Its a Different World Down Here

Hello my friends. For those that don't know I now live in North Carolina. Raleigh. Specifically just north of Tryon Road, which is just south of downtown in a little golf course community. Quite specifically, if you are sending cookies, I live at 1501 Nine Iron Way, Executive Suite Two Hundred One, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27603. Since I hail from California I have earned some degree of local contempt disguised as great enthusiasm for my esteemed presence. As such, if any one does decide to send parcels through the snail mail please address your package attention: Sir Doctor Eric L. T. Jaffe IV, Esq., M.D.

I took a temp consulting gig that shall station me here from one to four months. I am a bit more than a week in and I have surpsrisingly developed a mild case of the homesickness. Surpising to me because I am a travel enthusiast and love being away from home for long periods of time. But I have never really "lived" or worked outside of Los Angeles, and thus I am mowing new lawns here. So, I decided to start writing a blog so that people at home can communicate with me. It is not a novel concept by any means, and I one that I fully expect to fail, as undoubtedly I will introduce you to my blog via email and 50% of you will get here to read this first message. 10% you will comment. And only my mom will likely check in on a monthly basis to see how I am doing. I am quite lucky that my girlfriend will communicate with me everyday, but an hour or so on the phone is all she can handle so not even she will visit here. That is unless I do something creative to keep people coming back and contributing.

So I decided that I would tell you about my time in North Carolina which is neither worthwhile nor interesting, but it will give you some idea of how things work in other parts of this great union. Its a whole different world down here and I shake my head on a daily basis as I navigate the counterculture of a place that is 2576 miles away (that's what my odometer read when I finally arrived.) Any food worth ingesting should be fried, not otherwise. The thunder is so loud the cartlidge around my ear folds over to protect the sensitive equipment within. A hurricane is scheduled to make landfall on Saturday. That's right, a hurricane. I haven't seen a German automobile in a week. I can't sleep at night because of the secadas and the crickets and the other scary multi-pedals. People are built on larger frames and have cushier seats, like an E-class. Recycling seems to be exclusively for cardboard boxes, which is curious because that seems to be the one thing that you don't mind reusing as opposed to recycling. It rains daily, but rain seems too delicate a term for the watery missles that bombard us. There are 16 Chick-Fil-As in Raleigh but the closest Trader Joes is 25 miles outside of town. And they have these large bodies of fluid all over town called lakes and river. In fact, there are two here on the property in which I am stationed. Strange but fascinating.

So that is a taste of my new digs. I promise to keep it somewhat interesting by tracking my weight (left home at 169 and am now a beastly 174), rating the BBQ establishments, counting how many times people ask me if I know "Betsy" who moved to L.A. to become a dancer in April, providing photographic evidence of the fun things that I do here, reciting factoids that may astonish, etc. Somedays it will be snippets and other days I may feel the need to gush and tell you what a bad day I had living on this God-forsaken golf course.

In closing I would like to say that since I have no friends in the Raleigh/Durham area, I left home armed with two dozen books from the Manhattan Beach library on a kaleidoscope of subjects by various authors. Currently I am reading David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day because my girlfriend Brittany doesn't understand my infatuation with Tom Robbins and because Mr. Sedaris is a product of Raleigh and the high tech industries that inhabit this part of the world. So its kinda like research and I can justify billing the time I spend reading. Below is an excerpt from a chapter called Big Boy (transcribed by some cyber nut with lots of time on his hands) and is most certainly the most valuable piece of writing in this entire blog post. Happy to hear from anyone at anytime. Best wishes to all and looking forward to coming home soon. Cheers!!

It was Easter Sunday in Chicago, and my sister Amy and I were attending an afternoon dinner at the home of our friend John. The weather was nice, and he'd set up a table in the backyard so that we might sit in the sun. Everyone had taken their places, when I excused myself to visit the bathroom, and there, in the toilet, was the absolute biggest turd I have ever seen in my life - no toilet paper or anything, just this long and coiled specimen, as thick as a burrito. I flushed the toilet, and the big turd trembled. It shifted position, but that was it. This thing wasn't going anywhere. I thought briefly of leaving it behind for someone else to take care of, but it was too late for that. Too late, because before getting up from the table, I'd stupidly told everyone where I was going. "I'll be back in a minute," I'd said. "I'm just going to run to the bathroom."

My whereabouts were public knowledge. I should have said I was going to make a phone call. I'd planned to urinate and maybe run a little water over my face, but now I had this to deal with. The tank refilled, and I made a silent promise. The deal was that if this thing would go away, I'd repay the world by performing some unexpected act of kindness. I flushed the toilet a second time, and the big turd spun a lazy circle. "Go on," I whispered. "Scoot! Shoo!" I turned away, ready to perform my good deed, but when I looked back down, there it was, bobbing to the surface in a fresh pool of water. Just then someone knocked on the door, and I stated to panic.

"Just a minute."

At an early age my mother sat me down and explained that everyone has bowel movements. "Everyone," she'd said. "Even the president and his wife." She'd mentioned our neighbors, the priest, and several of the actors we saw each week on television. I'd gotten the overall picture, but natural or not, there was no way I was going to take responsibility for this one. "Just a minute." I seriously considered lifting this turd out of the toilet and tossing it out the window. It honestly crossed my mind, but john lived on the ground floor and a dozen people were seated at a picnic table ten feet away. They'd see the window open and notice something dropping to the ground. And these were people who would surely gather round and investigate. Then there I'd be with my unspeakably filthy hands, trying to explain that it wasn't mine. But why bother throwing it out the window if it wasn't mine? No one would have believed me except the person who had left it in the first place, and chances were pretty slim that the freak in question would suddenly step forward and own up to it. I was trapped.

"I'll be out in a second!"

I scrambled for a plunger and used the handle to break the turd into manageable pieces, all the while thinking that it wasn't fair, that this was technically not my job. Another flush and it still didn't go down. Come on, pal. Let's move it. While waiting for the tank to refill, I thought maybe I should wash my hair. It wasn't dirty, but I needed some excuse to cover the amount of time I was spending in the bathroom. Quick, I thought. Do something. By now the other guests were probably thinking I was the type of person who uses dinner parties as an opportunity to defecate and catch up on my reading.

"Here I come. I'm just washing up."

One more flush and it was all over. The thing was gone and out of my life. I opened the door, to find my friend Janet, who said, "Well, it's about time." And I was left thinking that the person who'd abandoned the huge turd had no problem with it, so why did I? Why the big deal? Had it been left there to teach me a lesson? Had a lesson been learned? Did it have anything to do with Easter? I resolved to put it all behind me, and then I stepped outside to begin examining the suspects