happy birthday, Guy!

Short entry. It's the Guy's birthday today. He'll be 33.

Happy Birthday, love.

(Damn, he's old.)

I brought up the Guy's birthday at book club last night, and was asked how I remember when his birthday is when I can't remember the birthday of my best-friend-since-middle-school. "His is two days before Halloween," I pointed out. "It's easy."

The rest of the club looked blank. After a moment, my old roommate sighed. "Here we go again."

"Halloween's in two days?" another asked suspiciously. "That doesn't sound right. What's two days from now?"

"The twenty-fifth," supplied my old roommate. "She thinks everything's on the 25th."

"It's easier," I announced.

"For who?" the others demanded, ungrammatically.

Tara interjected, "What I don't understand is, if you can remember his birthday is two days before Halloween, why can't you remember that my birthday is two weeks before Christmas?"

I blinked. "It is?"

"Two weeks," she said firmly. "Two days, two weeks . . . it should be easy."

"I can do two weeks before the Christmas," I decided.

Added my old roommate, "And Christmas is actually on the 25th, too."

"It is?"

"Really. It's pretty much the only holiday that is."

"Wow." I considered for a minute. Said thoughtfully, "I don't think I've ever had that happen before."

So now I'll be able to remember Tara's birthday. Everybody else, unless you have a '2' in your birthday description relative to the number 25, you're still out of luck, and will just have to live with receiving sporadic Happy Unbirthday gifts when I feel like it.

Just in case: happy unbirthday, all.

I've been getting the occasional email from my sister, who from time to time finds herself in an internet cafe down in ....I don't know. Wherever the hell she is. She has a problem with the keyboards. "I can}t find the } key," she informed me over Yahoo Messenger.

I'm pretty sure she meant she couldn't find the apostrophe, but it's hard to tell with her.

She also doesn't seem to be able to find the SHIFT key, but we won't hold that against her.

buenos dias! (sadly, that{s about the extent of my spanish)

sitting in a car for hours on end, i have taken to counting the bites on my body and multiplying them by the estimated volume of blood sucked out by each insect. i think i may need a blood transfusion soon.

after many mind-numbing {and ass numbing} days of driving, we have found ourselves in the very flamboyant and artsy town of oaxaca, mexico. a pleasant, but energetic, town with a population at roughly 400,000 (!), oaxaca is definately the hub of mexico{s highly imaginative community. though it{s a bit touristy (actually quite alot), it definately has an air about it that successfully masks the 2:10 gringos. the greatest part of oaxaca though is that they have not once mistaken me for a chino!

apart from a run-in with some ´federalis´, who thought they were about to uncover a mass murder scene, the encounters have been relatively mild.

we{ll hit puerto escondido {apparently popular with surfers} before taking off to guatemala. anyone interested in meeting up down there? or in the bay islands, honduras? bocas del toro, panama? just make sure to drop me a line a few weeks before hand.

i have recently heard that ´the terminator´ was elected as california´s new governor...god have mercy on you all. now, would he be considered the lesser of two evils or the evil of two lessers?

take care.

love,
sako

days on the road: 18-ish
accidents: 2.3
encounters with ´civil servants´: 4
bribes payed: $180.00 USD
missing limbs: 0
number of fights: °?*&$%!!!
please send: peet´s dark roast coffee, SBC´s dark roast coffee, Tully´s dark roast coffee...anything but instant Nescafe!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just chatted with her on Yahoo Messenger again.

Me: "I posted your email in my journal."

Sako: "John smells bad. I took him to the hospital this morning."

Me: "Why?"

Sako: "If people make fun, it's your fault."

Me: "Heh."

Sako: "he's smelly."

Me: "You took him to the hospital because he's smelly? You're a little crazy."

location: mount saint helens
date: may 18, 1980
event: an explosion of cataclysmic proportions, no wait, an explosion 400 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that leveled hiroshima! according to seismologists, there was a 200 mile an hour blast that flattened trees up to 20 miles away!

that was me two days ago.

location: panajachel, guatemala
date: oct 22, 2003
event: an explosion of similar magnitude to that of st helens.

two of us have parted ways from the rest of the party. prior to this, the air had been THICK with tension.
THICK.
we have agreed to meet back up in four weeks and see how things go from there.

the guatemalan presidential elections are coming up on the 9th of november. it has been interesting speaking with locals about who and why they are choosing particular candidates. the most controversial candidate without question is rios montt from the frente republicano guatemalteco party. locals have told me that his long list of accomplishments have included (just to name a few):

1. overthrowing the president of ´82
2. the assembly of military killing squads
3. the massacre of entire villages, mostly of indigenous guatemalans, totalling up to 100,000 people.

although there was an article in the constitution that prevented him from running for president during the two previous elections, his party´s gaining popularity had won an FRG candidate, Portillo, the presidency back in 1999. surprisingly (or not), rios montt became the head of guatemala´s congress soon after this.

after many of the human rights organizations began to protest a constitutional courts decision to allow his entry into the 2003 presidential race, montt apparently said, ´that with the increase in anger amongst the villagers, the FRG would not be held responsible for its aggressive means to keep peace.´

the next few weeks should be interesting.

love,
sako

days on the road: 24-ish
accidents: 2.3
encounters with ´civil servants´: 4
bribes payed: 1 @ $180.00 USD
missing limbs: 0
number of fights: °?*&$%!!!...if you only knew.
please send: nothing. the guatemalans KNOW about good coffee.

Like I said. Crazy.