I want to start my blog post by describing an Instagram post that was a screenshot of a Twitter post that I saw the other day that said something along the lines of now that COVID is over travel as a personality is gonna come roaring back. Of course that was a direct personal attack on me because *hand raised emoji* that is my personality. In 2019, The Great Before, I went to TN, GA, FL, SC, VT, MA, VA, WA, and AZ on various types of vacations. In 2020, we only took one big vacation to SD and then another quick weekend trip to Williamsburg/Jamestown. Oh, and then I took another weekend trip to camp in TN without Wes. So even in the midst of a pandemic, I still took more vacations than most people do in a normal year (and although I did my best to stay masked and practice social distancing while traveling, I’ll admit that I do feel hypocritical/guilty about it- just not bad enough to not do it).
Sometimes I think about why I choose to spend all my disposable income on traveling. And by sometimes, I mean I only think about that when I’m thinking about (read: judging) other people’s spending habits. What is it that makes Susie spend so much money on eating out and why does Sally spend so much money on clothes? Don’t they know if they just cooked at home more and were content with last year’s dress they could afford a plane ticket and lodging for a week on the west coast? They probably don’t know that because if they did, wouldn’t they budget differently so they could take as many vacations as I do? I eventually snap out of this line of thought by reminding myself that Susie and Sally aren’t stupid, they are just different from me (if I had a dollar for every time I've had to remind myself of that...). They value good food and nice clothing more than travel and so of course that’s what they spend their money on and although I cannot fathom that preference, I do realize they are allowed to have it (I’m nothing if not gracious). And only after that long inner monologue do I even start to wonder why travel is my top priority.
I could chalk my love of traveling up to my childhood. Vacations are what my parents spent their disposable income on as well. They always took a trip with us kids in the summer, another one by themselves on their anniversary, and then a few weekend trips here and there throughout the year. And I know that is definitely part of it, but it can’t be the sum total. Except for one trip to Canada to see Niagara Falls, their vacations were to Appalachian mountain towns that were just variations on the mountain town that we lived in and that isn’t really how I vacation as an adult.
Self-reflection reveals that, while I enjoy the places I go, it is the going that I enjoy even more than the being somewhere fun and new. Even once we arrive in the area or state of our vacation, we usually don’t stay in one place. Sometimes we’ll stay in a different town for 7 straight nights and sometimes we’ll stay in a central location and take day trips out from that base, but Wes and I have never taken a vacation whose purpose was to actually relax.
So the question remains as to what makes traveling a necessity for me, why leaving is always what my soul yearns for, what it is inside me that makes me itch to be gone to anywhere but my daily life, what makes me crave newness like some people crave chocolate?
I’m not sure, but whatever it is that pushes me to go, go, go in search of something new is also the same thing that makes my mind and body go, go, go just to be going all the fucking time. That’s why I have 1,000 hobbies and why I have to workout and walk 3 miles with Duffy everyday or my excess energy turns into a panic attack and why I sleep maybe 5 hours on a good night. This restlessness rules my daily life and my vacations. This restlessness is sometimes beneficial and sometimes a burden. This restlessness is exhausting.
The combination of 30 years of restlessness and a particularly difficult season at work pushed me to do something out of character. I booked a vacation to relax.
Me, relaxing.
We rented a condo on Goose Creek in Hanahan, SC and didn’t make any plans past that. I did not make a spreadsheet with each day planned out by the hour and that alone felt like a giant psychological hurdle to overcome. I wanted to make that damn spreadsheet even if all it said was Breakfast, Relax, Lunch, Relax, Snack, Relax, Dinner, Drinks, Sleep. But I didn’t. I knew I wanted to visit an art museum and to walk around Charleston one of the days, but that’s as far as the planning went.
I also knew I wanted to visit a LFL in the city. Apparently I needed that spreadsheet after all because we spent an entire day walking around Charleston and I never once even thought to pull up the map and find a close by LFL. I probably wouldn’t have thought about it until I got home if my sister-in-law hadn’t brought it up that night. I smacked myself on the head and made a plan to get up very early the next morning to get a run in and to find a LFL before we had to checkout at 11AM. Despite my best efforts to drink too much to allow me to get up and run at anytime the next day, my body wouldn’t let me sleep so I actually followed through with that ambitious plan, much to everyone’s surprise.
I got up at 5AM and drove the 25 minutes into Charleston after stopping for water and coffee which I hoped would magically erase the prior night’s alcohol.
View from in front of the parking garage in Charleston that morning.
The run was beautiful, starting shortly before sunrise at a random parking garage and ending at Waterfront Park Pier shortly after sunrise.
Of course, I had to take some sweaty sunrise selfies to prove that I'm better than you because I got up and jogged exactly one morning of my life.
With that important task out of the way, I began my walk around Charleston in search of a LFL. I pulled the LFL website up and headed to the closest one on the map, taking pictures along the way.
This LFL was nestled between two blooming planters and snugly tucked away from the reaching rays of morning's first light.
Sadly, the inside was not as appealing as the outside. We're looking at a travel guide to New Orleans, 5 children's books, the 4th book in the Hitchhiker's series, 3 magazines, a Reader's Digest collection of condensed books, and a collection of historic tales (does that mean it is non-fiction or historical fiction?) about the early settlers/leaders of Dallas. Not a single book suitable for a blog post where I ramble at length about my life and then write 3 short paragraphs of a book review.
Apparently you can't judge a book, or a box of boxes, by its cover. Luckily, there was another LFL close by, so I cut my loses and headed there.
This one was just as cute on the outside, but at first I thought this would be another disappointment.
Starting from the left (Is that because I'm an English speaker/would I have started from the right if Arabic was my native language? Do I also shop from left to right? I'll have to try to think about that the next time I'm in a clothing store, which I hope is a very good long time from now), I riffled through the titles. Magazines, a how-to book on writing (which you may wish I had picked up and learned from, but alas), a history of Bennington, a book of tales from Fort Lauderdale, Huxley's non-fiction addition to his famous dystopian novel, a biography of Frederick Douglass, a non-fiction book about internet extremism, a non-fiction book about quantitative analysis applied to hedge funds, a non-fiction book on business management by the CEO of General Electric. So much yawning was happening in response to all this non-fiction and the earliness of the hour and last night's alcohol catching up to me that I almost fell asleep before I got to the last three books.
Finally!! Fiction, my sweet reward.
I thought Strong Poison sounded interesting at the time, and I have since looked up Dorothy Sayers and added this particular book to my "Want to Read" shelf on Goodreads, but it didn’t win out.
I ended up going home with Dove Season by Johnny Shaw. The picture on the front greatly appealed to me for some reason. Not sure why. I mean, I'm obviously way classier than someone drinking liquor straight from the bottle while holding a rifle. You want proof? Fine.
Here's a picture of me holding a Natty Light and a bag of BBQ pork rinds. Told you.
So maybe I picked a book based on its cover, but I'm so glad I did. This was hands down the most entertaining book I've read in a long time. It wasn't the most ingenious plot and it didn't have the most poetic prose, but it was far and away the most fun to read. This book had it all: a dying dad, an old high school flame, a best friend with more lines on his rap sheet than common sense, family secrets, bar fights, legal and illegal border crossings, murder, etc, etc, etc.
I didn't read much of the book on the beach that day, the sunset ended up being a long, breathtaking affair that kept me from reading.
I did bring it back to the beach about a week later when my sister-in-law and I went for a few hours. This book kept making me literally laugh out loud. Over and over again. So many times that Tinsley, probably tired of my machine-gun guffaws ruining the serenity of the beach, asked me what the book was about.
I said, "Oh, it's about this guy who goes back home to watch his dad die slowly and then has to find a Mexican sex worker and gets in a whole bunch of fights." After thinking about it for a second, I tried to justify why a book with that plot was making me laugh, "I know that doesn't sound funny, but the writing is just witty."
She wasn't convinced, but I hope I can convince you by giving a longer description. The author gave the main character, Jimmy Veeder, a really aggressive sense of humor. Nothing is off limits. Nothing is too high-brow, either. Exactly the type of silly shit that makes me laugh, but that my dry comedy loving husband wouldn't condescend to turn up one corner of his mouth at.
For instance, Jimmy runs into his childhood bestfriend, Bobby, at the local diner. Bobby asks about Jimmy's dad, noting the reason he's returned to the small farming town of Holtville.
Bobby turned back to me. "Cancer, right?"
"No, I'm an Aries," I said, trying to lighten the mood.
The reason Jimmy has this sense of humor is because his father, Jack, instilled it in him. Their relationship, especially since Jimmy left home, has been phone conversations in which they chase The Big Laugh by telling each other increasingly stupid jokes. After a few of these interactions with Jack in the hospice home, Jimmy finally works up the courage to bring up more serious topics, feeling it is what one must do when one's only parent is on his death bed. Jimmy hadn't been home to have these adult conversations with his father so this is new territory for them both.
Since I had left home and then graduated college, I had been constantly drawn to new cities, new faces, and new experiences.
I may be drawn to new places, but I am too high-strung to live without a steady paycheck and a place to call home. I'll stick with vacation as a personality instead of a lifestyle.
Jimmy admits to himself that his nomadic existence, working odd jobs just to survive, living without goals or expectations, was fun while he was in his 20s but feels sad now that he's not so young anymore. He expresses this to his father who won't hear it. Jack is so proud of his son for getting a college degree and for not becoming a farmer like himself. Jimmy, trying to make his dad feel better, says that farming isn't so bad. Jack replies with something that has stuck with me for weeks.
"Maybe. For you, back then, it would've been. Anything can be a curse if it ain't a choice. If it's all you know. If you do it because your father did it. And you do it because it's familiar and safe and you're afraid to do something else. Even if all you want to do is anything else."
Man. That one hits really hard. Think about that again. "Anything can be a curse if it ain't a choice." Apply that to your life because I can guarantee it applies. Maybe you aren't a farmer because your father was a farmer, but I know you chose to do one thing because it was familiar and safe when all you really wanted was to do anything else. Maybe that's why you are still in a marriage that isn't working or still in a job you hate or why you haven't traveled solo to Europe like you always dreamed about. It applies to the things we enjoy, too. It's why some people love to exercise and eat salads and skip the stale donut in the breakroom - because their health/their bodies are something they made a choice to prioritize. It doesn't feel like a curse to them in the same way it might to someone who didn't make that choice, but has to do those things to stay alive.
Eventually, Jack will work up the courage to bring up a serious topic of his own. He asks his son to find a Mexican sex worker named Yolanda and bring her to his hospice room as soon as possible. Jack refuses to tell Jimmy why he wants to see this woman, but Jimmy sets out immediately to fulfill his father's last request of him.
Bobby, the ne'er do well best friend, steps right up to help Jimmy. They set off on an adventure that takes them over the California-Mexico border throughout the rest of the book. Along the way, we are introduced to an entire cast of characters covering the spectrum from rich and powerful to poor and desperate. Although the premise of this book, a man on a quest to find a sex worker for his dying father, seems unlikely, the author paints the landscape and culture of these border towns so painstakingly that even the wildest characters feel like completely natural reactions to the time and place they are forced to survive in.
Jimmy, although he grew up in this area, finds it difficult to swallow the realities he encounters. Bobby has lived in the same place his entire life and is more hardened to the living conditions. Early in the book, they find themselves in a strip club in Mexico on the hunt for Yolanda. Jimmy has a bleeding heart for the women there while Bobby's blood is a little further south. When Jimmy tries to get Bobby to leave, Bobby shoots back with this gem:
"Dude, you're making me feel bad for being in a strip club. Don't ruin titties for me. I'll go vegetarian before I let you ruin tits for me. You got no right."
They go back and forth with this philosophical debate in the middle of a strip club, Jimmy wanting to save everyone in there from what he sees as a degradation and Bobby pointing out that for some people, working in a strip club is actually a step up from what their life had been.
This is a dynamic that continues throughout the book and one that I really appreciated. I like that the author, who is from this area himself, doesn't shy away from the issues of immigration, drug smuggling, or human trafficking. He weaves all of these factors in to a story about an old man's son trying to find his former lover because the author knew that he couldn't tell a story set in the Imperial Valley if he left them out. But he also doesn't try to solve real-world problems in a book of fiction by forcing his own agenda on the reader. No, he does something much more difficult, much more powerful. He wrote characters real enough that we want to empathize with them and then had those characters express views on both sides of the issues, allowing the reader a more realistic understanding of a world they may otherwise only see on the news.
To be fair to Bobby, he did make some very valid points throughout the book, points that had nothing to do with defending his right to enjoy a strip club, and shows a level of emotional intelligence that Jimmy had yet to achieve at the beginning of the book.
I won't go into detail about Jimmy and Bobby's misadventures, that's for you to do when you immediately order the book after reading this glowing review. I'll just skip to the end without giving anything away.
I chose my responsibilities and loved every one of them.
This story ends with Jimmy in a good place, a contented place. In fact, it ended so nicely that I'm not sure how his life will produce enough drama for 2 more books in the Jimmy Veeder Fiasco series, but I am sure that I'll read those books to find out.
WOULD I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK: Yes, if you want The Big Laugh in between heart-pounding action scenes and heart-wrenching scenes depicting the human condition.
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