Vee: Return to panel one, and repeat.
Four or five times a year, I am GRIPPED with the desire to travel. I understand that some people never experience this compulsion, and am extraordinarily envious of them.
An overwhelming need to see something novel and authentic takes over my day to day life until I finally cave in and go somewhere ill-advised or borderline dangerous.
The problem is, I don't actually ENJOY things that are novel OR authentic.
I like routine, foods to which I am accustomed, and locations in which I feel safe. I think I just find the IDEA of travel appealing.
Looking at the photos and recalling the memories post-journey fills me with a feeling of pride and accomplishment.
It's just too bad DOING these things throws me into a state of whole-body anxiety.
My theory for this dichotomy is that the flawed, neurotic part of my consciousness sometimes wanes, giving way to the true Vee: a globe-trotting hippy with a devil-may-care attitude and Birkenstocks.
I don't think I have to detail how much I hate her.
I've eaten alligator in the Everglades, sung along with revelers at a German beer garten, yelled at goats in the Austrian Alps, swum at sea-turtle nesting beaches in the Caribbean, visited the oldest phone museum in Humbolt Saskatchewan (lol), chased road-runners in the Fraser Canyon, climbed sand dunes in the Okanagen, danced with an African troupe in The Yukatan, climbed the Mayan ruins of a ziggurat in Mexico, yelled at monkeys in the Dominican Republic, dined on iguana in a lady's kitchen in Chetumal, had the freshest sushi in the world at Tsukiji fish market in Japan, and now been hand-fed by Jainish worshipers in India.
And somehow, SOMEHOW, just listing those things makes me want to do MORE.
Even though I am presently fighting cockroaches with a broom made of twigs and vainly trying to keep down some sort of ass-destroying curry I recently ingested.
Jaime:As soon as we get home I'm heading to the grocery store.
I'm going to buy bacon, and sausages, eggs, toast, and hash browns and I'm going to eat it all in one gigantic fry up.
And then, as soon as I can, I'm going to hug a garbage man - and in between the appreciative sobbing (tears no doubt smelling of bacon fat), I'm going to thank him for all of his hard work.
I'm going to buy bacon, and sausages, eggs, toast, and hash browns and I'm going to eat it all in one gigantic fry up.
And then, as soon as I can, I'm going to hug a garbage man - and in between the appreciative sobbing (tears no doubt smelling of bacon fat), I'm going to thank him for all of his hard work.
