Degeneration

Jacó, Costa Rica

In Costa Rica I went through a bit of a downswing. I diagnosed two problems, both of which I can trace to my first night back in San José after hanging out with my sister in La Fortuna.

Problem 1: I was dating a woman I did not love. Which I can only do for so long before I am consumed with conflicting feelings of guilt and lust. So instead of seeing Dyan on the night I returned, I drank myself into a stupor at a bar across the street from my hostel.

Problem 2: I had no project. Well strictly speaking, I did have one - I wanted to write a screenplay.

So that first night back in San José I brainstormed screenplay ideas. Then I returned to the hostel, spent quite a while in the bathroom texting with my ex and trying not to hurl or cry, and then lay in bed with headphones on, singing myself to sleep. Which I doubt very much was appreciated by the other guests in my dorm room.

*

Dyan was becoming more clingy and our casual dating was beginning to feel more like a committed relationship. I had moved into a hostel run by a friend of hers, and she was spending a lot of time there. One day I ate a family style dinner with Dyan and her friend's family. I stayed silent and ate fast, then left the table before anyone else.

I told Dyan that I needed some space and fled into the city with no plans. I stopped in at a dark divey bar that smelled like Wisconsin and drank a 24-ounce beer. I wandered along and found a poker room that wasn't open yet so I grabbed a seat at a nearby Argentinian bar where I rang up quite a tab and then argued about it on my way out.

The poker game never started up due to insufficient interest, so instead I played Pai Gow and lost $200. I strolled over to some other casino and lost $380 playing blackjack. On the way back to the hostel I stopped at a goth bar that was playing videos of rock bands with electric violins and whatnot. I spent my last calones there and then made the walk of shame back home.

*

Normally after a big gambling blowup I'll reflect and try to pull my shit together. But in this case I went the opposite direction and decided to embrace slothfulness.

On the one hand I thought acting like a useless wasteoid would lower Dyan's opinion of me and make it easier to say goodbye. Which didn't really happen. The day after blowing $600 I spent the evening sharing a couch with Dyan watching Stranger Things and then spent the night sharing a dorm bed with Dyan doing stranger things.

On the other hand I couldn't get going on my screenplay and was getting depressed. Instead of writing I played backgammon on my computer. Instead of exploring the city I sat around watching basketball games of teams I didn't follow.

One night Dyan texted me asking if I wanted to go out to dinner. I said I didn't feel up to it and proceeded to sit on a couch at the hostel watching sports. She came over anyway, which really rubbed me the wrong way. She offered to play Jenga with me and I turned her down. First and only time I can ever remember turning down Jenga.

*

At the height of my slothfulness and at Dyan's suggestion I left San José to visit the Guanacaste region on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. En route I stayed a couple nights in Jacó, a tourist beach town full of drugs, prostitutes, and American sleazebags. Lonely Planet has a great succinct description of it, which in the spirit of slothfulness I'll just rip off:

"Few places in Costa Rica generate such divergent opinions as Jacó. Partying surfers, North American retirees and international developers laud it for its devil-may-care atmosphere, bustling streets and booming real-estate opportunities. Observant ecotourists, marginalized Ticos and loyalists of the 'old Costa Rica' absolutely despise the place for the exact same reasons."

My first night in Jacó I placed a $300 bet on the Lions-Packers Monday Night Football game and then went to a bar to watch it, where I stumbled onto a poker game.

Having lost 2 of my 3 ATM cards (which was contributing to my extended stay in Costa Rica) and having already spent $300 of my daily allowance on a sports bet, I only had $100 available to gamble with at the bar. Which I of course did.

The poker players were white Americans and mostly old guys from the East coast. They debated which sports commentator had lost his job for calling a black football player a "monkey" on the air, and which one lost his job for claiming that blacks made better athletes because slave owners had bred them for it. Jimmy the Greek was for sure one of them, and it was a damn shame. That he had lost his job.

That night I played small ball poker with my stall stack and left the game down $2 in poker but up $260 on my sports bet.

*

The next night I went to a local casino to play poker with a few of the same shitbags plus some younger Ticos.

At the casino I met and talked with the owner of an American swimming pool business. He made fun of the Tican poker players for getting emotional over $20. He described his business owner duties as "counting the hundreds of thousands of dollars that roll in." He told nigger jokes and bragged about taking his women "three at a time."

I didn't lose my money to that human pile of garbage - minor consolation - but I did lose it to everyone else. Afterwards I was too drunk to really reflect on the hands or any poor decisions I may have made. I stumbled back to my hostel, stopping in at a couple bars to try to rid my wallet of any clinging cash.

That night I ended up behind the hostel, singing along drunk to Dillinger Four songs on a bluetooth speaker.

*

The next morning I dragged myself out to the beach and tossed my shit up into a motorboat. The dock in Jacó cost money, so myself and the lone other passenger waded out into the ocean and clambered aboard the small lancha.

Could be there's a worse cure for a hangover than a 2-hour bumpy as hell boat ride over the open sea. If there is, I'm not familiar with it.