coming back to america: expected and unexpected

There are so many parts of reentry to America to talk about, and I’ve started to make two lists. Here’s what I have so far: Things that are really not surprising at all: Super Wal-Mart is super terrifying. For two years, I did grocery shopping the Armenian way. I chatted with shopkeepers, had coffee with [...]

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mold tastes like dirt and ghosts eat cake

Spring Chicken is quite upset with me.  It has been raining for a few days.  Rain makes mud.  Mud gets stuck in paws and then leaves stains on clothes and tracks on the office’s tile floor.  I am not allowed to keep her inside the cottage and bringing her mud ridden to work would be [...]

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satisfying your needs and a fine cultural moment

First of all, let’s satisfy this need right now.  I know you’re all waiting for shriveled wet puppy pictures similar to those of the departed/possibly-eaten Sanity. So, there’s that. Now you’re probably wondering, when I’m not eating Taco Maco, craving Mexican food, plotting to intercept huge shipments of Mexican food things on their way to [...]

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spring, cookie dough and a drum circle

I know, I know.  Wow. Very interesting Brent.  Thrilling.  But lets take a minute and really examine what this photo means.  First of all, in this cookie dough you’ll find vanilla, brown sugar and Nestle milk chocolate morsels, none of which you can find easily, if at all, in Armenia.  This is a cookie dough [...]

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lunch sanity

I’ve been looking for grants all day.  All day.  One site says it wants to fund human rights projects for Bangladeshi women.  Another wants to dig wells.   Another is dedicating all it’s funds to democracy initiatives in struggling republics.  Fantastic.   But what I need is somebody who’d like to help a bunch of old ladies [...]

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Քույրիկս և Ընկերներս

Other Peace Corps Volunteers are invaluable friends. There is no one else in the world who will know what it’s like here as well as your PCV friends will. The good ones provide a safe space to vent, miss home, commiserate, and let your American self hang out. When I’m with my PCV friends, I [...]

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Binging

(The fact that I have not written here for some time reflects my inability to form interesting and/or coherent thoughts from my current transitional state. Ie, Most of the time I can’t keep up with what’s going on in and outside of me, and therefore, I can hardly find a way to write about it. [...]

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