the other side of the river

I recently met a couple that have never left Manhattan after living in New York for 2 years. My friend Sol had some Ecuadorian students that haven't left Queens to visit Manhattan after 6 years.   

My Wish

Probably then it will go by a little bit slower.

Does anyone avoid mirrors? I don’t anymore; I always stare at my reflection guiltlessly. I remember the first anti-wrinkle cream I bought about 6 years ago and how ashamed I was for my vanity. Time has passed and now I’m totally in for the high-heels and boots replacing every pair of converse in my closet. I still cannot wear lipstick; my lips are too thin and painting them just makes it evident.

I took this picture 2 ½ years ago at lunch time. The day after I took it I flew to Mexico for the first time after four years. I was very nervous to go home after such a long stay in New York, and I was trying to capture the everyday life that surrounded me back then.

The promise of writing at least once a day is broken, probably it was pretentious, or it means that writing in English takes a lot of energy and stresses me. Still, I will continue trying to write in a language other than Spanish, and will pursue my goal of posting once a day.

I came back from Mexico missing my people, and it took me a couple of days to get into my New York routine. I’ll be flying to Mexico City this coming Friday, happy to visit Victor but a little annoyed that again I will loose my rhythm. Everyone thinks that traveling a lot must be very cool, but for me it sometimes means paying for classes I can never attend, start exercise practices that never succeed, and get sick with all the food, weather and time changes.

My friend Nacho came to visit. We were best friends during high school, when we both smoked pot and enjoyed having long conversations about life at 17. Now we are 30, he is loosing his hair and I’m afraid of hangovers. We don’t talk about the meaning of life anymore; we just discuss the best ways to open a new business and how to take decisions that will lead us to a life where wearing a 3-piece suit, being creative and enjoying the spare time could be fit into the same sentence.

From my old bedroom

I woke up in my old bedroom, filled with pieces of old times and nostalgia. Books covered with dust, postcards and photographs, hand-made crafts, sea shells, paper lamps, christmas lights, fashion and art magazines, video tapes from my old handycam, boxes with complete slideshows, my red wig, flyers from concerts and film festivals, and everything I collected with the intention of feeling outside Guadalajara, and a little bit closer to the rest of the world where "everything" -in my perception- was happening. My mother prepared breakfast while I played mix tapes from the 80´s and 90´s until they got trapped in the tape recorder.

I'm sick at home today.  After taking an afternoon nap I'm ready to watch Raging Bull which I haven't seen before. My friend Victor (Capuchi) came to visit, and while I write this he finishes the designs for his new t-shirts. He is trying to start his own business, and I should be doing the same thing, the problem is I have too many ideas. Too many options and too many choices makes it too hard to decide.  My friend Paula was always overwhelmed by the number of orange juice choices in American supermarkets.  What overwhelms me is digital photography and being able to take hundreds of pictures; I was happier with the limited, but precisely selected 24 images.  

Capuchi is still working on his designs while I'm chasing a fly that is trying to sit on my bed.  I wonder how does a fly's memory works since it can't remember that I almost killed it with the electricity bill while trying numerous times to land on my comforter.  I tried looking for "memory of a fly" on the internet but Wikipedia doesn't know the answer. It sounds like a good name for a play.

Weekend at last; today is hot and sunny after a few rainy and gray weekends. Brandon, Pepe and me are each in our bedrooms enjoying the pleasure of doing nothing. I'm listening to one of the whimsical songs of the Langley School's Music Project from my iPod shuffle while reviewing the New York University bulletin looking for courses to enroll during the fall. I'm pretty amazed by their "life planning" section and the classes they offer under a category that is already predicting people's disenchantment and professional desperation: Mid-Change Career, Testing Yourself, How Losing Your Job Can Be a Good Thing, Self-Promotion for Introverts, Bring it On! Reacting Positively to Negative Situations. Does everyone needs some petting for being unhappy? If there is something to blame, it will be - in my opinion - spending 8 hours a day at the gray windowless cubicle (especially during the summer).

I have 3 roommates this summer: 2 Mexican architects and a 18-year old English boy from Hong Kong that works for the fashion industry.  Last summer Victor and Agatha lived here and the mood in the house was totally different, but Victor got a good job in Mexico City and Agatha moved back to Cyprus.  For a long time I complained about how things change so rapidly in New York, and now I guess I'm getting use to it. People come and go, and I've belonged to so many different circles that I've divided my personality in lots of different pieces.  It's funny how you can share yourself in many ways, all of them authentic. Sometimes I wonder for how long I will live in this house and how many more roommates will move in until I can afford living by myself.  Is Victor coming back any time soon?

I sat down in Central Park after work to watch the sun as it sunk behind the buildings.  I love the summer.

I've been always impressed with the French "cités" where young people speak verlan by inverting syllables in a word. The word verlan is itself an example: verlan = lan ver = l'envers (the inverse).

Tonight is so humid that typing on my computer makes me sweat. 

I need a miracle.

Viva Colombia

Cookies in the shape of President Uribe, the FARC and the paramilitaries - by my friend/artist Roberto Romero

A few months ago I dreamt with rats biting my  feet. After looking for the meaning at a dream's interpreter website I learned that it meant "feeling trap in a rat race".  A month ago I turned 30 and felt accomplished and happy for a while (feeling it took a great deal of bravery getting to this age). But now, I started to get worried about deciding which steps should I follow in order to get to (blank) -this needs to get decided as well-.   I've been reading the Financial Times each morning and I'm enjoying it more than I could have thought. The downside to it is that I now feel anxious about sky-rocketing oil prices and food crisis, adding to the anxiety generated from the lack of personal decisions.  Am I being exaggerated? Probably. Things will happen regardless my worries; besides, not all is bad. Today we walked across Central Park and got to a chamber music concert at the band shell.  The music was beautiful and the park was filled with fireflies. It was neat!

I'm in a very bad mood today. Aggressive and fighting with everyone about stupid things. My hormones are showing its worst face, and I have to deal with the shame of being so rude with anyone with a different opinion than mine. I'm going to keep reading my book before going to bed. To make it worst, my roommate brought home his boyfriend's dog today, and I already started seeing fleas jumping on my comforter. 

My cousin Pepe arrived last night and he will start his official life in New York tomorrow.  I don't know how much time it will take him to feel/become a New Yorker; it took me 3 years (and 6 years to buy a proper bed).  How long it takes before you deserve to claim a city your own?

Today we walked on streets I haven't seen before, east of Chinatown and south of Lower East Side.  Clotheslines hanging from the windows, stinky garbage cans and children with braided hair reminded me of the New York I came looking for. I live in the Greek neighborhood where Orthodox churches burn incense on Sunday mornings and old men gather in coffee shops for long hours.

Laura, Pepe, Brandon and me are listening to Nouvelle Vague in the living room before going to bed. I enjoy having a full house after months of being alone.

(Gracias por el comment Carola. He enviado el anuncio por facebook y aun no estas ahi, pero me alegra mucho que hayas llegado).

I'm tired of long distance relationships and having to be on the phone with nothing to say, just to feel a little bit closer. I get cranky about almost everything, and my boyfriend demands things that just makes it worst (like asking me to call the Financial Times at 12:34 AM on Sunday).

I spent all afternoon (after a 3-hour brunch, doing my laundry and getting a foot massage), going through old pictures and selecting the best ones for my portfolio. I found bits and pieces from my last 6 years in New York (which I'm uploading to Facebook). Sometimes it's necessary to go through old files and measure yourself against what you were, to see more clearly what you've become.

We spent the afternoon at Max and Lily's house a few blocks from my place. 4th of July with only two Americans to celebrate it, in a Greek neighborhood where no one else seemed to be having a party. We grilled hamburgers, eggplants and zucchini in the porch while we hoped for the rain to stay away a little longer. We tried to watch the fireworks from the park by the river, but we ended up walking in circles without seeing any.

I'm now sitting on my bed and I could hear Brandon making funny noises in his bedroom (he is probably watching Lost). V is on Skype as every night - that's the way we manage our relationship lately- and I could hear him cooking artichoke filled tortelloni and playing some Schubert sonatas on his iPod.

My Mom called a few minutes ago. She is sick with Typhoid Fever.

Niloufer, Melissa and me sat at the Met's roof this afternoon while we all had a drink to cope with the hot weather. Niloufer talked about her religion (which name I cannot pronounce), how it started in Persia and how the followers were expelled from Iran to India.  Good words, good thoughts and good deeds are the main principals they follow. 

I sent an email inviting friends to visit my blog; now I feel nervous that someone actually will read it, and that I should be somehow entertaining. 

My desk from the corner of my eye

I'm sitting on my bed with the lights off and the AC on. My boyfriend is talking through Skype about how the economic crisis will hit Mexico soon, and how his sushi was 30% more expensive today than it was a week ago. I'm not tired, I wish I could use all this energy tomorrow morning and exercise. I spend too much time sitting down at my office and then after work I'm tired so I just go back home and turn the computer on. Victor finished talking. He is the perfect guy, he wakes up at 6 AM to do some jogging, then works like 12 hours, reads the newspaper and even irons his shirts. 

So nice outside

I'm at my desk as everyday at work. Weather is so nice outside that I rather be sitting on any bench somewhere, especially since perfect weather days are so few in New York. I feel like walking across Manhattan and then all the way down to Battery Park. I want to see the boats and drink something cool.
I’ll be out soon, need to get back to work…