A tale told by an idiot, signifying absolutely nothing

Dear friends and readers: don’t get your knickers in a twist. This will be an oh-so brief posting where I grovel and beg for forgiveness for not posting in so bloody long. Believe it or not, I’ve well and truly been a busy man over these past few weeks and I’m quite frankly rather worn out at this stage (‘frazzled’ is a word I’ve been overusing lately). While the undergraduates of Keene somnambulate their way from class to class, elegantly slumming in their resplendent sartorial sleepwear, your dear author, in his usual tatterdemalion state, has had his head his buried in a deluge of books, working diligently for perhaps the first time in his life. “Cultivated idleness seems to me to be the proper occupation for man”, said Oscar Wilde, and I couldn’t agree more. Someone else once said “hard work never killed anybody, but I figured why take the chance?” also springs to mind (author? I think it was Reagan, but I’m not certain).

But alas, that cannot always be helped, but now there’s light at the end of the tunnel. After a few frenetic weeks of - no, not frottage, as tempting as that would be to say – projects, assignments, school observations, and a whopping big social studies certification exam, which I’ve probably failed, the idiot that I am – I’ve now got a bit more free time to devote to more idle and frivolous pursuits. Such as this long-neglected blog.

Thus, over the next few weeks, leading up till Christmas, I’m going to ambitiously attempt to post at least once a week, instead of admonishing myself for being a lazy cretin. Yes, believe it when you see it, but I think I can manage it. Mainly because I have 3-4 posts that have been in the works for some time, and are anywhere from 75-90% completed – I just need to add on the gloss, the finishing touches. To whet your appetites, amongst the upcoming topics are

* a recap of what I learnt and discovered whilst studying for this ‘big exam’ – trust me, this is far more exciting than it sounds, and I guarantee that afterwards you’ll know loads of interesting, useless tidbits about American history, probably more than you ever cared to know.
* a trip down memory lane, where I dwell in nostalgia and recall a handful of experiences from my salacious past, sharing some recaps and tales of life in Nigeria, Ukraine and Latvia.
* a story about political incorrectness in extremis from Kyrgyzstan.
* at long last, my treatise on how football explains politics, how politics explains football, and how society and culture are somehow intermingled within both, inspired by a visit to a Keene soccer match. You await with bated breath, no doubt.
* my recent late-night visit to a fraternity party, where I recall nothing more than what my friends told me the following day.

Three guesses as to which of the above isn’t true (and the first two don’t count).

The denouement of this little ditty

As it’s Thanksgiving in a couple of days, I’d like to wish all my American friends a Happy Thanksgiving, and I’ll take this time to share a bland, meaningless tradition that I used to partake in that thankfully died a merciful death 3 years ago.

My friend Todd, who I’ve tragically failed to acknowledge as being one of the prime instigators in getting me to start this wretched blog (thanks pal!), and I had an interesting Thanksgiving experience in London way back in 1996 when we were studying abroad for the semester. It was his first Turkey Day away from home, and him being homesick and at a loss as to what to do, we figured there was no more appropriate way of celebrating than by going to that bastion of Americanness, McDonald’s. What a terrific idea it seemed at the time. Now, while these days I wouldn’t dream of stepping foot in that ghastly place (whose fragrances wafting in the night sky Grant once compared to a men’s locker room), back then I was a more regular visitor.

That ‘tradition’, for me anyway, seemed a one-off since my next Thanksgiving abroad wouldn’t come until 2002 when I was studying at Edinburgh. But sure enough, I saw fit to rekindle the rite and treated myself to a glorious Big Mac Meal, toasting my Coke to good old Ben Franklin, who tried in vain to get the majestic turkey classified as America’s national bird over 200 years ago. (It was a very close vote, but the turkey lost out to the bald eagle and only narrowly finished ahead of the magpie.)

From then on, whenever a McDonald’s was in the vicinity, in my maudlin state I visited it and looked fondly back on that foggy, rainy London day in 1996 when Todd and I scarfed down Big Macs together. There were a couple of gaps in the chronology, like in Nigeria, one of the last remaining locales on earth which has yet to be graced with a McDonald’s, where I had to settle for a Chinese buffet at a local hotel instead.

2005 was actually the year this tradition ended, and thus Lviv will go down as the location where I bade farewell to McDonald’s on Thanksgiving. I had every intention of keeping it alive and well, but the following year in San Sebastian this banal tradition came to its denouement when I was stricken with an awful case of gastroenteritis. As my dear grandmother would have said, “that’ll learn you!”

In 2007 in Riga I seriously considered revisiting my old haunt and reigniting the love affair, but thankfully for me, Michael and Bryony talked me out of it, and I instead enjoyed a Latvian version of fish and chips at one of our favourite local cafes, the very same place where many months later, a waitress I’d asked out on a date stood me up and then acted as if everything was hunky-dory the next time I saw her. But I shan’t get into that now.

And that’s that. Turkey Day at the Golden Arches is dead and buried, thank heavens, and for now it’s back to the proper way of celebrating, which for me isn’t very exciting: I won’t be eating turkey, I don’t like cranberry sauce, I loathe pumpkin pie, stuffing fails to tempt me…in my cantankerous ways, I just look forward to not having to shave, shower, get dressed and instead lie around all day in my own filth, recharging my batteries after a hectic past few weeks. I think I deserve it.

But fret not, dear readers, for I promise (gulp) to try my best to get out a missive a week until 2009 comes to a close. Feel free to hassle me if I fail to do so.

In the meantime, I recall Oscar Wilde one more time:

“It is mentally and morally injurious to man to do anything in which he does not find pleasure.”

Amen. (and I guess that wasn’t so brief after all – oops)