First go.

I found out about a quarterly publication called The First Line, that gives you the first line and then lets you go from there. It has to be between 300 and 3000 words, and the fall issue needs submissions by 1st August. I'm going to submit something. I found out about the contest on Monday, wrote a first draft on Monday. Got a friend to look over it, see if it works as a story (there's a few reasons I only talked to him about it, and they'll become apparent later on, depending on what happens to this story). He suggested a couple of changes, some of which I used and some I didn't. Second draft I finished around 430am Wednesday morning after a great night, and the almost final draft I finished this morning.

It's a little like being back in school. I have an assignment and a deadline. The only differences are I've chosen to do this assignment, and I'm ready well before the deadline. And I suppose I care more about this than most of the stuff I did in school. I turned in papers on Freud, Tolstoy, McEwan, Shakespeare, and a tonne of others, and all they were to me was assignments that had to be done to get a grade so I could move on with my life. This is much the same, but I feel that by actually submitting something with the possibility of getting published, I'm no longer going to be talking about just writing. I'm not going just for a grade, but recognition that I can write and should write.

Now, if I don't get into the publication, is that going to disappoint me? Of course, but I'll just have to do what I did in high school. I'll keep going with what I'm doing, and see if anyone else likes it (like the AP english examiners did). If I do get in, then I'll frame the cheque along with the one I got for being background in Race To Witch Mountain, and I'll be able to add author to my list of jobs. And I'll try not to be too cocky.

And I'll tell you about my great Tuesday sometime. Probably.

Sharks

So it's been two weeks since I got back from the Bahamas. Two weeks of proudly showing off the video of Adam and myself diving with sharks. I need to get it on YouTube, cos I think it's pretty damned cool. Two weeks, and we're already talking about our next dive trip. Maybe Roatan and one of the live-aboard or dive package trips. Maybe the Galapagos. I'd love to see the scalloped hammerhead sharks schools. We're also talking about getting a group together, maybe ten people or something. Anyone interested?

So for the first couple of days I was completely on a high from the trip. And a little jetlagged, don't know why I find the east coast harder than I do England to readjust from, but I do. But just to have been diving again! To be lucky enough to see the hammerhead shark on our very first dive; to glide through the water as though I was flying over the wrecks used in two James Bond films; to kneel in a circle like sacrificial victims while some bloke wearing chain mail fed chunks of fish to sharks and got them to swim right up to us. It's definitely one of the most incredible trips I've had, and one of the most amazing things I've ever done.

But the problem is that now I've done it. I want to do it again. I want to do it lots and lots.

I've loved diving since before I started it. Snorkelling in Hawai'i with turtles, that's what made me want to dive. And hence the turtle round me neck, and the 'I saw a Turtle' T-shirt that everyone always comments on. Learning to dive in St. Thomas back in 2003 was one of the things that got me through my last ship contract. Once I was under the water it didn't matter how crappy my day had been, because suddenly everything was better. Even the one or two times I've had pressure problems and only been able to stay very shallow, just floating under the surface is great. So now all I can think about is diving. Adam didn't help matters because the whole time we're down ther he's saying 'If I was you I'd be here right now, you have nothing keeping you in Vegas.' And I really don't. I mean, I have some great friends, but I'll always stay in touch and I'll make more. I have the house, but being upside down in a mortgage almost $100,000, ir really makes you lose interest in paying the bloody thing. So why AM I stil here? I can't seem to focus on anything properly right now. I don't really want to hang out with people, or go to the movies, or write, or work out. The flip side of this is I'm actually trying harder- pushing myself to write, managing a couple thousand words a week which isn't too bad. I went to the gym for the first time i a year or two, and I'm still hanging out with people. But there's something in the back of my mind, looking out, whispering to me just beyond the edge of my hearing. If I could hear what the voice was saying, maybe I'd be able to focus properly and be able to follow through with something. . .something like a blog that was supposed to be about something else but then I got distracted. . .

More kids

Disclaimer: I'm not knocking having children. And as I said a few weeks ago, I've never had the option of starting a family. Is it bad when you have to add disclaimers to your blogs on a regular basis?

'tis the season for sprogging, apparently. One of my best mates from uni welcomed his first, a daughter, into the world Thursday last. Paul, bloke I work with, had a son yesterday morning. Adam's kid'll be here in four or five weeks. And this means a couple of things. One, that they all shagged around the same time. Two, the human race will probably keep going for a little while. Three, there's a chance that they are the reincarnations of Ed Mcmahon, Farah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.

Again, I have nothing against having kids. Sometimes I hope for my own someday. And maybe when I do I'll understand this. . .but I really don't get why couples who have just had a kid are 'proud parents.' They've just managed to do what people have been doing for quite a while. Maybe one day I'll eat these words, and I'd have no problem with that.

I can understand full of love, amazed, overjoyed, at peace with the world, or fascinated at the birth of one's kid, but proud? All that's happened is some crying, quite a bit of excretion, and some sleeping. Are parents proud of themselves at having brought this new life in to the world? Because, to be a bastard, if Octomom can do it I think anyone can.

I think the time to be proud is when the kid's grown up and become a decent person. If you manage to raise a kid nowadays with all the instant gratification, sense of entitlement, media, and other people's bad parenting that abounds, then you have every right to be proud.

Organization

I got back Thursday around noon, it's now Saturday night and I've barely said anything here about our Caribbean trip. I will, I'm just trying to organize my head right now.Cos that's what I have the hardest time with, I'd say. Organization in general, not just the confines of my own head. I get everything done somehow, but not in the simplest way just cos I can't seem to get my arse organized. But it seems like these days our lives are getting more and more complicated. There's so much clutter that goes along with everything we do that it can get a bit overwhelming sometimes. If I want to clean off my desk to plug in to the hard drives, then I have to clean out this drawer to put away the photo paper and extra USB cords, but then I have to work out where the other, non-computer paper should go, and pretty soon I'm reading an article about properties of different crystals I haven't been able to find for a year, my bed's become a storage unit, and I still didn't get to edit that video. If I actually make it far enough that I can plug in, then I have to work out which of the three hard drives the file I'm looking for is on, so I decide to try and sort those out, and next thing you know I'm finding old resumes and half built websites, crap I haven't touched for a while and don't need any more but will end up changing or deleting, just to find a different version (or, more usually, the exact same thing) on a different drive. I could go on. But my point is everything seems to have so much more. . .crap. . .to go along with it these days that it can get a little overwhelming to even start. Deleting emails, organizing files, going through your iTunes library and deleting the stuff you apparently illegally ripped from CDs you owned when you were in high school- why is it computers, those marvellous things that were supposed to make our lives easier, just seem to add to the clutter? And now my brain is just like a computer, in that I have to get the bloody thing organized before starting anything, and then I get distracted by what I find in there. I want to write about travelling and diving with sharks, so I sit to think about that. And then I start thinking about all sorts of other crap, like how to travel full time, be a travel writer, what trips I should try to do, how to leave Las Vegas, making new friends in a new place, not making friends in a new place, keeping in touch with people, missing out on their families, mission out on my own family, having my own family, could I do with a shag? And while the time in Nassau hasn't been forgotten, it's been put off. My head is like a hard drive that needs to be defragged, which is strange considering I'm an (almost) apple fanboy. I'm just going to have to learn to live with distraction I guess, and still get everything done, sussed, worked out, planned, defragged, and get on with all my grandiose plans and work on attaining all the goals I'm settin-ooooh, shinies!

Home

Sitting in the Nassau airport writing this, but it'll have to wait on getting posted til I get home, cos despite the insistance of my phone that there's a dunkin donuts wi-fi network, it won't let me online.It's been a good trip. Really good. I finally proved to myself I didn't crack my skull open when I fell out of Ian's car in Denver (I was worried for a while cos I had some issues equalizing last time I went diving). Saw my first hammerhead shark, dove with reef sharks, dove around the never say never again and thunderball wrecks, saw my first cruise ship with its new (to me) paintjob, spent a day in Paradise, had a traffic accident, had a conversation with a bloke who looked like he had that skin thing where you change colour, got eaten alive by mozzies, a little bit sunburned on my nose, spent money, and saw my life flash before my eyes as the cab driver got us to the airport in record time. Even got a bit of writing done. A page or two, but every little bit helps.

Good trip. Roatan next year, anyone?

Hammerhead

First day of diving was today. And gods did it feel good to get back in the water. It didn't feel so good getting up tho. We landed around 11 yesterday, to the hotel by noon, enjoying the bar's honour system by noon thirty. Twelve hours later we'd run out of space to put the check marks for each beer we'd drunk, so headed to bed. Barely slept.

But we made it to the bus and the dive shop, 'stuart cove's.' Made it out on the boat. Our first dive was a spot called lambert wall, part of a drop off for the third deepest ocean trench on the planet. We didn't go down the whole trench, six thousand feet is a little beyond my dive rating. But we were at about eighty feet, ready to head back up the walk, when I saw Adam hold his hand up on his head like a sad attempt at a mohawk and point frantically into the deep water. Looked where he was pointing to see a Hammerhead shark about thirty feet away. As soon as we started looking and pointing at it, with a turn and a couple flicks of its tail it was gone.

Now, this is the second shark I've seen in the ocean while diving, but the first one was in the distance swimming away from us. To see a hammerhead that close, to see the speed, power and grace is incredible. It was only a few seconds, but it'll last forever in my mind.

After that, diving at the wreck used in a James Bond film was cool, but not as monumental.

Sitting in the bar now at the hotel, trading stories with a sixty-three year old Swiss bloke who's been divorced four times, an American on the island to be a pilot for one of the smaller airlines, and a Scotsman who is travelling the world diving after his wife died a few years ago.

This is what makes life.

Do not read

So when you blog, it's because you want to share something with the world, right? Whether the world gives a shit or not, you write it so it's out there and then post it on your chosen site. Well, part of my blogging is to help me work out shit in my head, and I just tried writing without posting and it didn't help. And I'm going to be a bitch by posting this with a password still not helping, I'm going to bed.

Anticipa. . .

I know I've used that as a title before, but that was in the MySpace days so it doesn't count. Or maybe one day I'll actually transfer all of 'em to here and actually get rid of MySpace seeing as I haven't used it in over a year. The problem with that, though, is I'll probably realize as I'm doing it how depressingly repetitive I can be. But that's not what I'm here about right now. I'm sure at some point in the near future I'll be at home, have a few too many drinks, and start crying online about my 'sues and hangups and blah blah blah. But right now, I want to talk about being giddy with anticipation about diving in a few days, and I think the ability to be excited about something is funamental to being a human being. Now, what you get excited about is fundamental to being a well-adjusted human being.

When this posts,  Adam and I are flying to Nassau, the Bahamas, to spend four days diving and switching off for a while. And I don't think I've been this excited about anything since my trip to Oz in November 2006. That's not to say I haven't been excited since then, just not to this level. Well, maybe the Germany trip in August 2007. But see, that's the thing I've noticed. There's something about travel that just gets me worked up more than anything else. I'm not one to get excited about movies coming out, or visits by celebrities, but travel really does it for me.

I don't even mind the airport or the plane part of travel, although the older I get the less patient I am with other people. I'm ready to go through the security checkpoint, why the bloody hell aren't you? Yes, you do have to take your shoes off, it's been like that for years. Oh, it beeped because of the change in your pocket? Well imagine that. 'Swhy I travel in flip flops and without a belt, it's just easier to deal with.

So yeah, I'm going to be in the Bahamas for the next couple of days. Probably no blogging, cos I'll be busy.

Self-diagnosis

The internet is a blessing and a curse. And I just used it to either save my dive trip or completely fuck it up. Woke up yesterday with a toothache. Enough to go see my dentist. They got me in, took a look, told me I needed a root canal which is what I figured would happen- my teeth don't go bad by half, it's all or nothing with the bastards. When I told them I'm going on a dive trip in a few days they said they'd give me antibiotics and do it next week when I get back.

Fair enough, except that prescription drugs scare the crap out of me. Well, over the counters are pretty ominous to me too. They gave me a scrip for an antibiotic and a painkiller, got them filled out, and haven't opened the packet. Spent the night not sleeping, partly cos of the pain and partly cos of worrying about the trip.

So of course I went online. Found a great website that has a discussion forum about diving and medical issues, and on just about every post I could find about it they said get the root canal done asap, just make sure there's no airspace left. . .not sure how they go about doing that, but I'm going to find out today at 3pm. So either the internet just gave me good advice and there'll be no problems on my trip, or I'm going to get down to 50 feet and my tooth's going to explode, flying out of my skull and taking out a passing cod, which in its death throes will turn the water pink with blood, attracting every shark in the vicinity.

Okay, now I'm just being silly. You don't get cod in the Caribbean.

But the internet is both a blessing (because it allows so much access to so much information) and a curse (because it allows so much access to so much information). Usually I'm not one to be a hypochondriac, but I'm going on this dive trip instead of getting a therapist so I'm extra paranoid that something's going to stop me diving and then I'll have even more issues. If it all works out I promise to do my best to not be a smug git and go around boasting about it (although I do reserve the right to tell everyone about how awesome it is and encourage them to do trips of their own). If it doesn't work out, then it's probably you buggers who'll have to sit and listen to me complaining about it in the bar for about a year.

Kids

Went to a baby shower BBQ yesterday. It was actually really good to get out in a public park in Las Vegas and just chill with a group of friends, drinking wine and eating Russian pork kebabs. It was something you almost never do here cos it's either to bloody hot, windy, or crappy out, or you don't have access to Russian pork kebabs. Being there with a group of friends, half of whom have kids already, in anticipation of one of them having his first child, seems a little wierd when you're a single, 29 year old bloke. It almost felt like those of us without kids were saying goodbye to him, and those with sprogs are getting ready to welcome him into their fold. So much of interacting with other people is comparing yourself to them- not in a bad way, but trading stories and experiences, finding common ground, living though other peoples memories of an event with them- that at times like that it seems the world is divided up into two parts. There's the part that has kids, and the rest of us.

In about six weeks Adam's going to be able to talk to all the other parents about the birth of his kid, the experience of holding the little bugger for the first time, and all that other mushy stuff that comes along. The rest of us will be able to stand around listening, but not really understanding because we haven't been through it. I don't begrudge him any of this. In fact far from it, I think the world needs more smart people breeding. And I can understand the desie to have kids. . .sort of, in my own wierd fucked up way.

Disclaimer: Bear in mind I'm writing all this as someone who's never been married, or even close, and kids have basically never even been an option. I've had the dubious luxury of being selfish for far too long, and that's why seeing friends who have kids always brings up mixed emotions for me. I have no way of fathoming what it's like to see it begin to form in utero, to hold your own child in your arms, and see it grow from a ball of unpleasant sounds and smells into someone who can wipe their own arse. Do I want that? The jury's still out on that one. I'll go through phases where it seems like a great idea, and times when it's the worst idea in the world. Another one of me running around being all cynical and drunk with a mid-atlantic accent? Yeah, the world needs that.

Maybe that's what growing up is. It's not reaching a 'milestone birthday' like 16, 18, 21, 25, 30, 40, etc. It's not buying a house, or voting in your first election, or getting married. It's being ready to have kids, giving up the right to be selfish in the interest of someone else. And I do mean being ready to have kids, deciding that it's something both you and your partner want and will enter into completely. Knocking up some chick you met online doesn't count as being ready for kids. I'm definitely not ready for kids, but maybe I can see the possiblilty of being ready for the buggers one day.

Until then, I'm going to hold off growing up.

Motivation Pt. II

Ahh, retail therapy. It really does work wonders. Even more so when you can actually use whatever it is you buy. Most of the time I'll be out running errands and decide I need a nice wooden bowl carved out of a tree stump, or a hookah, or seasons 1 through 4 of Blackadder on DVD. But yesterday was retail therapy with a purpose. I had to be up at the crack of dawn (about 9am) for a Las Vegas community theatre get together, which was rough to say the least. But as I was up, and as the meeting was finished with time for me to go back home before headed to work, I stopped off in Office Depot and bought myself a white board.

'A white board?' I hear you say. 'Why yes,' I reply. 'A big fricking white board, 3'x4', and about an hour ago I hung it on my wall, removing the Pirelli calendar pictures I had up there- it's not porn, it's art cos it's black and white and pirelli and monica bellucci. The Nelson Mandela quote is still up there.

Now there's a big damn white board staring down at me. I've just written up the summary of me novel, and started keeping track of characters, their ages and other timelines within the story, and now I don't have to go back leafing through 23-odd pages of scribble to try and remember what Tomar's girlfriend is called, or who originally came from which country. Not that any of that is set in stone, and the chances are I'll decide I don't like he sound of some of the names and change them, but it's easier now to remember who I'm talking about. Or probably would be if I was actually writing instead of writing about writing. But that's today from 12-2. Now I've got a big bloody piece of motivation hung on me wall, and I'm not sure there are any excuses left for me to use. I may well have exhausted my near-endless supply of them.

Nah, I just think at this point it's easier to write than to keep excusing myself.

Motivation

If I knew how to get this, I'd be done by now. It comes and goes, but there's almost no rhyme or reason behind it. I'd describe myself as generally motivated, with a side order of wherewithal, a dash of laziness, and a garnish made up of procrastination. And the problem is I'm the sort of bugger who always eats the garnish.

You should, you know. It's generally there for a reason. Parsley is used as a garnish because it helps to freshen breath, so chew it after the meal. But anyway, today I tried to set aside some time to write, and it didn't really work very well. I did no writing. I was online and I read several interesting articles, a couple of funny ones, took care of some Producer stuff for BNTA, and then the two hours were up and I had to head in to work. I accomplished a couple of things I had to get done, but why is it I keep putting off what I really want to be doing? And why is the internet so full of shinies that keep distracting me?

I'm thinking about maybe doing another Primm weekend. Or maybe not in Primm this time, but somewhere that isn't so devoid of distraction. That was the problem with Primm- I may have managed to churn out 18 pages, but do you have any idea how much time I spent playing with the stupid games on my iPhone, or looking out the window, or wondering around Willaims Sonoma (they had a sale on)? I think I'd do much better going all the way to the coast and trying it there. On the coast I'd be able to take a break from the writing, maybe go for a romantic walk along the beach as the sun goes down. . .it counts, I'd be walking with my most frequent lover. . .I could even do it on the beach!

I mean write. You people.

Anyway, the less there is to distract it seems the more able I am to distract myself with completely pointless stuff. Hell, I could be writing right now instead of trying to come up with more ways to joke about masturbation. Hey, get it? Come up with?

Sorry.

ANYWAY, the point is, as of now I'm really going to make a concerted effort to do everything I keep talking about, all the things I know I should do but keep putting off. I'm going to edit my short stories, maybe even excerpt them here if anyone's interested. I'm going to keep plugging away at this whole bloody novel thing. I'm not going to get sucked in to the cracked.com lists, or what other stupid thing Limbaugh said today. I've got a book called The Freelance Writer's Bible, and it's got some really helpful advice in it. I was reading it earlier, and it talks about setting aside time to write as one of the most important things you can do. And suddenly I was motivated. I actually put down the book and started writing, got a page knocked out in not much time at all. So thats going to be the new me. Promise. Watch this space, I'll let you know how it goes.

And so it begins

The week, I mean. At least my week. And I can't decide whether the sound of multiple sirens a couple of blocks away is a bad way to start it. . .I am awake an hour earlier than I had intended. Not that it's easy to anticipate something like waking up, but I know for a fact I don't get enough sleep so when I'm lying here in bed, looking at a clock that's an hour earlier than I was expecting to see it, it does kind of annoy. Well, considering I woke cos of the sound of sirens I guess I'm lucky that my arse isn't on fire, I'm not having a medical emergency, or the cops aren't carting me off to prison for some heinous crime like running naked through a fast food drive through and stealing a bunch of food (this actually happened. . .not to me, but it was on one of those odd news websites). I can lie here and put my thoughts in order for the week, think about what I'm going to accomplish, what I should accomplish but probably won't get to, and. . .remember all the things I was supposed to do this weekend and haven't done yet. Bugger. If you'll excuse me, I should go take care of some stuff.

When it rains. . .

I don't like to write about work. Or rather, I'd love to be able to write about work, because there's so much goes on that is definitely worthy of bloggage. But there's only so much you can talk about before you piss someone off and divulge too much, so I find it easier to just not bother.But this week has been special, and deserves a mention. It was pretty shitty. And when I say pretty, I mean very. First, in case you don't know, I run automation for the Cirque Du Soleil show LOVE. It's the Beatles one. Automation is basically all the moving parts of the theatre- stage lifts, flying lines, curtains, etc. We've got a hundred and twenty-something moving parts, and I get to play with them all. Well, without going into detail, I'll just say the automation department couldn't catch a break. We had a rough week. How rough? Almost rough enough for me to give up drinking. When it can make someone who doesn't drink think about taking it up, and someone who didn't make it home this morning from the bar before the sun came up think about stopping, it's been rough. Why would you automatically assume that I'm talking about me getting home from the bar at that time of day? I'm not, I'm talking about Matt, one of our sound guys. Okay, fine, I was drinking with him. But in my defense, it's solstice time so the days are at their longest right now. And if I get out of the bar at 5:15 in the morning, that's like you leaving it at 10:45pm. See? Not so bad from that perspective. Not as bad as this week's been. Well, the work week is over now, and I'm not yet giving up drinking. I'm headed to the bar right now. But it's weeks like this that all I want is the original crutch, the original coping mechanism. . . A hug from me Mum.

Primm, NV

I'm not entirely sure why Primm exists. If you're coming from California and you can't wait until you get to Vegas to gamble, then you should probably have stayed at home. The outlet malls aren't offering any noticeable deals (but this is probably because Las Vegas has cut prices). The rooms are no better or worse than thousands across the country- they provide a bed to sleep in and somewhere to clean yourself up. But there is the Bonnie and Clyde car. The one they were in when they got shot. A lot. Course when I got back I had to read about it on Wikipedia. 130 Bullets. A hundred and thirty. That's quite a lot. As well as the car there's also the shirt that Clyde was wearing at the time, pretty torn up and tattered, but laundered thankfully.

Now I'm not going to go into whether they deserved it, or should have been handled differently, but for some reason I think part of the tragedy of their story is that their car now sits in on a casino floor, behind plexi panels, with a couple of mannequins dressed up as them and one of them holding a gun. People stop and take pictures. There's something just sad about that to me.

Some of the members of their gang said that a hail of gunfire was a better way to go for them than being caught. But now part of their legacy is a random stop along one of America's freeways, right up there with the giant ball of yarn in. . .well, wherever it is. Maybe that's why Primm is there?

Either way, if you're driving along the I-15 south of Vegas you can stop and take a look at it. Or not.

Virginia

First, a public service announcement: Speeds of over 81 miles an hour in the state of Virginia are considered reckless driving and as such are subject to a mandatory court appearance, possible $2500 fine, and possible jail time. Don't worry, I found this out because I was going 80. But I drive more in Las Vegas than anywhere else, and it's pretty usual here to go 80 on the interstate and have the cops ignore you. Or pass you. Anyway. . .

I was in Virginia for my friend Rusty's wedding. I've known Rusty since some time towards the end of 2001, when we both worked for Norwegian Cruise Lines. As luck would have it we ended up roommates (something that can make or break a contract when you're working on a cruise ship). Oh, the stories we could tell. . .

So the last time I saw Rusty he came to visit me in Las Vegas for a few days more than four years ago. He was here thinking about maybe getting a job, but opted to go back out on ships which turned out to be the right choice as he then met Andreea. Couple of years later, and I get an invitation to go to their wedding in Virginia. Not really a place I would choose to go on vacation, but you do what you can for your friends, right? And as it turns out it was one of the best vacations I've had in a while. There was no stress, it was the first time I've felt able to switch off for probably two years now, and I got to catch up with some good friends and make some new ones.

The first were Shawn and Lori Farquhar. Shawn's a two-time world champion of magic and I worked with him on the same ship I met Rusty but on a different contract. He and his wife Lori are great people, and it was good to just catch up with them after three years. If there had been a better setting than the Waynesboro Waffle House at 3am we'd have been there, but living in Vegas you forget that the rest of the world tends to keep more normal hours.

The next day at a barbecue for the 'out-of-towners' coming to the wedding, I got to meet some of the people behind Rusty's stories, and reminisce about our days on ships. Over almost three years, I worked for two companies, on four different ships, and seven contracts. It was the best thing I could have done after University, and even though I'm happy I don't work on them any more, getting together with a group of ship people and going over the things we used to get up to, it does make you toy with the idea of going back. Because while the travel was great and the experiences were fantastic, what really made the job were the people. A couple of thousand people from around the world thrown together on a floating hotel, well, anything can happen. When you only have a few months and you know you'll be moving on and might never see people again you don't really waste time. You'll make friends that first night on board when you still don't know the way to your lifeboat but have memorized the location of the crew bar. And not the sort of friends you'll make on land, where it takes time to get to know them properly; you really don't hold back in what you'll tell people. It's a bit like living life condensed.

But this isn't about working on a ship, it's about seeing ship people on land. And there's just something about them that even on land you can tell. I met Brad, Jenn and Wendi in Virginia at the 'out-of-towners barbecue.' Never met or spoken to them before, but by the end of the weekend I had three good friends. I'll keep in touch with them, they'll look me up if they ever come down here and I'll do the same if I'm ever in Toronto. And I know you always say that about people you meet, but I've found it much more true of friends I have who worked on ships. I think that's what life is lacking in Vegas- everyone here seems to have an agenda and I find that hard to deal with sometimes. I don't have many secrets because if you ask me something the chances are I'll tell you, even though I met you ten minutes ago. I don't bullshit people because there's no time when you've got a month to hang out with them before they're sent to their next contract. I've built lifelong friendships in days with people on ships, when it's taken months or even years to end up with the same sort of bond in Vegas. Granted, Vegas isn't the best example of living in the real world, but I think life in general could do with a little less guardeness and a little more openness and trust.

I don't know what it is about working on a ship that can do this to a person. Maybe it's the amount of travelling you do as part of the job, the lack of time between contracts or on port days, or you're worried that if you blow them off they'll blackmail you with the story about New Year's Eve at the Captain's Dance, but either way I went to Virginia for a good friend, and came back with a couple more.

beginnings

I think I've started what I hope to be my first novel. Or maybe my first published novel? We'll see, it's very early stages right now, but the more I talk about it the more likely I am to get my arse in gear and do it. It's coming from the idea of one of the shorts I did this past month, called the Past. It ended up being a different story than what I had started out to write, but I like where it ended up and think it'll definitely work as a couple of books, probably better than as a short. So there might not be any mor shorts for a while, I want to try and make decent headway on this project.

Oh, and there's all the BNTA stuff too. Looks like things are very promising for it, we're really getting the ball rolling right now. Busy busy busy, but then I don't think I'd have it any other way.

This doesn't mean that the other book, the one I've been talking about forever, isn't going to happen. It just needs much more research than this new one, so it's on the back burner for now. But it'll happen, I'll be pissed with myself if it doesn't happen.

If anyone would like to read the couple shorts I've got finished right now, let me know. I've got them all saved on Google Docs. . .couple are a bit depressing, couple aren't too bad, but I feel much better about the two sci-fi ones I just finished (one of which has the basis for the novel).

Well, back to writing. . .or back to writing rather than blogging cos obviously technically blogging is writing, so I can't go back to it if I'm alread doing it, so. . .never mind. You know what I mean

one glorious day off

this week's a weird one, schedulastically speaking. Just worked a normal week, then Tuesday is my Saturday and Sunday all rolled into one. Wednesday thru Saturday we have shows, then Sunday is the party celebrating Cirque Du Soleil's 25th anniversary. We have Sunday thru Wendesday to recover, then back to normal. . .or as normal as it can be working 330p-1130p with Tuesday and Wednesday off. So today I think I'll probably do nothing. Reset. I feel like I haven't stopped moving since before going to Rusty's wedding. One day in which to do some laundry, clear the crap off my desk so I can connect to my hard drives again and maybe a bit of video editing for BNTA. Send a couple of emails, work on a flyer for the kids program Jo's putting togther. I guess so much for nothing. All of that is something, it just doesn't seem like it. Send emails? 'Tis but the work of a moment. Laundry? One just adds the ingredients to the machine then walks away.

Something I've been realizing recently is that doing the smallest thing still counts as something. If I do even half of those things, I'm closer. . .to what I'm not sure, but can't wait to find out. It's doing the myriad of small things I have to get done that gives me the time, the motivation, the balls to do other things. So today if I even get half the things done on the list above, I'll be happy. Worrying about the crap I didn't get done just pisses me off, cos I know I can't blame anyone else but me. And If I get enough done, then maybe I'll be able to really enjoy having four days off.

That's what I'm shooting for. Of course, I'll probably end up staying up too late tonight and not getting up early enough to do anything. Drinks for happy hour with Rusty and Andreea, then David Copperfield, then they want to drag me to a strip club. . .it would be rude not to go. So If I'm lucky I'll get one load of laundry done today, and maybe the desk cleared.

Probably not. But hey, it's still small things done that helps the big things.

Boat Tripping

Every summer some friends and I drive an hour outside of Vegas, rent boats, and go camping on the Colorado River. It's good to get away from the tourists, the lights and sounds and smells of the city. It's good to spend time with friends you feel comfortable with, in the middle of nowhere. We've been going out there for four years now, and somehow I've ended up as the one who puts the trips together. I call Willow Beach Marina, reserve the boats, let everyone know when they're booked for, sign the paperwork, and drive one of the boats. I love getting out there, leaving life behind for a while. . .and almost every trip I tell myself it's the last time I'm organizing one. We've had anywhere from 11 to 37 people go on the trips. We've wrecked propellers, beached a boat, and nearly drowned a dog. Making sure 'so and so' isn't on the same boat as 'that guy' because of something that went on in a bar between them two months ago gets tiring, especially if I'm one of them (and I have been, I'll admit it). So why do I keep planning these trips? We try to get to Willow Beach between 11am and noon on a Tuesday. It's just over an hour from Vegas, and most of us work until midnight, so that means getting up painfully early. Tents, sleeping bags, camp chairs, coolers, we probably take enough stuff to last us for a week out there, but roughing it is much better if you can do it in comfort. I fill out the paperwork, go through the check lists for the boats, then we all load up our gear and set out downstream. The first beer is cracked, sunscreen applied, cheers and cheerses, and for me a sigh of relief that we're out there again. Our first stop is almost always a cliff jump. About a mile down the river from the marina the boats pull to the Nevada side of the river, and those who are about to jump swim ashore. The rest of us sit below ready to pick them up, take pictures, and mock if anyone takes too long to jump. I did the jump once. Looking up at fifty feet is a lot easier than looking down at it. You have to take a bit of a run, launch yourself in the air, and anticipate hitting the cold river feet first. I was glad I did it, because there's something about launching yourself into space, unattached to anything for that short time, that is fantastically liberating. Having said that, I don't think I'll ever feel the need to do it again. Apart from the windmill impression I did on the way down, there's only so much liberation I can take. After the jumpers have been picked up, and any lost flipflops mourned and bruises admired, we'll head down the river either to stop and swim somewhere, or tie up in the middle and just float for a while. A couple of hours after leaving Willow Beach we'll get to one of a few campsites we've used in the past, and unload all our gear. We'll pitch out tents, stow our gear, some people go off for a hike while others go back out on the river in one or two of the boats, and we generally let the feeling of living in Vegas wash away.

It truly is stunning out there. The red, grey and yellow of the cliffs, rocks and boulders, the blue of the sky and the water, and the occasional vibrant splashes of green along the river bank are gorgeous. The river winds away from you and the sky stretches on forever, and it really makes you stop and think: 'What the hell did the first pioneers think when they got to this river? I can imagine a conversation that went sort of like this. . .

'At last, water! Thank God!'

'We're saved!'

'Uh, guys. . .'

'Who said this land was barren and inhospitable? We can make this place work!'

'Uh, guys. . .'

'What is it?'

'How are we going to get across?'

'Oh. Bugger.'

Okay, so that didn't happen because the river followed a different path before the Hoover Dam was built. But hiking through the desert out there you have to think about the courage, perseverance, and sheer bloody-mindedness that made us as a species feel the need to explore, to find out what lays over the next ridge, what we're going to see around the river bend. Scrambling over rocks, avoiding wizened cactii and keeping an eye out for snakes, it's not really something you should do alone, but it draws you on. One more ridge. I'll just see what's down this gulley. There's shade up there big enough for me to sit down in for ten minutes. And eventually the river is a small blue reflection of sky in the distance. It's peaceful, calming, and bloody hot. In the middle of nowhere, being alone with yourself and your thoughts, well if you can't work out who you are out there then you'll probably never know.  And if the desert in daylight opens your mind, night time cuts the top off your head. The surrounding hills disappear, the river turns black, and the sky looks down at you with what seems like an infiinte number of tiny eyes. If the desert can draw me in, make me want to go further, see what comes next, then how do you think I feel about the stars? A billion stars with a billion stories, and I want to find out about all of them. I want to spend a million lifetimes seeing what's around the river bend on a galactic scale. Unfortunately I'm not going to live forever, and we don't have the technology to do what I want to do, so for now I'll continue to organize boat trips for myself and my friends as an excuse to get away from it all. I'll find time to get away from everyone for a little bit, to be alone with myself, the hot night air, and my billions of stars.

Writing

so like I talked about, I've been doing some writing during my blog hiatus. And the more I do it, the more I want to do it. I've finished two short stories (which brings my total up to 4 finished), there's four more I'm working on. . .although when I say working on that's not really true. There's one I'm working on, hoping to finish in the next few days, and three I started about nine months ago and haven't looked at in eight months. But I completely intend to finish all four of them in the mext month or two, so I can pay more attention to the two screenplays I'm attempting. And then there's the book. Always the book. It's such a great idea (not that I'm blowing my own horn or anything) that I'm not going to let it go, I just don't have the time to do the research I need for it to work well. But one day. . .

One of my favourite authors, Terry Pratchett, said 'Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.' I understand what he means. The enjoyment I've found when I finally finish something is definitely worth the frustration that can come when you're trying to get thoughts out of your head and down on paper or screen. Writing is a bit like magic, in that you can appear to produce something out of thin air. And like magic, the trick is to get people to believe you. When you're writing, you get to play a god. You can conjure people, events, whole worlds out of nothing, you can arbitrarily build people and empires up and tear them down again to nothing.

So the more I write the more I want to write, hence starting a blog again. There are so many things I want to talk about, write about, that there isn't enough room in the stories I've been writing. I can't write a short story about space travel, and add a paragraph like 'incidentally, I can't believe that it took this long for Hal Turner to get arrested. . .' it just doesn't fit. So I'm not going to stick to one theme in this blog, because why limit myself? I've been writing historical fiction, science fiction, screenplays, stage plays, short stories and long, and all about different things. I don't want to become a John Grisham. So be ready for anything that's on my mind.

Oh, and I have a tendency to drunk-blog. It's a little safer than drunk texting. Sort of. Maybe not. Drunk texting is probably going to only go to one person, whereas drunk blogging can, in theory, go out to the whole world. Cos everyone really cares what everyone else has to say.