Duped Again: The Next Ten Books of 2013

I love getting lost in a good book.  But sometimes I get a little too lost.  More than once I have read an entire book only to find out after the fact that I was wrong about something big.  I don’t mean like who the killer was or how to pronounce Hermione.  I mean something BIG.  Like whether it was fiction or nonfiction.  And each time it happens I feel so betrayed.

The books I’ve read so far in 2013 have been particularly sneaky.  Jan Reid, the author of Let the People In: The Life and Time of Ann Richards, confused me because I thought he was a woman, so I read most of the book via a female voice in my head.  (Luckily, I figured out my mistake before I met him at my book club meeting, though I do think I would have been able to stop myself from saying, “Dude, I totally thought you were a woman.”)  Pat Barker, author of Regeneration, did the same thing to me.  Pat is a she.  However, I listened to the audio version of the novel, and it was read by a man, so it was not until I finished the book and looked up her other work when I realized my mistake.  Put your photo on your book jackets, people!

Regeneration duped me twice though, because it also falls into the category of books I have read whose characters are based off of real people.  Real people who I (sadly) knew nothing about.  Other books in that category include The Chaperone (about Louise Brooks) and Homer and Langley (about the real Homer and Langley, two men in New York City famous for their crazy eccentricity).  In Regeneration, I knew that Sassoon was a real person (though I knew nothing about him) but did not realize until after the fact that Graves and Rivers and Owen and others were also historical figures.

However, none of these book betrayals can compare to the humiliation I felt after reading Amy Tan’s Saving Fish From Drowning back in 2007.  The book is about eleven American tourists who mysteriously disappear in Burma after sailing off on a cruise, and it is told from the first person perspective of the tour leader who dies at the beginning of the book but continues to watch over the eleven tourists in spirit form, and I thought it was true.

Let me back up. 

I did not believe the story was actually written by a ghost.  I didn’t believe that the story itself was true.  After all (spoiler alert here) the tourists never make it back.  So how are we to know their story?  But I believed that the event—the disappearance of these American tourists in Burma—was real.  I believed Amy Tan had taken a nonfiction event and spun a fictional story about what might have happened to them. 

After I finished the book (which I loved) I started Googling, hoping to find out more about the real-life people and what happened to them.  And, strangely enough, every website that popped up linked me right back to this book.  This novel by Amy Tan.

I gotta tell you, it took me a long time to get over that one.

Despite the fact that books continue to deceive me, I continue to read them, and love them, and let myself be deceived.  So with that in mind, here’s what I’ve been reading lately.

What I’ve Been Reading:  Books #31-40 of 2013

(Books are rated using the Goodreads method, out of 5 stars.)

  

31. You Are Here: A Memoir of Arrival, by Wesley Gibson – * *

This is a strange book.  I didn’t love it, but I couldn’t put it down.  There were beautiful and powerful passages, but overall, much of it seemed directionless.  For my full review on Goodreads, click here. 

32. The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White - * * *

I don’t know if I’m alone here or not, but I thought this classic book about grammar and writing style was hilarious.  It was helpful at times and extremely unhelpful at others, but it made me grin all the way through.  Whether you agree with the strict rules of Strunk and White or not, you’ve got to admire them for their passion.  To read my full review of this book, click here. 

Entry from Elements of Style.  

33. And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini -  * *

I have already posted my review of this book.  It was not a favorite.  I thought my opinions about it might soften over time, but so far they have not.  Here’s a link to the full review, but beware—it gives away the ending. 

34. Call and Response: New Poems, by Margie McCreless Roe - * * * 

My review of this book is of a personal nature, and I want to share the whole thing here:

I met Margie McCreless Roe at BookPeople in Austin, Texas, in December of 2008. We were both there to read our poems from the 2009 Texas Poetry Calendar. My poem, an eight-line rhyme called "Harvest Moon", was my first published poem ever, and I was a bundle of nerves and excitement the entire evening. About twenty poets read that night, and though I tried to take it all in and remember everything, that proved impossible. In the end, a few people stood out, and one of them one Ms. Roe.

One of the reasons her poem "South Texas, Fall" caught my attention was because it shared the same page with my little poem, an honor for me. But I am certain that this poet would have remained in my memory even without that coincidence. I loved hearing her read her work aloud, and when she read her poem "God Eats Cafe" about a diner with an unfortunate misspelling on its sign, I knew I wanted to read more of her work. My parents gave me her book, Call and Response for Christmas a couple of weeks later.

You may wonder why it took me four and a half years to read it.

This is what I do with poetry books. I buy them (or receive them as gifts-- there is no better gift than poetry) and flip through them, reading a poem here and there, too excited about the volume as a whole to sit down and be still and read it properly. Then it sits on my bookshelf for a while (sometimes a long while) and I admire its spine and pull it out now and then to read another random poem. And then, one day, out of the blue, I decide it's time. I pick it up, I start on page one, and I read the whole thing through. This can still take quite a bit of time, even for a short collection. Poetry cannot be digested in large bites; it has to be nibbled on.

I have finally nibbled all the way through Call and Response, and it was a pleasure. Ms. Roe's poems combine the simple everyday of life with the infinite. They dip in and out of nature and religion and childhood and old age, like a bird swooping for insects. Not all of these poems were my taste, but I wouldn't expect them all to be. I rarely find a poetry collection that satisfies completely, and I doubt that one exists that could quench every appetite. But there were many in this book that made me pause or smile or blink back a tear. After reading it, I am more honored than ever that my first published poem shared a page with this poet.

I will leave you with my favorite poem from Call and Response by Margie McCreless Roe.

The Box

I have found a box for you.

A big one.

Sturdy.

It will hold a good number of things

from the drawer in your room.

In the night after you were born

I dreamed of a small box

where I could put you

to keep you warm and safe.

A brave thing I do today--

handing you a perfect, empty box

and my blessing.

35. Anything But Typical, by Nora Raleigh Baskin - * * * *

I really enjoyed this young adult book told from the perspective of a boy with autism.  I recommend it for parents and children alike.  Here is my full review. 

36. Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards, by Jan Reid - *** 

This book (which is written by a man) is about a  very interesting and very influential Texas woman, former Governor Ann Richards.  I rarely read biographies, especially those of a political nature, so this book took me out of my comfort zone, but I learned a lot about Texas politics and the people who shaped the great city of Austin, and ended up really enjoying the lesson.  It was also a pleasure meeting the author, who spoke to my book club about writing this book about a woman who he knew personally. 

37. My Own True Name: New and Selected Poems for Young Adults, by Pat Mora - * * *

 A lovely book of poems.  Pat Mora captures the diversity of her background in her work and succeeds in showing us both the struggles and the beauty that come from belonging to two worlds.  To see my full review of her book, click here. 

38. The Secret Keeper, by Kate Morton - * * * *

One point for Carie!  I figured out the twist to this story early on, allowing me to experience a rare and much-appreciated victory over these books that are always trying to trick me.  To see my review of The Secret Keeper, click here.

 

39. Regeneration, by Pat Barker - * * * *

The back cover of my copy of Regeneration says, “It is a war saga in which not a shot is fired.”  I think that’s what I enjoyed about this book.  It is a beautifully-written account of the horrors of WWI, but it plants those horrors in the readers’ hearts while still keeping them, for the most part, out of the trenches.  The book mostly takes place in the Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Sassoon (a famous poet and war hero) is sent for being “mentally unsound” after he publicly protests the war.

I also want to point out that this is the first book I have ever read via audio book.  I listened to it for eight hours in the car to and from Dallas, and it passed the time quite well.  It was interesting to note, while discussing the novel at book club, how the inflection given to certain passages can change the mood between characters dramatically.  There were certain parts of the book that seemed defensive and defiant to other readers, but which came off to me (via the voice of Peter Firth in my car speakers) as passive and nonchalant.

40. Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott - * * *

I liked Bird by Bird, but even giving it three stars seems blasphemous, because I was told by so many people that I would love it.  While there was a lot of good writing advice within its pages and some inspirational passages, I did not feel as motivated or as eager to get back to the keyboard as I did when I read Stephen King’s On Writing or Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing.  To see my full review of Bird By Bird, click here. 

Counting Down…

Eighty-one days left in 2013 and ten more books to finish to reach my goal.  I think I can do it.  I’ll see you again in December for my final book blog of the year, but I’ll be posting reviews along the way.  Happy reading!

I Cleaned My Bathroom with Cheese (And Other Recent Mistakes)

Update!  

Since the posting of this piece earlier this afternoon, more mistakes have been made. Skip to the bottom for the new developments.

This is one of those “kids, don’t try this at home” types of posts.

I’m fairly clumsy and fairly easily distracted.  It’s not a great combination.  I could write a daily post about the things I’ve bumped into and the things I’ve accidentally thrown in the trash can and the things I’ve mistyped in a text message.  (See below for examples of recent texts to my husband.)  But that would not be news.  Lately, though, my errors in judgment and/or attention have risen to an entirely new level. 

Cheese is the New Vinegar

For instance, yesterday I was cleaning my house.  I usually clean my house on Mondays.  It gives me a concrete purpose for the beginning of my week and provides a mostly-sanitary, temporarily-pet-hair-free(ish) space in which to work.  During a break from cleaning, I sat down at the table to have a snack.  Rather than using a plate, I put my cheese cubes and crackers on a paper towel.  (Once you’ve cleaned your kitchen it is blasphemy to place a dirty dish in the sink without a damn good reason and cheese does not qualify as a damn good reason.  In extreme cases, it is also acceptable to drink straight from the faucet so as to not use a glass.)  When I was finished with my hearty snack, it was time to clean the bathroom.  Now, I know that I threw a paper towel in the trash can and tore a new one off the roll to wipe down the bathroom counter.  What I am unclear about is the order in which I did those things.  All I know for sure is that a couple of minutes later, I was smearing my bathroom counter with a mixture of Clorox and cheddar.   Combining bleach and cheese does not produce any dangerous chemical reactions, but it does create a memorable aroma and leaves a waxy finish on surfaces.  I don’t recommend it.

Café au Lait with 100 Volts on the Side, Please

You know how as kids we’re always told not to cross our eyes or walk barefoot across parking lots or stick our fingers in power outlets?  Well, it turns out that last one is sound advice.  I waited until I was thirty-six years old to prove it though. 

Last week I was at my favorite coffee shop chatting about writing with a friend of mine. (I shall not mention the name of the favorite coffee shop here in case this story deters people from going there.  It shouldn’t.  I fully believe that I am the one to blame for what happened, not anything in the favorite coffee shop.)  I had my laptop plugged into one of their power strips.  When it was time to go, I tried to unplug it, but it wouldn’t come loose.  I kept pulling on it, but was not giving it my entire attention because I was also deeply engaged in conversation with my friend at the time.  Finally, thinking only of dislodging the stuck device and not what exactly the stuck device was, I slid my left index finger between the plug and the power strip to separate them.  And, predictably for anyone paying attention, I got a shock. 

It only lasted a second, but in that second my index finger felt very hot and a pulse of pain ran up my left arm to my elbow.  Then everything in that vicinity tingled and buzzed for a few minutes while my heart pounded from both the electrical jolt and the panic that I might be about to die.  My friend was kind enough not to laugh at me or scold me for my stupidity and we sat a while longer, as I calmed down and we waited to see if I had contracted any new super powers.  (Unfortunately, no.)

I survived the incident.  And now I can say from experience that our parents were right about this one.  Keep your fingers out of outlets.

In Life, We Have to Make Choices

My right shoulder is slightly damaged.  About three years ago, I slipped in the shower and injured it, and ever since, certain movements make it hurt.  My yoga teacher knows about it and helps me modify exercises in class.  One day she asked me if I had ever tried “Golden Milk”.  My response-- Um, no.  That sounds sort of gross.

Well, it’s not gross.  It’s a simple yogi recipe to help treat joint pain.  Water, milk, cardamom, turmeric, almond oil—easy to make and (in my opinion) yummy to drink.  She gave me the recipe and suggested I drink a cup each night before bed to see if it helped my shoulder.

So I did.

For a week straight, I drank my Golden Milk every night, like a good girl.  The following Monday, I made it all the way through my yoga class without any pain in my shoulder.  !  And then, to my surprise, I realized I couldn’t button my jeans.  ?  As if that were not strange enough, the bathroom scale seemed to be in on the joke too, confirming what my jeans were telling me.  In short, I was fat.

How can this be? I sobbed to myself.  What have I done?  I took a mental journey through recent dietary transgressions.  An ice cream here, a piece of chocolate there, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Why, then, had my body betrayed me like this?

I racked my brain for any recent changes in my life and came up with… the Golden Milk.  So I took a closer look at the recipe.  The water, the 1% milk, and the spices couldn’t be to blame, but what about that almond oil?  I took a look at the nutrition info.  A serving size is one tablespoon.  Calories = 130.  Calories from fat = 130.  OH.  The recipe called for two tablespoons.  And (to make matters worse and once again my fault) I had incorrectly copied the recipe onto my notecard as THREE tablespoons. 

Yep.  For seven days straight, I willingly drank 390 calories of fat right before bed.  Awesome. 

I could have reduced the amount of almond oil back to  two tablespoons.  I could have reduced the doses of Golden Milk to every few days, but I didn’t.  I just gave up the whole thing altogether.  In life, we have to make choices, and between skinny and pain-free, I choose skinny.  Maybe that makes me a shallow person, but… my jeans fit me again, so at least I am a happy, jeans-wearing shallow person.  Who cleans her bathroom with cheese.

(Sigh.)

Update!  

More mistakes have been made.  Cause seems to be genetics.

I posted this piece to my blog at 2:ooPM.  By 2:15PM, I was being pulled over by a policeman.  It seems that I have been driving around with an expired inspection sticker for two months.  The cop gave me a ticket.  By 2:45PM, I was dutifully pulling into a service shop to get my car inspected.  By 3:00PM, I was learning that my car could not pass inspection because I have my husband's insurance in my glove compartment and he (apparently) has mine in his.  I am very very grateful to Officer S. for not noticing that fact when he looked at my insurance.  Whew!

While I was wasting time waiting for an inspection that wasn't happening, I received an email from my dad, who had read my blog post.  He first expressed his deep concern at my having been shocked.  Then he proceeded to describe to me in detail all the times he has electrocuted himself.  Then he went on to tell me about the time he accidentally mopped the floor of a cafe with parmesan cheese because he mistook the green can for Comet.  I'm not sure if I felt more relief or embarrassment to learn that I am not the first member of my family to try to clean something with cheese.  ?

Looking forward to a better tomorrow.

How Natalie Goldberg Turned Me Into a Thief

Books can be bad influences.

Today I bought Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg.  This book became famous for its inspiration to writers back in the 80s.  After hearing it praised by several friends, I finally decided to see what the fuss was about.  Between errands, I popped into Barnes & Noble and picked it up.  Then I stopped to grab a quick lunch.  But my quick lunch quickly became a slow leisurely meal as I dived into Goldberg’s book and found no desire to resurface.

From the very first page, I could not put it down. I suddenly felt like I was having lunch with an old friend, one who is really good at writing and really into Zen and who only came to lunch so that she could sit me down and tell me she believes in me and wants to give me a magical gift that will solve all my problems.  (Don't you love friends/books like that?)  I wanted to linger in that taco shop all day and read all 200 pages, but I had more errands to run, so I ran.

My next stop was the car wash.  Not the drive-through kind, the hand-wash kind.  But not the hand-wash-it-yourself kind, the kind where you pay someone to hand-wash it for you.  Specifically, I wanted the dog hair vacuumed out of the backseat before company arrives this weekend. 

I drove to the car wash in an altered mental state.  I couldn't stop thinking about Goldberg's book.  In particular, I was contemplating her theory of writing as meditation.  I was concentrating so hard on this thought that I entered the car wash through the exit.  Whoops!  When I got myself turned around, I learned it would cost $25 to clean my car inside and out.  Somewhere in the back of my cloudy brain that sounded high to me, but... I was in a rush and decided that I certainly didn’t want to clean the car myself, so I nodded.

Besides, I still wasn't REALLY thinking about car washes at all.  I was thinking about the part of the book that said, "Too many writers have written great books and gone insane or alcoholic or killed themselves.  This process teaches us about sanity.  We are trying to become sane along with our poems and stories."  I tried to remain sane as I got out of the car and handed the keys to the attendant.  When he handed me a ticket in return, I (thinking about how nice it would be to write a book and not want to kill myself) said, "What do I do with this?  Put it on my dashboard?"  He said, "No, you keep it."  So I put the ticket in my pocket, floated through the building to the outdoor waiting area, and sat down at a picnic table.

For the next forty-five minutes, I completely lost myself in Writing Down the Bones—reading, underlining, jotting notes.  Before I knew it, a man was calling out, "Honda Civic?"  I waved.  He walked over, handed me my keys, then turned and pointed across the parking lot to my car.  I became vaguely aware that I should tip him.  In my wallet, I had only a twenty and a five, so—what the heck—I handed him the five.  Then I moved to my car, still gliding in the pleasant haze of Goldberg's words.  I got in, pulled out onto the road, and, realizing I was in heavy traffic, snapped out of my reading-induced fog. 

At the first stoplight, I thought, "Oh my gosh!  It's 4:30!?  I still have to buy groceries and make dinner!"

At the second stoplight, I looked in the backseat and thought, "Wow, there is still a LOT of dog hair back there!  That stinks!  I'll have to clean it myself after all!”

At the third stoplight, I thought, "I tipped that guy five bucks.  That means that was a $30 car wash.  And they didn't even do a good job.  I wonder if I should go back and complain."

At the fourth stoplight, I thought, "HOLY CRAP!  I DID NOT PAY FOR MY CAR WASH!!!"

Yep, it's true.  A guy handed me a ticket, I sat down at a picnic table and read a book, a guy handed me my keys, and I left.  The assumption here is that I skipped a step somewhere.  I was probably supposed to hand that ticket to someone inside the building who would then have asked me to give them money.  But I didn't.  The only money I paid was the $5 tip.

You can judge me all you want, but I didn't go back.  I was already halfway to HEB in rush hour traffic, and I didn’t feel like driving all the way back just to say, “Hi, I forgot to pay you, so here’s the money.  And by the way, you totally need to clean my car again.”  I do feel bad, but I am hoping the universe will forgive me for this one. 

My new bookmark.

Anyway, though I may be lacking in morals, this story is not.

Moral #1:  The key to stealing something and getting away with it is a complete and total cluelessness, combined with a flighty, head-in-the-clouds attitude.  In short, ignorance = confidence, and if you act confident, no one will stop you.

Moral #2:  Writing Down the Bones is such a good book it can turn you into a criminal.  Thanks, Natalie Goldberg.  You owe the nice guys at the car wash $25.

You Haven’t Really Been Deathly Ill...

…Until You’ve Been Deathly Ill on a Train in a Foreign Country

Check out
The Bloggess's blog here.

I’m not sure if sharing this story makes me incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.   But I just finished reading Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by the brilliant bloggess, Jenny Lawson, and I have been inspired by her predilection for sharing too much.  I mean, she ratted out her own craziness and that of her family and got me to call her brilliant.  Of course, I don’t know how she feels now after millions of people read those stories.  Then again, she’s probably getting super rich, so I bet she feels pretty good.

But I digress. 

This is not about Jenny Lawson.  This is about me and one of the most humbling experiences of my life.  This is a story that I’ve been carrying around with me for years, and it’s time to get it out of my system.  (ß Not the best choice of words considering the subject matter.)

In the summer of 2001, I went on a sixteen-day tour of Peru.  The trip was amazing.  We hiked in the Amazon jungle, held baby sloths, explored Machu Picchu, participated in a curandera ceremony and much more.  Every single day was packed and we rarely stayed in the same place for more than a night.

[Oh yeah, I just remembered.  I already wrote about a different embarrassing experience in Peru.  You can read about that one here.  And just so you know, this one is WAY worse.]

One of the things I did not get to experience in Peru was the eating of the guinea pig.  No auto-correct happening here—you read that right.  One of our nights in the city of Cuzco was to be spent in the home of a local family where we were to eat a dinner consisting of some of the local fare, i.e. guinea pig.  In fact, we had already visited a home (just to see, not to dine) and I had seen live guinea pigs running around on the floor happily nibbling on alfalfa, as well as dead guinea pig carcasses—skinned—hanging up in the kitchen to dry. 

Guinea pigs alive and well... for now.

Above the guinea pigs-- a shrine containing
the skulls of the family's ancestors.

You may be thinking, She WANTED to eat guinea pig?!  Well, yeah.  See, I’d been getting ready for this trip for months and when I first heard about the eating of the rodent—(Are guinea pigs rodents?  I think for the purpose of this blog, they are.)—I was grossed out.  But then, everyone else that I told was grossed out too and eventually it turned around so that I ENJOYED grossing people out by telling them that I was going to eat guinea pig until I actually WAS excited to eat it.  (Moral:  Give me six months to get used to the idea and I’ll be excited to eat anything.)  My brother especially kept teasing me about it.  

One day he said, “You know what the worst part will be?” 

“What?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

He smirked.  “What if you like it?  Then what will you do when you get back to the states?  Go to PetSmart and ask, ‘How much for the fat one?’”

I laughed, but he kind of had a point.

Still, even with the possibility of torturing my future palate with an unattainable delicacy or of becoming that creepy person that gets banned from pet stores, I was still looking forward to the experience of trying guinea pig.  But I missed it.  And here’s why.

It’s not uncommon for people to get sick when they are traveling.  We’ve all heard of “Montezuma’s Revenge”.  Well, members of our tour group took turns coming down with what I called in my journal the “Peruvian Plague”.  Not everybody got it.  I was traveling with my friend Emily* from work, my friend Maggie who used to be my teacher, five of Maggie’s female high school students, one girl’s dad, and a couple of other women unrelated to us in any way.  As far as I know, none of the high school girls got sick, but I did and Emily did and the dad did and I think one other person did.  But—and I dare anyone to disagree—I had it the worst.

[*Emily and I had worked together for one year and we were becoming friends but still didn’t know each other well.  Then one day in the teacher’s lounge, I asked her out of the blue if she wanted to go on a trip to Peru with me and, without hesitation, she said yes.  I honestly have no idea why I asked an acquaintance to go to a foreign country with me, and I have no idea why she agreed.  But I am glad she did because we have been wonderful friends since.  Fishing for piranha with someone will bond you like that.]

Me standing proudly at
the Gate of the Sun

It was June 30^th, halfway through our trip and our second day at the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu.  I was on my own, having chosen to hike a different path than most of the group and because my roommate Emily was back at the hotel sick with the plague.  At 9:40AM that day, I sat down at the “Gate of the Sun” and wrote in my journal about how proud I was that I had made that climb by myself and how beautiful and peaceful it was there.  I also wrote, “I am really sorry Emily is so sick.  I can’t imagine how horrible she must feel being so ill and so far from home…  I wish she was here and I hope I don’t get sick as well.”  My next journal entry was written thirty-six hours later in shaky handwriting and starts with the simple, but powerful, statement, “Ugh.”  Because at that point, I no longer had to imagine how Emily felt.

The twisty bus road up to Machu Picchu.
Who WOULDN'T get sick on this?

By the time we left the ruins for the day, I was already feeling a bit queasy.  I tried to pretend it was only from the bus ride down the mountain, but as soon as we started eating our late lunch, I knew that something wasn’t right.  I didn’t even make it all the way through my meal before I had to run to the bathroom and throw up.

Now, at this point, the worst part was not the puking.  The puking took a solid third place behind the fact that I was a big baby and the Thing That Was About to Happen.  By “big baby” I mean that I cry when I throw up.  I’m not exactly sure why—it’s probably some sort of depression brought on by my sudden loss of control or something.  I don’t know; you can analyze me all you want.  All I know is that it upsets me.  And it scares me a little.  And it makes me want my mommy.  So when I came out of the bathroom and joined the group at the table, not only was I desperately in need of a breath mint, but I was also sobbing, which really throws a wet blanket over other people’s vacation adventures, when they have to console a weepy twenty-four-year-old woman who has just vomited.

But even the embarrassment of crying in front of coworkers and former teachers and high school girls was nothing compared to my anxiety over the Thing That Was About to Happen.  Because the Thing That Was About to Happen was this:  Immediately after I threw up, I had to go on a four-hour train ride back to Cuzco.

You know that feeling when you drink a bunch of alcohol really fast and then you wish you hadn’t done that but there’s nothing you can really do now (at least nothing you want to do) and so you just have to sit there knowing that soon the sensation of drunkenness and queasiness and room-spinning-ness is going to hit and you’re going to have to deal with it?  [Note to my parents:  I don’t actually know this feeling, I’ve just read a lot of books.]  Well, this was kind of like that.  I had just thrown up for the first time.  And I knew, based on the experiences of my travel-mates, that I was in the first ten minutes of a devilish twenty-four-hour illness, and I knew that the next four hours of that illness were going to be the worst, and I knew that I was going to be on a train for the duration of them.

If I hadn’t already been crying, this is the point when I would have started.

When I got on the train, I blubbered out my desperate need to sit near the bathroom.  (Thank GOD there was a bathroom!)  I was told that our seats were way up at the front of the train and that they weren’t sure we could switch.  Then I pushed past everyone into the bathroom, threw up some more, and then stood outside the door, unmoving, staring at the people in the seats around me until our tour guide—an extremely sweet woman named AnnaMaria—said something in Spanish to the two gentlemen in the seats just in front of the bathroom and they got up and left.  I can only assume the English translation was, “You guys have to move right now or this girl is going to throw up on you.  Or worse.”

Then the group went to their seats in the front of the train, AnnaMaria sat down next to me in the back, and thus proceeded possibly the worst four hours of my life.  I won’t bore you with every disgusting detail, but be forewarned, because I will tell you more than you probably want to know.

Things You Hope Will Never Happen To You But Which All Totally Happened To Me:

This is a mummy in a museum in Lima,
but it could just as well be a photo
of me on June 30, 2001, because
that's pretty much how I felt.

* Having the phrase “coming out of both ends simultaneously” apply to you while you are on a moving vehicle in a foreign country with no family members at your side.

* Being unable to swallow even a sip of water without vomiting (or worse) so that you become so dehydrated that you lose feeling in your hands and arms up to the elbow.

* Being so loopy from dehydration that you can’t even make it to the bathroom that is two feet away from you in time without soiling your underpants.

* Throwing away your soiled underpants in the trash can of a bathroom on a train in Peru.

* Opening your eyes to see several worried/angry/arguing faces leaning over you, all speaking in a foreign language.  Even in your looped-out state, you understand the words ‘stop’ and ‘train’ and ‘hospital’.

* Waking up to find a tall blond beautiful female is asking you questions in English.  You are told she is a Swedish doctor who was on the train.  She smiles at you a lot and says you’ll be fine.  You argue, saying maybe you do need to go to a hospital.  She shakes her head and says, in what you can tell is a voice meant to sound reassuring, “No, you do not want to go to a hospital.  They just don’t want an American to die on their train.”  Then she smiles again and you think, Huh. I don’t either.  We have that in common.

All of this is true (why I would make this up is beyond me—honestly I don’t even know why I’m telling it in the first place) although when I mention this story to people who were there (which I don’t do often because I don’t like them picturing me like that) their eyes tend to gloss over when I refer to the beautiful Swedish doctor and I always think, They just didn’t see her because they were in the front of the train, but secretly I kind of wonder if I made her up in my dehydration haze or if maybe she existed but she was actually an elderly Peruvian man with bad teeth.

I do not remember the end of the train ride, but I do remember climbing the two flights of stairs up to my room in the elevator-less Hotel Don Carlos in Cuzco, one small step at a time, being helped by Maggie and AnnaMaria.  I remember being given some magic South American elixir of life, which I was finally able to keep down and which made me feel ten times stronger and which was probably nothing more than the Spanish version of Pedialyte.  I remember the moment when I knew that the worst was over and fell into a coma-like sleep for several hours.  I remember a whole day of eating crackers and drinking clear liquids and watching reruns on TV from my bed while the rest of the group went on a day trip without me.  And I remember the realization that I was missing the eating of the guinea pig and how utterly disappointed I was about such a loss.  But in the end, I did fully recover from the Peruvian Plague, and even though I’m bummed that I didn’t get to eat guinea pig, I guess I am sort of grateful that I didn’t throw it up either.

While the rest of the group was eating guinea pig,
I found the strength to document my day by taking a
picture of the view out my hotel window.

For twelve years, I have been searching for a moral to this story, and I haven’t really found one yet.  Instead of learning from it, or growing from it, I generally just use it as a way to one-up other people’s stories.  “Oh yeah?  You got food poisoning from eating at China Palace?  Try nearly dying from the plague on a train in Peru.”  For the record, no one appreciates this.

I guess if I had to learn a lesson from this experience, it would be something cheesy like, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  And I’m not even talking about the explosive vomiting and diarrhea.  (ß Dang, I tried to get through the whole blog without using that word, but there it is.)  No, I’m talking about humility.  The fact that I did not die of embarrassment on that train has made me a stronger and more confident person in other facets of my life.  I mean, after a near stranger has held a bag for you to retch into after your arms have become too weak to hold it yourself, you’re not going to have an anxiety attack about accidentally farting in yoga. 

You gotta have some perspective, people.