Can't hardly believe I've been back from England over a month now, nor that I've been home from Korea for over a year. I returned just about this time last July, remember...fresh off a sightseeing sojourn in the Jeju and Jeollanam Provinces. Man, I was riding high. I thought things were finally starting to work out. I figured I'd rest up at home, grin over the respectable wad of money I'd socked away, and then jet off for Alaska in a month or so.
Well, it didn't quite work out like that. I convinced myself that sticking around home, working and living cheap off my parents was a good idea. I could save up a stupendous nest egg. I could get all sorts of stuff done, like finishing that damn novel and the remainder of my flight training. Well, I did both those things. A year's gone by, an entire year, and my money (and my pride) has gone down the tubes. But I got some stuff done. The novel's finished. It's in the hands of my beta readers. My flight training's done. I just need seven hundred bucks, that's all. Three hundred for a three-hour review session with JM1 and $400 for the test proper. Then I'll be free and clear: free to hightail it to a forgotten corner of this mysterious world, and live like I mean it.
Unfortunately there's some things I need to before that. It was a real scramble this month trying to save up enough cabbage to pay off my car insurance. I just got that taken care of this morning. Now (besides paying the bills next month) I've got to worry about my Jeep. The tires are getting bald and the shock absorbers have taken a real beating from the dirt roads I live on. I'd like to replace the entire suspension before I do anything else, and that'll take some real money. Then I can worry about flight training. And even after that's done, I must concern myself with saving up something like $1500-$2000, enough to pay for a ticket to Spain or Japan or Australia or Antarctica and find a job.
I don't imagine I'm going to escape this hellish desert much before spring of 2011.
And speaking of "hellish," that's exactly what it's been. The days are uniformly in the 95-105 degree range. Such conditions are agonizing in the stifling cockpit of a Mooney, without the benefit of air conditioning or even active ventilation (we just have vents we can open to the outside, which is fine if you're at 10,000 feet and it's 60 degrees, but if you're sitting on the runway or flying low you're "sweating your balls off" as JM1 says).
It's been windy, too ("feels like you're standing in a hairdryer," JM1 says...JM1 is a very observant man). I wish it would rain. No, I take that back. If it rains, it won't get cooler. It'll just get humid. And our flying will probably get canceled, too, which is one hit I literally can't afford to take. The job is going well, by the way. JM1 and JM2, our new pilots, have got the program down now and are flying regularly. I haven't seen Dawg, Spud, or Mr. Mooney in weeks. Mr. Mooney and Spud are in Hawaii right now, flying L-29 Delfin jets for the Navy; and Dawg is in Colombia trying to strike up a new contract. All of them are quite happy that JMs 1 & 2 are working out so well. I've been a big help, too, they say, ushering the two of them through the routine. I didn't realize it until someone told me, but I'm actually the most experienced guy in the company now as far as UAV chases are concerned: I've done more than anybody else. I've done almost all of them, in fact, whereas the pilots keep rotating and taking turns. So I'm just helping everybody to get broken in. JM1 got the program down like a flash (he's a very experienced pilot himself, thousands of hours in everything from jets to puddle-jumpers). JM2 was a bit shaky at first, but now that he's over his nerves and has done it a few times, he's feelin' fine. As I may have mentioned, I'm doing all the radio work now, and have become proficient real fast.
I still can't find a second job, though. I've been all over town. Nobody's hiring bartenders around here. Looks like it's Wal-Mart for me. I wouldn't mind learning how to drive a forklift, that's for sure. So, in short, work's going well, even if I'm not doing it enough; the weather has been blasphemously hot, but I'm coping somehow (drinking a lot of water and going swimming with bikini-clad girls helps; I'm doing both regularly). Flying is on hold until I get some more money; traveling is on hold until I get some more money; and the novel's on hold until I hear back from my readers (and get some more money for copyright applications). Noticing a pattern here? I'm a pauper. This is déjà vu all over again. I'm living exactly like I was a few months back, after I'd purchased my insanely expensive tickets to England, trying desperately to save up enough for the trip itself. I thought I was done with that rot. But no, car repairs and insurance payments blindsided me. So here I am again, scrimping, saving, hardly socializing, putting off all the lovely Led Zeppelin albums and graphic novels I'd like to buy, forgoing the enticing bottles of booze on the shelves (except when the folks take pity on me and buy me some; they brought back some Mount Gay from BevMo the other day, sah-WEET!). It's a hard, hard life, let me tell you. But I could be breaking rocks in the Sahara. That'd be worse. At least I have an air-conditioned home and a soft bed to come back to every night.
And I'm not bone-idle at home, either. I've been helping the folks tear apart the kitchen in preparation the renovations that are taking place this week. New cabinets, new counters, new appliances, new floors, new everything. The whole shebang is being upgraded. And I got to pick up a sledgehammer and smash every last piece of the old tile counter, raising a cloud of dust that settled on every flat surface in the house. That was nice. But I'm also writing. In the absence of my novel, I'm working on my short stories. I'm trying to break into the fiction market, did you know? I wouldn't mind being a published science fiction writer like some of my idols, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft and Isaac Asimov and H.G. Wells and Robert Heinlein and L. Sprague de Camp and John W. Campbell, Jr. Those four stories I mentioned earlier are coming along nicely. One of them is finished. I'm handing it off to a friend for proofing and then I'll package it and send it off to Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. Looks like a likely market, and based on what I read of it, I'm up to the challenge of competing with their published writers. And that's the news. In short, I've got a lot of obstacles in my way, but you know me.
June 14. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. There were three of us, A, J, and yours truly. Ms. K had said her goodbyes and was on her way back to the airport to fly back to London.
There was one thing we had to do before moving away from the seafront and ducking down to the Newcastle Quayside. We had to duel the North Sea.
Now, I'm not one of your hippy-dippy gung-ho mountain-climber types. I don't have to "challenge Mother Nature" to feel good about myself. I don't go whitewater rafting and then say I've defeated the river. I don't go bouldering in random canyons and call myself a rock-god. I don't meditate on the burning sands of the Sahel and claim I've communed with the Great Spirit. I don't climb Mount Everest and think it's an unusual feat. Nature freaks and outdoorsy types generally make me sick.
But I've got this thing about oceans. They tick me off. They're high on themselves, for one thing. They think they're effing fabulous just 'cause they're composed of enormous volumes of saline water. They're all swept up in their own magnificence just 'cause they're self-contained transcontinental biospheres which support a vast majority of the planet's wildlife. Oceans and seas cover 75 percent of the world's surface, and due to that meager factoid these oversize aquatic masses think they own the place. Arrogant pricks. They're just big puddles. Tides, weather systems, storms, and a half-dozen unique and independent ecosystems Do Not Necessarily a Renowned Body of Water Make.
So I challenge the seas wherever I go. I throw down. I stand on the beaches, pound my chest like King Kong in his prime, and dare 'em to come on. I kick off my shoes and socks, stomp those bastards' tides right in, wade into them like the effing Colossus of Rhodes, and frickin' punch them right in the rollers. No major component of the hydrosphere messes with me and gets away with it. I learned the East China Sea real good last year in Haeundae, South Korea. That chickenshit excuse for a body of water won't be coming back for a second helping anytime soon. So there I was, fresh out of the Newcastle Priory and feelin' mean. And then bam, what do I see? The frickin' North Sea, sitting there all blue and green and grumpy-looking under that fresh blue sky, looking like it had a chip on its shoulder. Putz thought he was hot shit just 'cause he was sitting pretty at nine degrees Celsius. So I turned to my posse (A and J) and said, "Hey, fellas, we're not going to let this creep get away with that kind of attitude, are we? Let's show him who's boss." So we went down to the beach. King Edward's Beach, known by the locals as "King Eddie's Beach." Here, look:
Fine, fine sand. Velvety stuff, effervescent in sunlight, extraordinarily silky underfoot—the kind of stuff sandbox manufacturers would kill for. We selected our base of operations carefully: a rock outcrop at the southern end of the beach.
There we doffed all unnecessary articles of clothing and took the North Sea head-on.
...successfully, I might add. All we did was head-butt it right in the breakers and it went weeping home to Mommy.
Then (shivering slightly) we dried off, changed clothes and had a celebratory cider in the Turks Head.
The last time I was asked this question was at a friend's barbecue, I think. I was half-drunk on bottled beer, stuffed to bursting with hot dogs, and feeling pretty mellow. There was a time when the question would've irritated me. I couldn't be bothered to look that far ahead. I didn't really care where I'd be, nor did I have the patience to try to plan it all out. Now I harbor more sanguine views. I spend most of my time these days idly speculating on where I'm going to be, since I'd rather be anywhere than where I am now.
And pursuant to this frame of mind, this post: it's a faux diary entry from my own personal journals, circa 2021 or so. Ten years down the line I should have made pretty concrete strides toward my goals. I'll be 33 years old, only just starting to think about settling down and getting a family started. I ought to have my commercial pilot's license by then, have five or six novels published, and maybe even begun that comic book. And, of course, I'll be a well-established journalist and travel writer. I'll have grown a beard, have a much wider selection of safari clothing than I do now, cigars and good Scotch always on hand, and a much less impatient demeanor. Premature? Maybe. Presumptious? Of course. Preposterous? Probably. But I'm going to write it like this anyway. Why not? It'd be fun. Plus it sounded like a pretty cool idea to ghost-write my own future. So here goes:
November 4, 2021MAN, it's hot here in Botswana. Makes sense, I guess. We're within shouting distance of the Kalahari Desert. But still, it doesn't seem right. We're on the other side of the continent from the Sahara. We're about as close to Antarctica as we are to Tunisia. Seems like it ought to be cooler, even if we are on the same latitude as Rio de Janeiro and Australia's Simpson Desert.
It's eight o'clock at night and the temperature's still in the mid-80s. Not very hot to you, maybe, but I don't like it much above 70. I'm a cold freak, a cryophile. Plus it's humid out here. I'd almost rather be in the Kalahari than the Okavango Delta. The mosquitoes have been murder. Summer's just begun. The rains have been pouring down all day, and the cloud cover's been pretty thick at night. The run-off from the Angola highlands is going to cause some fine old flooding around here come July. There's a lot of standing water and swampy terrain here now, which is heaven for mosquitoes and a lot of other wildlife. I've seen giraffes, lions, rhinoceros, elephants, wildebeest and at least eight kinds of antelope since me and the crew got here last week. We had a hell of a time finding the airfield in this swamp. And that was the softest landing I've ever done—I'm not even sure we're going to be able to get the dang plane up again. Mr. Kgomotso assures me we will, and that he and his boys will dig us out and even push us off the ground if they have to.
I'm glad he's so confident. He's got to be confident, though: as the head park ranger for the Moremi Game Reserve, and he and his men fighting an all-out war with poachers (especially this this time of year), he can't afford to despair. That's why the gang and I are here. We're delivering fresh supplies of gasoline, medical supplies and ammunition from Gaborone. We just happened to be in the area on another delivery when the director of Botswana's national parks program got a hold of us and asked us to make the run. I was a bit leery; more than a few bush planes in this area have wound up with bullet holes or even spears in their wings. Those poachers don't kid around. If it was just myself I'd have leaped at the chance, but I've got a crew to look after. Martha, Jimmy and Boris were peachy-keen with the idea, though, so we borrowed one of the park department's Caravans and came down. Like I said, it was a sticky landing. The wheels just sank right into that muck. We squished to a halt in record time. It's a dang good thing I did all that extra soft field practice back in California or we might've wound up ass over teakettle in the middle of a swamp.
So far things have been pretty peaceful, except for two nights ago. The ranger squad mounted a night raid on a poacher camp about ten miles west. Seeing as I flew in the supplies that made the raid possible, Kgomotso offered us the chance to go along. Martha and Boris took a rain check (not surprising, Boris saw enough of war in Chechnya with the 3rd Vympel unit of Spetsnaz). Jimmy and I decided to go along, though. We'd asked the director of the parks program for some "special permissions" as a condition for delivering the supplies to the rangers, and the guy was so desperate to get that stuff out here that he said yes. So Jimmy had his 1873 Winchester rifle and I, of course, my trusty Beretta Centurion. Just for backup I took my Bowie knife, too. You can't be too sure. I didn't think I'd need it but I grabbed it just in case. Turned out to be a good thing.
It was a pretty textbook sting, up until the end. The rangers sneaked up on the poacher camp and hailed the poachers, telling them they were under arrest and whatnot. The poachers never said anything, they just opened up. Fortunately the rangers were used to these tactics by now, and were already behind cover. There were five poachers; four of 'em didn't even make it 30 yards. Jimmy got one of them. It was a hell of a shot, especially in the dark and with iron sights, but Jimmy's been popping squirrels and raccoons since he was a kid in Tennessee. The guy was dead before he hit the ground. The fifth poacher hopped in the Jeep and took off. He wasn't running on adrenaline; instead of heading in the other direction he whirled the Jeep around and headed right for us. He was trying to run us down. Kgomotso had warned us about this guy. Nobody knew his real name. The rangers just called him Mamba, after the black mamba, the most venemous snake in Botswana. Just like his namesake, Mamba would always turn and bite rather than run away. So even through a hail of bullets he turned that Jeep around and came at us. Two of the rangers just barely broke cover and got out of the way before he came crashing through the bushes. Then he was right in front of me. I was running on adrenaline at that point. Plus I was kind of pissed off. All I'd done so far is stand there and watch. And this Mamba bastard was getting under my skin. Who the hell did he think he was, anyway? He was a lousy poacher, that's all. Must've thought he was the effing king of the world or something. What kind of arrogant sumbitch tries to kill a park ranger when he gets caught poaching? When he's the one in the wrong? So I said "screw it." As the Jeep tore by, kicking up gouts of grass and mud, I dodged aside and then lurched back and grabbed hold. I pulled myself on board (I don't know how, it was pitch black and Mamba didn't have his headlights on and the Jeep was swerving like crazy through the mud holes) and leaped at Mamba from behind. He heard me coming. I managed to lock an elbow around his neck, but he took his right hand off the gearshift and got me a good one right on the temple. I saw stars, but I didn't let go. I groped blindly with my right arm and managed to get a hold of his right wrist. He took his left hand off the wheel and started throwing punches over his right shoulder at my face. I managed to get my head behind his head and shield myself that way. His foot was still on the gas. It's a wonder the Jeep didn't hit a tree and explode. Mamba must've known where he was going. Every so often his left hand would shoot out, grab the wheel, make a correction and then come back and start trying to pry me loose again. I don't know what I was trying to do: wrench him out of the driver's seat or strangle him or what. I just wasn't going to let him have everything his way. Things went on like this for another minute, a minute that seemed like all the world's history bound up together. Sweat poured off us. It was getting harder and harder to hold onto him with sweat sliming up my arms, hands, and elbow; but fortunately the sweat on his hands made it hard for him to get a grip on me. We grunted and growled like animals. I couldn't get any purchase; I was sprawled awkwardly in the backseat and my muddy boots kept slipping whenever I tried to raise up. Finally Mamba got sick of me. With his right hand he reached over to the floor of the passenger side and I heard a metallic shink! I sensed more than saw the machete in his hand and without even thinking, without even trying to grab for his wrist again, I reached down to my belt and grabbed my knife and jammed it right into the side of his neck. It was a good thing I was behind him and his angle was bad or I might not be here writing about it. He gasped, and I felt something warm drench my left arm, still wrapped around Mamba's neck. He made a horrible rasping sound, like a mouse being stepped on, and went limp. Then the Jeep was slowing down. It wound down to a crawl, then stopped completely.
It wasn't hard for Kgomotso, Jimmy and the rangers to find me. They just followed the gashes and scars torn in the muddy earth by the Jeep's tires. I was still clutching Mamba. I'd kept tight hold of him until help arrived; I wasn't about to take any chances, not in the damn dark. He might've been "playing possum" as Jimmy would've said. But as soon as the ranger squad showed up with their halogen flashlights, the matter was settled. Mamba was dead as a doornail. My knife had completely severed his windpipe. His blood was all over me, all over my arm and down my torso, and all over the seat and floor of the Jeep. The rangers sort of stood back a little as I let go of Mamba's carcass and jumped down. Jimmy slung his rifle over his shoulder, gave me one of his big ol' Southern grins, and said "Doncha ever get tired o' pullin' crazy shit on me, boss?"
Kgomotso just shook his head, smiling in spite of himself. "You are quite brave, my friend," he said. "Now I know why Director Anaya sent you. No other man would have the courage to jump on a moving Jeep and engage Mamba hand-to-hand, not knowing how good he is."
"What's that?" I asked. I was a little weak in the knees. The battle-fire was wearing off, and so was the shock. My whole body was vibrating, shivering. I felt jumpy, nervous, fragile, like I'd collapse into a million pieces if somebody clapped me on the shoulder.
"Why, Mamba was the most feared machete fighter in Southern Africa," Kgomotso said, looking surprised that I didn't know. "He liked to chop his enemies up into little pieces and feed them to the hyenas."
"Is that so?" I asked. The bottom had dropped out of my stomach. I felt like I was about to faint. I suddenly realized what a monumentally stupid thing I'd just done. Now I had yet another entry for my list of things never to tell Mom.
Jimmy told Martha and Boris the whole story when we got back to camp. They reacted pretty much like I figured they would. Martha rolled her eyes and said "Oh, brother." Boris threw back his bald head and laughed and laughed. I didn't care. I was tired and sore all of a sudden and just wanted to sleep. We got about five hours of rest before morning, when we had to dig the plane out of the mud and make another run to the capital for more supplies. Typical night in the Botswana bush, I guess. We should have things wrapped up here in another day or two, which is good, because Kgomotso says that Mamba had a lot of friends and that I should be prepared for reprisals. Not that I care (bring 'em on, I say) but there are other reasons why we ought to be going. Ethel sent me a text message last night. Another commission came in. Some Japanese businessman (Kenji's former employer, I guess) wants fifty cases of Glenfiddich delivered to his penthouse by Saturday night. We can just make it if we leave Friday. Might as well just go straight to Scotland, buy the booze there and fly it out to Japan. It'd save us some gas, as long as it's not bootlegging. I also got a text from Aaron. He said he just sold the rights to my sixth novel to Knopf-Doubleday. Guess how much it went for? Give up? A cool five million. That's more than any book I've ever written (so far). I guess this series is turning out to be as popular as I hoped! I don't really care about the money, I guess. I'm doing okay with the airline. It's the fans. I remember two years ago when I went to the midnight premiere for my fifth book. The line was around the block. Everybody from high school kids to little old ladies, all of 'em with shining faces and eager expressions. You could just see the joy in their eyes. Their minds were getting set to digest another round of howling adventures. Man, that was rewarding to see. Reminds me of me, waiting impatiently for the next Harry Potter book all those years ago.
Well, Boris just started singing "Slavsya, Rossiya!" and it sounds like Martha and Kgomotso are trying to sing along, so I'd better get out there before I miss the party. I brought some cigars and Scotch along; that ought to shore up Boris's vodka selection quite nicely. Maybe when we get back to the States I'll sit down and pen a little article about me and my friend Mamba. I wonder if Travel & Leisure would buy it?Nah, probably not.
Technically it's a priory, but Adam has on numerous occasions declared his intention to employ the fortified ruins on top of the cliff in Tynemouth as his last refuge against the zombie apocalypse.
The story so far: We find our heroes walking out of the Priory Café late on the morning of June 14, having neatly consumed an entire English breakfast and about 25 servings of toast, which Adam ordered up special because he thought he'd have a lot of sauce to mop up, but which we somehow managed to consume. First things first. Before we ate we'd had to go to the tiny Tynemouth branch library and pay a few pence to print our flight itineraries for Dublin. We'd be leaving the next day on a Ryanair flight.
But that's a story for another time. Now we were going to see the seaside. On the agenda were the old priory; the North Sea; the Collingwood Monument; and Fish Quay, just three of Newcastle's cultural hot spots. The priory sits perched on a crag overlooking the stormy North Sea, and has existed in some form or other since the 7th century. Various orders passed through it before Henry the Eighth literally ripped the roof off the place in the sixteenth century. Then the elements came in and did their job, and the priory fell to ruins. The crag, and the remains of the priory, were commandeered as a gun position during the Second World War, and a coast guard station currently sits there. But the ruins still stand, and are a treat for the eyes and the historically-minded. So in we went. (I wish I could remember what Jeff was pointing and laughing at here. Must've been a hoot.)
The Newcastle Priory would make a rather good zombie fortress. The drawbridge isn't there anymore, but the portcullis is two-inch-thick cast iron, and there's defensible space all around the gatehouse. There's little shelter from the elements but some creative engineering (and perhaps some really big tarps) would solve that. There's lots of open lawns inside, so growing vegetables wouldn't be a problem. The yards of walls provide plenty of room for snipers and defenders, and the gatehouse has multiple stories to rain death down upon undead attackers. There's no escape route (except the cliff and the sea), but hey, if they get through the walls, you might as well shoot yourself in the head anyway, 'cause there ain't a comparably safe place for miles.
Jeff, Andrea, Adam and I spent a happy hour wandering about, peering into the old chapel, craning our necks up to look at the ruins, staring down the sights of the enormous anti-ship guns on the cliff edge, reading the nigh-illegible missives on the headstones, and (in my case) sipping ginger beer. Adam and Jeff just had to get their pictures taken with the cannon. Well, okay, so did I. Eat this, Hitler! In the graveyard we saw memorials to ancient mariners and their families, who perished in the 1830s. In the chapel we saw stained glass windows, surely not the originals from the 1300s, but enough to give a jolly good impression of what worship must've been like when the monks roamed the premises. In the gatehouse we saw just how easy it'd be to drop a rock on the head of a charging Viking. And from the ramparts of the castle walls we took in a marvelous view of the coast, the sea, and the town of Tynemouth. To summarize, I enjoyed myself immensely. This was the first time I'd been to a (mostly un-restored) building that had stood for more than 1,000 years. I'd been to a few temples in Korea that were likely 500 or so, but most of the elder stuff ain't around anymore. This was quite humbling, to stand amid the crumbling edifice of a monastery that was six times as old as the country as I was born in. Think about that for a minute. Staggers the imagination, don't it?
NEXT UP : a dip in the North Sea. Don't miss it. The water was nine degrees Celsius. I'll tell you exactly how cold it was after this quick break.
I'd like to have a few things cleared up before I proceed any further with the account of the U.K. and Ireland. This was precipitated by my most recent blogging acquisition, Talli Roland, whose most recent post held some advice for bloggers. In her post, Talli delineates ten ways to make your blog "work." These include following bloggers who follow you, and following other bloggers so they'll follow you; returning and responding to comments; keeping your posts brief; making sure your blog's color scheme and font are easy-to-read; making sure your blog loads quickly; etc. Much as I dislike the notion of abasing myself before you, a pack of spittle-soaked mendicants, and pandering to your every whim, begging for your opinion like some kind of weak-minded sycophant... I have some questions for you. Let this stand as the Sententious Vaunter's first-ever quality and customer service survey. Your responses will help keep this blog fresh, easy-to-use, reasonably priced, better tasting and less filling. I'm going to ask you a few questions and I'd like you to answer them honestly. I appreciate it.
Does this blog take an unreasonably long time to load? Do you find yourself waiting, drumming your fingers, humming distractedly, getting up for a cup of coffee, or cursing the Postman's name as you wait for the page to appear on the screen?
Is this blog easy to read? Is the font too small? Are the colors hard on your eyes? Do you find yourself collapsing into a fit of photosensitive epilepsy just trying to read the dates and titles?
Are this blog's posts too long?Are this blog's posts too long? Do you ever feel frustrated with the massive volume of drivel which the Postman deluges you with on a biweekly basis? Do you desire a little light reading and instead feel as though you've set out to read The Iliad or Moby-Dick?
Is there anything missing from this blog, or anything unnecessary on it? Would you like to see a list of back-links? Is the arrangement of widgets on this blog satisfactory, or do they need to be reordered or shuffled about? Do we really need a translations box? How many Japanese people read this blog anyway?
Does this blog ramble too much? Do you feel as though the posts on this blog lack focus? Ever find yourself scrolling down through a lengthy post to pick up the story again? Feel like you're waiting forever for the other shoe to drop? Does the Postman digress too much in his ramblings?
Are you getting tired of seeing the phrase "this blog" in every question in this survey? I hope you are, because I'm getting damn tired of typing it.
What color underwear are you wearing? Just checking to see if you're still awake. You don't have to answer that. Unless you really want to, of course.
Please leave a comment below and clue me in on how I'm doing. Most of these questions have been pestering me for some time, and it's high time I do something about it. If I'm going to make a permanent thing out of blogging, I might as well throw a little quality control into the business. It's only fair that you folks have at least as much fun reading this blog as I have writing it. Oops, I said "this blog" again.
I was born with a curious mind. Ever since my tender years I've sought to get to the bottom of things, to divine the world's mysteries, to plumb the unexplored, venture into the unknown. I wanted to know why ants became lost and confused if you put a twig or a pebble in their path. I wanted to know how parachutes kept a fully-grown human from plummeting to the ground. I wanted to know why whale baby boo-boos never got infected if their mothers didn't have Bactine or Band-Aids. I wanted to know how many gallons of ketchup the American movie industry went through in a year. I wanted to know why my brother rode the sled down the tree-covered hill headfirst even after he'd seen me stop at the treeline with his own two eyes, for Pete's sake. I wanted to know how I could possibly have broken the window if I didn't really hit the ball that hard, Mom.
As a man, this natural curiosity bred in me a desire to travel the world and experience its hidden delights. Food, libations, dances, traditions...all the idiosyncrasies of culture lay within my sights. My epistemological quest has led me down some peculiar paths, many of which were hitherto unsuspected.
What do you think of when you think of pudding?
If you're like me, your mind—upon hearing the word "pudding"—immediately conjures up the sight, smell and taste of a viscous, creamy, yellowish liquid shot through with tiny translucent orange spheres, which your mother told you were fish eggs just to screw with your head. Tapioca pudding, in other words. (Jeez, it's obvious how many obscure culinary references you read in a year.)
It's a safe bet that not many of you (you North Americans who are reading this, anyway)—upon hearing the word "pudding"—immediately think of fried pig's blood and oatmeal. Or a harmonious blend of fat and batter, baked to perfection and slathered in gravy. Black pudding and Yorkshire pudding, in other words. Here, try it:
PUDDING!
Now answer honestly: when I yelled the word "pudding"...did you think of this? Of course you didn't.
So there I was, the American and woefully pudding-ignorant saphead, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on the morning of my second full day in England. (It was Sunday, June 13, I believe; I'd arrived on the eleventh, and spent the day wandering around Newcastle and watching the World Cup on the twelfth...if I failed to illustrate that properly, I apologize.)
We had a nice long sleep-in, for starters. There'd been quite a bit of beer and cider consumed the previous evening, what with the World Cup and the Pink Triangle and whatnot. But we rolled out of bed eventually, ate some breakfast, shook the fuzz out of our skulls and got ready to go. Adam decided to take us into South Gosforth for hair of the dog, and to meet Elaine when she got off work. Gosforth is a suburb that lies on the other side of Newcastle from Tynemouth, further inland. Rather than take a taxi, we opted to invite along another of Adam's friends to the pub with us...one who owned a car. Jay pulled up at one o'clock and bent his lanky frame out of his blue Renault to shake hands with Jeff and me. He was a tall, hoodie-clad, convivial sort of chap with a shock of curly dirty-blonde hair. His accent was somewhat strange, even for a Geordie. I later discovered that, though he'd been born in Newcastle, he'd attended university in London and had traveled extensively in Australia and the United States, so his accent had undergone some mutations. Jay's accent didn't concern me right at the moment, though. The problem was trying to fit into his damn car. That Renault was miniscule, and annoyingly ovoid to boot, like an Easter egg on wheels. Even though it was unanimously voted that I should ride shotgun, it was tough for me to fold my 73 inches into the seat. I managed it by cramming my knees under the dashboard and leaning forward slightly so as not to scrape my head on the ceiling.
Now, you know what I'm going to say next, don't you? That I was sitting on the wrong side of the car? That the steering wheel was over with Jay in the passenger seat, and for some reason the left seat had no pedals, no controls, nothing whatsoever? And that Jay drove the whole 20 minutes to South Gosforth on the wrong side of the road? It was an odd sensation, jammed into the passenger seat of a French car, whizzing down the left side of the narrow English roads, whirling through roundabouts and passing buses and lorries on the right. In fact, it was downright wacky. The conversation was mint, however. Jay proved to be as convivial as he looked, and the five of us—Adam, Jeff, Jay, Andrea and I—passed the time in engaging, informative and witty conversation. Whatever sympathy I'd felt for Jay (having to stuff himself into that tiny Renault on a daily basis) evaporated as soon as we reached the pub. Apparently it's legal to park on the sidewalk in England. Curse them.
The Brandling Villa was the name of the pub, and it was quite spacious compared to the pubs we'd been in so far. There was still a comforting abundance of brass and wood, however. Now, here's the cool thing about the Brandling Villa, and a great many other pubs that I visited in the U.K. and Ireland. They serve food. Forget the hot wings you've had with your expensive piece-of-crap lager down at the sports bar. Forsake the greasy onion rings, the pallid chicken fingers, the lackluster jalapeño poppers. I mean real food. We noticed that the topside of beef looked particularly good, sitting pertly on the menu like that, so we ordered up a round. Within minutes this steaming pile of goodness was delivered to our table to accompany our pints of Mordue. (Incidentally, the Mordue Brewery, located in Wallsend in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, has been churning out quality brews for decades. Don't let Newcastle Brown Ale be your only alcoholic insight into the Toon...Mordue is where it's at. All their beers have provocative and tongue-in-cheek names like "Radgie Gadgie," "Summer Tyne," "Five Bridges," and "Howay in a Manger." To clarify, "radgie" is the Geordie term for gangbangers or punks; the River Tyne is the river upon which Newcastle sits; the five bridges which cross the Tyne are well-known local landmarks; and "howay" is a popular Geordie exclamation, roughly having the same meaning as "Come on.")
This was the famous English Sunday roast: roast beef, green beans, mashed sweet potatoes and chopped potatoes, all swimming in brown gravy. The doughnut-esque thing on top is Yorkshire pudding, made from batter and baked to perfection. And oh, it was divine. I don't know how I ever finished off that heap. We'd already been treated to sausage sandwiches at Adam's mum's house for breakfast. Jeff is a bottomless pit, so he was excused, but Andrea and I were still bewildered. This was a proper English Sunday roast, right here. We were taken aback by its authenticity and sheer volume. Nonetheless we plugged away diligently, enjoying the living daylights out of every bite, and cleaned our plates with gusto.
Elaine showed up at seven, flush from the satisfaction of working with poor disabled folks, and had herself a Foster's. Jay, Jeff, Adam, Andrea and I were deep in the midst of a Monopoly game. We'd attempted Scrabble, but the game rapidly deteriorated over slang terms and abbreviations. I was a stickler; I said we should stick strictly to the English language. (That was a bold statement, considering where I was.) So we turned to Monopoly instead. It was a rousing game. I somehow wangled my way into red and yellow monopolies, buying up Kentucky Avenue and Marvin Gardens, grinning at Jeff and Adam's consternation as Germany whipped Australia on the television. We waddled out of that place.
And as if that were not good enough, we had an English breakfast the next morning. With a cool sea breeze massaging our cheeks we sauntered down the byways and side streets to the seaside in Tynemouth. We went into the tiny Priory Café and got ourselves a piece of this: Look at that, will you. Gaze upon its wonders. Devour it with your eyes. Clockwise from top left: bacon (yes, proper English bacon...streaks of fat not included), black pudding, sausage, baked beans, toast, and eggs. Let's settle the bet right now: black pudding is indeed fried pig's blood (occasionally cow's, or even horse's), bound together with oatmeal until it's congealed enough to stand on its own. It's usually shaped into patties or sausages and served with breakfast. As you might expect, it tastes rather metallic, but not in a bad way. It has a sort of toasty flavor perfectly complemented by bacon grease and baked beans. All of the ingredients of the English breakfast, when sliced up, mixed together and either spooned into one's mouth or mopped up with a bit of toast, combine to form a synergistic taste sensation which nearly overwhelms the male cerebral cortex. It's a dream: beans and sausage and bacon and meat and eggs and fried effin' pig's blood all together in one place, on one plate, in massive proportions. It really makes you want to slap on some armor, pick up a sword and go beat hell out of some Vikings, let me tell you.
Fortunately for you, dear reader, what we did afterward was even crazier. Tomorrow sometime I shall tell you about it.
And now for some recent news: First of all, we've hired some new pilots, as I may have mentioned. One of them is JM2, a former officer in the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. He was head of the underwater forensics division, the special diving and underwater retrieval team. He's done more dangerous dives to recover weirder objects (including corpses) than I've had hot dinners. He's got every diving qualification you can think of. He owns a lovely house on the lake (go figure), has a gorgeous daughter (whom I went to school with, actually), and is a calm, collected and friendly personage. He gave me a personal recommendation to the bar at the Spring Valley Lake Country Club (he knows the owner). The other pilot is JM1, a congenial and very experienced flight instructor. He's flown everything from Piper Cubs to Cessna Citations. He worked for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for quite a long time, and got shot four times in the process. He's a real nice guy, and a blast to work with. He's generously offered to give me flight lessons at no charge; all I'd have to cover would be the cost of renting an airplane. At this rate I should be done with my license in no time! And I'll be cured of all the bad habits, lack of confidence, and poor piloting skills I've picked up! JM1's had some revolutionary ideas about how to run this UAV-chase program we're doing, and under his direction we've split the workload in the cockpit more evenly. I'm now doing all the radio calls. All of them, even the most mundane traffic announcements ("Apple Valley Traffic, Mooney Two-One-Four-Sierra-Hotel is clear of the runway, taxiing to midfield"). This is a little nerve-wracking, but nothing I haven't done before; I got used to doing the radio calls when I flew with the other guys. I just didn't do it on a regular basis like this. It's exciting. I know what to say, I just get a bit excited and mess up sometimes. But I'm getting better...plus I finally feel like I'm contributing something to the company rather than an extra set of eyes (attached to a fifteen-stone body).
Second, I've completed one the four short stories I was working on and am trying to edit for publication. It's thirteen thousand words, which puts it out of short-story territory and into novelette status. Fortunately, there's magazines out there that still do publish novelettes, and even novellas. The likeliest market I've looked at so far is Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. They requested, on their site, that writers order a sample copy and peruse it before submitting any work. I complied, and got my copy in the mail today. It looks incredible. There's some high-caliber work in there, no doubt; I'm going to have to polish my story until it's dang near perfect. But I'll do it. I'd like to join the noble ranks of my fellow sci-fi writers, and not even the super-dreadnoughts of Lord Xizor's star-fleet will stop me.
How is it possible that the world throws an amazing party every four years and I, so far, have been missing out?
And not just a party, either. It's a sports party. A soccer party. (Okay, fine, I'll even be multicultural and call it "football" if you want.)
It's the World Cup!
Football's my game. I played soccer for five years before high school, and was a referee two more years after that. (Which means that, yes, at one point in my life, I understood the offside rule. Bow in the presence of greatness, peasant.)
But I never dug watching it so much as playing it. Playing it was a blast, once I got myself into shape. I even scored a goal once. I was playing right forward on a glorious California afternoon, charging down the field, defenders left in the dust, goalie looking pale and scared and totally not up to our level of awesomeness—and the center passed, and BAM, I booted it right in. I reacted modestly, as I recall; now I'd like to erect a temple to myself.
Football was hard work, to be sure. Playing in Tennessee was humid, and often rainy. Playing in the desert was hot and dry. I worked with some prima donnas that would've put Beckham to shame, both coaches and players. And thanks to the precise orientation of some of the blood vessels in my right nostril, I got nosebleeds all the freakin' time. Every game I played, somebody would give that ball a kick three feet in front of me and it'd come soaring up in slow motion and conk me right on the snout, followed by a copious flood of vermillion.
Watching football was just...bleh. A bunch of tiny little men running around a big green field with white stripes, booting a ball back and forth. Whoop-de-doo.
Then I went to England. I was already aware that the World Cup was up and going. Heck, that was my purported reason for going to England in the first place, to watch the World Cup in the pub with my English friends. That was how I pitched it to my editor, anyway. I said, "Hey, I'm going to be rambling around Scotland, Ireland and northern England for two weeks in June, watching the World Cup in the pubs surrounded by a pack of ravening England fans [or, in Ireland's case, a pack of ravening Brazil supporters]. I'll be your war correspondent behind enemy lines, sir. I shall infiltrate the enemy's ranks and observe their football-related operations in intimate detail, if you please. How'd you like some dispatches from the front?"
At the time, I was speaking facetiously. Little did I realize how prophetic my levity would prove to be.
I rode the bus with Andrea up to Stansted Airport. It was a beautiful ride through picturesque English countryside, all fields, hedgerows, and woods that Robin Hood wouldn't have felt like a complete idiot hiding out in. Andrea, who (bless her heart) had treated me to a beer before we got on, got all caught with me during the ride, and I her. She'd been teaching university students in West London, but it was driving her mad: Western children aren't quite as industrious as our old Korean gang had been. I advised her to get out of the teaching business and go live by the seaside somewhere and write, all the while grinning inside. Somehow I always thought English kids were too smart to ask their professors to bump grades...
We made Stansted, checked in, and went through security. That was the only place where I was searched: dinky little Stansted Airport, about to board a domestic flight to Newcastle. I'd traveled thousands of miles over oceans and mountains and foreign lands, through international airports like McCarran and George W. Bush and Heathrow, and Stansted is where the curly-haired safety official pulled my bag off the scanner and rifled through it, chatting at me all the while with her nigh-incoherent English accent. Weird.
Anyway, we had a lovely 45-minute flight to Newcastle. I say "lovely," not because the flight itself was lovely, but because the views were lovely. I was sitting next to a lovely, slim, doe-eyed brunette, for one thing. Her name was Nicola and she was coming up from London to visit her Geordie boyfriend in Newcastle. So of course I said "Hey, Nicola baby, why settle for that bucolic bumpkin? Tag along with me and I'll show you what an old-fashioned home-grown grade-A American man is. I'll pierce the secret depths of your sorceress soul with my Longbow of Love, darling angel-pie."
Well, I didn't say that, exactly, but some version of it was running through my head as I chatted her up. She was quite friendly and open, and pointed out some of the sights as we came down for a landing—making a dramatic sweep out over the North Sea and then lancing back over the jagged coast. The orange sun was just kissing the horizon, lighting the rolling green lands beneath with a slanting, golden divinity. The waves crashed against the sands and rocks as we thundered over.
It was an auspicious start. This was "the Toon," and man, it looked beautiful. Andrea and I disembarked and met Adam and Elaine, our friends and local guides, in the terminal. We stepped out into the still-setting sun (I was about to learn how long-lasting and late the sunsets are in Newcastle in summer) and hailed a taxi. It was sure something seeing A & E again. It had been almost exactly a year since we parted in South Korea. Being near them, hearing that lovable Geordie accent tumbling around in my ears, observing the two of them again in their natural environment...it was almost unreal. I was overjoyed to be reunited with them and thrilled that I'd now get to play around on their home turf. Within the span of two minutes it was just like old times: we were laughing, talking, joking, jibing, doing all the myriad things we used to do together on those narrow streets and tiny restaurants in K-Land.
But this wasn't K-Land. I could tell that immediately. England flags were everywhere. St. George's Cross flew proudly from every upper-story window, every shopfront, even from the antennas of cars. This was football territory, and it was World Cup time. It came home to me then. I would be spending the next two weeks in a land utterly obsessed with football, during the most well-known international football competition in the world, in which both my country and England were competing. And, abruptly, I was transformed.
Think of the most fanatical, die-hard, sycophantic sports fan you know. He doesn't necessarily have to slather himself in his team's colors and leap up and down in the stands like a trained ape; he may not even own any memorabilia. But his soul, his essence, his life-force seems inextricably linked to the performance of his team. He'll scream and yell and holler when points are scored; rant and roar when an unfair call is (rightfully or wrongfully) perceived; become insufferably exuberant for hours after winning a game (or days, in the case of playoffs or championships); and likewise sulk for a full-length mourning period on the heels of a loss. Take that man, soak him in three pints of beer and dust him with a packet of pork rinds, and you have an English football fan. These guys are nucking futs. I was infected with this excitement, this ardor, this enthusiasm, this pandemic zeal within minutes of getting off the airplane in Newcastle. Suddenly I was pumped. I was raring to go. I was ready for some football. I wanted my team to win, more desperately than I wanted my own seaplane or a bootlegged copy of The Star Wars Holiday Special. Some hitherto inactive and unsuspected gland had been activated, galvanized by the competitive pheromones in the English air, and was feverishly flooding my body with footballmoxytocin and ballsinourcortisol, twenty-four years' worth of backlogged fan-pheromones. The chrysalis of apathy had come off, as had the gloves. I had been transfigured from a lackadaisical observer to a dyed-in-the-wool football nut in less time than it took László Kiss to score a hat-trick against El Salvador in 1982.
This was going to be sweet.
The first night was thankfully uneventful. I was exhausted by my travels, and by my long night of debauchery in Las Vegas some twenty-four hours before. Except for a few cat-naps here and there, I'd been awake for close to forty-eight hours. I was ferried to Adam's mum's house in a taxi, where I was fed, watered, and cleansed. Elaine's friend M came over and the four of us stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, sitting in Adam's mum's tiny conservatory, listening to AC/DC and Curtis Mayfield and just getting caught up.
I was floored. I was in England. I was sitting in the conservatory of an English house, looking out on the prim and proper English garden, surrounded by an English red-brick neighborhood, under a sky that refused to go completely dark in these northern latitudes. My soul boiled with excitement. My head swam with anticipation, happiness, and travel-induced delirium. I was out on the road again, back amongst friends, in for a hell of a time, and loving every second of it.
We'd originally resolved to stay up all night waiting for Jeff, but we figured since we'd be shouting and screaming and hollering and jumping up and down and drinking copious amounts of beer and watching the World Cup match the next day, we should probably get some rest. I was put to bed on a marvelously soft queen-size in an upstairs room. The view from the window looked like this (in the morning):
Adam warned me that I would likely be awakened in the middle of the night by Jeff, our Canadian friend, who was was also coming to the Korean reunion (from Korea, actually) and who was taking the night bus up from London. He and I would be splitting a bunk. If he did wake me up, I don't remember it. I was out like a light.
Well enough for me that I got my rest, for the next day was a momentous one: England's first game of the World Cup...versus none other than the USA. Time to explore the Toon first. We commenced with the Quayside, where the bridges which Newcastle is famous for spanned the mighty River Tyne.
We took a nice little stroll down by the waterfront, crossing the Millennium Bridge over to Gateshead, taking the elevator up and admiring the view.
We also stopped in at Greggs for a snack. Greggs is something like the Geordie McDonald's: only instead of burgers and stuff, it's pasties and pies. The steak bake was delicious. Check this mother out:
Then we stopped in at our first pub (yippee!). Bob Trollops, just off the Quay.
Lovely little place. I'd been dying to try some English cider. I'd had some Old Rosie at Adam's the night before, and liked it a lot. Had something of a sulfuric overtone to it, but was very equable otherwise. I saw no reason to quit there, however, so I procured some Strongbow. Named after the Norman who made the first official British expedition to Ireland back in medieval times, Strongbow is your basic English cider: apple-tasting, fizzy, and roughly as alcoholic as beer. It makes a nice change from beer, though, and gets the same job done.
And there I was, sitting in a tiny, dark, woody, brass-laden English pub with a couple of mates and some cider.
You know that feeling you get when you realize one of your lifelong dreams? Yeah, I was getting that feeling about then.
We exited Trollops and headed up the rather steep Dean Street....
...which became Grey Street, if I remember correctly...
...which led us to Grey's Monument, smack dab in the middle of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne city center. It was built to honor Charles Grey, one of the architects who designed most of modern Newcastle.
That's Charles, Earl Grey to you. Yes, the guy the tea is named after. Cool, huh? You didn't think Newcastle was all meat pies and bridges and Brian Johnson, did you?
The place was hopping at mid-Saturday. There are about three different shopping centers clustered around Monument Square; Newcastle University ain't far away, either, and there are enough pizza joints, pubs, and book stores to choke a horse.
We wandered up Northumberland Street, checking out Fenwick's Food Halls. They sell boatloads of candy, booze and deli-style pies, pasties, sandwiches, and Indian food. I was full up on Greggs and drooling anyway. Angelic Elaine let me try some of her chicken tikka masala sandwich.
We kept on, and hung a right at St. Mary's Place (at Newcastle University, where Princess Eugenie Victoria Helena Mountbatten-Windsor of York—insert loving sigh here—is doing the equivalent of her master's degree).
A few hundred yards brought us to Luckies Corner Bar. Like every other pub I was to visit in the U.K. and Ireland, they had a big projector set up inside, already spreading some World Cup pregame love over the spacious interior.
We met up with some more of A & E's friends at Luckies: Nathan, Aaron, and Michael, all solid lads. Bets were going around, being hotly debated and finally placed with the aid of Michael's iPhone. I hadn't realized what a roaring betting culture England has going, especially where football matches are concerned. There were betting houses on every street corner. The Brits'll put 50 pence down on anything: who'll win, how much they'll win by, the final score, the fastest goal, the highest-scoring player...even how many corner kicks there'll be.
Me being the only Yank surrounded by a cadre of English people, the badinage began to fly. They were "taking the piss" out of me, as they say up there. Several rather disparaging remarks were made about the United States' chances against England, which got my red-blooded American dander up. So I hauled out a "chunk" (one British pound coin; thick little buggers, they are) and put it down on the US to beat England 2-1.
There remained but to sit, drink, and wait.
The game came on. The action began. I sat there, watching my friends both old and new unanimously yell at the projector screen, feeling a curious sort of nervousness. It wasn't concern for my chunk, oh no. It was the football-mania again. I folded my arms so no one would see my hands shaking. I kept up a bold front, giving as much lip as I got. Inside, I was pulled tighter than a guitar string. My homeland's manly pride—not to mention $1.40—was on the line.
England scored in three minutes. My forehead hit the table as the pub erupted. A cacophony of hoarse screams and yells resounded through the enclosed space, bedlam on the ears, needles in the pincushion of prestige. Suddenly all the world was gray and lightless, void of cheer, or even the promise of it. This, I thought, was what it must be like to be a football fan.
I recovered with difficulty. I sat up, withstood the laughing jibes of my so-called friends, took a commiserating sip of beer, and took my life in my hands by chalking the English goal up to luck. The next thirty-six minutes inched by, spurred on by my gritted teeth and clenched fists. My eyes were locked onto the projector screen in a death-grip. I didn't even know that my eyes could grip anything before then. If an earthquake had struck the pub at that moment, the projector screen would've held rock steady, so intently were my eyeballs gripping it. The fingers of my very soul were crossed.
And it happened. Just as I was up at the bar ordering another pitcher of Fosters, the ball slid between Robert Green's fingers and rolled into the net.
My brain immediately clamped down on the rest of my body to prevent it from leaping into the air. My eyebrows seesawed. My arms jumped and wavered about, threatening to shoot skyward, like rockets on tethers. Half-strangled cheers and yells of approbation clawed their way up my neck and died, suffocating behind mumbling lips. I settled for giving the barman a friendly wink as I handed him £7.50.
We'd equalized. The US was tied, 1-1. My prediction might still come true. We might win.
The rest of the game was no less tense. All of us leaned forward in our chairs (or back, depending on which way we were sitting). Hearts pounded. Eyes dared to blink. Tongues danced over dry lips. Fingers drummed on tables and knees. Disgusted shouts rang out now and then. The noise in the pub fell to a whisper, rising to crescendo when England got a run on the American goal. But no further goals were scored. And suddenly it was over. A 1-1 draw. My pound was lost, but my national dignity and my life were intact. We celebrated that night with beer, dancing, and a trip to the Pink Triangle, the gay area of Newcastle, whence the gay bars and Goths traditionally were located. Adam danced with an enormous, smiling fat guy as we all got drunk and laughed. We went out for Greek food after and ate in the shadow of the solemn stone keep wall that surrounded the city in medieval times. We somehow made our way back home in the wee hours of the morning, beer-soaked, exhausted, sweaty, stuffed to the gills, and happy as we'd been in a long, long time.
Can't hardly believe I've been back from England over a month now, nor that I've been home from Korea for over a year. I returned just about this time last July, remember...fresh off a sightseeing sojourn in the Jeju and Jeollanam Provinces. Man, I was riding high. I thought things were finally starting to work out. I figured I'd rest up at home, grin over the respectable wad of money I'd socked away, and then jet off for Alaska in a month or so. 
So, in short, work's going well, even if I'm not doing it enough; the weather has been blasphemously hot, but I'm coping somehow (drinking a lot of water and going swimming with bikini-clad girls helps; I'm doing both regularly). Flying is on hold until I get some more money; traveling is on hold until I get some more money; and the novel's on hold until I hear back from my readers (and get some more money for copyright applications). Noticing a pattern here? I'm a pauper. This is déjà vu all over again. I'm living exactly like I was a few months back, after I'd purchased my insanely expensive tickets to England, trying desperately to save up enough for the trip itself. I thought I was done with that rot. But no, car repairs and insurance payments blindsided me. So here I am again, scrimping, saving, hardly socializing, putting off all the lovely Led Zeppelin albums and graphic novels I'd like to buy, forgoing the enticing bottles of booze on the shelves (except when the folks take pity on me and buy me some; they brought back some Mount Gay from BevMo the other day, sah-WEET!). It's a hard, hard life, let me tell you. But I could be breaking rocks in the Sahara. That'd be worse. At least I have an air-conditioned home and a soft bed to come back to every night. 
