INTERMISSION

I kind of moved to Italy. Here's my new blog.

JFK=Just For Kicks

I'm moving to Borgomanero, Italy today to be a live-in nanny for a family. I plan to post pretty regularly now that my life probably will be a bit more exciting. I don't have much to say at the moment because I'm not there yet, but my flight to Milan is delayed at JFK so I have time to post nonsense.

1. Listening to Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" 2. Have onion breath 3. People love complaining about a couple hours taken from there lives 4. I'm nervous but on the surface I'm calm and ready 5. Ima miss youzall 6. My wrist has fallen asleep 7. I no longer have a cell phone and probably won't for several days...I feel odd 8. Yes, I am still reading "Infinite Jest" and its title has never felt so profound as I lug it across the world and only hope to finish it before my year is up 9. For having an English degree, I have a surprisingly slow reading pace and low reading comprehension 10. For having an English degree, I am surprisingly mediocre at spelling 11. For having an English degree, I have a surprisingly meager library 12. For having an English degree, I am surprisingly willing to admit I don't know everything 13. I hope I get to eat real pasta tonight...I mean real pasta

One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, Spew Fish

It happens once in every while that an editor vetoes a writer's first draft. Although I understood my editor did not want his readers puking because of any association with his magazine, I still preferred my first version of this "Out to Sea" story much more than what was printed yesterday in Locale Magazine's January 2011 issue. Below is the original and truthful rendition of my first time fishing in the Pacific.



PHOTOS BY ADAM BARTLETT

“It’s all in your head,” he told me.

“Oh, really?” I tried to sound like I believed him. If I sounded like I believed him, maybe I would actually believe him; and then maybe I wouldn’t toss my cookies over the side of the boat.

Thomas “Thos” Carson threw us a towel to wipe down the seats on “The Boarder Patrol” before we left the Newport Beach harbor. We were going out to sea.

The photographer, Adam, had been deep sea fishing before, out in choppy Mexican waters where, “I guess those Mexican guys just don’t really care.” He said he had gotten a bit seasick then, so he took one of the pink little pills I brought before running out the door at 6:30 that morning. I, however, had never learned from such an experience. I had been on boats before, once on a wakeboarding trip when a thoughtful young man let go of the rope while I watched from my seat in the back. The rope sprang back and swiveled around my neck three times leaving an ugly mark that looked a lot like a hickey. I never got seasick in the traditional sense though, as terrifying as that incident was. I simply learned to stay away from ropes and people who let go of them at fast speeds.

We watched as Thos, the owner of Bear Flag Fishing Company in Newport Beach, quickly smoked a cigarette and set his iPod to play Social Distortion over the sounds of flapping water. I felt like I could walk on water at a quicker pace, we were traveling so slowly through the expensive homes.

“So, what are we fishing for today?” I asked.

“Shark.”

“What!”

“Yeah.”

“So that’s why you didn’t tell me over the phone.”

The fishing trip was all I could talk about for days and the second thing most people asked me was, “What are you fishing for? Tuna?” I said, “Probably.” Only because I didn’t know what else there was out there, really.

The first thing that people normally brought up was, “You’re going to get seasick. Eat some ginger.” Everyone had his or her own preemptive remedy. “Don’t go” seemed the most popular. “You know how you get when in a car, Hannah.” Yes, I’ve gotten carsick, trainsick, airplanesick, covered wagonsick—but I’ve never actually ralphed in any of those situations, so I had no reason to suspect I was going to on this boat. I was going to catch some fish and I was going to keep my breakfast inside me.

Once we got out of the harbor we started to fish for some Mackerel for bait. I watched as Thos caught a couple large sardines. He swung them past my head, over the tank, and, with some pliers bending back the hooks, into the shallow water. I peered in to see my first sardine not wedged between his neighbors sealed in a tin can. Still alive. One swam through a plastic tube as if it had been placed there for his amusement.

“Ready to try?”

I grabbed the pole. After he instructed me on how to lower the line and reel it up slowly, bobbing the weight and tackle around in a you-know-you-want-it kind of way, I caught my first two fish. Not ready to slide a hook out of anyone’s mouth, I kind of dangled them in the air looking at Thos until he came over to help me detach them.
We only caught one Mackerel and several sardines and needed more if we were hoping to catch anything worth writing about. When we pulled up, I stepped onto the bait dock where we bought maybe 20 fish for $10. It was once I was off the boat for a moment when I realized how much I had been missing steady ground but hadn’t noticed. I was just too excited to be holding a fishing pole for my first since I was eight.

As much as I realize now that I am not meant to be a fisherwoman or a bulimic, just hours before I stepped onto “The Boarder Patrol” did I think working at sea only meant adventure, mystery, and Bill Murray saying things like, “Don’t point that gun at him. He’s an unpaid intern.” But my favorites like “Moby Dick”, “Jaws” and “The Life Aquatic” did nothing to prepare me for the possibility of completely missing out on a potentially fruitless fishing trip.

We headed out, further this time, and I sat in the front with the wind chapping my face in the most pleasant way. Fresh air. We always need more of it. When we stopped, I walked back and pretended to help Thos set up the much bigger, much more durable poles. (I say pretended because at this point I was feeling dizzy and could barely comprehend the things he was saying to me. The only helpful thing I did was pick up a piece of line he was looking for, which I’m pretty sure I knocked over in the first place.)

Leaning against the tank, I looked up at Adam.

“I feel great. That medicine was perfect,” he said. He knew exactly what I was feeling.

“Should I take some?” I think I asked him four different times, to which he always told me it was my decision. I just wasn’t looking forward to the drowsy effects. Also, I didn’t want to give in. I think adolescence came late for me in that I don’t like people telling me what to do even if it’s for my own benefit.

We sat around with our poles holding bait and the enticing bucket of frozen fish blood hanging off the back, whose smell was doing nothing for my currently revolting stomach. This was called “trolling”, Thos told me. This was called “Hannah feeling weird,” I told him.

I gave in. I took the pink pill. But it was too late. I experimented with different locations of the boat, different standing and sitting positions, different discussion topics that might distract me from the mounting feeling that I was being thrown around in one of those square, plastic games where you guide the tiny marble through a maze and then sink it in the hole.

Perhaps it was because it felt more like riding a horse, or perhaps it was because I could predict the waves and my body could better acclimate, but the front of the boat proved the most sustainable. I squeezed my hips through the metal bars and threw my legs off the front. Here we were fishing for Thresher sharks and I’m dangling my feet inches above the water. But it was the only way I wasn’t going to get sick. Oh wait.

You just know when you’re going to. I was listening to Adam and Thos having what was probably a very interesting conversation over the sounds of the ruffled water and the whirl of the engine on autopilot. It wasn’t so much the horrible feeling that comes with hurling; it was more my jealousy that they were having fun and not throwing up three times off the front of a boat.

I don’t know how long we were out there. The medicine finally kicked in; but instead of taking away the nausea, it simply made me nearly fall asleep when all I needed was to keep my eyes fixed on the horizon to steady myself. I walked back to Thos and smiled at him through uncontrollable watery eyes and he said, “We’re going to head in now.” I think he wanted me to protest, and believe me I wanted to; but all I could get out was, “Because of me?”

“Nothing’s biting. The fishing has been really bad this year.”

“Oh, okay.”

I wish we could have stayed out longer and caught something, but all I could think about was land land land land. Oh, and fish tacos, ever since someone mentioned them a couple hours back. Besides a few sardines, one Mackerel, and several dolphins a yard away from my face, I didn’t get to experience the deep sea. I wanted the feeling of yelling out, “I got one!” then pulling whatever it was on deck with that pride of a first time hunter.

Driving back, and I don’t think anyone should drive on that medicine and with sea legs, I felt like I had the worst possible hangover. This isn’t what the sea was supposed to be like. The sea is supposed to lead to self-discovery and teach you something, like how you shouldn’t go hunting a murderous white whale out of revenge. After my fish tacos and an hour to regain my footing, I knew I did learn something. Warnings are worthwhile. Listen to anyone who tells you ginger is a magical root that will solve all your problems.