It’s All About the Onions, Babe

Arguing on the internet is like…you know the meme. Arguing with your spouse on the internet, that’s a whole ‘nother level of stupid and yet, here I am.

Not really arguing so much, but rather commiserating while playing devil’s advocate. I’m tired too. I often wonder “what’s the point?” Here we are, we’ve spent some stupid amount of money to spend yet another night in some shitty hotel/hostel/airbnb room; and for what? If we tried hard enough we could probably get bedbugs at home. We could spend far less money and still have the privilege of hanging out with drunken Poms or Ozzies. Our contact list is full of annoying know-it-alls, why aren’t we hanging out with them if it’s annoying asshats that capture our attention? Burn the couch, sell the truck and smash the refrigerator so we can have a more authentic experience of sitting on plastic chairs, riding on chicken buses and eating foul-tasting food and let’s go hang out with those annoying acquaintances. Naw, fuck that, I’ll hold out for my one-in-three type experiences such as we had tonight.

For me, it’s never been about the place, though you’ve probably heard me gush about how awesome I think the next destination will be. For me, it’s always been about being somewhere else. The one constant in my life has been that I have a burning desire to be somewhere other than where I am right now. In my youth it didn’t matter; if given the opportunity to go to somewhere as benign as the grocery store, I was all over that shit. Imagine being excited about going to the grocery store – that place sucks the life out of people and yet it was someplace other than where I was so I was overjoyed at the opportunity to go.

Eventually I joined the military. For all the hell that that was, at least I was never in the same place for any extended period of time. My acquired skillset in the military led to job opportunities aplenty in exotic locales like Nebraska so I jumped on that. It didn’t take too long for that to become too mundane so one day I applied for a job in Antarctica. That was probably the complete undoing of me. It was with that stint of employment that I became convinced that I would never have to live a conventional lifestyle again. Antarctica led to other opportunities – one of which was a quick trip to Hawaii which led to a couple more trips to Hawaii. If you are familiar with the intimate details of the outcome of that decision then I might be in love with you.

I don’t love Hawaii. I have no emotional attachments to any geographical place on earth. I do, however, take great satisfaction in some of the experiences I’ve had and I’m fairly certain that it is because I ventured away from whatever “home” is that I invited these experiences in to my life.

As I said before, I’m tired too but the thought of quitting is completely unfathomable to me. I can’t imagine how horrible my life would be if I went back to whatever is considered by society to be the norm. Some nine to five job, some suburban apartment done all up in neutral colors. Mortgage payments, layaway at Christmas, dinner dates at Texas Roadhouse? No thanks! Despite my weariness I’m gonna stick it out for the chance of experiencing something as divine as onions sauteed in Nicaraguan cacao liqueur and whatever accompanied it – I think it was filet mignon, but I can’t be sure. I’m gonna stick it out because every now and again I encounter awesome people (remember Guy?). I’m gonna stick it out because it’s not just another job. I’m gonna stick it out because every now and then I can snap a photo of steak and foie gras and caption it with some snarky comment about how I have far exceeded the expectations of some dead soul who told me I’d never amount to anything. I’ll stick it out because this is who I am and I know that no matter how tired I am of this life that the life I left behind sucked the soul out of me.

By the way, if you ever find yourself in Granada, Nicaragua I recommend you get away from the touts and the doughy mid-westerners and go have yourself an awesome experience at the Ciudad Lounge. I’m pretty sure they serve food there as well.