286.March 21

University of Nottingham, UK

I had an interview with Lucy about my attitudes towards women in regards to Lysistrata. She was the lead character, and had picked up quite a bit of insight during the production, and I think she wanted to come to an understanding if I learned the same things she did. I went to the train station to pick up my brother John at 14:30, but arrived just in time to see his cab speeding away towards my flat. I took the bus. When I got to the flat, my own brother hardly recognized me with my long hair. At 17:00, I took him to campus with me, to pick up the video camera from the PAS. We had to bring it back to the flat because the theatre was locked and the key gone. I helped him find a quick vegetarian bite to eat and then left for the theatre. The play was great, but I was video taping it at the back. I was holding a video camera up over everyone with one arm most of the time. I wore myself out.

The cast party went late last night. First we went to the Buttery bar. Everyone made loads of noise when we got to our place, so the whole night I was telling them not to scream, and no smoking pot. It ended all right though. It was a strange experience for me to be the director and have everyone appreciate me for that. They were a good cast, but messy, annoying house guests. They got too drunk, spilled beer, stomped out cigarette butts on the carpet, and screamed while playing musical chairs. Stacey was trying to sleep, so until they went quiet, I was nervous. I cleaned until 04:00.

1994

Pueblo, Colorado

We are in Pueblo Colorado at the worst of all our hotel/motel experiences. We had a wonderful motel in Santa Fe last night called "The King's Rest", and decided that we wanted to continue on that route. We had breakfast with the parents of a movie star who was recently the girlfriend in "SuperBad", and it was one of the best breakfasts ever, witch hot green chilli's and perfect eggs. We bought a ring of red peppers for home at a co-op. Then we took off along the road west, stopping at a native american based park east of Sante Fe. We bought a lot of things today at a Weaving and importing place in Las Vegas, New Mexico created by it's owner and her students, and we wanted to be able to bring them into the room, along with this computer, video cameras, etc., so a motel was our best option, we thought.

So we passed one cool hotel here in Pueblo that was already full, but almost as nice as the best motels of Santa Fe. This one hasn't changed since 1970 except for the, well, no, it hasn't changed. The soaps are even cracked, and the telephone could even be from '72. There is a TV here, and something that old can't still be functioning.

Well, besides this, which will turn out ok, we have had a beautiful day. We are off for a walk around our general area, about 10 blocks down to four spots listed on our GPS named TOM as NIGHTLIFE.

2008

Belize Trip

We woke in the Rachel’s old house in St. Paul, where we’d spent the night with Jake. We’d loaded the luggage into bags the night before, and made some cuts, I think we’ll appreciate everything we’ve got, though seven or more pairs of shoes does seem extreme for Rachel. I think I even have too many shoes.

Our flight departed from MSP after 08:30 it all seemed well planned and clockwork timing, until we reached Houston, Texas. We ate at a bar-b-que place, a chain but we loved our food. We got chocolate Macadamia nuts desert to bring on the plane. At 13:00, I called my parents from the airport in Houston and said goodbye to them. I talked to my mom. Rachel didn’t get anyone of her parents. Then we got on our plane to Belize, but sat and waited because someone got on but then left for a smoke and never came back, leaving his luggage, so they had to take all the luggage off the plane and reload it after finding his bag. On our way, the first land we saw from above was the north coastline of Yucatan. WE landed in a tiny airport, after watching a movie about a football legend, “The Express” the story of Ernie Davis, who died at 23 of leukemia.

Belize International Airport is small, but they try to make it as confusing as possible. At the airport, we got into 3 lines at passports, got our luggage and we then had to separate our luggage. Rachel took hers off the cart and went to one line, and I took the cart and was directed to another. After I declared having only a bottle of vodka from home, I went on and they said I couldn’t take my cart. Someone jumped in and offered to help with my luggage and was really pushy, putting my luggage on his cart and helping me through. People immediately pounced on us and asked to carry our luggage, after we were separated into two lines. So as we were trying to locate each other, they were preying on us to get tips. Pretty pathetic that the airlines try to feed into this industry of "service". It was hard enough to find our next flight down to Placencia when we were getting asked it we needed help from all sides. I said I was with someone and I was waiting for her, but then realized she was already ahead of me. I ended up giving him 5 bucks after he took us to the airway line. I am begining to realized that I just need to say “NO.”

We got return tickets on the airline to Placencia. We had a few drinks, 1 each, but it was immensely strong at the Belize International Airport while we waited for our flight, which was a bit late, on Tropic Air. I guess since it only took 5 minutes to board, it wasn’t very late.

We had stunning views of the coastline and landed on the tiny runway that crosses through the peninsula about 5 miles south of our hotel. “Dex” the owner of the Maya Breeze Inn picked us up at the airport in his F350 XLT and rode at high speeds to Seine Bight. There he stopped and bought us some bitters, anise flavoured alcoholic drinks made from roots. When we arrived at the Inn, we met his 3 dogs, one named scrappy, and his girlfriend Violetta, from Managua, Nicaragua, and Helen, who manages the place for him. We unpacked our things and came out to the bar for drinks. We both drank Belikan draft beer and were given suggestions as to what we should eat and where. We settled on “The Hungry Gecko”, just half a mile or less down the road, and set off. We ordered a beautiful meal. Rachel had stewed chicken with rice and I had ground beef with salsa and shredded cabbage on top instead of cheese. It was on a small taco shell and I loved it. We each had a few more bottles of Belikan, I had a stout, which I did enjoy and was 6.4% alchohol compared to the 4.6% of the regular beer.

There were two guys there at a table that had 30 bottles of Belikan emptied and they were quite happy and smiley. We went back to the bar and got more creative with our drinks orders. Rachel had a pina colada, that Dex called “the Taxman.” I stuck to beer, but still ended up falling asleep when Rachel was getting ready to go to the pool. Rachel got one more beer and talked with Dex and Violetta. She spent about half an hour in the pool and had the whole beach to herself and it was so beautiful.

The moon is not out this part of the month, and it is completely dark with excellent views of the stars.

2009

I woke at 09:00 and washed clothes and cleaned the kitchen. Rachel woke for lunch, as I was using up Italian sausage and red sauce with tiny imported Da Vinci pasta. We went to my sister's house at 14:00 to babysit Ole and Elyse while there parents were at a meeting. We went on a wonderful walk on the sand hill above the house, and walked along the ridge. We were pretending that we were fleeing from an attacking force, which made Elyse's mind spin. Her parents and Jill joined us for dinner at 19:00, and I discussed religions with John until 22:00.

2010