Well, that was a strange, interesting few days. All the chickens involved in all that staying up late all came home to roost at the beginning of the week. Kind of. Meaning me experiencing something a teeny bit more than a cold and a teeny bit less than a flu-like thingy -- my own personal mash-up of various bugs that have been making sweet fun here with the changing of temperatures that November has brought to this part of the world. And by changing of temperatures, I mean the sudden appearance of genuinely cold nights, bringing the shock of walking out into air not quite so user-friendly in the mornings. (The downside of being treated so nicely by the weather gods and goddesses for so long: turning a bit soft, so that when seasonable conditions suddenly show up, they have the metaphoric power of the proverbial bucket of cold water. My response: indignant confusion.)
All of which is to say that what passes for my daily routine got diverted for a while and I found myself falling into bed whenever the urge to curl up and drift off took hold. Kind of a luxury, really.
I've been getting together a couple of times a week with a Spanish friend, S., to sit in a café and talk -- first in Spanish, then in English, then in a free-form blathering blend of the two. A classic intercambio, and fun. Have been learning a lot about this person, especially about her teen years when she was what she calls una niña repelente -- something like what used to be called a poindexter when I was suffering through my teenage years. Dressed spotlessly, in classically nerdy a.v. squad fashion. Timid, quiet, had few friends. A target for bullies. A rigid, unloving, controlling father dominating family life. In other words, one more adolescent version of hell.
(My own version of that: 7th, 8th and 9th grades -- from 12 to 15 years of age -- were a bona fide festival of misery. In general, the further away from them I've moved in time, the better life has become.)
I return home from those blab-sessions energized from the talk and the caffeine, my clothes and hair stinking of cigarette smoke. (Despite legislation enacted by the country's Socialist government banning smoking in public spaces like cafés and restaurants, la Presidenta de la Comunidad de Madrid has defied the law, framing it as a matter of individual rights, not health, and most places in Madrid remain unrestricted smokers' zones, as they always have been, many posting notices stating En este local se puede fumar [Smoking is permitted in this establishment]). Some Spanish friends tell me that all the consciousness raising re: smoking in recent years has had an effect, that the number of smokers they know is steadily diminishing -- that may be true, but I haven't seen much evidence of it recently.
And I have to say it mostly doesn't bother me much. The general energy is too much fun, smoke or no smoke.
[continued in next entry]
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Looking up from la Plaza de los Cubos, Madrid:
España, te quiero.
rws 8:29 AM [+]
Comments:
Realmente hace un frío de cojones, como diríamos bulgarmente. Pero se puede usar ese vocablo ya que salgo ayer, sábado, a las 12 del mediodía, cn un sol espatarrante, y se me congela, literalmente, la nariz! ni una mueca podía hacer...
Y claro, ante semejante frío, lo mejor es estar debajo del nórdico, esperando que las horas no pasen para disfrutar de un momento tranquilo (si tus vecinos te lo permiten) y olvidar la semana de madrugones que te pegas.
Pero ya mañana es lunes....
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Y claro, ante semejante frío, lo mejor es estar debajo del nórdico, esperando que las horas no pasen para disfrutar de un momento tranquilo (si tus vecinos te lo permiten) y olvidar la semana de madrugones que te pegas.
Pero ya mañana es lunes....
# posted
by 
: 1:56 PM
: 1:56 PM