ignorance is a bliss

is it a jinx that I always come across
the worst Serbian fabric imaginable?

not only i was a tennis umpire in the midatlantic USTA section in the United States, but tennis was always in my blood. long time ago I used to play some tennis almost every day on the northeast courts nearby cottman ave in Philadelphia with some old jewish and catholic guys before falling in love with ms. c. krokenberger and moving to Ambler h.s.  courts where she grew up (after a little investigation I found out that she made some junior wins training on those courts – well I was madly in love with her and Mary Pierce at the same time and hopeful to see if I could run into her while enjoying playing tennis nearby her spirits) and all these guys were either on the best buddy terms with me or highly respectful. on the pitch nearby cottman ave. there was a very tall guy, we’ll call him “ed”, who had a nasty kick serve, but he was also looking, dressing and acting a bit gay if I remember well. however, I never thought or acted about him in any disparaging fashion (at the time, mid 1990s, it was still unusual and not so advantageous to consider someone a rainbow.) why did that cross my mind? there is a little bit of analogy here. this is how it’s run in the states, nice and easy and with all due respect for your neighbor disregarding what he is wearing or doing. everybody minds their own business – unless you perhaps come off suspicious as a possible Russian spy and all hell breaks loose, and everybody looks at you differently with a reason until you are cleared. well here in Serbia one hour ago, which would be minutes after midnight, after reading a higher than usual blood sugar levels, I decided to jump out of bed and take a quick brisk walk in pyjamas with my English bullterrier who is sometimes so unwilling to cooperate and enjoys in giving trouble by trying to go his own ways. meanwhile Im trying to advise him as to who's the boss that knows the route and the routine. so in this business of trying to persuade him to follow me we lose our momentum and thus come across all kinds of serbian night life homecomers. btw, I think that night life sucks in general and it is a bullshit, here and basically everywhere. it is boring. I mean the point of wasting time in some smokey joint while doing often times cheap and dubious drugs with a bunch of hookers is just painful rut. Im sorry but it is nothing but the boredom to me. I am beyond that (as a starting point - never did that type of thing.) and so as we pass these guys dropping off their buddies in our neighborhood we hear behind us, “I told you so…” and a lot of laughs. laughs that give us some clues about our neighborhood, our country, and yes, life in the main.