Ok, so I have no time and there is a lot I want to tell you all. So let's just say the major points are
1. I have an interview in an hour and a half with the board for The Actor's Center in DC. I have been nominated by my amazing friend Ricardo to be on the board which will allow me to be kind of at the heart of a lot of what's happening in the city in terms of theater. I already had one interview and everyone seems pretty sure I'm going to be voted on, but still, I'm excited/nervous about it all.
(then Lisa, Ricardo and I are going to see 2012 which I can tell you will involve the 3 of us being so ridiculous that we might need to be hospitalized for laughing so hard).
2. I sent in a job application to the University of Maryland to be a theater/voice professor. I am moderately/dimly hopeful. Doug knows someone over there and is going to call to ask them to keep an eye out for my application.
3. I met a guy 2 weeks ago. An amazing amazing, gorgeous, made me wonder what might come next kind of a guy. He seemed super into me. Wrote me all these emails (PLURAL!!) after our date about how much he was looking forward to seeing me when he got back from thanksgiving break. And then he never called.
retard.
whatever, it was nice to know I could get excited about a guy (made for a nice distraction from all the moronic missing of Rob that I do).
but it doesn't matter because...
4. FERNANDO is coming to DC tomorrow!!!!!!!
tomorrow!
I'm ... speechless. stunned. Lord only knows what will happen when I see him!?!?!
I just re-read (and posted in the entry before this one) the entire story I wrote about him when I was in Costa Rica. You may read if you are so inclined -- you should at least scroll through and see the photos. The man really is mega-hot!
5. I've been a vegan for 5 weeks now :)
6. I freaking love my friends in DC. I love that even though I don't have work in my field that I have the talent and the training that will allow me to have a fantastic career and that even though I don't have a house that is my own or even an apartment I have a home in this city because it is FULL of people I love and things that are important to me!!!!
ok
wish me luck!
jennifer
Sunday, December 6, 2009
The Fernando Story
(taken from my Costa Rican Journal in June 2008)
Semana #6
Semana #5
Spanish class is getting much better. Actually, it’s exciting really learning about accent marks, imperative tense, which words are masculine and feminine and why, also the subjuntivo tense (both present and imperfecto).
There are 3 new girls in the house (sadly Amy has left us L) from Utah (yes, yes they ARE Mormons, but they’re a lot cooler than I would have thought Mormons could be). Week 5 we went to see What Happens In Vegas on movie night and loved it! There’s something about seeing movies here that makes them seem like such an event. Also, every Wednesday practically the whole school shows up for the half priced ticket deal and it’s like a big party. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned the popcorn but in CR you can either get popcorn (palomitos) like in the States (salty) or you can get it with caramel. Personally, I like them combined, but Tempeste likes the sweet kind so we usually wind up with that.
After coming up with the “snaps” nickname last week, we’ve gotten in the habit of coming up with nicknames for virtually everyone we encounter. It’s like our own language. These are mostly not nicknames we use to people’s faces, only so that we can talk about them (though we have told a few people their nicknames) My favorites so far are “$20 Tattoo”, “Wheelie Steve”, “Plastic Plates”, "Life Cereal", “The Scrapbook”, and “Atomic Bomb” (Atomic Bomb is the absolute worst because it’s for the old Japanese guy in my class who was born in Hiroshima). Also, we like “The Puppy” which is for our friend Cannon. We thought it would be good to have a nickname that was another type of weapon but thought that would be obvious so we call him “The Puppy” because the Spanish word for puppy (cachorro) is also a nickname for a type of gun. Also, he’s adorable in a puppy kind of a way.
Oh the other word we’ve come up with is “fruit” for men we think are attractive (because fruit is luscious and you just want to bite into it, right?)(also, you then get the added bonus of selecting individual fruits for individual guys).
Spanish class is getting much better. Actually, it’s exciting really learning about accent marks, imperative tense, which words are masculine and feminine and why, also the subjuntivo tense (both present and imperfecto).
There are 3 new girls in the house (sadly Amy has left us L) from Utah (yes, yes they ARE Mormons, but they’re a lot cooler than I would have thought Mormons could be). Week 5 we went to see What Happens In Vegas on movie night and loved it! There’s something about seeing movies here that makes them seem like such an event. Also, every Wednesday practically the whole school shows up for the half priced ticket deal and it’s like a big party. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned the popcorn but in CR you can either get popcorn (palomitos) like in the States (salty) or you can get it with caramel. Personally, I like them combined, but Tempeste likes the sweet kind so we usually wind up with that.
After coming up with the “snaps” nickname last week, we’ve gotten in the habit of coming up with nicknames for virtually everyone we encounter. It’s like our own language. These are mostly not nicknames we use to people’s faces, only so that we can talk about them (though we have told a few people their nicknames) My favorites so far are “$20 Tattoo”, “Wheelie Steve”, “Plastic Plates”, "Life Cereal", “The Scrapbook”, and “Atomic Bomb” (Atomic Bomb is the absolute worst because it’s for the old Japanese guy in my class who was born in Hiroshima). Also, we like “The Puppy” which is for our friend Cannon. We thought it would be good to have a nickname that was another type of weapon but thought that would be obvious so we call him “The Puppy” because the Spanish word for puppy (cachorro) is also a nickname for a type of gun. Also, he’s adorable in a puppy kind of a way.
Oh the other word we’ve come up with is “fruit” for men we think are attractive (because fruit is luscious and you just want to bite into it, right?)(also, you then get the added bonus of selecting individual fruits for individual guys).
And our nicknames for one another are Rory because we think we’re the same age as the Gillmore Girls (a show some of you know I actually dislike). Tempeste says that both the mother and the daughter on the show are named Rory (which I think is strange, but, whatever). So, for reasons you don’t actually need to know, she is Rory Unstoppable and I’m Rory Amorie.
The best part of week #5 was the trip to Monteverde.
Holy
Crap!
was that an adventure :)
We got up early on Friday morning and took the bus (Gabby --my host sister--came with me and Tempeste because she was part of a program in Monteverde and she needed to go back and see some of the people she studied with). The ride through the mountains was stunning (and I was lamenting, once again, my lack of a functioning camera). When we got to town we checked into the Pension Santa Elena, signed up for the next canopy tour (*shrill fear*) and went to La Lecheria for cheeseburgers and milkshakes.
Yes, yes it was after school in 1957.
La Lecheria is the cheese factory that the Quakers started 5 decades ago (when they left the US in protest over the draft and came to CR because it had no army) and them Quakers can make some pretty friggin fantastic milkshakes! They just had this big jug in the fridge that they ladled the milk out of. I swear it just went from the cow into the jug into the milkshake! (oh, and PS, “quaker” in Spanish is “quakero”. I’m not kidding).
At 2pm Gabby left to visit friends and Tempeste and I sat on the porch of our hostel and waited for our ride to the canopy tour. For those of you who don’t know, a “Canopy Tour” is when a series of cables are strung in the treetops so that you can tour the area from above. How does one do this? Well, it’s simple. First you put on the world’s most attractive (i.e. incredibly unattractive) harness around your hips and then you take the clip on your harness and attach it to one of the cables then you allow the nice young man who’s holding you in place to let go of you so that you glide to the next platform (some half mile away) a couple of hundred feet over the ground.
You know. Like ya do.
Holy
Crap!
was that an adventure :)
We got up early on Friday morning and took the bus (Gabby --my host sister--came with me and Tempeste because she was part of a program in Monteverde and she needed to go back and see some of the people she studied with). The ride through the mountains was stunning (and I was lamenting, once again, my lack of a functioning camera). When we got to town we checked into the Pension Santa Elena, signed up for the next canopy tour (*shrill fear*) and went to La Lecheria for cheeseburgers and milkshakes.
Yes, yes it was after school in 1957.
La Lecheria is the cheese factory that the Quakers started 5 decades ago (when they left the US in protest over the draft and came to CR because it had no army) and them Quakers can make some pretty friggin fantastic milkshakes! They just had this big jug in the fridge that they ladled the milk out of. I swear it just went from the cow into the jug into the milkshake! (oh, and PS, “quaker” in Spanish is “quakero”. I’m not kidding).
At 2pm Gabby left to visit friends and Tempeste and I sat on the porch of our hostel and waited for our ride to the canopy tour. For those of you who don’t know, a “Canopy Tour” is when a series of cables are strung in the treetops so that you can tour the area from above. How does one do this? Well, it’s simple. First you put on the world’s most attractive (i.e. incredibly unattractive) harness around your hips and then you take the clip on your harness and attach it to one of the cables then you allow the nice young man who’s holding you in place to let go of you so that you glide to the next platform (some half mile away) a couple of hundred feet over the ground.
You know. Like ya do.
As we sat there waiting to be picked up and driven to our doom, this unbelievably good looking guy looked at me and said “would you watch my backpack for a minute?” and I had just enough time to think “if this were an airport that would be alarming” before he added “there’s a bomb in there so don’t try to open it.” And I added ‘funny’ to the list of attributes belonging to the seriously hot guy. His name was Fernando and he was already talking to 2 others girls who were taking the tour with us named Ambreen and Sairah. The five of us chatted on the bus ride about many things – not the least of which was being excited/terrified to fly over the cloud forest from 200’ up. Eventually, though, we started talking about books. Fernando (a grad student from Mexico currently attending UMass Amherst) and I seemed to have very similar tastes in books and when he said he disliked one book for being too simple I suggested he take a look at Umberto Eco’s work. He said “oh, yeah, I’ve read most of his stuff.”
So the hot, funny guy is also really smart.
Damn.
Doesn’t matter. We arrive at the lodge and get trussed up in the ridiculous harness (and equally fetching helmet) and are driven to the spot where the tour actually starts. Though when we got into the van, our new friends were no longer there (they’d been replaced by the most stereotypical boring Americans imaginable – so bland that I can only remember there was more than one of them). I turned to Tempeste and said “where’s the fruit?” She was equally dismayed to find that the “hot factor” had been severely curtailed (just down to the 2 of us) in the van. And a brief discussion ensued on what “fruit” Fernando was. I said something tropical and she said “coconut?” And I said “mora” (the Spanish word for “blackberry”) because there is little better than a cool, ripe, tangy blackberry in the center of your mouth in the heat of summer.
We were all reunited on the platform; where we also met all these jungle-monkey-Ticans who have one of the coolest jobs I’ve ever heard of as they get to fly through the trees all day every day! A bunch of them were chatting me up in Spanish and told me about a place where we could/should all go salsa dancing that night. So I told the group (most importantly the Mora) that we were all going dancing that night. Everyone was excited.
And then, suddenly, I was 50 feet or so off the ground and waiting to go hurtling into the jungle ceiling. The tenor of the group conversation got extremely giddy and a little manic (or maybe it was just me and Ambreen)(everyone else seemed pretty cool with heights). I remember starting to get scared and then just deciding to keep my focus on the level I was standing and to not be afraid.
And then I flew.
It was INCREDIBLE!
After 3 or 4 cables of moderate length and varying speed we hit our first truly long one. I watched Tempeste go before me and she seemed to go on and on and on until all I could see of her was a tiny orange dot (her helmet) which then vanished into the trees a good half mile away. And then the guide released me into this abyss of open flight. It had started raining and I was going so fast that the raindrops were actually slapping my face. I looked down and around and saw the jungle roof far below me and thought “I’m flying now. This is as close to flying as I could probably ever get.” I wasn’t scared – though I thought I should be – I just felt awe and gratitude and happiness.
Fernando videotaped his crossing and then each of our landings. He said he would make a little youtube video of all of us when he got back to the states. [I don't know if you can click on this, but here's the link to my facebook page that has the video link : http://apps.facebook.com/youtubebox/video.asp?ref=boxes-tab&uvid=4418858 ] The 5 of us jounced through the cloud forest from platform to platform; my body definitely getting bruised by the harness; all of us getting SOAKED by the torrential downpour/thunderstorm that had found us; and every last one of us euphoric!
Then came the Tarzan Swing.
And some part of my brain felt compelled to step in with “I’m sorry, what is that?!”
I don’t know how high the tower was, I just know I’d started to realize what I was heading towards about halfway up (the lack of cable stretching off into the “bosque” was a slight clue) and I was suddenly Sidney Carton climbing to the guillotine (“I can’t recall…”). The Tarzan Swing is … pretty much what it sounds like (except you wear more than a loin cloth). It’s like bungee jumping except there’s a swing after the free fall not a bounce.
Sairah went (screaming) then Tempeste (also screaming) and I watched them free-fall 100 feet or so before swinging out into the trees, wondering “am I actually capable of doing this????!!!” And the answer turned out to be: yes.
I let the junglemonkeyboys strap me in (my hands shaking violently and my breathing incredibly shallow). One of them who’d asked me earlier where my boyfriend was and I’d said that I didn’t have a boyfriend chose this moment to ask “so can I be your boyfriend tonight when we go dancing?” and I snapped back at him (in English, god knows why) “you can’t ask me anything like that right now because I’m completely freaking out!”
The other monkeyjunglehelpers were much nicer and kept saying “you’re fine. You’ll be fine.” And I stared our at the leap I was about to take and I reminded myself “enjoy this, Jennifer, you will LOVE it!” and all of the panic in me stilled and I said “estoy lista” and they let me go.
I screamed as I fell but I loved it too. The rope caught me and sent me soaring back up and then I became a bit of a jungle pendulum as I screamed and laughed and cheered for myself (I think I spent the next 4 hours saying “I can’t believe I DID that!”).
So the hot, funny guy is also really smart.
Damn.
Doesn’t matter. We arrive at the lodge and get trussed up in the ridiculous harness (and equally fetching helmet) and are driven to the spot where the tour actually starts. Though when we got into the van, our new friends were no longer there (they’d been replaced by the most stereotypical boring Americans imaginable – so bland that I can only remember there was more than one of them). I turned to Tempeste and said “where’s the fruit?” She was equally dismayed to find that the “hot factor” had been severely curtailed (just down to the 2 of us) in the van. And a brief discussion ensued on what “fruit” Fernando was. I said something tropical and she said “coconut?” And I said “mora” (the Spanish word for “blackberry”) because there is little better than a cool, ripe, tangy blackberry in the center of your mouth in the heat of summer.
We were all reunited on the platform; where we also met all these jungle-monkey-Ticans who have one of the coolest jobs I’ve ever heard of as they get to fly through the trees all day every day! A bunch of them were chatting me up in Spanish and told me about a place where we could/should all go salsa dancing that night. So I told the group (most importantly the Mora) that we were all going dancing that night. Everyone was excited.
And then, suddenly, I was 50 feet or so off the ground and waiting to go hurtling into the jungle ceiling. The tenor of the group conversation got extremely giddy and a little manic (or maybe it was just me and Ambreen)(everyone else seemed pretty cool with heights). I remember starting to get scared and then just deciding to keep my focus on the level I was standing and to not be afraid.
And then I flew.
It was INCREDIBLE!
After 3 or 4 cables of moderate length and varying speed we hit our first truly long one. I watched Tempeste go before me and she seemed to go on and on and on until all I could see of her was a tiny orange dot (her helmet) which then vanished into the trees a good half mile away. And then the guide released me into this abyss of open flight. It had started raining and I was going so fast that the raindrops were actually slapping my face. I looked down and around and saw the jungle roof far below me and thought “I’m flying now. This is as close to flying as I could probably ever get.” I wasn’t scared – though I thought I should be – I just felt awe and gratitude and happiness.
Fernando videotaped his crossing and then each of our landings. He said he would make a little youtube video of all of us when he got back to the states. [I don't know if you can click on this, but here's the link to my facebook page that has the video link : http://apps.facebook.com/youtubebox/video.asp?ref=boxes-tab&uvid=4418858 ] The 5 of us jounced through the cloud forest from platform to platform; my body definitely getting bruised by the harness; all of us getting SOAKED by the torrential downpour/thunderstorm that had found us; and every last one of us euphoric!
Then came the Tarzan Swing.
And some part of my brain felt compelled to step in with “I’m sorry, what is that?!”
I don’t know how high the tower was, I just know I’d started to realize what I was heading towards about halfway up (the lack of cable stretching off into the “bosque” was a slight clue) and I was suddenly Sidney Carton climbing to the guillotine (“I can’t recall…”). The Tarzan Swing is … pretty much what it sounds like (except you wear more than a loin cloth). It’s like bungee jumping except there’s a swing after the free fall not a bounce.
Sairah went (screaming) then Tempeste (also screaming) and I watched them free-fall 100 feet or so before swinging out into the trees, wondering “am I actually capable of doing this????!!!” And the answer turned out to be: yes.
I let the junglemonkeyboys strap me in (my hands shaking violently and my breathing incredibly shallow). One of them who’d asked me earlier where my boyfriend was and I’d said that I didn’t have a boyfriend chose this moment to ask “so can I be your boyfriend tonight when we go dancing?” and I snapped back at him (in English, god knows why) “you can’t ask me anything like that right now because I’m completely freaking out!”
The other monkeyjunglehelpers were much nicer and kept saying “you’re fine. You’ll be fine.” And I stared our at the leap I was about to take and I reminded myself “enjoy this, Jennifer, you will LOVE it!” and all of the panic in me stilled and I said “estoy lista” and they let me go.
I screamed as I fell but I loved it too. The rope caught me and sent me soaring back up and then I became a bit of a jungle pendulum as I screamed and laughed and cheered for myself (I think I spent the next 4 hours saying “I can’t believe I DID that!”).
There were a few more cables – including a really long one that I sailed across singing Jason Mraz lyrics “la la la la la la la life is wonderful…” as the rain and lightening poured down – and then we were done with the 3km of cables and back at the base posing for photos soaking wet and cemented as best friends for the weekend because we’d been through that together. Which was fine with me because I was finding it hard to keep from staring at Fernando (who Tempeste and I agreed was no Friend of Alejandro)(who was the guy in Puerto Viejo who fixed our bike).
Back at the hostel I took a very long, glorious hot shower in one of those truly sketchy Central American showers that smell like burning plastic and you’re half convinced will electrocute you at any second. Then we spent some time playing ThermoNuclearHolocaust (a card game some people refer to as Egyptian Rat Screw). I was pleased to find that Ambreen proved a decent adversary (everyone else was destroyed pretty summarily) though she conceded the game to me out of hunger (it can go on).
Fernando and I wound up sitting next to each other at dinner and the more I talked to him the more I wanted to end up in his bed by the end of the night (though I know I’d already been thinking seriously along those lines because I’d risked electrocution by shaving my legs in the shower). I know we talked about massages (and promised to give each other them back at the hostel) but the burning moment for me was when I started talking about my thyroid (sexy, right!) and having lost a lot of weight recently but still wanting to loose more. And I was mentally kicking myself for talking to a guy about weight and generally feeling stupid when I realized he had this rather innocent, puzzled look on his face. He then said “I think you have a beautiful body.”
And I blushed.
Seriously. I blushed. And stammered “thanks. That’s actually very nice to hear.” Or something along those lines.
This guy! Everything about him felt so calm (like molasses) and measured and easy and adult (oh well, that opinion would be revised before long)(says the girl 3 weeks in the future). I imagined kissing him would just start so slow with our mouths near enough to breath the same air but nothing rushed about the first kiss; taking time to brush softly, to test, to ease into the contact.
And the crazy, lovely miracle is that is exactly what our first kiss (hours later) was like.
We went to a bar built around a full grown tree to hear some musician that Gabby likes and then to the dance club where Fernando and I danced for HOURS. Song after song, alternating between being fantastically playful and fantastically sexy (I wasn’t sure until he took my hands, but the minute we were dancing I knew where the night was headed). It’s funny because he dances like a gringo (since he never learned when he lived in Mexico), but he moves like he’s Latino. I did dance one dance with one of the canopy boys and he danced one dance with someone he’d talked to on the bus that afternoon, but otherwise we were just out there for a good 2 and a half hours (me barefoot because it turns out it’s really hard to salsa in flip flops).
When the music had solidly switched from salsa to “club” we decided to head home. He and I were standing outside waiting for Gabby (and for our hearing to return) when he said something that I heard as “my shoulder is killing me” so I offered to give him that massage when we got back to the hostel. He corrected what I’d misheard but said he’d take a massage anyway. Back at the hostel (and in non-dance clothes) I thought we’d go to the lobby but that’s locked after 11 at night so he took me into his room. He was staying in one of the dorm rooms (with maybe 6 other people) but none of them were back from the club yet.
He lay me down on the bed and started giving me a massage. I can remember the near-dark, I can remember his hands on my body and the press of him as he eventually lay half beside me and half on me; he would hold me so close and kiss my neck etc. At some point he turned me over and took his time bringing his soft mouth to mine.
He didn’t taste like cinnamon but if cinnamon was a person, Fernando is what it would feel like.
So so slow.
I don’t know why more people don’t understand the luxury of time.
But even with his slow exploration of my mouth, his hands were fast finding their way to a terminal degree. So I sat him up and started giving him a massage. However. Feeling the skin of his neck on my hands made it imperative to taste it myself. And we were quickly back on the edge of something I wasn’t prepared for. So I said “tell me about where you’re from in Mexico.”
And once we started talking things… shifted. It was no longer a hot guy I was wondering how far I was comfortable going into the territory of sex – it turned into something… playful and almost safe in terms of sharing thoughts. And somehow this openness and relaxed joy opened in me an enormous desire. And the desire never named itself as anything concrete (like: fuck me now)(that night, anyway) it was just a generic happy longing to be connected. And because it was so generic I was completely content to lie in his arms and talk or be kissing (or more).
Did I mention he has the most glorious voice? Usually, I’m not crazy about listening to Spanish speakers speaking English – it can downright creep me out to hear someone say “bayybee” with that accent. But Fernando has this beautiful tone to his voice. I could (in fact did) listen to him for hours on end.
It was surprising, actually, to feel such a pronounced desire. It was also surprising when one of his roommates came home while we were in the middle of one of the evening’s more NC17 rated moments. We rearranged ourselves as the keys loudly turned in the lock and I just tried to disappear in his arms while the roommate got into bed (fortunately not turning on the lights). As soon as Gil (the roommate) was still in bed, Fernando started trying to touch me again (in non-public places) and I furiously mouthed “no! there is someone in the room!!!” and we were both cracking up so he pulled me into one of his disappearing hugs and I whispered “it’s like we’re in high school.”
I have to say, we laughed and smiled a lot. In fact, he started laughing at me at some point in the night and explained by saying it was just wonderful to see me smiling – that I’d been smiling all night as we danced and now I was smiling again.
What can I say? Hot, brilliant, funny, kind, sexy, affectionate Mexicans make me smile.
We slept for awhile (and when I wasn’t close enough, he would pull my arms or legs so that I was mostly lying on top of him)(lord knows someone has to be pretty affectionate to be more affectionate than me!) and I crept back to my room shortly before dawn (world’s shortest walk of shame as my bedroom was next to his).
In the morning I woke up to him making pancakes for the whole group of us.
:)
When I went back to my room to tell Tempeste and Gabby that he was cooking for us Gabby practically shouted "You have to marry this guy, Jennifer!"
The thing was… *sigh* here’s where it starts to get a little weird. He’d said something the night before about not wanting us being together to disrupt the way the whole group was hanging out. Lord only knows what he actually meant but I interpreted it as “let’s keep this under wraps” so I was acting like nothing happened as he handed me my pancakes (and my stomach was doing flip flops).
And, to make things even weirder, Gabby had made this odd plan to switch hotels so I pulled Fernando aside and (I blame this on the Tarzan Swing as I was suddenly in a mood to do things I’d never done before) asked him if he wanted to get a room for the two of us that night.
Can’t believe myself sometimes.
I know there are others out there who are really comfortable sleeping with men casually (some of you are my heroes because of this) but I’d never actually had sex with someone I didn’t have a long term relationship with (let alone proposition someone directly who I barely knew).
So you can imagine my surprise when he didn’t really answer me.
What he said (as he traced the skin on my arm) was “that’s very tempting…” and I waited for awhile before saying “so… yes? No?” and he said “I’ll tell you later.”
*blink*
What?!
That was certainly a cold shower in a hurry. We packed up our stuff, moved to the new “hotel” (Shady Personas Inc.) and on the way back we stopped at the grocery store and bought lunch makings for everyone. And by the time I was sitting next to him on the cab ride to the park entrance I had passed through “indignant” onto “nevermind!”
I had read about the San Luis Waterfall in my Costa Rica book and we decided to go there rather than the Reserve Monte Verde. It was about an hours hike – inexplicably both up and downhill the whole way – each way but the falls were incredible! It was as if they were happening in levels. At first glance you see a truly lovely cascade of about 50 meters or so and you think “how nice. That was absolutely worth the walk.” But as you get closer, you realize that there is a cut in the mountain and behind it you can see another series of waterfalls above what you thought was the whole thing and it just went back and up and back and up. Looking at it was like seeing geology in action; like seeing 10,000 years in a single glance.
Increible.
On the hike back there was a minute when Fernando and I were alone and he got all affectionate with me which just confused me. But for some reason it never occurred to me to ask him what the mixed messages were all about.
On the walk back to the other side of the river (where the taxi was picking us up) it started to pour. Again. It seems we were not destined to be particularly dry or warm the whole time we were in Monteverde. But it felt magical to be walking along in the tropics, soaking wet in the cool rain; I was perfectly warm and loving the way the whole sky had turned into a waterfall. It wasn’t until after we got back to town that I started feeling FREEZING.
That afternoon I took a really long nap under several blankets trying to sleep away the chill (and sleep off the night before that had not offered a whole lotta rest). And that night we went back to our old hotel to hang out with the gang and drink hot chocolate (we were some party animals, let me tell you!).
Actually, it was pretty funny as we wound up playing pretty much the lame-est “Never Have I Ever” in the history of the world (sort of hard to do without alcohol to begin with, but when you throw a 19 year old and 2 Muslims into the mix you really wind up with a fairly tame set of answers). I did like the moment when someone asked “never have I ever cheated.” And after raising my hand in culpability, I threw out the explanation “I was kind of a crap girlfriend when I was younger.” And he said “define younger.” I said “in my 20s” and he jokingly followed up with “how about early 30s?”and I looked him dead in the eye and said “no, by my early 30s I knew how to be in an adult relationship.”
Well, I thought it was funny.
Then came the goodbyes.
I was hardly going to pull him aside and say “so…{*blink blink*} what’dja decide?” I just put my boots on and headed for the door. There was this odd moment, though, when he was saying goodbye to me and brushing my hair out of my face. Then he gave me this full body hug (that apparently had the rest of the group looking at each other mouthing “what’s going on here?”) with one of those sounds he makes (seriously, every time the man touched me he made a sound like he’d just taken a bite of the greatest food imaginable)(which, I have to admit, didn’t suck). I stepped away, curious to see if he was going to hug everyone else like that (he didn’t; all the other hugs were downright chaste) and stepped out into the night. Only to have Tempeste ask “What the hell was that!?” And I could only respond “I have no idea.” And go home to lie awake in bed thinking how my time could have been put to so much better a use!
Sunday morning was a day I had been waiting for for years! I can’t even remember when I first heard about the Quaker community in Monteverde I just know that I’d been wanting to go to services there for a long, long time and I almost cried when I walked into the meetinghouse for the first time. Fernando and one of his roommates , Gill (the one who'd come home early the other night), both came to the morning service as well (though none of our other friends). We got there early and I climbed all over the play structures in the back, thinking how much it felt like I was in Vermont at Farm and Wilderness (well, except for the sound of howler monkeys).
About 30 minutes before the service started, there was a singing circle in the meeting house. Fernando heard it first and when I realized what it was I made a dash to get there before it was over (picture me running into the meetinghouse singing “TIS A GIFT TO BE SIMPLE TIS A GIFT TO BE FREE…” at the top of my lungs, complete with moronic smile on my face). It was wonderful. The one thing I’ve never liked about meeting is how there’s no singing (I know, I know, kind of the point to sit in silence) so it was just delightful for me (the girl who’s been living without a piano for 8 weeks) to be able to sing and sing and sing. Especially these songs (almost all of which I sang at some point at F&W). At one point a parent suggested we sing “Rise and Shine” for the kids present; and within minutes we were all on our feet clapping and acting out the songs (I have to admit, I was a little relieved to see Fernando and Gill both rising and shining and giving god their glory glory with big smiles on their faces as well)(it doesn’t pay to be too cool for school in a Quaker church).
During the service I actually had a lot of profound reflections (to me, anyway)(and was only briefly distracted by the world’s hottest Mexican)… All those hippy Quakers made me feel like I was back in Maple Corner (where my parents live) which surprisingly brought on the most engulfing, profound sense of missing my mom. I actually started to cry it was so overwhelming! I kept thinking “I miss my mom. I miss my mom!” And I realized I’ve never gone this long without hearing her voice. But the best part of this feeling of absence was that it didn’t make me sad. I felt so happy to have a mother that I love so much that I hate to have her apart from my life.
And while we’re on the subject of gratitude… I had settled down into the service fully planning to talk to God/reflect on how long I’ve been angry and try to untangle some of this exboyfriend baggage. Except, even as my brain started to form these thoughts, I interrupted myself and started to think: I am so grateful! I am so grateful that I can feel anything other than hurt and anger. After the life I’ve had I thank god that I can laugh and feel wonder and love! (Rory Amorie, after all)
I started thinking about how much my life seems to be about love. The friendships I have, the work I create. I LOVE being alive; exploring the earth; learning; playing; dancing; singing; hugging; talking; laughing; trying. I love making other people feel. Through gifts, through food, through affection, through difficult observations; through sympathy. All I want is to fill people and myself with love.
My whole life is about love.
And it was then my thoughts turned to Rob and Jaime. And it occurred to me that the thing the 2 of them have in common (aside from impressive brain pans) is that they both desperately want their lives to be about love. This is the thing that pulled them to me and ultimately what made them leave. They don’t know how to love like that and just being near me wasn’t enough to change them.
After the service Fernando and I were talking to some of the parishioners (in Spanish) and one of them asked Fernando why he’s living in the States. I can’t remember how he answered but he left out the grad school part so I said "el esta estudiando para su maestria" (he's studying for his masters). At this point, Fernando leaned over to me and said quietly, in English, “actually I’m getting my PhD.” And… I don’t know… perhaps 10 or 15 seconds passed before I rejoined my feet there on the hillside.
REALLY!
Your fucking PhD!?
Jesus, just shoot me now.
I’m not sure at what point I started remembering Jaime but it was definitely amusing to line Fernando and Jaime up in my head.
Puts it all in a bit of perspective, I suppose :)
Back on the road, Fernando and I had decided to walk the 3km back to town (thank God, Gill opted for the bus or the day would have been very different). I asked Fernando a question about his son (oh yeah, he’s divorced and has a 5 year old son named Lucas back in Mexico) and that led to us talking about his ex wife. I asked him why they divorced and he said “it’s a long story” then told it to me (basically, she blindsided him one day with the information that she just wanted to be friends and had never actually loved him, she just wanted a child). There was something about the way he spoke. I felt such a kindred affinity for the sudden shock of betrayal and so relaxed with his honesty that something in my clicked and thought “stop thinking about this man as someone you want to be physical with and just talk to him like a friend.”
So I started to talk about Rob and Jaime. With ease. The way I would talk to Tempeste. We stopped for milkshakes and flirted a little more on the dirt road (when I mentioned that Rob had recently said he wanted to talk about a future when I get back from CR but we weren’t together now I said “so if I happen to hook up with some hot Mexican, I’m not breaking any rules” and he laughed). And I finished with something about how angry I’ve been since Jaime left and how it just doesn’t feel like me.
And then, the conversation turned a corner.
Fernando asked “were you angry a lot yesterday?” and I asked why and he said “because I told you I’d give you and answer and I never did.” And I felt such calm (!) I said “I wasn’t angry so much as I was confused.” And then we talked about what had happened. He told me that he was really attracted to me but that he was finding in his 30s he couldn’t just have sex and walk away. He said he didn’t want just one night with me and then have me forget about him (irrelevant, but he also spoke of me as a dancer and compared me to water)(which didn’t hurt, let me tell you).
I told him “not that it matters in the slightest…” but that I’d never in my life propositioned anyone. That I’ve actually had very few lovers. That I hadn’t wanted to have sex with him until I’d lain in his arms and talked with him. That my desire for him was much more firmly rooted in what I thought of him as a person than what I thought of his face/body (though that opinion is – I admit – quite elevated).
And suddenly we were holding hands.
And suddenly we were kissing.
And the walk is hard to describe after that because it’s like a dream. I know I told him what I’d been thinking during church. I know we stood by the side of the road looking at this unbelievable view and then he’d kissed me – not stopping when giant trucks rumbled by just inches away from us. I know we talked about theater and friends and religion. I know we’d left the church at 12 and we arrived at his hostel at 1. We had talked and kissed and laughed and held hands (for the next 2 hours his hands never left my body). And everything had changed (don’t worry, my feet are back on the ground now, it’s all changed back. But that was one of the great days of my life and it really felt important while I was in the middle of it).
When we stood in front of the hostel we had about 90 minutes before I needed to be on a bus back to San Jose. He asked me if I wanted to get back to my hotel and I asked him if he thought there was anyone else in his room right now, and then felt unbelievably foolish after saying those words. But he grabbed my hand and pulled me through the hostel and laughingly pulled me down on his bed and filled me with kisses.
Kisses kisses kisses.
He asked me to stay and take the morning bus and I stupidly didn’t process the question until I felt like it was too late to ask if he actually meant it or if he was just caught up in the moment when he said it.
I did have the presence of mind to tell him we needed to see each other that Friday when we were both going to be in San Jose. And when he told me he hadn’t woken up when I’d left the other morning (we spoke when I left, but it was in Spanish so maybe he never left his dreams) I told him we needed to get a room. That it didn’t matter if we had sex or not, we needed to sleep in each others’ arms.
I tried several times to get out of that bed but didn’t make it far. He kept saying “I don’t know how you are finding the willpower to get up.” But it was only because I knew Gabby and Tempeste were waiting for me. Besides, he’s the one who threw away Saturday, so he shouldn’t be talking about will power!
He walked me back to the other hotel. Hand on my back. Hand on my neck. Always touching me. We talked and laughed. I can only remember snippets. It’s like remembering sunshine. Gabby and Tempeste got milkshakes again for lunch but I wasn’t hungry. He and I sat outside on a bench and I read to him from a book that’s been bewitching me (13 Moons by Charles Frazier). My legs draped over his. His hands playing with my hair.
And then the bus was there and I kissed him goodbye and sat down.
And completely ignored Tempeste yelling at me to GET OFF THE BUS RIGHT NOW!
I should have. Lord only knows what would have happened then. But I didn’t.
Back at the hostel I took a very long, glorious hot shower in one of those truly sketchy Central American showers that smell like burning plastic and you’re half convinced will electrocute you at any second. Then we spent some time playing ThermoNuclearHolocaust (a card game some people refer to as Egyptian Rat Screw). I was pleased to find that Ambreen proved a decent adversary (everyone else was destroyed pretty summarily) though she conceded the game to me out of hunger (it can go on).
Fernando and I wound up sitting next to each other at dinner and the more I talked to him the more I wanted to end up in his bed by the end of the night (though I know I’d already been thinking seriously along those lines because I’d risked electrocution by shaving my legs in the shower). I know we talked about massages (and promised to give each other them back at the hostel) but the burning moment for me was when I started talking about my thyroid (sexy, right!) and having lost a lot of weight recently but still wanting to loose more. And I was mentally kicking myself for talking to a guy about weight and generally feeling stupid when I realized he had this rather innocent, puzzled look on his face. He then said “I think you have a beautiful body.”
And I blushed.
Seriously. I blushed. And stammered “thanks. That’s actually very nice to hear.” Or something along those lines.
This guy! Everything about him felt so calm (like molasses) and measured and easy and adult (oh well, that opinion would be revised before long)(says the girl 3 weeks in the future). I imagined kissing him would just start so slow with our mouths near enough to breath the same air but nothing rushed about the first kiss; taking time to brush softly, to test, to ease into the contact.
And the crazy, lovely miracle is that is exactly what our first kiss (hours later) was like.
We went to a bar built around a full grown tree to hear some musician that Gabby likes and then to the dance club where Fernando and I danced for HOURS. Song after song, alternating between being fantastically playful and fantastically sexy (I wasn’t sure until he took my hands, but the minute we were dancing I knew where the night was headed). It’s funny because he dances like a gringo (since he never learned when he lived in Mexico), but he moves like he’s Latino. I did dance one dance with one of the canopy boys and he danced one dance with someone he’d talked to on the bus that afternoon, but otherwise we were just out there for a good 2 and a half hours (me barefoot because it turns out it’s really hard to salsa in flip flops).
When the music had solidly switched from salsa to “club” we decided to head home. He and I were standing outside waiting for Gabby (and for our hearing to return) when he said something that I heard as “my shoulder is killing me” so I offered to give him that massage when we got back to the hostel. He corrected what I’d misheard but said he’d take a massage anyway. Back at the hostel (and in non-dance clothes) I thought we’d go to the lobby but that’s locked after 11 at night so he took me into his room. He was staying in one of the dorm rooms (with maybe 6 other people) but none of them were back from the club yet.
He lay me down on the bed and started giving me a massage. I can remember the near-dark, I can remember his hands on my body and the press of him as he eventually lay half beside me and half on me; he would hold me so close and kiss my neck etc. At some point he turned me over and took his time bringing his soft mouth to mine.
He didn’t taste like cinnamon but if cinnamon was a person, Fernando is what it would feel like.
So so slow.
I don’t know why more people don’t understand the luxury of time.
But even with his slow exploration of my mouth, his hands were fast finding their way to a terminal degree. So I sat him up and started giving him a massage. However. Feeling the skin of his neck on my hands made it imperative to taste it myself. And we were quickly back on the edge of something I wasn’t prepared for. So I said “tell me about where you’re from in Mexico.”
And once we started talking things… shifted. It was no longer a hot guy I was wondering how far I was comfortable going into the territory of sex – it turned into something… playful and almost safe in terms of sharing thoughts. And somehow this openness and relaxed joy opened in me an enormous desire. And the desire never named itself as anything concrete (like: fuck me now)(that night, anyway) it was just a generic happy longing to be connected. And because it was so generic I was completely content to lie in his arms and talk or be kissing (or more).
Did I mention he has the most glorious voice? Usually, I’m not crazy about listening to Spanish speakers speaking English – it can downright creep me out to hear someone say “bayybee” with that accent. But Fernando has this beautiful tone to his voice. I could (in fact did) listen to him for hours on end.
It was surprising, actually, to feel such a pronounced desire. It was also surprising when one of his roommates came home while we were in the middle of one of the evening’s more NC17 rated moments. We rearranged ourselves as the keys loudly turned in the lock and I just tried to disappear in his arms while the roommate got into bed (fortunately not turning on the lights). As soon as Gil (the roommate) was still in bed, Fernando started trying to touch me again (in non-public places) and I furiously mouthed “no! there is someone in the room!!!” and we were both cracking up so he pulled me into one of his disappearing hugs and I whispered “it’s like we’re in high school.”
I have to say, we laughed and smiled a lot. In fact, he started laughing at me at some point in the night and explained by saying it was just wonderful to see me smiling – that I’d been smiling all night as we danced and now I was smiling again.
What can I say? Hot, brilliant, funny, kind, sexy, affectionate Mexicans make me smile.
We slept for awhile (and when I wasn’t close enough, he would pull my arms or legs so that I was mostly lying on top of him)(lord knows someone has to be pretty affectionate to be more affectionate than me!) and I crept back to my room shortly before dawn (world’s shortest walk of shame as my bedroom was next to his).
In the morning I woke up to him making pancakes for the whole group of us.
:)
When I went back to my room to tell Tempeste and Gabby that he was cooking for us Gabby practically shouted "You have to marry this guy, Jennifer!"
The thing was… *sigh* here’s where it starts to get a little weird. He’d said something the night before about not wanting us being together to disrupt the way the whole group was hanging out. Lord only knows what he actually meant but I interpreted it as “let’s keep this under wraps” so I was acting like nothing happened as he handed me my pancakes (and my stomach was doing flip flops).
And, to make things even weirder, Gabby had made this odd plan to switch hotels so I pulled Fernando aside and (I blame this on the Tarzan Swing as I was suddenly in a mood to do things I’d never done before) asked him if he wanted to get a room for the two of us that night.
Can’t believe myself sometimes.
I know there are others out there who are really comfortable sleeping with men casually (some of you are my heroes because of this) but I’d never actually had sex with someone I didn’t have a long term relationship with (let alone proposition someone directly who I barely knew).
So you can imagine my surprise when he didn’t really answer me.
What he said (as he traced the skin on my arm) was “that’s very tempting…” and I waited for awhile before saying “so… yes? No?” and he said “I’ll tell you later.”
*blink*
What?!
That was certainly a cold shower in a hurry. We packed up our stuff, moved to the new “hotel” (Shady Personas Inc.) and on the way back we stopped at the grocery store and bought lunch makings for everyone. And by the time I was sitting next to him on the cab ride to the park entrance I had passed through “indignant” onto “nevermind!”
I had read about the San Luis Waterfall in my Costa Rica book and we decided to go there rather than the Reserve Monte Verde. It was about an hours hike – inexplicably both up and downhill the whole way – each way but the falls were incredible! It was as if they were happening in levels. At first glance you see a truly lovely cascade of about 50 meters or so and you think “how nice. That was absolutely worth the walk.” But as you get closer, you realize that there is a cut in the mountain and behind it you can see another series of waterfalls above what you thought was the whole thing and it just went back and up and back and up. Looking at it was like seeing geology in action; like seeing 10,000 years in a single glance.Increible.
On the hike back there was a minute when Fernando and I were alone and he got all affectionate with me which just confused me. But for some reason it never occurred to me to ask him what the mixed messages were all about.
On the walk back to the other side of the river (where the taxi was picking us up) it started to pour. Again. It seems we were not destined to be particularly dry or warm the whole time we were in Monteverde. But it felt magical to be walking along in the tropics, soaking wet in the cool rain; I was perfectly warm and loving the way the whole sky had turned into a waterfall. It wasn’t until after we got back to town that I started feeling FREEZING.
That afternoon I took a really long nap under several blankets trying to sleep away the chill (and sleep off the night before that had not offered a whole lotta rest). And that night we went back to our old hotel to hang out with the gang and drink hot chocolate (we were some party animals, let me tell you!).Actually, it was pretty funny as we wound up playing pretty much the lame-est “Never Have I Ever” in the history of the world (sort of hard to do without alcohol to begin with, but when you throw a 19 year old and 2 Muslims into the mix you really wind up with a fairly tame set of answers). I did like the moment when someone asked “never have I ever cheated.” And after raising my hand in culpability, I threw out the explanation “I was kind of a crap girlfriend when I was younger.” And he said “define younger.” I said “in my 20s” and he jokingly followed up with “how about early 30s?”and I looked him dead in the eye and said “no, by my early 30s I knew how to be in an adult relationship.”
Well, I thought it was funny.
Then came the goodbyes.
I was hardly going to pull him aside and say “so…{*blink blink*} what’dja decide?” I just put my boots on and headed for the door. There was this odd moment, though, when he was saying goodbye to me and brushing my hair out of my face. Then he gave me this full body hug (that apparently had the rest of the group looking at each other mouthing “what’s going on here?”) with one of those sounds he makes (seriously, every time the man touched me he made a sound like he’d just taken a bite of the greatest food imaginable)(which, I have to admit, didn’t suck). I stepped away, curious to see if he was going to hug everyone else like that (he didn’t; all the other hugs were downright chaste) and stepped out into the night. Only to have Tempeste ask “What the hell was that!?” And I could only respond “I have no idea.” And go home to lie awake in bed thinking how my time could have been put to so much better a use!
Sunday morning was a day I had been waiting for for years! I can’t even remember when I first heard about the Quaker community in Monteverde I just know that I’d been wanting to go to services there for a long, long time and I almost cried when I walked into the meetinghouse for the first time. Fernando and one of his roommates , Gill (the one who'd come home early the other night), both came to the morning service as well (though none of our other friends). We got there early and I climbed all over the play structures in the back, thinking how much it felt like I was in Vermont at Farm and Wilderness (well, except for the sound of howler monkeys).
About 30 minutes before the service started, there was a singing circle in the meeting house. Fernando heard it first and when I realized what it was I made a dash to get there before it was over (picture me running into the meetinghouse singing “TIS A GIFT TO BE SIMPLE TIS A GIFT TO BE FREE…” at the top of my lungs, complete with moronic smile on my face). It was wonderful. The one thing I’ve never liked about meeting is how there’s no singing (I know, I know, kind of the point to sit in silence) so it was just delightful for me (the girl who’s been living without a piano for 8 weeks) to be able to sing and sing and sing. Especially these songs (almost all of which I sang at some point at F&W). At one point a parent suggested we sing “Rise and Shine” for the kids present; and within minutes we were all on our feet clapping and acting out the songs (I have to admit, I was a little relieved to see Fernando and Gill both rising and shining and giving god their glory glory with big smiles on their faces as well)(it doesn’t pay to be too cool for school in a Quaker church).
During the service I actually had a lot of profound reflections (to me, anyway)(and was only briefly distracted by the world’s hottest Mexican)… All those hippy Quakers made me feel like I was back in Maple Corner (where my parents live) which surprisingly brought on the most engulfing, profound sense of missing my mom. I actually started to cry it was so overwhelming! I kept thinking “I miss my mom. I miss my mom!” And I realized I’ve never gone this long without hearing her voice. But the best part of this feeling of absence was that it didn’t make me sad. I felt so happy to have a mother that I love so much that I hate to have her apart from my life.
And while we’re on the subject of gratitude… I had settled down into the service fully planning to talk to God/reflect on how long I’ve been angry and try to untangle some of this exboyfriend baggage. Except, even as my brain started to form these thoughts, I interrupted myself and started to think: I am so grateful! I am so grateful that I can feel anything other than hurt and anger. After the life I’ve had I thank god that I can laugh and feel wonder and love! (Rory Amorie, after all)
I started thinking about how much my life seems to be about love. The friendships I have, the work I create. I LOVE being alive; exploring the earth; learning; playing; dancing; singing; hugging; talking; laughing; trying. I love making other people feel. Through gifts, through food, through affection, through difficult observations; through sympathy. All I want is to fill people and myself with love.
My whole life is about love.
And it was then my thoughts turned to Rob and Jaime. And it occurred to me that the thing the 2 of them have in common (aside from impressive brain pans) is that they both desperately want their lives to be about love. This is the thing that pulled them to me and ultimately what made them leave. They don’t know how to love like that and just being near me wasn’t enough to change them.
After the service Fernando and I were talking to some of the parishioners (in Spanish) and one of them asked Fernando why he’s living in the States. I can’t remember how he answered but he left out the grad school part so I said "el esta estudiando para su maestria" (he's studying for his masters). At this point, Fernando leaned over to me and said quietly, in English, “actually I’m getting my PhD.” And… I don’t know… perhaps 10 or 15 seconds passed before I rejoined my feet there on the hillside.
REALLY!
Your fucking PhD!?
Jesus, just shoot me now.
I’m not sure at what point I started remembering Jaime but it was definitely amusing to line Fernando and Jaime up in my head.
Puts it all in a bit of perspective, I suppose :)
Back on the road, Fernando and I had decided to walk the 3km back to town (thank God, Gill opted for the bus or the day would have been very different). I asked Fernando a question about his son (oh yeah, he’s divorced and has a 5 year old son named Lucas back in Mexico) and that led to us talking about his ex wife. I asked him why they divorced and he said “it’s a long story” then told it to me (basically, she blindsided him one day with the information that she just wanted to be friends and had never actually loved him, she just wanted a child). There was something about the way he spoke. I felt such a kindred affinity for the sudden shock of betrayal and so relaxed with his honesty that something in my clicked and thought “stop thinking about this man as someone you want to be physical with and just talk to him like a friend.”
So I started to talk about Rob and Jaime. With ease. The way I would talk to Tempeste. We stopped for milkshakes and flirted a little more on the dirt road (when I mentioned that Rob had recently said he wanted to talk about a future when I get back from CR but we weren’t together now I said “so if I happen to hook up with some hot Mexican, I’m not breaking any rules” and he laughed). And I finished with something about how angry I’ve been since Jaime left and how it just doesn’t feel like me.
And then, the conversation turned a corner.
Fernando asked “were you angry a lot yesterday?” and I asked why and he said “because I told you I’d give you and answer and I never did.” And I felt such calm (!) I said “I wasn’t angry so much as I was confused.” And then we talked about what had happened. He told me that he was really attracted to me but that he was finding in his 30s he couldn’t just have sex and walk away. He said he didn’t want just one night with me and then have me forget about him (irrelevant, but he also spoke of me as a dancer and compared me to water)(which didn’t hurt, let me tell you).
I told him “not that it matters in the slightest…” but that I’d never in my life propositioned anyone. That I’ve actually had very few lovers. That I hadn’t wanted to have sex with him until I’d lain in his arms and talked with him. That my desire for him was much more firmly rooted in what I thought of him as a person than what I thought of his face/body (though that opinion is – I admit – quite elevated).
And suddenly we were holding hands.
And suddenly we were kissing.
And the walk is hard to describe after that because it’s like a dream. I know I told him what I’d been thinking during church. I know we stood by the side of the road looking at this unbelievable view and then he’d kissed me – not stopping when giant trucks rumbled by just inches away from us. I know we talked about theater and friends and religion. I know we’d left the church at 12 and we arrived at his hostel at 1. We had talked and kissed and laughed and held hands (for the next 2 hours his hands never left my body). And everything had changed (don’t worry, my feet are back on the ground now, it’s all changed back. But that was one of the great days of my life and it really felt important while I was in the middle of it).
When we stood in front of the hostel we had about 90 minutes before I needed to be on a bus back to San Jose. He asked me if I wanted to get back to my hotel and I asked him if he thought there was anyone else in his room right now, and then felt unbelievably foolish after saying those words. But he grabbed my hand and pulled me through the hostel and laughingly pulled me down on his bed and filled me with kisses.
Kisses kisses kisses.
He asked me to stay and take the morning bus and I stupidly didn’t process the question until I felt like it was too late to ask if he actually meant it or if he was just caught up in the moment when he said it.
I did have the presence of mind to tell him we needed to see each other that Friday when we were both going to be in San Jose. And when he told me he hadn’t woken up when I’d left the other morning (we spoke when I left, but it was in Spanish so maybe he never left his dreams) I told him we needed to get a room. That it didn’t matter if we had sex or not, we needed to sleep in each others’ arms.
I tried several times to get out of that bed but didn’t make it far. He kept saying “I don’t know how you are finding the willpower to get up.” But it was only because I knew Gabby and Tempeste were waiting for me. Besides, he’s the one who threw away Saturday, so he shouldn’t be talking about will power!
He walked me back to the other hotel. Hand on my back. Hand on my neck. Always touching me. We talked and laughed. I can only remember snippets. It’s like remembering sunshine. Gabby and Tempeste got milkshakes again for lunch but I wasn’t hungry. He and I sat outside on a bench and I read to him from a book that’s been bewitching me (13 Moons by Charles Frazier). My legs draped over his. His hands playing with my hair.
And then the bus was there and I kissed him goodbye and sat down.
And completely ignored Tempeste yelling at me to GET OFF THE BUS RIGHT NOW!
I should have. Lord only knows what would have happened then. But I didn’t.
And that takes us to the end of week #5 :)
Semana #6
So, ok, I admit it. I bumped into more than a few walls this week.
Class was actually a little frustrating as one of the other students in the class (Wheelie Steve)(who’s name is actually Max) was rather argumentative and not at all kind to The Atomic Bomb (the older Japanese guy in the class) (who is behind us, but trying). Also, not gonna lie, it’s a little hard to understand both of them (Wheelie Steve is mostly deaf and as a result his Spanish is difficult to understand; as is the Atomic Bomb)(sorry, but it is!). But I love my teacher. Sure she gives us a ton of homework every night but I really feel like I learn so much with her.
But, of course, it was Fernando that was making it difficult to concentrate. With almost every new word I learned I was scribbling poems in the margin of my notebook. One I am fairly pleased with in both languages (though I wrote it in Spanish first):
Me tragué la luna. I have swallowed the moon (Puedo sentírmela I can feel it)
Quemando (Burning)
En el medio de mi cuerpo (In the center of me )
Y la luz esta escapada a través de mi piel (and the light is escaping through my
skin )
Él huele como el bosque en la lluvia (He smells like the woods in the rain)
El silencio mojado y la vida cimarrón (the wet silence and the wild life)
están ambos presentes (are both present )
en cada aliento. (In every breath )
La idea, (The idea,
La memoria de nuestros manos (the memory of our hands
Y de una polvorienta calle (and of a dusty road )
Me jala (pulls me )
Como gravedad (like gravity )
Como sed. (Like thirst )
Solo quiero tiempo (I only want time )
Ansío cercanía (I long for nearness )
Y para nuestro camino durar (and for our walk to last )
Hasta el último rayo de luz (until the last ray of light )
Ha salido de mi piel (has left my skin )
Y la luna está en el cielo (and the moon is in the sky )
Otra vez. (Once again. )
I was hanging out at Tempeste’s house after school most days because she’s not supposed to come to my house anymore. When we bumped into her host mom the first day I went over there and explained why we were going to her house and not mine, the host mom was all nice and welcoming and surprised that Tempeste wasn’t supposed to come over to my house (yeah, that changed but not till later so we’ll save that).
Class was actually a little frustrating as one of the other students in the class (Wheelie Steve)(who’s name is actually Max) was rather argumentative and not at all kind to The Atomic Bomb (the older Japanese guy in the class) (who is behind us, but trying). Also, not gonna lie, it’s a little hard to understand both of them (Wheelie Steve is mostly deaf and as a result his Spanish is difficult to understand; as is the Atomic Bomb)(sorry, but it is!). But I love my teacher. Sure she gives us a ton of homework every night but I really feel like I learn so much with her.
But, of course, it was Fernando that was making it difficult to concentrate. With almost every new word I learned I was scribbling poems in the margin of my notebook. One I am fairly pleased with in both languages (though I wrote it in Spanish first):
Me tragué la luna. I have swallowed the moon (Puedo sentírmela I can feel it)
Quemando (Burning)
En el medio de mi cuerpo (In the center of me )
Y la luz esta escapada a través de mi piel (and the light is escaping through my
skin )
Él huele como el bosque en la lluvia (He smells like the woods in the rain)
El silencio mojado y la vida cimarrón (the wet silence and the wild life)
están ambos presentes (are both present )
en cada aliento. (In every breath )
La idea, (The idea,
La memoria de nuestros manos (the memory of our hands
Y de una polvorienta calle (and of a dusty road )
Me jala (pulls me )
Como gravedad (like gravity )
Como sed. (Like thirst )
Solo quiero tiempo (I only want time )
Ansío cercanía (I long for nearness )
Y para nuestro camino durar (and for our walk to last )
Hasta el último rayo de luz (until the last ray of light )
Ha salido de mi piel (has left my skin )
Y la luna está en el cielo (and the moon is in the sky )
Otra vez. (Once again. )
I was hanging out at Tempeste’s house after school most days because she’s not supposed to come to my house anymore. When we bumped into her host mom the first day I went over there and explained why we were going to her house and not mine, the host mom was all nice and welcoming and surprised that Tempeste wasn’t supposed to come over to my house (yeah, that changed but not till later so we’ll save that).
One day when I left Tempeste’s house to go home for dinner I turned around immediately and rang her doorbell. When she appeared I told her to hurry up and grab her camera because you could actually see the sunset!! One thing I remember about living in San Jose in 2001 is that this city has the best sunsets night after night. The whole place is distantly ringed with mountains and they trap clouds because the change in temperature so the sky is always full of clouds that catch the light. Anyway, the sunsets in the dry season (when I was here before) are phenomenal. The sunsets in the rainy season are… well… pretty hard to see what with all the friggin rain. So I was stunned to leave Tempeste’s house and see a sky on fire! I knew the best place to watch the sunset was going to be at the top of the bleachers next to the soccer field where I run every morning so we took off for there. And I remember the two of us laughing as we ran through the streets and I just felt really good about my life: I mean there I was chasing the sunset through the streets of San Jose, laughing with my new best friend. What a friggin gift!
Movie night was big this week for Tempeste because SEX AND THE CITY was finally released here in CR. Personally, I have never been able to STAND that show. The few times I’ve seen it everyone has been ridiculously catty and slutty and obsessed with such cutting edge fashion that I think it mostly looks silly. But Tempeste (and most everyone else I know) loves it. So I went. Because, that’s what you do when your best friend is excited about something. And I have to say, I found it surprisingly enjoyable. I have no desire to rent the box set, but I had a good time. Also, it was really nice to see a movie about good girlfriends while I was leaning shoulder to shoulder with one.
Also, The Puppy was there. I think it was Wednesday afternoon (maybe Tuesday) when it started to really irritate me that I hadn’t heard from The Mexican (which is what we started calling Fernando). One day at lunch when there was no email from him, I think my face looked like one of those evil thunderclouds (that make you wonder if you need to go to the cellar) because Tempeste shook my leg and shouted “BE HAPPIER!!” So I was starting to think that he was not going to show up on Friday and was none to pleased about that when The Puppy came back from vacation. The Puppy is this really nice, not conventionally bright guy from Texas. When we first met him we really didn’t like him but then he was in our group that went to Tortuguero and we wound up changing our mind and thinking he was really sweet and nice to have around (also, he went fishing in the ocean and when he took off his shirt and wandered into the waves with a big fishing pole we were both rather stereotypically gawking at the back/arms/torso of the man). Anyway, I didn’t really think anything more about the man until one morning Tempeste and I had to go to school at different times and I bumped into him alone. So we were just chatting and having a nice conversation while riding to school when – because we were sitting next to each other – our arms brushed against each other. I swear it was like being hit by lightening! I was stunned how immediately and carnally I was suddenly thinking about him.
Anyway, The Puppy was back in town for a day and then leaving for two weeks again and I couldn’t help but think “If The Mexican blows me off, this could be a nice way to recover.”
And then it was Friday and there was no word from The Mexican. Tempeste and I had a lovely day walking around town and made our way to the Grabby Bazaar (where the vendors are monstrously in-your-face which is why we left really quickly) and to the world’s strangest designer cake shop. And we laughed a lot but I was disappointed. We set the time of 6:59 as being the moment I would stop waiting for him to call and after that we went to the mall to see THE HAPPENING (Fin de los Tiempos). I had actually been really excited ever since I was with my brother when we saw previews for this back at Christmas but it turned out to be kind of crappy (maybe it was just my mood, maybe I should give it another watch)(speaking from the future? nope, it's really crappy!). I will say it was extremely creepy! Also, while we waited for the bus I found 5.000 colones on the ground (about $10) which bought us popcorn, soda, and a taxi home so that was a nice little bonus.
The next day I was still irritable about the whole thing but… we were going to take the bus out to Escazu (which is one of the suburbs in the mountains that’s supposed to be incredibly beautiful) but we stopped at El Teatro Nacional to buy our tickets for the ballet that night (which we were planning on SERIOUSLY dressing up for) only when we got there we found out the ballet was at 5pm.
WTF?
Who ever heard of going to the ballet at 5pm on a Saturday “night”? (We still don’t know what that was about) After a little discussion we decided to go to the performance but that changed the day a bit (we wouldn’t have time to get to Escazu and back and still get ready). So we quickly modified the day thusly:
--hang out at the nearby plaza and listen to a reggae concert
--check out the national basilica next to the park (sit for a bit in the church and reflect on life)
--go to the Mall and get the world’s sketchiest manicures
--get dressed
--go to the ballet (it was an original ballet based on an Oscar Wilde story)
--have dinner at Café Mundo (where we ate for my birthday)
And that’s what we did. I also stopped at the internet café near my house on the off chance that The Mexican has sent me some sort of explanation or apology for blowing me off (he hadn’t). While I was online I touched base with Ambreen (India No Show) one of the girls from Monteverde who was back in San Jose. I invited her to join me and Tempeste at café mundo around 8 and she accepted, saying she was going to bring a couple of people from her program.
The ballet was sweet. It wasn’t exactly NYCity Ballet but it had moments. Mostly it was just really cool (que chiva) to be at a performance in el Teatro Nacional. Plus we were super dressed up :) (the glamorous look survived the monsoon we encountered on the way to the theater).
After the show we took a cab to the restaurant and got a table for 2 (we were a little tense about this as we didn’t know if/when Ambreen was going to show and how many people she was bringing and whether they’d want dinner or just drink but we were starving so we just went ahead). So we sat there and talked and devoured the good bread and ordered a ton of food (and talked to the really nice manager about our odd situation and he was very cool with all of it). I said to Tempeste (for probably the 20th time that night) “MAN I wish Fernando could see the way I look tonight!” And she started reminding me why it was ok that he never showed up. Mostly because it seemed to have put the Jaime thing in a whole different level of “processed”.
I was in the middle of a sentence and stopped so abruptly that she said she was actually scared. She asked “What is it?” because apparently my face had gone white (not easy to do with a tropical tan). I said “There’s a man out there who looks exactly like Fernando from behind.” Which I knew was ridiculous; all I could see was the man’s hair, his backpack, and his windbreaker but the center of my chest felt like an elevator had just dropped 7 or 8 flights the second I saw him.
And the person disappeared from view then came around the corner and was, in fact, Fernando.
And all prospect of eating utterly vanished.
The next few hours are a little blurry. I know I was cold but not rude when I greeted him. I know he had to lean down to kiss me on the cheek because I did not stand to hug him. When he sat he asked “did you get my email?” but answered himself right away saying “no, of course you didn’t.” Which I assume was because I was acting like a woman who’d been stood up for a date. But he pressed his leg to mine under the table and smiled at me and any resolve I had to stay angry at him completely dissolved. I’ve heard the phrase “burning eyes” in the past and always thought it meant that the person had a light in their eyes that was almost like they were on fire. But I feel like his eyes burned me because I can still see them glowing and smiling from weeks away.
I did manage to stay rather frosty for probably around 45 minutes. He explained that he had been told Friday morning that he couldn’t leave Montezuma without seeing the waterfalls (I have actually read that they’re supposed to be incredible) and by the time he got back from the falls the bus to San Jose had already left. He quietly apologized to me for not being here when he said he would be and for letting me think he didn’t want to see me. All the while I could feel his legs pressed to mine under the table. All the while his smile and his eyes just burned.
All I could do was shake my head and smile.
And push all the food I’d ordered around on my plate.
He told me that he’d gotten my emails as soon as he checked into his hostel (around 5:30 that evening) and that he’d written me back right away and was going to call me as soon as the line for the phone died down but while he waited, he got an IM from Ambreen (India No Show) saying she was meeting us for dinner at Café Mundo around 8. So he just came and found me. (I do like that he was able to find me in a city.)
An hour or so into dinner I leaned into him and asked “so what did you write me in your email?” and he leaned in and said that he’d written where he was and that he really hoped to see me. My mom has said to me in the past “do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” and I thought of that as I sat there and knew what I wanted but also knew I’d be perfectly justified in not having anything more to do with him (there was internet where he stayed in Montazuma, he could have easily emailed me a change in his plans, even he acknowledged this and that he sucks at staying in touch with people).
I asked “So what happens after dinner?”
he said “whatever you want. What do you want to have happen?”
I may have only imagined pausing but I can remember locking into those clear, warm, smiling (burning) eyes of his and saying “I want to be alone with you.”
And he said “all right, that’s what will happen then.”
Several times my waiting for him the day before came up and every time he had the decency to look chagrined and apologize. Several times I turned to see him staring at me and I could do nothing but look back into the dark amber and try to remember to breath.
We said goodbye to the others and walked back to his hostel holding hands. We still weren’t alone because another girl from his hostel had come to dinner with us (she was a little weird, actually; when she found our Fernando had a son in Mexico she “teased” him mercilessly about abandoning him to go to school. The whole thing was really awkward and inappropriate and the rest of us just kind of looked at our hands until the subject was changed). Then Fernando had to go through the process of changing rooms; he’d taken a bunk in a dorm room but had made arrangements to switch if he did find me. So there I am, dressed in an evening gown (tea length at least) in the lobby of a youth hostel while the hot Mexican I’m with (dressed completely different from me) changes rooms; and everyone who saw us knowing exactly what we were about to do.
Awk-ward.
When we checked into the room we still hadn’t really said anything serious as we hadn’t been alone yet. I was sitting on the bed sort of stunned that I was actually about to sleep with this man and wondering how mad I still was and what I needed to say – when he kissed me and pushed me back on the bed.
And, seriously? all thought just went away.
Because… there he was! There were the kisses I’d been dying over in my mind all week. There he was. There he was. There he was.
And the rest is hours and hours of kissing and talking and touching and laughing. We slept for handfuls of minutes at a time and then woke up and started the whole process again several times. I will say that the first time we had sex, he was talking to me in whispers and I told him to switch to Spanish.
Ok.
Not to be too Jamie-Lee-Curtis-in-“A-Fish-Called-Wanda”-y or anything but…
holy. fuck! I seriously do not possess the writing skills to share how truly, utterly, devastatingly sexy it was to have sex with this guy while he spoke to me in Spanish. (I highly recommend trying it if you get the chance!) I told him later how amazing I thought it was, but then said I had no idea what he’d said to me (to be fair, I can’t remember what he was saying to me in English either, I was a little stratospheric), that for all I knew he had been reciting the Declaration of Independence. And, to my delight, he started ravishing me and reciting the Declaration of Independence in Spanish – me a big pile of giggles.
I really like talking to this guy. I really like how affectionate he is. I really liked sleeping in a complete tangle with him all night – again, if I wasn’t close enough he would pull me deeper into his arms or pull more of me onto him.
We said goodbye very early in the morning (I had signed up to take a rafting tour with Tempeste and he was taking the 6am bus to Puerto Viejo). We had vague plans to get together Tuesday (his last night in CR) and as he kissed me goodbye I asked “so, am I seeing you again, or is this it?” and he said “of course you're seeing me again.” and was gone.
And I just glowed.
All day.
The day on the river was a BLAST! I’ve never seen Tempeste smile so big. It was hot and sunny and the river was high and fast. We had a fun guide and a bunch of Mexicans in the boat with us. Tempeste and I spent the whole bus ride out to Siquirres going over what had happened the night before.
Movie night was big this week for Tempeste because SEX AND THE CITY was finally released here in CR. Personally, I have never been able to STAND that show. The few times I’ve seen it everyone has been ridiculously catty and slutty and obsessed with such cutting edge fashion that I think it mostly looks silly. But Tempeste (and most everyone else I know) loves it. So I went. Because, that’s what you do when your best friend is excited about something. And I have to say, I found it surprisingly enjoyable. I have no desire to rent the box set, but I had a good time. Also, it was really nice to see a movie about good girlfriends while I was leaning shoulder to shoulder with one.
Also, The Puppy was there. I think it was Wednesday afternoon (maybe Tuesday) when it started to really irritate me that I hadn’t heard from The Mexican (which is what we started calling Fernando). One day at lunch when there was no email from him, I think my face looked like one of those evil thunderclouds (that make you wonder if you need to go to the cellar) because Tempeste shook my leg and shouted “BE HAPPIER!!” So I was starting to think that he was not going to show up on Friday and was none to pleased about that when The Puppy came back from vacation. The Puppy is this really nice, not conventionally bright guy from Texas. When we first met him we really didn’t like him but then he was in our group that went to Tortuguero and we wound up changing our mind and thinking he was really sweet and nice to have around (also, he went fishing in the ocean and when he took off his shirt and wandered into the waves with a big fishing pole we were both rather stereotypically gawking at the back/arms/torso of the man). Anyway, I didn’t really think anything more about the man until one morning Tempeste and I had to go to school at different times and I bumped into him alone. So we were just chatting and having a nice conversation while riding to school when – because we were sitting next to each other – our arms brushed against each other. I swear it was like being hit by lightening! I was stunned how immediately and carnally I was suddenly thinking about him.
Anyway, The Puppy was back in town for a day and then leaving for two weeks again and I couldn’t help but think “If The Mexican blows me off, this could be a nice way to recover.”
And then it was Friday and there was no word from The Mexican. Tempeste and I had a lovely day walking around town and made our way to the Grabby Bazaar (where the vendors are monstrously in-your-face which is why we left really quickly) and to the world’s strangest designer cake shop. And we laughed a lot but I was disappointed. We set the time of 6:59 as being the moment I would stop waiting for him to call and after that we went to the mall to see THE HAPPENING (Fin de los Tiempos). I had actually been really excited ever since I was with my brother when we saw previews for this back at Christmas but it turned out to be kind of crappy (maybe it was just my mood, maybe I should give it another watch)(speaking from the future? nope, it's really crappy!). I will say it was extremely creepy! Also, while we waited for the bus I found 5.000 colones on the ground (about $10) which bought us popcorn, soda, and a taxi home so that was a nice little bonus.
The next day I was still irritable about the whole thing but… we were going to take the bus out to Escazu (which is one of the suburbs in the mountains that’s supposed to be incredibly beautiful) but we stopped at El Teatro Nacional to buy our tickets for the ballet that night (which we were planning on SERIOUSLY dressing up for) only when we got there we found out the ballet was at 5pm.
WTF?
Who ever heard of going to the ballet at 5pm on a Saturday “night”? (We still don’t know what that was about) After a little discussion we decided to go to the performance but that changed the day a bit (we wouldn’t have time to get to Escazu and back and still get ready). So we quickly modified the day thusly:
--hang out at the nearby plaza and listen to a reggae concert
--check out the national basilica next to the park (sit for a bit in the church and reflect on life)
--go to the Mall and get the world’s sketchiest manicures
--get dressed
--go to the ballet (it was an original ballet based on an Oscar Wilde story)
--have dinner at Café Mundo (where we ate for my birthday)
And that’s what we did. I also stopped at the internet café near my house on the off chance that The Mexican has sent me some sort of explanation or apology for blowing me off (he hadn’t). While I was online I touched base with Ambreen (India No Show) one of the girls from Monteverde who was back in San Jose. I invited her to join me and Tempeste at café mundo around 8 and she accepted, saying she was going to bring a couple of people from her program.
The ballet was sweet. It wasn’t exactly NYCity Ballet but it had moments. Mostly it was just really cool (que chiva) to be at a performance in el Teatro Nacional. Plus we were super dressed up :) (the glamorous look survived the monsoon we encountered on the way to the theater).After the show we took a cab to the restaurant and got a table for 2 (we were a little tense about this as we didn’t know if/when Ambreen was going to show and how many people she was bringing and whether they’d want dinner or just drink but we were starving so we just went ahead). So we sat there and talked and devoured the good bread and ordered a ton of food (and talked to the really nice manager about our odd situation and he was very cool with all of it). I said to Tempeste (for probably the 20th time that night) “MAN I wish Fernando could see the way I look tonight!” And she started reminding me why it was ok that he never showed up. Mostly because it seemed to have put the Jaime thing in a whole different level of “processed”.
I was in the middle of a sentence and stopped so abruptly that she said she was actually scared. She asked “What is it?” because apparently my face had gone white (not easy to do with a tropical tan). I said “There’s a man out there who looks exactly like Fernando from behind.” Which I knew was ridiculous; all I could see was the man’s hair, his backpack, and his windbreaker but the center of my chest felt like an elevator had just dropped 7 or 8 flights the second I saw him.
And the person disappeared from view then came around the corner and was, in fact, Fernando.
And all prospect of eating utterly vanished.
The next few hours are a little blurry. I know I was cold but not rude when I greeted him. I know he had to lean down to kiss me on the cheek because I did not stand to hug him. When he sat he asked “did you get my email?” but answered himself right away saying “no, of course you didn’t.” Which I assume was because I was acting like a woman who’d been stood up for a date. But he pressed his leg to mine under the table and smiled at me and any resolve I had to stay angry at him completely dissolved. I’ve heard the phrase “burning eyes” in the past and always thought it meant that the person had a light in their eyes that was almost like they were on fire. But I feel like his eyes burned me because I can still see them glowing and smiling from weeks away.
I did manage to stay rather frosty for probably around 45 minutes. He explained that he had been told Friday morning that he couldn’t leave Montezuma without seeing the waterfalls (I have actually read that they’re supposed to be incredible) and by the time he got back from the falls the bus to San Jose had already left. He quietly apologized to me for not being here when he said he would be and for letting me think he didn’t want to see me. All the while I could feel his legs pressed to mine under the table. All the while his smile and his eyes just burned.
All I could do was shake my head and smile.
And push all the food I’d ordered around on my plate.
He told me that he’d gotten my emails as soon as he checked into his hostel (around 5:30 that evening) and that he’d written me back right away and was going to call me as soon as the line for the phone died down but while he waited, he got an IM from Ambreen (India No Show) saying she was meeting us for dinner at Café Mundo around 8. So he just came and found me. (I do like that he was able to find me in a city.)
An hour or so into dinner I leaned into him and asked “so what did you write me in your email?” and he leaned in and said that he’d written where he was and that he really hoped to see me. My mom has said to me in the past “do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” and I thought of that as I sat there and knew what I wanted but also knew I’d be perfectly justified in not having anything more to do with him (there was internet where he stayed in Montazuma, he could have easily emailed me a change in his plans, even he acknowledged this and that he sucks at staying in touch with people).
I asked “So what happens after dinner?”
he said “whatever you want. What do you want to have happen?”
I may have only imagined pausing but I can remember locking into those clear, warm, smiling (burning) eyes of his and saying “I want to be alone with you.”
And he said “all right, that’s what will happen then.”
Several times my waiting for him the day before came up and every time he had the decency to look chagrined and apologize. Several times I turned to see him staring at me and I could do nothing but look back into the dark amber and try to remember to breath.
We said goodbye to the others and walked back to his hostel holding hands. We still weren’t alone because another girl from his hostel had come to dinner with us (she was a little weird, actually; when she found our Fernando had a son in Mexico she “teased” him mercilessly about abandoning him to go to school. The whole thing was really awkward and inappropriate and the rest of us just kind of looked at our hands until the subject was changed). Then Fernando had to go through the process of changing rooms; he’d taken a bunk in a dorm room but had made arrangements to switch if he did find me. So there I am, dressed in an evening gown (tea length at least) in the lobby of a youth hostel while the hot Mexican I’m with (dressed completely different from me) changes rooms; and everyone who saw us knowing exactly what we were about to do.
Awk-ward.
When we checked into the room we still hadn’t really said anything serious as we hadn’t been alone yet. I was sitting on the bed sort of stunned that I was actually about to sleep with this man and wondering how mad I still was and what I needed to say – when he kissed me and pushed me back on the bed.
And, seriously? all thought just went away.
Because… there he was! There were the kisses I’d been dying over in my mind all week. There he was. There he was. There he was.
And the rest is hours and hours of kissing and talking and touching and laughing. We slept for handfuls of minutes at a time and then woke up and started the whole process again several times. I will say that the first time we had sex, he was talking to me in whispers and I told him to switch to Spanish.
Ok.
Not to be too Jamie-Lee-Curtis-in-“A-Fish-Called-Wanda”-y or anything but…
holy. fuck! I seriously do not possess the writing skills to share how truly, utterly, devastatingly sexy it was to have sex with this guy while he spoke to me in Spanish. (I highly recommend trying it if you get the chance!) I told him later how amazing I thought it was, but then said I had no idea what he’d said to me (to be fair, I can’t remember what he was saying to me in English either, I was a little stratospheric), that for all I knew he had been reciting the Declaration of Independence. And, to my delight, he started ravishing me and reciting the Declaration of Independence in Spanish – me a big pile of giggles.
I really like talking to this guy. I really like how affectionate he is. I really liked sleeping in a complete tangle with him all night – again, if I wasn’t close enough he would pull me deeper into his arms or pull more of me onto him.
We said goodbye very early in the morning (I had signed up to take a rafting tour with Tempeste and he was taking the 6am bus to Puerto Viejo). We had vague plans to get together Tuesday (his last night in CR) and as he kissed me goodbye I asked “so, am I seeing you again, or is this it?” and he said “of course you're seeing me again.” and was gone.
And I just glowed.
All day.
The day on the river was a BLAST! I’ve never seen Tempeste smile so big. It was hot and sunny and the river was high and fast. We had a fun guide and a bunch of Mexicans in the boat with us. Tempeste and I spent the whole bus ride out to Siquirres going over what had happened the night before.
It’s hard to describe a white water rafting trip: basically you're soaking wet the whole time; it’s a little dangerous but as long as you stay in the boat you just feel adrenaline and not too much else; during the long slow patches you can jump out of the boat and swim in the river; the view is shockingly beautiful; and Tempeste and I could hardly stop laughing (ok, that’s not that big a change, we have also had difficulty stopping laughing in traffic jams and 7 hour bus trips).
(note: in this picture I am in the front, right/starboard side of the raft... you know, the one that's underwater?)
Several people in other boats fell out at some point. Two people in our boat fell out (including the guide)(which is never good) and I was really intent on staying inside the boat. Towards the end of the trip – on the last real set of rapids, actually – our guide Ivan (Red) did this little trick with the boat so that it faced the wrong direction and he intentionally slammed the back of the boat into this rock wall. He had been doing little things like that all day — when he felt like we were safe – playing with the river and it was really fun, but this time the bounce against the rock pitched the starboard side of the bow under a strong current. Maybe you can guess that I had the seat in the boat that this affected and I felt myself pulled by the current out of the boat.
Sort of.
I had a decent hold with my legs against the side of the boat so that what was pulled out was me from the hips up. I didn’t tense up, I just relaxed and allowed my body to go into a pretty deep back-bend out of the boat and underwater. I had a split second where I thought “can I pull myself back up or would it be easier just to roll out of the boat?” and I realized I had a strong enough grip with my legs so I tightened my abs and did what Tempeste and I have started referring to as a “zombie sit-up” and was back in the boat just fine. I didn’t really think anything of this particular maneuver until everyone started freaking out and laughing and cheering! Tempeste was shouting “THAT WAS THE COOLEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN!” for the next 5 minutes and all the kayak guides jetted over to give me high-fives.
Not gonna lie, that was pretty cool.
And then we were done and exhausted. We took the bus back to San Jose and I just collapsed into sleep.
Oh, and PS. taking the cab from the hostel back to the house at 5am in my evening gown has to be the ultimate walk of shame!
Semana #7
I forgot to write something the other week… When we were walking through the cloud forest to go to the waterfall in San Luis (outside of Monteverde) there was a collision of sound: the waterfall/river that ran alongside the path, the insects and frogs wildly chatting away, and the rain that fell about half the time we were walking (and it’s accompanying thunder rumbling through the mountains). Back in America, when I would be studying in my room, I usually logged on to AOL so I could listen to this online radio station they have that’s all ambient sound from nature. I can’t study if there’s actual music playing (I get too caught up in it) but I like the sound. So as I walked through these woods I realized that I’d spent hours listening to this exact sound back in America online.
At least I have a visual to go with the sound next time I’m studying :)
And for those of you hanging on your seats as to what happened with Fernando I can tell you the answer is: nothing.
I know that he got back to San Jose Tuesday night around 5 because Tempeste and I were hanging out at Ambreen’s place and she was online and saw when he logged on to get his email. They chatted for a second but then she lost internet before anything about the evening could be ascertained (she refused to tell him I was in the room – very junior high, but it was her computer). Then he just didn’t call. Didn’t write. Didn’t say goodbye. I mean, I realize I should know better than to trust a hot Mexican, but still I was in a black mood.
(note: in this picture I am in the front, right/starboard side of the raft... you know, the one that's underwater?)
Several people in other boats fell out at some point. Two people in our boat fell out (including the guide)(which is never good) and I was really intent on staying inside the boat. Towards the end of the trip – on the last real set of rapids, actually – our guide Ivan (Red) did this little trick with the boat so that it faced the wrong direction and he intentionally slammed the back of the boat into this rock wall. He had been doing little things like that all day — when he felt like we were safe – playing with the river and it was really fun, but this time the bounce against the rock pitched the starboard side of the bow under a strong current. Maybe you can guess that I had the seat in the boat that this affected and I felt myself pulled by the current out of the boat.
Sort of.
I had a decent hold with my legs against the side of the boat so that what was pulled out was me from the hips up. I didn’t tense up, I just relaxed and allowed my body to go into a pretty deep back-bend out of the boat and underwater. I had a split second where I thought “can I pull myself back up or would it be easier just to roll out of the boat?” and I realized I had a strong enough grip with my legs so I tightened my abs and did what Tempeste and I have started referring to as a “zombie sit-up” and was back in the boat just fine. I didn’t really think anything of this particular maneuver until everyone started freaking out and laughing and cheering! Tempeste was shouting “THAT WAS THE COOLEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN!” for the next 5 minutes and all the kayak guides jetted over to give me high-fives.
Not gonna lie, that was pretty cool.
And then we were done and exhausted. We took the bus back to San Jose and I just collapsed into sleep.
Oh, and PS. taking the cab from the hostel back to the house at 5am in my evening gown has to be the ultimate walk of shame!
Semana #7
I forgot to write something the other week… When we were walking through the cloud forest to go to the waterfall in San Luis (outside of Monteverde) there was a collision of sound: the waterfall/river that ran alongside the path, the insects and frogs wildly chatting away, and the rain that fell about half the time we were walking (and it’s accompanying thunder rumbling through the mountains). Back in America, when I would be studying in my room, I usually logged on to AOL so I could listen to this online radio station they have that’s all ambient sound from nature. I can’t study if there’s actual music playing (I get too caught up in it) but I like the sound. So as I walked through these woods I realized that I’d spent hours listening to this exact sound back in America online.
At least I have a visual to go with the sound next time I’m studying :)
And for those of you hanging on your seats as to what happened with Fernando I can tell you the answer is: nothing.
I know that he got back to San Jose Tuesday night around 5 because Tempeste and I were hanging out at Ambreen’s place and she was online and saw when he logged on to get his email. They chatted for a second but then she lost internet before anything about the evening could be ascertained (she refused to tell him I was in the room – very junior high, but it was her computer). Then he just didn’t call. Didn’t write. Didn’t say goodbye. I mean, I realize I should know better than to trust a hot Mexican, but still I was in a black mood.
ok, so that's what I wrote at the time when I met him.
A week or so later he wrote me apologizing for vanishing on his last night and since then we've been pen pals. Writing letters about once a month. Sometimes they have been very flirty, but once Rob and I were officially back together Fernando totally backed off and was just friendly (well, a little flirty but not pornagraphic). When Rob and I were falling apart, he was incredibly sweet and understanding (having gone through a brutal divorce himself). And now he is on his way here.
I have no idea what to expect.
HAHAHAH
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