The Future.

Three years. I have to make it three more years. Three years of living in Las Vegas, the stupid hot summers, dusty windy winters, constant construction, and twenty-four-hour whatever you want. It's been eight, so it's less than half the time I've been here already, and when you look at it that way it's much more survivable.

It's not that I hate Vegas any more. It's grown on me. It's like a mole that you hate when you're young, cos everyone makes fun of it. Then you grow up, realize that those people don't really matter, and accept the mole as a part of who you are. I'm accepting now that Vegas is a part of who I am, and I don't really mind it too much.

It's just a matter of getting out before the Vegas mole metastases.

But I have a plan to get out. Actually, this week I'm signing a contract to get out. And as a result of that contract, and money paid, Sometime in July of 2015, I'm going to be a part of a crew on a round-the-world yacht race. It hits six of seven continents, ten boats, eleven months, fifteen ports of call, and about 450 crew over the course of the race.

I've known about the race for a little over a year. But about six weeks ago, out of the blue, I said fuck it, and decided instead of talking about the race, I was going to do it. Emailed the recruiter to arrange a time to talk about the race while I was in the UK, but instead of just talking, I actually went in and did the interview. Got accepted. Come pay day, I'm sending off some money, along with the signed contract, and that's my life for the next four years sorted out. No more buying computers, or cameras, or rounds of drinks, cos all the money is going to the race. It's expensive. But I'm at the point where I feel like I can't afford to NOT do the race. I need a kick in the arse. I need a challenge. I need to get the shit kicked out of me as only the Northern Pacific Ocean can do. I need to go away for eleven months, get out of my comfort zone, out of my rut, and see more of the world-- at least the wet parts of it.

So for now, that's what's going on. At some point, I might ask you for money. It's expensive. But I won't ask just yet. Right now, I'm just letting you know if you want to visit Vegas while I'm here, you got three years. And if you're already here, then we'll hang out at some point. But three years is it. Then I'm gone.

Timing

I've been spending the last twelve days convincing myself that it's not my fault, it's just bad timing. Again. And once I almost had myself convinced of that, I thought more about it. Maybe it's not bad timing. Maybe it's good timing. Maybe it's pushing me in the direction I need to go, which is away, outta here, once more unto the beach, dear friends. There was a shitty movie made about my life a couple years back. I say shitty, but in the interests of full disclosure I never saw it, because I don't like Dane Cook. Good Luck Chuck, the story of a guy who could shag you, and the next guy you met would be your true love. Except I don't even need to shag 'em, all it takes is a kiss. I'm on seven now.

But this year, with it's terrible timing, has led me to a decision. I'm going to apply for the Los Angeles Show, an as-yet unnamed production that I'm not sure how much I can talk about, what with Cirque's penchant for secrecy and spectacle. The jobs aren't posted yet, nothing's set, but even the decision to apply makes me feel better. I'm going to see about getting out of Vegas, changing my pace and my surroundings. And if it doesn't happen? Well, then it's not the right time.

Is there such a thing as bad timing? You get stuck at a red light, the first car stopped, and that's bad timing. But then in front of you a car hits a patch of oil, swerves out of control, and runs into four other cars, five if you'd have made the light. Your son chooses to slam the car door, but your hand is still in it. Crappy timing, unless you have some sort of disease that is slowly rotting your bones in that hand, and you wouldn't have found out if it weren't for the little bugger (true story, that actually happened to a friend of mine, I forget what the medical problem was tho).

So timing's what you make of it. I'm writing about timing for my hundredth post. Good timing? And while the. . .coincidence? of my timing with these seven women seems pretty shitty from my end, and has caused me more than a bit of self-doubt over the years (I mean, at what point is it you, and not just chance?) I'm working on not letting it get to me. I'm telling myself that rather than running away from this last incident, I'm letting it guide me, propel me towards something new. It's reminding me that Vegas really isn't the sort of city I would choose to live in.

And not to belabour the point, but speaking of timing, some of what I'm writing here will work for my book. One of my characters, Brokes, has to make a decision, and I haven't been sure of how to go about it, and now I think I know.

There are so many things that do work out, which is pretty fucking incredible when you think about it. If the universe has been around for billions of years. . . hell, if you believe in Genesis timing, and think the world's only been around for six thousand or so years, it's pretty incredible anything happens at the right time. I think of an instant as the time it takes to go from now to then. Say a millisecond. There's three point six million of those in an hour. And there's been more than fifty-two and a half million hours if you believe in Genesis. Whatever you believe, that's a metric shit-tonne of instants, so why is anyone surprised when things don't work out? Nothing should ever happen right if you look at the odds. And when you bring space into it too, and the chance of being in the right time and place, I'm surprised we even bother.

But there have been those times. Things do work out. Events conspire, bring two people together for a moment. Even if all that's left is the memory of lips brushing together and a lingering tobacco taste, things worked out, and now things are working out still, convincing me to get off my arse and get out, get better, get on with it.

I'm getting on. I'll get book one back in the next couple of weeks, and then I'll get online and start submitting. The timing's right.

The Beach

The past couple of days I spent time on Catalina Island, and in Laguna Beach. Went out there with a friend from work to do some SCUBA diving, and generally relax. Our third dive was on Thursday, and afterwards we sat on the beach in Laguna and waited while our dive master went back in to find one of his integrated weights that had slipped out during the dive. It gave me enough time to get sunburned, and do a little bit of thinking.

The last time I did a similar trip was five years ago. I'd been in Vegas just over a year, and a friend of mine from ships came down for the diving and relaxing. We had a bit of a history. I'd met her on ships, and at the time she wasn't interested because my contract would be up soon. But I left the ship, and we kept in touch by letter (she was on the cruise line's private island, sans internet or phone). We found out we actually did like each other. Quite a bit.

We visited each other a few times, and the relationship she hadn't allowed to happen while we were living and working in the same place did happen, after a fashion, when time and distance allowed. The last time was in California, diving and relaxing in Catalina and Laguna. I drove out with her after work, slept in the car, caught the first ferry and dove all day, then went back to the mainland. Crashed with a friend of hers, then spent the next day wandering around Laguna, doing coupley things. I bought a couple of shirts that she said looked hot on me. I still have them, although time won't allow me to wear one of them any more. I keep it in the hopes that one day someone else will say it looks hot on me. I'm not holding my breath. . .except for when I put that shirt on.

My mind wasn't in the right place at the time. I couldn't give her what she needed or wanted, and I didn't know what I wanted. But a lot has changed in the past five years, both with me and with her. I wouldn't say I exactly know what I want, but I do know what I'm open for now. Back then I'd just bought a condo, and had a five year plan. Now I'm beginning short sale procedures, and I have a different five year plan. Back then she came down to see if things might work between us. Now, she just gave birth to her second child. I actually went to her wedding, and have a terrible feeling that I didn't send her the disc of photos I took.

I posted a few pictures on the social networking site that I will not name, for fear that their privacy policy changes again and any mention of them entitles them to take ownership of any content on said page. But I posted a picture of Avalon Harbour, and she commented on it. So Jealous. I don't take this to mean that she would trade places with me, or she's unhappy in her life-- far from it, she's got two great kids and a bloke who looks after her well. But if she's jealous of my being in Catalina, am I jealous of her having a happy family life?

Juries still out on that one. Had things happened differently, would we have the happy family life and have been in Catalina together this past week? That sort of question's just not worth asking, again cos of crazy. I've lived countless lifetimes in my mind, some with her, some with others I've loved, and some with people I barely know. I've been single for six years, and in that time I've been married a thousand times, had hundreds of children, and been mourned by all those wives and family members. Scary, huh?

But I've been thinking that maybe it's the imagination I'm relying on to help me have a career as an author that's screwing me up in my personal life. If I'm living all those lifetimes in my mind, creating possible and potential scenarios, and thinking too much about what to say or do instead of just letting things happen, I'm stopping myself from actually living. One life lived is better than thousands imagined. So from now on I'm going to stop. The lives I imagine won't be for myself, they'll be for my characters. I won't think about the woulda shoulda couldas. I'll focus on what's going to happen next, and I won't be scared by it any more.

obsession

I have a healthy tendency to obsess about things. I say it's healthy, because it's how I've manages to get where I am today. I obsessed about working on cruise ships while I was in University, and two months after graduation I signed on for my first contract. I then obsessed about working for Cirque Du Soleil, and two years later I moved to Las Vegas and started working at New York New York. I've become obsessed with being a writer, earning a living doing it, and I'm chipping away at that too with novels and screenplays and short stories underway. And now I have a new obsession. It's been about a week now, and it probably has a little to do with watching the DVD of my 24th birthday last week, and some of what's going on financially in my world right now (that's a whole 'nother blog). But basically, I've become fixated on living on a boat. My own yacht. Nothing too guady or ostentatious, but no floating bathtub either.

It just sounds ideal for where I am in my life right now, or rather in a couple of years once I have a writing income. I know that's assuming a lot, but if I don't aim for it then I won't get there. But living in Vegas for over six years, I feel a little trapped. I'm trapped by the mountains that ring us on all sides, and the dirty ceiling of smog. There's still too much for me to go and see and do in the world, and living a 5 work-days-a-week isn't cutting it for me. I want to sail through the islands of Puget Sound and catch my salmon for to grill. I want to sail back through the Panama Canal, and actually set foot in South America rather than be yards away and still not there. I want to go to Galapagos and dive with the schooling scalloped hammerheads. And I want to do it all on my terms, in my time.

And it's the perfect time for me. I'm young enough that it still seems like a great idea. I'm also young enough to be able to forgo some of the things we take for granted in our daily lives, rough it a bit. I'm single, with emotional attachments that would for sure be tested with prolonged absences, but that's been the story of my life so far and those friendships I still have are all the better for it. I'm old enough that I won't just jump into it without doing the proper research and preparation. I'm old enough to know that it's not as glamorous as most people might think. And I'm old enough that I've done a lot of things that were goals as I was growing up, so I'm in search of new goals.

My opaternal grandfather was a fisherman, and my matyernal great-grandfather was a fisherman. Or maybe great-great, I'm not a hundred percent on that. My father was in the British Merchant Navy after school, and that's partly why I worked on cruise ships, to fulfill some sort of perceived familial obligation. But it's more than that, I realize now. There's something terrifying and fascinating between me and the Ocean. It scares the crap out of me, with its changeable moods and bewitching peace. It's a healthy obsession to have because it's seventy percent of the planet's surface. And wherever you go on it, you're linked to everywhere else.

So I shall live on a boat. I'm giving myself five years to achieve this goal, and I'll definitely be talking about it again as I head towards it. Five years. I'm obsessed.

I've already got a name picked out.

Memory. . .

. . .all alone in the moonlight, I can smile at the old days. . .nah, screw Cats. I was going through the stack of disks that I have in my office. Some are labelled, most are not. There are CD's and DVD's, not all of them play, and it has become my life's work to work out what is on all of them. Half way through one of the piles, I found one labelled 'Amazing Grace, January 2004.'

I don't remember if I've talked about my 24th birthday before on here, so forgive me if I bore you with the details. I was still working on cruise ships at the time, and it was towards the end of my contract on the MS Zuiderdam. That's right, the contract I got put on the corporate blacklist for Holland America Cruise Lines after. Anyway. A group of us, the people I hung out with most during that contract, decided that for my birthday we should rent a sail boat. So as soon as we could, eleven of us got off the ship with a bunch of coolers, and headed to the rental place. Our boat was a 42-foot Catalina 42mkII 3-cabin yacht. Not something you'd take 11 people on for an extended cruise, but for a day it was perfect. Getting away from everyone, disappearing for a few hours where no-one could reach us was perfect. We drank beer and snacked, sunbathed, got naked and splashed about in the water, snorkelled, and stopped caring about the world for a while.

The memories I have from that day are some of my fondest. It's almost definitely my favourite birthday so far, which is funny cos no one does anything special for their twenty-fourth. The disk had a short video of the day on it, so I popped it in my computer to watch. It was exactly how I remember it, with Jurgen narrating over cheesy music he'd added. Alec and TC by the wheel, Katie rapping, Mel sticking out her tongue at the camera. Ben and Audrey, Dom and Jessica.

My memory of the day is better. When I remember the day, I can conjure up how I felt that day, and out myself into the situation better. Watching the video, all I could think of is how many of the people who figured in my favourite birthday have fallen by the wayside. I'm in touch with a few through Facebook, but I'm not close with any of them any more, especially Mel, who I haven't talked to since my twenty-fifth birthday when she randomly called me as though we hadn't been through a completely shitty break-up. I've tried to say hi to Dom and Jessica when I've gone to LA or they've come to Vegas, but there's nothing but silence form them. I couldn't even tell you what became of Ben.

The thing is, none of that matters. Watching the video didn't steal the memory from me, I'm still going to look back on it fondly. I still want to take a vacation one day, three couples on a yacht in the Caribbean for a week. The memories give me dreams, goals, and no matter what happened between us, I'm still grateful to the people who were there for helping build those memories.

It's the same thing with my friends in Portland, Oregon. They aren't the same people I spent a year in Austria with. They aren't the same people who shared stories about their first blowjobs (on a back alley in Florence from a chick called Di 'like the princess' as she told him), or got chased by drunken Frenchmen with (bottle of Jack between the four of us), or walked around one of the most famous sites from antiquity with hangovers with (who knew Delphi had such cheap wine and an awesome dance club? It's in the middle of the mountains!). They've all moved on, and I'm not saying I haven't, but they've all settled down, started families. When I was in Oregon in June I realized it, but they're still with my friends despite the diapers and dribble in their lives. Finding video of friendships I don't really have any more makes me treasure the memory more, because I can't reminisce about the memory with anyone that was there. I can always talk to about head if I wanted to, because we are still friends. Until he reads this, that is. The video and my memory I have of Tortola, where we rented Amazing Grace for the day, will always be how I remember it because there's no one I can talk to who can fill in the gaps I may have developed over time.

So is it the friendship that's important, or the memories? The only answer I have is a cop out. It depends on the friendship, and it depends on the memories. Friends are important at the time to create the memories, but sometimes it's the memories that get you through the droughts.

Strange mood

This isn't the blog I was going to write, or probably should have written. The drafts for those are scattered between my laptop, a couple of computers at work, one thumb drive, and the digital graveyard. All those blogs I started but didn't finish, or saved because I meant to finish, and now never will because life got in the way. I'm happy. I have been for a couple of hours now, although for reasons I can't really explain. Went to the bar, had a few drinks, played some trivia, this has all happened before. But driving home after the bar, I decided that when I got home I was going to chill some Whiskey, and go for a walk. This I did. I got home, retrieved my backpack from the boot of my car, and went to the kitchen to chill some Whiskey. The single malt I had in mind was a 10-year-old Laiphroag, which was given to me for my birthday, and which I'd never had before but have decided it's one that I very much like. Decanted a tad into my flask, and went out the front door, which I seldom use because I come in through the garage most days.

I went for a walk because it was raining. Having lived in England, Louisiana, Oregon, Austria, Hawai'i, and the Caribbean, all those places have a fair amount of rain. Some are warm, some cold (guess which ones!?!), but I think all are refreshing to some extent or another. The rain in England is why it's green, and can support 55 million people living there. Louisiana, Hawai'i, and the Caribbean, the rain is warm and is much better than the humidity, because it's nice to be wet from something other than your sweat. Oregon is somewhere between the two; it can be warm, it can be cold, but it definitely rains there.

And now I live in Vegas. (Oh, by the way, I might go on for a while. I'm not busy, or in any hurry to go to bed, so I might sit here and type for a while. There, you've been warned.) Vegas is one of the last places I thought I would end up. And I shudder to use that phrase, cos I ain't dead yet so don't like to think of myself as having 'ended up here.' But I've been here for coming on to four years, and that's a long time for me to be anywhere. I'm a little antsy, to say the least. There are things I miss. I miss seeing those friends that at one point or another in my life I've taken for granted, and now they're not just a couple blocks away, ready to go out for drinks. I miss moving around, and having to see a new place and how I fit in to it. I miss being able to start fresh every few months, with at most four or five people who knew me before. I miss not having to drive home after going to the pub. This list could go on forever, but I'm going to grab another drink, back in a few. . .

So I poured myself another Whiskey, and I'm going to take the chance to correct my spelling from up above. I'm drinking Laphroaig. 10-year-old. Nectar. Anyway, where was I.

I miss the rain and the ocean. Vegas is the first place in my life that I don't get either on a regular basis. And when I do 'end up' somewhere, I'm going to need one or the other. I drink less water than anyone I know, I'm a prime candidate for dehydration, but I seem to have this need for water in my life. As long as I'm not drinking it or putting it in my Whiskey (I'm a one ice cube guy), I seem to love having water in my life. Walking in the rain tonight, deliberately neglecting to put on anything waterproof (including my shoes, as it turned out). I think the rain is one of the things I'm really going to miss when I die.

So let's make a list of things we're going to miss when we die. . .I'll go first (and these are in no particular order):

1. Rain on my face. in fact, rain in general whether it's on my face, a tent, windscreen, wherever. 2. My parents. Although I'll probably miss them before I die, cos I'm sure they've arranged things so that they won't have to be here after I'm gone. So my family as a whole, because I'll probably leave some of them behind, and I'm sorry for that, but hey, we had fun, right? 3. You guys. I'm going to be sorry that I won't be able to write anything that might make you smile, frown, or just bring a thought you might not have had were it not for reading some crap I'd written. And hey, we had fun, right? 4. The sound of the ocean. And the feel of the ocean. Whether it's fucking around in the surf, jumping in time with the waves and snotting out salt, being on a ship and feeling the whole thing move under you, or being a part of it, diving, there is something I find calming about the Ocean, even when it scares the shit out of me. 5. Sunrises and sunsets. 6. Dogs 7. I'm going to miss being able to close my eyes while listening to some pieces of music and just feel that things are better. And there's a couple on the album I'm listening to right now. 8. Alcohol. Be it Whiskey, Cider, Absinthe, Jager, Beer, or any of the others I have come to know and love in the past 17 years of imbibing. Mostly I'm going to miss the feeling that comes with having just enough but not quite too much. 9. Orgasms. Mine and other peoples. Mine, because at the end of the day it feels good to come. Other peoples, because if you're lucky enough to get to give someone else one, then you've delved that little bit deeper into their soul, you've both shared something of yourselves that you don't give out to everyone. And it feels good to come. 10. Smells. There are some fantastic smells in this world, from fresh-cut grass, to someone else's skin, to a wood fire, to a summer wood in the middle of the English countryside. 11. Tastes. See above. 12. Anger. Because it feels good to be angry. I'm going to miss being angry. Angry at nothing, at things that dont matter or mean anything, and anger at those world-changing issues that some people just don't seem to get. I know I shouldn't feel this way, but anger can feel good, and I'm going to miss the feeling that righteous anger can give. 13. I'm going to miss the feeling standing in the middle of a club, with a bit of a buzz, and just giving in to the music. To feel the music in every nerve, muscle, et cetera et cetera blah blah blah, insert body part here.

Thirteen seems like a good number to stop on. Promise there are more, but I'm not thinking of them right now. And after going back and looking at them to make sure I'm not repeating myself, I realized it might seem a bit morbid to list things I'm going to miss when I die. But the strange thing is, I'm not depressed or morbid when talking about things like this, I'm just matter of fact. I think that the short story I just wrote has something to do with it, cos it's sort of about death. Well, more about fear and selfishness, but death's a big part of those two things. But we've all got to go through with it, so why ignore it?

Well, I'm done with this for the night. But I'm not done writing for the night. Going to work on some other things I've been thinking about, might finish up in time for the sunrise; I just hope it's still raining, because two for one is always good.

The revolutions that change the world are the ones that happen inside of people's heads. I'm not sure if that is a quote, but it feels more true than ever right now. Peace out. And thanks for making it this far with me. . .