Diary of a Most High Reverend: 04/01/2006

I was filling out the application form to become an Amazon.com affiliate and couldn’t remember my parents’ home address, which I am currently using as my billing address. I sat here, pipe in one hand, and a silly but shocked grin on my face unable to remember my address. I’d like to blame the brain-fart on herbal relaxation therapy but the truth is, I am beginning to feel a bit homeless and forgetting what it was like to have a permanent place to lay my weary head. And I’ve been gone for less than six months.

In fact, loneliness is beginning to set in. I miss Ashley more than I can possibly explain. I miss my folks, I miss being able to see friends and go to museums and see a friend’s band. Living among colleagues rather than friends and strangers, and interacting with primarily the same group of people day in and day out, and almost only those people, is tiring, monotonous and weighs heavy on the soul after awhile.

Miami was a bit different. I saw a bit more of Ashley because she has family there, and also, my good friend Bill Shaffer was there and my roommate. I have met few people who are as easy to get along with and so damn positive as Bill. Bill and I went to UMass together and bunked together at field School at Sylvester Manor. His personality is infections in its optimism. He is an energetic and energizing soul who is also sincere. Miss ya’ bro’. Bill made the insanity of living out of a hotel for three months in Miami a vacation.

Here in Naples, I have no close friendship like Bill’s. There is not nearly as much to do here as there was in Miami. I learned the subway, bus routes and commuter rail fairly well in Miami and got around whenever I wanted to. Museums, shopping, beaches, movies, the occasional nightclub (Churchill’s and the infamous Tobacco Road, immortalized by David Lee Roth, were both a good time), were all pleasant diversions. Here in Naples, not only are there far fewer options, but no public transportation and since I am car-less here, I spend most of my time sitting around the pool, or otherwise trapped here at the Golf Course where New South, the firm I work for, is putting us up.

Obviously things could be a fuck of a lot worse. The accommodations are luxurious, the wages are good and there are worse things to do for a living than play in the dirt (although at some point in the near future I need to post some insights on commercial archaeology, CRM/shovelbumming, and this project specifically, but that’s for another night where I find myself too bored to read). But I miss home. I miss a life of variety and options. I miss being in control of my own ability to travel locally. I feel trapped and separated from the places and people I love on nights like this and it can be hard to remember all the wonderful things I have and have to look forward to.

It would be nice to hug my lady though.

Recent Reading: Holy Blood Holy Grail (current), Bible Unearthed, Guns, Germs & Steel,, Flatland, Farenheit 451, Prego (Italian Language Textbook - current)
Listening/watching at the moment: 12 Monkeys

So, a few of my friends have suggested that I should be keeping a blog/journal of some sort now that I’m gonna be traveling/moving/heading to gradschool etc. Even though I’ve kept this blog intermittently over the last few years it has hardly been a repository of reflection, questions, personal insight etc. and more often than not simply a place to post interesting links I’ve seen online. Well, it will still serve that purpose, but I am going to make a sincere attempt to post more here than just links. I have a camera phone now and hope to post images form where I am traveling/working, as well as some essays/musings on the myriad issues that occupy by pot-addled mind. Additionally, I will offer some sort of diary as well, letting anyone who is intersted know what I'm currently up to.

For instance, I am currently working on an archaeological dig in the Everglades. The scenery is breathtaking: