which you won't hear from someone else (there's a song reference there... anyone?... anyone?), since they're uncommon/incomprehensible traits unique to me. And sometimes when I'm traveling, I'm reminded of just how odd they make me to others.
1. It isn't just my personality that's tempermental.
Most people know I spent the first 34 years of my life freezing my ass off at all times. I thought anything under 80 was sweater-weather, and I also hate air conditioning because people take it to such extremes. The relief of warm weather in the summer was very short-lived when I'd spend at least 40 hours/week in giant meat lockers.
But there is such a thing as being too hot. Usually I only experience this under direct sunlight, so I have some idea about how witches felt being burned alive. But ever since I came back from Thailand, my heat tolerance has lowered enough that 86 feels a little too hot. Which is less-than-helpful when that is the average spring temperature in the city you're living in. But hey, there's an upside: I'm not like my mom in the heat. Imagine me when I'm hungry, only it's for 6 months out of the year instead of when you fucking MANIACS go forgetting to eat when we're in Paris (FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, RUTH, THE FOOD CAPITAL OF THE WESTERN WORLD!), or driving in South Africa. You know, just two examples off the top of my head.
2. I hate the sun.
This is NOT to say I don't love sunny days like everyone, because I do. But I like LOOKING at them from a shaded/indoor/otherwise totally sheltered place. Usually the above statement will necessitate my pointing out what I think is the obvious: my ridiculously pale skin. People generally at least know in some part of their minds that this means I burn easily, and everyone's experienced sunburn, right? In general, yes, but infrequently enough that it's not a constant thought, particularly if it isn't the middle of summer. They forget it as a rarely encountered, minor problem they've had to rarely deal with 3 months out of the year. For me, entire decades of my life were spent with frequent bad burns, because we were doing something outside for more than 30 minutes at a time.
Oh, I should also mention that I've spent... basically all of my life since I was 12 or 13 on some sort of medication for my skin, which makes me even MORE sensitive to the sun.
So suffice it to say, a good portion of the people I know have led a pretty sweet life which makes you completely unfamiliar with my plight. See, you know how you burn at first, but then you tan? I only start at pink and get redder. You know how you get a little red, or you just go straight to browner after being outside with sunblock on for a few hours when the sun's its hottest? I burn within 30 minutes. WITH SUNBLOCK ON. Period. You know how if it's any season but summer, you generally don't have to worry about sunburn? I do-- I've burnt in jacket-weather spring and fall, as well as winter. I can't forget some of them, like the 1 I got when I was whitewater rafting and I couldn't sleep or stand anything touching me for 3 days. Or the burn that eventually turns your skin to itchy paper birch that is constantly falling off, like what happened to me in Mexico.
And then every genius on the planet tells me to put on &(_(*_()()+_+ sunblock.
That's my FAVORITE, when people who don't have skin problems tell me how the normal person fixes theirs, and so I must not be doing that shit right. When I had teenage acne (like both parents), people without acne were CONSTANTLY telling me I needed to: wash my face (that was a BIG one); use this/that/or 100s of other cleansers, creams, gels; avoid these foods, etc. I washed my face for 10 minutes 4 times/day, but yeah, you're probably right, I just must NEVER have washed my face for 10 years. I must have not had the SLIGHTEST IDEA of how to do anything to the least or most extent that any normal moron ever did. Idiots. In America, when you're not normal in some way, it's because you're doing someething wrong. And so it's your fault. Hence, people who don't know what they're talking about like to tell me TO DO SHIT I'M ALREADY DOING. Like it's a revelation. "Hey, are you out of breath after running for 14 miles? Maybe you should try breathing. You know, like, in, and then out? Try breathing, then maybe you won't feel out of breath."
Put it all together and you may have the reason why that, aside from a near impossibility to my being able to accomplish something as simple as a normal tan, I have a low tolerance for the sun, period. I remember when I was a teenager I would TRY to lay out and tan, but within 5 minutes I'd be sweating like crazy and bored out of my mind. How the FUCK do you just LAY there? And you DON'T sweat when you're under a hot sun?! People fall asleep in what to me is complete discomfort. I'm so uncomfortable when I can feel the sun's rays for a few minutes, I think it's the same as laying under a broiler. And the whole time I am in the sun all I can think of is the burn that is taking place on an accelerated time frame unknown to anyone but albinos or vampires.
3. Rosacea-- it's not just for your skin!
Yeah, so enough about the constant battle with my shitty skin, which I've literally wanted to take off and trade-in since I was 12. (No joke: I used to beg God to let me do that.) Let's talk about OCULAR rosacea, which my eye doctor has said I don't have, though I suffer from the symptoms. Spoiler alert-- this will circle back to number 2.
Ocular rosacea is when your eyes get super red and start burning thanks to: extreme cold, wind, heat, exercise... you get the picture, though those are the leading causes, and by no means the exhaustive list. I first noticed about 5 years ago that at night, my eyes would start tearing up and burning and stinging when the wind blew. As in, it's painful to have my eyes open. I distinctly remember being with Gina at a parking garage in Chicago when this first happened. And people who've seen me right after a workout have thought I was smoking something because my eyes are completely red. I mean, REDDDD. It takes at least an hour, I think, for them to get back to normal. Docs advise against working out strenuously for more than 15-20 minutes at a time to prevent that. Luckily, my eyes may get a little itchy then too, but after exercise, it's just that the whites of my eyes are bright red instead of white. And I can live with that.
Of course, now it also happens in sunlight: if I'm outside and have to squint, sunglasses or not, my eyes start stinging. It's... awesome. Really it is. Everyone on EARTH wants to be out in the sun, but all I know from that motherfucker is burning. I'd love to join you outside... from a few feet away in total shade or from indoors.
Last under my eye issues is cutting onions. I know EVERYONE'S eyes tear up when they cut an onion. But do you have to run out of the room after 30 seconds from the stinging and the waterworks? Probably not. I absolutely cannot see. I can't open my eyes, and I can't take the stinging and burning. This is a major problem when you're a huge cook like I am. The only thing that works is having pre-cut onions that I can just throw into a pan right away, or using green onions. Otherwise, it takes me 5 minutes to cut 1 onion, because I'm constantly having to go away & come back so I can regain vision and stop the burning.
4. Every day I need to be alone longer than the day before.
I've never known what my socializing-to-recovery-through-solitary-confinement ratio was, but it was never unusual for me to spend 48-72 hours without seeing or speaking to another soul and being perfectly content. But it isn't just talking to people that sucks the precious little friendliness I possess out of me: it's the mere PRESENCE of people nowadays. That's the only explanation I have for wanting to spend every hour I'm not working or commuting in Chile alone. It is SO crowded all the time, in ways it simply isn't in the US (excepting perhaps NYC, though I never experienced that myself), I am only happy when I am in my apartment, which is to say, alone. Whether it's a 3-day weekend or just a regular one, it is a huge effort and takes me until early evening to make myself go outside for anything, even food.
So it's sheer volume of people that I find draining these days in addition to conversation. I know, Asia's going to be AWESOME! Though we shall see: I didn't have any problems in Thailand.
Large groups of people are LOUD, too. I think that's why everytime my friends & I would look at restaurants, I'd nearly automatically choose the one with hardly anyone inside. Because then, I have a better chance of actually hearing and sharing in conversations. I was told that people usually want to go to restaurants where others are eating, because if a lot of people eat there, it must be good. I see the logic; the PROBLEM with this is that it absolutely doesn't work. In Chicago, for example, most restaurants are pretty good, regardless of how many people are there. Whereas in Chile, at lunch and dinner times, EVERY place is full, and your good-to-bad food ratio is about 1:100. While I know it's (SHUDDER!) evilly socialist/anti-democratic for me to say this, the majority is rarely right. Should you doubt this, I will point you the nomination and then reelection of GWB; Sarah Palin holding any government office; and the persistance of Saturday Night Live.
5. I'm a really bad tourist.
In general, if there's one or two things every visitor goes to whatever city to see, I'll go see it. But I want to know why it's so special, and I want to be able to get all such things done in 1-2 days, so I have the rest of my time there devoted to being where the tourists are not. So the faster I can cross those items off the list, the better. (Exceptions: Thailand, South Africa, and the art in Italy) Which is why to this day, as much as I love Kristina and her photography skills, I am still mystified as to what the hell the point of the Spanish Steps in Rome was, and why we had to go. Instead of sitting in the sun on something that's made for NOT-sitting, we could have been eating a meal, dammit.
Also, I don't really shop anymore. Overall, I do little to contribute to the local economy when I travel. This was a product of several things, though often enough it was limited funds. But it's also that I just don't really enjoy shopping. When I went on a trip and brought you back stuff, it's because I went shopping for you, not me. I dread when I need to buy new clothes or shoes, because looking through a huge selection is a lot of work, and in short order it makes me bored, tired, and hungry. We all know how I get when I'm hungry. But did you know...
6. A bored Jen is a bad Jen.
Internet dating is what happens when I'm bored, plain & simple. While some of you remember that first forray into the 4th and 5th rings of hell as the height of my comedic writing, as they say, I was suffering for my art, and therefore for your enjoyment. I was the battered, broken, tattered puppet that you still commanded to dance. Internet dating is being forced to constantly interact with the world's physical, mental, and spiritual mouth-breathers. I mainly went through a progression of unpleasant emotions, including disgust, shock, irritation, frustration, and confusion. But. BUT! I wasn't bored. At least, not at first. Still, soon enough, I was left with boredom + one, usually disgust. Internet dating can easily lead to self-destructive behavior, solely through the company you keep for a couple hours for dinner or coffee. Eventually I realized I was doing all of this because I was bored. I'd rather be unhappy than bored.
And it really wasn't until I moved to Chile that I realized that a major reason I needed to leave the US was that I was bored with living there. Oddly, as lazy as I am, I think that I was bored with knowing how (most) shit worked, and how to attain or do most things (even if it was beyond my abilities and/or networth to do so). After I'd adjusted to living in Santiago, I fell briefly into my old habit of trying internet dating to ward-off boredom before it started, but it was short-lived because, well, internet dating seems to be the same no matter where you go, but also because I quickly realized that I just wasn't bored enough to need it. In the US, I had to have SOMETHING to occupy my mind, because the boredom permeated pretty much every aspect of my life. In Chile, simple errands like going to buy fruit from the produce stands, and God knows buying any beef other than ground, is still a challenge. Even though I've long ago mastered asking for things, I still don't always know the names of things. Or that chinquay can mean five, fifteen, fifty, or 500, depending on where I am in Santiago (as opposed to the Spanish we're taught, which would be, phonetically, sinko, keensay, sinquetta, and sinko see-entos, respectively). Or, understanding most of what any Chilean says. It's true what people have said, that Spanish speakers from... ANYWHERE ELSE I can understand more easily. My comprehension of Chileans is still around 30%, at best. There are times I've heard people talking on the street and could swear they were speaking some Asian language, because that's really what it sounded like. But they looked South American, and so far, South Americans are like Americans: they've never traveled internationally and they only speak one language. Eventually, one of them would say, "Si," or "Si-po," confirming that they were speaking Spanish all along.
People probably think I'm exaggerating, but every other South American I've spoken to has said the same thing: they can't understand what the Chileans say, either. I was listening to a Colombian and a Venezuelan speak, and while I didn't necessarily know what some/all of the words meant, I could recognize most of the words they said as Spanish words. Whereas 6 months in I still can't figure out what the hell 1 of the concierges says to me every morning when I leave for work. I've had 3 Colombian students, and they've all said that it took them years of living here to mostly understand Chilean Spanish. But when family comes to visit, they still have to translate everything for them. It's really hard to be bored when you're still constantly trying to figure out what the hell anyone and everyone is saying.
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The lovely guy who owns the hostel here would never be able to imagine I'd want to come to Mendoza and NOT go horseback riding for an afternoon, or be out walking around in the summer sun. All I could think of was: how hot it'll be outside, how hard it'll be to see with my eyes alternately burning or blinded by the sun, getting dirty and feeling disgusting thanks to the sunblock, which I won't be able to reapply every 1-1.5 hours as I'd need while on a horse. I actually AM doing the horseriding thing, but only because afterwards, those FOOLS are serving all-you-can-eat barbeque & wine. I hope they've a lot of experience with feeding half of a teenage football team. I wouldn't want it to be like Christmas for Gina's grandma when she couldn't figure out why they had half the leftovers they normally did, which they would eat over the next two days. Gina told me she said to her, "We've never had Jen here for Christmas before." So here's hoping that the Argentinians aren't making promises their livestock population can't keep
