Notes from the Red Bird House

I met a friend for lunch yesterday. I'd just finished a doubles match and was running late. The match had gone to a third set tiebreaker that my partner and I ended up losing, I played like poo, especially in the 'breaker, and I was starving. I came rushing into the restaurant post-match frenetic, bedraggled, and smelling like a delightful mix of hours old perfume, dried sweat, and sunscreen. Because she's a good friend and it is honestly probably is The Question to ask, my lunch date inquired about the match. I launched into a my usual post-match rant/critique. In the middle of my story, she stopped me. "You're surrounded aren't you?" "Wha?" I probably responded - I can be articulate like that - but I knew exactly what she was talking about. Hell, I'd tried for more than two hours, unsuccessfully I might add, to disentangle myself from that very fact. "Your doubles partner and your current crush. They're both named [ insert ...

People often ask me why I travel. Can't you get those same experiences at home? No. Well, why do you have to go so far away? There's a great big world right here in the United States. I'm not going to deny that there are amazing experiences, places, and people right here in the U.S. I don't travel to Europe because I think America is boring and humdrum. I travel to the far reaches because every experience, every everything is the exact opposite of boring and humdrum. In my travels, I have discovered the sublime and serendipitous, the unbelievably different and things that are so similar they hardly seem 'foreign.'  I've learned history and seen it first hand. I've been places I never imagined I'd go.  And look, full disclosure - At home in America, I block out most of what goes on around me. Or at least I try. I hate the sound of idle conversation and chit-chat going on around me. I hate the same soundtracks being played over and over. I hate the ...

I've been fifty nearly two weeks now and I'm here to tell you that there are things they don't tell you. Oh, not bad stuff. I know menopause is coming, AARP membership notices, graying hair, thinning hair, unexplained weight gain, that dreaded baseline colonoscopy. Everyone talks about those. Hell, most women sit around waiting for them to arrive. "Shh.... I think that was it. Yep, it's another gray hair. No, wait. I'm wrong. It's a hot flash." Then (and this is the part that really irks me) they piss and moan and whine about how old they're getting. Jesus. Maybe if they got out and did something other than riding the couch straight to the cemetery, they wouldn't have time to worry about getting old because - lean in a little closer so you can hear me real good - THEY WOULDN'T BE GETTING OLD. God bless... I have a digression problem. Though it is all related. They do on and on about the shitty part of the years passing without ever mentio...

Well, I've begun packing for home. From where it stands right now - and I don't expect to buy anything else - I can safely say that I survived two weeks traveling small. Ok, ok... Full disclosure. It's very likely that my day pack will no longer fit in my main pack. Hey, I bought a couple things. I mean I can't come all this way and not bring anything but photos home. And, really, the sweatshirt in Stockholm was intended to be more utilitarian than souvenir. And it was. The hood came in handy, even after I got to Dubrovnik and the weather improved exponentially. Thanks to the washing machine in my apartment, it's clean and ready to wear to Copenhagen tomorrow, where the weather promises to be a bit chillier than in Croatia. Plus, it just doesn't fit in my backpack. That wasn't an oversight on my part; it was all planned. For those of you who normally travel with multiple bags containing shoes, jewelry, extravagant costume changes, and make-up, traveling wi...

I've been traveling solo for sixteen days. Oh, I didn't lose my traveling companions or get lost along the way. This - being alone - is how I intended to spend my time, how I intended to travel. It's how I always intend to travel. In fact, I can't recall the last time I actually travelled with someone. Like on a plane or train or...hell...even in a car for any distance and certainly not with an overnight stay. Somewhere along the line, I stopped. I guess. Or maybe it's that I never really started. I spent the majority of my younger adulthood traveling to visit family and occasionally friends on one side of the country or another. California, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, Nevada. And I always seemed to go alone. And why wouldn't I? Yeah, I had a series of girlfriends (sort of) but few serious enough to warrant meeting my family. Or friends for that matter. It's just how it was. And incidentally how it still is. Now, though, it's purposeful. I enjoy...

Turns out I didn't need to worry about drinking too much coffee in Scandinavia. I guess I upped my tolerance enough over the winter. Coffee every morning, a couple cups, more than occasionally another from Starbucks at work, and on my days off while writing in the afternoon. For the first time ever, I made my way through Denmark and Sweden without a whisper of caffeine intoxication. Then I came to Croatia and I met with something so unexpected, something I never would have imagined. Croatia is a land where plain, old filtered or brewed coffee doesn't exist, at least not in the cafes and restaurants I've been to. In fact, I've yet to see a coffee place that wasn't a bar and restaurant. No chains like those that are ever-present in the U.S. and Scandinavia. No Starbucks, Caribou, Wayne's, Joe and the Juice, etc, etc. No private places like my beloved Lola Savannah back in Austin. Nope. If you want coffee (and free Wifi) you have to go to a cafe or restaurant and...

I am a pacifist. I have seen about as much war as the average American who never served active duty in the military. That's to say I have never seen war up close and personal. I've never had to worry for my safety or the safety of my comrades in arms. And, probably most importantly, I've never had to worry about the safety of my home, my possessions, and my family. My brushes with war have been exclusively relegated to books (both fiction and non-fiction) and film (both fictionalized and documentary). Like I said, I am typical of most Americans. We haven't fought a war on our own soil since our civil war more than 150 years ago. We've defended the world against aggression time and time again. We've jumped in where we don't belong, also time and time again. The United States of America boasts the most powerful military complex in the world. We can bring it by land, air, and sea. Of course, we haven't won a war ("Saved the world" as I often say...