What did I tell you--

I woke up, as predicted, at 7:22 after a ragingly thrilling Ladies' Night. We met up at the school, caught a cab (an adventure in itself) to Fofo, then reaped the benefits of four free vodka-y-jugo-de-naranja. Scooooooorrrrre.

I realized recently that I only brought, like, 4 pairs of underwear, so I've been freeballin--or, as my friend Malicious says, freecoochin', which is a revolting and oddly satisfying alternative--moer than usual. Okay, maybe not more than usual, but it feels different when it's out of necesity. TMI I'm certain.

Walked to school, finished my first days' homework of a 15 miunte oral presentation (my friends H and K said "That's what you get for being smart!" Is it too awful for me to admit that I actually enjoy the work?) and had some tea. Thank God! Costa Ricans like tea! I meant to pack my own, forgot, got sad, got to the school, realized they had some, then got happy. You'd think I was menopausal or something, all those emotions :l

Today's dance lesson was optional, but surprisingly enough, all of the guys showed up! I won't even offer excuses like "they're only there to see us girls shake our asses," I'm just impressed they were there, period. We learned salsa today, which rocked my world. If you want to see something hilarious and juvenile, ask to see my foot diagrams so I can remember which dance is which. Go on, ask me.

I ate lunch with Dr. B, a woman who shares my pechant for adventure. Advenchant! Penventure! We wanted to eat at Mamis, a Carribbean restaurant that everyone and their mother simply raves about. Obviously it really IS good, because it opens at 11 and when we got there at 11:04, it was packed. Literally, no tables free, at all. We ended up eating sandwiches at Cafe Flores which was fine, then trekked around Heredia like theer's no tomorrow. Apparently, the people here think there isn't--literally, the main difference between Americans and Latinos is our perspective: we see things in terms of the future, and they see everything through the lens of the past.

We have class every day from 1:30-5:30, which is tough because that is prime nap time in Kali Land! Maybe that's why they stock so much coffee and black tea...Today, though, I learned something interesting. Compared to America's 50%--or some other equally ridiculous percentage--divorce rate, Costa Rica boasts a 30% or lower rate. In fact, it gets lower every year. Why? This is a primarily Catholic country. If people want children, they get married. But more and more couples are deciding they don't want kids--in fact, the average number of children per Tico household is 1.2--so, they're not getting married. Literally, Professora V told us that it's extremely rare to see a wedding in Costa Rica. People have stopped getting married! One good thing about this is, thy've stopped getting divorced, too ;)

I noticed something awesome as I was walking back to my house today: my depth perception is improving! I walked out into the street as a car was coming, saw that it was in front of me and started walking so I could cut behind it, and my trajectory DIDN'T send me sprawling into the tail end of someone else's car. Improving every day, my friends--improving every day :)

Hola from Costa Rica!

I flew in yesterday and--after entirely too many hours in an airport-slash-airplane (also, please ask about the 50-something couple who engaged in a slap fight on my plane--go on, ask!)--I am HERE! Heredia is beautiful--it has that urban decay feel that I love so much (and lack so profoundly in the states).
My host mum is ridicucool (is it ok for me to make a portmanteau o those words? We're going to go with yes :) also, many congratulations to me as I JUST figured out how' to' use' the' apo'stro'phe!). She showed up to pick me up in a halter top, tight jeans, and covered in body glitter. My first thoughts? "I and this bedazzled Tica are going to be bestest estest friends." <--double quotes! Ballin' :)
We had our placement tests today (I placed into advanced, which came as a huge surprise) and then we had our first Latin dance lesson. These lessons are required, which rocks my world--all these alcoholic lacrosse guys, shaking their hips, nursing their hangovers to ultraloud latin music? Yes, please ;) Today we learned meringue, and tomorrow is salsa--I can never keep the moves straight, but it's nice to practice with people who know what they're doing, entirely unlike myself :)
Afterwards we toured Heredia and saw all the must-sees--the safe banks with no lines, the park, the clubs. In fact, one of the clubs we passed advertised Ladies' Night every Monday where Ladies drink absolutely free. Hey--I'M a lady! It's Monday! Take a wild guess where we're going tonight :)
We ate lunch at a little cafe called Fresias (I think) where I drank guanaba (doodooodoodoodoooo!) for the second time in my life. Rock my world, guanabana. Go on, rock it.
After lunch we started our classes--I'm in class with one other girl from my school, one professor who came with us, and the Costa Rican professor. It's small and intimate and crazy-intense, though we only have classes from 1:30-4:30 every day. YESSSSSSSS, no waking up before noon! Though we all know me, I'll be up at 7:30 every day, raring to go explore some uncharted quartier.
Not that there's anything wrong with that--it's just a symptom of my wanderlust :)

Alphabet: A Desecration of Words

for my Aunt Martha

Consider this written with twenty-six

letters, a puckered mouth moist with stashed vowels.

I remember the scent of your name.

The thick ridge of blue-black consonants, 

crisp M's and S's suspended on pages

of lace. First, middle, maiden, last,

chalked on naked walls--everyone

knows nothing exists in darkness. 

A halogen glow on straw hair,

on lingering, restless eyes.

The unexpected smoothness

of linseed oil. The pastel almond glimmer

of half-moon fingernails knuckle-deep

in soapy water, hot enough to cauterize.

Your metropolis of blemishes, age spots. tender

beauty marks--a polymer of skin,

kneaded smooth by decades, eroded

by dented crochet hooks, knitting needles---

your slim lifelines embossed 

by the smoky scent of talc and lemons.

Fresh, young. Delicate crinoline

wrinkles, crow's feet, Crohn's disease--

A calico swath. A turned-wood birdhouse.

A clenched jaw. A slipped wrist.

The coo, goodbye, of a grey-soft dove.

Twenty-six letters.

No words for you. 

I Have Been Alive for Many Days

I wanted to count them all today, but I didn't. 

*Great story Kalster! Tell it again!*

I have so many days to catch you up on! Last I posted was Day 9. So, Day 10: Meet Jonas Day. Basically, I just went to the website for the company that wrote the book, then got to meet one especially rockin' Swedish blogger named Jonas Jansson (I could have sworn his name had one of those o's with a line through it). I created another blog on that site, but no worries, it's nowhere near as phantasmagoric as this one. 

Day 11: Introduce Yourself to Someone You Know but Never Speak to. This one was particularly hard for me. I know a lot of people, but I talk to them all the time. The Book suggested The Hooker on the Corner, The Guy Behind the Counter, etc. Since I spent the day driving back to the school, I encountered only people I don't know. I did, however, end up spending the night with a friend, and one of his friends was there, too, so I chose him as my lucky victim. I learned his sexual preference and his intended major. We got super close. Thanks, Ian. 

Day 12: I chose my type from a list of types. You know, for those drunken parties, so I can remember. I am the Clever Brunette. Coincidentally enough, Night 12 was a drunken party, and I totally rocked the Clever Brunette. Of course, everyone was drunk, so no one noticed save me, but I won't let that get me down. After all, I'm a Clever Brunette--who doesn't want one?!

Day 13: Today. Send a Letter to a Mass Murderer Day. I perused the wares--Charles Manson, Theodore Kaczynski (Unabomber!), the Co-Ed Killer--and wondered, since This Book was published in 2003, how many of these have already been executed? I ended up choosing David Berkowitz, who had a troubled childhood, became a Satanist, and killed 6 people. Also, he looks particularly creepy. That's a big selling point.

 

I gave him a fake name, no return address, and I used a moist Q-tip to seal the envelope so that, in the event that Davey Boy has well-developed forensic skillz, he can't have a sample of my DNA. 

This book is rockin' my world. 

Self-Control vs. Control Top Panty Hose

Again, the title has nothing to do with anything. 

Day 8: Addiction Free Day! They even include a caveat for crack cocaine addicts: "You may not feel purer immediately. Stick at this one for at least a couple months to see the full lifestyle benefits." So far I've gone all day without sugar just to prove how much purer I feel. Also, so far it's only 10:11 a.m. 

Day 9:Do Something Before Breakfast Day. I went for a brisk jaunt around our house. I put my bare foot in a patch of hoarfrost. I tried to lick the morning dew from a young leaf, but it had already dried up. I took a shower. I scared a small family of birds. I finished my book. 

Today has already been productive! This book is changing my life. 

The Meaning of Being

  
I only titled it that because it rhymes, and I saw it on the cover of a book. 

Day 5's task was to paste an "Out of Order" sign on some public infrastructure in the hope of achieving comprehensive social breakdown across the US. I posted it twice, in the unisex bathroom of an undisclosed location. I thought it would have a chance at staying there for a long time because the sign kinda looks like the undisclosed location's insignia, but when I went back to said location the next day the signs had been taken down. Wiley managers. 

   

I did get to spend some more time wreaking havoc in the store, though, with C-Nilly (so silly). We stole the Call for Help button and hid it amongst the shelves and pressed it over and over, then went to see a movie (which was fantastic. We snuck snacks into the theatre--baby-sized Sprites, Xplosive Pizza goldfish, and chewy Sweetarts--so it wouldn't seem 3 hours long.) Afterwards we stole 3-D glasses from the bin and strutted through the parking lot with our own runway music. We also wore the glasses in the mall, which was pretty disconcerting, then ate at Genghis Grill (I think the chef is a legitimate Mongol) and watched a handful more movies at my house. It was a swell day. 

Day 6: Write the opening sentence of your début novel. Mine goes a little something like this:

"It could have been anybody, those silhouettes in the photo, a regular Jack-and-Jill cut from black cardstock and tacked to a fire-engine sunset. But it wasn't. It was you with me; I had sun poisoning and after the shutter snapped--I mean seconds later--I barfed on the craggy, pockmarked boulders at the lakeshore, and that late-July, north-Georgia sunset made it sizzle before the light drained from the neon sky." 

If you're interested in publishing the rest of it, give me several thousand dollars and a couple months and we'll see what we can do. 

Day 7: Masturbate at 13:56 to the following fantasy. 

Listed is a story about a woman trapped by a rainstorm in an isolated log cabin, rudely awakened by a rippling muscle-y woodsman, then swirled in a tale of bliss beyond imagination. The men's version says "Two blondes. Doing it. Together." 

I put on some socks and played Flight of the Conchord's "Business Time." You can imagine the rest I'm sure. A couple friends that I had enlightened about the task sent me text messages reminding me that it was business time and asking how it was. Oh, friendship. 

New Happy Year

I spent my New Year's vacation in Chicago, which I have never seen before, and which I immediately loved. Love love love. Chilly Chicago. Sushi, champagne, and two perfect gentlemen for a week's worth of company. Life is good.

I've also taken the opportunity to formulate some highly sensitive and classified New Year's resolutions. They are as follows: 

1. Get really good at belly dancing.

2. Lose weight (for real this time) and get in shape.

3. Devour this book (which I have lovingly dubbed "365 Days of Hilarious Living") and post my daily findings. 

Basically, the book is just a challenge to make every day about something: do something every day that makes it stand out, makes it interesting, or at least memorable. So, Day 1 is pretty simple: Choose one of the following and do it. Do one press-up; perform a strip tease (in private); triple-tie your shoelaces; learn to play <> on the piano; increase your typing speed by three words a minute; jaywalk in a pedestrian zone; set all your clocks to exactly the right time; whisper a white lie when no one's listening; fantasize about your partner; use a different thickness comb; say <> instead of <>; hold the phone up to your other ear; tell someone your middle name; try a new sandwich filling; leave work five minutes early; bookmark a new website; give your genitalia pet names; decide which one of your toes is the prettiest; insult an insect; go on a one-minute hunger strike. 

The dabbler in me mixed with the over-achiever in me decided to do a little of everything. I did one full chin-up. I went to a strip club for the first time in my life and watched a real live person do a strip tease. I whispered "I'm a lesbian" on the escalator in the movie theater. I fantasized about having a partner. I couldn't decide if I was giving pet names to my genitalia or giving names to my pet genitalia; regardless, I did that years ago. I stuck up my middle toe (which is, coincidentally, the prettiest) and said "You're retarded" to a moth that was trapped in my car while the windows were down. I held the phone up to my other ear and it pretty much weirded me out for the whole day. 

Day 2 (I'm just going to combine them all here so I can start afresh tomorrow) told me to spend the day gazing at everyone as if he or she were the one true love of my life. I kinda have an addiction to people-watching anyway, so I just threw in a couple of eyelash bats and stoic winks and went from there. I received no digits, nor reciprocated Looks of Anguished Love, but it's the thought that counts. Not that anyone else was walking around gazing at everyone as if he or she were the one true love of their life. Or were they...

Day 3 told me to throw something away that I like. I haven't done this yet. I'm stuck on analyzing why I like what I like, and why I would ever throw it away, and if I did, would I ever forgive myself. I'll keep you posted. 

Day 4 (which is today!!!) is World Coloring-In Day. I colored in a world map all the countries I have visited (green), the ones I intend to visit in the next year (blue), the ones I intend to visit before I die (yellow) (what happens if I die within the next year?! What color do I color the country?!?), and the countries I never want to visit (red). Needless to say, the map is entirely yellow and green, with no red anywhere. Here, see for yourself. 

Now that I'm landlocked for awhile I'll be documenting my hysterically lived life through this book. Until I can once again be on the open road, this will just have to suffice.