A Preferred Blur

I thought I saw my high school boyfriend on the flight back from Puerto Vallarta. I noticed a guy sitting near me in the airport who looked like him, plus 20 years (which is about right, as he and I started dating in late 1991). He even answered to the same first name, when I heard his travel companion calling out to him. I got a closer look in the line-up to board the plane, and ended up 90% certain that it was just a random guy who looked quite a bit like the paramour of my teen years.

But just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that it was him.

We used to be the fun-loving couple pictured at right. So how did he become a paunchy, balding nerd wearing prescription sunglasses indoors and telling pointless stories about how he doesn't know how to use out of office notifications in Outlook? (Yeah, I eavesdropped. Sue me).

And how did I become this bitter middle-aged loner, who can't be happy unless she's compulsively traveling the world?

Interestingly enough, on the same plane ride with Not-My-Ex-Boyfriend, I started reading A Preferred Blur by Henry Rollins, and remembered that there's at least one more human in the world with a similar dysfunction.

The central theme to A Preferred Blur, as with all Rollins' travel journals, is that he can't stand being at home. Or being with other people. He only feels good about life while alone and on the road. I can relate. He and I also have in common that we'll get a notion to go someplace, and then have to follow it through, becoming nearly obsessed with learning more about the location, and of course, going there. Upon arrival, the focus then becomes "getting through it," soaking up as much as possible, writing it all down, then getting on to the next thing. Being at home is really just down time between excursions.

So back to my original question: How did I become this woman? Rollins is very open about how his screwed-up youth and battles with depression have made him the way he is. I can't say that. Sure, I wasn't raised by Ozzie and Harriet*, but I made peace with anything fucked up about my childhood long before I ever got on a plane by myself.

Maybe it's innate, or a combination of nature and nurture. Maybe I don't really care. Maybe I can't articulate it as well as Henry, but the truth is that I'm happy in my own preferred blur. 

Next stop: London....


*Although I did watch a lot of Ozzie & Harriet while growing up. And to be fair, maybe their parenting shouldn't be put on a pedestal. They did, after all, force their young sons to grow up on television. Kind of messed up, no?

Not Seattle

The following was written last night around 8pm...

I fucking hate Seattle.

No, I really do. I only live there because I'm lazy. It takes very little effort to carry on living my life there, while it requires a great deal of effort to get a new job and move far away, particularly when I have cats to bring along. So I continue on in the city I can't stand, take as many trips away as possible, and complain a lot. It comes naturally to me, having grown up with a Catholic martyr of a mother who constantly demonstrated the technique.

Right now, I'm in Puerto Vallarta, but Seattle's horribleness is still conspiring to ruin my night. If this hotel didn't have wi-fi in the lobby, I could've remained blissfully unaware of the snowpocalypse back home, but alas, I'm addicted to the innernettes and read all about the winter wonderland awaiting me on my return.

Don't get me wrong, I like snow. I actually love winter. I think it's totally natural to escape to a sunny Mexican resort in January and come home to a few inches of snow on the ground.

However, despite having at least one major snow event per year, Seattle has no idea how to deal with the situation. Which is why I'm already annoyed thinking of the major hassle I'll be walking into when I leave here tomorrow.

There's a good chance that my plane will be greatly delayed while Seatac airport scrambles to keep the runways clear. Once my flight lands, it's possible that I won't be able to get my car out of airport parking, or very far on the roads back to the city. Even if I-5 is clear, it's unlikely that my little Saturn will be able to navigate up Capitol Hill to get home, given that the streets will probably be covered in a treacherous layer of ice and compacted snow, from the poor plowing technique the city has become known for. Then if I make it through all of that, I have to find a parking space on sloped side streets that have never seen a plow or grain of de-icer.

If it's as bad as the web makes it look, I could even be stuck paying last-minute rates for a hotel by the airport, or -- worst case scenario -- stuck in SeaTac with nowhere to sleep at all. And there's not a damn thing I can do to make the situation better. I'm just flying straight into Hell, with no other options.

Since there's nothing I can do about it, I'm trying to deal with the annoyance, and not waste my last night here in Heaven. How? I'm drinking. And listening to the ocean. And searching for my inner optimist, desperately trying find it in me to hope for the best.

It had better work. I really, really need it to work.



Today's update...

For the most part, I managed to forget about the situation and have a relatively mundane evening. Then I woke up around 4am and spent an hour or so stressing about the situation. I've read that studies show optimists are comforted by telling themselves that everything will turn out fine. Pessimists feel better after they've come up with every possible negative outcome and make a plan to deal with each. Pessimists make good project managers. You can guess which one I am based on the above.

I finally told myself that imagining all the hassles wasn't going to change the weather, but it would ensure that I end up trying to drive in snow while very sleep deprived. So I went back to sleep.

This morning has gone by way too fast, and my flight doesn't leave for another 4 hours... which means that if I'm on time I'll be arriving in the dark and cold of the evening. And I just want to get home. The thought of how difficult that will be makes me nauseated. But I don't think I have any other choice.

Ugh. See you all in Seattle... if I ever get there.

The Resort

Well, forcing myself not to plan worked, to a certain extent. I feel much more relaxed now than I did this morning.

I ended up spending 5 or 6 hours today lounging around the resort. I read by the pool… and on the beach… and on my balcony. I ate a couple plates of delicious Mexican food, and drank several beers. And I spent less than an hour online.

I also passed some time watching the Golden Globes red carpet and waiting to get hungry for dinner. Even though I always eat at buffets in these resorts, dinner can be particularly awkward because they actually sit you at a table and pour drinks for you. Most people hate eating by themselves… OK, most people hate doing anything by themselves, but meals are the worst. I don't mind it -- solo is my most comfortable state -- but the hosts always seem confused to be seating me alone, and all the other diners look at me with confusion, or occasionally pity. I don't mind, I spend the whole time judging them for the immense piles of food they're shoving in their gobs.

On the way back from dinner, I met some nice older folks from Saskatchewan. As the 4 of them boarded the elevator ahead of me, I said something witty like, "Is there room for one more? Oh great, and you already pressed the button for my floor!" One of them replied with, "Are you from Canada?"

Shit, my accent really is coming back.

Anyway. Now that I'm fed, I'll grab some ice and spend the rest of the evening enjoying the contents of my liquor dispenser and the 2 or 3 English-language programs that appear on my television.

Sure, the resort has several bars, a disco, and a stage show that I could visit tonight. But I'm here to relax, not roll my eyes at a poor musical production or watch drunken tourists do the electric slide.

It may sound terrible to everyone else out there, but to me, it's a perfect vacation. It may take me a minute to settle in, but I'm sure when I leave, it will be much too soon.

A State of Relaxation, Damnit

Day 2 in Puerto Vallarta, and so far I've been annoyed by 3 things:

1 - The ice machine. There isn't one on my floor. So getting ice for my in-room bar involves trips up and down the elevator.

2 - The time change. I slept in until 11 today, which my body thought was a fairly early 9am. But I still missed breakfast and about 3 hours of precious sunlight.

3 - Continental breakfast. Because breakfast ends at 10:30, they keep a continental breakfast going until noon. I've had it in the other Riu resorts, and it's a pretty good spread. Not here. I always bring my own coffee, but there was no hot water to put in it, and the only food was a smattering of sliced melon and some sandwich makings with thoroughly stale bread. Luckily I brought a few granola bars for this very situation.

The hardest thing for me is actually relaxing, though. I keep mentally planning out my day to make sure I get everything in… grab a shady beach chair for reading, visit the one area of the hotel with wi-fi, hit the gift shop, make sure I get some decent lunch before they close it and I'm stuck in the lunch-dinner gap starving…

And I have to stop myself, because it doesn't matter. So what if I don't get to the gift shop until 7pm? Do I need to worry about lunch timing? I'll get hungry, and I'll eat. And if I don't get enough time on wi-fi, I'll catch up on it later. Then my brain goes, nope, make sure to bring a watch, because we're on a schedule here!

Sigh. I'm not good at relaxing. Time to go try to get better at it.

Puerto Vallarta

It's my third annual trip to Mexico in January, this time in Puerto Vallarta. I  am following the same formula I used for my last two visits to Los Cabos and Playa del Carmen: I picked a random tourist location with cheap flights, booked a room at one of the Riu all-inclusive resorts, and will now spend my time eating buffet food, drinking low-quality booze, and sitting around not doing much else. I read a little more than 300 pages on the trip down, and plan to at least double that before I get home.

Even though I've taken almost this exact trip before, I got a unanimously negative response from my family at the Christmas gathering. I had several conversations that went exactly like this:

Family Member: "What trips do you have coming up? I hope you're not going to Mexico."
Me: "Actually, I'll be in Puerto Vallarta in a couple of weeks."
Family Member: "BY YOURSELF?!"
Me: "Yep, I pretty much always travel on my own, you know that."
Family Member: "Oh no, you can't go there. It's too dangerous. They keep shooting tourists on the buses."
Me, sighing: "I will fly in, take a pre-booked shuttle to an all-inclusive resort, where I'll stay until I shuttle back to airport for home. I'm not going to get shot on a bus."
Family Member, skeptically: "Well you better be REALLY careful."

At least my dad had the decency to trade the you're going to get shot line for "Just promise me you'll stay in the compound."

So here I am, staying in the compound. After a long flight, a gauntlet of salesmen on the way out of the airport, and a shocking transition to warm humid air, that is. My room is on one of the top floors, and if I look out my window I have a lovely view.

I always spend a decent amount of time on my balcony on these trips, reading or just sitting with a beer. So when I checked in and saw my prime parking lot vista, I thought, shit, should've paid the extra $100 for an ocean view. Then I walked out on the balcony and took a look to my right. Oh, there it is.

Because I arrived around 6pm local time, having been up since 4:30am Seattle time, I probably won't do much tonight. I plan to explore the resort a bit, get some food, and start the relaxation process. And make good use of the in-room liquor dispenser of course. I mean, hell, that's what it's there for!