To be perfectly honest, I was a shit soccer player.

I wasn't great at the other sports I played as a youngster either, but a part of me enjoyed soccer the most, if only for the belief it hid my relative lack of skill better than the others. Twenty two players on one field at the same time creates a hodgepodge of colors and noise roaming in all directions, and unlike the constant stop-lineup-and-start of football (or American football, for any international folks), soccer presents a fluid yet seemingly nonlinear picture to a random viewer. In other words, I could somewhat hide.

The one thing I could do very well in a generalized, unspecific sense was run around. I wasn't exceptionally fast, per se, but I could float around a field near or at my top speed for long periods of time without collapsing in a pool of my own vomit, which counts for something; that something being selected as a central midfielder which I played at almost every level of youth soccer I participated in, up through high school. I wasn't especially creative, and could barely use my left foot for anything other than short passes and as a source of constant self-loathing and critique, but goddamn it, I could run up and down the pitch and sure look like I knew what the fuck I was doing. 

Aside from being a shit soccer player, I also had the added value of finding ways to injure myself every other week. I gave up basketball during middle school because my left knee started to feel like jello. I had to put baseball down for a couple years after a shoulder injury on my glove hand made it virtually impossible to lift my left arm above chest level; a particularly cumbersome problem as a centerfielder which also made the whole "swing a baseball bat" thing kinda difficult. At least soccer put less strain on my knee once it began to heal and didn't require much use of my arms; but I was still brittle. After completing my freshman year on the JV soccer team, I felt as if I were using the body of a nearly deceased octogenarian. For the next few months, I moved about during school and elsewhere with the grace of a heavily tranquilized rhinoceros needing hip replacement surgery. Eventually the aches and pains subsided, and finding myself in surprisingly good spirits and awash with optimism, I thought I could make a run at the varsity team the following season. Two practices in during my sophomore year, while in the middle of running an otherwise mundane drill, I felt my left knee start to act up again. Didn't think anything of it since the pain was far from excruciating, yet mere moments later, in full sprint after the ball, I brushed paths with a teammate and our knees collided. You can see where this is going...it was my left knee that ended up buckling against his. The odd thing was, I don't remember the pain so much as vitriolic anger; not at the teammate for the collision, or at my ailing, utterly useless body parts. I was just...pissed. At everything. I hobbled towards the sidelines and I'm pretty sure I told our coach to "fuck off" when he gave a half-assed "you okay?" as I passed by. I do remember he didn't talk to me the rest of the day, which I could understand after having a 15 year old trying to make your team tell you to go screw, but I really didn't care. 

While the injury wasn't as serious as the cartilage tear I suffered a couple years before, it was a severe sprain that served a main course of required inactivity for a few weeks, which meant there was no way I could make varsity that year. More importantly, I found my desire to get back and playing waning by the day. I was done. I made a cursory attempt to play on the baseball team the following year, but mostly rode the bench as a few years removed the sport robbed me of my timing at the plate. In retrospect, I really didn't give a shit and have few memories from that team.

It was over.

While the benefits of playing youth sports are numerous, I share this because the hidden cruelty about my time playing competitive athletics is that the day I hung up my soccer cleats for good ended up being almost the exact point in time whatever innocence and youthful naivety I had was gone. Over the course of the next few months during that fateful sophomore year, a couple best friends of mine were killed and I lost my virginity; a bizarre one-two-three punch and kick combination that damn near changed me overnight. Neither of these things made me a "man", as becoming a man is decision one makes in regards to accepting and dealing with real responsibilities as opposed to simply "experiencing things"; yet, there's no doubt I was no longer the same person. The version of me that glided across a soccer field never once seriously thought about mortality or anything particularly serious outside of "where I should go to score a joint afterwards," nor did I have goddamn clue how to express or carry my own sexuality. For the first 15 years of my life, girls were pretty things with different anatomical parts that I didn't really understand well, nor did I have a strong desire at the time to learn more (outside of a couple early romantic interests, I was borderline asexual, really). Yet, in the aftermath of losing dear friends, something hormonal clicked where different gears starting turning; perhaps it was the materialization of some hasty carpe diem wave I rode during a time of significant emotional distress and upheaval, or it just took a few months before my 16th birthday to realize I had a penis. I really don't know; it was a fucked up time in my life.

Either way, it is funny, and sad at the same time, that giving up soccer so clearly represents a clear end to a certain part of my life. A certain part which was largely carefree, oblivious, and unrepentant. That "me" never wanted to take over the world or embodied any serious ambitions because I didn't know the world enough, nor cared to know it enough. I was just a kid. 

Recently, I had a random dream where I was back playing soccer on the JV team, yet I knew of the trauma and changes that would soon come. It took place during a game, and during the latter stages of it, our team draws a penalty kick and I'm asked to take it. The dream then momentarily becomes a montage of friends long gone and early sexual experiences, I assume this was supposed to be going through my head as I place the ball and approach the kick during "the game". Eventually, this dream then snaps back to me standing mere yards in front of the opposing goalie, and after standing there for what feels like eternity, my dream-self mutters "Carly" (one of my friends who would pass away during my sophomore year) out loud, before blasting the  ball into the lower right-hand corner of the net. There's no celebration with teammates however right after, nor is there anyone else on the pitch; the second I score, it's just me out there as everyone has magically disappeared. The dream more or less ends with me sauntering off the field, as I think even my dream-self knows this moment is complete bullshit. My alarm clock wakes me shortly after, and my non-dream, actual real self starts my day as normal. I choose not to really think about it much, because to conflate the pre- and post-soccer self into some feelgood nonsense seems almost like another tragedy on its own. Since that time and through today, I may dedicate things to those who have moved on, but not then. That version of me I want encapsulated and sheltered from the ills of the world and the now-realized faults of my current being. He was free, and I don't want anybody or anything to touch him. I don't want to burden him with loss, heartache, regret...anything. Let these things be the cross I bear today; I want to leave him be.

The Madness Continues

There have been more eloquent and erudite persons than I who have spoken and/or written at length about the polarization of our political and social climate, thanks in part to the rise of cable news networks, increased influence of interest groups, etc. I can attempt to rehash those points, but I won't, as I would only serve to boil them down to a tasteless mush of vague anger considering the steaming pile of fetid bullshit I've read over the past few minutes. Hey, at least I can admit the times when my mind isn't exactly as clear and astute as desired.

It's probably of no surprise that after the reelection of ZOMG PRESIDENT MULLAH BLACKENSTEIN FROM KENYA, the cantankerous, bed-wetting assholes of the far right became even more delirious. After all, Dick Morris and other retards at Fox News were all but promising a Romney landslide just mere days prior. LANDSLIDE! Yeah! Fuck that pussy Nate Silver using math and shit to come up with a "predictive model", whatever liberal and homosexual thing that must be, that ended up almost being 100% accurate. GOD! GUNS! AMERICA! Well, that dust settled a long time ago, and being the sensible people they are, they've clearly decided to reject the plain reality that they've lost not only the election, but more importantly the culture war, and just go off the derrrp end for once and all.

Recently, Family Research Council senior asshole, erm, excuse me, "fellow" Pat Fagan shit his pants over a very old Supreme Court ruling which overturned a Massachusetts law once banning the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people. 

It’s not the contraception, everybody thinks it’s about contraception, but what this court case said was young people have the right to engage in sex outside of marriage. Society never gave young people that right, functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever. The institution for the expression of sexuality is marriage and all societies always shepherded young people there, what the Supreme Court said was forget that shepherding, you can’t block that, that’s not to be done.

 I'll give you a few minutes to try and interpret that meandering block of goosefuckery, and if you can manage to read it more than once without having to fight a strong urge to start gnawing your own arm off, you're a better person than I. I'm used to seeing religious zealots of all kinds try, and ultimately fail, to explain their own morality as a necessity to be accepted by everyone, but to bring up a case about access to contraception from 1972 and argue against it so vehemently in the year 2013 only tells me this belligerent jackass must be just BRIMMING with other fantastic Puritan-esque views on sexuality. I'm sure he must be a blast to hang out with; perhaps we can get together and bitch about the heathen state of affairs in popular television, and maybe order some Shirley Temples at a bar and make impish conjectures about the OB/GYN bills of passing females. Deep down, it probably bothers him women are allowed to vote, drive, and all that "modern" stuff.

Of course, you must know in their impotent rage, maniacal conservatives would also attack gay people too, because, well, that's what they do. Dontchaknow, every time two consenting adults do something in the privacy of their own home, it affects EVERYBODY?? When my two gay neighbors have sex, the stock market crashes, my dog dies, and my car immediately bursts into flames. Sex between a man and a woman, however, when it's only for the purpose of procreation of course, saves cancerous kittens worldwide. Or something.

Some radio harpy Linda Harvey decided to throw her hat into the "let's shit on gays" ring with this deliciously batshit rant.

"I can’t tell you how many sad tales I’ve heard from people who’ve seen the destructive effects of homosexual behavior in the life of a son, a daughter, a brother or a sister. The first battleground of ideas is one’s own mind. We need to equip our kids to stand firm in their convictions and know how to defend them."

"Equip our kids" with what, exactly? Is there anti-gay weaponry out on the market I'm unaware of? Claymores that blow the homo out of you? An electromagnetic pulse gun that can stop any buttsex happening within a five mile radius? What in the fucking hell are you talking about? I understand as a radio host, you sort of have to fill the air time with words, but it helps when said words actually make sense. Seriously. Try that sometime.

And, actually using slavery to try and force a hamfisted analogy into whatever "let's protect the kids from them damn gays" revolt you're leading is utterly beyond comprehension. But, hey, maybe that's her thing; using historical struggles and heinous events to try and build gravitas around whatever hackneyed or utterly bogus conquest she goes on in daily life. "Much like how the roughly 1,000,000 who died at Treblinka deserved a better fate, I deserve a free macchiato refill at Starbucks!" "I can't believe Elizabeth Hasslebeck might be leaving The View! We can't let 8,000 more Bosnians be marched through the woods and endure another Srebrenica Massacre!!'

Good grief. Take a Xanax and fuck off, lady.

Foodie Orgasms

I like food. Good food. And, I especially love great food. I like to think I have a diverse palette, and a nearly unbounded willingness to try new things. I'll even admit to sometimes talking for a little too long about a new restaurant or particular cuisine I tried recently to some poor, nice-because-s/he-has-to-be coworker around the water cooler.

Yet, if I see another up close, soft focus picture of a plate of food on Instagram, I will stick my head into a gas oven.

I fully understand and accept that at its core, social media's raison d'être is to serve as a vehicle for everyone's innate narcissism and create circle jerks over how awesome someone is, and I'm just as guilty of this in my own ways, but shit is now getting just straight silly. My generation's reliance on the internet as a means to carve out a certain niche for themselves only results in literally NOTHING unique, or particularly idiosyncratic, as millions shout over one another creating an echo chamber of oblique, chaotic uniformity. Like, for instance, the hundreds pictures uploaded somewhere of pork dumplings in steamer baskets in the amount of time it took me to pick my nose just now. Wow, you like dim sum. What a fearless culinary trailblazer and precious snowflake you are.

All that said, the foodie craze, which has long been brewing for over a decade now, is not a bad thing. At all. The internet in general homogenizes certain fringes into the mainstream, thus opening the eyes of the masses to certain "alternatives" in anything from news coverage, music, medicine (not that the anti-vaccine crowd and hypocondriacs feverishly diagnosing themselves off of WebMD is an exemplary footnote to the wonders of humankind. We sure love to ignore professionals because "I read this thing once off a webpage..."), and of course food, just to name a few. I could easily write a more long-winded post on our food production in this country, but I'll eschew that in favor of simply saying this; it is unquestionably a GOOD thing we, as a general society, take more interest in what we put in our bodies, and how it gets to our plate in the first place. I can easily wax poetic on sustainable methods in agriculture and fishing, the importance of seasonality, organic foods, all that. These are all things absolutely worth the awareness and attention paid to them.

But, again, while I'm happy you may be making more of an effort to eat healthier and expand your diet, I don't really care to see it every fucking time you post an update to one of your feeds on the goddamn 'net. Really, it's charming that by Wednesday night you've already shown us your eighth meal of the week in pictoral form including a blurb of the ingredients, because, let's face it, absolutely no one on this earth honestly had any fucking goddamn idea that you can put bean sprouts in your pho. Fascinating! What next, are you going to tell me in excruciating detail that tomorrow night's ceviche has seafood in it? And it's marinated in a citrus juice such as, say, lemon? GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!

Jesus. Do enjoy your food and try as much as you can. But, if you get the urge to whip out your phone the second the server puts the plate down on your table, please shove it firmly up your ass instead. The ensuing picture you upload on Instagram of your colon I will find light years more interesting.

Okay, shit, I'm still alive

Between the actual job I have to pay the bills, and the freelance work on the side I tell myself will become my new career aside from the fact it still nets me at most beer money on the weekends, what free time I do have I prefer to not to spend on a computer. That said, I'm not happy with this development. Writing has been a hobby of mine for as long as I can remember, acting in part as momentary therapeutic vacations from the inanity of daily life, and also on some basic level as creative exploration. I never intended to use my words as a means to change the world, alter perceptions, or for any other doe-eyed, naively earnest endeavor. If I can raise a valid point here and there in between sharing stories ranging from the mundane to the extraordinary, I've already won. 

I'm not even sure, but I believe this is a my fourth attempt at a blog. There have always been long gaps of inactivity before eventual dismissal with previous attempts at blogging, thanks to whatever shiny objects distract me for lengths of time; be it women, new hobbies, you name it. The entire point of this blog was to, in some half-assed way, chronicle a move to a new city that I would honestly try to make my home for the foreseeable future. I have tried to be more consistent with my output; not for what handful of readers I have but for my own being, since the act of writing requires a level of activity from, and engagement with your brain and emotions that most daily tasks simply don't. Yet, sometimes life hands you either a fantastic new opportunity or a plate of steaming dog shit, and your priorities change.

My commitment to anyone who happens to be paying attention is that I think, think, I have a current handle on what the fuck I'm doing in my life at the moment to the point I can allocate some more time to this. I've done this sort of thing enough to tell you that it's not so much a matter of inspiration, as it is will, to keep going. Per usual, I expect the content to be of the meandering, anecdotal variety as opposed to anything remotely akin to a diary, since I'd rather carve hieroglyphics into my testicles than disclose details of my employment or sex life on such a potentially open forum...but...you probably knew that already.

Food Service, LOL

Inspired by the latest feature in The Stranger while sipping an iced mocha this morning, I couldn't help but wander off in thought about my one and only job in a kitchen; an upscale retirement comm...oh excuse me, "assisted living facility" back in ye olde New Hampshire. It's from a time in my life I don't generally look back too fondly on, during my days as a lazy stoner later on in high school; my athletic days already long gone thanks to countless injuries and the crushing realization that I'm simply too fucking small to play damn near anything competitively.

After hopping around between a few different part-time, after-school jobs in the area, this particular establishment, with a geographic location basically straddling the line of division between the two main school districts in the area seemed to have a complete overhaul in part-time staff between kids mostly from "that other district" to the ones in ours, so the recruitment process in the halls during school came hard and fast seemingly overnight. Since the facility only really served one true "course" (dinner), the needed hours for staffing to carry this out was perfect for local teenage dipshits to fill. Supposedly the best job was to be a server, and being the dumbass I am, I waited WAYYYY too long to pick up an application and was greeted with only two choices; prep cook, or dishwasher. Even though a prep cook would make more money, they also had to work longer hours, and I already had a cushy gig putting in a couple hours a day as an office "assistant" ("bitch" is more like it) at my sister's office, somehow earning $10/hr just waiting around to do menial tasks. So, dishwasher it was.

As you would imagine, it sucked, but the hours were incredibly flexible, and because literally everyone around me was a classmate, the time flew by. An already simple three-hour shift felt less than an hour, as in between every scrubbed pan were several moments of general teenage tomfoolery. I honestly could've stretched this dishwasher gig out for several months; it was easy, it certainly wasn't a career path, and at least it helped keep me busy during the school week.

Only a month into it though, one of the prep cooks quit, and the chef, a somehat goofy looking, 40-something year old who just had the essence of a man who goes home and gets berated by his wife for several hours before bedtime asked if I could take the now open position. I didn't want the gig, but I was so flattered that he bypassed the entire service staff and asked ME, one of the guys breaking more plates in the washroom than actually cleaning them, for it. Without thinking, I just blinked and said "yes". Shit.

I had to quit my easy office bitch job because my new shift started literally ten minutes after last period at school, and I was immediately thrown into the fire of: chopping. Endless, tedious, soul-sucking chopping of vegetables and whatever else was laid out. What made it worse was that the other prep cook was a college dropout from bumfuck nowhere with the personality of a doorknob, and my fellow classmates in the service staff and elsewhere in the kitchen wouldn't arrive nightly for another few hours. So, just me, and the college dropout doorknob in the back of the kitchen, going Jeffrey Dahmer (minus the eating) on various foodstuffs. During the actual dinner service we'd emerge with the other line cooks and at least be at the front of the line to serve plates and chat, but then towards the end it was back to the chopping; this time prepping for tomorrow's breakfast or whatever.

I found out quickly that the college dropout doorknob was also relatively new, so our sentence of endless chopping was mostly a training period to see if we could...chop things, I guess. It was only a week of this hell before the chef then also tasked us with making soups, some desserts, and other dishes. We still had to chop the living fuck out of everything though, so the first couple hours of every shift went from mindless vegetable slicing to "SUPERFAST FUCK CHOPCHOPCHOP" then actual cooking. This was essentially my after-school life for about a full year. And, while I had to make every soup known to man at least ten times over, I can't remember a single fucking recipe to pass along for the life of me.

But, as I'm sure anyone who has worked in a kitchen/restaurant can attest to, the actual environment is what you remember the most. If you haven't worked in one, let me break it down to you: it's an endless cycle of slow, FAST, slow, HOLY SHIT HURRY, quick, MOTHER OF FUCKING GOD SERVICE NOW, quick, SPEED OF LIGHT JESUS CHRIST, aaaand crash. Every night.

Oh, and there's lots of drugs, sex, and curse words. Every night.

Our chef was fairly normal, albeit a little "off" (again, I'm convinced his wife is the spawn of Satan so work is actually a refuge for him), but everyone else in that kitchen was a tinderbox of unreliability and questionable, often illegal, habits. One of our line cooks, named Greg, was arguably one of the biggest dealers on our side of the state, so he spent more time on the loading dock UNloading hash, pot, LSD, and other "goodies" to the underage service staff than actually at the front of the line. Another line cook (name I can't remember) was something of a loser in real life but was 21 and admittedly handsome, so aside from buying booze for anyone who would ask, I'm pretty sure his DNA is now a permanent fixture all over the walk-in where we normally kept salads because almost every 16-year old tart had at least one encounter with him in there. The other, other line cook, the oldest, named Frank, was a real nice guy. And a little hyper, but for good reason; I'm pretty sure the tallest point in SW New Hampshire was the mound of coke he snorted before every shift. It was also no wonder why he always "forgot something" in his truck every 30 minutes.

The real eye-opener though was how this trickled down onto the rest of the staff so quickly. Most of the service staff were females in my school, generally of the "preppy, I-wouldn't-have-thought-they-put-out" variety. Perhaps that's exactly what they were before they were hired, but holy hell, did they come out the other side smelling of cheap booze and regret. Aside from wild humps in the supply closet with Mr. 21 year old line cook, Greg was also certain that they became somewhat regular customers of his. When our eyes locked in the hallways at school, the unmistakable "please, do NOT tell anyone" written on their face was in bold, neon letters. I could only smirk and nod, as I could only imagine the horror if their fathers found out what their Abercrombie wearing, church-going daughter was doing while at fucking work. Let that sink in; this wasn't weekend shenanigans at so-and-so's house when the parents are away, pouding a few warm beers and maybe a hit or two...this was a Tuesday night, sex in one walk-in, snort a line in another, bang out a dinner service, steal a bottle of wine (our chef had allowed the 21 year old future sex offender to keep tabs on most of the inventory...bad idea), and then drive home for school the next day. Wash, rinse and repeat probably two days later.

When I quit, I quit hard. The long hours of prep cooking and watching promising young girls completely defile themselves, courtesy of Creepy Old Men With Drugs just...grossed me the fuck out. I only worked another three shifts into my two week notice, then just stopped showing up. My last day was actually a Friday night, and I ended up going home knowing I wouldn't go back and slept clear into Saturday evening. I remember then taking one of the longest showers of my life, and then a sobering realization hit me:

Wait, all I had to do was dangle some weed in front of those preppy, rich girls all this time? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

3+ Years and Counting...

If you're anything like me (and if you are, you should seriously consider changing everything about yourself), occasionally you find yourself on a weekend night too tired to spend time with peers drinking and fucking the night away, but instead of being smart and deciding to go to bed, or read a damn book, you reflect on the inane minutiae around you. I managed to ignore a few text messages because I was too caught up pondering the essence of my desk lamp, but then it dawned on me; holy hell, I've somehow lived in this city for over three years. It feels like, one, at the most, but...damn.

I'm coping like most displaced east-coasters do out here; constantly telling yourself "hey, at least it's not snowing" while crying into your coffee as you look out the window to the see the umpteenth day of drizzle in a row. I bitch like most displaced east-coasters at the passive-aggressiveness of a native populace in Seattle that boldly claim to hold "liberal" values while harboring a surprising level of ignorance towards most minorities and failing miserably to enable enough light rail routes to steer us away from our evil, carbon-emitting automobiles. But, like most displaced east-coasters, I take solace in the abundance of Asian food, goofy shit sold in Capitol Hill boutiques, and the undeniable fact that, when the weather IS good, it is entirely impossible NOT to find something to do.

Have I learned anything? Found undeniable truths? Possibly; but I'm also coming to a larger understanding (which is hard to admit) that most likely, I came out here for the wrong reasons. I didn't run from anything, but I sure as shit never looked back as I sped westward, on some undefined journey under the misguided flag of "self-discovery". Sure, it's not fun to tread on the same ground, with the same friends at the same hangouts where the relationship with the love of your life sped off the freeway at 100mph and crashed into the ravine. But it wasn't her fault, and it wasn't mine, simply a case of "life happens".

Damn, really? There's no way I packed my shit and high-tailed it to the Pacific Northwest for that, right? Well, the fact is I can't think of any other specific reason. And, while I'm not literally beating myself up over this, I can't help but facepalm at the fact I've put significant distance and strain between family and friends for a reason I can't pinpoint. I'm okay here, but not nearly in love with the area enough to be fully satisfied and to make an honest effort to really make this place home. It's an odd state to find oneself where you feel that something is lacking, yet you're not nearly restless enough to light a fire under your ass and do something about it.

On the plus side, I have a better grasp of my own morals, my own beliefs, and my own existence because, let's face it; for 2/3 of the year here, you have to duck into a coffee shop to save yourself from a drenching, and do a lot of thinking. I'm very good at thinking...could improve on the follow-through of said thoughts and ideas, but goddamn I can drum up a thought bubble that could kick your thought bubble's ass. And, surprisingly, said thought bubbles are not just about sex and "shit, did I leave the gas light on?" I'm talking like...thoughts...here. Deep ones. Thoughts that can move mountains and dismantle Iran's nuclear program.

So, here's to you, Seattle, for being an "alright" city that makes me think a lot. You're a real pal.

Alexander Funnylastname

One of the first books that I honestly fell in love with was Into The Wild, and this weekend I finally got around to watching the film adaptation directed by Sean Penn. Pretty good, I must say; certainly captured the spirit in which Christopher McCandless lived his intriguing life, and perhaps did an even better job than the book of (at the end of the film) portraying just the right amount of regret he probably had during his final breaths.

Of course, it made me think of the things I want to do; not necessarily the "things I want to do before I die" (generally a meaningless list) but the "things I need to do to find my own truth" (somewhat airy-fairy but still holds perceived meaning). Per usual, once I drifted off into thought I got distracted by the first shiny object and never completed the task. Now that I sit in front of the computer, I'm looking back at the important things I have done, and one particular event, a two and a half week odyssey in fact, seems to have provided me with most lasting value to this day.

"The Trip"

Four dudes, one shitty van, and the entire country of Canada in front of us...well, from Montreal westward, that is. Sorry, maritime provinces.

While some of the details I care not to explain, in part because of length required would take me all night to divulge, but also because, well, some of the experience I wish to keep my own, it still ranks as the best time of my life.

Many long to backpack through Europe, or trek through SE Asia (I certainly wouldn't mind doing either), yet this cheaper alternative provided four college students who couldn't legally drink in their own country a chance to explore a land not very different from their own, but at the same time still exciting and enchanting for the simple fact there were no rules, no itineraries, and no expectations...just driving, stopping when we so desired, and exploring. I have traveled abroad (like, over a fucking ocean and/or not in another largely English-speaking country) but it was different. For that, I had a schedule, and having a schedule means having a leash. For this...nothing. Just us, and whatever the fuck we felt like.

There was plenty of boozing, sexual encounters (some regrettable), and the like, but honestly all of that took a backseat to the wonders of the open road and the idea of being completely unchained to anything at the given time. Hell, two of those guys I'm no longer in contact with and the other I think is a raging douchebag these days, but it doesn't matter; we'll always be brothers for those 17 or so days, for the sheer amount of trouble we at times dance around, and for the immeasurable quantities of fun we had together.

For one, after getting back home once the trip was done for, I began to realize what I was capable of, and also what humanity in of itself can be. I can't even count the number of total strangers we encountered willing to buy us a beer and have a laugh with us (sometimes at our expense). In a dingy cowboy bar just outside of Calgary for instance, grown men who would make Sam Elliott and John Wayne look like Nancy boys regaled us with tales of love lost and other hardships of life, as if our mere presence automatically made us regulars at their watering hole. I really could go on all night, but you get the drift.

I would do a similar trip in a heartbeat, but it wouldn't be the same. While still a young guy, the weary roads we travel in every day life out in the real world can't help but make you grow cynical in some ways. My eyes aren't as open, and at times my mind seems to be padlocked. What made "the trip" so great was our youthful innocence and eagerness to trust anything and anyone that came in our path. Now, it's different; not necessarily worse, just different.

But I wouldn't mind trying.