The Gawkish Return of Karma Killer

It's been nearly a year since I propped the laptop on my crotch with the intention of authoring anything longer than a pornographic search query, and it's unlikely anyone was less entertained for it.  In fact, I can only conjecture positive repercussions.  I've probably delayed the onset of carpal tunnel. My groin no longer bears the characteristic charring of overheated, antique laptop.  I've avoided thousands upon thousands of opportunities to incriminate myself.

I'll wake up in a few hours, throw on the shirt, tie, and pants combo selected before bed, and show up at the office an hour late -- at earliest.  I'll log into Facebook, refresh my news feed for whatever number of hours remains in the day, and get ghost the second the office's fastest clock slides to five o'clock. The only thing stifling my urge to strangle myself with the cord running keyboard-to-hard drive is the conversion of my direct deposits into units of pupusa.  (I figure another forty to fifty years of Microsoft Office Suite-enabled deception -- spreadsheets always a quick click away, NY Times' articles copied-and-pasted as Outlook draft emails -- and I'll be able to employ a live-in pupusera.  You've gotta have dreams.)

Having been home over a year now, I must admit I love the United States.  I love the comforts, the cleanliness.  I love not having to stuff wadded bills into the lint-crowded recesses of various pockets to combat the dexterous fingers of pickpockets every time I step onto public transit -- which in my city is, unfortunately, infrequent.  I celebrate every condom expended without theatrical and fabricated professions of love or commitment.  I drink to and with girls on birth control, and I sleep soundly when they pick up their scattered garments and kiss me goodnight in the doorway.  And if I down five too many many-times-hopped-high-gravity pints and pass out facefirst on pavement, at least nobody will subsequently scold me for "practically inviting" organ theft -- even as our overzealous legal system exacts an equally debilitating toll.

And yet I'm signed up for every. single. iteration of airfare price alert for flights into any Central American capital from airports within a one thousand miles radius of my residence.  I can recite monthly rainfall averages for an array of cities I plan to revisit.  Plus I'm significantly cockier than ever before, and armed with eighteen months of Latin American travel expertise: backpacker chicks > local chicks.  Technically, that's not sex tourism, so you can still charm grandma and the parents hiring you to babysit with that same noble smile.

The Where Can We Put Patrick? Debate (or Dictate PBA's Future)

Sadly, though the everyday scenes of toiletback gore in hostel bathrooms indicate many mochileros are having as much trouble coping, I've exhausted all my endurance for the brutality being waged in my belly.  What I'm carrying, harboring, isn't temporary.  This is full fledged fuckin' possession.  I've been owned.

There is no longer debate.  If the Bolivian-Japanese stomach coalitation can't cure me -- chances they can even diagnose me correctly approximately equivalent to those of Barry taking Usain Bolt in the 100m, or of me ever asking Barry to sing me a lullaby, or anything resembling a song, anything that requires even the most elementary ability to carry a tune -- I'll be home within a few weeks, as soon as I can figure out how to navigate the thirty plus hour bus stretch from La Paz to Lima without embarrasing myself, without soiling my reputation. Gross. Something of a psychic, I can see myself poppin' bottles of bowel-cloggers and refraining from eating for several days.  Which is the worst sounding proposition I've ever encountered, but circumstantially practical.  I reread that sentence and a whimpery dammmn just mustered itself over my lips before disintegrating into inaudible particles of despair. (Update: I'll be touching down at CLT late on May 3.)

Once back in the States, where I'll remain for the rest of 2010, at least (before jumping back into travel, presumably picking back up in South America), the big question is where?  What follows is a not necessarily closed list of locations to which I'm considering temporarily relocating, corresponding pluses and minuses, and an open invitation to any and all to help influence my decision.  Sell yuh city, suckas.

• Raleigh, North Carolina
• Pros: My most frequently visited city, for the residence of a number of great boozing buddies, the best Detroit style coneys outside of MI, and Lilly's Pizza.  The 'Canes.  Chapel Hill is nearby and, in general, Raleigh is a young city.  Multiple tailgating opportunities every Saturday in the fall.  Oh, let's just say it, college girls!  Southern Belles! Now shower me with "Predator!" 
• Cons: Reliable public transit?  Job opportunities?
• Chapel Hill, North Carolina
• Pros: Friends in and around the area, bars and restaurants all walkable.  It's the better weather Ann Arbor.  And a surplus of college and just-outta-college girls.  Good pickup basketball.  Maybe I can score Duke tickets in the fall?
• Cons: The nauseating sea of baby blue.  No current job prospects.
• The Charlotte Metropolitan area, North Carolina
• Pros: This is my home.  I represent D-town, don't get it twisted.  My main folk, aka tha 'rents, and a group of, to repeat the word, beloved core relatives live in the immediate area. I have countless friends in the area, and I know which bars have pint specials when, which grungy venues have the best shows, and when my friends in One Another are rocking out.  The restaurant scene is strong. The weather is bearable in the summer, mild in the winter, even affording us the occasional cute dusting of snow, and the spring and fall are heavenly.  I also have connections I can exploit for jobs.  Importantly, there's a large Latin population with whom I can mantain my Spanish.
• Cons: Public transit exists, so I've heard.  I've lived in the area practically my entire life.
• Asheville, North Carolina
• Pros: Cool vibe, cool people (including some friends), really it's like a little Denver, CO.  More important than the people, there's the Highland Brewery.  'Nuff said.
• Cons: No job prospects to speak of, and does public transport exist?
• Chucktown, South Carolina
• Pros: College girls...at the beach. Jeeeeeeeeeesus christo! Shrimp 'n' grits. A number of close friends who might even be able to offer a room.
• Cons: No job prospects.  And how good's the public transport?
• Miami, Florida
• Pros: We might as well be talking Latin America. Cuban food. The weather, the beaches. Public transport. One of my main homegirls lives there, and probably other friends as well.
• Cons: Dexter copycats and an expensive city.
• ATL and NoLa
• Pros: Both are dirty south, Ludacris and Li'l Boosie (well, in Baton Rouge.  Wait, he's in prison for the next 4 years). Soul food. Multicultural areas.  Boobies for beads!
• Cons: Hot and sticky. Public transit and job prospects?
• Austin, Texas
• Pros: A college town, young population, etc.
• Cons: I don't know anything else about Austin, certainly nothing job related.
• Washington, D.C.
• Pros: An awesome city, with public transport, friends, and my main homie, Li'l Brodus.  Generally a place I'd love to live.  I hear there's a train that runs to NYC? Either way, there's Jet Blue.  I'd say it's about time I make good on those promises to visit NYC.  Ovechkin.  Lots of Latin folk, too.
• Cons: Lack of job hookups and $$$!
• NYC
• Pros: Not sure, but people tell me it's crazy, as in awesome.  Plus there's the public transit system, and I do have at least a few friends left in the city.  Oh, and pizza.  Even if a slice costs as much as an entire pie back home.  But maybe Latin American street eats can ease the pain?  NYC is playground hoops.  Two pro hockey teams!
• Cons: Expensive as a muhfucka.  Cold winters.  And, again, no particular job prospects.
• Boston, MA
• Pros: A cool city, people with cool accents, and clam chowder.  I've got some good friends in the city,too.  Plus amazing, Canasta-expert relatives (that I potentially exploit for work?) living not far away.  And lotttttttttts of college girls.  Some that'll be into the NE brand of hardcore. And maybe hockey. And if not, I'll be befriending drug dealers selling GH--, er, wait...
• Cons: The winter and cost of living.
• Ann Arbor, Michigan:
• Pros: The quintessential college city, walkable (and runnable), with house parties and cheap beer specials and myriad restaurants (noteably the selection of superlative middle eastern food, for the concentration of middle easterners in the area, and coneys!). The outdoor basketball courts by the CCRB fill up in the late afternoon, and decent pickup soccer is never a problem. Then there's the proximity to Kalamazoo's Bell's Brewery, which means plenty of fresh Two Hearted. And the summer is divine, especially over a few pints. Plus I have beloved relatives living nearby, and boy do they know how to have a good time (and eat)!
• Cons: The winter. See, I think snow is cute for a few days. Plus I have no particular job prospects, and am unsure if I have any friends left in the city. Lastly, an angry practically-midget ex-friend threatened in late 2008 to smash a bottle over my head on sight for stealing, no, temporarily borrowing his girlfriend. Whoops.
• A newly occuring pro: I'm not sure the Little Iranian can reach my head, and I'm offering neither stool nor knee nor boost of any variety. Plus his girlfriend might still be around...
• Chicago, IL
• Pros: Reliable, urine-scented public transit.  A playground basketball tradition. Pizza. Friends from Northwestern and back home. I wouldn't have to go anywhere for Lollapalooza. Maybe I could make friends with Twista. And if not, a strong punk rock tradition.
• Cons: Expensive. And, again, that daunting lack of job prospects.  And Candyman.
• Aspen, Colorado
• Pros: Beautiful town, mountains, and a situation in which I'll no longer have an excuse to try skiing.  Plus, one of my best friends lives there, and maybe a kickass cousin as well, if she herself doesn't relocate.  I've even been promised job help, and I hear the young folk in town keep the party lively.  And, as I'm already accustomed to running at altitude against breathtaking backdrops...
• Cons: Expensive, and maybe a bit isolated?  How far's Denver?  Can I get Bell's Two Hearted on tap?
• Portlands, Oregon and Maine
• Pros: I don't think it'll be a problem getting Bell's, or any other delicious beer, on tap. An impressive variety of excellent restaurants.  Friends in one, a favorite cousin in another. Seafood!  Euthanasia? The Latin population in Oregon is said to be growing.
• Cons: Hippies. Just kidding! But, seriously, is a shower that painful? 'Cause I kinda dig deodorized alternative chicks. Not sure about job prospects in either.  Are they expensive? How's public transit? How will I practice my Spanish in Maine?
• Seattle, Washington
• Pros: Friends in the city, iuncluding at least one great friend (who has mentioned she'll help me with finding a job).  The music scene, the restaurant scene.  Don't know much else.
• Cons: Public transport? Is it expensive? Where's the sun? Are there Latin folk?
• San Francisco, California
• Pros: I liked it when I visited, long ago, and I have a number of friends in the city. Seafood! Good beer. Public transport. Spanish to be spoken.
• Cons: Expennnn$ive. No job prospects to speak of.

That's it, now convince me.

Pieces of the Devil's Pie

Currently restricted from bus travel by my pet belly Satan, who amuses himself by belching bedlam out my anus at his bidding, I'm determined to indulge every food whim until I make it home to first world medicine. Greasy street food forked over by dirt-encrusted fingernails? Fuck it, looks delicious, can't make me any worse.

So, hypothetically, if you've just run into the first open business your Emergency Shitscan could locate, a university in this instance, sweat beaded on your forehead, stammering while doing some sort of retarded ballet and fidgeting with your waistline, "Preferiría que no tuviera que preguntar, pero ¿donde está el puto baño?, and have newly emerged after having spattered carnage, what do you do?  Do you a) relax and catch a cab back to your hostel, to avoid walking and jostling your bowel-bomb, or b) continue mixing disaster, breakfast visions of salteñas picantes dancing in your twisted, reality-ignorant daydreams?

I'd choose B.  So I chose B.  Only, on the way to the salteñería, I was distracted, as always, by pastries beckoning from a glass storefront. I entered, telling myself, scolding myself, "Solamente pan blanco, hijueputa. Acuérdate, huevón, comidas blandas para tu estómago delicado."  Too late I noticed the case full of brown-tipped-meringue-topped crusts, an index finger instinctively sneaking for the one-hundred Bolivianos folded and refolded to Chicle-size stuffed into my jean's unrobbable mini-pocket. Emergency funds. Pie de Limón porn strutting it's perfect meringue peaks, hiding the sensual layer of limón deep inside. Full sized pies, medium sized pies, and little bite sized cuties. Resistance was futile.

"¿Cuánto sale el pie grande? Y el mediano?"

"A vientecinco y quince." she replied, pointing, quoting prices that would buy you a slice or two at any normal pastry shop or restaurant.

"Déme un grande, porfa," I stammered, hardly believing I was going to walk out with an entire fresh-made lime pie for less than $4.  I watched her decoratively and protectively wrap the pie, treating it more delicately than I'd treat my own infant, treatment entirely unexpected in this little cubby of a pastelería -- this locale with its grubby, gray-cement-walled, graffiti-tagged announcement outside.  There was no just throwing this masterpiece pastry into a plastic bag, sticky meringue clutching at the sides, peaks distorting and detaching as the bag bulged and swayed during the walk.  She handed me a heavy Styrofoam plate -- expertly wrapped with a protective bubble over the meringue -- and I smiled, the invisible layer beneath, where all the measure and weight of a good lime pie resides, reassuring me. No over-crusting. No inflation of meringue. No skimping involved. No bullshit, straight Pie.

Tonight was the first time I'd eaten an entire nine inch pie.  And after a meal.  It was a rich challenge, one that has left me worthless, headachy and slightly nauseous, but the flood of dopamine is reward aplenty. Most people understand how overindulgence in a certain type of alcohol can a spawn long-lasting taste aversion. I might've accomplished the food equivalent. (That theory was dispelled the next afternoon, when I caved to my adicción al azúcar, trekking the mile to La Paz's Pastelería Emmanuel to pick up another luscious pie de limón.)

Blame South American tummy critters for the previously-unimaginable-though-now-fully-realized upping of scatalogical content on this pooey blog

Anna and I left Cusco, Peru on a good night.  It was pouring rain, but my tummy wasn't murmuring, no threat of leakage, ensured further by a bagful of avocado-spread, intestine-clogging ciabatta.  We chatted, debated eating a potato discovered wedged between our seat cushions, drifted, awoke in Puno, and disembarked in Copacabana, Bolivia, but not before I'd purchased the $135 Bolivian travel visa required of all Great Satan residing gringos.

In Copacabana we chance encountered every person we'd met in the last few months, ferrying to La Isla del Sol, a food-limited otherwise paraíso in Bolivia's section of Lago Titicaca, with our three Dutchies and an amigo Paisa.  We stayed a night in the South, perched high above the port's rickety docks, staring at distant, snowcapped Andes stabbing upward from that placid, horizon-seeking blue.  Two nights on the island's north side followed, days spent burning shades that Crayola's crayons would be jealous of splayed on white sand beaches, those snow capped cloudseekers visible yet unfathomable.  We ate sandwiches, french fries, rice and trout, cookies, beer, and wine.  Being the only food available on the island.  Taking advantage of my chance pairing with intelligent (and beautiful) card-fiending drinkers, I promised everyone they'd be enamored of Basket, er, Canasta, being the greatest card game ever, and for geographical context, Latin-originated.  They learned, we played. And played. And played. On the island, off the island, we played.  In hotel rooms swilling boxed wine.  In restaurants and cafes, playing around plates, between bites.  Playing cards became a pocket essential.  (I'll refrain from mentioning Spit, a series of slaughters inflicted upon me by Anna, though always with that loving smile...that same smile that used to get little brothers snuck.)

It's much clearer now that all international entrance forms should update their intent section, namely including 'Terrorism' under the "Objeto de Viaje" header.  Which might catch some dimmer terrorists, but would mostly just be funny.  As it is, I've been terrorizing whichever part of Bolivia happens to be within a three meter waft radius of my buttblaster, on those rare occasions I have the confidence to squeeze out a screamer.  With the bubbly stomach, there's much more teeth-gritting-anal-clenching than pause-to-pretend-to-admire-architecture-while-performing-subtle-leg-and-cheek manipulation.  I'm a budget traveler.  Laundry is not a prime priority.

Yesterday I headed out early, fresh liquidy sewage sloshing in two plastic, screwtop canisters in my backpack, heading toward a collaboration Bolivian-Japanese Gastrointestinal hospital in La Paz, once and likely still considered the premier hospital in Bolivia.  (Though second ranked is a corner-posted, incense-burning witchdoctor, La Famosa Curandera Exorcista Mama Cholita. Oh, well.)  Firstly, I'm becoming far too practiced defecating into receptacles.  Skill building, I know, but not really résumé worthy.  So It's too early, I'm hauling feces, paranoid of leaks, when I feel two droplets of water splatter atop my head.  I glance up and catch a skullsounding blow a centimeter below my right eyeball, smack on the orbital bone.  Rocky debris from a highrise construction site without any safety-zone detour for pedestrians.  Sporting a rising welt, the precursor of a nice black eye, I trudged onward.

Then I make it to the hospital, and after initial confusion am made aware I can't just give my stool samples to the laboratory.  I have to have a receipt indicating I've paid for certain tests.  But, after I've tracked her down amidst the hubbub of a third world hospital, the doctor from the day before can't tell me what tests I need, exactly, only that I need to buy ficha, which is to say an appointment with any doctor on-duty.  Too bad this is hours after the opening 6am rush, and there are no spots available before afternoon.  So I'm pinballing between ventanillas, glasswindowed stations, accosting anyone wearing a medical uniform, opening conversation with a shocking, exasperated announcement, "Hola, ¡tengo heces en la bolsa!"  You feel like a man strapped with explosives, "Listen, motherfucker, I've got poo in my bag."  Terrorism, even if it wasn't my intention upon entering the country.

(Putting me in an even more poo-flinging mood was the hassling I took this morning from the laboratory staff, when I returned outside of the 8-9am window to submit a followup sample.  I tried to explain that even though I'm extra-regular at the moment, I still lack the ability to defecate upon command.  If I exercised such bowel mastery many more offending parties would've found their doorsteps and floors soiled during my revenge-plotting-filled youth.  Tomorrow I'm waking early to punch myself in the stomach during jumping jacks, since I was forced to promise an on-time delivery.)

La Paz is daunting, vibrant and bustling, sounds and scents alternately beckon and repulse.  The density of the cement-and-aluminum constructed city center blocks -- quite literally blocks, gapless, gray monoliths that maze inward through side-by-side shop entrances -- radiates out and up the encircling cliffs, humanity improbably clinging to sheer rockfaces as if planebound structures were simply lifted and pegged, like Legos or tacks, suicide or accidental death available through anyone's front door.  It's a city in which to splurge, high-class dining and services going for pocketchange, those monedas jangling against your thigh plenty to purchase a reprieve from the chestheaving block-to-block ascents.

I stroll snatching up cheap eats, salteñas and empanadas, pasteles and pyes, obscenely engorged chorizos dripping mayonnaise, grease and sauteed veggies, always dribbling some crema or salsa in Vampiric fashion, my few-day-old stubble trapping crumbs, light doughy flakes fanning out from my chin across the chest of my t-shirt, occasionally coughing sweet powdery clouds when I indulge in an over-sized, overpowered chomp. (None of which matters to me because, well, to put it politely, Bolivia is not threatening to win many Miss Universe Pageants.) Since I can't find any correlation between an artery abusing diet and stomach violence -- and as I've been warned against indulging further in arbitrary antibiotic assaults against my intestinal invaders I'll assume I can also ignore the accompanying dietary restrictions -- I'm going to enjoy my time off the toilet.

This and that

Relatively smooth sailing here in Cusco, Peru, my stormy stomach acids simmering significantly until they bubbled back today, thanks either to:

a) my inglorious late night return to street food -- two bun-sandwiched, paper thin, fifty-cent meat patties, stacked with french fries and probably contaminated "¿ensalada?", "Si, por favor (stack my burgers with tasteless, nutritionally-vacant iceberg lettuce, either unwashed or washed in contaminated water, thus the classic lose-lose proposition),

b) or my (Blue) Devil-fueled return to gettin'-my-guzzle-on, celebrating Duke's presence and later victory in the National Championship game with the alcoholic circuit, vino blanco to unas chelitas heladitas to Johnny Walker on the rocks and a Pisco Sour nightcap. Today I've popped and plopped a kaleidoscope of consistencies. Which I'm sure you were dying to know.

I've stayed busy acquiescing to cravings, devouring ice cream (topped with crushed, mint-filled chocolate cookie sandwiches, twelve cookies per half-later, which is to say the usual daily serving) and cakes and pies, pretending I know what it's like to be pregnant and eat whatever you want, whenever you want.  I suspect sets of meanspirited ladies will soon be wishing upon me the passing of a walnut-sized kidney stone, to authenticate the experience.
 
And then there are those small-appetited creatures, humans they may be, that assume my entrance to the room, hefting a bowl overflowing with a full liter of frozen dairy dessert, four packages of smashed chocomint cookies in my hoodie pocket ready to be rained atop, is an invitation to scamper for spoons.  There's a reason there's only one spoon -- mine -- stabbed into my daily heaven mound.  This bowl, your daily caloric allowance, is my weight maintenance.  My precious calories!
 
While I gorge myself, dumbed by dopamine, I can enjoy, with clarity, unless muffled by cookie-crunch, the comments escaping my volunteering colleagues.

1. "Did you make your own meat?" (Rosa) (The context is lost, but I swear it was funny.)
2. "We (Britian) have the highest pregnancy rate in all of Europe." (Laura)  "Wait, higher than the U.S.?" (Hallie)
3. "I just want my bloody clothes." (A terribly confused British friend -- and closet murderer?  Anyway, Wrong, you just wanna get rid of, burn or bathe in acid, dispose of utterly and completely, that DNA-stained evidence.)

As to killing calories, I've had the good fortune to befriend quality Peruvian hoopers, some even approaching normal human stature! (although not so tall to preclude requests that I man the post).  I played against a family of troll-statured, goblin-faced Peruvians, their features the hideously contorted messes of wax-statues in a Saharan heatwave, who literally could have walked into the shooting of Troll II and never been noticed.  Though, for all they've been deprived by wicked deities, they've been bestowed fundamental basketball prowess and work ethic.  After I flagrantly and intentionally fouled one, I looked down and patted, petted his mop of black hair, cooing "Lo siento" like a maniac.  I forgot he was probably forty.

And now an abrupt transition to the Latin American inability to make change, even for small bills.  Even at a grocery chain like Mega, a barcode-scanning operation.  So when the register comes up veinte centimos de un sol short, were talking like six cents here, instead of bothering another cashier for the change, my cashier starts eyeing her station, taking stock of what small value items she might be able to offer me.  "¿Té?" she asks, pointing to paper-pouches of Manzanilla Tea spilling out of an opened box.  Probably her personal stash.  "¿Fósforos?" she suggests, shrugging her shoulders while indicating a stray box of matches.  I started to laugh. Really? "Dame los fósforos," I replied, shaking my head.  The story of the matches in my pocket, which'll be convenient if I start getting those urges to commit arson again.

The upside of doing nothing else...more words, more frequently.

How many consecutive hours can hippie mochileros strum out identical acoustic insults to (my) good taste on their guitars?  That cheap rum must imbue them with special appreciation powers, because I'm chocking back vomit mixed with fantasies of spearing eyeballs with the jagged splinters from that very guitar smashed over hippie heads.

With frustration on the brain and the weekend's free-drink-and-panty-chasing club-bounce scheduled for tonight, looks like it's another round of feigned interest and repetitive sidestepping, enduring mindnumbing and eardeafening, salsa-saturated hours between three-minute invitations-to-grind, aka hip-hop.  I, as a proudly grinding estadounidense, admit I neither understand nor care to understand the European practice of dancing solo.  Gimme someone spittin' fire over a heavy bassline and a chunky backside to ride up against and I'll show you some rhythm.

While my head swivels high over the height-challenged Peruvian crowd, ostensibly scouring for a pretty thing to decorate my dormbed, I'm imagining myself transported back inside the grimy scribble-and-sticker tagged walls of Charlotte's The Milestone, a bunch of hoodied-up punk rock hooligans swimming through the standing clouds of cigarette smoke, everyone a PBR tallboy in hand, cute alternative chicks lounging around, all black eyeliner and bullsized nose-rings.  We're three hundred ears still ringing from the last set, a palpable buzz for the next act, the first thumped kickdrum to rattle our chests, the first crashing cymbal, the initial peal of guitar-in-tuning, any and all will ignite the stampede for stagefront position.  And, since this is my fantasy, I'm waiting for my fantasy headlining friends, One Another.

Afterward we're gonna hit a houseparty, a filthy-mouthed crew littering a residence with beer and bodily fluids to a death metal and laughter soundtrack, brutal, barbed insults that only best friends can toss and tolerate cutting through the cacophony.  Finally, once bodies are strewn unconscious across the apartment, somebody's gonna step around the scattered cards and toppled bottles and lurch towards their car, making an inadvisable, cop-dodging run to Waffle House, waking up the next morning both hungover and with hell brewing in their belly, courtesy to that triple order of hash browns, all-the-way.  This is where I come from, and that's what I'm missing a few months deep in fucked-stomach-dictated paralyzation.  Those friends. Those scenes.  Those $2.50 pint nights with fifty microbrews available on tap, at least eight hop-heavy IPA's.  While we're in the bar, conversing boisterously over beers with the proper measure of head, stashed in the car is this week's anti-air-freshener, styrofoam-boxed leftovers seeping fumes into the upholstery, international dinner scents -- Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, Thailand, Lebanon, Italy, Colombia, Peru, Greece, Serbia or good ol' southern Soul Food, maybe a few slices of a meat-and-veggie littered pie; plus, if I dined within fifteen miles of Central Avenue, the obligatory monolithic slab of dessert from Landmark Diner's should-be-world-famous dessert case -- that'll follow me around until overpowered by next weekend's selection.

The unhealthy triumvirate and other impertinent blurbs

As if the diagnosis of Salmonella and amoebas wasn't overwhelming enough, the results of the four-day cultured stool sample also revealed I'm teeming with semi-drug-resistant E. coli.  On a related note, I'm becoming way too practiced pooping into cups.

The upside of intestinal insanity's dietary restrictions might be pan con miel de abejas.  Proof that the simplest things in life can spread a smile across my scruffy lowerskull, the morning bagful of ciabatta dipped and bathed in gooey golden plastic-jarred goodness never fails to lure me from my alpaca cocoon.

Bearing similarities to Bolivia's altitude-aided thrashing of Argentina in World Cup Qualifying, yesterday Cusco's high-elevation (3,400m) wind humiliated me 4-1 in a hardly competitive one-on-one futbol faceoff.  I'd package all my depleted energies between hyperventilated gasps -- I had walked all four blocks to the court -- into fierce taps, nudging the ball toward the far goal, collapsing into a wheezing heap as breezes would breathe the ball back past me, rolling it to my left or right and down the concrete cancha, over crack-sprouted weed-tufts, at a pace similar to that at which most mother's push their toddlers, while I hacked and coughed dangling, chin-decorating lengths of cottonmouthed phlegm through spittle-flecked lips, spiritually and physically devastated, reduced to an easily overcome obstacle in the wind's triumph.

Medical Mysteries

There's a storm of speculation swirling through my cranium, in that I'm currently playing host to armies of tummy tormentors and it's universally known that exposure to germy kids, as teachers galaxy-wide will attest, is a surefire gateway to sickness.  Especially when the kids are third-world dwellers, and their dirty exploring digits tend to gravitate toward your face, squeezing your cheeks, pulling at the lips you've sealed tight to thwart the introduction of microscopic nastiness (thereby rendering impossible oral denunciations).  It's probable I leave school everyday with billions of crawling bits of promised torture and medical expenses smeared around my mouth, every chapped liplick inviting inside a few hundred million invaders.

That's conventional thinking.  But what if I've actually eaten a Peruvian child, whole.  What if there's a chusqui sucio clambering about my guts.  It's not so farfetched.  You couldn't have possibly eaten a child, you say.  Have you ever seen Peruvian children? I counter.  Every time I tread a pile of dogshit on the street, I fear I've trampled a Peruvian kid.  Almost every time a vendor accosts me near the market, hollering something about finger puppets for un solcito, I scour her palmed and finger-riding wares to verify no terrified children are mixed in with the cloth imitations.  No, you've probably never seen one, not unless you've rested your head on the sidewalk, one eye level with the concrete -- ¿hormiga o amiga? -- or regularly examine surfaces with a magnifying glass.

So maybe there was a niñito mixed in with the bunch of bananas I bought the other afternoon, or maybe one fell into the vat of leche at the school. Maybe, exhausted after a run, hands on my knees and breathing like a vacuum, I accidentally sucked up a pedestrian pequeñito passing between my feet.  I don't wanna abort the bastard, I just want him outta my belly.  So I should just do everything they advise pregnant mothers not to do, right?

Regardless, there was very little real threat...

There's something about booze that makes me, well, fucking stupid.  So here I am a week and some ago, walking home alone from the tragos gratis circuit around Cusco's Plaza de Armas.  It's 2am and I'm walking the deserted stretch back to my hostel, approaching two not-particularly-hoodlum-looking Peruvian youths traipsing my direction afoot.  Really, I'm just thinking about sandwiches.  A juicy thank you hamburger to offer the belly demons I'm happy have quieted themselves for the night, allowing me to drink and grind without anal-clenching.

I'm meandering through daydream, the sizzling grease hopping and dancing upon the pan, a sexy Cusqueña behind the grill ready to flip my burger, her short apron pegged midchest upon cold-activated -- when I'm startled from food porn by a two-handed thrust to the chest.  I stagger back, the alcohol advising me I can easily conquer these two normal-sized Peruvians, which is to say half-sized humans: "¿Cómo?"

"Dános dos soles."

I shrug my shoulders and try to walk through the human roadblock again, again detained by a push.  Well, I can just walk around the block, I think, though while the brain is occupied by thinking, the mouth begins to spout. "Ay, hijueputa, chúpame la verga, huevón."

The feet begin retracing their path down the block, I turn my back to the kids and my elevated blood alcohol content succeeds in raising a middle finger over each shoulder, while my mouth continues to spout obscenities.  The strange intoxication of adrenaline mixed with pleasure, pleasure that my Spanish is sufficiently proficient to fluently insult.

I end up at the corner and the two punks walk by.  We're still jawing at each other, my stares and stabs stalking them up the block.  Someone says something about go back to your country.  I invent something offensive generalization about Peruvians.  The more eager of the two stops and faces me, raising both arms wide and putting palms to heaven.  I do the same and continue practicing Tourette's, never one to let things die when my heart's beating booze.  Everything's a competition with me.

He begins to walk toward me, his friend lingering on the far corner, arms akimbo.  We're face to face, sharing breaths between strings of abuse, unblinking.  Then I'm laughing at him. Then he's slapping me, but gently.  Not enough to trigger my violence.  I don't see the friend approach, not that his presence changes my tune.  But I respond to the screwdriver he reveals tucked into his waistline, raising both hands, palms forward, "Ya no hay problema.  No tengo ningún problema con Uds."

"Andate, huevón."

I walk home quickly, hand jammed into my pocket, fingers caressing cold metal casing, the pen that, until now, has only been considered an implement to scribble notes.

Like they say, traveling teaches you to adapt.

The ugly side of third world travel

When the message materialized on my Facebook wall, "tell me an adventure... i want to live vicariously through you... :)," I figured it was time to demythicize the pure-heaven factor the cubicle-bound suburban-toiler adheres to the quit-your-job-to-continent-hop-until-the-cash-quits-you travel addiction.  Granted, if sanitary standards in the third world approached those of the squeaky clean USA, or if I had any willpower to resist hygienically dubious, corner-vended streetmeats or papas rellenas scooped from a basket and bequeathed via waste-caked, wart-gnarled hands, I'd probably not be approaching a fully-fingered hand's-worth of months of intestinal dystopia.  Or, in the doctor's words, "Where and what have you been eating?"

So, if you wanna live vicariously through me, the only exercise you'll be enjoying is toilet-tag, the sprint between bed and bathroom, an experience where any venture outside of the 100m I can make it in time anal-blast radius is opportunity for your intestinal partnership in discomfort, asshole-dwellers Salmonella and amoebas, to surprise you with a 10-second countdown, leaving you bug-eyed and swivel-headed, which business is getting invaded this time? and, fuck, please tell me I've got some toilet paper in my back pocket!  Then there's the drastically restricted diet, and don't forget that diarrhea drastically reduces your (maybe self-ascribed) sexiness, so careful when you answer the question, ¿Cómo estás?