VOLCAN ARENAL!

Yesterday was one of the most amazing days of my life. It started out with breakfast at the hostel. We decided that we wanted to take a tour of the volcano – but we wanted to “shop around”. There were tons of tours advertised at our hostel, but I just wasn’t jiving with the prices. On our way into the center of La Fortuna, Liz stopped at a roadside booth selling jewelry. We talked to the guy and told him what our plans were, etc… He then told us about his friend Julio who ran RedLava tours – that they were the best in town at the best price. I know, a likely story, but for some reason I took word of mouth over our crazy hostel concierge trying to sell us a lava-dancing-horseback-riding-atv-ziplining-million-dollar tour. So, we went over and talked to one of the guys there. Pay close attention to this one – he enters the story again later. We talked to him in Spanish, and originally he was going to charge us $45 for the tour, but I talked him down to $35. I was prepared to walk if he made me pay any more. So, we got both of us tickers $70. This included a guided tour, admittance to the observatory, transportation to and from our hostel, a hike down to the water fall, nighttime lava watching, and some time at the natural hot springs. Our hostel’s tours included admittance to baldi hot springs, but it was an actual spa (not natural!).  The hot springs we went to were definitely off the beaten path. More about those comes later. Our tour, in total, lasted from 2:00 p.m. to about 10:00 p.m. And oh my god, our tour guide was INCREDIBLE. This is where my adventure begins.

We drove to the volcano and started at the observatory. The observatory was a giant wooden deck with chairs at the foot of the volcano maybe a mile away from the base. It was huge and vast and looming and we had excellent views of the volcano and lake arenal. I learned SO MUCH about biology. Our tour guide, Ian, had the most amazing accent. He had studied geology and environmental conservation in college -- and it showed. He was like a fucking encyclopedia. His was fluent in english, and he spoke eloquently with this rhythmic costa rican accent. The best part, however, were the words he threw in. He said “man” a lot – I realized where it came from later when he was telling us how he managed a bunch of Rastafarians doing tours in Belize. He said they never got any work done. Ha. He also had a creole twang – he spoke creole for us (the only way you can order chicken in Belize!) Anyway, he was probably in his late twenties or early thirties – tattooed and strapping. He told us all about how Costa Rica has more endemic species than almost any other place in the world because of its geographic proximity between the two tectonic plates. Many species have migrated from the south to the north – likewise, from the north to the south. Because of the mountainous pockets in Costa Rica, many species remain in these separate miniature ecosystems. BIODIVERSITY FOR THE WIN. I could go on, but there is so much more to say. Lake Arenal is one of the largest manmade lakes in the world – it was created for an impressive hydroelectric energy project. It now supplies 30% of all the electricity for Costa Rica.

So, from there we saw the CUTEST little creature that was apparently a cousin of the raccoon and several amazing tropical birds. Of course, I don’t remember any of their names. I was too distracted by how much our tour guide new about EVERY SPECIES in the rainforest of plants and animals AND his encyclopedia-like knowledge of evolutionary biology. He showed us plants that form their leaves in a helix around the stem as an evolutionary advantage – that way they can all absorb sunlight. I also learned about philodendrons – as their etymology describes, they are tree-lovers. They grow by wrapping around really tall trees to get sun at the top of the canopy. They also have spread out grooves in their leaves to prevent them from catching wind and rainwater (it would tear them from their stems at that height – thus killing them). Ian – being the badass that he is – harvested a sugar cane stick (he told us to watch out for park rangers, hahaha) and cut it up for us to eat after we jumped into the waterfall. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. At one point, he stopped, and was like “Does anyone have a cigarette?” I seriously didn’t think he could be serious. One of the guys handed him one. He lit it up, took a few puffs, then picked a few flowers. “What are the rules of a creating a chemical reaction? High school chemistry anyone?” No one had the answer. “Combining elements or adding heat.” As he said this, he pressed his cigarette to the pink flower first and it turned a BRIGHT NEON BLUE. It was fucking AWESOME. Then, there was a darker shade of magenta on the second flower. It turned a deep purple. I am still amazed at how much of a badass this guy was. Once we started off the beaten path and into the foliage around the base of the volcano, we got to see a male howler monkey. It turns out that howler monkeys are all brown except for their genitals, which are a bright white. Ian told a story – borrowed from the oral tradition of the Bribri tribe. (The Bribri were the autochthonous people of the Talamanca region, living in the mountains and Caribbean coastal areas of Costa Rica and northern Panama. They’re still around – they live without electricity and subsist entirely on agriculture. Central American Amish, perhaps?) So, the story is that the howler monkey made a lot of noise. It would screech and scream and wail. Finally, one of the other monkeys warned the howler monkey that the God Sibu was becoming angry at its antics. The howler monkey continued wailing until, one day, Sibu struck it with a bolt of lightning. All it could to was put its hands over its monkey junk. That’s why it’s black with a white penis and balls. So awesome. We wandered through the rainforest for awhile longer before scaling the side of this really steep cliff down to the waterfall. After we climbed down, We were able to strip down to our bathing suits and dive in. It was absolutely exhilarating. There was mist everywhere, the sound of the water pounding down from the waterfall was deafening. We couldn’t see anything beyond the dense foliage and incredibly tall trees. The sky barely peeked through the canopy. It was freezing. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life. So, I layered on my clothes over my wet bathing suit and trudged back up the cliff. We had to make good time because daylight was almost gone. We got back to the observatory quickly. Ian talked with Liz and I for awhile. We told him how we’re staying here until January, what are farm is like, etc… He gave us his email and phone number and said we could stay with him in Arenal anytime we wanted. He also said he has a house in San Jose that we can use if we’re ever there, and that he’s taking a trip to Cocorvado in the south in mid September and we are welcome to come with him. He’s doing geological work, and he is going to show us the whole preserve. Apparently, it’s really exotic there. Turtles, dolphins, whales, tropical birds of every kind…I’m so excited. He also spent about 30 minutes telling us how to identify snakes, how to tell which ones are poisonous, and how to treat snake bites. Pit vipers have triangular heads because their poison glands are behind their eyes. They can also open their jaw at 180 degrees, so they’re more dangerous. They tend to coil and strike, but they’re dormant for about 20 days after each kill. It also takes 15-21 days to regenerate the venom, so 20% of the time, a bite won’t kill you. He said he got a “dry bite” once in the Caribbean. His leg was swollen and sore for a week, but he lived. If it would have been a venomous bite, he said he definitely would have died. He was three hours away from the nearest hospital. He also told us that Costa Rica keeps these facts under wraps: 800 people each year in Costa Rica get bitten by snakes. Around 10% lead of these bites lead to amputation, and 1% of those bitten will die. Kind of terrifying. He taught us the following: Never use a tourniquet after getting bitten. It will lead to mandatory amputation. Don’t suck the venom out with your mouth. If you have a cavity or a hole in your teeth, the neurotoxins in snake venom (especially in the coral snakes) will get right into your central nervous system and you will be paralyzed within minutes. The hallucinations will begin soon after. He also said never attempt to make an incision on a snake bite. Most snake venoms have anticoagulants, so you will bleed to death. Also “black and yellow kills a fellow – red and black, you’re a safe jack”. Some of the non-venomous snakes mimic the colors of the poisonous varieties as an evolutionary advantage. So, yes. Good to know. After he lead us on the road for awhile, he took us to a natural hot spring. This was NOT touristy at all. Only locals were there, and it was pitch black in the middle of a dense outcropping of the side of the road. We had to climb down and slide down this concrete bank where the water was flowing. He pushed us one at a time. GOD IT WAS SO AWESOME. I wish I could explain to you how eerily beautiful the mist in the sparse moonlight. He hung a lantern from one of the trees, so we had a little light. The minerals made my skin feel AMAZING. So yes. Afterwords, he dropped us off at our hostel and we exchanged emails. I cannot wait to hang out with this guy in Cocorvado. He is so fucking awesome. He also said I can email him any pictures of plants, bugs, animals, etc… if I have questions. He can tell me what is edible, what is poisonous, how to make certain plants grow better, and so on. Anything related to nature, costa rica, geology, or just the rainforest in general. Caring for dengue fever. God. So good.

After we got back to the hostel, Liz and I changed really fast and decided to go out for a few hours. I had at least 10 drinks. Liz had more. The bartender was really cute and making eyes at Liz all night. In the middle of our conversation, these two sleazy guys came over and tried to talk to us. The bartender wrote us a note in Spanish telling us not to talk to them – they were dangerous. Earlier a fight had broken out outside, and I guess they were involved or something. So we pretended not to speak any Spanish and just ignored them. They eventually went away. THEN – LATER – the guy who sold us the red lava tour (not Ian) was at the bar too! He came over and started talking to us. One of his friends came over too and they stayed with us for a few hours. The bartender looked butt hurt that someone else had Liz’s attention. She did look really hot. Haha. So, we went next door and danced with them for awhile. They bought us shots and drinks. The guy’s friend apparently knows EVERYONE. Turns out, he started the tourism bureau of Arenal. He started the first tours 10 years ago when he was 15 in the back of a pickup truck. Now, he owns one of the largest tour companies in the city. He walked behind the bar and just started talking to us and throwing drinks together. He didn’t work there, and the manager didn’t even blink an eye. He even lit up a cigarette behind the bar – other people would ask him for drinks – real customers – and he told them that he was a “vip” bartender only for Liz and I. So good. Eventually, the guy who sold us the tour ended up being a creeper mccreep with Liz and feeling her up. I decided it was a good time to “get really tired” and “have to go home”. They were pissed at me, but I played the part. They tried to keep us there with the promise of marijuana – but Liz made a good point that it’s probably not wise to take drugs from strange men who want to sleep with us. So, we pretended to go home and ended up going back next door to where the cute bartender was. He was GRINNING when he saw us (Liz) come back. We talked for a bit, then Liz went to the bathroom. I, of course, was wasted. So, in my broken Spanish, I told him that Liz thought he was “muy guapo”. He grinned from ear to ear. He kept coming over and talking to us. Well, I conveniently was tired. I went back to the hostel (it was really close) and she waited for him to get off work. He even drove her home! Super nice guy.

Yeah, so overall it was an epic day. I’m sad to leave La Fortuna. The volcano is looming over the hostel as we speak and smoking a little. Quite scenic. 

ahhhh.

I got six or so hours of sleep and I feel INFINITELY better. Just in case anyone was concerned. Now, I'm savoring a cup of coffee and basking in the cool rainy air. This hostel really is awesome. If anyone ever stays in Arenal -- I'd highly recommend it. Arenal Backpacker's Hostel. $14 a night.

Now, I'm mentally preparing myself for our hike to the volcano. It's going to be incredible.

a hostel environment...get it?

So I’m at the hostel in the center of this awesome city and I’m not even in the right mind to enjoy it. It took seven hours, four bus rides, and a hell of a lot of confusion to get to Arenal. Actually, we never once got lost, and between Liz and I we can find our way anywhere. She does most of the speaking, and I have a decent sense of direction. Well, I’m exhausted and for some reason my head won’t stop pounding. It could be that I drank excessively last night and I didn’t sleep more than a couple hours – now it’s definitely catching up to me. After we FINALLY got to La Fortuna de San Carlos, we found an awesome little store by the side of the road and Liz bought a new bag. It was perfect. Liz goes through rituals with her bags – I call them “Liz bags”… most of them have a certain worn-in, tribal look to them, but you can’t define her bags by a type. They just are. You just know one when you see one. She picks one at a time and uses it for about a year until it is worn out and unusable. Well, this place was the holy grail of Liz bags. They were EVERYWHERE. Despite this, it only took her a few minutes to make a decision. I, being the most indecisive person on the planet, would probably be there until my flight home in January. Then, as we were walking down the main street, we looked to the right and saw these fire dancers performing in the park. They were awesome! One was on stilts – the girl. She had an ornate gold mask and carnival-esque attire. The guy was shirtless and incredibly built. I didn’t mind it so much. I took some great pictures, I’ll post them later. After, we got dinner. I really wanted to have a cocktail or something, but I could barely finish my beer. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel really sick. I’ve been nauseous all day and it just keeps getting worse. No, I’m NOT pregnant. That would be a pretty immaculate conception. I hope I’m not too ill for the hike to the volcano tomorrow. I haven’t felt this under the weather in a long time, and I’m mad at myself for not enjoying this place as much as I should be. It has a very party-like atmosphere. The music is loud but would be fun if I didn’t have a headache. There’s even a bar near the common area. Yet, here I’m sitting, soberly writing in my blog, trying to pass time until I can actually try to sleep. This is very unlike me… I hope it passes soon. I think this blog entry wins for most mundane so far.

in transit to arenal

I took my first hot shower in six weeks today. God, it was orgasmic. I feel so clean. It doesn't matter than I'm hungover, I feel absolutely fantastic.

Last night we went bar hopping in San Isidro. It was exhilarating! We started off at our hotel bar and threw back a few beers and a shot of tequila each. Oh -- as a side note -- the owner of our farm is back in Costa Rica for the week, that's why we get some time off. He is insane, but in the best way. That is a whole separate entry in itself. Well, we bought him a shot and a beer and chatted away for awhile. I ordered a filet mignon wrapped in bacon and smothered in mushrooms for under $10. I love this place.

After dinner, we went to a few more bars. We started off at this one called Vaqueros (cowboys in English). It was really seedy -- we were the only girls and by far the only people under forty. I made a joke to Liz that it was probably only for men seeing as everyone there was ogling us. The napkin holders were these plexiglass squares that had cutouts of women from soft core porn magazines taped in them. it was hilarious. Our napkin broad was blonde and buxom with her hands spread across her breasts and a seashell string bikini bottom. After we finished our pilsens, Liz went to use the bathroom. To her surprise, there weren't separate bathrooms. There wasn't even a door. There was only a tiled wall with a drain in the floor that served as a urinal. I guess my initial guess, despite my jesting, had been more accurate than I anticipated. We got out of there real fast. Later we went to another bar. I don't remember the name, but there was an inside bar and an outside section. We started inside. I had two shots of tequila, a shot of johnny walker black, and then johnny walker red on ice. I don't remember what Liz drank. I'm surprised I even remember my own name. Outside, we ordered more beers. Again, we were the only two women at the bar. There were at least twenty other Tico guys crowded around it. We were two gringa girls throwing back costa rican beer and smoking marlboros... we attracted a lot of attention. I've never been a smoker, but how can you pass up the opportunity to smoke a cigarette while sitting at a bar? I had trouble finishing one, but it still felt great. As we stumbled back to the hotel, I stopped at this place and ordered french fries. God. It was definitely a day of excess. I passed out once I got home.

Anyway -- back to my shower. It was like seeing God in the face of that filthy green tile. I haven't felt this clean since the first few days of August. I even put on makeup today. Strange. I feel like a completely different person.

Now Liz and I are having heaping bowls of fresh fruit to cure our hangovers (papaya, banana, apple, pineapple, and yogurt) and playing on the internets while we wait for our bus to San Jose. From there, we're going to take a bus to La Fortuna de San Carlos (most awesome name for a city EVER! I wonder if there is a story behind it...) where Volcan Arenal is.

I'll probably update periodically over the next few days because I'll be in civilization. Arenal, here we come!

update

September 21^st, 2010

My mind is exploding with so many thoughts that I don’t even know where to begin. My personal statement for Stanford just came to me today. It’s ironic that I spent last night reading Zarathustra and today I had an epiphany as I was scaling a mountain.

It’s hard to get going. The first paragraph is always the worst. I can think of so many similes for this struggle of mine, yet, I can’t describe exactly what it is – only what it is like. Maybe there is something sexual about this. “Setting the mood.” “Getting warmed up”. Supply your favorite euphemism and it probably fits. I always feel like I’m blindly grappling on my hands and knees for what comes next. I’m not even in search of a destination, really, I’m too preoccupied with the challenge of the journey.

Epiphanies here are like cups of coffee. They’ve basically become a part of my daily routine. They’re strong, potent, and definitely an acquired taste. When they wake you up first thing in the morning, they never fail to get your blood flowing. They occur at the most arbitrary moments. When I was walking home from the neighbors’ house today, I stopped at the highest point of the hike. I had just spent twenty minutes forcing my legs to keep striding up a straight and treacherously rocky incline. My muscles burned. My heart was racing. My breaths were deep,  methodical, and rhythmic. Hot sweat mingled with rain as it forged watery crevices through the crusted dirt on my brow. 

I’m not sure where this is going. The more I read, the more I surely become unsure.

I looked over the edge of the cliff and the green hills sprawled endlessly in front of me. I watched the river – meticulously carved out of the thick trees. I am reminded of being four. Or five. Or six. Sometime where I am safely cushioned by single digits stretching through the years before and after. I am sitting at thanksgiving, or maybe it was the Sabbath. It is clearly an occasion where am I expected give thanks in purely “adult” terms and worship a God whom I can’t understand. We are going around the table saying what we are thankful for. It is a hallmark moment, to be sure.  Just as festive. Just as picturesque. Just as empty. I hear the murmurs of thanks circle around our perfectly varnished table – but I’m not listening. I don’t  look up and my potatoes become mountains and the gravy is a great, murky river that violently tears its way down the mountain side. I garnish those hills like white elephants with fecund foliage. The flaccid spears of steamed broccoli become ancient oaks with deep roots and amber-colored bark.

“Jessica,” my father says, that edge of anger in his voice obvious only to me. Everyone else only hears paternal concern. “What are you thankful for?”

I blank. I don’t have an answer. Those following seconds stretch on for millennia and I think of everything. Nature, bedtime stories, my collection of porcelain dolls. Everything that makes me happy –everything that makes me simple. But I look up, my six-year-old eyes round like fishbowls – my awareness twinkling as I recognize his expectation. I know for what I am thankful, and I know better what he wants to hear. There they are, the dozens of adults around me. Staring. Breath in their chests. Looming over me – their forks and knives becoming gavels. Judge. Jury. Executioner.

My father doesn’t blink.

“Family,” I murmur quietly. “poppa, momma, my sisters.” I take a shallow breath and continue, my stress momentarily appeased by their sighs of relief. “Joseph Smith, the one true prophet. Jesus. Heavenly Father.”

I don’t know what these words mean, I just know that they will ensure me comfort for a few more hours. I had heard them repeated to me thousands of times in Sunday school, in the book of Mormon, in our family home evening lessons. I know they are important to these people, to my family, so I pretend that they are important to me too.

I say a silent prayer – begging the God I couldn’t understand – to make my father sleepy that night. The words are so simple, but they are so heavy. I still feel that weight. I somehow distinctly recall my train of thought. I didn’t understand my feelings. my fears. I didn’t understand why I was terrified of him and that my fear manifested itself as pure guilt. I knew only one thing: I knew I wouldn’t have nightmares if he fell asleep early – if he didn’t come to tuck me in. 

I was always his favorite.

September 23, 2010 – does it matter?

The air is cool today. It feels new.

I had a dream last night – well, a few dozen I think. They were all vivid and slightly terrifying. I can only recall pieces of them. There is one, however, that I remember completely. I was sitting in a shack similar to the one I live in now. Striped green wallpaper cracked on the walls. It was only me and a pallid, waifish brunette. She looked almost sickly and her hair was long and tangled. I vaguely remember us talking, and then I remember something began to grow on her face. It was bacteria-like, or maybe it looked like fungus. Perhaps a tumor seething beneath her skin. I’m not quite sure what it was. She asked me to operate on it, but she had a request. My dream consciousness was from a third person perspective – I couldn’t see what I was performing on her. Finally, I got a glimpse of it as the chair was spun around. Her lip had been stretched to at least a foot outward from her face and a sparkling mirror had been sewed in. She looked terrifyingly deformed and had trouble keeping her head up, but she couldn’t stop smiling. She explained to the dream-Jessica that she had just wanted to be able to see herself – all the time. To be able to always look in the mirror.

Upon waking, I was really disturbed by this dream. I relayed it to Liz, and in my remembrance of it, I realized that they both were me. The waif girl had large blue eyes and pale skin, but she was just bones. It seems to be a pretty obvious metaphor – now that I’m shedding that part of myself I’m becoming afraid. I have worked so many years to cultivate my intellect – to satisfy my endless curiosity about the world. I am still working for that. Am I going to become empty? Vapid? Narcissistic? Shallow? Worthless? These questions are rhetorical. I don’t think any of these things will actually happen. I’m happier with myself than I’ve ever been. I just need to remind myself that it’s okay to be afraid of the unknown.

Last night I read Camus. I haven’t read The Stranger in English since my sophomore year of high school. I brought my old copy with me. It’s a deep navy blue. It appears almost velvet in the light. The letters on the cover are fading, but the gold embossing still gleams. It has a silken ribbon sewed in as a bookmark. It’s one of my most treasured books, yet, I haven’t picked it up in years. Upon opening it, I was transported back to another era. I remembered my fears and concerns and preoccupations of the time. Most of them were irrelevant and silly, but they consumed my world. I read my margin notes – it was almost heartbreaking. There are so many little seeds of ideas there – ideas that could grow rich and strong with the proper cultivation. On one of the pages I had tried to define truth. I had written the statement: “Truth is merely defined by what it is not.” I had drawn a little diagram of a box labeled “truth,” and then drawn motion lines outside of the box that signified everything else. It was basically the philosophical equivalent of a poorly-drawn portrait by a child. Stick people and a stick house. Yet, the parents are still proud. I’d add this to my philosophical refrigerator art collection of childish ideas.  It is amazing to reminisce about the ideas this book catalyzed inside my head. Some of them were juvenile and silly, but others show an obvious potential for great thought. My next question would be this: have I fulfilled this potential? Am I really any smarter than I was? I can easily recall thousands of hours I’ve spent reading since then and hundreds of titles I’ve devoured post-Camus. Does this make me any wiser? Despite my improved reading comprehension, the increase of my vocabulary, and even a greater development of analytical thought, all I have learned is that I can never know enough for it to matter. It’s paradoxical: the more I learn, the more I realize I know nothing. After I read The Stranger (and the rest of his published works – especially “The Myth of Sisyphus”) I thought I knew everything there was to know the world. I was sure that Camus’ almost scientific clarity revealed the ultimate truth about existence. A deep seated and ironic faith developed within me. This was a faith in the human condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that Camus diagnosed so plainly in his works. I’m fairly certain that he was responsible for my Francophilia. Well, not just him. Baudelaire, Baudrillard, Malraux, Sartre, Proust, Zola. Then, I remember what came next. I read “Being and Nothingness” as a junior in high school and remember how impressed my teachers were. I liked the attention. I realize now that I didn’t even grasp the meaning nor the context of Sartre’s ideas. I stumbled through Kierkegaard but I think I only picked him up because of the “existentialist” moniker. Oh, and also because I wanted to be able to say that I had read him. It’s undeniable that I was somewhat intelligent, but my priorities were all wrong. I had exchanged membership to my church of Jesus Christ for refuge in a temple of reason. I worshipped mindlessly just as I always had, but instead of God I had some strangely underdeveloped form of nihilistic existentialism (and yes, I am aware of the innate contradiction). I moved from existentialism to absurdism. I breathed Beckett and Stoppard and other absurdist playwrights for months. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was my favorite, especially after my four year obsession with Hamlet. I even took painstaking measure to memorize all of Hamlet’s soliloquies (I still remember most of them – it’s a great party trick).

I guess all of this rambling needs a point. I don’t have one. That is my point. I don’t see the purpose in this, but I can’t stop. Despite their impracticality, I am fervently addicted to new ideas.

September 23^rd, 2010 – 6:11 pm

I can’t concentrate on reading anything. Maybe I’ll just write for awhile.

I want to get into the groove of my thoughts but I keep trying to distract myself. My chair is uncomfortable. I should change clothes. I’m thirsty. I need water. I need to take a shower.

My whole life, needs have mingled with wants until I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. I don’t know what reinforced this imagined importance – what erected desire into this artificial structure of necessity. In being here,  the ability to satisfy those “needs” is entirely stripped away. I’ve come to realize how simple of a creature I am. I don’t need television, extensive social interaction, expensive meals, dryer-fresh clothes, a cell phone, air conditioning, hot water, internet access,  a shower every day. My body wishes for many things; yet, it begs for few. It pleads for water, fresh air, meals complete with plenty of greens and protein,  a good night’s sleep, literature, and exercise. If I have all of these things, happiness just follows. I hope I can keep this mentality once I return back to civilization. Habits are difficult to break and probably easy to resume.

Non sequitur: I just killed a mosquito with my gold-embossed hard-bound edition of the stranger. It wasn’t an arab, I didn’t have a gun, and I wasn’t on a beach, but it will do.

I want to write more; in fact, I am aching to write more, but for some reason I can’t. Not now. Maybe I should just think for awhile.

Liz and I are going to the volcano for the weekend – Volcan Arenal. It’s one of the ten most active volcanoes in the world. I’ve never seen one in real life before. We’re staying at a “party hostel” near the center of the city – la fortuna de san carlos. Maybe I’ll get a break from all of this one-on-one time with the inside of my head. Highly unlikely.

updates are here

September 15^th, 2010 – 2:43 p.m.

Read it and weep: I did seven hours straight of farm work at the neighbors’ farm today. Then, I got to suffer through the two mile hike uphill back home. Liz beat me home and then she went on a run. I don’t understand how she has the inhuman endurance for this shit. I am collapsed in a chair by the kitchen table and I don’t plan on moving for at least another 40 minutes.

I learned how to milk a cow today! I remember doing it as a kid a few times (Utah -- represent!) but I was definitely out of practice. Let’s just say it’s very different from similar activities. I kept trying to do motions that came more naturally to me (no pun intended) but I wasn’t being rough enough. Ha. You have to squeeze the top of the udder and bring the milk to the tip, and then increase the pressure from your forefinger down. It was so difficult. I milked for a good 20 minutes and only got maybe two or three cups of milk. Then, Luz (the mom) came over and just laughed at me. She essentially said she’d finish it off (ha) and proceeded to get triple the amount that I had in about 5 minutes. Pathetic. It’s okay, I just need to practice more.

New fact I learned today: Horns are not exclusive to bulls. Some female cows have them too. I didn’t know this. At first, I thought our cow was some strange female/bull hybrid, because she was large and had horns – yet, she had ample udders and no dangly bits. Then, at risk of asking a stupid question, I asked anyway. Apparently female cows have horns occasionally. It’s a genetic thing.

Then, I went to collect eggs from the chickens. Sounds easy, right? WRONG. This chicken “coop” consists of an approximately 8 by 8 foot cage clusterfuck of at least 250 chickens. You have to step up into it while opening the door and blocking any of those feathered fiends from escaping. There are three little cabinet-esque fixtures at the corners where the chickens lay their eggs. You have to maneuver through the sea of squawking and somehow steal these un-fertilized babies from their mamas. I gathered at least 50 the first time. Even though their living condition seemed a little harsh, I know that many farmers in the United States keep chickens in much less humane surroundings. These hens can at least walk around – they’re not confined to little cages. They also are fed only whole grains. Oh – something I learned – the fence surrounding the cage is electrified. This is, apparently, to protect the chickens from night stalking predators. Well, I tripped and grabbed the fence out of impulse to keep myself from tumbling. I received QUITE a shock. I have no idea what the voltage was, but it was fucking painful. Somehow, I didn’t drop any of the eggs.

September 18^th, 2010 – 9:52 a.m.

I slept in until 8:00 a.m. today. I know, so indulgent. I woke up at 5:00 – the usual time – fed the chickens, fed the cat, wrote down the worker hours, then I just collapsed back in bed. Lately, I have been doing a lot more work than usual. Additionally, Liz and I finished off a box of wine last night, so that could have easily contributed to my lethargy. Last night was a LOT of fun, but before I get to that, I must recap our visit to the neighbor’s yesterday. They are really starting to consider us an extension of their family. They have always been hospitable to us, but I think they love us now. We went to help out Luz twice this week. She always puts us to work, but she feeds us really well. It’s definitely worth the trade off. Yesterday we milked the cows again. I did much better than my first time! I developed a method of switching hands every 50 squeezes or so to keep from getting too tired. Being ambidextrous has a few perks. Luz said that for my second day I did really well. Liz, somehow, went crazy and got a couple quarts out of just one teat. She is way too good at milking cows. I think she was using the alternate hand technique too, and she also was perched underneath whereas I was hunched over and reaching down. I must observe her skills more closely!

We did a lot of planting in Luz’s greenhouse too. I never thought I’d say this, but just being in her greenhouse makes me crave salad. She has the most delicious heads of organic lettuce, onions, cilantro, celery, green onions, etc… After I’ve weeded, or planted, or harvested for a few hours, I can’t stop smelling my fingers. I know, disgusting, but you have no idea how good fresh cilantro smells. Once a week, Luz sells her wares at the feria. It’s basically a massive farmer’s market in the center of San Isidro. There are at least 50 or 60 booths of people selling everything from vegetables to homemade cheese to necklaces to hot food. We went on Thursday and bought some of Luz’s lettuce and tapa dulces. Tapa Dulce is a cylindrical chunk of hardened sugar cane that is used to make frescas or shaved off as a sweetener to use in cooking. Frescas are these delicious juices that are essentially equal parts sugar, water, and fresh fruit juice/chunks. We had some pineapple frescas at the feria this week in addition to some hot beef empanadas… good lord. I was in food heaven. Speaking of irony, despite how I feel like I’ve been eating poorly in town, Luz told me that I look a lot skinnier. She’s only known me for a little over a month! It was really encouraging. I even got called “tiny” this week. I can definitely say that I have never imagined anyone calling me that. I had better be careful. With all of these compliments, I’m at risk of becoming a narcissist. Thank the lord that there aren’t any mirrors here.

Actually, Liz made a really astute observation – I’m going to butcher it, I’m sure. She was much more eloquent in the moment than I will be in clumsily relating it. She said something about two things that she took for granted most – clocks and mirrors – and how both of those things are nonexistent on the farm. It’s humorously poignant: the one working clock we have on the farm doesn’t keep proper time. It’s about 25 or 30 minutes slow depending on the day and adjusting the gears doesn’t help. We measure our tasks without empty numeric labels. We feed the chickens a little after sunrise. We water the greenhouse before it gets warm in the morning. When the sun becomes higher in the sky, we start breakfast. We eat when we’re hungry. We let the chickens out around noon or one. This is when the sun is highest. We eat lunch shortly after. We read, work out, talk, play guitar, write, and study Spanish until dusk. Then, we lock the chickens up and eat dinner. We watch a movie and, one night a week, devour a box of white wine between the two of us. After dinner, we relax. We’re both usually in bed by 7:30 or 8. I used to be nocturnal – now I can’t ever imagine making a habit out of waking up after sunrise. Not looking at a clock once throughout the day is incredibly liberating. We don’t need time even when catching the bus in the morning. The bus is there by 6:25 – it takes us about 30 minutes to walk to the bus stop based on how high the river is. That timing isn’t bad for a two mile hike. So, we have plenty of time to get ready after we wake up in the morning. We leave when we have our things together. The only time we really need time (haha)is when we’re catching the bus back from town to our farm. It’s funny how being back in civilization forces one into old habits. Plus, the once-a-week luxury of being out and about usually includes a few drinks and a good meal. Those two things – coupled with intense relaxation after a week of strenuous work and meager meals – could make anyone forget the notion of time.

September 19, 2010 – 11:18 a.m.

It feels like it should be at least 5 o’clock in the afternoon. The tips of the fingers on my left hand are searing. I played guitar for at least a couple hours today. Poor Liz had to endure me fucking up chords over and over again. I have almost the whole introduction to “Stairway to Heaven” memorized (in case you are uninformed, knowing this is mandatory for all terribly amateur guitar players). I also am learning “Society” by Eddie Vedder. SUCH A GOOD SONG. Go look it up right now if you haven’t heard it. It also fits my situation perfectly. Oh, and American Pie. What is a cheesy fireside sing along without it? Other recent songs in my repertoire are “While You Were Sleeping” by Elvis Perkins and “Lua” by Bright Eyes. Such depressing songs. The last one is maybe slightly self indulgent, but what good sad music isn’t? Next on my list is anything by Fleet Foxes. I’m not sure what I’ll start with – I’ll probably just download the tabs from their entire self titled album. Once I get less terrible I’m going to move on to Neutral Milk Hotel. We have a bunch of saws and buckets here for the instrumentals. I am also crazy enough to wail like Jeff Mangum. I just need a trumpet. I seriously cannot wait until Kelly and Six get here. I am going to have a full jungle band at my disposal.

I just got the hiccups. Fuck. They are so violent. I can’t stop laughing. The harder I laugh, the more intense my hiccups become.  This is vicious. I must go drink some water while reciting the alphabet backwards and doing a headstand and having Liz scare me.

5:28 p.m. – same day

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. Words materialize in my head and I can’t hold onto them long enough to string together a coherent thought. It almost hurts to write. It feels like a chore. It’s easy when I’m describing the mundane details of my life – when I’m padding the lapses of monotony with a certain breed of anecdotal humor. This is what happens when you write for an audience – invisible critics magically emerge. They hover above you, silently chiding your imagined phrases before they even appear on paper. See, I just used a thesaurus. Does that mean I’m losing my touch? The word – appear – was originally materialize. I already used that once in this paragraph. I have a bad habit of stumbling upon a word that has a perfect ring – the faultless platonic ideal of a concept somehow scrunched behind a symbol– a melodic tone that reverberates precisely with the emotion that I’m trying to convey. Then the duplications emerge. But maybe that’s what life is. It’s a string of endless repetitions made to feel different by a change of scenery or different music. The same monotony disguised by different players, languages, cultures, scenes, aesthetics. Maybe I’m feeling down because I’m hormonal. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had anything real to eat in days. Maybe it’s because I’m filthy and riddled with dozens of bug bites. Maybe it’s also because I don’t speak the language here very well and – as difficult as it is to express myself in English, my native language – it’s impossible to convey what I’m feeling in Spanish. Maybe it’s because I’m shrinking and I’m afraid of what is going to happen once I look “normal”. Once I am “beautiful.” (Being grotesque is empowering – people never listen to you just because they want your attention. When you aren’t pretty, you are aware that if people are actually listening it’s because you have something valuable to say). Maybe it’s because I miss home. Maybe it’s because I’m afraid of going home. Maybe it’s mostly because I know that none of this matters – that all emotions, no matter how powerful, are labeled with a cosmic expiration date. Can the tragic heroine be subject to a certain breed of hubris, or is that specific only to males? All of my questions simply lead to more. This is a symptom of that ancient sickness – philosophy. No real answer is ever reached – but the discursive nature of questioning is one that defines its own purpose through the circularity of the argument. What is the point in defining, delineating, demolishing, deconstructing our world if we’re all going to be decomposing beneath it someday? Maybe absolute hedonism is the real answer. Then again, an excess of pleasure can only be a catalyst for pain. And vice versa. One who knows nothing but pain has the ability to find pleasure in the most minute of things – in the momentary releases of pressure.

I can feel my mind spiraling downward. The harder I search for the answers, the more I realize they don’t exist. No, maybe it’s not a downward spiral. Maybe it’s the elevation – the altitude – that is birthing this vertigo. Philosophy is just a different temple I have built to shroud myself from the harsh elements of reality. Some people have faith, some people have religion, some people have money, some people have drugs. I mediate my interaction with reality through my own rudimentarily inquisitive brand of metaphysics. It doesn’t matter how hard discursive meanderings of the mind are manipulated in regards to encountering reality. All this futile construction does is increase the distance between the imagined and the actual. Yet, here I am, unable to escape the shaky scaffolding of this logic. I want to conceive pure thoughts outside of this structure but It’s impossible – all thought is only conceivable within it. Cognition is the worst curse that humanity could bare. It isn’t the act of being expelled from the garden that broke us – it’s our ability to recognize and understand the difference between paradise and hell.  But I still pretend to be an idealist most of the time. It’s nice to imagine some ultimate truth lying in the realm of the transcendental. It’s nice to entertain the thought that there is something supra-intellectual and universal; some intangible a priori absolute that is entirely inconceivable to the human mind. I don’t know if I really believe in this. It seems more like a finely articulated fairy tale – another God delusion that emerged in the face of 19^th and 20^th century mechanical rationality. People need their ghost stories – their specters. But then again, I don’t really believe in anything. When I was younger I had strong opinions. The more I tried to develop them, the more I seemed to realize that I know nothing. Even as I began to delve into the complexities of politics, of literature, of art – I just became tired. Now, after spending hundreds of thousands of hours reading and attempting to make myself better, I feel nothing but the burden of knowing slightly more than most people. It isn’t even that I’m smarter. My common sense is severely lacking most of the time, and I generally make flighty and un-thought-through decisions without a second glance. I just doubt that most people would be able to explain Hume’s notion of subjectivity, or talk at length about Kant’s critique of judgment. The discourses on aesthetics, one of my previous passions, are completely useless. Maybe It’s better if I settle for a sub-standard education at a sub-standard university. Maybe I should fall into the structure of the system and make myself a productive member of society. Maybe I should stop running from conformity – because God knows that is what I’ve been doing all along.

I’m afraid of getting lost in the seas of people. I’m afraid of the truth – the reality – of my childhood trauma dissipating on that vast infinite plane of memories and tragedies. I don’t want it to be that way. I want to hold onto it forever because that suffering is what catalyzed my curiosity. I’m sure of it. After I left Mormonism, my world exploded. This awakening, the ballistics of this subjective explosion, emerged entirely from questions I had pursued – answers I had sought. I found them, and they were unexpected and shattered my world.

I may act the part of a romantic and I may proclaim idealistic statements, but the truth is, if I could forget everything I knew, I would. I would go back to being ignorant and having faith in a false God and in knowing that I could justify what my father did to me through the simple mantra: “everything happens for a reason.”

That is true. Anyone who tells you that there is some universally fitting justification for tragedy is a fool and is just peddling fairy tales. Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, the easter bunny, the myth of wealth leading to happiness, and determinism. They all belong together – they’re allegorical opiates obfuscating the absolute absurdity of human existence. Nothing happens for a reason. There is the notion of cause and effect, but it mostly is just a substandard justification slapped on the day-to-day happenings that would be impossible to stomach otherwise. Healthy people die without any cause or warning. Tumors attack the people who least deserve them – the people who have the most to live for are the ones who are sacrificed to the cause of entropy. I’ve never had to deal with a death in my immediate family, but I’ve seen very close friends go through this and even just being in their proximity is crippling. I am often empathetic to a fault. I am not sure why this is. It doesn’t matter whether someone dies over a matter of years – slowly deteriorating and stealing away memories of themselves as young, happy, and handsome. Gradually replacing these with a cadaverous, hollow shell of the person they once were. It doesn’t matter how charismatic you are – death won’t be charmed like everyone else who had the pleasure of knowing you. Sometimes, inexplicably, it just happens without a warning. Someone young and vibrant is ripped away from their family – leaving holes and shreds in the tightly woven tapestry. I’ve seen this happen to the people who least deserve it. And the families. The brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers are always the best people. Even me, some lost girl without any personal sense of morals, regains faith in humanity through witnessing the good in these people. Then, what is left? Broken individuals with no justification for their pain. In some ways, I can imagine that people supplying false justifications for these deaths is the biggest insult to those who have suffered the losses. Some regain the ability to live their lives. None are ever the same. Yeah, maybe they’re stronger or braver or wiser or more jaded or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Something like that is completely unpredictable and ultimately destructive. Death can never be stopped.

It’s funny how some people live their lives as if they were immortal. Not giving a shit about moments in time that are essentially priceless – wasting their days and energy working in jobs they hate to buy shit they don’t need. This is the one redeeming quality of mortality – the inevitability of an absolute end gives everything meaning. That first kiss, falling in love, playing childhood games, watching the sunrise, running at dusk, savoring a glass of wine, devouring the words of some dead literary prophet – these things – in their instances – can only happen once. Each moment is completely insular. Time just feels linear because of how quickly we age. How rapidly we are deteriorating.  

Today, love somebody. See something beautiful that has always been a part of your routine. Write, dance, judge, embrace, sing, worship, condemn. Do what fulfills you. This is all we have – and we won’t have it for long.

it's that time again

September 11^th, 2010 – 2:06 p.m.

Herein lies the paradox: I’ve been incredibly inspired as of late and I haven’t written in my designated cache of blog entries for four days. It’s because I’ve been too busy enjoying the tempestuous throes of existence. My eyes are starting to feel… open. I don’t want to say that this evolving personal perspective/subjectivity/a posteriori whatever corresponds with absolute “truth” – that is just trite and vague and abstract (three things that I HATE being, especially in writing). This would only be true in the Greek sense of truth – aletheia – the unconcealment of beings (in the face of their Being).

I’m enjoying being an expatriate today. Since I find disharmony exceedingly harmonious, and I crave the taste of unconventionality, I got Liz to start reading Welcome to the Desert of the Real today. It’s about how September 11^th was essentially the snuff-film equivalent of a string of pornographic Hollywood spectacles. Guess what day it is? Yeah. I’m that person. I’m not necessarily unpatriotic; however, being cynical and nihilistic and pretending like I belong to the Frankfurt school is far too much fun. I’m not even a Marxist really, I just like reading developed ideas – especially ones that succeed in pissing people off.

Meanwhile, back at  the farm….

So, our creature comforts have been entirely disrupted by many creatures. I made a joke that they get bigger every night – like they’re openers leading up to the headliner – and it’s entirely true. This worries me greatly. Liz and I take turns killing them in different and creative ways. They are each christened with a holy name and baptized by immersion (well, if we drown them) before we hand them a one-way ticket to the endless void of bug mortality.  Here are some of the ones I can remember.

Victim number one: Job, the giant flying cockroach. 5 inches by 5 inches. Bottle-green and loud as hell. Jessica imposed death by mallet. Said victim lived, even after my torture, for approximately 9 hours (hence the name Job – he never lost faith despite his adversity. Ha.) There he was, twitching and flailing. Fluttering his bedraggled wings. I heard a audibly macabre death rattle; however, I’m quite sure it was my swollen ego projecting human characteristics onto this pathetic insect.

Victim number two: Jose the scorpion. Approximately 12 inches in length. Stinger measured 4-6 inches (and that’s flaccid!) Wingspan (or clawspan, rather) was approximately five inches. Liz hacked this one to death with a hoe. Those hoes, they be brutal. Its posthumous spasms were quite unnerving.  Additionally, it attempted to crawl away even after it was severed in half. Liz and I should move to Vegas and become magicians. Yeah, so, about the cat killing these godless creatures? Vida just licked it and played with it like it was a ball of string. Worst scorpion slaying cat ever.

Victim number three: Slurpy, the giant pit viper. Approximately 5 feet in length. Killer fangs. Black with yellow and red triangles on his belly. Carlos had the pleasure of slicing this one into three pieces with a machete. See photo: Although the entirety of the body is hanging and connected, the three pieces are barely held together by tiny bits of snakey sinew. Snake guts look a lot like bloody-veiny-rotting-sausage.

Victim number four: Medusa, the black-widow-esque spider that was way too big to be a black widow. This lass was one of our smaller victories. Her body was about the size of a quarter, and with her legs extended she could have rivaled the circumference of a john f. kennedy 50 cent piece. She had a massive red diamond shape on her underbelly. This reina de la noche was hanging above liz’s bed. I captured her in a Tupperware and she is currently in the freezer, perfectly preserved. After I spent a moment admiring her shiny black torso, I decided she’d make an awesome broach.

Victim number five: Gimpy. This furry brown spider, legs included, was the size of a nerf ball. He had hundreds of eyes and gigantic pincer-like teeth. Even after Liz sliced off two of his legs, he kept protesting and scrambling around. Who knew – that bastard had six more! Eventually we trapped him under a Tupperware and he is currently starving to death on our front porch next to a few other prisoners of war.

Victim number six: Kirby, the baby scorpion. This little fella was about the size of a quarter. I found him on one of my sandals right as I slipped it on my foot. It was pleasant, really. I froze him. I’m going to catch the next baby we see and make Liz a pair of kickass earrings.

September 12, 2010 – no concept of time

51% battery left. Low on energy. Who knows how many days. I feel like weeks wouldn’t be enough time to describe the decades of which the last few hours were comprised.

It started this morning on our way to the river. We chewed our gum. We bought our one-way tickets to enlightenment. I was scared, I knew there was no going back. I started getting butterflies on the way to the river. I could feel my heartbeat steadily increase as my legs moved faster.

The sunlight was sweltering. The cool breath of the morning on my skin had been a tease. It sizzled as I could feel freshness of the air cooling my sweat. But this was all before the sun hung high in the sky. I was sitting in the cool stream, feeling the rocks and earth and mud all around me. Everything was sublime and intricate and inexplicable. As I picked up the stones, one by one, I projected my fears or dislikes or bad memories onto them before I tossed them back into the current. It was liberating.

I found a flat stone the size of my palm. It looked just like a tablet. I found another pen-shaped sharp rock. I began to recreate every masterpiece of western art on it from memory while I was sitting in the river. After I’d finish, I’d submerge the stone for a few seconds until it was wiped clean. A few of my favorite renditions were the Mona Lisa, Starry Night, and a Warhol-esque campbell’s soup can. It was funny to see them carved in stone. But I guess that’s all we are as humans – scrambling to scratch our legacy somewhere before we’re all turned to dust. Whether it is immortalized on cave walls or the walls of a museum is completely arbitrary.

The symphonious dichotomy of the sweltering heat baking my skin and the frigid water cooling me from the waist down was – if pleasure can be – excruciating. The hanging vines around me weaved tapestries of a million lifetimes I’d live – if I so chose.

Elizabeth looked like a bronze statue glistening in the sun. Her skin had been kissed by hundreds of tiny water droplets. They shimmered and winked flirtatiously in the sun. I am reminded of Fitzgerald’s Cut Glass Bowl – or A Diamond as Big as the Ritz. Here, even the miniscule light fractures were blinding. But these glimmers were far from sinister. It was ironic that the closest I had ever come to this sort of sublimity was a critique of western opulence – written in the roaring twenties – a decade of extravagance.

Sitting in that river, we were entirely without luxury. Yet, I had never seen a sight more opulent nor a beauty more regal. We were skin and bones and blood. We were cloaked in mantles of earth and sunlight. We reigned over our kingdom harmoniously – staying still and revering the ethereal heartbeat of nature while doing nothing to domesticate it.

Today has felt like at least 15 lifetimes.

In another life we were putting our clothes back on, drying off, preparing for the hike back up. For some reason, despite my sweat and labored breathing, this time was far easier than all the rest. I felt powerful as my legs burned and the sweat collected on my brow, on my chest, in between my shoulder blades. It got steeper and I climbed harder. The roots reached out from under the hundreds of trees lining our dirt path. They were intricate and interwoven. It was obvious here that all human construction consisted merely of poor imitations – we would never be able to harness the entropy that catalyzed the inexplicable.

Then, another life had started, concurrently with all the rest. We looked out over the valley – we were gods on Olympus. I clung to the barbed wire and everything became metaphorical. Those hills – vast, unceasing, and sublime, represented the unknown. It was that transcendental and harmonious realm of human emotion and experience in the face of universe. These sharp, biting fences – they were language. It didn’t matter how much I pulled – I pushed – I pried. It wouldn’t bend. It wouldn’t break. I could inch a little closer to the sublime, but there’s no way I’d ever reach it. Looking at it now – how vast it was – how small I was – the thought is laughable.

Then, we were back at the house. I don’t know how it happened. Led Zeppelin was playing and I was doing dishes and birds were singing outside and somehow I was in awe. With those bluesy wails I was transported to another time. The heat and my imagination swirled around me and I was wearing sequins – dancing – singing – and then I opened my eyes. Back into the present.

Showering was a few lifetimes in itself. Again – an attempt to describe the profound sensation of the cool water in immaculate contrast with the hot air seems laughable.

Having freshly washed hair after five normal days (and the hundreds of lifetimes of today) was the most impeccably clean I’ve ever felt.

Liz and I played for hours. I pretended to be a beauty queen and made a crown out of tubing and carted  dead flowers around the house as I cast a macabre wave to an invisible audience of thousands. We sang and danced and laughed at the cold buggy faces of the predators we’ve been freezing to death. We were human – all too human.

Then I read philosophy and watched the visualizer and listened to eric clapton and at some point the world spun harder and I danced and my hair was down and at no point did liz and I deem it important to wear pants.

We needed bananas. I grabbed a machete and we ran out in the middle of the orchard – still in our underwear. It was raining harder now. I hacked down an entire banana tree just because I could. I picked up the large bushel as if it was weightless and we trudged back up to the house. I laughed to myself. It was ironic and slightly dangerous that I had access to numerous sharp knives at this juncture.

Then – another reincarnation – we were outside in our underwear and rubber boots with flowers in our hair. It was raining heavily. We danced and sang and played. Nothing mattered. I was six again, feeling beautiful and alive and in awe of the whole world I had ahead of me. I had my innocence.

Then, we lit candles and made fresh pasta and garlic bread from scratch. The process of making it was just as delicious as the meal. Chopping the onions was so cathartic.

We watched Bangkok Dangerous with Nicholas Cage. God, I have never laughed so hard in my life. I have a feeling this wasn’t meant to be a comedy.

Now we’re sitting here, writing, listening to music, and I’m reminiscing about the present while I’m still in the present. It is arguable that I’m “wasting” the feelings of the moment – but there is something innately gratifying about describing all of it. This way, I can relive it over and over again. Highs come and go – but perspective, that is something which never leaves you.

Now entering Enlightenment – Population: 2. The best things about enlightenment: you can’t get noise complaints and everything is clothing optional (nudity preferred).  

On that note – I’m going to go live for awhile.

updatez yo

September 2^nd, 2010 – 4:10 p.m.

As I was typing out the date for this blog entry, my initial instinct was to write “August” instead of “September”. It’s crazy how time flies. I can’t believe that I’ve been here a whole month. Conversely, being in Irvine – in the midst of my normal routine – work at Peet’s, going to school, socializing… those things feel incredibly far away. I like where I am now. I am finally settled in. I love it here.

Liz and I went into town today. We had to get geared up in our ponchos. When we left at 5:30, it was still dark outside and raining heavily. The hike down to the river wasn’t bad; however, once we got there, chaos ensued. It was over waist deep on me and incredibly fast. It had thundered and rained all night, and the state of the river was proof. It was muddy and impossible to see where the smooth stepping rocks were. I decided to go barefoot. I knew that the tops of my boots wouldn’t come close to clearing the river’s surface. So, I eventually had to crawl across the river bed on the tops of the smoother rocks. The water was still up to my back – I had to keep my laptop dry. It was in my backpack. I knew the current was strong because even Liz had trouble crossing. We both made it though. I was soaked from chest down. Luckily, I brought a small towel and a change of shoes, so I wouldn’t have to slosh all day in my boots.

The bus ride was unusually crowded. It could have been that the farmer’s market was that day, I’m not entirely sure.

We got into town and stopped at the bread shop. I had a roast beef sandwich for breakfast. It hadn’t even cleared 7 a.m. and I was already feeling carnivorous. My body thanked me for the protein, but protested heavily later. It’s strange when you get accustomed to living without something you used to have all the time. The meat and dairy in this sandwich totally fucked with my stomach. Regardless, it was delicious and worth it. I needed the energy.

Liz and I stopped for coffee before heading to the internet café. It was so nice just to sit and enjoy a cup of joe – like old times. It lead us to a lot of reminiscing about work. I miss living in coffee shops and having a secret posse of friends and intellectuals who frequent our favorite hangouts. It’s funny – I could have gone to any Peet’s in Irvine or Tustin at any given time and hung out with someone I cared about.

Anyway, grocery shopping was fun. Absolut mandarin was on sale. 7,000 colones for a bottle. A steal! (Not really.) I had to get it. I’m going to make some amazing cocktails tonight. After Liz and I got home, we hung out for awhile and decided to work out at our yoga platform. The yoga platform is this crazy wooden deck that  stands separately about an acre up from the farm house. It has a thatched roof covered with banana leaves and is completely open otherwise. This is where we do our routine. There is also an amazing bench made entirely of branches that sits at the back of it – I put on music and we are good to go. The view overlooks the whole valley. Today, we saw a flock of toucans above us in one of the taller trees. Liz abruptly informed me by exclaiming “Toucans!” and reached out to touch my shoulder. She, instead, accidentally cupped my breast. I almost died laughing. The birds were magical  – almost as magical as the instant I caught Liz groping me by “accident”.  The toucans were a shiny oil-slick black with large red-and-yellow banana beaks. They also had little flecks of white beneath their eyes. They were beautiful! We also saw a flock of parakeets fly by. Liz got a better look at them than I did, but they were a bright neon green with pink around their beaks and on their chests. It was seriously like seeing something from a dream – or a textbook illustration – come to life.

My workout playlist was shamefully awesome. Some of the all-stars present at the event included Kanye, Mos Def, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Nine Inch Nails, and Common. Terrifying, I know. I enjoyed every minute of it. So, we were in the middle of sweating out our routine when gold digger by Kanye West came on. It is such a guilty pleasure. Anyway, we both immediately stopped what we were doing, grabbed the sides of the platform, and started getting low. We were dancing with each other –grinding rather – when we heard “hola!” uttered behind us. There was Wilburth, one of the local part-time workers, on top of his horse. He was smiling and laughing at us. We were mortified, but we couldn’t stop giggling rambunctiously. Liz was wearing only a sports bra and short shorts – I’m fairly certain that my bra was hanging out of my tank top. Classy. He asked us how town was (I had left him a note earlier) and we told him it was good. He let me know his work hours for the day and then said he’d see us later. As embarrassed as we were, I think it kind of brought us closer to him in a strange way. The language barrier between him and I has been difficult, but he’s been patient. Since he saw us just being people instead of struggling to communicate, it felt like a kind of relief.

After that, a breeze blew through the platform. I closed my eyes, lifted my arms, and began to pretend to meditate.  Then, Liz started navigating my poses through the most amazing yoga instructor voice ever. I thought she was reciting this from somewhere, but no. She was just pulling it out of her ass. Incredible. Then, I decided it would be a good idea to show her some yoga poses that I remembered from the class I took before I left. This ended with both of us on the ground doing the “happy baby,” laughing hysterically, and completely unable to get up. I almost pissed myself after Liz suggested that it should be the name of a sex position.

Same day – 7:17 p.m.

I am trashed. Liz and I have been listening to music and singing at the top of our lungs. Berkeley would pose the following question – If two gringa girls are wailing in the rainforest, do the trees hate them? Well, maybe it wouldn’t be that sentence verbatim. For the evening, I have lost any semblance of eloquence I previously had.  Regardless, I made an epic badass playlist. It is so schizophrenic. Here are some of the random bands that emerged (in alphabetical order of course): aerosmith, afro man, air supply, al green, america, arcade fire, aretha franklin, bb king & muddy waters, the beach boys, the beastie boys, the beatles, billy idol, billy joel (the two most important billys in the history of music), the black keys, black sabbath, blink 182, blue oyster cult, bob dylan, bob marley, boston, britney spears, cake, cash and dylan, cat stevens, christina aguilera, the clash, coldplay, the cranberries, creedence clearwater revival, dashboard confessional, dave matthews, david bowie, the doors, the eagles, ella fitzgerald, elton john, fiona apple, the flaming lips, foreigner, frank sinatra, gnarls barkley, ghetto boys, goo goo dolls, heart, jefferson airplane, the kooks, the kinks, led zeppelin (DUH!), lily allen, ludacris, mamas and the papas, manu chao, marvin gaye, nancy sinatra, the nails, the pixies, the police, the ramones, rod stewart, the rolling stones…. AND IT IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS! This is the most self-indulgent playlist I’ve ever made. It doesn’t help that I’m completely hammered right now. I don’t know how I’m forming coherent sentences.

Right now: I am singing (screaming) along to black sabbath while liz is reading nabokov and petting the cat (that isn’t a euphemism this time – just wait until we’re in bed together). life, quite honestly, doesn’t get much better. I just misspelled the word better and I wouldn’t have noticed if it wasn’t for spell check. I don’t know how hemingway did it. He wrote drunk all the time and he never had spell check. To be fair, it isn’t for my lack of expertise – I am just physically impaired at the moment. My fingers keep tripping upon each other. My favorite quote by hemingway: “Write drunk, edit sober.” I don’t care that he was a misogynist or that his writing was overrated most of the time. I still love hemingway. I’m just glad I grew out of him being one of my favorite authors. There is only so much you can get out of brevity – there is a certain artifice to embellished prose. Hemingway is the favorite author of people who read occasionally but don’t actually love literature.

Unless you like being caught. In a boat. In the rain. With a scotch. And your sorrow. And your many women. And a shotgun. And sparse unclear dialogue.

“I’d rather not,” she said.

“But, it would be better.”

“How?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“Know what?”

OH GOD. A GIGANTIC moth just landed on my finger. I just thought I’d share. It disrupted me from having to write this ridiculously meager dialogue in emulation of hemingway. I’m not a chauvinist, so it isn’t cute anymore.

On an unrelated but fundamentally related note, Liz has been making a joke related to anal sex about everything. I crack up every time. (haha! CRACK up? GET IT?!?) See the following example. This occurred in the middle of a tear-jerking, heart-wrenching intimate conversation:

“I’ve never had a friend who I feel I could share all aspects of my life with – Even anal.” –  Liz Proctor.

Wow. Someone should ban me from writing right now. Don’t drink and write. It sucks though for the following reason: I made several rules for this blog, the main one being that I wouldn’t revise anything. I wanted it to be as organic and unconstructed as possible. (Well, I am on an organic farm – HEY-OOOH!) If I find typos and grammatical errors later (which, of course , don’t exist – I am the most pedantic, pretentious, well-read bitch you’ll ever meet) I leave them. Probably the most painful experience of my life. Yeah, did you see that last one? That was an INCOMPLETE SENTENCE. I can break the rules because I make the rules.

I just went outside to pee and remembered, as I was squatting, that I’m in a rainforest. I basically couldn’t be happier with my life right now. I am ripped. I live in the jungle. I hack away with a machete by day – I read endlessly by midday – I write and drink by night. Liz, the only person on the face of the earth who could put up with me for six months, is here. My boyfriend has a goddamn plane ticket and passport to be here in a month. If I were to look at this moment of my life from the vantage point of a year ago, I couldn’t even conceptualize it as being real. I’m one fucking happy camper.

Anyway, enough of my drunken narcissism. I’m going to go read some philosophy and listen to bob dylan and fucking be a pretentious hippy while I’m inebriated. You need a better image to envision my situation? Well, I will most certainly be naked, gnawing on organic vegetables, and relishing in the regrowth of my leg hair. PURA VIDA, BITCHES!

On a side note: Liz knows every word to the song “Fighter” by Christina Aguilera. Oh, the things you learn in captivity.

September 3^rd,2010 – 6:45 p.m.

So, I originally wrote this next entry as an academic paper (but not for a class…just for fun). It had sources cited, correct formatting, and it wasn’t in first person. It was pleasantly dense, fervently impenetrable, and pedantic ad infinitum. I decided since I was posting it here, I had to revamp it to make it more entertaining. Many of the arguments, however, are still the same. My main inspirations for creating this were the writings of Adorno, Dufourmantelle, Derrida, Zizek, Marx, and Baudrillard. Oh and also (mainly) a conversation I had with my mother. I couldn’t see straight for two days after she told me that she started reading the “philosophy” of Deepak Chopra. She then said that she thought it was amazing how you could “change your very DNA by just thinking positive,” [sic]. Anyway. Enough.

I hate self-help books. I detest “how-to” guides claiming to map out the way to spiritual enlightenment. Any manual that peddles “fast-and-easy secrets” to wealth, love, heath, or happiness is only geared toward morally and intellectually defective human beings. This genre’s arbitrary self-granted  title as modern “philosophy” or “metaphysics” is a complete misnomer. Philosophy finds its etymological history in the love of wisdom. True philosophy is self-declared as the science of being. It simultaneously and conversely imagines spiritual education as its vocation while righting itself into a logic of propositions. Philosophy spent centuries competing with science for the right to produce objective knowledge of the world. Regrettably, philosophy became out-dated in its attempt to comprehend the laws that govern the world – in trying to determine what animates the human soul. In the face of the hard sciences, philosophy became regarded as a pedantic and clandestine discipline; therefore, completely ignored within the realm of “common” knowledge. It still lingers on the periphery of human understanding and is barely kept alive by interminably inquisitive individuals. Philosophy, from its very origins, has represented the ceaseless contemplation of the mind in exile. Although the popularity of the classics is waning, many of the modern books scattered amidst the “philosophy” section are far from being adequate successors. Gleaming airbrushed images of overly contented authors grace the glossy covers of their brightly bound books. Their bleached out smiles and assertive postures beckon the weary wanderer to open them and discover the secrets within. They project empty promises of affluence, of vitality, of endless contentment. Superficially, the aim of these books does not seem far from that of philosophical tradition. They beg to provide dialogues on meaning – on the recognition of truth – all self-directed; just as contemplation should be expanded through the circular motion of discourse. These shelves, however, are laden with vacuous simulacra that are merely marketed as meaningful. The sole secret to wealth hidden within this relatively new genre – popularized by Phil Mcgraw, Oprah, and others – is revealed through their promotion of “self-help” literature as a fundamental necessity. These books consist purely of generalized thoughts and pithy mantras aimed at the complete commodification of self-directed “well being”. Needless to say, I absolutely abhor pop philosophy; especially Deepak Chopra.

Chopra has made an extremely successful living as an endocrinologist-turned-spiritual guru. He has written about the relationship between quantum physics and healing. He has speculated openly and freely about the origins of life on earth. My personal favorite: Chopra has argued that a strategic move towards establishing peace in the middle east would be to open a branch of Disneyland. I don’t even need to invoke Baudrillard’s description of Disneyland to make the ridiculousness of this statement apparent. As a non sequitur, If you’re interested in some fantastically nihilistic post-modern Marxist theory– consult Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard. Anyway, Chopra is described on the cover of his latest book as “India’s greatest living writer and ambassador of culture.” I am not an expert on Indian literature, but I can easily imagine that there are many living Indian authors who have far more merit and credibility than he does. Jhumpa Lahiri, anyone? Quite frankly, Chopra is a 21^st century charlatan – he has turned metaphysical “cures” and paths to “enlightenment” into commodities. He does this by parading under the guise of being a “philosopher.” He projects the image of an enlightened, exotic, eastern “metaphysician” who dazzles the ignorant west with his seemingly “inspired” and “mystical” ideas. Honestly, I’m offended.

As I said previously, philosophy originally represented a furtive and cerebral field of discourse vehemently opposed to maintaining the status quo. Now that “metaphysics” have gone mainstream, they merely affirm of commodity relations rather than critiquing or transcending them. Works like Chopra’s sell empty forms of pseudo-individualization. Authors like Chopra essentially achieve what traditional organized religion could not: the complete internalization of domination. These books claiming to sell “enlightenment” merely provide a distortion of consciousness. This obstruction of reality conceals material conditions ad infinitum.

This inane phenomena, however, goes far beyond being demonstrably irrational. The irrationality at work here is not necessarily a force functioning outside the range of rationality. Here, I would understand this imagined “rationality” as the social means for legitimating the contradictions of the contemporary societal system. The “irrationality” of Chopra’s works and similar “mystical” phenomena, and the routine “rationality” of modern society, coincide insofar as they both serve the same social function: the justification and legitimation of the status quo. Fundamentally, the important matter here is how rationality and irrationality coincide. There is a crucial and obvious pattern – the interaction of rational and irrational forces in modern mass movements.

These books keep getting published en masse because they are popular. There is a vast market for them. I can rant as much as I want, but when it comes down to it, they will continue to amass millions of dollars purely from the gullibility of the general public.

Wait, nope, I take it all back. I am becoming a self-help guru. Since misery is unending, and gullibility is ubiquitous, I am going to capitalize on both.

Went to Costa Rica – Found Enlightenment. Here’s a Map! by Jessica Henry. Available wherever books are sold. Only $29.95 for the deluxe hardbound edition with accompanying audio CDs. It even includes a four-foot, fold-out, glossy poster of me naked lying in chicken shit.

As a final note: If you’re looking for spiritual enlightenment, don’t waste your money on self help books. Just take LSD.

September 4^th, 2010 – 3:44 p.m.

As I’m writing this, Liz is making Korean potato pancakes. She is in the kitchen, wearing a thong, listening to Nelly – dancing and singing along to every word. This woman has changed my life. She is a bronze goddess.

We both were feeling kind of lethargic today. We got up early – I went back to bed until 8:30. When I woke up the second time, Liz had already weeded and watered the upper garden. She is superwoman. Then we sat around and read for awhile. Finally, we decided to work out. Liz went on her crazy run while I did my reps and sprinted up a few hills. Enough mundane details – we have both been craving terrible food for days. I haven’t had anything processed in about a month. Last night, we even spent an hour going into details of our personal platonic ideals of the “perfect” hamburger. It was pathetic but also awesome. Well today, to assuage my craving, I decided to make onion rings from scratcg. I figured – we have vegetable oil, flower, onions, eggs, how hard can It be? So, I half-improvised a recipe. I put flower, baking soda, salt, pepper, a little corn meal, and powdered milk in the batter. I didn’t have the tub of “dripping fat” that southerncooking.com had suggested, so I substituted nice and wholesome (HA!) vegetable oil. They were SO GOOD. We also made a new “secret sauce” – Tabasco and soy sauce mixed together. So goddamn delicious. I also made some perfect cocktails from Absolut mandarin with orange and carrot juice. I’m decently buzzed at this point. I still can’t believe I live here. It is surreal just looking out the window.

Yesterday was just as awesome as today. Liz and I hiked down to the river with two empty notebooks and a box of wine. We shared stories for hours! It’s amazing how there is always more that you can learn about someone – regardless of how close you are to them. The best part of the day: she taught me how to skip rocks! She used to go on camping trips with her dad and brothers as a kid every summer, and they would have contests. I had no idea that she was so good at it. Needless to say, I still have a lot of improving to do. I got a couple of them to skip twice, but Liz said her record is 13. After seeing her technique, I believe it. Do not fret: one day, the padowan will surpass the jedi master. I think I’m going to post a “How-to” guide for skipping rocks one of these days – complete with pictures. People need to know! The hike back was SO WET. (Get your minds out of the gutter, children!) I was absolutely drenched two miles later. I also couldn’t tell what was sweat and what was rainwater. I definitely did feel refreshed after though. Somehow, Liz STILL beat me even though she was wearing muddy sandals and I had boots on. So brutal. I have a feeling her high school cross-country days will never leave her. She is perma-fit. It’s okay, being around someone who is incredibly in shape is just more motivation for me to push myself harder. So about those onion rings…

September 7th, 2010 – 8:13 a.m.

Liz and I woke up early today and worked in the greenhouse for awhile. I definitely want to have a nice garden when I “grow up”. It’s really satisfying to see seeds that I have nourished grow and develop into full plants. The eggplants are doing particularly well, and today I transplanted a brandywine tomato seedling. Hopefully it will yield some tomatoes within the next couple weeks. I’ve also become a little obsessed with composting. We have a giant “worm hotel” – these guys really are the shit. They decompose all of our kitchen and garden waste and turn it into rich earth. Add this dark soil to any plant and it will flourish. We even grind up our eggshells and place them near the roots of the plants for added calcium. It’s amazing how everything here is cyclical – nothing is wasted, everything has a purpose. The chickens hatch the eggs which we eat. We then use the shells to nourish the plants that we also eat. We then save the waste from the vegetables to add to compost. Some of the waste, like banana peels, can be fed to the chicken and horses. It’s really liberating learning about ways to escape the whole “consumerist” lifestyle of excess. Meals here are infinitely smaller than in the U.S.;  however, they are so rich with nutrients and vitamins that I never feel like I’m malnourished. They are also completely pesticide free. I wish more people realized how easy it was to incorporate sustainable ways of living into their own lives. Adding weekly kitchen waste to a compost pile, and then starting a small organic vegetable garden would be a fantastic starting point. You can save seeds from anything you eat and replant them. Liz just planted 20 or 30 bell pepper seeds that we saved from dinner the other night.

Now, we’re listening to Abbey Road and Liz is making hash browns. They smell fantastic. It’s a relatively cool morning. The mist is still settled in the hills and the sun is slowly beginning to peek through. The sky looks like light shining through vellum – tranquil but hazy. I love mornings like this. I love the cold heaviness of the humidity. An act as simple as breathing becomes indescribably refreshing.