GEEK: BLOGGING FROM MEXICO

Hi. It´s me KDUNK and I`m writing you from a peach colored internet cafe in Alcapulco, Mexico. Because I am here I can geek out and type things like this-ñ. The weather is amazing and warm and we have somehow managed to avoid the wet T-shirt contest spring break crowd although there is still time. With this rack I will be sure NOT to be winning any contests. I don`t get tan I get freckles. I ate a tamale for breakfast. Our hotel is interesting. Our room has a lightbulb hanging from a wire and a velvet painting like tiger bedspread. Last night in the dark we heard car horns and blaring music and E asked if I was enjoying my stay on the New Jersey turnpike. All I could think about were my friends Wendy and Helena and our trip to Miami and what Wendy might say were she here to post a review on TripAdvisor.com. So here I am with a warm fresa `yoghurt` in my bag. Stomach doing fine. Quote of the trip thus far is from a twelve-year-old boy on the plane, "Dude...I can`t wait to try out my Imodium AD!" Time for today`s cuarto cerveza de le dia. Hasta pronto!

WHO WHISTLES?

What's up with you people that whistle? Don't you know it's ear piercing and annoying? So stop it. There is a person I am in contact with every day that whistles the same damn tune over and over again and when I hear them I just want to curl up and die. Of all tunes to pick it's "All The Leaves Are Brown". You say you don't know the tune? Oh yes you do. "All the leaves are brown...And the sky is grey...and the sky is grey...

Everywhere I go I have the lyrics rattling around in my head. At the fax...'I've been for a walk'....on the toilet....'On a winter's day'...in the elevator...'I'd be safe and warm'...ordering a coffee..."If I was in L.A.' Of all the tunes to pick I find this one especially clingy and irritating.

The worst is people that whistle complicated, thirty-seven part symphonies full of various woodwinds and triple notes in a flurry of jarring whistles. It's like...dude. Get a fucking iPod.

THE PANIC PACK

E and I head off to Mexico in a few days. Have you ever been there? Suggestions? Even writing the word Mexico seems like the world's most greatest thing ever in life. I love traveling. My family actually traveled a lot around the US when I was a kid. Overall we traveled pretty well together despite most of my sister's and my backseat conversations ending in, "MOM!!!!! HER SKIRT IS TOUCHING ME!!!!!!!!!!!"

Technically E and I have only been on one major trip together which was to Spain for our friends wedding. We had a blast. Traveling with another person is interesting. Everyone has their own little 'thing'. E is an amazing and experienced traveler. He packs like...one t-shirt and some underwear and he's out the door. I'm somewhere between him and that girl you see at the airport with way too many magazines for the two hour flight and the strap of her bra hanging out the bottom of her wheeling suitcase.

It's not that I need a lot of crap when I travel it's just that right before I go on a trip I do what I call the 'panic pack'. The 'panic pack' is the putting things out on the bed and everything seems to be going smoothly-underwear-check! socks-check!-and then out of nowhere I run off and decide it's very crucial I pack the foldable rain poncho given to me in a Christmas stocking four years ago or perhaps maybe the 976 paged Hardcover new translation of Don Quixote I've been wanting to read. I will never live down one of the items from last trip when I packed the eighty pound 'travel' iron that my mother loaned me from 1873. It was made of steel and had a cloth chord that looked as if it might burst into flames at any second.

Don't even get me started on packing clothes. The clothes are worse because you just never know what you are really going to need. The one time I recall 'scaling' down my packing for a trip I ended up being totally full of regret. It was an all girls bachelorette weekend with my four best girlfriends from college. One of them was getting married and the weekend was full of cute outfits and accessories, lots of drinks, tea parties, walks on the beach, etc. For whatever reason I decided all I need to pack for the weekend was one pair of dumpy jeans, a plaid shirt and a blue hooded sweatshirt. Everytime I look at the photos from that weekend my eyes can't help but scan past the pretty faces of my stylish friends and focus on me wondering who invited their 7th grade skater boyfriend to the party.

I haven't started packing yet but I will this weekend. I promise to keep it light and no 'travel' iron this time. We have a couple of long bus rides ahead of us but perhaps I get E to let me stretch out my legs on his lap like I used to trick my younger sister into doing. "Sock feet? Those aren't sock feet. Are you kidding? Those are PUPPETS!!!"

THE K IN KOTTKE

This week I attended a party to celebrate the full-time blogging of the legendary Jason Kottke. Jason has made the plunge into full-time blogging for the next year. As a token of my support I 'donated' a dollar towards his good cause. Not a regular dollar but a signed 'good luck' dollar-similar to one you might see hanging in a frame on the wall of a new Chinese restaurant.

The only problem is the dollar read, "Good luck Kotte.org! -KDunk". As in...I forgot the K in Kottke. Sadly, it was not until late last night in the middle of the night that it hit me. I basically handed Jason a dollar bill full of well wishes for a random web site most definitely not his.

I do this sometimes. Spaz-yes-but also wake in the middle of the night as things hit me and I write them down. This morning I read the slip of paper I scrawled on and it said the following:

#1.) 'forgot K in Kottke'

#2.) 'mustache thing/photo on shelf/mustard..."

Here is to the hopes that source of spooky note #2 is revealed shortly.