Mark mentioned my blog had a sad nature. I don’t want to come across as a nostalgic person, so I will try to write differently. (Suddenly I had a strange feeling in my stomach). What should I write about? (Long wait trying to get some ideas). Brandon emailed from London missing New York. I will be traveling to Bolivia in a week. This is boring. I will write my wish list for the weekend: getting a massage, brush my hair, wake up late, have brunch with friends, buy a cool pair of shoes and other autumn/winter clothes, go to a street market, pet a dog, listen to the entire Magic Flute opera, pretend to read the newspaper and walk from the Upper West Side to Chinatown stopping just to eat a vanilla/chocolate cupcake.


Not so long ago I decided I will stay in New York. It was a big decision, especially since it took me 6 years to realize it and to buy a proper bed. For some people I know taking this decision is still unnecessary, as they think they can go back home as soon as they need to (which only helps to keep a peace of mind, but is never a real option).
The summer is almost over and our house already suffered its first transformation. Brandon and Pepe left the same day, Brandon to London and Pepe to his own house a few blocks away from mine. Laura will stay only for September, and Yolanda will come and join us for a couple of months. We can never get bored, but we always feel a little strange sadness when someone leaves.

Do you still miss me and think about me? Do you still consider staying by me? Do you consider me in your plans? Does it matters?
Sent at 10:03 PM
Time passes by, and will keep doing so regardless what we choose.
Sent at 10:05 PM
If we are not careful we will keep living in this transitory order, in which we decided to be but are not fully enjoying
Sent at 10:06 PM
I want to be with you, but I feel how time melts away, and the idea of being together one day is draining with it.
Sent at 10:12 PM on Thursday

I’m stuffing grapes into my mouth while I’m complaining as usual. Maria Jose sent me a text from Ronald Sukenick intended to shut up my whining and bear in mind that there will always be someone more miserable than you, or than me. At the end of the day life if hard, even for us with all our multiple options (or just the idea of having them, which I’m starting to believe that they are as the backdrop of a theater play, great landscapes but unreal). I’m getting my hand into the zip-lock bag to get the green grapes that are way below the red ones. I don’t like red grapes with seeds, although my mother says seeds are good for the skin.

I'm very tired and my arm is swollen. Today I got the Hepatitis A and B vaccines, and Mexico won a bronze medal for synchronized diving at the Olympics. As always it takes me a while to adjust after a trip.

Listening to "Three Days" by Jane's Addiction while Victor gets his haircut a few blocks away. The past week I attended the International Aids Conference in Mexico City, overwhelmed by the amount of seminars, plenaries, workshops and presentations. The one I enjoyed the most was titled "The Writer's Perspective", with some writers disclousure on being HIV positive, and their role as creators and artists to bring something else to the disease besides the scientific, activist or statistic approach. Giving "living with HIV" a sentiment, a reflexion, a condition along with the others that makes us human.

I have two more days left with Victor. We are having breakfast at La Selva, scambled eggs with ham and coffee. I can drink coffee now, the parania has disappeared after years of feeling allergic to caffeine.

Victor and I met Diego by chance while eating at a terrible coffee shop in La Condesa. His girlfriend left him with a broken heart a month ago because she met a Brazilian guy while translating manuscripts in India. We talked for hours about love, fate and decisions, and we walked to a Mezcaleria at Campeche Street to drink beer and Mezcal. Diego said that Mezcal heals the heart, so he had four shots. Arolinne and David -in their "it's complicated" relationship- joined us later while the boom box played "Melina". I love my friends. Victor is now sleeping while I'm writing still wet from the rain. Diego quit his job at the Mexican Federal Governmet Press and will be traveling to the Patagonia to piece himself back together. He will avoid Brazil; at least for now.

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.

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).