December 25th 2011 7:55pm - Gilligan's and Shaka Shaka Shaka

Last week I laid out on the beach at Surfer's Paradise with a few friends and a book. There is a hole in the ozone above Australia. I should have worn sunscreen.

The next week, my entire body was peeling. I was shedding skin like a snake. My skin got so burnt that it split and an open gash formed on my leg. My bottom lip produced growths that comprised of multiple sun blisters layered over each other. I clearly contracted a serious case of herpes from the sun.

I was going home for Christmas and my first flight, from Cairns to Brisbane, was at 6am. While I was in the tourist office arranging transportation, some guy glanced at me and then screamed that I looked like a gremlin. I don't know what a gremlin looks like, but people stared at my cracking and blistering skin. My lips were the size of a ball sack.

The kind souls in that tourist office booked me a shuttle for four in the morning. At three, I hadn't gone to sleep yet. I had thought it more important to pack and then watch while Manchester made friends with a vagabond on the street.

Manchester and I had been walking back from the corner store when we were approached by a homeless man. He didn't speak, but he motioned for food. I was intoxicated and more engrossed with pounding back water like a crazy camel lady than paying attention to the exchange. I was trying to sober up for my flight and water tasted fantastic. The liquid was crisp and cold. I was happier than if I had smoked pot. It was so good, I swear I could have been drinking God's saliva.

I took four sips and then Manchester castrated the water bottle from my hands and offered it to the derelict.

"What? Why?" I asked Manchester.

"Shaka Shaka Shaka," replied the hobo. And then he chugged the rest of the water bottle. I watched him gulp it down his trachea.

"The man's just thirsty and hungry," said Manchester. "He needs food."

"Shaka Shaka Shaka," said the transient.

We were on the street outside of Gilligan's Island, our badass backpackers accommodation. I looked at Manchester, at the hobo, and at the door.

"What's your name, man?" asked Manchester.

"Shaka Shaka Shaka."

"Your name's Shaka?"

"Shaka Shaka Shaka."

Some Aussies entering into Gilligan's screamed at us to leave him and come inside.

"It's okay, we're just talking to the man," yelled Manchester. "He's just hungry."

"Leave him, he's an Abo," they replied.

"He's a man," Manchester hollered, "and the reason he is this way is because of the British."

I stared at the man's eyes. They were bloodshot with yellow. I didn't know how that was possible, and I was just impressed.

Exhaustion was beginning to affect my brain functions, but we walked back to the corner store to buy Shaka some food. Manchester told him he could choose five dollars worth of food. Shaka threw an armload on the counter, and then went to the aisles for more. It amounted to thirty-two dollars.

A half hour later, I psuedo-sleepwalked down Gilligan's stairs with my bags. I returned the room key and put the ten dollar key deposit in my wallet. I then went outside and sat on the curb waiting for my shuttle. I sat half-comatose for an hour.

My senior year in high school, I received the most honorable of awards: Most Likely to Fall Asleep in Class. The next year, my brother got the award. We have skills. Sleeping skills. The shuttle that was supposed to come at four in the morning didn't come until five. When I stood up my right ass cheek stuck to the concrete. I'd been sitting in gum for an hour. It wasn't until the shuttle pulled away from the backpackers at 5:20am that I realized I had left my cell phone on the counter when I checked out.

December 24th 2010 9:50am - Dirty Head

Cairns is the Barbie of Australia. Barbie has everything. Cairns has everything.

Cairns boasts Great Barrier Reef diving and snorkling, sky diving, bungy jumping, horse riding, rainforest swimming, river rafting... and everything costs $250. Average. A bus trip up the coast to Cape Tribulation costs $150. For a bus trip.

I won a jelly wrestling contest in a bar and subsequently won a white water rafting trip valued at $250. In Peru, I paid $15 to white water raft. In India, I paid $8.

As a birthday present, my mom paid for me to dive the Great Barrier Reef. I couldn't afford anything else. No backpacker could.

Thus, Manchester, Ireland, Scotland and I wandered around Cairns doing things that were in our budget. We drank beer, ate McDonald's sundaes and tried on hats.

We strolled past a tourist shop with hat stands near the sidewalk. Scotland is a woman. She picked up and considered buying a pink Cairns hat. Manchester is a man. He elevated a bright pink hat that my grandma would wear to church. He placed the pink floppy hat on his head and rotated towards us with an angelic smile. A sweating man who worked at the shop bowled over to us and screamed, "Get your dirty head out of my hat."

I thought he was joking. I laughed. He turned on me.

"You wouldn't think it was so funny if someone didn't pay the ten dollars to buy the hat because there had been a dirty head in it," he shouted in my face. Some of his spit landed in my wide open mouth.

"Get your dirty head out of my hat," Shopkeeper shouted. His eyeballs looked like they wanted to inject us with tranquilizers.

Manchester was confused.

"I'm sorry," he replied, "but I don't think my head is dirty. I washed it this morning with Women's Grapefruit Body Wash."

October 6th, 2010 12:37pm - Queenstown, Mom, Bar, Boys

I stayed in Sydney at a friends' place on Bondi Beach for almost a week. It was fantastic. Except that when my mom and her friend arrived in Australia to meet up with me at the end of the week, I was in the process of shedding my fourth layer of skin. Like a snake. From now on, I'm restricting myself to traveling through countries that have an ozone layer.

My mom and her friend are babes. Twice men referred to my mom as my sister. And they weren't trying to flatter or be funny or clever. They were serious. Both times, while in stores wandering around, I raised my head to locate her, and was told by employees, "If you're looking for your sister, she's over there." My mom wasn't even in earshot.
My mom, her friend, and I ambled through the QVB, Sydney's Queen Victoria Building. I left them for three minutes to find a bathroom. When I returned, they had moved. Fifteen minutes, two phone calls and a text later, my mom said that they'd gone out for a coffee. They were at a pub three blocks away. The pub didn't serve coffee.
When my mom and I cruised on over to Queenstown, New Zealand, we wanted to hit up the bars. A few nights ago, we went to the Ballarat Trading Company. The lighting was dim and the atmosphere old school. There was a piano, guns and animal heads on the walls, and framed black-and-white photos everywhere. The country of New Zealand does not have bears. Regardless of the fact that the Trading Co. boasted a stuffed bear standing up, there were maybe six people in the bar.

My mom and I sat on stools at the bar sipping on our second glasses of Chardonnay when two guys in their late twenties staggered in. Each one's weight supported the other as they wobbled through the doors. They were wrecked and it was awesome. They each had handfuls of cash. They stammered next to us at the bar, threw their bills into a pile on the bar's counter, and then emptied their pockets of money. Fives, tens, and twenties blasted from their bodies.
"Whadday wanta drink?"
"Chardonnay, thanks!" my mom exclaimed.
We danced. I don't just mean me and one of the guys. I mean, one of the guys started swaying, my mom mistook it for dancing and began dancing. The other drunkard smiled and almost fell over. I joined in because I felt awkward.
The guys rocked out. They sang, they laughed, they screamed. They amused me. After they paid for four drinks for us, I announced that it was my round. The guys wanted whiskey, my mom and I wanted wine. I turned around to the bar and ordered two whiskeys and two glasses of wine. The bartender asked if the whiskeys were for the guys.
"Yes," I replied.

"They're cut off from the bar. I'm really sorry, but I can't serve them. You can't get them drinks."
"Awesome, saves me money!" I said and turned back around with the two wine glasses. The guys were gone.
"What happened?" I asked my mom. "Did you scare them off?"
I was joking, but my mom replied, "maybe..."
She had lectured them and verbally abused them for allowing a girl to pay.
"I never ever ever pay," she had said to them. "I'm a girl, and girls don't pay. You never make girls pay. What kind of men are you? Seriously, what kind of men are you that you make girls pay? Do you have balls?"
They ran away. I attempted to explain the concept that after taking advantage of guys and their drinks, it's only polite to reciprocate. Girls should buy one round after the guy has paid for two or three. My mom had none of it.
"Girls never pay," she repeated.

September 26th, 2010 11:32pm - Sydney and Regurgitation

I rarely pride myself on my story-telling skills. My oral skills are lacking. At best they're average. However, I was in Sydney and had been staying for a few days with some Sydneyites I'd traveled with in India. The previous day we had guzzled alcohol for fourteen hours on Manly Beach. And I don't just mean cheap beer. I'm talking cheap boxed wine (goon), rum, whiskey, and beer.

There is no ozone layer above Australia and the sun was blazing like a joint. We were on the sand the entire day. Drinking booze for, again, take note, fourteen hours.

The following morning I was still raging drunk and rolling with a story. I had woken up, realized that I hadn't consumed water in twenty-seven hours, and downed half a carton of orange juice out of a glass big enough for a cyclops. An hour later, one of my friends barbecued breakfast while I lay on my stomach on a towel in the park. I felt amazing. The two Sydneyites I had traveled with through India, a brother, and seven of their friends surrounded me, captivated by my powers of speech. My words held them.

They nodded along like bobbleheads to my every syllable. They laughed before I said the funny parts. I was a story-telling god.

I recounted July 4th a few months prior. There were Jello shots out of brownie tins, keg stands without legs being held, phones found in microwaves, friends screaming because they forgot their mortars while being assured by others who had remembered theirs, and people kissing an AK-47 before pretending to shoot it by aiming at the house.

There were people who played Circle of Death for hours. They woke up the next morning having never heard of the game. I was in the midst of telling about my four male friends who decided upon playing strip flip cup. Losing team had to be naked. One of the naked guys placed the unlit end of a lit sparkler in his ass. He chicken-danced around the yard with it. I opened my mouth to say that he had removed it from his own ass and shoved the lit end into our friend's naked asshole.

But, I never got to tell that part of the story. I opened my lips, and then a massive liquid bomb exploded from my mouth. There was no warning. I was spiraling a spectacular story, and then orange juice projectile vomited from my mouth. I wasn't even feeling hungover.

"He took the sparkler," and then, boom, spit and orange juice blasted from me. One minute I was a story-telling lord, and the next I was a crazy bitch who had just thrown a liquid volcano out of her mouth. There was a moment of silence, like in church, and then everyone sank, laughing in hysterics.

"What was that?"

"I just met you. Who are you?"

"How was that possible?"

"What was that?"

"Who are you?" repeated twenty-three times from the seven people I was meeting for the first time. I lost the story-teller masterhood. I still felt fantastic. I was just confused by my body.

When stomach muscles had recovered and everyone had eaten breakfast, we played cricket.

Twice when I ran to retrieve the ball, enormous liquid cannons shot from my mouth like a freaking demolition team. Once, the juices projectile vomited from me and landed on the ball.

September 21st, 2010 6:00pm - Solscape and a Storm

Before I went to Australia, the boyfriend wanted to stay at an oasis on the beach for five days. We would kayak, fish, swim, surf, and ride bikes. Raglan, New Zealand's most notorious beach town, claims the longest left-hand break in the world.

The last time I took a surfing class was six years ago in Hawaii. My surfboard collided with the instructor's head, he crawled out of the ocean, and someone had to replace him. I wanted another surfing lesson. In Raglan. We hadn't anticipated that one of the largest storms in the world would still be raging on New Zealand.

The boyfriend drove us through wind, rain, and hail. I have 20/400 vision. I can hardly drive in the sun. In preparation for the trip, Boyfriend took it on himself to book our accommodation.

Our conversation a week prior:

Him: "I'm going to get us an awesome place to stay right on the beach. In a hut or something. On the beach!"

I was skeptical. I'd been backpacking through seven countries for a year and a half. I knew how to locate decent hostels.

Me: "Are you sure? I'm looking online now and I really don't mind booking it."

Him: "I just found the perfect place. On the sand. We can stumble out onto the beach. Boom!"

Me: "Oh sweet, what place is it? I love stumbling out onto the beach!"

Him: "I'm not going to tell you, it's a surprise. I'm a genius. We're staying on a beach!"

He sung the last part. Over the next week he spoke of how excited he was. He praised his powers of discovery.

The place was called Solscape. It was not on a beach.

Raindrops assaulted the car's windshield as we drove up a hill, a ten minute drive away from the sand. Wind smacked my hair into my eyes as we got out.

"What is this place?" I asked.

It looked like a crazy commune cult. Midget burnt red and puke green cabooses dotted the grass. We were expected to sleep in them. I saw one bathroom.

"The website said eco friendly... I thought it was on the beach," he replied, looking around confused.

"Did it say it was on the beach?" I asked.

"No... but there was a picture of a beach on the website."

"Was there a caboose on the beach?"

"No... but there was a picture of sand!"

"There was one picture of one random beach to show the surrounding area and you take that to mean the hostel is on the beach?" I persisted.

"False advertising!" he exclaimed.

We had a bottle of rum for the night. We stayed at Solscape the one night. A small bed took over ninety percent of our caboose. There weren't electrical outlets. After drinking rum by ourselves while sitting on the bed, he started to get claustrophobic and I started to get depressed.

The cabooses surrounded a large wooden circular communal kitchen, so we went there with the remainder of our bottle. In a short time, we altered the quiet lull of eco friendly conversation into a yelling, rum-chugging drinking game of Pyramid. I ran back to the caboose for my laptop so I could play party music instead of the nature sounds softly projecting a tranquil atmosphere. We gave away shots and made friends.

The next morning, we relocated to my hostel of choice, Raglan Backpackers. When we checked out of Solscape, the receptionist apologized for the noise the night before.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "This is a peaceful place to rest and meditate on life's journey. I sincerely hope you're not leaving because of the noise. It's never been that loud here before. Ever."

"Um. No, family emergency," I responded.

Raglan Backpackers offered hammocks, free bike rental, a hot tub, sauna, golf and surf lessons, kayaks, and fishing rods. I was ecstatic to do everything. I did nothing. It stormed the entire time.

September 17th 4:14pm - Canoe Club and a Storm

One night when I was drunk and wandering the streets, someone told me that the University of Auckland's Canoe Club threw raging parties. When I heard this, I stomped in a circle enacting my best version of a Native American rain dance. I might as well have been wearing a feather headdress and a loincloth. I chanted on the sidewalk in intoxicated enthusiasm. Apparently when I'm liquored up, I associate canoes solely with Native Americans.

Predictably, I joined the Canoe Club.

New Zealand is two-thirds the size of California. Australia is essentially the size of the United States. The weekend I paid forty dollars to go on a trip with the Canoe Club, a storm the size of Australia hit New Zealand. In 80 mph monsoon gusts of wind, rain, hail and devastation, the Canoe Club guys wanted to raft for two days and camp for two nights. Outside. In tents. In one of the largest storms of the year on Earth. Everyone signed up still went.

So that we delayed driving directly into the tempest, my driver suggested we leave Saturday morning instead of Friday night. When we left Auckland, the rain was still bombing around and mighty gales harassed my sanity.

Because the rain had been too painful to sleep in, the night before everyone had relocated from the dirt to a backpackers' accommodation a quarter of a mile down the road. I was pleased about this, as I would spend Saturday night under a roof instead of homeless in a storm.

When commercial rafting, the guides take about twenty minutes to pump up the rafts and assemble everything. With the Canoe Club, it took over two hours. Thirty of us huddled in small groups whispering happy, sunny memories as the rain pelted our bodies and the winds leaked into our souls. Dutch Girl danced to keep warm. But she's a good dancer. She gyrated and swung and thrust. I curled my toes to try to prevent hypothermia. I was wearing sandals.

I had borrowed a military jacket from the boyfriend, and a wet suit from the parents I work for. I struggled putting on the wetsuit more than I've struggled with anything in my life. My legs were too big, my neck too wide, and my hands too frozen. I broke nails and wet skin ripped off my fingers. It was the dad's wetsuit. As I zippered up the neoprene eighteen minutes after starting, I realized I might have trouble breathing. Dutch Girl then pointed out that I had put it on backward.

"Isn't it painful having the zipper in the front of your throat?"

Yes, it was painful. I couldn't swallow properly. But my body couldn't take going through the process of getting the wetsuit off and back on again. My life already hated me.

One of the raft guides wandered over and looked at me like I was wearing a bikini in 2010's biggest storm in the world.

"Do you have any poly pro?" he asked.

"What's that?"

He sighed.

"What about booties?"

"Sandals?"

He sighed again and provided me with a pair of booties for a six-year-old. When I shoved my feet in, I felt like I had nipple clamps across my toes.

I didn't have any poly pro, but everyone else did. Poly pro keeps you warm, dry, and comfortable. Before we ever got on the river, I was sopping wet and considering the possibility that frostbite might spread across every inch of my skin.

Once we were on the river I tried to concentrate on staying inside the raft. Because of the rain and my eyesight, I couldn't see rocks until we collided with them. I also couldn't detect the movement of the other paddles. Thus, I couldn't synchronize. I primarily held on. The wash of rain had flooded the river. The rapids were faster and the water deeper. We flew down the river. I didn't know until later that every raft threw at least three people into the water, and almost every canoer flipped over. By the end of the run, strangers were in our rafts, and our rafters were in strangers' rafts. One person was still in the river.

That night, I was still so wet and so tired that when I assisted in making dinner, I cooked the pasta for the spaghetti before the carrots and garlic and onions had even been diced. When my driver walked in and saw what I was doing, he confiscated the knife and tossed my bottle of wine into my hands. This was good, as I was thirsty and sure I was about the chop off part of my finger.

Many drinks and a few hours later, I noticed that in addition to myself, a few of the rafting guides were suffering from speech impairment and loss of balance. I went to sleep confident that I was God and I would stop the rain.

I awoke the next morning to the sounds of rain and snoring. The rain crashed into the windows of the backpacker's dorm. The one most responsible for our lives, the Captain, slept on the floor underneath a bottom bunk. He didn't have a blanket.

The storm continued, and we persisted in rafting a second day. I would have rather stared at a white wall. But, because everyone else did, I stood in the rain, contracted hypothermia, and put on the wetsuit. It only took me fifteen minutes the second time around.

We altered rivers the second day. Twenty-seven seconds in, the first raft got stuck on a rock. After four minutes spent dislodging it, the raft inched along for another thirty seconds before getting jammed on another rock. Every raft lodged on the same rocks. It was like watching a flock of sheep follow the leader, each one in procession tripping over the same stones. What should have taken four minutes to raft down, consumed forty. Three hours later, we were where we should have been after an hour.

I was confused, because rain poured down on us, but the rafts stuck on rocks every minute. We later found out that nobody had released water into the river from the dam.

July 13th 4:17pm - Fifteen Hours and Rum

I have a physical disability. It's called airports. Planes depart without me, take vacations that I'm unaware of, and become invisible while I look for them with the persistence of AIDS. Things like bomb threats and the swine flu judo chop my ass to places like Miami when I want to go to San Francisco. Last year, on the first day I was supposed to depart South America for SF, I told the airline attendant to leave me anywhere in California. He looked like a pimp but had more power than the pope. He was the authority on when I could leave Peru. By the third day I was overdue to be home, I begged like a crackhead to be flown anywhere in the United States. The airlines flew me to Miami. Miami might as well be South America. English is barely spoken there.

This time, I procured perfection by actually catching my flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. I got to LAX an hour after the suggested arrival time. I checked in my bags, no issues with my ticket, boarded the plane to Sydney, and the plane ascended as scheduled. It was beautiful. It was flawless. Until I arrived in Sydney. It was four in the morning. The airport was as barren as my sex life would be if I lived with a sasquatch. During the five-hour layover before my connecting flight to Auckland, I slumped into a coma in the waiting area for my next flight. I fell asleep sitting up with my backpack on my lap and my bag tangled in my legs. Hours later, a snore awoke me. It must have come from Bigfoot. I was drowning on the shoulder of a girl I didn't know. My saliva had blocked all my air passages. My legs were spread like a dirty whore. After wiping the Great River of Drool from my mouth, cheek, chin, and neck, I realized the snore had issued from my soft palate. My pillow had been the shoulder of a German girl my age. I smiled at her. As I regained consciousness, I looked at a clock. I had slept for five and a half hours. My flight to Auckland had departed a half hour ago.

I man-grunted to the five twenty-something females who had congregated around me, seized my backpack and bag, and sprinted away. Fifteen minutes later, I returned to the seating area. The only open seat was the one I had vacated like a lunatic.

"So, they lost the plane," I said, resuming my position as deranged American.

"Ya, they don't know where it went," Germany confirmed.

"It was coming from Abu Dhabi. They don't know whether it's in the air or in Abu Dhabi. It could be in Sydney. They don't know," Wales corroborated.

"They give updates. The loudspeaker says they'll give another in twenty minutes," Holland contributed.

Every hour, the loudspeaker broadcast that the plane was still delayed, and they'd make another announcement in twenty minutes. Sixty minutes consistently passed before the next update. Four hours later, I was hoping my ride wasn't still at Auckland's airport waiting for me. The airlines appeased their agitated passengers. They didn't have the plane, but they had food vouchers. The other girls applied their vouchers to food. I bought beer. Almost as filling and twice as good.

After waiting six hours for the plane, the loudspeaker informed us that the plane had been located. It was still in Abu Dhabi. Technical difficulties.

Attendants ushered all the flight's passengers through the airport. We were issued visas, told we'd stay overnight in Sydney - hotel and food paid for - and fly out the next morning, arriving in Auckland in the early afternoon. I should have been jazzed. I wasn't. I had a flight from Auckland to Nadi, Fiji that departed at nine in the morning.

When I informed the airlines that I needed to arrive in Auckland before eight the next morning, they made me a special exception. My flight left in three and a half hours. Germany was with me. She was a special exception too. We were told to return in two hours for check-in.

By this time, my rocket scientist dome recovered function. I had brought a handle of Captain Morgan in my bag from California. I had my luggage. I am generous. I had a handle with forty-two rum shots. Germany had let me harass her shoulder and saturate it with half an ocean of slobber. I decreed her worthy of my philanthropy. We bought cokes with the airline's apology money for losing the plane.

In life, I am as coordinated as a nine-month-old baby walking for the first time. As a youngster, I fell on my head a shitload of times. My mom told me. However, when it comes to alcohol, I am a tactical master.

Within my bag, jackets, sweatpants, a towel, books, and a science experiment blockaded my route to the rum. The science experiment was a gift for the nine-year-old I look after. I navigated the rum bottle's neck out the bottom edge of my bag. We couldn't see the handle, but could access the booze. It was fabulous.

In a handicapped bathroom, Germany and I used an empty cup and apple juice bottle to mix the coke and rum. We then relocated to a cafe to play drinking games with a pack of U.S Army cards. We frequently repeated the bathroom procedure for refills. We were stealth.

Until we realized what time it was. We were supposed to check in a half hour before. I reassured Germany that you never really need that much time. I told her it wouldn't be a problem. And then I stumbled on the carpet. It occurred to me that I was unaware of our consumption volume, as my bag concealed the bottle. We had limited vision access of the spout.

When we rocked up to the counter, the woman issued me a ticket, but said Germany's name wasn't in the system. She had to go across the airport to our original counter to procure a ticket. I Hitler-saluted Germany and promised her that I wouldn't move. I'd wait for her. Ten minutes later, Ticket Woman screamed at me. If I delayed any longer, I'd miss my flight. I had been fixated on standing upright. Apparently I hadn't been listening to her.

I left without Germany. Customs booby-trapped me like I had explosives strapped to my head. They said I didn't have a visa to be in Australia. I couldn't leave if I was there illegally. I replied that I'd been in Sydney for almost fifteen hours because the airlines lost my plane. I hadn't left the airport. It wasn't my fault I didn't have a visa. I name-dropped Fiji. I staggered to my departure gate with rum knitting my side, the last passenger to enter.

When I unpacked my bag at two in the morning, eighty percent of the handle was gone. Germany and I had downed thirty shots.

June 11th 10:12pm - Northland and Karaoke

New Zealand has three official languages: Maori and

English. New Zealand Sign Language became the third

official language in the country in 2006.

0.7% of New Zealand's adult population report disability

attributed to deafness. Less than five percent of New

Zealand's population speak Maori fluently. I speak

English and dog body language.

New Zealand's cities and streets have Maori names.

I now know two aspects of Maori.

Number one: anything beginning with wh- enunciates

as "f." A Canadian girl who had been in New Zealand

for a week taught me. At the time, I had been in New

Zealand almost five months.

Number two: ekeeke

in Maori means

copulation. This may

be because that was

the closest rendition

to an orgasm possible.

On our road trip,

Willy and I viewed

the Waipoua Kauri

forest and Tane

Mahuta, New

Zealand's largest

Kauri tree. It's a

fatass of a tree.

It could eat King Kong.

Walking into a gift shop, I told Willy I needed to get

my brother a birthday present. He didn't hold up a merino

wool sweater, a paua shell-inlay wooden bowl, or an ostrich

leather wallet. He erected a shot glass of a sheep

impregnating a kiwi bird. I smiled, rotated and sprinted

from the store to the car to retrieve my wallet.

My sandals splatted through puddles and whored

themselves to mud holes. My orange tube top dress

crapped to below my breasts. Rain grenaded my head.

As I charged back to the shop, one hand gripped my

jacket over my tits, and the other clutched my wallet.

I slowed as I stepped into the entryway, but my sandals,

purchased nine years before, had as much traction as semen.

My right foot flung itself forward. My left foot flung itself

forward. My body was airborne while my arms hurled around,

wanting to grab something. I landed on my back. My boobs

have never bounced in twenty-four years of life. They jiggled

when my jacket opened, flashing the cashier, three people in

the store, and the shot glass of the sheep doing the kiwi. I

lay on the tile floor with my boobies out. Willy didn't offer me

a hand up. He used both of his hands to applaud.

That night, while swigging beer, my muscles, bones, and

nipples recovered in Paihia's Pipi Patch Lodge's hot tub.

The next day, I informed Willy that we had to do one thing

before continuing north. We had to visit Cellini's Gelateria

on Williams Road. I ordered a double-scoop of white

chocolate raspberry. The server had such big knockers it

appeared she boobed the gelato out of the container. I

salivated as the waffle cone converged toward the

countertop and into my hand. Raspberry rolled through

vanilla and barrelled into white chocolate. My tongue

coupled with cream. I had to sit down.

I handed Cleavage my New Zealand card. She ran it twice

and returned the bank card.

"Declined."

I offered my

American debit

card. The foreign

transaction fee

would be as much

as the gelato.

"Declined."

Willy paid for the

gelato I considered

as beautiful as

laughter, and I went to the bank.

Balance: $238

Available balance: $2.32

I wasn't sure how it was possible to spend over two hundred

and thirty dollars looking at kauri trees, but I had the ninety

dollars Willy owed me for renting the car.

The following day, Nissan got stuck in the sand at Ninety

Mile Beach, the wind abused us at Cape Reinga, and

Whangarei - pronounced, "Fong-ar-ray," rejected our

efforts at procuring a hostel to sleep.

Willy drove us back to Auckland, where he slept on my couch.

The following day, he demonstrated his hockey master skills

at put put by wielding the mini golf stick as a hockey weapon.

The family I au pair

for returned and the

kids beat us until

we agreed to eat

dinner with them.

The three-year-old,

overly stimulated by

yet another older

male presence in

the house, giggled

from side to side,

wobbling like a

bobblehead. He rocked one way, and, in wiggling the other,

he summersaulted off the bench, his forehead cracking

against the wood. If he ever asks if he got dropped on his

head as a little turnip, his parents can reply that he

tumbled himself off the bench and onto his dome.

Willy and I consumed the remainder of our beer in the pool

house I live in. This comprised six beers each. Normally, I

massacre drinking games and annihilate males who suffer

from delusions that they can outdrink me. Such man

hallucinations often persist with penile size.

After four beers, I wanted tacos. After five beers, I could see

better with one eye closed. After six beers, we both wanted

karaoke.

I had two dollars and thirty-two cents in my New Zealand

bank account, and in my American account, negative six

hundred dollars. Willy had enough money to buy one beer

at a bar. I had enough money to purchase one banana.

As we had no money, riding bikes to the karaoke bar seemed

rational. We tripped to the garage and placed helmets on our

heads. The garage door was closed and raindrops violated the

garage roof.

"How are we going to get the bikes outside and around the

house?" I asked, my voice grinning.

"Fly," Willy responded.

"You know, we should wear the helmets out even if we don't

ride bikes," Willy suggested after three minutes.

"Protection," I agreed.

For seven minutes, we tip-toed with helmets on our heads.

Then I received an answer to the text message I had sent the

mom asking if it was okay to take the bikes. She said no.

We sang karaoke to youtube songs the rest of the night.

June 8th 11:22pm -A Hobbit and an Angry Indian Man

While traveling in Queenstown, New Zealand a few months ago, I met a Californian hockey player as I sat on the front porch of Bungi Backpackers hostel. I was staring at a hammock, mentally threatening to castrate the couple fondling each other if they didn't bounce within twelve seconds. Hockey diverted my attention enough to introduce me to his friend Willy, another California hockey jedi. They were studying abroad in Hamilton for the semester, and currently traveling with two guys from the East Coast. Hockey and Willy referred to them as Coasties. After talking to Californians for five minutes, I didn't want to talk to a Kiwi or a Coastie for a month.

That night, Willy and I went out. Hockey didn't have enough money to buy booze or a hostel dorm bed. He fell asleep in the car at nine at night. Their road trip had comprised camping, showering in lakes, and sleeping in cars. Willy spent money like a balla for one night so he could sleep in Bungi Hostel's dorm. He texted me a week later. On the drive back to Hamilton, one of the Coasties t-boned the car the four of them had purchased together. Their one epic New Zealand purchase.

Willy, Hockey, and I had planned on road tripping to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand. Hockey's food and accommodation were paid for for the semester, and he had less cash than a bum. He couldn't come on the trip. Willy texted me the day before his bus from Hamilton to Auckland, confirming that I could rent a car. I filled out the rental paperwork and handed over my debit card with the same speculation I feel towards lighting fireworks near pubic hair. Something could go wrong. Renting a car required a one thousand dollar deposit. I didn't have the thousand. I had been lobbing money around on insignificant things, like hospital visits and tooth reconstruction. The payment processed. I felt like I must have stolen money, until I checked my online statement an hour later and my account reflected a six hundred dollar deficit.

I retrieved Willy at eleven at night from the bus station in our rented Nissan. His bus had been delayed three hours, but once on, at least he watched a documentary on donkeys. We rambled back to my house where I chuzzled a bottle of wine. Willy sipped three beers. We wanted karaoke. I located an Auckland karaoke bar online. We were orgasmic about singing and debated possible duets throughout the fifteen minute cab ride. Seven Drunken Nights beat out Aladdin and Jasmine's A Whole New World. We rocked up to the karaoke bar with smiles and bliss. The door was locked and the bar closed.

After walking a block, Willy attacked my arm.

"It's a hobbit!" he secret messaged me by screaming in my ear.

I looked where he motioned. It was a hobbit. A drunk hobbit. He wore brown loose pants to his calves, a white long-sleeved shirt, and brown vest. His toe hair could assault mice. He drunkenly swayed back and forth on a bench. Garbage can stench dripped from his pores. Willy asked Hobbit if he could take a picture.

"You sit next to me," Hobbit slurred to me.

"No, thank you, but can we please take a picture?" I replied.

Hobbit bellowed, "No." He shrieked. He howled. My ears almost exploded. As did Hobbit's eyes. Willy and I backed away from the rabid hobbit and continued to Boogie Wonderland.

At Boogie Wonderland, Grandpa's balding head and bushman beard enhanced his dancing. It was fantastic. He boogied to every song for the three hours we were there. When the music paused, Grandpa continuously discharged limbs and belly-dance shimmied. He had more energy than a toddler.

Willy and I danced to We Are Family, That's the Way I Like It, and Ring My Bell before Willy pointed to the obese raging dragon of an Indian man sitting alone at a table.

"I'll buy you a shot of whatever you want if you give him a lap dance. He's miserable. Look at that face. He looks like he accidentally chopped off his daughter's finger," he offered.

I was more sexy when I was fourteen. My boobs and butt still haven't hit puberty. At least a decade ago, I was thinner. Thus, I was surprised when I swung on his lap a few times and he sat as still as if he had Lou Gehrig Disease. When I bootyquaked once, he whispered in my ear, "I wet cum." I screamed and flailed from his genitals.

Willy and I sang. We danced. Other countries don't dance like Americans. The last time I danced with a Kiwi, I wasn't aware that we were still dancing. People walked in between us, other couples danced feet away from each other and still obstructed him from my view. Dancing with Kiwis is like dancing with Where's Waldo.

As Willy and I left Boogie Wonderland, India smiled and said, "Thank you."

A random man approached and announced, "Your dancing is giving everyone boners."

Willy replied, "The more boners the better."

We molested Auckland's sky tower that night.

April 6th 9:30pm - Day 1: Norman the Nissan

I have never rented a car before. This is because:

1: Behind the wheel, I have the skills of a retarded rhinoceros.

2: My cars are schizophrenic and crazy shit happens to them. Hub caps vanish, windows shatter, bumpers dislodge, dents materialize. The indentations repeatedly look like they were caused by two four hundred pounders copulating on the hood/rear/front of my car.

When an English girl and I decided to road trip around New Zealand's south island, for the safety of myself and others, I suggested hitchhiking and renting bicycles. We rented a car.

When English Rose drove into the neighborhood to pick me up, neither of us could finagle how cars accessed the house's driveway. I muddled down four flights with my luggage to Norman the Nissan. English Rose had never driven an automatic. A few months prior, I had never driven on the other side of the road.

We picked up the third member of our posse and determined on a day-trip through, purportedly, one of the most beautifully scenic drives in the country: from Queenstown to Wanaka through the Cadrona Valley. We were told Cadrona Valley has green hills laced with orange and caramel tree leaves. The polished metal mirrored water of the two lakes reflect the cerulean sapphire spiraling sky. We saw solely grey sky and black clouds. It rained. The entire day and night.

When we terminated our day trip and returned to Queenstown for the night, we hid from the monsoon in Starbucks and called hostels so we could sleep somewhere other than a Nissan. None were available. It was spring break. English Rose texted a fellow Brit temporarily living in Queenstown. She harassed the Brit and his two flatemate's phones without responses before we decided to go to their house.

We went to the grocery store for the night's booze stock and the next day's lunch supplies. Norman almost had a seizure bellying it up the hill to the house. We hadn't received confirmation that we could stay, nobody was home, and none of the doors were unlocked. We checked. So, we sat in Norman while Noah's flood raged outside. Our dinner comprised ham and bread initially intended for the next day's lunch, and alcohol. English Rose and I engorged ourselves on New Zealand's finest: Country Medium White Wine. Not Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, or Riesling. Medium White. When one of the flatmates appeared half a wine box later, English Rose dropped her phone on the sidewalk in a lagoon formed from the typhoon flooding from the sky. She blew her phone dry with a hairdryer.

When we returned Norm to Jucy a week and a half later, there was an inexplainable dent on the left front bumper, a mysterious windshield knick, and unaccountable paint loss.

February 21st 7:30pm - Phones and a Trampoline in the Bush

My phones have drowned in lakes, swimming pools, and Vodka. They have been catapulted into floors, walls, and rabid animals. Cars violate them. Public toilets rape them. My phones are my lifeline to drinking companions and society. They do not allot me comparable appreciation.

Upon arrival in New Zealand, the family I au pair for presented me with a phone. The phone didn't include a calendar, calculator, camera, games, or, most important, a tip calculator. It had text messaging.

Yesterday, an Army intel man picked me up to go to a barbecue. I consumed a bottle of wine before I got in his car. I wore a stripper-short dress. I was surprised to see woodland as thick as my grandpa's nasal hair circumventing the house.

At the barbecue, more knee-height-and-below nurslings were in attendance than adults. A three-year-old asked me where my pants were. Of the adults, all but eight escaped with their tadpoles before nine.

By ten, an English girl and I ricocheted off each other on a trampoline in a backyard that I didn't know existed. I had thought it was just the bush. By ten after ten, England and I lay on our backs, our hair swinging together, stars chewing our eyes. Her boyfriend stood nearby, talking to us.

My memories terminate with a pool game, collisions with people and walls, and a new nickname: Rum Eye. Apparently I seal one eye and squint the other when I'm on the rum.

The next morning, Army Intel Man #2 rippled towards me. He must have been in a fight with a dingo. The couch cushions he slept on were camouflaged in soil. His khaki shorts were torn in half, his shirt looked like he had been bombarded with dirtballs, and one sandal had disappeared, along with his phone. My phone had exited my life too. Army Intel Man #2 couldn't extract a sane explanation for a night walk through the bush, why he had been in a fight with a dingo, or why he guised his sleeping quarters as if he were in Afghanistan.

After an intensive investigation for my phone, I accepted that my detective skills are as inadequate as my breast size. I bought a replacement cell. Within four days, the phone's back disappeared. A piece of tape currently holds the battery in place.

November 15th 7:43pm - A Kick and a Punch

One of the female Brits we traveled with, Brighton, had a passion for dogs that rivaled my rum rapture. She hijacked food off fellow traveler's plates to bestow on stray dogs. She cuddled rabid dogs and caressed those with Lyme disease. Stray dogs dominated Goa's Arambol Beach.

Multiple independent sources testified the existence of Arambol's Pig Dog. A pig - or dog - whose parents were a pig and dog. He had the pig snout, potbelly and short legs, as well as floppy dog ears and tail. I never beheld Pig Dog.

An Aussie couple and I sat on the beach as the dilated neon orange sun sunk into the ocean. The female was a nurse and someone I mentally referred to as Jesusa. She was one of the most compassionate people I had ever met.

A fully-dressed fifteen-male beach gang strutted past on the sand, holding hands and donning shoes and picture phones. As we were Brighton's comrades, her dog posse lay strewn about us in a six-foot radius.

Indian men are sexually repressed. Parents arrange marriages. Public displays of affection between Indian heterosexual couples are as common as an Army grunt wearing a ballerina too-too and carrying a pink plastic wand. The men take pictures of bathing suit-clad white girl whores with their camera phones and pokers out.

One man who resembled a taller, fatter, human version of Pig Dog scowled at one of Brighton's dogs as he paraded past. When the dog rumbled a low-throat growl, PigDog Man removed the phone's camera lens from three inches in front of his face and three feet from us white-woman-prostitutes. He retracted his right leg behind him. Defender Dog crouched, head down, eyes raised, body weight slung back in warning stance. PigDog Man football-punted the canine. His foot pulverized the dingo's chest. Defender Dog punched the sand with his side. His bawls and whimpers barraged our ears.

"Jackass!" I screamed. PigDog Man ignored me. I would have made as much an impact if I were a deaf mute mentally handicapped patient in a psychiatric hospital requesting alcohol.

The female Aussie vaulted from the sand and stalked after the perpetrator, courteously verbally assaulting him.

PigDog Man ignored her.

"I said, that is not okay. You can't kick dogs!" she screamed, clawing at his arm and turning him around to face her.

PigDog Man laughed in her face and u-turned.

She punched him in his right scapula.

Badass dove back to us shuddering and shaking, caged bull heavy-breathing.

"I am so sorry you guys. I don't know what came over me. I've never punched someone before. I am so sorry. I can't believe I did that."

"You're shaking!" her boyfriend vocalized.

Jackass and his beach gang strode off, laughing and holding hands.

Brighton congratulated Badass.

October 10th 2:21pm - Massage & Indian Suitor

Over the following days I wavered between regarding Ammu as an angel with a pure heart and an Indian with a hard-on.

Most people are attracted to the foreign and the exotic. Not me. I like white men. Preferably not albino.

After Ammu bought thali dinners for me and the Scot and drove the Scot to the train station on his motorbike, I agreed to get a massage the following day for "Indian price."

"White people" (gora) price for an hour-long massage is between seven hundred and twelve hundred rupees.

"Indian price" spans between two hundred and three hundred and fifty rupees. Ammu charged me three hundred rupees (about six dollars) for an hour-long massage in his Ayurvedic healing center. On our first encounter, Ammu accused me of possessing a too-short leg and crooked back. He prescribed coconut oil drops in my belly button and eating two almonds a day. A disabled sheep would have had the intelligence to refuse his massage offer.

However, the previous massage I received in India cost nine hundred rupees. I was craving a three hundred rupee massage as much as monkeys covet bananas.

When Ammu entered the room, I was appropriately stripped for the occasion and lying on my stomach feeling like a dead fish.

He clapped his hands in delight."You have fifteen-year-old-body!" he pig-squealed.

The Ayurvedic healing massage commenced conventionally with my back, arms, and legs. When I turned to lay on my back, Ammu belly-button-raped me with the aggression of a Chinese foot lover.

After five minutes, his pointer finger prodding into my belly button felt like a fire poker thrusting into flames.

After ten minutes, I determined he was envisioning his pointer finger into my belly button as paralleling sexual intercourse. I assured him it had probably been an hour, and thank you, but I had things to do.
"Cushy happy?" Ammu liquid chocolate eyes asked.
"Ya, Cushy happy. But Cushy needs to leave."
"Massage good, Cushy?"
"Ummm, sure, massage was fine."
My remainding few days in Udaipur, Ammu paid for my meals and arranged for me to watch an Indian mutton dish being made in Rainbow Restaurant's kitchen. He passed me a joint while I stirred the concoction. He paid for henna tattoos to be drawn into my hands, and brought me a bottle of wine after I mentioned I missed wine. The wine tasted like fermented fart, and I was as interested in a relationship with Ammu as I was with one of the homeless cows hopscotching down the streets.

One night, Ammu sang love songs to me on a night paddleboat ride. Udaipur's hotel and restaurant lights radiated over the lake and fireworks discharged into the sky. I celebrated the romantic ambience by ceremoniously throwing up over the side of the paddleboat into the lake.

October 8th 4:49pm - Indian Wedding

Drinking chai is as essential to Indians as sex is to nymphomaniac rabbits.
After our boat ride, Ammu monster-truck-towed me and the Scot to the rooftop Rainbow Restaurant for chai.
Ammu steamed through his camera-phone and showed us photos with mother-pride for baby pictures. Every photo was of him. There were photos of him with his arms crossed in front of his motorbike, in front of a boat, a lake, a house, his ayurvedic shop. He wore identical Mexican thug expressions in all. His elephant-sized gold chain clung to his neck in every picture.
After viewing the thirty-fourth photo with the feigned interest I demonstrate towards hairy backs, we asked him where a good thali restaurant was.

"I take you there! Come on!" he said with Oprah enthusiasm.

The three of us boarded his motorbike. Indian motorbikes are intended to carry three to four Indians, not two giraffe foreigners and an Indian with a Texas-sized gut.

Ammu spiraled through streetlight-less streets writhing with rickshaws, bicyclists, motorbikes, cars, trucks, and cows. The Scot and I elevated our legs and held on to each other with the terror I feel whenever I hear rumors Sarah Palin is running in the 2012 presidential election. Ammu chatted on his cell phone and then to another motorbiker as I sat with a smile as frozen on my face as my breast size has been since I was eight years old.
The Scot yelled into my ear how much he had been craving thali.
Ammu took us to a wedding.
It was day two of a three-day celebration. White Christmas lights enveloped every surface.

The women's saris and salwar kameezes shone in a kaleidoscopic range more colorful than a transvestite's wardrobe. Hair was as immaculate as in a shampoo commercial, faces were make-up painted, and clothes were Mother Teresa-flawless. The Scot wore Jesus sandals, khaki pants dirtied from a hot day in India, and a sweat-blemished shirt. I wore floppy black pants, sandals, and a stretched-out shirt that I had been perspiring in for eleven hours. We looked like ragged whiteys in a lake of impeccable Indians that might as well have been going to the Oscars.

Ammu introduced us to his ninety-eight relatives, referring to them as brother and sister. His mom must have been annually pregnant with twins throughout her fifty years of life. I later discovered the term applied to sister-cousins and brother-cousins.
Ammu's two-year-old niece showered into tears every time she glanced at us strange white beasts. The six-year-olds trailed us like we were Mr. and Mrs. Clause.
After eating a luscious cocktail of fiery dal, rice, aloo gobi, vegetable masala, chapatis, and Indian desserts, Ammu transported us out of the expansive lawn swimming with Indians. We shook hands with the bride's parents as we exited, said, "Namaste," clasped our hands together, and were ushered into the parking lot.

Ammu's brother-cousin sat inside his car rolling a joint. He looked as inconspicuous as a deer wandering through a tiger's cage at the zoo.
Ammu's brother-cousin explained that he is a bus driver and needs at least two joints to get through any drive.
"That explains Indian driving," the Scot said.

October 7th 5:55pm - Crooked Back and Too-Short Leg

"I'm telling you, crazy shit happens to me," I informed a Scot as we sat overlooking a glossing sapphire lake in Lal Ghat Guesthouse in Udaipur, India.

Later that day the Scot and I bought tickets for a sunset boat ride. As we waltzed away, a small Indian man who looked like a cross between Jesse James and Chris Brown materialized like Merlin and hooked my hand. He wore all black, his ebony hair slicked back, and an obese gold chain hovered around his neck.

"My name is Ammu. It means love. Come inside my shop! I give you free exam."

I shrugged at the Scot, he smiled, and we followed Ammu into his Ayurvedic shop as submissive as prostitutes.

Ammu monkey-latched onto the area between my thumb and forefinger with his thumb and forefinger.

His eyes wavered like a bisexual's carnal preference. I couldn't decide if he looked like he was having a seizure or being possessed by Casper the ghost. The Scot's face creased into mirth. He looked like a child had just asked him if his wife had two breasts because one produced hot milk and the other cold.

"I know what wrong with you!" Ammu exclaimed five minutes later, eyes shining like a bald man's head and lips slowly spreading back over beetlejuice tobacco stained teeth. He released my hands, leaned back, and clasped his own like a sixty-year-old professor.

"You have crooked back, and one leg too short. One leg longer than other."

I choked on the water I was sipping.

"Oh no no no, I'm actually very healthy, no problems."

"You have pain here?" he asked, pointing to the right leg on a body chart hanging on the wall.

"No, no pain."

"Here?" this time to the lower back.

"No, I told you, no pain."

"Here?" to an arm.

"No."

"Here?" to the neck.

"No no, I told you, no pain."

"You have crooked back and too-short leg. I know how to fix. You eat two almonds in morning and two in water glass. Cover glass. Next morning, take off outside of almonds. Then you crush and put in glass of milk. Drink milk with almonds inside. And every day, two drops of coconut oil in... what's this?" he asked.

"Belly button."

"Yes. Belly button. Two drops coconut oil in... what's this?"

"Belly button."

"Yes. Almonds and coconut oil fix back and make leg grow," he said, chocolate eyes brimming and his face as serious as the plague.

We levitated to leave and he kidnapped my hand again.

"Your Indian name is Cushy!" he announced.

"Cushy? But I'm not fat anymore!" I five-year-old whined.

"Yes, Ksushi. It means happy."

"Oh great. Cushy. That's just fantastic."

For the next three days he would banshee-shriek "Cushy" and rush over to me like I was Ghandi.

As we paced towards the door he rocketed into song. If Dr. Seuss sang and was a robust Indian man, he would be Ammu.

No thank you no sorry

No hurry no worry

No chicken no curry

No clock tower full power twenty-four hour

No toilet no shower

No woman no cry

No sugar no chai

Only tiger.

This melody was as cryptic as the Bible.

"Where's the tiger?" I asked.

"Ammu tiger."

October 5th 3:35pm - Chicken Fight in a Waterfall

When I was eight years old and had bigger breasts and a Homer Simpson belly, my friends and I would divert ourselves with chicken fights whenever we went to the beach or pool. We weren't eight-year-old psychofants and masochists conducting cock fights. Two people settled on the shoulders of two others and each team tried to topple the other. With my Godzilla thighs and sumo wrestler stomach, I was the base with a friend on my shoulders.

From McLeod Ganj a Brit, German, Dane, Aussie and I walked twenty minutes along the coiling road to the Bagsu waterfall. Variegated posters and jewelry and clothes stands swayed to jade forested ridges. We mounted steps with sloth speed and arrived at the waterfall as elated as Wile E. Coyote would have been if he'd ever ensnared the Road Runner.

The Brit poked his pointer finger in the water, rocket-launched his appendage back, screeching, "Fucking hell! It's glacial water!"

The water felt like it had one ice cube in it.

After twice scrambling up rocks with the grace of a cow walking up five stairs, I suggested chicken fights. The Dane agreed but the others refused. Too much physical activity on vacation. We persuaded two Indian men to combat us. The Dane was the infrastructure, I was the grappler. Within thirty seconds I had catapulted the Indians into the water. They were both a head shorter than me and weighed as much as my little sister.

The five of us were the only whites. In a male-dominated country with twenty-five Indian spectators, Naruna and Navaj were not baby-happy that a gori had wafted them into the water. They requisitioned a rematch.

Navaj's hands locked on my arms. My hands clamped onto his arms. I bucked him to the right. He pitched me to the left. I boosted him to the left. He wrapped his arm around the back of my neck for leverage. I ducked under his limb and strong-armed him with dwarf strength into the peacock-colored water.

The bystanders grunted. To display their displeasure, two Indian men resembling Cheech and Chong fired a gun into the sky.

I maintain it was a cap gun. The Brit persists that it was a real gun.