Stopping for a moment I think ‘I usually don’t like to sell, but this is my website and I believe in it.’

My monologue continues, I can’t help it, the words just kept coming out. “The bible is the story of one man’s life and experience, it has been passed on recorded and remembered. The goal of Novelog is to create a book, online of course, about the lives of many.”

Stopping for a moment the eyes remain fixated on me, I continue “All of our experience is worth remembering and passing on, the problem is that it hasn’t been practical until now, this is what the internet is doing, it’s the great equalizer”

The room is hushed aside from the fan over head and the flickering TV in the background, no one else says a word as they wait for me to go on. “Have you ever had an experience you thought was worth telling someone about?”

“Sure… but why would anyone else care?” asked the shaggy haired punk from London.

I answer with a question “Who would have thought Jesus would have been remembered 2000 years later?” I go on “My point is that if you think an experience is worth passing on then other people will probably feel the same. Everyday we have encounters that we can learn from, these lessons can be passed on to other people, that’s what this is all about.”

“This is a good idea, I’ll definitely check it out.” said the guy from London enthusiastically.

He goes on “So you’re making an online bible about the experiences of many people?”

“Sort of… its a online epic about experience, moments, lessons and life. I was using the bible as an analogy.”

“After smoking weed I feel connected with the flow, I become more aware while thoughts and insights race though my mind at incredible speeds… its mind blowing”. A look of confusion comes across her face, she doesn’t seem understand, presumably she figures I am just blabbering nonsense because of all the herb I have just smoked.

Speaking loudly my comment grabs a lot of attention, heads turn and eyes become fixed on me. Fascination fills the room. I am the center of attention! This was new. I’m never the center of attention, I don’t often say much…. but today was different.

Continuing with conversation “The flow surrounds all of us like an ocean of life or maybe its love… actually its probably energy….. regardless it’s flowing around and between us, it connects us all together whether we can feel it or not”

“But how does that relate to right now?” someone interjects.

“Right now we are in this moment, can you feel it flowing through you? It’s the flow, it connects us all together.” Stopping to think for a moment, there is silence, the room is captured in my words and is left hanging, waiting to hear what will come out next…

A moment later I continue “We are here right now, this is how it happens, this is life, this is now, this is the experiment!”

“The experiment?” asks the typical American Eagle jock.

“The experiment of life, of living in the moment and being here now. On my website I want to explore this, I want people to participate and get involved in the experiment.”

“What’s the website called?” someone asks.

“Novelog, novelog.com, its really easy to remember” spelling it out “N O V E L O G dot com.”

Conversations were flowing back and forth as I gained the confidence to start participating. It’s easier to be myself in situations when my family isn’t around, it must have something to do with my social identity.

A gentle voice whispers “Come over here” immediately my head turns towards the balcony where I suspect the voice has come from. There sits the girl from Montreal, her long black hair waving in the wind. All by herself she sits outside to avoiding the smoke. I look at her for a moment, but she doesn’t notice me, I wonder if I am hearing things. Contemplating the situation I consider going to talk to her, but realize that would mean missing the joint, naturally I decide to stay where I am.

A few minutes pass, the joint is dead, the smoke starts to clear the room. The girl from Montreal gets out of the chair on the balcony and steps inside taking a seat on the bed beside me.

Confidently I ask “Do you ever feel like you’re in the moment…. living right now?”
“Yes definitely, not often though. It usually happens when I go for walks in the woods or play sports, but the environment and people need to be right.”
I thought to myself ’set and setting’.

Blitzed out of my mind I swayed to the rhythms inside my head, stopping occasionally to sit still and contemplate as though I were going to say something important. The dark haired girl from Montreal watched with interest and laughed at my routine.

The story continues Monday

I had no idea where we were going, all the buildings looked the same, but with a little help we found our way. The tattooed thug pulled out some weed, it was a dark green almost brown, mushed, leafy, seedy mess. It smelt like cannabis, but looked different from what I was used to, back home the weed had more bud and was a lighter shade of green.

The eccentric student from Ottawa, who earlier in the week had been grinding with his mother, broke up the marihuana with his hands. He seemed to be have a lot of trouble without any scissors and all those steams. When it was finally all broken up he continued to rolled a massive L-joint using strawberry king-sized rolling papers. By the time he licked the glue and sealed it tight it was the largest cannon I had ever seen.

We sparked the joint, as the sound of the TV flickered on and off in the background, the crappy Mexican resort cable had been doing this all week. Not everyone joined in on the smoking, a few people were just there for the party.

Slowly exhaling smoke rises and dances in the air. The herbs were good, tasted nice and got me baked. I hadn’t smoked in a while, so the lowered tolerance helped. Max wasn’t smoking and he looked pretty tired so he took off and headed to bed.

The room was cramped with unfamiliar people looking for a place to sit. Smoke was filling the room and the smell of reefer lingered in the air. A fan spun above our heads directing the smoke towards the open balcony doors.

A myriad of characters stand around the table, to my left is the girl I’ve been talking science with. She’s with three friends from schools, I’m introduced but don’t remember any of their names. Across the table my brother Max is talking to some random girl, he’s always talking to people, it’s easy for him. Beside Max our sisters are flirting with two guys from Edmonton, they arrived at the resort a couple days after us. For the most part everyone is Canadian, the resort employees play along and try without success to pick up drunken tourists.

The night isn’t getting any younger, the moon is full and over head, the group gets smaller as people head off to bed. A long day lay ahead as most people were headed home, my family was leaving at 6 am.

The bar that was filled only thirty minutes earlier, had only a single group of drunken tourists left, grabbing a chair I took a seat. The conversation was all about Canada, natives, Ontario, Alberta, the stupidity of Quebecers and their hypocritical language laws. The conversation continued until the black framed glasses wearing tattooed thug from Alberta said “joint time”. Everyone was in so we head to their room to burn one down.

The room was on the other side of the resort. Passing the illuminated pools, sounds from the ocean can be heard in the distance. Palm trees sway in the warm breeze. Looking towards the ocean there is no light, the sky is clear and the stars shine bright.

Hands clapping, eyes glazed, someone says “this is more complicated than I expected”. The game continues tap, tap, clap, clap, hand signals are exchanged across the table. Suddenly someone is doing the disco dance move. Noticing I repeat but am unable to remember any other signals.Taking a drink I smile at the girl next to me. Having poor hand-eye coordination and an under developed memory my glass of beer disappears quickly, I get up to grab another.

Waiting for a drink, a guy at the other end of the bar starts to laugh franticly as he points at a bartender. The bartender lifts his apron, a cucumber hangs from some strings, with every movement the cucumber bounces up and down. As I laugh another bartender asks “What can I get you Boss?” “Cerveza.” He pulls a large bottle of beer from the fridge and pours its contents into two pint glasses.

Returning to my seat there are more people, all on their feet, hands interlocked their palms on the table, looking for a space I find one next to the girl I smiled at earlier. The game is straightforward, we’ve been playing all week, hands thump and thud.

Stumbling over my words I start talking to the girl. She’s still in University, as the conversation turns to school and biology. Above the bar is a poorly painted mural of various sea creatures, pointing to the starfish she says “Asterias rubens”. Overhearing the conversation my brother comments sarcastically “You’re talking about science?!?” She laughs but doesn’t seem to mind. Meanwhile the game goes on, the action’s at the other end of the table. Drinks disappear, I take a couple swigs of beer.