Tiny Little Fractures

Some things have come full circle while others are still complicatedly hanging out to dry. And I’m typing this on the same old keyboard that I typed my first post on and will have to wait for the same tiresome SLT dial up connection to kick in to upload this, the irony. 

I’ll probably return sometime in the future when life has calmed down and the creative juices have built, but to a new, on a need to know basis, location.

Til then, adios!

I’ve always hated those phone calls, the ones that jerk you out of consciousness at times when the world should be sleeping. Ever since I was nine, those calls for me have been bad news, harbingers of death and grief.

This Wednesday was no exception. And now I find myself in the last place I would have expected a month ago, 30,000 feet over Japan waiting for this never-ending flight to end in Hong Kong, after which another flight will take me back home. A home that is now bereft of the most influential person on my upbringing, the closest person I have ever had to a father. 

I don’t think the shock has sunk in yet, that what was a fairly standard hospital visit (at least in the last few years) suddenly, catastrophically turned into heart failure. I usually love that early morning drive from Katunayake to the house, the anticipation of seeing family, friends, fun. Now I’m dreading it, I’ve managed to hold myself together while everything around me went to pieces, managed to ensure the cousin’s needs were met with social security numbers, plane tickets, food, etc; managed to make sure all the loose ends at work were taken care off, all the action items listed, everything filed to ensure easy access so none of my projects gets derailed in the two weeks I am gone.

All that I’m waiting now for is the meltdown and that will come, when I see my arcchie, when I see the empty chair, don’t hear him complaining about my hairstyle, my clothes; I’ve been on the edge of sanity and the abyss awaits at the end of that drive. Thankfully the boys being around in LA and the hectic work schedule helped keep my mind off things. But that abyss was always an unguarded moment away. 

I and the whole family will miss him more than any words can express. He was the one we always turned to when we were wounded, hurt, for guidance. He and I had a rough relationship at first, understandable when you think the generational gap was so much larger than a normal father and son relationship. It did end with a healthy respect towards each other though and I learn’t to love him for what he did for me and not what he didn’t. As the people at work said if he had that much influence on me he must have truly been a good man. I have to agree, my good qualities are all because of him, my bad are my own.

I just hope I can live up to what he expected of me, what he did for me, for which I will be eternally grateful.

It was a strange thought to have while struggling with impenetrable chaparral on a site visit. What was supposed to be a simple task to photograph some future geotesting sites turned into a four hour odyssey, literally bushwhacking to the sites wondering when a rattlesnake would launch out of a bush and go for my jugular. Maybe it was the sun but all I could think of while I inhaled about a tonne of pollen was that I never thought I would end up here. 

Mind you it’s not a bad thing, I enjoy my job and site visits are the best part of it. I just never thought I would be a development consultant when I was growing up (this might be a bit obvious though as I cant imagine a kid who would know what a development consultant is, much less want to become one). I knew from the tender age of 10 what I wanted to be…well before I was 10 my ambition was to be a tracker at Yala. But after 10 I wanted to be Gerald Durrel, a brown version of him at least. A life dedicated to obscure species and the saving of them from extinction. I had it all planned out. A breeding center up in the hills, tanks in a climate controlled building, enclosures for the larger animals. Yes I was an ineffably weird kid.

And then I grew up, well actually I went to college and learnt what conservation really was about. That it as about people, livelihoods, habitat protection, poverty alleviation and a plethora of other related and diverse factors. I also discovered (well before college) that I enjoyed drinking, clubs, girls and those other material frivolities that interfere with being a hermit up in the mountains obsessing about frogs. There was also the rather frightening discovery that the biologists, ecologists and conservation biologists I met were rather boring people. 

In fact even through grad school I came to the realization that I couldn’t, didn’t want to be someone who did one thing in life. I found that I was deadly scared of being pigeonholed, of being known as an environmental scientist, an engineer, anything that involved doing one thing. It doesn’t really matter if the projects are different every day but the concept of a fixed career path scares the beejesus out of me. That probably explains why at various times of my life I have been an office manager, a biologist, a mortgage salesperson, an environmental scientist, a failed arrack importer, a fundraiser for a non-profit and a land use planner. It’s why I want to do a PhD in International Development; it’s why I’m obsessed with photography, why I want to start my own company.

It’s because at the end of the day, when I grow up (and some might say that’s going to be awhile) I want to be a land use consulting, social entrepreneur, regular entrepreneur, development consulting, writer, photographer. That’s not asking for much is it?

Whoever said life is weird wasn’t kidding. Work’s currently bollockingly hard, I mean ulcers, stomach churning hard. But the weird thing is I like it, I like getting those billables  out (heck I even made it to the top three in the company in my fourth month) and I like learning about buildings and land use policy and geology and the other myriad of things I have to learn and apply to get my projects through. The life of a consultant is full of stress, but at least for the next couple of years should be interesting.

On a personal level life has taken an upshot as well. For one thing the photography is getting more and more interesting. What was an inkling of a fascination has turned into a full blown obsession. All I seem to think about now is aperture, f-stops, composition and the other bewilderments that play a part in trying to capture that perfect image, you know the one ‘where the whole world holds its breath.’

I’ve also rather encouragingly met a couple of buggers who are fun to hang out with, real chilled out island boys. The type that can drink, joke and take a joke (unlike these pesky, tootsie Yanks).  I still miss my boys, R and his jokerness, which is probably only matched by me, CP who is getting married and will be going down that road of housewifery, Evil, Bounty and PV. Not to mention the girl, who seems to be intent on mentioning coming down to SL every time I’m in touch with her. The lack of communication is more a survival mechanism for me than anything else. The fact that I really don’t have time to text at random hours, etc does in a way help my cause. My take on that is blind faith, if it’s meant to be circumstances and timing will make it happen. If not, well that’s just the way things were meant to be. 

Where my enjoyment really hits a clunker is with the family, speaking to the grandparents is something I try to avoid as well. Again that self preservation instinct kicks in, it’s just too tough to hear that they miss me, especially considering the fact they are old now and I don’t know when I’ll be home again. That I’m thousands of miles from the only family I’ve ever been close to, really close is something I try not to think about, just for the sake of my sanity. The plus point is that my relationship with the sibling is a lot better, which considering the growing pains we had a few years ago is nice.

That’s the trick actually. Everything has a plus point. I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t have to trick myself to be happy, I actually am. Life’s active, fun, I managed to somehow download the new Band of Horses album, there’s plenty of pictures to take, sites to see and friends to drink with. Yet at the same time I miss the grandparents trying to tell me how to live my life, R’s brotherhood,va certain pair of smouldering eyes and the looking glass light of home.

I guess this is what bittersweet is.

Well not totally down but it’s getting there. After all the world’s stock markets have plunged, the City people are losing jobs and even champagne sales are down in London and I share some responsibility in that. I’m sure you must be wondering what on earth a land use consulting, former non-profiter, environmental scientist has to do with the plunge of the world’s markets. You see before I went to Sri Lanka in 2005 to lose part of my liver and most of my mojo I worked from late 2004 until the end of 2005 as a sales representative for a sub-prime mortgage bank over here in sunny SoCal. Why? Because the money was brilliant and more than enough to fund my excessive debaucheries in Vegas, San Francisco and eventually in Sri Lanka. Of course there is a price to pay for all things but that’s a different story.

You can barely take a peep at the business section of any paper or website these days without bit hit in the face with how the sub-prime mortgage market and its collapse in the US is going to well…destroy the world. Well I participated gleefully in that market when it was at its peak and what a market it was. There was the thrill of hitting multi-million dollar targets, from $5 million initially to a whopping $30 million a month at our team’s peak. There was also a very attractive Filipino girl that I worked with that was the icing on the cake (yeah she was married but so what, technicality). Times were good, the money was rolling in, I had a fast sports car and who cared if we lent to people who couldn’t pay back.

It did eventually get to me though. At heart I’m a reasonably decent human being and seeing people getting fucked on a daily basis, the greed of the brokers, the number of lines we were asked to cross and the stupidity of the average borrower became too much and I cracked. I should have ended up in Angoda but I’m back here reasonably well adjusted and happy (well as happy as I can be out of Sri Lanka). I do feel a smidgeon of guilt however every time I read the news about more stock market plunges. Too think our little deal makings are having repercussions like that befuddles me. I truly am very sorry for the ignorance in which I worked back in the days and for the way that’s hit the poor suckers who bought those toxic bonds that those Liar Loans were packaged in.

If it’s any consolation to those who have lost bundles on the market these days there’s an incredibly beautiful half Latino, half Filipino stripper in Vegas who to this day must be utterly astonished by the rather extravagant tip left for her by me one drunken night in Sin City. Incidentally I’m still a bit pissed about it and have henceforth kept my hundreds (oh wait I don’t have those anymore) strictly separate from my ones.

A philosophical hobbit, but I’m just better looking…much better looking (from here)

Well dogfight detagged me, but RD, indyana and Pissu tagged me (I think that was it). So umm…here goes. Of course seven facts barely make up the convoluted individual that I am, so feel free to judge or even condemn.

1. I appear to have this knack of making people laugh, mostly girls. Don’t ask me why but I’m not blowing my own horn here (that would be one-handed as opposed to two handed) but its something I constantly get told. It’s also strange because my humour is, well, fairly offensive. I reckon its because I tend to talk more to random girls than guys (though after our last session at Bob’s diner R may digress with me on this fact). I do love those moments though when something happens and the perfect comment comes out of my mouth and the results have everybody rolling around on the floor, even the subject of the joke.
2. I detest people who think that their worldviews are somehow better than mine. Now don’t get me wrong, if I have a notion that is wrong and someone points this out to me and provides me with supporting evidence I have no problem admitting my mistake. Hey every day’s a learning experience isn’t it? Let me provide an example to make it easier, if someone doesn’t believe in pre-marital sex that’s fine, I respect that. I believe in it and attempt to engage in it at every opportunity presented (which to be honest is not saying much). If someone however thinks that they are superior to me just because they don’t engage in it then that’s a load of bollocks. Personal belief vs. arrogance. 
3. Everyday I wonder what I missed out in life by not having a father, seeing my mother a handful of times in nine years and my sister once in the same time period. I might be a different person now and I just wish I knew how I would have been different.
4. I’m a pretty calm person, I rarely panic or get angry (I bitch and get loud, but not angry). I’ve fallen into rapids and kept my nerve, I’ve had a car crash at 80mph and kept my nerve, last night there was a 4.5 Richter earthquake here. I made sure my Lanting print didn’t fall off the wall onto my head and then went back to sleep. If you do piss me off though don’t be surprised if I try and stomp on your head until it splits or crack you over the head with the nearest bottle (two things incidently, that I have done).
5. I love to read and (this is rather eerily similar to Pissu) I have a love for South Asian authors, especially Romesh Gunasekera who’s Reef is probably my all time favourite book. I’m not sure what it is but there is something hauntingly familiar in a good South Asian’s writing. It’s sometimes difficult to see that we have meaning in our lives and reading stories like Reef lets us to look into ourselves in way I guess. That said I also love Tolkien, maybe I’m just a philosophical hobbit in denial. 
6. I’m still trying to figure out whether I’m doing the right thing by not moving to Sri Lanka right now. I know what my dream is but either I’m scared of following it or I’m slowly working my way to it. I’m not really sure, I guess time will tell.
7. I’m an island boy at heart. There’s nothing more enjoyable to me than sitting by a warm tropical Indian ocean with a cold Reserve and coke in one hand, Bounty scratching his bald head and sweating copiously, R adjusting himself and pouring huge drinks, CP mumbling unclearly, Evil being Evil and R akki saying something silly to entertain me. Also a nice, slim, dark, brown baduwa would be nice to put line to as well. Oh yeah and a spectacular sunset. And a camera, to take lovely candids of the aforementioned brown girl. That would be nice. 

So yeah that’s seven random, somewhat deep, somewhat irreverent things about me. I didn’t dwell on my flaws because…well…if you read this blog then you know them already.

Hmm…there’s really noone left to tag is there? Well lets see, Darwin, Evil, Spectral, Cerno, drac (hehe…I couldn’t resist), Manshark and Nirmal.

Here’s the continuation of part 1 from yesterday and this part is a whole lot more serious. I finally got off my lazy arse and despite massive amounts of sleep deprivation courtesy Chinky Pinky and Cricket Captain I woke up early doors on a Sunday and drove down to the Pasadena temple. Admittedly I may have had some ulterior motives in volunteering (apparently it’s a good way to…cough…cough…make friends) which in the end didn’t really pan out, but it was a pretty ‘interesting’ experience. Putting together bags of food was a frenetic activity and O’s energy for a skinny chap was amazing as was his crazy driving skills. Here was a man who had undoubtedly learnt his road skills in Sri Lanka.

We ended up distributing the food bags in Skid Row which was an experience in itself. The poverty was a real slap in the face, people who have just made the wrong decisions or never had any opportunities in life, mired in drugs and alcohol. The spectrum in characters was suprising, there were the hustlers who talked their way into getting around 5 bags of food each, the truly grateful people, others who would just grab their food and walk off, a vegetarian bum of all things and another one who tried to teach me CAD. Surprises never cease I guess and I guess I’ll be back next month to help out. One Sunday out of the month isn’t too much to sacrifice and who knows, maybe on some small level I made a difference.

P.S. If anybody is in the LA area and wants to help click here.

Tina with her tablas but sadly not with bare feet (courtesy her website)

The last time I tried to volunteer my erstwhile services things didn’t really go to plan. It was a Tsunami relief concert in the Bay Area and R and I had the bright idea of going and lending a hand to the Sri Lankan contingent there. Of course the night before we very responsibly got utterly trashed, talked crap to some fine ladies and ended up with about two hours sleep before the event. R could barely drive the next morning and I spilled coffee all over my only shirt, which to add insult to injury was a pristine white. 

Rolling up to R’s cousins place was an inauspicious start, I had never met C before and I think he was a bit befuddled by a vertically challenged Sri Lankan reeking of equal parts alcohol and coffee rolling up to his door and asking to borrow a shirt. This while R did a reasonable impression of a man breathing his last in the car. In the end all we could offer at the concert was some light lifting and drinking all their water, while staring wistfully at the profusion of cute Indian girls and trying to come up with something to say that didn’t involve throwing up all over them.

I think R and I cemented our reputation with C and his gang (though C I think has forgiven us because he’s a good mate now) when after spotting Tina Sughand playing the tables barefoot both of us broke in backstage looking for her. After considerable effort, being lost several times and dodging security guards (I tell you its all about confidence, walking in like you belong) there was a totally unbelievable moment. R turned to look behind him, stopped square in his tracks and nudged me so hard I currently have both my kidneys on my left hand side of my body. I turned around to see Tina walking by with her retinue. I think she was befuddled as well too see two brown guys standing there, looking very dodgy, with their mouths open wide (possibly drooling) and puppy dog eyes (I’m hoping). She did give us a sweet smile (though that may have been a hangover induced hallucination) to which I believe my reaction was my tongue dropping out and a thin stream of drool piddling out of the side of my mouth. I have not the foggiest idea as to how R reacted. 

I funnily enough can’t remember anything more of that day, just Tina playing her tablas with no shoes on. For the umpteenth time I regretted drinking so much, nothing ever good comes off it. I always end up on the roof of someone’s car, pissing FG off, passing out at a Denny’s or in this case missing the opportunity of a lifetime, to mack on possibly one of the sexiest people I have ever seen. Imagine I had full control of my facilities and had come up with an amazing line. I could be sitting watching Tina play her tablas all night long…sigh

P.S. A fantasy about getting it on with Tina Tabla was not the point of this post, which was in fact about a volunteer experience I had this weekend, but I’m too tired for now. Await part 2 of Volunteering and then there’s volunteering. I would say with bated breath but I wouldn’t want anyone to hurt themselves.

It must be something in the stars, or at least that’s what the astrologer that I was dragged to while I was back home told me. Last week was tough, the learning curve I have to suffer through is ridiculous and ten hours daily grind is starting to sap whatever optimism I’ve managed to salvage over the last few months. Even the fact that I am not alone in my misery, that this feeling of darkness and despair is prevalent from the San Fernando Valley, to Colombo and the northern territories of Australia is not enough to cure what appears to be a decline down to manic depressiveness. Yet I’m still an optimist, I tell myself that no matter how long and dark that tunnel is there will be light at the end of it. That it’s just a matter of surviving, taking it a day at a time. And hopefully sometime there will be that light at the end of the tunnel, perhaps in the form of a sunset by a warm tropical beach.

Oh yeah this bad time is supposed to last until mid July, why do I doubt the veracity of that? The weekend is ticking away, maybe a trip to the gym, get some endorphins pumping, stop the insanity chewing away at my grey matter.

It makes me green with envy sometimes, these people who graduate, get a job at a multinational, get married to someone within a year or two and just settle down. They just make it seem so effortless and I just can’t fathom how they do it. To settle just doesn’t seem to be in my vocabulary, there is always something that’s better, somewhere to be reached. What’s even odder is that I can clearly see where I want to be, it’s crystal clear but the route is sort of like the way to Mordor, wreathed in darkness. The settlers just make everything seem so easy I either feel stupid, confused or just both.

What I would love to do is just for a week live the life of a settled person, just to experience it for a bit, a 8-5 job where one is a cog in a big machine, come home to the wifey who also works in a similar company and watch some telly, eat some take out and hit the sack (I’m assuming sex is reserved for Friday and Saturday nights and its strictly missionary instead of say the ‘congress of a cow’). I’m assuming that’s the life of a settled person as opposed to mine, living in temporary digs for the greater part of seven years, soon to be going on eight, the desire to work at a job where I not only get paid, but I improve myself, easily bored, only time for relationships is on holiday (recipe for failure) and a constant hunger for something. I kind of get what Christopher Ondaatje was going on about when he penned the phrase “the devil drives.” 

I suppose at the end of the day I want to be a settler, domestic bliss would be nice. But it has to be on my terms, not some drudgery of a job to make ends meet, but something I truly love to do (i.e. wander about the jungle with a camera and then write about it) and in a time and place of my choosing (i.e. Sri Lanka sometime in the next decade). I reckon settling now would kill me slowly with boredom. I need to do that Europe walkabout, follow Bryson’s footsteps in Aussie, spend a month at the Shack diving and just being a general beach bum and not have to worry about a significant other, a mortgage or a brat. So for now (or at least the next half a decade) I guess, I’m going to wander.

(Actually that’s not strictly true, since I’m going to have to hold my next job for at least 2.5-3 years so I can move back home and start a stint of real wandering, so I guess I’m wandering in the metaphorical sense)

I went from completely unemployed to having a job and an internship within two days. So forgive me if I’m still blinking in bewilderment (this also could be the effect of not taking my allergy medicine as well). Especially because one interviewer described me as a polished, young gentleman…a phrase that I never thought I’d hear to be used to describe me of all people. Maybe it’s time for some reevaluation, I’ve always considered myself a bit of a joker but considering I’ve had a grand total of four face-to-face interviews, proper interviews that is, in my life and I’ve aced all of them maybe I’m not such a joker. Time to dig some of that self confidence out from underneath the futon me thinks. Especially because I’m going to need all that confidence in the next few years.
 

Choice A

Internship with a traditional environmental consulting firm, shitty pay, well relatively shitty. A fair amount of grunt work which to be honest sounds boring advantage is that I’m pretty sure I’ll be hired permanent no worries and the two chaps who interviewed me were so nice. AND I should be able to hit SL in August for a week.

Choice B

Less traditional land use development consultancy, good pay but long hours (think 9-10 hours) and a chance (so they say) to be very creative and involved on all levels of the projects. The negative to this is that I won’t be able to go home until probably summer 2008 or December 2008. 

But here’s the thing. I want to go home for good end of 2009 (my citizenship issues willing) because it just seems appropriate, going home almost exactly a decade after I left. Poetic I feel. Sooo…the plan is work, save, save, save, December 2008, two weeks scouting out some jobs. Summer 2009 a couple more weeks scouting…December 2009 the mother of all vacations and the permanent move back home. Get involved in the local environmental, poverty alleviation scene. I think I’m going to spend this weekend fleshing out that plan, just to try and get a framework for this decision and alleviate some of the mental trauma.

So I guess when put that way choice B becomes the only logical choice. Like R said “its time to grow up and do what we have to do” though I think both of us are a bit surprised he typed that sentence and the world didn’t stop spinning.  It is a challenge and added to the lack of paradise in my life for what seems like an immense period of time, the next few months are going to be dark and tough. Like I told Evil, make or break. I’m hoping make.

Abstinence is effective; it truly is at least in this particular context. Unfortunately recent events made abstinence an impossibility. The text was a relief given what was going on and the chat a few hours later was surprisingly entertaining. Unfortunately like a good orgasm the 20 minutes was far from enough and life intervened, bank in one case, sleep in the other. Downers off a high are never fun, especially having to wake up early this morning for a first day at a temp job I took with great reluctance. And that waking up on a day that was instead of surfs up sunny, looked like it had been transplanted straight from Wales, minus the lovely green hills, eager sheep and my aunt’s award winning chicken curry.

Added to the drip, drip insanity was the trauma of suffering through some pea brained HR person (what is it with HR people?) who instead of giving us an orientation proceeded to give us a run down of her ‘illustrious’ career. Frankly I couldn’t have given a shit if she was judged the most likely to drop a perfectly circled turd in the year 1987 in the Greater LA area, such details I can do without thank you very much. Needless to say I won’t be going back tomorrow, especially because I have a couple of grillings this week (one round three) and one next week.

What was intriguing today was the appearance of another voice in my head (a la mode Java Jones I guess)…following one sided conversation in my noggin as the HR fugly droned on. 

Happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place, happy place…

Oh fuck that! A gun to the head!

This post is sort of inspired by Sach’s dark musical trip and RD’s confession about liking high-pitched boy bands. I’ve gone on ad nauseum about how certain songs take me to happy, happy places where the beach and long legs in black, frilly mini-skirts rollick hand in hand (so to speak). But there are also songs that take me as they did Sach to a very dark place in my life, a time when I truly lost faith in humanity, trust, love and all that jazz. Thankfully a good dose of Old Reserve, R and a bout of womanizing helped me get over the immediate pain, but I think I’ve only truly come to terms with what happened last year, give or take.

I’m sure you’re scratching your head right now wandering what the hell the guilty secret that was I implied by the title, as opposed to the psychobabble I’m going on about. Well it’s a secret that when I reveal to my indie music friends, both British and Sri Lankan, they look at me as if I professed an undying desire to bugger Tony Blair while Cherie spanked me with a leather paddle. Before my favourite band was Snow Patrol and long after it was Boyz II Men, my all time favourite band was Matchbox 20. I still love all three of their albums from Yourself or Someone Like You to More Than You Think You Are. Unfortunately the latter album coincided with the dark period of my life, particularly an obsession with one track, Rest Stop. Listen to the song, trust me, the coincidences in life are truly weird sometimes and have to be experienced to be believed. And that song became an anthem of darkness for me.

Anyways last night in a fit of sadomachosicm, I put Rest Stop on and what do you figure happened? Absolutely nothing…no darkness…no pain…just an appreciation of what is still to me a lovely tune. Go figure, it took a listening to a song to truly appreciate that I actually have achieved closure. Not in a simplistic way of getting over a relationship but actually healing, changing and well…changing.

P.S. I did of course feel miserable in the morning, but I reckon that was probably due to waking up at 6am to hop on the 405 for an hour and then wandering around UCLA for another hour trying to find a room where I was supposed to get enlightened about NEPA. Needless to say today has not been one of my better days, though the considerable amount of totty on display at UCLA was nice, if a bit depressing.

So I smoked my last cigarette tonight (fingers crossed). Sat outside on a surprisingly warm California night, lay down on the bench in the moonlight, and lit up. Empty Streets by Late Night Alumni playing on the ipod (I did consider First of the Gang to Die by Morrissey but thought that might be just a tad too morbid) just to add a bit of ambience. Funny the last time I listened to that song in the moonlight it was a beach in Hikks and I was bittersweetly happy. Now its time to give up killing myself slowly and get down to business.

Order of the day and week:

- Well sleep tonight.

- Hit the gym early doors, in my third week of supps, creatine and weights. Have to try and get back to 15% body fat (might even see my long lost abs reappear, fingers crossed again) soon.

- Prepare for meeting the business partner for the third time this week, come up with a coherent strategy for selling potting mix to the masses and transition to erosion control in the near future. Need to get that financial independence if I want to pursue being a wildlife photographer in SL

- Meet said business partner

- Write up a few cover letters for environmental consultant/scientist/planner positions, follow up on the ones I’ve already applied for

- Look for more jobs to apply for

- Call temp agency and inquire what in the name of moses have they been doing with my resume, I need some income!

- Dissolve old corporation, cut losses from previous venture

- Call M, get D’s number and find out if she needs her loan done, I need income!

- Mail R’s jackets to Aussie, since apparently that’s more cost effective than buying new ones there

- Email everybody I’ve not emailed back for the last few months

- Call Wamu and ask what in the name of moses happened to my credit card

- Mail T with my tattoo design requests

- Check the San Fran Academy of Arts website and figure out how much an Associates in Photography will put me back

- Download Ajan Brahm’s talks and Guided Meditation podcasts, try and heal my spiritual side and retain the tenuous grip on sanity

- Put this all down in PlanPlus with some coherent, valid deadlines

- Anything else that I may have forgotten

From the edge of sanity, over and out.

Anicca vata sankhara, "Impermanent, alas, are all formations”

Appreciate people for the good they did for you because they loved you and not the indifference they showed you because they did not know any better. Before it is too late.

This is the last installment in this series, one that is a bit tough for me to put down in words, both because it is deeply personal and it is such an old memory that it is not even coherent in my head, just a series of disjointed images. Here goes anyways, actually this is a memory that doesn’t invoke pure happiness, rather a bittersweet sorrow (to quote either Shakespeare or Oasis I’m not entirely sure) for what could have been but at least some gratitude for what was.

The incident took place back in the mists of my past, sometime in 1987 (I think) before my father passed away, my family was fractured and life changed so dramatically for me. Before that I was a typical kid, son of a planter, in Royal College, part of a tight knit community. If that life was mine today I would probably (assuming I had inherited some of my Dad’s sports genes) have played either cricket or rugby for school, maybe even captained, spent vast amounts of time in remote parts of the country and actually known my sister and mother as complete family members instead of the caricatures that thousands of miles and years apart created. I instead ended up in the microcosm of an international school with its mediocre sports programs, excellent academics and accompanying attitude problems.

The trip was to Kala Wewa and as I was only about six years old I can’t really remember all that conspired. I do remember going across the tank in an old boat, Uncle D in the front, watching the greenish yellow water plants whip beneath the sides. I remember wandering what it would feel like to be in that water, what fish and other wonderful creatures lurked beneath. I also remember emerald grass, almost shoulder high for a man, my dad silencing me when with a grunt a water buffalo got up some feet away and eyed us uneasily. Him whispering to me to listen hard for the elephant that was in the tree line and refused to come out, the breaking branches and ‘huffs’ sending delicious thrills through me. I remember the yellow mud, heaped around the elephant’s footprints where he had visited a circuit bungalow, the excitement at listening to the caretaker recount the visit. I also remember at night, at the bungalow we stayed in, a wooden ‘tat,’ a lantern causing a surreal red striped glow reflected off a red wall around a solitary gecko.

Most of all I remember getting out of the Trooper when we got to the bungalow we were staying at. It was overcast and as I looked down I was fascinated by a line of red ants, possessors of a painful bite, but peacefully wending their way between my blue Bata’s, contrasting against the white sand and minute black stones covering the ground. I’m not sure how long I watched them, but that memory is crystal clear. The red ants, blue slippers and white sand, as the breeze blew in off the Kala Wewa, blowing the last few days of my old life away.

Note: That was actually a pretty tough post to write and apologies in advance for any excessive sentimentality.

It’s an odd sensation to be home these days. Back in college and actually until last December I used to come down with one aim in mind, party, party and more party. Drink until the wee hours of the morning, club hop till my legs felt like dropping off and trying to chat up as many girls as possible. Somewhere along the line however that changed, I guess that chat I had with Bounty on the way to the airport last time I was here wasn’t bullshit. Case in point, this holiday I’ve been out a grand total of twice, not counting 31^st night or a night at Buba, both times to Onyx. Well there was the night of Flygirl’s birthday which went on until around 5 in the morning, but that was relatively speaking a pretty chilled out night and it was a special occasion (which doesn’t really count).

I think the calming down is both a mental and physical thing. For one thing I’m unable to stay up until 6am, eat breakfast at Holiday Inn and still function as a somewhat normal human being the next day. I generally need at least 3-4 days to recover from a session like that, time that I can ill afford to spare. On the mental front I came to the realization today that I actually like hanging out with my family. I’ve always had issues with the fam, I guess it’s because I grew up with my maternal grandparents and that was a clash of cultures, especially in ‘modern’ Sri Lanka that was not going to go down well. The impatience and intolerance on both sides has however dissipated with time and now I just enjoy hanging out with them and talking. I even hang out with my paternal grandparents, to whom I had an emotion close to hate for taking something so important out of my life through their indifference. I guess its just time to let go and appreciate the good in people, despite whatever they did to you in the past. I guess it’s called growing up (something for the record I never thought I would do). Now I just have to figure out how to avoid becoming a square. 

Anyways family aside, the trip to Hikks, which was pretty much virgin territory for me since I was a kid, was awesome. There’s something so perfect about lying on a beach, staring up at a moon with Late Night Alumni’s Empty Streets thrumming in your ears. That is until the rest of the joker crew decides to turn up, throw sand at me, poke me and yell at me until I’m ‘sociable’ again. That and a stray dog attempting to nose my crotch got me up quick time as well. We then proceeded to head down to Mambo’s which was another world to me, I loved the fact they had trance music, and good trance music, playing. It would be nice to go rock out there someday before I get grey hairs and can’t move a foot without wincing. The beach boys could do with some less attitude though, one of the bartenders was a real dick, stole my drink before I finished and then gave me a gal look when I politely requested for it back.

All in all a good trip, heading down to Unawatune for the long weekend and then hopefully into the hill country the next weekend, if the last trip does go down this would probably go down as one of my better Sri Lankan experiences.  All in all this time down feels more like being home than ever before, which is going to make getting on that plane all the more difficult. What is however keeping me floating is that not only will I be back in August for Uncle’s wedding, but end of 2008, mid 2009 I shall be back here for good. 

There I said it, I’m coming back for good, come rain, shine or high water, Sri Lanka is home and always will be.

Bugger what everyone else thinks.

You would think almost getting run over twice on two consecutive mornings would not be conducive to a good mood, but rather surprisingly I find it is. Perhaps it’s the thrill of cheating death in the mornings when I can usually barely get my jeans on without falling down a couple of times and generally pour juice into my cereal instead of milk. I am hoping though that this trend of missing the front end of fenders by inches will not continue, after all luck has to run out sometime.

On the bright side of life I discovered two new bands on my iPod, something that happens with pleasing regularity. I have close to 9,000 songs on there, downloaded from a spectrum of people from British hipsters, Sri Lankan yuppies and San Franciscan liberals. Every now and then it throws out a couple of random gems and today two outstanding songs popped up, Summertime by the Sundays and Turn by Feeder, two British ‘indie’ (if that term really applies anymore in the real world) rock groups.  I would recommend both groups for some chilled out, sometimes upbeat sometimes shoe-gazer tunes.

This week has also been one of the most sozzled weeks since I left college and I’m sure I’ve burnt up what few brain cells I had left. PKS left on Sunday (sadly I don’t have anybody to laugh at with regularity anymore) back to NZ and R has either been trying to celebrate his new found freedom or drown his sorrows (probably the latter) and dragged me along with him. It’s been a steady stream of rum and cokes and vodka/redbulls since Tuesday. One of the more notable nights was Friday at Voda, a brilliant place where there’s no cover charge, drinks are around $5 each and on top of that it looks a bit like Glo. Five shots of vodka, a couple of them free meant that even though I managed to get a number I for the life of me cannot remember who the girl was. All I can recall is that she was Asian and from Fullerton which in retrospect does me no good as that’s around 500 miles south of here. I do quite like Voda though, especially as a start out point to the night.

I’m currently thanking whoever pulls the cosmic strings for making tomorrow a holiday during which I plan to resolutely steer clear of anything with an alcohol content, try and sweat some toxins out in the gym, lose at poker and watch Himalaya, i.e. be somewhat productive. I also intend to spend a good portion of the day putting my thinking cap on and come up with ideas to make a quick $4,000 (preferably something that doesn’t require me to give up a body part) so R and I can hit up SL in December for a couple of weeks, just to try and maintain some sanity. Why did I leave corporate America and a fat paycheck again?

Spent about six hours on the drive yesterday, and apart from a brief nostalgic episode courtesy of R and her choice of New Kids on the Block as background music I had a lot of time to ruminate on recent events. I can’t seem to get over the Wilpattu event for some reason. I didn’t have a personal connection to the people killed apart from having enjoyed Nihal De Silva’s books and having met his sons a couple of times. I do however feel a kinship with the wildlife enthusiasts and experts the victims typified. 

This incident more than anything else before really has brought home the reality of the violent, random death that stalks Sri Lanka. I grew up in Colombo in the 90’s, had a minister blown up outside my house, went to a school that had constant security checks and known people who’ve died in bombs in Colombo and in conflict in the North, etc, etc but this incident, about which I read while thousands of miles away really touched a chord with me.

I’ve always felt most at home in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, there is no comparison for the way I feel when the landscape changes to that thorny scrub and the clean-dust smell and the looking-glass quality light hits me. There’s the tense excitement of a group of people sharing a common interest in the glimpse of an elephant swaying through a glade or a leopard sneaking across behind your jeep and the wonder of tapping your tracker’s encyclopedic knowledge and listening to his anecdotes. To meet your death in such a violent manner at a time when you are flush with anticipation of an exciting and adventurous day is to me perverse on so many levels. There’s a rather acrimonious discussion about who is to blame for laying the three mines on indi’s blog. To me that is largely irrelevant, I do not need anymore evidence to prove to me the LTTE are terrorists, for me what is important is the reality that people lost fathers, family members, Sri Lanka lost one of its finest authors and I can almost taste that reality. 

Wilpattu is such a tragic park. I had one of the eeriest conversations of my life a decade ago with a tracker who survived the 1985 LTTE massacre. He had gone out into the park to check on an injured elephant and had come back to find his friends ands workmates dead. Hearing him describing the scene, while seated on the hood of a jeep on the outskirts of Yala chilled my fourteen year old soul to the bone. Man-Eater of Punanai by Christopher Ondaatje also has a heartbreaking story about the massacre and a ‘master tracker’ whom the Tigers took to lead them through the park and then killed in the end.

So many of Sri Lanka’s most beautiful spots has seen such unspeakable violence, I wonder how many monsoons will be needed to wash the blood away…