Lost weekend...

I wrote this on Sunday but failed to post it:

Another lost weekend. It's incredible how you can build up for the two days of escape and then blow it all on a memory-loss.

The one memorable event of this weekend: Saturday evening - dinner at my gay uncle's place. A restauranteur and aesthete with superb skills in cooking and flower arranging (I kid you not - this guy is good!), he put on a spread of astonishing culinary treats: prawns and mussels in a spicy pineapple and mango salad; fillet steak in madeira with dauphinoise potatoes; tiramisu. Mmmm... it was good. All enjoyed in convivial atmosphere with Uncle Phillipe, his sister and mother, his partner Brian, my folks and my brother. What made it even more of an evening - the luxury surroundings of his parliament view apartment (panoramic windows onto the thames).

I'm at a lyrical lowpoint - I think it is perhaps the anticipation of my trip to the warmer climes. I will try to muster some better words before the week elapses...

Stolen Moments

Ok, I've sneaked away from my desk to write a quick entry - it's office time, but I'm working my final 5 unpaid days before I become accountable to a wage, and this just couldn't wait.

A massive internal storm is mounting in my mind. It has been triggered by the shock realisation at how much not earning over the past six months has eroded my bank balance, even as I have tried to diminish my spending. It's not critical yet, and hopefully shouldn't be as incomings start in six weeks' time, but when you've spent every day since 16 having to eke out earnings to support your living it makes you always aware of perceived financial loss. It's sad, but a fact - as most people do, I worry about money.

The precarity of the work at the Institute is troubling. Funding looks increasingly unlikely in the immediate term, and whilst my director is prepared to pay me a good wage from February, there is no long term security. I also would not want the Institute to spend money to satisfy my wage requirements if the project has limited chances of flying in the next six months.

To add to this conundrum, I heard from Niamh a few days ago, and she mentioned that the higher powers at my old job were asking her to find out if I was planning on returning. At moments when I worry about the bank balance, returning to my old job feels tempting (for all the depression and anger it caused me), and I hate allowing that temptation to appear. It betrays the flaw of insecurity and doubt that flares up sometimes and makes you grit your teeth in shame.

Life sometimes feels a long series of disillusioning events. Euphoria meets the mundane, the mundane turns to insecurity, cracked open by moments of rude, sudden awareness that things have never been as they seemed. Enthusiasm and hope one day can melt into a sense of alienation the next - am I the only one who feels this?

I hope that this turns out to be a temporary lapse of confidence. My fear is that it speaks of a more deep-seated misgivings about what I'm here on earth to do. What is right and what is wrong? I sometimes feel lost in that ethical maze - when I could legitimately make a choice to return, yet cannot decode my emotional response. Do I feel greedy for wanting financial security? Am I capable of compromising my material wants? Is wanting more a bad thing? When is more too much? The needle of the moral compass is spinning, and I am feeling somewhat lost in the doubt...

Let me say, however, that this is being written with an outer calm. Don't get the mental image of me twitching or wringing my hands. That's all happening at a totally different level.

The soundtracks of our lives

A little silent this week, I know. Why? A heavy dose of work, a sore throat, ill-advised whiskey macs (advised as an antidote to the impending cold), a variety of things...

So what's been on mind this past week that I want to share? In a word, music.

My way to and from work is soundtracked. I put in the mp3 player's earbuds the moment I open the door, right until I get to my desk, and when I walk out of the office the buds are in before the doors are open and don't come out until my front door closes behind me.

Maybe it's the city - it demands music, a means of sensory organisation, to fathom the lyricism of its streets and sweeps. Music, and particularly song, can be listened to and felt like a dialogue. We are sung to, sung for, we sing along... I read somewhere that music lovers are people who hate being alone. Yes, even the guy or girl who sits in their room, listening to music in self-imposed isolation. The music conjures up an interlocutor.

Music is also about moods - expression of feelings, motivation, thought. Mimicry, too, plays a part - see how we love to seek out the "theme from..." to relay ourselves into situations so performed. The top selling compilation albums are invariably the "music from ", or a movie OST.

What happened before the walkman? Before the discman, minidisc, mp3, iPod? I mean, what did the 19th century 28-year-old guy, walking down the street, "hear" in his head? Was that string recital from the previous night playing simulated as he treads cobbles and avoids the horse shit on the road? Or did people then simply not think of it in this way? I cannot imagine how things for me would be without the soundtrack - I feel terrifyingly alien when my battery dies and I have to listen to the batter of rails or the rumbling hum of the bus as it lunges forward and heaves back.

So, without shame, I leave you with what's on my player for the morning march tomorrow - some cool, some coy, some old, some new, some shamefully square, some unabashedly brazen:

John Legend - Ordinary People
The Pretenders - Back on the Chain Gang
The Christians - Words
Dusty Springfield - The Look of Love
Keisha Cole - I Changed My Mind
ELO - Mr Blue Skies
Nile Rodgers - Rock Bottom
Nina Simone - Try A Little Tenderness
Outkast - Hey Ya!
Pharrell & Jay-Z - Frontin'
Stina Nordenstam - Little Star
PJ Harvey - Good Fortune
Smashmouth - All Star
St Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Curtis Mayfield - Kung Fu
Flaming Lips - Fight Test
Spritualised - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
De La Soul - Eye Know
R Kelly - Happy People
Travis - Love Will Come Through
Liberty X - Got To Have Your Love
Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

Todo sobre mi familia

Well, perhaps not everything, but something and in fact, the most interesting part about my family background. Why is this something that comes up now? As I may have mentioned, I'm heading over to Mauritius at the end of the month - much of this impending trip is about visiting family, of which I have much in that remote island in the Indian Ocean. This time, however, I am going to spend time with blood family I have never met on any previous visit.

Until 18 months ago, I didn't know my grandmother - my father's mother. Growing up, I was told she had died when my father was very young. As all my other grandparents were also dead before I could get to know them, I simply bypassed loss and accepted their absence, remembered them on All Souls' Day, felt desultory envy as other kids' grandparents would lavish on them. Then, last year, my mother returned from a trip to visit my uncle (dad's brother) in Australia with the news that she had discovered that her mother-in-law, my grandmother, my father's mother - was live and well. Dad had never spoken much about his family history - it was understood that his childhood had been defined by pain, separation and loss, and noone questioned his silence. After the shock (me, my bro) and tears (mum, my sis) of coming to terms with the news had passed, we got down to the practicalities of recovering history and meeting the lost relatives.

First - history. My grandfather - my father's father - was by accounts (and by deduction from his diversely-mothered progeny), a philanderer and scoundrel. There were three "official" wives, and he fathered 9 kids - notably, the sequence of these children did not match the arrival of the wives. Let me explain briefly by example - when he arrived in Mauritius, he already had a wife married from young in China. He nonetheless embarked on a relationship of vague nuptial with my grandmother, and had 3 kids by her. Suddenly, wife #1 from China arrived in Mauritius and (supposedly on coercion from his own parents) he set up home with wife #1 and abandoned my grandmother. OK, maybe "abandoned" is slightly the wrong word - being separated from "grandmere" (as she likes to be called) didn't stop him having further children with her, despite being back with wife #1.

When I met my grandmother, she wouldn't speak ill of my grandfather. He was, and remains, the love of her life. She never had any relations with any other man, and she's proud of this - despite his treatment of her. I didn't once pity her for this - I thought it was heroic on her part. An important factor comes into play when talking about the discovery of my grandmother - she is a "metisse" - a mixture of dutch, and black african ancestries. Having grown up not quite believing I had only the east asian heritage (my face just didn't match up), it all fell into place when it turned out that my father is mixed race, and hence so am I. In fact, this mixed background was a relief to discover. I'm running no risk of ever falling victim to arguments grounded in racial purity - it would be self-damnation. Another thing to realise is that this side of my family is the definition of interaciality. All colours are accounted for. Example: my dad's sisters married european and indian spouses, and when you put my siblings and our cousins together - it could be an advert for united colours of Benetton. To the mind that thinks in stereotypes and associates this with broad racial definitions, my family would appear somewhat of a conundrum. But happily so - note also, friends, that nature's absorption of genetic diversity does indeed give rise to fresh design. Let me just say that I have some very beautiful cousins! (Do not make erroneous inference from that last comment, please!) Hence, finding out about my grandmother proved transformative in my sense of personal identity.

Similarly, my grandfather's sudden transformation from flat image from black and white photography into antihero of a sort was bizarrely comforting. Initially disturbed by his apparently scoundrel ways, I have come to terms with it - I read it like a bizarre novel rather than a familial experience. It churned around in my mind, until the indecency fell away, leaving only the sense of the rambunctious about it - a tropical picaresque, you could say. It also helps me come to terms with the moments of self-destructive idiocy. In my immediate family, I am recognised as someone with a streak of the idiotic about me - always sustaining responsibility for so long, then suffering a lapse of illogical combustion (e.g. as a student I'll work hard at a shitty job all summer to save up for self-reliance during term, then end up poisoned by an almighty alcoholic excess on the last day of my job, and have to be carried 20 stops on the underground then laid out on a kerbstone for my disgusted father to lump in the back of the car). Yes - whilst I try to be Mr Reliable in my job, I more than compensate for this with ludicrous idiocy outside. I have to confess, it is ultimately only my ability to pull off stellar academic/professional performances that got me out of being branded the black sheep - I generally fuck up everything else, and you would weep to see how disapprovingly the glances can be - ironically, this comes particularly from my dad (read into that what you will). Having an ancestral template to blame my idiocy on is soothing - perhaps, just perhaps, I'll be able to convince myself that those moments are surges of a genetic spike and not some wholly exclusive personality defect.

Internet dating - update

OK, a brief update on the internet dating project. The news is that there is no real news at the moment - this is not the case because I am failing to attract reciprocal interest, but for technical reasons. I have been tinkering with the short textual description that needs to be added to your profile when setting up. Having pared away at the cheesier bits, I finally reached a balance of sanity and humour that I was comfortable with. I didn't realise, however, that all changes are subject to a process of approval which is performed manually by an administrator. Given that the average turnaround time for approval is 48hrs, and taking into account the fact that my last stint of wordsmithing missed operating office hours on Thursday, I estimate returns on my by Tuesday of next week - did I mention that I was a project manager by trade!? (hahaha...)

I had second thoughts about the hot belly dancer. I woke up this morning, and realised that my interest was an expression of lust, prompted by the deliberate exposure of vast chest cleavage that dominated the photo on her profile. Then it hit me - I was being honey-trapped. Her exposure was clearly a message, bright petals to tempt the bumbling bee (me). "Aha!" I thought, "I am not so shallow as to be caught by that!". Yummy Mummy is still on the cards, however. She has a total of SIX different photos posted on her profile, and as these offer varied aspects of her face (some good angles, some not so flattering), it suggests honesty about her appearance. Not that I'm hung up on appearances or anything (I'm seasoned enough to admit I'm far from being an oil painting myself), but I respect the honesty. It means that after swift evaluation, I can still describe her as "yummy".

Oh my god. I'm beginning to sound like a total freak...

Are young single mothers fair game?

OK, well, I've only gone and done it. Testament to my wave of New Year confidence, I have created a profile on Dating Direct. It seems to be the in-thing at the moment - well, according to The Times Saturday magazine anyway.

I know there are those out there who will roll their eyes, chuckle or whatever. Yes, it's traditionally a geekily sad thing to do, and yes it suggests a little desperation. Well, before you pass judgement on me, and if you're looking for desperation, you should see how many 28-35 year-old women are advertising themselves! Whatever, I don't give a fuck - the world isn't chocolate-covered candy hearts, it's a jungle and predators act upon instinct - so why not go electro-predatory with the whole mate-selection process?

Well, I did my first search against the standard criteria - fascinating. It's curiously british, how every entry begins with apologia: "I've never done this before, so bear with me..." or "I'm ever so slightly crazy..." Not that you believe a word of this. I'll warrant every single one spent a good hour crafting their spontaneity. In the end, only 2 really took my fancy. One is a girl who looks HOT (an amateur belly dancer, no less) but is a vegetarian. The other is a 27 year-old mother of 2 - picture makes her look lovely, but it's a difficult one when images are a little hazy. My bro' expressed a little concern when I showed an interest in a single mum, especially as he knows I'm not a fan of other people's kids. I'm justifying the interest on the basis of challenging whatever emotional defects I'm carrying at the moment. And in any case, it's just friendly introductions we're talking about here, not life partnership here, right? He has his doubts - I take it, but I'm not deterred. Whatever...

One thing that stuns me about the site is the attention paid to race. The selection criteria forces both race and religion to be set as search parameters - and you'd be amazed to see how many people are looking for "white/caucasian" matches only. It's fair game, I guess, but it probably says a little about how much race still plays a part in the life preferences of society as a whole.

The other thing that blows me away is how straightforward the whole matching process is. I expected a little more mystery - e.g. you send anonymous winks, they get to play guessing games, eventually morsels of your profile get exposed, then contact details etc. No sir! It's as simple as selecting from the catalogue and "adding to favourites" or messaging. No messing about, you get to be straight-up about who you like, they can evaluate and respond/invite/reject.

Well, this is an important test of confidence. If fear of rejection is supposed to be what holds a lot of people back from declaring themselves, this process craps all over that and says: "be in it to win it, or stay a loser". I think it's good - you just have to deal with the daily life decisions, good and bad alike, and this is no different.

Anyhow, I have added both belly dancer and (yummy) single mummy to my favourites - I'll provide updates on progress (or lack thereof) accordingly.

Calling all G's

Anyone looking for a Gmail account? I have 4 invites to give away if you're interested. Google are only providing accounts on an invitational basis - email me if you want an invite. I've only just started using Gmail, and am hence not able to sing its praises just yet - but I have heard a lot of good stuff about it. For more info, go to Gmail

2005: Bring it on...

This entry began as a rambling, disconnected review of the year 2004. I wrote several paragraphs before heading down to celebrate the New Year weekend at my sister's in Bristol. Tonight, as I was driving back along the M4, thinking about how to finish my reflections on the year gone by, I decided to scrap what I had written. I think it had something to do with the moon. The sky was layered Prussian blue with a faint russet haze, but dominated by the waxing crescent of the moon. It felt as though the moon, trawling space on its unwavering trajectory, had never been lower on the horizon, never closer to the earth. The sight of it prompted images in my mind of gravity's effects, the pull of forces on distant bodies. It's a funny thing, staring at the moon. You start to ask yourself about your position in the scheme of the cosmos, what it ought to be, where you fit in - well, I did anyway.

I've written an end of year review ever since my first journal in 1992. They usually allow for a stocktaking, a sublimation of the emotive and the events. This year, however, I don't want to dwell too much on the past, even the recent past. I want to look forward, onwards, progressively and with gusto - so this entry is going wrap 2004 up with minimal flourish, and look ahead to what 2005 has in store.

When I think about it, 2004 hasn't been really that much of a year for me - despite all that happened in the wider world. In the context of momentous events, the great triumphs (the Olympics, democracy in the Ukraine) and disasters (Bush's second term, Beslan, the quake in Asia), my only significant act was to break out of corporate whoredom and turn towards a better society. For those who read this blog, it'll be a familiar story, not in need of repeating, and it's an unfinished one for the time being.

So, that was 2004. In some ways, a year that could turn out to be a turning point, and in others it was just another year. On a much more positive note, here are reasons why 2005 could be a great year (a Nick-centric view, naturally) - with associated resolutions, where applicable:

My job: The project I am working on at the Institute could actually be successful. I have to admit, I had my doubts earlier in November, but by the time the Christmas break came up, I was optimistic. I think it has serious potential - and if the cash flow works out, I think it could be the start of something. Moreover, after living off the fat reserves of my meagre savings, I am getting paid as of the New Year. My motivation is high, and I'm feeling my game coming on... here's hoping.

My home: My bro' and I will be looking for a new place. Besides all the hassle of flat hunting and sorting out the logistics and finances, it'll be good to get some permanence to my residence. After being on the road for a lot of my time working for the Man, I feel like settling for a while. Until UN directorship comes knocking and I need to relocate of course (hahaha)!

My blog: This is one of the best things I have done this year. I know sometimes what I write is boring; that it is too often littered with aimless verbiage; that I swing so easily from peak to nadir; that my words usually aspire to more than they can deliver. Nevertheless, I hope that whoever reads this will keep on reading - you all should know what a source of spiritual sustenance it is to have an audience of sorts.

Family: due in June is the latest addition to the family, my sister's baby, my nephew/niece. Usually, I don't get overly affectionate with children - not because I'm some cold-hearted bastard (well, not completely), but I just can't muster sincere direct affection for other people's kids. This is going to be different - I'm going to be connected to this kid. I am hoping to bond with my first nephew/niece and I can see myself going all affectionate for once.

Travel: In January, I'm heading over the motherland for a fortnight. It'll be hot - about 30-35 degrees C, and the fish'll be jumping. My friend Eulette and I are also agreed that we are going to do an away break to the States at some point. We're both fans of Americana, and it'll be cool to hang out together in the land of wide lanes and non-stop dreaming.

Finally, and importantly, there is always lovelife - or lack thereof, hitherto. I have to admit, pickings have been sparse in 2004. I've thought about this a bit and can't figure out why I'm not feeling anything for anyone recently. Back in the day, I seemed to fall in love with different girls every month. My attentions would turn upon a sweet smile here, a flick of the hair there, from waitresses to musicians, gymnasts to tv junkies. Part of it is that I tend to fixate on what are, in truth, the eccentricities. This was truer still back at uni. I guess, at 19 you're so much more sensitive to the quirks that make people unique, and your capacity for tumbling into yearning is so much greater. Scarily, everyone I meet nowadays seems the same - note that I use the word "seems", as clearly it's about my ability (or lack thereof) to perceive in deep definition the uniqueness of each person. I'm trying, believe me. Here's hoping.

Overall, I feel very positively about 2005. I think it's set up to be an excellent year, and really it's down to me doing my thing - and fair lady luck playing her inimitable role, of course. But I feel good, I feel ready. I can take this year on, I've got the wind at my back and willing lungs, I can do this. Bring it on!!