My Ten Day Experiment

First of all - sorry for the fog.... Its that thing about being in the tropics with the humidity and by the water.  You walk out of the air conditioning and everything that has a clear lens, from your eyes to the phone, fogs up instantly.

My ten day experiment.  I came up with it this morning.  This morning as I lay on a massage table with a woman pounding on my back telling me that she had never felt such huge knots.  This morning as a woman was pounding on my back and my mind was whirring with things that I had to do before I checked out of the hotel and then where I should go before I had to catch the ferry....  And then it hit me -- MY NAME IS ALISON AND I AM AN OBSESSIVE MULTI-TASKER!

AHHHHHHHHHHH!

My mind never sleeps.  I'm always thinking.  And not just thinking about life but how I need to organize things so that I make sure to get everything done and then when I finish those things in my head I come up with new things that I "need" to do --- this is how I came up with the "I should paint the bathroom" thing.  I only have three hours, but if I budget my time, I can knock out the bathroom, run the errands that I need, meet with a neglected friend for lunch and also finish weeding the garden.  WHY?!  Its the eternal WHY?!   Why do I do this to myself?  I can't sit still.  I have to do something while I'm doing something and then think of other things that I can do while I'm doing other things.  Is this what being crazy is?  Am I judgmental that I'm sitting here watching a guy in a ripped t-shirt and shorts, no shoes, with a scraggly beard down to his waist and greasy hair trying to hand out hand-made straw flowers to every woman who passes by thinking "what a crazy!"  Maybe I'm the crazy one!  Maybe I should try making straw flowers and handing them out to people (lets admit I'll probably never be up to the dirty shorts and hair and no shoes - I do have to have standards:)

So, I've come up with a little experiement for myself.  I will be on a boat.  I will be sailing.  We may occassionally stop at an island or two, but for the most part, I can't do anything for 7 days.  Its really driving me crazy thinking about the fact that I can't really work out, I can't run AT ALL for 7 days.  So, since I can't do anything or plan anything because there's nothing to do, I'm going to let my mind go blank.  I mean BLANK.  I am going to become the true proverbial blonde, and I plan on getting blonder!  Literally and mentally :)

I am going to refuse to let myself think about what I need to do when I get back and the trips that I need to plan.  I won't let myself obsess about how I'm wasting my time as I'm not accomplishing anything (I do that quite frequently).  I'm going to be in the moment and let it wash all over me!  I'm going to give my brain permission to take vacation!

So as I write this, I'm sitting here at a restaurant across from the Charlotte Amalie bay area enjoying some delicious conch fritters (I LOVE conch!  I always remember back to travelling around in the Bahamas when I nannied).  I'm allowing myself to enjoy them and not worry about time.  I'm just thinking about writing.  Thats the one thing I have given myself permission to do.  Writing is my outlet and I never seem to really get a chance to do it anymore - I throw pictures up for you all, but I really don't write.  So forgive me for the future onslaught of extensive prose you are about to receive sometime this week - whenever I can connect.  Because I can blog off-line now I know that I'll be sitting on the deck just telling you all kinds of little secrets about me.

I had a nice little drive over here in a cab.  The cabs here are all these big 16 passenger vans - it always feels funny to "grab a cab" and be by yourself in a van like that.  I had this older guy who drove really slow and he had this nice caribbean music blasting with steel drums and a entourage of women who backed up their lead male singer crooning "someone at the pah-tee pinched me on the rump-see".  My driver sang along like he was the lead in the group.  The other thing thats funny about the cab drivers here is they never tell you how much the fare is.  They just drop you off and then wait for you to give them money.  You never know - it could be 5 it could be 15 -- they just wait to see if you give them a 20 and say "keep the change".

And heres a perspecitve from travelling alone.  Especially when you're in a tropic place and walking around by yourself, men hit on you.  And not like "decent" guys, but old ones, drunk ones. perverted ones.  They say "hi", they say "how are you doing", they say other things when you walk past.   I don't know if I feed it, but I ignore them.  Sometimes they seem to make those really nasty comments when you shun them.  I guess its that they've been rejected and now they have to be all manly and act like they weren't really interested in you to begin with.  You know how they have that fake guy that you can put in your passenger seat when you drive around so people don't think you're alone.  I think I'm going to come up with something like that that you can walk around with and eat dinner with and all so people don't make comments and stare pitifully at you.  I don't mind doing anything alone, its just all the above that drives me crazy....  Oh - oh, I think I just added something to my brain battle for the week -- now I'm going to be whirring around in my head with ideas for this "faux friend".  Hmmm....

Well - I'm off to enjoy my fritters - the conch ones that are sitting here in front of me.  And then I must needs head off to catch the ferry for Tortola.

So begins the experiment!