hablamos espanol aqui

When I put 'learn Spanish' on my list, I felt a little like I was cheating. After all, I'd taken two whole years in college and spent that month in Uruguay nine years ago--didn't I sort of already speak it? No, is the answer to that question. I definitely do NOT speak Spanish in any meaningful way. True, all of those conjugations of hacer, tener, estar etc in my little Spanish workbook (side note: I forgot how consistently hilarious language workbooks are with their outdated cultural references: The Spice Girls!) look vaguely familiar but I still can't get very far into a conversation without waving the white flag of 'no hablo espanol muy bien' pretty fast.

My Spanish teacher is named Paula, she is a primary school teacher during the year and is only a couple of years older than me. She's a good teacher despite the fact that she seems to always be tired (with the lifestyle and the late dinners here I'm actually not sure when anyone sleeps). She has only been to the US one time in her life, to go to Disney world when she was a little girl. Her professors of English have all been British so whenever she says words in English, she does so with this perfecty posh accent. She says 'Madonna' (a regular guest star in the workbook as well as Paula's favorite singer in the world) in the most adorably odd, breathy way that sends me into a fit of giggles each time; I cannot even try to explain to her why I'm laughing. We sit together for two and half hours every day doing exercises from the workbook and stopping to chat (charlar!) a bit about work, places we've travelled or would like to travel and our love lives; this last line of conversation gives me much to add to my vast anecdotal evidence that dating is horrible everywhere and that everyone is convinced that it must be better elsewhere.

Thankfully my Spanish skills seem to be improving at a good pace. Each day the fog of Spanish being spoken all around me clears a little more and I'm a little more certain that when I open my mouth there is at least a chance of something intelligible coming out.

I went out with some new friends from the school the other day and we talked about how we could never understand people who moved to a country and didn't try to learn to speak the native language at least a little. Beyond the fact of isolating oneself, I don't know why one would deny themselves the pleasure of being immersed in a new language. Granted I think I might feel a LITTLE differently if it were mandarin or arabic we were talking about. I am both relieved and disappointed every time I find that someone here does speak English. And I can't quite bring myself to talk to the couple of other Americans who are with the school; it just feels like cheating. How do you feel when you run into your compatriots abroad?

Buenos Aires!

I've finally made it to Buenos Aires after one of the more hellish travel fiascos of my life. I did not get stuck in the Atlanta airport for to days thank God but I did get rerouted through Brazil and spent what remained of my first day here at the mall trying to explain my bra size in Spanish and buying some not very flattering dresses because my luggage had not made it here with me. Just as I was beginning this entry my phone rang and lo, it was an angel from the airline who was calling to tell me that my bag was on its way to me now. Hurray! Lucky Delta, they will not have to endure my wrath which I planned on sharing with literally dozens of readers right here on this blog.

Being here has reminded me just how much I love to be abroad; sometimes I think it's the only thing that can get me really out of my own head. The smallest things are exciting and accomplishing anything at all-- a simple conversation with a store clerk, finding my school on the subway on the FIRST TRY, figuring out my cell phone--feels like a thrilling victory. The trick of being in a foreign country is to reframe things that you would normally call 'pains in the ass' as 'adventures'.  I have some advantages being here in that I am used to big cities which helps with things like taking the subway, not getting run over by cars, remaining stone-faced in the presence of pervy men and generally being in crowds without looking terrified. I also happen to look like everyone here; everywhere I look I see nothing but dark hair and olive skin--it's as though I've been returned to my tribe. Of course the moment I open my mouth, it's shot to hell as I so obviously sound like a total Jankee (Yankee).

Off now to grab some lunch and meet with my Spanish teacher Paola. Wish me luck!

                                       the view from my balcony in Palermo
                                                        

                                       the Galeria where I'm taking classes

purgatory

I've always wanted to visit Atlanta. It's where my favorite Housewives are from! However, spending two days in the airport with nary a hotel room in the city when I am trying desperately to get to Buenos Aires was not quite how I imagined it.

So here I am praying that the flight to Sao Paolo they've booked me on actually takes off and listening to some weird hippy kids play the guitar and have, I swear to God, a singalong. None of them look of age so they don't have any excuse to be doing a thing like that. There are a lot of military guys around which I keep thinking might come in handy if this turn out to be the beginning of the actual apocalypse. One young soldier hollered at me that he was here to save me as he and his friend exited the tram. He looked all of eighteen and he added as an afterthought that he was a little drunk when he realized that I was on the phone. Good thing he told me that.

I keep thinking that being stuck here would be more fun if I had some roller skates.

leaving on a jet plane

Tomorrow I am waking up very early to get on a plane for a number of hours that I refuse to acknowledge. Point is, by Tuesday morning I will (God willing) be in Buenos Aires and off on my big adventure.

Much as I can’t say I’m looking forward to a day’s worth of air travel in far too close proximity to my fellow humans—there’s something gratifying about a voyage that can’t be negated by one bad movie and a catnap, a trip that takes a while. When you land somewhere after a full day’s travel, you feel as though you must be far from your life at home indeed. I’m counting on this sensation to free me up from all of the things that have been so preoccupying me these past few weeks. I’ve resolved not to think about what other more sensible things I might have done with the money I’m spending on this trip, not to think about what could go wrong or how I will feel if the whole thing doesn’t live up to my expectations. I will not to think about work or what I’m doing with my life or the capital ‘F’ future. I will not to think (too much) about the book and whether I will get published this time around or ever. And I absolutely will not think about him.

What I want is to be in the moment and to absorb the experiences as they come at me. I want to take a lot of pictures (something I always neglect to do) and not only remember it always but be there while it’s happening.

Do you live in the moment or do you get stuck in your own head?  

we plan...

                                                         (god laughs)

You know people who say things like ‘if it’s meant to be, it will be’ or ‘it will all work out for the best’? I am not one of those people. Or rather I may say those phrases but not with any conviction. What I actually mean when I say the former is ‘this is totally out of my control and it sucks’ and the later ‘I am pretty sure this is all going to be a disaster but I need to lie to myself right now to quell the panic’.  I know some people say these things and really mean them and you know what? I hate those people.

In truth I am a planner. I don’t mean that to say that I am a good planner, just that I am incapable of blithely going forward without plans and feeling even a little bit okay with that. I make plans and then usually once the plans are made, worry that they won’t work out you know, as planned.

Once in a blue moon I have sparkling moments of live and let live but they are fleeting. I had to plan my trip to Argentina bit by bit because the sheer anxiety of so many details would just overwhelm me if I did it all at once. A trip like this entails a thousand ‘what-ifs’ and unexpected difficulties and expenses at every turn.

I don’t know yet what shape this trip will take; what it will mean for my life at this particular moment. Will it be more Eat Pray Love or Vicky Christina Barcelona? (As long as Javier shows up amirite?) At this point I’m just hoping it’s not Brokedown Palace. There are some certainties: that it will be exciting and at times scary, that I will have difficulties with the language that will be both frustrating and hilarious, that I will eat steak, that I will meet some amazing new people and that I will at times feel really alone. It is certain that somehow, some way I will be changed when I return. This is the promise is it not? Why go abroad otherwise.  

The truth is no amount of planning or preparation can protect you from the future. The future is always unknown. Not that it keeps me from worrying about it.

Are you a go-with-the-flow person or a worrywart?

# 10 reconnect with someone I never thought I’d see again

                                                              

A nice part of getting older is that you learn to appreciate relationships for what they are. My friend S is fond of the saying that people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime and I agree with her that this is apt. The trouble is in knowing the difference and accepting that sometimes someone seems to be in one category and turns out to be in another. Thinking a friend or romantic partner will always be in your life and learning that this is not to be is the essence of heartbreak.

I’ve lived in a number of different places over the years and keep in touch with friends in those places to varying degrees. There are inevitable friendship casualties whenever you move cities and the people  I’ve stayed close with despite the distance only become more valuable to me as the years go by.

When you’re young, it seems that a deep connection with someone means they will be in your life always but by the time you come home for Thanksgiving your freshman year of college, you know this is not the case. Sometimes there is a falling out that seems huge and insurmountable at the time but in retrospect is likely to seem small and petty. Many people leave our lives not because of catastrophe or wrongdoing but just because; it doesn’t diminish what you had with that person, but at some point they just become your past. Others come into and out of your life in a blazing flash.

Some of my most memorable experiences with people have been the most fleeting; when someone is only in your life for a brief period, there isn’t the time for your relationship with them to become mundane, for it to be fractured slowly by the stresses of the every day. It remains forever perfectly preserved in the moment. That gorgeous stranger I once went for pancakes with at Café Yaffa at 4am? Who knows what I’d think of him as now if we’d actually dated. As it happens, all I remember is this night that started off as nothing and became oddly magical out of nowhere.  

It’s easier to get back in touch with people than ever, what once took serious reconnaissance efforts now takes five minutes on Facebook. This certainly leaves the door open for some really bad decisions (no harm in seeing what that ex is up to, right?) but it also creates a loose connection with people that can be maintained much more easily than before. Our bonds with each other are more fluid now, for better or worse.  

The new year brings with it the opportunity to see several people I thought I might never see again: the host family I stayed with while I was a student in Uruguay eight years ago and J from Buenos Aires who hosted us for a most memorable Thanksgiving dinner in ‘07 and who has been so helpful to me in planning my upcoming trip. In fact it is in part because of these wonderful people that I have chosen Argentina to fulfill number 3 (spend a month abroad).

Reaching out to someone from your past can take a lot of courage. I wrote this list item with a specific someone in mind and I am still working up to it.

Have you ever found someone once lost? How did it go?  

                              

the dilettante dilemma: Real Housewives edition

This is tough for me to say. But we’re friends right? I told you about my obsession with bad dance movies and you stuck by through that so I feel I can tell you now about this other, far more shameful predilection. Deep breath, here goes: I love the Real Housewives.

I know. I KNOW.

By far my favorite of these televised train wrecks is Atlanta. I just can’t help but love these ladies. For one thing, they seem like they all sprung fully-formed from the imagination of the late, great E. Lynn Harris (one of my favorite authors I’ve ever worked with) and from what I can tell they start in on the wine at about 10am.

The ‘housewives’ in the title is something of a misnomer, a more accurate title would be something along the lines of ‘Real ladies in tight, cheap-looking-but-actually-expensive clothing with minimal taste, no shame and sublimely ridiculous side projects of X fancy zip code’ since most of the cast members do not actually in any way fit the bill of ‘housewife’ in the traditional sense.

Oddly, a handful of the them seem rather down-to-earth and are even quite accomplished. Such is the case with Atlanta cast member Kandi Burruss, a Grammy winning music producer and very talented recording artist in her own right. A more perfect foil could not exist for this hard-working, passionate heavy hitter than her cast mate and frenemy Kim Zolciak who decided seemingly out of the blue last season that it was her lifelong dream to be a singer.  

For the uninitiated, Kim is a chain-smoking mother of two who has no discernable employment other than her wig line (she’s financially supported by a married man cringe-inducingly referred to as ‘Big Poppa’). Also, she cannot sing. At all. Nonetheless, last season with the help of Kandi she recorded a single on which she is auto-tuned to within an inch of her life. In the beginning she seemed sort of in on the joke but now, after her fist single has became a campy dance hit you get the feeling she no longer recognizes the vast difference between her and Kandi. Her delusion in the face of her complete lack of talent and work ethic is oddly compelling and moreover, it’s familiar.  

Every writer and publishing professional I know could tell you a dozen stories about run-ins with literary Kim Zolciacks: people who upon hearing what you do immediately exclaim that they too want to write a novel despite never having written anything before or even reading novels on a regular basis. This happened to me once on a first date with an investment banker (there was no second date). I’m not talking about people who’ve always wanted to write and finally find the courage to do so and commit themselves to the practice in earnest, I’m talking about the people who talk about writing a book the way they would going sky diving or swimming with dolphins, a one-off thing that one might do just to do it as opposed to something that involves a lifetime of reading and refining one’s craft.

Being an artist is hard but if you truly are one you suffer through the attendant rejection/ low pay/ day job/ sacrifice because you feel like the only other option is to deny yourself that which make you you. Honestly, being a writer isn’t all that glamorous even for the people who are really successful and why someone would want to spend the hours and hours in unpaid solitude if they didn’t feel some deep, undeniable need to write is just beyond me.

How do you deal with these well-meaning dabblers?