It is American Thanksgiving and so I did my turkey day. The real holiday for the Americans was back in Thursday, but I don’t get the day off, so work with me here.
This was actually a lot less pressure than in previous years. I didn’t feel stressed, and everything seemed to go more or less correctly. My timing was good. I think the biggest problem was the gravy was too salty. Probably because I used chicken broth instead of water to replace the part that steamed off.
We didn’t get into an American style arguments though…
Even though I felt like a total hillbilly, the electric carving knife was a lot of fun.
And the people stayed much later than they have done on any other party. We even did some Karaoke. All in all a success.

Yesterday, in the late evening I went to a convention happening in Edmonton. I’ll pretend the name of it is Taboo and not mention it any further. Among the things being showed off was an energy drink called Beaver Buzz. It was trying a little too hard to be Canadian, but I will admit the Saskatoon berry flavour was the best. Since I’m cheap and thirsty I happily took their free samples. I was out until midnight so I got too bed late.
It was only when I was actually trying to get to sleep did it finally click with me that energy drinks have a lot of caffeine. And this drink had something to prove. Of course they put in too much.
As usual I had to get up early for my run today. It went well, and I did feel pain at some point but I finished it strong. I did make sure I didn’t run quickly up the hills and let the other people be the first to finish. After brunch though, I collapsed and took as much of a nap as I am able to.

My leg is still hurting. It just doesn’t seem to be getting better. I took two weeks off, and it that didn’t seem to help. And that Disney run is coming in January. That is coming up rapidly.
My physical therapist actually was wondering about acupuncture. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

When I was in Jamaica, something happened to my feet and legs. They got itchy and red. Bumps appeared. My sandals felt like an irritant against my feet. There was swelling involved. A nurse there told me to take some benadryl and that did seem to help. Someone else thought it was sand mites.
Since I came home my feet have been getting better. They still look a little wrinkly in places, or dry in others. With occasional itchiness. Maybe I should go see a doctor, but if I’m getting better I don’t think I need to be concerned. And I need to get around to unpacking my suitcases.
I’ve found that I need to unpack as soon as I get home from a vacation. If I wait at all, it will end up taking weeks to get around to it. Case in point.
This evening I got started on parts of it so I could do laundry. I was a little surprised to notice a funny smell. I checked it out, and found that my leather sandals were now covered in fungus. They looked moldy. That’s not a good sign. Luckily they were wrapped in a plastic bag the entire time so the infection hasn’t spread. But now I’m beginning to think that the sandals were becoming part of the problem.
I should probably just throw them out, but I’ll make a token effort to clean them.

I read an interesting article today. For all I know it will change my life. But that does seem to be the theme of it. Change. I need to change my routine often.
If you know me, you probably know that I’m not big on change. I get into ruts very easily, and I like them. I like to be able to predict where I’ll be. If I do something one year, I expect I will do it again the next year.
Of course, I now have to figure out how to do all this changing.
But I should now try and do more new things. This is an opportunity for my friends to totally abuse my trust.

And it is now my birthday. Another year around the sun. This, I suppose, is a special one because it is divisible by 5. And 7, if you math people want to play with factors.
Introspection is par for the course here. I’m specifically going to relate it to my vacation I just had.
I really enjoyed Jamaica. Life felt so easy there. And I’m not talking about not having to do work and being surrounded by beautiful women. People, who know me, know that I do not do well around beautiful women. They are a source of added stress.
But it is different there. I felt relaxed and I didn’t have any trouble talking to the pretty girls. I could be myself and not feel judged.
When I am home, I constantly feel judged. I try to put forward an image of myself as a perfect being. Someone without any human weaknesses. This is, of course, impossible, but it is important for me to present this façade. I am trying to appear inhuman, and I need to stop this.
Am I trying to be a Vulcan?
I thought I got over that years ago, but it still seems to stick to me.
Am I two different people? One is the face I pretend to be, and the other only comes out on vacation. I suppose that could be true for anyone, but I can’t help but feel it is somewhat more extreme for me. Would I feel better if I was more honest with myself and my friends. Would stress go away? Would I be happier?
For the record though, I’m still not gay. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I’m home. Safely. Most major organs are intact.

It was a beautiful day today. The sun was shining, the waves looked fairly calm. And I’ve been waiting at the airport for nearly three hours.
It takes an hour and a half to get to the airport from the resort. But busses don’t run as often on a Sunday, so I had to leave at a more inconvenient time. (On Saturdays they are leaving every hour.) So at ten o’clock I said my goodbyes to the few remaining friends and boarded the bus. I got to the airport at about eleven thirty. My flight isn’t leaving until 2:45. It feels like a waste of a good day. But the real world is calling and I can’t put it off forever.
My biggest concern right now is that my feet have had a rash for most of my stay here. I’ve been told by a non-medical person that it is sand mites. But as far as I am concerned, it just makes my feet itchy. I’m wondering if the sandals I kept wearing helped in the problem? Now I’m wearing shoes for a winter climate. They aren’t too bad, but I’m wondering how it will look when I take them off tonight.

Okay, I didn’t actually drink more than one horrid shot. But I compensated in other ways. The highlight of the whole night was spending it cuddling with the professional model for several hours. I did get a few mixed signals. She didn’t want to kiss at all, but I did see her necking with another guy who is quite a bit more aggressive. Still, she did want to spend her time with me.
Then she disappeared. She wanted to talk to some other people who were hanging around. I decided to take the opportunity to help my bodypainter friend with camera troubles and did a quick trip to my room to grab some stuff. When I got back she was gone. Others said that she said she would be back, but I didn’t see her for the rest of the night. Apparently the E she had rolled made her a bit ADD.
This was the last night before my friends were mostly leaving. So I didn’t want to waste it sleeping. I continued to hang out around the resort, finding small groups of them.
Eventually the sun rose. I did know that the beautiful porn star was leaving at 6:00, so I helped her with her stuff. Mostly though I stopped her from oversleeping. She’s invited me to visit her in L.A. and I am very tempted.
After she was gone I took a short nap (although I’m not sure I actually fell to sleep) and then got up to say goodbye to the next group of people leaving. I continued that pattern for most of the morning, until noon when I found the professional model again. We cuddled for a few hours and then I sent her off on her bus to the airport.
The weather has been interesting today. There is a hurricane hitting Cuba, narrowly missing us. While the rest of the week was calm and cloudy, today has been almost stormy. The wind isn’t blowing too hard, but the waves are crashing on the shore, destroying some of the boardwalk.
I found out how powerful the waves were when I went to the nude pool to get some filtered sunlight and kept getting splashed when the waves went over the walls. I did try and take a nap. I missed sunset completely. I heard it was beautiful.
Now I’m tired. I’m going to bed. My bags are mostly packed. It should be an easy trip home tomorrow.

Today was fairly laid back. It has been the first real sunny day for the entire week. I spent time with the professional model. She’s really cool. I’ve also been hearing comments from people that I should be naked, or skimpily dressed more often. Women here are admiring my body. I feel like a piece of meat. It’s great!
I still have to get over my social phobias. I clutch a camera and take pictures instead of just living in the moment. And I have taken a lot of pictures. My 4 GB memory card is full. I wish I could download it to my computer, but my card reader doesn’t recognize it. I think it is too big for reader to handle.
I also keep forgetting to drink. Alcohol that is. It doesn’t seem to be stopping me much. Tomorrow though, a lot of my friends are leaving. I will have to be more proactive in socialization now. Drinks for everyone!

It is finally beautiful out. The sun is shining. It is almost uncomfortably warm. There is a beautiful women to my left in a photo shoot. Life is good.
And what am I doing? Fooling around on a computer.

Nerd.

It was ever so nice to sleep in today. I should probably have taken a shower before bed because my sheets got covered in bodypaint. But eventually I did get up to have breakfast. I was fairly lazy, the high point being going water-skiing. I thought about signing up for scuba diving tomorrow, except I don’t seem to have packed the card that says I know how to dive.
In the afternoon I spent time in the nude pool area getting some sun and reading an old Time magazine. The problem here has been that there hasn’t been much sun. I can’t really remember seeing any. Continually overcast. But it is much warmer than home and I can deal without sunlight. To compensate we are treated to nice calm oceans that are great for water-skiing.
For a lark, I tried a “pole dancing for men” class. I have a new respect for the women of the pole now. You need a lot of upper body strength to do anything there. That is a quality I do not have.

It actually took me awhile to get to dinner. I still didn’t have energy. Something must be wrong because I actually spent a bit of time fooling around with a computer game. Sitting in my room! But eventually I did leave and had a pleasant dinner at the Pastafari restaurant. Unfortunately I ate some shrimp, which eventually started the allergic reaction we know and love. Just a stomach ache though.
I took some Benadryl for the shrimp, and to help with another allergic reaction my legs seem to be going through. In addition to the decongestant and the vitamin pills I’ve taken, I was in a weird state. I had trouble listening during dinner.
After dinner there was the tribal party. I just used my gladiator loin cloth and a pair of sandals. That seemed to work. But to make it better, I got the local body painter to paint some muscles on me. I looked really ripped now. At least until I take a shower. But I’m going to put that off as long as possible.
Tomorrow I will do my best to sleep in.

I don’t think I’ll be able to go scuba diving here. My throat was scratchy last night, and I feel somewhat congested. Congested is very bad when diving. It’s not too severe, and maybe it will go away. I can still go water-skiing.
This is probably because I’m not getting enough sleep. I got up early to go on the excursion so I didn’t get a lot. On top of that, I haven’t been sleeping well. I don’t feel like I’m getting into the deep sleep that gives you a restful night. I’ve been totally without energy most of today.
The excursion this morning was a canopy tour in the mountains of Jamaica. That means you travel on zip lines through the jungle. It was fun to fly through the forest. In a way it was like a Disney ride. Especially the one where you just plummet to the ground. It was an experience, but I don’t think it is one I would want to do again. It didn’t feel worth the money. I preferred the horseback ride I did last year.
Maybe I’ll try the Jamaican dogsled team.
I’ve taken a sleepless nap now, but I don’t feel healed. Still, I do need to go eat dinner.

Just happened; Achingly beautiful porn star knocked on my door in the middle of the night.
Looking for someone else.

So, the night I’ve stayed up the latest will be followed by the morning I want to get up the earliest. That is, if I want to go on an excursion with the achingly beautiful porn star.
Today has been a good day for my self-esteem. I started it feeling a little down. A water-skiing didn’t improve it a lot. Maybe the lie down I had after breakfast helped? No, the real thing was a professional model who kept gushing over how good I looked and wanted to talk to me. She liked back rubs and foot massages as well. I spent a lot of time with her. You could say I’m still doing-it-wrong, but I consulted with some other people who have been coming here, and they’ve been doing-it-wrong too. I feel better now.
Other than that, there was a pool party in the quad. It was a lot of fun, with raunchy inflatable pool toys abounding. There was a fire eating demonstration, with hands on experience. I found out that fire tastes like gas. And the wrist is the most sensitive part of the arm to fire, whereas the rest of the forearm doesn’t even seem to care. Well, the hair I used to have did, but we shall talk of it no more.

Okay, the getting to bed early is falling apart. But I’ve been hanging out with friends for most of the day. In the morning I did the water-skiing lessons with some of them. It was a blast and I hope to do it again soon. Hopefully tomorrow, weather permitting.

I’m going to bed early again. (For a given value of early.) It’s nice to get up when it is still cool in the morning and go do stuff. Weather permitting. Hopefully water-skiing tomorrow.
I should sign up for scuba diving, but I’m still not sure of my health. You should not go diving if you have a stuffy nose. This morning I wasn’t sure, but at the end of the day I feel fine. I’m hoping it gets better, but I might have missed my chance if my nose gets worse.
And it has been a good day. After I wrote my last entry I went to the main bar and met a very nice girl. And I would like to think she is open to helping me not-doing-it-wrong. She was appreciative of a foot massage, although we found out she was a squealer. We would have probably stayed together except we both had things to do.
My excuse? Helping the beautiful girls change for the fashion show. Beautiful girls who have a good body image and don’t mind changing in front of stage hands.
I like this resort.
Oddly, I still don’t have a roommate. I’m not complaining, but it is weird. For once I don’t have to worry about having a snorer in my room.

An interesting experiment is taking place. I’m finding going to bed at a decent hour and then getting up early is a lot more productive than staying up late and sleeping in. I’m not getting up at the crack of dawn, but I am getting things done. Mostly spending time with friends though. I hope to do a water-skiing lesson tomorrow.
I spent some time in the afternoon helping with a fashion show. I’m not going to be in it, but I will help the beautiful girls backstage.

I caught an achingly beautiful girl checking me out this evening. I started spending time with her. She’s a porn star, but she was previously a computer programmer.
So, I got up the nerve and asked her out. I got shot down very politely. She has a boyfriend and wants to stay faithful. But if she didn’t, she would.
Still, I’m getting out there. And she is still very hot.
I think we’re going to try going parasailing at some point.

I’ve been at the resort for awhile. There are a lot of my old friends here and we are already making plans for the rest of the week. It’s good to see them.
I’ve been working on the goal of not-doing-my-vacation-wrong, and it is progressing. I’ve been drinking and talking to women. Some of them are single, some are not. My friends here have been encouraging, giving me pointers. I had one say that I should be working harder on a particular girl, even though she has a boyfriend. Here. I find that idea uncomfortable. However, the girl in question actually said out loud she couldn’t ever consider being a swinger.
As far as I’m concerned I should just be treating her as a friend and move along to the next one.

I’m in Jamaica. I arrived with all my luggage. Now I’m on the bus to the resort. But we appear to have taken a rest stop where the locals can ply their wares. I’ve been here enough that I am comfortable ignoring them. I’ve seen this stop before. They have nothing I want that I don’t already have. Why would I need another conch shell.
The weather is rainy. They say it is a warm rain, and I can trust them on that. I’m just not testing the theory out yet.
But the sea air is hopefully improving my health. I can’t feel my throat tickle as much anymore.