Kerouac

There are several -- but not many -- kinds of people.

Among them are the Dean Moriarty types, "the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

And there are the Sal Paradise types, about whom the Dean Moriartys say, "Don’t you think, Carlo, there’s a kind of a dignity in the way he’s sitting there and digging us, crazy cat came all the way across the country."

I’m that guy.

I don’t go to parties: I watch them. I flew clear across the world just to do what I do: lean against things and chronicle while the people around me enjoy themselves.

This makes me a real freak of nature in Liberia, where talking -- that is to say, stringing words together at length for some unfortunate captive audience -- is the national pastime.

Instead, I type. I scribble. I snapshot.

This is blog post number one-hundred and one.

Makes all my leaning against things worthwhile.