Manuel Antonio

Guys, let me just confess for a second that I am the host to a parasite.  She bums off me, uses my stuff, and just kinda hangs around.  It's icky.  :-)  She also told me I'm not allowed to blog this weekend since I have a twenty page paper to write on the Christology of Jack Kerouac (puke!).  Well, I'm going to be a disobedient enabler and post something I wrote a few days ago.  It also seems appropriate given the fact that I'm up to my eyeballs in Kerouac.
<>< Katie

Heidi peered over her book and gazed out at the Pacific Ocean in front of her.  It should have been a picture-perfect scene.  And it was, except the book in her hands was an English copy of the Sun Also Rises rather than On the Road or anything else by Jack Kerouac and his fellow Beat writers.  Not that she particularly enjoyed Kerouac; in fact, she much preferred Hemingway, but Kerouac would have been more appropriate for a Costa Rican hostel.

She glanced at Isaac asleep in the next hammock.  While she was glad for him, she wished she could sleep, too.  After all, it was his fault she hadn't slept well the night before.  He'd spent the whole night hurling.  Alcohol?  Food poisoning?  It was hard telling but it was still unpleasant to listen to for hours.  But, she supposed that's what she got for spending $10 on a place to stay for the night.  At least the bunk bed didn't collapse on her from the two girls sharing the top.

As she listened to the chicken-like sounds of the people speaking Spanish while playing cards on the other side of the patio, she glanced down at her book.  Again she was disappointed with the language and setting.  The Costa Rican pura vida atmosphere combined with the pot-smell of the hostel would have been perfect for Kerouac, and she was reading high-class, European Hemingway.  Oh well, there was not much she could do about it but try to enjoy the salty ocean breeze as it blew the pages closed.