07/11/00 I HAVE RETURNED...
...So to speak. I'm back at the fucking campus computer lab, because I went to pick up my fucking computer today, and it still doesn't fucking work... He installed Windows 98 for networks on it, and since I'm not connected to a fucking network, and it's OE software, and my fucking computer is a Pack Bell, needless to say, nothing fucking really connected. It kept telling me to "insert your Windows 98 CD ROM," which of course, I don't have one. Not to mention that the bootleg copy of Office 97 I have is like, malfunctioning...so I'm taking the whole mess to my dad tomorrow, telling him to have his nerd look it over and don't give it back to me until it's up and running and fully loaded, and bill me later. I hate computers.
So here I am, back in the midwest. Ick. But I have to tell you, I can now say with some degree of certainty that I don't much care for northwest Florida. It was like a trailer park in the middle of the desert with a beach nearby. The drive down was pretty intense--I had a lot of coffee and finally gave up the wheel around 2 in the morning, somewhere in Tennessee. I managed to completely figure out the whole plot and story line of the book I'm still trying to write--of course, after finally getting some sleep and regaining consciousness, I've forgotten it all. Dammit. Anyway, we pulled into Fort Walton Beach around 11:00 Sunday morning, only to find out that our hotel had fucked up the reservation and didn't have us arriving until Monday.
NOT a good thing to hear when you've been up for 36 hours, driven for 17 of them, look and feel disgusting, and just want a shower and a nap.
So we went over to the beach. The boardwalk at Ft. Walton is really a pretty cool setup, lots of air-conditioned places to hide in, nice bathrooms, showers, and acres of beach space. I parked my ass in a chair under an umbrella and was immediately accosted by the beach nazis.
"You want to rent a chair?"
Come again?
"The chairs rent for $5 an hour, $20 for the day."
Let me get this straight--you're going to charge me to sit in this chair?
I think that's the part about the Beaches of South Walton that totally turned me off--here's the Gulf of Mexico, and miles upon miles of sugary beaches, and ain't none of it for free, darlin'. In Cozumel, the attitude was more like, "hey, check out this amazing scene we've been lucky enough to score, come on and share it with us." Stateside, everything's an opportunity to make a damn buck. Only in fucking America. It really bummed me out.
What also bummed me out was that I couldn't spend more than 30 seconds in the sun without some fuckhead hitting on me. Like I'm really going to have sex with the first dick that comes up to me with a shitty come on. Where do men get this idea? Are there really women out there who find this flattering? I mean, Christ, I'm watching the goddamn sun set and having a lovely time and some shitbrick with one of those glow-stick things stuck in his damn mouth comes up and says "how old are you?"
Huh?
"How old are you?"
Uh...old enough to know a crappy line when I hear one, bucko.
So all the reflecting and self-discovery I planned to do? Nope. All the writing and relaxing with a margarita and a menthol light? Nope. The beach combing I did was sadly interrupted by what I have come to call "The Legend of El Rasho."
You see...2 years ago, when Megan and I went to Cozumel, I developed a strange rash on my arms about 3 days into the trip. I thought it was either because I was so horrifically sunburned or because I had contracted a strange tropical illness. We joked that I would be detained at customs--"no, lady, you cannot leave Me-hi-co, you got El Rasho. You very sick lady." The rash resolved a few days after we returned to the states, and I never thought about it again, even though several of our pictures from that trip show me inspecting El Rasho.
Wednesday night, I noticed my arms tingling and burning and itching. El Rasho returneth! I swear to God, up both of my arms, and by Thursday afternoon, on the insides of my knees. What the fuck??? After consulting 3 ask-a-nurse hotlines and making my own deductions, the concensus is that I am somehow allergic to sea salt. Hmmm...that could throw a wrench in my plans to eventually move to the coast. Of all the things in the world to have a reaction to, I have to be allergic to the fucking ocean. I must get this taken care of within the next year, as I plan to return to Cozumel or go to the Honduras to dive next summer, and I'll be damned if I'm going to dive in a full wet suit. Just call me "beach dork."
The trip was not a total loss, however. We took a snorkel charter out to the jetties and that was pretty damn cool. I finally got to see the St. Louis arch--lived in Missouri my whole life and had never seen that landmark until last week. But it seems like it came and went so fast...
We came back a day early because El Rasho pretty much negated any sun fun I may have had. And we were worried about the dogs, because Jud's grandma died and we didn't know who the hell was watching them. So we set out at 9:30 Saturday morning, and got to our house at 2:30 Sunday morning. I drove the entire damn way, because I was fine until we hit Columbia, and at that point, it was only another 2 hours to home, and it seemed kind of ridiculous to wake Megan up just for that. The moon did some funky shit after midnight, though. It turned red--I swear to God I wasn't hallucinating--and then just disappeared. And it was a clear night. By that point I was convinced that this was a sign for me to not return home, that a serial killer was waiting in our house or some crazy shit like that. Luckily, nothing of the sort awaited us.
My dogs are crawling with fleas. God, it's so disgusting. We went to the vet today and laid down $70 for Advantage. The shit better work or I'm raising hell. We've tried over-the-counter flea killers and obviously had no luck, so I'm crossing my fingers. It's starting to gross me out to the point I don't want the little mongrels in my bed.
Zak and I have been walking the dogs as usual. I've decided that I will not rest until I nail him. I can't take much more of this "sailing the Celiba-sea" (kudos to Andrew Hicks for that one). I am a woman of urgent need. Yesterday he actually came back to the house with me for a glass of water. He claimed to have been
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