Recommendations & Re-Entry Woes

Guatemala is still very much on my mind. I go to the burrito place on the corner about twice a week just to hear Spanish. I’ve checked out several Spanish textbooks from the library, including a wonderful one that I happened upon: Breaking Out of Beginner’s Spanish by Joseph J. Keenan (University of Texas Press). It’s insightful, practical and funny. And this is my favorite of the straight-out grammar books: The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice (For Intermediate and Advanced Learners) published by McGraw Hill.

I’m reading three books about Guatemala, two related to Bishop Juan Gerardi as the tenth anniversary of his murder approaches (April).

• The Art of Political Murder — Who Killed the Bishop (excellent book by Francisco Goldman)
• Guatemala — Never Again (the devastating “Official Report of the Human Rights Office, Archdiocese of Guatemala” which was coordinated by Monseí±or Gerardi, and which exposes the army’s murderous role during the civil war)
• Shamans, Witches and Maya Priests (beautiful and intriguing anthropological study by Krystyna Duess that’s almost impossible to find and that I bought for 660 quetzeles — nearly $100 — and I don’t regret it)

Those have temporarily jostled another good book about that region from my immediate queue: 1491 — New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. Finally, Lulu fairly coerced me to check out two bilingual volumes from her favorite poet, Pablo Neruda. I like Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon, while she prefers The Yellow Heart.

Today the post office delivered the Guatemala travel diary that I made on blurb.com. They did an amazing job. This thing is a Real Live Book, hardbound with dust cover and printed on good paper. Obviously, the production quality of the photos isn’t up to the level of a high-end coffee-table book, but then my photos aren’t that great to begin with. I highly recommend these guys. Very cool, what they do. So now I’m finding a trillion typos and printing oddities that I’m correcting so I can print a perfect copy.

I had a Skype conversation with Cheryl about my trip to Nepal this October, and am already excited about it. If my Achilles tendon is still too screwed up to trek to Everest base camp, I’d like to do a river rafting trip, a short (three- or four-day) trek, and maybe we can take a side trip someplace else, like Tibet. And of course I want to be in Kathmandu during Tihar.

These days, clinging to my Guatemala memories and planning my next escape are the only things I’m doing with any focus. I’m thrashing around looking for meaning, filling the void by spending money on things I can’t afford. Getting my head buried, tick-like, into work is particularly difficult. Why is post-travel re-entry so challenging?

After last night’s primary in Texas, I bought two things on the Obama Web site — about the only things that weren’t sold out: two Delaware for Obama shirts (one for my sister) and, in celebration of St. Paddy’s Day, six green “O’Bama” buttons. (See what I mean about spending too much money?) I can’t imagine why these weren’t snapped up earlier, can you?

I went to see the Battlefield Band (from Scotland) with Anna-Banana tonight. They were pretty okay. (Really: do you see what I mean about spending too much money?)

I also ordered an exercise machine (see what I mean about … ?) which was so expensive that I couldn’t spring for the additional cost of assembly, or of getting all 300 pounds of it from the driveway into my house, for that matter. Am I really going to try to put all that machinery together myself? I can see the headlines now: “Fatal Workout: Treadmill Eats Woman — Faulty Assembly Blamed.” If that doesn’t happen, I’ll use it to get conditioned for Nepal.

By the way, yesterday I had my first moment of being glad I didn’t go to Nepal last November. Here’s why: I went for a walk and found myself at the foot of that steep hill on Marin Avenue. Before I knew what was happening, I was starting up it for the first time in months, since before my cast and the anemia stuff. I meant to go just a few blocks, until I was too breathless to go on. But you know what? I made it to the top without stopping. Though exhausted, for the first time I wasn’t dizzy, my head didn’t hurt, my heart didn’t try to escape, and I could breathe. It was strange. And you know what I suspect? That the anemia had been limiting how much oxygen I was getting. If it was like that at sea level, what would have happened at almost 18,000 feet? Unaware that my blood was all screwed up, I would have gone off on my adventure, and … Well, I’m glad I didn’t. I don’t know from medicine, but how else to explain being able to get up that hill without suffering?