Yesterday afternoon, and in the wee hours of the morning today, a group of Occupy protesters headed down to the Port of Seattle. There they blocked traffic, attempted to shut down operations at the port, and clashed with police. Eleven people were arrested.

I, unaware of where the action actually was, walked along what was left of the Occupy encampment at Seattle Central Community College (the protesters were evicted last week, but there are a few errant tents and scragglers left over). I’d been too timid to go when there were actually people there – I’d visited the Occupy Protests in London and New York, and felt like an interloper. Now that most of the Seattle outpost was gone, and there was little to see, and few people milling about, I felt braver.

But still, I was an outsider, and the one man who I spoke to made that clear to me.

He responded to my questions in clipped answers. At the time, I didn’t think I was being terribly invasive. I asked where everyone had gone and what was going to happen now. He was clearly bothered – either by how little I knew about the movement or by the suspicion that I was, in fact, part of a bigger media outlet. The truth, had he known it, would likely have gone over far worse: that despite my unemployment and money woes, despite my Converse and old wool coat, I’m married to a CEO. And my life is pretty damn good.

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My head is a little scattered right now.

I just unfriended a young man on Facebook who I’ve known since high school. He was always a fun guy – clever and hilarious and really a joy to be around. I unfriended him because a comment of his on one of my posts left me so angered and so hurt, I simply didn’t want to deal with it or him. Perhaps it was impulsive of me. Perhaps I overreacted. But I’m of the mind that if we haven’t talked for a decade, then you don’t have the right to hurt my feelings.

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This week, the motherboard on my computer broke.

I’m not even sure what that statement means. Not since I cracked my ulna the summer after second grade have I broken something, suffered a large amount of inconvenience as a result, and still barely understood what was broken in the first place. The good news is that the motherboard is now fixed, and waiting for me at Rand’s office.

And no, I still don’t know what a motherboard does.

Since my computer has been out of commission all week, I haven’t been able to post about any of my most recent trips – to London, New York, or Barcelona (I’d yet to upload the photos to Flickr when my computer died. I reacted to this like any reasonable adult would. I cried and then ate a bunch of Oreos). This initially stressed me out – Have I been rambling on about Peru for too many weeks now? Are my readers getting incredibly bored of hearing me talk about eating guinea pigs and not flushing my t.p.?

Hopefully not, because there is still so much I have yet to tell you about our journey to South America. And so many photos to share – ones that, thankfully, made it up to Flickr in one piece. Here are ten of my favorites from the trip.

1. Creepy little skull sculpture, the Larco Museum, Lima.
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   Doesn't he TOTALLY look like the guy who was guarding the Holy Grail in the third Indiana Jones movie?

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I forget that, during my travels, I occasionally hand other people my camera. I won’t realize it until after I’ve uploaded all my photos to Flickr. There will be a few snapshots in the stream that I didn’t know existed. Sometimes, they’re awful. And sometimes …

Yes, yes. More of this nonsense. Quit gagging, already.

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I generally hate surprises. Let’s be fair: they usually suck (“SURPRISE! I PUT PLASTIC MOTHS ALL OVER YOUR BATHROOM! Isn’t that hilar- … why are you convulsing?”) But this surprise? It put me in a damn good mood. Heck, it might last all day.

And that, in and of itself, is pretty surprising. In a good way.

Breaking Philip's number one rule.

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My friend Philip gave me a great piece of advice many years ago, around the time that he himself became a father.

The rule, simply, was this: do not take photos of children you do not know.

If you think about it, it’s rather genius. No one wants to be the creepy photographer, standing in the corner, snapping photos of children that aren’t theirs. No parent wants to have that awkward exchange with a stranger (and yet, I am told, they will have it. And if they do, you’d better listen).

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Don’t get your camera wet.

These seems to be a fairly obvious rule, right? I can do that, can’t I? And yet, aren’t the simplest rules the hardest ones to follow? There were only three rules to taking care of a Mogwai, and none of them were that complicated, but look how that turned out.

So even when it started raining at Machu Picchu, and folks pulled out all kinds of covers and gear to keep their cameras dry, I kept snapping away. I’m pleased to say that no evil little cameras were spawned from my larger one.

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As you may have noticed, I’m usually the one wielding the camera during most of our trips. Rand doesn’t share my same enthusiasm for snapping pictures of amusing copywriting mishaps, nor my tendency to meticulously photograph desserts. His snapshots tend to be of landmarks or geographic points-of-interest, or – gasp – of his friends. I know. He’s weird. I try to keep my camera away from him for precisely this reason. I don’t want him using up all my non-existent film on stuff like that.

As such, I’m used to seeing things from one perspective: my own. But that wasn’t the case in Peru. Rand’s coworker Casey, who is far more adept at using a camera than I am (though let’s be fair: the same can be said of most primates), captured some great images. And their colleague Tom was there, too – snapping away photos on his soul-catcher of choice: an iPhone.

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