observations from the land of the maya
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Ok, I figured I should say something before I leave the country.
It's off to Akumal, about 1 hour south of Cancun and 1/2 an hour south of Cozumel. It will be a Corona commercial (without the Corona) in about 16 hours. Toes in the sand, local Mexican beer, clear blue water, snorkeling, scuba diving, eating, trying not to exploit the eco-system and napping in hammocks tied to palm trees.
Oh, and reading in those hammocks. I'm bringing 4 books:
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (no it's not what you may think)
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
TSOG - The Thing That Ate the Constitution by Robert Anton Wilson
We leave for the airport at 4 am, we'll be in Mexico in time for lunch, and we get back on the 24th.
Vacations always seem to be a good time to think. Once you get out of your home environment, where all your comforts and securities are, your perception changes. Through the window of this new perception, you can sometimes see things about your life that you may have missed before, or you can see a problem you've been having from a different angle, thereby allowing for new solutions.
I'm kind of typing as I think without refining it, so I may not be making sense.
But it seems to me that when I'm on a road trip or far away from home, I am able to think more clearly about the puzzles we try to solve in everyday life.
Perhaps that is part of why I love to travel.
I hunger for constant change, for new paradigms, for new perceptions.
There was nothing like getting into a car for the first time in downtown Sydney, Australia with the wheel on the right side and people driving on the left, setting your mirrors, taking a breath and pulling out into downtown rush hour traffic with your entire immediate family in the car relying on your neurons to forge the new synaptic bridges required to deal with the wheel on the "wrong" side, people driving on the "wrong" side and all traffic and traffic laws "backwards". That is what's called a "paradigm shift", and I love it when they occur. Of course there really is no "right" or "wrong" side, only "different". A lot of people can't grasp that.
Anyway, it was one of the most exhilarating things I've ever done, and I try to seek out things like that as often as possible. It's good to give your brain a little jolt every now and then. Shake things up a bit. Let it know not to get too comfortable with what is "the way it is", because shit changes folks, and the sooner I learned that in life the better off I was.
There comes a moment in some peoples lives when they realize that their "reality" isn't necessarily "the" reality. In my experience, it usually happens by way of their reality hitting the floor and shattering like porcelain. This is a crucial moment in the development of their soul. Either they pick up the broken pieces, find some glue and begin to rebuild their reality into a new and stronger form, or they sit there and cut themselves on the broken pieces and spend the rest of their lives crying.
Once again, I find myself returning to that Hemmingway quote:
"Life breaks everyone, but those who survive are strong in the broken places."
To my sister Ericka who could use a vacation right now, and my new friend Molly who's a kindred spirit:
I will be drinking, scuba diving, napping in the shade of palm trees and taking it easy just for you.
-love, Jamie-
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Puerto Aventuras, Vol. 1
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"Monday the 19th, Sometime after 9 p.m.
I'm sitting on a 7th story balcony in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico listening to the surf and admiring how the ocean and the black sky merge so perfectly that you can't tell where the horizon is. Went snorkeling in the lagoon today with the angelfish, lobsters, sea urchins, parrotfish and pikes. The group I'm with (there's 12 of us - 3 straight couples, 2 gay male couples, 1 single gay man, and 1 single straightboy - that's how they refer to me, their "token straightboy") wants to go to Xel-Ha (pronounced shell-hah) tomorrow to buy t-shirts and exploit the eco-system.
Xel-Ha is an outdoor adventure/waterpark with all kinds of captive wildlife so the tourists can swim and get their pictures taken with depressed dolphins who can see the open ocean but will never reach it. I refused to participate on the grounds that I have a conscience. Just like in Australia where a man had a Koala that you could get your picture taken with for 5 pounds. Maybe someday she'll get fed up and latch herself onto the head of one of these "Hell Yes I'm American" jackass tourists. The dolphin thing would be okay, it would actually kind of reaffirm the whole spirit-of-life thing if they were rescued dolphins. You know, injured-rescued-rehabilitated but they wouldn't survive in the wild so we look after them and train them to do flips sort of thing, but my gut reaction was to be pessimistic about it. People should listen to their gut more, it doesn't do what it does to trick you, it's a survival mechanism.
Anyway, fuck all those negative thoughts. They don't deserve to take my attention away from this incredible night on my balcony. It truly is beautiful here, I just wish I had a cool girl to share it with.
Orion is hovering high above the horizon right now with a bright, brilliant blue Sirius in tow. Somebody is watching American Idol at high volume with their balcony door open. What the fuck is wrong with Americans and what they settle for as "Art"? They will eat a plateful of shit if the garnish is right. Right now some cookie-cutter media product is butchering Simon & Garfunkel, and the crowd is screaming like it was watching the Beatles.
If I may quote Bill Hicks:
RANDOM QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"We live in a world where John Lennon was murdered and mediocre hacks thrive."
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Sorry I got negative again for a bit there, it's out of my system now. It's a few hours later and there've (am I'm inventing a new contraction here, or have I just not seen this one for a long time?) there've been a few developments.
The air-conditioner broke in Nick & Veva's room and dumped water into the closet, soaking all of Veva's clothes. The hotel is washing all of her stuff and upgraded them to the corner luxury suite, which has a kitchen, bar, living room bigger than my whole room, bay window looking out over the ocean and a wrap-around deck with a hot tub on the 7th floor. The party has now changed locations.
All 12 of us sat around the hot tub with our legs in up to our knees and drank and laughed and told stories. Eventually things died down and people started heading to bed, and I could be found where I can usually be found: outside, in the dark, soaking in the sky. I pulled out my notebook and was about to jot down some thoughts regarding how bright Sirius was now that it had risen fully, and that Venus was rising over the lights of Cozumel, when Casey came out to check on me. (Editors note: Molly, you'd be proud of me. A tropical bug of some kind was crawling across my note book as I wrote the last sentence, and I took it out to the deck and it flew away.) Anyway, Casey, who is 6'4" and about 270 lbs., came out, pulled up a chair and sat down next to me. He handed me a beer, put his feet up on the railing, leaned back and said: "So Galileo, what's that constellation over..."SNAP!!! The back of the chair broke off cleanly at the base and he started to go over backwards. I dropped my beer, shot my hands out and caught him, laughing hysterically, but didn't have the leverage to pull him up. All I could do was hold him. The rest of the group heard the snap and my laughter and came running, turning the corner to find Casey, heels still on the railing, butt in the chair, back hovering a foot above the ground and splintered plastic everywhere. I have 2 fistfuls of his Hawaiian shirt and cannot stop laughing. Casey manages to keep his beer upright above him, but everytime I laugh his arm shakes and dribbles beer on his head which makes me laugh harder. The rest of our friends rush in on this scene and instinctively stop in their tracks, cracking up but not interfering with the situation 'cause they want to see if Casey's going to go all the way over and dump the beer on his head. He managed to get his feet down and we got him upright again. He chugged what was left of his beer and wandered of in search of another, muttering about "...shoddy Mexican craftsmanship..." and the evils of plastics."
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Well that was my first entry, and it used up 9 pages. 31 more to go, I'll try to do the next installment tomorrow night. Stay tuned. What an odd phrase, "stay tuned", like our brains were radios. You know what, I like "stay tuned", set aside the television meaning and it can mean "keep your brain fine tuned and in good working order". I think that's a good thing to remind someone of.
STAY TUNED
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Puerto Aventuras Vol. 2
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"Tuesday Morning, the ...20th?
I just had a breakfast of fresh pineapple (my favorite) and am now on the beach. it's kind of fun sitting here people-watching. People-watching is always fun, it's like conducting your own sociology experiment. Every group that walks by is speaking a different language, and a young family with 4 little girls wearing arm floaties is playing in the surf and giggling like only little kids can.
There is nothing like the smell of a tropical ocean. The sun is on my face, my toes are in the sand and there is an unlimited supply of 80 cent Mexican beer.
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Tuesday, now about 5 or 6 p.m.
I'm sitting on my deck with my feet on the rail, watching the palm trees sway in the breeze and the waves roll in from the Gulf. It is getting cloudier as dark approaches, but it is still in the low 80's and not very humid. The gang should be back from Xel-ha soon, and it will be time for dinner. Tomorrow we scuba dive the reef-wall in Cozumel. It is a sheer cliff of coral that drops down about 75 feet. There should be lots of bright fluorescent fish and maybe a shark or two if we're lucky, but it's Thursday's dives that I'm really excited about.
We are going to dive the Chac-Mool Cenote (cenote is Mayan for sinkhole), which was once an underground limestone cave system that flooded during the last Ice-Age. Now it is full of completely clear water, no fish, no sand, no little things floating around, just water so clear it is invisible. Really, you can't see the water when you're in it. If you took a picture of a diver in the cenote it would look like he was levitating in a beautiful cave full of limestone formations of stalactites and stalagmites (I never remember which grow up and which grow down). Every now and then there will be an opening in the roof of the cave where shafts of sunlight illuminate the water. We have an underwater camera, and we will do our best to take lots of pictures, and eventually I hope to get them posted on my blog.
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The sun has finally set (actually the Earth has rotated far enough that the Yucatan Peninsula is no longer in the Sun's line of sight), and the lights of the lagoon and the marina are beginning to come on 7 stories below. They're back now, time to go to dinner.
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RANDOM QUOTE OF THE DAY
"..and as I feel the Moon rise,
a time that I feel is the right time,
here in our sleepyhouse..."
-Blind Melon-
And yes it is the right time. I'm back in my favorite spot on the porch, feet on the railing listening to the surf and looking into the blackness. I've always been a beer guy (microbrews preferably) and never put much stock into frozen drinks, but they are damn good when it's hot and you're in the tropics. I went downstairs for dinner and was handed a Bahama Mama and it was delicious...and nutritious. It had ice, rum, fresh coconut milk, fresh strawberries, fresh bananas and something else that I can't remember after drinking 6 of them.
I do remember Scott getting a tattoo on the beach, and me buying a necklace made from chunks of Tiger's Eye for 70 pesos. I have also continued my reputation as a seafood junky by eating fish, rice and veggies every night since we've been here. I love all types of seafood. I was raised on the ocean, and I've always felt it was my home. One of my homes anyway. I have alot of homes. And alot of families. And a lot of love to give.
I don't know, I'm a little drunk, so maybe I'm saying more than I should, but...I've only met a few truly kindred, fascinating girls in my life, and in most cases they were either already with someone or lived on the other end of the country. Or both.
I want that girl, whomever and whatever she may be, here with me right now, so I can fall asleep with her in my arms, drifting off to the smell of her hair, and waking up next to her sleepy smile in the morning.
Tonight I just have my pillow and the smell of the ocean.
Goodnight, my love, wherever you are."
More later.
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Puerto Aventuras Vol. 3
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"Wed the 21st, 9 pm
Well, it's about 24 hours later and I'm back from the Cozumel dive trip. It was just as beautiful as I remembered. Parrotfish, stingrays, sea urchins, blue tangs, lobsters, Queen Angelfish, moray eels, barracuda, a Midnight Parrotfish (dark blue instead of the normal green and very rare), and even an 8 foot Nurse shark.
Still, nothing compares to the Great Barrier Reef. It's the only single living organism visible from orbit. As beautiful as this place is, it's like comparing the Appalachians and the Rockies. Tomorrow is the big day, and there is a problem with the camera. Our camera is rated to 50 feet below water, but we'll need a flash in the caverns which we don't have. The dive shop had a reloadable dive camera with a flash and rated to 90 feet below, but sold the last one before we got there this morning. It would be an incredible waste to not be able to show anyone what we dove.
I don't feel much like writing tonight, sorry, I'm just not in the mood for some reason. Except to say that I nailed a friend of mine today. Rodney was sitting on the edge of the pool, and his boyfriend Mike was in the water trying to coax him in. Rodney was bitching about the cold water and being prissy, so I got a running start, leapt over his head and did a cannonball about 2 feet in front of him. When I surfaced, he was standing, dripping wet and screamed: "You motherfucker! Don't make me embarrass you by having a nelly fag kick a staightboy's ass!"
Mike thought it was hilarious. I'm going to read my book and go to bed. No drinking on dive days.
Goodnight.
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One more thing, an excerpt from the book I'm reading in bed right now. This is for Todd and Molly, who have also long heard the music:
RANDOM QUOTE OF THE DAY
"These people were a mere 3 or 4 generation removed from their nomadic past, when they were as rootless as the sand dunes, or rather rooted in the knowledge that the journeying itself was home."
-Salman Rushdie-The Satanic Verses-1988
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I couldn't sleep, so I went downstairs for a virgin Bahama Mama, and overheard 2 Americans weighing the relative "hotness" of Pamela Anderson vs. Carmen Electra. You can call me crazy, but I've never thought either one was a hottie. Too fake, too plastic, too much of what my friend Paula would call "skeezy". I have friends who would disagree, but these are the same friends who subscribe to Hustler and Penthouse, where all the women have bleach blonde hair and fake tits.
I like natural beauty, subtle or preferably no make-up, hair that's not full of chemicals and won't burst into flames if an errant sparks lands on it. And I don't like breast implants. I mean, if it's a medical necessity like a crippling psychological stigma or a mastectomy or 4 kids worth of breast feeding, go for it, do what you gotta do. But I'm in love with the complex and astonishing beauty of the female body, the natural female body, and Pamela Anderson doesn't fall into that category. She is the result of a plastic surgeon's craftsmanship, not her own D.N.A. Look what plastic surgery did to Michael Jackson, and I think you'll see where I'm coming from.
When I think of hot celebrities, I seem to be attracted to unusual looking girls. Don't get me wrong, I had my adolescent crushes in Diane Lane when I saw The Outsiders, Tawny Kittaen in Bachelor Party and Meg Ryan in anything from the late 80's-early 90's, but who do I really think is beautiful? The unusual looking girls:
Ione Skye in Say Anything,
Clea Duvall in most of her projects (I can't put my finger on why, but she's got something in her eyes),
Fairuza Balk (I know, she plays psychos and wears make-up, but even as a goth-chick she's still got it),
and of course Emily Lloyd, always liked her, and most of my friends don't see it.
Sure there's the J-Lo's and Anna Kournikova's of the world, but I'd take Emily Lloyd in Coming Home or A River Runs Through It any day over those two. Let the rest of America fight over the superficial plastic women, I know where the real beauty is. Call me crazy, that's just the way I see it.
And while we're discussing under-rated women, Holly Hunter is probably my favorite actress working today. I fell in love the first time I saw Raising Arizona when she uttered a sobbing : "My fee-ance left me." and "Give me that baby you warthog from hell!". And Home For the Holidays is one of my all-time favorite holiday movies. The relationship her character has with her brother in that movie makes me feel lucky to know that kind of bond with another human being. I know alot of people who's family relationships are more like the one she has with her sister, and I cannot comprehend how blood relatives can treat each other that way. You are supposed to fight & protect for that which you love, goddamnit.
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I just thought of something that made me laugh. I once saw a t-shirt I appreciated at an Ani Di Franco show that said: "Nerdy girls make me hot"
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Another random thought-
How come none of the abstract painters of I've ever heard of are female?
Is Georgia O'Keefe all we've got. Frida Kahlo?
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Puerto Aventuras Vol.4
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"Thursday morning,
packing my dive bag for Chac-Mool. I've been having nightmares the last 3 nights. In the first one I was a criminal who committed a home invasion of a rural family with a partner who beat the husband to a pulp before tying up and robbing the family. It wasn't me in the dream, I mean it wasn't my face or my body while it was happening.
In the second one I again was in someone else's body looking out, someone who had a disliked brother that died. My dream character missed the main viewing and went to see the body that night after everyone was gone except the funeral home employees. As I approached the casket, the body sat up, arms still crossed on his chest, turned his head towards me and tried to tell me something, but his eyes and lips were sewn shut. I never found out what the message was.
In last night's nightmare, I was the victim of a home invasion, and got tied up, beaten and eventually shot. I survived, and forever after the house I lived in was haunted.
The last 3 nights I've been waking up every 45 minutes to an hour, turning over, falling back asleep and picking up the dream right where I left off. Fucked up. I haven't dreamed like this in a long time. Years.
Anyway, I've got to get ready for Chac-Mool. More later.
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You ever have one of those days where you experience something wholly new, and it is so cool that it rockets p to the Top 5 list of most exhilarating things you've ever done?
Well, I did today. We dove the Chac Mool and Kulkulkan Cenotes, and their impression on me was as substantial as that of the Great barrier Reef. Wearing a full wetsuit, dive boots, regulators, BCD and tank, and carrying our masks and fins we descended stone steps in the middle of a jungle until we came to a small pool with a large rock overhang above. The pool was of clear, dark blue water and looked like that was it, just a pool in the jungle. We got in, put on our masks and fins, checked our gear, put our regulators in our mouths and descended.
Once underwater we could see about 20 feet below us a light shining but not it's source. As we approached it, we realized it was sunlight emanating from the mouth of a cavern. We went in. Once inside the cavern the water really was crystal clear, and it looked like we were hovering in the air, only the bubbles we exhaled could betray the illusion. At the top of the cavern, a n opening to the surface allowed beams of sunlight to enter and penetrate every nook and cranny of the limestone walls. The cenote is fed by the ocean somewhere deep underground, but it also contains fresh water from rain and the original flooding of melted glaciers thousands and thousands of years ago.
Now here's the weird part: The fresh and salt water don't mix, so there is a barrier at 40 feet. From 0-40 feet deep is fresh water which is a chilly 70-75 degrees. Below 40 feet is salt water which is a balmy 85-90 degrees. This is one of the only places on Earth where the water gets warmer the deeper you go. The barrier is visible, too. It is as prominent as an unshaken bottle of Italian dressing. When you descend deep enough to penetrate the barrier, the two waters swirl at the border like oil and water. The salt water is blurry, and the fresh water is clear.
There is only 1 animal that can live in such extremes of water quality and temperature, the Cenote Shark, of which we saw about 20. They are as docile as Nurse Sharks, and feed on the plants and algae that grow on the limestone. They range in size from 6 inches to 2 feet and paid no attention to us whatsoever.
We explored from one end of Kulkulkan to the other (about 45 minutes under water), surfaced between the exit of Kulkulkan and Chac-Mool, changed tanks, descended again and entered Chac-Mool. Now, Kulkulkan is a series of caverns and rock formations and you basically navigate from room to room. of which there are about 12. Chac-Mool is also a series of caverns, but much larger rooms and with stalactites and stalagmites (Stalactites grow down, i learned. They hold tight to the ceiling) that have been growing for thousands of years and are in excess of 20 feet long.
We were able to find a suitable camera and got about 25 pictures. I have to guard this roll of film with my life on the way home, carefully avoiding magnets and x-ray machines. I will get them printed asap and cross my fingers in hopes that they turn out
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Tomorrow is our last full day in Mexico, and we will be going down to Akumal for a lazy day of reef snorkeling, drinking Bahama Mama's and trying to get some Sun before heading back to snowy KC on Saturday morning. Being as on my outdoor days I've been deep underwater or in a cave, I'm still white as Doris Day. My day on the beach turned cloudy after about 30 minutes, so I didn't get much Sun out of it. I've never really been one to care about tanning, but I'd like to look as if I've been on vacation when I get home.
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So many of the souvenirs and presents I bought are breakable that I will need to wrap them in my dirty clothes. I apologize beforehand if anyone's gifts smell like wet swimsuit.
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things aren't as cheap as they used to be here. Most of the souvenirs were, but food and beer prices in the resort areas are like going out back home. In Mexico you have to pay attention and look for the places the locals go. That's where you find the 80 cent beer and $5 steak dinners. Except I've eaten nothing that walks this week. It's been fresh fruit, fish rice and veggies everyday. And alcohol. And the beauty of the Mayan Riviera. That's what they call this stretch of beach and jungle. A 50 mile strip from Cozumel to Tulum, far away from the neon and spring breakers of Cancun. But still close enough to make the tourists feel safe. No political turmoil or guerilla warfare here, just lots of foreign cash and near nudity. And way too many European guys my size wearing speedos. Scary, scary, scary. You ever see that Simpsons episode when they're in Rio De Janeiro on the beach and Homer wears a speedo? It keep disappearing in some sort of super-wedgie. Stick to the trunks, fellas. Trust me.
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Friday night, 10 pm. Last night South of the Border. Can't believe it's over already. I'm back in my spot on the balcony listening to the palm fronds sing in the ocean breeze and the surf roll into the lagoon. I can see the lights from cruise ships out in the Gulf heading towards Cozumel. My dive buddy has our film, he's going to get the film developed on Sunday, and burn me a copy of the cd-rom of our dives at work Monday morning. I should have it and get some pics on the blog by late Tuesday night. Our shuttle to Cancun airport picks us up at 11 am, but it will be at least 10 pm before we get home. It took 2 hours to get through customs coming into Mexico, hopefully it will be faster on the U.S. side. I imagine there's more people coming into Cancun on a Saturday afternoon than are coming into Kansas City on a Saturday night.
The trip has been fantastic. I'll try to wait a while to think about the fact that I'm going to be flat fucking broke when I get home. I really couldn't afford to come on this trip in the 1st place, but "...Sometimes you just got to say 'what the fuck!' ", and live your life. That quote was from the immortal words of "Booger" from Revenge of the Nerds. He actually said it in Risky Business, but he will always be known as Booger to he American public. I've packed my suitcase, packed my dive bag, wrapped all my breakables in dirty clothes and I guess that's it. I'm so comfortable here that it hasn't sunk in that I'm leaving tomorrow.
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Well, it's tomorrow.
Saturday morning, 11:18 am and we're heading for the aeropuerto. We're on a little 2-lane highway doing about 70 mph in 2 passenger vans. The Mexicans use the shoulder of the road as a passing lane, only the slower traffic drives on the shoulder when someone wants to pass. The result is extreme proximity at high speeds, and occasionally 4 cars abreast on a 2 lane highway at 70 mph
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I'm home now, finally.
It's 11 pm Saturday night. I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. Goodnight".
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Well, that's the end of the Puerto Aventuras series, thanks for reading.
It's snowing again, big fluffy flakes that land on your eyelashes and make you nostalgic for sledding down hills in cheap plastic saucers with your grade school buddies, getting home late for dinner and stripping to your long johns inside the front door and running to the kitchen. Your grandmother scolds you for washing your hands in the kitchen sink ("That's used for washing food") and you go to bed in the living room reading Stephen King in your sleeping bag by the fire.
We're supposed to get 6 inches tonight.
STAY TUNED
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I just noticed something weird in association with my nightmares of the other night. While in Mexico there were a lot of parties that went late-late into the night, later than we were staying up anyway. We fell asleep with the t.v. on everynight to muffle the party noise.
I was just watching 25th Hour (an excellent movie by the way, which I recommend), flipped channels and saw my 1st dream of the home invasion happening on t.v. Freaky. It's one of those true crime shows with the word "Dramatization" on the corner as they re-enact the events that transpired. My character in the first dream was the lackey of the badass who beat up the husband in the story.
My brain picked it up and ran with it. This explains why I've had the feeling all along that one of the robbers (in the 3rd dream where I got beaten up) was Snoop Dogg. I know he's been doing commercials lately, and apparently my sleeping brain picked him out of the information available to put in my dream.
Brains are cool. That's my observation of the day. Next time I'm falling asleep with the NASA Channel on. Hell yeah, I'm going into space in tonight's dream. See ya.
It's off to Akumal, about 1 hour south of Cancun and 1/2 an hour south of Cozumel. It will be a Corona commercial (without the Corona) in about 16 hours. Toes in the sand, local Mexican beer, clear blue water, snorkeling, scuba diving, eating, trying not to exploit the eco-system and napping in hammocks tied to palm trees.
Oh, and reading in those hammocks. I'm bringing 4 books:
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (no it's not what you may think)
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
TSOG - The Thing That Ate the Constitution by Robert Anton Wilson
We leave for the airport at 4 am, we'll be in Mexico in time for lunch, and we get back on the 24th.
Vacations always seem to be a good time to think. Once you get out of your home environment, where all your comforts and securities are, your perception changes. Through the window of this new perception, you can sometimes see things about your life that you may have missed before, or you can see a problem you've been having from a different angle, thereby allowing for new solutions.
I'm kind of typing as I think without refining it, so I may not be making sense.
But it seems to me that when I'm on a road trip or far away from home, I am able to think more clearly about the puzzles we try to solve in everyday life.
Perhaps that is part of why I love to travel.
I hunger for constant change, for new paradigms, for new perceptions.
There was nothing like getting into a car for the first time in downtown Sydney, Australia with the wheel on the right side and people driving on the left, setting your mirrors, taking a breath and pulling out into downtown rush hour traffic with your entire immediate family in the car relying on your neurons to forge the new synaptic bridges required to deal with the wheel on the "wrong" side, people driving on the "wrong" side and all traffic and traffic laws "backwards". That is what's called a "paradigm shift", and I love it when they occur. Of course there really is no "right" or "wrong" side, only "different". A lot of people can't grasp that.
Anyway, it was one of the most exhilarating things I've ever done, and I try to seek out things like that as often as possible. It's good to give your brain a little jolt every now and then. Shake things up a bit. Let it know not to get too comfortable with what is "the way it is", because shit changes folks, and the sooner I learned that in life the better off I was.
There comes a moment in some peoples lives when they realize that their "reality" isn't necessarily "the" reality. In my experience, it usually happens by way of their reality hitting the floor and shattering like porcelain. This is a crucial moment in the development of their soul. Either they pick up the broken pieces, find some glue and begin to rebuild their reality into a new and stronger form, or they sit there and cut themselves on the broken pieces and spend the rest of their lives crying.
Once again, I find myself returning to that Hemmingway quote:
"Life breaks everyone, but those who survive are strong in the broken places."
To my sister Ericka who could use a vacation right now, and my new friend Molly who's a kindred spirit:
I will be drinking, scuba diving, napping in the shade of palm trees and taking it easy just for you.
-love, Jamie-
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Puerto Aventuras, Vol. 1
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"Monday the 19th, Sometime after 9 p.m.
I'm sitting on a 7th story balcony in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico listening to the surf and admiring how the ocean and the black sky merge so perfectly that you can't tell where the horizon is. Went snorkeling in the lagoon today with the angelfish, lobsters, sea urchins, parrotfish and pikes. The group I'm with (there's 12 of us - 3 straight couples, 2 gay male couples, 1 single gay man, and 1 single straightboy - that's how they refer to me, their "token straightboy") wants to go to Xel-Ha (pronounced shell-hah) tomorrow to buy t-shirts and exploit the eco-system.
Xel-Ha is an outdoor adventure/waterpark with all kinds of captive wildlife so the tourists can swim and get their pictures taken with depressed dolphins who can see the open ocean but will never reach it. I refused to participate on the grounds that I have a conscience. Just like in Australia where a man had a Koala that you could get your picture taken with for 5 pounds. Maybe someday she'll get fed up and latch herself onto the head of one of these "Hell Yes I'm American" jackass tourists. The dolphin thing would be okay, it would actually kind of reaffirm the whole spirit-of-life thing if they were rescued dolphins. You know, injured-rescued-rehabilitated but they wouldn't survive in the wild so we look after them and train them to do flips sort of thing, but my gut reaction was to be pessimistic about it. People should listen to their gut more, it doesn't do what it does to trick you, it's a survival mechanism.
Anyway, fuck all those negative thoughts. They don't deserve to take my attention away from this incredible night on my balcony. It truly is beautiful here, I just wish I had a cool girl to share it with.
Orion is hovering high above the horizon right now with a bright, brilliant blue Sirius in tow. Somebody is watching American Idol at high volume with their balcony door open. What the fuck is wrong with Americans and what they settle for as "Art"? They will eat a plateful of shit if the garnish is right. Right now some cookie-cutter media product is butchering Simon & Garfunkel, and the crowd is screaming like it was watching the Beatles.
If I may quote Bill Hicks:
RANDOM QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"We live in a world where John Lennon was murdered and mediocre hacks thrive."
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Sorry I got negative again for a bit there, it's out of my system now. It's a few hours later and there've (am I'm inventing a new contraction here, or have I just not seen this one for a long time?) there've been a few developments.
The air-conditioner broke in Nick & Veva's room and dumped water into the closet, soaking all of Veva's clothes. The hotel is washing all of her stuff and upgraded them to the corner luxury suite, which has a kitchen, bar, living room bigger than my whole room, bay window looking out over the ocean and a wrap-around deck with a hot tub on the 7th floor. The party has now changed locations.
All 12 of us sat around the hot tub with our legs in up to our knees and drank and laughed and told stories. Eventually things died down and people started heading to bed, and I could be found where I can usually be found: outside, in the dark, soaking in the sky. I pulled out my notebook and was about to jot down some thoughts regarding how bright Sirius was now that it had risen fully, and that Venus was rising over the lights of Cozumel, when Casey came out to check on me. (Editors note: Molly, you'd be proud of me. A tropical bug of some kind was crawling across my note book as I wrote the last sentence, and I took it out to the deck and it flew away.) Anyway, Casey, who is 6'4" and about 270 lbs., came out, pulled up a chair and sat down next to me. He handed me a beer, put his feet up on the railing, leaned back and said: "So Galileo, what's that constellation over..."SNAP!!! The back of the chair broke off cleanly at the base and he started to go over backwards. I dropped my beer, shot my hands out and caught him, laughing hysterically, but didn't have the leverage to pull him up. All I could do was hold him. The rest of the group heard the snap and my laughter and came running, turning the corner to find Casey, heels still on the railing, butt in the chair, back hovering a foot above the ground and splintered plastic everywhere. I have 2 fistfuls of his Hawaiian shirt and cannot stop laughing. Casey manages to keep his beer upright above him, but everytime I laugh his arm shakes and dribbles beer on his head which makes me laugh harder. The rest of our friends rush in on this scene and instinctively stop in their tracks, cracking up but not interfering with the situation 'cause they want to see if Casey's going to go all the way over and dump the beer on his head. He managed to get his feet down and we got him upright again. He chugged what was left of his beer and wandered of in search of another, muttering about "...shoddy Mexican craftsmanship..." and the evils of plastics."
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Well that was my first entry, and it used up 9 pages. 31 more to go, I'll try to do the next installment tomorrow night. Stay tuned. What an odd phrase, "stay tuned", like our brains were radios. You know what, I like "stay tuned", set aside the television meaning and it can mean "keep your brain fine tuned and in good working order". I think that's a good thing to remind someone of.
STAY TUNED
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Puerto Aventuras Vol. 2
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"Tuesday Morning, the ...20th?
I just had a breakfast of fresh pineapple (my favorite) and am now on the beach. it's kind of fun sitting here people-watching. People-watching is always fun, it's like conducting your own sociology experiment. Every group that walks by is speaking a different language, and a young family with 4 little girls wearing arm floaties is playing in the surf and giggling like only little kids can.
There is nothing like the smell of a tropical ocean. The sun is on my face, my toes are in the sand and there is an unlimited supply of 80 cent Mexican beer.
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Tuesday, now about 5 or 6 p.m.
I'm sitting on my deck with my feet on the rail, watching the palm trees sway in the breeze and the waves roll in from the Gulf. It is getting cloudier as dark approaches, but it is still in the low 80's and not very humid. The gang should be back from Xel-ha soon, and it will be time for dinner. Tomorrow we scuba dive the reef-wall in Cozumel. It is a sheer cliff of coral that drops down about 75 feet. There should be lots of bright fluorescent fish and maybe a shark or two if we're lucky, but it's Thursday's dives that I'm really excited about.
We are going to dive the Chac-Mool Cenote (cenote is Mayan for sinkhole), which was once an underground limestone cave system that flooded during the last Ice-Age. Now it is full of completely clear water, no fish, no sand, no little things floating around, just water so clear it is invisible. Really, you can't see the water when you're in it. If you took a picture of a diver in the cenote it would look like he was levitating in a beautiful cave full of limestone formations of stalactites and stalagmites (I never remember which grow up and which grow down). Every now and then there will be an opening in the roof of the cave where shafts of sunlight illuminate the water. We have an underwater camera, and we will do our best to take lots of pictures, and eventually I hope to get them posted on my blog.
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The sun has finally set (actually the Earth has rotated far enough that the Yucatan Peninsula is no longer in the Sun's line of sight), and the lights of the lagoon and the marina are beginning to come on 7 stories below. They're back now, time to go to dinner.
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RANDOM QUOTE OF THE DAY
"..and as I feel the Moon rise,
a time that I feel is the right time,
here in our sleepyhouse..."
-Blind Melon-
And yes it is the right time. I'm back in my favorite spot on the porch, feet on the railing listening to the surf and looking into the blackness. I've always been a beer guy (microbrews preferably) and never put much stock into frozen drinks, but they are damn good when it's hot and you're in the tropics. I went downstairs for dinner and was handed a Bahama Mama and it was delicious...and nutritious. It had ice, rum, fresh coconut milk, fresh strawberries, fresh bananas and something else that I can't remember after drinking 6 of them.
I do remember Scott getting a tattoo on the beach, and me buying a necklace made from chunks of Tiger's Eye for 70 pesos. I have also continued my reputation as a seafood junky by eating fish, rice and veggies every night since we've been here. I love all types of seafood. I was raised on the ocean, and I've always felt it was my home. One of my homes anyway. I have alot of homes. And alot of families. And a lot of love to give.
I don't know, I'm a little drunk, so maybe I'm saying more than I should, but...I've only met a few truly kindred, fascinating girls in my life, and in most cases they were either already with someone or lived on the other end of the country. Or both.
I want that girl, whomever and whatever she may be, here with me right now, so I can fall asleep with her in my arms, drifting off to the smell of her hair, and waking up next to her sleepy smile in the morning.
Tonight I just have my pillow and the smell of the ocean.
Goodnight, my love, wherever you are."
More later.
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Puerto Aventuras Vol. 3
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"Wed the 21st, 9 pm
Well, it's about 24 hours later and I'm back from the Cozumel dive trip. It was just as beautiful as I remembered. Parrotfish, stingrays, sea urchins, blue tangs, lobsters, Queen Angelfish, moray eels, barracuda, a Midnight Parrotfish (dark blue instead of the normal green and very rare), and even an 8 foot Nurse shark.
Still, nothing compares to the Great Barrier Reef. It's the only single living organism visible from orbit. As beautiful as this place is, it's like comparing the Appalachians and the Rockies. Tomorrow is the big day, and there is a problem with the camera. Our camera is rated to 50 feet below water, but we'll need a flash in the caverns which we don't have. The dive shop had a reloadable dive camera with a flash and rated to 90 feet below, but sold the last one before we got there this morning. It would be an incredible waste to not be able to show anyone what we dove.
I don't feel much like writing tonight, sorry, I'm just not in the mood for some reason. Except to say that I nailed a friend of mine today. Rodney was sitting on the edge of the pool, and his boyfriend Mike was in the water trying to coax him in. Rodney was bitching about the cold water and being prissy, so I got a running start, leapt over his head and did a cannonball about 2 feet in front of him. When I surfaced, he was standing, dripping wet and screamed: "You motherfucker! Don't make me embarrass you by having a nelly fag kick a staightboy's ass!"
Mike thought it was hilarious. I'm going to read my book and go to bed. No drinking on dive days.
Goodnight.
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One more thing, an excerpt from the book I'm reading in bed right now. This is for Todd and Molly, who have also long heard the music:
RANDOM QUOTE OF THE DAY
"These people were a mere 3 or 4 generation removed from their nomadic past, when they were as rootless as the sand dunes, or rather rooted in the knowledge that the journeying itself was home."
-Salman Rushdie-The Satanic Verses-1988
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I couldn't sleep, so I went downstairs for a virgin Bahama Mama, and overheard 2 Americans weighing the relative "hotness" of Pamela Anderson vs. Carmen Electra. You can call me crazy, but I've never thought either one was a hottie. Too fake, too plastic, too much of what my friend Paula would call "skeezy". I have friends who would disagree, but these are the same friends who subscribe to Hustler and Penthouse, where all the women have bleach blonde hair and fake tits.
I like natural beauty, subtle or preferably no make-up, hair that's not full of chemicals and won't burst into flames if an errant sparks lands on it. And I don't like breast implants. I mean, if it's a medical necessity like a crippling psychological stigma or a mastectomy or 4 kids worth of breast feeding, go for it, do what you gotta do. But I'm in love with the complex and astonishing beauty of the female body, the natural female body, and Pamela Anderson doesn't fall into that category. She is the result of a plastic surgeon's craftsmanship, not her own D.N.A. Look what plastic surgery did to Michael Jackson, and I think you'll see where I'm coming from.
When I think of hot celebrities, I seem to be attracted to unusual looking girls. Don't get me wrong, I had my adolescent crushes in Diane Lane when I saw The Outsiders, Tawny Kittaen in Bachelor Party and Meg Ryan in anything from the late 80's-early 90's, but who do I really think is beautiful? The unusual looking girls:
Ione Skye in Say Anything,
Clea Duvall in most of her projects (I can't put my finger on why, but she's got something in her eyes),
Fairuza Balk (I know, she plays psychos and wears make-up, but even as a goth-chick she's still got it),
and of course Emily Lloyd, always liked her, and most of my friends don't see it.
Sure there's the J-Lo's and Anna Kournikova's of the world, but I'd take Emily Lloyd in Coming Home or A River Runs Through It any day over those two. Let the rest of America fight over the superficial plastic women, I know where the real beauty is. Call me crazy, that's just the way I see it.
And while we're discussing under-rated women, Holly Hunter is probably my favorite actress working today. I fell in love the first time I saw Raising Arizona when she uttered a sobbing : "My fee-ance left me." and "Give me that baby you warthog from hell!". And Home For the Holidays is one of my all-time favorite holiday movies. The relationship her character has with her brother in that movie makes me feel lucky to know that kind of bond with another human being. I know alot of people who's family relationships are more like the one she has with her sister, and I cannot comprehend how blood relatives can treat each other that way. You are supposed to fight & protect for that which you love, goddamnit.
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I just thought of something that made me laugh. I once saw a t-shirt I appreciated at an Ani Di Franco show that said: "Nerdy girls make me hot"
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Another random thought-
How come none of the abstract painters of I've ever heard of are female?
Is Georgia O'Keefe all we've got. Frida Kahlo?
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Puerto Aventuras Vol.4
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"Thursday morning,
packing my dive bag for Chac-Mool. I've been having nightmares the last 3 nights. In the first one I was a criminal who committed a home invasion of a rural family with a partner who beat the husband to a pulp before tying up and robbing the family. It wasn't me in the dream, I mean it wasn't my face or my body while it was happening.
In the second one I again was in someone else's body looking out, someone who had a disliked brother that died. My dream character missed the main viewing and went to see the body that night after everyone was gone except the funeral home employees. As I approached the casket, the body sat up, arms still crossed on his chest, turned his head towards me and tried to tell me something, but his eyes and lips were sewn shut. I never found out what the message was.
In last night's nightmare, I was the victim of a home invasion, and got tied up, beaten and eventually shot. I survived, and forever after the house I lived in was haunted.
The last 3 nights I've been waking up every 45 minutes to an hour, turning over, falling back asleep and picking up the dream right where I left off. Fucked up. I haven't dreamed like this in a long time. Years.
Anyway, I've got to get ready for Chac-Mool. More later.
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You ever have one of those days where you experience something wholly new, and it is so cool that it rockets p to the Top 5 list of most exhilarating things you've ever done?
Well, I did today. We dove the Chac Mool and Kulkulkan Cenotes, and their impression on me was as substantial as that of the Great barrier Reef. Wearing a full wetsuit, dive boots, regulators, BCD and tank, and carrying our masks and fins we descended stone steps in the middle of a jungle until we came to a small pool with a large rock overhang above. The pool was of clear, dark blue water and looked like that was it, just a pool in the jungle. We got in, put on our masks and fins, checked our gear, put our regulators in our mouths and descended.
Once underwater we could see about 20 feet below us a light shining but not it's source. As we approached it, we realized it was sunlight emanating from the mouth of a cavern. We went in. Once inside the cavern the water really was crystal clear, and it looked like we were hovering in the air, only the bubbles we exhaled could betray the illusion. At the top of the cavern, a n opening to the surface allowed beams of sunlight to enter and penetrate every nook and cranny of the limestone walls. The cenote is fed by the ocean somewhere deep underground, but it also contains fresh water from rain and the original flooding of melted glaciers thousands and thousands of years ago.
Now here's the weird part: The fresh and salt water don't mix, so there is a barrier at 40 feet. From 0-40 feet deep is fresh water which is a chilly 70-75 degrees. Below 40 feet is salt water which is a balmy 85-90 degrees. This is one of the only places on Earth where the water gets warmer the deeper you go. The barrier is visible, too. It is as prominent as an unshaken bottle of Italian dressing. When you descend deep enough to penetrate the barrier, the two waters swirl at the border like oil and water. The salt water is blurry, and the fresh water is clear.
There is only 1 animal that can live in such extremes of water quality and temperature, the Cenote Shark, of which we saw about 20. They are as docile as Nurse Sharks, and feed on the plants and algae that grow on the limestone. They range in size from 6 inches to 2 feet and paid no attention to us whatsoever.
We explored from one end of Kulkulkan to the other (about 45 minutes under water), surfaced between the exit of Kulkulkan and Chac-Mool, changed tanks, descended again and entered Chac-Mool. Now, Kulkulkan is a series of caverns and rock formations and you basically navigate from room to room. of which there are about 12. Chac-Mool is also a series of caverns, but much larger rooms and with stalactites and stalagmites (Stalactites grow down, i learned. They hold tight to the ceiling) that have been growing for thousands of years and are in excess of 20 feet long.
We were able to find a suitable camera and got about 25 pictures. I have to guard this roll of film with my life on the way home, carefully avoiding magnets and x-ray machines. I will get them printed asap and cross my fingers in hopes that they turn out
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Tomorrow is our last full day in Mexico, and we will be going down to Akumal for a lazy day of reef snorkeling, drinking Bahama Mama's and trying to get some Sun before heading back to snowy KC on Saturday morning. Being as on my outdoor days I've been deep underwater or in a cave, I'm still white as Doris Day. My day on the beach turned cloudy after about 30 minutes, so I didn't get much Sun out of it. I've never really been one to care about tanning, but I'd like to look as if I've been on vacation when I get home.
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So many of the souvenirs and presents I bought are breakable that I will need to wrap them in my dirty clothes. I apologize beforehand if anyone's gifts smell like wet swimsuit.
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things aren't as cheap as they used to be here. Most of the souvenirs were, but food and beer prices in the resort areas are like going out back home. In Mexico you have to pay attention and look for the places the locals go. That's where you find the 80 cent beer and $5 steak dinners. Except I've eaten nothing that walks this week. It's been fresh fruit, fish rice and veggies everyday. And alcohol. And the beauty of the Mayan Riviera. That's what they call this stretch of beach and jungle. A 50 mile strip from Cozumel to Tulum, far away from the neon and spring breakers of Cancun. But still close enough to make the tourists feel safe. No political turmoil or guerilla warfare here, just lots of foreign cash and near nudity. And way too many European guys my size wearing speedos. Scary, scary, scary. You ever see that Simpsons episode when they're in Rio De Janeiro on the beach and Homer wears a speedo? It keep disappearing in some sort of super-wedgie. Stick to the trunks, fellas. Trust me.
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Friday night, 10 pm. Last night South of the Border. Can't believe it's over already. I'm back in my spot on the balcony listening to the palm fronds sing in the ocean breeze and the surf roll into the lagoon. I can see the lights from cruise ships out in the Gulf heading towards Cozumel. My dive buddy has our film, he's going to get the film developed on Sunday, and burn me a copy of the cd-rom of our dives at work Monday morning. I should have it and get some pics on the blog by late Tuesday night. Our shuttle to Cancun airport picks us up at 11 am, but it will be at least 10 pm before we get home. It took 2 hours to get through customs coming into Mexico, hopefully it will be faster on the U.S. side. I imagine there's more people coming into Cancun on a Saturday afternoon than are coming into Kansas City on a Saturday night.
The trip has been fantastic. I'll try to wait a while to think about the fact that I'm going to be flat fucking broke when I get home. I really couldn't afford to come on this trip in the 1st place, but "...Sometimes you just got to say 'what the fuck!' ", and live your life. That quote was from the immortal words of "Booger" from Revenge of the Nerds. He actually said it in Risky Business, but he will always be known as Booger to he American public. I've packed my suitcase, packed my dive bag, wrapped all my breakables in dirty clothes and I guess that's it. I'm so comfortable here that it hasn't sunk in that I'm leaving tomorrow.
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Well, it's tomorrow.
Saturday morning, 11:18 am and we're heading for the aeropuerto. We're on a little 2-lane highway doing about 70 mph in 2 passenger vans. The Mexicans use the shoulder of the road as a passing lane, only the slower traffic drives on the shoulder when someone wants to pass. The result is extreme proximity at high speeds, and occasionally 4 cars abreast on a 2 lane highway at 70 mph
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I'm home now, finally.
It's 11 pm Saturday night. I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. Goodnight".
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Well, that's the end of the Puerto Aventuras series, thanks for reading.
It's snowing again, big fluffy flakes that land on your eyelashes and make you nostalgic for sledding down hills in cheap plastic saucers with your grade school buddies, getting home late for dinner and stripping to your long johns inside the front door and running to the kitchen. Your grandmother scolds you for washing your hands in the kitchen sink ("That's used for washing food") and you go to bed in the living room reading Stephen King in your sleeping bag by the fire.
We're supposed to get 6 inches tonight.
STAY TUNED
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I just noticed something weird in association with my nightmares of the other night. While in Mexico there were a lot of parties that went late-late into the night, later than we were staying up anyway. We fell asleep with the t.v. on everynight to muffle the party noise.
I was just watching 25th Hour (an excellent movie by the way, which I recommend), flipped channels and saw my 1st dream of the home invasion happening on t.v. Freaky. It's one of those true crime shows with the word "Dramatization" on the corner as they re-enact the events that transpired. My character in the first dream was the lackey of the badass who beat up the husband in the story.
My brain picked it up and ran with it. This explains why I've had the feeling all along that one of the robbers (in the 3rd dream where I got beaten up) was Snoop Dogg. I know he's been doing commercials lately, and apparently my sleeping brain picked him out of the information available to put in my dream.
Brains are cool. That's my observation of the day. Next time I'm falling asleep with the NASA Channel on. Hell yeah, I'm going into space in tonight's dream. See ya.