The Virgin Prince's War Journal

Bipedal Brothers and Sisters,

I have returned from the snow-covered land up north, the earmuff and took-spotted landscape of Canada. My trip was not without incident, or adventure, and I'm sure I'll be spitting forth amusing anecdotes for years to come. After a fairly enjoyable plane trip, in which I got to sample some of the finest works of Tom Jones, I made it off the plane and, against my instincts, headed straight for customs. I should have stopped first in the smoker's lounge, after an hour-long wait in line, I was, in fact, the very last person through the first checkpoint. There was still the second checkpoint to go through however, and while most people were able to merely pass through, I was singled out by a young customs officer to have my bag searched. I was left wondering why the hell I bother dressing up for these damn, ungrateful, Canucks. I kept my tie on for this?

Though I started the search with a great deal of confidence and a good sense of security, knowing I had nothing with me more objectionable than a few cans of Rockstar and a half-pack of smokes, my faith in the fairness of Canadian Customs quickly faded. In addition to the strange number of questions the officer asked me in relation to my job, acting as if it was something I'd made up, he seemed to immediately take special notice of the fact I'd brought a large amount of mints in tins up. Two tins of discontinued Velamints and two of Icebreakers, both American-exclusive brands brought up for my lady-love, and two tins of Altoids for myself. Based on the fact that I was carrying 6 very small tins of mints in my very large, overstuffed suitcase, and the fact that Altoids are available in Canada, the officer pulled out a knife and began slicing through all the plastic wrappers surrounding the candies, opening all my tins and inspecting the mints inside, keeping some for himself. This offended me to some degree, considering the fact that four of the tins had been meant as gifts and were now no longer pristine.

"You know, the reason I'm searching these tins is because there's an awful lot of tins in your bag and you can buy these here. We've had people try to bring in cocaine in these before," The customs agent told me as he rifled through my stuff.

"Oh, I wish I'd thought of that," I told him as I realized the inconvenience I'd been put through merely for my love of minty-fresh-breath. I was well aware of the fact that had I left the Altoids at home, I probably would have already been wrapped snugly in the loving arms of my Canadian powerhouse.

The Canadian did a double-take, "You wish you'd thought of that?" he asked me as he viewed me with further suspicion.

I was completely fucked now. He now believed that I had wished to bring in cocaine. My assurances of what I'd actually meant were as nothing to him. I shortly thereafter had a silent back-up officer join his side, staring me down for the rest of the interrogation, her hand at her side as if ready to draw for a weapon. For a relatively young, fairly thin, not so unattractive woman, she was relatively imposing, both from the way she never smiled, or spoke, and from the way she postured herself as clearly being ready to attack, not to mention the jumpy look in her eye. You could tell by looking at her that she wasn't the type that should be allowed a gun.

After being forced to empty my pockets and being searched, being subjected to a rather ridiculous amount of questioning about my personal drug use, and then having my bag searched again, I was finally allowed to leave. Shakily, and sorely needing a cigarette, I was allowed to repack my items and was then directed to a rather ominous pair of closed doors. Though I was told the doors led out to the rest of the airport, and freedom, I half expected to be tackled by a bunch of well-equipped police officers waiting on the other side as I passed through them. "Canuck bastards," I thought silently to myself, "next time, it's T-shirts and shorts for you unimpressible louts."

On the outside, in the real world, my dear Rush Girl sat waiting, dressed like a Jawa. After a quick hug, I was still feeling a bit unsettled, and, as we rushed through the doors on the way to the parking garage, I asked her as we passed a bench if I could just be allowed to sit with a cigarette and relax for a minute. "Sure," she said, looking very antsy as she waited for me to finish lifting my shaking hand to my lips. I was not to be allowed to rest, and, by four puffs, she had already began insisting that we leave, citing hunger. I was hungry too, though my stomach was no longer feeling calm enough for me to actually desire any food. I very unhappily tossed my cigarette away and went to the car with her.

Driving off, she was very unhappy about my obvious discomfort, a fact that was very puzzling to me, considering her behavior when she'd last come to see me, which was caused by a delayed flight and was decidedly grumpy, despite getting free drinks (and perhaps a first class seat, or some other bonus, I can't quite recall now). After a few unpleasant and snippy comments from my lady-love, I decided to suck up my frustration and pretend to act as if all was well and fine. It was better not to consider my fears of a half-hour before of putting such effort and money into a trip only to be denied the opportunity of seeing my dear, dear Rush Girl, it was better by far to be happy in the moment with her, to allow myself to fully enjoy her company.

We arrived at her new home, a rather swanky apartment in a building with a decidedly better smell than the previous one she had resided in. The decoration was unique, Christmas lights adorned the walls, along with the familiar pictures that had graced the walls of her previous abode. She fed me some of her mother's delicious borscht, along with a very decent side of traditional Doukhobor food. We followed up the meal with gracious amounts of the discontinued strawberry vodka I had brought her, finishing the bottle by the night's end. She'd shocked me with her choice of Mountain Dew as a mixer, but still, the drinks were enjoyable. I was quite happy to be with her again.

A lot of things happened during our brief time together, so much that it's hard to recall it all now, though I know, the majority of my visit was non-stop fun. I had two massive hangovers while I was with her, both brought on by vodka and wine as I recall, both were felt on Sunday mornings, and were quite crippling. The first came after a night of fighting, and myself, doing a bit of angry, drunken walking along the streets of Vancouver, during which a convenience store vendor tried to rip me off as I bought my first pack of Canadian smokes. The next morning was decidedly better, as, despite the night being rather uncomfortable for myself, we began the day with a rather passionate bit of attention towards eachother. Starting then, the rest of our time together was an absolute dream, the magnitude of the joy we felt and fun we had in being together being far greater than I can ever recall from the previous years of my life, with the possible exception of the time that a very dim and immoral former coworker of mine by the name of Travis crapped his pants after eating a large Chinese dinner. The Lusty Lascivian and I then spent a full day laughing about it, and singing songs about "P. Shitty". We literally went to sleep that night laughing and woke up the next morning laughing still. We even paused between bites of food to laugh. But that was but a day. With Nads (the affectionate name by which I call Rush Girl) it was ten.

After our intimate time together, we raised ourselves up to greet the day. It was then that it became painfully obvious to me the sorry state I was in. Barely able to leave the bed, I forced myself to dress, at her insistence. We walked out into the sunlight, the brightness of which made me instantly aware of how removed my perceptions were. The mere difficulty of standing at a crosswalk caused an uncontrollable fit of laughter. We then walked to a local greasy spoon which served a magnificent breakfast, very generous in size. Though partially nodding off, I managed to keep my head up, engaging Rush Girl in pleasant conversation and serenading her with the songs of Adam West. Supertramp may have even been involved at some point.

My memories are a bit of a blur. I think we spent the rest of the day looking for a place to exchange my money and getting haircuts, my trim making me look like Lupin the 3rd. Perhaps that was the day before. Sunday I think I spent the day listening to Supertramp and sleeping off my hangover, then going out to pick up some comics, before finally going out to her parents' house. Her parents weren't there however, they were still down in Mexico exploring Mayan ruins, stagediving from the tops of old temples and such. That said, we had no reason to stick around, so after my precious Nads finished raiding her parents' ample food supplies, we took off for home.

The days and the memories blur together somewhat. I remember taking a few trips downtown, during which I was able to pick up a Bhangra album, Tom Jones' Reloaded, and Supertramp's Breakfast In America, all good scores. There were postcards featuring Elvis, James Dean, the Who, and Grandpa Munster which I picked up to mail to friends and family. Everyday I made cheese and crackers for Rush Girl and we drank of wine and vodka, and ate of the fine meals my amour would prepare. One night we went out for dinner at a very swank place by the name of The Whip, the meal was delicious and Rush Girl and I subsequently argued over whether or not I should leave a ten-dollar tip. She won; our waitress got a mere six. She should have brought my Rush Girl that ketchup she had asked for. Thursday came along and we went once more to see her parents.

I met her at the SkyTrain station at 4:20 with a bundle of cheese and crackers in my pocket, which I presented her upon seeing her. I was dressed all in black, like Johnny Cash, at her urging, for the sake of impressing her parents. As I'd walked along to the station, puffing madly on a Canadian Number 7, I'd also thrown on a black necktie to help conceal the rather large and obvious hickeys she'd given me the night before, as we all know, only losers with no sense of style button up their collars and walk around without neckties. It's funny to me now that my Rush Girl should give me those red spots on the day before we were to see her parents, only to become so fearsome of her parents noticing them. I received no other hickeys either before or after that during the entire duration of my visit.

We were both quite nervous during the train ride. My shoulders tensed up to the degree they're normally at back home in the States. We held hands and joked, we tried to ignore our nervousness, and both agreed on the fact that a stiff drink would be nice. I made sure to remember Rush Girl's advice to tell her mother that I was a "Freelance Writer".

We met her father in his law office, the new secretary of his which we were so anxious to see was absent, having already left, to our dismay. Her father, an admittedly cool guy, was dressed in a slick suit and reading articles about Bush and his various nefarious goings-on on the computer. He had to wait for a client to arrive, so Rush Girl and I headed across the street to the liquor store. I saw containers of alcohol in there bigger than I had ever seen in my life. We were in a high-crime neighborhood, so the man in the liquor store had to buzz the door to let us out. Returning to her father's office, we laughed a small bit while reading the quotations of the Antichrist-in-chief, George W. Bush, before heading out the door with Supertramp on our lips again.

The ride to her parents' house was pure entertainment, at times macabre, at times humorous, and sometimes thought provoking. A discussion of the pig farm where the remains of several missing prostitutes had been found (the street the soiled-doves had frequented I had accidentally stumbled upon one Saturday morning, the now-bulldozed pig farm was not far from Rush Girl's parents' house and we had stopped there the next day, a feeling of intense discomfort filling me) led to a conversation about The Passion, and from there, the critical flaw in the way of thinking of most modern Christians. The idea being that people tend to ignore his teachings and instead focus on the crucifixion and "blood of Christ" notion, as if a cracker and a Dixie Cup of wine are going to make everything peachy-keen.

We arrived in the rather swanky Doukhobor palace in which young Rush Girl had been raised and gave her mother a greeting of "Happy Birthday" before starting in on a delicious selection of Hors D'oeuvres, the majority of which I'd never seen, and beginning to drain the large bottle of wine, Rush Girl and I, which we had brought them. Rush Girl's sister and her boyfriend arrived, he, wearing a turtleneck, which I quickly pointed out quietly to my lady-love, remembering her own insistence that I wear one as well, and wondering if perhaps he too shared the problem of a large hickey or hickeys. Rush Girl and I sat outside, briefly, enjoying a cigarette, and discussing the notion of myself simply staying in Canada. Returning inside, we found it was time for dinner. The main course itself was grand and delicious, it too containing items I had never seen before, and easily one of the best dining experiences I'd ever had.

I'd been told myself numerous times that her family delighted in teasing their American guests, unsettling them first with a tour of the billiards room in which framed pictures of Lenin, Stalin, Castro, and Che Gueverra hang, and then playfully teasing them with comments about the many flawed goings-on in America. The billiards room was always rather pleasing to me, being rather impressed by the avant-garde decorating style of her parents. Similarly, I found that during the duration of my visit, her family members actually seemed to take the role of America's defenders, and Canada's nit-pickers, the reason I think being that my own gripes about the injustices going on back home and the corruption in and malicious intent of the current administration back home were far more than they were used to. Suddenly, I was reassured with statements of how things were far from perfect in Canada as well, and of their own problems with corruption in the top levels of political office. I was also again granted an offer of coming there for refuge, should Bush stay in office after the election, thus enacting the draft once more.

After a short conversation about the rather misguided excitement within the community over the recent opening of a Krispy Kreme Donuts, finalized with a bit of amusing self-deprecating humor, my Shmoopy's father and I became deeply involved in a large conversation about the greatness that is Johnny Cash. It must have lasted a long time, for this was a true case of two men in total agreement, each with nothing but pages and pages of praise for the man in black. The rest of the family seemed to simply disappear around us, our own enthusiasm in talking about Johnny Cash blocking everything else out. After a long, long time, we gradually moved on to discussing The Million Dollar Quartet, the general lameness and mediocrity of what currently passes for country music, the importance of folk music, and the brilliance of the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. By this point I was relatively certain I had now been accepted as a member of the family, certainly gaining the approval of the father-figure, if only for the sake of our mutual love of Johnny Cash. Eventually my Shmoops had to pull me away, we'd exhausted the bottle of wine (the two of us) hours before and it was now late and we needed to get going, though I found great difficulty in ending conversation with her parents.

During the ride back I was filled with a magnificent sensation, a feeling of love for Rush Girl's parents and family, and a strong one for her as well. It was a feeling of comfort and of wanting to make them all a part of my life, and it would shape my actions upon coming home. There, in the comfort of her bed, I proposed to my dearest Nads. A tinge of fear gripped me as I waited for her response, and as I prepared to back out, she responded with a yes (a "sure" really, I would expect no less from her), leaving me filled with a sense of grand happiness. Who else would propose with a Green Lantern's ring? Just me. And perhaps Green Lantern.

The next night we went out with a friend of hers I had only met once before, meeting him at an overcrowded bar where the musical act wailed loudly, offending my ears, while Spanish dancers trotted across the stage. The same fat wailer later gave me a hard time for attempting to bring a beer outside with me to have while I smoked. The crew of people there was quite amusing, and the liberal feeling towards reefer in Canada was made quite clear to me.

The next day we headed off to Victoria, the capitol of British Columbia, in order to see her brother and sister in law and their three kids. We took a ferry over, the ride being two hours long, during which we amused ourselves with winegums and a shared tabloid, which we stared over as we mocked the celebrities pictured within. Upon arriving at the ferry station, we were greeted by her brother and his youngest son, who cried the whole way back to his home, forcing himself to keep crying at points, exhausting himself, turning his face red and covering himself in sweat, coughing, bawling until finally he vomited, the spew coating him just blocks before we reached his house, and finally, stopping.

We greeted the rest of his family upon arriving there, the twins had just awakened, and begun to cry. Were the name not already taken, I'd be tempted to call them The Tornado Twins. I'd previously clung to a theory that one was good and one evil, based on seeing them once before, during which one played with us, while the other found objects with which to hit his brother. This theory proved untrue, there was no evil twin, they were both in truth engines of destruction, though both also playful and affectionate. All three children began crying loudly once again as we exited the house with their father once more, so that we might experience the sights in Victoria. I felt a large amount of pity for their mother who was stuck with them.

My Rush Girl and I were deposited in downtown Victoria, a place noted for how blatantly British it appears to be. Though this might normally be considered a failing, it seemed to work for the sake of Victoria. We stopped in the quaint shops, looking for some gifts to give my sister on her upcoming birthday, during which I noticed the many awkward-looking people around us with bad teeth and funny noses, and jokingly commented to my gal-pal on how noticeable the British influence on the town was. Heading off to the Empress Hotel, one of the grandest landmarks in Victoria, an elegant building built in the Edwardian style of times past, a place known for it's history as well as the spirits said to inhabit it, I couldn't help but stop outside and stare at it, the architecture of the place being as completely amazing as it's enormous scale. Across the street from the hotel stood a statue of a man in colonial dress with an exquisite powdered wig. In him I could only see the future.

Entering the hotel, walking past the doormen in their fine uniforms, I was immediately blown away by the sheer majesty of the place. The insides of the building resembled no place of lodging I'd ever seen before, devoid of stained carpet, cheap mass-produced paintings, and cross-eyed staff, the type of Norman Bates-fare I was used to. We wandered through the extravagant halls until we stumbled upon the Bengal Lounge, an impressive room of old-world charm with an aged tiger-skin hanging on the wall, a gift from the king of Siam. We stopped there for cocktails and sat at our table eating nuts and pistachios, marveling at the magnificent ceiling fans and decoration, and picturing encounters with German relic-hunters, British expeditionists, American globetrotters, and aged Hessians in pursuit of their livelihoods. Finishing our drinks and leaving a bowl of empty shells, we were off to explore the aged halls of the hotel. The halls were grand and wove around like labyrinth passageways, the decorations were ancient and distinguished, an air of eeriness was present slightly among the long stretches of wall and closed doors. Leaving the building prompted a discussion of the Winchester Mystery House.

Before returning back to Shmoops' brother's house, we stopped at the top of hill where an abandoned bunker stood, a by-product of the second Great War. The view was amazing from where we stood, no doubt the perfect place for spotting U-boats, and allowed us to see clearly down upon all of the land surrounding us, even offering a brief glimpse of American mountains in the distance. I'm no stranger to abandoned military relics, old bunkers and military bases litter the landscape back home, but the view really was something quite spectacular.

Returning to the house, we played with the twins, the youngest boy remained distant, clearly wanting nothing to do with us. It mattered not; he was relatively boring in comparison to his older brothers, adorable, funny, screaming things that they were. My lass and I got to the task of preparing dinner, myself stuck with the task of peeling garlic, and all four of us adults got to the task of gradually draining the house's cache of alcohol. The dinner was delicious, and the vodka was gone too fast, and the twins and then their younger brother all ran around and danced nakedly, their gargantuan uncircumcised penises flapping around to the sound of the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack.

Then they were off to bed and the four adults were left to talk, my Nads and I fervently appreciating Amadeus as we viewed it on the television. My Shmoops' brother, who had always delighted in picking on my friend, The Red Rightwing, again became America's defender in my presence, instead discussing the flawed history of Canada, and the embezzlement scandal that had taken place while Chretien was in office. We discussed the tale of their great-aunt, who had been a spy for the Russian government, and then the parents too were off to bed, leaving Rush Girl and I in our pajamas watching Amadeus, holding eachother, and I, drinking too much wine.

The next night I woke up with a bad taste in my mouth and feeling very dehydrated, Shmoops was exhausted, having barely slept due to the loud snoring which my alcohol-induced deep sleep had produced. I too, was tired, though for the decidedly different reason of being hung-over. Venturing out into the house in our pajamas, our first sight was of the twins making a tremendous mess of water, toilet paper, and toothbrushes in the bathroom. They looked up at us with innocent eyes and angelic faces, catching us off-guard with ice-picks of cuteness to the heart. We joined the family and had a delicious breakfast of sausages, eggs, potatoes, and other assorted treats, before playing once more with the boys. Dressing once more, we attempted to distract the boys with bottles of milk so that Rush Girl, her brother, and I could sneak out to catch the ferry to return home. The boys were smart however, and caught us before we could leave, running to the door after us, screaming, crying, left inside once more with their mother who was stuck with the task of calming them.

On the ferry-ride home I was half-corpse, walking out of touch and confused to a seat, laying my half-conscious head on my Shmoops beside me, and being stared at by all the passengers around me. I cared not, I was unshaven and dressed in black, and felt just in being in my condition, following in the footsteps, no doubt, of Johnny Cash before me. A man that puts such effort into looking good has a right to occasionally look under the weather, for it's fact that a hung-over man in a suit looks a hell of a lot better than a well rested man in a T-shirt and jeans. Hell, it's part of the rock star image.

After an hour and a half of trying to suppress my headache and ignoring my nausea, I decided to venture up and outward for a cigarette. While I was outside, watching the water and the islands moving by, funny thoughts started going through my head, the kind of funny thoughts brought on by the semi-dementia of a good hangover. I had thoughts of standing on the edge of the boat and screaming, "I'm king of the world!" before a funnier and more insidious thought took it's place. I started contemplating vomiting over the side of the boat, wondering if I could guess my position well enough for the stream of upchuck to pass by my loved-one's window on the deck below. I chuckled at the thought of the reactions of all the people sitting on the deck below staring out the windows at the calm sky, cool, blue water, and beauteous tree-covered islands, only to have their view unexpectedly and quickly obscured a stream of half-digested sausages and eggs. My Shmoops, I knew, would get the joke.

When I returned downstairs to the deck below, I started to realize that I was feeling much better, and thus, I was quite content to show a little affection to my dear, dear Rush Girl. We happily talked about how much fun we were having and how I would miss her when I left. It was our last day together and we both realized it.


During the ride in the car back from the ferry station the two of us listened to The Shins and discussed the time when she’d worked on the set of The Sentinel and The X-Files, how she’d played basketball with the cast of The Sentinel, who were incredible, and of her run-ins with Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny who’d been a bit less agreeable or honorable, the latter being the more unsavory of the two.

We stopped at home, dropped off our bags, and headed out the door for her parents’ house once more. While there, we were forced into eating dinner, though we found we couldn’t complain in the least. We entertained her parents with tales of the twins and their younger brother, tales of screaming, of vomit, of flapping penises. Before long, the Oscars were on and the family was distracted by that, rather than us, my Nads and I were left alone to focus on how appalling-looking Billy Crystal has become, and how hideously unfunny and somewhat disturbing half of his material is. Before long we were being chauffeured to the SkyTrain station by her father, and from there, on our way back home.

The last few hours of our night together were difficult. We attempted to finish watching Battle Royale, but Rush Girl was too tired and fell asleep, so I stopped the film. We talked about my flight in the morning and how she didn’t want me to go. I didn’t want to go either but I felt there were reasons that necessitated my return. Reasons of moral obligation, of duty to family, of having a job, of the necessity of participating in the vote. I told her that if she asked me to stay, I would. Silently, unspoken, but clear in my head, it was a desperate plea begging her to order me to stay, just to give me one reason to throw reason and responsibility to the side, one excuse to stay with her where I was so happy. To her credit, she would not order me to stay. To some degree, a pressure created by the responsibilities I had was relieved, though at the same time, my heart sank a little, knowing how much I’d really wanted an excuse to stay.

She fell asleep, and I was left feeling terrible, with no one to talk to. Unsure what to do, I fell upon my last resort and called my mother to tell her I didn’t want to come home. Thankfully, my mother was still up, and she was able to help convince me to come home, since I could always come back. I suppose I’d been hoping she’d tell me to stay, but nevertheless, I did feel better. I got my Shmoops to bed, called a cab to take me to the airport in the morning, and went to sleep. Anyway, I tried to sleep.

In the morning Rush Girl woke for work, I woke as well, having not been able to sleep too deeply. We laid together briefly, until she had to get ready for work. Finally, we said our good-byes and she was out the door. I hit the shower and got to the business of finishing the packing of my items for the return trip home. I decided to leave a few of my items for her to enjoy, and wrote her one last note in which I proclaimed my love for her once more, before cleaning up the bed and the futon. I had an hour left before I had to leave Vancouver once more, and things that needed to be done.

Stepping outside, past the smoking landlord, I walked along the Vancouver streets once more. The sky was disgustingly clear and beautiful, glorious golden rays of sunshine poured down upon me on this, my last hour in Vancouver, like no other Vancouver morn I could recall, with the exception perhaps of a sunglass-deprived hangover-Sunday. Clearly, the gods were mocking me, of this I was sure, and certainly, somewhere up in the heavens, a Canadian moose-deity gleefully danced around, enjoying the cruel, cruel joke had at my expense.

I walked, a look of death on my face, down Main Street, my destination being the New York Novelty store I had avoided during the entire length of my trip. An impressive collection of face masks were present in the window, and I knew there I would find one for my ally, Mister Mystere. Walking in the door, just behind the man running the shop, I searched through the collection of masks against the wall of the shop. I’d been partial to one I’d seen with devil-horns, there was another with a moon and stars on it which seemed appropriate as well. I found it difficult to choose. I wandered through the store a little more, back to the section where the fake breasts and vibrators are kept, before returning to the front and picking out an elegant Zorro-style mask, deciding a mask like that works with just about anything.

I walked along Main Street again, knot in my stomach, off to another store to spend the last of my Canadian money. I plunked down $10 to grab a copy of Mike Allred’s G-Men From Hell on DVD at the local junk shop, walked past the bootleg Transformers, and headed back to the apartment. There I sat with my packed suitcase, sipping a half-glass of wine in an attempt to calm myself, hoping all the while that the taxi wouldn’t show up.

I sat silently in the taxi, looking at Vancouver around me, and watching the fee increase on the meter. Stopping at the airport, I paid the driver and headed off to the counter to check in, a silent hope in my head again that I wouldn’t be allowed through. I stopped and filled out a customs card, trying to figure out the value of the items I’d bought while in Canada, trying to calculate in my head the conversion rate of Canadian funds to the U.S. dollar. Off to customs I headed, hoping again to be turned away. The guard asked me a few standard questions about my job before finally asking me what comics I had bought while in Canada, in reference to the items I had declared.

“Monkey Vs. Robot and DC: The New Frontier,” I told him.

“Alright, have a nice trip, Green Lantern.” He said, having noticed my ring, and turning his head away, looking at the next American traveler heading his way.

Again, I passed through the metal detector and bag-search area far too easily. I headed off to my gate, there was at least an hour left before the flight, so I walked down to the smoking area at the end of the terminal. I was grateful for the smokers’ lounge in the Vancouver Airport, it made me feel like I was in a land of civilized folk. There I sat, alone, and smoked my very last cigarette, wishing for more, before returning to my gate and sitting, waiting, my head in my lap.

The music selection on the plane was shit, the headphones were busted, and the in-flight entertainment was hardly that. As we pulled into the San Francisco Airport, the sky outside was gray, and cloudy, and there was a cold, biting wind that necessitated the use of the trenchcoat I’d brought with me, but never once used during my trip to Vancouver. I stood and cursed the gods once more as I stood outside, without a single smoke, and waited for public transportation to take me home.

I couldn’t stay long in my house, there was a gnawing, an emptiness inside me, both for the absence of food I should have consumed during the day, and for something greater. I called up Mister Mystere and we headed out, in search of a burrito shop, and the beach. After presenting my chum with his mask, we headed off to a friend’s house to pick up CD that had been made for us. Along the way, we caught Immoral B, who had been riding on his bike at night. He joined us in our trip to the home of Mighty Madge (properly spelled “MIGHTY MADGE!”) to pick up the silver spinning disk. There the four of us sat and chatted for a while as we listened to the Bhangra I’d brought back from Vancouver.

The next day I returned to the routine I’d known before my trip, and went through my day still missing my amour and wondering if I’d made the right decision. Apparently, a lot of the guys at work were surprised to see I’d returned, many of them not expecting to see me again. I spent the majority of my shift researching politicians and propositions on the computer at my desk, in preparation for the vote. After work I put my paycheck in the bank and stopped off at my local polling place, bumping for the briefest of seconds into a friend of mine along the way.

It was in the next few hours that I was finally was made to feel better for the first time since I’d returned to the golden state. As I’d read through my ballot on the plane I’d been made aware of the modern changes in voting laws. I’d retained my memories of what I’d read, and using that knowledge, was able to help Mister Mystere, who’d forgotten to reregister at his current address, to vote. My mother then came home and had forgotten to send in her absentee ballot. Off to the polls I sent her, with a ballot in hand, opened to the page that outlined the rules of the provisional vote. After both Mister Mystere and my own mother had voted, I finally felt as if coming home had been worth something. At least I’d had the voting power of three.

The days are long, and pass too slow, and everyday I watch my hair grow out a little bit more. I miss her, my Rush Girl, and even the attentions of my Virgin Chimp are a very, very poor substitute. Now, I watch and wait, I formulate plans, and I dream of the day I’ll see her again. Soon. Very soon.

Be seeing you,
The Virgin Prince