Funny thing – travel… apart from the obvious:

Self-reinvention without the pressures of having to stick with it.

Wait. You’re thinking about a topless Roger Moore now. Okay – I’ll explain.

Udaipur is nothing short of a breathtaking town. While too many towns coin them self the ‘Venice of the East’, this one deserves the accolade. [Pictures to come] So nice, in fact, that this is where the majority of ‘Octopussy’ was filmed. I’d link to that, but each attempt at finding you a good one come a very curt reminder from my hosts here that such a word is forbidden. So look it up yourself. Or continue to look at Roger. Some Moore. Ha. Sorry – but bad quips are a lead into my point. The one I rearranged for you as you were – and most likely still are – looking at him. The stomach, yes, of course, that’s the best part.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Camp. Self-reinvention. This is what’s fun. Granted, I’ve been the worst offender my entire life. In one year (may have been last) I jumped from mod to goth to prep to…hell – I can’t even remember anymore. Sad. Yes. But I said it first, so we move on. I only admit to it being pathetic because friends were there to see.

Now – had they not been, I’d be a well-adjusted self-confident boy from Oklahoma. But they were. They’re not, however, here with me on the road. No sir. Nor are you. You haven’t seen the facial hair attempts, have you? No. My quiet (get this, Beech) introspective days. My adventurer days. My spiritual days (why, yes – I just had an upstairs reiki session with my friend Valerie, thank you). Et al. I can experiment and stop when I want to. With no fear of ridicule or observations of slight issues below the surface. I can just…stop. And try something else. Or be myself – whoever that is.

With this newfound green light of my parachute of many colors, I can also choose days to be a tourist. Between you and I – these are some of my favorite. Tours. Audio guides. Forcing myself to cry at Jim Morrison’s grave when in all honesty I only knew a few songs.

Touristy things can be fun. Mostly because no one’s watching.

Tonight I did just that. I climbed 6 flights of stairs to the highest restaurant in town that overlooks the Lake Palace and, at 7pm sharp – nightly, like every other restaurant in town – I ate bad, very bad, pizza and watched Bond. I, along with the older German ladies behind me, raised up a little in my seat when the palace was shown on the – get this – VCD. I might have even let out what some might call a squeal. You won’t know that for sure because you weren’t there. Just me and the girls. And Roger.

Even more ironic that on the table was my latest read ‘Hip – The History’. John Leland is, again, up his own ass, but between the forced analogies and constant references to other chapters, it does do a good job of setting up what ‘hip’ is. And why it’s the last word in cool.

I had to laugh – an expensive book that I knew wouldn’t help my own attempts, but at least give me notable paragraphs about beat poets and pulp fiction authors to thrown into any conversation that I was lacking in, yet – here I was enjoying the campest of all Bond’s.

So what is it – hmmmmm? To finally get to the place where one is okay with him/herself? I fear for that day. That moment where you throw up your hands, thus dropping the reigns and say ‘This is me’? I shudder. Not because I think I’m sub-par. I’m cute and funny and can take decent photos and have my Father’s ability to tell stories. Above average, even. A strong 7. Nothin’ to be ashamed of at all. But to be – dare I say – at peace? The same haircut and fashion sense? Re-reading favorite books when the new Murakami is out? Who cares if you don’t enjoy it – you need to read it, man!

I don’t know – half of the above is satire and half is not. I’m not even sure which are which. My point is that maybe that schoolyard joke about why fat girls are like moped’s carries through with more things than just poor Pam. What if they are more fun? If you have sex with a fat girl in the woods and no one’s around to witness, is she really fat? I’d love to be able to do more things like tonight and not in the name of irony. But that’s the thing, yeah? The more I would try and not be ironical, the more ironical I would be.

Ugh.

See what happens when the journey to achieve the old ‘one-up’ takes over? We can’t have campy fun anymore. Or maybe we can.

Maybe you can.