Back to the Grill, Again

The prodigal son returns. And ain't a damn thing changed but the weather.

Longtime readers of this hallowed site of journalistic ejaculate* -- that would be you, Constant Retard -- will recall that, as recounted in my initial Memory Lane post from a few years back**, my life as an expatriate began nearly eight years ago, in the Hongik University area, PKA Hongdae. Well, friends and Navers, serendipitously your favorite blogger's favorite blogger is set to return there at the beginning of the year of the rat. (I mean 2008, not 2020.) Babies stop crying, women start having orgasms again.

Forgive me for being so literary minded (you've been blinded...), but, in the long-ass novel that has been my life in Korea, a return to Hongdae serves as a fitting final chapter for what will likely be my final year in the Land of the Alonzo Morning Calm.

And while I am indeed excited and eager about my new job and giddy (Lee) to reacquiant myself with the sights, sounds, and soaplands of the old 'hood, I am simultaneously filled with an almost unbearable sorrow at the prospect of leaving my home of five years, Bundang (PKA The Planet). For, like Mrs. Todd's shortcuts, Bundang is not a place revealed on any map. It is a state of mind. It is a state of grace. It is where the 18th Letter was brought into this world, and where, on October 28, 2006, true love seemed possible. Bundang is all those things and more. If you haven't lived here you wouldn't understand. Especially if you're a slow mutant from Ilsan.

On the eve of relocating, we tend to make promises we rarely keep. Perhaps I'm doing that now, because I ardently intend to visit Bundang as often as possible. But I know how it goes; in the beginning I'll be there every weekend, then every other weekend, then once a month, then maybe never again, as my affection for the place first recedes and then eventually becomes in my memory just another way station I've passed en route to WHO THE HELL KNOWS. In that way, the places in which we've lived are similar to relationships, friendships, and all that we once held fond. And that's why I'm feeling misty eyed at the moment, because, deep down, it doesn't feel as though it's time for me to move on. It feels as though there is so much more left to be said.

Bundang, It's not you, it's me. It happens sometimes. Affluent suburbs of Seoul come in and out of our lives like busboys in a restaurant, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. I'd like to think that you understand, that some birds aren't meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright. And I hope you don't feel too drab and empty when I'm gone. I'll miss you, baby. I'll never have as much fun later on as the fun I had when I lived in you. (Jesus, will anyone?) And I'll always remember the time I came in your mouth without warning, and you shrugged it off like a champ. That was boss.

Bundang, don't you cry. Don't you cry. Don't you dare shed a tear. Because there are other worlds than this, and hopefully I'll see you again in at least one of them.

When we are both cats.



* Naturally, I mean that in a good way.

** Don't peep the archives, Bruce; them shits were brutal. At least they are now, avec perspective, sans complacency.