Sometimes I wonder what it's like being me... It must be strange. Take now, for example: I'm sitting at the dark dining room table eating the last of the previous night's cold dinner, and listening to my girlfriend thrash around and moan upstairs, sick with some sort of horrible stomach flu. My compassion seems to extend only so far as I'm able to actually do anything. Feeling helpless, I've resorted to eating the untouched chicken noodle soup I put out for her before it gets cold. My ears are burning, the result of a hot day in my whitewater kayak, drifting along the slowest, most boring section of flatwater in the region. My best friend is in town, but we're not hanging out right now. He's up having dinner with my highschool crush, who's probably trying to seduce him at this very moment. And I've stopped answering my cell phone, because friends keep calling me to hang out before I leave, but I've decided I need new friends. I don't like any of these as well as I used to. Leave. Oh yes, I'm going to Africa in a day. Don't worry, I'll be fine. In fact, I think this is exactly what I need. Ideally I'll be captured by Somali bandits, shackled, tortured, interrogated and left for dead, only to crawl back out of the desert and resurface ten years later, a changed man, or just a man, in any case. Someone who isn't afraid of taking what he wants.

Which, right now, is to wander off by himself for several weeks, alone, into the Autumn wilderness of Montana's Beaverhead or Pioneer ranges. Or in Africa. That works too. But tonight? A tough choice: go dancing with friends I'm not sure I still like, or putter over a girlfriend who wants me to look over her but knows I'm useless. Choices, choices!

Cheerio! I promise the next blog will be more upbeat. Maybe with pictures! Any eager adventurers or adventuresses looking for a companion out there?