Using a pool hall to explain my life

One of you sasspot readers asked me if I'd quit answering questions after promising to do so. Well played sasspot, well played. However, the question is a valid one as I have an inbox of questions nearly two months old. (Including one about kissing! But I haven't formed an appropriate response yet, but it's hilarious, so stay tuned.) Tonight, I roll forward and answer the following question:

If you were to take a paid sabbatical, and could spend 6 months anywhere, where would you go?

My answer begins at a pool hall on Friday night. I do not profess to be great at pool. Decent perhaps, but I'm not about the fleece anyone $20. I attribute my ability to pocket balls to the Wms. Family Reunion of 1999 where our lodge had a pool table and I didn't have much else to do. (I attribute my ability to appropriately pen pool references to all the books I read about the seedy under belly of urban cities.) During any game of pool, I have within me the ability to sink balls two at a time or make a run of the table. Sure, I can make people sweat--but I'm no true threat.

So it was Friday night. Playing well enough to arch an eyebrow every now and then and keeping myself from soul numbing embarrassment, I still lost the six games we played. (Besides the point. And yessssss, there is one.) However, during the course of our time at the pool hall, I explained that I was not super great at anything, but decently good at most everything. (Don't let the fact that I lost six games skew your opinion, I got sharked by a rich kid who grew up with a table in the house.)

So it is with my travel. (Finally, we've turned the corner.)

I'm just interested in GOING. I don't care to where, I don't care for how long, I just like to go.

When you travel, there are two kinds--invest and discover or hit it and quit it. I'm not a scholar well versed in Italian art. Nor am I endlessly fascinated by the religious uprising of the twelfth-century peasants in the region. This doesn't mean I haven't any interest in these things, it just means I have limited focus. I'd rather keep going and see more. Breadth over depth is my passion. It's not important to me to know the minutia of any one topic or place, but rather expose myself to the world in all it's vastness. (Does this make me shallow?!)

This all starts to make sense when you see my travel patterns; my love of cramming in as many cities, regions, and countries as possible. I have minimal plans to repeat vacation destinations. (It doesn't mean I won't, I just relish the thought of exploring something new.)

What would I do with a six month paid sabbatical cruise? (Found another corner!) Easy breezy. I'd go on a six month cruise of the world. All you could see, all you could take in, a cornucopia of visual and intellectual delights.

AND I LOVE A CRUISE. (more to come)