Pride and Profanity

"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational; I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot." ~ Billie Joe Armstrong * If you're easily offended, turn back now. I'm giving you this warning not because I care about your feelings, but because I don't want to deal with your pissing and moaning regarding your wounded sensibilities. I'm giving you this warning because I say what I want to and find the whining of those who feel it is their duty to police others' language to be petty and irritating. That being said, if you're going to lose your shit over a few F-Bombs, close your browser now, or forever shut the hell up about it. I've had it brought to my attention in the fairly recent past that I use a lot of profanity in my writing. While this has come from a few different places and didn't really surprise me much, it was pointless to tell me about it. I'm well aware of the fact that this blog...
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There & Back Again, Part 5 – The Last Stage

There & Back Again, Part 5 – The Last Stage

"No vacation goes unpunished." ~Karl Hakkarainen"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." ~Lin Yutang"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land." ~G.K. Chesterton * * *When the guy across the aisle from us began discussing stabbings & which mixture of drugs enabled him to best endure such an incident, I knew that I had had enough of fucking Greyhound.We arrived at the Greyhound station in Denver after our brief stop in Amarillo.  We had 2 hours to stand in a line in front of the door where the bus would arrive.  Sucking down our mediocre & over-priced nachos, Olivier & I observed that while the bus station in Denver was larger & cleaner than what we'd grown accustomed to, being forced to watch Fox News on...
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There & Back Again, Part 4 – Bathrooms, Burritos & Beheadings

There & Back Again, Part 4 – Bathrooms, Burritos & Beheadings

So, there we were, a frozen December night in Tulsa, with our faces pressed against the cold, dirty glass, staring at our empty bus.  The Greyhound station was small.  The movies had gotten worse - instead of Billy Bob Thornton, we were now trying to avoid looking at the screen as an estrogen-soaked Lifetime movie cackled in the background.Olivier & I went outside while I shivered & cursed.  The Greyhound employee inside had informed us that we would be stranded until 3:30am, when the next bus for Amarillo, TX was due to arrive.  If we could get a seat on that bus.  We tried to come up with some sort of plan to get ourselves out of Tulsa.  What we came up with was... jack shit.We went back inside & ran into the kid with the Hari Krishna hair.  "I saw a bar down the street," he said.  "I really like beer.  I make my own brews at home."Olivier &...
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There & Back Again, Part 3 – Screw Me in St. Louis

There & Back Again, Part 3 – Screw Me in St. Louis

When Olivier & I arrived at the Greyhound station in Erie, PA, we were giddy.  It was 3pm on Saturday, the day after Christmas.  We'd had a big pile of Arby's earlier that day, so I had gotten my fix after craving their delicious, cheddary slop for the past 2 years.  We were leaving behind the stress of a Festivus gone bad & were looking forward to a week at home in Colorado.We had our bus tickets, 200 lbs. of luggage & a box of chocolate donuts.  We were ready to voyage across the country for the next day & a half.  We would have to change buses several times, but still... it was only a day & a half.A day & a half.  No sweat.The first thing that we figured out was that there was no dicking around when it was time to board the bus.  If you're traveling with someone, it's next to impossible to find 2 seats...
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There & Back Again, Part 2 – Prickly Lodgings

There & Back Again, Part 2 – Prickly Lodgings

"Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit."  -Kin Hubbard"Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper." -Friedrich Nietzsche . I truly believe that tragedy can bring out the best in people... & that the holidays can bring out the worst.  Humans are fucked up like that.  In spite of everyone's best intentions, sometimes holiday gatherings get tense or chaotic.  No matter how hard you try, you may still end up feeling as though you've stepped out of reality & into one of those ridiculous Christmas movies where everything goes wrong.We arrived at our destination in rural PA a day late.  We got to see a few relatives - some that I had not seen in several years & that Olivier had never met.  We had a great time - in spite of my occasional fits of choking on mucous & bleeding from the...
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There & Back Again, Part 1 – Paris to Pennsylvania

There & Back Again, Part 1 – Paris to Pennsylvania

It's all quite blurry now, but what I remember of it all is full of various landscapes, faces and suitcases. There was eating, drinking, merriment and... mucous. Fucking holiday travel. It's always a lot of planning and stress, but we had a plan. A simple plan. There was no way it could fail. We had a direct flight from Paris to Pittsburgh, PA. We would rent a car, then drive 3 hours to a tiny, rural town just outside the middle-of-freaking-nowhere. After 1 week, we would board a Greyhound bus to Colorado.  Another week there and we would fly from Denver back to Paris. There were various parties, reunions and get-togethers planned in several different locations with dozens of people. Okay, so it wasn't really such a simple plan. Maybe we'd hit a snag here or there; 1 or 2 little things could go wrong. Or... everything could go wrong. Olivier and I woke up at 4:30am on December 20th. I stared at the wall with...
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