Yes, I am

Next to me on the train is sitting just another 14 year old, wearing one of those mini skirts that I wish I could wear, but I can’t. She’s on the phone: Mum, mum, my battery is about to go. Clearly something’s up, my reflex is to lend her mine, if it’s an emergency, but the battery hasn’t given yet. Mum listen, I have no battery left, can you please come and pick me up at the station? ….it’s pouring. Well, it is here. I look out at the perfectly dry afternoon and just because of the lie and the whining, I hope her mother won’t pick her up.
As I get off the train, the deluge begins. I feel a little bit bad.

I have secret dreams of moving into my grandmother’s house in the middle of nowhere. I’d chop my own wood and not watch the 8 o’clock news on any of the six tv channels. I would only have a shower every other day in winter because there is no heating in the bathroom. I would have two dogs and go for walks on frosty mornings and miss big cities.

I have secret dreams of being a 27-year-old middle class American female, and living with my husband in a tiny northern Californian town. Our house would have a fireplace and a hot tub and it would smell of woods and we would drive our suv to go grocery shopping, and rent movies on Friday nights. We would probably have two kids, and I would worry about what school to send them to.

I have secret dreams of moving to a Spanish village, and cursing the heat six months in the year. I would grow my hair and go out in the evenings, and be the foreigner who knows all the slang words and who shuns other foreigners.

I have secret dreams of leaving, always, no matter where I am.

I’m training for when I’m old, talking to squirrels in the park. Just to make sure I don’t mix them up, they’re all called Damien. Yesterday I was walking home and Damien was sitting on a high branch, screaming like I didn’t think a squirrel could scream. I don’t think he was shouting abuse at me. What to do, what to do? Squirrel in pain? Squirrel tantrum? Along the path I met another: Quick, Damien, I said, your friend over there needs help. He darted off like a squirrel on a mission, and I pretended there was such a thing as a squirrel solidarity network.

I blame the stars, or perhaps the people who write horoscopes. Don’t they realise the damage they cause? More than parents even, but it’s so much harder to bring that one up in shrinking sessions.
I have grown up believing that, as a Gemini, I was easily sidetracked, unable to concentrate on one thing for too long, starting new things and dropping them in less time it’d take to say ‘pea brain’. And now look at me! I’m obsessed. I won’t read, watch, write anything if not in Spanish. My single-mindedness is taking me by surprise.
Of course the down side is that now I’m having trouble with English. Lo siento.

Last week passed in a blur of work. Mostly. Have you noticed how I’m not blogging, bloggers? That’s because I’m too busy working and going to bed early in order to be up at stupid o’clock the next morning.

On Sunday night, while I was making crêpes, J was standing in the kitchen playing sad tunes on his accordion to try and make me cry. It worked. It always works. I’m easy.

That’s it really.

Don Limpio

And.. into the tunnel again! Work has started again, nights are shorter and in the morning I can’t just sip my tea reading my book with the cat curled up inside my pyjamas. It’s up at stupid o’clock again, and wearing clothes that match, and why do I seem to sweat only when working?
When last week ended, everything was noisy; all I wanted was to sleep, alone, and be quiet. Since so much of my job involves talking with, to and at people, there are times – at the end of every day for at least half an hour, in fact- when just saying one sentence becomes physically painful. It’s the Daily Grump. I come home, slump, and to disconnect a little, I read whatever light reading there is in the bathroom: the august issue of PSN (the magazine of HM Prison service), comics, the Little Book of Complete Bollocks. Or I listen to history radio programs.
When last week ended, everything was all over the place, grimy, unbearable; I hurt my girlfriend’s feelings when I chose housework over seeing her.
As soon as the Daily Grump is over, I should call her, since the house is clean now.

They say it’s September already

1. Blogfolks, I haven’t felt like blogging recently, have you noticed? I flew back from Greece, recovered from the bumpy landing, and threw myself into the Sunflower Project (painting the kitchen yellow, in order to not think about going back to work.) My Special Lady Friend came to help with the second coat.
I like it that she’s better at it than I am.

2. The day of the second coat, she was wearing a ring, a thick silver one. I’d never seen her wear a ring before. She has nice hands. I stared and stared and when she realised I’d gone quiet, I was blushing.

3. Now the paint’s dry; I slept for three hours the night before going back to work. Tonight all I’ll manage to do will be sit in my sunflower of a kitchen for a while, perhaps eat a slice of J’s carrot cake, listen to Joaquin Sabina, find out if my SLF would let me take her out on a date tomorrow to see Volver again, and go to bed early.

Buenas noches.

The sea, the sea

Kalimera !

1.I know and mispronounce six and a half words of Greek, but it seems that the Greeks are used to it. I feel useless and cheap, a member of the colonialist Easyryan brigade. Which I am, I suppose. But it’s that or not buying any fruit.

2.We thought we were going on a retreat, desert island style, but as it happens we have neighbours. Our favourite is about 12 years old, an overgrown cub, chubby, already double-chinned, equalled in loudness by the friend who calls him out from the street:
-Adonis!
….
-Adonis!
…
-Adoniiiiiis!
The poor boy has a lot to live up to with a name like that.

3.We almost didn’t leave London. The day of our departure coincided with what will certainly go down in airport history as The Big Mess. After being searched, we had to abandon all hand luggage. My SLF had to leave her cigarettes behind; I was quietly rejoicing until they also tried to take my food away from me. (Never were 2 Berliners eaten in such haste.)

4.Our flat has a sea view, and was described by the letting agent as ‘romantic’. We can see many reasons for that epithet:

- there is no television (we have to talk to each other)
- the curtains have lacy bits on them (how they float in the sea breeze!)
- there is nowhere to sit apart from the bed. (it’s very cosy)
- the toilet door doesn’t close (we have bonded)

all factors which, without any doubt, will do wonders for bringing a couple closer together.

5.Time to go and swim a little, perhaps float on the Inflatable Madness; then smile a lot and point in the fruit shop.


Ah, the sea. I watch it, sleep by it, swim in it, breathe it in, drink it (but mostly that's when I'm not paying attention).
I do hope that the guy who walks along the nudist beach casually holding a camcorder with the red light on and pointing at the naked lesbians doesn't drop it in the water by accident.


Back on Thursday. Be well!

Looks like I’m back

1. I miss..

Trying out all the bars in Granada, and dining on the tapas they bring you with every round.

The breathtaking black fake marble grandiosity of my flat’s bathroom, complete with gold fixtures and, right above the bog, a scene out of the Greek mythology, exquisitely rendered in (more) gold, red and blue.

The hours spent sprawled on the velvet sofa, late at night with my Italian flatmate, drinking beer and watching Spanish TV. It was just too hot to go to bed before 2 or 3 am.

Bitching about said velvet sofa that you end up sticking to in that hellish temperature– que putada es este terciopelo que te pega al culo.

Having an excuse to have ice-cream instead a proper dinner.

Getting hopelessly hooked on chat shows and ‘Cita rapida’ (blind date).

Starting to do our ‘homework’ after 1am and a few beers. How inspiration flew! I have rude poems to prove it.

The neighbour’s Sunday morning mix of flamenco and heavy metal. It does exist.

2. I don’t miss…

Waking up drenched in sweat at 3am every night and having to take another cold shower just to bring my temperature back down – to make sure that I’d live to see another day. Exaggerating, me? Never.

Daring myself to sit out on the balcony and trying to forget I’m terrified of heights. Then running back in.


3. London is boring, polluted and cold, therefore my SLF and I are off tomorrow for two weeks. There will be lots of swimming involved. Be well!

1. Bloggente, I'm coming back to England on Saturday. Not that it makes any difference to you, but to me yes, since it'll allow me to stop sweating to profusely for at least a couple of days.

2. I'm having trouble with English at the moment, so only popping in to say hello. Hello!

3. Now for homework I have to write a story de que te cagas for tomorrow, so I better go find something to drink, just to make sure that the muse doesn't fail me. It's worked wth every single piece of homework so far. The poem I wrote for today was de puta madre. Really. Want to read it?

Hasta luego, chios y chicas.