i don't give advice much, but when i do it's really good:
at about 2:12am, i set down my laptop, walked from my bed to the stairs, and shouted to the roommate, "want some advice?"
he paused his dwarf-town-building video game long enough to grunt.
"when you start your new job next week, don't go get two more."
okay, now that i've almost finished the other journal submisson page, i'm going to bed.
for the past few days i've been a bit ill. most likely, it's just an extended visit by our fiesty friend, traveler's diarrhea (TD). i'll spare you the gory details of my present acquaintance with the fellow, but if you're considering a trip to belize, you may want to know a few things about TD--you know, stuff like who are his friends? where's he hang out on friday nights?
well, since you asked, TD is a party animal compared to his tropical peers. malaria, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and the cureless dengue fever buzz about in mosquitos and noseums, but TD spends his times in bars, restaurants, and your refrigerator. he's a colorful fellow, that TD, but rumor has it, he has a rather sordid past. the internet tells me that TD first arrived on the scene in the form of fecal matter and that he now makes his home in our food or drinking water. yummmmm.
now, if you travel to belize, your doctors will probably warn you about TD. they'll say "don't drink the water" or "don't eat uncooked vegetables or peeled fruits," but perhaps it'd be more effective to say "don't drink the fecal water" or "avoid those fecal fruits." still, despite my current bout with something rather similar to TD, i recommend ignoring those doctors and drinking that crisp belizean agua. once you arrive in belize, you'll find that nearly all the major restaurants, hotels, and tour agencies claim that their water and ice is purefied, so unless you drink from a bucket, gargle sea water, or wander into roadside shack, you'll probably be fine.
moreover, at some point in your travel through belize, you may experience what i like to call a brazen drinking moment. i first experienced something like this during my visit to gimmewald, switzerland.
after spending the night in an overbooked hostel, i strapped on my 50 pound pack and started up a trail. i was heading for that small dot on my rick steve's map of the alps. the dot appeared to be near the top of a mountain, and as i climbed up and up into the sun, i realized belatedly that i only packed one bottle of water. after several miles, the bottle was empty and i was parched. my climb became secondary to the search for water. but there were no sparkling streams or cool mountain rivers, just cow troughs. i passed one and then another. the third trough was fed by a wooden pipe that vanished into the hillside above my trail. clear liquid cascaded from the pipe into the metal receptacle below. i was panting. i loosened my pack and pulled the empty bottle from an outside pocket. i glanced side to side, ensuring that no incredulous hikers, angry farmers, or jealous cattle were witness to my unsanitary behavior, and then positioned the bottle under the pipe. i waited a moment and took a great swig of cattle water. and for the next few days, life was glorious. i marched from mountain to mountain and never worried about water: there were plenty of cattle troughs in the alps.
the moral of the story is that there may come a time in belize when you're thirsty enough to risk a refreshing glass of well-disguised fecal water. in my case, it was ice. belize is like an outdoor microwave, everything gets warm rather quickly, and that includes bottled water and red fanta. thus, ice is a necessity, and by the end of the trip i didn't bother to ask "is this ice purified?" because their answer was invariably "yes." of course, that may very well explain my present condition.
andrew david. "good looking water" san ignacio town, belize.
during my recent absence from the 17 point scale, i finished two new books: night and east of eden. together, they're an odd pair. in the first book, elie wiesel, a nazi death camp survivor, writes a diary-like timeline of the horrors of auschwitz. and the second novel is something of an epic; john steinbeck follows two families and a small californian town from the reconstruction era to sometime during world war II.
the only similarity between the two books may be self-evident from their titles; night and east of eden each struggle with darkness and, more particularly, the manner in which humanity, now fallen, must wrestle with the dark, curious urges of our nature. in east of eden, steinbeck seems to anchor this battle in the context of community (and wiesel too, i suppose, but i'll save that for a longer essay). characters chafe at one another, letting loose the soul-seeds of discontent and pushing each other to the brink of bad decisions, yet community also represents the salve that can bring characters back into happy-smiley homeostasis. community is the fertilizer for good and ill.
as i read east of eden, i was struck by how little the characters took advantage of community. the characters weren't alone; they were surrounded by empathy and wisdom, and when advice is given in east of eden, it is quite good advice, the kind you can hunker down into and build a home, or make a decision at least. but invariably, the characters constructed their sense of self and the world in a one-man ivory tower. they rarely sought advice and watched their lives crumble, wondering "why, why....?"
perhaps the east-edeners were born into the wrong age; perhaps in this postmodern century we finally realize that each of us only holds a piece of the truth, but i doubt it. as the apostle paul says, we see through a glass darkly, and until the trumpets* sound and the gates of heaven come crashing open, we can expect more darkness. so until that glorious day, i suspect we'd be better off seeking the counsel of community.* 
andrew david. "the lake somewhere in canada where bear sounds bothered us as we slept" somewhere in canada.
*errrr...sorry, i was listening to the war charge in bright eyes's "land locked blues" and was suddenly overcome by the brassy sounds of the end of the world. actually, now i've listend to that song six times in a row.
*here's where things get crazy and a bit off-topic. i've had several friends say that when women vent, they want an empathetic ear whereas men want to problem-solve and exchange advice. apparently this creates inter-gender communication problems. i'm not sure that i buy these theories, but assuming that this is a legitimate gender difference, i'd say that us guys have it right. you might ream me for leaving the toilet seat up, but i think steinbeck would agree, an open dialogue of advice is the way to go.*
*i don't really believe this, by the way. it's just food for thought. the point of this post, after all, was to encourage us to be more open with our thoughts, feelings, and concerns, not our advice...or was it....?
book ratings update
15.east of eden.john steinbeck
13.night.elie wiesel
