The Awkward Traveler

Living on the farm is what I imagine the 70´s was like. No Internet. Just people chatting about conspiracy theories, global politics, drugs, and farming techniques.

Interesting note: Several members of the farm have mentioned thier decreased sex drive. We’ve hypothesized that all of our sexual energy is going into the ground and the plants. Today YoYo confesed:

I was getting really worried. I thought I was losing my mojo. So I went and bought some hot peppers to get me going again.

The verdict is still out if YoYos peppers relit his inner fire. But I will keep you updated.

In other news I had a strange sexual dream last night involving Melissa Joan Heart where I got between her and her husband, Kenan (of Kenan and Kel fame). MJH played Sabrina the Teenage Witch on TJIF. The French ladies name happens to be Sabrina. I think my brain might be sending me subliminal messages…

I recieved this email today:

How are you Janet? I miss you…

I’m still in the middle of waiting to hear about tenure.  I was
thinking I wouldn’t get it, but my excellent student may have saved me
by doing some really good research…

More or less I bounce from one day and crisis to the next, latest is
the disappearing baby sitter.  The kids are pretty great, some
infelicities emerging but they’re wonderful on the whole.

How are you?!

John

Living on a farm is like having an all you can eat buffet 24/7. Get a case of the hungries, go pick some berries or apples. Want a salad for lunch, go pick some lettuce, tomatoes, and beets.

However the abundance of food has been making me take quite a few trips to the compost toilet. That’s right, you poo and then eventually someone shovels it out onto the compost heap. Oh the joys of working on an organic farms.

There’s 10 of us working on the farm right now and I think Ive fallen in love with a French couple. I know maybe its blasphemous but i think the French are sexier than the Latinos. They say my name so adorably. Shashua. They are landscape architects, artists, and I might run off with them if given the chance.

Other characters include a Chilean guy named YoYo, a crazy eyed Argentine, and a holistic caterer from Argentina. I’m going to keep enjoying the fruits of my labor for another week and stay at the farm. Still haven’t decided what Ill do after that…

Me and Hollywood tricked two dopes from a farm to trade places with us for a week. So we’ll be eating freshly harvested organic produce and they’ll be locked and chained in the windchime factory.

Highlights from the past few days include hitchhiking, blowtorching and more of Aaron’s ridiculous antics.

This whole non-farm debacle has really turned itself right around. I found out that my co-slave Aaron was once a Disney channel star. He appeared on 11 episodes of the Suite Life With Zack and Cody and even dated fellow Disney channel star, Ashley Tisdale.

I think Pastor is trying to convert me to his ways. He keeps giving me books by the Society for Future Science and last night showed me a slide show of crop circles and imagined alternate realities.

But besides the celeb gossip and conversion efforts i’ve been getting a ton of nature in. I took a 25k hike to a mountain refuge and yesterday we went river swimming. Aaron and Pastor went in nude while I decided to keep my swim trunks on. Side note: Aaron made me check out a rash on his balls.

Sooooo i´m not at a farm. I showed up and discovered I would be living in an adobe shack in a man´s front yard. However, some things turned out to be true… He does indeed make windchimes, which i now help to make, and El Bolson is the drug capital of Argentina, he grows weed in his small green house.

My boss´ names are Paz and Pastor and they are 2012 prophesizing, Lord of the Ring child naming, sacred geometry loving hippies.

There is another volunteer, Aaron from LA. A failed actor who now has his sights set on becoming a recreational shaman and finding a farm to live on with his girlfriend from Texas.

I´ve been doing some of my own guerilla farming though in the way of picking blackberries and stealing fruit from orchards. Gotta make the dream a reality, right?

I’ve quit my job, lost my apartment, loaded up my backpack and now I’m heading off to the farm. Now the only thing that stands between me and my farm freedom is a 24 hour bus ride. Don’t worry I bought snacks, about a pound of peanuts and raisins. I’m starting to think it wasn’t such a good idea, those foods might cause a bowel movement and Josh doesn’t poop on a bus.

I wish I could let you know about what I’ll be doing on the farm. But, I’m pretty clueless. I will tell you what I do know:

• the farm sells wind-chimes at the local artisans market
• they often times have tamborine parties in homage to hippies
• the town the farm is near, El Bolson, is the drug capital of Argentina
• The farm owner refers to himself as Pastor, I don’t know if that’s his name or his profession

…and that’s about all I know.