a day in San Francisco

In case you didn't know, I'm back. Back in the U.S.A. Cue the music. 

I flew from Seoul (Incheon) to San Francisco on Wednesday, January 7. My flight departed at 8:15 in the morning, and arrived at 9:30 AM. Ain't that International Date Line wonderful?

My parents met me at the airport and we made a day of it in San Francisco. I didn't get too many pictures (blame the reverse culture shock), but we had lunch at the Old Clam House (est. 1861), saw the Golden Gate Bridge, rode the cable cars, checked out Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf, and ate some lip-smackin' seafood. 

The sheaves (pronounced "shivs") upon which the cables were strung.

Alcatraz, as if you didn't know.

The view from the Chinatown Hilton at dawn. 

I spent a couple of days at my parents' place near Sacramento, and then I packed everything into my old Jeep and drove 589 miles south to Henderson, Nevada (just southeast of Las Vegas). Miss H and I were reunited after four long months, and to celebrate we went and cleaned out Wal-Mart's do-it-yourself furniture aisle. I've been job-hunting, assembling bookcases, job-hunting, making random runs to Target and Bed, Bath, & Beyond, job-hunting, eyeing all the marvelous BOOZE and BEER at Total Wine & More, job-hunting, learning how to drive again, job-hunting, going to the gym, job-hunting, writing, job-hunting, reading, and basically trying to stay productive and sane. And job-hunting. 

And mixing cocktails. Which leads me to my next post...

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 14: write a letter to your father

Father and Son II by Ismo Hölttö. Silver gelatin print, 1966. 

The directions say write, not send. Sending is optional. As it happens, though, I already (and inadvertently) did both those things.

Late on the evening of Day 4, realizing that Day 5's task would be to "cultivate your gratitude," I decided to get a bit of early practice in. Cheating? No. This was more personal. It was something I'd had half a mind to do for ages, but had never done, and this was a perfect excuse to do it, and get the ball rolling on wholesale gratitude-cultivation in the process.

I wrote a lengthy e-mail to my parents.

Within it, in separate paragraphs, I thanked my mother and father for all they'd done for me in childhood and beyond. Each of them has taught me so much in their own inimitable way, shared their knowledge and experience with me, made sacrifices for me, and just generally done their darnedest to make my life as easy and comfortable and interesting as possible. So I took the time to thank them properly for it. Separately. Individually. Respectively.

Cheating? No. Their paragraphs were as long as a single-page letter would have been. The only difference was that it was electronic instead of written by hand on wood pulp. But it's the thought that counts, right?

I spent all day in Itaewon and Yangcheon-gu, picking up brewing supplies and bottling an American pale ale. I was especially grateful to ol' Dad today, as the book he sent me for Christmas — How to Brew by John J. Palmer — came in dang handy. It should prove useful for the porter the boys and I are brewing next week — the last beer we'll craft before I jet off to Hokkaido in early February.

But that's a story for another day. Not Day 15, though. That's tomorrow. 

eating basashi (raw horse meat)

I hear you yammering out there.

"Why?"

"Why do it?"

"Why eat raw horse?"

I didn't know whether putting the phrase "raw horse meat" in the title of this post was a good idea or not. It might make you interested enough to read more, or it might turn you completely off and make you quit following this blog in disgust. Guess I'll take the chance. 

As for your question ("Why?"), all I can say is, Because it was there.

In Kumamoto, that is. Where I was  between August 6th and 8th. And you know me: if there's a weird food around, I'm going to try it. I've had pig intestines, alligator nuggets, ostrich burgers, live octopus, canned snails, squid jerky, lamb spleen, buffalo steak, beetle larvae, dried scorpion and cricket lollipops. I'm not about to quit now. When I heard that Kumamoto was famous for basashi, or horse sushi, I knew I just had to try it.

It was something of a family betrayal. My parents and (maternal) grandparents are all horse people. My grandfather, between fighting in the Korean War, raising four children and being a traveling veterinary supply salesman, had a humongous and gorgeous ranch in Grass Valley, about 30 minutes north of Sacramento in Placer County—the same county I was born in, actually. He raised Shetland ponies and later Clydesdale horses.

Please tell me you know what a Clydesdale is. You've seen them before. They're the Budweiser horses—and in fact, some of the ones Grandpa raised wound up being part of that famous Budweiser hitch in years past.

Clydesdales in New Zealand. From Wikimedia Commons.

My parents raised mustangs on their two-acre property in the Mojave Desert. Mustangs, just so you know, are feral horses descended from the Iberian breeds that escaped from the Spanish explorers hundreds of years ago. There are herds of 'em roaming around the wilds of Oklahoma, Nevada and Utah, hardy and wild. My folks would adopt them from the Bureau of Land Management's facility up in Ridgecrest and then truck them back to our spread in California: breaking them, training them and riding them around the desert.

Free-roaming mustangs in Arizona. From Wikimedia Commons.

So, naturally, when I told the folks back home that I was going to eat horse meat, their reaction was mixed. Mum has generally been quite supportive of me in my adventures (half-baked or no), but I understood why this would give her pause. I felt worse about the effect this knowledge would have on Gramp 'n' Gran, but I steeled myself. I knew I wouldn't rest until I'd sampled this stuff. I wasn't going to be disinherited, for Pete's sake. And you're only young once.

So, after getting back from Kumamoto Castle, I went to a big, well-lit shōtengai (shopping arcade) just west of the Shirakawa River, south of Ginza Street. I poked around, asking locals where the nearest basashi place was. After a few minutes, I found what seemed like a likely spot. I should have taken a picture of the façade before I went in, but I didn't. Trying to get one after I left only made the lens fog up. So you'll just have to imagine a tiny storefront with a customer service window, the plate-glass in the door, the red lanterns (the standard, well, standard for an after-work hangout that serves beer and snacks, known as an izakaya) and gaudy signs with curvy Japanese letters.

The interior was essentially the size of a walk-in closet. It might even have been smaller (I've been in some crazy walk-in closets). There was a long wooden counter where about seven or eight customers could rest comfortably, and a line of huge sake bottles arranged along the top. A tough, lean, competent-looking fellow lurked behind them, bustling about. After a brief look at the menu, during which it became apparent that I'd be forking over 1,500 yen for this, I ordered and settled in to wait. To give me something to do while he sliced up my horse meat, the owner gave me this to munch on:

I sipped beer, nibbled on bean-pods and watched TV, trying to look and feel like a competent, street-savvy world traveler. I lamented the fact that I couldn't see what the owner was doing; my view of his hands and his work was obscured by the counter and the plenitude of signage in front of me. I'd have loved to see my basashi take shape under the knife.

After a few more minutes, this cornucopia of buttery goodness appeared before me:

C'est pas vrai! Succulent slices of horse meat (two different cuts, no less), plus various condiments! What a feast!

I could have ordered another beer, but I thought I'd keep my palate—and my head—clear. And so I dug in. It was just as I had read: horse meat, particularly raw horse meat, is a great deal sweeter than other meats. It was firm as well, easy to chew and swallow. I don't think even a single piece became lodged between my teeth. It was downright delectable when dipped in soy sauce. I must say, I could have munched on the stuff for hours.

I even took a video. All it shows is my frizzy hair, blurry shots of the meat, and the TV blaring in the background. And me eating. I think you can imagine that without outside assistance.

Though satisfied in the most epistemological sense, I was still a bit peckish. So after I paid the bill and left the basashi shop, I sought out this restaurant back in the main arcade, a few hundred feet away:

Curry is something I know the Japanese are obsessed with (as they are with other things Indian in origin, such as Buddhism), and I wanted to see how well they did it. This place had about a thousand different varieties, some uniquely Japanese in flavor. I sat down, ordered up a plate of thin-sliced beef curry, and dug in. In a word: satisfying.

Then I returned to the hotel and slept like the dead. I usually do when I'm stuffed to the gills.

Tomorrow: the last day in Kumamoto. There's only two things on my to-do list: MUSASHIZUKA PARK and REIGANDŌ. We'll talk about the park (and more about my hero, Miyamoto Musashi) then.

a tale of three cities

I have returned from Japan.

I concluded the lovely month of July at home with my family, packed up, said my goodbyes, and hopped on a jet plane for Tokyo on July 31, there to spend eight days touring the country. As of August 8, I'm back in Seoul, wallowing in the heat and humidity and cat hair, reunited with Miss H and loving it. (And the best part is, my vacation's only half over.)

But I need to tell you about the jaunt through Japan, don't I? This is a travel blog, after all. So here goes. First, a few short words to set the scene:

I planned the whole affair out in advance, which is unusual for me. Usually I just go and pants it. When I went to the British Isles in 2010, I had only the vaguest idea of what I'd be doing and seeing, and where I'd be staying. I knew I wanted to hit Newcastle, Edinburgh and Dublin, but that was as specific as it got. My train tickets, flight tickets and hostels were all booked after I got there. It was somewhat slapdash, but it worked out.

Knowing, as I did, that I had only a limited amount of time to see Japan, and not wanting to spend a fortune there, I did some advance planning this time around. I chose to focus my vacation on three cities. Tokyo was an obvious choice, and Kyoto was acknowledged by many to be a must-see; but the third one was a curve ball. I picked Kumamoto. I won't go into details here about why I chose it; I'll let you know that when I get to those specific days. For now, I'm simply going to give you my route and the timing.

This was the plan, and a damn good one: July 31 through August 3, I'd be in Tokyo. Miss H and Miss J (from Bucheon) would meet me there late on the 31st and stay until the 2nd. Then they'd go home and I'd be on my own again for two days. August 4-5, I'd be in Kyoto, and August 6-7 I'd be in Kumamoto.

I've provided a map for your consideration. You can clearly see all three cities on this map (Kumamoto is down on Kyushu, the southernmost of the three big Home Islands):

Now, one of the things on my バケット list ("バケット" is Japanese for "bucket") was to ride the Shinkansen. Literally, that word means "new trunk line." It's synonymous with "Japanese bullet train." What better way to see the country (and get from Point A to Points B and C quickly) than by high-speed rail? With that in mind, I booked a seven-day Japan Rail Pass for $283 before I left the U.S. (Due to some regulation or other, you can't get the pass in Japan; you have to buy it and have it shipped to you outside the country.) This was a costly purchase, yes, but it was worth it. With the route I had imagined, I'd be making three separate rail journeys: Tokyo to Kyoto on August 4; Kyoto to Kumamoto on August 6; and Kumamoto to Fukuoka on August 8. A seven-day pass seemed like a wise decision, and it was, as I'd discover later.

Why was I taking the train to Fukuoka? Well, that's because the international ferry port was there. And not just any ferry port, either: Fukuoka is the jumping-off point for the high-speed ferries, the Boeing 929 Jetfoils. This, I determined, would be my conveyance from Kyushu back to Korea. I didn't want to fly (too expensive), so a ship was the only avenue left to me. Moreover I'd never traveled on an international ferry before, nor a hydrofoil. It seemed too good to pass up for the old baketto list.

I had a lot of difficulties threading my way through the Japanese webpages and phone numbers, but I finally managed to make a reservation with the Miraejet company. That turned out to be unnecessary...but you'll find that out later.

So there you go. From my old bedroom in my parents' house in the California desert, thanks to Google, Hotels.com, and Korea's English tourism website, I was able to book my entire Japan trip: the plane to Narita Airport, the capsule hotel in Tokyo, my standard hotels in Kyoto and Kumamoto, my bullet train pass and my Jetfoil ferry ticket. Too regimented a plan? Some might say so, but this was good for me: it meant I would have a schedule to keep and a goal to shoot for, and I wouldn't get waylaid in some city or other and spend all my hard-earned cash. And it would induce me to get off my duff and go out and see stuff despite the inevitable heat and humidity. So there you go: this plan was as much incentive as insurance.

Everything was set. Tokyo to Kyoto to Kumamoto by way of the bullet train, and then home on the international ferry. Eight days. The capital and the entire western half of Japan. A pilgrimage.

And...there was something else I intended to do in Japan. Something that could only take place once Miss H and our friend Miss J from Bucheon had met me in Tokyo. But you'll find out about that in due time.

It all began on July 31. And this is how it all fell out...

(Hey kids! Check back on Saturday for the first installment of the Vaunter's stay in Tokyo: THE SUMIDA RIVER CRUISE. He brought photos!)

off to Japan!

You know, a measly month doesn't seem like adequate recompense for 18 long months overseas. I mean, Korea ain't the gulag. Far from it. (It's the lime, turkey, bourbon and Mexican food gulag, but that's it.) But I forgot how easy and comfortable it is to live in one's own country, and how much I missed my folks. Now I'm staring down another 18 months in the LTBMF gulag before I can get back to it all.

That being said...I accomplished a lot this month.

Reunion with my extended family at a lake resort in Iowa? Check.

Eating the hell out of my favorite foods, including fleisch salad sandwiches (my favorite food in the whole Universe)? Check.

Reminding my mum and dad what I look like? Check.

Visiting my old haunts, like Victoria Gardens and Barnes & Noble and Total Wine & More (where I picked up a nice bottle of Hendrick's gin, lovely stuff)? Check.

Driving a convertible under a gorgeous California sunset while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and listening to Led Zeppelin on the radio? Check.

Shooting every gun I own? Check. (Dad and I are going trapshooting tomorrow, so we'll get the shotgun knocked off the list. Leave no gun unfired, that's my motto.)

Flying? Well, no. I'm out of currency. But I did stop by the dinky little Apple Valley Airport and see how everybody was doing. Not much has changed. The same old planes are parked out on the flight line, the same grey heads are chatting in the flight school, and so forth. Somebody's 18-year-old son is a flight instructor now. Jeez.

The only things I haven't done, in fact, would be eating at my favorite burger joint (that's also happening tomorrow) and finding my novel notes. I located my Bowie knife, my binoculars and my violin, but I'll be danged if I can find my piles of notes. I must have hid them so well that even I can't find 'em. Oh well. The outlines and prewriting are easy to forsake—as Stephen King would say, they probably aren't worth a tin shit anyway—but there were some lyrical snippets of dialogue in there, plus a few meritorious vignettes. I guess I'll just have to wing it until I come back to the States for good and unpack all those boxes.

Well, this is it. We're down to the wire. I leave on Monday. I'll lose a day traveling west (go jump in a lake, Phileas Fogg) and arrive in Tokyo on the 30th. I'll kick around town on the 31st—the Sumida River cruise, the Imperial Gardens—until Miss H and Miss J get in from Seoul in the afternoon. Then it's DISNEYLAND on the first of August. After H & J go home on the 2nd, I'll journey down through central and southern Japan in the shinkansen (bullet train), taking in Mount Fuji and Lake Biwa. I'll tour Kyoto for two days, petting monkeys and drooling over gold-plated buildings, then hop the train again for Kumamoto on the isle of Kyushu, spending the next 48 hours meditating in Reigando Cave and finding out who's buried in Miyamoto Musashi's tomb. Then it's to Fukuoka and the high-speed ferry to Busan, South Korea.

One of the other cool things about Kumamoto is that it's where Eiichiro Oda lives. He's the guy who writes and illustrates One Piece, my favorite manga/anime. It rather heavily influenced my magnum opus...

After that? For the month of August (school doesn't start up again until September), I was planning on finishing Novel #3, e-publishing Novel #2, and polishing Novel #1. Not to mention learning functional Korean. I really ought to be able to have a decent conversation by now instead of fumbling along like some chuckle-headed tourist.

There's also a humor site I'm writing regularly for now: Rabble Rouse the World. Check it out if you have the time. Ribald jests and laugh-tastic memes abound upon that literary pirate ship. Come aboard, mateys. Arrrrrrr.

I also intend to spend some of August finding all those charming Korean nooks and crannies that I haven't explored yet: Gangwon-do, for example, where the mountains and lakes and rocky beaches are. I just acquired a Canon EOS Rebel T3i, and after a bit of fiddling I'm sure I'll be a master photographer with it. So there ought to be gorgeous pictures of Japan, Korea, and environs pouring into this here blog come mid-August.

Stay tuned. You're in the front-row seat. You can't leave just when it's getting good!

simple as sleeping

I went around in 2009 loudly proclaiming that living in South Korea wasn't all that different from living in the United States. Pardonable, in context. I'd lived there for a year and was sick and tired of it. Eagerly, I would point out that everybody drove on the right side of the road ("right" meaning both "opposite of left" and "correct"). The signs were mostly in English. They had stuff like coffee houses and convenience stores and pawn shops and shopping malls. They were fond of things like soccer and baseball and pizza and hamburgers. They showed American movies in theaters and had English-language radio stations and bookstores. Korea, to some extent, was little America.

Well, I'm here to amend that assertion. It turns out that my research wasn't complete. My opinions were somewhat premature. Even something as simple as sleeping, it turns out, is different in Korea.

The first thing I noticed when I got back to my folks' rambling three-bedroom tile-roofed stucco house in California was how well I slept at night.

                                                                                                                       from Tumblr

Now, sleep and I have had a rather torrid relationship. She first began to welch on me in 2005, when I compressed a disc in my back while tobogganing down a dike in Fargo, North Dakota. (Don't ask.) I was not to find a wholesome, restful night's sleep for two or three years after that incident. I reached some species of equilibrium after some visits to the chiropractor in early 2008, but I never really found true relief.

Matters were exacerbated in mid-2008 when I moved to Korea.

Why's that, you ask?

Because Korean mattresses are rock-hard, that's why.

Seriously. They're like iron. Adamantine. Obdurate. Stony. And all them other hard-sounding adjectives.

The dictionary defines the word mattress thus: "a large pad for supporting the reclining body, used as or on a bed, consisting of a quilted or similarly fastened case, usually of heavy cloth, that contains hair, straw, cotton, foam rubber, etc., or a framework of metal springs."

The reptilian part of my brain defines a mattress as "something soft and squishy that you sleep on and which bounces or yields when you sit down or jump on it."

Korean mattresses fit the first definition but utterly belie the second. I quickly learned not to leap or spring onto my mattress, or even to sit down on it in an abrupt fashion, for it was like leaping into the rubberized bed of a truck. The shock would bruise my brain and jar every joint in my body.

The reasons behind the excessive firmness of Korean mattresses are unclear. Tradition, I suppose, has something to do with it. Koreans only recently started using mattresses. A lot of them still sleep on the floor, on a thin futon-like pad with a blanket and a pillow. I suppose Korean mattresses were created with the hardness of a linoleum floor in mind, not the comfort of the sleeper. 

I'm beginning to entertain the notion that the Korean people harbor a deep-seated streak of masochism. They define mountain climbing and hiking as "climbing an endless series of uneven stone steps," for one thing. They eat mouth-searing, uvula-melting foods like gamjatang in summer, for another (and have the brass neck to claim that it cools them down). And now this: ossified mattresses. Forget everything you think you know about firmness and box springs and backaches; I've got you beat. I used to wake up feeling like some beefy prize fighter had used me for an accordion. My lumbar region throbbed like a bald-headed salesman hit on the head with a frozen salmon. It was miserable. I tossed and turned and ached and moaned for a year on Geoje Island, then went back and did it again in Bucheon. Things improved when I moved to my new place in Gwangnaru in late February of 2013, but it was the moment my head hit the pillow of my old bed in my old room in that old freakin' desert that I really conked out.

Now I sleep all through the night without stirring, and let me tell you: I never did that when I lived here before, when I was in high school. Some nights I'd wake up every hour with my mucus membranes drier than a Bedouin's beard, and have to ninja my way out to the kitchen for a glass of water. Not so anymore. It's like my pillow is soaked in chloroform. I'm lovin' it.

                                                                                                                www.dailyotter.org

Of course, the location of said pillow (in my old room in California, a familiar, peaceful setting) might have biased the experiment.

Anyway, I stand corrected. It's the little things that you tend to notice. Things like talking, traveling, cooking, eating, and (as we've seen) sleeping are all vastly different in Korea than they are anywhere else.

Now you know the rest of the story.

in which the Vaunter comes home to roost

Well, I'm back. I survived 13 nonconsecutive hours on various jet planes to get back to the U.S.A. The family reunion in Iowa is over. The journey home to California is complete. The sun has risen on a new day. The valley looks the same as ever as I gaze down upon it through a shimmering veil of heat waves. That blasting desert sun is the same muted, nebulous thing that shone upon me in Seoul, but undiluted by haze or moisture. The skies are blue, my eyes are dry and my hay fever's resurgent, but at least I'm no longer caked in sweat. (It evaporates almost instantly.)

I didn't expect there to be much difference between this short sojourn home (after 18 months abroad) than there was when I came home Korea the first time (after only a year)...but there is a difference. Odd feelings and sensations are crowding upon my consciousness. Circumstances are much changed from my innocuous return to the U.S. in July of 2009 (four years ago!) and things just aren't the same.

There's the obvious, of course: Miss H isn't here. It certainly is strange—and crushingly lonely—to drive around this town and know she isn't here. Looking up at the stars (most of which I haven't seen in 18 months) without her feels very wrong.

When I returned home in 2009 and lived with my parents for the ensuing two and a half years, the adjustment was practically seamless. My old toothbrush was still in its drawer. My furniture and possessions were still in my old room. My toiletries were still in the bathroom shower, and my clothes were still hung up in the closet. This time around, in 2013, only my easy chair and bed remain. My stuff's packed in boxes in the garage or shed. (Part of my to-do list while I'm home is sorting through that junk and retrieving the unread books and other items I want to take back to Korea with me.)

My old room is now no longer "my old room," you see? It's a guest room, nothing more. The spare bathroom is stark and barren, the old tile ripped up in anticipation of its replacement, my toothbrush drawer shanghaied for other purposes. This house has completed its awkward transition to empty nest.

I'm almost 27, and this process doesn't bother me unduly. But it's more than that. It's not that I don't feel like I belong here, don't get me wrong. On the contrary—I hardly belong anywhere else. It feels great to be back. It's great to see the folks after so long, to reconnect with good friends, to sit down in old haunts and taste familiar brews. But that's exactly what's so strange. I feel like I belong to two worlds. It's like I'm being pulled in opposite directions, as though disparate facets of my soul are engaged in a tug-of-war for my psyche. One is the hard-bitten California desert rat, with his sunglasses and his guns and an airplane and a banged-up Jeep; and the other is the globe-trotting expatriate, the dauntless English teacher entrenched in South Korea, taking field trips to Japan and China in his sweat-stained safari jacket, a fedora on his head and shabby boots on his feet, a roll of gimbap in one hand and a camera in the other.

This is the first time I've ever felt like this, and it's weird. My soul is in flux, my mindset is mutable, and (jet lag aside) I'm restless as hell. It's a tricky situation. My to-do list is lengthy and various: I want to sort through my stuff, see the dentist and the optometrist and the chiropractor, talk to the bank (and my nearest Verizon rep), and purchase a crap-ton: laptop cooling pad, digital SLR, podcast equipment, and who knows what else. I also need to relax, of course: that's the point of a vacation. But I just can't seem to do one or the other. I'll get up and wander around, wanting to be productive, but not willing to venture out into the 99-degree heat. So I'll sit down, and try to write or YouTube or play games, but soon I'll lose interest and be on my feet again. It seems the insidious cocktail of jet lag, reverse culture shock, and loneliness is contrary to the spirit of a vacation. 

So, here I am—your humble correspondent, back in the land of his birth (well, lengthiest residence, at least). The next few days will be spent centering myself, eating my mum's home cooking, watching bad daytime TV, making delicious sandwiches with real cheese and honey ham, and getting up the gumption to pursue that to-do list. Over the next three weeks, I'll be sipping my dad's home-brewed beers, reading Ben-Hur, gouging away at Novel #3, sorting through dusty boxes, sitting in the rope chair on the back porch, listening to the hummingbirds and coyotes and cactus wrens, taking walks in the evenings, missing my girl and my squid-rice, loving the California sunsets, and venturing out at night like some crawling desert creature.

Wish me luck...

Insadong gets me every time

It's July 1, and the day after tomorrow I'm boarding an airplane and flying back home. Not permanently, oh no. There's a family reunion in Iowa that I'll attend for five days, for to see all the aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents. Then it'll be three weeks in the desert.

As so often happens, a multitude of emotions war within me. I feel excited by the thought of seeing my long-lost relations again (I haven't seen some of them in three years or more). I'm dreading the transcontinental flight (always a killer, that). I'm psyched for spending five days at a lakeside resort and the inevitable water sports that will ensue. I eagerly anticipate seeing that pack of reprobates (um, I mean my old pals) from the desert once more. Though flying is out of the question (I'm not current anymore and haven't the time or money to spend on a biennial flight review), I'd sure love to go shooting. I'm a tad forlorn at the thought of leaving Miss H here all alone while I'm gone, and doing without her for nearly a month. (Okay, I'm positively heartbroken.) But I'm pumped at the thought of seeing Japan (and possibly Mongolia, I haven't decided). Think about it: I'll finally be living like I've been meaning to live since I graduated high school. Footloose travel and all it entails. That warm, sunny, bubbly feeling of a dream being fulfilled—like sun tea brewing on a hot day—is welling up inside me.

But chief amongst those feelings warring for primacy in my innermost soul is...well, sheepishness.

Let me explain.

There's a particular street in a particular part of Seoul called Insadong. Insadong-gil, this street is called. Gil, as I understand it, means "lane" or "alley" (though some Korean alleys bear closer resemblance to the Snickelways of York).

Now, I'm not stupid.

Well, okay. Yes I am.

But I'm not a blithering idiot.

I can tell when someone's trying to fleece me.

But the merchants of Insadong-gil get me every time.

Here's the thing: Insadong is a tourist trap. It's a little neighborhood stuck somewhere east of Gwanghwamun (the main and largest gate of Gyeongbokgung Palace) and the Cheonggyecheon (a lovely low-lying landscaped stream that runs east-to-west through the downtown area) in the Jongno ward of Seoul. This street is filled with everything that is innately Korean—or rather, everything that foreigners think is innately Korean, and everything that savvy Koreans know that foreigners think is innately Korean. Catch my drift?

The winding lane is less than a quarter-mile long, but it's packed to bursting with quaint little tea houses filled with wood trim and farming equipment; one-room Korean restaurants tucked under latticed awnings or hidden in bamboo groves; and coffee shops and cafés that were probably avant-garde fifteen years ago. The lane's main feature, however, are the stores and street vendors peddling their multifarious wares: "traditional Korean snacks," jade necklaces and silver rings, handmade wooden puzzles (and other wood crafts like spoons, combs, toys, and statuettes), celadon pottery, metal works (such as bells, wind chimes and assorted sculptures), and oodles upon oodles of folding fans, pincushions, compacts, bookmarks, purses, clutches, handbags, letter openers, ballpoint pens, jewelry boxes, and figurines. Every item is decorated with customary and venerated Korean motifs: cranes, tigers, kings, cattails, women washing, scholars in their crenellated hats, children playing in hanbok, soldiers marching, misty mountains, red-gold suns and redoubtable warships.

                                                                                                       Not my photo, but a dang good one.

A lot of it's junk and I know it. It's touristy stuff. You'd never find it anywhere but here. No self-respecting Korean has a little pewter figure of Admiral Yi on his bookshelf. The stuff looks pretty, and it was probably made by hand, and it would look jolly good in a cupboard or on a mantlepiece. There are exceptions, of course. Some of the merchandise is drop-dead gorgeous, delicately made, and encapsulates Korean culture to a beguiling extent.

But is it worth the money they're asking? Noooooooooooooo.

Do tourists pay the money they're asking? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.

Do I know better than that? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.

Do I know how to bargain? Noooooooooooooooo.

Do the vendors know that I don't know how to haggle? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.

Has that ever stopped me from buying something pretty for myself? Nooooooooooooooo.

The merchants probably know me on sight by now. I'll heave into view, marching around the corner from the subway station, and they'll exchange a look and make the habitual remarks.

"Look, here comes that saphead."

"Hey, the palooka in the blue T-shirt is back."

"Whaddya know, it's that pigeon who always drops a boatload of cash!"

"Bust out the compacts and the jewelry-boxes, Marge! Our favorite schnook's comin' down the street!"

Honestly, I might as well just get the word "SUCKER" tattooed on my forehead. I was wearing a blue T-shirt today with the words Beginner in Korean, please speak slowly splashed across the front in Hangul. All the vendors loved it. They saw it, read it aloud, and burst into laughter. I knew why they were really laughing. They weren't charmed by my earnest attempt to learn their language and fit into their culture. They just knew they'd be able to snow me in two languages instead of just one.

If I was a bit better at Korean and knew how to haggle, I muttered to myself, things would be different, mark my words.

I mean, seriously: two thousand for a tarnished old Chinese coin the size of a silver dollar? Give me a break!

I shall cease my invective here. I'm sure you came here for other things, like my mouthwatering descriptions of food or the salaciously lovely photographs I put up. Tune in for more of that next time on...

THE (SWINDLED) VAUNTER

turning point

Well, blast it all.

I used to look at pictures of people waiting in bread lines during the Great Depression and think "Wow, I'm glad that's not me."

I'm still far from living on the streets or Dumpster-diving for dinner, but nonetheless, I'm beginning to feel less and less exempt from the general economic crunch.

Especially now, since I have no job.

Let me explain.

Remember how I said I was going back to Korea?

There are certain pieces of paper one requires if one desires to work overseas. The Republic of South Korea demands that all American immigrants obtain a background check from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and send it to the State Department to be notarized. This notarization consists of an apostille—a big fancy stamp, basically—which legitimizes the document for use by a foreign government.

When I checked the State Department's website in August, it clearly stated that the processing time for an apostille was four weeks.

Perfect, I thought. The job we've been accepted for in Korea starts September 12th. I'll send these forms off on August 5th, and we'll have them back by September 5th or earlier.

Ha-ha. What point did John Steinbeck make about "the best-laid plans of mice and men"...?

I sent the documents off on August 5th. A week later, I logged onto the State Department's website again, just to check up on the status of our apostille.

The Department's electronic literature now said that the processing time for an apostille was EIGHT weeks.

ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!

It was all up with September. We missed out on the position. We had to call our recruiter, explain what happened, apologize profusely, and decline the position. The marvelous, marvelous position in Bucheon, Seoul, which would've netted us 4.6 million won (about $4600) per month, and left us with $50,000 U.S. to take home afterward.

Well, darn.

Our apostilles came in on October 5th. By that time, the jobs in Korea had all dried up. The hiring season was over. Our recruiter mournfully informed us that Miss H and I would be high and dry until January, when the next wave of hiring began.

Shazbot!

After a great deal of soul-searching and some late-night discussions, Miss H and I decided to wait it out. We'd obtain temporary employment here in the High Desert, work some dead-end jobs for a few months to keep afloat, and ship out for Korea in January.

It was shortly after this that we discovered that San Bernardino County has the second-worst unemployment rate in the entire country after Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mother&%@#er!

So here we are: applying for jobs all over the tri-city area, without so much as a callback or an interview. Both of us are going mad, being 23 and 25 years old (respectively) and still living in our parents' houses. It was cold comfort that Rush Limbaugh said on the radio this morning that 30% of all unwed males in the U.S. between the ages of 25 and 34 are still living with their parents. I don't wanna be one of 'em. I want to be out on my own, dammit. Self-sufficient. Independent. Striding forward to my destiny. I really feel like I'm stuck here in the desert. It was just an inkling before, a terrible dream, a half-imagined dread. Now it's real. And it's constricting my chest. I perpetually feel, living here in the Victor Valley, as though I can't get enough air. Some days I just want to walk off into the desert and see how far I get. Just to maintain the illusion that I'm my own man, and my fate is still in my hands, you know.

This would've been easier to take if I was still chasing Predators. But I'm not. After I'd read that the State Department would take only a month to process my apostille, I gave my one-month notice at work. I retracted it as quickly as possible after I learned of the State Department's true colors, but the damage was done: my superiors had already begun searching for a replacement. And they found one, and he'd quit his job to work with us, and he needed to work full-time to support himself and his wife. So there it was: I was out. There was no getting around it. No plea bargain, no parole board, no second chance. October 28 was officially my last day. It's my first week off and already I'm going crazy.

So I made a decision this evening. I decided that I would polish off that bottle of über-peaty Ardbeg 10-year-old Scotch that's been sitting on the pantry shelf for eons.

More importantly, I decided that I would swallow my pride. I went out to the living room and asked my parents (who had just forked over $500 to replace the leaf springs on my Jeep) for a loan of $4500 to complete my commercial pilot's license. It was hard, but I felt it was the right thing to do. They had extended the offer previously, and I had refused it. But now I feel like I have no other choice. I've got to start making money somehow, and my journalism résumé is far too anemic to do me any good in this economical climate. I'd wanted to get my instrument rating first (only one checkride that way), but that's another 45 hours with an instructor. I only need 38 more hours of PIC (pilot-in-command) time to get my commercial license, excluding checkride prep with an instructor and the actual test. If I go down to the airport every day and fly an airplane around for an hour or two, making landings at towered airports and doing a few long cross-countries and night flights, then I'll be up to speed in no time. Then, hopefully, I'll pass my tests on the first try and be able to saunter forth into the world of commercial aviation.

And I'll use my first paycheck to reimburse my parents' loan. I promise.

Hold me to that, will you?

a polite awakening

Before I do anything, I would like to direct you to the Page Turners Book Club, run by fellow blogger and amazing writer Carrie, from [carrotspeak.] The book review for the day is one of MINE! Ta-DA!

I'm immensely flattered and honored by this (thanks, Carrie), and I would suggest you go check out the above links, pronto.

As in, right now. Before you read any further.

Hey, did you hear what I said?

I said, "Go over there and read that stuff right now," dang it!

I'm waiting...

You'd better drag your sorry carcass over there in the next five seconds, buster, or I'll come vaulting through that fiber-optic cable and give you a swift kick.

Okay, okay, fine. I'll finish what I was going to say here, if it'll mollify you.

I caught a glimpse of my future today, and it wasn't pretty.

With a little help from my folks, I realized that I have dropped an enormous chunk of my hard-earned pay—money I don't have—to go to England. I really, really don't have the money to go anywhere right now. Now is not the time. This trip has broken me, people, and I'm not even over there yet. I don't even have enough money for iTunes downloads anymore. This is a deplorable state of affairs. Poverty is the pits, as Scrooge McDuck once truthfully proclaimed. There's so many things I need right now. A new pair of work boots, for starters. My old ones have no tread left. A pair of noise-reducing headphones, for another—the Mooney is such a loud plane that my ears are ringing after every flight, even through my regular run-of-the-mill Dave Clark. Oh, and did I mention that it's taken me six months to finish a two-week bartender's course? And that I have only three or four hours left to fulfill the requirements for a private pilot's license? And that I should really hurry the hell up and finish?

Thanks to Ma an Pa, it suddenly occurred to me tonight just what a foolish thing I've done. Frivolous. Unwise, too. I haven't got my priorities straight. This is my future we're talking about here. So far I've been fooling around and mooning about. I should've been finished with my bar-tending stuff months ago. By rights I should be finished with my private pilot's license already, even with the $135 price tag which flight lessons carry. I should be studying on my off-hours. I should really be pushing myself harder. I should be working toward a goal, advancing my career, securing my future, building a nest egg. And instead, I'm blowing my measly savings on a two-week trip to the United Kingdom. How did I get myself into this mess?

I'll tell you. I didn't get a job for eight months after arriving home from Korea. As my parents told me, "any money is better than no money." Common sense, right? But no. Somehow I still thought things would be different. Different from the six godawful months I spent in my parents' basement in Wyoming after graduating from college, desperately trying (and failing) to find a job in my field. Somehow, I thought, things will shape up this time. I didn't expect to be staying in my parents' house this long. I figured I'd be long gone by December.

So when I arrived home from Korea in July 2009, I thought, "I'd better try to get the highest-paying job possible, so I can save up the maximum amount of money in the shortest amount of time." The proper window for that frame of mind was probably, oh, two seconds. After that, I should've said, "Yeah, I'm not having any luck with this. I should just get any job and be thankful for the money I'm earning." Did I do that? Nope. I continued wasting time, and losing money.

Then I got a job at the local newspaper. Then I got fired. And I thought to myself, "The heck with it. I'm going to focus all my energies on getting my pilot's license instead of working." Brilliant idea, right? Instead of working, I could spend all my time flying, and breeze through the remainder of my training. For some reason, I didn't realize that I was bankrupting myself until after the fact. One day I looked up and discovered that I had used up all my money, couldn't progress any farther in my flight training, couldn't progress anywhere, and still didn't have a job. This is besides inching through my bartender's course so slowly that my future customers have probably all died of thirst.

My luck kicked in again when I landed my current job, chasing drones. It's not a pay upgrade by any means, but it's better than nothing. A lot better: I'm building flight time, which almost makes up for the fact that I'm not taking lessons anymore. No sooner had I begun to rebuild the financial dike when I went and shot everything to hell by booking my flight to England.

And here I am: living paycheck to paycheck, going without things I desperately need (let alone all the stuff I'd like), not progressing anywhere with my alcohol- or aviation-related ambitions, stuck in an agonizing vocational limbo. Here I sit, wondering how it took me so long to see the hole I'd dug, and how long I'd have continued living this way until I finally crashed and burned. If I wasn't living with my parents (insert weak laugh here) I'd have certainly starved to death by now. I need a couple hours to think about all this and come to a decision. Do I cancel my trip to England? Hit the books and bulldoze my way to a pilot's license? Finally save up enough money to move out of my folks' house? Or do I stick with it, go to England, undergo a few more uncomfortable months of pauperism, rebuild the dike once more, and then begin laying the foundations of my aviation career? What should I delay? My future, or part of the hell-raising I wanted to do in my twenties?

It's a terrible choice. No matter which way I turn, I get the feeling that I've wasted precious time. If I don't go to England, I'll regret it forever. I'll never forgive myself for visiting fewer than three continents before age 24. I'll forever feel the reproach of the travel articles I could've written. The beer I could've swilled. The parties I could've rocked. The immaturity I could've indulged in. On the flip side, if I do go—and obtaining my private pilot's license takes that much longer (I'll have been at it for two and a half years come July)—

Well, then I'll really feel like my life is passing me by.

And that, my friends, is my greatest fear. Of all the horror and darkness and death in the world, what I dread most is not having lived. It's awful for anyone to be stuck in limbo. It's a literal hell for me. My parents brought up a good point this evening. I'm good at doing the prep work. I get myself to the starting line. As far as groundwork and foundations are concerned, I'm a freakin' Greek architect. But once I'm at the starting line, there I sit. I can never seem to start. I never go anywhere. I perpetually languish. All I do is "rev my engines."

And now here I am, in my darkened room, staring out at the lights of the city twinkling far below. I'm faced with the hardest choice I've ever encountered Turn my back on a carefree adolescence...? ...or abandon my dreams?

Some choice. I have a plan, though. I'll pass my final practical test on Saturday down in Riverside; get a job within a fortnight; use the ferocious amount of tips I'll (luckily) be making to fund my flight training; finish flight school; and still have my regular salary to pay for the England jaunt. Wish me luck.

cocktail review no. 31 - Fifty-Fifty

Whew! I think I need a drink after all this talk about family and ancestors.

I hope everybody had a good Superbowl Sunday. I sure did. It was weird to be home and watching the game with the folks. I haven't done it in two years, you see. I was away in Korea last season, and the Koreans aren't so big on football. (Excuse me, my non-North American readers; I mean gridiron.)

I also followed the season more closely than ever before. I watched as many Chargers games as I could and actually kept track of their wins and losses. And they almost made it, but not quite. Oh well, congrats to New Orleans on the defeat of those dastardly Colts.

To business! In the world of gin, there are martini drinkers, Gibson drinkers, gin and tonic drinkers, gin fizz drinkers, Dubonnet cocktail drinkers... And in the world of martini drinkers, there are straight martini drinkers; double martini drinkers; dirty martini drinkers; dry martini drinkers; extra dry martini drinkers; extra dry double martini drinkers; and even some dry double dirty martini drinkers (like me). There are also vodka martini drinkers, but we won't count them, because

they're dead inside

if brains were bees, there'd be no honey between their ears

they were born without tastebuds, genitals, or any sense of culture or refinement

they have questionable taste. Then there are the fifty-fifty folks. A "dry" martini is one that has a higher ratio of gin to vermouth; a dry martini will have, say, only three-quarters of an ounce of vermouth mixed in with the shot of gin, instead of an ounce. An extra-dry martini will have no vermouth; just gin. (Hardcore gin drinkers only!) The fifty-fifty is the antithesis of the dry martini. It possesses a more equal ratio of gin to vermouth. A fifty-fifty ratio, in fact.

• 1½ ounces gin
• 1½ ounces dry vermouth
• 1 cocktail olive

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine the gin and vermouth. Shake well. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with the olive.

This isn't actually a takeoff on the martini. It's an ancient ancestor, a proto-martini, as it were. Time was, martinis were consumed with an equal ratio of gin to vermouth. Only later did folks reduce the vermouth-gin proportion, creating "dry" and "extra dry" martinis.

The fifty-fifty has now faded into obscurity. Nobody drinks them anymore, so far as I know. I mixed one up once, way back in Wyoming, when I was just starting down the road to bartenderism. At the time, I thought it was awful. I had just begun drinking, though. I didn't like martinis yet, and didn't even know what to expect from vermouth. Needless to say, the fifty-fifty wasn't up my alley.

On a whim, I mixed a second one just the other night. After sitting for Lesson 3 down in Riverside last week, and then taking (and passing) the test on Saturday, I was sick of hearing about martinis and Manhattans and Rob Roys, dry and extra dry. I wanted the antithesis of dry. And suddenly I remembered my old friend the fifty-fifty. MAN, it tasted good. The stellar tang of gin was still there still. But the vermouth finally got its day in court. It layered itself like a silken veil over the gin: a spicy, herbal purdah, easing itself past the tongue to the back of the throat, underscored by the coolness and the body of the gin. It was a precisely equal partnership. The two spirits formed a symbiotic relationship within the confines of the cocktail glass, creating a familiar but now more intense flavor. The drink is easy on the draw, pleasant on the finish, delicious all 'round. I like martinis a lot better these days.

I've fallen in love with gin (good gin, mind you, like Broker's). Still, it doesn't get too much better than the fifty-fifty, folks. Try it and see. 

back to the family

Continuing from yesterday... Most of my father's family has been in the New World a looooooooooooong time. I'm talking mid- to late-1600s, here. That was before they even invented the word "revolution."

Let us now go back to my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Panwell Van Der Poest, born in 1550 in Arnhem, Gelderland, the Netherlands. Yessir. According to Ancestry.com, I'm Dutch. And Pop always thought he was all German! He is on his mother's side, perhaps (the High side...his mother's maiden name was Margaret Louise High). But not the Post line! We're from the Netherlands, it seems. At some point, Panwell emigrated from Gelderland to England and married an Englishwoman, Susannah Van Gelder (from the sound of her name, she might've been descended from Dutch immigrants too). They had a son, Arthur, in 1580. It was either Arthur or his father Panwell who changed their surname to Post, more likely to fit in better in English culture. This means, then, that I could be a wee bit English now as well as Dutch, German and Norwegian. I didn't see that coming (if it's true).

Arthur's son Richard Post (b. 1617) did something very naughty. I found a story, a written account on Ancestry, which stated that Richard committed some heinous religious act that made his father disinherit him. Given the time frame we're looking at here, I'd say Richard probably converted to Protestantism. Possibly he did it for love. I can just see it now: Richard's wandering down the streets of Kent with the foolish dreams of a young man in his head, when suddenly he sees a beautiful woman. She's calm, demure, strong, and absolutely gorgeous. She seems to float over the ground rather than walk. Her eyes could charm the beasts and her voice could soothe the swelling seas. She's everything he's ever wanted and more. He's smitten, consumed. He must have her. But she's a Protestant. No problem-o, says Richard to himself. I'll just convert to Protestantism. YOU'LL DO WHAT?! Arthur hollers, grabbing Richard by the ear and shaking him.

For whatever reason, Richard and his new wife Dorothy (née Johnson) packed up and headed for the New World soon after Richard was disinherited. After arriving in New York, they welcomed little John into their life in 1646. John sired another son named Richard, in 1684. Richard then begot Joseph Post in 1720. Joseph was the first Post who had the stones to leave New York. He didn't go far, though. He went to Pennsylvania, married Mary Smith, and had a mess of kids. One of these was named Jeremiah, born in 1769. Yep, one of my ancestors was named "Jeremiah Post." (Don't worry, the Post family name game gets even better.) As if that wasn't good enough, he lived at about the same time that Jedediah Smith was exploring the West. I wonder if Jeremiah's mother and Jedediah were related...? Anyhow, Jeremiah married a woman named Martha Craycraft (born 1776, incidentally) and sired Charles G. Post on her in 1800. Charles G. married Elizabeth Bryant (who was the daughter of David Bryant, a private in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War). And in 1832, Charles and Elizabeth had a son named— [SIDENOTE: Don't get the impression that my ancestors were only children. Most of the Post men were randy buggers, and had oodles of kids, just like Joseph did. Jeremiah, Richard, John, all of 'em had at least 7 kids or something. Joseph, however, appears to be "the Post with the most," if you take my meaning.] —Leonidas Hamline Post. You can't beat that name with a stick.
In 1875, Leonidas Hamline fathered a little junior Leonidas (with a mysterious woman named "Althea" whom I haven't been able to find any information on at all). It was Leo Junior who fathered my grandfather, Edward Post, in 1917. Edward went on to marry Margaret Louise High and have my dad, Timothy Post, born 1953. Tim met Beth Ann Fritz in Nevada, married her, and welcomed yours truly into the family in 1986. All other things being equal, my kids should start popping into existence in the 2020s. That's nearly 500 years of Posts. We went from the Netherlands to central England, to New England, to Ohio (Charles G. moved from Pennsylvania to Spencerville, Ohio), to Florida (where Grandpa Ed relocated) to Nevada (Dad loves it there) and then California (I was born in Auburn, up in Placer County).

Some of the information I've uncovered is almost too fantastic to be true: another Dutch ancestor on Dad's side was born in China. I surmised he might've been the son of a crewman on a trading vessel. The link between us is unreliably rickety, though. I do know that I have at least two relatives, one on each side of the family, who fought in World War I. Add in David Bryant and my grandfather, Harlan Fritz (who fought in the Korean War), and my family tree is starting to look rather illustrious, isn't it? (And I haven't even factored in the accomplishments of my female relations yet; who knows but that some were suffragettes, or revolutionaries, or entrepreneurs, or scientists? I have yet to find out.)

As I said before, I don't know how much of this is true and how much isn't. I'm relying on work that others have done, based on sketchy sources and vague census records. (By "vague census records" I mean "census records with names that are often flagrantly misspelled, and were probably collected by buck-toothed yokels.") But it's fun to believe that it might be true. It's the ultimate kick in the pants to muse on the nature of my family tree. The thought of who and what I might have sprung from dazzles me. I wonder what Panwell Van Der Poest looked like. Which ale he preferred. Where he liked to hang out after he got off work. What kind of father and husband he was. What made him decide to move across the English Channel. I wonder what kind of voyage Richard and Dorothy had going over the Atlantic in the mid 1600s, and what went through their heads when they saw the New World on the horizon. I wonder who that mysterious woman Althea was, what her family was like, and what possessed her to marry a man named "Leonidas." I wonder if Joseph Post whistled while he built his family a house in Pennsylvania a hundred years later, and if he did, what tune it was. I wonder if Martha Craycraft was proud that she was born the same year the Declaration of Independence was signed. I wonder if Jeremiah Post liked to proselytize, if Charles G. ever went exploring, how many other kids young Leonidas beat up for making fun of his name. It boggles the imagination, to say the least.

My work has only just begun. I've added so many relatives in such a mad frenzy that I shall have to go back and comb through them once again. I need to weed out the discrepancies (who were born, say, after their fathers and mothers died). That's only half the task, though. I should like to begin going back the other way and fleshing out the branches of my family. I want to expand my family tree sideways and forward now instead of back, and find out if I have any illustrious relatives in American (or even European) history. You want to know the real reason I began doing this? You'll laugh when you do. I want to find out if I'm related to Wiley Post. You know, the famous pilot. First man to fly solo around the world. Set a bunch of altitude and long-distance records. Died in 1935 with humorist Will Rogers when their plane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska. I just want to know, one way or the other. That's all. But the stuff I've found out since then is pretty neat, too.

Your turn, Ian.

Dad's luck

People often tell me I'm a lucky man. And when I say "people," I'm obviously talking about my mother. She watches me as I bumble my way through life, dodging this, ducking that, running headlong into the other, always somehow finding my way out of a jam. (Or, as happens more often, having the way out dropped into my lap.) She always shakes her head and says, "Well, Andrew, you certainly inherited your father's luck." Apparently, Dad does the same thing. He and I just roll through life, sanguine as you please, and when disaster strikes, we have to scramble to rebuild the dike. But we manage it somehow, either by hook or by crook. Pop even jokes to Ma that his middle name is "Damage Control." Looking at some of the tight spots I've been in, I can't help but think Dad's passed something on to me resembling chronic good fortune. But there's no use denying it any longer. I'm broke. Not quite flat broke, to be sure; I have enough money for maybe two months' rent, if I was living in an apartment. Possibly three, if I was in a cardboard box by the reservoir. So when I finally decided two nights ago that, yes, my computer had picked up a virus, my motherly caring side naturally wasn't the first on the scene. Nice going, bozo, my inner accountant groused. How you gonna pay for this? You might have to hawk those Monty Python DVDs after all. And ya thought you were out of the woods... I gave it my best shot. I deleted all my temporary Internet files. I ran Ad-Aware and AVG, my anti-spyware and anti-virus programs respectively. Nothing doing. The virus was still in there somewhere. My folks happened to have a copy of Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 lying around, so I installed that and gave it a go. It detected the virus, but it couldn't delete it: it kept freezing up. Well, shoot. I heaved a sigh, got up the next morning, and took my poor abused Toshiba into town to be fixed. Repairs would have cost me $200, which, as I've already pointed out, I don't have. It was right about then that a small dose of my genetically-enhanced luck kicked in. As I am standing in front of the repair counter, filling out the paperwork to have my laptop diagnosed and cleaned, my brand-new cell phone starts ringing. I put down the pen and answer it. It's my best buddy John, whose house I am going to for a barbecue later in the evening. He actually works at the same computer repair shop where I've taken my laptop. He's not there, though; he's home. He has strep throat, but he hasn't called off the party. He just wants to remind me that I don't have to bring any side dishes; he's got it covered. Bring a bottle if I so desire; he's got Scotch and beer out the wazoo. I say okay, thank him, hang up, and keep filling out paperwork. I finish the forms and hand them to the repair person. Just as she's beginning to fill in fields on her computer screen, my cell phone rings again. It's Dad. He wants to know what's wrong with my computer. I tell him that I've only just finished the paperwork, and diagnostics haven't commenced yet. I'll call him back when I hear anything. Dad says okay, and we hang up. The repair woman is almost finished filling in those fields, and is about to lay hands on my laptop and start plugging in wires, when my phone rings again. It's John. It's loud in the store and I can barely make out what he's saying, but I do catch a few revolutionary words: "...bring your computer over to my house and I'll fix it." I don't remember exactly what I said in reply. My mind had gone somewhat blank. Accepting $200 of repair fees and then finding out you're reprieved five minutes later...that pulls the rug out from under your brain, so to speak. I stammered a thank you, thought up some feeble excuse for the repair lady ("Uh, can we hold on for a moment? I've just thought of something else I might try"), and boogied. The expression "weight lifted from one's shoulders" gets tossed around a tad excessively these days. It's lost its power as a result. As I stepped out of the shop into the bright winter sun, I realized how powerful it truly was. I felt, quite literally, as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. There was a little extra spring to my step, a noticeable lightness in my innards. I wouldn't have to spend $200. That wasn't as good as being in love, true. But whew anyway. Shopping for a bottle for John's party was all the sweeter. In the end, I settled on some tequila and margarita mix. Who says you can't have margaritas in January, anyway? I ask ya, who? I went home and dumped some stuff off (including that long sought-after library copy of The Epic of Gilgamesh). Then I drove back to John's house with my diseased computer. He popped in a repair CD, ran some programs, isolated the virus, and killed it. Then (over the course of the party) we ran some more scans and tests. Both of us pronounced the machine cured at a quarter to two, after a spotty all-night vigil. Maybe Dad's karma rubbed off on me when he called right before John did? Who knows? Thanks to the help of a friend, I was able to get the dang virus off the computer for free. John, you're a lifesaver. I take back what I said about you being a square because you won't go to Australia with me. And I got to party in between the scans we ran, too. Beat that for luck.