Preparation

I've been doing this all wrong. I keep thinking about the things I'm doing, and how they're a means to an end, a path to take to go where I want to go, but that's not the case. I used to know that, but somewhere along the way I forgot.

Working on ships, it used to piss me off no end when people sad 'what happens on ships stays on ships,' and claim that it wasn't real life out there. I always refused to take that point of view, because if you're spending nine bloody months out there, that's a good chunk of life that I'm not ready to write off. Admittedly, a lot of the shit you can get up to seems surreal, like you're living someone else's life. You can cram a lot of experiences into a short time on a ship, and looking back it sometimes doesn't seem real, but you can't qualify a part of life as not real. I used to know that.

Well, I'm getting back onto that train of thought. The past couple of years, I've been talking about becoming a writer. I've talked about leaving Las Vegas. I've talked about living on a sailboat. I've talked about travelling more. And the whole time, it's as though I've been waiting for something. I've been preparing for when I'm a writer. I've been getting ready for when I live on a sailboat. And I need to stop doing that.

I'll leave Vegas one day. I'll do all the things I talk about, because, hell, I'll never live it down if I don't. I expect each and every one of you to give me a full serving of shit if I fall short in anything I intend to do. But I've been bumming around thinking that what I'm doing right now is preparation, and doesn't really count. I got a cheap sailboat, not because I like the boat, but because I'm getting ready, learning all I can, for the day I can finally move aboard a bigger one, and cast off. I'm preparing for the future by doing this now. But when you keep doing that, you forget that now is part of your life too. None of us get enough time to live, and if you spend too much time looking ahead, you miss chunks. So the boat, the writing and editing I'm doing that is preparing me to be an author, sure, it's all preparation. But I'm enjoying it. I'm already doing things that a lot of people never do. And while I'm doing them with the express intention of moving on to bigger and better things, I'm going to try not to lose sight of the fact that I'm a third of the way through the final edit of my first novel, which already makes me a writer. I'm spending weekends out at the marina, working on the 23' Ranger sailboat that's mine, which already makes me a sailor. The preparation for what I want to become, what I want to do, has already got me there. And I almost didn't notice.

The Beach

The past couple of days I spent time on Catalina Island, and in Laguna Beach. Went out there with a friend from work to do some SCUBA diving, and generally relax. Our third dive was on Thursday, and afterwards we sat on the beach in Laguna and waited while our dive master went back in to find one of his integrated weights that had slipped out during the dive. It gave me enough time to get sunburned, and do a little bit of thinking.

The last time I did a similar trip was five years ago. I'd been in Vegas just over a year, and a friend of mine from ships came down for the diving and relaxing. We had a bit of a history. I'd met her on ships, and at the time she wasn't interested because my contract would be up soon. But I left the ship, and we kept in touch by letter (she was on the cruise line's private island, sans internet or phone). We found out we actually did like each other. Quite a bit.

We visited each other a few times, and the relationship she hadn't allowed to happen while we were living and working in the same place did happen, after a fashion, when time and distance allowed. The last time was in California, diving and relaxing in Catalina and Laguna. I drove out with her after work, slept in the car, caught the first ferry and dove all day, then went back to the mainland. Crashed with a friend of hers, then spent the next day wandering around Laguna, doing coupley things. I bought a couple of shirts that she said looked hot on me. I still have them, although time won't allow me to wear one of them any more. I keep it in the hopes that one day someone else will say it looks hot on me. I'm not holding my breath. . .except for when I put that shirt on.

My mind wasn't in the right place at the time. I couldn't give her what she needed or wanted, and I didn't know what I wanted. But a lot has changed in the past five years, both with me and with her. I wouldn't say I exactly know what I want, but I do know what I'm open for now. Back then I'd just bought a condo, and had a five year plan. Now I'm beginning short sale procedures, and I have a different five year plan. Back then she came down to see if things might work between us. Now, she just gave birth to her second child. I actually went to her wedding, and have a terrible feeling that I didn't send her the disc of photos I took.

I posted a few pictures on the social networking site that I will not name, for fear that their privacy policy changes again and any mention of them entitles them to take ownership of any content on said page. But I posted a picture of Avalon Harbour, and she commented on it. So Jealous. I don't take this to mean that she would trade places with me, or she's unhappy in her life-- far from it, she's got two great kids and a bloke who looks after her well. But if she's jealous of my being in Catalina, am I jealous of her having a happy family life?

Juries still out on that one. Had things happened differently, would we have the happy family life and have been in Catalina together this past week? That sort of question's just not worth asking, again cos of crazy. I've lived countless lifetimes in my mind, some with her, some with others I've loved, and some with people I barely know. I've been single for six years, and in that time I've been married a thousand times, had hundreds of children, and been mourned by all those wives and family members. Scary, huh?

But I've been thinking that maybe it's the imagination I'm relying on to help me have a career as an author that's screwing me up in my personal life. If I'm living all those lifetimes in my mind, creating possible and potential scenarios, and thinking too much about what to say or do instead of just letting things happen, I'm stopping myself from actually living. One life lived is better than thousands imagined. So from now on I'm going to stop. The lives I imagine won't be for myself, they'll be for my characters. I won't think about the woulda shoulda couldas. I'll focus on what's going to happen next, and I won't be scared by it any more.

obsession

I have a healthy tendency to obsess about things. I say it's healthy, because it's how I've manages to get where I am today. I obsessed about working on cruise ships while I was in University, and two months after graduation I signed on for my first contract. I then obsessed about working for Cirque Du Soleil, and two years later I moved to Las Vegas and started working at New York New York. I've become obsessed with being a writer, earning a living doing it, and I'm chipping away at that too with novels and screenplays and short stories underway. And now I have a new obsession. It's been about a week now, and it probably has a little to do with watching the DVD of my 24th birthday last week, and some of what's going on financially in my world right now (that's a whole 'nother blog). But basically, I've become fixated on living on a boat. My own yacht. Nothing too guady or ostentatious, but no floating bathtub either.

It just sounds ideal for where I am in my life right now, or rather in a couple of years once I have a writing income. I know that's assuming a lot, but if I don't aim for it then I won't get there. But living in Vegas for over six years, I feel a little trapped. I'm trapped by the mountains that ring us on all sides, and the dirty ceiling of smog. There's still too much for me to go and see and do in the world, and living a 5 work-days-a-week isn't cutting it for me. I want to sail through the islands of Puget Sound and catch my salmon for to grill. I want to sail back through the Panama Canal, and actually set foot in South America rather than be yards away and still not there. I want to go to Galapagos and dive with the schooling scalloped hammerheads. And I want to do it all on my terms, in my time.

And it's the perfect time for me. I'm young enough that it still seems like a great idea. I'm also young enough to be able to forgo some of the things we take for granted in our daily lives, rough it a bit. I'm single, with emotional attachments that would for sure be tested with prolonged absences, but that's been the story of my life so far and those friendships I still have are all the better for it. I'm old enough that I won't just jump into it without doing the proper research and preparation. I'm old enough to know that it's not as glamorous as most people might think. And I'm old enough that I've done a lot of things that were goals as I was growing up, so I'm in search of new goals.

My opaternal grandfather was a fisherman, and my matyernal great-grandfather was a fisherman. Or maybe great-great, I'm not a hundred percent on that. My father was in the British Merchant Navy after school, and that's partly why I worked on cruise ships, to fulfill some sort of perceived familial obligation. But it's more than that, I realize now. There's something terrifying and fascinating between me and the Ocean. It scares the crap out of me, with its changeable moods and bewitching peace. It's a healthy obsession to have because it's seventy percent of the planet's surface. And wherever you go on it, you're linked to everywhere else.

So I shall live on a boat. I'm giving myself five years to achieve this goal, and I'll definitely be talking about it again as I head towards it. Five years. I'm obsessed.

I've already got a name picked out.

Memory. . .

. . .all alone in the moonlight, I can smile at the old days. . .nah, screw Cats. I was going through the stack of disks that I have in my office. Some are labelled, most are not. There are CD's and DVD's, not all of them play, and it has become my life's work to work out what is on all of them. Half way through one of the piles, I found one labelled 'Amazing Grace, January 2004.'

I don't remember if I've talked about my 24th birthday before on here, so forgive me if I bore you with the details. I was still working on cruise ships at the time, and it was towards the end of my contract on the MS Zuiderdam. That's right, the contract I got put on the corporate blacklist for Holland America Cruise Lines after. Anyway. A group of us, the people I hung out with most during that contract, decided that for my birthday we should rent a sail boat. So as soon as we could, eleven of us got off the ship with a bunch of coolers, and headed to the rental place. Our boat was a 42-foot Catalina 42mkII 3-cabin yacht. Not something you'd take 11 people on for an extended cruise, but for a day it was perfect. Getting away from everyone, disappearing for a few hours where no-one could reach us was perfect. We drank beer and snacked, sunbathed, got naked and splashed about in the water, snorkelled, and stopped caring about the world for a while.

The memories I have from that day are some of my fondest. It's almost definitely my favourite birthday so far, which is funny cos no one does anything special for their twenty-fourth. The disk had a short video of the day on it, so I popped it in my computer to watch. It was exactly how I remember it, with Jurgen narrating over cheesy music he'd added. Alec and TC by the wheel, Katie rapping, Mel sticking out her tongue at the camera. Ben and Audrey, Dom and Jessica.

My memory of the day is better. When I remember the day, I can conjure up how I felt that day, and out myself into the situation better. Watching the video, all I could think of is how many of the people who figured in my favourite birthday have fallen by the wayside. I'm in touch with a few through Facebook, but I'm not close with any of them any more, especially Mel, who I haven't talked to since my twenty-fifth birthday when she randomly called me as though we hadn't been through a completely shitty break-up. I've tried to say hi to Dom and Jessica when I've gone to LA or they've come to Vegas, but there's nothing but silence form them. I couldn't even tell you what became of Ben.

The thing is, none of that matters. Watching the video didn't steal the memory from me, I'm still going to look back on it fondly. I still want to take a vacation one day, three couples on a yacht in the Caribbean for a week. The memories give me dreams, goals, and no matter what happened between us, I'm still grateful to the people who were there for helping build those memories.

It's the same thing with my friends in Portland, Oregon. They aren't the same people I spent a year in Austria with. They aren't the same people who shared stories about their first blowjobs (on a back alley in Florence from a chick called Di 'like the princess' as she told him), or got chased by drunken Frenchmen with (bottle of Jack between the four of us), or walked around one of the most famous sites from antiquity with hangovers with (who knew Delphi had such cheap wine and an awesome dance club? It's in the middle of the mountains!). They've all moved on, and I'm not saying I haven't, but they've all settled down, started families. When I was in Oregon in June I realized it, but they're still with my friends despite the diapers and dribble in their lives. Finding video of friendships I don't really have any more makes me treasure the memory more, because I can't reminisce about the memory with anyone that was there. I can always talk to about head if I wanted to, because we are still friends. Until he reads this, that is. The video and my memory I have of Tortola, where we rented Amazing Grace for the day, will always be how I remember it because there's no one I can talk to who can fill in the gaps I may have developed over time.

So is it the friendship that's important, or the memories? The only answer I have is a cop out. It depends on the friendship, and it depends on the memories. Friends are important at the time to create the memories, but sometimes it's the memories that get you through the droughts.

Gonna.

I'm hoping that history repeats itself. When I was in University, I lived in Kenna Hall. We'd have parties there. But one particular party, I went outside for a breath of fresh air, and took a walk along the bluff. (The University I attended, University of Portland, is situated on a bluff overlooking the docks in Portland) I walked out there, in a mildly alcoholic haze, watching the lights below me and just able to hear the sounds of machinery as the kept working late into the night. The activity was almost all focused on a cruise ship in dry dock. I made up my mind there and then that I would work on a cruise ship when I graduated. I went back to the party, and started telling people that I was going to work on ships. I thought about doing it for a summer or two, but going to Salzburg for a year got in the way of doing that, so it would have to wait until after graduation. But for three years, I told people I was going to work on cruise ships.

I joined my first ship in July of 2001, six weeks after graduation, and worked on them for almost 3 years.

While working on ships I learned Automation. That is to say, I got taught the order in which to push buttons on an Automation console, which is what passed for training. The learning happened later, when things broke and I had to pull some sort of show out of my arse using a couple of joysticks and no variable speed, or overnight phone calls to London from the middle of the Pacific Ocean to troubleshoot problems. When contractors were sent out for jobs that were too big to do on the ship, or we went into dry dock ourselves, I tried to pick their brains and learn more about the systems (and generally realized that they were bluffing as much or more than I was). It was my first contract, before I learned Automation, that I learned about Cirque Du Soleil, from an Argentinian guy I worked with, Jeronimo. He talked about the shows they put on and the equipment they got to use, so I decided, like him, that I would work for them some day and started telling people this.

I started at Zumanity 10th June, 2004. (And Jero went on to get a job with them on tour).

So now, I'm going to be a writer. I've been telling people that for about two years. I'm not sure when I went from just writing for the hell of it to deciding I want to make a living doing it, but I did, and I do, so I will. I know everyone keeps saying it's hard to get into it, it's hard to make a living at it, but I've been successful so far when I've put myself out there by saying 'this is what I'm going to do.' There's no point in aiming to have just one thing published, make enough for a week long vacation in the Azores and then going back to your regular life. Sod that. I'm going to make a living as a writer.

Now maybe I should start making other statements of intent, if that's the right phrase. Statements of desire? Statements of . . .of the future? I intend to be a writer, I desire to be a writer, I shall be a writer? Well, whatever statements I'm making, I'm also going to start saying I will get in shape, I will travel more, I will make it to space one day.

There, I've said it, so now it's going to happen. I'm just not going to lie back and wait for any of it, I'm going to work for it. Now.

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.