Ave, Sperwer!

I said my goodbyes to Sperwer, the muscleman himself, today, stopping by his mountain fastness to pick up a carry-on suitcase that I predict I'll need after I'm done trinket-shopping later this afternoon. The bus ride over to Sperwer's had been an adventure: I thought I could take the 110B all the way to Pyeongchang-dong, but the 110B stopped and let everyone off about halfway there, at Bukhan Mountain Trailhead, which was apparently 110B's terminus. Another 110B, picking up where the first one let off, took me where I needed to go.

It was good to hang with Sperwer for a brief while. I almost never refer to him as "my buddy Sperwer" because that would imply equality: the man is fully twenty years my senior, so he's practically a father figure. He's done an amazing thing, too, whittling down his body to nothing but muscle. I can tell he wants me to get into bodybuilding as well; I told him, in parting, that I had no intention of showing off my booty in a bikini bottom. He said that bodybuilding is less about the competition and more about what you want to get out of it. I'll miss Sperwer's insights, his pearls of phronesis (practical wisdom). He wished me good luck with my job search, told me it'd be good to have me on the peninsula again, then tore off in his sleek, black Deathmobile to go pick up his daughter.

Larger than life, that man is.


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