Radical Transparency

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great barrier reef

November 07, 2008

Only Women Wear Long Hair

Bizarre day.

Started early.  4am.  The smoke detector fire alarm system spit the dummy.  Word from the alarm people is that there are "critters" chewing on wires and causing trouble.

Thought about sustainable linoleum.

Drank green tea, which is a way more manageable drug for me than coffee. 

Ate a vegetarian turkey sandwich.  Wondered if it might have been tofurkey, which would have been awesome.

Remembered how glad I am that one of the Carrot Project investors is a lawyer.

Wrote an unplanned blog post.  Enjoyed the spontaneity of it.  But feel a little bit sad that I wasn't able to keep my favorite thought in tact.  So I'm reconnecting it here into its original four sentence form.  Out of context, of course.

While we're tiny and experimental and close to zero cost. Which we are right now.  And maybe will be forever.  If we're good.

Hung out just my mother, my father, my sister, and me.  Which never happens.  Divorce, geography, work, and omnipresent (and welcome) cousins make it difficult.  Talked about what a pain in the ass little kid I was.

Talked to Australia.  Heard fish stories and jokes.  Remembered the sounds of freediving on the Reef.

Looked for a good picture from my last trip to Oz.  Wanted to post it here and write a story.  Found a poem instead.  Might post it someday.  Not tonight.

Started listening to The Who.  Think I might need a tattoo.  Because I'm sleepy and delusional and amused at the fact that I started this post with the word bizarre.  Amused and maybe a little bit proud.

Tattoo is track 4 on Live at Leeds.

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October 21, 2008

Second Watch

The Carrot Project was born on a boat.  In the purple water.  Sailing toward Osprey Reef, a lonely and magical coral lagoon 100km east of the Outer Barrier. 

It was October 2006, and I had raced down from Beijing to spend 10 days working on Big Mama, an 18 meter yacht that operates out of Bloomfield, a tiny rainforest town three hours of dirt roads north of Cairns, Australia. 

I did strange things with my vacations when I lived in China.

Big Mama is my uncle's boat. He and his friends built it from scratch many years ago, and they now serve a tiny sliver of Tropical North Queensland's tourism market: the brave glowing lunatics that choose adventure over comfort.*

That night two years ago, I was on watch, half-seasick, and harnessed to the guardrail.  With me on deck was Chris, a candle entrepreneur turned volunteer conservationist executive, and he and I were in charge between 2am and 6am.  Our responsibilities included watching for other boats, trimming the sails as needed, making sure the autopilot didn't change its mind on us, and staying awake.  Technology was cooperating, and the wind was steady, so we sat and talked.

My big life plan at that point had already started coming together, for Chris and I had been scheming for months.  I would spend another six to eight months in Beijing, wrap up work there, and then head on down to Cairns.  While I was extracting myself from Beijing, Chris would plug me in with the necessary Aussies, and I'd lock up work with one of two sustainable agriculture projects.  Bananas, possibly.  Or, if not, sugar cane.  Either way, the direction was clear: plants, soils, chemicals, greenhouses, food.  Growing sustainable abundance.

But that ni