I’m sorry to keep you waiting (with breath abated, no?), but I was off helping Sarah Palin defend Alaska from Russian invaders. Thankfully, the situation now seems to be under control.
Back in Buenos Aires, I've been thinking a good deal about these deliverymen who deliver bread, who balance giant baskets of bread on their head. They’re beauty and they’re grace. I think that deep down, what they really care about is world peace, but they’re ill about this situation they’ve been put in, this situation that involves them having to balance genuinely enormous baskets of bread on their head and sometimes ride a bicycle at the same time. I think perhaps some of them don’t have any bread to eat themselves.
If elected, I will feed all the starving children without maps. I never meant to become one of these women who only ever picked up a book to balance it on her head, but. Well.
I’ve got this story I’ve been meaning to tell you. It’s a mystery about the only living descendant of Jesus. She’s a monkey. The question of her existence is causing problems for some people.
You know, I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I’ve decided the root of our problems lies in opposable thumbs. I am opposed to opposable thumbs. Life would be a whole lot funnier if we all went around trying to pick things up with our paws. And less violent—imagine trying to hold a gun with your paw. Or a machete. Yes, if you want to know where I stand, I am for world peace and opposed to opposable thumbs. Let’s party.
(I’m afraid I’m showing early symptoms of turning into a Deep Thought by Jack Handy.)
A while back, I hosted a TEFL happy hour in my new apartment, which is very much big enough to host a happy hour and has parquet and wainscoting and a balcony off my bedroom. We made a little cow and fetched as many empty beer bottles as we could carry from under the sink in the kitchen and took them downstairs to the Chinese grocer, where we exchanged them for full beer bottles, and for less than 100 pesos we were able to get more than ten people quite happy. Once we were good and happy, we went to hear a funk band play at a bar in Palermo, where Juantastic and I danced all night. No one else wanted to dance, except for Shakira, who kept trying to cut in. Maybe I should have been embarrassed to be the only ones dancing, but that’s the good thing about being in a foreign country where no one will recognize you as that girl who was dancing with the old guy and his dog.
I brought this pair of black flats down here with me and was wearing them everywhere until there was a hole in the sole of the right one. My first reaction was to wonder if I walk lopsidedly, or if my right leg is longer than my left leg. My second reaction was to buy a new pair of black flats. Up until this point, I had been walking nearly everywhere, fearful of the labyrinthine collectivo (bus) system and indignant towards the less-than-convenient Subte (though a fan of the light blue A line, with its old cars and doors that must be opened manually; it’s fun to watch an over-eager businessman type passenger—preferably in a suit or a V-neck sweater over an oxford shirt because to me it is preferable that all men wear those—open the door before the train has come to a complete stop and fall on his face. It is even more fun to step over him).
Well, I got these new shoes that caused these truly titanic blisters to form on the back of my heels, and I was forced to either spend all my money buying all of the bandaids in South America or learn how to take the bus (90 centavos per ride). I bought a “Guia T.”
First, you look up your departure address in the index in the front. This will direct you to a map and coordinates. The coordinates on the map correspond with bus lines that stop at those coordinates. These are listed on the page opposite the map. Note the bus numbers for your departure coordinates. Next, look up your arrival address in the index in the front and find the coordinates and corresponding bus lines for your arrival address. If any of the bus lines are the same, you can take them from your departure address to your arrival address (if not, then you become frustrated). Next, turn to the back of the Guia T, where you will find a list of bus lines with the streets that they stop on. Find the appropriate street within your coordinates and go there. Walk up and down it until you find the bus stop. I know it sounds complicated, and it is. But often you will find lines that pick you up within five blocks of your departure address and drop you off within five blocks of your arrival address. Lots of page turning and very little walking.
I suppose now would be an appropriate time to mention that the food here comes in three varieties: dulce de leche (which I won’t deny sometimes eating straight from the tub with a big spoon), fried meat, and ham and cheese croissant. Now, while this diet may have been the direct cause of the heart attack I had yesterday, its visible* (*important) effects had been kept to a minimum with all the walking, which, in case you forgot, had been vastly reduced due to titanic blisters, which I got because I did too much walking in the old shoes and had to buy new shoes. In other words, if I hadn’t been doing so much goddamn walking, I would still be able to be doing a lot of walking. But, well. The logical solution: eat better. My solution: ignore the nagging, self-diagnosed stress fracture in my left foot (which is somehow more tolerable than the blisters and perhaps also related to the same lopsided walking that caused a hole to form in my right shoe? The interconnectedness of things astounds me)—I took up running laps around the Plaza del Congreso, which is a block from my apartment.
Now, it’s not unfair to say that the Plaza del Congreso is not the nicest plaza in BA. Nearly all the buses pass through it, billowing plumes of black smoke in their wake. It is also heavily trafficked by what Anna calls the Buenos Aires “crotch rockets,” which are definitively NOT motorcycles, but rather screeching-demon-from-Hell excuses for vehicles. They are completely tiny and absolutely deafening. They are the Napoleon Complex of the transportation psyche.
But it’s a block from my apartment and people go there with their dogs, which I like, so I go. I am especially fond of one woman who walks her large husky while carrying her small husky puppy. One day as I ran past, the large husky tried to jump on me, which I thought was cute and made me smile. But this woman, who was yanked off balance and almost dropped her small husky puppy, did not seem to find it as adorable. I’m pretty sure she snarled at me.
Like any rightful plaza, my plaza is filled with pigeons (palomas). These porteno pigeons are entirely unafraid of people, who tend to let them swarm all over them like zombies while their children feed them the corn that they get from the vendors with signs that say "maiz para las palomas." Now, if people want to be covered in flying rats, that’s their prerogative, right? Well, it gets personal when these groups of pigeons refuse to scatter and fly out of the way as I approach them. Instead, they attempt to outrun me. This is not only annoying, but also just doesn’t work. Though I hate them, I can’t bring myself to step on them or kick them. So I’ve developed this wild arm-flailing “shoo!” motion that seems to do the trick, mas o menos. Anyway, I really hate these pigeons and I blame inflation for people resorting to this relatively inexpensive pastime. Bueno. To recap: pigeons are gross. They’re like rats with wings. Truly terrifying.
I have a new guitar teacher. His name is Juan. I met him through couchsurfing.com, and one night I dragged Anna out to meet him and his friends Bruno and Emilio. We sat around until 4 a.m. drinking Fernet and Coke and playing guitars (I can still only play “Me and Bobby McGee” and the lead-in to “Redemption Song”). When Juan asked us what we’d done in BA so far, we told him about some of the bars we’d gone to (Teatro, La Cigale—where on a Tuesday night you can go and be sure to get groped by up to several French men).
“I don’t remember the names of most of the places,” I said. “For example, the other night we went to hear this cool funk band play somewhere in Palermo.”
“Where in Palermo?” he said.
“I’m not sure… close to Teatro?”
“Was there a tuba player?”
“Hmm… I think so.”
“Did he have kind of big hair?”
“Yes, yes, I think that’s him. Do you know the band?”
“You were dancing with a sort of old man with a dog, no?”
“Oh my god.”
“I remember you. You were famous that night.”
And that’s the story of how I learned it’s never safe to be the only ones dancing.
Juan’s middle name is Ignacio. Juani’s middle name is Ignacio. One of my students showed me pictures of her two sons: “This one is Juan Martin,” she said. “And this one is Juan Ignacio.” She has two sons named Juan. “I have two sons named Juan,” she said. I’m beginning to feel like whatsherface in Goodfellas, when she notes that all the men are named Paul or Pauly. If only Ray Liotta were here...
Un beso,
Sandy
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I love you, Ms. Handy!
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