ima is a dirty, dirty city. Half is good old human waste and city pollution. Littering is a rule, rich and poor toss garbage everywhere. The rich neighborhoods pay people to pick it up for them, the poor are not so lucky. There is a rudimentary garbage collection system, but people toss poorly seal bags everywhere that either open up on their own, ( Read more... )

At the end of each (school) year for quite a long time now, I have strung together the music that kept me alive throughout the year into a CD that expresses my memories. This year is my 11th edition in the series ( Read more... )

The streets are full of dogs, all of who desperately want me to give them a bath and a hug. Most are cute little awkwardly shaped mutts. They generally go about their lives interacting with other dogs, rooting through trash, and ignoring humans altogether. Humans serve only as obstacles when walking or as producers of trash which is then rooted ( Read more... )

I’m deep into my second week of studying Spanish in Cusco. Cusco is a fantastic city, nestled in a hilly region of the Andes. It is cold at night, hot during the day, and dusty as hell. There are few buildings over 4 stories high, so with half a million people calling Cusco home, buildings stretch for miles down the valley and p the mountains sides ( Read more... )

For the first time in life, I have a little belly. This is part because of lack of exercise over the last year, but mostly due to Anjie. She feeds me. Left to my own devices, I tend to eat and eat, and then get too lazy to cook, and loose whatever fat I have gained. But Anjie cooks when my normally lazy cycle kicks in. And feeds me. And cooks for ( Read more... )

It is winter here, and Lima is foggy. Not the low can’t drive fog. More of a high, low visibility, constantly misting sort of fog. Its sweater weather, but nothing beyond that. Actually the days and nights here are more temperate than San Francisco, since there is no wind ( Read more... )

I planned to spend a week doing nice romanticie things with Anjie: long walks, art museums, eating crab. But this was foiled by the worst food poisoning in my life. My tummy puffed up like a marshmallow in the microwave, followed by stomach cramps and gas, gas, gas! But we still managed to have some fun. Mostly I slept, I may lok comfy, but god was ( Read more... )

Classes are officially over for me, which is a relief since. I owe my success to my lucky lighter (going on 12 years!) and my Thinking Hat


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Anjie’s bed is twin. Which is tiny. So tiny that we spend most nights at my place. Today we had to be at school early to catch the field trip bus to Gunpowder Falls, so we had to stay there to catch the bus. All night I slept on my side crammed on a blanket that was stuck between the bed and the wall. Which, I think, is why I had weird ass dreams ( Read more... )

Anjie’s birthday was yesterday. She, like me, spent a lot of time as a child searching for birthday presents. So at about 9pm the night before she got a crazy look in on her face and her eyes began darting around the room. Her presents were hidden directly behind her under a blanket, so I had to find a way to distract her from her search. I told ( Read more... )