Weekday Update

This is the warmup to my field notes. It is 640 pm on Friday and I just rolled around in the yard with the dogs for a while. There really is no better way to feel loved while getting covered in spit. Besides, like, making out or something. It's been really awesome here! Actually I've been pretty lonely and eating a lot, but the activities themselves have been awesome!

Recap

Saturday, July 2

Had a lot of fun with Hannah in Quito, going shopping at the fruit market, chilling with her family, having the most awkward cake-making experience ever, making fun of Hannah because she forgot the end of the 50 states song, etc. It's so awesome having another gringa here, especially one as great as Hanner. She's doing an awesome internship with a micro-finance organization and her and her host mom have all these brilliant conversations about anti-machismo action. It's very inspirational. Also, she does things like feed me twizzlers and endlessly quote 30 rock, so its a pretty wonderful relationship.

Sunday I went to Quito and saw Jimmy and Abuelita and Abuelo. Jimmy and I watched family guy and A&A were old and talked about that. Abuelo is so old he is just a husk, full of complaints and gas and chocolate cravings. I talked to abuela a lot about how it means to keep loving someone even after they can't love you back.

I went back to Cumbaya on the bus. I love knowing the bus system. I kinda organized my life and wrote a lot, went running, cleaned my room, talked to my lovely mom.

Monday...I went to work, then came home and did some field notes and slept

Tuesday, I went to work as well! At 6 or so I met my friend Carlos in Cumbaya and we had dinner and an awesome conversation. Carlos is one of those people that is so excited about the tremendous possiblities of the internet, really love it, feels himself in code, but is ok with the fact that he's also terrified of Steve Jobs dying and the next generation what are thier inner lives like!??! We have really similar opinons, are both really good with words, but approach things in completely different ways. It's so interesting to get that perspective. He's such a focused conversation-partner. I could talk about how great these three hours of talking were for quite some time.

Wendesday, I went to work as well. Then, after work, I went to Quito again to see Pilar. I took my old buses, my old route through the neighborhood. That place will always stick with me. I bought popcorn and ice cream, then went into the hosue to find no one there and no food. So i turned back around and went to the store to make pasta. While examining the tomato paste, Charito my arch nemisis ran into me. She was up to her ususal tricks: "oh your famous noodle dishes" she crows "They disgust me. Everyone else seems to like pasta, but to me it is disgusting. It looks like worms." "I will wait for you, its not like I have anyhting to do besides watch tv alone. We need to talk to gether. This neighborhood is so dangerous, you're likely to get stabbed walking up the stairs" (that simply isn't true. not awesome, sure, but no one dies).

climbing the stairs to the house. "is Pilar home?"

"no, not yet"

"let me use your phone then, mine got cut off. Just a few calls"

"its not my house, I can't do that"

"ok I guess you are right."

We part ways and I listen to socialist fight songs on the radio for three minutes unitl she knocks on the door:

"I was thinking about it and I know how pilar gets girls to pay to live in her house and i want to do that too"

"ok, I'll tell Kalamazoo about you"

"no, because pilar only gets girls because she is friends with the teachers becasuse its such a bad neighborhood. no one would live with me because its a bad neighborhood. So we could do it under the table, I would only ask for 300 and pilar asks for 350. Tell all the girls to come to my house."

"Ok, i will, but kalamazoo won't just let people come to your house for free. Besides only ten students are coming this year, so you won't get one"

"Alright, but when your girl firends come to quito, they stay with me"

"ok charito, they stay with you."

Telling pilar, she responds, "I don't think I would want anyone to stay with Charito."

Amen.

We watch Death At A Funeral, the recent one with the rich black family, a movie that didn't irritate me about portrayals of race for once. We start "Friends With Benefits" which is horrible and we talk about our lives instead. I go to sleep at 11 and wake up at 530 and ride three long buses to get to work.

Thursday and Friday, you'll have to wait for. Make your audience drool for more, as the Writing Handbook for Vampires says.