I've been planning and talking about doing some serious traveling for a long, long time. The problem was that circumstances (mainly financial circumstances) never really conspired to allow me to be able to do that... but it looks like that may change. Not in the very near future really, but within 2 years I should have a decent amount of money freed up every month that I will be able to use to do some things that I've always wanted to do.

I'm trying to get myself psyched up for it now and i'm going to start doing some planning and reading now because I know I will be in for the battle of my life with myself when the time actually comes to do it.

There are several reasons for this:

1. I'll probably be traveling alone - this terrifies me... I've never done more than a day trip by myself. I really want to find a traveling partner, but unfortunately everyone I know either can't or won't and I'm just not willing to let that stop me because I know that plenty of people have traveled by themselves and really, as long as I use common sense, I have nothing to worry about, but still it intimidates the hell out of me.

2. I know myself very well, and I know that when the time actually comes I will have to fight with myself soooo hard not to do something really practical and boring with the extra money. This will be the biggest struggle. I'm trying to pre-empt this by telling everyone I know that when the time comes if I start talking about putting the money into savings or using it to get a nicer apartment they are allowed to hit me as hard as they can in order to get me to stop.

3. I am really, really bone crushingly shy. It's horrible. It's a kind of uber bashfulness that I should have grown out of when I was about 12, but never did. It's the kind of shyness that makes it hard for me to make telephone calls to people I don't know... so I know that that is going to become a major issue the more that I think about what traveling alone will actually entail.

There are various and sundry other reasons that I think will make this difficult and probably I'll be able to come up with some really creative reasons as to why I shouldn't do this as it gets closer and closer to happening, but the bottom line is that I have to do it. Because I know I will seriously regret it if I don't.

This Saturday I won $18 betting on the greyhounds at the dog races. Sweet. I also made money off of the Preakness the weekend before last.

Note to self: look into professional race betting as career

My dad and I took a little road trip to the middle of fucking nowhere in south east Kansas on Sunday for a little nostalgic trip to the farm his uncle used to own when my dad was a little kid in the 1950s. He says that some of his best memories are from this place.

If you ever have an opportunity to go to Elgin, Kansas, don't. It's a toilet hole of a town.

The best parts of the trip were the barely on the map back roads we took to get to the farm. At one point my dad turned to me and said,"Do you hear banjo music?" and I'm pretty sure that I did.

Other highlights: a sign in a field with the silhouette of a cowboy kneeling in prayer with the text 'Evenin' Lord'... if ever I were to start praying on a regular basis, this is how I would start all prayers, goat farms, this beautiful stone arch that was built into the side of a wooded hill for no apparent reason... there was a creek running through and maybe at some point it had been a bridge, but it didn't really look like anything had ever been there except for a hill and a creek... I still can't figure it out but it looked really old and pretty.

What I learned is this: I love car rides... like a dog. I just like to be driven places and I like being in charge of the map. Sometimes when I'm at home by myself I like to read maps... I have a lot of them: the World atlas, the North American atlas, the New York City Atlas, the European driving atlas, maps of Cape Cod and New England, Italy and Spain, maps I have saved from old issues of National Geographic of things like the Roman Empire in Turkey and the Mayan empire, etc. I love maps.

But I also like to read the dictionary... so clearly there is something wrong with me.

And then yesterday I went to the book store and as I was casually browsing I came across a book I had loved as a child called The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. I must have checked this book out of the Valley Center Public Library 15 times as a child, but I had completely forgotten about it. And I'll be goddamned if there wasn't a recommendation on the cover of the book from J.K. Rowling herself. So now I'm re-reading it.

And it's put me in a mood to rediscover books that I read in elementary school. So I'm browsing the past nominees and winners at the Newberry award and William Allen White award sites and.... ahhh the nostalgia: Hatchet; Number the Stars; Sarah, Plain and Tall; The Pinballs; The Riddle of Penncroft Farm, On My Honor, Maniac Magee... God, I could go on and on.

Reading... look into it ; )