry) I digress
The Lidgley's Package Arrives
I rode off, after sharing my white rice with Karrie, and telling her that I was going to come here to the internet cafe and update my blog. I basically insinuated that I didn't need her tagging along.
As I rode away a few yards, I heard Karrie calling to me. I turned to see her bike laying on the ground in front of a stationary car. She was just struck by a car, I thought.
I returned to see that the driver of the car was none other than Nina, who presented me with a parcel, containing the Grateful Dead tee shirt which the Lidgley's had sent to my mom in Massachusetts, and which was forwarded to Florida. What a world tour that shirt has taken!! London to Mass. to Florida!
The package also contained what I was on my way to get: coffee and cigarettes.
I look at this as an omen, telling me that I will tour the world playing Grateful Dead music and will never have to worry about coffee and cigarettes.
When Nina handed me the package, she whispered. "Daniel, this girl...she needs rehab, she is sick. She is a big risk to you. You need to leave her. She is no good for you."
This was Nina's first time meeting Karrie, and her "gut" reaction.
Nina has my best interests in mind and always has.
She didn't have to give me money, but she did because she had promised. She hugged me and as she did, I told her in Russian "Ti harowsha gzenshina" which means, you are a fine woman. She laughed.
She understood then that my experiences with her meant enough for me to have retained the Russian language which I had learned.
Now, What do I do about Karrie.
How can I avoid her crying like a baby and making me feel like I am the only man that could every love her???? When I leave her behind...

Savannah Strikes Out

We will not strike out for Savannah, Georgia, because Savannah has struck out.
A THIRD person has disparaged the virtues of the place, this one, a "rainbow" person, who has travelled the nation. He knew all about how crappy Ocala was, and how the cops were. He knew all about St. Augustine, and how the cops are. He even gave a pretty accurate assessment of Jacksonville, and how the cops are.
Going Mobile
He suggested that I/we go to Mobile, Alabama.
Gosh, in all my life, I never considered, nor even though about living in Alabama....
He spoke in glowing terms about the place. Being a rainbow person, he would be extolling the benefits of the place, pertinent to us campers and squatters, as rainbow people are migrant themselves.
It looks like we are going to Mobile, Alabama.
The Question of Karrie
Karrie, whom I refer to affectionately as "my burro," is an ally in the lifestyle in which we are living now. But, if I aspire to move "up" in the world, I can foresee her turning from gold into lead.

"It's hard to run with the weight of gold, but it's also hard with the
weight of lead"

In the past couple of weeks, she has completely notched off the entire checklist of things that annoy me.

• Eating all the food


• talking my ears off


• distracting me from my immediate goals for a given day


• wetting the bed


• ruining the pasta


• running my lighter out of fluid in inept attempts to light impossible fires


• spilling beer in the tent


• leaving the tent door unzipped, so that we wake up in a zoological-quality exhibit of insects, crickets, daddy-long-legs and arachnids


• attracting unwanted attention to the campsite by leaving her bike leaning against the side of the office building where our path emerges

throwing up a lot, but not in the tent, yet.

Well, I guess that redeems her...

I meet Nina tonight to hopefully get the money to get out of here....

El Matador

It is going to cost me almost 50 bucks to get a copy of my birth certificate. This will wipe me out and only give me the "opportunity" to work, if I could ever become hired.

I can't work here and have been being fed by Nina, enough to keep me around to suit her purposes.

I don't think I have work opportunities here, because I am not Mexican, or of any other group that looks out for their own. Whites are on their own. I should have been Indian, or Jordanian, or Jewish, Russian, or even Black!!!

I am white and a vanishing breed, especially with a president, who is a mouthpiece for who knows?

So, because the Mexicans are holding all the labor-intesive jobs and getting paid under the table, (paying no taxes into the system and ready to obtain free hospitalization and care, of course, should they need it (what a country)) -all at the expense of the real tax payers, and the employable white guys are collecting unemployment from the system, because they can't work for the wages that the fine Mexicans, who are victims and only here to steal and work and rape (allegedly), are willing to work for. What a fine economical condition.


And the Mexicans that smirk at me as I sit at the picnic table at the Gate, unable to go out on the side of the road and play music for tips, because it is considered panhandling; them going in to microwave their lunches, which they prepared at home for pennies on the dollar...them smirking at me, the "American who can't get work under the table" like they can...the Latin music pouring out from the truck with the name of the landscape company emblazoned on the side. Them tweeting and text-messaging to Mexico, saying that there will be more american 100 dollar bills on the way. Them not realizing how close they are to getting their brains smashed from behind with a steel rod, as they bite into their burritos.

I have nothing to do, besides waiting for Nina to string me along with more money. It is omasculating, the way I recall it when I lived with her, and the reason I left her.
I have lost the power to provide for myself, and it is more of a big deal than one might think.
I am sick of it; yeah, and I am sick of asking others to help me.

May-Hem Is Common-Day

I am being manipulated by the woman that I married 12 years ago, a marriage which allowed her to achieve citizenship and to send her son off to college at a reduced rate, him thus becoming a US citizen.

Now, for some reason, she wants a divorce; and fast.

Her half brother (the one with all the money) has recently died.

I think that he probably left a hefty sum of money for Nina "and her husband", if there should be such a person alive upon the dissolution of this....blah blah blah.....
45 Bucks An Hour!
She probably wants to keep the money, in order to support our 28 year old, unemployed, unemployable son, Michael. Michael "Can't work," no, how could anyone work, when their mother is worth a couple of 'mil' and all the job is paying is 10 bucks per hour?
Michael burns up 45 bucks an hour talking to friends in Russia on the phone. I've seen the bill! I've PAID the bill, after Nina sent the phone company a Money Order and neglected to fill out the "pay to the order of" part, whereupon, the phone company re-billed her for another 650 bucks for that month of Michael talking and laughing and giggling to Russia, and Nina sighed and filled out another Money Order and said something like "These people crazy..."






Michael can't work; just can't....
I would not put it past her. Every piece of mail that I have received at her house has been torn open and then re-sealed. What does this say about the level of trust involved here?
We have two weeks before the divorce becomes final, and I intend to talk to the lawyer involved about the possibilities present. Nina is in a SUPER hurry to get this divorce. I think that there is something going on.
She said that she would give me 500 bucks for my participation.
She gave me 20 bucks the first time that we met. I didn't go out and play because I didn't want to go to jail when I had 480 bucks waiting for me the next day; so I gave up maybe 40 bucks there.
Then, we had to meet again. ; -she gave me 30 bucks and told me to meet her again in a week, when more when more papers had to be signed. She gave me 100 bucks then.
I have not been working my spots. The money has just kept me afloat. I had a whole list of things to buy after she told me she would give me 500 bucks.
I was going to renew my ID. (20 bucks)
I was going to get new eye glasses (I have been blind for 8 months now) (80 bucks)
I was going to get a big backpack, enough to hold the tent, a sleeping bag etc, for travelling. (90 bucks)
I was going to get an I-pod, so that I could learn current music and bring my act into the 21st century. (40 bucks)
I was going to get a bus ticket out of here, (where I will soon have warrants popping up on cop's screens, (just like Karrie)) and start a new life somewhere. (45 bucks)
I was going to do all of that. I had it all figured out on a scrap of paper, but....
Nina is feeding me the money bit by bit, and I am consuming it on everyday expenses, while, at the same time not playing on the streets for fear of being arrested and missing out on the next "installment," of 100 bucks or so...
So, instead of having my ticket out of here, I face the possibility of being stranded in Jacksonville, with nowhere to play to make money, having consumed the promised 500 bucks just on living expenses and hanging around here for a month, at Nina's beck and call, being fed little by little, enough to keep me here for her purposes.
Nina won't push me.
I've never been angry at her, now that I think of it, which is certainly a testament to her. I don't think she will change, after we are legally divorced.



If I tell her that the bus to Charlottesville is a thousand bucks, she will say something like: "Oh my God,... so expensive!" and then she will peel me off ten crisp Ben Franklins, as if nobody ever worked a day for them
I often used to wonder, had I been avaricious and demanded more and more, if she would have complied, like the good Russian wife, and if I would have been driving around in a Mercedes, like the dumb-ass Russian guys that I see at Starbucks all the time, whose wives families probably have money..
It's good to be the ex husband of a moll!
May your well be indeed bottomless, (and no, I don't want Michael on the weekends!!!!.)

Maybe Michael Can Work

Her mobster half-brother is dead, the whole Russian-mob "family" that came over here in the early 90's, financed by the plundering of the National Treasury in Moscow, or somewhere, where diamonds and gold were stolen and brought to America, (yeah, that heist) well, the key players are all dying now, early if you ask me (average age of 55).

And there is Nina and there is Michael and there is Illoyna (my step-daughter who was shielded from the knowledge that her mom married an American, especially a long-haired guitar playing one) and there is not much else left of the dynasty. Some say that Anastasia survives to this day.

There is something going on.

She is one of the nicest women that I have ever met; (as are most Russian women) and I don't think that it will proceed badly. I hope she has my best interests at heart.

On My Own

I don't know what's bothering me the most right now; Nina divorcing me, Karrie breaking up with me, or the fact that I can't get a copy of my birth certificate.

It seems that I have to go 1,100 miles to get it.


Sometimes things have to get a lot worse before they get better.

I sent Karrie a nasty letter last night. I still put 6 bucks in it, though. I told her that she will never find me when she gets out.

Into The Thousands

Pakah! (-see ya later, in Russian)
I met with Nina and her lawyer. She forked over 100 bucks for his first half hour (much of which was spent on him telling us his fees and how he charged.)
She then gave him 400 bucks, so that he would initiate the paperwork. This was half, and enough to get him going.
We went back today (Monday,) Nina gave him the other 400 bucks. She then gave him 409 more bucks, in order for him to file something. She will hear from him about a hearing, to be set 20 days or more in the future. She will meet him in front of a judge, who will just stamp everything and push it aside, since, we are not contesting anything. Nina doesn't want the 75 bucks which I clear every month, and I don't want Michael (our 28 year old, unemployed, unemplyable, drug-addicted son/stepson) on the weekends; or ever.
Nina has given me money, so that I wouldn't have to play on the street and be visible to cops, who might arrest me and throw a fly into the ointment of her plans. She told me that she would give me 500 bucks, but, gave me 20 the first meeting, 30 the second, bought me lunch and cigarettes and snacks, etc.
Now that the thing won't be finalized for another 20 days, she probably plans to conive a way to keep me around. She gave me 100 bucks today. I asked her if she was "subtracting all this" from the promised 500 bucks. Her answer was ambiguous. She asked me if I wanted to pay off all my fines in St. Augustine, so as to not have to fear the Law. I told her that it would be over 1,000 bucks. She didn't flinch. I once extimated her "worth," at about 2.5 million dollars. She has certainly spent at least half of that in the 11 years since I met her; hell, Michael's bi-annual rehab runs into the thousands!!!
I told her that I couldn't get the 500 bucks in small pieces, because daily expenses would eat it up. I lost a lot of income (and maybe three meals and a hot shower at the jail,) by not playing the ramps this past week.
I need to renew my ID, get new eyeglasses, a cellphone, a big backpack which will hold the tent and a sleeping bag etc, and I would like an i-pod, so I can hone my craft and learn songs which are more modern than 1988.
She brought me to the DMV to renew my ID, after I told her this. I was told that I need 2 proofs of "residence," a Social Security card, a birth certificate and...that's it, just those things.
We took a form, upon which Nina can sign and affirm that I "indeed" reside with her. She can bring in the phone bill, the water bill, etc and prove that residence. The birth certificate, she was unable to locate. I am working on contacting my mom, who I hope will be able to walk into the City Hall and obtain the thing. The Social Security card, will hopefully just involve me knowing where I was born and what my mother's maiden name is.
Nina has succeeded in keeping me here for at least a few more days. She will wait untill the hundred bucks is surely (based upon her keen understanding of me, after living with me for a year,) near extinction, feed me another bill and so on, I'm sure. She is pretty clever.
It's hard to believe that she couldn't find my birth certifacate. She is meticulous in regards to documentation, if anything.
So, now, I go to call my mom, explain things (I may just buy the cellphone now, It would pay for itself during that one call....)
It is actually boring not being out, playing and making money.
Karrie On
Karrie's last letter was not a bolster to my hopes for a future with her.

She is under the care of the jail shrink and on some kind of medicine to help her sleep. She has physical problems, which she had been ignoring on the outside, while preoccpied with getting "some liqour," most of the time. She was almost incoherent in her missle, and sounded as bad as she has at times, after too much Jack Daniel's Whiskey. Only, there's no whiskey in jail.
She will be out 4/29/10.

Nina's hearing will be shortly after that. I plan upon being in Georgia by then, unless something like Nina offering to pay all my fines happens. Then, I would be free to be in St. Augustine. I feel like I have graduated that city though, and need to chase my bliss. My bliss seems to have gone north for the summer.

As Per Our Agreement

I woke up this morning, pretty early. Usually, when I HAVE to wake up early, I just want to lay there. I usually have some kind of caffeine, or "5 hour energy," to see me to a wakeful state. This morning, I didn't, and so, I wanted to get up and run to the store, or to Starbucks, in order to get something to wake up with. By the time I got to the store, or Starbucks, I would be wide awake anyway, though.

I listened to a little bit of the Dan Patrick Show, and they were talking about Tiger Woods.

I have my own opinion of the man, based upon my wealth of experience in life.

The man is a perfectionist and driven to be the best that he can be in every endeavor.

He has a beautiful wife, Elin, whom he loves dearly, and he wants to be the greatest lover to ever "play the game," for her. He wants to be bigger than lovemaking; worldwide. He wants to have his own brand of tiger-striped condoms, perhaps.

The man was merely practicing, getting in his "reps." He knows the importance of repetition in developing skills. Imagine how many times he has hit a golf ball...

What he was doing, in his "escapades," was merely akin to going to the range and getting in a few "practice balls," so to speak. He was honing his "skills," for he benefit of Elin. I understand it...

He wanted to come home, walk into the bedroom and think: "Elan looks good; my "swing" feels good, and I like my chances"

An Encounter With Nina

As per our agreement of the previous day, Nina and I met for dinner. We, or rather she, decided upon the Chinese restaurant, called The Wok-N-Roll, which is almost directly across the street from the path which lead out of the woods from where we stay. We purposely directed the path there, knowing that the Chinese were the last people who would ever call the police and tell them that strange people were coming out of the woods directly across from their restaurant. Chinese people seem to keep to themselves in that way, and hence, the path. Besides, when I am doing well in life, I patronize the Wok-N-Roll, and buy white rice and shrimp.

It is interesting that Nina chose this spot for a rendezvous. I think she knows more about me than I might think, like, how could she know that the restaurant was directly across the street from where one of the paths to our campsite emerges...mere coincidence???

Two Letters

We met, Nina bought the whole lunch, during which she presented me with two pieces of mail. One was from Jeff, my ex-brother-in-law, the other from Karrie.

Karrie said that she had gotten the last monies that I had sent, and "I spent it all." She wished a happy Easter.

Jeff had sent me some money, which I looked at as my ticket out of this place.

A Divorce Is A Divorce, Of Course, Of Course

Nina had said that she wanted to meet and to "talk."

I knew that it was probably to talk about us getting a divorce, for whatever reason.

We had a pleasant dinner; she called me "baby," and was the embodiment of the beautiful, cultured woman whom I had come to know, all those years ago, when I lived with her. I marvelled at myself and how much of the Russian language that I remember, coming to realise how much of it was about food and drink, and the simple things in life...

She eventually came around to suggesting that we get a divorce. It had been so long, life was so different back then, and well, I don't see myself becoming an aristocrat any time soon....

Now, her husband in Russia has died. Uri, her half-brother has died. Alex, her other half-brother died 10 years ago, I remember. She feels disenfranchised from the family; the family which found me for her, as a way for her to achieve citizenship, and to allow our stepson, Michael, to go to college as a US citizen, thus saving them more than enough money to offset me living with them for a year; a year in which I was discouraged from working. It was a year of wine and song; and roses, to boot.

The union had no "god" involved, though it had fragments of love.

The "Family" is in fragments, and for whatever reason, she asked for a divorce in the most charming and loving way that the thing has probably ever been asked for.

I acquiesced (not only that, I agreed.)

She then told me that she would give me a certain amount of money, which I won't disclose here.

Wow!

I jokingly asked her if I could rub lotion on her body "one more time," and I actually saw a look on her face, which was somewhere between fear and consternation...interesting, human nature...

"Just joking," I said.

She offered to put me up in a motel. She probably did so, so that she would know where to find me on Saturday, when we are to meet "quickly" with a (her) lawyer, to seal the deal.

I declined the offer, choosing my campfire and the raccoons, instead. If I was with Karrie, though, I would have accepted. Karrie loves hot showers.

I left, full of white rice and mixed vegetables, and went to the Gate and bought a Money Order and a stamp and mailed Karrie 9 dollars. Then I went to the tent and slept. I only had a few bizarre dreams, par for the course after eating white rice and mixed vegetables and going to sleep.

Tomorrow, I call her to set up the appointment with the lawyer.

3 Bucks

She encouraged me not to play today, giving me 20 bucks, and telling me to relax and take a day off. The last thing she wanted was for me to be arrested and throw a monkey wrench into things.

I went out and played anyways. I made 3 bucks and then a cop came, followed by another cop.

The leading cop's vehicle said "field training," on it. I imagined that he was training in the field. He told me "Move on, or you're going to jail; we don't allow soliciting!"

He is being trained well.

I didn't argue, because he might have wanted to show the training officer in the trailing car just how tough he could be on "crime," and might have tried to hurt me, whereupon I would have had to beat him to the ground, took his weapon from him and shot him with it (just to wound), then written a song about it. I didn't need all that. I took my 3 bucks, left, and got some peanuts and now I am at the library....