Dirty

Last year I was fortunate enough to travel to India for work.  I only had about one day of sightseeing during the whole trip.  It was a difficult trip emotionally and professionally – I lost an employee to suicide and found some employees who didn’t feel they were treated fairly.  Unfortunately all in a day’s work for an HR Director.  But there were a lot of things I was beginning to love about India. 

The driving - why sit there backed up in two lanes when 5 cars can easily fit?  It actually makes sense to drive outside the lines.
The drivers - because I can't drive like that – they drive on pure faith. 
The sexism - women get their own lines for airport check in and screening, buying tickets to temples, etc. and since there are no women, no waiting!  I just zoom right in! 
The unnecessary concern for my personal welfare - "Please, ma'am, put that barbell down!  It is too heavy for you!"  "Please, Ma'am, I will drive you, it is not safe" "Please ma'am, take these water wings if you are going to swim in the ocean!"

Wait, wait, wait - what?  Water wings?  I grew up in Hawaii.  I could swim before I could walk – we all could.  Just toss us in and see what happens!  I don't think I need water wings.....unless I am required to swim in a full length dress and pants.

One of our staff was kind enough to take me sight seeing on the day I had free. Bless her!  We hit temple after temple on our way to Puri - a Hindu holy sight and beach town.  We stopped for fresh coconut on the way (guy takes a machete, chops the head off the young coconut, slaps a straw in it and when you are done, pops the whole thing open and scoops out the meat with the back of the shell - yum!)  and then stopped for Chinese food. 

I figured I would get a life threatening illness from my dirty activities that day, but it was FUN!   Machete wasn't so clean and neither was the guy, but he really wanted his picture taken and it was so awesome to just toss my leftover coconut and plastic straw over an embankment........wait, that part freaked me out because I live in Seattle and would probably be kicked out of the neighborhood association so I kept the straw in my bag the rest of the day looking for a plastic recycling bin.  They don’t really have them in India, so I carried it a long time. 

We drove into the beach town of Puri and it was HOT.  We rented two plastic chairs under a tarp because Indians are somewhat obsessed with pale skin and my guide didn't want to get any darker.  We had a giant argument about which was better dark or light  (growing up in Hawaii doesn't make you value pale skin, we call that "shark bait").  I took off my shoes with the intention of just wading in the water because I couldn't find a place to change out of my salwar suit into a new one if I got it all wet.  Everyone already told me to NOT EVEN THINK about wearing a bathing suit or even shorts and a t shirt because it would be vulgar - everyone swims in saris or salwar kameez.  Right!  Like I am swimming in a dress and pants - this isn't the rainbow gathering! 

As I got closer to the Pacific, I saw the sweet, sweet shore break.  It was hot, the ocean smelled so salty and cool, there was hardly anyone in the water (we will find out why later!) I was physically called to dive in, dress and pants and all.  Swam out past the break which was decent when all of a sudden, some guy in a pointy hat shows up next to me and hands me an inner tube thingey.  I was like "who are you and why are you wearing that hat?  I am wearing the damn dress and pants, now I have to wear a tube?   What is with this place?"  Apparently, it was a lifeguard and they were concerned that I was drowning.  So much for learning to swim before I could walk.   I swam in and asked my colleague to explain to this guy to leave me alone so I could swim - I promised not to drown.  He finally relented and I went back out for a good 30 minutes of uninterrupted body surfing.

It was pure bliss - I miss the water.  I miss the feeling you get when you dry out and salt covers the hair on your arms and you are slightly burnt and feel like you know what a roasted peanut feels like before it is put in the can.  I love that feeling.  But we had to go, so I headed to the public shower.  Yeah, you know where this is going, don't you?

I paid a few rupees for a spigot 3 feet off the ground.  Problem was, I was blasted with sand - it was everywhere and still is.  So I washed off as best I could and then headed back to dry in the sun.  The water was dubious the shower pretty funky, so I did what I could and got back to the beach.  Salwars are pretty light material, so I figured 15 minutes would do it.  I even changed into a t shirt and wrapped myself in a scarf so as not to appear indecent while my dress dried. 

I guess a lot of women don't sit in the sun drying their wet clothes so they can hit the monkey temple (monkey temple!  I know!  I know!), so we attracted quite a crowd.  I had a guy singing some Bollywood love song to me while these other guys kept walking by and clandestinely taking my picture.  If I pass for Pamela Anderson here in a wet pair of pants and half burka, I am kind of thinking about staying.  Except the singer guy was clearly batshit crazy and the camera guys looked like a frat boy assault team "dude, you know how my dad owns the Ford dealership in Udiapur?  Well he got me a sweet deal on an F150! Did you see that chick in the wet burka, she totally wants me, dude."

We finally left and headed to the world's coolest temple.  There are all kinds of carvings from the kama sutra on the temple because it is supposed to distract evil spirits from entering the temple - I guess they just stand outside and "enjoy" themselves.  Works for me, I didn’t leave for a good 45 minutes. 

The next day I was off to Calcutta to hunt for the market that sells Bollywooded Che Guevera shirts which means he is glittery and wearing eye liner. 

I love India.

Car

So, I'm driving to this funeral (at least I didn’t say I just flew in from Cleveland).

I grew up in Hawaii around beach culture, so having a nice car is not a virtue, it is a liability and an embarrassment.  Cars should be able to be operated with a kitchen utensil because you lost your keys in the ocean.  Cars should have holes in the floor to let the fresh sea air in and wash out the floor during the rainy season because how else are you going to get it clean?

I drove beaters for years.  I had a 1972 Datsun station wagon named Judy, a 1980 Toyota named Twanda, and a 1987 Jetta named Vivienne.  Vivienne was so great, when she died at 250k, I bought a look alike and named her Verna. 

After about two years, Verna started cheating on me.  Just like Viv did.  Her distributor cap always cracked, she would need the heat on during the summer or she would explode in anger, spraying me with hot, sticky, maple syrup breath.  She was a hot little mess, but I loved her.  The mushrooms growing on the door panel were a total plus and earned me at least one demotion at a large wireless phone provider located in Bellevue. 

I had just started a new job and was driving to a funeral in Renton.  My friend Christine's mom died suddenly and she was a ROCK to me when I lost mine.  It was in the middle of the day and I was, of course, wearing a black suit on the hottest day of the year.  Ever.  99 degrees in Seattle.  With the heater on full blast.  It wasn’t pretty. 

I was on I5 about 5 miles from the funeral and I notice the temperature gauge flashing.  I'm about to be late so I consider my options - stop in industrial South Seattle and hope I can hitch a ride or find a gas station and a cab, miss the funeral OR push it and pray.

I go for the push it and pray method.  Everything is fine.  Everything will be just fine!  I will sell this house today!  I have the heat going full blast.  I am almost there when I feel cool air instead of hot air.  Shit.  That can't possibly be a good sign.  At least I am off the freeway.  I park the car, walk the rest of the way in my sweaty black suit and hope Verna will be cool enough for coolant in 2 hours which was a good possibility because it was a Catholic funeral. 

Attend funeral.  Stand up, kneel, cross self, stand up, bow head, sit down, kneel, sing, cross dress, repeat.

After an appropriate amount of time, I go back to Verna and add coolant (why yes, I do keep loads of it in the trunk – tastes good on waffles).  Add lots and lots of coolant.  Verna seems OK.  Verna starts.  I get in Verna.  Drive Verna.  Verna stops.  Verna starts.  Verna stops.  Verna starts.  Verna stops in busy intersection.  I get out of Verna in an even sweatier black suit on the hottest day of the year ever and begin to push. 

Thank God there are still normal humans in the Renton.  In Seattle, no one would have gotten out of their H3 Lexus Audis to push me.  In Renton, four guys in different trucks got out to help "a lady in need".  Awesome, awesome people.  We push Verna to a vacant lot and I walk back to the funeral.  I am one of those people who hopes that someone will say I was a good employee at my funeral.  I have a meeting with a world famous scientist in an hour and I can’t be late.  New job, must impress. 

I walk in and approach various people and say, "I'm so sorry for your loss - are you going to Seattle?  Really?  Can I have a ride?"  Make meeting with world famous scientist leave Verna in Renton.

For some reason, it took ten days to get the dang thing towed.  Luckily I was a bike commuter at the time.  Verna was towed to shop in Renton, she gets drunk and disorderly.  In short, they can't figure it out and threaten to push her into busy road.  Verna was then taken by cabulance to the dealership in Seattle for $50k.  They say they can't get to it for a few days.  No problem!  I commute by bike!  Then I go to pick up Verna, bail was only $600!  Whee!  Drive her half block.  Verna stops.  Walk back to dealership, push car onto lot.  Go home.  Cry.  Lather, rinse, repeat for 4 more weeks.  This sucks because my roommate didn’t pay rent that month because the flyers for the rave he was working went over budget.  Fucking ravers. 

After 4 weeks of bike commuting over the “Seattle swelter” year, I come to a realization.  I am 35 years old, make decent money, and I DESERVE air conditioning.  And butt warmers.  And a giant SUV.  You know, for camping and mountain biking and stuff.  I have made up a car in my mind that doesn’t exist and I buy it anyway.  Red candy apple Jeep with fold down seats, air conditioning, killer stereo, but warmers and she doesn’t even have a name. 

Travelfuckinglocity

I final arrived in Indonesia after an almost 30 hour journey.  It is beautiful, stunning, utterly holy.  Unfortunately, I can't take any pictures because my camera bag is in North Korea along with all of my clothes.  

This story might make guys a little squeamish, but women will understand that sometimes these things happen.  Guys, don't worry.  I won't talk about my feelings.

This trip was (IS!  IS) an exercise of starting fresh, clearing my mind, and starting a spiritual practice.  Which, I can apparently only do from Asia.  The week leading up to it left me with some serious doubts - about the trip, my sanity - you know, the usual.  But I got on the plane (with only moments to spare, only half of my boarding passes printed out, and a minor panic attack) and struck up a fantastic conversation with two male nurses from San Diego.  OK, things were looking up!

The flight was late getting to LA and I had to literally run to check in at Korean Air.  The woman there picked me up, threw me over her shoulder and tossed me onto the plane.  OK, far, so good.  

The flight is about 14 hours which is a long long time to sit, so I read, I wrote, I fretted.  Then, I hit the bathroom and got a lovely surprise - my period!  Just 10 days early. Always better than 10 days late, I suppose.  

So I ask for supplies but they don't have any.  I seriously considered screaming out to the whole plane, "hey, does anyone have a tampon?" but I refrained.  So I am sitting there for like another 12 hours just waiting to change my clothes or at least buy some things in Seoul.

In Seoul, they have a huge giant airport.  It has wireless cafes, children's play areas, miles and miles of duty free shops, shops that sell nothing but I <3 Korea shirts, but they do not have one convenience store. Really.  I walked miles in that thing. And they don't stock them in the bathrooms.  You can buy every shade of Lancome lipstick they sell and believe me, I tried. I really needed something more basic, however.  

Time to check in to the flight to Denpasar.  Oops!  They can't check me in because I don't have a boarding pass. So I am like, "but I didn't get one - they said to check in here."  They send me to the other terminal to see if I might be able to convince someone they should give me a pass to board my flight.  I am sent to three different counters until I get to the right one.  There is a surly young woman sitting at the desk and she tells me aren't open.  So I am thinking, "why are you sitting here?"  I come back in 15 minutes, she rolls her eyes at me and starts demanding my boarding pass.  I don't have one.  "Where is your boarding pass?'  I don't have one.  “Where is your boarding pass?”  I don’t HAVE one.  We aren't making progress.  

Finally she says, "why?" in the most accusing voice I have heard outside of my parents.  (Mom, I have NO idea why your car was out of gas when I was 13 that one time, I swear).  She finally relents and gives me my boarding pass. 

I get on the plane to Bali.  We are ready to take off.  I haven't understood a word anyone has said to me all day - this is no different.  A Korean Air stewardess runs up to me on the Indonesian flight and tells me they didn't put my bag on the plane, she doesn't know why, I have to call the baggage counter in Seoul tomorrow, there is nothing she can do.  Shit.  OK, fine.  Well I am going and I am going to have fun and if we have to have a law suit when I get back so be it.

Halfway into the flight I realize I am literally bleeding through my pants.  I have a big period stain on the only clothes I have access to.  I take my pants off in the bathroom and attempt to wash them.  This leaves a bigger, pee-looking stain.  I clandestinely put my hands over my butt and hope no one calls security.

Finally, we get to Indonesia.  The driver my friend Natasha hired for me because she rocks, picks me up and I tell him about the bag.  "Don't worry, I will take you to a store you can get everything you need."  I love this man!  I love this place!  It reminds me a lot of India only with a ton of drunk Australians walking around.  

There is a temple on every corner and I will be here for the Hindu Day of Silence where you can't talk or have your lights on or leave your house from midnight on March 4 to dawn of March 6.  They even close the airport.  But the thing that is even better is on March 3, they take their elaborate statues down to the ocean and burn them to get rid of evil spirits.  I will be at the beach that day, so I am pretty stoked.  It seems like Burning Man without having to talk about nothing else the whole next year. 

Unfortunately, most Indonesians are smaller than me so I try hard, but wind up with two inappropriately fitting t shirts, a gaping pair of men's boxers, something I hope is a sarong and a 3 pack of little girl's pink underwear.  Well, it is what it is.  

I finally check into my hotel, and what do I see?  3 GIANT roaches.  I grew up in the tropics and I was permanently scarred by roaches as a child in Hawaii.  I hate the fucking things.  Hate.  I call the front desk, we have a hard time understanding what is in my room, but she sends a guy out from maintenance.  He has this giant pincher and I am thinking, "if that is how big the roaches are here, I am screwed.”  He is looking all around the room, can't find anything, then I finally point one out to him and starts cracking up.  It seems they thought I had giant frogs in my room.  He picks it up with his fingers and throws it outside.

This is a beautiful place and I am grateful to be here with such amazing people but I am a little afraid to go to sleep tonight - I don't want one to crawl on me and whisper inappropriate Indonesian phrases that I will accidentally repeat.

Tomorrow I am headed to the monkey forest, see some traditional Balinese dancing and hit the craft villages.  Tomorrow will be a better day.  Mike, my tour guide, is going to take me to a priest to get holy water dumped on me too.  It can't hurt.

The Intimacy of Strangers

Flying from Seattle to LAX, falling asleep on the floor and nearly missing my flight should have told me something.   I don’t know what, but something. 

The day before my flight, I spent freaking out.  Like really really freaking out.  Like calling my dad and begging him to come get me and take me home.  I called everyone I knew, they all told me I should in fact be freaking out, that was expected after one quits a perfectly good job without another one and decides to head to Indonesia to write a book.  Now, you are probably thinking, “who does she think she is?  Elizabeth Gilbert?”  No, I actually think I am Barak Obama.  We were born a the same hospital, lived 2 miles apart, apparently aren’t really REAL Americans and like to hang out in Indonesia.   I was thinking of a more punk rock spiritual enlightenment kind of trip like Chelsea Handler meets Guru Gurumuk and then beats her up. 

I had been in an overly friendly mood on the way to LA to catch my connecting flight to Seoul and decided to set myself down between two other passengers in a row that wasn’t mine - at their invitation.  They were adorable guys - early 20s, and had just returned from a bender.  Fan-tastic!  I was in the party row.   We had some fantastic conversations and it made an otherwise uneventful flight bearable.   

Unfortunately, the flight had a lot of turbulence so we had to party with our own personal chemicals.   The ones in our brains, not the fun ones you get for $20 a pop.  Or $10 if you know the right people.  They were best friends from elementary school and were working as nurses in San Diego.  They were perfectly lovely, but they did wind up getting me drunk.   I am perfectly capable of doing that on my own, but I guess chivalry isn’t dead – thanks guys!  In LA, I raced around franticly looking for the Korean Air counter.  I couldn’t find it to save my life.  When I finally got there, I was 10 seconds from missing my flight and the counter lady made me ride on one of those fat people carriers.  It was humiliating, I could have run.  In heels.  It wouldn’t have been the first time I jumped into the wheel well while the plane was taking off. 

So where are we going here?  To Seoul first (does it count as visiting Korea if you change planes in Seoul?).  The whole point of this whole stupid thing was to get some time off, recharge, shut the fuck up and figure out what to do with my life now.  I had blown a dream interview earlier in the day due to my extreme anxiety.  Blew it hard – like a 25 year old sorority girl.  Oh yeah, where are we going here? 

The intimacy of strangers on planes.  It is oddly intimate to sleep next to perfect (imperfect) strangers on airplanes and you wake up to find yourself kind of cuddling next to a Marine Corps Officer.  Or having a row party with two kids from San Diego.  Or sharing a bathroom with the 150 random people on a plane.  It is closer than I get to my family. 

My friend Max always reminds me that I don’t have to like my real family (I do, very much, so don’t freak, y’all), but that I did have to like my chosen family because I picked them myself.  Out of a dumpster or Value Village, but I picked them.  All by myself. 

For some reason, this trip reminds me slightly of the phone call I got from my friend J one morning.  “Jen!  Shit, J2 left me at the airport and took my wallet and my hair is covered in frosting and they won’t let me on the plane because I don’t have an id or boarding pass and I think we were at a strip club playing blackjack and eating cupcakes, but I can’t be sure.  Can you come get me?”  He was in Vegas. 

I have never found that place to be very appealing.  It is kind of like Burning Man (I say as I prepare to be shunned by my entire community of friends who will likely unchose me) where everyone just recounts the things they did at Band Camp over and over and over and over and over and over and over (yeah, it gets boring).  I mean, if you can’t spend your weekends getting drunk, painted blue and hitting the goth roller-derby opera, where the hell do you live?  And why do you still live there?  The housing is cheap?  It is close to your parents?  You live right around the corner from a Linens and Things? 

Vegas is like that too.  Everyone tells you for years and years about all the wacky hijinx they had in Vegas in like 1962.  Or my grandparents did anyway.  I think they went out drinking with Frank Sinatra, got stuck at the airport with frosting on their cigarettes, no money a souvenier cocktail glass.  No cell phones back then so they had to stay for two years – grandma working as a show girl, grandpa working as a dealer.  

So where are we going here?  So, Barak Obama, Elizabeth Gilbert and a rabbi are all on a boat from Densapar to Sumatra with a Bengal Tiger and an iguana or I am merely sitting on a ridiculously long flight between two humans with whom I have shared oxygen and likely mitochondria for 14 hours. 

The intimacy of strangers is an oddly beautiful thing.