Broken ovens and dry turkey

Happy belated Thanksgiving. My holiday was pretty lame, but Thanksgiving is always a pretty lame holiday.
This year, my mom "broke" the oven, just in time for the holidays so the fam went out to dinner at a place in the town where I'm from.
The buffet was lackluster but Thanksgiving food really isn't all that wonderful anyway and they covered the basics, so what could any of us expect?

My boyfriend came to dinner and my family liked him, but took the opportunity to ask me if having the boyfriend meant I changed my plans to go to Alaska this summer.
'Of course not' was my response, so they changed tactics and just told me they didn't want me to go.

I just don't think they understand that I really want to get out of this place. Like, a lot.
It's not that I'm running away from them, it's just that I'm trying to escape this state where everybody knows everybody and they all have two cents they are itching to give you (for future refence, skip the two cents and give me a dollar, would ya? Maybe then I'll listen).
I love my boyfriend and I love my family but this world is pretty big and this little peninsula is pretty small, as are the minds of many people who live here.

Am I asking for too much when I say I want to find a place to live that excites me? A place where all the open space is not being filled up with shabby construction? A place where the highest elevation is not a speed bump? A place where people talk about ideas, not just other people?

Now my future 'co-pilot' for this trip to Alaska is telling me her whole family doesn't want her to go either. I'll be honest, I'm a little intimadated when I think about driving there. Especially with just the two of us girls, but there's time to plan, or we could just fly there (and deal with not having a car for the whole summer). I really do want to drive though. Maybe if we got one more person to split the gas, it would be worth it?

I don't really know. If we got a guy to go with us, the families would probably feel better, but we would lose a lot of storage space in my Camry between the person and their luggage. I would feel more comfortable if a guy went, even though I hate actually putting that into writing because I grew up thinking girls can do anything guys can do. The thing is, men will always be stronger, even if they are dumber.

Alright, I'm tired of spending so much time on doubts. The trip will work out, somehow, even if it means I don't drive or I go solo. There's a lot of time to figure out the particulars.

Faber est suae quisque fortunae

- Every man is the artisan of his own fortune.

Now that I am putting everying into words - and I am publishing them - it makes me feel like this plan is becoming more concrete. Scribere est agere - To write is to act
Nevertheless, it makes me wonder, what will the next work be?
Sort of the 'and then? and then? and then?' of Dude, where's my car?
Yes, I really did just quote Dude, Where's my car?

That is the questionable judgement, which makes me doubt my move in the same breath as I applaud my ideas.
When did I start being so afraid of trusting myself?

At any rate, to stop this over-thinking thing, I think I need to challenge myself intellectually. Waiting tables and cranking out one story published (in print, not online) each month is not really pressing me to expand my knowledge base.
Even though I spend a ridiculous amount of time online, it is not really doing much but providing me a great opportunity to catch up on celebrity smut with Perez (and not have to shell out $5 for an US Weekly). I also spend a lot of time on myspace and facebook. Snooping on some people and saying hi to others.

I want to study Latin. Since I nixed the grad school thing because I just don't have that kind of money, I want to do something that will not only be interesting, but make me better at my career.

Does anyone know any good do-it-yourself latin resources? Rosetta stone is good for foreign, I guess,(Michael Phelps said so) but here's the diffictulty level: I have no (working) DVD player.
Aren't there some books? I need to stop watching so much crap tv too.

In the beginning

When I began to concoct my scheme to move West, it was really more of a scheme to make a move at all.
Last year I finally graduated college (after 7 years, two boyfriends, multiple moves and one brain injury) and decided I wanted to go travelling one more time before I gave in, grew up and got a job that gave me health care. I did all of the above but after the gig as a reporter stopped being fulfilling, I decided I just don't have the financial freedom to do a job for glory.

My thoughts on that paper experience: Thanks, but no thanks. I'm glad I got published so much, but the corporate atmosphere was not what I expected when I decided to become a writer.
Currently, I feel this career choice is making me into a great waitress, but hopefully this blog will be the start I need to become a greater travel writer and the author of books.

So now I'm returning to Alaska this spring (where I spent the summer working after I graduated college). It will be a road trip to end all road trips with my friend Samantha. Maybe my magnum opus travel story? To me, when I travel, it's the only time I feel comfortable with feeling uncomfortable- a feeling I run into a lot.
My previous travels took me to New Orleans and Western Europe after the opportunity presented itself, and I had nothing keeping me home.

With New Orleans, I was dealing with the death of a friend. This time, when my long-time internet boyfriend (virtually the only type of boyfriend I had in high school) told me I should come visit, I took him up on it. I've always been sort of fascinated with Louisiana and the bayou and the creole and cajun people and voodoo of that place. It's completely foreign and interesting.
I booked a ticket that night and three hours later I was on a flight from BWI to Louisiana. I had a hot 24 hours to spend in NOLA so I could make it down and back, (and show up only 45 minutes late for my dinner shift waiting tables, thank you very much). I didn't fall deeply in love with the guy, surely, but I did find another love during this expedition. Travel.

I followed New Orleans up with another trip two years later, but I went bigger. I paid off my new credit cards and saved an entire summer's worth of earnings to visit friends in Germany, with three thousand dollars and a one-way ticket.
I spent most of my time in Europe high out of my head. Bong hits of hash had a way of making me content with spending the day indoors. After living with my friend's family for a while, quitting my job, and watching money dwindle (they let me live rent-free, but hash was an expense and the polizei (sp?) was cracking down), I decided it was probably time for me to experience something beyond Ramstein, Germany on my own.
I cleared up my woes when I went to Amsterdam, where I knew I could get high and would check out a million museums.
When I stayed in Amsterdam, I visited coffee shops and daily. Nightly, it was the red light district (think hookers in windows with dildos on cell phones) the hostel bars, Leidseplein, bed of ars and red-light district (purely for entertainment, of course) each night.

During my time Europe I only visited Germany, France and Amsterdam. I visited Paris at my sister's request, (shortly before I surprised my parents when she returned home with me. I saw the Eiffel Tower in Paris (but didn't go up) and visited a couple Museums. Versailles and Jim Morrison's grave were all I wanted to do with Paris, and those were the trips I required of my visit. There is a lot more I'd like to see, with unlimited time and money, but the the catacombs are the only thing I wish I'd seen on that visit.
Paris is a stylish, artistic city, but it smells like shit.


While I was in Europe, it became apparant what I was to do with myself. I spent every day writing pages and pages in the first (and only) journal I ever filled up without becoming bored with the cover or format and picking a new "more inspirational" volume.

Upon my return, I had a the new focus of knowing what I wanted to pursue and thought surely I would go to the main campus of my college, go on to be a sorority sister, get married and pop out a few kids by the time I hit a quarter-century. Girls in pearls, guys in ties style.
Thankfully, none of it worked out quite the way I planned. I was too worldly and unimpressed with college life at 22. So, by not following my scheme, I got my 20's back to be as adventurous and adult as I want. I don't know if I should have tried harder to fulfill the first plan because here I sit, waiting for my next adventure but also wondering why I feel the need to keep running. At the same time, I made a promise to myself not to settle. So I go.

After my most recent adventure (to Alaska) I thought I would be able to go hard on the career track. Do a year at the paper for the experience. I made it 10 months.
Where I live, I could have kept toiling at my job at the newspaper and maybe I would have gotten into DC if that was who or what I decided to be. Problem is, I live at the beaches where those self-important DC collar poppers drink themselves into filth and vulgarity each weekend, all summer long. I don't want that and hate them for for being able to make laws they think I should follow.

Baltimore desn't bug me so bad, it's a little more blue-collar and real.
Same goes with Philadelphia, which is also a stone's throw. I hate the football team there but I love the Phillies! (It's about time somebody in that town didn't go limp when it counted. )
Nevertheless you can see I have a bit of disdain for some of my neighbors here on the East Coast. I certainly never planned to be in Delaware forever. Not even this long, really, but if you are still with me, you can already see not all my plans pan out the way I hope.

Going to Alaska opened up this world of the West for me. I'm not a fan of guns, but there is much more to the west than guns. It seems like the land, the earth itself talks out loud when I go west.

My current plan is to drive to Alaska this Spring, work there another summer, save some dough and head south to Oregon where I have some friends who recently relocated and love it. Even if I don't end up in Oregon, the idea of being on the Oregon Trail sort of communicates the promise of a life well lived to me. Actively living my life, instead of acting like it is just something that is happening to me.
I don't know how this will really work out, but I plan to record it from this point on, so at least something can come of it.
My name is Molly, welcome to my Oregon Trail.