The Bostonian Abroad

When I first came up to North Carolina from my Hellish existence in Honolulu, land of the retard anti-haole,I had no idea where the good and bad places were. In looking for a house, I asked as many people as possible where to go, and where to avoid. Almost unanimously, everyone said that I should live in Cary. Apparently, Cary is very popular among people from up North. It is filled to the brim with them, in fact. I called a friend of mine who had lived there years ago, and he could not sing Cary's praises enough. Of all the possible places to move in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill (the Triangle) area, Cary was deemed the best. In fact, Cary has consistently ranked among the top 10 places in the country to live. I looked in Cary, drove around its confusing, circular streets, and I marvelled at how many people live there! It's like a city up North! The houses are pretty much all within 15 to 20 feet of each other, and everywhere you look there are cars, cars and more ...

Having endeavored to ride as much as possible, I've put about 2,000 miles on my new Road King. When added to the 1500 miles I put on the Softail, I realize that I've gotten in a lot of good riding in the six months since I first learned how to ride a motorcycle. Over the last week or so, I've been blessed with some of the best weather of the entire year. As Fall fast approaches, the weather turns crisp, even down here in North Carolina, and with the change, come the many fragrances of falling leaves, cooler air and smoke from thousands of fireplaces. Riding has been a distinct pleasure, and getting off of the bike has been a hard choice to make. The feel of being out on the road, in all that beauty, makes you never want to stop. When I arrived at my destination one recent afternoon, I had such an urge to just keep on going, consequences be damned! It hasn't all been perfect though. The cooler days have meant really chilly early mornings, and downright uncomfortable ...

I am avoiding work - again. I have essays to correct, grade, categorize, and otherwise violently tear to shreds in the name of "ACADEMIC STANDARDS". I find this work gratifying, but I avoid it nonetheless. I am often at odds with myself over the drive to occupy my every fleeting moment with all manner of activity. From teaching, to correcting, to working out, and even to doing chores, I am often loathe to do anything but sit and stare uselessly at the TV, watching yet another installment of Journey Through The Solar System , or some such nonsense. Of course, the entire time, I'm thinking, "get off your ass and do something!" And yet I persist in my efforts to do nothing. Why do I do this? Why do I do nothing and torture myself at the same time? I suppose it is because of the ethos in which I was raised. The idea has always been to avoid being labeled lazy. My whole life, I was never working enough, learning enough, traveling enough. It was always mor...

Since moving to North Carolina, I have been thinking a lot about the meaning of life, and more specifically, the meaning of my own life. It seemed for a time that life had lost its meaning for me since I was no longer foolishly pursuing a doctorate at UH, a place that was wholly wrong for me. But even deeper than this, life had lost its luster because I had done just about everything that I wanted to do. Like a video game, I had gone through all the levels and gotten to the end of the game, and now I was just floating around, not knowing what to do next or what to look forward to. What does one do if one has achieved one's goals, and the list of goals has run out? Did I peak too early? Perhaps, but I think the problem was one of perspective. I was living for something, towards something, and that was the problem. Once I had gotten to the last of the mountaintops, I looked out across a vast emptiness, with nowhere else to go. The boundary of my universe had been reached - or...