cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sierra Le0ne So it was Collegekid who gave me the gift of an upgraded account here on Diaryland. Thank you! _______________________________ There was Christmas. That happened. I didn't especially enjoy it, though it could have been worse. As usual I busted my ass to pay 100% of the Christmas presents for the kids and for both sides of the family. Guiding, teaching, etc. Not a word of thanks from Trish for my efforts, nor any attempt on her part to help pay for any of it. Nor has she made the slightest effort to contribute a single cent to the household budget in the last eight years. Eight years of dead weight since she last held a job. But no, I'm not bitter... I don't really want things. I mean material objects. I already have plenty, thanks. Christmas presents aren't very important to me. I didn't get many. A flashlight. A pair of boots. Some vanilla beans (which I am very excited about, actually). The vanilla beans were something I've been wanting for months. These fuckers are going to seriously amp up my root beer game. I've got just enough sassafras root left for one more batch this winter and I'm going to bombard that shit with vanilla bean. I can't dig any more sassafras root until spring because its impossible to tell what plants in the woods are sassafras when they don't have any leaves. Yesterday I made this vanilla cream that was to fucking die for. I sliced a few vanilla beans in half with a paring knife and scraped the contents into about 1.5 cups of whole cream. I poured this into a sauce pan and added about 3 tablespoons of sugar. Then I warmed it on low heat, covered, and let it go for about an hour. Heat seems necessary to release the vanilla flavor. I strained this shit into a creamer and refrigerated it. Now, that works very well in coffee or whatever but what I did was mix it about two parts of cream to one part brandy. I'm out of brandy now or else I'd be making more right now. There is a chance that I might be going to Sierra Leone in a few weeks. This would be for the purpose of scouting locations and doing preliminary interviews with people ahead of this pair of documentaries that I'm looking to do there later this year. The mining company that is interested in financing both projects (its a long story but it isn't as bad as it sounds) has a chartered jet going over there from DC in the second week of January and there's about a 40% chance that I can get a free ride on it, along with a bunch of investors and ambassadors and such. I'd probably only be there for about a week. English is pretty widely spoken, which should help. People keep saying to me, "isn't it really dangerous over there...?" And I say 'yes, of course it is.' It isn't that I'm brave. I just don't give a fuck. I honestly don't care if I get killed over there. Financially, my prospects aren't great. I have no idea what the hell I'm going to do to pay the bills after this coming August, when I'm supposed to be leaving on a book tour. The only thing I've been able to come up with is that if I can make these two films happen then I can build a year's salary for myself into the budget. After all, when you are asking T1ffany & Company for money then you might as well ask for a lot. There are no conventional jobs to be had for me. I can't really think of any other way to survive for the next year without doing this thing in Sierra Leone. I don't have much choice. And on top of that, my wife left me and my whole family is turning away from me because of it. I'm completely isolated. It is only a matter of time before she takes off and moves out with the kids and then I'd have a whole stupid legal battle to look forward to. Dying in some memorable way in an interesting place sounds pretty good to me right now. A roadside ambush; malaria; crocodile attack. Whatever. There are plenty of novel ways to kick the bucket in Sierra Leone and I'm at a point in my life where I'm ok with it. I wouldn't take deliberate action to end my own life. I'm just not going to bother much with avoiding death. Like with what happened in Texas, hunting wild b0ar on foot with a knife. Maybe I live and just end up with some more interesting stories, or maybe it will all finally be over. I don't give a fuck either way. Tomorrow I have a hunting client. I have to drive an hour and a half to meet him on his land and I really should have built that mileage into my cost for the day. I spent an hour cooking dinner tonight and Trish wouldn't even taste it. I even made my own fucking salsa from scratch. I'm sick of the isolation here. My life is phenomenally lonely. It takes me hours every night to fall asleep without someone else in the bed beside me. Even the dogs don't sleep in this room with me any more. I need to get back on the road, preferably in Sierra Leone, and I need to find the most dangerous (yet productive) things to do that I can possibly come up with. When I'm a hairsbreadth from death I don't feel lonely any more. When I'm in pain, when I'm cold or hot or about to drown or on the cusp of having my leg ripped off by something with a lot of teeth its like a little vacation from all of the things I otherwise have to worry about. I just want to feel something else, whether its a bayonet through my chest or a plane crash in the bush. Oh, I don't belong here. I don't. I don't fit into this culture or this country or this time. 8:24 p.m. - 2011-12-28 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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