About Me

One of the most difficult parts about the blog assignment for ENG599 was the suggestion to tell my readers more about myself. I was quite happy to see that Blogger doesn't make that too easy--there's no field for self-blurbage, thus no requirement, right? By nature, I'm very reserved about the details of my life as a subject for public consumption, even when I'm gladiatorially certain that nobody but classmates will read it. I've nothing to hide as far as I can tell. There's no nasty social views lurking, no drug warrants pending, no secret shame of a hobby to defend. Yet, I hesitate in detailing what should be the easiest thing to write: "About me." Why? After five weeks, I still haven't figured it out. My effort this time around--possibly my last for the duration of the World Cup--is to open up and offer some actual information aside from stories of the old times about when I used to travel.

Along with my reticence in telling anyone "about me," is an even deeper desire to never let people know my plans. Fear of failure? Maybe. Probably. I've never laughed so hard as when a priest told me that if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.

I live in Phoenix. I'll leave someday, but my parents may need me someday soon, so I'm staying. When I returned from Boston a decade ago, it was on the heels of several horrific years living in a place that was downright choking with provincialism. I'd gone there as a hopeful bookstore owner and wound up leaving as a decently skilled editor with a beautiful daughter and wife who was glad to be shot of her hometown. I'm an academic now, a decently reputable associate professor of ethics and technology and program lead with aspirations to teach somewhere that matters. Hence this degree. In all my former lives, I never thought I'd wind up here, cleaving through my 40s, spending my nights expiring by the warm glow of the TV, banging out homework comments by the dozens. Even more surprising is how much I like it. At 15, I'd have laughed at me. At 25, I'd have jumped off the cliff rather than  be this docile. At 35, I was praying for the security of 45. At 45, I think I'm ready to laugh at me again.      

So here is the plan: I'm going to leave the house.

The Southwest Valley was nearly destroyed with the housing bust a few years ago. Littering my end of town are some tough stretches of neighborhood that were abandoned in mid-build. They're called ghost towns. I'll start there by taking a tour of the ones around me. It's never been clear to me why, but large public spaces fascinate me, and abandoned ones are outright magnetic. It's an easy trip and might be a good start to keeping the blog going. (Is Recession Tourism a phrase? Depression Tourism? Maybe that's my thing.)

Without over-promising, I'll make it my first destination on what I hope will be a return to getting out and seeing the world. See you soon, I hope.

Upon Learning That Traveling and Writing Are Political Acts

Over the last few weeks, I've been involved in a course on the rhetoric of travel writing--not only the modes of travel narrative, but its meanings. So far, it's been mostly meanings: what is travel? What is it to write about one's travels? What are the duties and responsibilities of the travel writer in the postcolonial world? Can we ever just write about a journey without alienating the subject of our accounts?

These are profound questions that, given enough time, thought, and caffeine, can be answered. However, I’ve struggled with at least one of the course outcomes—creating a blog to critically account for my experiences as a traveler. This thing you’re reading, one of many modes of writing about travel, by the way, is causing me to have an existential crisis.

My difficulties with this medium have been many. At first, I resisted the idea that I was any sort of traveler at all. When I go somewhere, it’s to the store, work, or the rare visit with friends. “Absence from home” is my default definition of traveling, a tell if there ever was one, and far more accurate in describing me than one of those Facebook quizzes that reveals which 80’s punk band I am. Anything that involves a prolonged absence from home is also known as “going to California.” Yet, in recalling past journeys, I realize I was once a traveler. That’s sad, considering I have better means to travel now than ever, yet I don’t.

Another difficulty is the realization that, as socially conscious and ethical as I believe myself to be, I have never once acted on these impulses as a traveler. In writing the past few entries, I’ve come closer and closer to the realization that, rather than acting as an agent of positive change in the world, I’ve squandered opportunities to use travel as anything but leisure. I’ve surfed, climbed things, added money to coffers across all the kingdom, but it’s all been just for the fun of it, never with a thought that my impact is anything more or less than indifferent, and sort of blind to it willfully.  

It’s this last point that is most distressing, so I’ve decided to make a change for the better, both in an effort to recover my past lust for life and to seek ways of renewing my relationship with the world that exists beyond my comfort zone. (There’s hope—joining a gym a few years ago was the result of a different existential crisis, and now I can’t imagine life without it.) 

To find out my next steps, stay tuned...