CunningLinguist

i haven`t been able to post for the day for a number of reasons but i think this post was well worth the wait. my vocabulary has been pretty much limited all morning really.

i got my approval from the INS. meaning vic and i are one step closer to becoming a real family. it`s not immediate, because the petitioner gets a letter before the packet is returned to the embassy, so i have to call the embassy in another two weeks. once they`ve received the package, i fedex my passport get the visa and buy my ticket.

i`m still in shock. after waiting for so long, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. i feel kind of bad bailing on the office, i really like it here and i felt it had potential, but at the end of the day, in any choice about vic, she will always come out on top.

thank you all for your prayers and good wishes. thank you.

more details as they become available.

Technorati Tags:
DHS, immigration

i don`t process death and illness very well, particularly in people that i`m close to.

when i was younger, one of best friends and schoolmates died. it was unexpected and what traumatised me even more, is we were the last people to see him. he`s been out with the flu and myself and few other friends swung by to see how he was going. he was a year younger than me, on the swim team, fellow scout, all around good guy, loved by all. he said the flu was killing him, so being good catholic boys we gave him last rights, with ice cream and left him to get his rest.

he died the next day. his long time neighbour came looking for us, we were a kind of rat pack, roaming the neighbourhood on our bikes, getting into the kind of harmless mischief teenagers used to. we stood there, disbelieving, we saw him last night, we said. he just had the flu, we said. you don`t die from the flu, but you do from meningitis and no one picked it up until it was too late.

we canvassed the neighbourhood telling friends, consoling people, chasing the runaways and in all of this i was strong, lending my shoulder, giving strength and comfort. the adults had their wake and we had ours. consoling each other best we could and for that time i was the back bone, i was the solid base on which everyone crashed. stoic and ready with words of comfort, i was strong. strong through the days until the funeral, strong at the funeral, offering comfort, being as a leader as i had for the last couple of days, no tears.

we processed to the cemetery, carrying flowers, i don`t even remember when i started crying but i was and then the dirt hit the coffin. there is nothing in the world that is as final as that sound and then came the hysterics. the tears of everyone who had cried on my shoulder came out right there, i can`t remember what happened after that.

like i said, i don`t process these things very well, my mind has a tendency to shut down about these things, these are barest details, i can`t remember how old i was when this happened, when exactly it was. what happened before or after. i just know this exists. i can`t remember if this was before or after my grandfather died, another event that i`ve pretty much shut down about, i think it`s afterwards, hence the stoic behaviour.

this was supposed to be about one thing and turned completely into something else. i started off intending to write about ian, but it turned into this opus, i want to keep writing and see what else comes up, but i have to go to work.

Technorati Tags:
friendship, death

despite my general antisocial nature, i made a new friend this weekend.

that in itself is a cool story. on a forum i`m a member of, a new member joined from jamaica and i though i`d attempt to be sociable. so i asked what part of jamaica she was from, trying to expand the circle of people i know here.

imagine my surprise when i discover that she not only lives on the same street that i do, she`s four doors down. so i made a friend.

and my new friend took me off to a concert this evening. which was highly entertaining and enjoyable. i got to see one of the foundation reggae artists, ernie smith. who was in a word amazing.

some of the songs he performed i didn`t know, but those were in the minority. he was amazing and you see the difference in what it meant to be a performer then and now.

this may be a nitpicking observation, but the most annoying thing about a lot of performers today is the bad habit of cupping the mic and trying to shove it down their throats. the sound gets muffled.

ernie smith on the other hand projected into the mic and he was great.

well time for me to call it a night. the grind begins anew in the morning.

drinking the night away used to be such fun and so lacking in side effects. there was no hangover yesterday, but i was so exhausted. i was lethargic all day and in bed by 6:30pm, albeit, i did get up about 11 to talk to vic for a while, i was back in bed by midnight and slept through until this morning.

old age is definitely catching up to me. my thighs ache and i`m wondering if it was all the wining at the party or the laps in the pool, either way, it never used to be like this.

one carnival in the not too distant past, i went for a week before i collapsed from exhaustion, now, if i have one late night, i spend days recovering, except for the nights in vic`s company, i think we manage to get by on two and three hours a night with no ill effects.

today is a cooking day, i was supposed to cook yesterday, but i was just too exhausted to manage. my meat is seasoned for the week, so i`m going to cook it all, tag it and bag it and reheat as needed. i`m out of veggies for the moment, but i`m off to the market today or tomorrow, so i`m covered there and therein is my life.

i managed to ring in the new year soundly in my bed, i attempted to make up for that last night at a lavish bash thrown by the ubquitous frenchmen.

apparently, the frenchmen are; to jamaican, upper middle and upper class citizenry, recalcitrant trinis and everyone who thinks they`ve arrived; the same class of fete promoters as island people.

i realised what i was in for on the shuttles to the venue, i had to ask my companions if the accent came with the price of the ticket. i had not heard so many freshwater accents in one place since, hmmmm, since i was passing through the airport in trinidad on christmas eve.

we arrived inside the venue and my disappointment multiplied. the problem with all inclusive parties is that the never are. and when you`re charging enough to feed a frugal family of three, you don`t expect to go to a bar and hear, well we don`t have that sir. wrong, wrong, wrong.

there was no jack, there was no southern comfort, i don`t drink rum, i don`t drink vodka unless i`m mixing it, gin makes me ill. hmmm that leaves me with wine and beer. i have wine at home and if i wanted to drink beer, i could have found a pub somewhere.

but wait, there is a bright spot on the horizon, what do i spy with my little eye? tequila. and this party certainly needed it.

i saw a bunch of people that wouldn`t acknowledge me in trinidad, but we`re all abroad, so we`re brethren. you know what FUCK YOU! it sounds bad, but i really cannot abide the trinis who insist on congregating and being uber-patriots yet can`t be bothered to go home other than carnival time. the ones with the carib or national flag tattoos now, who fled when things got hard and only return because the exchange rate favours them and allows them to, at least for a moment, pretend they not ketchin` ass just like the rest of us.

but i digress.

i drank tequila, chased it with beer, sampled the food, which was divine. i`ve been bitching and moaning about this party, but two things were good, the food and the company. i went with two people from the office who`s heads are squarely on their shoulders and we laughed our asses off.

the music wasn`t bad, it covered a lot of ground and i think any good dj should be able to traverse five decades of music over the course of a night without repeating any music. i swear i think he played the same 70s set during the night.

all in all, i had a good night. i got inerbirated, but not to the point when i wasn`t in control of my faculties, i ate, i danced a little, i had fun. and the best part is, no hangover.