zen

So, you know how when there are mosquitoes around, sometimes you do that thing where you swat at them by trying to catch them midflight, except that you never do actually catch them?

In the span of two minutes, I just caught two mosquitoes. In the dark.

I'm getting good at you, Mexico. Be-fucking-ware.

so don't count your blessings yet

I am losing momentum, but I have been looking at lots of pretty stuff and also I have some tricks up my sleeves, so things are not all bad. I realized some unfortunate shit today. For one, it's only been three weeks since I came back to Mexico from Christmas break. What the fuck. That feels like months ago. Also, it's almost February.

Fuck.

Remember February? And by that, mostly I mean, remember last February? The month of blanket and couch and cat? The month of not getting off the couch, ever? Yeah. I hate February. Doesn't everyone?

Clearly, there are a few solutions: massive amounts of vegan mac and cheese (Allison, I am forever in your debt), watching scary movies with team Lalo (Paranormal Activity is really fucked up), recovering from scary movies by watching this:

and, well, other stuff, too.

It is of the utmost importance to look at pretty things and be upside down. Fortunately I live in a city where those things are very likely. And also, I found this: http://www.amandawachobtattoo.com/

We can make it through this month together, folks! And then it will be over, and it'll be March, and I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

send the autos swerving

It's a silly weekend so far.

Last night, we went to Tony and Betty's birthday party on Betty's roof. I tried to bake a birthday cake--twice. Both were failures. It sucked a lot. I've never had a baking fail quite like that. The COMI people couldn't believe it (my Christmas cake still hanging like a fond memory, I guess), everyone was really sweet about it, "I'm sure it was fiiiine." The party was fun, I hung out with team Lalo and drank a little more than I should've, but still enough to go home pretty early and all in one piece.

At the party we agreed that today we would go to a place where seafood buffet is free with drinks (?) since it was a coworker's last day in town, and then to a place called the Sports Bar (pronounced more like "esporrbar"). Esporrbar was very exciting and featured American bar food, which probably sounds like a lame thing to admit but once you've been anywhere long enough (not that long) you start to miss dumb stuff. Anyway, the drinking adventure started at like 3 so by 8 we were home and shiftless. At Esporrbar we sat in the VIP room which meant that we could request videos on the flatscreen TV, so we requested Beyonce and then Queen. The Beyonce set came without the "Single Ladies" video, and that was kind of sad, but it was a pretty good selection.

Anyway, all of that was whatever. The real reason I am posting is that thanks to the dark depths of the internet, I actually found this:



I totally remember seeing this article in Seventeen when I was, well, seventeen, and suddenly feeling very self-conscious about the way I'd been listening to Weezer and being vegan and wearing Doc Marten mary-janes (though mine were red and Liria randomly bought them for me). I think I kind of knew that I hadn't just made all of those things up on my own, and I think I also knew that they weren't some sort of ultimate expression of my personal uniqueness (as I would learn that there isn't one), but it was still pretty awkward.

And I love awkward, so I'm pretty thrilled I rediscovered it.

Also, I am totally wasting too much good material on this post in which I say almost nothing--seriously, Tony and I had some highly effective and pretty fascinating processing today and I am not even talking about that shit--because, well, I can't just keep this shit to myself:

Enjoy!

wonder of wonders

Yeah, that's right, folks!

I, mighty hater of all that is computerized, finally got tired of the way the blog looked, decided I didn't really like any of the pre-made blogger templates exactly the way they were, and learned enough HTML to make minor changes. Nothing too crazy, but still, I can't believe I figured out enough of this crap. Expect more changes to the layout in the future. I'm pretty excited. That was a pretty intense dorkout.

Also, today was apparently "there will be at least two clowns performing on any bus you take" day in the city of Oaxaca. I don't know why. But they all had face paint, and it was disgusting.

Also, winter is over. No complaining here.

glass houses

Finally, the sun is back out! There were some gloomy-looking days back there, with lots of clouds and sudden cold. Finally, things are falling into place again, and the nights don't seem quite so harsh. I still sleep in my sleeping bag and a wool blanket. But today, the sun was bright and we went on a pretty walk through a fancy part of town. The resentment of the past few days (mostly due to the living/working situation and feeling trapped in the OAX) has worn off. I've been shooting some expired 120 mm slide film--the fact that it's expired makes the results even less predictable than usual. Some are good, some are bad, some old ones I just got back are making me a little nostalgic, like this one:

But things have been okay, the delegation (which I wasn't working on) just got done with what seems like a lot of success, and consequently we had a busy weekend of going out and ended up throwing a spur-of-the-moment dinner party. We spent the last day of the delegation at a really pretty place off Reforma, a convent for ailing nuns:

We found a new market, the 20 de Noviembre market (which seems like an offshoot of Juarez, but so, so much better), where they mostly sell prepared food and juice (I got a chocolate-banana licuado). Anyway, after I got grumpy because I was hungry and pressured Tony into said licuado spot we managed to plan a dinner for eight and came off with this:

It was pretty tasty. I can't stop making oven fries. The other day I made seitan jambalaya (oh nutritional yeast, your wonders never cease) and ate most of it, too. So, yeah, potatoes and rice--I am going to gain a hundred pounds and enjoy every minute of it. The dinner party turned into a Youtube party, where we watched:

That song is sweet enough on its own, but the video is really great.

Then if you're familiar with the DC area, you might enjoy:

And then of course, to tie things up, there was:

Yesterday was a great day, after all that stuff. We rested up and went to the train station market in the afternoon, the circus was back in town! Mostly they just did acrobatic things and slow-motion fight moves, but it was a lot of fun. (Photos forthcoming--ah, film delay.) Then, Tony and I ran some errands in town and I ate esquites for the first time! Esquites are kernels of white corn cooked with epazote, and served in a styrofoam cup with mayonnaise, cheese, lime juice, and chili pepper. I had been scared for a long time. Now, my love of corn products is no secret, but mostly I was afraid of all that crap they pile on there (how does that shit not curdle?!), but it was a really weirdly satisfying food. Then we had gelato and came home and watched The Hills. All in all, I'd call it a successful weekend.

The week is exciting, getting stuff finalized for a delegation and maybe being able to fill the time in ways that are better than watching incessant amounts of MTV (even though, let's be honest, it is pretty satisfying. Especially now that we play "the game"--drawing parallels between those girls' lives and our own: "So like, when LC has to go to Italy for work, it's like when they send us to Chiapas on the bus. Right?" "So when LC and Whitney had to go to New York City for one day to work a fashion show, it's just like when Betty had to go to Mexico City for one day to fix our visas. Right?"). I guess I play that game, sometimes I play a "Poeta Garcia Madero" game, sometimes I just stare at people, and when I am in a particularly bad mood I play "Holden Caulfield", which is sort of a good game in that it will get you through bad times, but it makes strangers think you are crazy, which can be good or bad. I play that game at the supermarket a lot.

Which reminds me!

I found a "big" Soriana (this weekend I found out there is actually a bigger Soriana somewhere else) but basically I've had this theory that somewhere in Oaxaca there is a gigantic strip mall with a big-box grocery store wherein all my dreams will come true: pie tins, cheeses (not just the balls of Oaxaca cheese or "tipo Manchego" (hence all the vegan mac-making)), razors, ketchup, canned beans that don't just come in "black" and "Mexican-type", you know, normal stuff. Well, the one that I found had some of that stuff! It was exciting!

Happy monday, folks! Now it's on to yoga class and vegan mac and cheese adventure, part 2!

or any other random spirit lover

It rained! Which is how we found out that our roof has a leak in it, and some of our books were ruined! Yesssss! It's the first time it's rained since I've lived in Oaxaca, and it's really not supposed to rain until the rainy season, and also it's cold. It's a perfect oatmeal morning.

There's been a lot to look at and think about the past few days, and that funny thing happened where I kept putting off writing about it and now none of it seems very important. Sigh. But really, I guess the point is that since I returned, I've been feeling quite lucky to live in a place where there's lots to look at and think about and where the days are beautiful and the sunsets are satisfying. Even if I can't stand the food :P

Well, let's get started: I went back to America, which was wonderful, and I probably saw you and it was probably really great to see you, unless I didn't see you and Ali, I am so sorry I didn't get to see you. I spent lots of time with my niece and nephews, which was fantastic. My niece got a full piano from Santa Claus, and she played some stuff for us (Chopin, Christmas stuff, and something she's been writing). If there is anything that can apparently make me cry like a baby, it's my nine-year-old piano genius niece. In general, though, the kids are all so sweet and funny and playing with them was wonderful. My mom made lots of empanadas (broccoli and cauliflower ones for me) and buñuelos, which I definitely ate a huge share of.

I spent a lot of time thinking about things that matter and things that don't matter and how many things that don't seem to matter made me so sick. Heartbreak always seems kind of silly in retrospect, I guess.

Once I got back to Oaxaca, it was sunny and busy and the city didn't seem to look over its shoulder to notice my return, which made it easier for me to messily try to assume my place along its jumbled ranks. I got right back into work, which is all about some Mexican sustainable agriculture right now. I am reading lots of great articles, and I went to a meeting with the Mexican postmodern superstar Gustavo Esteva himself. The meeting is basically about the coming insurrection and our place in it. It was a really silly meeting and it made me uncomfortable, mostly because it seemed like Esteva was taking a whole lot of space and it was all really academic (even in its references to the EZ) and I looked around at his listeners to find that I was easily one of the youngest and that the crowd was about half foreigners and half Oaxacans. In other words, not what I would consider optimal insurrection conditions. Finally, Esteva got down to business and started suggesting potential actions (I think, especially, since some folks may not have understood what he meant by "actions"), and his one suggestion was, "Say we all organize ourselves and in the middle of the night, we plant seedlings all over the city." Someone countered that planting green things is the city's job, and Esteva refuted that argument, claiming, "No, the city's job, based on the city's desires, is to cover more things with concrete. Our job, based on our desires, is to cover those same public spaces with green things. We want those things." I thought that was awesome, and I figured I could probably warm him up to puppets after a while, so I think I'll probably keep going to those meetings.

There are a lot of thoughts that come and go my way during the days, about animals, children, politics, indigenous rights, recipes, colors, and whatever other stuff, but most of the time, it all seems like the most important thing in the world at the moment, and then I forget about it. Ah, the stuff of life.

At some point this week, I became angry and was glad that I have such good coworkers, because Tony introduced me to the Ani DiFranco (would you believe I never had that phase?) and then we made a cream sauce and ate it with pasta and I made molasses cookies. Then, I talked Tony into loaning me one of his new Pema Chödrön books. It was a very effective course of action.

Today, mostly out of boredom and alone-ness (as opposed to loneliness, which is sad), I decided to make some homemade vegetable broth to use in recipes in the next few weeks. I ended up, for a few reasons (it's Saturday, I had to buy things for Betty and Tony's delegation, I had nothing better to do, I was taking pictures anyway), going to three different markets and also the grocery store.

First, I went to El Pochote, the organic market. The greens man, whom I am falling in love with a little because he is so sheepish but most importantly because of his ability to provide me with things like huge bouquets of chard with a little peach ladybug or a tiny cauliflower ("it is for two people," he says), surely had a beautiful tableful of stuff today, and he even let me take a picture. I got coffee and tomatoes there, too. Then, on to Xiguela, where I found the snacks for the delegation (amaranth-y things), tahini, tofu, and ginger. After that, I hit up the Soledad market--there, I got a juice from the old juice man (beet and grapefruit), potatoes, and a couple of onions. I left all that stuff at my house and rested up for the biggest errand of the day. None of the other markets had had any fruit, which we needed for the delegation, so I decided to go to Abastos (which you may remember, is the market from hell). At Abastos, I found rosemary (at a healer's stall) and fruit, as well as a ridiculously cheap one-kilo bag of beautiful pecans. Abastos is crazy, especially on Saturdays, especially on a cold, rainy day. Everyone is shouting at you to buy something. The thing is, if you can think of it, they probably have it (or at least a Chinese rip-off version of it).

Finally, I went to the supermarket and had my typical Mexican supermarket experience, wherein I am looking for something that seems unremarkable, say orange juice, a pie tin, a package containing less than 30 eggs, and they don't have it. Not that they ran out of it, just that they don't sell it. When this happened, I used to be able to just shrug and keep walking, but the more time I spend in Mexico, the more I find myself just staring into the space where whatever I am looking for "should" be, thinking that maybe if I wait just long enough, it will somehow arrive. Come on. Orange juice. Seriously.

After I finished all these errands, I came home and made the vegetable broth, which I then froze in ice cube trays. Then, I decided that maybe I should make a pie out of some of those pecans that I'd found at the market. Then, I thought about how much I like bourbon with pecan pie, and I remembered the tiny bottle of Maker's Mark (mmmm) that Charlie gave me for Christmas, and I reasoned that I should make some bourbon whipped cream to go with the pecan pie, so I went ahead and did that, too.

So yeah, today I was ridiculous. I feel like in some ways, I'm treading water trying to get back in the swing of things. But most of the time, even though I'm running around all crazy and doing eight things at once, I really enjoy at least six of those things, and I can sit back at the end of the day and be a little satisfied, so maybe that's okay.