I'm touched

So many of you seem outraged at the idea of my early retirement. It's so earnest and sweet, my sardonic self keeps wondering if it's a big put-on. "Go on... no really, go on."
In addition to the comments posted here, I received a string of emails from friends who thought it was ridiculous that the threat of losing my anonymity would push me into the fringes of society. In other words, joining the ranks of the normal people who don't feel compelled to share their life via a blog.

I may be hitting the road again for work anyway, possibly limiting how much time I can allow my musings to take center stage. The break from all the travel has been a bit of a relief and I was looking forward to actually spending the last few weeks of 2006 in New York. I find out in a couple of days what exciting place I'll see next. Ann Arbor? I hear Fargo's nice this time of year. If it's the latter, I'll have to feign illness to keep from being shipped off to the Siberia of the western hemisphere. Actually, we never go to Fargo for anything. I've never heard of anyone, except a foreign medical grad, going to Fargo. God love him, that guy never knew what hit him. One minute he was headed to the "land of opportunity", the next he's seeing patients who are so accustomed to harsh winters they chuckle at frostbite, saying things like, "Go ahead and take that toe off, Doc. I've got nine more."

The ex-boyfriend is calling. He went to Tao for dinner and now wants me to meet him for coffee at his hotel. My first thought was, why the fuck did you go to Tao without me? Wouldn't an apology entail a nice dinner? Then I remembered what other lovely qualities he possessed in addition to his penchant for good wine, beer, rubbing alcohol... he's cheap! And apparently, that's a British export as well. I remember the time he lost his wallet in a New Orleans cab and missed his flight back to New York on the morning his father was travelling from Brussels to visit him. I got a panicked call pleading with me to pick him up at the airport or else the poor man would be lost. We were broken up at the time and the idea of being stuck in a cab to JFK on a beautiful Sunday wasn't a prospect I relished. "Fuck, Howard, do you really think he can't figure it out on his own?"
"No bloody chance, he's expecting me to pick him up and doesn't have a cell phone," he pleaded.
I relented. I was given this description: "He looks like my dad, you know an older version of me minus the devilishly handsome part." Great. I'm on the lookout for a man with an inflated sense of self-worth. Somehow, I found him and he was perturbed to say the least.
"That arse! I thought I raised him better than that. Probably got wankered, didn't he?" he demanded without any regard for the South Asian young woman who was clearly uncomfortable with everything his son had engineered to create her presence at this terminal on a beautiful freakin' Sunday!
"Umm, he lost his keys.." I stammered. This was beyond uncomfortable. We hailed a cab and got to Howard's apartment- a high rise in the date rape district, also known as Murray Hill where former frat boys abound. And Howard was so grateful for me sweeping in and rescuing his dear old dad that it took him three months to pay me back the $60 in cab fare. Nice. Maybe I won't be having coffee this evening.