Baja, Mexico: La Paz -> Cabo Pulmo -> Cabo San Lucas (Day 7: 12/27, Saturday, 1 of 2)

The early morning drive to the hotel dock doesn't bode well for Eric's planned dive. I'm to drop him off, then make my way back to the hotel, a day putzing around town, then spent in sun worship at Tecolote, a day gloriously alone.

But, no.

The water's choppy and shark-gray. Eric's not optimistic, though I'm bullishly sanguine, as if my insisting that diving conditions might be okay will make it so.

Nope.

I hide my disappointment and we're off for breakfast. Eric's been obsessed with a place called Baja Biscuits, so that's where we head. There, he has the eponymous biscuits and gravy, and I the breakfast burrito of eggs, potato, avocado, and salchicha, topped with a creamy chipotle sauce and a Mexican-style Minute Maid Orange Juice that is essentially sugar water and orange flavoring that would never fly in the U.S., let alone California.



Eric's eager to be out. I'm less so--a vacation without Rancho Viejo is no vacation at all--but tacos are hardly a (socially acceptable) reason to take up residence in a place, and the man's insistent. As a result, we're migrating south again, down the Transpeninsular, busting a left at Buena Vista to take the scenic route to Cabo Pulmo in the hopes of scallops at Nancy's, essentially the only reason to come to Pulmo, besides the coral reef.

Alas, for the coral reef, the weather's shite, and alas for Nancy's, its lunch hour and the offerings are, shall we say, meager compared to the dinner menu.



The scallops are still soaking in a bowl of water (should I have asked for them though they weren't on the menu? Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them, too?), so Eric and I both settle for the shrimp, which, though nice, are diminished by the stale-ish (or maybe just not freshly made) tortilla that comes with.



While we wait for the check, I manage to break the door window on my way to photograph the restaurant signage. Granted, it's a piece of cardboard propped in the sill that's simply flopped to the ground, but I'm racked with guilt nevertheless. Clumsy American.



I'm still mourning my tacos de arrachera; the dirt roads rumble past, the playas a distant, green-blue.



Finally, San Jose del Cabo, and the corridor to Cabo San Lucas.

The evening's a blur. This is the night a friend tells me, over the internet, about the untimely death (aneurysm, Arteriovenous malformation, AVM) of a guy I knew, fleetingly, in a past life. I'm bewildered and unusually quiet, and attack my meal at Lolita's in a pale imitation of my customary vim and vigor. The chicken mole, the beef burrito, the chile relleno, the chicken taco arranged on my plate go down without photographic archiving, ditto the Pacifico.

Everything's dust in the mouth.

I am, in truth, mostly jealous.

Nevada City Weekend, 3/13 - 15

Spent weekend at the house of an ex-lawyer, current farmer.

Along with one New York-based masseur/sex worker (happy endings), one current office furniture saleswoman (previously worked with Connecticut Public and had received an Emmy for a documentary), one nurse fresh out of nursing school, one SF English teacher, a couple who own a farm and rent out goats for landscaping, and another area couple.

Seven of these folks were gay men. (And I wonder why I never get laid. Fuck.)

I got to:

1. sit in a hot tub and gaze at the stars
2. get within a foot (no fence) of an ostrich
3. hug a baby emu
4. hug baby goats
5. play with a tiny kitten

I also was:

invited back for harvest season at the rate of $200 a pound (of work)

Potentially more to follow.

Baja, Mexico: La Paz (Day 6: 12/26, Friday, Part 3 of 3)

I'm of two minds when the boat, replete with divers, comes chugging into our little slice of blue-green silence--half peevish for the interruption, half eager to return to land. I'm going mad with stimuli, six whole days with nary a moment to myself and then this day of highs (real dolphins, flopping sea lions, wobbling puffer fish) and lows (imaginary sharks, a stretch of backbreaking, arm-wrenching ocean).

And I's hongry.

Lunch is served shortly after we re-board. Tuna (pepper, carrot, corn) salad sandwiches on Mexico's version of Wonder bread--Bimbo bread, ya heaaard?!

(Not my pic.)

I'm befuddled when the divers (who were, as expected, grudgingly envious of Eric's encounter with the whale shark) begin strapping back in.

A third dive? Fuckin' a. We're in open ocean now, and they're going down to a wreck. I've already psyched myself out (with help from Eric) about snorkeling and there is no way I am getting back in the kayak, so while Eric pulls off, I lay out at the prow with a bottle of un-American coke and cookies.



One of the divers has hung back. Since she and her husband are the originators of scuba diving (the way she tells it), she's over wreck-diving, and because she's also a nature photography nut, she has her massive camera out. She's wielding it like Dirk Diggler in the jaws of his meth addiction. I think she's irritated that I've seen a sea turtle but've failed to mention it quickly enough, and she grudgingly tells me the glassy circle the vanished turtle makes is called a "footprint."

She's freaking me out, so I climb down to the water-level platform at the stern and dip my legs into the placid water, snapping photos of Eric, the horizon, my contented, nay, smug and complacent countenance, granules of salt speckling my face where the seawater's dried.



I am perfectly and radiantly happy.



With folks back on board, I notice some popping in the distance, about 75 yards away. "What's that?" I ask, pointing.

It's a school of rays jumping out of the water to flop onto their backs. There's no explanation for it, the dive master tells us. It's speculated that they do it to rid themselves of parasites, but somehow it looks too playful, too exuberant for something as mundane as hygiene.

And on our return trip, flying fish glimpsed out the corner of my eye, another spin with dolphins.

That evening, we head back to Rancho Viejo for more sweet ambrosia in the form of skirt steak tacos and papas rellenos. This time, we only order two tacos each and split the papas. I've agreed to this decision, but deep down, I want that third taco on my plate, even if I know all it'll cause me is grief.

Because I'm a greedy fuck.



Eric has plans to go diving tomorrow, and I'm secretly glad to have a day to myself, already envisioning the location of my beach chair and feeling the condensation on a bottle of Pacifico in my hand.

I've fallen in (friend-)love with Eric, but this only child needs her some spiz-ace. Fer-rills.