When in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca...

Well, if it's July, the main thing is that it rains. It rains constantly. It rains with a seriousness that you have to hide from under an awning and just stare at out of amazement and respect, because of the sheer volume of water crashing down everywhere, straight down, relentlessly, until the sky wears itself out, takes a four minute nap, and goes right back to raining like it has no idea that it can do anything else. The inexhaustible supply of water everywhere here makes it hard to believe that there are huge signs glowing yellow on California freeways right now announcing "serious drought" and begging people to conserve water. Between the rain and the humidity, my clothes and my skin haven't been dry since I arrived in Costa Rica two days ago.

I already have a hard red spider bite the size of a small pancake that I check on every fifteen minutes to make sure it hasn't changed size too drastically. I've efficiently located every vegan-friendly cafe in this somewhat touristic, very eccentric Rasta/Australian/French/Italian/Bribri/Tico-inhabited Atlantic beach town, and now know where I can buy vegan pancakes with strawberry chai jam, vegan chocolate cake with peanut butter chocolate icing, vegan mochas, vegan chocolate peanut butter cups made from scratch, pasta, hummus plates, burritos and everything else I could possibly wake up craving. Mostly, though, I want to eat pineapple and mango until I can't even stand the taste of them anymore. I even like the papaya here, which instead of tasting vaguely like puke (my experience of every papaya I've eaten in the states), fresh Costa Rican papaya tastes very mildly of cinnamon and pumpkin pie, and is delicately soft without descending into sliminess. (The strawberries here can't hold a candle to California strawberries, unfortunately). I ate a huge fruit salad for breakfast and watched the ocean.

My time so far has been divided between standing on the beach staring at the waves, wondering what's underneath them and whether the sun will be kind enough to stage an appearance that will allow me to go snorkeling, finishing The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Kundera, eating in cafes, drinking lots of coffee, talking to other travelers staying in my hostel, and learning how to write a screenplay.

I really dislike the literary necessity of plot. It seems cruel to invent characters, only to set them up for disaster and disappointment. Writing pain into the lives of loved ones is an exercise in self-denial, and I'm enjoying it only because I haven't written fiction in a long time, and this is a new structure that appeals to me immensely.

So today is a day of almond milk mochas, grey ocean and grey sky, and grey macbook, and watching sleepy dreaded Ticos do their normal rainy day Tico things under umbrellas in flip flop feet. Tomorrow might be a day of bicycle rides to other beaches, or of baby sloths, or butterflies, or reggae clubs. There's a lot to do in this tiny place, and the best things to do are the things that people call nothing. I could live here.

The Masters Would Have Immortalized Me, and other summer realities

I haven't been writing here lately because I've been living. Summer always happens fast.

I went to a marriage celebration that seemed like it brought so many things full circle. It made me content, proud, and excited. And the lemony asparagus was so delicious.

I've gone up to Pinecrest a couple times. I pet my poodle a lot and relish her adoration of my attention. I went on a road trip and hung out with friends. When Sacramento strangers asked me what I do, I replied "I'm on vacation." In a few days, I'm going to Costa Rica. I have no idea what I'll be doing there, but I love Costa Rica. I love the soft sweet Spanish, I love "con gusto" and "pura vida", and I love salsa (the dance), gallo pinto (the food), and I LOVE guanabana (the fruit--you might know it as soursop, although I never did). So who cares what will happen once I get there. I don't care at all.

After Costa Rica, I'll be in Boise for the end of July. Then, somehow I have to get to New York by mid August. The dream is to ride my motorcycle, and second best would be to find other people with a car with fewer broken parts than mine who also are going to New York, and to share the ride. After that, I'll consider taking a train. Obviously, the worst thing would be to fly.

What comes next for the unemployed and savings-depleting Laralyn who wanders around California? This summer is so full, but then next, I don't know what to do with myself first. I have a lot I want to do, but I don't know what to do first. There are years in the making here. My self needs an occupation. Myself is this body that needs food and a little shelter. Myself is several decades left on earth if I'm lucky, and all the connections that my heart can carry.

I want to be a writer, I think, but I don't have anything to say. I've never liked plots. I don't like sad stories. This is why I don't write much fiction anymore. I might be in an independent film in the fall, if it gets funding. I want to crew a yacht cruising around the Galapagos. I want to live in a van. I want to learn to surf. I want to make coffee and drink coffee. I want Provence and Tuscany, mostly I want to be in the realness of the idea of loud dinners with big families with lots of bread and olive oil and wine. I want to grow organic vegetables, for someone else, with someone else's instructions, someone else's love in the soil, someone else's dirt on my hands. I want to feed people. I want the ocean. I want it deep in my heart, pushy and salty and terrifying me with its opaque indigo. I want fire in the palms of my hands in everything I do, and I want to forget the moon for a while and be a summer child, a sun daughter.

I've been reading a lot. A lot of it I forget, but some of it I don't. I thought about listing all of the books, but it'd be so deceitful. It would make it seem like I have all of those words in my mind or my soul, and I certainly don't. They just stretch me out and keep me company.

I wear sun dresses and big hats more fearlessly these days, and sometimes I catch my reflection and think I look fabulous, like one of the soft curvy goddesses painted by the masters. I found this wonderful project, and ever since, whenever I see my body, my skin, I see an oil painting, soft lines and deep curves, or a fresco, surfaces for reflecting light, or a watercolor, hazy and sweet and warm. I'm not at all into the fat acceptance movement, but I am into seeing those particular edges of my existence as quite lovely and strangely beautiful even while they are under reconstruction. I'm into being comfortable, like an artist's model. I guess what I'm saying is that I've recently discovered that the greatest men would have painted me, if I had lived near enough to them in time. And if they would have loved me, then everybody with any sense must love me, and I love me, and anybody who doesn't think I'm glorious has no idea that I quite nearly modeled for Botticelli (I only missed the gig by five centuries) and so I saunter and flow around California in this basil green cotton dress, knowing that I'm extraordinary when I smile, without having to bother being painted at all.

Maybe next I'll practice humility.

Quotation of the Day x3

"We keep our troops wherever we want" -Vladimir Putin (Source)

Geez, Vlad. Who do you think you are--America?

And then there's this bag o' goodies:

"since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders." -John Pilger (Source)

The truth is that I've become almost completely cynical and hopeless about the global Hunger Game of Thrones War of Terror that is being waged against the population of earth. Rich people with massively lethal toys make me sick.

If you haven't read Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, I'd highly recommend it. If you don't have time, I'll leave you with a sentiment that I think should be plastered on billboards in all first world nations and on the walls of high school campuses:

"I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that." -Kurt Vonnegut

Really Quick Vegan Pineapple Sorbet

In case you haven't yet had enough of my sad photography and my fantastic but vague recipes, here's another to keep you going. Enjoy!

Step 1: Add the following to a high-speed blender:
- a couple frozen bananas
- a cup or two of frozen pineapple
- two or three spoonfuls of frozen orange juice concentrate, or a splash of orange juice (this is more or less optional)
- two splashes of sweetened vanilla coconut milk beverage (or any non-dairy milk)

Step 2: Blend just long enough to get it smooth and creamy. Stop blending the second it's all blended, because the friction will start melting it, and then it will turn into a melted smoothie instead of staying the consistency of soft-serve.

Step 3 (Only for those with superhuman willpower. If that doesn't describe you, skip to Step 4): Transfer to a container and allow to chill in the freezer for 1-2 hours, if you like your sorbet more icy and frozen.

Step 4) Transfer to mouth.

Two Recent Poems

My muse is dried up lately--a drought in a drought (I know I'm not the only one whose pen is mystically lubricated by rain)--but here are two poor things I wrote on whims, just fragments of pushy moments in my head or what I noticed.

(untitled)

The aubergine moon I want to peck out of the dusk
And feed to you baby bird
And that dusty orb falling from my lips down your throat
Would crumble dry
bitter grinding stones between your teeth
or melt
explosive dust of ocean in your mouth

I Believe that when God created the Universe
He gave Himself
Fiat Lux
And what was Lux
but the Eternal Light that was and is

Truth converted into existence
Through the Greatest Act
of equal and opposite reaction
Suddenly lack of Lux
is darkness
takes form
and the sacrifice is duality
and death defeats duality
death defeats death
and the answer is

it’s fine now
and
it is now

supernova your Soul
leave nothing for yourself
give
yourself
and yourself is given
Truth somewhere behind before and inside it all
Subatomically disguised as what creates us
is What creates us

From dust to dust
Fiat Lux
Speak and be spoken
into life,

and give thanks.


The Porter

You sit uncomfortably in yourself,
wishing for less sink in the cushions,
or longer legs,
checking your Rolex with intentional glint
and mention your diary
in practiced casual.

We all know that you shudder in the evening
and feel terribly mortal.
We try to care
and rush off to wherever, leaving you
and your rigor mortis fingers
wrapped like leather
around so many handles.

Apple Carrot Juice

I spent a beautiful three-day weekend in Carmel Valley and Monterey with my mom and Meg, our poodle Charlotte, and Meg's ultra-adorable new toy poodle puppy, Holly. We did a little consignment shopping in Carmel Valley and took a nice walk by the beach in Monterey. I also had the pleasure of spending the night at Kellsy and Nick's new apartment, and got to hang out with them and a couple other mutual friends. It was incredibly relaxing. I love weekends trips that have no agenda, no plans, just chill people and laid-back fun. I'm thinking more and more about moving to Monterey for a while. I've never lived by the beach, and every time I visit Monterey, I feel drawn to its funny little scrubby trees, its crunchy vibe, and its alluring promise of a surfing education. I want. to learn. to surf.

The only downside to my whole weekend (and last week in general) was all the heavy food I kept chowing down. I had the same amazing vegan breakfast burrito (not vegan on their menu, but vegan thanks to the patient servers) two days in a row at From Scratch, a fantastic restaurant in The Barnyard. When I got home last night, I decided to top off my holiday weekend with a generous amount of "fettucini al cashews," which is what I call my pasta with creamy cashew cheese sauce. I approximately follow a combination of these two recipes for the sauce: the Detoxinista's recipe and this recipe from tofu-n-sproutz.

So needless to say, my taste buds have been happy little campers lately, but the rest of my body has been a little whiny. I woke up feeling pretty gross this morning, and plus I'm still battling a virus from January that turned into a stage five clinger. So I decided to take a day or two off from solid foods and blast my fussy cells (that's a technical term) with some micronutrients in pure liquid form. Plus, I have an overload of produce that is desperately crying out to be used before it goes bad, and juicing makes fast work of vegetable consumption. My trusty little juicer is a Black and Decker Juice Extractor.

I have all sorts of complaints about the design of this little guy:
- The chute is way too small and what's with the kidney bean shape? I have to chop everything up into tiny pieces before juicing.
- The juice receptacle is tiny.
- The receptacle doesn't attach to the juicer, so the vibrations scoot it away from the spout, leading to juice on the counter. The solution is to hold it against the juicer with your hand, or at least keep an eye on it so you can push it back into place when it starts wandering off.

Well, that's only three complaints. The truth is, I adore this thing. I can't remember how much I paid for it when I bought it used on craigslist, but I think it was $10 or $15. I'm not sure they make this model anymore, but you can buy something equivalent for $30-$50. Here's why this juicer is great:

- It looks like a tiny elephant.
- It works just as well as the huge, heavy, three-digit-price-tag juicer I used to own, but sold, because this one is just as efficient.
- It's light and tiny, and kitchen real estate is a hot commodity.

My breakfast consisted of this stuff:

I don't normally buy baby carrots, but they jumped into my Costco cart on a day when I thought I was going to eat all the hummus on the planet. Of course, I had barely made a dent in the bag, but now it's nearly gone, thanks to my juicelephant machine. I also have a bunch of organic fujis, and I included two of them, for sweetness and fending off doctors for a total of two days. (That's how it works, right? One apple = one day without doctors?) (I don't know why I'm trying to fend off doctors. I love doctors! I love my mommy, and I love The Doctor. Maybe I should eat fewer apples! Maybe fewer apples = more visits from mommies and Time Lords!)

Anyway, I ended up with this:

but that was waaaay too pulpy for my current anti-pulp mood, so I strained it and ended up with a creamy, delicious, sweet apple carrot juice. This cup, by the way, is a great cup. I got it at Target. It's insulated, holds thirty-two ounces, and comes with a fun reusable straw. It's also easy to clean, so it's usually what I put my smoothies in when I'm headed out the door.

The reason I don't usually juice is because of the leftovers. After all the fun of shoving food into a Swirling Chamber of Juicing Doom, you have all the pulp to deal with.

So I'm usually all about the blender action: no waste, very little clean-up, and no edible guilt-tripping byproducts; but when you've got a ton of veggies to get through, for fridge reasons or health reasons or both, juicing will get you there much faster. So unless you have nerves of steel and can handle the shame of throwing away all that precious plant fiber, you have to save it and do something with it. Today, I stuck mine in a container, tossed it in the fridge, and promised it a happy future reincarnated as something yummy, like quick bread or jam or cookies.

Tropical Green Smoothie

I'm not a good food photographer, or a good recipe-writer, but I wanted to write a quick post about the deliciousville that has been my standard breakfast for the past week. It's ultra-yummy and contains nearly all of my favorite whole plant foods.

How to (approximately) make my latest favorite smoothie:

Step 1) Buy a Vitamix.

Okay... you don't HAVE to buy a Vitamix, but it makes smoothies smooth like no other blender can.

Step 2) Collect the following:

2 frozen bananas
1/2 to 1 cup frozen pineapple
1/2 cup frozen mango
1 cup vanilla coconut milk (or plain sweetened, or unsweetened--the drink from the box, not the thick stuff from the can) (available at Trader Joe's)
1/4 cup frozen orange juice concentrate (or just use orange juice and skip adding water)
a handful of baby kale
a handful of baby carrots
1-2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
enough water

Step 3) Blend!

Step 4) Drink in the perfection.

There you go! At night, I sometimes make a second round, but leave out the water, and then it blends into a nice, thick sorbet-like consistency, which I eat for dessert. If you chill the sorbet version in the freezer for an hour or two, it's almost the same thickness as fro-yo.

My picture, sadly, doesn't show you what a pretty shade of mossy sage green it is in real life. Oh well.

It's a beautiful rainy Sunday.

It's also Groundhog's Day. Also, a lot of people are going to be screaming at glowing panels on their walls later, but I don't know what that's all about...

I had planned on picking up my new motorcycle today from Petaluma, but given the weather and the worn out front tire and brake, I started this blog instead. Now I'm going to a yoga class. Be right back...

Okay, I'm back.

I was talking to one of my favorite people, Kellsy, last night about how cool our lives are right now. I've been counting my blessings lately, and everybody else's as well. It makes me so happy to think about how well the vast majority of my loved ones are doing. For the most part, my high school and college friends and my "grown up" friends are all in really good places, living lives of their choosing, working on projects they believe in, and earning livelihoods doing things they enjoy. After all the pessimism and angst we endured (or insisted on), it seems like there are an abundance of happy beginnings. Sometimes I get down on myself and the world, but mostly I'm a happy, calm, content person. How sweet is that?! I'm far less stressed than most people I meet on a daily basis, and I enjoy my life a lot more than I used to.

So I guess it seemed like a blog was in order. I really dislike facebook and have been avoiding it for years, but I do want to share certain things with certain people, and given the good mood I've been rocking pretty consistently for a quite while now, I think people might not mind my sharing and might even be interested. So if you want to know what I'm up to, here's an update:

Where I live:

Meet "The Lean".

Built in 1880, this tilty old Victorian house is called home by a bunch of people. I only know half of them--the ones who live in the downstairs apartment with me. Somehow, I've yet to meet our upstairs neighbors. I moved here in October because it's cheap, fun, and in my beloved downtown San Jose. My housemates are called Johnette, Alena, George, Corona, and Doja. The first three are humans. The last two are kitties (who sometimes sneak into my room and sometimes pee on things, but we love them anyway). Johnette is a blonde bombshell engineer whose room is almost literally wallpapered in heels and whose floor is sometimes carpeted with blueprints. She's the Mario Kart queen of the house. Alena is a Disney princess who grew up to become a neon-haired "Nurse" at Psycho Donuts. Her existence is a paradox because she's both Mexican AND dislikes any type of spicy food. George is a wine guy at BevMo and supposedly speaks words out loud sometimes. Mostly, I just hear shooting noises emanating from his bedroom. (He's a gamer.) We all get along really well, except for Corona and Doja, who are frenemies of the highest degree.

Where I work:

I've worked at private secular college prep high school for the last three years. It's called Pinewood and it's tucked away in a beautiful neighborhood/town called Los Altos Hills, home to some of Silicon Valley's ultra-rich. Right now, I teach American Government, Debate, and Yearbook. Until this semester, I was also teaching economics, but apparently all the cool kids already took my econ class, so I was left one class short this semester.

I also tutor for an impressively fast-growing company called AJ Tutoring. I tutor high school students in economics, writing, and SAT prep. So basically, I get paid money to help people understand the world and be a little more confident about their futures, and I think that's awesome. I didn't exactly intend to become an educator, but let's be honest--it makes sense. I'm naturally a very didactic person.

How I live:

I became a full-fledged vegan in 2013, and I think it's one of the best choices I've ever made. It's certainly one of the decisions that makes me the most proud of myself. More posts about being an herbivore will certainly ensue.

I joined a gym called Bally in downtown recently, because when it comes to exercise, I really just want someone to order me around and do all the thinking and counting for me. (I can lift these really heavy pieces of metal OR I can count to ten. Not both.) That's how Tae Kwon Do used to work, and that's how yoga and BodyPump and all the other gym classes work, too. I really enjoy walking 15 minutes to the gym, following instructions for an hour, and then heading home feeling like I've done my due diligence for the day, and my body's been thanking me for it.

In my free time, I've been doing some other fun stuff as well:

- Teaching myself to play ukelele (fewer strings and therefore easier and less intimidating than guitar).

- Spinning poi. (Someday I'll look like this.)

- Modern dance. I took a modern dance class last fall, and now I dance alone in my bedroom where nobody has to watch the process. Actually, I'm not terrible at it and I'm even working a little bit on my own choreography, but my body, having more curves than straight lines, doesn't look "right" when I dance, but, as stated above, I'm working on that!

- Hanging out with friends, both old and new. Sometimes this involves spontaneous living room dance parties, sometimes trivia night at Trials Pub, sometimes long discussions, sometimes Star Wars: The Old Republic (Ronny, am I a gamer yet?!)

- Blending (food, not makeup). (More on this later.)

- Learning about engines and motorcycle maintenance. (This will go a lot better once I actually own a motorcycle again, which should be happening this week!)

- Casually selling small pieces of used furniture (and other stuff) on craigslist with excellent profit margins.

- Meditating. Maybe not what comes to mind what you hear the word "fun," but it's definitely fun to feel more calm, selfless, and happy all the time.

- Reading constantly.

That last one deserves a little more explanation. My mom (oh you sweet angel) introduced me to the OverDrive Media app, and through it we can download free audiobooks from public libraries (library card required). I've been reading voraciously, so much so that I actually feel somewhat addicted to audio books. I refuse to give into the ridiculous stigma that listening to a book somehow counts for less than "actually" reading it. I'm busy, yo! Whereas I used to get through maybe one or two pleasure reading books each month, I now am zipping through one or two a week, sometimes more. I started out with some novels I've been meaning to read for a long time, but quickly realized that I'm far more interested in non-fiction lately. So last month I read two Stephen Hawking books ("A Brief History of Time" and "The Universe in a Nutshell"), which revived and expanded my pre-teen love of astronomy and cosmology, and launched me into an obsession with theoretical physics, which I've continued to explore through other media. The universe blows my mind, and expands it, and includes it. And everything is connected. Woooooah!

I'm now reading a fantastic book called "Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy." The authors' goal is to equip the reader with the scientific knowledge necessary to intelligently navigate the modern world. It's basically a crash course in everything you forgot from your high school science classes, but with really clear and valuable explanations of why each concept is useful and significant to our everyday lives. They teach you about everything from why computer chips work to what stem cell research is all about. Unlike my high school and college textbooks, these books written for a general audience aren't dry and soulless. The authors are witty, opinionated, and personal, which makes the learning experience much more fun and much MUCH more effective.

I've also been brushing up on my Eastern and Western philosophy, although philosophy is less suitable to the audio format because the text requires a lot more chewing before swallowing, so I find myself hitting the pause and back buttons a lot more often. Regardless, I'm in love with audio books. If I'm driving, cleaning, cooking, or walking, I'm reading. Hooray for efficiency and self-improvement!

So that's more or less what my life looks like at the moment. As my t-shirt currently declares: Life is good.

Most of my posts on here won't be nearly this long. Feel free to RSS or email subscribe for regular life updates, vegan recipes, adventure stories, book recommendations, and occasional ponderings on the nature and meaning of life.

Peace!