The City Beckons

Los Angeles-

A seventeen year-old girl with leggings and boots and a little skirt over them and bug-eyed glasses yells out “Hey! Valet, park it over there, hel-lo, can you even understand me? Fuck.” The Mexican Valet has the spotless windows of the gleaming new Range-Rover up and can’t hear the high-schooler preaching a learned annoyance, a cool weariness of life months before she can legally be recognized as an adult. The valet sees her standing stupidly and barking at him outside the organic coffee and tea house. Both are annoyed.

I meet a friend at a Macrobiotic café and have the bento-box. Quinoa, lentils, salmon, Chinese broccoli, curried cauliflower and brown-rice sushi-rolls.

I’m in my car spiraling up an eight story parking garage cursing each level I ascend as the red electronic read out suggests there are no spaces to be had, I keep ascending and cursing.

I’m trying to make a left turn, I’m fifteen cars back in the left-turn only, the light goes yellow, traffic doesn’t let up, now red and three more cars whiz by, two cars from my lane make a left against the red. Thank God. Thirteen to go.

It’s December, it’s 86 degrees. There’s nothing romantic about 86 in December.

My short time back comes to me in wisps, images that have ingrained themselves irrelevantly, but I now feel more strongly about the city than ever. I love my independent coffee-houses, the ethnic food, my friends and family. I hate the sprawl. I hate the traffic. All sentiments are renewed with new vigor.

--Buenos Aires--

My flight from L.A. to D.C. was uneventful as the first half was taken in eye-patch slumber, and the second was mired in delicate concentration and being a good passenger (mostly noting exits, 2 in the front, 2 in the back, 2 over-wing(slide self-inflates)).

Total duration being observant passenger: 11 seconds.

Reviewing safety manual: 4 seconds (only cover).

Total time watching in-flight entertainment, looking passenger-like, taxing flight attendants for water, extra pretzels (there’s like 7 mini’s per bag): 2hours (approx.)

Upon landing in D.C. it was twenty-four degrees and walking out onto the jet-way was mildly traumatic. I checked the departure board to confirm my gate/time and it was C14 the same as the last time. Either by nature and higher intuition, or by nonsensical obligatory reasoning, after spending over five hours flying from California to Washington and after a brief survey of the food-court options, I choose The California Tortilla. Three hours to pass in the airport and ten more on another flight and marvelous city this, Buenos Aires.

It’s hotter than two months ago. The humidity permeates life, dress and attitude. Flip-flop laden men frolic aimlessly about distracted by women in flowing white skirts that lackadaisically stroll the avenues with some form of scant mended-cloth generally affixed above the waist, worn as if clothing was a barely tolerable nuisance. I’ve developed a theory that the city may at any moment sporadically burst into a Romanesque orgy. I’ve taken to absorbing my neighborhood and new flat (pics above) in quite possibly the hippest quarter the world has ever seen, New York, Paris, London all included. I keep company with two great friends and frequenting cafés, foreign films, live jazz and the Museo MALBA and a course on literature (tho the first was mediocre) have kept me busy.

I leave you with some recent praise from my first shower (shave and brushing teeth included), after spending almost a day in travel on planes and in airports, and arriving in steaming Buenos Aires.

Praise for my 1st Shower:

“One of the year’s ten best!” -mostly left-side of brain.

“A monumental feat in showering” -Brain, central-ish area.

“I tingled from head to toe” -Matthew

“One of those rare showers that touches the soul (and skin)” -Jen Ewin Lee-Faux, Shower magazine.

“It was extra ordinary. You might even say, extraordinary” -anonymous

50 Days

I arrived yesterday and descending into Los Angeles was odd, it hasn't been two months but already I had forgotten the look of the parched Southern California desert landscape crashing into the endless Pacific blue. In the morning when I had a stopover at Dulles airport in Washington D.C. it was 34 degrees. When we got into LA just before noon the captain anounced a temperature of 83 degress. Unbelieveable. My dad picked me up and we took the long way home driving down the Pacific Coast Highway so I could see the beach and all I could think of was I can't wait to go for a swim in the ocean. I've spent the past twenty-four hours with family and friends and excessively splashing on hot sauce and lavishly adorning food with fresh-cracked black pepper that I normally wouldn't even think to spice.When I took my final cab ride out from Recoleta to the airport I jotted down the following:

As the last rays of the Porteno sun shine down on my taxi I'm surprisingly without words. Earlier I imagined this ride to be an exciting one, my journey home. The perfect opportunity to give breath to the countless phrases I've scribbled and to demonstrate what I've learned, though I suppose what I've learned is not just some phrases and a language. There's a lump in my throat and we're just off Juan Maria Gutierrez and now pulling out of Recoleta and the driver, Bernardo keeps frantically darting glances to the rear-view mirror and back at the pensive green eyes maybe expecting I'll cry but I won't. I could, there's a lot of emotion weighing down but I'm distracted staring out at the last glimpses of my home for the past fifty days, looking out at the buildings but not really seeing anything. We're on Avenida Pueyrredon and soon we'll be out of the Capital Federal and will be near Ezeiza. "Goodbye's are always harder" I manage. He laughs and the air is momentarily lifted. "I'm not sure I'm ready to leave" I continue. He nods understandingly and sort of hums "si." Slowly, emphasizing each word, he says "lo bueno duro poco, eh?" I smile. "Claro" I say. The truth of it is fifty days is just that, but so much has transpired that I suppose it could have been some months or a year and not a minute would have been wasted. The bottom line I presume is that I'm grateful, to everyone who made this experience memorable and if you're reading this, than you've contributed greatly to it. My apprehension to leaving Argentine soil is the fault of many, and I'm lucky for it. Lo bueno, duro poco.