Near Tulum in Quintana Roo province, Mexico (the region that Joan Didion named her daughter after, RIP), past the barbed-wire fence, I sat on blackened rock beside a tide-pool containing hermit crabs, anemone, and a blue plastic Pepsi bottle-cap. It was late afternoon on my second day at an ALL INCLUSIVE RESORT. Looking left I saw, in the distance, the sunburnt families splayed on chaise lounges dotting the groomed beach. To the right were wild shores and jungle palms. In front of me crashing azulejo waves and the ocean horizon. Surrounded by a stock-pile of resort beer I wrote:

I am Morvern Callar. I swim past the pool bar, alligator eyes poking up. They are something to be afraid of (both the people and my eyes). That's not to say I don't enjoy this place; it's gorgeous. But, I don't think I enjoy it the way I'm meant to.

Last night I swung in a hammock listening to Joni, Joanna, and Natasha (not Beddingfield) after walking on the deserted part of the beach. White sands glowing in the moonlight, fierce winds, crashing ocean (violent, infinite, and black), beer in hand and more where that came from, and a tiny bit of fear. Everything as it should have been. Why wasn't everyone out there?

I crave cigarettes, _______________, and ________________. I'm not lacking in enjoyment, though. Like I said, I'm loving this, but not the way they want me to. While frat-boys date-rape the willing I lurk the dark beach, occasionally stopping in at the perpetual wedding reception's open bar for a glass of champagne.

Suckers.

Yeah, so basically I drank a lot. I also took a bunch of photos, went to Chichen Itza, hung out with my dad, met and went out with people who dance for the resort (nobody puts Graydie in a corner!), got a tan (I look like such a typical gay now with my short hair and too-dark-for-March skin), read, wrote, walked, swam, drank, ate, drank, slept, listened to music, saw poor scraggle-doggies with big boobies scrounging for food, drank, oggled, and ate.

As for the photos, I planned to continue with my "Are We Having Fun Yet?" series...but it didn't work. Like I just wrote to Claire, I expected to find lots of sad fat gluttons trying to get happy - but I found that, unlike "Are We Having Fun Yet?" the people knew exactly why they were in Mexico - they weren't looking for distraction or happiness, they just wanted to do nothing, so it wasn't that compelling. In AWHFY? I saw myself in the people I photographed. There was some relationship to the subject and empathy in those photos. But had I just taken photographs of the people at the all-inclusive, I think it would have been purely judgmental, which I totally am, but that kind of photograph is a bit played out in my opinion. I also wasn't nearly as anonymous as I was at the fair because there were no flashing lights or spinning rides or candy-corn booths. I would pull out my camera and 18 people would look up from their books to stare at me.

I'll put up the photos I did take as soon as I can afford to process and scan them.

I was also wrong in my last post - I didn't go to Cancun, but about an hour and a half South to a place called Akumal, near Tulum.

Labels: BAD DOG

POSTED BY GRAYDON AT 3/23/2008 -

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