The long and short of...

Costa Rica: I came home early. One day I will go back and explore Granada and the San Blas Islands. I promise.
My brother-in-law asked me for my three best-and-worst moments of the trip and I answered terribly. So my revised list:

• Best #1--swimming (as clothed as you'd like to imagine) on our first day. Quepos. Substantial wave action. The sun going down. Me+the ocean and the thrill of swimming fast and far underwater, sort of disappearing there. This. This is why I spent weeks planning and packing and a night on the plane.
• Best #2--Gabriel Garcia Marquez's yellow butterflies. Were everywhere. Everytime I saw one I thrilled a little. I think there's something here I'm saying about finally experiencing Latin America, just a taste of it, and hopefully not in an objectifying way. I guess something about wanting to experience more.
• Best#3--Becoming a man-hater. This isn't what it sounds like, but has more to do with getting in touch with me and God and our relationship. And with knowing how I feel and with expressing how I feel precisely. And getting comfortable with me. And telling off a bully which was delicious. Teasy teasy teaser.
• Worst #1--La Fortuna. Ripped off, bad hostel, no lava. Fail.
• Worst #2--The moment when, after driving with aplomb the entire 2 weeks and me admiring in the "there's no way in hell I could pull this off" sort of way, Jennie told me I needed to take back the rental car. We'd driven all night to the airport (getting lost sort of and taking a wild detour) and I'd waited for an hour while she checked in and I was sleep deprived and panicked and I nearly cried. (Great turn-around, btw--fantastically nice people, not a bad drive, a long morning nap in my gorgeous Quaker-run hostel.)
• Worst #3--I went to this bonfire at a bar in San Elena. I was talking to these Irish school teachers Donald and someone and we were getting along really well (a balm to a sort of 'you don't fit in at the beach'-roughened heart) and the party was good and mellow. I walked Jennie back to our hostel, then went back to the bonfire and it had nightmared out. The adorable Irishmen were so occupied with their discussion of Costa Rican weed that they didn't notice I'd come back, our California friends had left, and the Costa Rican kid who was chatting with me was accosted by local girls who started calling me puta to my face. Grody.

Seattle. Is a run-down sort of place. Great company, bad city. We did cool stuff--running and a great bike ride and delicious food. A day in Portland which was fantastic. A very mellow vacation.

Frank O'Hara: I love you for many things. Teacher Man was lovely and may have changed my life a little. Your reading at AWP was phenomenal. You seem like a great kid. But Angela's Ashes just wasn't that good. A tragedy I know, and I mean that in all respect for the dead. But really?

Love. I may not believe in it. Or maybe my definition is shifting? I read The English Patient and there's all this inexorable passion. I was listening to something, too, a song or This American Life or something about how it feels to fall in love and I kind of think it's bullshit. Love is hard work and calm joy I think. And there's thrill, but is the thrill so different from, like, getting a raise or having a really good party? Extended? And the thrill isn't really love anyway, right? It's just someone like stroking your ego: You think I'm cool and I think you are too? There's more here, but I've been surprising myself with my own pragmatism lately. I don't think this has too much to do with man-hating, btw.

Maybe I'll post sooner than later. :)