Category: Adventure

Would You Like A Glass of Whine With That, Sir?

It’s been a while since I added a post in the Adventure Blog category.

And that’s mostly because I’ve been tethered to “full-time” employment for faaaaar too long a stretch. And by full-time I mean a consistent 50+ hours a week trading my soul for plastic dollars. My last real taste of freedom was many moons ago, touring Central America with nothing but a backpack and a reckless disregard for self-preservation. Fuck that was a good time.

Lemme backtrack here a second — the word tethered I used earlier is actually quite incorrect. That’s more of a word some whiny fuck (me?) might use to somehow suggest “I had no choice in the matter!”

But I most assuredly did.

No one backed me into a corner and said flip eggs or die. No one put a gun to my head to work 16-hour days when people quit or got fired. No one guilted me into working an additional 2 years after my 9-month notice came and went. All that shit was on me. There are no true have-to’s in this world, there are only choices.

The have-to people are the ones perpetually befuddled by the differences between entitlement, comfort, and free will…

“I HAVE TO pay my bills, or they’ll cut off my hot water!”

Uh, no, asshole. Incorrect. You don’t have to do any such thing — except maybe admit to yourself you prefer hot showers over cold ones, and then shut the fuck up about paying for services you’ve intentionally contracted.

“My rent went up again, I can’t believe I HAVE TO pay another hundred dollars a month!”

Um… you don’t, fucker. Maybe it’s more honest to admit you prefer a roof over your head versus living in a box in the woods. Surviving without a fixed address is very possible, just not high on your entitlement list.

It’s the same complaints with rent, cars, Netflix subscriptions, grocery prices, and all the worthless baubles shipped to us from Amazon in 24 hours or less. So you can either figure out a way to pony up the dough for the perks you’re addicted to and quit your incessant bitching, or learn to live without.

Granted, one might make the argument that choices are “easier” to make when a healthy bank account is involved — this I concede— but one must also realize that each and every previous choice we’ve made has determined either the robust health, or COVID-like fragility of our present-day finances.

I made a choice a decade ago to squirrel away a few bucks every month with the intention of funding an improbable (and somewhat idiotic) dream of buying a sailboat and traveling the world, and that decision has finally paid off, leaving me in a position where I can comfortably say Fuck You to the next taskmaster offering me some bullshit minimum wage gig. Suck my balls, massa.

Wanna know what I like about unemployment? What I like more than working 50 hours a week at a job I’ve lost passion for?

FUCKING EVERYTHING!!!

The air smells sweeter. The birds chirp more happily. Hell, even my roommate seems less irritating when he talks about leveling up his Ewoks to fight his Ewoks.*

[*Editor’s Note: That’s a complete lie. Conversations about weather patterns in Texas annoy the fuck out of me too, Johnny. Get a fucking life!]

I feel like my baseline has been reset. My atrophied sense of adventure and wonder has returned. Although no palm trees are currently involved in the equation, my waking days feel a lot like they did when I was wandering Guatemala for 2 months.

And one more unexpected quirk happened… I quit da beers. I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since the day I left my job. For a junkie like me, that ain’t too shabby.

Now don’t get me wrong here — I’m not mentioning this because I consider myself some superior, enlightened asshole who’s gonna start preaching to you the evils of running ethanol through your liver. Fuck that. There ain’t nothin’ worse than a reformed alkie talking about their 10 years of sobriety like they’re some kinda fucking hero. That’s almost as loathsome as trying to have a conversation with a hardcore vegan who just discovered CrossFit. Shudder.

This ain’t no “game-changing” moment in my life, just another choice.

So why mention it?

Because the timing was more than coincidence.

I probably sucked back, on average, 6-12 beers a night for the last 5 years. No embellishment. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Mostly more. The habit was part of my routine to numb my brain and escape the daily drudgery of my chosen commitments.

Breaking the habit was a simple realization:

Create a life for yourself you don’t feel the need to escape from.

I like those words. When you go to bed excited about the nutty things you wanna do in the morning, and wake up in that same mindset, there’s a good chance you’re on the right track.

I’m not saying I’ll never have a beer again, but for now, I’m good. If I do choose to partake in a tall, bubbly, golden, delicious beverage somewhere down the road (stop it Mike, stop it! haha), then I’ll do so with conscious intention and full awareness of the inevitable consequences that always follow.

Oh fuck, now I totally sound like a holier-than-though douchebag.

Sorry, my bad.

.

The name of the game in this post is still adventure, so let’s end with a quick (not so quick) story…

Just as I was on a roll getting my electronics installed in the boat, the weather took a turn for the worse. Or is it the worst? I don’t fucking know, but let’s just say the weekly forecast sucked some serious ass — too cold to work at the marina, and definitely too cold to mix epoxy on the boat.

The typical Mikey reaction might’ve been to brood about how Mother Nature’s timing was COMPLETELY FUCKING UNFAIR (possibly triggering a visit to the purveyor of spirits down the road to purchase some “mood-enhancing” juice), but an alternate choice of action presented itself in the form of a schizophrenic conversation…

Me: Fuck! Why a cold spell now? I’m in the fucking zone, this ain’t fair!

Other Me: Dude, shut the fuck up. You want s’more cheese with your whine? Do you own a generator?

Me: Yeah.

Other Me: Do you own a portable heater?

Me: Um… yeah.

Other Me: Super. And are you now able to deduce the course of action I’m suggesting without me slapping you upside your stupid fuckface?

Me: Hmm. Wait. Holy shit, I have a great idea!!!

Other Me: Christ what a moron. I don’t how I dealt with me all these years…

So I packed up my gear and off I went — into the sub-zero windstorm at the marina, hellbent on making whatever progress I could, glass of whine forgotten.

I fired up the genny, barricaded my cabin opening, and before I knew it, it was a balmy 8 degrees inside the boat. Sweet. As the windstorm raged, I felt oddly soothed. The vibration of the boat on my trailer felt a lot like just another day bobbing on the water. Double sweet!

As the gas in my generator dwindled down, and the sun (what sun?) began to edge t’ward the horizon, it was time to call it a day. I felt smugly satisfied for being the only nutjob at the marina getting a jump on an early lift-in.

What I hadn’t realized was that the accumulating snow was a tad more voluminous than anticipated.

Driving up the hill made me immediately aware of that.

The first leg leaving the marina is a modest incline, followed by a small, level landing, and then one more steeper grade before reaching the exit.

And so the adventure began…

Me: Fuck. Am I seriously spinning my wheels here?

Other Me: Yeah stupid. You’ve never actually driven this road in heavy snow before, what did you expect? Calm the fuck down, let ‘er roll backwards, and try again.

Now here’s something new I learned — fishtailing is a phenomenon that occurs both forwards AND backwards when you’re traversing a snowy hill. Apparently gravity is some kind of twisted sorcerer.

Other me: Just steer, stupid. You’ll be fine. Reassess the situation when you reach the flat part.

Some bonehead once told me that driving on winter tires in the summer eroded the rubber faster than in winter due to increased friction during hotter months. After I was done laughing, I thanked him for the physics lesson, and drove the fuck away.

Well, it seems Captain Physics may have been onto something. As I checked out my front tires (the winter tires that’ve been on my front-wheel drive car for a year and a half), they appeared to be balder than Patrick Stewart’s ass. Fuck, I hate when smarty-pants people are right.

Me: Okay, I’ll just back up as far as I can, and get a decent running start this time. Should work out fine.

Other Me: HAHAHAHA, I fucking love this moron!

Round 2 wasn’t much more impressive than the first run, but I definitely churned more gravel than snow this time…

Other Me: Oh boy, round 3! This should be worth the price of admission…

And the spectacle didn’t disappoint.

As the tail of my car oscillated left and right like a pendulum on crack, the peak of the hill inched agonizingly closer. Did I have the momentum?

Me: I got this.

Other Me: I dunno…

Me: No, I got this!

Other Me: You sure?

Me: Fuck. Fuck me! No wait, I got this, I got this!!!

And I gunned the motherfucker like no tomorrow as I laughed maniacally while reaching the top. The rush of adrenaline that hit me made me realize that naturally occurring body chemicals were a really cheap way to get high, no beer necessary.

Me: (still laughing like a psychopath) Yeah!! Fuck yeah! I’m gonna do that again!

Other Me: Sigh. Go the fuck home, junkie.

Sink, Swim, or Float — Your call, Fuckface!

I remember sitting on my girlfriend’s couch 8 years ago, having a discussion with her about what options were left to live as freely as possible in this insane asylum we lovingly refer to as Planet Earth. As prisoners in an open-air pen that we call our “country,” how could we skirt the system — to slip under the radar, and fully explore our god-given autonomy?

It wasn’t long before a realization occurred…

The fucking sea! The last true Wild West humans can still exploit if they have the balls to push a frontier of exploration.

We ended up bookmarking a bunch of sailboats for sale (sail, haha) that day, fully aware we neither had the resources nor skills to bring the idea to fruition.

But the idea stuck.

So without rehashing the journey I’ve blogged about in this ridiculous site I call BonerFruit, let’s just get to the nitty-gritty of why I’m writing this…

The S.S. BonerFruit is on the water! And I fucking love it!

You want some insight into how to live free and happy?

Simple, bitches… follow your fucking heart, and enjoy each trial and tribulation that unfolds. Immediate gratification is a lie sold to you by the fucking puppet-masters. If you want to make any headway in your grand scheme of happiness, you need to go all-in, and dedicate your time to the shit that rocks your world, no matter how long it takes.

Sure, it’s true I still have no clue what I’m doing, but I giveth not a fuck.

You wanna know what I’ve learned? Every day you practice your craft leads you one day closer to mastering your passion. You can sit on your shitty couch and watch Netflix all night cuz you “had a bad day,” or “felt stressed,” only to wake up to whine to your idiot co-workers in the morning about how life is unfair, burdensome, and stacked against you, or you can just get over your bullshit fears and live each moment to the fullest, hellbent on climbing whatever mountain screams to you the loudest.

Am I gonna die crossing an ocean? Probably. But there’s no way to know till I try.

Perhaps that’s a fitting sentiment to end this post…

How do you want to spend the rest of your time on this planet?

In fear of death?

Or in fear of life?

Suck on that one for a bit, I’m going to bed.

Alfred Hitch-SuckMy-Cock

Well, it’s June at last, and it looks like Mother Nature is finally ready to comply with my desire to once again wander the grand outdoors half-naked, without fear of freezing my balls off if a brazen cloud decides to position itself unceremoniously in front of the blazing-ball-of-warmth-in-the-sky that I love and admire so much.

As I geared up for a morning run, I realized shorts and a t-shirt would be more than adequate to face the elements. Fuck yeah! But a few quick stretches revealed some tenderness in my stumpy legs… perhaps I pushed a little too hard to squeeze in a 10K jaunt yesterday. A 24-hour rest session would have been a more practical decision, but it was too nice out to pass up a tour strolling through the little parkette just north of my parents’ house, so I said fuck it, let’s rock!

As I hit the streets, my body told me in the first 30 seconds the plan for a 5K run was a piss-poor idea. It said, “Look jackass, today ain’t the day for this. I need some healing time. If you’re hellbent on being outside this morning, go for a walk. If you want to run, you’ll regret it.”

Bah, whatever.

As the waves of pain quickly inundated my left calf and right ass cheek, I immediately retorted to my body, “Look dude, we’ve been through this before! You’ll relax, ease into the zone, and before we both know it, we’ll be skippin’ past the duckies swimming in the river, lovin’ every second of the experience, pain forgotten!”

A kilometre and a half later though, nothin’ felt right, sparking the thought: Why the fuck do I always feel the need to push myself when my body says no? What the fuck am I trying to prove here?

In that instant, a bird swooped laterally across my running direction.

I’m familiar with this sight. It happens dozens of times when I’m driving recklessly in my car down the country backroads, and always think, “Fuck dude, you were almost feathers mangled in my grill! If you can fly, just do it 10 feet over the highway. Or a hundred, or a thousand. Why do you airborne critters insist on tempting fate?”

So as the cacophony of self-generated dialogue incessantly rolled through my muddled brain, a new pain arose… one I was completely unprepared for…

Have you ever had a dream where your dentist was really fucking drunk, and started drilling into your head instead of your teeth?

I haven’t.

Have you ever had a nightmare where eagle talons and beaks punched holes into your skull because you were a disgusting filthy orc, unworthy of travelling through the sacred realm of Gandalf’s high road?

Never happened to me either.

But now I know what that pain feels like in the real world.

After the fly-by flash of black wings marked with single red spots, my next memory was a skull on fire.

“Christ, what the fuck!” I yelled out.

I was under attack from the sky.

Shadows swooped and shadows pecked. Shadows clawed and shadows gnawed. My slow run quickly became a hundred-metre dash that would have put Ben Johnson and performance-enhancing drugs to shame.

I’m guessing I jogged by a covert nest, but whatever winged creature I pissed off was in no mood to negotiate my ignorant trespass. I was being blitzkrieged by claws and peckers, and the pain in my calf quickly became irrelevant to the newfound inflictions flaming the top of my skull.

With the playground finally open once again, after the latest iteration of this province’s fake virus lockdown, I can’t say for sure who witnessed my bird attack spectacle, but my cries of “FUCK OFF! STOP IT! I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! WHY, FUCKER, WHY?” easily echoed into the distance of the last 3K I hoped to run.

As my pace quickened, every ornithoid shape my eyes could detect became a potential threat. The fuckers were swimming, the fuckers were waddling about on the ground, and thousands (well, maybe dozens) were gliding effortlessly in the sky, ready to rain down pain at any moment. From a survival standpoint, I was totally fucked.

Eventually I calmed down, and made it back to safe shelter. But in the writing of this piece, I haven’t felt a moment’s security each time I hear a tweet, chirp, or whistle. Fucking geese are flying en-masse right now in strategical formations somewhere over my fucking head!

When I told my dad about the excruciating pain of the unwarranted bird attack, he only had one concern:

Did they shit on you?

Fuck.

Note to self:

When the body says stay home, stay the fuck home.

Tales From The Crypt

Writing is an interesting game.

It’s one thing to hole yourself up in a room for days on end, and make up crazy shit just for the sake of keeping your fucked up mind entertained, but it’s an entirely different beast to go out into the world, and gather real experiences of the weird, wild, and wacky offerings found around every corner.

One might also potentially uncover stories of love, compassion, and personal growth, but those tales are fucking gay.

The Adventure Blog writes itself. All I have to do is play stenographer. The Ramblings category is different. It takes a lot more time and energy to put a piece together — sometimes based on a random thought, sometimes no thought at all. I wouldn’t call it writing for the sake of writing, as something interesting always develops, but journaling is far easier when you’ve actually lived the stories — by experiencing this ridiculous reality first-hand, to find the endless bits of fun, humour, wisdom, or tragedy in the mess, worthy of sharing with others.

So that’s what I went out to do this morning.

Wanna hear a tale?

Continue reading Tales From The Crypt

Picture This…

Well, as much as I hate to acknowledge it, the Central American adventure is winding down. But it’s been a helluva run!!

Puerto Morelos, though somewhat lame along the beachfront, has been an excellent place to write, and I love the authenticity of the local town, recessed 3 kilometres from the hard-core tourist area. I’ve gotten more work done here than a Stephen King hopped up on 2L Mountain Dew slurpees laced with caffeine. I’m still considering one last day trip to Isla Mujeres, for snorkelling and a catamaran ride — a real boat this time — to go out on a high point, before making my way back to the Cancun airport.

Every day has been an amazing learning experience, and the people I’ve met have been diversely fascinating and wonderful.

So how about a smattering of random pics just for the fun of it, and we’ll save philosophies for another day?

Yeah, thought you’d agree…

Doing it Hobbit Style, But Make a Ce-note: My Friend’s a Junkie

Though we hadn’t slept in 24 hours, our energies the morning after the ceremony were good, and a decision had to be made before long which road to follow next…

We had a full day at the hobbit-house to relax in, so the issue wasn’t immediately pressing, but, nonetheless, we considered every option that seemed to be unexpectedly thrown our direction.

The first was from a random dude Mantas chatted with the day before. The guy was beginning construction of eco-friendly domes on a property not too far from us, looking for paid help to assist in the work. Definitely interesting…

Continue reading Doing it Hobbit Style, But Make a Ce-note: My Friend’s a Junkie

I, uh, was, ca-nnected…

Our big day had finally arrived, and we eagerly looked forward to returning to a private community a half-hour away from central Playa Del Carmen, to attend the Ayahuasca ceremony Mantas invited me to.

Our ADO transport left early in the morning, and I prepared my usual carry-on baggie for bus survival — hoodie, jeans, thermal underwear, and a booklet of prayers to God.

I was pleasantly surprised as this bus featured a toilet — a toilet!!! — and monitors for movie watching. Whoa! Unexpected to say the least. Maybe I had unknowingly taken a second-class vehicle from Palenque to Playa Del Carmen when I chose the cheapest fare I could find.

Continue reading I, uh, was, ca-nnected…