Work Hard, Play Hard

Checkmate

If life was a freakin competition, I just won. Even if I´m only playing myself.

Yesterday I learned how to play chess, and faired so-so in my first game ever (is chess the new Chinese Checkers?). I beat an Englishman at darts. I lost a game of pool in 5 minutes flat. I was on a date with a boy when the Peruvian band we were watching play asked him to join in, and of course, he happens to be a musician, and of course he rocked. I also got to carry a convo in español and watch the Suns-Spurs game at the same time. I got kissed on my front porch at 2 am, and subsequently, a policeman used his whistle from the other end of the street and woke up all my neighbors.  I found out my San Fran Sista is officially setting trends followed by movie stars, and I don´t know if I´ve ever been happier for someone. My Chicago Chica finally landed that awesome job and is no doubt poised to completely take over corporate america as we know it. I found out the American people do have a brain in their heads after all -- Dems are taking back the House!  And just when I thought maybe no one can have such good luck, my ex-boyfriend decided to share that he is dating his sister-in-law. Ha ha ha ha ha! Just try and top that! It doesn´t get any better. I think even if I got run over by a car right now (which actually happened to a jogging buddy of mine in Motown and he literally bounced off the windshield and kept running) I wouldn´t be able to wipe this smile off my face.

So how was your day?

A beautiful day in the barrio

Had a bit of a run-in last weekend, got a little beat up. I was up in the Andes, like around an area that looks a bit like Switzerland, a bit like Ireland, a bit like Idaho, but with people walking around wearing bowler hats and rainbow-woven clothing drinking corn beer out of a casino-quarters bowl and herding ox/llamas(alpacas)/sheep/cows/pigs/dogs/children. So there I go, having a moment, just me and my rented mountain bike, flying by the locals. Laughing with them, until I realize they´re laughing at me because I CAN´T STOP and I´m going down a hill and there´s a ditch calling my name. So I skid into it, rolling over and flying head first downhill. Thank god I have this enormous cranium to slow me down (see photo of bee-girl).  Battle scars, arrrr!!!

So to make ourselves feel better we went and got a massage the next day. The full hour. Paid a whopping $6 for it. And that´s why we´re in Peru folks! It pays to be unemployed here. (Did I mention I only paid $25 for a full day of walking my bike up and down scary rocky narrow mountains? And lunch was included!)

Also went to a futbol game. Soccer to you. Danced with the team at the salsa clubs all night. Very fun. You can imagine how much they love to hear “Soy de Las Vegas.” Also went grocery shopping, finally, so I´ve been eating PB&J sandwiches for breakfast every morning to get my energy up. You have no idea how exhausting it is to concentrate on speaking Spanish for 4 straight hours. Hey suess. But having a helluva time. Helluva time. Went out with a British boy, an American boy, and a German boy so far. None of them can dance worth a damn. Really sad. Also really sad when I went to the market yesterday. God I wish I hadn´t. It made me not want to eat meat ever again. That, and the fact that my roommate just got salmonella poisoning. They had cow heads and mummified llama fetuses and frog farms … just … sitting there. Being slowly nawed at my 1000 flies and run over by small children and spit on by angry old women that don´t like gringas taking their picture. Another sad thing was getting my coat stolen (or lost) at a bar the other night. Cute purple corduroy blazer from H&M. Moment of silence.

Getting the Story

I studied in Italy for 5 months when I was 20. It sounds like a long time ago, but I remember it really well -- every day was the best day ever.  It also turned out to be one of the most singularly influential choices I've ever made.  That little study-abroad gig ended up impacting every single facet of my life, forever. It changed my views of the world, work, love, friendship, family -- hell, it even ended up changing my address when I got home. Maybe I was just at the right age, maybe it was a million little twists of fate, maybe not.  It makes for a lot of good stories anyway.

But here I am, in a small mountain town in Peru. I am not far from Bolivia. Or Brazil. Or malaria-toting mosquitoes. I am very far from You though, probably. Cusco, also spelled Cuzco, pro. KOOZ-ko. Population: 300,000. Elevation: 11,000 feet. For the love of god, there are people dressed like freaking Incas or something walking around in the street right now selling tamales outside this internet cafe as we speak.  What am I doing here? Really. This isn't Europe, it isn't college, and newsflash, I am not 20. What are any of the people in my volunteer-language program that are over the age of 23 doing here? They´re all just like me. People who have/had jobs back home, wherever home is, and families and friends and LIVES. And funny thing is -- discussing the "Real World" is kind of uncool.  I don't really know why they're here, they don't really know why I'm here, but we all paid a good chunk of change to be really far away from whatever it is and no one wants to spoil the party by bringing it up.

I have my theories though. Are we just the only ones of our friends with any balls? Are we all taking the theory of escape to the extreme -- running (a little too far maybe) from broken loves, fluorescent-lit cubicles, or the mortgages and marriages that seem to be such hot topics in our social circle? Or are we all just a bunch of clinically addicted travel junkies, people who know which are the best hostels in Lake Titicaca and how to order a beer in 6 languages, but can't bring themselves to move to the suburbs of Monotonyville with a widget salesman and have 3 kids?  One thing everyone does L-O-V-E to do here is share their adventure stories (mine about sunbathing in Croatia, cool in itself, without the added fact that I had to sleep on the floor in the basement of a cruise ship to get there... someone else lived in the jungle in Ecuador, other people in huts in Thailand, yadayada there's always someone more extreme than you!). I booked a 4-day hike to Machu Picchu today just because I thought it sounded like something that I would never do. And because maybe someday it will make a good story to tell. Which, if you're looking for a reason, seems good enough.

An Ode to Airplane Tickets

I was midstride today when I realized I felt like myself again.

It helps to own who you are. For me that means running errands at the busiest time of day, meeting this person here, having dinner at that hip restaurant, sitting in cafes having giggly girl talk over cafe con leche, getting ready in the morning to NPR Stories of the Day saved on my iPod. I like to have these classes to go to where I feel like I´m learning something really useful and interesting, I like to have access to a large group of funny people and cheap beer, I like personal time to bond with a book or catch up with the web. I scribble down thoughts I want to think about more later and good one-liners for a song or a poem in my notebook while the profesora goes off on a tangent, I wear huge obnoxious sunglasses or a Bears hat or knee-high brown suede moon boots and stick out like the american that I am, and I speak crappy (and overly-confident) spanish but at least I´m trying. At least I´m here.

So there I am, walking down the street. My head cleared with the fresh air, and all the sudden a moment was around me, the sun on my skin, the salsa music coming from somewhere, the smell of grilled meat wafting out of restaurants, the breeze blowing my hair into my lipgloss, and life was wonderful. In the morning, sometimes I really have to actually pray, because there´s all this gratitude that I don´t know what to do with, thanks for the gift of the day I can´t wait to start.  Same thing at night, I hit the sack at night feeling tired from wandering around colorful crazy plazas and deciphering a foreign world, hiking around rugged hills lined with funny looking stones that become ancient and important monuments before your very eyes, up in the Andes for chrissake, below the equator, on a different continent, in a different world where I am still me.

How the Other Half Lives

Cusco is super clean. Almost like Switzerland- or Disneyland-clean.  I didn´t expect that for some reason. It´s about 100x cleaner than my neighborhood in Chicago, and I lived in a nice neighborhood. And there are still a lot of dogs wandering the streets here, but they´re not the hungry crazy rabid looking kind. They´re like friendly little pomeranians and mutts and what not just kind of lazily laying around when it´s sunny. Like outside cats or something. Animals here are something else. There´s monkeys I guess, but I haven´t seen one yet. Every morning though when I´m in the shower, trying to do everything as fast as humanly possible before the water gets cold, there are these 2 parrots or macaws or something that talk to each other and sound unnervingly like small children. Another word on the baño...You can´t flush your TP down the toilet here, it has to go in the trash can. That´s if you are lucky and there is actually water available at that moment to flush the toilet. The sewage system wasn´t built to support TP, just like the roads weren´t really built to support cars. Except for the main avenidas, they´re all brick or cobblestone and barely big enough for one car.  But one car will drive down them, a tiny little bug coming at you a million miles an hour hoping that you jump up on the curb in time. I jumped on the curb on my way to this computer lab, and a little girl who was about 3 laughed and grabbed my hand and started walking with me. Her preggers mom grabbed her other hand and together we did the whole "uno, dos, tres, swing!" thing down the street 15 times and she never got sick of it. Really cute. While I was writing that some fireworks just went off but they sounded just like gunshots and I literally jumped... going to be so desensitized by the time I leave here! Getting more used to the food. Was overjoyed to find that avocados are a dime a dozen. But what isn´t?  Everything is like 2 soles or 5 soles which is like $1. Everything. Dinner at a nice place is like 10 s which is like 3 bucks or something. Yesterday was my most expensive day yet: I paid $5 to go to this huge Brahma beer festival with 2 huge main stages and some cool reggaeton music and really funny boy bands, and beers were $1. Then we went to a CRAZY halloween party at this gay indoor/outdoor restaurant-nightclub and danced in the rain until 4 am (I was Cleopatra and latched onto a Pirate from Lima who was seriously The Most Good Looking Man to ever buy me a drink. Or 4.) Just picture drag queens given a stage and jello shots. Trouble.  But its a funny balance of old and new, ya know? My spanish teacher had never heard of skydiving. Anyway gotta go check out some ruins or Inca something or other. Another day in the life of a spoiled soul searching gringa.

iFiesta Foul!

Uh-oh... Who barfed on the bedroom carpet?  That would be me.

So did I tell you that I haven´t liked a single meal I´ve eaten since I got here? Sorry but it´s true. The trout, the pizza, the mac and cheese, everything tastes and smells... funny. So I have no idea which one of them gave me food poisoning and put me out of commish for 24 straight hours. Seriously very ill. But fever broke last night and today is a new day, filled with orange juice and crackers and a shower, and I feel much better. Also have sneaking suspicion that fake eggs might have been the culprit.... Although a good fast never did anyone any harm. I needed to shed some LBs to keep up with the skinny minnie 19-year-old Dutch chicks anyway.

So more Peru stories eh? Ok. You know how in those pre-war scenes in Memoirs of a Geisha there are all those tile roofs that are kind of neverending, shared and added onto but all connected? They have those hear too but they´re like terracotta tiles or whatever. Just like Vegas! But really I think my apartment is in some way connected to like 17 other apartments. And today, it was so awesome, I came bounding out of my building for the first time since Monday night, and there was a 2 foot tall pile of brown dirt in front of the door. I fell trying to get around it. Making that the 17th time I´ve lost my balance since arriving here. But had to stop taking the Rx for altitude, Diamox, as it made my fingers and toes go all numb and tingly for no reason and this is supposedly a very bad thing.

Fireworks go off ALL the time in Cusco. The reason is not apparent. They start as early as 7 am. They´re just for noise (there´s no visual component, no 4th of July ooh...ahhh! going on). Noise is a very big thing in Cusco, very important. They like noise. A lot. All the time. Whether in the form of random fireworks, or flute music played by children during their seemingly perpetual recess at the elementary school down the street, or really loud huge drums being beaten in the street outside my window by a bunch of 12 year olds chant-screaming at 9 pm when I´m busy being catatonic, it´s noisy noisy noisy.

Bonus! Free salsa lessons every night at a bar down the street that serves expired Cusqueña beer.

Safe and Sound in Peru

I like to travel; I like to be a little freaked out; I like all the newness and adventure and discovery. Not sure if I´m out of my element in Peru or if this is my shtick. There are other people who feel the same way (although, apparently, they all live in Holland) as I do about traveling and meeting new people and not being tied down and speaking new languages... but you work with what you were given I guess. It isn´t for everyone -- I hated math, so I was never good at it, but loved World History and language classes, and I moved around a LOT as a kid so meeting people and living somewhere really different isn´t that shocking. Although my language classes were usually one hour a day, not four, and my family was lucky enough to always have access to drinkable water and the choice between hot and cold. But whatevs. Being one of like 3 americans in a school of like 30 peeps is a trip. I get a kick out of them and their Dutchiness and Germanisms and they get a kick out of me and my in your face Americanarama. I´ve only been here one day but have bonded with my roomate, an incredibly sweet and slightly younger Dutch girl; another girl who is a Dutch social worker, my age and has a similar sense of humor; and a dude from London by way of New Zealand who is in my class. I´ve promised to teach them all how to do keg-stands (a new phenomena to them) when they come visit me in the states.

I really scored with my apartment. Granted if I´d lived with a family the first 4 weeks while I´m going to school I would have had all 3 meals taken care of and would probably be advancing quicker in español. But this way I feel much more connected to the rest of the program, it´s fun and more convenient. We are on the 4th floor at the top of a big hill, and from a long balcony off our huge living room you can see the entire city, which gorgeous and completely different looking morning, noon and night. There´s a pretty terrace in the back, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen without a fridge, 4 bedrooms and 6 people total -- me and my roomate; a dutch girl (whom I´m proud to say is like th best salsa dancer ever) and a german girl across the hall; a dude from Lichtenstein (WTF?) next door; and another dutch girl off the terrace.

Cusco is great. Crazy, but great. The weather! OK in the morning it is foggy and cold (very Seattle or Southern California-esque), then around 12 it is BLAZING effing hot and sunny and at this altitude, I got a little pink after like 10 mins in my tanktop. Which was all I could stand anyway before wanting to go jump in a swimming pool. Then around 2 it rains a little. Then around 4 it´s this weird saturating glowing sunshine that makes everything green and gold and beautiful, then within an hour it´s pitch black and cold as shit. It´s exhausting.  They´re pretty into the Inca heritage, and everything is pretty cheap but touristy nonetheless so I´ll need to adventure a bit. So far all I´ve done is sleep, eat and learn spanish. I´ve slept every chance I´ve gotten. Until tomorrow!

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So I´ve learned three things:

The Dutch are going to take over South America (just as we realized 4 years ago that the Canadians are going to take over Europe). The name of my school should be New Holland.

Don´t wear Chuck Taylor´s if you´re going to walk down wet stairs b/c slamming your ass on jagged rock hurts.

I love this shit and it´s worth every penny and every pain that it took to get here.

the thing about chicago

Chicago does summer right.  We have fireflies. We have a beach. And festivals GALORE.  Polish or Greek or German, Jazz or Blues or Tango, Taste of this or that, you name it.  And then you have your park activity -- Movies in the Park, dancing in the park, symphony in the park, all you need is a blanket and some wine.  Fireworks every week, boat tours, architecture, comedy acts, museums. All the best concerts. Sports like you've never seen sports in America. Baseball all over the place.  And nature is really something, tulips and daffodils go apeshit for spring time here, and summer is all green leaves and flowers and grass and the smell of BBQ.  Michigan Ave. is overflowing with tourists, and any of them under 5' tall are carrying shopping bags from American Girl. You can drink whenever, wherever, because no one ever actually drives a car. It's really something else, 3 full months of it, and there isn't anyone who doesn't friggin' love it.

A Week in August in Idaho

I wish I could say I thought about the office. Or that I missed my apartment, or the big city, email or something. But I didn't. I just thought about how pretty the sunset was, how great it felt to go for a run by the river, how fun to cook a meal for my family.

And now I'm back in the city, missing the bugs that bit me while I sat outside and watched those sunsets. I miss the bedroom walls of the family cabin lined with family photos, with 3 other people always snoring in the room. I miss the smell of the forest and hot dust when a logging truck breezes past you on the road. (You walk everywhere in McCall, kind of like you do in Chicago, except there's a lot less places to walk, and only a couple roads to take, and most of them involve an unpaved portion. If you're lucky you get honked at.)  There's nothing better than running to the end of the dock and jumping in the cold lake and swimming all around like your pants were on fire. Waking up in the morning, going to bed at night. It didn't feel like a chore or a repetition of the day before. I sure as hell wasn't itchin' for the weekend.

But most of all, it just feels like home. It's the place where my parents met -- some hippie summer when they both had long hair and were younger than I am now -- my mom just back from Norway, racing horses around the meadow and owning the town; my father avoiding college, war, and the Arizona heat by jumping out of planes with an axe to fight forest fires.  And every summer since birth there I am -- catching frogs with my cousins, learning to waterski and drive a boat, singing show tunes on the inner tube that was actually small enough to share with Tara and Nicole, which later became sneaking out at night to go smoke cigarettes with boys we met 'in town', cruising out to bonfire parties in the mountains in an old pickup truck.  ...For someone with a peripatetic childhood, memories are everything.

Obviously, it's idyllic to do nothing but lay in the high-altitude sun until you have to go for a swim, eat french fries dipped in ketchup-mayo if I feel like it or invent a homemade eggplant-polenta-parmegianno recipe if I feel like it, drink like a cowboy (and wear the boots too), and stare at your most favorite people on the face of the earth all damn day. Of course it's not practical, professional, lucrative or consumerist, it's not even glamorous.  It's just fun.  Happiness.  But is does that make it a vacation?  Or is that a glimpse? What is that?  Are there really people out there who would pick climbing the corporate ladder over climbing to a fishing stream, or are they faking it?  Am I just bored back home, or is this a sign that I should give it all up?  Is there something wrong with me for feeling like 25 vacation days, which is seriously how many I have in 2006, is just not enough when you're only 25 years old?!  Am I destined to be a supergirl-housewife with an executive post and straight-A children, or a nomadic writer with just a guitar and golf clubs, or is this just the cycle of life -- work hard, play hard?

I heart NY

New York LaGuardia Airport

Friday, July 14, 2006

4:58 p.m.

Waiting at the gate. Not really looking forward to getting on the plane and leaving the hustle and bustle behind.  Chicago’s a great city, Vegas is a crazy city, Los Angeles is a big city…New York, however, is The City.

I’ve hardly slept, there’s all these places to see and things to do and everyone else is up – dressed up even – and doing them too.  There are subways and Path trains and Light trains and car services and taxis.  There are huge cities spilling over the edges of giant islands.  People say ‘fuck you’ and ‘thank you’ in like the same tone of voice.

There is steam rising from street vents, trash bags on sidewalks piled 6 feet high and 3 blocks long, billboards the size of Boeings, Broadway shows and late night shows and girlie shows and it’s all part of The Jaime Show, isn’t it?  It’s all another scene, another skit, another image on the big screens now seen through MY camera. 

It’s walking through Central Park after dark and coming across Tavern on the Green with its lanterns and lights and people dancing like they’re at a wedding, a perpetual happy party to celebrate the marriage of summer and money, limousines and horse-drawn carriages, boys and girls, champagne and music and the twinkle of night. 

New York is indeed a glorious apple of glamour, a chunk of concrete rock polished to art deco glory, steel and marble. For some reason we felt the need to climb the Empire State Building at 1 o’clock in the morning, and it was like waking up in the middle of the night and finding the city staring back at you, wide awake while you slept. 

Manhatten is made of all the things that make children want to be grown up.