"I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the
few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle."
- Marilyn Monroe




Sitting at the airport terminal in Cali, Colombia, I'm trying hard to let it go, recognizing that unlike a good Argentinian Malbec, not every part of my trip is going to go down smooth. And yes dear reader, after six months on the road, I'm still shocked by my own naiveté. But is it too much to ask for a little warning when the city that bills itself as the "Salsa Capital of the World" decides to go on vacation.


So there I am in the middle of an abandoned Centro Historico with visions of shimmying in a skimpy, sequin gown straight out of Dancing With the Stars dangling in my head. Only to have it shattered at my two left feet after learning its a three-day weekend and every ones decided they need a break from hip swiveling and left their tourist trap for one the next town over.


Back at the airport, since its the only place open with food and wi-fi, its hard not to feel crappy and unforgiving. But that's what life does, presenting you with these moments your suppose to rise above or put crap into perspective or get you to appreciate things you'd rather take for granted or at the very least whine really, really loudly about. Like my damn salsa lessons with a guapo chico named Rico Gutierrez.


Yes, yes, yes I've learned to go with the flow and be zen through eight hour flight delays and twenty-six hour bus rides, and lost bags and terror provoking border crossings. Wondering if that spilled bottle of aspirins at the bottom of my purse will be taken for drugs by the Narco police. Nothing like being taken to the backroom to make you appreciate things like Miranda rights and one phone call's. That is if the war on terror hasn't stamped out those things in my absence.


With the eye-rolling exasperation of a teenager, its hard not to be disappointed that this and other promised adventures hasn't permeated my being with the purest, sweetest sensation of joy and fulfillment in the known universe, beating back the darkness of anxiety, self-doubt, and dread - you know the whirling chasm of emotional angst that's inside all of us.


Just as the Western world was destined to be disappointed in Obama after his earth-shattering, glorious, hope-fest march to the White House, my present dark, sullen, crappy realization about backpacking shouldn't come as a surprise.


But thanks to a lifetime of being spoon-fed every warm, comforting clichés known to man by an American culture that can't phantom a story without a happy ending, I'm having a hard time swallowing the fact that no matter how exotic the location you can't shake the same restless, depressive, emotionally detached state that followed you around back home. Meaning if your trying to run from your life, its cheaper to just stay home.


No matter where we are in life, at one time or another, your quest to simply get through the day will be replaced by a painful longing for more. The world is full of hope and heartbreak and lukewarm coffee, and speeding tickets, and scratchy contact lenses that don't fit quite right, and canceled salsa classes, and handcuffs and mug shots and you have to do something about it.


Usually, this is the point where I would offer you some positive, carpe diem, Jack Bauer type mantra crap to see you through. But lets go with this instead: Start everyday with the simple reminder that everything will go wrong today.

It will be filled with disappointments and hassles and petty insults and unfair slights and misunderstandings. Knowing this, maybe we should try to enjoy ourselves instead of wanting to hurl a folding chair at someone's head or lie flat on a dirty rug and shriek our heads off.


So go and walk outside and spend the day wandering around in the summertime sunshine. Pick your kid up from day care and take her to the park. Bail on that lunchtime meeting and go to the movies down the block. Get that pedicure, and then have a sandwich and a big glass of iced tea. Stare at the wall or out the airport terminal and let your eyes go unfocused. Knowing that while life may ask these questions of us their are no easy answers.

"Many people are in the dark when it comes to money, and I'm going to turn on the lights."
- Suze Orman

Some days you merely survive. Mostly Monday's, when the freedom of the two-day weekend finds you back at the desk of the soul sucking corporate gerbil wheel of a job that you loathe.

On those mornings when its all you can do to flat iron your unwashed hair or pull up your scratchy pants, your quest to simply get through the day shifts into a painful longing for more.

You ignore it - as you have before - slamming it shut in the unrealistic pipe dream drawer at your desk. Answering the phone, opening emails and mustering an appropriately chirpy yet professional response to your co-workers "Hi!" instead.



And then you log on to Facebook and theirs your insanely annoying, over-caffeinated, slightly neurotic friend blogging from some exotic location lamenting the choice between a seven-day river boat tour of the Amazon or climbing the Andes mountain in Peru.



Something in you snaps. If this chicken donkey can navigate the dark, murky streets of Colombia, alone, with nothing but a debit card and nickel of common sense then theirs no reason why you a check-book balancing, vibrantly charming, rationally-minded, savvy adult can't. At the very least you'll have the decency not to blog about your own awesome, vainglorious adventures including that sexy, swarthy Chilean you'll meet in that hostel in Belize.



Having made up your mind you feel a jittery energy in your bones. That feeling of loathing and dread starts to melt as the light of being emancipated from the unwieldy chains of the corporate gulag starts to flicker in the dark, barren cave of your soul. With a pep in your step, you go to lunch.



While ordering your daily ($8) smoked salmon with dill mayo sandwich, at your favorite deli, kicking in a big glass of ice tea and sweet potato fries for ($4) more, you start to wonder how your going to finance this soiree with Javier in the Belizean jungles.

Back at your desk, you check your savings account. After dusting the cobwebs off the account, you find theirs just enough in there for a good coffee-maker and a house plant. Chewing on your nails - which is badly in need of your weekly ($29) mani and pedi appointment with Ming-Sing Lee at Nirvana Nails and Beauty - you thrash yourself for having not kept that promise to have 10 percent of your paycheck directly deposited into your savings account like Suze Orman told you to.



Your head hurts and mercifully its time to go home after winning that ($28.50) bid on Ebay for a pair of Elvis Presley salt and pepper shakers. Leaving the office, you find its raining and you forgot your umbrella. You don't want to ruin your ($56) blow-out from your Dominican hairdresser, so you jump into a ($23) cab. Sitting on the couch ($150 if sold on Craiglist), breaking another promise to go to the gym ($65 a month), your too tired to cook ($48 worth of groceries from Whole Foods rotting in the fridge) so you order Thai ($16 plus tip) and watch that show you hate on cable ($53 a month) instead of reading those used books ($12) you bought at that library side-walk sale.



Logging on to that crazy, mouth breathing traveler friend's blog you learn she financed her trip by giving up her gorgeous, well decorated loft apartment ($1250 a month) to sleep on her sister's couch rent free for five months, after selling all her possessions that wouldn't fit into 5 X 10 foot storage unit. You blanch unable to believe that this ($250) Prada sunglass wearing,($56) night cream buying, buppie wanna be gave up shopping ($95 monthly average habit) completely and started doing her own hair (which probably showed), wearing the same clothes (in creative, yet imaginative ways) dumping all her friends to avoid weekly dinner & movie night ($35 average tab), and started packing her lunch (saving 3 trillion dollars).



It also helped that in a fit of late-night, Trader Joe wine swiveling haze, she followed Suze Orman's advice to start a 401k three years ago. By the time she cashed it out, thanks to that incompetent jackass, frat boy running the country it was enough to buy three rounds of pisco sours at a Colombian dive bar and eight days at a hostel that makes Guantanamo Bay look like the Ritz-Carlton but I digress.

By now dear reader, you, probably, get the point. There's no big surprise here on how to finance your own dream trip around the world. Short of winning the lottery, or a dead relative leaving you a lil' sumthin sumthin" in the will, or a really happy "customer" leaving a big, wad of sweaty cash on your nightstand, it'll take some good old-fashion scrimping and saving to party it up with Javier.



At any rate, with the credit crunch and a collapsing economy, now maybe the time to give the Suze Orman approach a try. On your next weekly "window shopping" excursión through DSW Shoe Warehouse, hold up that $85 pair of "the perfect red" Charles David pumps and ask yourself would Suze O approve? Is this worth sexy, swarthy Javier groping and kissing you in the Zapotec Civilization wing of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City? I know for me it wasn't.



Now drop the pumps and walk home to your cable-tv-less, ramen noodle pantry pack, furnitureless apartment. Stare at the walls and let your eyes go unfocused, letting Suze O bathe you in her marvelous penny pinching light. Which you would if you hadn't had your gas & light service turned off saving ($70) a month! See you in Argentina, donkey!