This Election is "Special"

But aren't they all? I just returned from voting early in the Statewide Special Election. I'm leaving this weekend for Paris/Rome, so I won't be around on voting day. In case you live here and you're unaware, there are eleven touchscreen voting locations scattered throughout L.A. I went to the East LA County Regional Library, where there were six pollworkers with absolutely nothing to do. They were thrilled that I was there, and went over in detail the process for the Diebold touchscreen machines. I didn't have the heart to tell them I'd done this before. Anyway, they wanted me to tell all my friends to get out and vote early, too, so...here I am: get out and vote early. Failing that, please vote on November 8.

What did I miss?

7 airports + 4 countries + 31 hours = cold foolishness. My last leg back to LAX was first-class, though: that helped. I'm back in the loft in Little Tokyo/Skid Row and in need of clean clothes, good food, and hardcore sleep. Today I'll start uploading photos from my trip into a new gallery on Buzznet.

Leaving Roatan

Since Sunday I've been staying with some great friends at the Inn of Last Resort, Roatan Island, Honduras. If you like diving or just want to sample some island life, I can't recommend this place enough. Tomorrow I leave Roatan, stopping in El Salvador on my way back to Guatemala City for one more night. I've logged seven dives since I've been here, including my first wreck, my first cave & swim-throughs, and my first night dive -- during which I encountered some leech-like creature that attached itself to my forearm and started sucking my blood. I think it was a bloodworm, but the divemaster didn't sound convinced. (Note to self -- start using a full-length wetsuit that covers both arms and legs.) I've encountered a host of interesting creatures along the way, the names of which I won't bore you with here, but rest assured I've tried to catalogue most of them in my dive log. All this glory comes at a price, however: I've got multiple cuts and scrapes on my arms and legs, popped blisters on my toes, and the skin on the front of my shoulders is broken open from the chafing of my BCD. In addition, I've got sand flea bites that look like mosquito bites and mosquito bites that look like table tennis balls under my skin. I've got reef rash on my left elbow and right ankle. Throw in some sunburn and a parrot bite, and I've had a good week. Honestly, I feel GOOD. 100% better than last week's bout with food poisoning. In fact, my condition reminds me of a Hamlin Garland poem I memorized when I was a kid:

"Do you fear the force of the wind,
The slash of the rain?
Go face them and fight them,
Be savage again.
Go hungry and cold like the wolf,
Go wade like the crane:
The palms of your hands will thicken,
The skin of your cheek will tan,
You'll grow ragged and weary and swarthy,
But you'll walk like a man!"

I'll fly like a man all the way back to L.A. this weekend. A very itchy man.

Stan/Guatemala

I've gotten several IMs and emails in the past few days inquiring about my location and whether or not I was affected by the floods and rains spawned by Hurricane Stan. I'm okay. My Saturday flights were cancelled, but I did make it out. I'm currently on the West End of the island of Roatan in Honduras. I flew in today after getting 2.5 hours of sleep last night -- I had to be at the airport in Guate at 0400 this morning after my last day of work in 4 Grados Norte. I feel like I have jetlag and I'm still in the same timezone. But after flying from Guate to Tegucigalpa, then to San Pedro Sula, then on to La Ceiba, and finally to Roatan, I've arrived safe, which is more than I can say for many back in Guatemala. I have dozens of photos that I took in the town of Santiago de Atitlan, on the shores of the lake that Aldous Huxley described as "the most beautiful lake in the world". I'll upload them to my Buzznet gallery when I return to Los Angeles next weekend -- pictures of markets, churches, Tzutujil children playing in the street or selling bracelets to tourists, Mayan women balancing impossibly large baskets on their heads. As I look at them now in my camera, I wonder if the faces I see are still there, if they haven't been buried by mud and water. I'm sad and I'm a little sick. I'm taking three different antiparasitics/antibiotics, which the doctor prescribed for me after learning that two different protozoa have invaded my digestive tract. The color of my piss is so saturated that it's almost green. It's the color of a highlighter marker. It looks like a yellow laser beam shooting out of my dick. But I'm okay. Thanks for asking.