Mayo 22
In the valley of shadowless death
They pray for thunder clouds and rain
But to the multitude who stand in the rain
Heaven is where the sun shines
-Genesis
Another insane thunderstorm tonight; sheets of rain, lightning, the whole magilla. Pretty cool. The flat was shaking. Kristen and I sat and watched. She's from SoCal and is unaccustomed to thunderstorms, unlike us folks who have lived in DC.
I tried to get a fan (ventilador) today at the 'Chino,' what they call the "One Euro stores" that have everything from tools to detergent to bad home decorations, because they are always owned by Chinese people. They are just racist as hell here.
Well, they have almost everything. She told me they wouldn't have fans for another week or so. It's 31 Celsius some days. Are you kidding me? What does it have to reach, 45? It's the third one i've been to. At least tonight is cool.
Life flies by. I hang my laundry out - I bring it in. Monday's here and then the weekend's here. Then it's the weekend and that disappears too. Crazed. The 5th moon since I got to Spain began the other day. It's just a sliver but soon it will be as big as a La Liga Football in the sky.
There was a big bang the other night and then a fire across the street. It wasn't too big but we could see it in the alley from the back of the flat. The firemen got there pretty quick, but someone had already put it out with an extinguisher as it was so small. There were like a dozen fireman there for three hours! Everything is so half-assed here. They're quarter-assed even.
I saw that the Ottawa Senators finally got to the Stanley Cup Final. I don't really miss hockey. The NHL really fucked up with the strike. I got too used to it not being around. I'd watch it if I was home, but don't really care now that I am here.
La Liga is really exciting this year. Barca and Real Madrid are tied at the top with three games to go. Every game is huge.
And even after their drubbing on Sunday, Atletico Madrid is still in the last UEFA cup spot, but they need to play well down the stretch to keep it.
But I do miss baseball. I see the Mets are on fire. Sweet! The Nats suck, no surprise. And the Yankees blow so far (woo woo!)
I had gazpacho out a carton the other day. They sell it here like orange juice. I know it sounds treasonous but it wasn't half bad. Kristen and I had bread, soup, asparagus and zuccini. Best meal i've had in a while.
I enjoy watching the sunsets from the greenhouse over the mountains. That I will miss when I leave this place.
Mayo 23
Taught Rush's 2112 and Ayn Rand today. Their heads were spinning but we did have some good conversations about whether free societies are REALLY free or not. It was great. The press is really biased here. There's a big daily newspaper for you whether you are left right or center, just like the US, I guess.
I'll give them something easy on Monday to reward them. But it was great fun, walking back and forth across the front of the classroom barking:
We are the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls
I mean, how cool is that?
Situation Dangerous
Phrasal verbs are difficult becuase they have a slang meaning very different from the meaning of the infinitive verb. So I was teaching them on Lunes and we came to 'zip up.' I explained, but one lady wasn't sure and nobody had anything with a zipper. That was until she reaches into her lap, pulls the cloth flap off of her fly, points to her crotch and says "Ese?" (this?). I almost fell over. She was pointing to her cooch in front of the whole class. They're not very modest here.
"Yes," I said, and skipped right over 'unzip,' which was next in my notes.
Squid Attack
I'm testing like a mad man at Banesto right now. So before group B began, I was photocopying their progress test. It comes right out of the book. But the copier broke down after one copy and I needed five.
Now I'll preface this by saying that my Spanish has really taken off in the past week. I also happened to notice that my hair is now pretty damn long. It seems that the longer my hair gets, the more my Spanish improves. Remarkable!
However, I may now know just enough to be a danger to myself and others.
Copiers in Spain are no better than in the North East. There was a diagram over on the left screen, saying I should check compartment 1 and 2. Then the read out says OPEN PART 2, REMOVE PART 1, SHAKE PART 1, RETURN PART 1, CLOSE PART 2.
I'm thinking, this makes no sense. After five minutes of probbing it like I'm a surgeon with a scalpel, I locate part 2. I open it and see that part 1 is the Cartridge. Okay, I think. I understand now what shaking it will do. So I give it a good healthy frigging shake. But maybe it didn't say shake. As I'm in mid-shake, I see a hole in the cartridge.
Oh bugger!
I am inked, the copier is inked, as well as the floor, my pants and the brand new polo shirt I bought on Monday because I had so few shirts that I felt like Homer Simpson.
By some metaphysical miracle, the pants were black and the shirt was black with pink stripes. All the same, I was a goddamned mess. It was on my hands and arms. It was on my cheek, my ear, my glasses and in my hair. And I still had a very important test to administer which they needed to pass in order to go on to the next level. !Que bummer!
Took a good twenty minutes to clean myself up. Then I had to go to Ingnacci (in-ya-kee) , my main contact at Banesto, and ask him to send a maintenance person up there. He was laughing like hell.
"You need a bath!"
"Es Verdad." He's a good man, fun guy to work with. You need a sense of humor trying to teach people English this freaking fast.
But they are learning. Much to my amazement. It's very cool.
So I got cleaned up, adminstered the test, went home, told Kristen the story (as she is my fashion consultant) and threw my clothes into the washer with a cubic liter of color safe bleach and detergent. Now we just hope the angel of death passeth over my new shirt.
Either way, I expect to make a full recovery.
The Jay Effect
Essentially, this is the natural laws which says that when I wear a new piece of clothing for the first time, it may take a hell of a beating.
Example - countless spills of pasta sauce, red wine, other people's blood and snot, my own blood and snot, dog shit, bird shit and the gran daddy of them all, the time i got a flat and had to change it on 11th Ave. in Manhattan and got grease all over my brand new teal suit. What goes through my mind when I think of it now is: why the fuck did I have a teal suit! The 90's were frightful days indeed.
And through the wire, we will walk
-Peter Gabriel
Mayo 24
Welcome to Mega-blog entry, a special double-episode, where the copy grows like a water balloon.
Just saw Liverpool lose to AC Milan in the Champions League Final. First time I've ever watched one of these at night, live. If it's live on the East Coast, it's like 3 pm. Hee hee, Europe is cool.
It's nice and cool. I had a light jacket on. Soon we'll be roasting but it's been very nice this week.
More lightning tonite. I hung out my pants and shirt from today's squid attack on the line and they survived! That's sweet. I have too few clothes as it is.
Back in DC, I have more clothes than any human being should be allowed to wear. I could probably wear only soccer jerseys for a month! Obscene. We live soooooooooooooooooo cushy in the US. But who would want to give all that up. Tis' a difficult topic?
I have lived in the 3rd World (developing nation is so much more PC, but that's all it is), let's call Spain the NEW 2nd World, and the blessed 1st World. The times I have been the happiest are when things are copasetic INSIDE ME. It has nothing to do with the material things around me. In fairness, I've always had my first two or three bottom rungs of Maslov's HIERARCHY OF NEEDS covered. Things would be fuck all different if I hadn't.
Live and learn - learn and live. Pat Smith and I, on one of our late night wandering sessions over brook and through forest in the wilds of western Connecticut, came up with theory on life, that I still believe still holds true.
He and Laura were expecting their first, Brendan (who's a delightful little scamp!). We were sitting on railroad tracks. It was like STAND BY ME.
But we figured that if you could learn something new and remarkble every day, you'd be psyched. Like a child. The phrase we came up with was "Every day a wonder." It's a sweet way to look at things, certainly. Every now and again , we say it to each other.
Ahhhhh...the weight of years. They hang on us like ever growing bed sheets on the line. Or bloated grapes on a vine.
But when you've been good friends with someone for THAT long...you have a lot of shared history. It makes the fact that I'm not a kid anymore okay - to have friends like that.
But it doesn't mean that you love them so much that you can't give their kids lacrosse sticks so that they can beat on one another. Now THAT's a good time.
In the valley of shadowless death
They pray for thunder clouds and rain
But to the multitude who stand in the rain
Heaven is where the sun shines
-Genesis
Another insane thunderstorm tonight; sheets of rain, lightning, the whole magilla. Pretty cool. The flat was shaking. Kristen and I sat and watched. She's from SoCal and is unaccustomed to thunderstorms, unlike us folks who have lived in DC.
I tried to get a fan (ventilador) today at the 'Chino,' what they call the "One Euro stores" that have everything from tools to detergent to bad home decorations, because they are always owned by Chinese people. They are just racist as hell here.
Well, they have almost everything. She told me they wouldn't have fans for another week or so. It's 31 Celsius some days. Are you kidding me? What does it have to reach, 45? It's the third one i've been to. At least tonight is cool.
Life flies by. I hang my laundry out - I bring it in. Monday's here and then the weekend's here. Then it's the weekend and that disappears too. Crazed. The 5th moon since I got to Spain began the other day. It's just a sliver but soon it will be as big as a La Liga Football in the sky.
There was a big bang the other night and then a fire across the street. It wasn't too big but we could see it in the alley from the back of the flat. The firemen got there pretty quick, but someone had already put it out with an extinguisher as it was so small. There were like a dozen fireman there for three hours! Everything is so half-assed here. They're quarter-assed even.
I saw that the Ottawa Senators finally got to the Stanley Cup Final. I don't really miss hockey. The NHL really fucked up with the strike. I got too used to it not being around. I'd watch it if I was home, but don't really care now that I am here.
La Liga is really exciting this year. Barca and Real Madrid are tied at the top with three games to go. Every game is huge.
And even after their drubbing on Sunday, Atletico Madrid is still in the last UEFA cup spot, but they need to play well down the stretch to keep it.
But I do miss baseball. I see the Mets are on fire. Sweet! The Nats suck, no surprise. And the Yankees blow so far (woo woo!)
I had gazpacho out a carton the other day. They sell it here like orange juice. I know it sounds treasonous but it wasn't half bad. Kristen and I had bread, soup, asparagus and zuccini. Best meal i've had in a while.
I enjoy watching the sunsets from the greenhouse over the mountains. That I will miss when I leave this place.
Mayo 23
Taught Rush's 2112 and Ayn Rand today. Their heads were spinning but we did have some good conversations about whether free societies are REALLY free or not. It was great. The press is really biased here. There's a big daily newspaper for you whether you are left right or center, just like the US, I guess.
I'll give them something easy on Monday to reward them. But it was great fun, walking back and forth across the front of the classroom barking:
We are the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls
I mean, how cool is that?
Situation Dangerous
Phrasal verbs are difficult becuase they have a slang meaning very different from the meaning of the infinitive verb. So I was teaching them on Lunes and we came to 'zip up.' I explained, but one lady wasn't sure and nobody had anything with a zipper. That was until she reaches into her lap, pulls the cloth flap off of her fly, points to her crotch and says "Ese?" (this?). I almost fell over. She was pointing to her cooch in front of the whole class. They're not very modest here.
"Yes," I said, and skipped right over 'unzip,' which was next in my notes.
Squid Attack
I'm testing like a mad man at Banesto right now. So before group B began, I was photocopying their progress test. It comes right out of the book. But the copier broke down after one copy and I needed five.
Now I'll preface this by saying that my Spanish has really taken off in the past week. I also happened to notice that my hair is now pretty damn long. It seems that the longer my hair gets, the more my Spanish improves. Remarkable!
However, I may now know just enough to be a danger to myself and others.
Copiers in Spain are no better than in the North East. There was a diagram over on the left screen, saying I should check compartment 1 and 2. Then the read out says OPEN PART 2, REMOVE PART 1, SHAKE PART 1, RETURN PART 1, CLOSE PART 2.
I'm thinking, this makes no sense. After five minutes of probbing it like I'm a surgeon with a scalpel, I locate part 2. I open it and see that part 1 is the Cartridge. Okay, I think. I understand now what shaking it will do. So I give it a good healthy frigging shake. But maybe it didn't say shake. As I'm in mid-shake, I see a hole in the cartridge.
Oh bugger!
I am inked, the copier is inked, as well as the floor, my pants and the brand new polo shirt I bought on Monday because I had so few shirts that I felt like Homer Simpson.
By some metaphysical miracle, the pants were black and the shirt was black with pink stripes. All the same, I was a goddamned mess. It was on my hands and arms. It was on my cheek, my ear, my glasses and in my hair. And I still had a very important test to administer which they needed to pass in order to go on to the next level. !Que bummer!
Took a good twenty minutes to clean myself up. Then I had to go to Ingnacci (in-ya-kee) , my main contact at Banesto, and ask him to send a maintenance person up there. He was laughing like hell.
"You need a bath!"
"Es Verdad." He's a good man, fun guy to work with. You need a sense of humor trying to teach people English this freaking fast.
But they are learning. Much to my amazement. It's very cool.
So I got cleaned up, adminstered the test, went home, told Kristen the story (as she is my fashion consultant) and threw my clothes into the washer with a cubic liter of color safe bleach and detergent. Now we just hope the angel of death passeth over my new shirt.
Either way, I expect to make a full recovery.
The Jay Effect
Essentially, this is the natural laws which says that when I wear a new piece of clothing for the first time, it may take a hell of a beating.
Example - countless spills of pasta sauce, red wine, other people's blood and snot, my own blood and snot, dog shit, bird shit and the gran daddy of them all, the time i got a flat and had to change it on 11th Ave. in Manhattan and got grease all over my brand new teal suit. What goes through my mind when I think of it now is: why the fuck did I have a teal suit! The 90's were frightful days indeed.
And through the wire, we will walk
-Peter Gabriel
Mayo 24
Welcome to Mega-blog entry, a special double-episode, where the copy grows like a water balloon.
Just saw Liverpool lose to AC Milan in the Champions League Final. First time I've ever watched one of these at night, live. If it's live on the East Coast, it's like 3 pm. Hee hee, Europe is cool.
It's nice and cool. I had a light jacket on. Soon we'll be roasting but it's been very nice this week.
More lightning tonite. I hung out my pants and shirt from today's squid attack on the line and they survived! That's sweet. I have too few clothes as it is.
Back in DC, I have more clothes than any human being should be allowed to wear. I could probably wear only soccer jerseys for a month! Obscene. We live soooooooooooooooooo cushy in the US. But who would want to give all that up. Tis' a difficult topic?
I have lived in the 3rd World (developing nation is so much more PC, but that's all it is), let's call Spain the NEW 2nd World, and the blessed 1st World. The times I have been the happiest are when things are copasetic INSIDE ME. It has nothing to do with the material things around me. In fairness, I've always had my first two or three bottom rungs of Maslov's HIERARCHY OF NEEDS covered. Things would be fuck all different if I hadn't.
Live and learn - learn and live. Pat Smith and I, on one of our late night wandering sessions over brook and through forest in the wilds of western Connecticut, came up with theory on life, that I still believe still holds true.
He and Laura were expecting their first, Brendan (who's a delightful little scamp!). We were sitting on railroad tracks. It was like STAND BY ME.
But we figured that if you could learn something new and remarkble every day, you'd be psyched. Like a child. The phrase we came up with was "Every day a wonder." It's a sweet way to look at things, certainly. Every now and again , we say it to each other.
Ahhhhh...the weight of years. They hang on us like ever growing bed sheets on the line. Or bloated grapes on a vine.
But when you've been good friends with someone for THAT long...you have a lot of shared history. It makes the fact that I'm not a kid anymore okay - to have friends like that.
But it doesn't mean that you love them so much that you can't give their kids lacrosse sticks so that they can beat on one another. Now THAT's a good time.
No comments:
Post a Comment