As with so many things in life, the only predictable thing is unpredictability. And it is because of this unpredictability that I have been forced to break the first promise i made to my blog readers. And woe is me. I am currently ensconced in some warm faraway locale that usually has a reliable internet connection. In these temperate breezy days, however, some low flying island bird must have crashed into a cactus satellite somewhere and caused my T1 connection (i have NO idea what that is nor if that is what I have for service) to act more like a T0, and i have been taking a forced leave of absence from the internet. This is difficult for me. It turns out that I am unrepentantly (or somewhat unrepentantly) addicted to the internet. Or perhaps, more accurately, i am addicted to the availability of the internet to service my ever growing connectivity needs. And so 2010 came, and I didn't tell you guys any of the pain and hilarious of my "direct" flight to paradise which ended up including a 7 hour layover and multiple plane boarding and deboardings. I couldn't wax romantic about my midnight champagne toast in the hot tub, or the woman at the bar here who took one look at me and said, "I know you! You're in the background of, like, ALL of my July 4th pictures! (Awesome!)" I like to think of all of these untold stories as "blog ammo" for the future, but lately the amassing of tales seems more like an inactivity reminder than a motivating tool. I picture it as an ever growing hamper of dirty laundry, growing as it taunts the irresponsibility of my avoiding its glare for over a month. This is, scarily, an extremely accurate metaphor.

Some odds and ends. You may remember my earlier post RE: the burning cross decoration outside a Western MA house. On our way to the Boston airport, I snapped off a quick pic with my iPhone. These devices are built for neither motion-photography nor night photography, yet i think the image still gets the overall point across:























Yup. I'm not making these stories up. Yet.

Secondly. I recently received a striking backhanded compliment, by one of my favorite people, about this blog. He said, "I don't read any vanity blogs except yours." I said, "Vanity blog?" He said, "Yah, blogs about, well, nothing in particular, no theme." [I should be more explicit that he by no means MEANT this as a backhanded compliment and was merely informing me of "lingo" i probably should have otherwise already known. end edit].

I was crestfallen. I am crestfallen. Here i was typing out the painful hilarity beset upon me for the enjoyment of strangers, just to be labeled "vain." If I knew ahead of time that this was going to be called vain i would have made myself look much stronger, smarter, better looking, chest-haired, bearded, and less clumsy, awkward, crazy, Jew-y, and gastro-intestinally challenged.

My friends reply, "What would YOU call it." This question prompted me to come very close to changing the name of my blog to: "The Vanity Blog: The Conceitedly Egocentric Diggings of a Narcissistic, Megalomaniac, Pompous, Self-absorbed, Self-centered, Self-concerned, Self-indulgent, Self-interested, Self-loving, Self-serving, Selfish, Stuck-up, Vainglorious, Glory Hound." But im entirely too concerned with my image for that name to fly.

One traveling story. I understand drinking before a airplane flight. Hell, I consistently "eat a big sandwich" or take an anti-anxiety pill to deal with the inhuman experience of launching one's body 30,000 feet in the air with absolutely no understanding of how it's all happening (Bernoulli has something to do with it), nor any control as to how I will make it safely back to land. But, folks, the point of the drink is to calm one's nerves and pass the time. The point is not to relive one's college days. You do not order on a plane by saying, "Hit me again!" You do not half-mumble/sing the words to all songs played over the loudspeaker system regardless of whether you have heard that song before or not. You certainly to not repeat "Crosscheck!" at high volume every 15 seconds for 45 minutes until the delayed plane can move. Sir and madam (40-50 yrs old) sitting behind us on our flights + delays. You're are both asses. You are a couple with 3 seats between the 2 of you and you don't have the decency to understand you are lucky and should keep your party local. Instead, you get sloppy drunk, kick our seats, talk openly about our flight probably getting canceled in the end (something NO ONE wants to hear after 7 hours of delays and the prospect of being stuck on a no vacancy island overnight) and making the airline workers already trying day, just that much more annoying. Fuck you people behind us. If we were to go down in that windstorm, i would have be slightly relieved to know we were taking you two down with us. P.S. I purposely farted as many times as I could and I aimed them back at you guys. I'm not perfect either, and you guys started it.

While I can't promise you, my blog readers, that I will be consistent in my future vaykay postings, I will post whenever the internet allows. Because i miss you guys as much as I (apparently) vainly miss myself.