Heather in Paradise

My stat tracker doesn’t give me much information. Many people use google reader or show up as “unknown,” but often it does tell me the city a reader is “visiting” my site from, as well as the length of time they’re on the site. Sometimes, I can surmise from the various search terms people use to find the blog, how long they read, and their city whether or not I know this person (and I can often figure out who they are).

But it’s just killing me, so I’m throwing out a public appeal to the repeat readers from Omaha, NE and Gurnee, IL…is that you, Helen-Louise? Is that you, Chad or Derek? If so, give me a holla. I’d love to HEAR from you all.

I hope this hasn’t thoroughly freaked out all of you other people. Especially you in Houston, TX, I see you. And you over there in Alberta, I see you, too. I see all. Muah-ah-ah-ah….

Well, coming up on my 4th anniversary of living in Mexico, I was gifted, again, with stomach bugs. Woke up yesterday am with the most severe stomach cramping I’ve ever had. It felt like a giant fork was twirling up my intestines like spaghetti and pulling. I spent the entire day hobbling from bed to bathroom and back to bed again, with occasional hopeful trips to the computer to try to answer a few work emails (this just happens to be one of the busier work weeks of my life, too). Oh, joy.

I am not a fan of the sample/lab visit/doctor combo, so this time I just took the Vermox Plus and am keeping my fingers crossed that it will do the trick. I am feeling a bit better this morning, but if I don’t feel 100% by tomorrow I’ll go get a blood test as well as the dreaded lab sample test. Ah, life in the tropics.

Anyway, this is why I have not been keeping up on my or others’ blogs. Be back as soon as I can.

At 8.45 this morning, just a handful of minutes ago, I heard some whistling at our front gate. I ignored it at first, since you get used to such sounds here. Finally, the whistling got very insistent and I peeked out the window to see a young man standing at our gate. Michael went out to investigate, and came back in about 45 seconds later.

When Michael went to the gate, the man said, in Spanish (he was Mexican), “Is this your truck?” and motioned to Michael’s work truck that is parked in front of our house.

When Michael replied that it was, the man said something to the effect of, “I need a ride, can you give me a ride? I don’t have any transport.” Michael said he could not give him a ride and the man went down the street to the next house.

Michael is home waiting for a repairman, so couldn’t leave, but unless it was an emergency I doubt he would have given the man a ride. It would be one thing if he had, say, his pregnant wife with him, or if he was injured and needed to get to the hospital. But to stand outside our gate, whistling impatiently, and then ask for a ride without saying “please” or having any valid reason for demanding the ride?!

Michael was incredulous and I just had to laugh. Another thing that has never before happened in my 37 years. Of course, I saw the look on the man’s face when a 6′4″ tall gringo came out of the house, I think you could have knocked him over with a feather (Michael’s truck is the standard, beat-up-looking work truck full of junk). I hope the poor guy finds a ride, or the 5 pesos to take the colectivo.

My friends and family already know that I’ve been blue for some time–for at least, oh, about half my life. While my normal M.O.D. is to soldier on, work hard, drink wine, and admit nothing, tonight I’m feeling a bit confessional.

I don’t know about you, but when I get sad, for some reason I love to listen to sad songs. The more melancholy, the better, right? It’s the best way I’ve found to make my own life seem happy in comparison. So tonight, in the grip of it, I’m going to share some songs I think are among the saddest and most beautiful songs I know. I’m trying to make it a manageable list, and I’m limited by what I can find on youtube, so this isn’t an exhaustive or definitive list. It’s just a list; it’s called “self-indulgence,” friends.

I decided to whittle the hundreds of songs I could think of down to 10. And then I went ahead and made it 13, sorry. Not all of them are about love, you know, because love’s not everything. It’s just most things.

Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here.” This video cuts off too soon, but since I know you’ve all heard the song millions of times, so what? With lyrics like, Running over the same old ground/What have you found?/The same old fears/Wish you were here, who cares if it cuts out a bit early?

Sinead O’ Connor, “Troy.” Makes no difference what you say/You’re still a liar

REM, “Country Feedback.” Oh, god, this reminds me of high school, being awkward, confused, scared. So much has changed, right? *eyeroll* I was central, I had control, I lost my head…these clothes don’t fit us right…It’s crazy what you could have had…. And etc., you know. Et cetera.

Cat Stevens, “Trouble.” I don’t think I need to or should say anything more.

Concrete Blonde, “Joey.” I heard this for the first time on a tiny mono-radio, broadcast on the “progressive” hour of Camp Casey, South Korea’s military radio station in 1990, while filing papers in a quonset hut for 122 Signal Battalion’s Headquarters Company. Fell in love at first sight and never fell out.

Jim Croce, “Operator.” It’s the you can keep the dime that gets me. I could cry just thinking about this song.

Uncle Tupelo, “Still Be Around.” How many things have I gotten through in my life by listening to Still Feel Gone over and over and over again? I feel like I owe Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy some money. Or at least sexual favors or something. Hey Jeff, call me.

Natalie Merchant, “River.” Even if I didn’t have a crush on River Phoenix as a kid this song would still give me goosebumps. Give his mother and his father peace...Jesus woman, you’re killing me. Try to ignore that this lovely video tribute was put together by someone who apparently cannot spell “phoenix.”

The Smiths, “Back to the Old House.” If you don’t know where I grew up, I can’t explain it. Love to my family; my Amy, my Scott, my Jerry.

Jeff Buckley, “Last Goodbye.” I can’t even talk about this one, still. Fuck.

Cowboy Junkies, “Misguided Angel.” An old friend leveled this song at me like an accusation many years ago, and at the time I resented it, but after making a narrow escape from a bad man, I could see how right she was. Every time I hear this song now, I feel like falling on my knees and giving thanks.

The National, “Lucky You.” Ouch, my heart, nothing to be done, come hell or high water. It hurts, mama.

Wilco, “How to Fight Loneliness.” Just smile all the time.

Wow, I feel so much better now, somehow. Thank you, music. Thank you.

WOW, what a response! So far I have 30 people sending cards to help me with my Mexican Postal Service Experiment!

I’ve sent addresses to everyone who’ve indicated they want to participate, so if you haven’t received a mail from me, check your junk mail folder. Also, if you are on AOL and don’t get anything, be sure to add my email address to your contacts and let me know to resend; AOL is notorious for rejecting mails from email addresses it doesn’t recognize and not letting either the sender or intended recipient know.

Man, I wish I had a scanner so I could scan in all the cards to show you…this is so exciting! Maybe I’ll visit an internet shop in town and have them scan all the cards in for me.

Thanks, people! I have the best readers in the world.

So far, 12 people have let me know they’re going to participate in my Mexican Postal Service Experiment by sending me a postcard/letter. I’m going to make this a bit more fun for you with a little contest.

The senders of both of the first postcards received from out of Mexico as well as in-country will get to order me to write a blog of their choice, on ANY topic. I promise not to hold back on virtually anything, but please let’s leave the clown porn out of the equation, K?

I don’t like clowns.

Ok, I’ve spoken a few times about the Mexican Postal Service, particularly about its notorious suckability. MexPat recently wrote a blog about receiving a letter, and I’ve seen a couple of comments from Fned in Paris that indicate the postal service in this country is improving.

I think it’s time I give them a another chance by putting their service to a clinical trial, but for this I will need your help. My idea is to ask you folks to mail me either a postcard or a letter, and I will report the results: how many arrive, when they arrive, etc.

I’m not going to just broadcast my address for the whole blinking world (this would really upset my Grandma Nancy), so please leave me a comment here if you’d like me to give you my address. If we don’t know each other (from Playa.info, the blogosphere, my family/friends, or whatever), don’t feel bad if I don’t give you my address. I will give half of the people my work address and half my home address, just to test their abilities to deliver to multiple addresses.

This should be interesting!

And I can’t say I’m happy about it. Three days of catching up on my work has already put my shoulders back up around my ears. I want to be a woman of leisure all the time; the working man’s a sucker.

Our three night stay quickly changed to a four night stay; justification is our specialty. “Well, by the time we got here and set up, the entire first day was gone.” Then when it poured rain for an hour on the second or third day, it was, “Well, now we definitely deserve to stay one more night,” etc. until we had all convinced ourselves that we had originally planned to stay four nights in the first place. We did the same thing when we last visited Bacalar together in November/December of 2005. On that trip, we stayed at Hotel Laguna Bacalar and visited the Mayan ruins of Kohunlich, but on this trip we had a whole lot of nothing planned.

Bacalar is a town of about 10,000 people located around 3.5 hours south of Playa del Carmen (with stops), 130 km west of Chetumal, and not too far from the Belize border. The name is thought to be derived from the Mayan b’ak halal, which means “surrounded by reedy water” or “surrounded by reeds” (I’ve seen both translations). Bacalar lagoon is a large, freshwater lake nicknamed “Laguna de los Siete Colores,” or the Lagoon of Seven Colors, for the amazing colors it shares with the Caribbean Sea. This is one of my favorite places on Earth and I would someday like to live there. Or at least own property there and visit often.

Our friend, the kickass Ms. Keersten has a gorgeous plot of land directly on the lagoon and has tricked it out with some amazing amenities: outdoor kitchen, showers/bathrooms, tents, games, books, kayak, fire pit, awesome dock/palapa overlooking the lagoon, two refrigerators, and a top-of-the-line BBQ grill better than anything I’ve ever owned in my life. I think these rough conditions prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that I could definitely win it all on Survivor, people.

Sara and I turned out some great food, including Ribeyes/mashed potatoes/salad, tuna melts/mac ‘n’ cheese, parmesan/garlic crusted chicken breasts, Italian sausage/pepper and onion sandwiches, Asian pork tenderloin kabobs, and more. Every morning we had some sort of delicious egg/meat scramble and ate so many different snack foods that I have used up my entire yearly quota of junk. Best part had to be the saucer-eyes on the boys when we put plates of this “camp food” in front of them. Michael assured me that if they were cooking, we’d have been eating hot dogs every day. Yick.

Our days were spent lounging around on the dock, drinking and shooting the shit, swimming, cooking, and eating. We played 80s trivia one night and the boys won, but only because of their sneaky, drunken strategy of talking the entire time we were trying to think of the answers. Cheaters. If we got all the easy Married With Children questions we could have won, too, jerks!

Before I get to the photos, let’s do some arithmetic, shall we?

4 nights + 5 days+4 people+2 bottles of vodka+6 bottles of wine+more cases of beer than I care to admit publicly=4 sturdy, practiced livers and countless hours of good times, good times.

The first night, Michael and I were all, Oh, we don’t need to put up a tent, we’ll just sleep under the stars, and Sara and Steve were all, Oh, we don’t need to put up a tent, we’ll just sleep in the van.

After Sara and Steve sweltered in the van and got devoured by mosquitos and I slept approximately 15 minutes because of the dogs freaking out at every little thing and got devoured by mosquitos, sleeping under the stars was out and both couples put up tents the next day.

See that little space in the middle? That’s where the dogs allowed me to sleep for 15 minutes that first night. Photo courtesy of Brother Omen.

The only good thing about not being able to sleep is that I got to see my first sunrise of my entire life. Well, except for those many sunrises I saw in my youth on the backside of the night, through bloodshot eyes. Photo courtesy of Brother Omen.

That’s a mighty big dock you got there.

The outdoor kitchen/bar

Sara/Steve’s tent and the bathrooms/showers

OMG, this view is so disgusting it hurts my eyes.

The only photographic evidence you will see of me standing up on this entire trip. Photo courtesy of Brother Omen.

The hammock that became my home. In it, I read Julia Alvarez’s Saving the World (thanks, Caroline!) and Chuck Pahlaniuk’s Haunted (containing one of the grossest, most disturbing stories I’ve ever read. Michael says I’m not allowed to talk about it anymore). Don’t worry, I checked periodically to make sure all the dogs were still breathing.

Steve, futilely trying to inflate his sinking floatie while he’s in it.

Michael, with his “insta-tan” and Franky, pensively looking out across the lagoon

It’s rare when you love one half of a couple as much as you love the other one.

Foster, aka as “Fuckface Piggles” and “Crankypants” getting some relaxation

Brighton is so the Alpha Dog

Franky is so tired. Historically afraid of water, he surprised us all by jumping in the lake several times.

Vinnie, also exhausted from all her sleeping and playing.

Just north of Keersten’s land is a public park, and it was nice on Sunday when we got to see lots of local families swimming, laughing, and enjoying the beauty of their hometown.

Steve, are you wearing sunblock?

I’m serious. I am in this damn hammock in every photo.

See what I mean?

After it rained really hard for an hour, Steve caught these double rainbows on film.

Steve also found a little frog hiding in a hole by the entry gate.

Look at that moonrise. Photo courtesy of Brother Omen.

The boys spied this on the way into town for a beer run. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Photo courtesy of Brother Omen.

Bromance of the Century

The International Male catalog photo shoot. I’m going to get crucified for posting this, so you all better appreciate it.

So not nice to take pictures of us when we are sleeping.

At least Sara got me to sit up in the hammock for a minute.

Two of the most photogenic people on the planet. Steve and I don’t like them very much.

This is in the van on the way home: 4 dogs + 4 people+heat+having to leave Bacalar=crabby chicks.

What an incredible long weekend. If you’ve never been to Bacalar, go. Go now.

Sara, Steve, Michael and I are off to Bacalar until Tuesday.  A friend of ours has a beautiful plot of land on the laguna there and has graciously allowed us to camp out.  All four of us have been incredibly busy, stressed out, and broke, so this will be JUST the three days we need to recharge our batteries.

In true Sara/Heather fashion, we’ve got 90% of the grocery store’s inventory and the sum total of everything we own loaded into Flash (Sara and Steve’s trusty van) and ready to head on down the road tomorrow morning.

Pray for us, please, so that it doesn’t rain.  I’m not the “happiest” of campers on a good day, if it rains I think I might whine myself into a watery grave.

See you kids on Wednesday.  Besos!

The Playa girls outing to see Sex and the City was a big success, I think we had 15 or 17 women! The weather was rainy and ugly, so many of us didn’t dress up, but we still made quite an impression walking into the theater, like some wild-eyed, all-girl version of one of the crazily-dressed gangs in Warriors.

The general consensus was that we loved the movie. There were a couple who thought it was too slow/heavy/not funny. I really enjoyed it, and the cliché was true: I laughed, I cried. Maybe it was a sentimental reaction to my missing those 4 women, but I don’t think so. Mostly I think I envy the strength of their friendships. Several of my commenters have said they wanted to slap Carrie at the end, and all I can say is that you wenches scared the crap out of me in advance with that, but that the end played out JUST the way I wanted it to. I think y’all are much tougher girls than I am.

In one part of the movie, the girls go to a resort in Mexico, and prissy Charlotte refuses to eat/drink anything but pudding cups (made in Poughkeepsie) and bottled water because they are the only things she knows are “safe.” Samantha tells her she’s being ridiculous, that they are staying in a 5 star resort. “But…it’s Mexico!” Charlotte hisses. All of us laughed explosively. Immediately afterward, however, I felt really uncomfortable, thinking that perhaps the Mexicans in the audience wouldn’t understand that we were laughing at Charlotte’s idiocy, and NOT at the “insult” to Mexico. I mean, they don’t know we live, eat, and drink here; to them we might have just been a group of gringa tourists laughing at their country. At any rate, I was too nervous to laugh at subsequent “eating in Mexico” jokes.

I’m going back to see it again tonight with my friend Jilly. Don’t tell anyone. The movie was only 29 pesos on Wednesday, so combined with tonight’s 45 peso entrance, it will still be cheaper than it would have been seeing it in the US, so that’s my justification and I’m sticking with it.

I have very few photographs, and the ones I have aren’t very good. I ended up wearing one of the 3 dresses I own, a 20s inspired ice-skating-costume-looking black number with copper sequins. I was way overdressed, just the way I like it.

Lovely Natalia, with the giant umbrella we all tried to steal when the lights went out in the theater

Pretty Michele, in a dress!

Karen and Jeannie brightening up the gray day

Sexy Ms. Susan

Sara and Pamela

Sara and Me

I finally got to meet Mexico or Bust Allie. Playa seems to attract the most beautiful women. If I had known this before I moved here, I think I might have moved somewhere else, where I might get a chance to shine once in a while. Hee hee!

In my opinion, this is the greatest invention since Alexander Graham Bell said, “Come here, Watson—I want you!”

After the movie, women scattered in all 4 directions. Andrea swore her car was stolen and insisted she needed to call security, until her friend helpfully pointed out that she’d actually parked somewhere else . Some of us reconvened at Dirty Martini, a new lounge on 1^st avenue between Calles 10 and 12.

Sara and I had pomegranate “martinis,” an update on the SATC-approved Cosmopolitans. We are so fancy.

Susan and Debora

We’ve all decided that Wednesday night at the movies will be a semi-regular thing for us, and why not? We might even allow some boys to join us every once in a while. But don’t hold your breath, fellas.