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Thursday, January 16, 2003 Someone needs to come up with 48-hour days. Or 14-day weeks. Or something along those lines. I would love to be living spans of time that stretch on and on and on, in which I do everything I want, taking all the time I need, savoring the luxury of it all. Yeah – I like to dream. Dreaming's fun. So sue me. The weather here today turned out to be beautiful in a way that just about gets me shaking me head as I walk about in it all. The Madrid sun comes up slowly, beginning a bit shy of 8 a.m., which is just fine with me. I sleep very nicely when it's dark out in the a.m. When I stepped out of the Metro station near the language school about ten minutes before 9 o'clock, the light had just begun to strengthen. The air, though cold, was soft on the skin, and a bit misty. When I returned to the barrio after classes, the light had become like something out of a Vermeer painting, almost as if the air had turned golden during the morning hours, except in the shadows of the narrow streets, and even there it was soft, quiet, contemplative. The sky hovered blue and cloudless above the city. In la Plaza de Chueca, just down the block from here, a few people stood out in front of the old corner taberna, Angel Sierra, holding a soda or a beer or a vermouth, talking quietly, all positioned in the wedge of sunlight that extended across the street from the plaza. The day warmed up enough that I found myself walking around with my jacket open, a preview of the way it gets here in February – days starting out cool, misty, then warming up into the upper 50s and 60s. I can live with this. (And am.) I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself re: classes/writing/everything else, and have pretty much decided to do what I mostly do: punt. Pay attention to my impulses, ‘cause they just don't seem to steer me wrong. The construction across the street didn't happen today, who knows why. There were no vehicles hanging about, no big machines. Just a big, open-faced, heavy-duty dumpster filled with earth, waiting to be loaded onto a truck and taken away. Late this afternoon, on my way into the building after going out to take care of an errand, someone in business clothes stood with a nicely-dressed couple, talking seriously about something. Could be the sales of future housing units has already begun, while the units are still barely more than a gleam in some architect's eyes. I'm feeling the need for a bit of a break from classes and may take next week off to see how it feels, maybe take a few tentative first steps in the next writing project I've been thinking about. I'm also finding that I really don't want to speak English during my days – I spend enough hours writing in English, between this journal, the internet, e-mail, blahblahblah. At some point, I may investigate volunteering some hours every week to a charitable or environmental institution, see how that goes. Or not, to all of the above. I'll go by my impulses and see where that takes me. In the meantime, there's schoolwork to do (more uses of the *!&@#*! subjuntive verb form), and there's life here to enjoy, a minute at a time. And speaking of impulses, I found myself sitting here yesterday afternoon, schoolwork in my lap, afternoon sunlight pouring in the living room windows, feeling tired, not content, unsure what I wanted to be doing. At ten minutes before 4, I found myself seized with the impulse to jump up out of the chair, throw on a jacket, and haul ass to a theater two Metro stops away to see Analyze That (called "Otra Terapía Peligrosa" here -- "Another Dangerous Therapy"). Not a film I'd had any interest in seeing before that impulse. It turned out that a stupid comedy was exactly what I needed. And it is stupid. I'm aware that the reviews for the film were pretty bad in the States, and maybe deservedly so. DeNiro and Billy Crystal, though, filled that theater with laughter. I found myself laughing out loud. At them. The rest of the film, well, er, hmm -- watch it (if you can muster the interest) for DeNiro and Crystal. And stay in your seats at the end – the outtakes are good, cheap, low-brow fun. (It also helped that admission to the theater turned out to be discounted on Wednesdays, costing a grand total of 4 euros.) DeNiro is a god, in the same way Lawrence Olivier was – appreciate him while he's here and cranking the films out. Right. Enough blabber. Be well. rws 4:11 PM [+]
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