Went sailing and exploring this weekend with my friend the Guatemalan. She’s been here for about 10 days now, just settling in. The situation is a little weird: she advertised herself as available to crew on a few crew-placement sites, and had plenty of replies. She picked out the best-sounding respondant, and after a few weeks of emailing, showed up here to join on as cruising crew.
Coincidentaly, the fellow whose boat she joined is a local yacht broker whom i happen to have some contact with here around the boatyard. So, as it turns out, it’s more a case of “living on a boat at a mooring” than “cruising around the Caribbean”. The Guatemalan was looking for a bit more adventure; now she’s stuck on this boat with the both the broker’s misguided ardour as well as his teenage son.
This past weekend, we all went sailing. Normally, i wouldn’t have had much interest in sailing with the broker, but the Guatemalan was insistant; as much to enjoy my own company as to help keep the broker at bay. The sailing was okay, and i finally got to explore The Baths and Estatia Sound over on Virgin Gorda, but for most of the time she and i felt that we would rather have had better company than the socially-graceless father and son (and coming from me, “socially-graceless” is fairly damning).
The whole situation is an interesting one, that i will have to follow closely. Of course, i’ve offered the Guatemalan sanctuary if things get too weird on the boat. The broker doesn’t seem like a jerk, but still, he ought to have noticed by know how uncomfortable he makes her feel with his calling her “my princess” or “baby”, and finding excuses to touch her; it’s like he’s trying to come off as a casual, humourous, affectionate, and friendly fellow, but ending up being just plain slimy. It’s not really his intentions i doubt, just his manner.
If you go to any of the crewing websites out there, such as 7Knots or Floatplan, you end up seeing that the great majority of the “crew-wanted” ads read like singles ads; “…50-ish male skipper seeks adventuresome 20’s-30’s female first mate for extended cruising…”. Frankly, i think it’s pretty pathetic. Naturally, energetic, charismatic, beautiful young women like the Guatemalan have no problem finding hordes of guys who want to get her alone out on a boat, especially as she has a modicum of experience and doesn’t get seasick. She’s smart, assertive, and has her pepper-spray, but i’m still left wondering if she’ll be able to find a berth where she can really relax and enjoy herself. Right in her berth-wanted ad she abrubptly states “I’m not looking for a lover.”… Isn’t it ridiculous that she should even have to say so?
November 7, 2005
berth wanted, no lovers please.
October 20, 2005
“happy where you are”, or “the joy of here and now”, or “stop whining”.
i’m sick of the fence mentality. if it seems greener on the other side, it’s likely because you’ve stomped it into a muddy morass on this side.
It bums me out when i hear from folks: “Oh, it’s so great here, and i’m doing so well, and a few things are off, but they’ll only get better…”, then awhile later it’s, “Yeah, this scene is totally played out, i gotta get outta here, maybe back to where i was before…”. Stop it! i don’t even want to hear how happy you are if you’re just going to feel shitty about it a few months down the road.
Truth: No matter where you go, there you are. Scenery changes nothing. Other people can inspire, but they change nothing. You can’t have it both ways, but you can have it every way; expecting anything better than what you have is denying the greatness of the simple things. The air is good. The water is clean. Feel immense gratitude that you’re not one of 70,000+ rotting corpses in Pakistan. Feel immense gratitude that you didn’t just lose it all in a hurricane.
Hey you, the rest of the first-world elite: look in the mirror and just try to slap the hypocracy off your own face. You, the person who advocates “Kill Your TV!”, yet bemoans the cancellation of a favourite show. You, the person who’s “always broke”, but lives in Western Europe, or North America. And you, the person with the freedom to go anywhere, do anything, and yet always feels bored by it all.
i won the lottery the day i was born. Does that mean i should stop trying? Hell no. Should i complain when i hit those stumbling blocks? Hell no.
My friend Mose Malone here is 77 years old. He can barely walk these days. In his 40’s, he was totally paralyzed from the neck down in a workplace accident. He lived in a hospital bed for 4 years. 20 years of physical therapy later, and here he is, driving out to West end to visit, hobbling over from the car to sit with us under tha palms. When he asks me, “Bruthah! ‘ow you bin doin’ dis beautiful day?”, well fuck, i can’t much complain, can i? Actually, if i had anything to complain about, it’s gone, right then and there.
i guess those people are my heroes; the ones who remain positive and joyful in the face of adversity, and the people who got out there and ‘did it’, without first knowing how it would work out. And the people who avoided all the fences, and found the boundless fields…
October 17, 2005
mind over mind
Another blogger i check from time to time wrote some lines about the connection of sense and memory, and i sent along a reccomendation for Diane Ackerman’s great book, “A Natural History of The Senses“; essentially a collection of essays on sense and sensiality. My favourite passages from that book were the bits of scent and memory, and on synthaesthia. My first indroduction to synthaesthsia was via an episode of CBC Radio’s “Ideas”, and it came to influence some of my own writing ideas. i don’t suppose that i exhibit much synthaesthia myself, although i’ve noted some sense/perception issues that are probably more linked to AS than anything else. For instance, most numbers evoke a definate character or sex in my mind; 1 is young and neuter, 2 is an adolescent female, 3 is a male baby, 4 is a young teenage boy, 5 is a middle-aged housewife, 6 is a conservative 50-ish male, 7 is a outgoing late-teen young woman, 8 is a quite late-20’s woman, 9 is a robust late 40’s gentleman, 10 is a bookish male college student, 11 is a an early-30’s woman, and 12 is a 70’s matriarchal grandmother. Numbers beyond 12 start to get muddled; some show characters of their own, while others are composites of their digits. If i look over a string of single digits, relationships often arise; typically, 2, 3, 4 and 7 are the children of 5 and 6, while 7 and 8 are friends, or at least aquaintances. With no effort, a telephone number becomes a row of people standing together. As far back as i can remember, these numbers have had the same sex and character in my mind, and i have no idea where it comes from. Curiously, it doesn’t work the other way. Scents and flavours evoke colours for me, but i don’t suppose any moreso than most everyone else. Wikipedia also now has a great Asperger Syndrome entry; one of the more well laid-out and comprehensive ones i’ve yet read. Synthaesthia has been linked to cases of autistic spectrum disorders, although there’s no firm connection. Still, all very fascinating, at least to me.
website o’ the day
…is Ruthless Reviews. Crap-cutting bile, for the most part, but here and there a salient and worthy nugget. Reading other people bitch makes me feel better, as long as it’s humourous and not too blackly serious. This site fits the bill.
