Subtitle: Sucker

(And...ACTION!)

I am at a hookah bar in Westwood, Los Angeles. UCLA's campus is a block away. College students are out and having fun. The hookah bar is a posh place. I am happy. I am with my fellow CTY RAs. I like most of them. I like them even more right now because our stomachs are satisfyingly full with Diddy Reese -- a customizable ice-cream sandwich shop. I had chocolate chip cookies and mint-chocolate chip ice-cream. CTY 2009 is almost over. In two weeks, I will be back home, a thought that fills me with anticipatory glee.

Then the bill arrives.

It is for over $130. It sits there on the table for a minute. Conversations stall. Everyone looks at it, turns away, looks at it again. They begin to shuffle for purses and wallets.

(Roll Dialogue)

"Uh, I only have a $20," someone says. "I don't think I owe that much."

"I only have a debit card."

"Can we ask them to split the bill?"

"No, it says that you can't split the bill for parties of 8 or more."

"Well, how many do we have? I only count 7."

"Yeah, but three of us went to In-N-Out, remember?"

"Are they still there?"

"I guess so."

"Does anyone have their number?"

And so on.

(Fade-out)

There doesn't seem to be much going on in this scene. We've all experienced something like it dozens of times. We all know the next part.

(Roll dramatic slow-motion scene)

The head turns towards you. Flighty panic lights across the eyes, but nothing too serious. This person doesn't have money. Or has 20s and when they really need 1s and 5s. Or only has a debit card.

You know what's going through this head's mind. This head is thinking (In English subtitles): Hmmm...I have to pay somehow, but I don't have money...hmmm...let's see...

(Meanwhile)

The "leader" (subtitle: sucker) who took the bill and is in charge of getting money from everyone is asking, "Who hasn't paid?" He's getting worried. If no one fesses up, his wallet is on the frontline.

And the head is thinking: That's me, I haven't paid. Well, there is an easy way out of this predicament, a simple solution to getting off the hook....

The head's eyes touch yours. You know The Question before the head asks it...

(Fade-Out)

The person who asks me The Question is not a friend. I don't trust her, but I don't distrust her either. I used to feel neutral towards her, but now she's put me on The Spot. The Spot is not new. Shakespeare warned us about The Spot. The Spot churns like a thunderhead over the current economy. Only so few recognize the problems The Spot causes.

(Fade-In)

"What?" I say.

"Just $5," she says. "I just want to borrow $5."

And then the phrase that seems to put the matter to rest, to squash The Question, and clean The Spot out of this sullied conversation:

"I'll pay you back tomorrow."

It is 2 a.m. I wonder what tomorrow she means: the literal next cycle of morning to midnight one or the next time the sun rises. Of course, she means neither tomorrow. "Tomorrow" is some vague brushstroke towards the future.

The Spot is powerful. I feel it. I am uncomfortable. I was enjoying the warm cloud of hookah smoke and the college vibe. No longer.

"OK," I say. I reach for my wallet.

(Roll exposition)

Most people are shockingly incompetent in their ability to handle money.

They are particularly bad in borrowing and paying back. How many times have you lent money and never gotten it back? Maybe not so many. But how many times have you lent money to someone who has agreed to pay you back "tomorrow." When "tomorrow" rolls around, he/she still hasn't paid you back. Another "tomorrow" comes. Soon it's a new month and you still don't have your five bucks.

You finally approach this person. You're mad. But you also feel silly. It's been two weeks since you lent the money. And it's only five bucks. Who really cares? That's not going to make or break the bank. So as you approach the person, formulating: "Hey, remember when I lent you that five dollars and you said you'd pay me back..." You feel materialistic. You feel selfish. All for asking for what is yours.

(Fade Out to backstory)

As I sat in the hookah bar and handed this trust-don't-trust-friend-not-friend girl five bucks, I remembered that I'd been burned exactly two times already. One time, I was the "leader" (subtitle: sucker) and made the phone call for some Chinese food. Everyone who ordered had money, but two only had 20s. Common problem. Really, this is as good as not having money at all. Except they do have money, so they think they're entitled to borrow.

Anyway, the delivery guy didn't have change. So I covered the difference with my own cash and told the two people how much they owed me. I put in a clause: "It's your responsibility to pay me." And so that didn't sound too harsh: "I forget really easily, so just come to me tomorrow and pay. Remember, it's your responsibility."

The next day, one did, one didn't.

Fifty-freaking-percent.

Why are we so bad about remembering and paying our debts?

(Cut to Rant)

For one, most of the debts between friends and acquaintances are small. A buck here. Five bucks for some McD's there. A quarter for some laundry. In these cases, though we say "borrow," we actually mean "give." "I'll pay you back" is only a formality.

A second explanation is we're forgetful. The human mind can only store about seven (plus or minus two) items in short term memory. And who really wants to remember a debt anyway? Especially when it's a trivial one. Especially when it's one of your nice and generous (subtitle: sucker) friends. "Plus," we reason, "I'm not materialistic. I understand the greater aesthetic of life: that money don't not equal no happiness."

It takes someone who's been burned several times to really understand that these debts are not trivial at all. They matter a lot because they breach several tenets that we look for in people: trust being one, accountability another, being prepared a third, and, most importantly, the interpersonal and financial awareness that borrowing money puts someone on The Spot. In my case, it never was about the five bucks I lent to hookah-girl or the eight bucks to Chinese-food borrower. It was about a true test of friendship. If they felt friendly enough to ask for cash, were they friendly enough to repay it?

(Roll Moral)

For every dollar we casually lend and borrow, there's a lot more than the purchasing power of four gumballs exchanging hands.

We'd do well to remember this.

I've gotten stingy with my lending. Even with my long-term friends. This does make me feel selfish. Even though I know it isn't selfishness, I can't help it.

But that's a lot better than bearing a grudge against someone over some cash.

I used to be the guy who would organize movie/comedy club trips for my friends. I would front the cash. They would supposedly pay me back. I'm done with that. Ten dollars might not be worth much anymore, but my general perception of my peers' overall personal worth is. How people view you -- and feel free to count yourself an outlier to this concern; we all do -- matters a lot. Let how people view you be over important things -- your friendliness, your listening skills, how far you can drive a golf ball.

Not over money.

Not even you're going to pay them back "tomorrow." (Subtitle: never).

(Roll Credits)

Dedicated to all those who ever borrowed my money…especially those who still have it. You taught me some valuable lessons well worth every penny I'll never see again. (Subtitle: Suckers!).

The Kids Aren't Alright

"Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That's what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice."

-- Bethany Hamilton, the greatest female surfer

Trench Dodgeball is synonymous with CTY Los Angeles. At least it used to be.

In the three months of my life I've spent here, I have played countless games. I have hit countless kids and RAs with dodgeballs. Sometimes in the face. I have been hit countless times. Sometimes in the face. Once or twice in another tender spot.

In all these games, in all the thousands of thrown balls, I have not witnessed a single injury. I have never had to cart a single kid to the nurse. I have never had to get toilet paper for a bloody nose. I have never had to band-aid a boo-boo. Not even after a ball smashes someone's face.

Recently, our CTY site found out that we will no longer be allowed to play Trench. The black-letter email came from the bigshots at Baltimore. It put an end to any game that involves throwing something at someone. This includes Spongeball (dodgeball played with wet sponges), Extreme Cubing (doing a rubiks cube while people throw dodgeballs), Battle Chess (life-size chess with dodgeballs) and my personal favorite, D-Day (RAs bunker down while the kids storm them). Luckily we can still play kickball. Even though it involves a fast-moving ball, there is sufficient "gray area" in the directive to keep that game alive. Oh joy.

The administration wasted no time. Usually we sign up for activities for the rest of the week on Monday. This week, we had a good chunk of the camp choosing Trench as their weekly -- meaning an activity they play every day. As soon as the email landed, we pulled a massive mid-week activity swap. We switched all the kids signed up for Trench -- every one of them healthy -- to Capture the Flag. On the first day of Capture the Flag, two kids got injured.

Upon hearing the news of the cancellation, I was angry, then I was angry and baffled, then I was angry but unsurprised.

I don't know what the impetus was. The Los Angeles administration either doesn't know or isn't telling us. I wish I could rationalize that since Trench has been a CTY staple for decades, then clearly something really egregiously horrific must have happened to force the hand of the big Baltimore bosses. Maybe kids these days are stronger: lots of steroids going around. Maybe kids these days are more vicious: those darn violent videogames encouraging headshots.

But we all know it's not the changing nature of kids that led to Trench's outlawry. Of course kids are changing. They're texting and facebooking. But changing in ways that matter for dodgeball? Please.

I'd like to blame it on protective parents. Or on big bosses who need to feel important to prove some frivolous point. In my bitterest fantasies, I see a conference room with big black leather chairs, bottled water, and vegetable platters with Lo-Fat Ranch dressing. A Power Point presentation flips through slides of kids having fun on a dodgeball field. The same words and phrases fill the air: "lawsuit," "injury," "could," "possibly in our best interests," "risky," "danger," "violent." Words and phrases such as "fun," "competition," "injury statistic report," and "have any of us ever even played this game?" are absent.

But blaming the parents and admin is a surface skirmish of a much deeper way of thinking pervading 21st century thought: catastrophism.

That's the true culprit. We live in a catastrophist society. Like every generation before us, we believe we are living at the edge of the end of the world. If it bleeds it leads. Never mind that the MIT psychologist Steven Pinker has noted that we are living in an era of unprecedented peace. No one wants to hear about peace. Not really. We're not trained to. Tragedy and problems are what catch our attention. They give us purpose. And when there's not enough bad stuff to go around, well, we invent our own. And then Chief Illiniwek is outlawed. And then Trench dodgeball is outlawed.

This kind of stuff happens all the time. One person ruins it for everyone. Appeasing the minority at the expense of the majority in the name of fictitious and sensationalized fears. At first I was shocked that RAs and returning CTY students weren't more outraged. There's plenty to be mad about. Who are a bunch of faceless myths in Baltimore to tell us what to do at our site? Don't they know that dodgeballs don't hurt us, but help us be children? Don't they realize that there's a sort of magic to Trench -- maybe not a major kind, but something that is at least our own? Don't they know that the best way to get jet-lagged newly arrived students in a community is with the competitive camraderie of Trench? Have they forgotten their own childhoods -- childhoods of scraped knees and ding-dong ditching, pick-up games and padless tackle football, bleeding and crying and playing so hard and so often that you're exhausted and dirty and blissful?

But then I realized that outlawing Trench was no surprise. CTY did the easy thing here. They did what, on paper and in the comfort of a chair in Baltimore, seems to be the right thing. There is nothing exceptional, nothing suprising about their decision. People and organizations across the world make the very same decision every day: the one that demands no courage. The one that allows us to nod soberly as we spin worst-case scenario fictions until they seem imminent and so we must act against them. Who cares that suddenly, we're not acting in anyone's best interest -- although we believe we are. Who cares that we're acting only to assuage our own largely unfounded inquities.

The result of that decision is why so many adults are unhappy, why so many adults have lost any semblance of an inner child.

We have smart kids here, and they proved their intelligence in their lack of outrage. They know the game Baltimore played. When I asked one student about how he felt about Trench being outlawed, he said, "I'm angry. But it's more stupid than anything else." The kids get it. Even if they don't yet possess the vocabulary, they get it. For how much longer until the catastrophic world makes them see the end of the world, too, I'm not sure.

The bottom line is this: anyone who has played Trench knows that dodgeballs don't hurt people. Not with any permanence. Not even if Baltimore's worst-case scenario fears are realized -- I'm sure they have been somewhere -- and a dodgeball sends a kid to the hospital. Or a dodgeball leaves a scar. Kids are resilient. I've bled, had the wind knocked out of me, collided, gotten smashed. All those cuts and bruises heal. Even if they scar. This decision left a deeper wound, one that we might forget but one that will not heal. Outlawing Trench killed more than tradition. It killed pieces of childhood. And for anyone who says "Who Cares?" to that, then it's already too late for you.

I wouldn't trade my childhood for anything. I doubt neither would these kids. Unfortunately, they no longer have a choice. They've been nailed by a dodgeball from the grown-up world. And when you're hit by that one, you're out forever.

Mind Games

Returning to Los Angeles for another summer at CTY has forced me to rework my definition of memory and, in turn, redefine myself.

Memory, I've begun to notice, is not a database of capsulated playbacks of previous experiences shelved in the libraries of our minds, but a dynamic force that crashes through our minds and our environments.

Memories are everything. At any one moment, we all are no more than compilations of our memories. Memories form who we are. Even this present moment, this instant, we are functioning via memory. The onslaught of sensory information is only relevant because we can retain it and, in turn, interpret it.

Memories braid together with our hardwiring to make us. Memories guide us. For every decision, we consult, whether consciously or unconsciously, our bank of previous experiences. We can't help it. The story of our past leads us to our status right now. In my case, sitting at Loyola Marymount University, fighting off the flu.

The notion that we are no more than our memories incites some difficult problems. Most notably, one could deduce with Calvinistic determination that we are living out scripted lives. Such as: that terse uncertainty when you tried to decide what new car to buy, that impossible decision about where to go to college, it wasn't real. Your decision was already made. You have no free will.

To push this premise a tad further: each prior decision decides the next decision, which adds another record to the memory bank that decides the next decision...and so on...so by the time we take our first steps as a child -- even earlier -- our whole lives are decided. There is no randomness. No free choice. Not really. Our lives could not turn out any other way.

I'm not alone in expressing discomfort with such a notion. I believe the future is unknowable, and not just because reasons of complexity theory -- which says that, like the weather, there is far too much information to ever process to predict the next step.

Rather, I believe the future is unknowable because the nature of our memories, namely, that they are hugely dynamic. Psychologists have proven it again and again -- memory is darn slippery, not a thing we should blindly trust. And it's my return to CTY at LMU that has reinforced the slippery nature of memory.

Familiar surroundings are peppered with new people. Familiar schedules are rearranged to accomodate new ambitions. Last year it was training for the Marathon on the beach. This year, it is trying to avoid a wicked case of the flu scandalizing camp. Still, the similarities in time and place create a living memory of my time spent here one year ago that runs side-by-side with the current one. This means I am constantly comparing the new with the old. More often than not, they don't fit together. I compare new people with old ones, in turn changing my conception of both. I compare this year's dances with last year's, this year's Casino night with last year's, this year's laser tag, beach days, floor dynamic, In-N-Out stops, etc., with last year's. I can't help it.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

The struggle is that all this new information forces me to reinterpret my memories. They get jarred loose, and when they settle back down, they are different. My general tendency is to look back fondly on last year and wonder why this year isn't living up. Nothing good ever comes out of this comparison. I grow wistful for the old people and old ways. I grow frustrated that the new people and new ways won't conform to the old people and old ways -- the ways it should be.

I was hestitant to return to CTY because I thought it was anti-progressive. I didn't want a mere repeat performance. I wanted something new. Little did I know that it would all be new. Even though the stage is the same, the characters have changed. There's a new band and an old band, and they both have very different tunes. But the most different tune is the one that results when they play together, changing and competing with one another, comparing and contrasting with one another, keeping things fresh and new and confusing.

The Joker Made Me Do It

I've procrastinated long enough. I told myself that I wanted to grow distanced from England before wrapping up my travel posts with one last glazy shebang.

I told people that was the plan. One big pleasant red bow to slap on this package of stories and travel narratives and then we're done here. We're shipping out. We're moving on.

But today, at the Center for Talented Youth's Scavenger Hunt, I became the Joker. White face paint, streaky scarlet lips, a purple jacket, and a salty admiration for the legendary Ledgerian interpretation of the Batman villain and BAM: tiers of teary half-horrified half-enchanted brilliant young students who also felt the air snap as the normal rules twisted, bent, warped. I'm no actor. But for the first time, I lost myself in a character. The Joker, ever his anarchist self, inverted the rules. And all I could think about was how I had to write about it.

So I've decided to resume this blog. A quick blog history: My original intent was to create a record of my trip to England, something just for myself and whoever else stumbles across. I fully intended to set this thing aside. I have other projects to pursue, other words to write, and at the moment, a hall full of gifted children building particle accelerators in their rooms.

But giving up this blog for a month or so was like living in a void. I started having less fun. I started taking less risks. I conceived of myself in a dingy lost at sea, the scent of my direction long lost and the adventures I'd logged since returning from England melting through my fingers like my last chocolate bars. I needed to write. I needed to write so I could be accepting of tragic twists. This blog was, is, and will continue to be a magic machine that turns lemons into lemonade sans sugar-coating. And you don't even have to pay a quarter to some sticky-fingered kids.

Why did I need to write? Why did it feel as if I'd lost not a space to rant and preach, but a friend? I'm not sure. But I think I part of the answer is the interpretation writing affords. (Interpret that.). The blog brought out this devil/angel quality of interpretation in many varieties -- especially streaks of introspection and skepticism. It proposed and I hope will continue to propose, with blackhole-inducing irony (you've been warned), the challenge to get the spotlight off of myself by focusing it so intensely on myself that I reveal where the machinery of moi exists, responds, clashes, and fuses with my environment.

Being the Joker was all of the above.

Exhibit A:

Unruly and Uncooperative Kid: "I'm Batman. You stink at being Joker."

Joker: "You're the Batman, eh? You look more like a Sit-Behind-The-Tree-Man to me. Go to that palm tree and sit behind it and stop being so serious, Sit-Behind-The-Tree Man."

The kids loved it. When they ran the obstacle course in the oversized shorts (i.e. "Batman's" shorts used to find out which of them was Batman), I -- or the Joker -- would kick the cone they were trying to reach. The Joker would approach them and force myself to laugh wildly until I actually was laughing wildly. The Joker would send the unruly ones to get me a glass of water, then spit it through my teeth as they ran through the obstacle course. The Joker quoted my favorite lines from the movie -- the Scar Story, the "why so serious?", all in that nasally pitch that masks a bright lust for anarchy, like magma cracking through the crust.

When I was done, I was sapped. My throat burned. My head pounded from wearing so much make-up in the sun. Absolutely drained, but absolutely exhilirated.

By being someone else, even for a moment or two, you reconnect with who you are. There are lots of ways to be someone else. One is to dress up as the Joker and lose yourself in the role. Another is to try lots of new things that force you into new shoes. Another is to travel. And another is to maintain a journal, blog, whatever.

Because let's be honest: no matter how detailed we are, no matter how scrupulously honest we aspire to be, writing about ourselves is about spinning some yarn to weave another identity as we step into it. These words that we write, these stories we tell, they are certainly not us, but they do give us a little more slack to climb a little bit higher on the endless journey to become us. Identity is a constantly recrafted thing, just like every couple months we are at the cellular level completely new people. We are forever reinventing ourselves, or at least should be. When we stop is when our lives become stagnant and dull.

None of that is pretty. Must we be someone else to be ourselves? Must we pretend, or, using the other L-word, lie, to gain some truth about ourselves? Honesty is the best policy, after all. We all know this. We like to think of ourselves not as beings but as a being. There's only one (your name here). We are individuals. One, uno, une. So to claim each tap of the keyboard is more play-acting with another identity than reliving, more dialogic theatre than documentary, seems ludicrous. A joke, maybe.

All I can do is speak from the trenches of my blogless existence. I felt I had lost a friend. And friends, even when made of suspicious things like stories, are special because they can dole it to you straight. They let you know who you really are because around them, you can be that person -- or, more accurately, those persons.

So I welcome this friend back with open arms and a sly smile. I predict many more adventures together, as we probe the world for its sweetness.

And we'll take with us a new lesson -- one straight from the mouth of the Joker: Sometimes, we should all ask ourselves, "Why so serious?"

Last Day in Bristol

I'm spending my last day in Bristol remembering details.

Maybe that's the punishment for spending Saturday afternoon cleaning up the uber-nasty kitchen.  It took two-and-a-half passes through Green Day's "21st Century Breakdown" -- a 70 minute album -- to get everything done.  I did it not because I wanted to, or because I felt it'd be a nice parting gesture, but because Unite House charges mucho pounds for anything left untidy.  Since I'm the first to leave, and I have very little faith in the cleaning diligence of my flatmates, I now have an Ace in my pocket in case Unite House wants to cut into my security deposit for a sloppy flat.  

But details.

I'm beginning to believe more and more that most genius, success, and BIG accomplishmentes are all about details.  Boring, drab details.  The obvious example is marathon running.  Step by step, tolerating increasing increments of pain until its excruciating and you're only on mile 21, so you keep going until the next step is impossible and then the next step is really impossible and then the next step is obscenely impossible and then you're done and you've run a marathon.

Science is sometimes the same way.  Carl Woese is a University of Illinois scientist who discovered archaea, the third branch of life (prior to archaea there were only prokaryotes and eukaryotes).  I'm lucky enough to be taking a foundational evolution seminar with him next semester that he's teaching in order to jumpstart college courses on evolution.  In discovering archaea, Carl worked long hours for years and years, often by himself, only to reveal his discoveries and be ridiculed.  Now, he's hailed as one of the greatest scientists of our time.

Likewise, details make my four months of study? travel? life? in England and across Europe.  They're the grains of sand that build the pyramids of experience.  So this post is about commemorating some of the details that never made it into a blog post.  It's impossible to get all of them.  The only way to do that is to live it all over again.  But every now and then, a couple of these sand grains make pearls...

• The Chinese CD.  I was helping Jimmy from China with one of his essays when he said, "I have a gift for you."  That gift turned out to be a CD and several MSword documents.  He had made a history of China through music -- starting with ancient songs, progressing through the centuries of music, and arriving at modern times.  The documents described the tracks, why each is important to China, and how each relates to his life.  His gift worked.  I tried extra hard to make sure his essay was spic 'n span.  This one's called "Jasmine."  According to Jimmy, "This is a South-China folk song, famous in the whole China. It expresses the feeling of Chinese people to jasmine, pure and beautiful."  Have a listen:  

• Brinners: Artery-clogging, fat-sopping, syrup-drenched Brinners.  Troy and I had two of 'em.  We made beer pancakes, bacon, hash browns, and eggs fried in bacon grease.  Delish.

• Park St: The vibrant hill that connected my residence with the university.  I must've walked up and down Park St. hundreds of times.  I knew it was a good street because it never got old.  The people-watching opportunities were Vegas-quality.  I got to know this wooly mammoth in a business suit guy who sipped coffee every day at Woodes, a cafe at the base of the hill.  If he was still there with coffee and newspaper as I started walking to class, then I knew I was right on schedule.  If he wasn't there, or packing up to leave, then I knew I had to hoof it to make it to class on time.  

• BBQ on the Downs: Yes, it was rainy and windy and cold.  Yes, it was in the middle of nowhere.  Yes, it was a blast.  Some study abroad students bought a disposable grill; the rest of us brought meat skewers, marshmallows, chips, beer, etc.  We kicked a football around. 

• Football (i.e. soccer) in Pubs: They say football is a gentleman's game played by thugs; rugby a thug's game played by gentlemen.  Gus from Hong Kong and I watched several matches in pubs, happily blending with the gathering of glassy-eyed men (and their semi-bored girlfriends) draining pints and screaming at the television.

• The Hatchet: My very first impression of England was a door made of human skin.  (Allegedly).  Jet-lagged, I stepped out of the taxi and into the rain.  I'd given the cab driver 20 pounds and he'd driven off before my jet-lagged brain could think to demand change.  The cab driver didn't know where exactly Unite House was, but swore it was nearby.  I ended up going into the Hatchet and pulling my big fat suitcases through the throbbing heavy metal.  I asked a guy with a big bull ring through his nose and little studs running from his eyebrows down each side of his nose where Unite House was.  Since then, I've had a heart-to-heart connection with the Hatchet, it's door of human skin, and it's wall-shaking heavy metal.  

Talk It Up

Great conversations are rare.

This whole trip, I've been spoiled with great conversations, but this past weekend was extra groovy.

The past two weeks had been miserable trudgings through the end-of-the year grinder. After working ten to fourteen hour days in solitude to finish my essays, I organized a Friday night dinner and movie for international and English students. We met at Weatherspoons, a chain-pub, then saw Angels and Demons. The movie stunk, but the outing was great. 

By now, four months after arriving, a lot of the thrills of England have worn off. English accents aren't cute but normal.  Pub culture isn't "WOW" but "hm."  I'm even looking the right "right" way when crossing streets.  Sad, sad, sad...

But bringing together international students doesn't get old.  Expecting only five to seven people, I was surprised when there was such a huge gathering that I had to throw tables together and steal chairs to make enough space in the pub. There were students from the US, Canada, Hong Kong, Bahamas, China, France, England, Thailand and Chile.  A veritable mix of 20-somethings. 

The conversations were fantastic.  Over the past four months, we had gotten to know one another.  We had bypassed the generic "where are you from what are you studying why choose Bristol?" questions.  And in the process of progressing from strangers to friends, something magical had happened.  I'm not sure where or why or how.  We didn't talk of geo-politics or global poverty or trade deficits.  Or at least not entirely.  The converstaions were not what I would call "profound."  Mostly, we talked of normal things -- movies, funny dorm-room experiences, pranks, school.  But suddenly, we had reached a sweet spot in social dynamics: just enough familiarity and difference to pull a water-into-wine trick by turning mundanity into greatness.  

But really, it's no trick at all.  A great conversation tight-rope walks between extremes: there's got to be a little discord to perpetuate discussion but enough agreeableness to prevent our hands from becoming fists.  A familiar international crowd satisfies those requirements.

On Saturday, I visited Susan Feuille, my LAS Leaders advisor, and her daughter Julie in Bath.

Susan is an absolute delight to be around.  We had tea, visited the Roman Baths, then went to a bona fide Italian diner.  

Again, the conversation topics were normal: LAS Leaders, campus crime, the economic crisis, celebrity sightings, why the woman at the table next to us kept turning around and lookin at us (we decided it was because Susan had once met Matt Damon).  These conversations were great for a slightly different reason.  I remember when Troy and I were traveling, it was sometimes a thrill to meet up with our friends along the way just to unload all our stories onto another person.  If an Atlantic Monthly article is right that human relationships are the only things that really matter in life, then it makes sense that experiences are only worth something if they can be spread through friend and family circles.

Traveling blends experiences with relationships -- what Michael Crichton identifies as the two ingredients to a worthwhile existence.  A good conversation mixes both ingredients, but a great one mixes something else.  Luck?  Atmosphere?  A good meal?  I'm not sure.  Whatever it is, that's a whole nother conversation.

Forging the Frontier

The English novelist Graham Greene, one of my literary heroes, has a thrill-seeker's mentality to challenge that of Michael Crichton.  While at Oxford, Greene combatted boredom with Russian Roulette -- a game he deemed in his 1969 BBC interviews to be merely "a little risk."  In those same interviews, Greene discusses his travel life, saying: 

"I've always had a certain itch to get away for a while from my ordinary surroundings, combined with a curiosity to see the frontier."

In his cavalier accounts of using opium in Indo-China, one wonders just what "certain itch"  Greene was scratching.

Nonetheless, Greene's interview made me wonder a few things:

1. To what extent is a "travel-itch" a sign of some sort of psychotic, or at least mentally severe, behavior?

2. Is there such a thing as a "frontier" anymore, particularly in the Western world?

The second question first.  

Western Europe is certainly an adventure.   But is it a frontier?  Young Americans like treating it as one.  I know because on my recent backpacking trip, I did, too.  I romanticized Europe as "fresh ground."  I imagined a place where history thrives all around me, a place where I, in tramping through, can stitch my thread -- however small -- into its rich, bloody, fabric.     

In my mind, Troy and I conquered liter beers for lunch (and dinner) in Munich.  We persevered on a rattling train from Krakow to Auschwitz, only two granola bars to sustain us, braving a 20-minute queue snaking out of the ice-cream shop.  We survived an overnight bus from Madrid to Seville, parrying all it threw at us: crying babies, snarky bus drivers, Bob Marley music.  We discovered a way around pricey public restrooms in Venice.  We gritted our teeth through achey feet as we progressed through the painfully long trek to see the Sistine Chapel.  No pain, no game.  

But let's not kid ourselves.  Frontier?  Europe?  Western Europe? Uh, no.  A frontier, I think, means danger.  Think Wild West.  Think Louis and Clark.  Think ploughing forth into mapless territory, or journeying to the end of the earth when the world was still flat and sea monsters waited jaws-wide at the edge.

Outside the occasional thief, it often seems the greatest danger in Western Europe is 3.50 Euro cokes and fat European pigeons who, upon approaching, take so long to flap their flab off the ground that if you don't slow down, you'll get a face-full of feathers.  No joke: it's fun to treat Western Europe like a tiger, but stripped of imagination, Western Europe is as tame as a kitten.  Feed it some Euros, and it'll allow you to mistake its pur for the roar of the wild.

And yet...

As far as containing sights the first-time backpacker has never before seen, it is a slew of new stuff.   No, crossing a major touristy bridge in Prague will never be a frontier. Being stuck in and part of the thronging sunburnt faces listening again to a street performer jam Canon in D on accordian is a version of unpleasentness that belongs in the torture museum we visited in Cordoba.

And yet...

Backpacking was a challenge.  Great, yes, but difficult.  Emotions become compressed gun-powder that a simple spark -- say losing at a card game -- can really, really tempt.  In that sense, a frontier is not so much an unexplored physical space, but an unexplored region of your own expectations, temperment, and self-image.  Doing what you didn't think possible.  Being where you, one year ago, could never see yourself.  Pushing the horizons of expectation even farther with new experiences and then again pushing them even farther.

In that sense, Europe is a frontier.   Even if it is all in your head.

So in that sense, regarding the first question, we're all a little crazy. 

Stuffing Elephants into Shot Glasses

Tory Ribar, the study abroad adviser at Bristol, recently asked me to write 100 words about my study abroad experience. (Actually, she asked Troy Long, and he pawned the duty off on me quoting, I imagine, "love to, but my buddy here's an English major..." In other words, "I'm an Engineer -- I spend my time on worthy things." In other words, another Engineer assuming his rightful position above the writer.)

Well, I was thrilled. Or I was until the first word. I wrote as concisely as I could, and the first draft still ended up at over 400 words. I felt like I was trying to stuff an elephant into a shot glass. This was going to be a lot harder than I'd anticipated.

So I got all my homework done early, found a beer deal at Sainsburys, freed up an evening, and sat at my laptop.

Two hours and hundreds of taps on the DELETE key later, this is what I came out with:

'Why Bristol?'

English or American, Chelsea or Man U. fan, everybody's been asking that question of Eric Anderson, an international student from Chicago, Illinois. If a glossy pamphlet attracted Eric to Bristol, it's the unexpected gems that have made his experience worth galaxies.

For instance: Eric never expected to play point guard on the Bristol Men's Basketball 1^stTeam, read his poetry in a nasally Chicaaago accent at a crowded pub, collaborate with the Bristol Writing Club president on a play, or backpack through 11 countries in 18 days.

So 'Why Bristol?'

For Eric, the list keeps getting longer.

It was passable. More importantly, it was done. I sent it off along with this picture:

Yes, that's me sliding down solid rock.

Immediately, I felt better. The past week, I'd been frustrated with Bristol. There was a stupid grade issue that was souring other aspects of life. I had some tough decisions looming on the horizon: do I work in Los Angeles or Africa? Do I apply for the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships or not? Plus, after blitzing across Europe, the English lifestyle was so slooooooow.

In turn, I was ignoring the important things all around me.

Writing those 100 words helped me see the bigger picture again. I saw how many awesome things I'd done. I saw how glad I was to be here. I saw how many challenges I'd overcome and how many opportunities I'd pursued.

I went to a study abroad social where current international students would meet with Bristol students preparing to study in the US or Australia or Singapore, wherever.

I found my way over to the USA poster, a chaotic jumble of students trying to find their corresponding home/future study abroad university.

There, I found two students planning to go to the University of Illinois next year. I talked to them for an hour and a half. I answered questions about American culture, advised them about where to live, what libraries to study in, where to get good pizza and what days double bacon cheeseburgers are $5. I explained why not to jump in the Morrow Plots unless they're trying to be instantly expelled, and what kind of work to expect in Engineering courses. I urged them to go to American football games, tailgate, take advantage of the ARC, join clubs.

Afterwards, I realized several things.

For one, I realized how great of a school University of Illinois is. Those two Bristol students chose a winner. Annotating different key places on their campus maps unleashed torrents of memories. Good or bad, I missed that school with ferocity but not with desperation. I missed it in a good, make-you-smile-for-no-reason way.

And I realized 100 words to sum up my experience is plenty. Too much, even.

I can sum up my three months -- nay, any worthwhile study abroad experience -- in one word: appreciation.

Appreciate your time (because it's not as much as you think), appreciate the cultural differences (because you're not as similar or different than you think -- you just are), appreciate the challenges (they're beatable -- all of them), the moments you just want to scream "these English can't do ANYTHING right" (they really can't -- just accept it), and appreciate every time you step back and have a chance to remember where you are, what you're doing, and why it matters.

Surviving Rome

I wanted to rent scooters in Rome for a reason so embarrassing that I'm going to admit it once and then never again.

Mary Kate and Ashley.  

Let's get this over with: the Olsen twins have a movie set in Rome where they meet boys and the boys rent scooters and zoom them around the city and to me it looked like fun, okay?  If it's any excuse, I watched it in the van on a cross-country car ride.  And I have a younger sister.  Sorry for being a good big brother!

My reputation thoroughly shattered, let me tell you -- there is nothing "Mary Kate and Ashley"  about driving in Rome.  

Rome was the last city on "Troy and Eric's Backpacking Trip."  We had scheduled two nights and 1.5 days there -- a positively sprawling amount of time for our sprinting travel style (we'd spent 6 hours in Switzerland and called it "visited.")   

I wanted to end the trip on a bang for several reasons.  First of all, as wonderful as old buildings are, there's really only so much you can take.  Troy has a "One cathedral per country" rule that, by the trip's end, was wisdom on par with Lao Tzu ("A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.")  or Mike Ditka (“You have to be tough.”).  

Secondly, we had missed seeing Auschwitz.  The Holocaust is a new fascination of mine.  I'm taking a graduate English class on Holocaust poetry next semester.  So I desperately wanted to visit the camp.  Unfortunately, the day we spent in Krakow, Poland was Easter Sunday.  Auschwitz is closed on Christmas and Easter.  That didn't stop Troy and I from taking a two-hour train to the camp, walking a mile to the entrance, and getting as close as we could.  But we had missed out on the tour, the museum, the experience.  I was very disappointed.

Mostly, though, I wanted our Eurotrip to stand out.  This might be even more unforgivable than the Mary Kate and Ashley comment, but here it goes: by the time you've been trekking across Europe for three weeks, trekking across Europe isn't enough.  Being in Rome isn't enough.  It's the norm.  It's level zero.  It's Rome, yes, but it's also "the next stop."  When yesterday is Vienna and tomorrow Venice, novelty becomes normalcy.  

This is a difficult sensation to express, and perhaps even more difficult to understand.  I imagine, someday, looking back on this post during a lunchbreak at a 9 to 5 job, I'll shake my head at calling Rome "the norm," a term that connotes the sense that being in Rome just wasn't enough.  (To that future version of me: Shut up and eat your carrot sticks.)  Seeing the sights wasn't enough.  I had to do something thrilling.  Dangerous.  In that sense, I didn't just want to rent scooters, but had to.  

There's one more reason, then I promise I'll talk about the miracle of Troy and I surviving the scooter day.  That reason: I needed to earn a soundbyte -- something to take care of the question waiting for us as soon as we returned: "How was the trip?"

This question is a problem for me.  There's no good way to answer it.  I can say "Great!  We had a blast."  Or I can list all the cities we went to.  But far and away the best and most honest way to answer that is to tell people a story.  Humans respond to stories more than lists or banal descriptions of pleasure.  And believe me, there's no story like this one.

Roman traffic is a free for all.  Everyone attempts risky maneuvers for selfish advantages.  Fearless pedestrians walk against red lights (at the intersections that actually have stoplights) while sipping coffee and chatting.  Drivers change lanes suddenly to shave off a few seconds.   It's madness.

The scariest part is that you can't be passive.  Being passive is a recipe for disaster.  Drive too slowly, and suddenly angry motorcycles are whizzing by you and a chorus of horns are blaring. And you never want to enrage an Italian behind the wheel.  Very quickly, I discovered the best strategy was to try to blend in, even if that meant weaving in and out of stopped cars or gunning it to slip through a rapidly shrinking gap between a bus and oncoming traffic.

None of this compares to the roundabouts.  Roundabouts are spinning circuses of destruction.  Traffic merges in from seven different ways at once, vehicles weaving in and out of one another The first time we approached one, I felt like that kindergartener standing at the top of the highdive and looking down the million miles to the pool.  Except here, there was no turning back.

I survived out of instinct.  There's no time to step back and analyze or look for a protective pocket in the chaos.  You just go, and trust that you're good enough and lucky enough.  

I said quite a few prayers that day.  And remarkably, we not only survived, but the biggest hiccup was the navigational frustration of trying to get to the Pantheon from the cafe where we had lunch.  

Later, after we had returned our scooters, I asked Troy what he had thought our odds were of A) having something -- anything -- go wrong, whether an accident or a dinked bike or a scraped knee and B) getting seriously hurt.  If the Olsen twins or the "norm" of Rome made it beneath the censorship radar, his responses most certainly will not.

Later I told my friend Ben that I drove scooters in Rome.  Ben had been to Rome on a University trip last winter.  In order to go on the trip, he had to sign a contract saying he would not rent any motorized vehicles.

I think the definition of a "story" is anything worth wasting breath on.  Which means to obtain a story, you have to do something that deviates from the norm.  The bigger the deviation, the bigger the story.  This explains our fascination with stories about tempting or defying death -- of going to the edge and coming back to live and talk about it.  I don't know if you could say that Troy and I tempted death.  That seems a bit dramatic.  But we certainly deviated enough to get that "soundbyte."

So when people ask me how the trip was, I say: "Great.  I toured Rome on a scooter and am living to tell about it."    

Most of it, anyway.

Backpacking Across Europe

Forget the floozy-shmoozy lines I scribbled on my Bristol applications.  Spare me the intellectual enrichment and cultural adaptation curves.  And one big nasty Cheerio Sucka! to all personal development poetics.  Really -- down deep where that thrillseeker in me revs his Harley and guns for the next big leap of adventure -- really, I came to England for this:

Bristol, Madrid, Sevilla, Cordoba, Madrid, Barcelona, Lyon, Geneva, Zurich, Munich, Regensberg, Prague, Krakow, Vienna, Venice, Cortona, Rome, Vatican, Turin, Bristol.

Or something like that.  From March 30th - April 18th, or something like that.  After Lyon, France, where Troy and I stayed with my former French Exchange family, the cities blur.  My memory flips from a contrite destination-based sequence pedantically inserting push pins into a mental map of Europe, to a swarm of episodes, unpatternable, frantic, linked together only by the tenuous sinew of the odd overnight train.      

I thought for a long while how to write about backpacking across Europe trip.  I considered top-10 lists or a country-by-country breakdown.  But those means of representation all seemed too academic.  Too orderly.  Too eager to take what was a tangled glorious mess and loosen the knots.  Too quick to find value by shaking the memories until something glittery falls out.  

In the end, I want the travel narrative to mirror the trip with an honesty that's as sharp as a scalpel and as selfish as a Barcelona pickpocket.  Because let's be clear: although categorized under "vacation," backpacking across Europe -- at least in Eric and Troy's city-snapshot style -- is more like climbing a mountain than sunning in the Caribbean.  

Backpacking across Europe demands a different sort of thinking altogether.  A sort of thinking that awards patience and tolerance, but also ruthlessness and decisiveness.  Because there are plenty of unknown characters and situations watching from the fringes.  Some turn out to be delightful and enriching additions.  Others...well, I'll get around to the others.

Barcelona:

I would love to see what Weird Al would come up with if he ever got a hold of these seedy Barcelona street vendors.  He could make a pretty mean song out of their catchphrases. They're everywhere.  First, there's the black Mediterranean Rustafarian-looking guys asking "Smoke weed?"  "Smoke weed?"  "Smoke weed?"

(Once one of our group, instead of just ignoring them, responded with a "No" and the vendor said "Neither do I."  Go figure.) 

Then there's the Indian beer vendors.  They frequent the middle of Barcelona's main boulevard, interrupt sunbathers on the beach, and pop out from dark corners wielding 6-packs of the cheapest passable beer and saying "Cerveza, Beer?"  "Cerveza, Beer?" "Cerveza, Beer?"

We were curious why exactly anyone would buy a can from them, so we stopped and asked. Apparently, their economic plan was to stockpile cheap beer for when the supermarkets closed and the much more expensive bars opened.  At that point, beer got expensive, so their "Cerveza, Beer?" "Cerveza, Beer?" was the only thing able to quench the late-night cheap beer thirst.  

And quench it did.

Troy and I met up with an Indiana University guy studying in Milan and traveling by himself across Europe.  During the day, we didn't travel with him much because he was testing out the nude beach (and shouting "No, don't you understand NO!" to an old Asian woman wanting to give him a massage -- only 5 euros for the back)  while we were exploring the city.  But at night, we met up with him to go out for Subway.  Afterwards, we walked down the main strip, peppered with requests for "Cerveza, Beer?" "Cerveza, Beer?"  

Well, he bought a beer from one of these vendors.  Good travel buddies never let another drink alone, so I bought one, too.  As I sipped mine, this guy, with a vow to show Barcelona how "we do it in America," borrowed a key from Troy and shotgunned the beer in the middle of the main strip.

(Shotgunning a beer involves puncturing the base of the beer, putting the hole to your mouth, then popping the tab so the beer gushes out of the hole.  Apparently, the beer he got was a bit shaken.  When he punctured it, a stream of beer jetted out, splashing the guy who sold him it.  As far as I know, Troy's room key is still sticky.) 

So that's "Smoke some weed" and "Beer, Cerveza."  The two most common sounds of the night

 

There be rarer and more frightening species in the woodwork, too.  Once I accidentally made eye-contact with a middle-aged man riding a bicycle.  His head snapped to mine like something out of the Exorcist as he said: "Want some crack?" After that, I learned to admire the scenery rather than the people.

Thievery, drugs, and cerveza.  

Ahhh...Barcelona.

Pickpockets in Barcelona

If looks could kill, that pick-pocket would drop dead. 

His grizzled and half-burnt sepia skin was like crinkled leather.  His lips curled into a mocking snarl.  He reminded me of a ragtag junkyard dog scrapping around for selfish advantage, although I hesitate giving him that much credit.

His look is burnt into my mind, where I’m free to sublimate my revulsion onto his visage, where I’m at liberty to recreate the situation except this time I’m a black belt in Jiu Jitsu and as I catch his grubby fingers going for my wallet, I roundhouse him in the chin and send whatever gold teeth he has left scuttling across the Metro station.

In every way, he looked the part he played.  And so – almost – did I.

Because he and his posse came this close to pick-pocketing me.

Troy and I had just arrived in Barcelona.  We booked our next trains and went to the Metro to get into the city.  I was wearing cargo shorts.  My wallet was in one side pocket.  My passport was in the other.  The train arrived. 

Troy went into the railway car.  I was following when a short Spanish guy cut me off.  I tried to get around him but he blocked my way.  Nothing physical.  Nothing overt. Just enough to stop me.

Then I felt the smallest nibble at my right pocket ­– the one with my wallet with about $200 cash in three currencies in it.  My reaction was automatic.  I grabbed my pocket as the hand retreated.  I felt for my wallet.  It was still there.

I looked up.  And saw the scowling junkyard face of the thief.  He grabbed his shorts and uttered bursts of faux-panic, mocking my quick reaction that thwarted him.  I stared straight into his eyes.  I don’t know why.  I was on autopilot at this point.  The adrenaline was burning through my veins, pumping sharp acuity into my senses, probably shaping my face into a look that said I know you did it, I hate you, but I’m better than you, so you’re not worth my hate.

I turned and paced several coaches over.  When I got on, my legs were trembling even though they felt like stone.

This all happened in the span of the Metro doors opening and closing.   Ten seconds.  Maybe less.

The incident pissed me off.  I wasn’t apoplectic, but I was raging, stinking mad.  I took some deep breaths.  I took some more.  It took another few hours to begin to see things on the bright side.

The bright side?  Well, I hadn’t been harmed.  And I had perspective.  It’s as soon as you let your guard down that those junkyard dogs get you.  It was stupid of me to put my passport and wallet in unzippered side pockets.  Especially at the train station where tourists come out.  Especially while wearing a big backpack.  I had certainly let my guard down.

Except I wasn’t gotten.  I’m not sure how close it was.  The only reason I reacted was because I felt the most insignificant little nibble on my side pocket.  Barely perceptible.  And I do know that once the wallet breathes open air, it’s gone.  These dogs work in packs.  One grabs the wallet, passes it to his buddy who scampers to another coach.  Pathetic.  Masterful.

I was more careful for the rest of the trip. 

 

 

 

The Last Family Vacation

My dad sometimes hints that whatever family vacation we’re currently on could be our last. I think this cloud over paradise started when I went to college. The reasoning was that I would want to travel with my buddies. I would be busy. Too busy.

Partially, he is right. I do love travelling with my buddies. As I write this, I’m in the midst of a whirlwind backpacking trip across Europe. I’m sitting on a train in Madrid, ready to head for Barcelona. For sleeping on two thin blankets spread across a hardwood floor, I’m surprisingly energetic. Maybe it’s the café con leche. Probably it’s the joy of being young and able to sleep on floors and call it a deal, stay up until 3 a.m. searching and not finding calamari sandwiches in Madrid, and realizing how lucky I am to be travelling across Europe and not droning on through an over-involved Champaign-Urbana schedule.

Busyness-wise, he’s right, too. I have missed our Anderson family Lake Zurich picnics for the past two years for work in California. And there’s also the whole studying business.
But the thing about our family vacations is this: they’re fun. Lots of fun. Even the boring, frustrating, and painful parts are fun because we can laugh at them later.

These Last Anderson Vacation doomsday scenarios dissolve pretty quickly when I’m SCUBA diving in the Caribbean, or rolling the dice beside my dad at the Craps table, or – in this case – touring with my family for a week in London.

I hope the week I spent in London with my family is proof that the Last Anderson Vacation doomsday scenario will not come to pass. I hope that cloud over paradise never turns into a thunderhead, despite the inevitable drama that drizzles over every trip.

Because very few – if any – of our trips are without their peculiar forms of drama. Aptly enough, London seemed to have a few more rain clouds than normal.

For one, my mom hated Madame Tussaud’s. She felt overwhelmed by the rude snap-happy tourists who will stop at nothing to flock towards the wax celebrities. But she did gain sympathy for asocial celebrities. When your life is a series of flashbulbs and giggling fan clubs who won’t hesitate to interrupt a quiet dinner, it’s kind of hard not to feel like a zoo animal trapped in your own fame.

Another rain cloud: As soon as we boarded a tourism bus, we had to make a bathroom break. Upon returning to the bus station to re-board, we found ourselves standing at there for the typically English-time lateness. But when we finally boarded the bus again, a colourful tourguide with an ensemble of jokes made the ride much better than it would have been had we stayed on the bus with the audio tour.

Then there was an unforgivable thunderhead. My dad, brother, and I went for some pints at Waxy O’Conners, a Soho bar with beautiful décor but an already spotty reputation in that a) I might’ve lost my still-lost debit card there and b) they kicked us out when we tried to get the 14-year-old Jane in for dinner. We three had barely gotten a second round when the bar played “Closing Time” over the loud speakers. My first reaction was that this song had mistakenly been mixed into the set. After all, it was only 11 p.m. The night was young. But when people started chugging their drinks and filing out, we realized that the bar was indeed closing. At 11 p.m. Still, we had a good time marvelling at how strange it was for London pubs to close at the hour when they’re likely to make the most money.

Our flat was quirkily modern and very Soho but had toilet problems. The plays we saw were excellent but at the best one, Blood Brothers, we sat behind a bunch of angsty teens on a school trip who were more interested in wet willies than politely listening. Our best meal was not a typical London pub, but an Italian restaurant we stumbled upon when all the pubs were overcrowded.

Still, good travellers can weather this bad weather whether or not it comes to pass. Good travellers can do it without getting drenched or struck. Travelling with my family is always good travel, even with the fatalistic hints that this one might be our last. For me, these hints renew appreciation for our trips. So maybe that’s the point of the Last Family Vacation: sometimes a cloud over paradise is exactly what we need to get ready for the next trip.

Flash Fiction: Stu is a Jerk

For Writer's Group, we had to compose pieces on the theme of recycling for some recycling convention.  I remember way back in sophomore year English, my buddy Andy Brown wrote a story about a bowling pin named Stu.  My favorite line: Stu is a jerk.  A sentence so simple and direct that it's stayed with me all these years. The story touches on other recycling themes -- namely, reincarnation and bowling itself.  But most of all, this story recycles that brilliant line from Andy.  

Stu is a Jerk

I can't imagine what I did in my past life to reincarnate as a 6-pin.  Maybe that's for the best.  Because when your sole life purpose consists of shivering at the end of a greasy lane as 15-lb balls spin in to blast you sky-high, you must've done worse than pinch a nudey mag from the corner shop.

All I can say is this: if you murderers, armed robbers, Mafia bosses, and political hitmen knew what was coming for you, you'd be chugging holy water and using those dead bodies to fertilize flowerbeds.

Still, life as a 6-pin isn't so bad.  I miss having legs.  And arms.  And a brain to think with.  This story would be so much simpler with those fundamental components.  But I have a steady job and I do it well. 

I might even enjoy the cycle of dull boredom and topsy-turvy terror if not for the 9-pin.  His name is Stu.

Stu is a jerk.

One night, after the lanes had closed and we're slumbering away our bruises, Stu taps my shoulder.

"Psst.  Hey, 6-pin," Stu says.

I pretend not to hear him.

"I know you hear me," Stu says, nudging me harder.

"Stu, stop bothering me, I'm trying to sleep," I say.

"Yeah?  Well I hear they're starting up the grinder tomorrow," Stu says.

"Shut up, Stu."

"Grrrr…" he says, mimicking the sound of the grinder.  "And then you know what you become?"

I close my eyes and try to sleep.  But I crumble under the curiosity.

"What Stu?  What will I become?" I say.

"TOOTHPICKS!" He yells.

I get so startled that I knock into the slumbering 5-pin, who hits the 2-pin, who knocks into the 1-pin, and before you know it, I've bowled a strike.

"Who did it!" booms the 1-pin. 

When your only refuge from pain is sleep, waking anyone during these precious hours is a cardinal sin.

"6-pin did it," Stu says. 

"No, that's a lie!" I say.

The 1-pin looms over me.  I glare back at Stu, who winks.

"Sir 6-pin," the 1-pin says.  "That's three nights in a row that you've managed to slip and knock everyone over.  It might be time for…"

"Grrr…" Stu says so only I can hear.

That does it.  I'm sick of being picked on. "Stu is a jerk," I say quietly.

"What did you say?" says the 1-pin.

I freeze. 

"Speak up, boy, or it's to the grinder with you."

"Stu is a jerk," I say.  "Stu is a jerk!"  And then as loud as I can: "STU IS A JERK!"

As I'm lofted away to the grinder, I feel okay.  I've stood up to Stu.  Maybe that's even worth enough to reincarnate as the ball next time around.  A 15-pounder with a beat on the 9-pin?  Please?  

Still, all I know is this life.  And in this life, it's always good to stand.

Butterflies for Dinner

I owe a lot to a party-hardy Greek guy I've never met, the snobbish inflexibility of Bristol's English Department administration, and my buddy Troy Long.

As far as I can tell, they're the reasons I ended up debating the intersections of science and religion over wine and bolognase with James and Fran Bragg, British parents who had invited me to have dinner with them.

Let me explain.

So many random things had to happen to land me there.

For instance, I had to be both friends with Troy Long as well as an English major.  One without the other would not suffice.  Because through Troy, I met a guy from Chile named Andres.  On the very first weekend, we three went out for a burger/beer at a pub.  There, I learned Andres was an English major.  And like me, he was enrolled in Approaches to Shakespeare -- in which my own enrollment happened simply because all the other classes I wanted to take were fully booked.

And still I didn't want to take Shakespeare.  It was a first-year class that I snobbishly thought was below me.  But because the administration was even more snobbish in not letting me in anything else (their snobbishness > my snobbishness), I guess my having dinner with the Braggs could be traced all the way back to the English admin's snobbish inflexibility.

Anyway.  Because I was involved in Shakespeare, I got to be friends with Andres.

Andres told me about this place called BISC -- the Bristol International Student Center.  He was going to Stonehenge through a BISC-arranged trip.  I thought this was awesome.  I wanted to go.

But I procrastinated signing up.  When I eventually did, I had to scramble to get my money in on time or else risk losing my spot.  Because I felt guilty for procrastinating, I got to BISC really early -- before any of the other international students swarmed in.  Because I got to BISC so early, I got a tour from Hannah.  She introduced me to this program called Local Link.   It connects study abroad students with local British families.

This is getting complicated.

But there's more.

I'm only here for a semester, and I was very low on the Local Link priority list.  Luckily, a Greek guy ahead of me partied too much and had to go home.  I got bumped up just enough to be invited by the Braggs.

But the Braggs were very far away from where I lived.

Luckily, I'm also friends with Troy Long.  In addition to being my friend, Troy is also a cyclist.  In addition to being my friend who's a cyclist, Troy is also one of the most helpful people I've ever met.  In addition to being my friend who's a cyclist who's one of the most helpful people I've ever met, Troy and I talk a lot over gmail.  In addition to being my friend who's a cyclist who's one of the most helpful people I've ever met who talks with me over gmail, Troy offered to let me borrow his bike.  In addition to --

So you get the idea.  (I've never really liked the 12 Days of Christmas).

I used Troy's bike to get to the Bragg's house.   I got very lost.  I was cycling through parts of Bristol I'd never seen and will never see again.  I stopped at a Spaghetti restaurant and a crowded pub to ask for directions.

Because Troy's bike was so fast, I made it to the Braggs only ten minutes late.

I talked Pokemon and High School Musical with their kids.  I listened to Mr. Bragg in his music recording studio.  They showed me pictures from Kenya, which was very apt because I'm looking to deploy laptops in Kenya this summer.  It was such a genuine experience that rested on the smallest little tweaks of events.

Often, the best way to appreciate a wonderful experience is to trace back just how many things had to chain together to make it possible.  To realize how the smallest and most insignificant things govern our lives.  This phenomenon is known as the Butterfly Effect.

We never really know where these tiny adventures will take us.  But they do prove one thing.  Those who are open to new people, those who give and are given to in return, those who actively seek opportunities, those who ask questions and are hungry for knowledge, those who (as Troy's dad deems) are "risk-ready" even though that means sometimes being nervous, will most definitely be the people who -- somehow, someway -- end up with the coolest experiences.

The butterflies in their stomachs are the butterflies they end up having for dinner.

And let me tell ya, them butterflies be downright delicious. 

Infinitley variable, delightfully unexpected, they're the purest ingredients of life. 

Flash Fiction: Ghosts Don't Cry

Ghosts Don't Cry

            Ghosts don't cry.

            That's about the only rule there is in my profession, where treating the disturbing is a 9 to 5.

As I dig for a buried corpse in this junk yard, the rule flashes into my head because of the girl next to me, Allie.  She's shivering in my suit jacket.  Her eyes are as dry as the morning she first came to my office dragging this shovel behind her.

The shovel grates against my fleshy hands.

Somewhere between the moon and this wasteland, barking dogs splinter the dead silence of the night.  "Hurry," Allie whispers.  "Hurry."

And then the rain begins.

 

Twelve hours earlier, Allie Mason wandered into my office.  I looked over her file: 14-years-old, parents happily married, never touched a cigarette, A's in everything but Math. 

And yet I shivered as she dropped the shovel on my desk.  Her eyes were dry.  In this line of business, no one has dry eyes.  Everybody cries.

"So, Allie, why are you here?" I said.

"I'm being haunted," she said.

I sighed.  "Allie, the dead move on when they choose to." 

She ran her finger along the half of a silver heart chained around her neck.  "Can you dig?" she said.

 

            The rain steadies as I dig.  It drums on the towers of old cars looming in the dark.

            "Dig faster," Allie says. 

The shovel strikes something metallic.     

"She's under there," Allie says, eyes darting back and forth.  "Hurry."

When the dogs start barking again, they're closer.  Much closer.

 

 

I passed a Coke to Allie.  She didn't touch it.

"How did Laura die?" I asked.  Allie had identified the ghost haunting her as Laura.  I had not gotten out of her who exactly Laura was.

"Why is how she died important?" Allie said.

"Because," I said, "sometimes the way we die explains why can't move on."

Allie fiddled impatiently with the silver locket.  "Laura's crying for me to rescue her, Dr. Lang," she said.  "And you keep wasting time with questions."

"Allie," I said, "whoever Laura is, it's too late for rescuing."

 

But apparently, it isn't.

The rain spills down the mounds, soaking me to the skin.

I throw back shovelful after shovelful of muddy gravel.  It's harder now.  The gravel sticks to the blade.  The gullets of water wash more mud into the hole.

Eventually, I use the shovel to pry the hood from the mud.  A cloying scent of excretion and sweat waft out.

As I reach beneath the hood, I grab something cool and fleshy.  I heave, and out comes a young girl.  Her pulse is there.  Barely. 

            "Allie I've found her," I yell over the storm.  "I've found Laura."

            And then I see there's something else beneath the hood.  Another girl.  This one slashed and clawed beyond recognition.  Something glimmers around her neck.

            My heart stops.

            It couldn't be.

            "Allie, is this –"

But Allie is gone.

            Vanished.

            As I scan the junkyard for her, four growling shadows emerge from behind the pillars of cars.

 

"Dogs," Allie said.

"Dogs killed Laura?" I replied.

"They didn't kill her.  They tore her apart," Allie said.  "It was fast.  She was the lucky one."

"What was your relationship with Laura?" I said.

Allie examined her locket – that half of a silver heart.

"She was my twin sister," Allie said.

Here I expected her to break down.  To unleash the torrent of tears she must have been storing up.  But she merely dropped the locket, looked up, and said: "You never answered my question: can you dig?"

 

Can I dig.  The words from that morning ring in my ears as the dogs circle me, teeth bared, eyes glowing in the lightning.

"Allie?" I say again.  The girl in my arms coughs.  The dogs creep closer, thunder rumbling from their throats.  I scan the ground for the shovel.  It's too slippery, I know, but there's nothing else.

Then a bright light blasts from the distance.  I have no time to shield my eyes as a car tears across the junkyard.  It skids to a stop, ejecting ribbons of mud into the air.  The dogs scream and flee.

The door swings open and I toss the girl inside.  "There's one other!" I yell to the driver.  But there is no driver.  A locket hangs from the rearview mirror, the half of a silver heart now full.

            I grab the wheel and floor the pedal.  As I glance in the rearview mirror, for a moment, I glimpse Allie in the back, holding her sister's head in her lap. 

The tears are pouring down her smiling face.     

But then again, ghosts don't cry.