eight months

I think I’m beginning to understand the meaning of the saying ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same.’ It has been a long time since my last post. We said goodbye to San Francisco and put the sofa on the street. My little brother got married. We got a dog. And for the last six months, we have been living out of a van in Mexico.

The first month it was hot. The second month it was hot. Every month except for this month has been hot, and still there are its hot moments. I foresee a lot of heat in my future, and I am not excited about that. I can do nothing in the heat. I am useless.

 My dreams have always involved travel and writing, but I never really foresaw this. This is a different sort of travel than I have ever known, travel as a way of life, travel with no foreseeable end, travel by day, by week, by month. Some days we don’t travel at all, but we are still traveling by default. For once, going home would require way more effort than staying abroad.

 Everything has changed. Every day is a different adventure to find plumbing, food, shade or sun, and a quiet place to spend the night. But every day is also the same. I write, the same as always, and I spend a great deal of time thinking about writing. I finished the novel that I started almost five years ago, up in Alaska. It is not the novel I set out to write, but it is finished and out there and I wish I could say I am proud, but that elusive emotion has yet to appear. We are not so far removed as to have abandoned all of my personal ambitions, and so I am waiting for the moment to be proud, to be relieved, to be anxious about other things like the book selling.

 It's been eight months since my last post. I don't need to broadcast my thoughts like I used to. But I still need to record them. That is why I write at all. My memory is hazy at best, and I trust what I write to be an accurate record of my past. Maybe my diaries are molding in a storage unit somewhere south of San Francisco, but at least I can see pieces of myself online whenever I want. For better or worse, The Internet Is Forever...or at least until someone locks it all up behind a paywall. I just want to throw one stake down this month so I can remember more than a feeling of contentment, but a feeling of hope.

Hope isn't as readily imitated as contentment. It's much more elusive and extreme. The worst times are when you are without hope. There was a time in this blog when I was very low on hope, and that has changed. It has taken many years and many failures. I am still unemployed and now living mostly out of a van, but my life has never felt more true to myself. I finished secret plan 437b, a book that I have been working on for a long time. It was first labeled as such in this blog on June 30, 2008. That was almost five years ago. Hope is beginning to fade as rejections start to trickle in and I find myself in this strangely familiar place of which I need no reminder.

The prospect of failure is different when you’re by yourself, away from family and friends and social norms. On the one hand, failure seems less fatal as long as you can live with it, without seeing it reflected back in anyone you know. On the other hand, it is all the more personal because you’re the one who insists on doing it. Still, maybe rejection doesn’t get any easier to handle, but starting over or just getting back in again does. And maybe that is one thing that is different. Travel makes it easier to think of new beginnings, and reminds you of the payoff of long hauls.

There is a strong likelihood that it will fail (AGAIN) but right now, there is all this wonderful hope, the kind where I almost don't want to find out what happens next. And this feeling--just wanting to revel in the moment...I suppose that's the very definition of content.

curious summer

We've covered a lot of ground since leaving Vancouver the first week of June. A lot of literal ground. We drove from San Francisco to Chicago and then to Toronto before turning back for Los Angeles, where we are staying in Westlake for a week. I can't remember the last time I was in Los Angeles, but I'm pretty sure I never visited this neighborhood. It's one of the least diverse neighborhoods in LA, 75% Latino. On my morning jog, I heard someone call me 'Chinita' for the first time in a long while, maybe since living in Washington Heights. Seems like a lifetime ago.
Sometime during our three-week stay in Illinois, I thought of how odd it was to be sitting at my parents' kitchen table in the middle of the day having lunch, like a lazy teenager on summer vacation. There was something extraordinary in the ordinariness of it all. Then Marido came in to join me which seemed to normalize the scene and remind me that I'm not, in fact, still in high school, but then it seemed even more amazing that we were both there, half-nomadic already, preparing for an even longer journey than the almost 5,000 miles we've covered in the last six weeks. On a day-to-day basis, our lives seem mundane, but I'm fascinated by the way we've suddenly switched gears. It's amazing but a little alienating at times.

There's some photography about hermits featured in the NYTimes Lens blog this week, work by the photographer Carlo Bevilacqua. I had this fear that we would become van-dwelling hermits, but then again there is something beautiful about living simply and not having trouble with anyone.

north before south

Marido and I have been in Vancouver for over a month now. It has not been the mild, Canadian experience that I had anticipated. Everything is more, more, more than what I thought it would be. It is more expensive and more rainy and more sunny and more pleasant and more happy and more productive and more mountainous.

I've been using this time here as practice for life on the road, but it's far too comfortable to compare. Aside from the pared-down wardrobe and lack of friends, this is not what our grand adventure is going to look like. But I have been incredibly productive, something that I was worried that I would not be able to accomplish while in a new city. But in that sense, it has been a great practice. I am seeing that I work well in excursions of this length. It is enough to get to know an area while not having the pressure to sacrifice work to sightsee. When you're in a place for six weeks, you have time to settle into a new routine and then leave before it gets boring. I love it.

Of course it helps that we have a great set-up here that we didn't have to arrange ourselves. Marido gets to walk to work. The one-bedroom they put us up in is appointed with all these modern conveniences that we don't have at home: a dishwasher, heat, and a little gym in the lobby of our 22-story building. We even have a washer/dryer in the unit, which is critical seeing as we each only brought like six shirts for our six-week stay. In fact, it makes our home in San Francisco seem downright rustic.

In ten days we'll be celebrating two years of driving each other crazy. I'm humbled when I think of how much things have evolved--how we have parlayed a fleeting encounter in Buenos Aires into this beautiful, inspirational partnership that has changed me in so many ways. There are the obvious ways--like quitting smoking and really focusing on my work alongside someone who is so supportive of me--but it's the more subtle ways that I think really add up to feeling like a different person. I think my standards have shifted so that I no longer hope and pray for something wonderful to happen to me, I expect it. I expect it every day in little ways and over the long-term, as well. Some people might call this optimism, but I think it has more to do with the confidence you gain when you begin to see results. It's an overwhelming feeling that I'm not quite used to. It makes me feel privileged to expect good things to come my way, and almost a little fearful in the way that when you have higher expectations, you build yourself up for greater disappointment. But I think that this is also what develops from being in a strong partnership. Your performance improves.

In this way I have to say that Vancouver itself is inspirational. The city is highly functional. It's not a party town where people get drunk and stay out all night. It's a place where people are respectful of themselves and each other and the environment. And maybe that has something to do with why my work is going so well here, too. It's not as self-indulgent as San Francisco. It encourages you to work hard and to be humble. I don't know what it is about this place, but I like it and I hope that I can make the most of the next two weeks--and somehow learn to take this sort of focus with me on the road. It looks like things are about to get interesting.

the end of the world

Sometimes I feel like the only thing that can light a fire under my ass--ever since I quit acts of risk and desperation--is the idea of certain doom. I get the most motivated to write and create when I think of my mortality and how I would like to leave something behind for my not-yet-conceived children to perhaps learn from should I unexpectedly die and leave them motherless.

In some ways, 2011 was an exercise in minimal survival, and in other ways a feast of excess. On one end, my pay stubs from the fiscal year amounted to $200, an amount that I could have smoked away in two weeks, had I not quit smoking. And on the other end, Marido and I spent the entire last month of the year wandering around in Asia, feeling like the most overprivileged people on the planet. In between that last January paycheck and a New Year rung in on the sofa, recovering from colds and jet lag, there has been lots of failure, lots of struggle, lots of change, but also a lot of love, all of which I am extremely grateful for.

The thought that always lingers in my mind when visiting any developing nation is how incredibly hard people work to make ends meet. The sight of people in uncomfortable positions engaged in manual, repetitive, or dangerous labor--particularly the elderly--always provokes my guilt reflex, and I can only imagine what kind of doughy, incidentally lucky person they see when they cross paths with me. In Asia, the feeling is even stranger, because I always imagine there to be some kind of shock at the thought that one of them--once removed--could very well be me. I smile a lot and tip generously, probably just adding to the idea that I'm completely alien and oblivious. I treated my battered body midway through the trip to a $5/hour massage, pounded and kneaded by two Vietnamese girls around my age. "Where are you from?" One asked me. "You look like me."

Returning to my life in San Francisco is equally jarring, with no work to return to, but a certain role that I have settled into, a role of loving and being loved, and working to no avail. I have to play this mind game with myself that involves ricocheting between poles of best- and worst-case scenarios: that I will publish, and that I will die.

Happy New Year.

noted

Lessons learned these past two weeks:

Filed under Cooking:
Fried garlic is the perfect topping to many savory food items. Purple cabbage and apples keep for a long time. If you cover a rack of ribs in barbecue sauce and then throw it in the oven at 250 for 3 hours, the result is DELICOUSNESS. Artichokes are sort of a bitch to prepare, and their deliciousness is mostly derived from butter and garlic, negating most of their healthy properties as a vegetable.

Filed under California:
Even property 150 miles away from San Francisco without water or gas hookups is expensive. The further north you go, the more delicious the beer. Biking north into Sausalito is mostly downhill. You can purchase cocktails on the ferry. The town of Sea Ranch, though nestled on a beautiful stretch of the Pacific and purportedly full of hippies, appears to be uniformly oppressive, at least from an architectural standpoint.

Filed under Relationships:
Passion and dedication are interdependent. It is always better to be appreciated than tolerated--but if you can be happy alongside someone else, that is just as good; if you can't, it's worse than not being tolerated at all. Everything important about relationships can be traced back to the movie Say Anything. Everything else is petty fluff.

Filed under Writing:
Graham Greene is surprisingly funny. Alberto Moravia will consume most of my life for the next few months. Abebooks is a great source to get used books for cheap. Computer games and great writing do not mix.

Filed under Miscellany:
Peanut butter and birdseed alone will not self-adhere and dry into a molded form.

welcome home

When I first moved to San Francisco, I was 20 years old. This was almost ten years ago. I was, sadly, sad. I felt defeated and defective and I was realizing that a lot of things I thought I understood--like friendship, love, and personal ambition--were things that I couldn't even describe. I had barely any sense of well-being left in me, just a residual sense of self-preservation. For the first two years here, I pretty much just smoked pot and stared at the ocean and wondered if I would ever not be sad.

When I left San Francisco three years ago for New York, I kind of thought I would come back--but in this vague, hopeful way that existed mostly so I wouldn't feel so bad about leaving the place where I had learned to be happy. I knew that I would visit, but I didn't believe that I would ever live in San Francisco ever again.

Well, I'm back. I packed two bags full of clothes, got on an airplane, and now I am spending my hours writing in front of the same laptop with a different view. I have been back so many times that it will take some time before I feel like I am really back, and until then I am wandering about with the familiar sensation that I am neither here nor there.

I am working on my second book, which is a completely self-involved account of these last two years of my life. For the first time, I feel like I have something to share with people that would be best put in book form. It is a strange thought to feel like you have something deeply personal that is possibly entertaining enough to be worthy of sharing with the general public. But it is not pure entertainment. This book is really all about why it feels different to be in San Francisco this time around. It is about the things that have happened over the past few years, and how those things have changed me so much that I can come back to the same city with the same people and the same weather and feel as though I am in a completely different place altogether.

I wonder how long I will be here. The first time I came to San Francisco, I thought it would be for two or three years, and it ended up being seven.

caffeinated and weary

It was a beautiful weekend in San Francisco, filled with friends, surprise guests, and gazing into the loving eyes of Marido. I have been drinking a ton of booze and coffee in true SF form, and now all I really want is to sleep for three days. But at the same time, I just want to be constantly talking to the people who know me best, and to ask them:

What should I do?

I have been pitching back and forth between Back With a Vengeance and This Place Will Kill Me. Sometimes I look around me and think I'd have to be fucking insane to not want to settle in here for a bit, be with this Man I met, and some of the people who are most important to me in this world. And then there is this part of me this is thrashing around in my gut, kicking wildly against this proposition and whispering in my ear that the Beautiful Unknown awaits for me far away from the Bay.

When I was back in the midwest last week, I hung out with the family dog, the happiest little girl on earth. Seven years old now, she is still smiles and licks and excitement, but she doesn't like to go on walks in the neighborhood anymore, and when visitors leave she gets depressed. My mother told me that she seems bored going on walks now, and the only time she gets really excited is when the sound of jangling keys promises a car ride somewhere.

I have been thinking a lot about her this week, and how I would like to kidnap her and take her places, just to see that crazy spark in her that I always adored and envied, that joy she had that was infectious and and exhausting that I thought would never die. I never thought I'd say this, but I think life is too short to just be content. Maybe I have too much; maybe I'm addicted to suffering; maybe I thrive on extremes; maybe I am afraid of the responsibility of this new acquisition--Marido's heart. But in my clearest moments, I can't explain why I just want to be far away from everything I know and love. I am willing to suffer for six months to have two months of bliss.

I have a very bad feeling that I am going to break this man's heart.

final compulsive post from the greatest place on earth

Don't you love it when your mp3 player is on shuffle and it seems to pick the perfect songs for your mood--songs you didn't even know you had? I sure do.

I'm bidding Buenos Aires good-bye in just a few hours. It is sad and stressful and I am terribly anxious about re-entering the English-speaking world. For the past nine months, I have largely been answering to nobody but myself. There have been few questions for me to deal with here, only what I want to do each day. Many days I did nothing. And many days I did exactly what I wanted to do. It has been such an amazing and refreshing experience that I just want to keep doing it again and again and again.

I am ready to leave, though. I am ready for something new. Maybe Marido is part of this something new. Today we were wondering for a bit if we are more in love with the romance of us than us in reality. Of course, this is one of the billion thoughts that has crossed my mind, and one of the thousand that has lingered and returned. But what I have to keep reminding myself is that, like leaving Buenos Aires itself, some situations may seem unreal...but they are just as real as anything, whether we planned for them or not.

Hasta luego, Buenos Aires. Thank you for being so good to me. Thank you for depositing me in this wonderful house with these beautiful people. Thank you for challenging me, and thank you for your patience, your time, and your comforts. I hope we'll meet again.

love and boringness and moving

It is a cold and drizzly Sunday in Buenos Aires, and I actually left the house to go about my day, and retreated home after about 100 meters, where I have spent the day eating popcorn and day-old facturas filled with dulce de leche.

I am in love, and part of me hates it. I hate the fact that last night my roommate had to practically beg me to go to a party with her because I kind of didn't see the point of going out if I wasn't going to pick up boys. I hate the fact that I was sniffly today and didn't want to tell Marido that it was because I did a bunch of coke last night. I hate the fact that I am perfectly sated to lie in bed and just think of him, or to spend an hour cooing with him over video chat. I hate the fact that I feel stupid and boring but I don't care because I am in love. I hate that I cannot work, cannot write, because the only thing going through my mind is: Aww! He's so sweet! Twelve more days until I see him again!

It has been a rather intense week apart since we parted ways at the Madrid Airport. Somehow we became absorbed into an email exchange this week that involved the words "sex" and "marriage" and "long-distance" and "non-exclusive," all terribly heavy things to be floated through Gmail with a person you met about oh, six weeks ago. But as intense and sort of unwanted as the emails were, I'm glad they happened. I feel as though we are on the same page, and this is a new feeling for me. We are in love and trying to be responsible and respectful with ourselves and the other. Even though we feel like breathless teenagers, we also feel very wise. It is exciting but also boring. I like you? You like me? Great! Great! Okay, great. Now what?

Well, the 'now what' part is actually a big deal in this case, seeing as I currently live about 6500 miles away from him. 'Currently' being the operative word, of course. That status is going to change in three short days. Then, I don't know. He's formally invited me to crash with him for the entire month of August that I'm in SF, and that sounds both lovely and crazy. Not crazier than going to Spain with him, but close. I know I've joked that he's my Marido since the day we met, but...I can't help but feel like I'm just getting caught up in this delirium. He's already booked a flight to come to see me in Chicago the following weekend. And instead of feeling overwhelmed by all of this, I am fanatically thrilled. Great! Great! Great! Snooze.

I find myself constantly thinking, "Is this really happening? I need a nap."

honeymooning

It's been a week of honeymooning with Marido, and things have been so luscious and perfect that I am not quite sure where to begin. He met me at the airport in Madrid and has been driving me around Spain, France, the Basque Country, stopping in at cute town after cute town, lying on crowded beaches, winding our way through sunny fields and tree-filled mountains. He is doing all the driving because I don't know how to drive manual transmission cars.

We figured out that I met him on Madrid exactly a month after our first date, but with our schedules this is probably one of the longest fifth dates in history. It is completely overwhelming and I am often silent on our long drives, in awe of it all, disbelief. I think I would have an easier time understanding if something was wrong---if he was giving me creepy vibes or if he were a terrible lover or if we were constantly having communication breakdowns. But everything seems so natural and easy that instead I feel confused and vaguely panicky, like I must be missing something. Because what?the?fuck?is?going?on? How did I end up on this French beach with this impossibly charming man who somehow always knows the right thing to say? Has he been cyber-stalking me all of my life, preparing for this trip together, anticipating exactly what I love, what I want, what is important to me, and what will make me fall completely in love with him? It sure as hell seems like it.

Sometimes I look over at him and am filled with an incredible sensation of being completely safe and protected yet terrified like never before. The day before I left, I told my buddy B that I was sure I would fall in love this week, and here it is, happening. He said to me, "Falling in love isn't the hard part." And he's right, of course. We can love most anyone, but it's making it work that is hard. And when we begin to talk about the future, which we dabble in at times during our long drives, it fills me with fear. It's not as though I have any specific plans at all, but I was happy before I met Marido. I have plans to go to Mexico, and plans to go to Budapest, to take photos and write books and fall in love. And I'm scared that I will wander off with this man and forget all of these plans. Because I feel like he could ask me to go anywhere with him, and I would go. I mean, he did talk me into crossing the ocean to run with the bulls with him. On our second date.

hot and cold

I went to a party last night and there was this gorgeous Venezuelan boy with one of the sexiest accents imaginable. I was a little drunk and I really wanted to kiss him. Suddenly we had to leave and I was almost grateful, because I thought of Marido and how I'd like to kiss him the most.

I have one more long day of shooting and trekking tomorrow in Montevideo, and then I go home to Buenos Aires. I'm really looking forward to returning to my own freezing house and cooling my heels for a few days. Although this trip has been uncomfortable and a little bewildering, I am thankful for the work and have been experiencing this incredible feeling of wondering, wandering, and making things work. It is also a tremendous distraction from my pre-trip anxieties with Marido, which I am trying so hard not to obsess over.

I'm staying with a host I've couchsurfed with before, one of the nicest and most generous guys in all of Uruguay. And I feel like that says a lot, since I adore the Uruguayos. They are such a welcoming, caring people. I've been asking for quite a bit of assistance getting around town and reporting this guide, and most people are extremely helpful. On the bus yesterday to I don't even know where, the bus driver not only helped me to get where I was going, but inquired to where I was going afterward, and wrote directions for me as he drove, nearly swiping a parked car.

Being in town for the World Cup quarterfinals qualifying celebration was also a trip. Everyone headed downtown for the spontaneous celebration. It felt like they had won the title. As my host said, "People don't even care if they win. They will celebrate each victory because it could be the last." Thinking I could be Korean, people get grabbing and hugging me in the streets to console me and show solidarity. It was beautiful, and I was so glad to be here.

One of the strangest things about getting used to being alone is suddenly desiring the company of specific people, to whom I find myself constantly writing letters. It is like I cannot go a few days without writing to someone. When I am really happy, I miss people the most. I just want to share everything with my loved ones, but I am surrounded by strangers. Nice strangers, though.

this is what crazy looks like

I am totally insane this week. I have not been able to sleep, but I don't feel tired or even irritated. I wonder if I am just not used to being this happy. It has been hard to breathe without the aid of cigarettes.

Marido returned to Buenos Aires a few days early so we have been hanging out a lot. I was very excited to see him, to see if I would still feel the same about him. I did. It is not the excitement of meeting someone totally new and strange and beautiful. It is the strange sensation of being with someone who seems to understand you completely, without really knowing anything about you. I don't really get it, but I don't know if there's really anything to get.

During lunch of our second date he asked me if I wanted to go to Spain with him. Of course I want to go to fucking Spain with him. But whether I can, that is another story. And whether I should--well, I don't really traffic in those terms anymore.

Basically, this is what my brain and blood and body has felt like for the past three weeks--



Of course I have reservations about going on an overseas trip with a man I have spent a total of like 12 hours with. I asked him, "Is that a good idea?" And he said, "If we don't do crazy things like go to Spain with someone you just met--who will?"

You can see why I like this guy. My finger is on the trigger. But I am nervous--not because I think anything bad will happen, but because I'm pretty sure if I do go, I will fall completely in love. What a terrifying notion. I wondered aloud what the chances are of him being totally psychotic and he said, "I think you are more likely to be psychotic than I am."

I also just turned my remaining 5 weeks in Buenos Aires to 4 weeks, because I have to go to Montevideo next week to shoot another story (or two, hopefully). Jumping a plane to Spain would cut the 4 weeks down to about 10 days. That is just weird. It is all so much to handle that all I can do is lie awake and think about it until the sun rises. And the thoughts start with, "I need to sell at least three stories in the next three weeks," and then end up with "Hm, perhaps you should get the elastic fixed on that cute black dress of yours."

I have no idea what the hell is going on, but I only feel partially in control.

feels like home

The two weeks in Asia turned out to be a good transition back for a week in the Chi. Singapore is homey while still being strange and exotic, and Chicago is just...homey. Strangely, it feels like I was just here last week even though it's been more than five months. It feels nice to be home with my parents and my dog, and part of me doesn't want to get back to Buenos Aires...yet.

The last week in Singapore was very exciting. I met up with a family friend who was in a sticky situation, and we played all week and went on a nice beach vacation for a few nights. It made me feel like a completely different person. I went from being the silent daughter to being the strong, older woman taking care of a friend, complete with tour-guidism, strategizing and dispensing of hard advice.

Being on three continents in three weeks makes me want to settle down, though I'm unsure of what that means. The need for stability is so vague that I'm not sure what form that would take. But all the girl talking reminds me that I desperately miss being in love, and I'm fairly certain that is a big part of the equation. I spent a large part of the past week talking about the highs and lows of my relationship with Ex, which made me both nostalgic and fearful for what is to come.

On the eve of my departure to Asia, I stayed up late with my roommates, feeling extremely apprehensive yet accepting. We are all in such loose situations that it feels like a strong gust of wind could just pick us up and disperse us in any number of directions. On the one hand, we are all ready for change and almost desirous of such a random change of course, but on the other hand we all wish we were motivated somehow on our own that we didn't have to wait for the tides to change for that to happen. We are all simultaneously waiting and seeking, and nervous to make any sort of proactive decision.

Someone asked me what I was up to lately and I answered that I had "just" graduated, but then I realized that "just" was a year ago. What have I been doing for the past year? When I think back on where I've been and what I've been doing, a dreamy feeling comes over me that is something like detached disbelief and suppressed longing. For all that I've been up to, I feel like I've yet to really get down to it. Something inside me is begging to say yes to the right question. Lately I've been saying yes to all these short-term tasks and really rising to the challenge, and I think I'm about to say yes to something else, something that I've never even considered before.

It is altogether terrifying and welcome.

where's my freakout?

So, a bunch of stuff happened this week and, as is my usual M.O., I guess I will just go through it chronologically.

The night before my friend left, we went out to dinner. There was a lull in the conversation during which I thought, "OK, I should tell him now how I feel..." It was all the shit that my Spanish-teacher-turned-psychotherapist and I had discussed--namely, that I like to ruin things before anyone else can, but that I still wanted to tell him that he is awesome! That's when he said, "I have a confession." My heart stopped. He continued, "My boss and I got hookers last night." Oh man, I could not stop laughing. Later that night, I ended up writing him a drunken note in Spanglish.

Way too early the next morning we went on a photo shoot together and it was amazing. I haven't done any abandoned or industrial photography since getting here, and he picked out a site that I'd actually noticed several weeks ago. The shoot was incredible; the photography was amazing, and then when we returned to the city center he had his camera stolen on a crowded subway car--containing my 8GB memory card with all of the photos that I'd lent him after he filled his own card. What a shitty fucking turn of events. My FC almost-love-affair had his Canon stolen as well when he was here a few weeks ago. I feel like it's just a matter of time before I get mine stolen as well. I did end up giving him the probably illegible note and then saying goodbye. I took the bus home and slept for the rest of the day.

I didn't have time to mourn the loss, though, because the day before, after the hooker confession, I'd talked to my parents about a family situation going down on the other side of the world. And tomorrow, I am flying out to the other side of the world to try and "help," i.e., I'm just going there for moral support. It is pretty much all I have to offer the world right now, so I didn't really think about it. I am a little nervous about it, because I also offered to stay out there as long as I am needed. I don't know what this will entail. I am now sitting in my room here in Buenos Aires and wondering how to prepare for this trip. Only now it is not about what possessions I bring with me, since I really don't have anything. It is more about what sort of expectations I bring with me mentally, and again, I can't bring much, since I don't really know what is happening. It would of course make sense to bring everything with me. But that makes me feel like I am not coming back, so I will probably just leave a random assortment of useless things and one important thing--my tripod.

I feel surprisingly calm, maybe because I haven't really had time to think about it. Whenever the anxiety rises up in me, I just say, "Ssshh, anxiety doesn't help. We have to go and just...be there." (like how we are a 'we?') Also I composed a three-page email to someone this morning and I guess it helped me to put my thoughts in order. Maybe I will post the email because it made me feel good about life. And shit, when you feel good about life, nothing is a really big deal.

wander:lust

It has been an eventful two weeks.

I met my Little Brother in Lima, where transit strikes canceled our first set of plans. This wasn't such a big deal. We managed to make it to Machu Picchu, despite some serious train problems, and then once we got there, we were stranded in the town of Aguas Calientes for almost a week with about 2,000 others. It was a really intense week--a slow roller coaster ride, to borrow a choice phrase from my friend Chris. Every day we got up hoping to figure out what the hell was going on, sort of hoping we could get out and continue on our journey to Lake Titicaca. But that couldn't and didn't happen. We were finally airlifted out on a helicopter on the sixth day.

So much went on that it's hard to figure out where to begin. There was a weird breaking off into tiny communities of nations: the Argentineans, the Brasilians, the Canadians, the Japanese, the Chileans, the Australians, the Americans. There was the animosity that developed as nation-centric rumors of corruption and bribery rippled through the town. And then there was the underlying panic concerning shortages of food, water, and level-headedness. But nobody really knew what was going on. With no organized way to disseminate information, everything was just hearsay. On the other hand, the stranded tourists were mostly 20-something backpackers, so every night was kind of a party. It was a very strange dynamic--something like Lord of the Flies meets Woodstock.

In the midst of all this, you'd think I would have some very interesting things to rant and rave about. Like how cool it was to ride in a Peruvian military copter over the Sacred Valley. Or what it was like to live in limbo for a week in such an international community. Or how the guy from the U.S. embassy in Lima sent out to mitigate Argentinean-American conflict looked kind of like Orlando Bloom. And I do...but somehow the biggest thing standing out in my mind from this hugely dramatic experience is that when I finally got to check my email somewhere around Day 4, I'd received a 30-word email from a boy I met in Uruguay just before New Year's, which sent me into a complete state of ecstasy despite the tenuous circumstances. And this, instead of all the other tremendously more interesting things that happened this week, is all I really want to think about.

I'm just as fucked up as so many of us in this regard. More than natural disasters and states of emergency, what fascinates and excites us the most is the possibility that there could be someone out there who finds us as appealing as we find them. And this is where the real excitement begins.

sexy feet, sexy life

I have to confess that yesterday I did something so incredibly frivolous and girly that it was like I was almost possessed: I got a pedicure. I've never gone and done that before. But I have been thinking about it for a while, mostly because I walk around here staring at my feet all day. You have to, to avoid stepping in dog shit, tripping over the ruined sidewalks, or falling into a hole. Or, oh god, I almost stepped into a thick pool of blood congealing on the sidewalk the other day. There had been a traffic accident--a car and a motorcycle. I was ---> this <---- close to putting my sandaled foot in the blood. It shook me up so bad that I actually crossed myself and felt strangely better. The culture is pervading me in bizarre ways. I don't quite understand.

Anyhow I got this pedicure and then I walked around staring at my feet like they were someone else's feet, someone who knew what was going on, and I was just following her around. My friend and I went together but had to have back-to-back sessions so we were in the salon for a really long time. But it was cool inside, and I was excited to indulge. I started the week off in kind of a grim cloud of anxiety and apprehension. That is what happens when you do a bunch of stupid shit and then you have nobody to talk to about it. Treating myself to something nice made me feel better about everything. Okay, so I also treated myself to some ice cream and a brownie and a big salad for lunch and a pair of cheap sandals that I really needed...but the pedicure was the best.

So I feel the need to apologize for my last post, which was a little bleak and trashy. Not that I believe that I should have censored myself really, but I think it is a little unfair to write about shit like that when you are far away and not in constant contact. It causes people to worry about you.

But I am back to work on things in my slow, plodding way, and I feel good. I submitted my second magazine article this week and landed a third assignment this week which will be really fun to work on. I think I will even get to shoot photos for it! Everything is okay when I take a deep breath and say, "Be patient; things are slow; things take time." When I remember to say this to myself and keep moving forward according to plan, everything is fine. It's when I give into the Asian-American (maybe the worst combo of Type 'A' personalities) shrieking in my head that I think "Ohmygodwhatthefuckisgoingon, whatkindofchoiceshaveimade, whodoithinkiam, whatdoihavetoshow, whatamiworth, whoamikidding, youarethirtyyyearsoldnowactlikeit!!!!!"

Deep breath: as I was saying.

new decade, new continent, same shit

It is 90 degrees and raining here in Buenos Aires and I am just lazing about my house, eating things and feeling the heat emanate from the walls.

It is my first "day off" in a while. After two action-packed weeks with Sexy that bled into some intense partying, I am feeling a little drained and sad. Part of it is because I am not doing a good job at keeping in touch with people so I sometimes feel lonely. The other part is that I have been wondering more and more what the hell I am doing down here, because it's definitely not working. But the biggest part I think is that in order to avoid thinking about this, I have wandered back into some choice addictions: booze, men, and cocaine, all of which are cheap, plentiful, and of decent--if not varying--quality in Buenos Aires.

I will tell you a secret. I am the worst kind of female in a lot of ways, a big romantic at heart who struggles against this perceived tendency towards sappiness through wanton hookups. But anyhow, I bring this up because I sort of thought I could detox from this hapless man-addiction I have down here, and was doing an okay job of it. But then I started down the slippery slope, and have already slept with more men this past week than I have in the past six months. It is a strange time.

I can have NSA sex sometimes, but it seems to be getting more difficult, like the strings want to attach themselves when I least expect it. Then I want to shy away from the whole scene altogether just to avoid any potential tricks my mind has in store for me. There was a moment last week when I was lying in bed with a gorgeous man, all aglow and happy, when I let my thoughts take me too far away and plunged me into deep regret. I started thinking to myself, "I couldn't marry this guy. Our first kiss was in a bathroom stall well past sunrise after doing a bunch of blow. What kind of story would that be at the wedding?" And as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I had to bolt, even though all was just fine and dandy until then.

Why can't things just be one way or the other? I'm fully aware I'm not going to meet the man of my dreams in some sleazy Buenos Aires nightclub. But I still get a perverse sense of satisfaction out of these encounters. My brain gets attached to these sorts of familiar melodramas. I'd been keeping a low profile, which is easy because I don't know anyone here. But also...not knowing anyone can get you into a lot of trouble. Because you just don't give a damn what anyone thinks.

Anyhow. I can't have the first post of 2010 be like this. So let me tell you that I had an incredible New Year's in Punta del Diablo, this small beach town on the Uruguayan coast about an hour away from the Brazilian border. We were walking down the beach under the full moon to a party when fireworks starting going off all around town: in front of us, behind us, to the sides. And everywhere there were boys. BOYS! We drank and danced and ate and kissed cute boys. That's pretty much all I want out of life, trite as it may seem. I'm not very demanding at all.

hobo holidays

I have been couchsurfing here in Montevideo with Sexy for the past few nights. It has been a good time. A chatty Israeli made me eggs on Xmas Eve, and then I left to explore. The city was like a ghost town. I ended up attending Mass. When Mass ended, a woman enlisted me to walk her home because she did not feel safe because the streets were so deserted and dark. I went to retrieve Sexy at the hostel and we went out with some other travelers and partied until 8 in the morning with a group of Italian boys. Who knew people went out to discos on Xmas Eve? I think it was the first Xmas I was ever hungover. Later in the day we took a bus from our hostel to the house of our couchsurfing host. We wanted to make dinner for him and his other two surfers, so we went out to look for food. Everything was closed, so we ended up buying canned food at a gas station with an impressive alcohol selection. Our Xmas dinner consisted of a strange canned corn and chickpea tortilla, pasta with canned mushrooms, and champagne, beer, and white wine, all purchased at the gas station.

Yesterday the streets were still deserted, so Sexy and I wandered around taking photos and plotting our escape. We were walking through the Ciudad Viejo--the old city--when we heard some music coming from a back alley and saw some kids that we had seen dancing in a plaza earlier. We went to investigate and as soon as they saw us coming down the alley, they surrounded us and began chattering excitedly. At first we were a little frightened, and I couldnt understand what they were saying, but then said in unison: WELCOME!

Everyone in Montevideo is so friendly, and everyone always asks us the same thing: Why did you come to Uruguay? It is pretty charming. These kids were great. They ranged from about ten to eighteen years old, and they were dancing to a music they called techtonika. They welcomed us and offered to teach us some dance moves, and we chilled with them for a while. When we left, they even posed for a big group photo, which was to-die-for adorable.

Tomorrow we will take a bus to the beach and stay through New Years. We hear there will be a full moon on New Years Eve, which will be incredible! I still havent made my New Years resolutions, which I am very serious about. But I have some bus time to work this all out. I think it will have something to do with balancing work and play, trying to live a life of fewer extremes. But I dont know.

10 days in

I have begun to feel strangely comfortable here in Buenos Aires, even though I can't speak the language and I have no friends. The Internet helps a lot, I must admit. Also, things have started to move along in their own little way, and I am glad for all the distraction.

My biggest piece of news is that I sold a second story to a magazine, and it is a FOOD story, so maybe this will be the first step to writing about things that I love. It is a short piece, but it will be published in a nice, glossy magazine and they are paying me enough to almost pay a full month's rent here. Maybe that is the ticket to my existence as a writer, to get paid in US$ and live abroad.

That leads me to my second piece of news, which is that I have found a place to move into on Wednesday! I looked at three apartments in different neighborhoods. My instinct was to move into the first one I saw, which was in the trendy San Telmo neighborhood. I would have shared the house with four or five other students, and a young couple and their daughter. The place was appropriately untidy for my taste, and full of young travelers. But I think I am getting old, because I'm taking a place much further from the action, in Villa Crespo. It lacks the obvious charm of San Telmo, like the cobblestone streets and myriad cafes and galleries, but it feels more peaceful to me. And instead of living with a bunch of rag-taggers like myself, I will be sharing the house with a couple, two young men who are both artists in their own right. If I had known they were a couple right off the bat, I probably wouldn't have gone to see the place because I don't really like the idea of living with a couple. But everything just seemed so fucking perfect. They were so charming and hospitable, and their place is cute, cozy, and out of the way. I'm surprised that I am so excited to get out of the buzzing downtown area where I'm staying. But, like I said, I must be getting old. I also thought I'd be dying to meet other Americans and travelers, but it turns out I don't really care at the moment. I think more than anything, I am dying for a good night's sleep, and it turns out downtown Buenos Aires is not the place for that. After the drunk people and trash collectors have disappeared from the street, the street cleaning truck crawls down my block every night around 3 a.m. to wash away the grime with a high-pressure sprayer, and it is maddening.

There is only one other person in my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) class, a woman who is my father's age. She is all the company I need. Today we finished the first week of the two-week-long course, and it is boring and annoying for the most part, but sometimes interesting to think about one's native language in such elementary ways. I found the practice teaching to be incredibly fun. The students (six adults) were all over the place, but they were engaged. Of course, the first ten minutes of my class consisted of the students interrogating me about my ethnic heritage. Why do you look Asian if you were born in the States? There aren't too many Asian people here in Buenos Aires, although all the supermarkets seem to be owned by Chinese people (who actually speak Chinese). They were intense, but overall, delightful. One of the students invited us to a party as his house tonight, but I have been so crushed by this weird headache that I had to say no. I hope that he will extend the invitation some other time.

I think the real turning point for me was the other night when, for whatever reason, I started to think about returning to the States in April and I was seized with this feeling of anxiety and dread. I don't really know why the thought of going back freaks me out, but I'm going to let that simmer in the back of my mind and probably let it terrorize me late at night when I am done wondering if this persistent headache is a symptom of dengue.

tempting towns

This morning I headed out to explore the barrio Retiro, another neighborhood abutting Microcentro, where I am staying. I passed by (another) protest in front of the University of Buenos Aires, gilded shopping centers, sidewalk cafes, and then went into the Retiro train station to have a look around. I love train stations.

With only a vague idea of which direction I was going, I followed a major road a short way to where it was no longer major. The road was suddenly unpaved, and the buildings now had numbers painted on by hand. There were dogs lying in the doorways, and the types of looks I was getting had changed from mostly indifference to curiosity. Instead of being another buzzing member of the glamorous hive of downtown, I was now walking slowly through a static town-within-a-town.

This part of town had a completely distinct personality. It was protected and segregated by highway overpasses, rusting train containers, abandoned tracks, and swaths of dusty roads. The residences ranged from cardboard lean-tos to brick cubes stacked two high, adorned with narrow, steel, spiral stairs. I wove my way through the lanes of houses. There were tons of people out, cooking, chatting, and of course staring at me. The past two days here, I've felt like I could be anywhere. But this morning I felt like I was somewhere new. I was incredibly happy.

I have been carrying my espresso-machine-sized camera haphazardly in a large canvas tote bag. Although my padded camera bag would be much better for it, I feel like it attracts a lot of attention. You know how in New York you can tell who the tourists are because they're wearing the backpacks on their stomachs and strangling their handbags while walking down Park Avenue? Well, here everyone does that. I've never really been the nervous type about my belongings--mostly since I'm more likely to damage them than anyone else--but here I've already been told to put my camera away twice. I am trying to be good about taking it out quickly to compose photos and then stashing it back. I desperately wanted to shoot photos while in this neighborhood, but instead I wandered blithely through. Although there was an appropriate amount of activity to make it feel safe, there was also an element of stillness that alerts a cautionary sense in me. It's like approaching a dog that is bounding around wagging its tail versus a dog that is just staring at you with its head sort of bent down.

It wasn't until that I emerged on the other end that I took my camera back out. Then I came across the entrance to a more decrepit-looking collection of homes. I couldn't tell how big it was because it was level, unlike the maze of two-story buildings I'd come through. I got even more excited because I am a hugely privileged dork fascinated by poor people and old-school urban development. Cogniscent of the cluster of police cars sitting in a clearing just there, I took out my camera and snapped a quick photo, then stood for a moment assessing the best way into this second village.

Promptly a policeman approached me and told me to leave, telling me it was very dangerous. I wondered whether he would prevent me from entering the encampment. If I were to walk through with my camera concealed, was it a sure thing that I'd be robbed? It was the middle of the day. I've been told I'm quite risk tolerant, and I briefly thought of just ignoring him and plunging in. On the other hand, I didn't want to be stupid. There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity, and if I were to get my camera jacked on my third day here, well, I would definitely see exactly where that line was. I followed his directions to get back to the preapproved areas of town, the whole time plotting a return without any belongings except my keys.