blawgz

Instead of writing a "post" exactly, I am just going to copy+paste a letter I wrote to Robin. I didn't change anything and it cusses so for all my fans that have an aversion to such language, please disengage yourself now.

I can’t believe this Melissa Ethridge song. Or I am just assuming it is the good ‘ol ‘ridge because she is strumming a guitar like she wants to die doing it and singing about George Bush. I could be wrong but I’m probably not. I just started writing this while I was trying to write the conclusion to my program application essay. I hate writing conclusions but I like writing to you. It was a mistake for me to try to write it while I am at a bar anyway. I am like “well, let me just repeat everything I already said.” So today I arrived in Puno, it is one of the towns off of Lake Titicaca. This lake is the highest altitude lake in maybe the whole world or something. I can just reach out and touch the clouds, they are so close. When I was little I got altitude sickness super hard and would spend whole vacation spots puking in the hoe tell room (ok that was just once) so I am really excited that I haven’t felt sick at all! It kinda just feels like I have been spray painting down in the basement of punx palace for a really long time. You know, headache, can’t think, ‘bout to spay up walls, etc. My body definitely hasn’t gotten used to the altitude yet. I just paid a cab a dollar to drive me like five blocks up a hill. Fuck me right? I am not really at a bar, I am at the “rooftop bar” at my hostel. I hate hostels like this I don’t even know what this decision was. You know how old rich people stay at big hotels that have like restaurants and bars and they are like “ohhh I just love how we don’t have to leave the hotel, we can just stay in away from all the robbers and dirty third world country folk!” ? Right? You know? Well, tourism has segued into a “hostel backpackers” version of this. Like “Hey backpacking folk! We speak English so you don’t have to learn another language! Also, we have a bar and restaurant and we are still dirt cheap!” It’s like… such a big fuck you to the real hostels in this world. You know? Closet-sized room, twin bed, cockroaches, all these best amenities. So how did I get here? It started hailing so I started hailing and then told the cab to just take me to any stupid hostel. Life. Not just for breakfast anymore.

I was traveling for a little bit with the dude I am dating. Oh I didn’t tell you I was dating a dude? I wouldn’t have felt like I was an American girl in South America without dating a Latin dude, you know? Last gringa left behind and all that business. The point of this paragraph was to say that we traveled a little together and it was way cooler. Hopping trains, bumming around, selling handcrafts to buy food and beer, etc. and so forth and whatever. But now I am traveling again by myself and I have come to this conclusion: I hate traveling alone. I mean, there are some scrappy type reasons that it is nice, kinda like I can tell myself I am being a strong independent woman. But in all seriousness, I just want you here. I want Amanda here. I want to be video-taping an interview of you in front of a fancy restaurant and I want all my pictures to have your face in them instead of just the gorgeous landscape that would be behind you. Ok, I like documentation but ok, I haven’t been much of an artist lately. My inspiration is gone. Well, when we travel together it’ll be a project. It’ll be an experimentation in all that is real, a documentation on the only real thing in the world which is the individual experience, am I right? They really just played My Chemical Romance, Beyonce, and then U2. Robs, shoot me in the temple with your index finger.

Tomorrow I am visiting the floating islands and I am going to stay the night on one of them. These islands float. Get it? And they can move them. Like when they moved them closer to the mainland during the Shining Path era of glory. Watching the changes in my country of heritage has been strange and uncomfortable throughout my life. The way I see Peru now is so different than the younger years of my life. I mean what is really scarier? Tanks in the streets and the Shining Path blowing shit up like they meant it, or thousands of white tourists flocking to the beach and blogging about the “to-die-for” Peruvian cuisine? Please I am not separating myself from the problem. Although my Peruvian duel-citizenship should take care of all my doubts and unease, no? yes? no?

Robin I love you. I doubt I needed to write you this email as my slack-jawed, english-impaired mouth will be regaling you with the very same topics in just a few short weeks. Speaking of diminishing nouns in a way that is realistically impossible, I really like how Peruvians say “eso cuesta un solcito” as if I were to say “that costs a tiny dollar.” It really sounds like a small sol is less than an entire normal sol, you know?

This has gone on for far too long. I love you and I will call you soon.