Days 6, 7 & 8 Back in the Frozen Tundra

Day 6 -- Lovely Daytona Beach.
I hung out and recuperated. Exciting, no? It was beautiful though. The sun was bright and the temperate was in the low eighties. It felt so good lying in the sun letting the warmth sink in. You know that feeling you get when it's cold out, but sunny, and you get into your car after it's been in the sun for a while ... and it's so warm and toasty in there that the warmth just sinks right into you and it feels sooo good? Well, that's how it felt.

Trying to find a place to eat was a challenge. I was looking at the local promotional rag in the hotel room and I was amazed how few places there were to eat at (excuse the grammar) and how horrible the food looked in the ads. Ever notice that on TV or at the movies when they show an ad for a restaurant and the food looks repulsive? Who thought the pictures of the food looked good? The owner? I wish I had a scanner so I could have shown you some pictures of the haute cusine that was available. I drove about 6-7 miles to a place called Cheers because in its ad it looked like a normal franchise type place like Bennigan's or something. It was a green cinder block square beach bar -- not on the beach. I cursed, turned around and ate at Johnny Rocket's. The place where they serve ketsup with and smile and food without taste. But Daniel the counter boy was chatty as hell.

I dined at an exotic locale that was scary but interesting in that I-can't-look-away kind of way. One of the bartenders was a young woman who was plain looking but with in your face cleavage that featured some sort of tatoo in the cleavage itself and spilling out onto her boobs. Trying not to stare was and look disinterested was a challenge. She left and my bartender was a woman of indetermined age who was new and had not just returned from her Rhoades Schoralship. She had to be rescued by two owners helping her out. Since Daytona was in its lull before race week, the place was sparsely populated but could have been scary with more people. Lot's of people there looked like they had done some hard living. I survived and enjoyed the people watching and the sandwich was good.

Day 7 -- On the road from Fla. to Va.
I had expected that once I got into northern Florida and Georgia the temperature would drop considerably, but it was gorgeous the whole way. It was 82 degees in SOuth Carolina. Kind of ironic when there were terrible storms in the lower midwest going on at that time.

I have followed my Weighter Watchers regime religously and it's obvious just from the loosening of the waist of my pants that I'm loosing weight. Staying within my limts while driving all day on interstates is a challenge. The choises or eateries other than fast food are few. By dinner I was starved and eat 7/8 of a small pizza. What the hell!

Day 8 -- Survivng Lunch
Pardon me while I rant. Desperate for lunch I settled on Bob Evans in Parkersburg, West Virginia. It was up on a hill overlooking the highway and the road to the restaurant was so fucking impossible to find that my poor Tommy (Tom Tom navigation system) was totally lost. After I got there -- knowing I usually hate their food -- I told myself that the only safe thing to eat was eggs and bacon; maybe salad. So I ordered a salad and the lovely beef tips stir fry. Very bright -- ordering fake Chinese food in a homestyle American place. It was beyond awful, it made me nauseous. And I was so pissed at myslef for spending seventeenfuckingdollars on an inebilbe meal. You're asking yourself, why didn't he send it back? And get what?

Reminds me of two rules. When at a steakhouse, order steak. When at a breakfast place, order breakfast. And secondly this: When you have a bad meal or poor service what do you do? Tell them everything was fine; never come back; and tell people you know about it. So if you serve the public, don't think asking "How was everything?" will tell you anything about your service. . . That was wasn't much of a rant.

The last 120 miles of the trip were nightmarish and given my past history of being run over by a semi-truck on a freezing wintry night while driving a small car, I handled it pretty well and the beemer performed well too.

My lasting memory of this trip will be that shitty trips make for shitty blogs. I'll do better on my next adventure.
Cheers!

Days 4 & 5 -- Plan B

Day 4 -- Hollywood, FL, Westin Diplomat Resort.
As you know -- if not, you do now -- people watching is a religion to me. I've been honing my skill since I was in High School. It's only in recent years that I have moved from people critic to people watcher; both involve looking people over but how you react to the observation is the difference. In undergraduate college my gang and I were vicious about it. We declared ourselves the fashion police long before you heard that expression on cable TV. We used to issue fashion citations on the corner of South Court and Union in lovely Athens, OH. The penalty for violations was self-destruction; "kill yourself immediately" was the phrase. We didn't really do this, of course; just talked about it. Regretably my children, at least the three youngest have black belts in criticism. One of the few things their mother and I had in common.

Now, I just like looking at people. Particularly couples. How did they pick each other? What did they look like on their wedding day; particularly if they have managed to be pretty rotund even in their youth. I always wonder what the men are like at work. Probably the one and only time you'll hear me admit to thinking about men.

My point is that people watching at a four star hotel (where I was staying today) is wonderful. Of course you have your basic "I wonder how she/he can afford to stay here." Or "I wonder whose paying the bill for him/her?" Older couples are always great because they seem to be at once joined at the hip and oblivious to the other at the same time. I always wonder what they looked like on there wedding day. During the brief period I was out in the sun today, I saw many orthodox jews with their families and I always want to understand what they can and cannot do with respect to acceptable dress for sunbathing and so forth. I sat next to a couple who were looking and an iPod Touch. They were in their late teens. I have no idea what their religous beliefs were. The kid had on baggy cargo shorts, like every other teen age boy, but he had about six or eight gold chains around his neck hanging down to his navel with crosses and stuff. Seemed very Mr. T'ish.

My biggest dissapointment in missing the cruise was to marvel at the eclectic mix of people in the singles group; let alone the amusement park crowd that are on lower end cruise lines.

So, Plan B? What to do after the cruise debacle. Well it's too damn expensive to stay where I am. So, here's what I decided. There's no point busting my ass to get back to Michigan to freeze my ass off. If I drive to Jacksonville or Savannah, the temps will only be in the 50's or 60's. I'm in south Florida where it's 80; how far can I go north and save a couple bucks and keep the 80 degree temps? Wouldn't you know it. My least favorite place (almost) in Florida: Daytona Beach.

Day 5 -- Daytona Beach
A beach you can drive on. NASCAR town. The world's most famous beach. Yep, that's the place. I'm in a Holiday Inn right on the beach for $108/night -- a little cheaper than West Palm or Boca. Actually I feel much more relaxed here. Maybe I'm an elitist and I like hanging out with people I believe to be inferior to me (NOT!) or I'm just a regular Joe with a little bit of sense who feels comfortable in less pretenious environments.

Daytona is my least favorite place in Florida becuase it is tacky, cheesy and it's insane to drive cars on a beach where thousands of children are playing. Years ago I let Kathy (Mrs. B II) plan and make the arrangements for a family vacation. Kathy is not wont to spend a lot of money on anything. When I heard we were booked in Daytona, I shallowed hard and kept my mouth shut. We packed up the mini van and headed south. We had a routine down pat. We would take the middle seat out of the van and make a bed for the kids there. Then we'd leave around dinner time and drive through the night while the kids slept. We would arrive around noon exhusted but satified to be there. I can remember constantly watching the cars on the beach and having multiple heart failures when kids (not mine) ran in front of cars. Haven't been back until today.

I took a short walk on the beach after I got here -- what a ghost town. The price of gas must be killing this place. I couldn't find a place that had more than two people watching the Super Bowl. I dined at the ever elegant Bubba Gump's and -- surprise, suprise -- the salmon and veggie thing I had was good. What movie runs there constantly? I guess it's obvious. And they don't turn it off for the Super Bowl.

I saw a whispy young girl (don't get ahead of me, it's nothing like that) and I had a naustalgic flashback to my days as a middle school science teacher in Centerville, Ohio in the early to mid 70's. I became a teacher because I decided that I didn't want to attend dental school, even though I had a small scholorship -- and a wife and baby boy; and so I taught to keep out of Vietnam. At that time I was 22 and my students were 14. That was tough to handle at times -- but I handled it. Later when I taught middle school I was five years older and had a Master's in Education. The point is I felt much more like a father figure/mentor than a big brother. The girl on the beach reminded me of my little fan club and how much I liked them and felt protective. We had this understanding that I expected a lot out of them -- grades and behavior -- and they expected me to fair and teach them something. Some of them had crushes on me which was flattering I guess. The girl on the beach reminded me of Chris Clark. She was very quite and demure and smart and pretty. One not-so-fine day John Swartz, the pain-in-the-ass German teacher, made Chris cry in class. Oh, my God!! I could have killed him. . . Teaching gave me the best memories of my whole career but I'm glad I left when I did before I got bitter and lazy.

You know the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? It has to do with the amount of information the brain can process in an instant -- a blink. I can't articulate his thesis except to say that the brain has a huge capacity to process information almost instantly. He gives many examples. Well that was what happened when I saw the girl and was transported back to the 70's. I'm so nostalgic lately!

I'm still sick. Not any better; maybe worse. Tomorrow I recouperate, I hope, in Daytona and look at it with my more accepting mature eyes -- except this driving on the beach shit. After that, well see.

Please comment (not on my illness). Click on the word "comment" below to do so.

[Sorry, spell check is still down.]

Days 2 & 3 -- Stick a Fork in Me

Day 2 -- I feel like shit.

Day 3 -- Woke up in lovely Lake City, Florida to misting rain and grey skies. I should have taken heed and gone back to bed. Little did I know how totally one guy could screw up in one day. On my Road Trip in Sept/Oct '07, I lost my car keys in the Mall of America -- and got them back; left 12 DVD's and a library book in a motel in Wisconsin; left my computer power cord in Utah (replacement cost $127); and left my car keys at the golf course in Colorado -- and got them back again. I made fun of myslef in my blog and shrugged it off.

Well, I guess I have moved up to the absent mindedness Hall of Fame. Let me give you the setting in which I am writng this and you'll start to get the picture. I am sitting in my room on the 30th floor of the Westin in Hollywood, Florida and the cruise ship Fascination is making it way to Nassau. What I pulled today certainly qualifies as a cluster fuck.

I had about 375 miles to drive to the Port of Miami. I was driving fast as always, but stopping frequently and in no big hurry. Plenty of time. As I cruise down the Florida Turnpike at 85 watching cars blow by me like I was traveling the speed limit or something, a thought popped into my mind. Did I bring my passort? Is it possible that I have been driving for two and a half days feeling like shit and I don't have my passport with me? Afraid so, dumbass! I FORGOT MY FUCKIN PASSPORT!

I'm feeling nauseous, but then I give my self one of those "you're a corporate lawyer and former executive, you can find a way around this" pep talks. I call the lovely Molly (not her real name) at singlescruise.com and we discuss it -- she thinks I said I'm thirty miles from the docks, not 130 miles, so I've got time. She says go down there and plead your case. OK, might as well. I come up with an idea -- a lame one -- what if my son Rob gets my passport and photocopies it and makes a sworn statement that it's a true copy, blah, blah, blah, and faxes it to Immigration. I call Molly back. I tell her my idea -- she says maybe it will work -- we both know it won't -- and she asks me where I am. 117 miles from the Port. "Jim, you should be there. The ship departs at 4:00!" "No, way. It departs at 6:00!" I WAS TWO HOURS LATE!

There were more phone calls to the Travel Hotline ans so forth but that was it. Three college degrees and I can't remember shit. And the hell of it is, I had a 4:00 departure on my Outlook calendar and I changed it to 6:00!

So here I sit trying to make lemonade out of this. . . Well when I got back last October, I said I would probably go on another road trip in Feb to somewhere warm. I guess I'm doing that.

Unbelievable!

Tommorow I rest and relax and figure out Plan B.

Ann Arbor to Nassau to who knows where.

Monday in southeast Michigan it was about 40 degrees. Last night (Tues) the wind howled and blew and kept me awake until 3:00AM. Three and a half hours later I awoke to a 6 degree temperate and winds. What a perfect day to leave town and head south. So I'm on my way to Miami to hop a cruise ship to Nassau.

I'm in Knoxville -- I'm breaking the drive into three legs -- where it's 39 degrees at 7:30PM. Feels tropical already. Tomorrow I'll stop in Gainesville and then Friday to Miami and aboard ship. So that means today and tomorrow are going to be really boring -- and I'm sick -- and I need to come up with something to write about that's a little entertaining or interesting. I guarantee that there will be plenty of material about my fellow singles and the cruise.

I have six audio books with me and I finshed one today and started a second one. The first is Triptych by Karin Slaughter. It's a murder mystery, of course -- about 98% of what I listen to is. It passed the most important test of an audiobook -- a good reader. I think the guy's name is Michael Caldwell. The hero is a Georgia state cop who is dyslectic and reads at a second grade level and, of course, covers it up. It's entertaining if unspectacular. Being a sucker for romance and believable happy endings, I was pleased that our hero and his life long vice cop lover ended up together. BTW I have no idea what Triptych is.


I started one of Donald E. Westlake's Dortmunder novels that I have listened to before. Don't remember the name. Cooincidentially it's the same reader. It's entertaining and lightweight and the plot is creative. -- If you want to have a book ruined, have Tony Roberts read it. You know, the guy who's in a bunch of Woody Allen movies. He sounds like he's doing a lame assed immitation of James Gagney. I expected him to say "all right, youse guys" at any moment.


Here's three obscure movies that you'll like. German, Spanish and English. The German movie is Vitus. It's the story of a wonderkin at the ages of six and twelve and the way he copes with his genius IQ, his parents and his grandfather. The two child actors who play Vitus (pronounced Vee tus) are charming and believable. If you don't want to just hug the six year old, you are heartless. The Spanish film is Quinceanera -- which is the fifteen birthday celebration for a hyspanic girl. It's written and directed by an American and Englishman who are gay -- "not that's there's anything wrong with that" -- who attended a quinceanera in their neighborhood. The cast is all hyspanic unknowns. I will only say that the plot revolves around a scientifically explainable immaculate conception. Finally there's Interview with Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller. The dialog is really smart.


My first career (of four) was as a middle school scince teacher -- this was in the early and mid seventies. I loved classroom teaching, I was very well liked and I was good at what I did. But I did some uncoventional things to keep life entertaining - to me at least. The kids may have thought of it as tortue. In 1969 I graduated with a B.S. in zoology and not a clue. I had never taken an education couse but I got a teaching job and a draft deferral. I taught physical science to ninth graders in Xenia, Ohio. My class room was about sixty years old and had no lab tables. To break up the monotiny I'd do shit to entertain the kids. For example, I found an old static electricity generator in the supply room -- you know, it's one of those things that has a belt you crank and it builds up a charge on the gold ball electrodes and makes a big spark when you discharge it. But wait! You can also discharge it by touching the two electrodes in which case it shocks the shit out of you. Or better yet, you can make the whole class join hands and have one kid (or me) grab one electrode and then make a human chain and when the last kid grabs the other electrode -- zap, you get a big assed jolt. So for yuks, I got my first period to do it and it really shocked us enough to make your arm jolt upwards. For second period I refined my act. I had them stand up and I cranked a big assed charge into the machine and told them to hold hands. They knew what was coming and the girls (and guys?) started screaming "No, Mr. B. No". Naturally I said "Shut up and hold hands." The results were even more shocking.


And finally, for now, the other highlight of that year was blowing up the classroom. Again I was putzing through the supply room forsomething to entertain with and I found some solid sodium pellets. They're pretty caustic and if you drop the in water they spin around in a circle and pop. I said to myself, "this should kill about five minutes of lecture time." Again I started with first period and refined my act. Third period comes along and I show them how this stuff works by dropping a few pellets in a big coffee can of water and they go "swirl, swirl, swirl - puff!" The kids decide to goad me on. "More, Mr. B. More." Sure why not. I drop maybe a tablespoon full in the coffe can and it starts to froth and smoke and then . . . BOOM! It fucking explodes! The entire room is full of smoke. The kids are screaming. I'm yelling "Shut up and open the windows." The next day a girl comes to me and says she got some on her hand and it burned a hole through her dress . . . and mom is not happy. Oops.



Please remember I was 22, full of crap and wanted to be popular and entertaining. The end . . . for now.
[I apologize for the misspellings, but the spell checker isn't working.]

February is the meanest month

It's almost February in Michigan which means it's time to get out of town. No airplanes for me anymore, I'm ready to jump in the beemer. By the time I return from this new excursion, I'll have 70,000 miles on it after 27 months. The trade in value will be 12 cents but no matter I'm getting a 535i in June. Manual transmission of course. When I left off in October I had just returned from a three week, 15 state cruise and figured that I would be driving to Arizona in January/February. Then on an impulse I remembered that I had really enjoyed my first cruise (on a ship, of course) and that I might do that instead. So last Friday I called to book it and this Friday I leave from Miami for Nassau. And making a road trip out of it as well. Did I mention is a singles cruise? I don't want to jinx myself but the first one was an over-40 singles cruise and:(1) most of them were way over 40; and (2) there were at least three times as many women as men -- any most of the men weren't Sean Connery lookalikes.

By the way, it's a bit past midnight which is the perfect time to write a blog. (I never could have imagined using the phrase "writing a blog" a year ago. ) Blog is such an unpleasant sounding word. In my mergers and acquisitions days -- you know, before the earring -- I first heard the word accretive. Isn't that ugly and doesn't it sound like it isn't a real word? Actually the spell checker doesn't even recognize it. How about cacophony? You are no doubt asking yourself what about pleasant sounding words. Melody? What do you think?

After thousands of hours of playing super solitaire games on the computer -- spider, forty thieves, blondes and brunettes, curds and whey, etc. -- and spending a grand total of about three minutes surfing, I have discovered the "social utilities" myspace.com and facebook.com, along with the age-appropriate babyboomerspeoplemeet.com. These are so much better than the online dating services -- especially the dreaded and dreadful eharmony. Speaking of which, how the hell to they get away with discriminating based on values and religion. Don't they use federal lines of communication? Would someone please nail their asses? Sorry. . . Myspace.com is the creepiest yet most fascinating place. I have been telling people that there is so much misrepresentation and counter-misrepresentation to combat the deliberate misrepresentation, that it seems like I'm the only dumbshit who actually has a factual profile. Actually that's a complete dramatization as the gecko would say. And of course to me it's only a self serve dating service --I have no idea how to get songs and other stuff. On the other hand, facebook.com is the in service with people who are young enough to be my children (and are) and it's locked down tighter than a drum. So after working with computers every day since 1979 -- no shit -- I have finally become a peruser of the Internet. Finally, may I say that my eighteen year old son hates that I use these services -- he refuses to accept me as a friend on facebook -- and wants me to behave like a normal retired person. Which I assume means buy some white shiny loafers, pull my pants up to my nipples and move to Boca.

I leave Wednesday (Jan. 30) for the south, so I'll be writing each day. I hope it's mildy entertaining. I leave you with the words of Lewis Black: "MTV is to music what KFC is to chicken."

Saturday

Sitting at Panera people watching. My idea of a social life. I used to come here every day (almost) for lunch but how many bowls of chicken soup can one guy eat? So for some reason beyond my comprehension I started going to Alex's Family Restaurant. If you live in metro Detroit you know about all these "koney island" type restaurants which serve Greek salads and gyros and breakfast stuff, etc. They are usually run by immigrants and feature simple food and cheap prices. OK, that's what Alex's is. It took me maybe a nanosecond after entering to be greeted by Jodie with a big smile. It took me about ten more minutes to realize that the food was miserable, but cheap. So in short time I came to know Amber, Lisa, Kisha, Marie, Tabitha (That's right!), Dawn and Amy. For a short while there was some internal back biting because Maria was spending too much time sitting with me and she told me not to talk to other waitresses, etc. Maria is from Bulgaria and I really have this attraction to foreign women. It's not hard to understand why -- intelligent people who have learned English as a second language always have better grammer than most Americans. I relish good grammer. And ESL speakers are anxious to learn and I am happy to help them. It took me about 20 seconds to teach a friend what a double negative was and why it's incorrect. Two thirds of the hillbillies around her couldn't begin to understand the same thing.

So why am I back at Panera? Number One: you can only take so much bad cheap food. Number Two: Everything runs it course (and Maria is married.) And oh yes, reason three: the customers are a different type person than you run into at Alex's. Not better or worse, just different. You know me well enough to know that people watching and checking out the women present are the same thing for me. But, just like at the fitness club, it doesn't mean that I have figured out how you turn a nice smile in your direction into a conversation.

On to other more mysterious topics. What do you make of those comments to my posting about Cancun on12/10/07? The comments are from Anonymous. Little miss anonymous claims to have seen me at the hotel. How the fuck does she (he?) know who I am? Me thinks this is someone who knows me and is fucking with me. This is like myspace.com revisited. There are creeps and scam artists all over that site -- but at least you can browse for interesting people. Interesting could mean bizarre or whatever. My own daughter claims to live New York on myspace and I know many women omit or change information to protect themselves -- a fine idea but it makes it hard to distinguish the real from the scam artists. I've had a dozen or so messages from profile who appear to be young females in provocative poses who want to be "friends".

Remember that there are posers like me and there are FBI -- full blown Italians. Regrettably my mother is not Italian so I can never be a made man. One of life's tragedies.

Let me know what you think about Miss Anonymous. For a laugh, my profile is www.myspace.com/jimbarce.

All Dressed Up . . .

Two tickets to Cancun and no girlfriend to go with. With Christmas three weeks away. Aren’t the holidays the greatest? So I am off to Mexico alone – oh joy! First, I have been to Cancun; this was my birthday present to the woman I had been dating for 18 months. That blew up in my face so here I go – no option to change the reservation or change my traveling companion. My daughter and I talked about going but I discovered it’s either the original traveler or no one.
So I am about as excited about going to the sun and out of this snow as though I were having root canal. Actually I’ve had root canal and this is no root canal. Much more like a kick in the nuts. I am giving myself the same pep talk I gave myself when I went on my first cruise alone; the worst that can happen is that I will sit outside for 2 ½ days and read and work crossword puzzles and get a tan. I can write as well. Anything beyond that will be upside.

Here I am in paradise – or as we call it in the Midwest, Hell! Now I think I clearly recall – and then some – why I swore I would never take a vacation alone again. Of course, I wasn’t planning on being alone now was I? Travel day was an energy draining nightmare. Eleven hours from door to door and only four hours of flying time. I nearly missed the whole thing by going to the wrong terminal – and at Detroit it’s not just Terminal 1, Terminal 2, etc. It’s the civilized terminal and the shithole. The shithole made Travel and Leisure’s list of Eight Shitty Wonders of the World. The Black Hole of Calcutta was ahead of Detroit’s second terminal. For once I had the foresight to circle the terminal and re-read the airlines sign to confirm that Delta is now amongst the civilized. So I avoided parking in the wrong garage and missing my flight.
On the other end, it took two hours to get through customs, get a car – well if you call a Hyundai Atos a car – and find the hotel. The hotel was on the one and only cul-de-sac of the whole fucking Zona Hotelera and I drove by it three times. By the time I checked in, I was ready to check out.
Cancun, Mexico. Riviera Maya. What a place! The appearance of South Beach with an undercurrent of Myrtle Beach. Opulent but cheesy. The hotel is luxury class and the shops and cafes are Daytona Beach. At night you can walk through the flea market – hoping not to catch fleas – and be accosted by those melodious phrases: “I know what you are looking for, Senor.” and “Do you want to see something you have never seen before.” Amusing when you’re with friends; annoying when you’re alone. I must say I feel like I’m Gulliver in Lilliputia. I have never seen such short people. Being touched and grabbed by the arm are not my idea of charming nor acceptable, but what ya gonna do?
Next morning: Ok, Ok, I confess. The weather here is terrific. Eighty-six on December 8th – not bad; but the real pleasure is the late afternoon and evening when it is cool and breezy. Really calming. What an adventurer I am –aside from recuperating in my room playing solitaire for hours, I venture out to eat at exotic local eateries like Friday’s (twice), Hard Rock Cafe and that tacky excuse for the worst food in the world – Hooters (twice). And my waitresses were – are you ready? – petite and demure . . . and didn’t seem to understand me very well. Time to strike up a conversation with a stranger. More than 50% of my “vacation” is over and I haven’t uttered more than “hola” or “no, gracias” to a soul. The pressure is on tomorrow. By the way, does anyone know what these colorful stringy things are that these women with small children try to sell along the sidewalk?
Just to be really harsh let me say that you can sunbathe topless all you want, but it still doesn’t make you good lookin. Just an observation from earlier today. Sunday was a perfect day for me to be outside because there were strong ocean breezes and partial cloudiness, so the eighty-seven degree temperature was bearable and pleasant. Had I realized that I wasn’t getting burned I would have stayed in the sun longer. Begrudgingly I have to admit that the facilities at the hotel were exceptional. There was no beach on their property because the shore was rocky, but there was a sand beach built about 12 -15 feet above the shoreline with chaises and these big king size shaded beds that were comfortable for sun or shade. It was not at all crowded and of course you could order food and drink from your chair/bed. Actually it was elegant.
Oops. No stranger contact. Does three sentences about Cormac McCarthy’s books on the plane count? Speaking of which I am 98% through No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy and it’s pretty good. Very nice Texas homespun dialog with an interesting lack of punctuation. Periods at the end of sentences and that’s it. No quotation marks; no apostrophes; nothing. Even a grammar snob like me can appreciate good dialog with hillbilly speak. He does a nice job of describing gun violence in a way that you can picture what he’s talking about. Most authors describe settings and action that is incomprehensible to imagine. The plot resolution is not what you expect; now I need to see the movie.
Sunday after excellent sunbathing I set out for downtown Cancun thinking I should go there while I was in Cancun, although I couldn’t think why I would go there. Just seemed like a necessary part of being there. I couldn’t think of one thing I would buy – but I could think of a thousand Mexican hawkers trying to convince me to buy crap. How can there be so many stores that have nothing in them but shit? Does anyone over the mental age of twelve want a Cancun T-shirt? In any event, once I hit Cancun proper and couldn’t see any more road signs that said Cancun Centoro, I said “fuck this” and headed back to Zona Hotelera. I returned to the mall I had been to on Saturday -- and still resisted buying a La Coste knit shirt -- they’re cheaper at Von Maur. So I watched the Steelers Patriots game In English at the afore-mentioned Hooters. I recommend the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich; the curly fries suck.
All and all, a less than fulfilling three days. Of course I had buyer’s remorse – complainer’s remorse? – as the plane left the ground and I realized the hellish weather I was returning to. I wanna go back!