Masks of Zamalek

I find myself drinking water to combat fatigue/illness, yet despite these great quantities of ‘ultimate solvent’ flushing through my system, I grow more sick and tired of Cairo every passing minute.

It isn’t the dirty, crowded or oppressive aspect of the city, nor is it the academic program which busies itself pandering fools and assholes. It’s what I become when I’m here. The socially soaring success of the image I have created carries tiring expectations. I must not only be interesting but also sunny, funny, pretty, intellectually stimulating and—the worst one, an ‘easy-going traveler’.

This is the portrayal of self to which I have submitted and it is haunting. I feel the need to deliver this person, or I am the opposite of all the positive and wonderful characteristics I want to believe I am

These thoughts have usurped my Cairene day. I will take this time to say that it isn’t that I dislike myself, per se, just the energy it takes to be me. I don't want to die, I just don't want to drive.

L&M Blues

15 minutes a day for a proper travel treatise—that's what the great ones say
But, how do I capture in time what I feel on an intangible and spatial level? 
Thus far, Cairo has been a dredging trudge, a dreadful dredge amid a straining stretch. Alliterative descriptions only add sadness to an even more sad day. In short, this place sucks.

Disassociation in travel? Normal

Anxiety during travel? A new religion. 
But the anxiety has blended with boredom in what has become a spiraled mess
The Middle East is boring once the shopping is done and exchange rates are exalted
One is left with a depressed city causing depression 
Lacking warmth (ironically)
While bearing an uneasy resemblance to every other Middle Eastern city 
Plus the ass-grabbers. Can't forget them. They make this place what it is: gross and sexually oppressive, 
But we're going to Giza tomorrow to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx, so...
I'll get my ass-grabbed in somewhere historic. 
The pyramids have to be good for something, right?