before the turkey

I realize that it seems like I only post when my sister emails, and for those of you who are noticing that direct correlation, you're absolutely correct. Part of this is because most of my writing impulses have been swallowed whole by technical documentation at work, and NaNoWriMo -- that's National Novel Writing Month, for those of you who are joining us a little late -- at night. For the first time in three years of participation, the 50,000 word goal that is only a day or two away. At 45,566 words last night with five days left in the month, I'm hardly likely to give up now.

The rest of the motivation behind this is that my sister is one of those rare, idiotic species of fish that appear only once in the horizon of a storyteller. We seem to have at least one in every generation, in this family; my mother served as the black, elephant-riding sheep in the last one, and in this one, my sister is performing her function with, I think, unnecessary enthusiasm. At any rate, when one has the opportunity to document the life and times of one of these barn owls in a meaningful fashion -- i.e. in her own words, which spares me the trouble of extra typing -- one simply can't pass it by.

And, to be honest, there just isn't all that much going on in mine. I mean, I just got an email promising to ship me a bigger, stronger penis if I 'RESPUND 2DAY!!!' but that hardly sets me apart from any other woman in the US, does it?

Things have been quiet for me lately, outside of wedding preparations, and these aren't of a sort that are particularly worth writing about. On the other hand, exciting things are happening to other people. The Guy recently received an email from his best friend, a UN specialist on HIV/AIDS. He'll either be best man or officiant at our wedding, although I don't think the Guy has told him that yet. He was emailing from Norway. "Pray for me," he said. "Last week I was in the UK embassy in Istanbul." A few days after he left, said embassy was no longer there, having been blown to smithereens.

Meanwhile, my mad hatter sister had her van broken into while they were asleep inside, and up here in Mountain View, I had a bagel and cream cheese for dinner.

Well, what can I say? We live in exciting times. Some of us just don't notice.

There's a reason I don't have too much to say on the subject of Thanksgiving, and that's because my mother suffers from a spastic overproduction of gratitude. It's like she has a little gland in her that overproduces miscellanea: advice, piety, charm, gratitude. Thanksgiving is redundant as a day to be thankful; Mom inflicts thankfulness on everybody around her in a constant, unceasing wave of white noise.

"I got a ticket."

"Congratulations! You erasing ther financial karma!"

"I think I sprained my hand."

"So good. You not breaking the arm!"

"I got diagnosed with diabetes yesterday."

"Oh, so nice, now we be diabetes together!"

At this point in my life, being grateful for a dead turkey seems a little redundant. ("Be gratitude, Yuhri, turkey giving up his life so you can get fat and many leftovers for sandwiches.")

It's true that Thanksgiving is one of those family holidays that claim to be about one thing but are really about something else; like Christmas, which is supposed to be about something-or-another, but is actually about consumer confidence and retail gains. Like a lot of family holidays though, Thanksgiving has lost more than a bit of its sparkle since Dad passed away, not only because he was an awe-inspiring eater, but also because he loved any holiday that involved food, and Thanksgiving was an excuse for him to bring out every single story he had ever told and rehash them in hilarious detail for his long-suffering family.

It's been nine years since he's passed away, and I've forgotten most of them. At the time, I thought if I had to hear them one more time, I would stab myself in the ear with a spoon. Now I can't even remember his voice.

Memory is an unfathomable thing.

I've mentioned already that instead of going up to Seattle for the holidays, a $600+ trip for the two of us, we're going to be spending our Thanksgiving down in California instead under the amiable patronage of Tara. In our own defense, we did actually invite Mom down to stay with us for Thanksgiving, under the premise that it would be cheaper to fly one down than to fly two up.

Mom, in that incomprehensible way of hers, dug in her heels and refused to come. "I have too much to do," she explained. "I'll be so busy, busy, busy---"

"Will you be teaching?"

"No, no teaching. Vacation!"

Just in case it was one of those irritating Japanese 'say NO the first six times' dealies, I asked her several more times over the course of the week. She continued to insist she was going to be busy.

"Doing what, exactly?"

"Oh, so busy," she said vaguely. "Things, kitchen, oh, so much work. . . ."

Last night, I asked Mom what she was going to be doing on Thanksgiving. "Going to a student's house for dinner?"

"Taxes!" she said, brightly.

So yeah. Guilt. There's one tradition we're keeping alive and healthy this year, at least.

The Purple Monkeys went a little mad while I was in the Cow. They had a company-wide meeting about it, one that I was unable to attend because I was actually working. Down in the Cow. I suspect the Purple Monkey Royalty planned it this way deliberately; rather conveniently, the three most outspoken employees -- and by "outspoken" we mean "ethical" -- were out of the office on assorted trips, leaves, and meetings.

The end result of this meeting is that I now have four Purple Monkey Bosses. Four. And in the meantime, we've added a few more executives, so we now have a -- get this -- two to one ratio of executives/management to actual workers.

And I'm thinking to myself, great. More purple monkey loving. Bananas for all.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Email from my sister below.

From: Sako
Subject: kids

i have noticed a remarkable number of albinos in central america. oculocutaneous albinism, or OCA, occurs when the body is unable to metabolize tyrosine to the pigment melanin...rumor has it.

i´ve started my spanish courses at la union, apparently a reputable language school in antigua. i have been told by many that spanish is not a difficult language to learn. hmm...either i´m totally overwhelmed or i´ve got the brain capacity of a very small, unintelligent, mouse. why in the world does any one language need 16 different ways to say ´to be´? whatever the reason, i am going to learn each and every one of them.

we´ve been lucky to be able to volunteer our free time at the local childrens center in a village nearby. ages 2 - 18, these children are from disadvantaged single parent, or totally parentless homes. the EBS offers them nutritious meals, literacy programs, a safe play area, showers...basically a safe haven. every snot faced, dirt smudged, filthy, poop-y smelling, little kid there is an absolute angel. i fell in love! again and again! after simultaniously playing a game of soccer and frisbee (which by the way the kids were awesome at), we hit the slides and played, ´catch me and throw me up really high in the sky before i get to the bottom´. oh boy, did they like that one. needless to say, my arms are not functioning today. i´ve commited for the remainder of the week. even after the first day it was hard to say goodbye. wrinkled noses, tears pooring, attachment issues...and that´s just me!

i´m coming home for the holidays via plane or beauville. i may return with a package containing a child or two.

someone broke into our van this morning. lots of glass. lots of cuts.

see you all soon!
love, sako

days on the road: 55-ish
accidents: 2.8
encounters with ´civil servants´: 7
bribes payed: 1 @ $180.00 USD, 1 @ $10.00 USD, and 1 safety belt citation @ 80L (about $5 USD -what a hassle that one was!)
missing limbs/ health report: 0/ 0
car has broken down: three times. something about a clogged air way. PCV was changed by a mechanic. it cost $12 USD.
greatest location so far: isla omotepe, nicaragua! wildlife, trees, warm rain, and definately the people!
most inexpensive countries: nicaragua and guatemala (about $10 a day if you´re splurging.)
favorite book read: the confederacy of dunces by john kennedy toole. although i´ve read it 7 or 8 times (on various trips), it never fails to make me go into side splitting fits of laughter. kitchen confidential was really good also. when it comes down to it, nothing beats ´the nature and property of soils´, my favorite book of all time.
please send: nothing. life is perfect down here!

craving clockworks

You know, apparently I'm supposed to be getting married someday. I have a ring. I have a fiance. I also have a future mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Things I don't have:

1. Wedding site.
2. Wedding day.
3. Wedding dress.
4. A clue.

There's much to be said for this period of engagement before full frontal nudity and the finality of an actual service. (Not in that order.) For one thing, not having anything to worry about yet, I'm remarkably free of ... damn this thesaurus. Worry. I'm remarkably free of worry. Of course, everybody who has ever gotten married has promised me that once I get a site and a date, everything else will fall in line. To me, this suggests that people have some bizarre notion that I have vendors and organization already in place, hovering overhead like misplaced dominos just waiting to be knocked over by some brilliant, dizzyingly organized pinky of perfection.

Problem. I haven't bought the dominos yet. Where exactly do you go for that?

"You'll need," said Tara, "A florist, a caterer, maybe some staff, a dress -- that'll probably take the longest, so you should get on that right away -- music . . . "

Meanwhile, The Guy is still lazily informing friends about his engagement according to some easy-going, hit-and-miss schedule of his own. I received some congratulations the other day from a friend of his who had just found out. I fully expect to continue to get engagement congratulations from belatedly informed Guy friends and family four or five years from now, well after this hypothetical wedding.

Yes, let us do wallow in the crapulence of our lethargy.

Later...

Have a wedding site. Yay, us!

Later still...

Have a wedding date. Yay, us again!

June 6, 2004. How far away is that, exactly?

Six months? What do you mean, six months?

Back at the beginning, when we first got engaged and friends poured heaps of advice on our heads, I was informed that some people gather data from multiple places, visit them, (sometimes up to twenty or thirty sites) get price ranges, haggle -- did you know you can haggle about prices, depending on when and where? -- and weigh the options until they find the perfect place. "Don't worry if you don't find the place you want in the first ten you visit," they assured us. "You'll probably go to fifteen or twenty or so, then weed out the ones you don't like until you have a list of about five, and then go through those until you get the price you want and the date you want--"

The Guy and me, we visited a grand total of . . . let me think. One, two . . . five . . . nine . . . .

Three. We visited three.

We are not energetic people.

Me: "So? What'd you think of that one?"

The Guy: "It's okay."

And later...

Me: "So? What'd you think of that one?"

The Guy: "It's okay."

And later still...

Me: "So? What'd you think of that one?"

The Guy: "It's okay."

Detecting a trend?

And later still...

Me: "So? What'd you think of that one?"

The Guy: "It's okay."

I take it back. We visited four.

We narrowed it down to two after a couple of months; not, perhaps, the most impressive of accomplishments when you consider the number we'd started out with. Our method of weeding? Sheer arbitrariness. Mine. The Guy, being amiable and indifferent, ambled contentedly behind my every randomly quixotic whim. I am not renowned for making well-reasoned decisions based on logic.

Me: "This place is stuffy. Let's not do it here."

The Guy: "Okay."

Don't get the wrong idea, here. The Guy has, when inclined, a stunningly broad and catastrophically creative vocabulary. Unfortunately, having expended those colorful and descriptive words in the workplace, he has been reduced in wedding-related discussions to a limited range of two words, which I must say he has been wielding with great effect. "Okay" is obviously the powerhouse in the pair, true. Still, "It's," while lacking somewhat in punch by itself, dons a certain uniquely laconic style when matched with such a broadly comprehensive adjective.

Me: "I'm tired of looking at places. Let's do it here."

The Guy: "Okay."

Me: "Do you want to do it here?"

The Guy: "It's okay."

Me: "Damn you. Fine. We're doing it here."

The Guy: "Okay."

Communicative bastard. The man never stops talking.

I've learned that someone kindly sent me an item on my wish list some time ago. To whomever that might have been, my sincere apologies for not thanking you sooner; fact is, it turns out that the address I had listed for my wish list deliveries was for my office in Excite@Home.

You remember Excite@Home, right? The company that went bankrupt about three years ago and closed its doors? Yes. That one. Obviously I haven't been maintaining my Amazon wish list as well as I ought.

So the reason I never thanked you is because I hadn't gotten anything, so I hadn't realized you'd sent something, and I'm truly sorry about not noticing sooner. Thank you for the thought. I grovel at your feet.

I've added a new link to my list o' links, an excellent blog about Diabetes news and events called, appropriately enough, Diabetes News. I highly encourage those of you with diabetes to go and check it out. If you are the friend or family of someone with diabetes, you should also go take a peep. The maintainer of the blog is a very intelligent and knowledgeable woman who would like it to be known that she does not work for Ruby Tuesday's, news about Ruby Tuesday's new low-carb menu notwithstanding.

Don't bother trying to understand that part about Ruby Tuesday's. Just read the blog, that's all I'm saying.

On a not entirely related note, I have decided that my first child will be named Hamster. The Guy is skeptical. However, I point out in my favor that his initial suggestion for a child's name was Obediah, because difficult names build character as a result of frequent poundings in the playground, while my sister insists that "Furnace" would be a perfect name for any child, boy or girl. This would be, yes, the same girl who had a pet rat named "Rabie" because "Rabie" was, in her mind, the singular of "rabies."

And last, but not least . . .

A few minutes ago, I received one of those little spam emails that usually get entangled in my spam filter before dying a soundless and accommodating death in my junk mail folder. This only really works if I'm using my Mozilla email client, however; when I check my emails through my shell connection, I view all, junk or no.

Today, for whatever reason, I abruptly decided to read one of these delectable morsels of sexual promise and anatomical expansion. I reproduce for you verbatim a portion of that email below.

Important Penis enlargement info/update

Dear Member, We would like to tell you about the latest scientific breakthru!!

VP-RX - Doctor approved penis enlargement pills! No hanging weights, or
painfull excises. You will see results after only 2 month!

Simply take VP-RX and your penis will become thicker and longer, within a
matter of weeks!!

100% MONEY BACK GAURANTEE!!

I admire the confidence in their product that prompts these people to promise a 100% money back "GAURANTEE!" My company is unwilling to extend itself that far, but then, they make no promises that using their product will do anything of an expanding nature to body parts or wallets. Kudos to them. I doff my hat.

The part that does perturb me about this email, though, was the part about "hanging weights" and "painfull exercises." Does hanging weights on body parts confer "enlargement" leading to "thicker and longer" bits and pieces? In my youth, I often yearned after plumper, 3-dimensional breasts. If I had attached weights to them, would they, too, have defined me as a woman and helped me discover my femininity? I have to wonder.

The Guy is a fairly self-confident man -- witness his humiliation in the gun range at my hands, and his equanimity in that regard -- but I have to admit, he perked up a little when I relayed this email to him.

"I have to try that," he said.

Which all goes to show that you never really know a man until you've attached weights to his penis.

Six months. Stupid clock. Keeps ticking.

(Tock.)

side of beef

I'm in the Cow.

Again.

(achoo.)

It's one of those axioms of business travel that no matter how prepared you are, you will always forget something when you go on a business trip. Some small thing (or not so small thing) some toiletry, some piece of clothing, some shoe, some sock, some wallet with all your identification and money, will be left behind, and you won't realize it until you unpack at your hotel or try to explain to the police why you're driving 100 miles an hour through a 40 mph zone without a license.

There was a time when I actually tried to avoid this inevitability. I made lists of things. I packed ahead of time. I unpacked and repacked and packed again, checking things off the list as I went. I packed doubles of toiletries. Thing is, and who knows why this eluded me, I always packed doubles of toiletries I already had. Packing two tubes of toothpaste does you no good when you've forgotten to pack the toothbrush. Ditto with packing nine pairs of socks and no shoes.

So this time, I forgot bras. No bras. Blouses, slacks, shoes, socks. No bras. The undershirt I wore to drive to the Cow was selected for comfort rather than actual, shall we say, "support." If I had been wearing a t-shirt instead of a sweatshirt, more than one set of highbeams would've been hitting the road, if you get my drift.

This made for some interestingly self-conscious behavior on my part during my first day at the Cow. Hunched shoulders played a big role. So did my leather jacket, which I wore zipped up the front until I couldn't handle the heat any longer, after which I draped it over my arm and held it strategically across my chest.

I'm not positive what the proper business etiquette is regarding bras in a client's workplace. Just in case there was any misunderstanding -- just in case my clients thought I was intending to make this new perkiness a habit -- I made sure to inform them about my inadvertent omission during the packing process, and promised to go forth and buy underwear that very night.

They were gratified by this information. It all just goes to show that full disclosure is usually the best way to go in establishing a solid relationship of trust.

I have very little to say on the personal front; I'm headed home tonight, back to the comforts of my apartment, my car, and my fiance, not in that order. During this trip, I've been deprived of my usual outlets of email and Internet entertainment, because my work laptop has evolved to a level of infection so catastrophic that if put online, it could be at the epicenter of a viral outbreak that could take out every major economic power in the world. It could single-handedly cause the nuclear meltdown we've been predicting since the 1950s. Windows. Got to love it. Meanwhile, my IT staff handed me a brand new laptop, one which didn't have the means to access . . . well, anything.

On the up side, this means I'm now 34,017 words up in Nanowrimo.

On the down side, I've discovered I'm a lot more productive without the Internet.

Screw you, Al Gore. You're the reason I never graduated medical school.

My hypochondria and distaste for sick people being, of course, the reason I never actually applied to medical school.

From: Sako
Subject: 13 oz.

i often forget that i tend to look slightly different from the gringos i see around here. partly because i´m not a gringo, which i believe means white person. smart sako.

´pst! tss!´

this is something that is called out to all of the local women so i was mildly flattered that they would not single me out and not make these annoying calls. that was until one ignorant fool decided to yell out, ´chino!´

now, i find it my duty to correct people when they categorize me in the wrong ethnic group. i, personally, like to be corrected when i make a wrong assumption. doesn´t everyone?

´yo soy japonese!´ i yelled back.

i guess ASSuming that people liked to be corrected was a mistake. not a second after i had corrected the now re-educated man, he hit me with a stone.
now this wasn´t the first time someone had thrown a rock at me. when we were in oaxaca a cowardly man on a roof of a building hit me with a stone when i didn´t respond to his despicable hissing. i was so flustered with anger that i swore to myself that if that were to ever happen again i would be prepared with a witty verbal response.

it was obvious that this new situation gave me the opportunity to save face, as they say. i could prove that my weeks of preparation were not in vain.
of all the clever comebacks i was taught, the only one that surfaced in my limited spanish mental lexicon was, ´pinche maricon!´

huh? why? sako, you have brought shame to the art of witty comebacks.

the thing you have to remember about central america is that it is absolutely inundated with ´machismo´. you have to hit them where their pride is, i was told. my only disclaimer is that i plead total ignorance to the spanish language and i would never have yelled this out in front of his neighbors if i knew how he was going to respond.

regardless, i think it made him angry since he stood up from his porch and started charging towards me. unfortunately my flatulating brain could do nothing but pick up a piece of brick and hurl it in the man´s general direction. i use the word general very lightly since it was actually thrown no where close to the man. i might as well have been throwing the rock over my shoulder. (now mind you, the rest of this event felt as though it was all in slow motion.) it actually hit and shattered a window some 20 feet to his right.

aw me gawd! a broken window, a rabid man and a poor japonese girl who doesn´t know the ways of el salvador! not a good combination.
he looked back at me with a face of absolute ravaged anger after he saw that i broke his window. we made eye contact at that point and i could swear i could see straight into his soul. if this man got his hands on me he was definitely going to inflict some permanent physical damage to my body.
when he started towards me again, his fist was positioned to strike with authority. just then a mini van drove by and crossed our path. divine intervention!

thank goodness my brain kick started at that point. taking advantage of my getaway moment, i ran past every hooting, hollering, pedestrian on the block. i looked behind my shoulder and saw that he was equally pissed by the intersecting van that he started pounding on the passenger door.
at that point i ran towards home. at the end of the second block, i looked over my shoulder and saw that he was chasing me but was still more than half a block away. i definitely needed to pick up the pace. it´s impressive what your body can do when it´s pumped with adrenaline. after the fifth block, he wasn´t in sight anymore. with my lungs on the brink of exploding, i reached my block.

fortunately for me, in the area i am staying there are armed guards that patrol the streets for situations like this. where is the big guard with the huge machete? he´ll protect me.

whew. that was a bit of excitement.

okay, that´s it. that´s the end of my email.

by the way, did you know that the average human bladder holds 13 oz of fluid?
wow sako, that´s fascinating! please clog my head with more useless information!

maybe next time.

take care!
love,
sako

days on the road: 45-ish
accidents: 2.8
encounters with ´civil servants´: 7
bribes payed: 1 @ $180.00 USD, 1 @ $10.00 USD, and 1 safety belt citation @ 80L (about $5 USD -what a hassle that one was!)
missing limbs/ health report: 0/ the cut on my foot is infected. i had a tetanus shot three years ago due to a little kayaking accident. do i need a booster?
number of fights: 0
car has broken down: three times. something about a clogged air way. PCV was changed by a mechanic. it cost $12 USD.
days w/o showering: so far the longest has been 19 days.
please send: palatable japanese food! good rice, miso soup, pickles, ramen... mmm...

bean-o

Kermit the Frog's signature song --- "It's Not Easy Being Green" (1970) --- was initially titled "It's Not Easy Being a Disenfranchised Minority Group."

       From Rough Draft, by Modern Humorist.

Today's title is brought to you by my sister, who -- well, I'll let her tell you later, at the bottom of the page. (Bottom. Hah.)

I've been faxing her regular email bulletins to my mother as I receive them, since Mom neither has nor understands the concept of email, except as a fax without the ringing sound and the beeps. Since she relies on the ringing and the beeps to tell her that a fax has actually been received, she sees little use for a computer, leaving me to print out any important emails that she really needs to see.

Basically, I have become a digital medium between the living, connected world and the Electronic Dead, aka Mom. Normal, more business-oriented mediums get paid for translating messages from the Real Dead. Sometimes they even get their own television shows. However, the Electronic Dead apparently don't understand Paypal, so I'm inadequately recompensed by periodic phone calls during which Mom asks for help writing a letter in English, wants to know why I let my sister sleep in an active volcano, and how 'Sako learned French.

The one upside to all this is that my sister and I have finally established that our standing in Mom's affections is directly related to our proximity. The further away we are, the shinier our halos. When Sako lived in San Francisco, her apartment was half an hour closer to my mother in Seattle. Back then, I was the Good Daughter. Phone calls were equally divided between one-sided lectures about Being Good, and gently grieving commentary about my sister's sins.

Now the tables have turned. My sister, who camps in live volcanos, refuses to graduate, has no job, disappears for weeks at a time into randomly selected countries and continents, and incidentally worries the crap out of her family, is the Good Daughter. Me, graduate, employed, safely engaged to a hard-working and charming guy, I'm the Bad Daughter.

My sister is deeply satisfied by this. I suppose it's her turn. She's been the Bad Daughter for a long time.

Mom: "I don't know where she gets it. She is so crazy."

Me: "You, Mom. She gets it from you."

Mom: "No no, not from me. I was a very good daughter. I worked very hard, I studied very hard, I helped my mother...."

Me: "You ran away from school, Mom. You ran away from school and lived in the Japanese Alps for months. They had to pry you off the mountain with a tin can opener. There are actual movies of you climbing around in the mountains like a freakin' goat."

Mom: "But it was the Japanese Alps. Japanese!"

Genes don't lie.

After three days in my purse, the fluffy little white sock has finally been removed. It is now living on the living room table, where it is making friends with fluffy little grey lint and fluffy little brown chocolate chips. Tonight I'm going to be doing a little housekeeping, yes.

I have to admit that I'm already missing the fluffy little white sock, which is, okay, embarrassing. Somehow in the space of those three days, I grew a little attached to it. Every time I poked my head down into my purse, there it was, waving fuzz back at me. My purse can be a minefield for an unwary hand, what with keys and knives and pens and pencils. You're never quite sure if you'll come out with your credit card or a gaping flesh wound. It made a nice change to be able to reach in and feel something soft, warm, and fluffy nuzzling up against your fingers, right before you got stabbed through the fleshy part of your finger by a rusted toothpick. It was like owning a wallet-sized cat.

In fact, I think when I get home tonight I'm going to put the sock back in my purse. I shall name him Squishy, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Squishy.

I went to get my very first flu shot yesterday. I've never had one before. Normally, my flu motto is along the lines of, "If it's worth getting sick, it's worth aaaack---!" This year, I've been ordered by several doctors -- none of them mine -- to get a flu shot Right Now.

I've been, I'll admit it, reluctant. Volunteering for needle pricks that push stuff in instead of sucking stuff out is not really high on my list of thrills. Unfortunately, it's the nature of my job to know a great many doctors, many of whom are acutely interested in my well-being. After presenting my point of view to yet another curious doctor and subsequently enduring the fourth irritated soliloquy demanding how it could be possible I'm smart enough to breathe, I started to think that maybe they were serious about me getting that flu shot.

As a diabetic, I am apparently one of those high-risk folk that are first-liners for the flu shot in lean years. Yesterday, there was a flu clinic at the Mountain View Kaiser clinic. Since I'll be seeing one of those irate doctor clients of mine next week down in the Cow, I made a point of going in to get it done.

Remarkably painless. Beyond a residual soreness this morning, I would hardly know I had it done. Yes, I've obviously been a bit of a baby about the whole thing. I would like to note for the record however, that nurses who have been administering flu shots for an entire day tend to lose their senses of humor pretty early on.

Nurse: "Have you had a flu shot before?"

Me: "No."

Nurse: "Never?"

Me: "I'm a virgin."

Nurse: "I actually don't need your sexual history."

Me: "No, I mean, I've never had a flu shot before."

Nurse: "I see. Are you allergic to eggs or chicken?"

Me: "What?"

Nurse: "Eggs or chicken. Are you allergic to chicken or--"

Me: "Which one first?"

I think it was at this point the nurse started to dislike me.

Nurse: "ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO--"

Me: "No. I'm not allergic to eggs or chicken."

Nurse: "Are you allergic to latex or rubber."

Me: "Full body?"

I think she might have been a little unnecessarily rough with the needle jab. Anyway, I've had my flu shot, just like a grown-up. I didn't even cry.

Didn't get a lollipop anyway. Security's mean.

st erasmus is frowning upon me.
for as long as i´ve owned my body, i still have no idea as to how it works. i feed it regularly, i make it exercise, and on those special occasions, i even wash it.
that´s why i don´t understand why it randomly decides to expel every food product i offer it...and not to mention from every orifice known to mankind.
it´s a mystery.
maybe i should go to the clinic this afternoon.

take care everyone.
love,
sako

most recent border crossing tip: pick up hitchhiking border crossing police. they carry VERY large machine guns. you´ll be safe from thieves and they show you how to get through the border without dealing with all the bureaucratic bull.

days on the road: 40-ish
accidents: 2.8
encounters with ´civil servants´: 7
bribes payed: 1 @ $180.00 USD, 1 @ $10.00 USD, and 1 safety belt citation @ 80L (about $5 USD -what a hassle that one was!)
missing limbs/ health report: 0/ i´m getting a root canal and crown in el salvador. i´ll let you know how that one goes.
number of fights: 0
car has broken down: three times. something about a clogged air way. PCV was changed. does anyone know much about chevy beauvilles?
days w/o showering: so far the longest has been 19 days. i showered yesterday and even washed my hair.
please send: bean-o

From: Sako
Date: 11/14/03
Subject: foreign dentists

sako´s brief dental history:
-7 years ago a filling fell out of my second to last upper left molar.
-6 years ago i decided to go to the dentist to get it fixed. the morning of the appointment, i was chewing on an apple and a big piece of my tooth broke off. i canceled my appointment.
-2 years ago i decided that four years of tooth pain was ridiculous and that i needed to go see a dentist.
-last year i went to see a dentist. he told me that i needed not one, but two root canals and two crowns. it would cost me roughly $3500.
-yesterday i walked into a dentist in santa tecla and the dentist, dr. rafael, told me the same as the doctor last year. the good thing is if i were to have it here, it would only cost me $250 per tooth.

few of you know about my fear of the dentist. they´re just teeth! why do i need to pay unnecessary money to a masochistic oral hygienist who´s just going to cause me more suffering?! it was inevitable that sooner or later, i would have to face painful facts and get my teeth fixed. as it has been about 6 years since i have chewed from the left side of my mouth, i thought it was a good amount of time i had spent procrastinating.

so, it needed to be done. fine. i´ll bite the bullet and get it done. it´ll be more exciting to get it done in a foreign country! maybe they´ll bless me with a chicken sacrifice and kill the pain with an exotic root elixir!
an adventure! yes, that´s how i should face it. an adventure. eek!
dr. fernandez gave me a little more than 2 minutes to make up my mind.
fine. do it. just give me full sensory deprivation.
´we have only novacaine and local anesthetic´.
WHAT?! are you mad?! no wait sako, calm down. $250 a tooth. just remember, $250 a tooth. fine. do it.

poke poke. does that hurt?
gururgawk! (F*%K!)
oh sorry. i just have to put this syringe in your mouth. it won´t hurt...much.
GUERBL...GAFAW!!! (oh my gawd my brain is going to burst!)
oh, did that hurt? all the pain will be gone soon. i have given you very strong anesthetic.
garf...fblath... (i´m drooling uncontrollably from the side of my mouth!)

three conscience hours later, my neck and jaw were so sore that i couldn´t think straight. no matter how much anesthetic dr. fernandez had injected into my gums, i was still flopping around in the chair like a fish out of water. at that point, the surges of pain overcame me. i closed my eyes and let the tears flow.
i think that scared him. he quit at that point and told me that two of the roots were especially difficult to get to and that he was going to make an appointment with a specialist.
three hours and i hadn´t even gotten one root canal finished. what have i gotten myself into?!
remember, this is supposed to be an adventure.

dr. francisco jose pinel colindres, ´the specialist´, was a wonderful dentist! after confessing my fears of oral pain, the sound of the drill, and seeing horse sized syringes entering my mouth, he guaranteed me that my visit with him would be like a walk in the park.
yeah right!
he spoke the truth. with the chest of his lab coat pressed against my right cheek, i could smell the sweetness of fruit candy on his breath and fabric softener on his collar. his breathing was slow and steady which in turn dictated my pace of breathing. and the most calming part of it all was the that his voice was identical to garrison keillor´s. soothing and comforting, like the ideal grandpa.
it was almost totally painless.

i return tomorrow to dr. francisco jose pinel colindres for my second root canal. i have to see dr. fernandez for my crowns next week. i´ll let you know how it goes.

days on the road: 43-ish
accidents: 2.8
encounters with ´civil servants´: 7
bribes payed: 1 @ $180.00 USD, 1 @ $10.00 USD, and 1 safety belt citation @ 80L (about $5 USD -what a hassle that one was!)
missing limbs/ health report: 0/ i stepped on a rusty piece of metal. it made its way through my sandal and into the bottom of my foot. i´m going to the clinic to see if i need a tetanus booster.
number of fights: 0
car has broken down: three times. something about a clogged air way. PCV was changed. the car has been rattling lately. stalling too.
days w/o showering: so far the longest has been 19 days.
please send: good books in english.

fuzzy little

I woke up this morning, put on some slacks, put on a sweater, and toddled off to work. There I was at my desk, minding my own business, when I suddenly noticed something white and fuzzy poking out of my sleeve.

Naturally, being curious, I investigated. I have no idea what I thought it might be, and anyway, whatever I might have thought, I would have been wrong. It was a sock, folks. A small, fuzzy, white ankle sock, living in my left sleeve. One of mine, to be specific. So now here I am at work with one extra fuzzy little white sock, and there's really no place to put it except on my desk. Every so often one of the purple monkeys wanders by and wants to know why I have a fuzzy little white sock on my desk. After I explain it to him, he'll nod solemnly and wander away, and then come back with other purple monkeys so I can explain to those purple monkeys why I have a fuzzy little white sock on my desk.

Somehow, even though honesty is a self-destructive religious imperative for me when dealing with customers, to the point my company would much rather I not actually talk to our customers, ever, I seem to have no compunction about telling the most outrageous falsehoods to the purple monkeys.

I told the last monkey that that I was building a nest out of socks under my desk in order to incubate my spawn. I told the one before that that it had just fallen off my leg. I'm planning to tell the next monkey the sock is all that's left of the last monkey who bothered me. I think the real reason the monkeys keep coming back is that they just want to see what I'll come up with next.

I'm thinking of going to Costco to buy bananas. If I shove one in the fuzzy little white sock, I might be able to pawn it off on one of them.

The Nanowrimo project is going steadily, leaving me at 15,117 words as of last night, which is 117 words above my original goal for the weekend. Two years ago at this time, I was only at 6,500.

Go, me. On the one hand, this is proof that I actually have 15000 words in me, only 35,000 words away from the final winning count of 50,000. That all these words are perfectly good there can be no doubt; I ran a spellcheck which confirmed the validity of all of them, with the one dubious exception of "Anthropomorphication." The arrangement of the words might not be of such high quality, true, but that's not really my problem at this phase of the game.

The chief problem so far -- you all don't mind if I talk about this here, do you? -- the chief problem appears to be my inability to get to the point, an affliction that seems to have infected my main character. 15,000 words in, my main character has yet to do or say anything really interesting. Mostly, he's content to sit in his office, read Neil Gaiman novels, and not be bothered.

This is projection of no small order, and something must be done. I do, after all, have a plot in mind, which thus far has utterly failed to impress my main character. Drastic measures are called for. I'm thinking of killing him off. That'll show him.

Or maybe I'll find another author.

It's worthwhile to note that the novel in development is not humorous, save unintentionally. Despite all my disclaimers, my sister -- for one -- seems to find it inconceivable that I would actually waste 50,000 words on something not laugh-worthy. Of course, the truth is that the novel actually is laugh-worthy, again in a purely accidental fashion. Someday I fully expect to go back over what I've written and snicker, which seems to me the only way to deal with . . . well, the moose manure I've been churning out.

But that's a joy for a different day. In the meantime, I have a main character who could possibly be the final panacea for insomnia.

As of this morning, I've written a little over 500,000 words in this journal since its reincarnation as Faulty Vision. I wonder if I can count those?

For those of you who are truly, and I do mean truly interested, I'm throwing up the chapters as I complete them, but they're tedious reading so I don't recommend it. If you want the URL, just drop me a line and I'll forward it to you.

Honestly, though, I wouldn't if I were you. If you're really that bored, there's this neat trick you can do with your eyeball and an awl....

Another report from my sister, whose punctuation seems to be getting a little less alternative. I suspect this means she has finally started getting used to South American keyboards. Either that, or she's finally learning how to type.

Although not, mind you, how to spell....

nicaragua is by far the most increadible country i have ever had the honor to visit! earlier this last week we went to isla omotepe (the largest freshwater island in the world -the lake is home to the only freshwater sharks too.) with a stray french girl we found in granada. she was so pleasent and fun that we ignored the fact that she was french.

a popular place to go hiking, the island is actually two active volcanos that are connected at their base. the scenery was quite spectacular. when we arrived, we were told that the lake in the crater of the southern volcano was one of the best hikes the island had to offer. when we asked some of the locals whether camping was permitted in the crater we were told, "sure, but beware of the monster in the lake."
i wasn{t scared. i was a proud owner of a dull pocket knife.

although there wasn{t much of a trail and a lot of it was basically vertical scrambling off of a rope i wouldn{t hang a toothpick off of, the hike was spectacular! howler monkeys, trees dripping with moss, fat juicy tadpoles, things that look like a cross between a racoon and a sloth...very cute. five or six hours later, we reached the rim and rapped off into the crater. we were the only ones there! the boulders, the animals, the trees...everything was picturesque! the lake had something to be desired. the murky water reached my mid-rif when i was standing in the center of the lake. that{s okay, it was refreshing.

around 6-ish in the evening, the sky began to dim slightly and the clouds had started to drop into the crater. within a few minutes the fog had reduced our visibility to three or four feet, making it virtually impossible for us to venture very far when needing to visit the loo. looking out over in the direction of the lake, i thought i was on the movie set for sleepy hallow. although instead of the sounds of toads and owls, it was toads and monkeys.
feeling as though i was lost in heaven and being content with never being found, god had decided then and there to bring me back to reality. a very wet reality. the kind that would put seattle to shame.
three people in a 1.5 person tent made living quarters slightly cozy. what{s a little wind and rain...and lightning...and thunder? we all needed to shower anyway. trying to kill the rest of the daylight hours by playing very witty word games, we inevitably got bored. just when we thought our minds were going to go numb with boredom, the earth began to move under our tent.
actually, the earth didn{t just move, it shook...and shook...and shook...

oh me gawd! the monster is going to get us! stupid me! there{s no such thing as monsters.
oh crap! that must mean that the volcano is about to blow!
are we going to die?
i hope not, that would be a shame.
my sister would be mad if i missed her wedding.
am i wearing clean underwear?
i can{t die now! it would be way too inconvenient.
what do we do? we can{t see more than three feet in front of our faces, it{s getting dark, we can{t climb back out when the rain is coming down so hard, and i REALLY have to go to the bathroom!

after a few moments, we realized that the earth was no longer shaking.

whew! wait a second. it sounds like the lake is bubbling. no, wait. yes. no. yes! it is bubbling!
i can{t hear anything over the rain and thunder.
why is that monkey sitting on top our tent? is he trying to take off our rain fly? shoo!

it was like this all night.
it was a sleepless night for the other two...my desire to sleep overcame my fear of the lake monster. needless to say, we all came out fine. a bit tired, muddy, and wet, but also healthy, wise, and craving coffee!

the lesson learned: don{t sleep in a crater of an active volcano unless you have a quick and easy outlet -even in a lightning storm.

i´ve realized that my past emails have sounded a bit cynical.
please don´t take any of my letters as complaints...except for the one about the fight. that one was a definate complaint.
i am having the most wonderful time learning about different cultures, mannerisms and cuisine. most importantly, i´m realizing what my own limitations are and am trying to exploit them like sir hawkins exploited the african slave trade.
i will return a better person.

love,
masako

days on the road: 40-ish
accidents: 2.8
encounters with ´civil servants´: 7
bribes payed: 1 @ $180.00 USD and 1 @ $10.00 USD
missing limbs/ health report: 0/
lately i have been praying to erasmus; patron saint of intestinal disorders. i do believe it has worked. my intestines have been defeated and are waving the white flag. i am weary of this sudden turn in events.
number of fights: 0!!! =)
car has broken down: three times. something about a clogged air way. PCV was changed.
days w/o showering: so far the longest has been 19 days. i have potential though. i could go longer!
i showered three days ago.
please send: yourselves!
i miss all of my idealistic, offensive, senile, uninhibited, entertaining, witty, intelectual, bold, passionate, harmonious, delusional, ill-mannered, soul stimulating, friends and family!
i´m not coming home so you guys had better come out here!

scott- you´re wrong. the bean is not evil. never trust those who do not indulge in the bean.

crossing borders

Me:

It's been almost a full work week since my surgery, and the residual ill effects appear to have run their course. Finally. It's worthwhile to note that today is the first day I've felt I could eat solid food without wandering deep into projectile vomiting territory, legacy of my pre-surgery illness, and in the last week I've lost 4 pounds. According to Weight Watchers, I'm now officially down to 132 pounds.

While surgery may not be the recommended method for weight loss, I have to say that since I had to have it done anyway, it might as well have come with beneficial side effects. True, most of the weight loss is probably the deterioration of the muscle I went to all that trouble to develop. On the other hand, c'mon. I'm down almost ten pounds since I got engaged. My beautiful, shiny ring falls off my finger if I sneeze too hard. So far this has limited itself to falling off if I sneeze too hard in the bathroom, specifically, but I'm optimistic that this could happen in other parts of the house as well.

If ever there's a moment when I doubt my membership in the female social identity, all I have to do is step on a scale. I would like to point out, however, that one's weight is one of the only clearly measurable ladders of triumph available to women. Men have both salaries and penises. There just aren't that many things women are willing to whip out in front of total strangers.

I just heard on the news -- on NPR news, mind you -- that philanthropist Joan Kroc just left NPR more than $200 million. According to NPR, this is the largest single donation to an American cultural institution. 85% of the donation has been earmarked for the endowment, which will provide NPR with $10 million a year, while the remainder will be used for special projects, programs, and operating costs. I even got email about it, just in case I missed the news.

Yay, NPR. Eat that, Clear Channel.

From my sister, all typos and spellings complete as originally submitted:

oh, the joys of bringing a car over the borders in central america... the fond memories...nothing but kind, cooperative, individuals just wanting, no wait, just needing to help you get over the border in a quick and efficient manner.

wait, that{s not right.

was i daydreaming again?

border crossings with a vehicle remind me of the quote:

´what a waste it is to lose one´s mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. how true that is.´
-dan quayle attempting to quote the line ´a mind is a terrible thing to waste.´

that´s it! border crossings make me understand what it must be like to live in dan quayle´s mind.

for the most part, border crossings have gone something along the lines of:

reaching the departing border, rev your engine twice before getting out of the car.

you are told that you are in the wrong place.

you need to drive 15-200 meters down some random alley to retrieve some very unofficial looking forms in an unmarked, brick, building. duh.

you get this form from the mummified looking woman wearing a yellow cardigan who is crouched below the pool table in the basement. make sure she{s wearing the yellow cardigan. not amber, not gold, yellow.

she will hand you the forms...for money.

take these forms and go to the otherside of town and have them photocopied.

return to the crusty, old lady and have her sign the originals -because she will only sign it once she sees the photocopy of the original document.

she will ask for more money. why? who knows. don{t give it to her.

take the photocopied documents to A man. what man? just any man she says. the one down A street. what street? who knows!?

go down the street, find A man, have him look at the paper. he nods, grunts, farmer blows on your documents, and signs it.

you are handed 10+ more papers.

he asks for money.

take form to customs he says...to the town 20km down the road.

listen to three prune faced men quarrel for 30 minutes as to how to process the papers.

they settle the argument.

they ask for money.

the time hits high noon.

instead of processing papers, they decide to siesta.

i could go on for pages about this. fortunately for you guys, i won{t. i{m assuming that most of you have already hit the DELETE button already. for those of you who haven{t...what is wrong with you?!

take care everyone!
love,
sako

days on the road: 35-ish
accidents: 2.6
encounters with ｴcivil servantsｴ: 6
bribes payed: 1 @ $180.00 USD
missing limbs: 0...although i did cut my fingernail too close to the skin. i got tabasco on it...it kind of hurt.
number of fights: nothing really since ´the incident´
car has broken down: twice. something about a clogged air way. PCV was changed.
please send: advil. i´m trying to ween myself off of coffee. i feel like a potato.

back under the knife

Short entry, since I'm not feeling well. I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday that I didn't talk about in that day's entry; there didn't seem to be space for it in the entry I was writing -- that was the one about the mushrooms -- and I figured it would be worth while to do a new one, just to sum up.

So on Thursday I had the doctor's appointment I've been waiting on for a while. Namely, this is the Doctor X I wasn't able to get in touch with, the one who was apparently in charge of my melanoma case. He was going to get back in touch with me that Friday, if you recall. Hah. Just to make this perfectly clear, I hadn't heard from him once until the appointment.

"I tried to call you a couple of times," he told me when he came into the exam room.

Right. Caller ID, buddy.

Not that I'm bitter or anything. So anyway, doctor's appointment on Thursday with the doctor apparently in charge of my case. I considered venting at him a little, but I'm a good little Japanese girl and I don't do that sort of thing. Also, I was really hungry. The longer the doctor's appointment, the longer the delay before I got to food. A lot of people have avoided scenes with me because of my stomach. It should be nominated for some kind of peace prize. (Who'm I kidding? I'm a total pushover. I couldn't have a scene with Osama bin Laden if he stole my last glucophage pill.)

He was, for a doctor, remarkably free of the whole bedside manner business. "We need to make it bigger," he said bluntly, and grabbed my chin to inspect my cheek.

People have been doing that to me for the last month, mind you. This is one of the downsides to working with doctors. They tend to regard you as bits and pieces of anatomy only tenuously related to the controlling mind, which is itself hovering some six feet above the floor on the other side of the door.

He wanted to know when to do the surgery. I thought about my upcoming schedule. A week to be spent in the Cow. Two more weeks to be spent in New York. Massive projects to be accomplished with a development team in Staten Island before my trip.

"January?" I suggested hopefully.

He didn't like that answer.

"Monday," he said. "I have a cancellation on Monday. Is that a problem?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

"Yes."

"Then Monday is fine."

Wouldn't life be so much easier if we said exactly what we think?

So I had surgery on Monday. The scar is now about twice the size it was before. This time they didn't cover it with bandages. In fact, this time they didn't even use stitches; some sort of glue appears to have been liberally gobbed all over my cheek. That is to say, it's either glue or anaesthesia-inspired drool. Since it's not bandaged, I can actually see the scar, a long, red, slightly jagged line that stretches from my jawline to just underneath my cheekbone. There's a morbid fascination to staring at it in the mirror.

I've been dizzy and cramped with nausea ever since. Pain isn't so much of a problem when you can be distracted by other things. Headache the size of Montana, for instance. Light-headedness. The only things that've saved me from going absolutely nutters is my comforter, the three bottles of soda the Guy bought me, and P.G. Wodehouse Books on Tape, compliments of the library.

I'll be human by tomorrow, I think. I have hopes. I'm scheduled to go back into work tomorrow, anyway, so I don't have too much of a choice. In the meantime, I'm taking it easy. Lots of soda. Lots of porridge. Lots of sitting still and moaning companionably to myself.

The Guy went out yesterday morning and bought me the Finding Nemo DVD. I was too dizzy to watch it, true, but -- really. Could I have picked a better fiance?

Nanowrimo

Word count: 4,350
Remaining: 45,650
Should have done: 8,334