Disaster, zombies eating my brain, and Camino dreams.

I would like to send my best wishes to those on the East Coast and Caribbean recovering from the storms last week. I was planning to be in NYC last week, although those plans quickly changed when the storm came roaring up from the Caribbean. I wish for the speedy recovery for everyone involved.

There are things you'll never see from the main road of life.

In other news, I'm suffering the bane of all writers, a classic case of "screwitall" from three months of writing around 90k words in the conclusion of my zombie series. There comes a point when you need the opportunity to walk away and focus on something else for a short bit of time. Hence beginning the travel book that I've been begged to write for the last few years. It still amazes me that I've traveled to such a fantastic places that have molded me into the creature that I am today.

That and I love the look of others when I talk about walking across a country on foot for fun, I'm very much the younger generation that believes that life is about living, not about definition gained through job title in employment that generally underutilized your skills.

A "brief" excerpt of the new book below with a warning: I use grownup words that are found in everyday popular media that some might consider crude. I use descriptive words that carry power, and if you can't handle it, why are you on this blog?

CHAPTER 1:So what?
"Contrary to the Chinese philosopher Laozi, a journey of a thousand miles doesn't begin with a single step, it begins with a brilliant idea inspired by either too much or not enough booze. I'm still trying to figure out my excuse."

I can only imagine what the hell others think must be going through my mind in any given moment with the strange, "far off" look that I tend to have when I'm asked to describe my life. Where do I begin? How do I begin? How can you explain what I've been through? 

Smiling, I tend to think back to my favorite question that one of my best friends and mentor during my master's degree in ancient history always asked me: "so what?" Why should anyone care about what has gone on in my life? What makes my journeys so special? Why should we care?

So what, indeed.

I can only smile thinking of those words from a mentor now passed away, trying to make sense of them in my life. So what? I silently laugh inside every time someone asks me to explain why I have done what I've done.

Hell, some days I can't explain it myself.

Why did I do the things I've done? Am I that different from everyone else?

Or are these introspection just going to lead to a life of alcoholism like Hemingway.

And if I get a vote in all of this, could I choose to be Churchill instead? At least his caustic wit entertains me decades later.

So I look off and smile into the distance knowing exactly what I'm looking for, something that I can't seem to find in Indiana. It's the horizon, it is the place that so few people have seen.

No, that isn't quite right either. Not as people understand it.

I can try all I like to explain my feelings to those friends who decided to get married and have kids. To those friends who have successful careers in business or government, those who make something for the community.

But my journey has always been more introverted, more personal.

I've never really fit in, always the outsider. It's part of my life. It's part of who I am.

Sure, others can sit back and see that I've done some amazing things with my life, been places which people just don't understand.

Can't understand.

It defies their understanding that what I've done can actually exist.

This is just the brief opening chapter of that new travel book, which is to include some fantastic images of my journeys that very few have seen. Of course this is still VERY rough as I work out how to explain the wonders of the world to others, but hopefully I'll be forgiven on this new project.

I wish I could say that I've at least been cooking the last week, but I've honestly been increasingly lazy when it comes to making dinner for myself during the week including Halloween and that other events that I tend to play off as unimportant (contrary to popular belief, I did not get older because I turned 22 yet again). So between candy and adult beverages, I really haven't eaten much home cooking in the last week. I would apologize, but "the temple that's now an amusement park" known as my body doesn't believe in apologies, it's just trying to purge the toxins from the last weekend. Glorious and tasty toxins. Hmmmm. . . 

Ok, so I'll give you a classic granny recipe next time! 

Bien Camino!