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Monday, December 30, 2002 This morning: rain, gray skies. And a Monday a.m. to boot. Forgot and left the heat on last night. I tend to sleep less well when the space is warm, which meant I slept less well ‘cause, er, the space was warm. Slept fitfully, finally dragged myself out of bed at some point during the early hours, turned the heat off, dragged myself back to bed. Slept fitfully, finally dragged myself out of bed to check e-mail sometime after 7 a.m. Bleary. The days begin especially slowly here during the winter, daylight seeping gradually in after 8 a.m. Normally something I enjoy ‘cause it means I sleep longer and deeper. On a morning like this morning, it means my bleariness feels a bit blearier. At least until I get the first espresso into my system. Then I at least have a semblance of an illusion of clearheadedness. That tends to get me through until the 11 o'clock break between Spanish classes when I have another espresso and a bocadillo (sandwich on a baguette) of tortilla española, providing a much more substantial illusion of clearheadness. Classes: this morning we had the only male instructor at the school, a sharp, extremely entertaining 30ish guy named Andres. He and I tend to bring out the best in each other, or at least we think we do, meaning a great deal of loud humor and out of control cackling (Andres has a tendency to double over when he laughs, adding lots of visual entertainment to the mix), a fair amount of chaos compared to the normal kind of classroom atmosphere. The rest of the class either has to get into it or suffer through it. Thankfully, they tend to get into it, as they did this morning. Good clean fun. (Today, in addition to the usual flogging re: the infinite uses of the subjunctive verb form, we learned that the Spanish term for a brown-nose is ‘lameculos' (pronounced ‘lah-may-COO-lohs') – lame from the verb lamer (to suck), and culo, meaning, er, butt, keister, behind, rear-end, posterior). Not a very nice thing to call someone, lameculos.) The laughter woke me up, for which I was grateful, and after classes I took myself to the gym, something I haven't been doing with the regularity I have in other times. The day remained gray, the falling moisture let up somewhere along the way. Post-gym, I got off the Metro at Alonso Martínez, one station from here, leaving me a nice walk down narrow streets to get home, something I often do post-gym. As I emerged from the station into the late-afternoon air, the clouds in the western sky gave way and the sun literally burst through, the day suddenly alight with brilliant sunshine, patches of blue sky and tattered, fast-moving clouds trading off overhead. Like the best of November in the northeastern U.S., the air cool and fresh, the sky dramatically beautiful. You never know when life will take an abrupt turn. Gray days can suddenly shine in unpredictable ways. Hope this finds you well, wherever you are. rws 3:55 PM [+]
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