CunningLinguist

the adrenaline has passed, now it`s all about the logistics.

do i go to trinidad first? how much time do i have? do i send my books and stuff i`m not using now by post?  what are we going to do for money? what am i going do until i get my work permit?

the control freak in me needs to have all these questions answered. i awoke with a start this morning. don`t get me wrong, it`s not that i don`t want to be with vic, i need to start planning, but without all the necessary details, i`ll just be spinning around uselessly, which in my fragile little mind is even worse than sitting around doing nothing.

i think this need to plan comes from mother. she wasn`t a planner, or if she was she didn`t stick to it, she was the antithesis of planning. i couldn`t deal with as a child and now that i have some measure of control, i want it all.

i`ve said this before, but i`m the worse case scenario guy, i make plans, i make contingency plans and then i make contingency plans for those plan. even as i sit here typing this, i`m working on plans A through M.

i need to disconnect my phone and cable, find somewhere to stay if i need to in the days after my lease is up. i need to let the office know i`ll be moving on. all of this shit and the fulcrum of all of this activity, is completely out of my hands.

how nice.

just needed to get that off my chest.

Technorati Tags:
immigration

i think my heart has stopped racing now. i`m still as hyper as a five year old on christmas eve. i don`t think i had very many coherent thoughts yesterday.

i`m still stunned. i`m happy, fuck i`m ecstatic, but it`s still tempered with boatloads of caution. we still have to wait on the embassy in barbados to get the packet [excuse me while i rant for a little bit… why is it in this day and age of secure and damn near instantaneous communication it takes 5 weeks for a letter to get from one end of the caribbean to another. the letter from the ins was dated november 25. that`s six weeks and barbados hasn`t gotten the packet either and they`re close to santo domingo than trinidad is.]

breathe, good karma, good karma, good karma.

so the embassy in barbados is pretty much the final hoop, this is where the caution comes in. the first person i spoke to there almost had me in tears yesterday, telling me that documents i`d submitted had expired and i would have to resubmit, eventually i spoke to someone who was more helpful, but the way the stories change with every phone call, i`m keeping my fingers crossed.

i`m not submitting my resignation until i have my passport back in hand. i spoke to my immediate boss yesterday and she was very understanding. that doesn`t make me feel any better about leaving. it`s the first time in a long time, i could get up in the morning and gladly go to work everyday.

everything has a purpose, the bigger picture will become clearer soon.

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immigration

i can always remember when i`ve been happy, it`s clear, i know the day, the time, the hour, the location, the smells, the sounds.

sadly, there are massive chunks of my childhood, adolence and young adulthood missing. i have a lot of memories about ian.

i met ian in 1992, shortly after i got settled at my first advertising agency  gig. he was the photographer most used by ad agencies at the time, he was also a big techno junkie and over that we bonded. his studio took the pictures of my first wedding, the negatives are still there i believe. i advised him on upgrades and outright purchases, we exchanged software.

when i quit my third agency job and vowed to forgo the industry, without another prospect in sight, he gave me a space in the corner of his offices. many hours were spent there talking to vic. and then he got sick, i wasn`t around, nobody was told, but i found out anyway, but he recovered and we were all relieved, ian was young, well youngish, young at heart. two children, the oldest one not even in her teens.

when i got back ian was in recovery, i did an invitation to a fund raiser party, but i didn`t go see him in the nursing home during chemo, i kept thinking, i went to see wayne when he was sick and he died. if i don`t go see ian, he`ll be fine.

he went home, much worse for wear and the small voice in the back of my mind nagged me, go see him, go see him. i did, he was small and frail but he was upbeat and talking about the new toys we both wish we had. i promised to go back and i did, he wasn`t so chipper, he was bed ridden, he was suicidal, he was putting on a brave face and i couldn`t i promised to go back but i couldn`t. this wasn`t the ian i knew. this was a shell.

i was sitting online one night and i get an im that ian just died, just before christmas too, i`d spoken to him on the phone, this is where the details get blurry, damn dark spots, i wish i could remember. he was talking about what he was going to do for christmas with his children. he didn`t make it.

i did the programme for the funeral. there weren`t enough. we were all there past employees, clients, friends, competitors, i remember a mutual acquaintance giving the eulogy and i remember standing there crying, i don`t remember who was standing next to me, but i had to get out, i couldn`t stay, i couldn`t go to the cemetary, i was already distraught, the sound of the dirt hitting the coffin would be too much for me. i left before the end of the service, greeting those that didn`t want to go in for fear of their own demons.

last year, my palm died and i`m restoring the address book from a back up and there is ian`s name, phone number, email address. all the details. i should delete them but i don`t not just then, maybe later. i do eventually, but he pops up in the strangest places, i reinstall yahoo and there`s ian, i never deleted him from there, or icq or aim. i still pass through the studio sometimes, but things are not the same. nothing is the same, then again nothing ever is.

i missed the anniversary of ian`s death and even his funeral, but i wont forget him.

Technorati Tags:
death, friendship

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.