The Joy of Weekends

I have rediscovered the joy of weekends. Rediscovered? Come to think of it, I don't remember when I last knew the joy of weekends. It was probably back in England, when I'd use my weekends to go Orienteering, camping, or help build and paint the sets for the Hospital panto that put me on the path which led me to here. After that, after moving to the States, weekends were taken up with jobs- washing dishes, making pizza, bussing tables. This kept on into University, working full time to pay for beer and rent. Then ships, where you don't get a weekend for months at a time, then have a whole month to do just about anything (without the cash to do it). I have to say that until recently I was a big fan of the whole month off at a time. I still think it's great, because it gives you enough time to go somewhere properly- two weeks in England, a week in Seattle, several skiing trips- but after having weekends missing for so long in my life I've just realised how great they are. They're not quite long enough for you to do everything you need to do, so you look forward to the next one. This builds a cycle of antici. . . .pation that, for me at least, actually helps me enjoy the week in between a bit more. It's wierd, I don't understand it, but each day is better because it's getting me closer to the next weekend, when I know I'm going to be pleasantly disappointed in not finishing everything I wanted to do, and this gives me something to look forward to for next weekend. I think right now my weekends are booked through until September or October. There's a dive in there somewhere at Catalina, and another boat trip on the Colorado. Movies with friends, drunken bowling, all you can eat sushi, and maybe putting brush to canvas again. Photos to be taken, words to be written, and that special part of the day when you've just woken up, don't have to start moving just yet, and you can lie in bed and just feel your soul fill your entire body, luxuriate in the feeling of being alive. Oh, so the reason I've discovered the joy of weekends is because of renting a boat with a couple of friends from work for the day and sailing up the Colorado River just south of the Hoover Dam. Just relaxing, sipping a beer (yes, I do know how to sip beer!), and enjoying the motion of the water under my feet again. And rescuing a lost Jetski that had floated away from a group upstream. Those things are bloody impossible to stand on when you're knackered from swimming against the current for five minutes. Anyway. rent a boat this weekend. Get out on the water, and take time out from life to actually be alive.

dreams

Last night, I had a dream that I remembered upon waking. This doesn't happen all that often, but it was the nature of it that made me want to write about it here. It was a nightmare. But not like the ones you'd have when young. The ones where you're being chased my someone or something, or you're lost and can't find your way home, and so on.

I'd been sentenced to death. It happened by default- I was involved in something, I'm not sure what, that led me to get sentenced. I wasn't even on trial, or in jail, it was just a judgement that was passed on a group, and it ended up on me too. Really don't know much about the details, cos it was a dream and I only remember some. It was the feeling of helplessness to do anything about the situation that stuck with me when I woke up. The feeling of injustice (cos of course I didn't deserve it. . .), and not knowing how to get out of the situation.

I never had the dream about falling. I don't think it ever worried me. But I had dreams about being pursued by all manner of baddies. After seeing the Tutenkhamen exhibit when I was younger, my 'favourite' nightmare was that I was being chased. . .not by the embalmed corpse, but by the men who had died in mysterious circumstances that some attributed to the curse of the Pharoahs (incidentally, did you know there was a mummified priestess from the time of Tut on the Titanic?). Visiting Wooky Hole in Somerset, England, we were told the legend of the Wooky Hole Witch, so for a while she tried to catch me.

When I was younger, I never got caught.

Now, my dreams have changed. It's not about the fantastical any more. My dreams are much more based in reality, and more and more often they seem to be about one of my biggest fears. . .inevitability. The inability to escape what might come after me. It makes me want to remember more of my dreams, see what's going on in my head- not cos I enjoy the masochism of it, but to see what else I'm worried about that I'm refusing to admit to. Or is this what happens when you get old? The everyday worries take the place of childhood fears. The tax man is the egyptologist, the prosecutor is the witch. And cos I'm getting older, I'm not as fit as I used to be, I can't run away.

Slobodan Milosovic

When I spent a year living in Austria, I made the most of it and travelled as much as possible. Heading back from Istanbul where I'd spent New Years Eve with my girlfriend, Jenny, my route cut straight through Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia. I sent here back to Munich by plane because I didn't want her to travel through an area that was still somewhat unsafe (what audacity made me think I should go it alone?), and took the train, travelling as I had for most of the winter break; sleeping on the train, spending the day in a different city, sleeping on a different train, different city, and so on. To me, Belgrade at that time was just a stop on the train. I couldn't even get a visitor's visa for the country. To get a visa, I had to have a hotel booking, and as my hotel rooms were various train compartments, barely reclinable seats, and in one instance under a bench in a train station, getting a hotel room was a bit beyond my budget. The transit visa I had to get still has pride of place in my passport, but it meant I was only allowed to spend hours in Belgrade waiting for my next train. I spent those hours wandering about, going nowhere in particular, just taking the place in. There's a lot to be said about going somewhere and just looking at things, and I don't mean the museums and famous landmarks- I mean just getting a feel for the place, watching the people walk down the street and live their lives. I walked down several random streets, took one or two photos, got back on the train, and carried on to my next stop (which happened to be under the bench in a train station, I think it was Graz). This was January 1999. In March of that year, NATO bombed it in protest of what was going on in Kosovo. They bombed transport and utilities (and the Chinese Embassy) in an effort to end the war. I remember the atmosphere of the place- it was an overcast, cold day. It didn't rain, but it threatened to long after I was on my way. There seemed to be a sullen resentment about the place- not at anything I could discern, but there nonetheless. I took a photo of myself leaning against a lamppost, just a random spot I stopped at, that happened to be a street with several embassies and consulates down it- I remember all the flags, just not which ones. I took a photo of the train station. Wonder if they were hit in the bombings. . . But when I heard about Milosovic's death and his arrival back home to Belgrade, I could picture it. I could see the place, painted grey in the rain, again with a sullen resentment hanging over it. Resentment against the fallen dictator who led thousands to their deaths in a megalomaniacal attempt to build himself a larger, stronger nation. Resentment against the world and the forces that brought a once-porweful man and the saviour of their dreams to such a sad end. Because whether he was evil or miscast, dying alone in a foreign prison cell and arriving back home in a casket in the rain for a funeral your wife can't attend because of arrest warrants for her issued by the country you tried to build is a pitiful end.

the world doesn't revolve around me

And let me tell you, I was shocked. Growing up, I always had the feeling that when I couldn't see someone, they just 'paused,' until they came back into my life. I was young, but it just seemed to make sense. That sort of thing does, when you're nineteen. Okay, so I was about seven. But moving around, leaving Salisbury and moving to the States, time becomes more noticeable. All of a sudden, someone you grew up with is starting to shave, or they get married and have kids and seem older. So I gradually became used to the idea that everyone else on the planet isn't just put here for my own amusement or 'character building.' They were people in their own right, with their own lives and interests and feelings. But the world was still basically my playpark. It was all for me. And I was quite happy living in that happy little place until today, when it finally became apparent the world does not revolve around me. Today it rained. Which is rare enough for Las Vegas. But what woke me up to reality was that I hadn't washed my car yesterday and it still rained. I think this must be the first time that has ever happened to me. I'd been meaning to wash it Saturday, but with one thing and another didn't get around to it. If I'd have washed it, then I'd still be safe in my cozy little world. On a lighter note, found out BT is coming to Vegas this month. And I'm bloody well going to see the show if I die from exhaustion afterwards. Working 70 a week, I can squeeze in a great show. Especially as I don't really remember much of the show in Denver, but that's a story for last September.

Narcissistic Voyeurism

Cos that's basically what MySpace seems to be about. In fact, that's what most of society seems to be headed towards nowadays. Talking with a good friend of mine who I'm trying to get into the whole MySpace thing, I had to stop and decide why I wanted him to join. And part of it is that it's handy for keeping in touch with people, and even finding people you'd lost contact with and never really meant to. But part of it is that there are three types of people online. Voyeurs, Narcissists, and those of use who are whores for both.

For instace, I write this blog. Sometimes it's meaningful, sometimes not, but why do I write it? Well, partly it helps me get back into writing as I think I've mentioned before. Partly it gets shit off my mind that's been bugging me, like Pat Robertson. And partly it's cos I like to think that what I have to say is important enough that other people might take time out of their lives and read what I've written. And if you think abuot it, this is taking narcissism a hell of a lot further than he ever did. He was so self-absorbed that he only ever inflicted it on himself and evenetually turned to stone (if I remember my Salvador Dali paintings). Whereas here I am, having the gall to write what I want to write about, and putting it somewhere that anyone in the world can read. If that isn't self-absorbtion then I don't know what is.

And then the voyeurism. We all do it. If we didn't then reality shows would never have survived. We all like to know who's doing what, where, for how long, and for how much. And this translates in MySpace to seeing who is friends with whom, and who has more friends, and who loves us enough to read our blogs or messages. When was the last time someone logged on, and when was the last time someone posted a comment. And I'm as big a MySpace whore as anyone else out there. I'm definitely a voyeur. . .maybe I'm watching you right now. . .

to do before I die. . .

You ever get to the point in your life where your priorities shift a bit, and what was important isn't such a big deal? What do you do the third or fourth time that happens to you? Cos I think that's my count now. Is it that I, as a person, have changed so much, or do most people's priorities change this much? Today, I'd like to talk about friends. But I'm not going to, because it's a sensitive subject right now. Instead, I'm going to come up with some meaningless drivel to put down here to amuse whomever may read this thing. I don't even know if anyone is reading this, but it does me good to write, maybe it'll help me get back into writing like I once was. Although can you ever really be into something you do when you're six years old, because that's how old I was the last time I felt able to write. It was a fantastic book, nearly 10 pages long. Of course, the whole premise was completely stolen- I was six years old, no one has their own ideas when they're six. It was a take off of 'The Witches' by Roald Dahl, the story where the boy gets turned into a mouse. For some reason the idea fascinated me, and I wrote my own first-person story based on that happening. I remember going back to visit a couple of years later and seeing a copy of it still in my classroom (it was Mrs. Roseman's class at Harnham Infant School, one of those depressingly common 'mobile classrooms' that were supposed to be temporary but are still there when your own kids go to school there).

And looking back at that, I realize that half my life seems to have been spent trying to escape from who I am. That's how I got into theatre, the idea of becoming someone else as soon as I got on that stage was incredibly appealling, even at 11. That's why I wrote the story, 'The Great Mouse Adventure' I think it was called. And that's why I developed an interest in film, to be able to create alternate worlds or lives to escape into. That's why I read so much and can lose myself in a book, and that's why I want to write again, to be able to project myself into the character, and in turn live vicariously through them.

But thinking about it, I suppose I've spent the rest of my life being myself, just as hard as I can, every day. I don't need to live vicariously through anyone. When I've travelled, it's always been me in those places. When I've said something stupid, put my foot in my mouth, that's just part of me. When I've wanted to do something, I've done my best to do it, and have done pretty well of it so far. People talk about the list of things they want to do before they die, and I realized I've actually done a lot of them. That's what I mean when I say I've been myself as hard as I can. And it doesn't mean I'll be ready to die when I finish my list of things. It just means I've got to keep adding to the list. It also makes me wonder what I can accompish if I really set my mind to it, because of aforementioned almost completed list. Maybe if I sincerely add things to it, then I'll get them done. So, additions to my 'to do before I die' list:

Write a Novel. One that makes people think.

Write a Memoir. Hey, I think I've had a pretty unique life. It may not all be serious drama, but there's some good stuff in here.

Go to Africa, and more than just making it to Morocco. Sure, it's Africa, but I want to make it further south. I want to get woken up in the middle of the night by a Lion. . .and not being eaten by one. For that matter, go to Australia, and not settle for just having seen South America and Asia, but actually set foot there.

Finish learning to spin records.

Watch the Aurora Borealis.

Hang glide.

Wow. That got a bit more introspective than I'd intended. It's more like meaningful drivel I suppose.