"Too Legit to Quit" has been beaming through my head from the moment I got up yesterday. This has been a spontaneous decision on the part of the weird gray thing in my skull, seemingly uninfluenced by any input. I don't even like this song. Does anybody else hear it, or is MC Hammer my personal prophet?
Perhaps I need medicine for this.
Perhaps I have jungle fever.
Can you get that from a forest?
Oh yes....the forest.
The story about how I find myself miles deep in the lonely sticks of Canada shall be now told:
(Some history: I'm a Canadian whose been living in S.Korea for the last 6 years but traveling home with a few stops---namely Turkey's Istanbul when this story begins).
To travel is a hardy kind of fun.
But growing tired of totting around my deflating bank account and constantly vomiting anus, the word "home" began summoning increasingly pleasant emotions. At the same time, my travel buddy, BM, seemed increasingly nostalgic about America. When cheap American-bound flights were advertised in the window of a travel agent's window, the cards appeared to be stacked in favor of return.We'd both been gone so long that the return would be a trip any way.
BM talked me into going to Chicago on my way back. Deep-dish pizzas, live music, a baseball game, a place to stay, a museum of dinosaur bones, an aquarium with sharks. He made Chicago appeal to the nerd in me. I was sold.
The last thing of real beauty I saw in Istanbul was a nurse. With her killer accent she said, "Please use this to defecate into", handing me a plastic see-through bottle. The doctor would later tell me with a weird robotic enthusiasm that my colon didn't seem to be bleeding. I was glad to leave on such a positive note.
***I've read that a good blog tends to omit bowel problems. If I am offending my readers just know that I'm more delighted to have readers than diligent not to offend them, sort of like a puppy whose excitement to have visitors unduly relaxes his bladder. Strange are the ways we express fondness for one another.***
On the plane to Chicago the next day, I had one of those rare moments with a perfect stranger. It went sort of like this:
Bump bump bump and also, rattle rattle. Turbulence frightens me and there was enough of it that I was actually getting weary (bored, even) of being afraid for my life. 'Oh, *yawn* I'm having those damned heart palpitations again because the plane is rattling its tail off *yawn*'. During one bout, a young woman simply said, "I am SO AFRAID". And my first thought was, "God, repress that crap". But then my perception abruptly changed (because brains are weird things). Suddenly, we were some kind of talking monkey (biological truth) sitting in chairs above the clouds (physical truth) fearing our own mortality in a reality we were born into without choice (existential truth). And I admired her simple, honest statement in the face of such complexity.
We landed safely at Chicago's horrible airport. This is where BM and I parted ways. I decided to forgo fun in Chicago to simply go home and allow my body and rectum some recovery. After a hand shake and well-wishes with him I bordered a train to Cleveland where my sister lives.
The train represented yet another night spent in transit.
The circumstances of last week's sleep were like this: 2 nights on a floor, 1 in a bed, 2 in a bus, 1 in a plane, 1 in a train.
Next day: Mike & Ike's (chewable, fruit-flavored candies) isn't a totally unsatisfying breakfast, if you have enough quarters for the dispenser. They also coat your teeth and hence, are a passable substitute for brushing.
Bug-eyed, sleep-deprived, foul-boweled, and ungroomed, I chewed (and chewed) and tried to come to grips with the reverse culture-shock I was being slammed with. All the open space, high prices, English and cellulite was blowing my mind.
Later, my sister picked me up and took me to her house. There, my parent's, her, and my brother-in-law and I tried to have a pleasant reunion but their dogs licked me into hives and scratching. Plus I had a "distinct odor". Shower gels and detergent "fixed" it.
Despite being a vegan, she cooked me one of the best meat lasagnas I've ever had. I'd forgotten how much my family rocks.
Cleveland's clouds were pleasantly strange during my stay there
and then I arrived...to a bed in a house situated on a quiet lake, with 2 loving parents, out in the sticks of Canada.
I have to figure out my next move. And it's scary. I'm 33 and my skill set seems most marketable in Korea, followed by just about anywhere else but here. But here is where I want to stay.
Can a year or two of schooling fix this problem?
It probably can...If I'm too legit to quit.
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