It is 10:30PM. Here in Albuquerque. Where I’ve been living for the last six weeks it is between 8:30 and 11:30AM. Travel, wonderful as it is and grateful as I am for the opportunity, has left me feeling a day late and a dollar short as the expression goes. Must sleep, can’t sleep. First issue. The doctor and tax bills that arrived in my absence were expected but still feel very unwelcome. Second issue. Then to make readjustment as painful as possible I drank a lot of Starbucks latte-strength coffee today on a stomach used to Nescafe-flavored water.

I mentioned it’s 10:30pm right. I’ve been trying to sleep since I came home from work about 4pm. Certainly watching Chris Matthews try to dissect the Trump phenomena (phenomenon?) for a short while didn’t quiet my head or my intestines.

The lines from a song I couldn’t quite remember kept cycling through my head as I left Seoul…Hambone Hambone where you been, around the world and I’m goin again. Because that’s how I felt. Going around the world is an extremely satisfying thing to do. Looked up the song when I got home. Here it is in all its wonderfulness.

HAMBONE

(Red Saunders / Leon Washington)

Bill Haley

 Hambone! Hambone!

Hambone, hambone

where you been?

Round the world and I’m going again

What you gonna do when you come back?

Take a little walk by the railroad track

Hambone

Hambone, hambone

Have you heard?

Papa’s gonna buy me a mocking bird

And if that mocking bird don’t sing

Papa’s gonna buy me a diamond ring

And if that diamond ring don’t shine

Papa’s gonna take it to the five and dime

Hambone

Hambone, hambone

Where you been?

Round the world and I’m going again

I just skinned an alley cat

To make my wife a Sunday hat

Took the hide right off a goat

To make my wife a Sunday coat

Hambone, hambone

Where’s your wife

Out to the kitchen, cooking beans and rice

Hambone (2x)

Hambone, hambone

Trying to eat

Ketchup on his elbow, pickle on his feet

Bread in the basket

Chicken in the stew

Supper on the fire for me and you

Look at him holler, look at him moan

That hambone just can’t hambone

Hambone (2x)

 How can that song not make me happy.

So eventually I’ll sleep and my bills will get paid and I acclimatize to lattes slowly and maybe I’ll go around the world again.

 Goodnight from this time zone.

There are two or three pretty pretty photo albums to go from the Beijing ferry and in Seoul…but for now, because I’m tired and cranky here’s how these trips end up…not a very pretty picture at all.