The sound of classic salsa music blaring through the floorboards at 6 PM on a dreary, moist Saturday afternoon takes me back to a comfortable place. About 14 or 15 years old, playing bingo in a ground-floor housing project apartment in the unfavorable depths of Bushwick, Brooklyn, with elderly (only in age, not spirit) family members, their down-the-hall neighbors, and a few other relative families who just as well appreciated the energy and warmth that was generated on these nights. We all convened maybe once a month, or every other month, in that hot, cramped living space with that little bit of inner excitement, and it was as though we never skipped a beat. Hugs, kisses, jokes, laughs, stories, drinks, food, and music. It was always a cozy, familiar environment...even if it had been 6 months since our last visit.

The scene was always the same. The plastic-covered furniture hastily arraged to accomodate the growing crowd, the aroma of simmering recaito (99% of the time for the traditional g0-to meal of arroz juntos con gandules), the characteristic horns and percussion of the native music - usually muffling the sound of the televised 9th inning of a Mets game, a congregation around the dining room table of bingo players, young and old, seated on any piece of furniture that would suffice as a makeshift chair, etc. There was always a sense of bliss and contentment for those few hours on those Saturday nights. Everyone seemed to put aside all of their personal stresses and struggles to escape and reconnect and simply share some laughs and drinks with family. It was far from anything extravagant, as you might have observed from my description, but it was an 'event' that we all looked forward to and put aside time for.

I wonder what's going on this Saturday night, in that meager little apartment over in Bushwick...

22 going on 23, a year and half out of college with a degree in a field that I'm passionate about but don't practice nearly enough as I would like to, working a bullshit job that barely pays over minimum wage, in a place I once thought would offer some new experiences and insight but has proven to be nothing but a time-warped hole where life has brought to a screeching halt - my current situation, in a nutshell. The level of alcohol consumption that I had been convinced would wane after graduation, as I eagerly chased a wonderfully successful and enlightening career, has only held strong as my only sick source of maintaining sanity.

The south--Florida has left me disillusioned. I'm not a person of many regrets, and I'll always attribute my love for the ocean and surfing and relatively minor things like that to my time spent here. But I always find myself asking, "what have a done in the last year? What progress have I made as a student, as a professional, as a person?" None. I look at work opportunities everyday in the region. "Tattoo Artist Needed" shows up maybe once a month. I drive by galleries to explore the local scene and culture - nothing but retirees and their beloved oceanscapes. I'm experiencing a severe withdrawal of the culture, the life, the energy that had once enveloped and inspired me back in New York. We move like machines here, through our daily lives, unappreciated and struggling to fulfill basic human needs. There's no spark, no connection, no electricity...no sense of community in the people here. There's no will to unite and to socialize and appreciate our miniscule existences together. People's minds are clouded with insignificant things like possesions and ego and they constantly hit that brick wall and never see past it. The only thing that exists is the pathetic little day-to-day events that they coast through, with no ambition or motivation or desire to appreciate or experience anything beyond that little comfortably familiar existential bubble. Its a demoralizing environment.

Sure, being able to spontaneoulsy drive out to the water at 4 PM on a Sunday afternoon to catch the tail end of a decent swell is a nice escape, but it's hardly consolation.