Last Night I Dreamt You Called from Costa Rica Part 4

As I was checking my blog tracking stuff this morning I noticed that someone had come to the blog after doing a google search for the term "Quacklepuss" For those of you who haven't read all the way back in the blog or have just forgotten, Team Quacklepuss was the name of the high school surf team I was on. I could also see that two people had spent some time looking at my original Costa Rica Trip post and I was thinking "Oh man, how embarassing, one of the boys has found it and read about which ones we used to think were cute and oh man, I called some of them little bitches, shit!" Well anyway, an hour or so later I got a comment on the 3rd posting about the trip saying that my version of how things all went down was pretty funny and that I was pretty naive to what had happened and to write back and the person would fill me in on how it really went down. So I said I'd be fine with being stood corrected and just got a response from one of the boys who left to have their own little Costa Rican adventure so I thought I'd post it on the main page again so that everyone would know his version of the story and not just mine.

Here is the background info on the surf team:

http://littleddownunder.blogspot.com/2009/05/setting-scene.html

And then the first 3 posts about our Costa Rica Trip:

http://littleddownunder.blogspot.com/2009/05/last-night-i-dreamt-you-called-from.html

http://littleddownunder.blogspot.com/2009/05/last-night-i-dreamt-you-calledpart-2.html

http://littleddownunder.blogspot.com/2009/05/last-night-i-dreamt-you-called-part-3.html

And here is what the guy had to say about how it really went down:

hahah well running off was thrilling, and created the exact Costa Rican experience I was looking for. The main point I want to stress is that the tension started when Mr. G wouldn't let us have a beer, even though perfectly legal..I was 18. I had heard that Mr. G overheard that stuff, and was suspicious of our nighttime endeavors, but this was all speculation. The main point i want to make is that when they searched our cabana..all they found was an EMPTY bug tucked inside the mattress, that looked like it was 15 yrs old...obviously not ours, but this was all Mr. G needed to flip out. He accused us of planning to smuggle shitty C.R. herb back to the US, which is proposterous considering the quality we can get at home. So that night he took me on a walk and gave me an ultimatum. His exact words, I will never forget them MR. G - "You can come back with us but all your stuff has to stay in Costa Rica, all you can bring on the plane is your tshirt, sandals, and boardshorts...all of your other belongings must stay in C.R. I will let you sell them to the locals if you like. Otherwise you'll have to figure it out..." and he left it open. I immmediately objected, becasue i had over $2000 worth of stuff with me, and PLENTY of cash...I told him he was nuts, and there is no proof of anything. Mr. G - "the empty bag is my proof!" he would make a great cop! hahaha. Anyways, we had the time of our life...spent a week and a half on the Carribean Coast, surfed 20ft Salsa Brava, and became locals at the reggae bar. PS we were ducking in and out of stores/bars when Mr. G and everyone cane searching for us in Tamarindo...we caught up with a few of our buddies who hadnt gone rogue, and got a good laugh. His irrationality and quick temper brought all this upon the trip and team. Yeah I may not have been an angel, but the choice I had to make was an easy one...Leave my shit in C.R. and give in to Mr. G... never..I had all the respect in the world for the man until he gave me that ultimatum. We were forced to leave...and delightfully obliged...So many good waves to surf in that country! How could you just surf three breaks in front of the compound! Playa Negra was less than 30 miles away and perfect! Anyways, these are just a few thoughts hahaha time of my life!

Anyway, so there you have it.

Super embarassed that this is how I was recontacted by an old surf teammate, but glad he had a good attitude about it and could laugh about it all. (Sorry about the psuedonym by the way.) I can't believe it's been over 8 years since we were there! That trip was one of the best times of my life, too, and still ranks in my top two places I've ever been to along with Kenya.

Last Night I Dreamt You Called Part 3

Ok, so I think last time we left off on the Costa Rica story Overindulged Asshole, Bran, and his random friend had told Dick, Doug, and the Nice Guy that they were bailing on the trip set up the next day to Witch's Rock...

I don't know how or why I got involved; probably because I've got a big mouth and a bad attitude and was just sick of how O.A. constantly acted like an asshole who's every whim had always been indulged but I did get involved. I decided that I would go on the boat trip, but I thought it was fair that the 3 boys make up for the other 2 unpaid spots left on the boat between the 3 of them. So I walked over to their room and asked them for the money. We said that it was fine that they didn't want to go, but they had said they would so they needed to fulfill their monetary responsibility. They basically told us to F* Off that they weren't paying for it. Things started to get pretty heated as we argued back and forth about the money. It finally came out that the boys had been sneaking off each night to drink and get high in Tamarindo and had basically spent most of their money. I don't think I knew about it up until them and it really pissed me off and I yelled and O.A. about how could he be so sheisty and pull that shit after Mr. G had been so great to him (tutored his dumb ass, wrote him a letter of recommendation to UC Santa Cruz, and really just treated him like a good friend). Mr. G was a young teacher and could've lost everything had one of those dumb boys gotten hurt or arrested while in Tamarindo, unbeknownst to him. O.A. yelled out "Fuck Mr. G" Nice Guy, Dick and I gave up at this point and walked back to the bar and decided that we'd still go the next day, even though it was shitty that we'd all have to pay more.

When we got back to the bar, Mom told us we needed to go back to our room and stay there for the rest of the night. Mr. G had gone to his room to get something and was walking back to the bar and had overheard our whole conversation with the 3 boys...the talk about sneaking out of camp, doing drugs and drinking, and the part where O.A. said "Fuck Mr. G" The male chaperones were now going to go confront them and search their room for drugs. On top of that all, then the Mass Murderer started acting really creepy and aggravated and I think he was talking about knives he had brought or something like that.

The chaperones went up to the room and the boys were very adamant that their room not be searched. I think that we had signed a behavioural contract though, granting permission to let our rooms be searched. The boys started arguing with Photo Larry, Doug, and Mr. G and said they were packing up their stuff and leaving. I think a pipe was found and tiny bit of pot in a baggie or something, but true to their word, the boys took off into the night. When we got up to go on the boat trip in the morning, they weren't there.

We tried to put it out of our head and started the long drive to where we would meet the boat. It was an overcast day and it was fun to get out and see more of the Costa Rican countryside. We got on the boat and set out on our trip. First, we went to Ollie's Point (named after a guy in a drug bust or something that had taken place there a few years back or something) and I can't remember if the boys got out for a surf there or not. Then we chugged over to Witch's Rock. The waves were alright, but it was creepy because there was no one else there, there was a river mouth which meant you had to be on the lookout for crocs, and because it was overcast the water was really dark and you couldn't see through it. To top it all off, as we were about to jump off the boat, the boat driver's assistant said that whale sharks are found in the area and they've had people chased back to the boat by them!! That was not what I wanted to hear but I sucked it up and jumped into the water. I think I lasted about 15-20 minutes tops out in the water there. I'm not sure I even caught any waves before I had psyched myself up so much that I had to get out. The only problem was that the boys were still down to surf and the boat was probably at least 100 yards further out then the surf line so I had to get back out there some how. Dick, being Nice Guy's younger brother and a nice guy in his own right, paddled me back out to the boat then paddled back in for a surf. I sat on the boat, content to watch the guys and take pictures of them and the Rock, which had incredible texture to it up close.

After the boys were finished surfing, we had a long ride back to the car. The wind was up a bit and causing little ripples on the water's surface and so it was a bumpy ride back and my butt was so sore when it was all over. From there, we drove back to the surf camp and had to pack, as we were leaving the next day.

The 3 boys still weren't back the next morning as we got ready to leave. We drove all day to get back to the airport and they weren't at the airport either. Mr. G had gotten in touch with O.A. and Bran's families and I think Bran's Dad had talked to Bran and told Mr. G that the boys weren't going home with us, but would catch a flight a few days later. He also said he wanted to see Mr. G very soon to discuss the situation.

We got on to the plane and were basically the only people on it so we went a bit nuts at first...the boys adorned most surfaces with our team's sponsor's stickers. Right after or right before we hit Mexico City we hit really bad open air turbulence. I've never been in it so bad and Bren had never flown before this trip and was wide awake and nervous about it, too, so I went back and sat with him for a few minutes, just to distract the both of us from what was going on. We survived it, but I think that flight is one of the reasons that I hate to fly now. We got home and made it through Customs and then Dick shows me how he has managed to bring back Cuban cigars without getting caught...these boys-scandalous! But oh well, at least those would've just been confiscated, I don't think he would've really gotten in to any trouble and at least it would've been an American holding cell he would've been placed in if it was serious and not a Costa Rican one!

The next week or two weeks later and Mom went with Mr. G to meet Bran's Dad to discuss the trip. Mr. G had already been copping crap from O.A.'s family, including his fat, disgusting uncle(think of Humpty Dumpty, the egg, complete with the rosy red cheeks and all, that's what this man looked like) who was the head basketball coach at our high school and who happened to have a bit of sway in the school, threatening to get Mr. G fired because of the stupid choices the boys had made. Bran's Dad was a little more reasonable and was mad at the choices his son made, but was also angry that the boys had been able to sneak away. Mom stood up for Mr. G and said he had done everything he could to keep us all safe and that we had signed behaviour contracts so all us kids knew what was expected of us. In the end because the boys' had graduated and because we weren't a school-sponsored group (the school never wanted the liability of a surf team, so we were technically a boy scout troop who's members just happened to all come from the one school), there was nothing the school could do to punish Mr. G, nor do I think they should have, even if we had been a school-sponsored group.

The aftermath of the situation was that I felt like Mr. G wasn't as stoked on the surf team. He still did it and he eventually got over it, but I think he was very let down by those boys. I'm not sure he ever spoke to any of them again and the little bitches that they were, I'm sure they never tried to apologize for their actions; I get the feeling like they felt they were in the right the whole time. Mr. G took another group to Costa Rica the next summer, this time with a whole lot less drama (though a whole lot less waves too as there was no swell for the whole trip) and he continues to take his surf team from his new school on twice yearly surf trips.

Last Night I Dreamt You Called...Part 2

Upon waking up, we looked out to a beautiful rainforest area.  We had heard some scratching on our roof and looked up to see iguanas!  We also heard the gorilla noises and went to investigate...turns out there were howler monkeys in the trees- they have one of the loudest calls in the world I think I have read.  We had eggs and toast and fresh juice for breakfast everyday included with the price of the room and a revolving assortment of dinners was also part of the price...I think it was something like $35 a person per day...maybe $45 (http://www.amerisol.com/costarica/lasolas/index.html).  

So after breakfast we went walking through the mangrove forest down to the beach.  It was beautiful and white sand beaches stretching to the left and right of us.  We got out in the water for a surf and it was some of the warmest water I had ever been in.  After paddling for a bit, you'd be sweating.  I made sure to always have sunscreen on and I kept chapstick with sunscreen in my boardie pockets because I've got a big Bubba lower lip that tends to burn and get nasty really easily.  The water was clear, the waves were good, and the only crowd was us. We would surf, then explore, then eat, then surf, then rest, then surf, then have dinner and pretty early to bed.  Some of the boys weren't keeping up with their sunscreen applications and B. King loved the tan he was getting, every night he would come in and ask if I could put aloe on his back so the tan would last longer.

The second night we were there Mr. G said that if we wanted to, for extra money, we could sign up for a boat trip out to Witch's Rock (in the picture), but there could only be about 5 people per trip and it'd be about $50-$60 U.S. to go.  I didn't want to go as I hadn't liked jumping off a boat to surf the year before when we had gone to the Channel Islands, plus I thought the surf was fun enough for free where we were.

Everyday was perfect...weather wise and surf wise.  Photo Larry was getting some great shots of the boys and I was doing a lot of taping for our annual surf team video.  When I wasn't surfing or filming, I was hanging in the hammock or collecting shells on the beach, or bodysurfing, or hanging out with Mom and Sally, or laying out.  One day, as I was sitting in the shade between surfs a huge iguana came and stood on Nae's surf board and we had a bit of a shell near us and it dove towards the shell and we screamed thinking it was coming for us.  It didn't like the shell and ran away after I got some cool photos of it on the board.  The boys decided to have a play with the wildlife...one kept a gecko as his pet for the whole time we were there and there was one day where they caught a tarantula and a scorpion and made them fight to the death...I'm pretty sure the scorpion won after stinging the tarantula repeatedly.  The tarantula wasn't the only thing to be stung repeatedly.  Not once, but twice, B. King got stung in his room, his tongue even went numb for awhile (not a good sign) and one morning while we were out surfing Mom got stung on the bum as she got out of the shower and dried herself off (the scorpion had crawled on to the towel).  Our room was adjoined to B. King's and they found a scorpion nest in their bathroom or something so no wonder people from both rooms were getting stung.  I'm glad I didn't!

One day we did a drive in to the local town called Tamarindo I think it was just me, Mom and Sally or me, Mom, and Nae (+ Sally?  I'm amazed out how awful my memory is) and we got stuck behind guys on horses herding cattle.  It was cool to have them come out of nowhere and surround the car.  The town, I thought, was pretty jankity and for being such a famous surf spot, it was pretty flat while our beach was still pumping out some decent surf.  But we did get an ice cream and a few souvenirs and got to explore for awhile so it was worth it.

Halfway through the trip John Wayne's Grandson was painfully sunburned-the worst I had ever seen and have ever seen to this day.  His face was red and the worst of it was just at the top of his butt crack.  I'm pretty sure he wore a rash guard each day and of course board shorts, but there must have been a gap between the two.  It was so bad it bubbled.  Then the older boys got the brilliant idea to harass the younger boys; they must have been hanging around their rooms or something.  We all had duck tape with us to bubble wrap our boards for the journey home. They decided to duck tape J.W.'s Grandson to a tree!  He was a tough kid so I don't remember him crying as he tried to pry himself loose, but it must have been excruciating.

One or two groups had already been out to Witch's Rock and to another famous spot, Ollie's Point, without a lot of luck.  The next day, the final group would go out:  Bran, his random friend, Dick, the Nice Guy, Overindulged Asshole, and Doug as chaperone and driver.  That night after dinner Bran, friend, and O.A. tell the rest of the group that they don't feel like going anymore, bad luck to the guys who still wanted to go, and that's when the drama started!!

Last Night I Dreamt You Called From Costa Rica

School had just let out for the summer and it looked like it would be an awesome one:  I could drive, I was going on two great surf trips-one to Costa Rica and one to Hawaii, and it was the summer before my Senior year of high school.  We basically finished finals and then that weekend went to LAX to fly out to Costa Rica.  We were on some random airline I had never heard of, Laksa Air I think it was called, and it was a red eye flight. I remember it was a pretty long flight and that we had a stopover in Mexico City.  We arrived in San Jose in the morning and took a shuttle over to the car rental place.  Luckily my Mom had decided to be a chaperone on the trip as her credit card was the only one with a high enough limit on it to cover the deposits for all the cars we had...there was a bus that fit about 10 of us and 3 pick up trucks if I remember correctly.  We should have all had an inkling to the drama that awaited us when Bran's random friend joined us in Costa Rica and when I overheard the Overindulged Asshole talk about how he had smuggled pot in with him (Which by the way, WTF, how dumb can you get?  Obviously O.A. hadn't considered how horrible a Costa Rican jail might have been before deciding to become a novice smuggler!)

We get out on the road and drive for hours and hours through gorgeous countryside.  I got in the car with all the older boys and Mr. G and it was pretty funny just listening to them joke around.  Mom and Nae were in a car with K.C., D. Mini, and B. King (another really cool and nice guy from my class, that I forgot to mention in the earlier post) and they had the majority of the bodyboards in the back of their truck.  Photo Larry, his girlfriend Sally, Dick and Cabeza (one of my favorite kids ever, from Nae's year, had that nickname from everyone because of his massive head, and could be a real asshole but was also hilarious, too) were in one of the other pick up trucks and Doug and 2 other chaperones who's names I can't even remember, but were basically just there to surf and hang out with each other, were in the final pick up truck. The roads were pretty sketchy.  They were one or two lanes the whole way and some of our trek was over some pretty windy hillsides and you had to share the road with big 18 wheeler trucks as well who were notorious for having bad brake systems...not a fun experience for the drivers!

This was the era before cellphones regularly had international calling capability.  About 4 hours in to our drive we realize that Mom's car isn't in the caravan anymore.  We have no idea how long it's been since they were out of sight either.  All the boys start telling me how it's pretty common in C.R. that if you piss off the truck drivers they'll just run you off the road and you end up dead in a ditch and all this other stuff...nice guys, right?  We wait around for like an hour and they still don't drive past.  The boys are itching to get to the surf spot and so is Mr. G.  Photo Larry instantly earned friend for life status in my book when he said I could hop in their pickup and we'd drive back and look for where Mom's car was.  

After driving for awhile, we found them broken down in a random spot in the road.  They had asked at the place they broke down in front of if they could use the phone to call the rental company to come bring them a new car.  It was going to be a few hours wait.  The people at the place were super nice and even brought us out some cut up melon to snack on while we waited. It started getting closer to sunset and closer to mosquito feasting time.  The boys from Mom's car, on hearing how all the older boys didn't want to help look for them and wanted to get in for a surf instead, decided to take some of the bodyboards from the back of the car and "surf" them down the hill across the road from where the car had broken down.  The older boys would've been so pissed to learn their boards had been used in this way, but whatever, they deserved it. I've got the best pictures of K.C. standing on one bodyboard and riding it down this rocky, viney hill.  We ended up having fun, even though it was a crappy situation.  Out of nowhere this huge, pure white stallion came galloping down the road and I didn't have my camera out at that point and was so bummed to have missed it.  Finally a replacement car arrived and we were able to continue our journey (with still about two hours ahead of driving) in the dark.

Every so often, Photo Larry would call to the boys to roll up their windows and if you weren't quick enough you ended up with a bit of his chew juice on you...the boys learned after the first or second time that he wouldn't wait long!  Costa Rica isn't the best place in the world for big road signs or street signs so we were kindof driving blind and had a general idea from a map of where we were going.  We stopped once or twice and asked in broken Spanish if we were on the right track and we were, thank goodness.  At some point, Nae and Mom saw us hit a cat- I guess it kindof bounced off our tire and rolled to the side of the road, I don't even remember feeling it! We finally ended up on a dirt road and drove for what seemed like forever on it.  Sporadically along the road would be these red glowing eyes and it was super spooky as the only lights around were from the moon and our headlights.  We found out later on the trip, that they were some kind of bird (I'm guessing plovers) that liked to live next to the road.  We finally pulled up to the surf camp and everyone was just finishing dinner at the bar.  The Lakers were on the satellite TV as they were just about to win the NBA playoffs.  As we got out of the car, we heard the scariest sound...it sounded like gorillas were in the trees around us just waiting for us to walk under them so they could jump on us...What had we gotten ourselves in to??  We had some leftovers from the night's dinner then were shown to our rooms...there were no TVs in the room or phones, just beds, a dresser, a decent enough bathroom, and a really cool patio with a hammock out the front that looked down out on to the rest of the surf camp and forest around us.

I think I'll leave the rest (or maybe the next part) of the story until tomorrow so this one doesn't end up being 3 pages long.  Yes, that is me bodyboarding.  Yes, I know I look like a boy because of my short hair and because of my long board shorts, but I was totally cute when I was dried off with that hair and there was no way I was going to chance losing my bikini bottoms while surfing so I always wore boardies when I wasn't in a wetsuit.

Setting the Scene

It's 1am, Saturday morning and I can't get to sleep...Boyfriend is up in Queensland now for his cousin's wedding and I was too poor to go. Tomorrow I'm taking Boyfriend's Mom out to dinner and a movie for Mother's Day since she didn't go to the wedding either. Happy Friday to everyone back home!

I thought that before I could tell the Costa Rica story I'd better introduce some of the characters from it.

Mr. G: Our faithful surf coach...always the first in the water, no matter what the conditions. At 6 am on a freezing and windy Saturday with little to no swell this guy would try and get us pumped on the surf conditions...a bunch of too cool 16 and 17 year olds are generally "blah" about the world to begin with and throw in someone with a passion for something and there is going to be some snickering/not appreciating of the stoked attitude of that person. He is an amazing surfer and all around good guy. He moved up to Santa Cruz right around the time Nae did, as he had also gone to school there previously, and he reconnected with an old friend and they fell in love and she is now his wife and she is gorgeous and an awesome person and they've got a cute little toddler now (who ran around our house with no pants on at Christmas and who fell in love with my Dad for letting him eat cupcakes before dinner and who was freaked out by Madagascar cause he doesn't have a tv out his house to watch...and who can already speak and understand both German and English and point out Venus in the sky....can you tell that I love this kid?!) and another baby on the way. He's grown on me over the years...I think he mellowed out a bit and I grew to appreciate his positive outlook way more and now we are friends rather than teacher/student and I am very glad that we have kept in contact with him and just wished I would've appreciated that stoked attitude back in the day, too.

Me and Nae: The only two girls on the surf team. I didn't compete, though Nae did...I hate competition plus there's not a girl's bodyboarding division so I just free surfed. Not only were we the only girls on the team, we were some of the youngest people on the team and when we first joined I couldn't drive so we became dependent on various people to give us rides to and from the beach. We weren't there for the boys at all; we both genuinely enjoyed surfing and getting to go on trips for cheap, but it was an awesome perk as I mentioned in another post to be surrounded by all the cutest boys from school. Even though I wasn't a fantastic bodyboarder and Nae wasn't as good of a surfer then as she is now, it gave us some credit with people at school...the boys, although maybe they didn't like us for the most part as friends or otherwise I think appreciated the fact that we were out there trying and were there to surf and not to flirt with them.

John Wayne's Grandson: A really nice kid and a really good bodyboarder. He wasn't "cool" and he was the youngest person on the team so he got picked on a bit by the older boys, but handled it well.

The Artist: I didn't know him very well, he seemed nice enough and he seemed pretty quiet. I think basically he was just a big hippie. He had a painting of a duck on his surfboard that he called quacklepuss...this duck would eventually become our team mascot and the name of our surf team....Team Quacklepuss!

The Mass Murderer: I can't even remember this guy's real name or if he was a good surfer or not. I don't remember him really being on the team or doing much with us, other than being on the trip. He was cute in a whitetrash sort of way. I mention him just because he comes up in the C.R. story at some point.

Bren: Good bodyboarder, hottest guy at school in my opinion. I don't remember seeing him at all in my freshmen/his sophmore year but I spotted him and the "custom x" writing on his bag probably in the first week of my sophmore/his junior year. He was a nice guy, again, another quiet one. He liked to do some stuff by himself and I don't think he tried that hard to be cool...I think it was him, though it might have been the artist, that was given the nickname "the Lone Wolf" on the trip, no idea what happened to him

Bran: he was a surfer, Nae was in love with him, he was really short, he played football for awhile too before he gave up cause I just don't think he was motivated about life in general. He is a key player to some of the drama in the C.R. story so remember him. Also, the one thing I remember about him is that he had a really pretty and popular girlfriend his senior year and she asked him to prom or some dance or something wearing a whipped cream "bikini" ala Varsity Blues! I'm sure it was hot for him, but I'd be straight up embarassed if I was that chick, knowing that the whole school knew you liked to get naked and cover yourself in food for your boyfriend. I sometimes wonder if they are still together...I wonder how many times he's cheated on her if they are...he just seems like the type looking back, although at the time he seemed nice enough

Overindulged Asshole: was my carpool for awhile, but wasn't too great of a carpool. I remember one afternoon it was raining but we decided to hit up the beach after school anyway. It was a bust and nothing was surfable so we decided not to paddle out. Well Asshole has me, Nae, Bren, and Bran with him and Bran lives right near him and Bren, Nae and I all lived fairly near each other and not that far out of his way...we were out of luck anyway. Asshole dropped us at some random Carl's Jr and said "good luck getting home" basically. I don't think we had a cell phone and my mom was out of town and dad was still working nights and sleeping during the day at this point so we couldn't get a hold of anyone. Finally, Dad came and got us (but not before having dinner at Carl's Jr, cause really how we he miss an opportunity for that, haha). This guy was kinda cute, I had a crush on him for about .5 seconds, but then would be grossed out hearing him talk about all these (younger) girls he dated and how all he wanted to do was put it in their butts. Keep him in mind, too, you know with a name like Overindulged Asshole he's going to bring the dramz...

The Nice Guy: best smile ever, seriously just a nice, fun guy, was the only one who really wanted to be friends, although one day we did get in a fight because I had hit a dog right outside of school before starting the day and he came up and teased me about it at lunch and made me cry, but he apologized. Anyway, yeah, a great guy I'd say. He works for/helped start a surf company that is getting big in Orange County and apparently sells at a shop in Costa Rica now, too (http://www.tavik.com/)

Dick: not named because he was one, that was just what he was called...before the Team Quacklepuss name got finalized, we were nearly going to be called "Dick and his boys", before Mr. G said it wouldn't be cool to Nae and I because we weren't boys, we didn't mind we thought it was funny, he was a nice kid, too, younger-in Nae's class, and he was fun to be around, as well

K.C.: I had met in Spanish class the year before and became fast friends with. He was nice and fun and made Spanish class fly by. He's still seems to be a really nice guy and goes on mission trips to build houses (and surf) and stuff. My mom had him in her car in C.R. and really liked him, too. He was nice to everyone and the type of kid who could get on with grown ups.

D.Mini: Also in my class and good friends with the guy Bun liked at the time. He was a super stoner and always getting in to trouble at home. His family situation seemed a bit weird and he came and lived with us for a few days (maybe it was only 1, I can't remember now) one summer because things were going on at home. He longboarded and was just a random, fun guy.

Photo Larry: Professional Photographer, looks like the main guy from the movie Powder, but is so cool and could totally kick your ass if he wanted to, funny guy, good guy, takes great photos and has/had an awesome girlfriend that came along on the trip, too, and kept Mom company

Doug: Friend of Mr. G, chaperone on the trip, friend of Bun's older brother I think, didn't see him again after C.R. but would've liked to as he was pretty cool

The trip story might have to wait til Monday, we'll see what happens with the rest of my weekend, but now that you know the characters, it'll be easier to write the story.

Happy Mother's Day Mom...I know you'll eventually read this one :) I miss you and love you heaps!

A Teenage Suicide/ Before I Go/ This is Not an Exit

I remember the first time I was affected by suicide. We had a morning surf practice and then we were going to have a tour of the local surf museum and like none of the guys showed up. I thought it was pretty rude, but figured they must have just had a big night before. We were walking through the surf museum when either the surf coach or one of the few guys that had shown up got a call. All the guys were over at Fabio’s house because is older brother had killed himself. I wasn’t friends with Fabio; I don’t think I had ever even spoken to him. My sister knew him because he was dating her best friend’s older sister. One of my friends from class was best family friends with his family and I knew that he, JB, would be very upset. They are pretty tacky and touristy now, but I remember that the surf museum had St. Christopher necklaces for sale as he is supposed to be the patron saint of stuff to do with water. Anyway, I picked one up for Fabio just to say someone is still looking out for you right now and sent it and a card to him. We went to the funeral and it was heartbreaking. The crowd was huge, standing room only and it was a very big church. This young man must have been really well liked and yet he had felt all alone in the world.

The boys on the surf team were in to Unwritten Law and used to play a few of the songs obsessively. Nae and I couldn’t drive at the time so we’d get rides to school after practice with the boys and it was there that I heard them and liked the songs they’d play on repeat so I got the CD and "Teenage Suicide" was one of the songs on there. That was a pretty rough song to hear at the time, but the killer for me was "Before I Go". Even though I didn’t really know Fabio and I had never met his brother, I just imagined what both of them had/were feeling and the song broke my heart.

Fast forward two years. I’m sitting at our dining room table trying to write my final paper ever for my AP English class when the phone rings. It’s this girl, who went to my high school and I had gone to grade school with; we used to be friends but ran in different groups once we got to MD. She was kinda crying I think when she said, “Noah has been shot; he’s dead.”

(When we were little Noah and I lived across the street from one another. We weren’t best friends, but we were close and did lots of stuff together. We had one of the only pools in the neighborhood so Noah and his brothers and sister would come over and swim. We also used to carpool together and I remember one day his parents couldn’t take us to school but I didn’t know that, my parents had left for work, and Noah and his older brother held me "hostage" because they didn’t want me to call my babysitter and ask her for a ride. I was sneaky and got to the phone though and I remember Noah’s big brother was pretty upset when a ride showed up to take us to school. Also, when we were in Kindergarten, Noah and I decided he should have a pool, too, so we spent an afternoon trying to dig one in his backyard. After grade school, Noah ended up at another local Catholic high school and I didn’t see him for nearly four years, until one afternoon when I went to pick up Nae from water polo, he was there running at the track. That had been earlier this same year and the last time I would see him.)

I started crying and said, “What are you talking about? That’s crazy.” The girl didn’t have any details so we hung up. I came outside where my Dad was watering the lawn or something and was hysterically crying at that point. He started yelling at me “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” He was worried that something had happened to my Mom or sister because neither was at home. I told him about Noah. I went inside and called my Mom at work and she said, “Listen, it’s just a rumor at this point, there are no facts, just pray that that’s what it is, a misunderstanding, a rumor.” So I prayed and prayed, but all the while thought “this probably isn’t a rumor, he’s probably dead, but why?” At this point it was still unclear that he had killed himself. I called my old friend Chiara, I think, it’s a little fuzzy how I got more details, but it was true. Noah was dead and he had done it to himself. After that, I had to drive over to our high school to pick up Nae from a swim meet. She could see that something was wrong and asked if she should drive me. She was probably thinking it was more drama to do with my loser exbf. When I told her about Noah, she burst in to tears. Nae was a pretty guarded and tough person at this time, I don’t think I had seen her cry in years, but here she was driving and crying and asking me to tell her about it. We finally heard from our other old neighbors that he had been upset or something and said he was going out, but he hadn’t really, he just got in his car. He ended up shooting himself in the driveway of his family’s house.

The next day at school I was a mess. His rosary service was that night and somehow they were able to fix him up so he could have an open casket. I just went briefly up to see him and all I could think was that he looked exactly like his older brother, the one who had held me "hostage" all those years ago. The funeral was the next day and I think his whole class came to the funeral. We were about a month from graduating.

I became pretty deeply depressed. I had never lost someone that I loved. My friends hadn’t either so they didn’t know how to handle it and just didn’t talk about it. I cried myself to sleep most nights thinking about him. I remember writing him notes in my journal telling him how much he was missed and that I probably wasn’t the only one missing him this much and how I wish time could be turned back so he’d get a second chance to make the decision over again. I remember getting trashed the night before his birthday….I was at a concert with some friends and the loser exbf and I was underage. I passed out on the dance floor after busting some awesome dance moves, or so I’ve been told, I don’t remember dancing but I do remember laying on the ground. My friend Candy put me on a bar stool and told me not to move, of course I did. Some security guards found me and kicked me out. I threw up in some planters at Downtown Disney, just next to the "Happiest Place on Earth"- classy, I know. I also lost a thong and had to walk around with only one for the rest of the night. The next day me and some of the kids from our grade school class had a little graveside service for Noah. It was pretty painful to be at. I think for a good six months I was a mess because of it, but I tried to hide it from everyone. I still think about him now and I still visited his grave on his birthday and the day of his death when I lived in the area.

About a year and a half ago, I lost someone else to suicide. We called him Uncle B, but he wasn’t our uncle. As I got older, we used to call each other “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” and I know that sounds creepy considering I called him Uncle, but it wasn’t. Everyone thought I had a crush on him when I was little so he’d call me girlfriend to tease me and in the end it was pretty weird when he started dating someone who was only a little bit older than I was. Uncle B was this larger than life guy. He had a pretty sarcastic sense of humor and he was an asshole when he was in a bad mood, but when he was in a good mood he was on fire. He used to come over to our house all the time for dinner, just unannounced and say, “What are we having?” Very often now when I’m watching TV or a movie, someone will say something or do something and it totally reminds me of Uncle B. He left behind 3 kids and an ex-wife who was his best friend. It was really sad going back home knowing he’d never barge in to our house again or yell over the fence to us and call us Rugrats. He’s someone I will always miss and never forget. I know his son is still hurting about the loss of his Dad, he’s only in high school and it’s a rough time for any kid, and I wish I could take away some of his pain so he didn’t have to handle such a heavy load on his own. From the reports his mom gives us, sometimes I’m afraid he’s drowning in this pain and I wish that I could be there to help him swim awhile longer til it stopped hurting so much.

Even just writing this has brought back all the hurt and sadness over losing these two guys and has me crying. It doesn’t really get better, you just learn to live with it.

Life hurts so bad
Don't want you sad
Just look back to
Good times we had
I'd give my soul for you I know
Want to hold you before I go
Before I go
I need you to know
I'm still alive in you
It's my time to go
Don't stay up late
I'm not afraid
And I don't want your heart to break
I know I've seen what's been unseen
Live fast, die young
It's part of me

It Begins

In high school I was a pretty avid bodyboarder. Now, I’m not saying I was a good bodyboarder but I enjoyed it and went whenever I could and enjoyed the perks of being on my high school’s surf team (hanging out with the coolest boys in school, getting to travel for cheap, etc). I was acquaintances with lots of people at school and had a core group of friends, but I spent lots of time at home, too. My high school days were like the golden days of AOL, being online was still new and exciting to a degree. I was still amused by chat rooms (which, sidenote-do chat rooms still exist?) and I liked looking for member profiles of boys who were my age and also bodyboarded to chat to. One night as I was on looking at profiles, one popped up from a guy who was about a year older than me, who bodyboarded and lived in Australia. Nothing seemed more exotic at the time. So I IM’ed him. It was a friendly chat about surfing, wave conditions, and what life was like in Australia. Little did I know that that chat would set me on the course to my life that landed me in Australia today. S and I started talking a lot. We had so much in common and we didn’t ever run out of things to say. We talked for months online and then I got a boyfriend, but we still continued to talk, I’m sure even about the boyfriend, because while we might have liked each other online, S and I were still living real lives, as well. Over that year S sent me a few letters and we started talking a lot again when my boyfriend and I broke up. He even sent me this awesome letter that I still have and all these burned CDs of Australian bands he thought I’d like (though I didn’t listen to them because they had awful names…..Grinspoon anyone? Haha) before I went on a safari to Kenya. I even brought his letter with me to Africa and read it at night when I was bored. I also sent him postcards and picked him up a bracelet and an arrow from real Masai warriors on the trip. I had just lost a very good childhood friend to suicide and I was pretty mixed up at the time but S was so nice and seemed so perfect. I remember writing in my journal that I wished he and I lived closer so we could meet and see if we got along as well in person. After that, I got back together with my loser exboyfriend and S was cool enough to play along when he’d call as someone I met through one of the boy’s on the surf team, rather than a random internet friend so my loser exbf wouldn’t get mad. Childish games right, but whatever, I was 18. S and I lost contact for about a year there, but I still thought of him at times. Loser exbf and I fought all the time and eventually broke up (well like 4 times, back and forth, I was messed up at the time and thought I was in love for the first time, ok?) and although I had never wanted to go away to college or leave, what I thought was, my perfect life in Orange County, I decided I needed to move away for a change of pace. I was originally planning on doing a study abroad thing in London so I could experience a real winter and stuff, but then I remembered that I kindof knew someone in Australia and maybe he could help find a school to go to, plus the weather would be more what I was used to, plus our dollar was worth more down there, and plus it was freaking Australia. I searched through my room looking for S’s phone number or email address. I called his house and his Dad picked up and it was pretty awkward asking if S was home, he wasn’t. He spent most of his week at his friend’s place since it was closer to the university. So I left a message and a phone number and wasn’t sure if I’d hear back from S/the message would make it to him. I remember going in to see my Mom that night, as she always read in bed before going to sleep while my Dad watched TV, and telling her that I had contacted someone I knew from online about schools in Australia. She was excited, my parents are awesome and supported my decision to study abroad. I think it was the next night that S contacted me and we got the ball rolling….
More to come tomorrow!