My T-shirt: I’m a writer

My quest started in 2005 with a trip to my T-shirt’s factory of origin in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

With the next chapter of the quest now less than 3 weeks away, it’s time I fill you in on what inspired the quest and what exactly went down in Honduras (A little hint: At one point in time I violate every factory workers’ Human Right to NOT see me stripping).

I’ll be using a mix of narrative, past blog posts, and current thoughts over the next few weeks to tell this first Chapter which I’ll call: My T-shirt.

In the PAGES section you will find a link to My T-shirt. I will be updating the page with each new contribution to the chapter. In the end, it will read as one continuous document from start to finish.

So without further ado, the first installment of the first chapter…

My T-shirt: I’m a writer

I’m in the thinking man position. Except I’m trying not to think and, instead of sitting on a granite stool, I’m sitting on a porcelain toilet.

In case you were wondering, my business is over.

Steam billows out from the shower and has coated the mirror revealing my most recent drawing – a smiley face.

I’m not smiling.

In 2001 I set out on my first trip. I went around the world. I remember being in Byron Bay Australia at a café across from the beach reading the newspaper and drinking a hot chocolate. (I hate coffee, but I liked to dabble in the coolness of the café scene so I liked to have a nice big steaming mug in my hand. The fact that the barista looked at me like a fool when I ordered a hot chocolate was something I chose to ignore.) An article in the paper said that people aren’t ready to settle down and become “adults” until the age of 26. This was good news. I was 23. I tore out the article and later called Annie, my girlfriend of five years, who was at college in Ohio. She got real quiet.

Now, I’m 26.

Annie and I live in a 600 square-foot apartment near Raleigh, North Carolina. She moved here to take a position as a nanny when all she really wanted to do was get a job and live within a one hour radius of her family back in Ohio. I didn’t ask her to do this, but she did it for me, for us. Annie knew that I wouldn’t move back to small town Ohio where there were few opportunities for a writer/SCUBA instructor.

I moved here from Key West where I had just finished working the spring/summer season as a SCUBA instructor. It was a dream job that I could only stand for six months and then I needed a breather from the diving tourists and all of there macho nervous energy, sea-sickness, and creative ways to try to harm themselves and others while on the boat and underwater.

Key West is also where my writing career began. The Key West City Paper was the first publication to carry my column, Travelin’ Light. Usually the column appeared on the same page as an ad for the SCRUB CLUB, a massage parlor with very expensive and all-inclusive “massages” given by women with large fake breasts.

Here’s a description of the column from some of my marketing materials (note: these marketing materials don’t work very well):

Through humility and humiliation, wisdom and naïveté, Travelin’ Light is a weekly column that introduces its readers to people, places, and adventures both domestic and exotic, touching and hilarious.

With humor and a conscience, Kelsey Timmerman inspires those readers with the travel bug to get out and see the world and brings the world to those readers who may not have the opportunity to go where Travelin’ Light takes them.

Travelin’ Light: The Land of Tourons

I contributed for the pleasure of contributing. At one point I convinced Miko the editor to pay me. Then the hurricanes came and there was no more Key West City Paper.

I told myself that I would no longer contribute anything for free. The next paper to carry Travelin’ Light paid me $5/column or about one-half of one-cent per word.

I was a writer.

It’s a warped world

Know what’s great? Smart people and their mathematics.

Somewhere some smart person is plugging away at his unbalanced multi-linear differential equation (if there is such a thing), thinking up something that will make the rest of us scratch our heads and say “Cool,” at which point we’ll scratch our butt and continue with our own research – determining which nostril we can shoot Skittles farther with (have you noticed that the purple one’s seem to travel farther…me too…for the good of all mankind we should combine our research efforts).

The Worldmapper Project must have a lot of smart people working on it because their maps are super cool. Here’s what they’ve done in their own words (I’m too dumb to explain it):

The maps…are equal area cartograms, otherwise known as density-equalising maps. The cartogram re-sizes each territory according to the variable being mapped.

Here are two examples:

Toy Exports or We don’t like to share

Toy imports or Gimme

The best part is not only do you learn about the world, you can laugh at puckered continents and swollen countries.

I searched their site for awhile and have yet to find a map that had anything to do with Skittles or nostrils. The work of smart people is never done.

WAIW? on the Tranquilo Traveler

Joshua Berman is the Tranquilo Traveler. He’s taken a honeymoon around the world, written award winning guidebooks, and is the champion of Volun-tourism. His Moon Handbook on Nicaragua was one of the best guidebooks I’ve ever used – readable, useful, and not full of clichés.

Yesterday he profiled WAIW?:

The Where Am I Wearing? blog will document Kelsey’s globe trot in a bold, individual attempt to connect producer with consumer. I think this trip has a lot of potential and look forward to keeping an eye on it.

Thanks, Josh.

If you are a traveler, a writer, or a mix of both, you should check out Josh’s Tranquilo Traveler blog. Josh is a hard working, hard traveling writer. I’ve enjoyed following his adventures. You would too.

Oh, that reminds me. I haven’t added any links yet to this site. Not sure if it’s much of an honor, but the Tranquilo Traveler is about to be the first.

Menage a…OUCH!

Today, I was double-teamed by two nurses. One of them gave me typhoid and the other Hepatitis B.

No, no, not like that. They gave me shots. You perve you.

I don’t mind getting shots, but this was kind of intimidating. They had me stand in the middle and then simultaneously gave the injections in each sholder. I don’t like to watch, and usually turn away until the deed is done. But this time, every way I looked there was a nurse giving me a shot.

The whole thing was actually sort of insulting. As if they thought, after receiving the first shot, I would break out into a quivering ball of snot and tears, and run out of their office.

The typhoid one is really starting to ache. The Snoopy Band-Aid helps only so much.

They didn’t even give me a sucker! And I was so brave.

Love and Travel

I’m getting married in September. I just bought a house in Muncie, Indiana.

These are two events that usually don’t coincide in the same year with leaving the country for 3 months. So, if you are one of those people who are thinking, “Whelp, it looks like his travel writing days are numbered.” I can kind of understand. But on the other hand…

SCREW YOU!

I’m getting sick of this type of thinking. Annie, my fiancé, doesn’t get it either, “Why do they think you’re going to stop writing and traveling?”

See, what many people don’t understand is that Annie and I have dated for 10 years (we’re high school sweethearts). One of her many assets is that she’s cool with me doing my thing and she actually believes in it. Plus, she’s used to it.

The epic saga of Annie and Kelsey

I started dating Annie, a sophomore, when I was a senior.

I graduated and went to Miami University. Two years later Annie, my girlfriend of three years, graduated and went to Wilmington College.

After graduating college I went on an around-the-world trip. I returned days before Christmas, surprising Annie, my girlfriend of 5 years.

I worked in Key West as a dive instructor for 6 months. I called Annie, my girlfriend of 6 years, often. She was studying at Wilmington College. I took off work to see her perform as a dolphin trainer at Six Flags in Ohio.

I spent two months in New Zealand. I returned in time to have Thanksgiving dinner with Annie, my girlfriend of 7 years.

I returned to my job in Key West. I took off work to see Annie, my girlfriend of 7 ½ years graduate college.

Annie, my girlfriend of 8 years, and I moved to North Carolina. She was a nanny. I was an aspiring writer and a smiling retail face.

Annie, my girlfriend of 9 years, and I left North Carolina. She got a job in Muncie, Indiana. I went to Central America.

On a chilly weekend in Novemeber, standing on a wooded-ridge in southern Indiana know as Hesitation Point, Annie, my girlfriend of 10 years, agreed to marry me.

The picture in this post is of Annie, my fiancée of 10 minutes (at the time of the pic), and me on Hesitation Point.

Never in the history of vagabonding writers has a vagabonding writer been privilege to such patience and support.

In related news: Annie is my sugar momma! Every traveling writer should have one.

The Chinese Chopstick Tax

The forests in China are vanishing at an alarming rate so a 5% tax was enacted to encourage the use of non-disposable chopsticks. China uses about 45 billion disposable chopsticks/year, which equals about 70 million cubic feet of timber/year. Read the full story HERE.

Many of the disposed of chopstick were used to make This SCULPTURE.

I love trees. I also love utensils. I fear that similar utensil’s taxes will spread across the globe. Pretty soon, even the most beloved of our disposable utensils may be in jeopardy of being taxed. What then? Will we be forced to eat fast food with our hands?