Flotsam and Jetsam

At least she's entertaining while she's driving me crazy

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:37:00 +0000

Things my mother says:

Mom: Please don’t marry an Englishman. You’ll break my heart.
Me: Um, I’m not dating an Englishman. I’m not dating anyone.
Mom: I have it from a reliable source that Englishmen have smaller penises.
Me: Um, I disagree. That’s not true!
Mom: It is true
Me: How many Englishmen have YOU slept with?
Mom: None.
Me: Well. I’m not going to say why I know this is not true. And besides, it’s not the size it’s how you use it.
Mom: No, size definitely matters.
Me, under my breath: I am not discussing my firsthand experiences with small penises with my mom.
Me: I’m putting my earplugs in now.

Checking out our cabin:
Mom: Squeeeeeeeeeelllllll!!!! I’m SO HAPPY to BE here. (orgasms)
Me: This place is huge. It’s a cabin. We have a television? Alright, it’s pretty cool. Plus there are agates in the fireplace and all the stones sparkle. But is there wifi? I bet there’s no wifi.
Me: Omigod!!! There’s wifi!!!! Ok, we can stay.

My mom spent two hours and forty bucks buying a plastic fish magnet, three peacock feathers, and a chunk of wood that you could find anywhere. My mother has no money to buy me food, but she can buy a useless chunk of wood for 10 dollars. Ok. Does anyone see logic to that?

Yesterday after breakfast, it was my mothers turn to drive. I stretched out in the backseat hoping to catch up on some zzzz. Zzzzs were non-forthcoming as my mother jerked the car around from left to right, zooming and breaking alternately. Going up to a 100 miles an hour and back to fifty in about 30 seconds. For no reason. She couldn’t adjust the sideview mirrors without driving onto the shoulder. I tried to relax. My aunt was awake and supervising. But the jerking and chaotic speeds were driving me nuts.
Me: See those lines mom? You are supposed to stay inside of them.
Mom: I am. (as we hit the shoulder again).

Luckily, there wasn’t too much traffic. My mom stopped responding to instructions. Not bitching and snapping back like she usually does.

Me: Mom, I’m not trying to whine here or criticize you, but right now your driving is making me really uncomfortable. I really want you to pull over and let one of us drive.

Mom: Silence. (swerves lane to lane)

Me: Mom, you’re making me really uncomfortable. Please pull over. Please.

Aunt Cathy: Jane! Pull over to the side of the road.

Mom: silence

Aunt Cathy: Jane! Slow down. Put you foot on the break Jane. PUT YOU’RE FOOT ON THE BREAK, jANE.
We start to drift towards a ditch. My aunt grabs the stearing wheel.

Aunt Cathy: Ok, we’re on the shoulder. STOP THE CAR, JANE!

She stops.

Aunt Cathy: Put the car in park, Jane. PUT THE CAR IN PARK JANE! Nevermind

She reaches over and does it herself. By now, we’ve figured out that my mom is totally blacked out and has no idea what’s going on. There are no cars behind us. I’m out of the car and rushing to the driver’s side. I open the door.

Aunt Cathy: OUT OF THE CAR, JANE!
Me: MOM, OUT OF THE CAR!

I see a semi-truck off in the distance. My mom starts to get out the car. Aunt Cathy grabs her arm. She tries to get back in, saying, No, no, no. We pull her out of the car. I place myself between the driver’s door and my mother. The semi-truck is rapidly approaching. My mother lunges for the driver’s side door. I give my mother a big hug, pick her off up her feet and carry her to the other side of the car, just as the whoosh of wind from the semi-truck hits us as it speeds by. You’re welcome, mom. She sits it the passenger seat. I whip out the blood testing supplies like a pro. Her blood sugar is 46. No unconscious low, but very worrisome. We feed her 2 boxes of juice. She starts to come around and talk.

Mom: The pedals are a lot harder to push. I just couldn’t make the car do what I wanted.

Me and Aunt Cathy: Mmmmhhhmmmm. We catch each other’s eyes in the mirror and decide to let her make up excuses not having to do with blacking out. There is also a silent agreement that my mother will not be doing anymore driving.

Mom: I guess I forgot to disconnect my pump. (She's a diabetic who has an insulin pump)
Me: (In my head) Yeah, and you nearly killed us. Thanks for that.

Just a shortie from Custer, SD...

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:20:00 +0000

I'm not blogging my adventures tonight (very much) because I can't sit up without being in excruciating pain. And no, the vicodin I begged off the doc is not cutting it. Why? Because my mother overpacked and this morning, when we repacked the car, we were unable to recreate the miracle of packing my uncle performed. So I got to spend the day in the back seat with less space then you get on an airline when you are in the middle seat squeezed in between two fatties.

And I was bored, bored, bored the whole day. I have a feeling the theme of this trip is going to be waiting. Waiting for my mother. She is slow. Slower than leatherback sea turtles that can't make up there mind where to nest. OR a snail. Whatever you can relate to.

This is my mother. She is to blame for all those bags. And my pain. Well, not the original injury (I have a dislocated disc). But sitting in that position all day didn't help. She likes to commune with nature. I don't have a picture of her banging her drum, but I will. Oh, I WILL.

This is more my kind of photo op. Snogging hookers and all. Even if they're fiberglass. Wall Drug

More laters. Trust me. I haven't even skimmed the craziness yet. Goodnight.

Gone crackers. I blame my mother.

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:03:00 +0000

I'm staying with my mother in Indiana this week. She lives with my grandpa in a small house. I flew out here, instead of home to Seattle because it was about $450 cheaper. Plus, do a good deed and visit with the fam.

Before we went to bed, I sat down and tried to explain MSN messanger and Facebook to her. I was showing her my homepage on Facebook and how you can see updates from other people. One of the people who had posted an update recently was a nice man who I "went out with" in the 7th grade. I pointed him out, thinking maybe she would remember him. I said, "That's Christian, the first guy I properly snogged." And that's when she called me a slut. Thanks, mom. Actually, her exact word was "loose," but it's the same thing really.

It was either sleep in her bed with her or the uncomfortable couch. I chose the bed. So we go to bed and we start to talk. And talk. Until 3 am. Since she already thinks I'm slutty, my ambien fogged mind decided that it would be a great idea to talk about sex with my mother. Which of course led to the disclosure of TMI. Like the fact that none of her lovers had ever been considerate and made a good effort to please her. At that point, I replied,

"Oh no! You poor thing. You should sleep with ******* !!!" And then I nearly died of shame for having recommended my ex-lover to my mother. I wasn't serious. I just wasn't thinking. But the woman does need to get laid.

Then we talked about my issues, her issues, and my dad's issues. We stopped talking at 3am. Well, I did anyway. Apparently my mother talks in her sleep. And moans. And grunts. And breaths funny. And she took up most of the bed. And she twitched and rolled around.

Yeah, I didn't sleep much.

Today I played chauffeur for my Grandpa, who has Parkinson's. Then my mom and I went running errands. I drove. I insisted. Like hell I was going to spend the whole day having a panic attack from the passenger seat and screaming all afternoon. Definitely easier if I drive. So I drove. We went to the bank, and the vet, back home to drop off the dog, to her Rhumetologist (however you spells it), and then grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping from HELL.

My mom? On foodstamps. Plus some money from my uncle for groceries. Oooohhh. How to explain. My mom? Such a queen. You think I am bad. You should meet my mother. Instead of buying food staples for her daughter and her father, she bought 4 cans of whipped cream. 4. For her coffee on her road trip. With such a limited buget, you think she would drop some of the fancy stuff. Like Hagen Das. And mangos (which are $1.50ea). And flaxseed. And wheatgrass. And Starbuck's coffee from Rawanda, even though she already has some, but it's from the wrong effing country. And to select all these goodies, while removing the more basic staples to free up more cash, took 2.5 hrs. AAAAHHHHHHH!

Took her 1/2 hr in the checkout line to figure out how to pay for everything. It was painful.

Also saw her rock out to Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." If I hadn't been driving, I would have crawled under my seat and hid.

I mentioned we went to her doctor's this afternoon. Turns out, she's gained another 5 lbs. She complained all afternoon about how fat she is. We're the same height and I weigh 15 lbs more than her right now. During our all night gab session, I did mention how I was feeling insecure about my weight, even though I had lost some weight in Central America. And if she thinks she's fat at this weight? Than what am I? Thanks mom.

This isn't my wittiest blog by far, but I needed to vent. Thanks for listening.

Clearly I am just rehashing the Stranger, but who cares?

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:25:00 +0000

Get your pocketbooks out. Edward's sparkly penis available September 1st.

To buy direct, go here:
http://tantusinc.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TD&Product_Code=VAMP

And then never talk to me again, freak. Just kidding. I can't hold it against you if you want a sparkly dildo. I like sparkles too.

Also available:

"a life-size silhouette of Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen! Yes, you too can imagine a 100-year-old teenager romantically breaking into your house to stare at you while you sleep! What could be more soothing than knowing a strange man who wants to drink your blood has total access to you when you're utterly unaware and most vulnerable? I can't even imagine! "

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/08/battle_of_the_insanely_awful_twilight_merchandise.php

I hope you didn't just read this, mom. I know giving you my blog address was a bad idea. But if you do buy it? Please, please don't tell me. Yeah, I know you like sparkles.

10 Great Places to Find True America-My Version

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:07:00 +0000

The USA TODAY posted this earlier in the week: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/10great/2009-08-20-americana_N.htm

10 Great Places to find True America.

I have my own list.

1) Supermarkets like Fred Myer and Safeway. Fred Myer has everything. Safeway is bright and shiny and open 24 hrs. Where I live, anyway. Plus, the clerks are nice.

2) Gas Stations. Specifically AMPM. Free toilets, chewing gum, potato chips, motor oil, gas, and Red Bull. What's not to love? And nowhere can you find as great of selection of candy as your local gas station. Seriously. I go there just for the bubblegum selection. I always hit up the gas station for the snacking if I have to pull an allnighter.

3) New York City Subway

4) Seattle Metro

5) Bathrooms at the airport, where everything is automated and scares the shit out of foreigners.

6) Starbuck's. Because nothing says American capitalism like a Starbuck's on every street corner. And no one is more syrupy sweet and friendly than your local Starbuck's staff. To the point where it makes me vomit. But I missed it anyhow. I like to have the option to be offended that you are asking me how my day was when I would really not be reminded of how shitty it was and can I please just get my fucking cup of coffee already?

7) Mcdonald's

9) Whole Foods. Because we are rich enough to have a grocery store like #1 and have it be morally superior too. Yeah, I know the owner's a big capitalist. That's my point. You think we have enough money to shop at Whole Foods by being socialists? C'mon. Own up.

10) Your local psychiatrists office. Because no one medicates like the US. Why? See #1-9. All the options make me have a panic attack. Supermarkets are scary.

I know America is bigger than that. We have pretty places and nice people. But this is the stuff you notice first upon arriving in civilization.

I'm all lost in the supermarket. I can no longer shop happily. I came here for that special offer. Gauranteed Personality-the Clash

I can't remember where I found this...

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:02:00 +0000

...but it's funny.

This is the sound of NOT settling

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:00:00 +0000

I know there is likely one person out there who will love you for who you are, just as you are. Dirty, dark secrets and embarassing habits and all. Like blowing your nose all the time and being vain, vain, vain. And that I _____________ because I was ______. Someone who thinks you are sexy, even after they've heard you fart.

I've been lucky enough to find that person. He loves me, he puts up with me. I treat him badly and he still doesn't go away. We have fun together and we talk about everything. We are cool. He's seen me at my worst, he didn't run away screaming, though maybe he should have. What's even more scary is that he has met my family and didn't run away screaming. Totally should have. I would have understood. He just gets me, crazy psycho bitch that I am, somehow he understands the things I say, even when I know I didn't make any sense. Plus, he treats me like a princess and spoils me. What more can a girl want, right?

Only, I don't know, love?

Not friendly love. Not even your my bestfriend and we fuck love. I want to be buttfuckin head over heals in love. Although not actually anal-ly in love, just, you know, REALLY in love. Like highschool. Like Jane Austen. Like I was with the first love of my life as an adult.

Sure, that ended badly, but it felt nice until my heart was crushed to pieces and I wanted to die. Up till then it was pretty enjoyable. And of course, that wasn't IT. IT didn't work out. But it was really nice to have all these yummy dummy cupcake feelings for someone, as well as that hope, that chance that he could be the ONE. Not that I believe in the ONE, but it's nice to feel like someone could be the person you've been dreaming of your whole life.

The first time I kissed this person, my knees buckled and I felt the proverbial fireworks. It is true. It is like fireworks. My eyes were closed but the waves of emotion-hope, love, and lust exploding from my heart- rose from my chest and danced behind my eyes in sparkling colors of pink and gold. Like a scream that's trapped in your throat and finally gets out, but it's not a shout it's a glimering display of twinkling colors. Fireworks? They do exist.

I'm only 26. I'm not ready to settle. I want fireworks. I may never find them again, except on the forth of july. I won't look forever, but I deserve to have a good look and see. Because if I settle, I want to be damn sure that what I am looking for aint out there. I know I am likely to come back defeated. But I will chase after the chance.

In these early days of the hunt, I look back and see the perfect man for me who I am not in love with, who loves me just as I am. And I worry. Because I already found one man who loves me just as I am. With all my quirks, baggage and bundle of medical issues, HOW COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE ANOTHER PERSON WHO WILL PUT UP WITH ME? AND LOVE ME? AFTER THEY KNOW ME? (besides chandi and the rest of my girlfriends).

On second thought, after reflexting on the existance of countless friends who could fit that profile, it should read like this:

HOW COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE ANOTHER Penis WHO WILL PUT UP WITH ME? AND LOVE ME? AFTER THEY KNOW ME?

And if I find this penis?

Will there be fireworks?

Secret hobbies you didn't know I had

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Muse to the model. Just one squeeze of the bicep and I am decapitated. It's an exciting life I lead.

I wasn't saving the sea turtles while I was out of the country, I was taking over Central America. That coup in Honduras? That was secretly me.

Finaced my coup in Honduras by pirating.

Discovering new planets to take over. Just, you know, a hobby in my spare time.

You may remember me from Inspector Gadget.

My spaceship is so much faster than this old thing. Less fun to drive though.

Being a guerilla is hard on your hair.

Better enjoy this photo. Cuz you are NEVER seeing me in a white dress in real life. EVER.

Did everyone else waste 3 hrs on Photofunia.com too?

Reasons why I love America

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:24:00 +0000

I took myself on a field trip to Target today. It was my first outing to an American supermarket. And I found:

Like, Target was already super to begin with!!! I thought maybe SuperTarjay might include Go-Go girls dancing on polls while sexy man waiters served you little shrimps on crackers, but the store only had an extra food section. Fred Myer wannabe.

Supermarkets in Central America are tiny and expensive. In fact, I don't know if there is any other country in the world, besides maybe Canada, that features expansive supermarkets selling EVERYTHING you could imagine and lots that you couldn't under bright florescent lights. I love how everything is so clean and organized. It's beautiful. No, food is not just thrown on the shelves to be sold, it's placed with care. And yes, I realized all this thought is put into appearance so that I buy more stuff. I find the shiny glow of the polished lineoleum floors ever so comforting. Of course, all these choices mean that I spend hours lost wandering around trying to decide between 50 different brands of cereal or lipgloss options and have a panic attack because my senses are overloaded. But it's still nice to have options.

Things Costa Ricans don't cook with. (spices)

The Spanish would be impressed. Not me.

How can you not love a store that offeres you 50 different flavors of JellyBellys?

I was mightily impressed by the selection of goldfish.

Yogurt!!!!

but the best part was:

Not that I could afford any. That's why I took a picture. That's why I took ANY pictures. I did buy some vanilla creamer though and some sugar snap peas.

Watch out for Cereal theives!!

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:08:00 +0000

I'm staying with my aunt and uncle for a couple of days before I go to my mothers. Mostly, because their house is a palace loaded with stuff like cable television, a jacuzzi bath tub, and cheese. I am revelling in luxury after 7 months on a tropical beach with no shower, no seat on the toilet, and naught but a thin foam mattress to sleep on. It's only been 7 months, but I feel super excited. It's all new again to me. Anyway, today my aunt and uncle went to go visit my cousin, leaving me behind for the day. Despite the fact that I was living on a deserted tropical island with no telephone or 911, my aunt rushed around making sure I had all phone numbers, directions to the grocery store, and such. She also showed me this:

My uncle apparently hides all the cereal behind the piano. He has teenagers.

See those Coco Krispies peaking out from behind the piano?

She said I could help myself, but I am kinda afraid to interfere with my uncle's hoarding of general mills.

Because Stable People? Are boring.

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 01:18:00 +0000

So I am totally not friends with Sebastian anymore. As of 2:00pm today.

I met Sebastian in 2005 at El Pelicano in Guatemala. He was sat next to me at a table full of sea turtle volunteers. And he was trying to convince them to eat cow's testicles. Among the conversational gems were: "Please eat the meat." and "No, really, cow's balls are REALLY good." I decided I must make this person my friend. Not because I like cow's testicles. I don't even like to eat beef much, but he was making me laugh. Then we met up again in Antigua at El Saloon Bar (RIP) and moaned over the lost loves of our lives. Except he totally got his back. And they now live together in Germany. We bonded and after Sebastian moved to Germany to be with his lovely blond bombshell, we met up once in Guatemala and once in England. We talked all the time on line, probably more so than with any of my other friends even. Most of whom are communication challenged.

I don't really know what I am doing with my life. It's not a big secret. I don't hide it. I may even flaunt it a little. I may be in love with someone who doesn't love me back and I certainly won't be dispensing love advice anytime soon. I pout. I have insomnia. I bitch and complain. Possibly, I make choices that other people find difficult to understand. Like ditching my 9-5 to go live on a beach for 7 months and save the sea turtles (though really? how do you not understand this?). I get depressed. It happens. I have ADD. I'm my phamacy's favorite customer. For all my flaws, I'm pretty happy with who I am, when I am not completely miserable and sulking. Actually, I'm still proud of who I am when I am miserable and sulking. I like myself, generally speaking. Maybe you think I shouldn't, but I do. I like how I'm a little odd and slightly mad. I think it makes me interesting, certainly less predictable.

Lately Sebastian has been constantly inquiring "So what's the plan?" Like, all the time. Even though when I reached civilization again, I wasn't even on the same continent as my hometown, he would ask, "so what are you going to do? Do you have a job yet?" These are not unfair questions. When asked once in a while. After a period of introductory conversation or something. What I don't appreciate is those little messages popping up as soon as I log in and sit down on the internet for the first time in a month. "Do you have a job yet?" "What's the plan?"

Hello? I just got to town from a month at the beach. How the fuck am I supposed to find a job or research grad school without a phone or internet? Yes, I'll just snap my fingers and find work. Except it's not that fuckin' simple. Even if I was sending out resumes all day and looking nonstop I might not find a job for months. There's not that much open in marine biology to begin with, plus add the crappy economy... So I really resent someone asking "did you find a job yet, huh, did you? did you?" Like it was that easy. And considering how I was on my days off, enjoying electricity and being connected to the rest of the world, scanning the classifieds of my daily newspaper was just not that high of a priority. Specially as I can't really apply from Playa Larga, Panama. How the hell would they interview me? What do I put down in the phone number catagory? Despite all this, I have been thinking about what I will do when I get back and I narrowed it down to two things a) grad school for marine biology or b) get my teaching certificate and become a high school science or lit teacher. I'm kind of down bouncing around from dead end jobs, time for something with a little permenance or at least potential.

I told this to Sebastian a couple of days ago when he asked, "So what's the plan? What are you going to do with your life?" for the gazillionth time. Today, I log in and he asked, "Do you have a plan now?" Like "Do you have a plan NOW?" No, sorry, I was too busy TRAVELLING from Bocas del Toro, Panama to Pacuare, Costa Rica and then from Pacuare, Costa Rica to San Jose, Costa Rica and then from San Jose, Costa Rica to Chicago, Illinois. My stupid iphone wouldn't connect to the internet from the bus in Costa Rica. (that last line was totally sarcastic, as I have no phone and there is no wireless network that will connect you to the internet in Costa Rica). But I didn't scream, I just reiterated that I would try to go to grad school or become a science teacher. And he said:

"Aren't you a little unstable to be around kids?"

WHAT. THE. FUCK? Before I left to go work with the sea turtles in March, I was a nanny/babysitter for 10 years and then I was working as a caregiver and manager in homecare for people with mental and physical disabilities. No complaints. Ever. Because no matter how fucked up your life is, you check that shit at the door. It's NOT about you. It's about the kids. Or the woman who needs help to go to the toilet because she has cerebral palsy. You can't just go, I don't feel like fixing your meal today because I'm feeling sorry for myself. People have to eat. People have to shit. You deal. And the worse part is, I wasn't even talking about having my own kids, just borrowing other peoples for a couple of hours to talk about science or literature.

And "unstable"? I am the most stable crazy person I know in the asylum! Haha. Seriously. My life has been pleanty fucked up, but for all of it, I am one well-turned out person. I was going to stay level-headed, but ok, I know I react emotionally. Not all of the time, but it happens. I can see how if you only judge based on my writing then your perspective may be a little skewed to the 'i react emotionally" side of things. But "unstable"?

Unstable people cut themselves and drink a bottle of vodka down with a bottle of aspirin. Unstable people let their boyfriends hit them and get away with it. Unstable people get fired from jobs. They might hear voices. See dead people. That sort of thing.

Maybe what really pisses me off is that I suspect that this person is judging me based on his knowledge that I've taken anti-deppresants and anti-anxiety medication. But you know what? Unstable people don't take their meds when they need them. So I said:

"Omigod. FUCK YOU."

Really grown up. I know.

The best 600 pennies I ever spent

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:04:00 +0000

Today is my lucky day. Unbelievable lucky day. I was able to catch a shuttle ride with a big group of people, so I only had to pay $8 instead of $20. Then, this wonderful, fabulous woman at the airport told me I didn't have to pay $20 to check my bag, despite signs posted everywhere and online to the contrary. Soooooo.... I HAD ENOUGH MONEY TO BUY A CINABON!!! And omigod. It was unfuckingbelievable and worth all 600 pennies. AND I GOT FREE EXTRA FROSTING!!!

I took my box of cinamony goodness and went and hid in a corner so no one would see me stuffing my face with cinamon goo, semibaked pastry, and extra cream frosting. I tried to savor it, and eat it slow, but my mouth was having none of that. I pretty much inhaled it in about 5 seconds. Then I liked my fork. And the box. And scooped out all the frosting with my finger and licked that off too. Some bobblehead on toothpicks gave me a funny stare, but I know she was just jealous. It was heaven.

It brought back memories of my childhood. I would go out with my dad to breakfast on the way to school pretty much every morning. On somedays we picked up hashbrowns and egg mcmuffins and my dad taught me about the law of inertia when I spilled my milk. He also tried to teach me calculus, but I wasn't having any of that at age 7. Other days, we would take our time and hit up a diner. My dad would read the paper and ignore me while drinking ENDLESS cups of coffee (at least 20). I would scribble on my paper placemat and read the cartoons. My dad's parenting skills were less concerned with my nutrition then my mother's, so often I got to order things like lemon meringue pie for breakfast. And sometimes I would order cinamon rolls too. But I was ALWAYS disappointed when they arrived, because they just couldn't compete with Cinabon. I was spoiled. So I nibbled and pretended to eat it, while thinking no frosting covered bun deserved the title of cinamon roll unless it was from Cinabon. And what do they put in that frosting that makes it so damn good, anyway?

Izzy's guide to Spanish phrases that might come in handy on vacation- or get you arrested

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:05:00 +0000

My friend Michael is going to La Costa Brava, Spain this week. He doesn’t speak a word of Spanish. I thought I’d help him learn. So I wrote this list of useful questions and translations. Have fun, Mick! And if you get arrested, don’t call me for bail. I’m broke.

a) ¿Es ilegal tener sexo en el cementerio?

Is it illegal to have sex in the cemetary?

b) ¿Quién me puede vender la hieva? Also: Me puede vender un poquito de marijuana?

Who can sell me some weed? Also: Can you sell me a little bit of marijuana?

c) Donde esta el putticlub?

Where is the putticlub? (puticlub=bordello or something)

d) ¿Dónde puedo encontrar las prostitutas?

How do I find prostitutes?

e) No era yo. No, no lo hice. Ustedes se han equipoqado de hombre. Me dijo que era mayor de edad.

It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. You have the wrong man. They told me it was some young punk.

f) Usted me ha confundido con algún mudo americano. Soy británico.

You have confused me with some dumb american. I’m British.

g) Quiero fiesta con algunas chicas muy sexy y pasar un buen rato.

I want to party with sexy chicks and have a good time.

h) Tengo una prostituta embarazada . ¿Sabe usted un hombre mate barato?

I knocked up a prostitute. Do you know a cheap hit man?

Tales from Pacuare

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:37:00 +0000

7/9/09 7pm
Back at the beach!

I've been here for two days and time is just flying by. NOT like at Playa Larga. There are so many people here to talk to and so much work… but so far no turtles! I did get to see my first real natural hatching nest last night. 27 little turtles. We almost walked on top of them. We..ve got a group of Ecology Project Internacional kids and three volunteers. It..s quite a different thing to have company at the beach. I'm so used to going at my own pace. The two volunteers I had with me last night were super speedy walkers. Might have been their long legs.

I have my own room here. Sort of. There are a lot of bats, but not too many sand flies or mosquitoes. The bats poop everywhere and they whirl around squeaking at night. They're ok. I'd rather share my room with bats than with mice or scorpians. We also have a lot of frogs (not in my room, outside), which apparently get outrageously loud when it rains. Good thing I have ear plugs.

Today I did some exceedingly gross nest excavatios. We ha done flooded nest of 100 eggs and here we have to open every single egg to check for development. 1 or 2 rotted eggs, no problem-but alter the 50th egg, I started to feel ill. Especially if I looked incide the nest, where we empty the rotted egg goo, and saw all the yokes and semi-solid white bits and albumen swimming around in a horrible spot-cottage cheese consistency. And the smell! Least favorite part of turtle work for sure. One of the nest we did had larva and maggots, dead decomposing turtles, and a live crab.

9pm

Yeah, that's so much better here in the solitude. I'm lying here on my bed, flicking the new bat poops off my mattress and listening to Belle and Sebastián. I got some new music from friends in Panama before I left. It..s not the type of music I normally listen to, but it..s fabulous to have new staff to listen to. I kept overdrafting my account in Panama, downloading new songs from itunes. I'm definitely digging Belle and Sebastián. I'm not sure what else there is. Rilo Kelly, I think. Luckily time will go by so much faster here than at Playa Larga, where every hour's a day and time passes slower than molassas.

7/10/09
9:45pm

No shit, I can't sleep. I just sat up to scribble some words on the paper and a retarded bat crash landed onto my bed. And crawled right by me. I don't think he can fly so well. Lemme tell you, a bat that..s crawling on your bed is a pretty funny sight to see. He's crawling on his wings, kind of like a rat. Right now he's over the door. I have a broom and I'm not afraid to use it. FYI: first I screamed, then I laughed hysterically, then I got the broom.

AAAHHHH! He just flew into my foot! Get out of my bed! Get out! He smells.

I kicked him out of my room with the broom. Right. Now how am I going to sleep.

You know how they say bats are good navigators? They lied.

NOTICE TO ALL BATS: I'll share my room, but I draw the line at sharing my bed-especially not while I'm in it. And watch the crash landings, ok?

7/13/09
1:20am

Hey hey hey! I saw a green turtle (the species, not the color)!!! The first of the season here in the south station, that laid a nest. Plus we had 9 nests hatch tonight. Holy turtles! I am so pumped. It did not rain, we had stars, and moon-everything was cool. Time passed quickly. Working with a green was exciting. They nest in very deep holes, which we have to fill in ande rase. And what do they do with the sand? It dissapears. I got bit to shit by the sand flies. Green turtles nest higher on the beach than leatherbacks and the vegetation can be a pain to dig around. But who cares? I worked with a green turtle!! That makes 4/8 species of turtle I..ve worked with. Next, I would like to work with a loggerhead. So cool! I'll never sleep tonight. It..s going to take me ages to calm down Sarah and I had a glass of wine to celebrate alter our patrol. Man, this is the life! I feel so content, so happy- I'm totally turtle buzzed. I only wish you were here. She did throw a lot of sand. I have so much sand in my hair.

Reasons Why I haven't Called

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:38:00 +0000

1. It's raining and I don't want to get me or the phone wet
2. It's sunny and it's too hot, and I don't want to get sweaty or sunburnt
3. It's too late
4. It's too early
5. I'll call you when I get to town instead
6. I'm in town, it's too expensive, i'll call when I get back to the beach
7. There's sandflies on the roof
8. We don't have a lot of minutes on the phone
9. Dur. I can't think of anything to say
10. Really. Nothings happened.
11. I'm getting stupider and more antisocial
12. I think I am a sloth now
13. I didn't remember
14. I remembered, but the shop was closed already
15. The internet phone here sux and I hate the delay
16. I don't like shouting my business in front of 30 other travelers
17. I don't like talking on the phone in the first place
18. I already talked myself out into my dictaphone
19. It's really wierd calling from a remote place- like et phone home, with echo
20. I'll call you mañana
21. I'm too lazy to walk the 3km or climb onto the roof
22. Can you here me now? We have no signal, even on the roof
23. I lost your number. Yes, I know you just gave it to me again.

Today's entry is in Poetry!! Because I? Am Bored.

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:49:00 +0000

It's raining yet again
More than it has before
If only I had some pot
Maybe I wouldn't be so bored

It looks like I'll be spending
Another long day in bed
While lightening and thunder
Crack over my head

This morning I found
A coconut in my sink
No, really. There's
a bloody coconut in my sink

I'd rather go back to sleep
Why am I drinking coffee?
Damn my bladder
I'll get wet when I pee

I forgot about my laundry outside
When it started to rain
It appears it's my luck
To get all smelly again

Looks like it's biscuits for breakfast
I'm too lazy to cook
I'd probably wouldn't find other food
If I bothered to look

I'm counting the days
Till my next can of coke
I'm counting the minutes
Till I let myself smoke

On Tuesday, I hope the boat comes
We're running out of food
I'm getting a little nervous
in this endless monsoon

Last night we had pasta
and a praying mantis for dinner
With all this walking,
Shouldn't I be thinner?

Scratch, scratch-goddamn
The sandflies are biting
I should be thankful
The mozzies are hiding

By myself- Seattle, London
Even Guatemala
I've never been so alone
As here at Playa Larga

April Showers Bring May Flowers. Or Madness.

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:40:00 +0000

April 24-

It may, it possibly, may have stopped raining. Maybe. For a least a little while. There are some light colored clouds on the horizon. That's exciting. I just got off the phone with my boss. She says this weather is normal for the rainy season. I came here to avoid the rain. I came to the tropics to avoid the rain in seattle. Oh, the irony. We have lots and lots and lots of rain and I don't have my cat to cuddle up with. Idiot. Mheh. I thought I came prepared for wet, but not this much wet. Sniff. Fucking hell. AAAAHHHHHHHH! My beach is gone. Gone, gone, Gone baby gone. Mheh.

I'm not depressed. No, not at all. What do I tell my volunteers? Sorry, we can't walk the beach-it's too dangerous. Thanks for spending your 25 dollars.

I must, I must, I must improve my attitude. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhh. Fucking weather. I will survive. I survived winter in Seattle. Fuckingfantastic. What is a girl to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with myself. I just don't know what to do with myself these days.

April 24-

JUST JOKING! THERE'S MORE RAIN!!!!!

April 24-

Again. I think I have done a very bad thing. I think I may have put down roots. In Seattle. I'm fucked. This may be the last year I will ever work with turtles. I can't believe it happened. Sure as hell didn't do it on purpose. Ugh.

It's still April 24-blah blah blah blah blah

IT IS STILL APRIL 24-I'm lying in bed and my stomach hurts. One of those times between fine and violently ill.

April-hey, 25!!!! It's the night of April 24th though. Another aborted patrol. My boobs are soaked. Apparently it's high tide in the middle of the night. Don't know when that happened. AND IT'S RAINING AGAIN.

April 23-9:00am

And it is wet! Omigod! Everyting is wet. I'm wet. My room is wet. Still. Everything is damp. It's disgusting. I feel like I am swimming through the air. Soaking wet. Still raining, not too hard- just sprinkling, but there is NO end in sight. Ohmyfuckinggod. It started raining, I dunno, tuesday night? Today is thursday. It looks like it's going to keep on raining. I am not amused. fucking tropical storm or something. I know it's the rainy season, but would it really kill us to have a little bit of sun for just part of the day? Really. You can't dry your clothes if there is no sun. And that is a problem. I am quickly-well, I don't have any dry clothes-they are all damp right now. But I am running out of clean damp underwear. Beep.I don't know why I cut off. April 23-whatever. Running out of cleaning underwear. Couldn't walk the beach last night. Everything hurt. I took every-Beep.

Ok, apparently my batteries were low. ok. TODAY IS APRIL 23. EVERYTHING IS WET. IT HAS BEEN RAINING SINCE TUESDAY. I AM VERY UNHAPPY. YOU CAN TELL BY THE SOUND OF MY VOICE. OMIGOD. IT'S LIKE A FUCKING TROPICAL STORM OR SOMETHING. I did not bargin for this. I figured on having a least a tiny bit of sun every day so I could at least dry my clothes. I'm running out of clean underwear. All my clothes are damp. Last night it started to blow rain through my window so my bed is wet, even though my roof has been fixed. I have two volunteers and I don't even know what to tell them. This place looks like a dump because it's wet outside. We have nothing to do today. Last night we did not walk (We couldn't because there wasn't any beach). It was raining. And I was being lazy. I'm about to go see if any turtles come up, but I wasn't feeling like it was a turtly night. We will see. If three or four came up i am going to be pissed. At myself.

God. What do I do with my volunteers during the day if it's raining? We can't really do anything outside because it's wet, so we just sit around. At least I have company, but it's like, embarassing. Here, this is my place, there is nothing to do, and you get wet at night. Super. Omigod. Poor Matt. It must be so boring. Arcelio has gone off to his village. Omigod. Becuase it's been wet, I haven't been able to climb up on to the roof or walk 3km down the beach to get a signal, so I haven't been able to talk to anyone. Basically, sleeping all day, sleeping all night. My back is killing me. I think it might be from carrying my back full of books two hours. THAT might have something to do with it.

Last night I made a nice curry with pineapple jam, that turned out pretty good. Definitely the highlight of the day.

Ugh! It's so wet! It's just SO wet. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. Sigh. Damp. The clouds are black. Uuguugghhh! Of course when it's wet out we get more bugs. I'm sure I will get bit to shit on the crawl count today. Omigod. This sucks. Only got 5 books to last me a month. I'm going to have to go back to reading Don Quixote for a while. That book does drag on and on. Um, yeah. I dunno. I am in a grumpyass mood and I feel so bad for my volunteers. I think I am a pretty good director, just with this rain I have a little motivation problem. I must think of things for my volunteers to do. I want HAPPY volunteers! What can we do?-yeah, I wanna shoot myself in the head. Ok. I could have planned for a tropical stom. I could have brought games, but I was not THINKING. Usually it's still sunny part of the day. This is going to be my life for the next two months. Omigod.

I miss my cat. If only I had my cat. Wouldn't be so bad with the rain, if only I had my cat. Snuggle up to kitty cat, snuggle up to anyone really. Ugh. Yeah. I'm going to do the crawl count here, just as soon as I get some FUCKING motivation. I want to hide. Just crawl under the covers and hide. I'm going to have to get creative here.... It's gonna be difficult. We don't have a lot of supplies. We can draw pretty pictures. Omigod. OMIGOD. UGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH. It's wet, wet, wet, and dark, dark, dark and I want sun, sun, sun. This is just not cool. This rain is just compounding an already bad situation of nothing to do.

Recently, I have been over my old journal enteries. At least we don't have the lamina gutters catching the rain with the drip drip drip. That was obnoxious. Our drips are quiet here. Still going to drive me mad, but at least that's something. Hey! no temperatures!

Central american radio-ah shit! I just spilled calamine lotion everywhere. There is pink goo everywhere, all over my raincoat, my white collared shit. -Ok, why do they talk over songs? They just go on about nothing. Hey announcers! You guys are NOT as important as the music. Please I want to actually HEAR the songs. You guys need to shut the fuck up and stop talking over my songs. There is nothing more annoying that hearing a good song and than it fades out so that the dj can come on, say nothing intelligible, turn on that annoying hysterical laughter sound bit-omigod! shut up! I can't even duplicate it in english. Let me listen to the goddamn music.

Oops! There goes the rain again. It's going to be a great day. Did you know instant coffee is like 10 dollars a jar here?

Can you hear that in the background? How do you describe the sound of rain? The sound of stuff falling. Falling. Water falling. That-falling. No wonder it's deppressing. It's falling. It's not a happy thing. Happy things don't fall down, right? This message goes on for about 20 minutes more.... I'm not even gonna pretend like it's worth listening too. DELETE. Hello! Rambling, anyone?April 23-Drip drip drip dirp drip dirp. It's a fast drip. There's a lot of rain going on. I have no doubt my lungs are going to be black as coal by the end of this trip. I have a new picture on my packet of cigarettes that I bought in Bocas. It's got one picture of a smoker's lung and one picture of a healthy lung, and you know what? The smoker's lung doesn't actually look too bad! Sure it's a little black on the top and a little deformed, but it doesn't look like a really cancerous lung. You guys can consider this advertisement a failure. Next time, pick out a grosser lung or something. I'm not used to looking at lungs. I don't know how bad that it is. Maybe it's horrible. It looks a little bit bad, but it still looks like it would work. Still looks like it would work. As long as I am getting the oxygen, right? Yup. Nothings happened. I'm just sitting here, listening to the rain, contemplating the futility of my existence. Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip.Ooooohhhh. There is a light patch in the sky. Unfortunately, that light patch is obscured by rain. Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip. Fuck me.OMGIOD- It's April 23. Yup, it's still April 23rd. So we've just come back from an attempted patrol. Probably about 11:30pm. We have NO BEACH. We have a lake. We have sand up to our knees. And we have waves that are taller than I am, when I am standing on the high part of the beach-not the low part. We walked down to the first bit of beach where there is some woods and you have too walk between some fallen trees and stuff in order to get to the other side. I turned us around after we got slammed with two really big walls of water. The water is coming up higher than I have ever seen it. It's actually higher than any high tide. Not including the lakes of water that have formed where there is beach. I'm guessing all our nests are gone. Where would they be? Put your eggs in water? No. Maybe on the highest part of beach. Any turtle laying eggs on the midrange- gone! if they are not actually underwater at the surface, if you just dig a tiny amount i am sure you will find water. Man. Eggs in Zone 7-gone. Zone-39-gone. 44-gone. 9-gone. 8-gone. 2-gone. 3-gone. 4-gone. All gone. 5-gone. Fuck. I am starting to wish we had relocated every nest, but I wasn't expecting this! If Arcelio was, shame on him! No, for sure no. Ew. And we get to excavate all these flooded, dead nests. Ew. Sigh. We can't patrol. It's not safe. Because the sand is so deep and we are walking up to our knees, you can't run away from a big wave that's coming at you. Not like there is anywhere to go, but if you wanted to, you couldn't. You are walking on quicksand, getting sucked down. Plus there are the waves. The beach has changed. i don't know what I am walking on or where I am. There are a lot of logs being tossed about. I'm wet up to my neck from waves. Really, we need to go see how the beach is, but I don't want to drag along a volunteer. I screamed. When the waves came at us and there was no where to go, we were trapped between two sections of fallen trees-yup, i screamed. Big wall of water coming at us! Holy shit. And those waves were strong, not just high tide waves but storm waves. So yeah, life sucks.

It's still fucking raining. God I'm so pissed. All those eggs. All those beautiful eggs. All dead. It kills. It hurts the heart. Wonderful, natural nesting beach. And look what happens. I'm gonna try to go back out in about 4 hours. Life sucks, our eggs are gone, and I am going to bed

Slow downward spiral into deserted island madness

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:59:00 +0000

Sitting in my hammock at base camp at playa larga, smoking my third cigarette of the day. And I am feeling a little blue. It's been raining all morning and we have had no visitors for six days. This is the sixth day with just me and my assistant. It's ok- it could be worse. It could be Jaime [RIP] I have for company. But, you know, he's not really the person I would pick to be stranded on a deserted island with, if I had a choice in the matter. We don't really have a lot in common, he's a little imature, and I don't really have all that much to say to him and he likes to make fun of me, which is fine. It doesn't really bother me, but we don't really have many, if any, intellectual conversations. Anything having to do with intellect right now is really what I need.

Um, here on the beach it is really beautiful. Most of the time. The sea is blue, the sky is mostly blue, the sand is a nice golden color and there are not to many mosquitoes or sand flies. Wonderful. Not too many turtles either though, although last night we had three, which is quite good. I only saw one, and it was the first turtle I'd seen in, like, four nights. Which is always a problem, moral wise.

Moral? Hard to keep up sometimes. Right now I feel so god damn tired and BORED. Not like bored, bored- more like I feel like I am boring right now. And I probably am. My brain feels like it has turned to mush. No, actually it feels like a lead weight, not so much mush, but really like there is nothing there, just heeeaaavvyy ssslllloooow mmmooooovvvviiiinggg nooottthhiiiinnnngggnneesss.

This is kind of a problem. I feel like a really dull person. I can't really think of anything to say in my journal. I can't seem to muster up any motivation to do much of anything really. Even getting up and walking ten feet and up the steps to go to my room seems like a big hassel. Getting up and going anywhere, whether it's to the bathroom, to get a drink of water seems like so much effort it is unbelievable. When I am bored and I am looking for things to do, yet I can't really seem to bring myself to DO much of anything.

I don't know what I am going to call this disease, but it is definately an artifact of being isolated. This maybe why you find sloths primarily in the tropics. I can totally see how a creature such as the sloth might evolve here. I may be turning in to one as we speak.

When I first got here there were more things to do, we had some really great enthusiastic volunteers who were good to talk to, good for a laugh. It was still a little boring then, but good. Definitely good. And now it's uuuugugughhh. The days are long, and when I can't sleep through them, what is a person to do? There is data for me to sort out, but ugh, I can't be bothered to do that now. Mostly it's drawing a bunch of lines on paper, not like, fun data analysis or anything. There's... fuck, I don't know... dishes to do, I suppose?

Let's talk about walking on the beach at night, walking on the beach in general. The sand here at Playa Larga is really soft! Buried up to your ankles, mid-calf soft. On average it is a 20 minute kilometer, which is double the time I spend walking that same distance on regular sand. I am really surprised it takes that long. It's a two hour walk down to the end and back, but it's only 3m, 6km round. If you want to find non-quicksand type sand, you have to walk IN the water up to your knees, sometimes almost to your waist. Combine that with the large waves that crash over you and you can plan on getting nearly completely soaked. There are not any good options for walking... you either get pounded by the surf and trudge through knee deep water or you slave away walking in ankle deep sand, which is so much work it's not even funny. My toes, my feet, my calves, my thighs, sometimes even my stomach, just ache all the time. And I am not even really walking that much. I have yet to make a 12km beach patrol. I am doing my best, I am trying, going a little further each time.

When there are no turtels, which seems to be most of the time, um, yeah, it's really hard to keep walking, especially when you are sooooo tired. Down and back once, you arrive back at the house. Your tired. You might be sleepy. Your bed is right there-you might as well just climb into it right? And there's no cheerleader urging you to get your butt back out there. I try to at least stay on the beach for the full shift, even if I am too tired to walk continuosuly.

Last night was the first night I really attempted to do the full twelve and I did not make it. I probably got in close to 10km. I got down to the end of the beach, trudging through the sand, getting slammed by waves. I tried to make my legs go, ¨come on, got to do it for the turtles!.. yeah, no. I could not do it. And then I fell down on the sand and collapsed. Arcelio left at 1am and found two turtles and did not have to do the secound down and back. I am a little jealous. I did find one turtle, though.

I have been walking by myself sometimes, so we can cover more beach. There is NOBODY around, so it's pretty safe. I enjoy it. I have my ipod, which is GREAT! I have a pretty groovy time on the beach, dancing along, singing at the top of my lungs. A la ellen de generes in the American express commercial. Only problem is I dón't have a wall charger for my ipod. Which was a stupid oversight. I have to send my ipod over to the next island to be charged on a computer. I can not express the desparation I feel when the charge on my ipod goes out. Not that it's that quiet here. We have the waves, wind, the bugs. But there is nothing like music to keep the spirit going. I am trying very hard to learn the words to my songs so i can sing them when I don't have charge on my ipod. The only problem is that most of my songs are about 2 minutes long when played with music, and when I sing them they are, maybe, a minute long. So I have 4 hours to patrol everynight, 240 minutes. I know about 5 songs, maybe.

It's not that life is bad here, it's just really dull. It's lonely, it's so lonely. I mean, I have Arcelio to talk to, but it..s nothing like having friends around talk to. When we were isolated up in el Rosario, I had Sarah around to talk to, conversations I can't quite manage in Spanish yet. Talk about our boyfriends or lack there of, the food we miss, we had a total common denominator. She was good company. I miss everybody. I miss Kenny. I miss Julie. I miss Chandi. I miss Don. I miss my kitty. I really miss Janie Jones. And my brother.

Being bored at home is nothing like being bored on a deserted tropical island. If you get bored at home, you have options. You're just not interested in them. Here, yeah, there's not a lot of options. I miss radio. I miss NPR like you wouldn't believe. Oh! If only I could have NPR I would never be bored here! The news!! I would kill for news. What a happy camper I would be. How good would that be? Holy shit.

My news is the weather. It's sunny. The waves are big. There's about 60% cloud cover. That..s my news.

It's not like Pacuare here. There is not a lot of wildlife here to go looking for. We have ants, especially ants that eat our food. Sand flies, spiders and scorpians. Even snorkling I don..t really see anything. Walking two hours away, you might see some red frogs. Tropical island wildlife-not a lot going on. Nice for a vacation, but do you really want to do this for 4 months? yes.Pacuare is a delux 5 star accomodations with benefits compared to Playa Larga. You got company, lots of company, people to talk to. Like 12. Plus the gaurds. Plus the volunteers. Cell phone signal in the south. Electricity in the north and in the south. You have Anna and Joanna. you have the rainforest, and a nice path in the rainforest. Bikes. Canal with crocodiles. Hatchery just down the beach. You can go visit if yo get sick of the people you are with. People to clean your bathroom for you. That is the life. Ah! I hope they know how good they have it.

This place is good to, it..s just pretty fucking dull and I do not sure, no madam. I am no surfer. Do I want to look like white shark bait? No thank you. It's the primary source of activity around here. We do get surfers over maybe every other day, but they do not come over and talk to me. God damn i wish they would. Cuz then I would have someone to talk to.

I got to get out of this place at least once every two weeks if it's just me and Arcelio. Just to have a conversation with someone else. Just to hear other people talk. Use the internet, check my email. Have a cold coke. Have a cold beer. Charge my ipod.

No one to hear me scream

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:46:00 +0000

April 17-
9:00pm

I am not on the beach looking for turtles- I am in my room. That is because I am all by myself tonight. Hah. Yeah. This is definitely the most alone I've ever been in my whole life. You know you think sometimes you're alone in your apartment. No, no, no. THIS is alone. This is being all by yourself. There are no police to call. There's no grocery store to go to. There's no friendly neighbors. No antagonistic neighbors either, for that matter. There is nobody. You know that saying from the movies, "there is no one around to hear you scream?" Well, there is no one to hear me scream. Part of me is like, it's totally cool. There's nobody around to murder me, there's nobody, so it's cool. It's safe. And then part of me is like, shit! there is nobody around. What if something happens? I got a cell phone. I could call my boss. I would have to call my boss cuz I don't even fucking know if they have 911 here. Who's gonna come anyway? There's no police [where I am]. No firemen. The nearest village is a couple hours away. So my boss on the next island over, about an hour away, is the only possible person I could call and who could maybe do something about god knows what. Fire? What could happen? And not even that, because everything is still very wet from all the rain that we've had these past couple of days.

It's cool when Arcelio is here, because I just go "Arcelio! Scopion!" And he will come and whisk it away by it's tail or whatever. This evening we had a total psychopathic murderous spider rampaging outside my door. I was just chillin' and then yo! it's a spider. We have lots of spiders over here and they are pretty big, two inches across maybe. They are not tarantulas or anything; they are pretty skinny. They are not daddy long legs, but they are not tarantulas either. Actually, tarantulas might be better because i don't think they are as poisonous. These spiders are like scorpians- they bite and it's ouch. So I am trying to avod that. They're ok, usually. They stay where they are and I try not to go near them. I know we have one that likes to hide in the bathroom. I go pee in there and he just sits there no problem. Same type of spider, I think.

So there was this spider outside my door this evening. I didn't really see it at first and I was going on my way out. Then I saw the spider and the spider saw me. And the spider dicided to attack me. It jumped at me and then it ran towards me. I jumped on my bed and it kept running towards me, thinking it wa king kon out to take over my world and destroy me. My bed is not right next to the door, it's like 5 feet away. The spider continued to follow me. Not just until I was out of the immediate area, but it continued to chase me down. I found this kind of unnerving. I mean, fuck, this guy has got some pretty big fangs. They are measurable. They are like a centimeter long. Definitely large enough to give a nasty bite on top of the scorpian-like pain. So I am backing away and he is chasing after me, raising his front two legs and waving them, doing the "I'm a scary spider" thing. I reached for my trusty bottle of deet and I sprayed that motherfucker. And he kept on chasing me. And kept chasing me. And began to crawl up my wall towards the bed. I was like, Holy Fuck! It's gonna get me and it's got super powers resistant to deet! I'm a little nervous. Deet! Why aren't you working? I know in Guatemala Sarah and I killled a scorpian with 95% deet, and I was really wishing I had some of that. My OFF deep woods, 30% DEET did not work. Luckily I think it decided it didn't like it, because it stopped chasing me- thank god. But it in no way damaged it or killed it. I was watching for about 20 minutes. It's gonna die right? Because it just got deeted. Nope it was just hanging out watching me and we were having a staring contest.

Eventually it decided it was going to crawl around to the other side of the door. I didn't want to walk through the doorway until it left because it would probably launch a ninja flying attack at me the moment I tried. So I waited until it left the immediate vecinity of the doorway and I hopped out, but then I followed it. I wanted to know where it was going to go. Is it going to come back? Is it gone? We have some shelves on the other side of my wall where we store the food and it was chilling over there. I was thinking, "you are a testy motherfucker. there is no way i'm going to let you just hang out in my house so you can sneak attack me while i am sleeping. Regular spiders, the non-psychopathic variety- well, I wouldn't say they are welcome in my house, but so far I haven't really felt the urge to actively go after one and kill it. No die motherfucker! Not like I am with the ants. I DEET the ants. We are at war. But so far I haven't done that with spiders, until tonight. But of course the DEET didn't work and I finally get Arcelio up here. We have a can of RAID insecticide-not DEET, but like, cockroach killer stuff. Arcelio had a killing spree last night as I was going to bed and it worked pretty well because there were dead bodies all over the place this morning when I got up.

Sidebar- when you kill a bug over here, when you do anything having to do with anything really, the ants will come. So if you kill a cockroach the ants will coming a running. And there were millions of ants all over the place this morning as well. They are still working on those cockroaches. They still swarming over the bodies doing the ant thing, the take care of the dead thing. It's kind of cool. They just do it really slowly. They don't really go after you like fire ants do, but if they get on your feet they will bit. So we have basically landmines of ants all over. More war with bugs... Anyway, the point is, I knew the bug spray was deadly to at least some bugs.

Well I wasn't going to do it myself. I had had enough of the attacking spider and Arcelio is not bothered, so I called him in and he got out the bug spray and sprayed that spider. Sure enough, it ran towards him and kept running towards him. This is NOT how bug spray is supposed to work: Spray it and the bugs come running. Bug spray is supposed to fucking kill the bugs. This spider didn't seem to mind the pain, even enjoy it maybe. Do spiders even feel the pain? Apparently this spider liked the bug spray, liked to attack the bug spray. Maybe it was pissed off, maybe it was just having a bad day. I dunno. It was running after Arcelio as if it were as bed as we were. I jumped up on the nearest bunk bed- I was not going to get bitten by some stupid psychopathic spider that I could see. If you see it, you can usually avoid it. If it's going to go chasing after me, I am going to be doing something about that bug. Or having my assistent do something about it. Of course he is totally nonplussed and calm. Quite content to have a spider chase him. Hah. You're crazy. But he decided that using the can of bug spray as a heavy object with which to pound the life out of the spider was a better tatic. Sure enough, it worked and the spider is dead. My room is a little safer tonight, at least from psychopathic spiders. I have found a scorpian in my room.

This is me moaning

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:53:00 +0000

It's almost 7pm and it is pissing down rain. Not really cats and dogs, but enough so that you don't want to go out and walk in it. It's starting to get dark, but we have a little bit of ambient light left. Faro? It's like a lighthouse, without the house. It's a flashing light that washed up on the beach. Arcelio went and got it. It has signaled that night is approaching and has turned itself on in the dimming light. It flashes about once every 20 seconds in Arcelio's room.

I moved my clothes away from the drips in my room. I stole a second mattress. My backs been hurting lately, so hopefully this will help. I put up some pictures. Started to feel a little homesick. I was thinking-

Oh great, now I am getting rained on over here. Jesus. Is there no place to be dry here? Really? Really? Oh! There goes the wind. I just want to sit in my hammock and enjoy the rain. Well, I am going to tough it out a little while longer. Be stubborn.

-Ok, so I was starting to think. I was getting a little homesick, a little sentimental. when have I ever been homesick? I don't remember being homesick. I don't remember. Not even in Guatemala. The only time I remember being sad and unsatisfied with where I was was when I was in England in London, my hostel sucked, everyone was all mean, i didn't have my luggage, it was all hot, I didn't have any money and everything was all expensive and I felt a little blue for about 2 hours. This homesickness... This sucks.. I feel like a little speck in the middle of nowhere. There is no one around. It's just you surrounded by this infitismal void. Nothingness. Yeah, I am surrounded by beautiful things. Well, beautiful wet things at the moment. You don't really have anything that feels like home. It kind of is starting to feel like home, but you don't have your friends around. I don't even know what is is about a place that makes it feel like home so you don't get homesick. Good company, maybe. Maybe it's a smell. There's not really any smells around here. It doesn't smell like anything. I always think someplaces smell like home or have a scent that makes it feel like home. Yeah, god, never. 2 years in Guatemala and like, nothing. I have some of my journals here, because I was thinking maybe I would type up my journals or something. So I was looking through my journals of my travels, spent an hour going over them looking for a time when I felt homesick. And you know what? I didn't find any. I felt sad when Joel left. I was sad when Luke left. I felt bored in El Rosario, but nothing like this awful achiness. Wanting to be home, wanting to be in Seattle. Wanting to be somewhere else. Wanting at least somewhere to come to you in the form of traveling persons. People in Pacuare, you are not listening because this is a tape recorder, but where the fuck are you? It's April. Get your butts over here. I need company. English speaking company, no offense Arcelio. There are somethings I can't express in Spanish, sarcasm being one of them. I dunnno. Yeah, so this is the first time I am really feeling homesick and I really get it now. I'm sorry people. All you people who got sad while I was traveling with you, and I didn't really get it, didn't know what you were talking about... I totally get it now. And it sucks. Like Julie, when she first got to Guatemala. Dude, I get it. I totally get it. And I wish I did not get it.

I can't believe I've never been homesick before. What am I a mutant or something? Maybe I just want my cat, my boys, and my best friend. Does that count as homesickness? I think it does. They say home is where your heart is. I guess my heart is not here. Earlier I was showing my pictures to Arcelio and oh!-I miss my kitty, I miss my Janie Jones. Oh, man. To only have a little ball of fur to cuddle with, have anyone to cuddle with. Ohmigodness, speaking of- I was such a little slut when I was traveling! Well not really, cuz I wasn't getting action, but I was totally boy-crazy. I don't know what that's about. Every entry was practically all about boys. Maybe it was my hormones. I was totally focused on the male sex. I do not feel that way now. I don't even miss sex that much, comparitively. Turtles are kind of as good as sex. I mean I miss it, but it's not consuming my life like it apparently was back in the day. Like, living alone in the middle of a village, turtles, cool people to talk to and all I could think about was boys! Here it would be more understandable, because there is nothing to focus on, you could just think about how you don't have anyone. But I was two years younger, whatever. I feel a little more mature now. Haha. But not so sex starved-thank god! Because I aint got Nooooooobbbbboooodddddyyyy to go after. Haha. I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to be a one-man girl for a while. At most a two-man girl. Going over all my journal enteries-I dunno, I think I might need to settle down for a while. Although I did settle down with Brian, but I think I need to be settle futher and longer. It kind of makes me worried. Will I ever be able to stick with just one man or am I just going to continue to fall in love with pretty much everyone. I'm a loving person. I love people. It's what I do. I''m a lover. Man, I'd like to be with the one person, have children, preferably stay with the father of my children- whoever that will be. Great Spirit, as my mother calls it.... I just have one request right now- Let me just love one person, one of the two I love right now, preferably the one that loves me back, in fact. haha. Jesus Christ.

What else was I going to say. I dunno.... I got so much action going on you know, it's hard to keep track of what I was going to say! haha. One thing I noticed in my journals- living for the coca cola, living for the chocolate, living for the cigarettes- that part has NOT changed a bit! Although I don't really have any coca cola to buy or always have chocolate, but I do have cigarettes. I have decided I will quit when I get preggers. Obviously. Which I am hoping will be relatively soon, so I have a couple of years left to smoke. So what the hell... I am going to enjoy it, seeing as I have nothing to do and otherwise I am living pretty healthily. Healthily? Living in a healthy manner here. Walking the beach, though I am not walking the 20 km that I said I was in my journal in El Rosario. I can't imagine walking 20 km on this beach. Well, I can, but I don't want to think about it.... It would be really bad. I dunno. The sand in Hawaii is pretty soft, but somehow the sand here is more taxing. Either that or I am just REALLY out of shape and having gotten really old in two years. Decrepit.

Any comparisons to Hawaii and El Rosario, besides having people to talk to there and not here. You just don't know how good you have it unti what you have is gone. I totally see how sailors can go crazy after being away at sea. Man, I had no idea. Here I am, talking to a tape recorder. Maybe I am going a littel senile. But that's ok. I aint got nothing else to do here, might as well go crazy. Well, fuck me. It's raining, I can not climb up on to the roof to get a cell phone signal.

In order to get a signal we have to climb up on the roof or walk 3 km down the beach, but there is a signal, which is good in case there is an emergency. Check one for Playa Larga, we got cell phone signal. Can you hear me now? Actually, it's not even that. It's "Am I even talking to someone or did I loose the connection and not even know it and now I am talking in to a empty phone and no one is listening. I've done that quite a few times. You go up and down the beach in little swirly paths, sticking your arm up in the air- one bar, two bar, whatever. On the roof two, it's always "where is the signal? Over here, over there?" The roof is really the easiest. Climb that ladder to the stars baby. That's where you can call people from. If it's not raining. Damn it's good to talk to people.

I would also like to talk about cigarettes down here in Central America. Now I thought America was a little Anal Retentive about the whole Cigarettes Will Kill You business. No, no, no. The packages, the little boxes that our cigarettes come in? These are downright cigarette friend compared to cigarette packaging here, and I guess in England as well- actually Jersey. These packets of tobacco actually have pictures of dead people on them. Fabulous. It's cool, I totally get it. But it doesn't stop me from smoking, now I just look at a dead person while I am smoking. They might as well not even bother. Here, the boxes come with pictures of fetuses in the womb. That's right. Pictures of FETUSES. Along with a message, you know, cigarette will cause prenatal damages. But I am not pregnant, couldn't be without getting laid and if anything, these pictures just makes me want to NOT have children. It doesn't have any efffect on me wanting to smoke. I don't even like the word, fetus. It's not a picture of a baby in the womb, it's definitely a fetus. It looks like a lima bean with nubs, not cute. Maybe to some people, but when it's not your own... but nobody's baby- in fact not even a real picture but a bad drawing attached to carcinogenic tobacco... yeah... We also get pictures of dead rats as well. And of course, "Cigarettes Will Kill You, etc." I think the dead people I love the best. Man, people out there.... People who are putting pictures of dead people on cigarettes- It's not working! I know cigarettes will kill me or can kill me, one or both, but I still want to smoke. I entirely understand that cigarettes are deadly and cause cancer. There is no doubt in my mind. But. I still enjoy smoking and I am still going to smoke no matter what picture you put on the package. Maybe scent marketing would be more effective. How about putting the scent of a dead animal on the package? I probably wouldn't smoke it then! Ew. Dead whale or dead rat. Dead rats are really smelly. I remember from biology class. If you put the scent of a dead rat on the box, I will not touch them. Maybe. That would turn me off. Why do cigarettes smell so much worse after you smoke them anyway? If cigarettes smelled like they do after you smoke them, that would put me off as well. I would still probably smoke them, but I would enjoy it less. Estoy danandome. I am damaging myself. Hmmmm. Coffee and cigarettes. That sounds great. Only I just had a red bull and a coke.

My lovely boss has sent three kinds of cheese. We have american cheese, cream cheese, and mozerella. I am about to have a dinner of toast and cream cheese and jam. It's not something I would eat at home, but here it is living the high life. Mmmm. Cream cheese. I don't think I would ever put cream cheese on toast at home. Strictly for bagels, but it's not like we get bagels down here. I have to remember to write down the meals that I think are really awesome right now, like platanos and ketchup.

Oh shit. I forgot to ask for cooking oil. So I guess we won't be frying anything too soon. We have Yuka as well. Fried potatos, fried plantains, and fried yuka- kinda all the same and definitely all good. I got my choice of fried food here, that's for sure.

I even ate fish on the bone. small fish, lots of bones, lots of spines. And after I was done eating, I found a fried eyeball. Not the pupil part, but just a little clear ball. What's that ball on my plate? Ohmigod it's an eyeball! Gross.

No tortillas here. It's wierd. I never thought I would want a corn tortilla ever again, but I kind of want a corn tortilla.

This is thelife, the tranquilo turtle happy but isolated life

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:12:00 +0000

I live on a Carribbean island. The sky is blue, the ocean exactly the shade of blue labeled by Crayola to be Carribbean blue. The water is so crystal clear I want to drink it. In the moonlight you can still see the blue-green color and see to the bottom. The waves are big, sometimes good enough for surfing, not that i've tried. Occassionally surfers are taxied over from neighboring islands. I wish they would stop and chat, however. I think it's rude to use my front yard for your entertainment without saying hello! The sand is yellow and very very soft. Sometimes I sink up to my ankles. It is easy to spot the turtles in the night becuase they are dark and the sand is light.

We have a little yellow casita with tin lamina roof and open widows with no mozzie netting and a little kitchen under a small rancho. I have my own room, though since I am not getting laid it hardly matters. It's not like there is anybody around to hide from, except my assistant. But it is nice anyway. Makes me feel important. Happily, our accomodations include a toilet, but we have to pull up water from a well to flush it or for showering. Most of the time there is only about 6 inches of water in the well. Makes me a little nervous, and it is difficult to get a full bucket. We have to cook. I can't cook. You can imagine.... I feel well sorry for the volunteers that have to eat my cooking, but I have managed to pull a few meals together.

We walk the beach every night of course, looking for nesting turtles. We note what they are doing when we find them: crawling up the beach, looking for a suitable nesting site, making a body pit, digging the nest, laying eggs, atapando/covering the nest, camoflaging the nest, or going back to the ocean. We measure the length and width and take note of any damages to fins and shell. I have seen many turtles with half a flipper missing and they still manage to dig their nest! We also tag turtles, which was a little tricky to learn but now I have the hang of it. It is one of my favorite things to do! I am going to name them. What else? We count the eggs, relocate the nest if it is not in a good location, and mark down the time we find the turtle and the time she starts laying eggs.

Turtles are like crack. I am absolutely addicted. Everytime I see one it is a rush! It wakes me up and I am enchanted. I get all googley eyed everytime and my heart rate increases with the excitement. Leatherbacks are so huge, it is very easy to see each thing that they do. They are way more delicate and dexterous than I ever could have imagined. They used their back flippers ever so gently and carefully to dig the nest, more like a hand than a fish fin. I spend a lot of time staring at their back ends, since we can..t let the turtles see us. Their little tails are sooooooo cute! The eggs are very goopy. I could live with out the goo.

Generally, my day goes like this: crawl count at 5am or as close to this as possible, breakfast, nap, lunch, swim, nap, dinner, nap, look for turtles. Vair exciting. The snorkling is AWFUL.

Best run, I think I was supposed to meet my boss a couple of hours ago to do the shopping.

An army of a thousand needles

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:20:00 +0000

If you are traveling to the tropics, particularly areas with standing water or damp earth set off from the relief of ocean breezes, the defense against mosquitoes must be weighing mightily on your mind. Malaria. Dengue fever. Persistent itchy bumps that may swell up to the size of golf balls. Scarring. These are just a few of the tasty treats that await you as the sweet succulent buffet for bugs. As a veteran of the Pacific coast of Guatemala, just meters away from the oozy canal and mangroves, I can say with authority that there is no way to defend yourself so that you will not get bitten. I have seen sancurros, as the locals call them, with long needle noses and so aggressive that they bite through your tennis shoes. Long sleeves, jeans, head scarves, and copious amounts of OFF!, 95% Deet, and citronella oil do not deter them. As soon as the oppressive sun begins to slip below the horizon, you trade your battle against dehydration and heat stroke for fighting to prevent your blood from being sucked away by an army of a thousand needles.

It’s impossible to enjoy a nice quiet activity like reading or writing. You need both of your hands slapping away at identified intruders. Your eyes must be on the alert at all times. The mozzie has numbing agents in its saliva that penetrate the skin. It’s an evolutionary defense that allows the mozzie to snack on its victim without detection. I strongly suggest utilizing neighboring travelers for parts of the body that your eyes can not keep watch over. Indeed, after awhile, you may find yourself generously slapping your neighbor on the neck, cheek, or back without thinking about it and, unfortunately, failing to warn them of the imminent collision with your palm. If there is someone you don’t like very much, this is also an excellent excuse for interrupting annoying monologues.

“… but the one thing I’ve found while traveling is that it’s so much easier to be comfortable in your own skin, ya know? Nobody’s looking at you. Haven’t showered? Who cares! I haven’t shaved in months. It’s all so very liberating, ya know? I am so free and liberated here that I think my self confidence just radiates-"

Slap!

“Sorry. Mozzie.”

“What was I saying? I feel so happy down here, just comfortable being me, ya know? And the people are so beautiful down here as well. They just live superior lives to the western world in every way. I mean, we were walking through Pana and we just kept coming across person after person selling homemade crafts. That’s the way to really live, by the artistic talent of your own hand. I think I may just move down here permanently, etching out a living selling jewelry that I make. Didja know that I make jewelry? Just a hobby really, but I could really make something of it. Just living day to day, ya know? That’s what I’m working on right now, practicing my jewelry making skills. This leather cord I bought in Antigua for just 35Q. And I think I can make at least-"

Slap!

“Sorry, mozzie.”

Generally speaking, there are enough mozzies buzzing around so that you shouldn’t have to resort to unnecessary slappage unless someone is really, really, really obnoxious and you can’t wait for an opportune moment. It is impolite to slap someone whose name you do not know, although this could be a great way to meet members of the opposite sex. There’s a great deal of traveler-traveler bonding that occurs after spending time together fighting a common enemy, especially when conditions are very poor and the enemy is attacking en masse. When you might find yourself inhaling large quantities of the toxic smoke of burning coconut husks because the smoke reportedly will keep away the mozzies. Of course, this only works when there is more smoke than oxygen present in the air, but it’s a trade off. Do you want to breathe or be bitten less? Occasionally you may be desperate enough to burn, say, books from the library if there are no coils of mozzie repellent incense available.

I am sad to report that my experience has been that bug spray and all types of insect repellent have failed to prevent bites. OFF! Containing about 30% DEET is the most effective, but 95% DEET does little (beware; DEET will melt plastic and turn nail polish into a sticky goo). Some types of mosquitoes are more sensitive to chemical-repellents than others. Other types of mosquitoes (like the shoe penetrating sancurros) seem to be unaffected. Part of the reason insect repellents do not work as well in the tropics may be that mosquitoes are attracted to sweat and this is what the ill-adjusted traveler spends most of his time doing at tropical latitudes. You also may be sweating off your form of insect repellent. Certain persons may just smell and taste better than others.

The beach is an excellent escape from the biting in the night. Of course there are still sand flies to contend with, but at least everything from your knees up will be relatively bite free. If you really want to be mozzie free, there are only two places you can go: into the ocean itself or into your mozzie net.

No matter what your defense strategy, you will get bitten. Female mosquitoes supplement their regular food source with animal or human blood during periods of reproduction, when the need for proteins and iron is elevated. Saliva injected into the feeding site contains proteins that dilate blood vessels, prevent clotting, platelet aggregation and affect with the immune system. These cause your blood vessels to open wide and allow the mosquito to draw out a tasty meal without interference from your body’s natural defense mechanisms. After the guilty sucker is long gone, the immune system goes into action and the itching begins. Countless travelers have had trips were made miserable by the dozens of scratchy bites covering every part of the body. The swelling and itchiness is caused by an allergic reaction to the saliva injected into the body and may last for days, or even weeks.

More important that the bottles of aerosol bug spray to prevent mozzie bites are the tools you carry with you for treating bites. Desperate travelers have probably tried every conceivable compound to treat the itching. If it comes in a liquid, powder or can be made into a paste, then someone has tried it on itchy bites. One man described being desperate enough try his own urine. I can only imagine what the locals might think of the Westerner rolling around in his own urine or a bed of banana peels groaning and scratching in agony. Or pulling every bottle, tube, and spray from his rucksack and applying vigorously. Some people must have raided their kitchens, for on some lists appear vinegar, baking soda, lemons, and meat tenderizer. I imagine the meat tenderizer might actually aide the mosquitoes in their hunting and piercing, but having never tried it I can only hypothesize. I looked up meat tenderizer on Wikipedia and the only thing that came up was a wooden mallet with spikes on one end. I have experienced itching so irritating that I would happily have hit myself with a spiky wooden mallet, but I’m guessing that’s not what the recommendation was based off of. Digestive enzymes in papaya or pineapple have been used as meat tenderizers, but knowing the affinity of mosquitoes for the sweet flesh of those fruits there is no way you will catch me slathering on pineapple juice. Still other remedies are straight from the bathroom cabinet, as if the unhappy victim had swept the contents of the medicine cabinet onto the floor and had proceeded to apply every possible treatment: toothpaste, nail polish, preparation H, mouthwash and crushed aspirin in a paste. Then jumped in the shower to rinse off the offending odor, for soap, very hot and very cold water are also suggested as treatments. And these are just the remedies rumored to work. I shudder to think what other options may have been tried against the endless itch of a mozzie bite, but those people are wisely keeping quiet about their experiments.

Navigating the countless remedies for mosquito bites can be a daunting task. When I first spent long periods of time in the tropics, I carried a Benadryl stick. Many nights of rubbing this all over my bites did not improve itching conditions so I chucked my Benadryl stick into the rubbish bin. To get you through the introductory blood feast or if you only plan to stay in a mozzie-dense region for a short while of time, arm yourself with tea tree oil and baby powder. For the traveler in the tropics, tea tree oil is worth its weight in gold and costs almost as much if you buy it down there, but it is inexpensive if you bring it from home. Tea tree oil and baby powder have the ability to draw the irritating saliva out of your skin, reducing the size of the allergic reaction and speeding up the healing process. Baby powder is super cheap and available nearly everywhere. You can apply both immediately after the bite and also as a treatment for uncontrollable itching. Splash cold water on the skin before shaking baby powder on top of your bite. Both baby powder and tea tree oil have additional uses. For those super sticky, humid nights and times when a shower may not be an option, baby powder can be applied to hair and skin to soak up excess moisture and oil. Tea tree oil has countless uses; it is an anti-fungal, anti-biotic, deodorizing miracle essential oil. Armed with these two items, you may smell a bit funny and look a little snowy, but hopefully your trip won’t be ruined by the need to spend every minute between dusk and dawn scratching away at your mosquito bites.

Worst Christmas EVER

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 20:28:00 +0000

Holy shit, I didn't know how bad Christmas could get until this year, and you all know I was already not a fan of the Holiday. Unbelievable.

True or False

1) I started off the holiday on Christmas eve sobbing about my grandma who died last year this time and getting drunk on vodka

2) In my drunkeness and sorrow, I some how got it into my head that I wanted to be with my dad and my brother for Christmas (WHAT WAS I THINKING?)

3) K got Christmas off, so we drove down to Tacoma Christmas Eve, where I immediately puked then ate Jack and Crack

4) We arrived at my dad's to find my brother had 'rescued' a pit bull (or something) that was shitting and pissing everywhere, not to mention scaring my kitty cat

5) My brother's drug dealer came over Christmas Eve and sold us some Vicodin (the only positive thing to happen)

6) I got camping panties and camp suds and night vision binoculars for xmas

7) K proceeded to drink pretty much an entire bottle of rum, meaning I got to listen to him discourse on how NOT fucked up he is because his best friend died this year in the house he's living in etc. ("I'm Fine. I'm totally cool.") How I'm healing him, I'm so good for him cuz he's fucked up, and how he didn't think he would fall in love with me, oh wait, he's not in love with me, he's just fucked up...

8) I couldn't sleep because K was snoring in my ear, even with ear plugs in. I tried to turn him on his side, but he wouldn't budge, when I tried to get him to go sleep on the couch he told me to go fuck myself, when I was settled on the couch all cozy like, he came out and apologized and drunk talked to me forever, at 7am he came out again and drunk talked to me about how he doesn't really love me he's just fucked up, let's have a threesome, no a foursome, 'know any hot chicks?,' let's go to the strip club saturday etc. etc. Then he starts wanking off in my dad's living room. fucking fantastic.

9) I decide not to go meet up with Chandi in Seattle because a) I'm drunk sitting, b) I'm in Tacoma, c) I'm tired as hell, and d) my dad's offered to take us out to dinner

10) ONLY MY FATHER would invite you out to dinner without having a place to take you. We drove around for two hours looking for open restaraunts (we didn't find any). I end up screaming at my father because he doesn't hear me when I talk normal and HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY PLACE TO TAKE US EVEN THE GROCERY STORES ARE CLOSED BY THIS TIME

11) We go back home and heat up lean cuisine and left over Jack in the box. mmm. yummy! Christmas dinner!

12) We fall asleep by 5pm and don't wake up till 2:30am

13) all of the above

Please kindly kiss my ass

noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:38:00 +0000

Dear Isabel,

Thank you for interviewing with the Georgia Sea Turtle Center's Education Department. I had mentioned during the interview, that I hoped to be able to let you know by the end of the week regarding our decision about the Education Internship position. However, I am writing to inform you that we are still in the process of interviewing.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may cause, and please let me know if this affects your decision regarding the internship position. Thank you for your understanding and I will be in touch soon.

Cheers,
Alicia

OMGF. I am not a patient person to begin with, but seriously. Is it that hard to pick people? It's not as if the $100 /wk stipend is a huge prize or anything. These people could never hire people in my position, where you have to make quick decisions or someone may not recieve necessary services like bathing or toileting or eating.

Here is the reply I wished to send:

Dear Alicia,

Please kindly kiss my qualified ass. I am perfect and I see no reason why you can not decide whether you want me or not. Who could possibly be so competitive as to be more impressive than my 7 year dedicated butt. In fact, I have been involved with sea turtles longer than most of your staff. I understand that your organization is fresh and may face difficulties due to the shortage of time and money resources, but that is no excuse to leave us dangling. For fuck's sake, am I in or not?

kindly,
Isabel

Of course, that is not the email I actually sent. Which is:

Dear Alicia,

I am a disappointed that you are not able to let me know your decision this week, but I understand the selection process is very important and appreciate the efforts that you and the other educators have put into interviewing the applicants. I remain very excited about the possiblity of working with you and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. Please, please let me know if there is any additional information or questions I can answer that will assist you in making your decision. I am happy to provide additional references, examples of my presentations/writings, and additional skills that may benefit your institution. My employers are very anxious to know whether or not they will need to replace me. I would happily wait until Dec. 31st to find out, but I do need to take the responsibility to assist my employers in replacing me if I am accepted. On behalf of that duty, I will need to know by Thanksgiving if I have been accepted or not. Thank you so much again for your consideration and it was a pleasure speaking with you, Sarah, and Kelly on Tuesday.

Cheers,
Isabel

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noreply@blogger.com (izzydizzybangbang) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:24:00 +0000

Ok, who mistakes that they have $23,000 extra dollars coming in one month when they only make $4000/month? You would have thought that that was something one didn't just ASSUME without bothering to check on it. It's not exactly pocket change now, is it? Seriously. True story.

No. It wasn't me.