So here I am...

I don't know what to say, but I feel like I should say something.  Should say it in writing.  Should say it here.  I'm not exactly where I thought I would be post-graduation; Its been a while since I've had any manic, floor-pacing drives to write anything; and I just saw a commercial for Guinness Blonde Ale.  Nothing is what it used to be, or supposed to be.  I'm not what I'm supposed to be.  I've gone astray somehow and some part of me tells me that doing this might help me get back on track.

I won't talk about family too much.  Every time I do I get the same lecture from people.  Things aren't what they used to be, or should be, with them either.  I can't shake the feeling that I'm responsible for that to some degree.  (Save it, I don't want to hear it.)  What's worse is I'm powerless to do anything about it now.  (Yeah, save that one too.)  That is my foremost concern.  Its on my mind pretty much constantly.

I met someone.  I was content to some degree.  In the end I don't think I was as into it as she was, which is why when I started getting chest pains and headaches and long walks to avoid explosion (which is a pretty good route towards implosion actually) I decided that it wasn't worth continuing.  And then I thought "This is the most horrible thing you've ever done in your life".  I thought "the least you could do is to try and make it work".  Then I changed my email password.  Because its my email password and I thought I could do that.  I got a call at seven in the morning that felt like an interrogation, like a scolding, like I had fucked up somehow with how I chose to manage my personal information.  I realized that I had probably done the right thing.  I still wish I had handled it differently.  I still wish I had said "Lets slow down" or "I don't know if I'm ready to get THAT serious".  I wish that when she'd told me not to settle, or that we shouldn't be together because she wasn't my type or I couldn't handle someone lie her or that we came from different worlds or any of the many other outs that she gave me...that I'd listened.  I wish that I wasn't so proud.  I wish I wasn't so influenced by shame now.  She was a great friend.  I wish I could be a better friend to her.  I owe her so much and I'll never be able to completely repay her.  I wish i could at least try.  I'm sorry at how that ended up.

I'm sorry.

I'm sad and I'm tired.  Tomorrow I'll try writing.  If not creating something, then reaching out to people.  If I could just get back to where i was then maybe things can be what they were supposed to be.

New Year, new new things

A new year has started.  A new month a new semester, brand new everything.  And I am in a completely new place.  Gone are the gripes of yesteryear and all those previous blog posts.  I have none of that to co,plain about anymore. Now there are brand new gripes such as: being unemployed, new and strange cultures, same old cultures, and many more.  Honestly though life is...smoother.  Which isn't to say that student life is easy.  Its a brand new set of difficulties.  And of course my own personal hang ups.  But we'll sort that all out as we go along, won't we?  And I guess that attitude, and the freedom to actually hold that attitude is what's keeping me sane lately.  I've also been doing a lot of thinking and developing my own mini philosophies.  Among a great many other things, the new me is greatly concerned with School and focus, fashion and personal style, and (of course) expanding upon the adoption of RISK!


(Did you like how I did that, by the way?  See, its still an informal blog, but with a thesis statement and subtopics.  I find it useful since I tend to meander a lot as I'm typing these things.)


My education and the focus I devote to it are really important to me right now.  It took a lot for me to come here.  A lot from myself and a lot from those supporting me.  My first semester I managed to pay off mostly on my own thanks to the generosity of my previous employers.  I suppose I also earned that generosity after suddenly growing a pair after six yeas, even though I started dying a little inside each year since about 2007.  At that point it was the longest I'd ever held a job, and I thought that staying in one place was the proper, adult thing to do.  It might have been but that wasn't the kind of adult I wanted to be.  I was basically working for the weekends when I could cut loose and be myself, and for the free stationary and print and copy services that I could use for my other projects.  My other projects being the poetry, short story, art, and cultural events and publications that I really should have been doing in the first place.  No one ever told me that a job is the thing you do on the way to building your career.  Or perhaps they had told me and I'd simply forgotten.  Regular paychecks tend to do that.  


But I did grow a pair.  Yes, it was either that or lose my mind completely; I realized that when the times I left from work and started driving down the highway considering whether I should fake my death and run away or actually make it a real death became an almost daily activity.  But that's not the point.  I'm here.  I left.  And after beating myself about it for an entire semester, still wondering whether or not I was doing the right thing, I've come to accept that the investment has been too great to squander.  I am still me.  I am still loved by those who I love.  (Long distant texts, calls, emails and care packages prove this)  I do still hold a certain level of celebrity somewhere (google me sometime).  And most importantly I am indeed doing what I'm meant to be doing.  There's no need for external evidence in this case.  I feel it.  I feel it every time I sit in a class and am overcome with exhilaration just from being there.  I feel it when I look around and everyone seems to be struggling with what feels like leisure to me.  I even feel it when I'm the only one guffawing loudly in a class because I'm the only one actually paying attention.  This doesn't mean I get to relax.  No, quite the opposite.  I have to excel in this case.  I have to be the one that the lecturers and professors remember.  I'm learning, yes.  But I'm also networking.  This is going to be my career at some point.   Somehow.  Haven't quite figured that bit out yet.


I've also become a bit concerned with my own personal style and sense of fashion.  Being here hasn't just changed the way I feel about myself, its also changed how I look.  Though you probably won't be able to tell after the Christmas break, I've lost a lot of weight.  I'm swimming in my clothes once again.  My t-shirts fit me like clothe sacks.  On windy days I feel like I'm wearing a spinnaker. (I'd like to go sailing someday).  My pants are even more ridiculous.  I don't even unzip or unbutton them anymore to get them on or off.  And if I want them to stay where I put them, I have to put them just under my ribs.  I'm also 28 years old.  A fact which makes me cringe every time I think of it.  I shouldn't be dressed like a hip-hop video reject.  I'm not a wannabe thug.  I don't think I ever have been. Not seriously at least. (GCG fo life tho!)  

As I was thinking about this, wandering around Manhattan this holiday, I realized that the way I dress says so much about who I am that I really aught to take a more active role in it.  I should be projecting my personal image of myself; the me I want to be.  Even if I don't believe I am that person yet, I should be taking steps in that direction.  What type of man is that, you ask?  Well, a writer and a thinker for one thing.  A carefully put together wardrobe should indicate that quite nicely, I think. Luckily I already started with the glasses.  I didn't know what I wanted at first, but I did know I didn't want any brand name markings that were readily visible.  That's one of the first points.  I am myself.  I'm not Nike or Playboy.  I refuse to be a walking billboard.  I refuse to be a swoosh.  I still like Adidas stripes though.  That'll be a struggle to overcome. The point is, no more branding that isn't my own.  I may make a few t-shirts in the future.  Make celebrities out of the people I choose to honor.  And Milner shirts are definitely in.  Even if its not shared by everyone, my opinion of what I see as the Milnerite ideal is still pretty great.  I'll get the whole collection and wear the MH proudly.  The rest is really too long to go through without a very long explanation.  I'll probably save that for another post.  Several other posts.  I'll save that for a publication of some sort.  The point is...no more spinnakers.  No more clothes that don't fit.  I'm not trying to be a gangsta.  I'm not so insecure as to try and make myself look like something I'm quite obviously not.  And definitely no hoodies.  This is the year of the button downs; the boat shoes, and on special occasions, the blazer & graphic tee.


My motto of RISK! isn't exactly a new thing, but I've been putting new thought into it.  Last year, it came to me without me even knowing what it was.  That New year celebration filled with drunken fireworks and friends and frightening displays of spontaneity (I really did think of the party at the same time that I put the ham in the oven that day) filled me with a feeling that I would carry with me for the rest of the year.  I stared at the scraps of red firecracker wrappers and shattered pieces of newsprint that replaced the topsoil in my backyard all day as I tried to put a name to the feeling.  It was my cousin Delsia who gave it to me in one of our conversations that displayed how frighteningly similar we are.  We'd been thinking the same thing at the same time, and it took us coming together to figure out what that something was.  "RISK!" she said.  "That'll be our secret word for this year."  RISK! in all caps, with the exclamation mark.  Not a noun, it wasn't just a thing.  Not an adjective to describe the things.  It was a verb.  And the explanation made it a demand.  A challenge.  No point sitting around waiting for something wonderful to happen.  RISK!  Take the chance.  Make it happen.  Of course now that I've made it happen, I don't think I ought to stop.  

There are things that scare me.  There are things that I'm afraid of.  Failure is chief among them, but there's also embarrassment.  Ostracism.  But these are all things that I learn from.  Failure is important to the learning process.  If I don't know when I'm wrong, how can I ever be right?  Embarrassment?  Well, that's just pointless.  If I'm being myself; my wonderful, corny, overly sentimental self, then there's really nothing to be embarrassed about, is there?  Somewhere out there beautiful women smile wide at my corniness.  Somewhere out there a troupe of cocksure men want to hug their brother and talk about the last movie they cried to. I'm 28 years old.  I've found my place.  It was hard to get to, but I've found that place where I belong.  I'm all out of embarrassment.  I am also away from that place, and I have been before.  I can always go back there.  Its always waiting and sometimes I carry a bit of it with me.  I am an outcast everywhere I am.  There's nothing to fear there either. But more than that, fear itself keeps me from living.  I am a writer, and inspiration comes from life; from living and observing.  I can't afford to have anything get in the way of that.

So lets see where this all takes us, shall we?  I have a feeling its going to be a good year and that at the end of it I'll be closer to who I want to be.  I'll be that unparalleled scholar, not only gaining knowledge but applying it daily.  I'll be identifiable to myself and others, and a whole lot more confident in my own clothes.  And I'll be prepared to take greater risks, and that will make life so much more...more.  Its going to be a good year, even if its going to be the last.   

I'm happy with my penis size and yet....

One of my recent personal deveopments since coming to UWI is that hI've begun to see themes everywhere.  Literary themes pop up in real life, in small talk and apparently random behavior.  Everything has a subtext now.  Everything has a socio-political impact.  Especially the proliferation of KFC and the lack of natural, unsweetened chocolate on store shelves.  Normally I'd say I was losing it.  I'm just reading too much into things.  But then, I've been beaten over the head with the idea that if I see it, and I can prove it, then its there.  If you perceive it, then it exists.  I have yet to figure out where that leaves room for illusion, or possibly even delusion.  For the time being, Im a little more concerned with actively addressing the things I've been seeing.

One of these themes is Manhood.  Not adulthood, mind you.  Not male homosapiens of reproductive age.  No, I've been thinking about manhood and masculinity.  Luckily there's a gender studies course on that next semester that I can take as an elective.  In the meantime though, my mind is racing.  I don't know if I can wait that long.  Take, for instance, that thing that just happened in KFC.  That was definitely a threat, right?  Definitely a chest-beating, dick measuring contest, right?  Oh, right.  You weren't there.  Let me break it down for you.

So we're in the food court by KFC.  I'd just had a horrible day of splitting my attention in two different directions and producing mediocre work for both, so as punishment I decided to get a snack-pack.  There I met Scott.  Scott's a pretty cool guy.  He's not a guy's guy by any measure.  He's long and gangly, as if he liked puberty so much he just stuck with it into adolescence.  This doesn't make him bad looking though.  I'm sure some young lady who sincerely values a man with a sense of humor would gladly take strangely angled pictures with their foreheads touching so they can both put on facebook someday.  Scott is in my Drama class, and my Intro to Prose class.  Scott's also in the Intro to Poetry class which I won't be taking until next semester.  Still, with all that reading and writing, Scott is never without a smile or a joke.  In other words, Scott's my kind of people. 

Scott tells me that he's waiting for Gabby, Chelsea, and Nick, who are all also lit majors and classmates of mine.  Since arriving here they are the only Trinis that I don't have to actually try to have fun with in order to have fun with.  Once again, these are my people.  And so, as a matter of course, I decide to wait for the others to arrive.  When they do, we start doing our strange combination of discussing academics along side what we'd call madarass back home.  Both of which I enjoy thoroughly.  Enter, then, The Fellow from North.  Of course he's wearing his traditional Fellow from North garb, a zip up hoody, even though we're in the tropics and coming toward the end of the wet season.  Of course he has the usual north baring.  All they do on north is practice that baring.  Lifting weights and practicing how to fix their jaws and look at people out of the corners of their eyes in the mirror.  No, no.  I'm already letting my personal attitude color this story.  Lets stick to the facts.

Here are the facts: Fellow from north enters.  Fellow from north sees me.  I nod hello.  He may have nodded, but I didn't see one.  Fello from north sees Scott.  Scott does not nod hello.  Scott does not know the fellow from north.  Fellow from North sees Gabby.  Gabby smiles.  Fellow from north walks around the table and sits awfully close to gabby.  Fellow from north drapes a hand over her.  Fellow from north proceeds to flirt openly.  Fellow from north tickles Gabby.  Gabby laughs.  Gabby says 'Please don't do that' and proceeds to explain why.  Mid-explanation, fellow from north tickles her again.  Gabby Laughs.  Gabby says stop.  Fellow from north Tickles Gabby again, thereby initialling a mini wrestling match between the two.  Scott looks at me as if to say 'Is this really happening?'  I look at Scott as if to say 'Yes, this is definitely happening.'  Fellow from north says 'Oh, hey fellas.'  Fella from north walks away.  We've all forgotten what we were talking about when the Fellow from North entered.

To return to my initial question: Was it just me or was that kind of fucked up?  There are certain things that might color my perception of it, of course.  Maybe I'm just not threatened by Scott, but am clearly threatened by The Man From North.  Maybe the Man From North didn't have to do a single thing except be present in order for me to resent him somehow.  Maybe if they did it to Chelsea I wouldn't mind, but because I've taken a bit of a shine to Gabby, I'm feeling territorial. 

From my end the message is clear.  The fellow sat down and basically said, "both of you men are not real men.  Look at what I can do.  I can force her to laugh.  She says no, but because I'm doing it she likes it.  See the way we're touching now?  See the way whatever you boys were talking about no longer matters?  Goodbye losers."  Of course I'm left with the usual question of 'Did that really just happen or am I reading too much into it?"  I'm also left with the realization that I would never do such a thing.  There lies the path of Douchebags.  And then, I think...Douchebags get laid.  So maybe I should be more of a douchebag.  Maybe my lack of douchebaggery represents a direct correlation to my limited number of sexual partners.  I tell myself that its all a matter of quality over quantity.  That if we count by number of instances rather than partners, then I'm right up there with my contemporaries; and that if we count by successful female orgasms, I'm way ahead of the crowd.  A part of me doesn't buy that though.  A part of me wants to have sex with everyone I want to have sex with.  A part of me thinks that each beautiful memorable moment is perpetually overshadowed by the ones that didn't happen.  A part of me wants to know what its like to be a douchebag, and in fact, wonders if that isn't actually the ideal.

And if that is masculinity, then what the fuck am I?

The Real New Year

Knowing myself, I've only got a short while, so lets be quick here.  Lets make a promise, you and I, that this week will not be last week.  Look, the sun is shining!  The world is bright!  And we are alive!  While we're on top of the world, lets put some real work into staying on top, eh?  C'mon, waddayasay?  And for starters, lets do what everyone has been telling us to do.  No, I don't mean getting pushed around at work, I mean the hippy 'see it, feel it, do it, achieve it!' bullshit they've all been forcing down our throats.  For once, lets not give in to cynicism.  Lets actually act like we believe that shit!  You are an artist!  You are a creative being!  Lets be that first, and a technical button masher second.  You've got stories to finish and collections of poems to complete!  Lets make some progress!  Ooh!  Even better, lets make some submissions!  Nothing like the approval of others coupled with wider exposure!  Yeah, we'll be on top for a loooong while this time!

That's my pep talk to myself.  From myself.  You, dear reader, should try having one too.  I promised you more Eulogy and I swear its on its way.  A couple other projects I wanna try and do too.  Other than that, just saying hi.  I'm still out here.  Still pluggin' away.

Eulogy Time - 2011

I just realized today, upon flipping through my journal and scrolling through my flash drive, that its Eulogy Time!  Yes, that special time of year when I put this year's journal to rest, but only after thoroughly rifling through the pages for any tiny little literary tidbits, even the embarrassing, the bad, and the unavoidable incomplete entries.  As per usual I'll be posting these up on Eulogy for a Journal, since that's what that blog is actually for, and they'll all serve as good creative fodder for...erm...at least half of the year.

Also, I find myself in a predicament.  There are a handful of blank pages in last year's journal, which is nice, but will soon be used up by some half-formed idea already lurking in the back of my mind.  And when it does, I don't know what I'll do since, for the first time in four years, I don't already have a journal all lined up!  Time was I'd go out and get a rinky-dink little something and stick it in my faux-leather book cover,  but I've gone and spoiled myself!  After countless (2) Moleskines and the absolutely gorgeous 'Lincoln: Fragment of a Speech' PaperBlanks journal of last year, not just any old thing will do.

Hmm, here's an idea.  Why don't you buy me a journal, dear reader?  Not something expensive, mind you.  Just something you'll look at and think 'Hmm...I'd like to write in that.'  Anything that jumps out at you.  If you're so inclined and you want to mail something like that to me, shoot me an email.  I'll let you know where to send the mail bomb package.

The Sky is Still Blue

If you read through this blog, over most of the entries going back a year, two years, more, you might get the impression that I'm a terminally sad, angry, morose fucker.   I mean, just look at the labels list.  Other than the catchall label of 'emotion' and the nearly the omnipresent honesty (And Merri) there's mostly labels like fear, shame, loneliness, risk, and of course 'the last thing that made you cry' (Though, that's really not as depressing as it sounds.  Honest.)  I realized that this is because when I'm happy, I'm not writing.  At least not here.  When I'm happy I'm either too busy actually enjoying life, or even too busy with other writing, to come up with anything I feel I need to share here.  This is bad therapy.  Especially since, for those that actually read this blog, I'm not only sharing events, but emotional weight tied to those events.  (See, emotions already)  It can be a pretty heavy load for me to bare on my own, and that's why I share it with you all, but where does that leave you?  Its been selfish of me not to think of this until now, and I'm heartily ashamed (Shame.  Right there.)   As a way of apologizing, allow me to tell you about a pretty damn good Sunday.  One in which I was happy!

In order to understand this Sunday, I have to start from Saturday night.  This, I think is what really set my Sunday into gear.   I don't usually like going Cabana, but it probably is Belmopan's only place for late night entertainment.  And this night, for a change, I only had to pay 15 bucks to go in and pay again for over-priced drinks, an acceptable discount from their usual twenty dollar door charge.  And once inside, there would be no wandering around, tapping your feet under a table to whatever stale musical selection the bartenders wanted to hear.  There were guest DJ's there.  Entertaining ones too!  With fresh music, some of which I hadn't even heard before. (Side Note: I don't get what the big deal is about that 'In my Cup' song, but whatever!) There were also friends there, already assembled.   Friends that knew one another and knew me!  Friends that had no problem sitting at one big table together, so that I wouldn't have to play that tiresome game of wandering from one segregated, non communicative clique to the other.  I even danced a little.  With other people.  Of the opposite sex.  And then, when Saturday Night started turning into Sunday Morning, I danced a lot.  By my self.

Here's one last interesting highlight from Saturday Night.  The Intern asked me if She was my girlfriend.  Now, this is the same intern who, just a day before, stood at my office door asking me a question.  And as the air around her wafted toward me, the scent of her struck my senses afire!  My heart was racing and behind my eyes but before my brain I could only see myself grasping her in my arms and tugging aside the bothersome fabric of her clothes to root out the source of that sent on her flesh, where I would set lips to kissing and tongue to tasting.  A moment later she was out of sight, and after that, the smell had gone, and so had the urge to ravage her.  She is a beautiful creature, and dangerously so.

We are also talking about Her, who I've repeatedly had similar compulsions toward, but based more frequently on the things she said and the way she angled her supple limbs.  This, however is balanced by our miscommunications and my more frequent lack of communication.  And, sometimes, its overridden completely by the occasional realization that we're not as compatible as we want one another the be (because, by now, I'm certain the feeling is mutual.) 

Now, I'm not gonna lie and say she is something that she isn't.  At the same time I didn't want to give the impression that I was only saying no just because the intern was asking, which is exactly what i did when I hesitated before saying no.  Why did I hesitate?  I honestly can't tell you.  Though...perhaps the inquirer and subject have something to do with it.  Or my mind was clouded once again by the smell of her.

The night was extraordinary in that nothing really happened.  I didn't get too drunk, and I wasn't sober enough to sense any great disappointment at being shot down several times that night.  It was the ideal Caribbean Night out:  Good Rum, Good Company, Good Music.  In the theater of my mind, that's just the way it ends too, the lights dim on the scene of close to a hundred people swaying, and grinding, and jumping, balancing perfectly their multicolored drinks, and continuing that way until the curtains close.

The next day I woke up at ten.  Six hours sleep and a clear head, I started on breakfast, but didn't actually finish it until almost twelve.  By then  I'd already showered twice, and walked the dog.  All this stuff is secondary, of course.  B-roll stuff.  If the club scene from the night before was the ultimate fade out, then the ultimate fade in would have been a blue sky peeking out between green and brown branches, and the sound of cicadas singing in the heat, coupled with distant laughter.  The only trouble with movies and plays is that they lack the fully emmersive sensations.  I think that if more people managed to spend a few hours every weekend floating on their backs in pristine rivers and creeks, letting the water wash over their entire bodies, then we wouldn't be so damn cruel to one another. 

Cities.  Cities cause cancer.  And stomach ulcers.  And strokes and heart attacks before the age of fifty.  I was once asked, if I could choose the moment i died, what would it be.  My Sunday afternoon is exactly what I chose.   Soaking in cool water on a hot day, staring up at the beauty of creation, and feeling...happy.   What a blessing it is to have the privilege of choosing to become lost in the wilderness upon occasion.