CAN I PLEASE HAVE SOME WHINE?

I feel the need to express how bored I currently am on Caye Caulker. Long stretches of boredom interrupted by bursts of supernatural joy & terror which sounds awfully close to the definition of psychosis.

Easter Thursday, the big kick off to the BUSY Easter weekend when mainlanders invade our tranquility. I am not excited. My mind tells me I should be some place else, but I will probably stay for the convenience of being at home. Word on the street with the young & rich, that is the ones who can afford to go anywhere for a weekend, that Caulker is "the place to be" this Easter .

Making my psychosis worse, the sun didn't shine once today & I was stuck indoors most of the day feeling gloomy until IslandGirl showed up and dragged me off to a Texas Hold'em match at the Sportsbar. I was second to go all-in with a pair of jacks and lost to a pair of kings, soooooooo that excitement was short-lived.

I am feeling desperate for something, driven by a force beyond myself. My mind skids to a shortlist of things I would be willing to trade my soul for just about now. Here at the hostel, I am surrounded by 'journey people' who are having the time of their lives, but it only makes me feel worse, like I'm missing out and I can't bring myself to mingle HERE at home, it just isn't the same. My brain tells me I should be in some exotic locale, with the same vibe found here, laughing & singing and high with the excitement of adventure. Then I have the other problem that I don't like to travel alone and everyone else is busy with man & children, so I'm stuck like Chuck. Single & 40 is not the best place to be necessarily, it feels like a lonely club. Where the hell is everyone else in my age group in the same situation, single-ready to mingle-no responsibilties-lots of free time-ready to paaartaaaay?

So after loseing at poker next door, I wandered around the rest of my block here on the island which is about as far as I tend to roam. My world is getting very small people and I feel like I'm in quick sand. The block has everything I could possibly need, bars, restaurants, internet cafe, police, park & more, but these places don't see me often.

On this day I was loseing my mind, I wanted to see who else I could run into for random conversations so I made the herculean effort to make the round.

• The first person I ran into was telling me some tasteless & trashy stories which began to ride my nerves like a pony.
• The next, a lesbian on the island pulls me aside on the street since she 'needs' some chicks to talk to right now. She tells me that her mandingo of the last few years has a new girlfriend in the form of a much older mandingo sponsor and she is going out of her mind watching him parade her around in front of her. The next two weeks they plan to be here will be hell, she says. She is devastated, and she tells me this like I would believe her, as if her relationship with him wasn't the weirdest hook-up since Michael Jackson and anybody.
• MANDINGOS, that's what we are calling the guys one could control with money until they revolt and some of us don't know what the hell happened. What really happened is that someone else with more money came along.
• The next gal on the neighborhood tour asked too many personal questions and is the worse at secrets. If I was a press secretary and wanted something leaked, I'd tell it to her.
• Last but not least, Cousin Rose told me about a territorial argument she had with a "just come ya" who was treating her like an alien. She told me about this fool she referred to as "Sonso Bobo". She said she told him "if your grandfather, grandmother or other relatives are not buried in the grave yard next to Tropical Paradise (the first grave yard on the island), then you can't claim you are FROM HERE".

I can't hack any more of this dreary day. I just hope I can wake up tomorrow and the sky will look like a nice blue sheet & the sea flat & clear like glass. I bought a little boat and a 3.3 horsepower engine and I have been anxious to take it out for a test run. Being out alone in the middle of the open ocean doesn't sound like a bad idea to me right now.