Home to Hicksville

Usually I'm the guy with the answers - glib, flippant comebacks that I toss out regularly but for the past few days, Charming Calvin has been hounding me with the one question that I haven't actually been able to come up with a reasonable reply.

Calvin : What if I took the job offer to return to Hicksville?
Paul : Hmm... ooh, try this shrimp!

Calvin : What if I took the job offer to return to Hicksville?
Paul : OMG! Did you see that quiz of a woman in green and puce? What was she thinking?

Calvin : What if I took the job offer to return to Hicksville?
Paul : I think Jaunty Jerrod had sex on a balcony!

Obviously my oddly persistent man has left me practically non-plussed for the past few days - since how could you possibly phrase the notion that you find a permanent transfer to Hicksville absolutely unpalatable that it makes you want to hurl the aforementioned shrimp? After all although it gratifies me that he would want my opinion, it wouldn't do for me to seem utterly unsupportive of his career advancement - since I'm usually the one to push him forward when it comes to his work!

And I am starting to have this passing suspicion that it could actually be a good move for him career-wise.


Rusticating away in sylvan surroundings...
But Hicksville, the famed city of Homosexoil! Look, it's not that I hate rural towns! I do like them. I like the rustic locale, the pleasant chirp of the birds, the slower pace in life, the friendly camaraderie of the townsfolk. But I like it all in small, evenly distributed doses. There's only so much peaceful pastoral paradise I can take before I start twitching. Years back, I barely survived a stranded weekend in the bucolic Lake District - and practically clawed my way free from a month in a backswood kampung back when I was a medical student. More than a year would probably have me straight-jacketed ranting away incoherently in a padded cell.

Just too much of a city boy, I guess.

Not that I actually expect to brave my way through the insane urban traffic snarl of honks and swears forever. Certainly can't imagine living in the bustling metropolis with the incessant noise, the teeming crowds and the unforgiving smog for the rest of my life - but I always imagined staying somewhere out in the peaceful suburbs, relatively set apart from the hectic hustle and bustle of the city but still close enough that I wouldn't have to mount a major expedition just for a brief pilgrimage to relative civilization for my favourite iced mocha latte ( although Calvin assures me that Starbucks, that cherished cornerstone of civilization has arrived in Hicksville ). Although I don't frequent theaters and concerts as much as I used to, I still like knowing that it's all happening barely a convenient stone's throw away.

Unlike what would happen if we both transferred to Hicksville. :P

Fortunately, a place like Malacca fits the bill perfectly. Not too large a city to seem almost maddening but still only a couple of hours' drive from two Asian megacities that I wouldn't seem irreparably lost in rusticity. But then at the moment I can't even make up my mind where I'll be in a year or two. Things seem to be changing so much at this stage of our lives that it's hard to tell where our careers will eventually take us. Hell, I could be in the sweltering bush tending to sick Aboriginal children in two years for all I know.

Good God. I just remembered.

No doubt the man has conveniently forgotten one salient point. Most importantly, Hicksville is but a cosy stone's throw away from the lioness' den, the infamous Lucrezia Borgia. Dare I face the Asian dragoness on a daily basis?

Hell, I doubt even my robust constitution could last that long :)