Carnival Cruise Line to Ensenada, Mexico. Aug 2005.
This was our 3rd wedding anniversary, but look who appears to be closest to Roman...
Now as I look at it, this picture also seems telling of the true state of our relationship. By the way, on a side note - the "Mexican" dancer...um, I'm pretty sure she was Filipino - as were all of the other "Mexican characters" on hand for Carnival's $15 photo ops. I guess they figured the American tourists wouldn't notice if they chucked any ol' dark skinned person into some colorful ethnic Mexican garb. Actually though, I'm not even sure her getup is Mexican. It looks more "Chiquita Banana" to me...I don't know, could it be Cuban, perhaps?? Anyway hey, thanks for the vote of confidence, Carnival, but yeah - I noticed!
*****
Roman won this all expenses paid, three day cruise to Mexico, for his star performance at work. As I mentioned before, he was very bright, so success came effortlessly to him. After a few months with the company, he received a crystal "Rookie of the Year" award, in addition to this trip. It was a nice gift, but it turns out, we were not "cruise people." Personally, I felt like I was being held hostage at sea in a tacky floating Vegas Hotel. We were bored, so we entertained ourselves by taking dumb pictures in the complimentary robes provided by the ship. I think our expressions sum up the way we were at the time. To me, my face depicts masked sadness and worry, while Roman's face depicts his contrived "everything is fine" platitude mask that he so often wore to appease me. For a long time, I could not look at this picture because doing so left me feeling sad, sickened, and angry.
*****
Roman posing for another picture to pass the time. Here, he's sitting in the window of our cell...I mean, room. The micro-expression on his face in this picture was classic Roman. He often started sentences with "ah.." such as "ahhhhhh...people suck," "ah...you worry too much," or "ahh...yeah...I guess we can go see your family." It seemed to be his way of passively conveying his discontent while collecting his thoughts about how best to express himself verbally. In general, the longer the "ahhhhhhh," the greater his implied irritation - and he did it ALL the time. This is the expression he presented when he uttered it. My efforts to address his passive aggression were never productive. He would reply in one of two ways...One, he would either debate in a very robotic manner about why he was "happy" and not "irritated" (but really, all he was doing was changing the labels..what I called "irritated," he renamed as "happy.") Or two, he would slip on his Jokey Smurf, happy face - like the one in the second photo above - and tell me everything was fine. This is another picture that I could not look at for a long time after Roman's death because it nauseated me.
