Dentists, People, and Blowfish (very practical title)
It’s kind of weird having a cool dentist. I just went to this guy for the first time last night, recommended by my friend Bahareh, and the first thing he says is, “Nice streaks. I never went blue myself, I had my head shaved like De Niro in Taxi Driver and dyed fire engine red.” He spent the next hour talking to me about Bush, the mod scene in Chicago, the closing of important clubs, and Hunter S. Thompson. I was like, “If you’re seeing any fucking bats, you better not be doing anything in my mouth.” But after talking to me about how he was on heaps of drugs this night he went to see some play, his daughter called and he had to go talk to her. It was a trippy experience.
Costa Rica was terrific. I got a horrific sunburn on my thighs. Eight days later it’s just started to peel in some places and the top center of my right thigh is still really hard and red and painful. It was all swollen, it was bad. My feet are run pretty ragged, I’ve got bites, sores, popped blisters and I think my pinky toenail is going to come off - so it was a successful trip.
I met this crazy eyed American who looked like Jerry Garcia wandering around Monteverde knowing not a word of Spanish. He was so weird, but after one day every backpacker in town knew him because he’d chatted at us all. I even missed a bus up the mountain because I was hiding across the street to avoid talking to him again.
My other favorite person in Costa Rica I didn’t actually meet. The east coast has a well-deserved reputation for being weed central. There’s even a woman who makes marijuana ice cream. One stoner went to go purchase some of her merchandise, but couldn’t because she’d gotten stoned and forgotten to make it. He was like, “Are you going to make it later?” and she said, “No… probably not.” Classic.
I almost got eaten by a blowfish. I was out snorkeling off Punta Mona – totally alone, having a nice time. I saw heaps of cool fish who all schooled away from me as I approached. I started to get out into deeper water and all of a sudden I see this fucking mammoth blowfish. It had to have been about 3.5 feet long and at least a foot and a half in diameter. And it’s just looking at me; it’s not swimming away like the other nice little fishies. I swim a little bit closer, and I swear the thing would have said, “Bring it, bitch” had it only the appropriate vocal equipment. It’s so aggressive, in fact, that I take a second to ponder if it could be some kind of shark, but probably not. Anyway, about that time I start to remember that they can be poisonous to eat, and my mind starts to wonder if their spines are poisonous too, just in case this sucker balloons up. And I decide that it’s just time to leave.
You never know how slow you are in the water until you’re running away from something. I don’t think it chased me, but now I’m swimming all out – and my snorkel falls off. So I grab the snorkel, but now I’m trying to swim and not breathe. Long story short (too late), I floundered my way back to the shore, in tact, but with a healthier fear of the ocean.
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