And So It Begins.

(Novel Café Santa Monica 9:34p 7/20/06)

Call To Action

Inspired thoughts
at all hours of the night
swirl about
beckoning an answer
when my defenses
are at their weakest.

How deviously clever
to call under dark moonlit hours,
when my judgment
is hindered
and nothing can I do
but lie paralyzed
victim to each stab
piercing me in fragility,
reason
dripping through my wounds.

How shall I respond
but to tire myself
to a numb slumber
amidst the cyclone,
awake only to meander,
grotesquely tempered
by the brutish sun,
my energy replenishes
only
for what I know
awaits
in the late hours.

How else
can I break
this cycle
but
to answer its calls?


I wrote the above poem a couple months ago. It expresses countless nights of frustration and angst for nothing more than my own quarter-life crisis. For living a life not at full potential. Everyone has their calling. I’m not exactly sure how mine will take form, in what shape it will arrive but I know that it wasn’t the life I was living the past few years. I’ve been living a wonderful life, the best of anyone in the world but something I can’t exactly describe, something I can’t place, something, has been poking away at me daily. It’s usually worst at night. The only time I’ve been free of it in memory was when I was abroad four years ago. That was just a few months. It wasn’t backpacking, and following a Fodor’s guide and snapping pictures of the Eiffel tower and saying I’ve been somewhere while living the experiences of countless drones. Not that I haven’t had an amazing time doing those very things, but there was something indescribable about Living abroad and being in an environment that challenges you, that has you on edge that lets you know that blood is vigorously flowing through your veins. For years I’ve deprived myself of this.

I’m in my loft right now in Palermo, a fashionable neighborhood (or so I’ve been told) in Buenos Aires (Argentina for the geographically challenged). I’ll probably go to a café with WiFi and attempt to post this after. I could use a beer anyway. After much peer pressure I’ve decided to blog, in this case a travel blog of sorts rather than do the mass emails that many of you have read before. However I wish to make a disclaimer as I’ve told the more persistent of you that inquired as to why I’ve yet to join the bandwagon. Bottom line is most of the blogs I read are 1) very good, 2) you can tell effort and consideration have gone into them, and 3) are updated regularly. It’s the last of these culprits that has kept me from blogging, perhaps my “noncommittal” nature. In any case, I am going to be savagely honest in recounting my feelings, emotions and thoughts. A writer acquaintance I met at a café in Los Angeles once told me that he thought to be a great writer, you need to “not give a fuck what anyone thinks.” I nodded my head knowing full well that this was obviously impractical. There are always considerations in order not to offend people and just plain old etiquette. Well I’m through with that. I’m a Real person with real thoughts, and I’m offering a window to whoever wants to accept such. As habit allows for now, I scribble thoughts on napkins, on scraps of paper, I record messages on my cell and write myself emails. In doing so I’ve become my own best friend, and all this trouble in order to just understand myself. It’s these very thoughts and ideas that I will share with you, taken as I live them.
With this I’ll leave pleasantries and impressions of me in the dust. I meet so many people going through life who seemed uninspired, or just unaware. I’m not that person. Also, I’ve decided to accept comments from you, however these will only be between you and me and will not be posted publicly. In an idyllic world we would all be free to say what we want not caring what anyone thinks. I’m at a place in life where I want to Feel Everything, and with this attitude there is no room for vague generalities. With the confidence that we are in communication in private, I may actually receive some genuine insight. If you want to say “Have fun Matt!!!” or “Have a great time in…” then save it. Not that I don’t want well wishers, but if you choose to communicate with me, make it mean something. I may learn something about you that I never knew, or circumstances prevented me from knowing. From now on and for the rest of my life, I have chosen to bare my soul. In this I have freed myself from countless constraints, from being overly-socialized, from not living at full potential and capacity.

In this, the tenth month of my twenty-fourth year of life, I bow in acknowledgement of my past, I am beginning anew.


Forty-eight hours ago


I’m my apartment in Los Angeles with a revolution of ideas poking away for attention. At three a.m. with blood-shot eyes and the lids burning at every blink, I stare blankly at the ceiling in my room. I think about everyone I have talked to in the past few days, goodbye’s with friends and the phone conversations and thinking about how my time in Argentina is going to be. It’s just a matter of hours now and I’ll be on the plane. Although I’ve traveled extensively I’ve never been there. It’s kind of weird going someplace not knowing Anyone. You have a fresh slate. You are whoever you say you are, your past what you want it to be. I’ve always been brutally honest, maybe to a fault, but rather than deviating from this path I want to continue on it. To go deeper, to understand others like never before, and in doing so perhaps through self-reflexivity further understand myself. To strip down the layers, to feel as alive as ever.

My flight is from LA to Washington, D.C. I stop for an hour in the nation’s capital and take an opportunity to stretch and practice some basic yoga. My flight was spent mostly sleeping, occasionally awaking to the seatbelt sign bolting on, a slight drop, a little turbulence or the flight attendants crashing through the aisles repeating things seven thousand times in slight variation. Juice? Coffee? Juice? Some coffee for you? Juice? Also the guy sitting next to me was overly flatulent, and I would have loved to have been upset, but I think to myself that maybe it’s some sort of fart-karma and I laugh and try not to breathe.

In the airport in Washington I study the faces of the people at the gate. I try to discern who is American and who is Argentinean. It is the latter that I try to especially study- clothes, shoes, facial hair, jewelry, manner of talking and body language. I try to understand what I am about to embark on. Everything is magnified, if there is one person strumming a guitar in a corner they have become a “musical people.” I make ridiculous mental observations to myself trying to catalogue them. They like wearing jeans.

D.C. to Buenos Aires is not to different. I befriend the couple sitting next to me. They are older though I don’t know how old. Later it becomes apparent that they had been to LA once thirty-five years ago. Together. They were married. They’re older than I thought. At first they are suspicious of me, a pompous American perhaps, some young punk-ass. I mistake them for Portenos (from Buenos Aires). They are from Montevideo (Uruguay, a couple hours from Bs As by ferry and bus). At first I speak broken Spanish with them. They speak Spanish and in time gain courage to throw in a few English words. Soon they are speaking completely in English. Before I know it, absurdly, the English speaker is speaking in Spanish, and the Spanish speakers are speaking in English. Later on the flight, a good eight hours from now I will drop the attempt and continue a greater conversation with them in English allowing for greater breadth.

I tried recently to explain to a very good friend that I become ultra-patriotic when I’m away from home. Patriotic in it’s real form, pride of country, not the neo-con version to bow and agree with everything our government does. So I defend and boast of all that we have back home, and as if in an upside down pyramid, I go from applying this to neighborhoods, to Los Angeles, to Southern California, to California, to the west coast, to America, and in the occasion that I befriend a Canadian, I suddenly have a deep continental connection.

In any case me and these Uruguayans talk and sleep, only to be awoken to Pasta? Beef? Pasta? Some Pasta for you? Would you like some Beef? Pasta? Sir. They’ve come to me. Now I’m a bit confused. I’ve decided that in order to defend myself against the barrage of meat that will be thrown upon me in this, the country that is proclaimed to have the best meat in the world, I will try and avoid it, consider myself a vegetarian (I was raw for a little bit last year until I found it impractical) until I can determine where the best Parilla or steakhouse in the city is, and then go nuts. I decide to stick to the strategy. I ask the flight attendant what the pasta has.

“It should be good.” So unhelpful. Well do you know what it has in it? “Should be some sauce.” I want to cry. Tomato? I inquire. Annoyed, he actually tears open the foil on one and puts it about seven inches from my face. I see a bunch of cheese and what looks like a speck of something red that could be sauce or lint or anything. Also a noodle seems to appear out of nowhere. The edges are trimmed. Think childhood, think commercials. Chef Boyardee? I have correctly identified what I believe to be Ravioli. Covered in cheese and garnished with a dollop of tomato sauce. There’s carrot cake too. Sold. And “salad.” I take the carton from his hand. “There’s barbecue sauce on the beef” he informs me. I think this is to let me know that he would have taken the beef. He’s trying to show me all the beef has to offer. Like barbecue sauce. I nod and start eating the pasta.

I take a few bites to confirm, but I think this pasta actually has no taste. I mean like nothing, I feel as if I’m eating colors. I’m eating beige with melted white and yellow. I stare at my salad. If this was back in my salad bowl at home this would be one bite. I decide to strategically make it three. I eat the sliver of carrot first. It tastes fairly close to a carrot. I then bite in to the tomato. It’s really good! I’m surprised and I think I smile and now I look down at my greens. I think there’s four leaves. I count. There’s actually six but two of them are shreds really and may have been part of a larger leaf at one time.
I must go about this right. I can’t screw this up. I shake the packet of dressing. I decide that there’s more dressing by volume than salad. I could have made soup I suppose. Oil and spice soup. The greens could be the garnish. My index finger and thumb go to work and a successful tear is accomplished. I pour the dressing on the salad. I wait thirty seconds so that the four leaves and two shreds have been properly marinated.

It’s not long now before we land. I’ve been asleep for a few hours. It’s freezing on the plane and my headphones are slightly off my ears and music is still screaming out of them. I pull them off. My ears are ringing and I think how pointless that was that my ears were being pummeled senseless while I wasn’t even enjoying it. Or maybe I was subconsciously would say anyone I would ever tell this too. The Uruguayans are in a talkative mood and we begin. At one point I take out my camera to snap a pic of the screen in front of me showing a red line draped over a globe. It shows the route and I stare at it and am amazed. I suddenly realize this is the farthest south I have ever been. I’ve been to Europe and to Asia but never this far down south. I study the countries we’ve passed over from North America past Central and into South. I take a pic but it comes out blurry and then another and this one’s better and I crop it right there and my first picture of the trip has been taken. I delete the first one and look over and to my surprise the couple has been looking at this the whole time.

They are silent, more reserved. I immediately feel embarrassed. Ashamed maybe. They’ve been looking at my camera. I just bought in Oregon when I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law and nephew in Portland. It’s shiny and red, digital and tiny. It occurs to me that they may not have seen a camera like this before. Or maybe that this man that has worked his whole life, who has pleasantly bragged about places he has been and things he has done, and he can’t afford such a thing but I have one. He nods his head and smiles and says it’s really nice and his wife agrees but I feel bad and try and put it away. We go on talking a bit, and maybe it’s just mental, maybe I blew the whole thing up in my mind, but the conversation is not the same. Getting off they wish me well and I do the same. He actually gave me his business card and I gave him mine and we both said “if you’re ever in…” but I’ve done this before and so have others and it’s never really panned out to something. For a moment I get really inspired, I tell myself that I am going to call this person if I ever… but then the moment fades and who knows really.

I glance back and get a warm smile from Mariana(name changed because who knows if she wants everyone to be reading something about her). When I was arriving in D.C. from LAX, she was arriving from JFK. I noticed her sitting in the airport. Twice. I thought she was cute and mentally sparred with myself about whether I should go over and talk to her. The prosecution, for, began the opening arguments. She’s hot. She’s sitting alone. She’s hot. The defense countered in a fiery rage. Are you crazy? Don’t. She probably has a boyfriend. What’s gonna come of it? The prosecution again. Dude she’s totally hot. Defense. What are you saying? The fictitious judge handed down the decision. Go take a walk for a minute. Do some stretches. Go talk to her. Don’t be a pussy! What was all this living to my full potential crap not going to have anything hold me back stuff you were thinking to me? I have no response and what the fictitious judge says goes so I don’t have to receive real guilt about not going over and talking to this girl, something that I want to do.

I walk into the gift shop next door. I buy a water. Thank God we can take water on the plane again. As long as it’s bought in the boarding area past security. I walk back and look at her. I quickly get excited, but caution myself as these scenarios are frequent and something usually spoils this image of perfection, my soul-mate, sitting in front of me. For the record, depending on how many times a day I get out and where I go this can happen anywhere from three to a dozen times in a day. If I’m out and I’ve had anything to drink I suddenly have millions of soul-mates right there just in that bar! Sometimes it’s just a glance while I’m making a left at a green light and the other person goes straight and I create this image of us together, I think of us kissing, of getting into big fights and her coming to me pouty-faced and saying I’m sorry, of us holding hands thirty years from now. I’ve never even said a word to the girl!

Back to Dulles international. I strike up the conversation with the girl. She has a beautiful smile and is not wearing any make-up save for some lip-gloss. Her pedestal rises by the second. We talk for what’s probably the good portion of twenty-five minutes. We talk about things that we know, New York, Airports, LA, things that legitimate ourselves. Show each other that we’re normal people, not some freaks. With familiarity we establish a comfort zone. Back to the plane. I want to walk off with her but there are a few rows and some people separating us. I take my time getting my things, do ridiculous things like zip open my bag and make important faux-adjustments. I zip it closed but only a couple people have passed and if I take any more time it will look like I’m deliberately
waiting. A compromise indeed.

I walk off wondering if I’ll be able to see her in line for customs. I look back a couple times casually, I think one of the times I faked a cough-and-turn maneuver to casually glance behind me. Not her. A family comes scattering out of the jet-way. In line for customs I take a look around at the people in front of me. This time I turn around she’s there and she’s beaming a smile and comes running over to me. We exchange some amusing comments but its like I’m deaf for a second, I’m not even sure what I’m really saying. We talk and go through the line, we talk about what we’re doing here and how long we’re staying. My comments must have been less defined than hers, but I gather she’s visiting family and friends only for a few days, that she was born in Buenos Aires and her family moved to the U.S when she was five. I also learn that she’s hosted a music video show on T.V for the last four years. Maybe if I’d watched more T.V. I’d know this. Suddenly all those hours pouring through books seems to have been so wasteful. I could have been watching her.

I walk up to the gate agent and show my passport. I don’t know whether to speak Spanish or to speak English so I walk up and look and Hola comes out. I answer something and then he clicks down the stamp and I walk and wait for Mariana. We walk to baggage claim and she tells me I don’t have to wait for her but I do and then we talk and decide to hang out in the city. The bags take a while but I’m in no hurry. It dawns on me that I have nothing to do. Not immediately anyway. I’ve decided to take a Spanish class while I’m here, a pact I’ve made with myself, that for any country I spend a significant amount of time in, and actually care about learning their language, I’ll take a class to further my immersion. Anyway we walk over to the baggage customs and I see two agents smile and laugh and wink and such and obviously they’re enamored. Fuckers. We get closer and I lift her bags into the machine to be scanned and then mine. The two get up from their seats.

Apparently we have aroused suspicion. She probably does this quite a bit. They ask her in Spanish if we’re together. No. What’s she here for. Oh really? Family. Ah. What are these photos? Headshots. Really, you’re on TV. Blah blah while he’s rummaging through her clothes and stuff but not really even looking down, just looking at her and blatantly hitting on her. The other one takes an assertive tone with me. In heavily accented rapid-fire Spanish he grills me. What? Why? How long? Why? He stares me down, and then sends me on my way. Contact info in-hand Mariana has her cousin pick her up and I get a cab.

The driver is heavy set and animated and I probably fuel this by curiously asking about a million questions and he proudly answers the foreigner interested in his select knowledge of everything Buenos Aires. I get to practice my rusty Spanish and when he says certain things I remember oh that’s how you say that. He proudly shows me where the Selecion Nacional Argentino practices. I caught some games on T.V. during the World Cup this summer. We talk futbol and when I ask about the famous local team Boca Juniors he emphatically says Hay Boca y Boca! Basically they’re The Team and nothing comes close. Although I learn that their closest rival is El River, River plate, Rio Plata.

He points out things in neighborhoods and before I know it we’re in front of a student residence, a place where I have arranged to hang out until my apartment is ready in a few hours. One of the directors of the Spanish language program asks me to meet her and I do and she shows me up along with a nice man and I’m offered coffee and sipping and its sweet and I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and say hello to some of the students in the common room when I come back. The girl to my left seems to be in a daze. We give pertinent information on our background. Legitimating ourselves again. She’s from Maryland and stares at the dubbed movie in a daze and answers my questions not really looking at me but then she turns to me and we talk some more and I’m shocked to learn that she just graduated from high school. Then there’s a girl who just graduated college in North Carolina or something and another from Wales which she says and expects me not to know where that is but I do and she saves the “by England” comment that she probably gives great exercise to. I meet some more people, girls and guys, just waking up although it is now past noon.

Before I know it the director and I are in the cab. She tells me I have amazing eyes and I tell her that she does as well. I’m serious. They’re big and blue and warm. Although I’m attracted to her, and there seems to be some energy between, quickly I understand that she is not an option. She has a boyfriend that she lives with, she moved in after her mother died. Her father passed away when she was two. She is an only child. She probably needs her boyfriend for support. When she tells me her mother passed away recently I can see that she’s sad and I want to say something but I can’t remember the fucking word for sorry! The only thing that comes to mind is Desolee but that’s French and I hate myself for not saying I’m sorry and I just look at her with a deep serious look and there’s an awkward pause and then she moves on to the next thing. I totally blanked. That moment plagues me all day and then later when I’m in the maket I remember how to say it.

After we get to my place the agent isn’t there to let us in, so we go to the café at the corner and talk and wait. She says she hasn’t met the agent but he seems so friendly on the phone. I order a tea and she gets a soda. We sit and laugh and she’s really sweet. I ask her about cellular phones and she tells me all about getting a temporary one and buying a card and I make a mental notes. The agent calls her cell and we go to the place which was deceivingly pictured. The place is about half as big as I thought but it doesn’t really matter. It’s also not cleaned, there are dirty towels on the floor and the bathroom and kitchen need to be cleaned. The agent apologizes profusely. He’s gay, I think, am almost positive, but as advertised is very nice. He explains the contract and I nod a bunch and ask if there’s a gym nearby and a supermarket and such things.

I also ask about the safety of the neighborhood. They tell me it’s super safe. Then after a little pause, the director adds, well like in any city you need to be careful. Then she casually adds that she’s been mugged a couple times. I say nothing, and neither does the gay agent, and there is a little silence. Then she says what, what did they really get, nothing, maybe fifteen or twenty pesos. I nod my head and do some quick conversions. Five to Seven bucks U.S. Then nothing is said for what seems like thirty seconds. Then the gay agent must be compelled to speak and adds that he’s been mugged twice this year. I say nothing. He goes on. But they just snatched my cell phone out of my hands, and they were kids on bikes, you know? I say I do.

Then the director counters with a more menacing story. One of the girls from the program had her laptop taken at gunpoint in a café I’m told. I say nothing. She adds that as long as I don’t act like a tourist or total foreigner I should be fine but then she tells me that I could pass for a Porteno and I’ll be fine. I smile reassuringly for her although I think that her and the gay one are both native and have been mugged but whatever it should be fine.

Smiles and thanks and we all part, me for the mall. I walk out it in the street for the first time. I study faces and street signs and the font on buildings and I smell exhaust and this will all be home. I walk into the Alto Palermo mall on Avenida Santa Fe, a couple blocks from my place. I look at all the stores, I study them, the clothes, the people inside, everything. The place could be like any of a handful of malls in LA or anywhere in the States for that matter but it was foreign to me and I studied everything. This is what I love about being abroad. I automatically absorb everything, my eyes see all, my ears hear everything, my nose smells, fingers feel, awake, conscious, aware. And I’m just in the mall. Alive. I walk into a bookstore and then another and flip through some books and then look at a menu at a restaurant to get an idea of prices and then go up the escalators and to the food-court and order a fruit salad and bottle of water and sit and observe everyone around me.

I finish and ask a group of four girls sitting close by where I can find a locutorio or internet café with phone boxes. I get directions. I leave the mall and see the gym, my gym and walk in and ask if I can look around. It’s supposed to be tops here but is not as nice as mine back home but will get the job done. On the street in the Farmacia I ask where the closest market is. I get totally lost and keep hopping into kioscos and getting new directions to the market. It’s getting dark and I finally find one.

I go in and take a cart and start feeling produce and checking for bruises and determining ripeness. I see on the labels that most everything is grown locally. Except Almonds which are with the produce. They are from Chile. And Bananas from Honduras. I get all kinds of cleaning sprays and buy a couple of candles and bread and milk and bran cereals and jam, coffee, organic tea both green and black. I buy pasta and sauce and I get shampoo and conditioner and soap. I want to get wine but I don’t know if there is a bottle opener with the utensils and so I buy sparking wine, or Champagne to white trash even if it’s not from the Champagne region of France. It’s the most expensive the market has and I only purchase this falsely buying into the misconception but is still not to much and I get excited just thinking what may come with it, its always fun to drink and I pay with my credit card and to my surprise the girl at the counter asks if I want the groceries delivered it’s free and I say yes and give my address and leave and begin walking home.

Walking back I feel disoriented. I try to think if I’ve eaten and no, only a coffee and a media-luna (croissant) on the plane and oh there was that fruit salad but really I haven’t eaten. My eyes are slightly blurry and I close them and open them again but it doesn’t really do to much. I walk back in the direction of my place, but on the way I stop into a store and buy an alarm clock and I ask where Avenida Santa Fe is and I follow it and then I ask where Avenida Coronel Diaz is and then I know my way from there. In my place I lie on the bed and I’m in my clothes and I want to shower and shave but I’m too tired and I bargain with myself to at least go and brush my teeth but I close my eyes and when I open them again its very cold and I shiver a little and curl up and again the close and open and the ringer is going off and it’s the groceries guy only I don’t know how to open the door.

There are only two buttons and I push the first one and ask and nothing, then the seconds fails equally, and then a combination and then holding them down and I hear someone else is downstairs and the delivery guy explains his case and gains entry. Then up the elevator come the delivery guy and an extremely concerned neighbor and he bangs on my door and I jump at the door and open it. The two look at me and the neighbor starts asking me if I know this guy and I vouch for the stranger and he comes in as if nothing and goes in my kitchen and drops a bunch of bags and my groceries are here and I sign but the neighbor who comes to identify himself as the super seems concerned and I realize he’s cross-eyed and emphatically explaining that we just can’t let anyone in and I need to always go down and open the door and some other things and after a while of nodding I slowly begin to smile less and begin closing the door on him and from behind the door he continues and I wish him a good night and somehow he replies the same in a very pleasant voice lacking malice and seeming genuine.

I open the bags and rummage and sort and put things in their “places.” I peel an orange and then a banana and have a bowl of milk and cereal and then brush my teeth. There is a stereo and I fumble with it a little and listen to the different stations and stop when I find something agreeable. I click on the television and flip channels and am surprised to see a Bears-Seahawks game on. I watch a little of it but it’s a blowout so I flip some more and there is “The Office” and it’s dubbed. I had never seen the show but they had an episode on the flight earlier in the day, wow, all the same day and although only one episode I got a good feel for the characters and picked up on the dynamics and thought the show very clever.
I watch the remainder of this episode and I pull out my futon but only half-way, and rip the covers back and plow into bed. I’d like to proclaim some romantic notion that I lay in bed thinking of all to come and what had already transpired but I think I was just plain-old exhausted and next thing I knew light was shining through and the sounds of rain puttering and crashing onto the window and window-sill and all things related to the window. It’s late when I go in the bathroom to wash my face but my phone is ringing and its my director telling me that I had missed taking the placement exam and I paused and think how to explain that I was exhausted and slept through my alarm, must’ve shut it off and passed out right away and then in broken Spanish it was understood, or at least I understood what I had communicated and promise to get over there soon.

I sit on the bed and think about the conversation and I lay back and when I wake up it´s been an hour and twenty minutes. I take a shower and brush my teeth and feel like a new person and I slip on clothes and grab my umbrella cause the puttering is still going and when I get out the rain is coming down pretty hard and spring is late in coming this year and I think about where in spring we are exactly and its early October so spring just started here and then I think back to LA and realize we have rain in April and besides this isn’t LA but I’ve heard the weather is comparable but persistent Angelinos would probably smirk at such a remark. On my way over I get a water from one of the kioscos and walk for what seems like ever but am thoroughly distracted by the rain and the buildings.

Buenos Aires smacks of Paris with its cafes and Newsstands, some areas are New York, others Madrid and some Barcelona but all the while remaining rather uniquely South American. I willfully adopt a mild form of lunacy, mumbling to myself and mimicking snippets of conversations that I hear on my walk. I try and get the inflection down and play with the tonality. Children and the elderly are the most fun. The kids because they’re so animated and the elderly because they speak with an air of what can only be described as I-don’t-give-a-fuck pessimism mixed with a heaping dose of wisdom. I entertain myself for a long time, too long. I step into a heladeria which is empty because who’s gonna buy ice-cream when it’s pouring? I pull out a map and read and study and realize that I’ve over-walked the street I needed to turn-on by twice the distance and I turn back and go the reverse way.

I often joke that my wife will have to be American or Brazilian or Italian, although now one of those three has to go. I think about this a little as more of the women scatter-by with umbrellas open and they’re walking in boots and wearing scarves and what could be sexier? I consider which of the countries I would eliminate and then decide that I can, after much deliberation, begin listing my “top four.”

I finally find the mini-campus, an extension of the Universidad de Buenos Aires and there are all kinds of students around and oddly I feel as if I’m some sort of special student, as if we were all special just to be here, like X-Men and this was our place. I suppose I do in fact think that. I’m more open to people I meet abroad because, well one, who’s to get too picky with whom you call friend and whom you dislike when the picking is thin, but more importantly if they’re in the same place, then something up there, something in their mind has allowed them to become open enough, to allow themselves to be vulnerable enough for me to like them. It’s almost as if without knowing them they are an acquaintance, a friend of a friend. They’re okay because it takes a certain type and I’m that type and they’re that type and there’s not to much more to it.

I walk into the building and explain the situation and hope I haven’t missed anything. I think I’ll have to explain how I spent a day flying to get here and get my place and go shopping and the time difference and it hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet but I don’t need to and before I know it I’ve taken an exam and given a level to be placed in and there’s an orientation where we all get up and say some things about ourselves and half the students are Chinese and they all group together and the other half are European and American and I’m sitting in the only free seat which is with the non-Chinese. When its my turn to stand I explain some things and attempt a joke that goes off well and all the non-Chinese laugh cause it was in English and the Chinese look and smile and I wonder if some brave one will translate if for them in Mandarin or Cantonese but I’ve lost interest and soon we’re in the class.

There are about ten of us in the class and we’re given exercises and we ease the unfamiliar with jokes and quickly have become an intimate group. It’s amazing how that can happen, how the intimacy is almost fast-forwarded. We’re already given our “okay” passes and all just cause we’re here. We have some sort of break and there’s a cafe downstairs and I get a melted cheese sandwich and a coffee and there are others from the orientation who were placed in other levels and we chat a bit. I sit next to them and it’s as if we’re old friends or something but we’ve only know each other for a couple hours and we all get more acquainted and give anecdotes about where we’re from.

One guy who said he was from California is there and I ask him where and he tells me Los Angeles, and I ask where and he repeats again Los Angeles. I ask where again and tell him to specify street names and there’s a pause and then he says its not Los Angles and names a city just outside and I nod and he asks me where I’m from and I say Los Angeles and give streets.

It’s weird I suppose, these situations are interesting, a grand sociological report needs to be done on this dynamic, and I think for a second that I’ll do it but then I sip the last of my coffee and go back to the class. Afterwards I go back down to the cafe and they’re giving free hot chocolate or coffee and I take a coffee and they’re offering churros and I’m about to take one as it’s offered to me but one of the girls from my class in the background looks at me and shakes her head emphatically no, and later tells me they’re stale and that she saved me. I pick up a local paper and begin reading but soon lose interest in the articles about a cardinal giving a speech and about futbol and I read a comic strip and I think I get it but it doesn’t really seem funny so I’m not sure if I get it.

I’m told that tomorrow if I want I can join in a game of futbol, and its one of the instructors telling me and I think it sounds like fun and I joke with the Brazilian guy sitting close-by from my class that he’s not allowed to play, and he, laughing asks why and I tell him he’s Brazilian that’s why and we both laugh a bit. I hop in the lab to check my email and there are some from friends and some wayward spam that snuck into my inbox and a lot of offers from airlines and travel sites and the New York Times in email form and some MySpace messages and some of the emails are amusing and I savor the communication from close friends. I try to reply to a couple and occasionally it looks like I stomped a fist on the keyboard and the punctuation is not quite right and I decide I can wait until I get to a cyber with more regular punctuation. The funny thing is within the city different places have wildly different keyboards and placement and none of them are what we use back home, but why isn’t there one standard ´different´ one here?

There’s an email from Mariana, she called earlier to maybe hang out but I told her I had class and she told me that tonight her cousin was playing with his band at some huge show and that they were opening for some huge band here. The email confirmed that she got an all-access backstage pass and that we’d spend the day tomorrow together. She asked me how my slang was coming and that she’d teach me some! I replied all that I ask was to be corrupted a little and some little flirtations sprinkled in and it’s in keeping with her playful tone.

At 5:30 the apartment agency is supposed to send someone to clean but I’m running late and I call to see if they could come later and we just end up rescheduling for 11:00am two days from now. My classes are daily from one until four so it works out. I’m excited because with some awkward pauses to think, and a little stuttering I was able to get in a full albeit short conversation entirely in Spanish and of course this was very, very exciting.

On the way home I see a cozy cafe and get out my pen and scribble the address and name and decide that I’ll come back later this week and spend some time there. I walk by people and it’s finally stopped raining for a second. I try and gaze into peoples eyes and all of them have stories behind them. Sometimes I gaze deeply into someone’s eyes, and if it’s a girl and I’m attracted to her I hold the gaze and almost every time they hold it too and we look at each other and sometimes a little smile comes out and I think that I must do this too and all the while we cock our heads as far back as they can go, usually a three-quarters turn back as we pass each other and then I flip my head back around and I’ve yet to act on any of these exchanges but I create the extravagant scenarios in my head and I have several of these little affairs per day.

Walking back it starts to rain again and I open my mini-umbrella, the one I bought for $5 in the streets of Midtown Manhattan last time I was there. I thought I was wise to bring it although my furnished apartment apparently considered umbrellas furnishings but that one is huge and cumbersome and mine petite and handy. I keep passing by these newsstands and they have what must be the equivalent of Playboy or Hustler or something to that effect. With each newsstand I pass my conviction to investigate one becomes increasingly strong. I stop at one of the stands and scan the magazines. I stand by the homey ones first to lower suspicion. I can’t really do it and I walk away.

I come up to another and stare straight at what seems to be a fairly raunchy magazine, only the guy sees me looking at it and before he can say anything I’m off. I laugh, tell myself this is silly. I justify the purchase to myself. Bless our puritan ancestors. I try not to feel guilty and think that I’m gonna be here for a while, that I just want to check one out and all this becomes ridiculous and I walk up to the next stand and look straight at one of the magazines. I try to formulate the words to ask for it wondering if certain things translate and as I open my mouth a woman walks up beside me and I’m annoyed and who cares I’m a guy that wants to buy this but then she looks at me and smiles warmly, innocently and I walk away from the newsstand. I pass a few more and have really forgotten about the whole thing until I get stuck at an intersection and there’s a stand right by me.
I gather up some courage and authority and walk right up to the guy and say something like “and what of women do you have” and he shrugs and asks what I want and people walk by and why is he asking and not just handing me something and I ask him what he has and he points to one with a cover of two women on it and another with a brunette and she’s “cleverly” covering herself but looking surprised to be naked and this is obviously ridiculous and this girl probably doesn’t know when she has clothes on and when she doesn’t most of the time.

Then I notice him talking to someone behind all the magazines and it´s his daughter who’s like two years old and I tell myself she’s probably to young to know what’s being said and he asks me for a preference and more people walk by and I imitate his casual shrug and he doesn’t budge but just stares at me. I ask how much they are as if this is of any relevance at a time like this, and he says five pesos, and corrects himself with $4.90 and finally gives me the one with the surprised brunette girl and mutters something like “morena” but I generally prefer blondes and now this is tucked under my arm as I walk back and I feel like people are watching me or something, that they must “know.”

I get home and my feet are soaked as are my shoes and my jeans about half-way up to my knees. I take off my shoes and socks and my feet are white and pruned and I go to the fridge and take out some fruit and then a salad and eat and then some more milk and cereal and decide that I’ll change and get some food, only I decide to pop open my laptop and write. There’s a song on where the main line is something like “yo te quiero con limon y sal, yo te quiero...” and I hear it about three times in an hour and it’s popish but it’s my new favorite song I decide and if I had it I would listen to it on repeat about seventy times in the next three days and then never listen to it again. I decide to write a little something and then suddenly all this stuff comes out and I’m writing about my whole time here so far and before i know it my five-hour extended battery is drained and I haven’t gotten a converter yet to adjust to the power system here and I have to go to a locutorio to finish this thing. Already It’s late and this will take me well into the morning hours but its important to me to write it out.

I climb down the rickety steps from the top part of my loft and hop down the last one and jump into the bathroom and wash my face and get a drink of water. Yesterday I took the always precarious first-drink-of-tap in a new country. I usually try to get it out of the way early so that I can deal with all the new bacteria and parasites and pollutants my system isn’t used to and deal with the effects on the other end sooner rather than later. I eat a handful of almonds and put the bag away and then put on my shoes and socks (why do we always say it in that order? It’s the reverse, or is it only me who says it that way?) and then I find myself back at the fridge and crunching on the raw Chilean almonds and these ones have more give, a little less crunch than the ones I eat in California and I can’t decide which I like more. While eating I pick up the magazine of the brunette and scan through it and am thoroughly disappointed, it’s like a cross between a Victoria’s Secret catalogue and a Playboy and I toss it back on the counter thinking what a boring waste.

It’s late or early depending on how you look at things and I want to I leave my place and I exit the loft and lock the door with the key. One of the inconveniences of the place, that seems to be normal here, is that you have to lock the door inside and out, using a key. There’s no latch and it’s always this fuss with the keys but whatever who am I to complain. I push the button for the elevator. I normally take the stairs, another pact I made with myself that while I’m a young healthy guy I should be taking the stairs at every opportunity, who knows when that won’t be the case. The elevator is the kind where you push a sliding door to the side and then another gate for the elevator and this would never fly in the US because as you are going down you can put your hands through the gate and they’d be chopped off and lawsuit-city. But I’m not three years old and I’m not a moron and I manage to amazingly resist having my hand chopped off if only this once.

Front door and again key to open the door to the building, step outside, key to lock, turn twice, click, got it. On the street there is a shadowy figure and its past midnight and as I walk towards him I try to look menacing, I wince my eyes a little and look mean and angry and I broaden my shoulders a little bit and tighten my body and then I sort of laugh as I realize I’m that bird on the discovery channel that spreads its feathers and wings when threatened or the lion that roars to show his might and fend off predators. It’s my first time walking out in my neighborhood late at night and I don’t know what to expect. It’s more quiet than I expected and some café’s are closed and some are half-full and its mostly couples and guys.

I walk out and to the locutorio that I know is open twenty-four hours and it is and for fun I ask if they have a keyboard American style so I don’t get all this goofy punctuation that I’m not used to and keys with accents and it’s not really a big deal but I ask and no they don’t. I´ll just have to learn the new places and shortcuts. Saving things is not as I found out Ctrl+S but Ctrl+G, because save in Spanish becomes keep or protect and that’s guardar and these are things that are sort of fun to learn. Like walking in the mall or buying groceries, everything including the mundane takes on new excitement as a result of it’s novelty. I’ve just finished running through all my thoughts and I think I can rest although I’m sure when I’m in bed I’ll remember something else and get up and jot it down. It’s early now and I’m excited to go out and see what things are like here at this hour.