PDX

I'm not sure what I expected coming to Portland. I spent three years going to University here (with a year interlude in Salzburg, Austria). Most of my friends still live here, but I never really come up for more than a day or two, between weddings and other trips and not enough time off in the corporate world (any coincidence that corporate is close to corprolith, a word meaning fossilized shit?). So this time I wanted to give myself a longer stay. I got a hotel rather than stay with friends, because I don't like being a burden. Five night stay should be long enough, right?

Yes and no. I've got two nights left, so I'm still squeezing peope in. There's some I'm not going to get to see, places I'm not going to get to go, things I'm not going to do that I wanted to do. But it's all about balance (which I've come to the conclusion means running around like a headless chicken, frantically trying to get everything done). It's noon, and I'm still in bed so I'm not doing the shopping/reminiscing I intended to do today. But the flip side to that is I hung out last night with someone who is a much better friend now than she was beforehand. . . Even if she did tell me to fuck off on Twitter.

It's all about using your time. It's the one thing you can't hoard, the one resource that truly is precious. So having said that, I'm going to haul my almost-hungover arse out of bed, and continue to bounce around Portland from commitment to commitment, with maybe a litte sushi for breakfast/lunch.

Morbidity

I hemmed and hawed about writing this post. If you've read any of my short stories or the bloggage I did back on MySpace, you know I talk about death a tad.

Still not really sure about the whole dying thing, whether it scares the shit out of me or whether I just don't care. I definitely don't want to die just yet, but only recently do I feel like I really have a reason to not die yet.

I have to write. I have to finish the stories I've started, write the ones I haven't started but have been thinking about, and I have to share them with people. As to whether they're any good or not, I can't be the judge of that. The novel I'm writing right now, I'm not sure if it's what I set out to write-- there's more characters and twists to it that I had originally thought about-- but I feel a compulsion to finish it, cos I want to see how I get where I'm going. I've surprised myself so far. Cryptic I know. I just don't want to give too much away, and I want you buggers to actually buy the bloody thing when it's published. I'll sign your copy.

But here's the thing. If I were to die in a plane crash tomorrow, flying up to Portland for a much-needed get-out-of-vegas trip (too many hyphens?), then I'd leave these stories unwritten. I don't even have the 28,628 words I have written saved anywhere that someone could come in when I'm dead and print them off, or finish the book. The only people who would really care are Dee, a bloke I work with, because he's been reading every chapter as I finish it, and my Dad, because he's read the first one and wants to know what's going to happen. I'm talking about caring about the book, by the way, not me. I hope all of you are mourning if I'm dead. And by mourning I mean raising a glass with the alcoholic beverage of your choice.

It's the idea of leaving it unfinished that worries me. I've set this challenge for myself, and I want to complete it. I want to finish them all. I want to be able to erase the big whiteboard on my bedroom wall because everything I've hastily scribbled down on it has been done, and needs to make way for the next several ideas.

If I don't die in a plane crash tomorrow, then there is more likelihood of me finishing my novels than there is of something that's quite likely. But there's the shitty thing about this situation. Now I've joked about dying in a plane crash, if I do then this blog will be some strange, tragic foreshadowing of my fate and I'll become famous for the exact thing I don't want right now. People will lament the fragments of stories they are able to piece together from printouts and digital echoes I've let behind. They'll read this blog and wonder what could have been. Well, except for the fact I'm not taking it seriously at all. If I die, I die, and while I won't be happy about it, after writing this blog know I'll probably be laughing at the sheer stupid irony of the situation, while crapping myself at the same time. And did I actually cause it to crash because of this blog? Does the world really, as I've come to believe every time I wash my car and it rains the next day, does it really revolve around me? Cos if it does then this would be the absolute worst time to have that confirmed for me.

But is it better to be James Dean, who had a lamentably small body of work and will always be young, full of unrealized promise, or to be like Marlon Brando, who did a lot of good work and is lamentably remembered for his large body?

Either way, if I'm dead, and you have a copy of anything I've written, let my parents know and maybe see about getting it published. With the disclaimer that I didn't have time to edit it properly cos I died in a fucking plane crash, so that's why it might not be that good. . .cheers!

And just to be really twisted, I'm setting it so this is published half-way through the flight. . .

exes

I have a lot of exes. Well, we all do. Ex-friends. Ex-girlfriends. Ex-people we hooked up with a for a bit but it didn't get to the point of significant others. And I think that it's unusual that I'm still friends with the majority of mine.

I got an email from Jenny a couple of days ago reminding me that it was 11 years ago about now that we met, in a McDonalds in Munich at Oktoberfest. It should never have happened. First off, McDonalds in Munich? There's so much other incredible food, but I was with a couple of Americans, Leif and Clinton, and they wanted McDonalds. Clinton was lamenting the fact he can never meet women, and Leif and I were consoling him (and I was lamenting too, only to myself). Somehow Leif starts talking to this girl, Jenny, who is there on her own and is walking in the same direction that we are. He starts talking to her and introducing her to Clinton, and we're all talking until it turns out that even though the three of us are drunk off our tits, I have the better German and Jenny and I hit it off. We exchange contact information (all the while Clinton is cussing me out), and I visit in two weeks time and Jenny and I are officially boyfriend and girlfriend. (There's a little more to the story that involves 'accidentally missing my train' and telling her parents that there was nowhere else I could stay that night, but that's a story for another night).

One of my first exes is an ex friend called Hamish. I knew him the first year I went to school back in 198. . .hell, I don't know. A long bloody time ago. But he moved away, and when your age is still in single digits you're not fantastic at keeping in touch with people. For that matter, there's Becky Cooper who was sort of my first girlfriend. She was my first friend who was a girl, back in a time when the only differences between girls and boys was girls had longer hair and boys had cooler toys. I remember when I decided to take the scholarship to Chafyn she would barely talk to me and I would pretend that it didn't matter, and all our mutual friends were telling me it was a mistake cos it was her and I. Shit, we were six years old, but people had already picked us for each other.

Becky and Hamish, I'm not in touch with any more. Hamish, I haven't spoken to since the day his family left Salisbury-- but I still remember the cake we had for his going away. I've seen Becky a couple of times in the intervening years, the last time was in 199. . .6?, a year after I left England, when I was visiting Salisbury and she was dating a good friend of mine. Jenny, as I said, just emailed me a couple of days ago. I have exes who are pregnant, married, still stalking my dreams, and among the last people I want to talk to. There are scenarios I played out in my mind that never happened, and things they talked about with me that didn't come to pass.

So what exactly is an ex? Is it someone you once shared something with but don't any more? I shared something with Jenny that I don't any more, but we still share the same memories from experiences from our time together, and we still keep in touch. Just because they're in the past it doesn't mean those memories have ceased to be-- that's not going to happen until we're dead, or have altzheimers.

One of the best and worst relationships I ever had, with Melissa, is definitely an ex-relationship. But the memories are still there, and the realizations I made about myself and things I learned about other people are still very much relevant to my life now. She's one of the exes I'm not in touch with, and deliberately-- that's how badly I took the breakup-- and while I'm unusual in that I maintain relationships with several exes, I lose no sleep with the decision for her to remain in my memory rather than my life.

I guess my point behind this whole rambling, look-at-what-a-great-guy-I-am-cos-I-still-talk-to-exes post, is that time is what fucks us up. Yes, the exes I have, whether they be friends, lovers, partners, or work aquaintances, have all moved out of my life to a greater or lesser degree, but they still have helped form it to what it is right now. In that sense not a single one of them is an ex, because each has a presence in who you are, right now.

This was all triggered by a good night with good friends that I don't get to see often enough. And $2.50 draft and dogs at sherwood bar in the Excaliber

a drunken one. . .

The older I get, the more I crave my youth. Yeah, part of it's the whole 'wish I knew then what I know now.' But most of it is I wish I am now who I was then. Not that I've changed much. I don't think I have, but ask my Portland friends when I see them next week. I just think I could do with a little more levity in my life. I want to take things less seriously, like I did yesteryear.

Growing up I always cared what people thought. Then, for an all too brief couple of years I lost that, didn't give a shit either way. And now I do care, but in a different way: an older, much more boring way.

I had a great night Saturday night. It was absolutely, completely random, but it reminded me of what I used to get up to younger ago. And the problem with having random nights like that is you can't try to have them or you're usually let down. But the specific incident I'm thinking about is driving from an afterhours event at a sushi restaurant that we didn't get to in time, to a house party. I don't really know the girl who was driving me, and I didn't know anyone who was at the house we were headed to. But driving down sahara headed to I don't know where, she starts rapping to the music that's playing on the car stereo. I'm not the biggest fan of rap or hip hop or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays, but it was actually pretty cool. And pretty hot, but that's another story. This story is about her telling me it's my turn, and my being to chickenshit to actually do it. I blabbered something about performance anxiety, being too shy and not drunk enough. Why? When did I lose the ability to consciously make an arse of myself? Of all the things I wish I could still do, that's the one I want the most.

Don't get me wrong, I do make an arse of myself. I unconsciously make an arse of myself all the time. Sometimes I'll play it off as deliberate and people buy it, but usually I'll be kicking myself in the privacy of my own head. But to set out and try something I'm probably not going to be any good at and do it anyway, I don't seem to be able to do that any more.

So if you do happen to see me doing something stupid, please call me on it. Promise I'll admit if it's deliberate or not. And if I say it is deliberate, then it's just me trying to capture a little of my misspent, missed youth, and should probably be encouraged.

Fluff

Almost complete opposite places, from blog to blog. Last time I was camping in the middle of nowhere, the only sounds my breathing and the gurlge of who knows what as my body metabolized alcohol. Tonight, I'm sitting at a bar in a sort-of club, sipping a jack and ginger listening to top forty hits as performed by Zowie Bowie. Pretty sure I prefer the former. Reasons for the latter may or may not be disclosed at a later date.

And I don't really have much to say except that I'm writing for the sake of writing right now, keeping momentum even if this isn't anything much. And jack and ginger is yummy. Been plugging away the past week or so, keeping focus on one project and ingoring all the others. . . okay, that's not entirely true. I upgraded to Snow Leopard OS last week and it invalidated my final draft license so I have to call them and get it renewed, buy it means I can't work on my scripts. Bloody technology.

But keeping track of word count is surprisingly motivating. Admittedly, the count doesn't matter much if the words are complete tripe, but it feels like progress. Today, I broke 20k on the novel I decided I should write. Maybe a quarter way thru, don't know yet. And then there's the whole rewriting and editingand cutting out the crap and getting it to the point someone might want to read it. Converting quantity into quality.

Ah, but quantity is enticing. Adding a spare adjective here, an unneccesary descriptive paragraph there, and all of a sudden it feels like something's been achieved as the word count climbs higher.

Thinking about taking part in the 'write a novel in a month' thingy. November 1st, start writing. Have to write 50k by the arse end of November. Might be good to try and really focus like that, but wha with work and BNTA it's hard enough doing the 20 a month I'm shooting fr right now. At least on my own personal word count I get to use my blog toward the total.

Hmm, how much longer can I streatch this about nothing. . .

Shivering

Written Wednesday morning while camping. . . Technology is a shittily wonderful thing.

It's wonderful because I can lie here on my back at  330 am, using my phone to share the moment instead of looking up at the stars and trying to pick which plot of land on the moon I want to retire to (you know you can buy plots of land on the moon? That's the biggest scam ever, who he hell has the right to sell land on the moon? I want one! http://www.lunarlandowner.com/)

It's shitty because I can lie here on my back and type instead of counting the stars.

I'm camping at mt Charleston. I'm here cos it's a friends birthday. And it's gorgeous up here. I've drunk. . .well, let's just say enough. I've been breathing clearly for the past 8 hours, and been able to see stars for the part 8 hours.

I just took a walk, so I can't hear the other drunken bugggers, or see the light from the campfire. The only light is the 3/4 moon and the iPhone I'm typing on right now, and if I could trust myself to type up handwritten bloggage I wouldn't even have the phone.

Enough babblng. Here's the point of this blog. We're bloody lucky.

There's a shittonne of reasons were lucky, but right now it's the technology. A hundred years ago I couldn't have driven up to an altitude of 8500 feet just to camp and chill with my friends. I couldn't have done the travelling I've done, seen the places I've seem, at least not before the age of 30.

I want to be a writer for many reasons, but lying here looking up at the stars I'm reminded of one more than any other. I want to take advantage of the time I have, see what I can see, so wait I can do, and leave some sort of legacy. Maybe it'll just be shitty science fiction, or maybe it'll be as a memory of  eccentric uncle rich when my siblings start sprogging. Regardless, everyone needs to do something in their lives worth telling someone else about. And right now, with twigs poking my back and the moon almost bright enough for sunglasses, this s a moment that should be talked about, shared, maybe even tried out for yourself.

Cheers.

Too many disclaimers

I've been quiet on here for a couple of weeks now. It's not that I haven't had anything to say-- you should know me by now and know that I don't shut up. I just don't know what TO say. I'm disheartened by the way people can be convinced to be against something that would be nothing but beneficial for them. I'm frustrated that people will blatantly ignore facts that are easily accessible. I dislike that people will first pick a point of view and then go out and find evidence to support it, ignoring anything that is contrary to their pre-picked point of view. I'm disgusted that people can take what is a very good message and corrupt it to such an extent as to be unrecognizable.

Disclaimer #1: I'm not Christian. Not any more. I was raised Church of England, went to a C of E infants school, went to church one Sunday a month-ish. I was baptised in a Church that was built in the 15th Century, confirmed in said Church, and even served as an Altar boy for a year or so there.

There's a few reasons I don't consider myself to be Christian any more. Growing up, religion was always a comfort. I enjoyed the ritual, the sense of community and belonging it gave. As I got older, I didn't find that any more. But until recently I was comfortable enough just debating religion with people without necessarily coming out on one side or the other.

Now I find I cannot, in good conscience, profess any bond to Christianity. Not until those Christians who I believe are good, decent people, stand up and take back their religion from the people who are bastardizing it.

Pastor Steven Anderson. Nowhere in my knowledge of Christianity is someone like this man acceptable. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Christ preach love and acceptance? Wasn't he sent to show people the way back to God? I doubt Christ ever prayed for someone to die, even as he hung there on the cross, his breathing more and more laboured, blood seeping from his wounds. 

Disclaimer #2: I do believe that there was a historical figure that Christ is based on, and I think that he had a pretty good message that it wouldn't hurt us all to live by. You know, love they neighbour. Be excellent to one another. And party on.

It's the hatred that some Christians preach these days that disgusts me. The willingness to judge in a loud, clear voice and hold themselves up as morally superior. This Steven Anderson, that he would pray for the death of ANYONE, is foul. That someone would be proud about walking around with a gun and talking about using it, well that just baffles me.

Disclaimer #3: I hate guns. Didn't grow up with them, don't need them. Having said that, I'd love to go on a Pheasant or Grouse shoot. But I have no interest in taking another human life, and the majority of guns were designed to do just that.

I understand it's in the Constitution and it's your right to own a gun. And I understand that it's your right to free speech. But to claim to be a Christian and to use your pulpit to preach hatred? The two just don't mesh for me. There's a few people I do hate, I'll admit. And if people ask me I'll tell the truth about how I feel. I hate people like Pastor Steven Anderson. But not once have I wanted the death of these people.

If you believe in the power of prayer, and you pray for someone to die and they do, are you responsible for their death?

I was going to mention a couple of other things here, but can't think about it any more right now. It pains me that all the good people who consider themselves Christians have to share their ranks with the hate-filled, the xenophobic, those who prey on the insecurites of others. I know that the bigoted arseholes out there are the vast minority, but I'd love to have it proven to me.

Rejection

Yep, they didn't want my short story. Now I'm going to have to pick up a copy and see the sort of things they do use. Not because I'm bitter or pissed off- it's their publication, they can use whatever they want. I just need to learn about how to get published, and if it means maybe working on a different style, I'm open to that. I'm not going to change, just give them what they want for a bit until I can say I've been published (them as in the publishing industry, not thefirstline.com) Might even submit something for their next one, just for the hell of it. It's good practice for me to write to a deadline, because it helps me focus and actually bloody finish something. Right now I've got 8 short stories, only one of which I've done more than a first draft. I've got the beginnings of 2 novels, a first draft short screenplay, and 3 started full length screenplays. I'm completely writing for myself right now, whatever I feel like doing at the time, and that's part of the reason I'm keeping a word-count track instead of a time count.

Not that word count means what I'm doing is any good, but then a time allotment doesn't guarantee quality either. This way if I'm sitting looking at a blank screen I can do something else, and if I really feel the need to write I can do it whenever.

Anyway. Rejection. This was actually an easy rejection to take, because I feel like I had so little vested in it. Five days, three drafts, and submission. I love it when writing's like that-- the words just pick themselves out from the keyboard with almost no effort on your part. And now that they've decided they don't want it for their publication, I'm free to do with it what I will. So I am. I'm giving it a screenplay treatment right now, think it could make a great little short (bugger. I said one short up there didn't I? Make that one first draft and one in progress). Should be pretty cheap to film too, so I can actually try and get it made.

So maybe I'm over my fear of rejection. I think I might be. Does that mean I should start dating again? In five years I think I've asked out three women, all three of whom have initially said yes, but then two cancelled on me. The most recent didn't leave me feeling worthless, which is a huge step up for me. Maybe it's time to send out a few email on match.com, haven't done anything with it yet. Cos what's the worst that can happen?

Okay, so the worst that could happen is I'll meet someone, fall in love, decide to save our first time for marriage, and ten minutes before we leave the wedding reception to consumate, the world is destroyed by a meteor.

Or the worst is I could meet someone, they could end up scamming me for every penny I have and leave me destitute and with a nasty rash.

I could go on like this for hours. The point is, I think I can deal with rejection. Maybe I should go to the pub and see how many times I can get rejected in one sitting. . .

Coming Out

That's it. I'm coming out of the closet. I can't live a lie any more. Are you ready? I'm a socialist.

I know some of you had the feeling that I might be, there was something a little 'off' with me, something not acceptable in society. But damn it feels good to get it out and finally confess. It's liberating.

Can someone explain to me why Socialism is such a bad, evil thing? Anyone? I understand why it's hated- the misinformation and propaganda campaigns of the McCarthy/Cold War Era are to blame for that. Equate Socialism with Marxism and Communism and all of a sudden you get people afraid of something they don't even know about. You do know that there is a form of Socialism that exists in this country, right? It's how we have the  Fire Departments that come to your house when it's on fire and do their best to save your possessions, or the Police Department that sit on the highway and pull you over for going too fast. It's how the US has a Military.

I'm a socialist because I don't believe that the Fire Department should be run for profit. If my house is on fire and a big truck full of people trained to put out fires piles out, I don't want to have to run back in the burning building to find a credit card or cheque book before they put out the fire. In fact, read about Marcus Licinius Crassus, a Roman General and Politician. He's ranked as one of the top ten richest historical figures, and part of his wealth was gained by taking advantage of people whose houses were on fire. He'd show up to a burning building, buy it very cheaply, then call up to 500 clients who could put the fire out very quickly. In theory, if we were to have a for-profit fire department we'd pay them based on what, number of fires put out? Anyone see a problem with that?

That's one of the reasons why an unchecked, purely for profit health care system is a bad thing. If you go to the doctor and he actully cures you-- well, he only gets paid for that one visit. But if he just makes you feel better for a certain amount of time and then you have to go back, well then you get billed for as long as the visits keep happening. If you take away the profit motivation then maybe you'll be treated the best way possible, not the best way possible for Business.

Also, Health Care will never be subject to true free market supply and demand for the same reason oil is not really part of the free market. Those are things we can't do without. If I can't fill my car up I can't get to and from work (I can't bike 12 miles in 110 degree weather for two months out of the year, sorry). If I need surgery, I need surgery. I can't get it from someone else because of the way the insurance industry is structured. That's not free market competition, and as such needs some sort of oversight to make sure we, the people, are not taken advantage of and thoroughly reamed in the interest of profit margins and shareholders.

At the end of the day I think I'd much rather live in a Socialist State than in a Corporatism, which is what we live in these days. Politics is all about money- you need it to get elected, you need it to stay elected- it's got very little to do with the will of the people because the will of the people can be bought. When you're able to sink millions of dollars into advertising campaigns and spreading lies (Death Panels? Seriously?), when you lie to the very people who elected you and get them to support a plan that's actually detrimental to them because of those lies, well we don't have Democracy any more.

So call me a Communist if you want. I don't mind, because you're wrong. Call me all the bad names you can think of- Liberal, Commie, Marxist, Fascist, Nazi, whatever you want. Just by calling me those things, doesn't mean that I am a brown shirt wearing, black shirt wearing, red shirt wearing enemy of the state. I'm for the state. I'm socialist!

Incidentally, see why Fascist equals Nazi equals Communist? The shirts clash. Unless you want to wear a rainbow shirt, and that makes you gay. At least nowadays that's more acceptable than being Socialist.

Unauthoristic

I wrote a fantastic blog yesterday. Early evening, just as the sun was going down, on the 31st floor of Palms Place on the balcony. It was full of gorgeous imagery and insight into some of what it means to be human. It even had a clever title. But somehow my phone didn't save it properly and it disappeared into that mysterious shadowy world of digital information. Can I recreate it exactly as it was? Not a chance. Can I get close? Probably, but it'll never be the exact same thing I wrote. I'm starting to think about editing the short stories I have written and hidden away. Or posted on google docs. But what do I keep, what do I change, and what do I throw my hands up in despair at? And how do you know what is more likely to get your stuff published?

Hopefully, I'll hear back from thefirstline.com in the next week or two. At least, I'll hear back from them, hopefully it'll be a favourable reaction. I'm not stressing about it at all, surprisingly enough. But if the answer comes back and they don't want to use my story, I'll start going through all the reason why they didn't want to use it. And the biggest question I'd have is would one of my other drafts have made it? Or was there never any hope?

Writing essays and papers for school, I almost never drafted them. I was pretty lucky, I suppose, that my first draft could be turned in a lot of the time. It's also why I was never more than a B grade student-- because I didn't put in the effort to get the A. I didn't think it was worth it. I still don't. But in retrospect it would have been good practice for now, for getting right something that is important to me. I hope I haven't just convinced myself that writing is important to me because I don't know what else to do with my life. . .arriving at the realization you want to do something else with your life at 28 can shake anyone up a little, send you scrambling for ideas and plans that might not be the best thought out.

It IS important to me. I'm sure of it. Otherwise I wouldn't be here, exhausted from a weekend of entertaining (and being entertained by) friends from University down here for a 30th birthday celebration. I should be sleeping right now, getting ready for my monday-tuesday weekend and all the things I need to get done. Instead, I'm lying here typing, hoping my laptop doesn't set fire to my bed, because I haven't done enough writing in the past week and it's gnawing at me. Yes, the stranger than usual work schedule didn't help matters, but I have to stop making excuses like that. Looking at my handy dandy word count spreadsheet for this month. It's very sad. I'm aiming to try and write 5000 words a week, and this past week I was nowhere near that. Blogging counts is a crappy cop-out way (it is writing, even if it's somewhat lacking in substance and sellability), and maybe by admitting online I've been unauthoristic this week it'll guilt me into achieving marvels the next few days.

Not much chance of that, guilt never worked on me when my teachers and parents tried it. But wish me luck this next week, maybe I'll have something worth reading. Or at least something worth editing.

Oh, and a quick mention about an idea for a screenplay I had a week or so ago. Could be good. Could be very sellable, we shall see. . .Because I don't have enough bloody things on the go already, right?

Addiction.

I always claim that I have an addictive personality. That's why I never took up smoking, or drugs or anything like that cos I'd get addicted pretty quickly. And I still stand by the claim, even if it isn't true. I'm really good at excuses, I can usually come up with any number of them for any situation, and that's what calling myself an addictive personality started out as. Hey man, you wanna smoke? Nah, if I get into it I'll never stop because I've got an addictive personality. Hell, that's what I tell people about my tongue ring- I got it cos I have an oral fixation and I'd be a 2-pack a day smoker if I didn't have it. It's got absolutely nothing to do with oral sex. But maybe I've started to convince myself that I am that sort of person. I find myself doing things over and over, almost like I am an addict, can't get enough, can stop any time but don't want to right now thank you so very much. There's this bloody stupid game on the iPhone, Undead Live, and I keep playing it even though it's completely asinine and you don't actually do anything in it. I think about signing up for World of Warcraft again, even though I got to level 80 and a lot of it is repetitive (they call parts of the game grinding, for crying out loud). I like to have a drink most days, doesn't really matter what it is as long as it isn't Jim Beam or Jose Cuervo (bad experiences when younger).

And now I'm finding myself thinking about going to the gym a lot.

Strange? Yeah, I thought so too. But two weeks ago I started going three times a week (and I still can't see a change, what the hell?). Last time I went this regularly was two years ago exactly, and it stopped when I went on holiday to Germany for Dad's 60th and a beer/wine festival. Got back, had put on weight from all the good food and good booze. Instead of being encouraged to go back to the gym, I got depressed that I was back here and not still over there, and started (re: continued, only more so) drinking.

But that was then and this is not then. For the first week I tried going after work, which was when I had been going before. Didn't like it, cos I'm finding myself waking up earlier and earlier right now, and that sucks if you don't get out of the gym until 115am. Last week I went before work and that was much better-- I was waking up anyway, and instead of reading the latest cracked.com lists if I got out of bed and went to the gym then I could actually get things done before I went to work.

So my days are thursday, saturday, and monday (my monday, wendesday and friday). this week however, we're dark so I have a fucked up work schedule. I had tuesday off (normal), worked today (wednesday) at 7am (definitely not normal), tomorrow at 8am, friday at noon, saturday off, sunday 4 til midnight, monday tuesday off, wednesday 9am, thursday back to normal. How am I supposed to stick to a routine still in its infancy? Do I go to the gym tonight, even though it's not my day to go? Do I go tomorrow after work? Or do I try to go before work cos that's the routine I'm trying to develop, even tho it'll be five hours earlier if I do that?

The answer is, I'm probably going to get up and go before work. That means I'll be getting up around 5am, a time I'm much more likely to go to bed at. But it's only one day, I reckon I can do it. Why not go after work? I hear you ask. Well, remember that whole thing about addiction? Now I have two addictions almost competing for my attention. If I get up early and go to the gym before work, then I can go from work and catch Yardhouse Happy Hour tomorrow night, where the beer's cheaped and select appetisers are half off. . .

Sad? Or just the way life is?

Probably shouldn't write about this, cos it's a tad embarrassing. . .but that's the problem, should I be embarrassed about it? I am referring to online dating. Which is really a misnomer. It's online meeting, hopefully the dating happens face to face. But I filled out a profile on Match.com a couple months ago, turned off all email notifications, and promptly forgot about it. Hey, I was drunk and I'd been having a bad day.

Fast forward to five days ago. I remembered about the match.com thing, tried to log on, couldn't remember my password or user name so had to have them email me all that info. THEN, I logged on, finished my profile, uploaded a couple pictures, and actually paid for the service. Okay, so I was drunk again and having another bad day.

(one day I'm going to be able to give up drinking. I won't actually give it up, cos I enjoy it, I just won't need to drink.)

So far I've had 30 people look at my profile, one wink (which is like a non-committal hello, talk to me; the wink didn't actually look at my profile tho. How does that work?), I've had one interested in me (that I'm not interested in), and I've saved 8 that I'm interested in. Oh, and I've seen profiles for three women I know, two of whom I kinda maybe hooked up with. . .not through match.com but that I actually met and know by other means.

And that's as far as I can go. The biggest problem is do I actually want a relationship? I'm pretty set in my ways, I can be a miserable bastard and hard to get on with at times, and I don't always put out. Hell, not sure if I really believe in concepts like 'true love,' or 'soul mates' (besides, I sold my soul to Cirque years ago), and half the profiles online go on about things like that.

So my problem is twofold. First, I don't know what I want, so how am I supposed to find it. Second, I have to admit I feel like a bit of a sad twat paying for an online dating service. But then how does one meet people these days? Statistically our circles of friends are getting smaller. Church attendance and other community events at which people would meet are also decreasing. Ten years ago I already spent more time online than a lot of my friends- I had one of those geocities websites and messed around with it, but like most things I never put in enough time and effort to get good at it. I don't go to the movies, or watch tv, or read newspapers, or buy porn, I do all of that online. (and I don't want to hear any complaining about 'TMI.' I don't really think there's any such thing. If someone tells me they have an embarrassing rash, I don't squeal and go 'eww, gross, TMI,' I nod and finally understand that the reason they can't sit still has nothing to do with the sandpaper-lined underwear I assumed they were wearing). I spend my time on facebook keeping up with friends, on twitter pretending everyone gives a shit about what I'm doing. I online bank, online shop, online write, online pretty much everything. If the internet has become such an integral part of my life, then why do I feel a little sad and desperate to use it to meet people?

And who's to say if I knew what I wanted I still wouldn't be able to meet people in real life? Even tho I've got those profiles marked as 'interested,' I'm still not winking or emailing them. It's a bit like being in a bar, seeing someone you might like to get to know better, and not going over to them. In fact, it's exactly like that. But at least in the bar you can order food and a drink-- at home I have to get it for myself.

Maybe I haven't got to the 'know thyself' part yet. I'm on the 'know what thyself is not,' plan, which sort of works, but it means I need people to keep suggesting things to me so I can agree or not. Maybe if everyone pitches in I can arrive at some sort of consensus at to what it is I'm not quite looking for yet.

Rough Week

for my writing. Really haven't done much to talk about-- haven't even been blogging.

Well, that's not true. I've started a couple but not wanted to post 'em. They've been half-finished, badly thought out, just not worth reading. And it's been the same with my other stuff. Since finishing and submitting 'Back to Bed' Friday last, my head's been all over the place again, not just cos I wrote something I was really happy with and so rested on my laurels.

I just feel like work is getting in the way of everything right now. . .writing, travelling, private life, I feel like everything's affected because work puts me in a bad mood nine times out of ten. So how much is too much? At what point do I need to say I'm done, and move on for my own sanity? Unfortunately, thanks to my current financial situation there's not much option of change right now, and might not be for a while if things continue the way they've been going with the economy.

Maybe I'll just up and leave, go work in a bar in Germany for several months, write in my time off, learn to sprechen sie Deutsh properly. Or I could be down with Alsace, Provence, Prague, Florence, Budapest, any number of places really.

Am I the only one, or does everyone go through this at a certain point in their lives? Are we so much more aware of the world than previous generations have been that we feel more restless? Personally, I blame my parents. They lived in Germany for five years, then had no problems upping and leaving England and moving first to Baton Rouge, then Eugene. Maybe if they hadn't instilled this sense of wanderlust in me I'd be quite happily settling down, making a go at a family, white picket fence and all that bollocks.

Should I be grateful for the experiences I've had, or pissed because it's made me want more? Do I need, at some point in my life, to say I've had enough and it's someone else's turn? I'm sure I do, but as far as I'm concerned it'll be the day the bloody life support machine gets turned off.

'Til the beep switches to the solid tone, I'm gonna push through, get some shit wrote, and see what I can do to having more experiences, and not let work get in the way of life. . .

Done!

Submitted. I submitted it. Now the next month is going to suck waiting to find out whether it's good enough to make it. Really don't know anything about the publication except for what's on the website, but I'm thinking about submitting for the next one as well, got until 1st November for that one. Can't believe I just emailed it off today even though I had until 1st August. Maybe that's what growing up is, the ability to turn things in before deadline? Now, all I have to do is ignore that I have a piece out there, and focus on getting some of the others up and ready to go. Beauty's coming along, on chapter 2 of Atlantis, and even thinking about revisiting some of the others.

And woke up this morning thinking about another one. Might give it a go, see what I can come up with today.

Oh, the one I submited was called Back to Bed.

First go.

I found out about a quarterly publication called The First Line, that gives you the first line and then lets you go from there. It has to be between 300 and 3000 words, and the fall issue needs submissions by 1st August. I'm going to submit something. I found out about the contest on Monday, wrote a first draft on Monday. Got a friend to look over it, see if it works as a story (there's a few reasons I only talked to him about it, and they'll become apparent later on, depending on what happens to this story). He suggested a couple of changes, some of which I used and some I didn't. Second draft I finished around 430am Wednesday morning after a great night, and the almost final draft I finished this morning.

It's a little like being back in school. I have an assignment and a deadline. The only differences are I've chosen to do this assignment, and I'm ready well before the deadline. And I suppose I care more about this than most of the stuff I did in school. I turned in papers on Freud, Tolstoy, McEwan, Shakespeare, and a tonne of others, and all they were to me was assignments that had to be done to get a grade so I could move on with my life. This is much the same, but I feel that by actually submitting something with the possibility of getting published, I'm no longer going to be talking about just writing. I'm not going just for a grade, but recognition that I can write and should write.

Now, if I don't get into the publication, is that going to disappoint me? Of course, but I'll just have to do what I did in high school. I'll keep going with what I'm doing, and see if anyone else likes it (like the AP english examiners did). If I do get in, then I'll frame the cheque along with the one I got for being background in Race To Witch Mountain, and I'll be able to add author to my list of jobs. And I'll try not to be too cocky.

And I'll tell you about my great Tuesday sometime. Probably.

Sharks

So it's been two weeks since I got back from the Bahamas. Two weeks of proudly showing off the video of Adam and myself diving with sharks. I need to get it on YouTube, cos I think it's pretty damned cool. Two weeks, and we're already talking about our next dive trip. Maybe Roatan and one of the live-aboard or dive package trips. Maybe the Galapagos. I'd love to see the scalloped hammerhead sharks schools. We're also talking about getting a group together, maybe ten people or something. Anyone interested?

So for the first couple of days I was completely on a high from the trip. And a little jetlagged, don't know why I find the east coast harder than I do England to readjust from, but I do. But just to have been diving again! To be lucky enough to see the hammerhead shark on our very first dive; to glide through the water as though I was flying over the wrecks used in two James Bond films; to kneel in a circle like sacrificial victims while some bloke wearing chain mail fed chunks of fish to sharks and got them to swim right up to us. It's definitely one of the most incredible trips I've had, and one of the most amazing things I've ever done.

But the problem is that now I've done it. I want to do it again. I want to do it lots and lots.

I've loved diving since before I started it. Snorkelling in Hawai'i with turtles, that's what made me want to dive. And hence the turtle round me neck, and the 'I saw a Turtle' T-shirt that everyone always comments on. Learning to dive in St. Thomas back in 2003 was one of the things that got me through my last ship contract. Once I was under the water it didn't matter how crappy my day had been, because suddenly everything was better. Even the one or two times I've had pressure problems and only been able to stay very shallow, just floating under the surface is great. So now all I can think about is diving. Adam didn't help matters because the whole time we're down ther he's saying 'If I was you I'd be here right now, you have nothing keeping you in Vegas.' And I really don't. I mean, I have some great friends, but I'll always stay in touch and I'll make more. I have the house, but being upside down in a mortgage almost $100,000, ir really makes you lose interest in paying the bloody thing. So why AM I stil here? I can't seem to focus on anything properly right now. I don't really want to hang out with people, or go to the movies, or write, or work out. The flip side of this is I'm actually trying harder- pushing myself to write, managing a couple thousand words a week which isn't too bad. I went to the gym for the first time i a year or two, and I'm still hanging out with people. But there's something in the back of my mind, looking out, whispering to me just beyond the edge of my hearing. If I could hear what the voice was saying, maybe I'd be able to focus properly and be able to follow through with something. . .something like a blog that was supposed to be about something else but then I got distracted. . .

More kids

Disclaimer: I'm not knocking having children. And as I said a few weeks ago, I've never had the option of starting a family. Is it bad when you have to add disclaimers to your blogs on a regular basis?

'tis the season for sprogging, apparently. One of my best mates from uni welcomed his first, a daughter, into the world Thursday last. Paul, bloke I work with, had a son yesterday morning. Adam's kid'll be here in four or five weeks. And this means a couple of things. One, that they all shagged around the same time. Two, the human race will probably keep going for a little while. Three, there's a chance that they are the reincarnations of Ed Mcmahon, Farah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.

Again, I have nothing against having kids. Sometimes I hope for my own someday. And maybe when I do I'll understand this. . .but I really don't get why couples who have just had a kid are 'proud parents.' They've just managed to do what people have been doing for quite a while. Maybe one day I'll eat these words, and I'd have no problem with that.

I can understand full of love, amazed, overjoyed, at peace with the world, or fascinated at the birth of one's kid, but proud? All that's happened is some crying, quite a bit of excretion, and some sleeping. Are parents proud of themselves at having brought this new life in to the world? Because, to be a bastard, if Octomom can do it I think anyone can.

I think the time to be proud is when the kid's grown up and become a decent person. If you manage to raise a kid nowadays with all the instant gratification, sense of entitlement, media, and other people's bad parenting that abounds, then you have every right to be proud.

Organization

I got back Thursday around noon, it's now Saturday night and I've barely said anything here about our Caribbean trip. I will, I'm just trying to organize my head right now.Cos that's what I have the hardest time with, I'd say. Organization in general, not just the confines of my own head. I get everything done somehow, but not in the simplest way just cos I can't seem to get my arse organized. But it seems like these days our lives are getting more and more complicated. There's so much clutter that goes along with everything we do that it can get a bit overwhelming sometimes. If I want to clean off my desk to plug in to the hard drives, then I have to clean out this drawer to put away the photo paper and extra USB cords, but then I have to work out where the other, non-computer paper should go, and pretty soon I'm reading an article about properties of different crystals I haven't been able to find for a year, my bed's become a storage unit, and I still didn't get to edit that video. If I actually make it far enough that I can plug in, then I have to work out which of the three hard drives the file I'm looking for is on, so I decide to try and sort those out, and next thing you know I'm finding old resumes and half built websites, crap I haven't touched for a while and don't need any more but will end up changing or deleting, just to find a different version (or, more usually, the exact same thing) on a different drive. I could go on. But my point is everything seems to have so much more. . .crap. . .to go along with it these days that it can get a little overwhelming to even start. Deleting emails, organizing files, going through your iTunes library and deleting the stuff you apparently illegally ripped from CDs you owned when you were in high school- why is it computers, those marvellous things that were supposed to make our lives easier, just seem to add to the clutter? And now my brain is just like a computer, in that I have to get the bloody thing organized before starting anything, and then I get distracted by what I find in there. I want to write about travelling and diving with sharks, so I sit to think about that. And then I start thinking about all sorts of other crap, like how to travel full time, be a travel writer, what trips I should try to do, how to leave Las Vegas, making new friends in a new place, not making friends in a new place, keeping in touch with people, missing out on their families, mission out on my own family, having my own family, could I do with a shag? And while the time in Nassau hasn't been forgotten, it's been put off. My head is like a hard drive that needs to be defragged, which is strange considering I'm an (almost) apple fanboy. I'm just going to have to learn to live with distraction I guess, and still get everything done, sussed, worked out, planned, defragged, and get on with all my grandiose plans and work on attaining all the goals I'm settin-ooooh, shinies!

Home

Sitting in the Nassau airport writing this, but it'll have to wait on getting posted til I get home, cos despite the insistance of my phone that there's a dunkin donuts wi-fi network, it won't let me online.It's been a good trip. Really good. I finally proved to myself I didn't crack my skull open when I fell out of Ian's car in Denver (I was worried for a while cos I had some issues equalizing last time I went diving). Saw my first hammerhead shark, dove with reef sharks, dove around the never say never again and thunderball wrecks, saw my first cruise ship with its new (to me) paintjob, spent a day in Paradise, had a traffic accident, had a conversation with a bloke who looked like he had that skin thing where you change colour, got eaten alive by mozzies, a little bit sunburned on my nose, spent money, and saw my life flash before my eyes as the cab driver got us to the airport in record time. Even got a bit of writing done. A page or two, but every little bit helps.

Good trip. Roatan next year, anyone?

Hammerhead

First day of diving was today. And gods did it feel good to get back in the water. It didn't feel so good getting up tho. We landed around 11 yesterday, to the hotel by noon, enjoying the bar's honour system by noon thirty. Twelve hours later we'd run out of space to put the check marks for each beer we'd drunk, so headed to bed. Barely slept.

But we made it to the bus and the dive shop, 'stuart cove's.' Made it out on the boat. Our first dive was a spot called lambert wall, part of a drop off for the third deepest ocean trench on the planet. We didn't go down the whole trench, six thousand feet is a little beyond my dive rating. But we were at about eighty feet, ready to head back up the walk, when I saw Adam hold his hand up on his head like a sad attempt at a mohawk and point frantically into the deep water. Looked where he was pointing to see a Hammerhead shark about thirty feet away. As soon as we started looking and pointing at it, with a turn and a couple flicks of its tail it was gone.

Now, this is the second shark I've seen in the ocean while diving, but the first one was in the distance swimming away from us. To see a hammerhead that close, to see the speed, power and grace is incredible. It was only a few seconds, but it'll last forever in my mind.

After that, diving at the wreck used in a James Bond film was cool, but not as monumental.

Sitting in the bar now at the hotel, trading stories with a sixty-three year old Swiss bloke who's been divorced four times, an American on the island to be a pilot for one of the smaller airlines, and a Scotsman who is travelling the world diving after his wife died a few years ago.

This is what makes life.