Saturday Night Thoughts

I. I sit out here and I watch it get dark. I can see the mountains in front of me and my warm, light room behind. It's pretty quiet so you can here birds squeak and the spur of thier wings. There's music beyond that, music made by happy people for other happy people who are ready for it to be dark, looking for the company of others, to move easily, to know thier place and not have to worry.

The musicians, too, don't worry- thier fingers know and they aren't embarassed to whoop or shout. They are proud of the music, its patterns and shiny, spinning heaights. There's no need to end songs quickly like the scared white boys in front of guitars do so fast. People are enjoying it, it some thing to adore, so why end?

It's very different here than in Quito. I see only one layer of houses and roofs, trees, no cars or trolleys and no people. Is there daily life here? Is everyone struggling to keep floating and breathing and wear clean underwear? Yes, of course they are, you can tell from the smoke of cooking fire barbecues, from the yelps of musicians, the lights of cars on the highway below. Just as we learned that everybody's pretty much working for the same stuff when we took the bus or on our class fieldtrip to the history museum or on that golden ticket of study abroad, I know it too in Cumbayá. We're close to Quito, but with a mountain and a rainstorm in between.

II. It's not at its most obvious but the earth is most subtle and vunerable at dusk, and humans are at thier brighest on a Saturday night. At 6:35 pm July 2nd on the Equator, you can see the mountains sigh and the people squirm. At this moment, the ground is tired and loosing its sun heat. The plants are squinting critically at their stores of sugar-from-sun, stream keep going but wish they were dry. Light blints but it knows it doesnt have much left before the slide from wave to particle. Hills slope. The earth looks backwards to rest.

But the people- everyone's on the bus, putting on thier best pants, making eye contact, biting their lip dreaming of hamburgers and solace and sex. Everybody's wondering what's coming next on a Saturday night.

That future, that past, that spilling cool darkness.

No Sleep Till Thursday

Its 345 am, my computer charger only sort of works, and I am filled with insomnia and backpain both rare to me. I'm nervous-but-excited for Ecuador. I know that I will get it all once I get there, that things will work out, but there are so many things I need to do to get settled, so many moments and interactions I will need to negotiate. The moment I get off the plane and go through customs won't be that hard, I will just be tired and hating my luggage and clutching my passport. But the moment after that might be hard. I'm not sure if anyone will be at the airport for me. I really should not worry about this, I should be able to land some place and do my own thing, but I've got this vision of thieves seeing that I don't have a hostmama to get me and stealing all my stuff on the sidewalk by the airport and everyone laughing at the lonely gringa. Did you know that I love self pity?

The reason I might not get picked up is Pilar might be busy. I'm not sure of the current situation, but I know that about a week ago, her daughter's fiancee (and father to her grandchildren) had a brain hemmorage. This guy, Santi, is a total saint, a wonderful guy, and the breadwinner for his family. It's scary for numerous reasons; as far as I knew he was in good health and he can't be more than 35. So this is scary beause someone is very sick who no one expected to be very sick, and my mama might not be there to meet me at the airport. She might also be at the hospital or talking care of her daughter and grandsons. I talked to hannah today, though, and she says I can stay at her house that first night I get off the plane before I go to Cumbaya. I really appreciate that, to be able to go to someone I already know and trust. Her mama, Miriam, is another member of the Saints, so I know I'll be well taken care of.

Another moment that I keep rolling over is my travel to and arrival at my house where I'll be staying. Will I go alone or with someone? Who- Jimmy? Hannah? Pilar? If I go alone I'll definitely take a taxi, but if I go with someone I guess we could divide my stuff for the bus...but I've never been there before and I don;t want to wander the streets of Cumbaya with all my stuff. I'll take a taxi. Will I need to act tough? I've got this idea that my dueño will be some Humbert Humbert (LINK) esque fellow who will leave me creepy sexual hints all over the house that I will have to awkwarldy ignore, dumping rose-scented love letters down the toilet and throwing away pink-iced cakes. That could be a little amusing, especially because I;m past the Lolita fashion stage. Or he could be a down right assaulter. But that just doesn't seem likely. I made it clear that I want privacy, silence, and security. I have my own room in a non-high traffic part of the hosue. I have a lock on the door. I'll have my phone on me and Hannah on alert for the police. I can do this. And really, I'm just focusing on this person (the world I'll be using is dueño, which means "owner" but also like "landlord" or "guy from whom I rent") because I'm worried about men in general in Ecuador and how I'll behave around them to keep myself safe. Zak suggested buying pepper spray and I think that's a good idea.

But there's tons of stuff I'm excited for. I'm so excited to see the mountains again, to feel that lightheaded dizzy spin as I lie down. I'm excited to be in public spaces that I love and are so different, like the fruit markets, the grocery store, the pharmacy. I'm so excited to be on a bus again. I took a bus down H St with Michael and it was so great to know how to do it. It was also free because the smarttrip reader was broken, making it the only thing in the US cheaper than in Ecuador. I'm excited to see my favorite parks and little roadside patches of grass with statues. It's going to be so wonderful to recognize things, to remember them and myself and others within them but learn them again in this time and place. i wish I was a photographer so I could capture that feeling of return with images. I'm not, I'll grab it with words. I wil snag it when it finds me because I know what it feels like. It is a combination of many feelings, that sensation of return. It feels like the need to write, firstly, which feels to me like the need to pee but from your fingers. All your carple tunnel muscles ache, but ache to be abused more. My tailbone needs firm contact with something hard, my knees want bend. My head rests on my chin, the perfect posture laptops allow. My arms go weak and my fingers get smart and my sensory percption goes way up. My ears begin to name what goes through them, my eyes search for depth of field. I sniff for clues, I start to drool a little bit. I need to call up every memory linking to anything that's familiar around me while simulatneously suck in all that data for more memory making and more instant and further analysis. It's a combination of entry, processing, and storage and I really love it. For all my vigilance, it;s a very calm sensation for most of my body. I'm being slowly lowered into a pool of blue aloe vera gel and once my head is under my eyes will really open and my lungs will breathe fine. As soon as I reall remember what this place was like, as soon as I really understand where I am at that present second, I'll be with it, so good to go that I'll skip and run to my bus stop or meeting point. When that recognition enevlopes me, I am so strong.

Writer Writer Write Write

I am Dr. Writer McLiterary and this is my famous essay. Please bown in front of my genuis, and yes we may use that as a noun. This is a phallic symbol and you wish your mother had bigger boobs. Adjectives are meant to dangle and dingle ends in "el." Puncuation fits neatly inside quotes which begin with commas and end with "he said." Indugle my metaphor and hyphenate my hyperbole. Both will end up brilliant by the time your eyes notice the footnote explaining my brilliance.

So, I'm not so into writing these days. I'm obviously doing less, and the thing's I'm doing I've done and written about before, but I don't even feel like putting my fingers on the keyboard. When I enter URLs, its with a single finger, filled in automatically on my seearch bar, or I just look through history. I bookmark everything and comb farther and farther back in blogs and archives. Every article published on the priests abusing deaf boys? Sure! The blog the lady who made Juno kept when she was a stripper? All pages, please. Every photo Kelly O has taken of drunk people? BRING ME THE RICHES. I've been following Charlie Sheen and have culled through every page of Sarah Silverman's twitter. I hate them both less.

So I'm learning, even if I don't take note of it, and if its mundane pop cultures stuff I'll only make references to. I will make me more obscure-sounding and erudite and less approachable. That's what I'm going for.

And as I'm reading, or talking to a friend (hidden neatly in Maryland's hardwood flooring), or driving home from my uncle's listening to Modest Mouse and bone-crushing volume, I'll get these flashes of verbalization, smart things, reaction, phrases that help me understand what's goin on. These are often innapropriatley timed and awkardly said. For example, I was at a potluck attended by very fancy people, McLean (actually, it was somewhere else, but I can't spell that place) families with art collections. My sister was an an excellent production of Rent taking place in their basement. My Hobo Best Friend's Dad who's been a father figure to me for years asked me why I'd gotten my nose pierced. Its hard for me to explain usually beyond "I like it." But here, with a plate of roasted autumnal vegetables and spanish tapas in my hand on a plastic plate, the words came:

"Well, in a lot of way, having this on my face has freed me from how people view me. Before, I was constatnly worried about not looking strong enough, tough enough, brave enough, bad ass enough. But getting the piercing helped me feel proud in a number of ways. Firstly, It makes me proud that I actually followed through on something that I wanted to do. It's not just a dream for the future, I actaully went through with it. Secondly, it lets me not worry so much about how I look. It's a symbol that I don't take my self too seriously, that I'm not afraid of imperfections that I aquire through my life. Also, It's freeeing. For example, before I got the piercing, I would never wear a cardigan like this. I would feel preppy and fake and not true to my inner strong self, even though I actually like the cardigan. But with the piercing, even as I see the cardigan and know that it's preppy, I don't need to worry about that being my only presentation to the world. It's bigger than that, and there are more symbols involved, more data to make a conculsion. I feel like I am presenting part of my self that I am proud of to the world: parts that aren't scared, that follow through, that are strong and face outwards. It's almost a definition of my sexuality...."

at this point, I realized Hobo's Dad had cocked his head upwards and raised his eyebrows. Those are facial symbols I know and love, the "what the helll is she talking about???" face. And the Armenian music prodegy and her diplomat husband were looking, and the Jewish lady with frizzy hair and her 7 foot husband. Important, but not appropriate.

And I'm saying these things because I'm not writing them. I'm not getting out my long sentances and alliterations and observations on gender roles in my damn computer where they belong and instead am burdening my friend's parents with my inner thoughts about my facial structure. Not so classy, sweetheart.