Planes, Trains, and (especially) Automobiles

Last weekend a series of in-country trips began for me. The summer's first road trip. I drove from Small-town, OK, to Big City, CO, helping my grandmother make the monumental move from life alone to life with relatives. She rented a moving van, and after we got it all loaded, we took the shortest (though not fastest) possible route to central Colorado, going through the panhandle of Oklahoma--"No Man's Land," it's called, apparently because no one wanted it back in the days before OK was a state. (My grandmother theorizes that Oklahoma was forced to adopt the area as a condition of receiving statehood, but she wasn't there, so that may be fiddle-faddle. :) Once there, I was fortunate enough to enjoy a few nice days with my not-often-seen relatives, including two of my cousins who are closest to me in age. We share lots of old but poignant memories, those hoodlums and I. Then I flew home--Denver-Vegas-OKC. Don't you hate layovers? The second leg of the trip was surprisingly enjoyable, though, because I sat next to an interesting old man who splits time between Oakland and Oklahoma. We talked politics for two hours. Some of the good, conservative Oklahomans sitting near us didn't enjoy my buddy's liberal views. One elderly woman in particular snorted her disapproval when the old guy leaned over to me and told me we ought to impeach Bush--with the same general tone my mom uses when asking if I would like to join her in a run to Wal-Mart. (I declined the invitation.) The point of contact between the old man's views and mine was his contempt for partisan politics and his opinion that money and media have corrupted and warped the whole political system. From there our paths diverged greatly. But enough about that.

This weekend, Lord willing, some buddies and I will drive up to Minnesota to see an old friend. And if I have time, later in the summer I'll make my way to Yellowstone. Ah, road trips, what a great time for friendships, what a great time to see the country I've known--but only in part--all my life.

A Shotgun Posting

I'm using my dad's laptop to access the internet these days, and tonight he told me as a condition of using his computer, I have to post a blog--so here it is, my shotgun posting.

As you know, I am settling back into life in America, which includes getting reacquainted with my family and making plans for the summer. One of my goals for this summer, set long before I left Japan, is to get back into writing. And by writing, I don't mean posting on this blog, great as that is. No, rather, I am referring to the fact that since the age of 14, I have dreamed and schemed of being a novelist. Though I no longer list "novelist" as my official end-game career goal, I would still like to get published someday. Unfortunately, I fear I may have peaked a little early. The closest I've ever gotten to completing a novel, you see, happened when I was 16. I reeled off over 200-pages of an amusing little tale. And I had several other, shorter but mostly comparable, attempts in high school. Each of those efforts was frustrated by the same deadly flaw: A complete meltdown of plot. While beginning what turned out to be the final novel-manque of my high school life, I resolved to break this cycle of meltdown by actually outlining my plot before writing the book (imagine that). The result: I never got past the prologue.

That may not exactly sound like a Golden Era of productivity to you, but last night when I sat down at my laptop intending to start down the long road of finally redeeming myself as a novelist--having wallowed, year after year after year, in the miry pit of essays, short stories, poems, emails, screenplays, online posts--I produced, alas, exactly 4 and a half sentences of blah. If you're unfamiliar with the specifics of what "blah" entails, just imagine you're reading someone with the literary talent of Dan Brown and the plot-making ability of whoever wrote "Go, Dog, Go" (which is a great book, it just doesn't have any real plot), and that should give you the general idea.

Have I given up already then, you may be asking? No, indeed! I even have this crazy idea that if I can produce a solid plot outline without wearying myself to the point of needing a 7-year hiatus from novel writing, I might, just might, actually produce something resembling a finished product. But that's being quite generous with myself, I assure you.

All right, this shotgun post... is over. Ciao

Back Home

I'm home. Tomorrow my family will assemble and celebrate Thanksgiving in May, making up for the 2 I missed while I was in Japan. Life at home is good.

It's of course all very strange and bitter-sweet, though more sweet than bitter. I guess the oddest thing to me is that everything feels very, very normal. Driving, eating, being with my family--all perfectly familiar and comfortable, so far. Even the endless background noise of Japanese that ran through my head while I visited two Christmases ago has failed to make an appearance (though it's all there when I choose to call it forward, while it lasts). So for now my life is exactly as I would wish for it to be: Relaxing and uneventful. It'll end soon enough. Next week, I begin the process of finding summer employment, and soon enough I'll be making detailed plans for grad school. For now... Know any good Japanese restaurants needing waiters?