Photos!  Photos photos photos!

http://viterbo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003675&l=21469&id=185900677

So.  Lisa's birthday last night.  Stopped at a too-crowded jazz bar for all of five seconds, and then off to Siglo!  I heart Siglo.  Even on the most packed nights, there's actually room to move, to sit, to order a beer.  There are also areas to leave your sweater, purse, etc. where it won't get stolen (which is rare, you usually have to try to bust a move with a sweater/jacket over one arm), and.... here's the best part.... a smoking room!  It looks like a sauna, and it makes drunk Staci feel happy about life.

I bought the things I will be wearing on my birfday.  They're dead sexy.  Seriously though, they were really cheap.

I have gum on my shoe and there's a lot of it and my pants keep sticking to it.

A Czech girl has a video of me dancing in my silly way.  That scares me.  She's the one in the picture tabbed Andrea.  She's cool shit, but I worry about my spastic, loose-jointed marionette style of dancing.  I hope nobody sees it.

Rachel found yet another boy to buy her drinks.  She found out his name, that he just turned eighteen, and that he was from Ireland, and then it was, "Wanna body shot off me?" and they were glued at the face the rest of the night.  She does this every night.  She could at the very least after eight pounds' worth of drinks, sleep with one of them.  But no, she just uses them for their money.  Sad.

I told the kebab guy that I have been cheating on him with other kebab shops.  His name is Gino, and he was sad.  Kate thought I needed to be spanked, but Gino's a good guy and Kate's just wasted, so he laughed at her and put Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie!) on the TV for us to watch while eating our delicious, delicious kebabs.

One of the girls here went to the same high school PeeWee Herman went to.  She says there is a picture of him in her yearbook, but as Paul Rubenfeld, and not PeeWee.  They have a whole section devoted to quasi-celebrities that have went there.  I can see why they wouldn't put PeeWee down as his name.

I love Kate and I am bringing her home with me.  You thought I was fun?  I am a fucking recluse next to Kate.  Everywhere she goes, she gets free shit and special treatment, just for saying, "dahling".  And the best part is, I get all that too, just cause I love Kate and I'm bringing her home.  She wants to tube down the Apple River with brownies with me, and I want to take a weekend trip to the islands with her and an eighth.

Anyways.  Off to write a sonnet.  Shoot me.

I went on a "Literary Pub Crawl" last night.  Excellent.  Beyond excellent.

At one pub, there are no toilets in the men's bathroom.  A few tour groups ago, a boy went in and came back out seconds later and said, "Am I supposed to pee on the wall?"  The tour guide yelled to the bartender, "This boy wants to know if he has to piss on the wall."  The bartender replies in a stern tone, "Aye, damn right you're gonna piss on that wall.  If it was good enough for Sir Walter Scott, it'll be damn well good enough for the likes of you!"

Excellent.  Ewald, being the only male, of course went in and took a picture so the rest of us could see.

I also went to a karaoke night at this underground/grunge/dive bar in the slums of Edinburgh.  Picture a bunch of Germans singing Madonna.  They played some country and I taught everyone how to linedance.  Around Pollock halls I am now known as "the only redneck in Edinburgh".  I don't know if that's an insult or not.

The girls here have all fallen in love with a kebab place and frequent it while drunk almost every night, and eat and flirt mercilessly with the owner.  He complimented me on my pants, and in my semi-drunken state it took me awhile to realize that pants don't mean pants.  Trousers means pants.  Guess what "pants" means.  I started talking about my jeans and then went, "oh."  Everyone laughed at me.

Have fun suffering in 90+ heat.  It's lovely and cloudy here.

I left all of my CDs on the plane except for one shitty one.  Leave it to me to decide I want to listen to a crappy CD just for one song and then end up with only that CD for three weeks straight.

My calves hurt terribly.  I've gone climbing a volcano.  It's harder than it looks.

My best friends here are Greek, Belgian, Scot... And I've seen too many fucking Yank high school students rehearsing their shitty musicals at ten pm.  They all need to die.

I was surrounded by Urinetown t-shirts today at breakfast.  I wanted to sing, "I hate Yoooooo-rin Towwwwwwn!"

Last night was the first night I didn't get drunk.  I mean, come on.  Their beer is stronger here and comes in bigger glasses.  That, and it's dirt cheap.  "'an I 'ave a pint o' Grolsch, pleahse?"

Wish me luck in writing in the villianelle and Ghazal (pronounced ruzzle) form.

And will someone please inform Matt that Stobb is in a sinking boat and taking us all with him?  Nobody should ever listen to him again.  There's a reason he's not a very well-known poet, and I found that out from the only person to win the T.S Eliot prize twice.  Ever.  In the history of man.

Guess who I trust more when it comes to my future?

Time for a parade.

I'm in Scotland by the time you read this.

I'll see ya'll after the 18th of August, and if you can't wait, just email me.  I'll be back soon and ready to basically drink my way through the month of my birth.  Woot!

So. 

You guys know my brother?  He just got married, he's in the Army, he's a helicopter maintenance kinda guy.  Mr. All-American, hates the service, wants to go to med school.

Anyways.  Here's the news from my dad.

I wanted to write and give you an update on my son Jacob who is serving with the 10^th Mountain Division In Afghanistan.

As you might of heard we have lost 2 helicopters and 11 soldiers in the last week or so in Afghanistan. The first went down earlier last week which injured one soldier and killed another. This was from Jake’s company but had nothing to do with his unit. The Red Cross finally got a hold of his wife to get word to his family that Jacob was fine and not involved in the incident. It is a horrible feeling when the Red Cross calls and leaves a message. I think I prefer no call than he is alright call.

We received another phone call yesterday from Jacob and I knew right from his tone something horribly was wrong. Friday, Jake’s company lost another helicopter which killed all 10 on board. This was one of his Chinook’s that he and another Technical Inspector are in charge of and cleared it for service. As of yesterday he was not allowed to talk about any specifics only that he could call home and let family know he was not hurt. Jacob knew all on board and 5 of them he knew well enough to call them his friends. He was sleeping at the time of the crash and was awoken to get his flight gear to go to the crash site. He and CQ, the other TI, got to the hangers and were informed they wouldn’t be going because the Chinook melted so bad that the TI’s wouldn’t have enough to work with as far as helping in finding as cause for the crash.

He and CQ have been up since the crash going over all data and log sheets to make certain they didn’t forget anything. So far they insist they didn’t. Today is the ceremony for the fallen soldiers which Jake and CQ are allowed to attend. After that they will be involved in the investigation as to providing all the data and logs and history reports on that Chinook to finding a cause. Jake says he prays to God that he didn’t forget anything. He wonders if he will be able to deal with it if they find something he should of caught.

Jacob is as low as low can be. You can hear the pain in his voice. He remembers in boot camp when the Drill Instructor told them the Army is not were you make friends, if you needed friends they would appoint them to you. Now he knows why.