No, it's not Swine Flu.* (But wouldn't that be funny?)

This is the first time I've been vertical for more than an hour in the past three days. Being sick sucks, but it's also SO BORING. And it makes me feel boring. How did I spend my day? Sleeping, writhing with discomfort, coughing, whining, being overly affected by death-due-to-illness in books and movies, angry with the beautiful day outside, too hot too cold too over being infirm. Fever dreams. (Fever dreams are actually pretty neat.) I'm feeling significantly better at the moment so we'll see what tomorrow brings. Plus, I HATE ABHOR DETEST CANNOT ABIDE summer sicknesses! Why!? Can't we all just get over it in the fall/winter/spring and just let summer be summer? And to top it all off: the lurking threat of Swine Flu. The first friendly fatherly check-up:
"High fever?"
"Uhhh.. slight?"
"Cough?"
*cough cough hack* "Yes."
"Chills?"
"Dad, are these symptoms of Swine Flu? I don't have Swine Flu."

So, I don't have Swine Flu. Disappointing, in a way. I mean, I feel this awful, why can't it be something legendary? Truly epic? The kind of story with which you bore your obliging grandkids.

In addition to feeling like shit, being ill puts a damper on my life. I missed the bottling process of the homebrew my roommie started (bottle beer, drink beer, right?). I missed my first creative writing class (been looking forward to for 1+ month). I had to reschedule an interview/orientation for a volunteer position that I have been trying to set up for ages. Missed a dinner with friends. Missed 2 days of work. Damn it! I have no time for this! Not to mention the last week before the GRE: valuable studying time wasted away as I slept fitfully in sweaty sheets. If nothing else, I hope this doesn't adversely affect that. Or whatever. This whole common cold/common flu thing also just tops off a great week of bodily mishaps; the bruises and scrape from a mostly minor bike crash have faded somewhat but are still clearly evidenced on my body. Just get better, really. Already.

And I don't even have Swine Flu!!!


*Swine Flu is a very real and significant threat. Please treat it with the respect and caution exercised by the media. Please capitalize.

Belly dancers in blue and striped men on stilts

I went to the Fremont Street Fair/Solstice Parade/Festival today. I've never been before, as I've never lived here in the spring. I'm beginning to love this city. It seems uptight, a little prudish, for how "liberal" it is. But... It's totally acceptable for people to walk and bike around clothed only in body paint at the Solstice Parade. I had heard tell, I missed naked biker parade at the beginning, but I saw many-a painted penis and breast walking/biking around later. I got to Fremont (25 minute walk from my house) later than desired so I had to push through crowds of people to meet up with friends. Friends who had staked out an amazing spot for the parade! It reminded me a bit of the Procession of the Species in Olympia but this was comprised of groups and more organized. The floats were incredible. The costumes were beautiful, erotic, nightmarish, astoundingly creative. The music, eclectic and generally very good. Everyone around me seemed so happy, enjoying everything. Fair food, mmmmmm. I had a blackened salmon burger and a scone. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Just about everyone I talked to today was there. I haven't seen that many people in Seattle before, more crowded than Bumbershoot or other street fairs. The whole experience was surreal: I'm not sure if it really happened. There's a lot to process. It was great. I'm liking Seattle more and more all the time.

The checkered game of life

Yes, this feels familiar: instead of studying, writing the paper, reading the article, I'm fooling around on the internet. Putting off what I don't want to do while I worry, just a little, about how it will end up. The subject matter is different now (accursed GRE!) but I still feel that tight little knot of anxiety in the bottom of my stomach. I know I can do it, but how? It's always the same. I know I can but I'm not quite sure how I'll pull it off. Two years, and it's still the same. So close, almost, on the verge, of believing in myself absolutely. The other part: I don't want to. I don't want to take this test, I don't want to study. I'd rather read a book, clean the bathroom, be at work even. After two years of not doing anything like this, it's so difficult (hmmm, graduate school?) to make myself study for this. I hate math. Yesterday I went through the verbal and quantitative sections on a practice test (I tried and couldn't make myself do the practice analytical section) and I actually scored lower than I had on the initial "diagnostic" test. Really? Not very encouraging. Slightly more reassuring: that I did fairly well on both, in the scheme of the test, percentile rankings, admissions standards for some MLIS programs. So why am I worrying?

Test day: July 7. Just under three weeks. I can't believe I'm actually doing it. After thinking about it (abstractly) for months in Spain, trying to motivate myself in the fall, thinking about it (more concretely) in Central America, here I am. It's been building up over these months, now in to a looming spectre of possible failure. My brother's roommates--unlikely source of reassurance--put the issue in perspective. It really doesn't matter much at all ("Hell, I plan on taking the LSAT lots of times", "Lie, say you've only taken it once"). If I do poorly, I can retake it. As many times as possible (and lie). A mediocre score will probably be fine for admissions. It just doesn't matter that much in the checkered game of life (which, by the way, has given me and my peers an unrealistic version of how life will play itself out, especially after college--fuck you Milton Bradley).

Standardized testing: what a wonderful way to measure an individual's intelligence, ability, capability, talent, prospect, worth. It's just a test, another hoop through which to jump, another hurdle to pass on this road through life. Rather, on the road that I'm choosing for the current moment. Once I pass this step, I will have to make all sorts of decisions. Where, when, how. If I actually want to commit the time money energy to do this. But these will wait until after July 7.

A Life

And time keeps marching on. It tugs me along with it, whether I like it or not, but toward what I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just not meant to be content with stagnation. Mediocrity. Life will not allow me to sit back and be a barista forever. (Life? What is this life?) For the first time in perhaps ever I feel like I absolutely control my future. It can be what I want it to be because I have the power and the faith to realize it. This is nearly one of the only decisions about the course of my life that I've made on my own. I don't regret the path I've taken here (centering around educational choices which perhaps shape my future more than most anything else) because I've learned from it and gained tools to change for the better. But to think that my future is in my hands (my hands) right now. I look at my two hands. I get to decide. And if I fail it's okay because it happens. I'm not overly preoccupied with "failing" because that's opportunities for knowledge experience learning.

It's absolutely exciting while being occasionally overwhelming. My breath catches as I consider possibilities about the future. Short term. Long term. Ever. I yearn for the happiness I see in my future. (Future, what is this future?) I have time. I believe I could be satisfied, content in the appropriate job and I believe that I can find it.

I've taken significant steps toward taking the GRE. I've taken a practice test to establish my preparatory needs, begun to study a prep book, registered for the test. July 7th. I'm not in a real hurry to begin any more higher education. If I don't do well, I have time. But I think I will do well enough (practice test and “word of the day” examples indicate yes).

I have made moderate progress toward finding a volunteer position as part of a literacy program. I hated teaching (“teaching”) English to indifferent Spanish adolescents. I want to help willing students of any age to understand my language so that they can communicate effectively in the dominant language of this country.

This wanders, wanders. I've been told to stop apologizing so frequently. I'm not sorry that this rambles along in muddled thoughts with barely intelligible transitions. We'll see how I like it tomorrow.



P.S. Nearly all the postcards I sent during my third(ish) week in Costa Rica from San Isidro are finally reaching their destinations. I knew it would happen; incredibly, it took four months and they're arriving about simultaneously. Why?

What would Jerry Pournelle write?

I still lack a clear objective with this blog. Now that my travels have come to a definite pause (as could also be said for the previous Seattle interlude between the two most recent adventures, but this time more deliberately) I want to continue writing but I'm not sure what. How. I need somewhere to direct my excess mental energies. I've kept a constant journal for the past two years but blogging is an entirely separate outlet. Yes, I'm writing about my life but I'm writing for a possible audience (who actually reads this anyway?) so I care to write it well. Perhaps I'm trying to open myself to anyone who cares to listen (read), to express all this confusion about who I am, where I'm going, who I want to be and maybe (just maybe!) arrive at some kind of working conclusion.

Writing is a haven where I can release what I'm thinking feeling wondering, go deep within myself to see what's buried in there at that exact moment. To bring forth these formless things in order to shape them in to something coherent. The blog is much more accessible than the rambling journals. Through this manner of reflection I realize how much I want to know myself, over and over. This immutable motif in my life. In the blog I can type my ideas nearly as fast as I can think them. I review, edit them to create a intelligible story to and about myself. This blog is a public record of my life. I ask: Who even reads it? Then: Who cares? Writing, for myself or for an audience, is the best way I can express my feelings thoughts opinions in any articulate or comprehensible manner.

What do people write about in blogs? I don't know enough to write about music or film or politics (is that selling myself short or being realistic?). That I have traveled extensively must count for something in this life. I sat down to write this post about [delayed] reverse culture shock. To return to the subject which I dealt with on my return from Europe. My brother told me (drunkenly, on the night of his 21st birthday) that each time I go on one of my "excursions" (his word) I come back more calm, more "chill" (again, his), more accepting (mine interpreting his). I asked a close friend if I had changed: a solid No. How is it if two of the people who may know me best can't even agree on this? If we are experiencing constant change, how much change is enough to be more dramatic, more special, notable? I feel different than when I left. Is it some change inside me? Is it a different attitude? A different perspective? My physical environment? The weather? There are so many variables working together on this. I wonder: is my attitude toward my living situation so powerful as to effect this much difference?

I'm so happy. I hate to write it as if to jinx it (superstition is powerful even for those who don't believe it) or is it as if to admit it? As if to reconsider it later and decide I wasn't actually happy? Can't I just accept it for what it is and enjoy everything? This looks like one of my journal entries: more queries than explanations. I dealt with the problem of my future when I came back from Spain. Now I'm dealing with the enigma that is me. Trying to figure out who I've been, who I am, who I will both unconsciously and purposefully become. Trying to figure out why I'm so happy and do everything in my power to remain so. This is all I want out of life. I must find the means to this end.

I'm going to take a creative writing class through North Seattle Community College beginning at the end of June. I'm incredibly eager to do something like this. I've been telling people: in order to maintain motivation and in order to gain support through other people and involve them in my life. I'm not sure why. Mostly positive with one ambivalent response. I would love any and all opinions, suggestions, input about this blog from any and all of you readers out there. Whoever you may be. [Is there anybody out there?]

Seattle! The big city (revisited)

I've been home for over two weeks now. I have my old job again, a place to live, a bed. The foundation for a home. I've been homeless since I left Bellingham, over a year and a half ago. Since then I have had the internal struggle between absolute freedom to do as I please (move, leave) whenever I please and the desire for a home, a place to belong, a life, a routine. This whole situation is what sent me to Central America in the first place. Now, so many people ask me what my next travel plans are. I tell them not to encourage me. It's a plausible life, something that I know: work travel work travel. I graduated nearly two years ago. What do I have to show for it? I'm a barista, like when I graduated. But I've also spent over half of the time in different countries. Learning, living, loving, leaving.

I've been told by a friend that my travel blog posts are good but my "home" blog posts are much better. The original goal of the blog (oh-so-many months ago now) was to let kith and kin know what was happening in my travels in Spain so I wouldn't have to mass e-mail. Maybe make them work a little for an update. When I mention some major instance from my travels and my audience doesn't know to what I am referring, I generally respond, "Didn't you read my blog?!" It's a bad assumption to make, as most don't read the blog and many whom I don't see often do (i.e., friends of the parents). To know that anyone reads it is utterly flattering. I do appreciate any and all comments that come my way.

I know that making Seattle my home will take time. Patience. I felt alienated in Bellingham when I first moved there at the beginning of college but after 4 years I didn't want to leave. I just moved to Ballard, which seems like a city-within-a-city (I'm all about things-within-things that may or may not be microcosms) so I'm hoping I can make it my own Bellingham. I want a home. I think I have satiated that wanderlust for the time being and want to feel comfortable somewhere. I want somewhere to call home. I want a reason to stay.

As usual, this entry is simply a jumble of random thoughts that probably shouldn't be read by anyone. Thanks for reading.

Solo cabras comen la ropa

Here I am, back in San José. I fly out the day after tomorrow, back to home (wherever that may be), back to reality, back to my future. It's all there waiting for me, more or less as I left it. I'm not sure if I'm actually any closer to any conclusions, any plans, but I've had an amazing trip so that must count for something. Although everything is nearly the same as I left it, this return (homecoming?) is entirely different from last time. I feel a sense of... I'm not quite sure. It certainly isn't panic and dread, what I felt about 7 months ago when I returned from Spain. That recently? That long ago? I feel optimistic about my future and the plans I've sewn together while I've been here (near the top of Chirripó, precisely) and I'm excited to continue my life in Seattle. I miss my family and friends and dog a lot. I'm looking forward to sleeping in the same bed for more than 3 nights in a row, having hot water more than once every few weeks, being free of insect bites, having more than 4 shirts, privacy! But I'm going to miss so many things, specific to Central American and more generally about travel. Trying new food (weird meat), seeing amazing new things each day, learning, sharing a common bond with everyone at every hostal, challenging myself, living quite simply, riding chicken buses, having only three valuables (camera, wallet, passport), having all my possessions in a backpack.

Two days ago the inevitable happened. Something that Emily and I have been joking about for the past several weeks. My money and credit card were stolen from my locked bag (Emily's too). We had been saying that if our money/credit cards were stolen at this point it wouldn't be so bad because we had so little time left and getting wired money one time wouldn't be too bad. And it happened. Although the guy--who I even had a conversation with in the hostal room--did see fit to leave my debit card and several smaller colones bills. Nor did he steal the passports in the same pocket of my bag. I can't be sure if he was being somewhat kind in this regard or really had no need for my debit card (although he took Emily's), passport or colones of small denominations. It's also a huge mystery as to how: the bag was locked and everything looked normal. At any rate. I had to the cancel the card in the middle of an internet cafe with a terrible connection and two children running around me, yelling. Afterwards, our friend Chris who we met on Ometepe bought us dinner and all was fine.

Besides the petty theft, I enjoyed San Juan del Sur. In fact, in spite of the theft, and that the water was turned off for the entire city for over 24 hours. No showers, no toilet, nothing. Apparently it's common to lose water for several hours at a time. I spent an amazing day at a beach north of the city, Playa Maderas with Emily and three people we met on Ometepe. It was basically deserted, white sand, blue water, no trash. The best beach day to end a trip filled with awesome beach days. A beautiful sunset, with only the neon pink sun in the sky, slowly descending past the horizon. (No green flash, unfortunately.) It was eerie, the flaming sun alone in the sky; I've never seen a sunset like the ones in San Juan del Sur.

I've already begun planning my next trip: 3 months (or more) in Mexico and Guatemala, with a one-way ticket to Guatemala and then heading north. I'm fairly certain no one reading this is very thrilled to hear this. Clearly, it's just a fantasy. But how incredible would that be? I'm finding that I need to have a future trip in mind (even as I'm not quite finished with my current one). It helps me feel free. It's helping me go home because I know I can do this again in the future. Traveling in Latin America is so cheap and not frightening (as I had previously thought). Everyone I've met here who went to Mexico absolutely loved it. Anyway. This thought, this fantasy, may help me go through with my plans for the immediate future. I will have time for more travel. I will be able to afford it. I will never be trapped in a life that I hate, so trapped that I can't get away and go to Mexico. I am excited to come home and move on in my life knowing that this will not be my last adventure.