Peru why you no let me esleep?

Peru Peru Peru, why you no let me esleep mi amor

You know last night before departure it is not good for esleep I am too essited

and the next Night maybe fell out of the airoplane because I never find it

First night in Lima it is okay

the backpackers they are loud and the bed it has more topography than canyon de cobre but I come close but maybe too essausted

Then I go to the beach and everyone is esleep good at la costa, but why the men they cannot whisper

Why they want to stand in the halls and in the stairs and shout because they are not esleeping

And what was this one short cold you give me that start with a sore lung then gets an itch then for an hour I cough the yellow phlegm that tastes like gross

No importa thank you for it is gone the next day but I am sooo esleepy

And that night it is Lima her birthday and San Bartolo is close enough so all the music it is playing so loud it shake my window until 5:00 of the morning

And thank you that it two musics was because the combination was interesting so my right and left ears did no must listen to the same thing

Ah the siesta you let me esleep in the day oh so good oh so sweet oh so funny taste when I am wake up

Maybe that is why next night I am again watching the lamp outside my window and it watching me and neither he nor I are esleeping

Thank you for send the spider to my bed he is so small he is no problem we have conversation and I help him to fly out the window

Why the taxi man wants to put his car under my window and listen to his music so loud

He must like it very very mucho

And in Lima again it begin so good but you Peru you want to give me all the classic traveler experience

So you put the boy in the bunk below me with the early morning airoplane

And he is wake up sooooo early and is spending so long playing with his suitcase I don't understand what he can be doing

The llama says cool it. And careful with your teeth.

Why his light so bright

Why he slide the suitcase across the floor again

Why he hate his teeth and brush them like he is attack the enemy

Why he get in and out of the bed so many times while I lying there try not to become angry because then I am sure I am not esleep again

Why he wave his shirt like he is Spanish bullfighter why he no just put it on

Why people they are putting plastic bags in their suitcase to make so much noise when I want to be esleeping

Why he also is not able to whisper so when I go to make pee he say so loud things to me

He is very nice

He is very loud

And last night thank you for the company in the dorm

The Swedish they are very quiet and nice and the Australian he is weird and nice and the Brazilian he is muito amable too

But when he esleeping I think the Brazilian he is eating because his mouth it is making so many squishy sounds like he is drink his own tongue

Whatever he is eating it no agree with his estomago because he begin to fart like I have rarely seen

And I have seen many

The room it is so filled with these fart I want only to be washing my face

I think he kill the cockroaches with his buttbreathing

But now Peru Peru Peru mi amor I am in Cuzco

Here is no mucho air but maybe mucho esleep

I hope so

I have many mile to walk to get to Machu Picchu...

Finally reaching 2014

Everyone knows Valentine's Day is a hellscape orchestrated to torture unsuspecting boyfriends (with sharp collateral damage for girlfriends), where the pressure to have a magical night is a self-sabotaging prophecy.

And it is hardly groundbreaking to admit Christmas has a sleigh-load of pressure for a perfect harmonious family event, leading to bitter disappointment when your uncle has a little too much zinfandel and hits on your cousin's new girlfriend. (Or the more mundane moment when the well-meaning older female comments on the eating/body/wardrobe/make up/life choices/employment/social habits/beverage consumption/hairstyle/fingernail length/cell phone case of a younger female, and le merde hits le fan.)

But surely New Year's Eve is pure! Nope, it's the social version of V-Day's romance trap, and Xmas's familial pitfalls. Plus sex. Yes, New Year's Eve is booby-trapped.

My 2013 started with board games among friends, and it was great, even if I couldn't get enough brick to build that settlement on the port. Anybody wanna trade for a sheep?

I didn't make this, but I wish I could have
worn the beard to da club.

This year, another group of friends was going to a club. Not my scene, but whatever, I was there for my friends, not the clubbin', but the inanity of socializing in a place where you can't hear each other wore me down, communication without personality left me cold, and sheer image without substance pushed me towards macro-irritation.

I made it to midnight, though spent the actual countdown separated from my friends in a sea of smelly armpits and splashing beer, barely able to breathe. Annnd that'll do. I can check “go to the club” off my list for 2014-2100.

I walked to the BART station behind two girls who had also left early. Our conversation:

Them: “We were kind of having fun, but we both have boyfriends, just wanted to dance, and the guys were getting kinda crazy, so we left.”

Me: (Being normal. Not a douchebag.)

No camera in the club, but trees'll make sense in a second.

Them: “Oh my god! You're so nice! If I didn't have a boyfriend, I'd be like 'F*** me now!'”

Me: “Oh. Heh. Um. Thank you? Okay then, I'll be riding in the other car, bye!”

The other car carried seven other girls, also heading home early. That conversation went similarly to the first, minus the explicit compliment. We waved goodbye out the window. The last rider, also female (I swear I didn't seek this out! It was just me and the driven-away-by-dudes cadre on the train at 00:45) and I had a nice conversation about books.

The path is only scary when you think
the other hiker is following you.

But Americans don't know how to talk to strangers, exacerbated by the heinous behavior of a small percentage of males. So, when we happened to both be getting off at the same stop, suddenly I was not an interesting guy on the train, I was a serial killer. Halfway down the escalator she interrupted her own comment about Orwell to say “okay,nicetalkingtoyou,bye!” and ran off down the stairs.

Oops, she needed to add money to her fare card, so I tactfully exited on the other side of the station. But of course, my card didn't work, error: see agent, whose empty office was right next to Scared Woman. I loitered vaguely behind her. Cuz that's not creepy or anything.

When the agent showed up I explained “the machine won't accept my card” a little bit louder than necessary, barely managing not to add “that's why I'm here, not because I'm waiting to follow that woman home in the dark.”

So New Year's Eve was a bust. But if Icould move Christmas, why can't I move New Year's? The calendar is pretty damn arbitrary, after all (we really should have New Year's on the winter solstice).

This was by where the pit bull came
to tell me she loves me.

So my actual New Year started on Saturday, when a close friend and I went for a walk in the woods. We had clear communication, substance, personality, and a marvelous lack of macro-irritation. The redwoods were brown, the dirt was soft, and the dogs smiled because they love me. And you. And tennis balls, and running, and drooling, and pooping, and running some more. Among the trees, I could breathe.

It's going to be a good year.

Anticipation, back hair, and falafel in Amsterdam

It was a few degrees below zero in Toronto but I felt fine, and as long as I didn't spend too much time in the shade I enjoyed my walks. It was a few degrees below zero in Reykjavik but I felt warm enough, and as long as I stayed out of the wind, and I enjoyed my walks.

It was a few degrees above zero in Amsterdam and I was frickin' freezing, lingered longer indoors and curtailed my walks, though in that city of canals, living history, and global exchange, I enjoyed every step. Was it the humidity? Had I burned off some burrito-bestowed belly insulation already? Was the enthusiasm of being overseas calming into a rhythm?

I don't know, but I'm glad I had enough traveler enthusiasm to protect me when I walked into my hostel in Amsterdam. Claustrophobic spaces of slowly splintering wood, stale smoke, and a bare florescent bar bulb a high pitch of scream abrading both ear drum and retina.

Welcome back to hostel living.

A scrawny traveler in dingy boxer shorts and back hair was asleep in twisted sheets, 1:30 PM, in a musty room with six metal bunk-beds, four battered lockers, and one window. It was hard to tell if one of the lockers was available, with two bottles of nearly empty hard liquor, an empty plastic bag, and a little plastic box (just the size for drug transport) rattling ominously.

The thought crossed my mind “Am I too old for this?”

I put the bottles, bag, and box next to the overflowing garbage can, slid my backpack in the locker, and went looking for someplace warm to drink a cup of tea.

I had one last night alone before meeting K at the airport and starting/returning to a whole new/familiar world of living, questions and answers, and relationship. And I was hungry for all of it.

But first the more immediate hunger that defines a substantial percentage of backpacker life. A chain I remember from Spain apparently lives in The Netherlands too, where the falafels are cheap, and you can fill the pita with as much veggie topping as you like. I spoke Dutch with an Indian woman, snow like salt crystals on chairs stacked beside useless outdoor cafes, and the bicycle traffic never stops.

It felt good to be there.

How we barely avoided sleeping on the street in Ecuador.

All locked up.

We stepped off the musty bus onto the abused concrete sidewalk of the town of Canoa and immediately looked around for hotel signs in the dark. From where we stood, hoisting out backpacks on, we could see a half dozen hotels, with the promise of more on nearby streets. Cautious sighs of relief. We went looking for rooms.

"Perdon, hay habitaciones?"

A look of surprise from the manager. "No."

Next place, same. Again. Repeat. What the hell was going on?

We found a female innkeeper who was less abrupt about dismissing us and asked her if there was a festival or something. She looked at us with that "you poor tourists are so terribly stupid" look that every traveler dreads.

"Si. It's Festival Weekend throughout all of Ecuador. The entire country comes to the coast for this weekend, every place has been booked months in advance."

Crap. This is why we avoid festivals.

We couldn't help but wonder why our friendly abuela in Puerto Lopez (or either of her sons) had neglected to warn us as we sauntered out the door that morning, but at the end of the day, it's the tourist's responsibility to have a clue.

We kept looking. (What's the Spanish word for "manger"? Maybe we could find one of those...)

Things were getting desperate when a woman carrying her shopping bags home down the sandy street asked us if we were looking for a room.

"I have a...room. But it's not really...nice." She warned us. I had been sizing up clumps of bushes to sleep under (no, I'm not kidding) so we were happy to have the option.

Every year so many people flock to the coast for that weekend that locals rent out their extra rooms, or even entire houses. Our lady had rented her house to a group, and she was staying with her husband and 37 children in the other spare room, which looked like a converted storage space.

We had the laundry room.

There was a foam pad on a bedframe with a powerful odor, but there was also a mosquito net. (They hold the smell in, but are supremely worth it.) There was a "bathroom" we could use, which was really more of an outhouse, with a semi-broken toilet and no light.

But our hosts did all they could, and strung a bare bulb up in the outhouse via an extension cord from their room. This was very nice, but we had no control over the light, so when we got back from dinner and it was out, we were stumbling around in there blind, trying not to think about spiders, cockroaches, and things that go clickety-click.

Between the smell, lumpy surface, highway a couple meters from our heads, and relentlessly meowing kitten somewhere nearby, we didn't expect to sleep much, but we actually did pretty well, all things considered.

But we woke up with full-fledged colds from the overly AC'd bus, and did not want to spend another night there.

First things first, we went looking for breakfast. We found a place run by a retired Dutchman living the good life. He had opened an eco-cafe/hotel thing, and was happily bustling around serving breakfast with bare feet in his sand-floored yard just opposite the beach. It feels like a blessing to witness someone so utterly happy with their place in life.

(I wish I had a picture of him, but the cat at lunch was also part of the pep squad/welcome wagon.)

His happiness alone was a blessing, but when he heard we were looking for a room, he resolved to help us, and went marching off down the street with us, hailing each hotel owner by name and asking if they could fit his "friends" in.

These were people we had asked previously, and been universally rebuffed, but on only the second try they answered "no, we don't have any rooms. (pause) Except one, but it's not...nice."

Familiar refrain. This place's "not nice" looked better than the other one's (a functioning toilet!), so we grabbed it immediately. It turned out to be worse than the first one, with plenty of mosquitoes but no net or air circulation, but we felt lucky to have anything, and made it through to Sunday afternoon, when we suddenly had our pick of the town again.

We settled in a nice Spanish-owned place, where we stayed for our remaining four nights in Canoa, appreciating every moment in our palace of mosquito net, non-stank-ass matress, and fully functional bathroom. With light! This, my friends, was not "not-nice."

And to top it all off? They made the best tortilla espanola I've had outside of San Sebastian. All's well that ends well-seasoned.

And just that quickly

Did you figure out an answer to the question of how to be, how to help, who to believe and who to support? Me neither. But! The Universe provides.

I've been in a few of these places, small hands stretched out in cups, adult tongues weaving tales that I want to believe at face value...

The counterpoint was my experience in Nepal.

We were off the self-corroding tourist loop. The children were looking to me for information, teaching, maybe a tad of guidance (if I may be so optimistic/conceited). The adults listened, learned and taught in implicit authenticity.

I don't want to give a man a fish, I can't teach him to fish...but maybe I can teach him how to talk about it in English?

Three hundred seconds after this thought I am talking to someone and hear of a smaller town, with enough tourists to have accommodation/food, but maybe not so many as to corrupt the character. I think of that as the Green Zone. And the Beauty continues, there is a possibility of volunteering some teaching time.

I am immediately nervous at the prospect, my insecurities as a teacher returning (I can't make lesson plans for a whole classroom of kids! Different levels? Help!) but the prospect thrills me; can it be the perfect antidote to the malaise of hostel dorm rooms with their drunken sleepy farts and non-conversational indolence?

Suddenly the haze of disjointed confusion that I've felt since arrival clears a little. There are the stars! The music playing in the hostel is suddenly better (that one's purely objective) and I feel more myself than I have all week.

So tomorrow I will get up as planned. Ablutions as always. I will have breakfast, nearly as expected. Get on the bus I intended, but get off in a place I hadn't heard of until a few hours ago.

I love traveling. I love the Universe. Gratitude.

I just quit my job.

I was hired at a “medical research” company for a particular project to last 6-8 weeks.  Last week was #10, and we finished the main part, with an additional 2 weeks to do the second phase.

After that?  I heard we are all going to get laid off.  No, I heard there are a few short projects for some people.  No, I heard there is work for English-speakers year round this year.  No, I heard they are going to make us into cat food.

Whatever.  In the last 10 steps to work on Wednesday the notion of finishing the project then quitting had just concreted in my mind like a massive belch relieving a churning stomach.  I was going to wave my hand to disperse the air and walk away.

The first phase was calling doctors and CEOs, who are notoriously challenging and whose secretaries in the US are frequently difficult/dreadful/bulldogs.  The second phase was calling business owners, and the expectation was that it would be a piece of cake.  They were collectively a piece of something alright, but it ain’t cake, ya dig?

These people were disgusting.  Truly just jerks.  When did it become acceptable behaviour to hang up on people?  Do their mothers know they behave this way?  I don’t want to go on and on about it…but seriously…fuck these people.  (Speaking of mothers, sorry Ma, I know you hate it when I swear, but sometimes it’s warranted, you know?)

It is a rare thing for me that I feel the desire to do harm unto others, either verbally or by flying over there to smack some manners into these ass-mongers, but I found myself wanting to call them back, not to magnanimously remind them that this was uncivilized behaviour, but to tell them off.  And that just ain’t me.

I sat at my desk and felt a weight on my chest, sickly constriction, bone-bending disgust.  I could barely muster the energy to call another one.  And when I did, it was another craptastic wheelbarrow-full of chumpholery.  Repeat.

Everyone feels down sometimes at work and I had slogged through a bunch of those low points before, but it was suddenly more than I was willing to bear.  (Actually it was a graph of an exponential equation.  The x-axis is time, and the y-axis is soul-drainage.  It was already an upward slope, but all of a sudden that shit took off.)

So maybe I am a wimp who couldn’t stick it out.  Couldn’t finish what he started.

Or maybe I am courageous enough to leave something once it passes a threshold of suckiness, despite the inner obligation-voices telling me I should stay, obey the comfort of a reliable paycheck, don’t hope for more.

I have too much love for my beautiful soul to mistreat it like that.

When I look at the blank faces of rush hour commuters, their road rage as they go to and from jobs they don’t love or even like, or I hear the universal small-talk of hating one’s job, it feels like disappointment.

Disappointment that this is all life is.

This disappointment doesn’t occur on playgrounds.  Or at junior high school dances.  Or at graduation ceremonies as valedictorians spout clichés about finishing one chapter and beginning another, or lighting candles to light the future, or any of that shit.

When does that enthusiasm and optimism die?  Is it inevitable?  Is it as universal as I feared, sitting on a train full of people who didn’t even think about interacting with each other?

Back at the job, I will miss are the people.  I won’t be there for the last week, as everyone winds down together, and says goodbye with awareness and pacing.  I said goodbye as I was walking out the door, basically.  Literally in several cases.  There are some people I didn’t even say goodbye to.

But tomorrow I will go to class, run an errand, then fucking go home.  Make dinner for K.  Go to the gym.  Go to bed relaxed.  Not annoy anyone.  Read.  Did I mention actually SEE my girlfriend?  Have a conversation with her that doesn’t consist of “hello, how was work, good, me too, good night.”

After quitting, I came home and starting making a surprise dinner for K.  I stood in the bathroom window, pinning the cutting board against the windowsill so I could watch for her to get home, so I could call her as she was coming up the stairs and ask “what do you want to have for dinner…together?  Surprise!” as she was opening the door.  But it turns out, not wanting to spend another night here alone, she had gone to her parent’s house to have dinner there.

While inconvenient for my attempts at a surprise, that really underlined that I made the right choice.  I have no idea if I will be able to find anything better or if I will regret walking out of the giant fart-container that was the call center, but come on home, babe, I’m here again.