Hardly five days back from Port-au-Prince and I’m moving the one-quart plastic bag of liquids and aerosols from my rolling suitcase to my duffle bag and filling the rest of the space with clothes appropriate to the current Portland weather—a mild peak of 57 from a low of 52, intermittent rain. And when I return on Wednesday, I’ll have a mere 36 hours before I receive Eric for a two-week stay.
And this seems to be the prevailing pattern for 2008: travel somewhere new, host an old friend (or my mother, as the case was in April). After Eric leaves, I’ll be back in Manila for most of July until the beginning of August, and I’m planning trips to Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur during that stay.
Then it’s All Points West, UX Week, and orientation at Georgetown. So much for those unaccountable weekends of concert-going, movie-going, museum-going, and other-country-going, binge drinking to the last. So much for open tomorrows.
I’ll keep my comments about my trip to Haiti brief, and first, yes, I actually was there. Except for my colleagues, it seems my updates about a new passport picture and maladrone were all taken as groundwork for an elaborate ruse, and although there were moments even I didn’t believe it was happening, it did. I didn’t have the opportunity to explore the country, let alone the city of Port-au-Prince, as we were largely confined to the hotel and the tony hillside during our three-day stay, conducting transactions in American English and dollars. Ultimately, we were there to do a job, and after my end of that was torpedoed by possibly the most ill-conceived website launch I’ve witnessed, I’m told we still fulfilled our symbolic purpose, which I have to convince myself counts for something. And as a natural extension of the fact I rarely parted with my DSLR there, I assumed the role of delegation photographer—there’s ample evidence I am not making this up.
Nevertheless, given the thesis I’m planning to write, it was a fruitful trip for my personal academic purposes. And though our itinerary was narrow, we made the best of it, three single guys on straight cash per diem. Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone, and I know, I know, I know…
Apropos today’s itinerary, man, is romance in the 21st century a weird beast or what? Sure, good things happen to me when it rains, but whither tornadoes?
“I know you say there’s no-one for you, but here is one.”
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