Ralph's Diner, Worcester MA

The last time I see Mike, Patty, and the other Mike who went to Harvard is at 2am outside Ralph's Diner in Worcester, MA.  Last call is over and the door man has ushered everybody outside.  People stand around smoking, waiting on cabs or designated (or drunk) drivers to pull up.  We are waiting for my mom to come pick us up.

The past several hours are spent drinking.  We drink at Mike and Patty's and laugh at the fact that we spent much of our time together at Chillis because we are apparently 50 year old working stiffs. 

Mike and I go to Walmart where he paid for a pump and walked out without the pump.  The pump is for an air-mattress that he doesn't need because I am not sleeping over. 

"Thanks for the mattress, Godfrey," he says. 

At the bar Jeff shows up, Rick, Lauren, and her sister.  I buy people drinks and lose track of all my money and time. 
The night is cold but it was all a great send off.
As we stand and wait it all sinks in and I don't want it to end.  I wanted to go to Korea so badly but now that I am on the verge of leaving, I am tremendously sad.
When I wake up in the morning I won't fall asleep again until I am in Seoul. 

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Same, Same

The area looks the same.  I am in Newton, MA.  On the horizon I can see the fuzzy Prudential Center and the rest of the Boston landscape shrouded in an unnatural winter fog. 

I park in the same spot as before.  The last time I was here I managed to fuck up the walking directions to the Korean Consulate General of New England.  Now that I know exactly where the building stands, I feel like a moron.

Directions
Park on Washington Street (literally park anywhere on Washington Street).
Walk towards all of the buildings.
Find the ONE ENORMOUS BUILDING.
Walk in.
Simple as that.

Last year (a little over a year ago, actually closer to two) I walked past the building and looked like a moron: it was cold and I had a handful of papers and was dressed to the T.

This year I have a handful of papers and am sporting a horribly shaved face (read: half a beard) but I walk right into the building.  On the second floor, amongst the doors labled "Fenway Pharmaceutical" and other such things, I find blocky Korean characters.  I walk in and tell the lady behind the glass that I am here to apply for an E2 Visa. 

Last time I had to sit down for an hour and fill out the paperwork.  Looking back on it, I am suprized that I made it into Korea at all; I had no idea as to what address to put down and my Visa sponsor ended up being a combination of my actual employer and my recruiter.  I sat through an interview that I wasn't prepared for but its goal seemed only to determine my pedophile status.

I passed.

I walk in, hand my application and $45 under the glass.  Off to the side I hear Korean spewing from the television.  Korean News.  Over the past 8 months I have missed the crescendo and stoccato of spoken Korean: the frenetic pace with which they say absolutely everything.  Even now the sounds from the TV are over my head.  Still, all the "-sseyo's" and "-mnida's" make me smile.  In an ideal world I would understand more.  The anchor says the number "four".  I understand this and it is a victory.

I effing own "four".
Fact is, last time I was here they were talking about the recently sunk Cheonan.  Months later the sinking would be officially attributed to North Korea.  This blame would lead to one of two incidents in which the North's verbal vomit led to my school warning me to get ready to bail: a modified zombie contigency plan.  The second time, Tim's birthday, was a bit more than verbal.
Nothing of the sort this time.  Kim Jong Il is dead.

The woman tells me to pick up my visa on Monday.  I look at her and ask her if that is it; I am aiming to impress and am wearing a shawl.  A shawl, for Christ' sake. 
Yes.
I wish I knew I could have mailed it.

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Guangzhou, China

I am writing this from somewhere in China.  I could put down the name of the city but it is currently in my bag full of random computer wires and electronics charges (when combined with the appearance of my external hard drive and alarm clock look something like a bomb in the airport x-ray machine, if you were wondering).  There’s not much point in naming the city though because I am in an airport so the city and even country are really irrelevant. 
There is a wall of windows to the left where planes take off about every 5 minutes.  I like watching the take-off despite my own inability to not sweat profusely when I am directly involved.  I left Seoul at 9:40am, and arrived here 4 hours later (but we went back in time for an hour during the flight). 
The flight was mostly ok.  The plane itself was the least impressive plane I’ve ever been on.  The tiny tv screens would raise and lower randomly through out the flight.  I wasn’t feeling very good about being boxed in with NO legroom but I lucked out and the guy who should have sat in the middle of the trio of seats never showed. 
I popped a xanax and felt pretty okay for most of the flight, but it didn’t alleviate anxiety enough for me to say that I actually enjoyed it.  I was tired and started to doze towards the end, and that’s when I tend to freak out: jerking awake and remembering I am in a plane. 
There was an interesting 10 minutes when the plane suddenly dropped more than I had ever felt before.  It then bounced to one side and the other.  The intercom went off amidst the creaks and thumps of shifting luggage and people.  Her voice was tonal and her words were fast.  She was talking about turbulance and there was a dash to clip seatbelts in a hurry.  I buckle mine as soon as I sit down and I never unbuckle it because I do not get up for anything- I didn’t pee once on the 13 hour flight to Korea. 
The turbulance went on and it got pretty bad for a few moments.  Over the years I have developed this weird way of dealing with turbulance: I shift around in my seat.  If I am moving myself up and down the drops and bumps don’t seem so intense.  They left as fast as they came and the guy next to me didn’t notice regardless because he managed to sleep through the entire damn scenario.
He slept through the whole flight.  I envy people who can do that.  I can’t even sleep in a car.  I am also really happy he slept through it because anytime the plane bounced or turned I looked like I was severely constipated with both arms linked under the arm rests and my mouth sealed shut.
I have also developed these weird habits on planes that seem to help with flying anxiety.  I don’t really even notice doing these things.  I will pinch or scratch myself if I am tired.  Sometimes I will pull out a hair.  These were tips on some website I read before I came here.  A little pain to bring you back to reality.  Some people wear rubber bands so they can snap them on their wrists if they start freaking out.  I also hate being hot so I almost always end up with my jeans rolled up to my knees to alleviate that hot, itchy feeling you sometimes get.
So, by the time I land I basically look like a moron wearing high cut black socks, nice black shoes, capris pants, and missing a bunch of hair on my arm.
I am exhausted.  I am starving.  I am thirsty.
This section of the airport is fairly bland.  After misunderstanding the immigration official as to where I should stand as an international transfer traveler and looking like a moron standing in the middle of a room for 10 minutes, I made my way to the international departure floor. 
I’m not impressed. 
It is one long hall with the sort of ugly grey rug with swirls of blue and brown that remind me of cheap clothing stores I went to as a kid.  There is only a scattering of a half dozen stores selling nothing I currently want (food, drink, a secret money belt).  Further, there is no money exchange here so even if there was a store selling, I don’t know, maybe a triangle kimbap, or candy, or chips, or a soggy pre-made sandwich at this point, I wouldn’t be able to eat.
There are no ajjumas here.  Everybody looks pissed off.  The entire place smells like stale cigarettes because the “smoking room” is actually just an area on the floor with no walls and little vacuums that fail to suck in much smoke at all. 
In each of these smoking areas is a machine that dispenses water.  My mouth was dry and stagnant so it was a welcome sight but it took me a bit to figure out how to use it- there were a surprising number of buttons and levers.  A woman tried to help me and I thanked her in Korean without even thinking about it.  I suppose there are a lot of habits I have picked up over the past year.
I opted for the cold water.  I filled my Seoul thermos and headed back to my seat / bed.  It was about 90 degrees.  There is one man sitting directly across from me.  He is picking his nose with enthusiasm.  He is also wearing white pants and is pretty obviously not wearing underwear.
Only another 6 hours to go and I will be on my way to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

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Boston to Los Angeles

From 30,000 Feet


I spent the last minutes of freedom, before the alarms went off to wake people only feigning sleep, wondering what the hell I had been thinking. It didn’t feel real. It felt like stuff was just happening; my luggage seemed to pop out of nowhere and packed itself (actually my mom and sister packed for me while I Skype-smoked a cigarette with Hadley) and an E-2 Visa appeared in my passport. After all this waiting and all of these delays, I almost thought it would never really happen. But it did, despite how hard I fought it in the end.

Early on in this process I had told my parents that I did not want them to take me to the airport. I am not one for extended so-longs and my will to go through the security line has all but been destroyed when I looked over my shoulder to see my mom all teary eyed and my dad smiling at me.


At one point I was actually going to take a limo to the airport but it didn’t happen. Instead, I found myself trying to rush past my sobbing mother and into the car as my Dad waited idling in the dark.


By the way, when I say sobbing, I actually mean balling her eyes out as though one of her beloved cats had finally jumped into the oven. It was R-O-U-G-H. It almost pushed me past my limit, but I choked most back and was in the car and on the Mass Pike; flying to uncertainty and fear.

My father drove me and for my sake he keeps thing cool.


Now, I am not a religious guy by any means. When it comes to organized churches and afterlives I just sort of try and do my best and hope that things turn out ok. My prayers are thoughts to remember those who have gone to the great adventure before me. I rarely ask God for anything as I am not sure I am comfortable with the idea of leaving a lot of my life in the hands of something that probably has better things to do.


I prayed in the car. I begged in the car. I pleaded, as though for clemency and my life, that I wouldn’t be a line from an Alanis Morisette song. I pleaded to be panic free (being abandoned in Mexico and left to wander alone has a tendency to give you panic attacks) and that the drugs wouldn’t lead to me being dragged off the plane naked and screaming (totally ripped that off from Brandon). Hey, it can’t hurt right?


We pulled up to the terminal and soon my bags were sitting on the curb. My Dad stepped out and wished me luck. His hand patting my back was nearly the end of it all. I often think that it would be easier for me to leave if I had family issues, but I don’t. In fact, over the past several months I had stopped taking these little insignificant moments with my family for granted. I knew right then that I would miss a lot: walking my dog, playing with my cats, my sister, trying to get my mom to walk my dog and drinking brandy with my father in Manville.


Deep inside I told myself that it would all be there when I came back. I grabbed my bags and walked through the sliding doors and glanced back as the Cavalier drove off into the rising sun. My idleness was over; now was the time for living.


The airport could have gone a bit smoother. I could have looked at my itinerary and saw that I was flying United and perhaps would have been spared the 30 minute wait standing in the American line. This would have also spared me the seemingly half mile walk from terminal B to terminal C.


If I knew I had to take my belt off for security then I would have buttoned my fly.


So, I am writing this from 30,000 feet in the air, about 35 minutes from L.A. and I am happy to say I am, thus far, panic free. In fact, I almost enjoyed the flight. Four of the 6 hours were spent in a Benzo delirium in which I could not play a game of solitaire in less than 45 minutes. I came out of it right as The Middle started to play -I mean it’s no Modern Family but beggars can’t be choosers. Also, Modern Family better be around when I get back


One flight down. One monster of a flight to go.

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