someone asked an interesting question in response to my last post. i was going to answer it as a comment, but i thought it required more attention than that.
vic and i are not living in a fairy tale and we know that. things are not going to be peachy and perfect all the time. we both have our off days, luckily we seem to have them when we can provide the most support to each other.
we`re both strong willed people and we`re both accustomed to doing things a certain way, we`re sure it`s going to take some getting used to.
what we have going for us, is our ability to talk about anything without discomfort or contention. we expect there will be problems, but we also thing we can sit and talk about them and work them out. there are going to be external forces to deal with as well, but we will try and work those out in the safest possible manner for us and that`s a family us.
we`re going to try and deal with each day as it comes. we have shared long term goals that we`ll be working towards when i get settled. in the interim, it`s about learning to live with each other and getting comfortable sharing a physical space.
i know it`s not going to be perfect all the time but i think if we abide the rule to not go to bed angry, i think we can face whatever challenges come up, together.
ash wednesday is a public holiday in jamaica, but i`m in the office.
i`m trying to wrap up the design of this annual report before i leave, there are volumes of information missing but i think if i can at least create a template, whoever is wrapping it up after i leave should have no problem.
today is a very laid back day, no one is in the office and i`m churning through the page. i prefer to work like this, empty office, just me, music as loud as i want it, no ringing phones, no conversation. i`m more productive in solitude.
i`ve also realised i don`t get going before 11am, i come in early, but i check my mail, i read stuff online and basically look productive before i actually start work.
i`ve also been working on a story to post here, it`s tale about my first trip to dc, it`s coming along nicely but every now and again, i lose the thread of the story, so i`ve decided to shelve it for a little while and work on it when i get home.
i think i can`t completely focus on it on anything else because i`m so excited. six more days. this time next week i would have spent my first night in vic`s arms without the spectre of when one of us has to leave ever again.
Step 1: Open your mp3 player.
Step 2: Put all of your music on random.
Step 3: List the first ten songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing.
and here is mine:
Nu Flow – Big Brovaz
If You Leave – OMD
Get Busy – Sean Paul
Poison [Environmental Remix] – Prodigy
Hopeless – Dionne Farris
My Friend Of Misery – Metallica
Digital ft. KRS-1 – Goldie
Eric the Pilot, Pt.2 – Henry Rollins
Deus ex machina – Eddie Izzard
Soon All Will Know – Marsalis, Wynton
Do you think a child molester can be rehabilitated? Would you trust a rehabilitated child molester recently released from prison and living on your block?
no. i don`t even care if they can be. not anywhere around my children. there are things i`m liberal about not my children and their well being.
end of conversation
this is the last week. this time next week i`ll be on my way. time flies when you`re having fun. i don`t know where last week went and i`m hoping this one goes by just as quickly.
dhl seems to have misplaced one of my boxes of books and i`m trying not to lose my mind or my temper but i`m been calling their offices for 30 minutes and no one has answered the phone. update, the other box is in cincinnati, i have no idea why, but they are apologetic enough, so i`m willing to cut them some slack.
i so don`t want to be at work today. everyone`s voice is grating, i`m a little irritable. i just want to be on my way. sigh.
i`m packed except for the clothes i`m wearing now and i have out for the rest of the week. i`m ready to go. i was ready to bail yesterday after a falling out with the accountant, who is both incompetent and arrogant, always a bad combination in my estimation. he managed to set everything right.
i`m just so restless. i need to remain focussed on the positive. soon, soon, soon. 7 days and counting.
You and your mate/spouse have been going through drama for a while now. They have been cheating on you for a minute and you know this for sure, but the only thing is that they don`t know that you know they are cheating. You are strategically planning to leave them because you can`t take it anymore, knowing they are sleeping with someone else besides you, but then 2 weeks before you decide you are leaving their ass, they win the lotto …now do you stay or do you still leave?
if money is all it takes to keep you content, maybe that`s at the crux of what is wrong with your relationship in the first place.
but that is just my 2¢.
my moral high ground is really just an anthill but there are things i stand by. if i`ve made a decision to leave, i`m not hanging around for money.
i like stories. i`m a sucker of a good story of any kind, on paper, on film, online, but my favourite is, the oral tradition. listening to someone weave a tale. i met vic`s father before he died and he was one of the best, i spent a day just listening to him. he was pure genius.
in society`s fixation with remaining young we seem to have lost the joy of listening to our elders, not only that our elders seem to have forgotten part of their duty is to pass on the stories, their stories.
i grew up by myself in the company of my mother ie, wherever she went i went most of the time and in the era of children should be seen and no heard, i would sit quietly while the adults talked or after a time i would go with a book so i could keep myself occupied. but sometimes they would see me sitting there staring off into space and tell me a tale about where we were, about them growing up, the furniture in the house, anything, but it was a tale.
you don`t see or hear that anymore. very rarely do parents tell children stories before bed and if they do it tends to be popular fiction read from a book. i`m not knocking that, but i think sometimes it just fun to make something up or pass on a story you`ve heard.
i believe there is one source for all our tales. one of my things; it`s not a hobby cause i don`t actively go out and do it, it`s just something that fascinates me; is collecting fables. i have a batch of links with a lot of myths and fables, i have a couple collections in my physically library as well. there are common themes in all the cultures` myths i`ve read. flood tales, tricksters, heroes and their travails, they all exist in some form or fashion.
once it`s a good story i`m drawn in. this morning i was watching a movie, it was in chinese and i was getting ready for work so i wasn`t paying complete attention to it but i could pick up the threads of the tale because of how well it was told.
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storytelling, oral tradition
scrapped.
i reread what i`d written about 5 times and i wasn`t at all happy with it. there was no way to tell the tale of that carnival without including all the sordid details.
carnival is an interesting time in trinidad. all the wining and the semi-naked bodies may seem sexual but up until fairly recently it wasn`t. a wine was a wine and at the end of the night you said your farewells and went on your way. it wasn`t assumed because someone wined with you that there was going to be sexual congress.
things have changed a great deal in the last six years, the behaviour is more lascivious and wanton. and that`s kind of scary, the innocence of carnival, per se, as with almost everything in day to day trini life seem to be drifting away.
i can`t say i`ve heard much of the music this year, so i`m in no position to judge. the thing i`m missing most about this carnival is j`ouvert. the official beginning of the two days of revelry.
i`ve been involved in various aspects of carnival, from building costumes to playing mas on the two days, to documenting the spectacle. i don`t miss the two days much but j`ouvert has an energy and feel to it that surmises the whole season for me.
in 2002, when i was working at the newspaper i was rostered to work carnival monday morning. i told them i would come in, but i was coming straight from j`ouvert. they thought i was joking.
i wasn`t, that`s been my condition every j`ouvert morning since 1993. the colours may have changed by not much else. i worked my shift then went home, had a shower and slept right through until tuesday.
it`s carnival weekend in trinidad and i`m nowhere near it.
i think i miss the principle of it. yes, there have been carnivals where i did absolutely nothing and carnivals for 7 days of non-stop feteing but i don`t even have the choice.
i was in bed and asleep by 9:30 on a carnival friday, what the hell is world coming too. in a week i`ll be on a plane on my way to trinidad, time seems to just be whizzing along.
i have so much stuff to pack into what is realistically two days in trinidad. i land at 7pm or as close to it as flight delays will allow and unlike my usual airport runs, i have luggage, meaning no zipping through customs with just my knapsacks, so with luck i should be out of there by 8pm. all my friends will probably be tuckered out and broke after after carnival as well.
but this trip isn`t about friends, it`s about family. i get to see my children, my mother, my grandmother and give them some love. the time is also fortuitous for another reason, next monday is my older daughter`s birthday and i`ll be there for it, which i`m sure will fill her with great joy.
i purportedly came into the office to do some work, but it`s raining and i`m sleepy, so i`m just going to use the opportunity to suck up bandwidth, catch up on the journals and download some stuff until the rain stops.
Do you feel like your really close friends are similar to yourself or do you have a variety of different friends? Has the behavior of one of your friends ever influenced stranger`s opinion of you whether it be positive or negative?
well i only have a few very close friends and they all know each other and while we don`t necessarily share the same views, the thing that draws us together is the fact that we`re all open-minded and are willing to accept each other`s beliefs.
and as for the opinions of strangers?
fuck `em if they can`t a joke.
my friends are bright, funny and speak their minds. when we`re together we`re usually pretty loud, but our behaviour tends to be tempered by where we are. which is why hanging out is usually done at home or locations where we and our behaviour is know and accepted, which brings me back to the opinions of strangers.
