What brings a family together...

My family is not religious, nor am I. Yet, we take this wintery holiday as a good excuse, as many do, to gather, eat, drink, and remind ourselves that a family is a pretty nice thing to have.

Sisters

Change

I traded this...

for this?

Ah, Michigan!

time and crows

Flyby: Well, now that Guatemala seems like a misty, distant land/sensory experience, it feels very irrelevant to go into many details.

Guatemala to me, is cohetes and loud, snapping firecrackers at our feet, Jesus savior in all forms, slow choking almost-fall-off-the-cliff (despacio!!) smashed into all people around sleeping on an old woman's shoulder diesel fumes exploding colors and names dusty creeping soaring chicken buses, black beans in a can and dismal vegetables, antigua night dancing and after after after after parties, losing track losing things, armando's stories of war and plane crashes and su abuela and guatemalan food, new words food habits friends discoveries, chocobananas, moving through all altitudes, strain and comfort, matching history and text with now and flesh, endless mountains fallen trees rocky cliffs rivers puentes curvas bluest skies volcanes, tostadas, burning the devil, baked goods, goodbye guitar, roadside watermelons standing up, black and yellow corn drying on aluminum roofs, pigs roosters crazy cats.

Vuelo: Back in Mexico, I felt more at home than ever. We walked across the border, borders are such interesting, dynamic, mixing sharing evolving, loud places. In a few hours we were back in San Cristobal, blessed as we are, with a candle-lit home-cooked meal waiting for us. That night Raul and I went to an invitation-only Oaxacan party. I had no idea what to expect other than after a day of traveling and 2 weeks of wearing the same clothes, I wasn't really up for a fancy dinner party. And wow, we showed up to a hall of around 500 people, most of the women dressed in traditional Oaxacan dress, at least 5 bottles of liquor on each table, food, music, dancing, a celebration of the coming together of Oaxaquenos and Chiapenecos. We left at 11 and the party was only barely getting started.

Landing: Cancun is only a 3 hour flight away from Detroit, how how how. How can space and distance and surroundings be so easily erased, replaced. Well, either way, here I am in snowy Michigan, reminding myself that it's ok to throw toilet paper in the toilet and that people have to drive to stores to buy food. Oh dear.

Guatemala in small blocks

Flores: Our first stop, Flores is a small town on a small island inside a small lake. The streets are lined with tourist-catering businesses and restaurants, walls are plastered with advertisements for tours to Tikal, shuttle buses to anywhere in Guatemala, and cheap phone calls to the US and Europe. There is nowhere to buy vegetables except for a tiny, dusty store that has some sorry-looking tomatoes and a few bananas in wooden crates. For accomodations, because both cost 25 quetzales, we decide to go for the cheap hotel with a balcony over either of the backpacker hostals, though we do end up swinging by one of those for their 5 quetzal snack happy hour. Tiny 3-wheeled taxis zoom up and down the small main street, a bridge leads to Santa Elena but we never walk across it, our hotel attendant speaks in loud, high-pitched, slow Spanish and asks if we are from Spain or France. Only the ruins of Tikal keep us in this town for 2 nights.

Livingston: Second stop. This town is only reachable by boat, either a half hour by motor boat or and hour and a half by ferry. We take the ferry, grab some yucca as we wait for the boat to load and lurch across the water, and ride down the Rio Dulce just as sun sets. It's beautiful and to be near water again is as sweet as the cool breeze coming off of it. Livingston is a small fishing town composed of 4 different cultures, a tiny museum, a strip of touristy restaurants and hotels, and acres of jungle and communities that lead to the Caribbean Sea. We spent our time avoiding the "backpacker hostal" atmosphere of where we were staying (we just couldn't beat the 15 quetzal hammocks), eating fish and chocobananas, and staying out of the rain on those days when it just wouldn't stop coming down. Everyone is in the streets at night in Livingston, minus the tourists who are in bars or restaurants for most of the dark hours, and in some parts of the town where there isn't electricity, you can actually see the stars. The town is laidback, nothing really in the way of entertainment except for heaping bowls of tapado (fish, shrimp, coconut, banana soup) and the "cultural center," located behind the basketball court, that consists of a couple of crocodiles, a couple alligators and a few turtles in cement enclosures. Though one night we did get to see some Garifuna drumming and dancing while sipping on some Gallos. We spent an extra night here, hoping for the sun to show itself again. It did and we spent the day hiking for a few hours through much of Livingston, across a river, down the beach next to the Caribbean Sea, and through the forest until we reached Los 7 Altares, a series of waterfalls and pools. We climbed over stones and through thick, black mud until we got to a deeper pool where we jumped off the waterfall into green, deep, calm water.

We left Livingston on a hellish boat ride, which was supposed to be a pleasant trip down the Rio Dulce with some stops for walking or swimming. Instead, we had an hour's worth of cold rain whipping us in the face and running down our plastic protection onto our necks and legs.

Noticia

More: fotos are up, check the link to the side. We are in Livingston.

So, are we going to the jungle or what?

Are you happy now?: After many visits to archaelogical sites in Mexico, I had pretty much decided that I'd seen enough ruins and pyramids to last my lifetime. So when we arrived to Tikal, in the middle of the Peten jungle of northern Guatemala, and discovered that the price had risen from $6.50 USD to $20, I really wasn't too upset that I didn't have enough money to get in. Instead, I sat down with my book to wait for Abby and Johanna for the day and tried not to think in the wasted money spent on transport. But, as luck (as usual) would have it, after about 20 minutes a young European approached me, offering to sell his already purchased ticket as he was leaving the park. "Well, I'm sure I can get more for it, but it's no problem," he said and walked me to the entrance so that I was certain that the ticket was valid.

After paying him the only 50 quetzales I had to my name, I was confronted with a choice of 3 paths that led into the jungle, with no clear indicators of where I should head. Without thinking much, I took the one to the left and found myself walking for 40 minutes or more though pure, thick jungle without seeing another human being the entire time. All around me the jungle exploded with noises, tree branches falling, screaming monkeys, crying birds, and a constant chirrr, whirrr of insects above and below. The air was dark and damp, the path muddy and slippery and I stepped along contentedly, feeling quite safe despite being in such a wild place.

Eventually I came upon a partially restored, partially crumbling pyramid rising out of a moss-covered hill. I was completely alone, I felt, and in awe of these ancient stones. I know little about the actual history, so I let my imagination roam wild a bit and then continued on. Another 20 minutes of walking in solitude before I took a few turns and came across the main plaza, where the most prominent pyramids are. All of a sudden, people were on all sides of me, climbing up and down pyramids and stone structures, taking pictures wildly, laughing and shouting in a variety of languages, children skipped around and older folks rested on wooden benches- it appeared to me as a playground, a big, archaelogical playground, although they probably don't sell beer at many playgrounds, and at this one they do. It was a little disorienting after being by myself most of the morning, so I found myself trying to step politely away when an entire family ascended the structure I was one, and rather than ask anyone to take my picture, I instead got very aquainted with my camera timer (I'm quite good at it now).

By the time I found Johanna and Abby sitting on the top of one of the temples, though, I was ready for company. We did some exploring in the Mundo Perdido, found the Bat Palace and were looking around in the main plaza again before the entire sky tore itself open and a torrential rain forced us to go running through the jungle. For 15 minutes, we ran as the paths quickly converted into muddy, rushing streams of waters and as great puddles welled up in front of us. The trees did little to protect us and the mud made going too fast a precarious situation. Just as we arrived to the van, the jungle rain dissipated and the sun returned. Typical- we all knew that tropical rains are intense and brief, but perhaps subconsciously we all needed a run through warm rain.

After returning to Flores, a dark, creamy, delicious Moza beer was perfect. The darkest beer we've had in awhile, and worth every quetzal.

Haze and water

Squint: Finally we made it to Guatemala, one long, dark night of driving and flat tire later. As hard as I tried I couldn't fulfill my duties as the driverside passenger, though I did try feebly to make small talk with Vladimir for a short while before the mountain curves and the darkness lulled me to sleep like a baby. We slept on the border and in the morning boarded a small, wooden boat across the Usumacinta River. At the top of the muddy stone stairs awaiting us on the other side, we jumped right on a bus, made a quick and painless stop at immigration, and we were off on a long, bumpy, dirt road for many hours before reaching the island of Flores. Along the way the streets are filled with chickens and pigs and children who rush to the ends of paths to watch the bus go past. The land is green but the signs of destructive deforestation are all around us- mainly in freshly burnt palm remnants, rows of freshly planted corn, and acres upon acres of cattle farms. Guatemala is also filled with fog, rising up from lakes and valleys, covering the road at times and at others, the sky. Figuring out how much Quetzales are actually worth is making our brains ache and the amount of English on walls and stores is confusing. Maybe for the first time in a few months I feel that I am somewhere very unfamiliar.

Kitchens

Dull knives: My favorite theme of San Cristobal so far has been dinners. It started with having our very own kitchen to play in, proceeded with the opportunity to cook in Raul's kitchen, and has continued with invitations. In Raul's kitchen, we met some writers from Seattle who invited us to their kitchen for an anti-imperialist Thanksgiving dinner. We showed up with wine and sweet bread and were amazed at the beauty and extravagance of their home, sitting on a hill like a little castle, complete with amazing views of the city and stars. The night wound on with warm wine, a feast of Mexican, cuban and manynation-inspired foods, english and spanish balancing each conversation. In that kitchen Raul ran into an old friend, hence our next invitation. But, with a free night between dinner party invites, what else to do but to cook an amazing dinner in a comfortable kitchen. We now rely on Raul to make the guacamole.

Universal: Maybe a milestone in my Spanish, translating Patsy Cline songs for Raul so he could understand Abby and I's distraught faces and us clutching at our hearts, and somehow I could communicate at least a bit of the sorrow and sentiment.

Gracias a la vida...

Guajalote: A short colectivo ride took us much farther from the city than it appeared. We stuck our fingers deep into fluffy, black soil, the earth, and plucked small hierbas from the places where they were not wanted. This was how we spent our morning, by volunteering in an organic garden outside of San Cristobal, where we weeded marigold and pea patches (Pea plant leaves are so very soft), planting little onions, and spending an hour and a half cleaning soil by grabbing clumps and pulling slimy pink earth worms out. At one point, the garden owner showed up and told us about their fermenting fertilizer project. "Super mugra" or "shit tea", as they called it, consists of lots of fresh cow manure, milk, sugar, and trace minerals that are necessary for the soil but very difficult to obtain in organic form. Thanks to this recipe, invented by a Brazilian farmer, after a few months the farm will have enough to last all year.

Between our tasks, we sat and conversed with the garden attendants, Esteban and Salvador. We talked about what foods grow in Michigan, how the weather is, how much people are paid there and how much is the rent, the wall being built on the border between Mexico and the U.S., different types of life and work. We all decided that work is good.

Because God is great, our playing in the dirt and sitting around in a garden was rewarded with a complimentary feast. The garden belongs to a fancy vegetarian, mostly organic, restaurant in downtown San Cris, and for a few hours of work we were able to enjoy a grand buffet. With dirt under our fingernails and down our necks, we ate and thanked the universe for it.

Mira: Here are some of my pictures, updated as can be: http://picasaweb.google.com/andreanvogler

Sun spots, light gaps

Shine on: Luck in her many forms has followed us to San Cristobal. Of course, we've already found that free places to stay are easy to come by (over 2 months and haven't paid for a bed yet), especially when it comes to floor space and cramped couches, but now we're staying in a glowing, sunny hotel room smack in the downtown of San Cris. Our (own!) kitchen is constant entertainment for us, first thing we did was stock up the refrigerator and invest in some cooking oil. The feeling of having one's own place is a beautiful one. We invite friends over for dinner, keep our toothbrushes on the sink (rather than in our backpacks), kick off our shoes wherever we want, move around freely in space that, though only very briefly and tentatively, we can call our own. Eternal thanks for this.

Disco ball: Dancing the pasito duranguese is harder than I remember. Kick up your heels and jump, should be easy right? Well, perhaps the bright, flashing lights and smoke were distracting but really I was also nervous and inexperienced. Salsa is feeling more comfortable to me, banda is still pretty new territory but right now I feel that I have a good reason to learn.

Sorpresa: We were able to find and wander through the forest twice already this week. Fresh air and green are still always surprises to me here after spending so much time in cities, despite the fact that even the cities are still not exactly like the cities I know back in the states. Oaks, pines, utterly tall trees that stretch through the remnants of a cloud forest, trees that are not cut into funny shapes, trees that carry entire ecosystems in their lofty branches, trees that deny the presence of picnickers and the military, all of these we walk beneath. There is constant discovery in twisted trunks and cave formations. There is constant beauty in fresh fruit, friendship, and laying on the ground watching the sky. What happened years ago feels like yesterday, what happens today feels like forever. Time moves like the clouds sometimes, wispy and rushing past, and other times like the sway of treetops, slow and steady.

Mujer afortunada

Ojos: These past several months I have had a nice bit of fortune to have been able to re-meet folks that I haven't seen for several months or nearly years. Almost awkward laughs, what counts as small talk, dredging up or releasing memories, hugs, laughs no longer nervous or strained. There's almost a routine because we make it up in our minds that time changes things. But, eyes, eyes never change.

Yet, sometimes they do reveal new things- Alfredo says I have los ojos de una mezcalera.

Bocas: The 3 things I most associate with Oaxaca: Chocolate, Mole, and Leo's laugh. All of which I already miss.

Manos: Our last afternoon in Oaxaca and Leo drives us out to the Presas, just outside of the city. It's called the dams, but there are no dams. Leo calls it the laguna or lagito (little lake) but it is more like a rapidly moving river, hurried along by constant gusts of wind. Leo asks if I've ever had my palm read, and I haven't. He takes a pen, begins marking mi linea del destino, mi linea de la vida, mi linea de inteligencia, mi linea de suerte. Tengo mucha suerte y mucho valor. Thus, I will travel a lot, seek adventure, meet good people everywhere I go. I realize I am in my future already but that time is hard to tell on the palm of one's hand anyhow. He also told me something that few, if any people, in my life have ever told me (hence I find it a little difficult to believe at this point)- that I have las manos de artista. Artist's hands. Well, I suppose I should start developing skill then if the talent is lying already in my hands, waiting for something to pull it to the surface. Leo is an artist, too. Leo and I have similar hands yet very different lives. Our hands are covered in lines that fill our minds with possibilities of what may have happened already and what will surely happen now. We become less certain of the past and more certain of the future. Leo laughs and assures us that he will only tell us the nice things.

Muchos leones

Tiempo tormentoso: Every Oaxaqueño that I've met so far talks about Oaxaca in terms of how things were before what happened last year and how things are now. Time is now split here in this way, a split that cuts deep into the hearts of the people of Oaxaca. Depending on the person, they name the events of last summer and fall as "los problemas que tuvimos", the problems we had, "el conflicto," "la guerrilla," the little war. Some people don't like to talk about and others do. And when they do, usually the topic comes about indirectly but with questions the person will open up and describe where they were, how the streets looked, their emotions and thoughts about the events, the consequences or the government. Everyone asks if we heard about it in the states and how. The streets appear tranquil here but people confide in me that organizing is still going on, that right now the resistance is resting, taking its time. Others are grateful for the tranquility and for being able to again work and leave their homes at night, though most Oaxaqueños that I've talked with still are nervous about being in the streets too late at night, mostly because of the memories and for not any actual, direct threat. Yet people remind me that if a police officer assumes you are part of the APPO or a sympathesizer that it could lead to problems, and they also mention that there are many more police in Oaxaca than before the events of last year happened. The memories and the present relating to the political situation are like a conversation that everyone is having in private, in hushed voices, behind closed doors, never knowing who to trust or with what information. The local government works hard to cover up political art work and spray painted slogans as soon as they appear on walls and doors, they strain themselves to clean up this city for tourists and language students. Certainly, everyone wants Oaxaca to be safe for all, but the type of calm in the air right now doesn't signify safety to me, but more like the calm before a storm, one that is quietly brewing under our feet and behind cement walls. Oaxaca, te llevo en mi corazón.

Suerte: However my improvement in luck coincided with my Abigail returning to Oaxaca, I am happy about it. Through a series of lucky accidents and coincidences, we were able to have our own room, free of charge, in a 5 (no less) star hotel, complete with swimming pool and endless breakfast buffet. People treated us not as backpackers or hippies but as important dignitaries, no matter that we ran around in our barefeet and didn't bother combing our hair before breakfast (we were just going to jump in the pool anyhow). And not only all of this, but we ended up making new friends, mostly musicians from el DF, and having a great night of playing music, singing and conversation. At times I found myself thinking, "I do NOT belong here," but then I would remember the incidents that led to that moment, and they clearly indicated otherwise.

Que onda: Last night I got to meet one of the organizers of a network of community radio stations in Oaxaca and over coffee, we discussed the state of community radio in Oaxaca. He told me that Oaxaca has the most community radios of any state in Mexico, but that after the events of last year more and more radios are facing repression and closings on the part of the government, with extra pressure put on by Televisa, the media giant who already controls 68% of radios in Mexico. He mentioned that one thing he thought particularly scared the government and CEOs was when the women's movement took over some radio stations in Oaxaca and, with the help of university students, even elderly women learned how to broadcast in a matter of hours. He said that event in itself destroyed the myth that radio is expensive, complicated and better left to the media corporations. Knowing that people can truly take the media into their own hands, communicate their own stories and news based on their own needs, is inspiring to me- and dangerous to others, but especially to those in power. The spirit of the people of Oaxaca continually amazes me.

Que bonito es volar: Aprendimos a bailar, bailando juntos. Que lindo. We've also met several folks from the states and more musicians from Oaxaca, mostly trovalistas. Folk singers and they mostly sing Cuban songs or other popular Latin American folk songs and are buena gente all around. We have incredible luck in meeting people, generous people who expect nothing in return, talented people who share their skills, interesting people that share their stories and ideas. It's nice knowing so many wonderful people in this world exist. I will surely miss Oaxaca but hopefully will return on my way back up through Mexico. Tomorrow night we are hopping on a night bus to San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, leaving us with one more night of trova in Oaxaca.

Mezcalando

Biznaga: Sometimes I look around at the other travelers, swirling around me in comfortable walking shoes and sun-blocking hats, guidebooks and cameras in hand, a supportive backpack on their backs, their eyes anywhere but where their feet are falling, and I try to imagine myself traveling like this young couple or that lone elderly woman. It's quite difficult. Once I did travel hostel by hostel, utilizing a guide book to locate museums or parks on a little map that I would later tear out and stash in my pocket, filling my days with activities and photographic opportunities. This trip has been very different and now I can't imagine traveling in any other way. We set out to arrive in a city, find folks on couchsurfing or Hospitality Club, and after a series of emails and phone calls, we seek out a perfect stranger's home for our free housing. For food, rather than even bother to seek out cheap cafes or restaurants, we instead head to the local market and buy fruits, vegetables and tortillas, or even more simply, a tamal or a quesadilla (or a tlayuda, in oaxaca). For filling up our time, we make friends with our hosts and their friends, wander around and meet strangers in the street, or look for the cheapest live music venues we can. Also, our talks about the Bee posters connect us with folks in almost every city we visit. I suppose speaking the language helps some but I can't help but wonder why more folks don't travel this way. It's far less stressful (except for perhaps with the lodging), at least for me, especially in terms of not having expectations for how the day will go and only expecting that good things will come of setting out each morning and relying on instinct and the knowledge that each day is a new day. On this trip each day has not only been just a new day but often a new adventure in itself, a new life, or a new way to see the world. Is it as easy to be transformed by traveling without having this sort of freedom? How do other people find ways to truly connect with the lands through which they pass? And with the people they meet? These questions run through my mind but then I realize, to each their own. I prefer to move along at the speed of the energy around me with patience and curiosity and asi ando de maravilla.

Mapa: Oaxaca has been an interestingly difficult city to navigate for all of us, though its relatively small size should be simple. Yet, it has been incredibly easy to find things we are looking for in another sense, such as a spontaneous desire for a certain taste or a warm bed to sleep in. I feel very comfortable here in that sense because I can move around knowing that I ultimately don't have much to worry about. I suppose I should have this feeling in all places I am in but sometimes I don't and here I do, and it feels nice.

Preguntas: People keep asking me what things I've seen in Oaxaca or done. Nope, in my week in a half I haven't visited a single museum or lugar turístico, other than Monte Alban. Then they ask, well what do you do each day? Although they don't say it, they implicitly also ask, "What's the point of traveling if you won't spend money or take pictures?" So, what have I been doing? Well, I've been to the market enough time to know exactly where to go for either a tamal, a pair of pants, or a piece of sweet bread. I've met Oaxaqueños from many different walks of life and had good talks over beer or coffee or a home cooked meal. We did 2 pláticas about the Bee posters with, mostly, folks from the states who are here volunteering with various projects. We've seen an amazing guitarist whose laugh and smile could change anyone's life. One of our friends, whom we met while traveling, was brought on stage en La Nueva Babel to sing some of his own songs and the intercambio in that cafe will always be a bright memory of this trip. Mole and chocolate in themselves have been worth waking up in the morning for. Pleasant surprises meet us at every corner and even unpleasant surprises just push us towards other things we could not have expected but end up fine or good or wonderful in the end. I spent two days just moving around between visits to the organic market where I saw almost every person I've met in Oaxaca so far, worth it for both the food and also for the women who makes the tostadas there who asks every woman who approaches her, Que te doy, mi reina. What can I give you, my queen. My, the people in Oaxaca are some of the nicest I've met.

Oaxcolores

Casa: In less than a week in Oaxaca, I've traveled with 3 different combinations of friends, bought dinner in 3 different markets and stayed in 3 different homes. One with a hammock, one with a creepy labyrinth, and tonight's lodging has a beautiful garden smack in the middle of it, causing no interruption. Climbed some pyramids a couple days ago but mostly I have recollections of sweet breezes and tall grass, no pictures. The walls are covered with art and political spray paint, mostly about the APPO.

Sur, Sure

Giros: South again. Out the bus window the agave plants are like dandelions covering the emerging green hills, which also carry shadows of the clouds overhead. The land is yellow and green and brown, looking very dry. We are leaving a small farm in Puebla, where I passed a day mopping, washing dishes, weeding a radish patch, and preparing several baskets of lettuce seed. The farm is in the valley of Puebla, a volcano in each corner, all of which, if not active, are awake. Popocatepetl, a rumbling and powerful giant, Iztaccíhuatl, his sleeping partner, el Malinche, and finally, el Pico de Orizaba, the largest volcano in all of Mexico, whose snowy peak appeared between wispy clouds. They say the land here has a powerful energy and I was only there for a day and a half but I did observe that I continuously dropped things and my mind was a little cloudy.

Our bus continues to round bends and ascend and descend. The ground is grey now, someone is on the side of the road looking out over a cavity in the earth. Cactus stand on the mountains like porcupine quills. Fallen rocks and unsteady mountains sides are out either window, the beauty and immenseness of the south is coming back to me.

A few nights ago we waited on the side of a highway for a woman named Kumara, one of the farm's owners. She picked us up and drove us in the dark to her little "paraiso," as she called it. We bumped along on a dirt road past truck after truck after truck piled high with flowers that are the essence of fuschia and gold. They are the flowers for the ofrendas, the altars to the dead, that are in every home and on the streets, in universities and restaurants, because in these days the dead will be coming back to celebrate with the living. Celebrations are taking place all over the country and these flowers are being rapidly cut, piled in the backs of pick up trucks and transported all over the Republica. Not only for ofrendas, people also scatter them in crosses and other designs with a path that leads the dead right to their front door. The sight is beautiful and the air sweetly fragrant.

The next night we bumped along again in the dark, this time 11 of us were piled into a small, wooden wagon pulled by a small but hardworking horse. We arrive to a pueblo nearby, several boys in the town are blocking off different streets with string, stopping cars to ask for pesos, not candy.

When the sun sets, the clouds look like they are made out of smoke, the pink haze cast by the sun is made purplish by the remaining clear blue of the sky, shadows multiply and distort the landscape and when the sun finally drops past the horizon, I miss it.

Sabor: Now we are in Oaxaca, surrounded by mountains and full of colorful and vibrating energy. This morning I laid in a hammock at our host's house and the smells of chocolate, garlic and chiles, repeatedly washed over me, covered me, so strongly that I felt as if I were in a kitchen watching an experienced woman make mole. Occasionally a cool breezes carried the smells away but each time they returned stronger than before. Later, our host's roommate tells us that their neighbor's mother promised them mole this afternoon. Even the air in Oaxaca can be tasted.

Hielo

Blanco: This cold is bitter, not biting, but uncomfortable and distracting. Today the sun wasn't able to penetrate the thick, white cover of clouds and we shivered, bought warm food and coffee, hid in back corners of book stores, trying to find, conserve, sense some sort of heat. In a country where no one has heaters in their homes or businesses, I almost thought we had no where to go. But, when we arrived to our host, Erick,'s house, with dinner and some card playing, my blood started to circulate again.

Cement blocks: We gave another Beehive presentation on Saturday in Mexico City at the Centro Social Libertario de Ricardo Flores Magon, an activist space a little west of DF's center. We were nervous and all the more so when they started pulling out slide projectors and microphones, but my hastily written index cards helped a lot. Most of our nerves dissipated when we were able to make the small crowd (20 or so?) laugh and I didn't find myself thinking too hard about my Spanish. At the end, people made comments and asked us questions for another half hour. It was another bit of refreshment seeing people throw around ideas, personal stories, half thoughts and profound concepts that the graphics provoked in them. And as we cleaned up, we were bombarded by folks wanting the web page, an email, to give us emails and contacts for groups who might want posters, etc. We left after many hugs and high fives.

Hechos: Thinking we would be 6, we moved to a different host's home on a different end of the city. Erick works for the government, something with the economy, but so far whenever I've seen him he's been listening to loud Polish and Czech music, or watching music videos of the same. His humor is odd but Amolia and I keep being pleasantly surprised at the number of folks we've been meeting who share an affinity for Poland. Our former host taught us a few words and yesterday Erick taught us a few more. Sajam, Dobra, Gupy, those are a few.

Movimiento

Leaving, but when good byes aren't necessary: I spent a few more days in Querétaro after returning from Yucatan. I relaxed and prepared for our swoop south. We had a small discussion about the Plan Colombia poster at a cafe called La Biznaga, which overall went well despite a lack of preparation and the poca gente. Pero bueno, asi es. Regardless, we got cafe de olla, gratis, and a few new contacts to add to the list. Renato and I celebrated my last night in QRO with a caguama of Leon, some cookies, and the Cure- just what I needed, or what we both needed, I suppose. Leaving Qro, like Guanajuato, was slow moving but without consequence, and we arrived to the monstruo of DF, Mexico City, Wednesday night. Higher altitude, constant motion, tanta gente. Jumping on the Metro, I remember New York and can't help but compare.

Current: We stayed our first night with a friend of a friend, Tomás, and his giant cat, Pachi. I finally was able to make a call to the US and it was worth every peso. Voices are distant and sound different but in the end, we find familiarity.

We moved the next day to a couchsurfer's home, near Coyocan. Rodrigo treats us very well and even lets us have his bed, a soft, warm, can't get out of it in the morning bed. Nice. We spent the day at the university, la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). DF and the UNAM are like a breath of fresh air after coming from the cerrada-ness of Querétaro and Guanajuato. Spaces for dialogue and critical analysis and action exist and I watched intently the swirl of people and objects at this historical leftist institution. Young intellectuals meander among blankets covered with pirated dvds and cds for sale, grey haired professors order Puma burgers con papas in the cafe, a sort of bake sale run by the EZLN is just inside the Facultad de Filosofia, and movies, theatre performances, concerts, platicas, seminars, trips, are advertised on flyers that are plastered on all bulletin boards and walls. We roll out the Beehive posters and people are interested, they stop and chat with us for a while, they pass us emails, and invitations to clases and plantones, anarquista newspapers, and the names of artists or organizations or people we should know of or meet. They talk to us more as activists, than as extranjeras or turistas, which feels good. I want to jump into the corriente, to study and be active in a place where things are moving, changing, erupting por todos lados.

Pantanos, aprendizaje y profundidad: Hogares y homes

Michigan: Today is it very frigid in Queretaro. Yesterday the heat exhausted me and today the cold is making my fingers very resistent to typing this right now. Reminds me of Michigan. Just like the clay pumpkins being sold on the sidewalk or realizing that the trees will only fade slightly as the dry season sets in but will never blaze aflame as in Michigan this time of year. Sometimes I think I would like to go home sooner than later but then I remember that bitter snow and think otherwise. Luckily, I think I may have found a job that I would love to have in the south of Ecuador. Still, Michigan remains my home.

Guanajuato: To really live in a place, you have to experience it at its greatest depths and in turn, experience your very self at your own depths. It involves love and suffering and all of the sentiment and pensamientos in between. You slide from one extreme to the other, until you realize that there is really not too much difference between the two or even between the middle-area shades. A few years ago I stayed in Guanajuato for a month, but it wasn’t until recently that I really felt that I had lived there. Nestled in that pueblo, which is nestled among hills and colored cement, is a community, a family, which I had the great pleasure of joining, albeit only for a week. Once I had a great learning experience related to the concept of perspective that is especially apt for cases such as Guanajuato and the community that I am writing of. For instance, to middle aged extranjeros who are studying at Escuela Mexicana and staying in Casa Mexicana, who pass Bar Fly daily in their comings and goings from school and cafes and home, probably perceive it as nothing more than a bohemian bar, which, in all honesty, it is. Still, perhaps what they note most is the reggae music, the scruffy youth drinking on the balconies at noon, the artists and musicians who roam to and fro. Fresas don’t even consider the place, I imagine. When I first came to Guanajuato almost 3 years ago, I thought: Wow, this bar plays Sublime?! It’s a great find for young kids, for sure, but I was also slightly repelled by the debauchery that took place there and sometimes felt a bit out of place.

But now, I have a unique insight into this bar, which is granted to the aforementioned family and their friends. This is due to the fact that the bar keep graciously offered us hospedaje for a week after we showed up with all of our belongings one night with no place else to go. A couple of the nights we slept in the room of one of the bartenders, but the others, right there mero in the bar. As our luck would have it, during the Cervantino festival the bar didn’t close until 4 am. This really meant 5 am (after convincing people that the music had, indeed, stopped). This really meant 6 am (after counting the money, putting down the beds, kicking the very last kids out). We made friends with a few of the bartenders, the others dealt with us politely or curiously but in the end we got to know them all. The dynamics of the group are interesting. Most of the workers are from Guanajuato and most of the regulars are foreigners. Transience permeates the atmosphere and makes every encounter all the more intense.

Some days we only wandered between the bar and the café, less than a block away, where regulars and bar and café employees mix and eat and smoke for hours. Other days we walked a few more blocks, but never leaving the sphere of the Bar Fly-Santo-Casa Tomada community. I thank all the folks there with all of my heart, especially Yaros for that pinche smile, Uriel for his awkwardness and understanding, Leo for his pats on the back, Galo simply for his presence (Te lo dije!!), and the rest for their smiles, energy, and welcoming spirits. What depths we all fell to and rose from and flung ourselves back to, what a home.

In Guanajuato we also saw a beautiful theatre performance at a collective artist’s space, called La Casa Tomada. Dancing and theatrics and video screens flowed together like icebergs, jagged yet fluid.

Leaving Guanajuato, we took what must have been the slowest city bus in history. It moved even slower than history and the entire city of Guanajuato scraped and dragged over us. It felt like hours, a lifetime, an eternity and I must have thought a million times about jumping off the bus but realized that then I would just be suspended in that eternal gravitating force that surrounds Guanajuato. A sad voice and guitar are on the bus, they are singing, “hay que saber perder.” I put on my sunglasses and bite my lip.

Querétaro: After the intensity of Guanajuato, Queretaro was like returning to the womb. Renato met us at the Central, carried our things, asked us how we were. Such simple encounters can mean so much. He took us home, his mother, as always, fed us and took care of Abigail when she got sick. Queretaro is a home where I may not fall into black holes, but where my laundry is washed and folded and where we drink chocolate milk in the morning with our fruit and honey and where we watch television and listen to music on lazy Sunday mornings. Sometimes you can’t go home, and sometimes you can.

Mérida: I am always grateful for experiences that I could not have otherwise had without knowing certain folks or by being in the right space at the right time. Renato submitted a short story to a literature conference for university students taking place in Merida, Yucatan and was accepted. He invited me to come along and, Merida being one of my favorite cities, of course I jumped at the chance. Though I almost got kicked off the bus in the beginning (they thought there wasn’t enough space), everything turned out fine.

We traveled hugging the Gulf of Mexico, only stopping for gas and bathroom breaks and once to eat lunch. At some point I woke up while we were somwhere in the middle of Mexico, a place without names or purpose to me. I had been dreaming and I woke to an eerie and dreamlike landscape, an ocean of fog. The land rushed by in silence, past palapas that sell fried chicken and fish, palapas that sell coca cola and cigarettes, palapas that sell internet and copies, palapas where clothes hang to dry and babies sleep and machetes are sharpened before dawn. I think we were in Tabasco, a long, sticky, salty state, where marshes met us on either side of the road, only interupted by graceful snow-white birds with long necks and aluminum-sided shacks. Sometimes the land disappeared entirely beneath the fog. 24 hours in the bus from Queretaro to Merida. People kept repeating that- 24 horas- and it didn’t really hit me until I was violently ill for 12 hours on the way there. But, as soon as we hit Merida, la verdadera cura, I felt completely fine. Que raro.

In Merida, we went to as little of the conference as necessary to free up plenty of time for the beach and cenotes and wandering around the city. Most folks from Central Mexico rarely get the chance to travel so far south and took advantage of the opportunity (and also to make plenty of jokes about Yucatecans, mostly regarding the size of their heads). Puerto Progreso isn’t the most tranquil or clean beach (it is a shipping port, after all), but wading out into the Gulf, a crystalline green with a clear blue sky over head, salt water and warm breezes, felt perfect. We were able to get to the beach twice. Another day, as soon as Renato finished reading his story, we took off for a nearby cenote. Cenotes are little fresh water holes that are all over, above and under ground, in Yucatan. We went to one that was in an arqueological zone, where they let me enter for free even after they noticed that my Mexico student id was no longer vigente. There was no way of knowing how deep the cenote was but some stones around the edge allowed us to rest a little in the water. The water was deep green, without depth, covered half way by lily pads, and the water was fresh and cool.

During the night, after the intense heat of day had let up some, we walked around the city. One night we watched Yucatecan dance and trova in the Parque Santa Lucia, a beautiful display of tradition and Yucatecan culture. I didn’t get my hamaca, but I’m sure I’ll be back. Ah, Merida, I would love to make you my home.

Abejas en Guanajuato

Date: Sábado, el 6 de Octubre, a las 11:00 de la mañana
Location: el Restaurant Hotel de los Ángeles
Calle Cantarranas 22, junto al Teatro Principal
Guanajuato, GTO
Graphic: Plan Colombia
Presentation: Pre-planned and promoted with posters and word of mouth
Length: 1.5 hours
Attendance: 11 (us + 7) mexicanos, frances, estadounidences

Style – round table discussion in english and spanish

Discussion – role that religion plays in conflict and resolution. maintaining the conflict: neither side wants the conflict to end because the governemnt, paramilitaries, and guerrila groups alike benefit from both the conflict and the cocaine production, both of these bringing in foreign currency.

---Gracias a abeja citlalpilli----

Our first Bees event in Guanajuato went well overall, considering our energy level and the time of day (Saturday morning in a party town?). The discussion ranged from minute detail to concepts that almost hurt the brain to consider. People have many ideas and unique ways of expressing themselves and in this way we are learning from each other. People love the art of the bees and everytime they ask if we are the artists, I really wish that we were. Although at the same time, it is nice to be able to share the work with others and in a way, we are all the artists. The hostal where we presented treated us well, filling us up with coffee and bread and jam before our presentation. The chef, ever with a cigarillo in her mouth, continually patted us on the backs and asked if there was anything else we needed. All in all, it left me energized and happy about this project. Our next cita is in Queretaro in a week.

La muerte

Voz: Through luck and friends, I was able to attend a Cervantino event. Every night at 8pm, outside of El Alhondiga (throughout history a grainery, a fort, a jail, and now a museum), the entertainment alternates between music, theatre and dance. In the bleachers, the entrance is free but fills up, depending on the event, between an hour or several hours before 8. On the ground, people with tickets or press passes can sit or stand, como gusten. And well, it helps to be friends with the employees of a bar for many reasons, I suppose, and in this case it was that we got free tickets to see Oscar Chavez, a great Mexican folk singer who sings of love and (mostly) leftist politics. A huapango band opened the show, singing powerful stories about the sierra and, of course, also about love. The guitarist and bassist were mellow and the singer, a grand story teller. The violinists were frantic, moving the feet of a woman who stamped and kicked to the music causing the pink and green and yellow of her skirt to swirl madly around her. The songs that talked about the uselessness of the government recieved wild applause and shouting, and one song was especially moving because it talked about the repressiveness of the Mexican government, referring both the the student massacre in Mexico City and the harsh repression that occurred in Oaxaca last summer. The song was sad and my friends shouted, "Oaxaca no se olvide!!" Oaxaca will not be forgotten. No one was bothered by the rain at all, especially when Oscar Chavez came on stage.

Oscar Chavez sat very distinguished, his deep voice flowed without effort, and he gave each song a uniqueness that could only come from a voice like his. Songs ranged from slow and somber, like La llorona (the weeping woman), to a homeage to Comandante Che Guevara (the anniversary of his death being so close), to Macondo, a quick and lively song that we tried to dance to despite the small piece of cement we were standing on. Oscar Chavez also sang about politics and government, something he's known for, especially his leftist leanings and condeming indictments of government and politicians. Later, the opening band joined Oscar Chavez for more huapango. The best part was the last song, when Oscar Chavez and the other band sang verses back and forth to each other about each other's musical abilities, in a friendly competition that ended in Oscar Chavez comparing the other band to the momias of Guanajuato.

But the end of the show was probably my favorite. The woman who had danced and sang in the beginning returned, this time with the mask of death on her face, a bright pink scarf tied around her head, a large sickle and a basket. She passed papers back and forth between Oscar Chavez and the singer of the other band, which told of the deaths of (mostly) the various politicians and political institutions of Mexico. The current president, Felipe Calderon, clearly was targeted and the crowd roared. Vicente Fox and Martita (as Mexicans call his spouse) received harsh treatment even from death herself. Corporate media, the governor of Guanajuato and even Oscar Chavez all recieved their summons. The mix of politics, hilarity and death is something that I doubt would take place in the United States. But here, death is laughing and mocking us and we are laughing and dancing with her. Octavio Paz talks about this as Mexico's way of avoiding serious contemplation of death, that by eating sugar coated skeletons and skulls and dancing on graves, they close themselves off to death and therefore to life. This is similar to the way in which in the United States, he says, people often behave as if death doesn't exist. Mexicans bring death, in all her colorful glory, into their lives, but never close enough to see it as more than a dance partner, a lover, or a friend. By mocking death, Mexicans are really mocking their own lives, Paz claims, and this leads to a pessimistic view of life that permeates throughout Mexican life. It's hard to say at what depths Paz is right or not, but his view is interesting, as is the different ways in which people celebrate, abhor, or ignore death.

Gotas de alegria

Juerga: Paz is now saying that the Mexicans' fascination and dedication to parties and celebration of every occasion also finds its origin in their closed nature. That, in parties, Mexicans allow themselves to open up in deliriously loud and colorful ways, pushing their stomachs, their voices, their emotions to their absolute limits and then some. The result is nothing like the "weekend" or the "cocktail parties" that we have in the states, but rather a grand manifestation of food, music, color, alcohol, screaming, dancing, crying, fighting, death and rebirth. He says, sure, accidents and harm do happen, tearful confessions interrupt friendly conversation, friends become brothers and enemies in a matter of hours, but that this is the way of the Mexican party. Such a release of the energy and emotion which is otherwise bottled up most of the time shoots into the sky like cohetes, fireworks, and explodes downward in a fury of color and sound.

Lluvia: I also was thinking about another of Paz's ideas from earlier in the book, relating to how Mexicans accept their surroundings with little motivation to change them or make their own place within them. He says this is why other countries create and Mexico does not. Natural phenomena shapes the life of Mexicans, while in the U.S. people shape the world around them in their image, to make it their own vision of what life is. This subtle, yet fundamental, difference between Mexico and other countries, to Paz, forms the base of Mexico's social and political institutions, the economy, and so many other facets of Mexican society.

Abby and I were discussing this between bouts of spanish study and remembered how we both noticed that when the sky turned dark and opened up to release large, fast-falling drops, the only folks still attempting to go about their business were tourists. Mexicans, rather, will simply duck under an awning or into a building and wait out the rain. Tourists have their raincoat on and umbrella out without missing a step. It seemed, to me, to affirm Paz's statements, though surely in only a superficial way.

Pulular

Gente: The Cervantino is Guanajuato´s annual, several-week long arts festival that takes place every October. The festival officially began yesterday and now the city is bubbling with tourists, artists, musicians, journalists, police, and us. Events range from pricey ballets to spontaneous street movement to bars out-drink-specialing eachother in ridiculous ways. Video cameras and VIP pass-wearers stand out all over the city, preparing for the intensity of the complete immersion of the festival. Even though I lack the resources to attend most of the "official" events, it´s still a good time to be in the city.

Abejas: We´ve been working, busy as bees, on the Beehive project. Showing the posters to people and talking about them is moving along well. We´ve got some presentations lined up and we meet new people every day who are interested in what we´re doing. When Amolia took a flyer to a popular bar for young travelers, the owner promptly took one, left, and returned a few minutes later with 20 copies of the flyer at twice the size. A good sign. Our first real presentation (maybe even with a projector!) will be this Saturday morning and will be our testing event to practice our presenting and guiding of discussion. It will be a step up from just throwing the posters down on the UAC campus (in Querétaro) and waiting for people to come by and talk to us, which also was fun and productive but in a different way.

Indexing: Another productive use of my time is trading Abigail Spanish practice/tutoring for a beer or a snack. Too bad she's such a quick learner or the deal might really pay off.

Literatura: I can see now, as I crawl through El Laberinto de la Soledad, why Octavio Paz was so unwelcomed and heavily criticized by the intellectuals in Mexico when he first released this book. In the first chapter, he notes what he observes as the differences between people in Mexico, people in the U.S. and "los pachucos," Mexicans who leave Mexico to live and work in the United States. He describes the pachucos basically as social denigrates, who forget their own, "old" culture and refuse to embrace or even become a part of the new culture. This, Paz says, leads them to become like shadows, without substance, hiding behind their own resentment for both cultures and ultimately, themselves. This also leads the pachucos to act out in agression, which becomes a fundamental part of their identity. Paz also had interesting ideas about the differences between the "north americans" and Mexico. Although he makes comments such as that North Americans drink to forget and that Mexicans drink to confess, the most significant difference he notices is that in the north, people are "abierta," open. And in Mexico, "cerrada," closed.

In the second chapter, Paz goes into great depth and detail about the closedness of Mexicans, and the masks they hide behind to prevent anyone from discovering who or what they are. He says that for Mexicans the greatest fear is that someone will get past your defenses, beyond the máscara. This affects familial relations, work, education, love and pretty much every aspect of life. Later, he goes on and on about the ways and historical reasons that Mexicans hide themselves from others, refusing to assert an identity and so they become lost in their surroundings, completely complicit in becoming a "fondo," a background. He says that while some people walk, Mexicans scurry. And also that Mexicans utilize "la mentira," the lie, as a fundamental part of their verbal communication. No wonder his book didn't make people, especially Mexicans, feel that great. His ideas are interesting to me but his approach doesn't seem to be the best if he was trying to get Mexicans motivated to analyze themselves (which he states early on in the book). Still, I've only read two chapters and I know the next ones move into more broader aspects of the Mexican culture, rather than focusing on psycology and semantics.

La rosa de los vientos

Brillante: Guanajuato still amazes me with its colors. Despite the otherwise normalcy of a small, colonial Mexican city, I feel as if I've stepped into an explosion of shades and tones. My eyes aren't accustomed to seeing such a wide range of color and it makes me wonder why people limit themselves, or are limited, to colors that come in a rainbow or a box of crayons. Haven't they witnessed how rain water, steadily washing away paint over years, adds a subtle shadow to a cobalt-colored wall? Or how the rust from a gate adds an extra element to a maroon home? Colors are so much more than what are eyes can perceive, I've been trying to catch many of them with a photographic device that is even more limited in its capacities. Luckily, our eyes reflect.

Préstame tu maquina del tiempo

Mañanas: I love the calm of mornings, which usually begin with a plate of fruit, a bit of yogurt, a small cup of coffee, or the occasional sweet chocolate milk or banana licuado. Renato usually puts loud music on while he gets ready for school and when he leaves, I go through his hundreds of cds. On a recent tranquil morning, I listened to the discography of Rodrigo Gonzalez (imagine a Mexican version of Bob Dylan), while reading Octavio Paz´s El Laberinto de la Soledad, along with my trusty diccionario. I think I actually spent more time looking through my dictionary, fascinated by how meanings connect to other words and expand into more meanings and create a whole web of ideas, sensations and possibilities. While I was looking at the multiple meanings of "extraviado," Rodrigo, in his gruff Chilango voice, sings "ha perdido su camino"- which fit perfectly into Paz's sentiment.

Familia: Renato´s family is amazing. They let us stay in their home for 2 weeks without ever asking for anything or seeming to be bothered at all. His mother, Marcela, cooked us ample and delicious breakfasts on the weekends, filled the table with fruit, tortillas, yogurt, honey, soup, quesadillas and homemade salsa for lunch, made us warm chocolate milk before bed and made us toast and tea in bed when our stomachs were hurting. Gaby, the youngest sister, sings loudly for most of the time she is in the house, practicing for the rock group she sings with. Martin, dad, usually keeps to himself but when his favorite futbol team, America, wins he´s in a good mood for days and will tell jokes and talk with everyone. On the weekends, Martin´s family gathers at his mother´s house and Marcela gets together with her beautiful group of sisters for a day-long lunch. The entire family is lovely and friendly, and they always make me feel like part of the family when I visit. When I asked Renato if it was any problem for them, he assured me that though they are a humble family, they were happy to take care of us because simply, that´s what people do. Ah, Mexico, who would want to leave you?

Things we take for granted: We are driving down the dimly-let, wet, Calle San Diego, looking for a birthday party for the sister of a friend of a friend (in Mexico, if there´s a party, everyone is invited) after losing the car that we were following. We know the address: 109. On the right side of the street we see 175 and the numbers appear to be lowering. Ok, so we know which side of the street it´s on, at least. Driving further along, we pass through all of the 100s and never see 109. So, we keep on driving and low and behold the numbers start back at 200 and are lowering again, but this time the odds and evens have switched sides of the street. Then the numbers jump erratically: 205, 147, 212, 27. We decide looking for the address is no longer a good idea and decide to go back to where we heard loud music coming from a house. Tony runs into the house because it´s too dark to see if its the right place from outside and of course we should have trusted our first instinct- go where the music´s the loudest and forget numbers.

Vas a Queretaro?

Sol: Everything in Queretaro is orange and yellow and the shines hot hot hot. The city is familiar, but not too much so because my memory continually plays tricks on me. It´s both nice and funny to see random folks I met over 2 years ago, who must wonder at my continual passings-through. I hang out at the university regularly and still tell people that No, I don´t study here- but I did 2 years ago. They don`t mind. I don't feel much time has passed really, things move slowly here. And I enjoy this immensely. Solo quiero irme despacio, with one foot falling at a time, being carried forward only by natural momentum and falling contentedly where it may. I am happy doing just one thing a day and letting the rest of my day's time fall around it. Like when we walked to the arcos, Queretaro's ancient aqueduct, that was a day for me, from there I could stare at them for hours, happy as a cat on a warm, stone wall. Me dice un hombre pasando por donde me quedo sentado que tengo ojos de gato, igual que el.

Las mananitas: I was lucky to pass my birthday in Mexico. A delicious, round, walnut-and cherry-covered cake and mango flan. My Mexican mother, Marcela, and her daughter, Gaby, singing me the Mexican birthday song, while dad snaps pictures with a disposible camera. I blow out one big, red candle and cut the cake. Later, friends bring wine and tequila, which puts me to sleep nicely. I am really getting used to, and enjoying, going to bed at a decent hour, must be them birthdays and how they keep on comin´.

Palabras: My Spanish rises and falls, I forget simple words and remember silly ones. My best purchase so far has been a Spanish dictionary, designed for middle-school students but good enough for me. I can´t contribute this entirely to my dictionary, but this morning I wrote a letter in Spanish. I gave it to a friend for corrections and the most correcting he did was taking out a few commas and suggesting a different word in one place. Well, that felt good. Now to work on speaking.

Luciernaga, luces mas contenta: Last weekend we went out to the country with the family of a friend's. There they have a tiny garden that is somehow filled with every type of fruit and all kinds of flowers and vegetables as well. We wandered through, fighting millions of relentless mosquitoes, tasting apples here and pomegranates there and the smallest baby tomatoes and the biggest, juiciest blackberries. We try to play poker but move quickly to black jack. Pancho's dad likes to insist that he won. We move to another cement square nearby, for pulque and elotes. The pulque is sour and delicious, the elotes are blackened by fire on the outside and blanketed with limon and chile on the inside. Elotes and pulque are good precursors to jumping on a small, black horse named El Cantante. We ride around for a little while, my horse sings for his yegua but can never seem to catch up. Although it gets chilly at night, the wind in the back of the pick up truck during the ride back feels good.

Monterrey

North: Monterrey, in my mind, is like almost any other large, sprawling, impersonal city. At the same time, we met amazing people there who truly made our stay worth it. Our host, Irais, offered us a lovely sunlit living room floor to sleep on. Sebastian made us pasta and supplied us with endless amounts of Swiss chocolate. We might have done better to just stay home and cook because in the city we wandered indecisively up and down the same streets, finding mostly fast food, shoe stores and internet cafes that were without internet. Yet, we were greatly rewarded on our first day though when our wandering brought us to a magnificent Frida Kahlo exhibit, only 30 pesos for students, at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MARCO). I on-and-off hitched onto a tour and learned more about her work and life, so much tragedy and beauty that at the end of her life, according to our guide, Frida said "Vivi, y vivi intensamente. Ame, y ame intensamente. Pero, espero no regresar." I really enjoyed reading some of her letters, too. In one, she tells her doctor her opinion of "Gringolandia" after she'd spent some time in New York. She said the thing that truly bothered her about "gringos" was their hypocrisy, their endless ambition and blood thirsty desire to be "somebody." She said, "I don't want to be anybody" Me either, Frida. A tremendous tormenta delayed our departure from Monterrey, but as with most fast and heavy rains, no harm was done.

la fuerza de gravedad

Distance: Watching the earth roll out from under the tracks of a train or the wheels of a bus, travelling at the speed of gravity, is a good way to learn distance. Airplanes, phone calls and emails can make distance seem obsolete, but as we travelled for an entire day just through Texas, the land stretched out like a drying hide, I could appreciate travel and communication in new ways. Even after arriving to Mexico, I feel much further from Michigan than I have before. 35 hours by Amtrak to San Antonio.

San Antonio: It shocked me in a way to come across the Alamo while meandering through the downtown of the city of San Antonio. In my mind, the Alamo was always crumbling and dusty, sitting out in the desert, surrounded only by even more dusty land. But, no. Instead it sits pretty, surrounded by green gardens, well-lit at night, and directly across from Ripley´s Believe it or Not, a Haegen-Daaz ice cream shop, and a robotic Davy Crockett amusement ride. And instead of desert, office buildings, busy streets and department stores surround this building that sticks mythologically in the American psyche, when in real life, to me, it amounts to a Disney World attraction, in both its false construction and its atmosphere. We found the River Walk to be a lovlier part of San Antonio and we walked it both at night, tranquil and quiet, and in the morning, greener and tourist-ridden. In the morning we took our breakfast tacos (something all the Texans in New York told me they missed most about Texas) and tequila down to the river and made a nice breakfast out of it before hopping on a greyhound, headed across the border.

La Frontera: Crossing into Mexico by land was considerably less a hassle than what I remember from the airport. The bus stops, U.S. citizens get off the bus, run large parcels through the scanner and pay 23 dollars for the visas (and an automatic 6 months, no less) and back on the bus. Making things even easier, the Greyhound tooks us right to Nuevo Laredo´s main bus terminal and within 7 minutes we were on another bus bound for Monterrey. Things move swiftly moving south.

Cosas

En mi bolsa: Ropa, pasta de dientes, lentes, libros.

En mis manos: Una guitarra, un libro, un bolígrafo.

En mi mente: Pensamientos, dudas, esperanzas, recuerdos.

Nubes Tenues

Lengua: Necesito practicar mi espanol. Durante el ano pasado he lo estado perdiendo poco a poco, especialmente los sonidos y como formar mi boca en una manera para producir palabras comprensibles. Escribir o leer, estoy mas o menos bien. Pero hablar, es algo diferente. No quiero que me digan, -"Te ha comido la lengua el gato?" Que pena, pero pronto hablaremos hermanas, no?

Poland

Mex/j/ico: I was reading today about how Mexico "got" its name. According to one person's perspective, a mix of an already-existing word/name, imperialism, and habit, resulted in a name that was a little off for both the named and namers. Like learning your immigrant Grandmother's last name was once a long, jagged, beautiful Polish name that she changed to a monosyllabic, blunt, unassuming name. She lost her name to gain what? The majority can now pronounce it, and at what loss for them? And her children and grandchildren: do they accept the name that no longer connects them with their ancestors, or attempt to override both society and their Grandmother's decision? A name is never just a name, it's clear, but a history of lies and truths, a direction and misunderstood signals, an insistence that naming something makes it real, valid.

Papers: I've spent the last few days at my parent's house going over every document I've written, printed, or received since maybe my birth. It's been a relief in some ways, finding so many words that I no longer need to be trusted with. It's been a burden, too, because of the sheer volume and my slightly lingering packrat tendencies. Also a bit shameful, looking back on old writings and silly ways I used to waste paper; I used to be a terrible speller. And it's also been exhausting, reliving countless years and memories through ink and pencil, like I've been reading my own biography for 3 days without a break.

Tuesdays: My Grandma has friends she eats lunch with every Tuesday. She also plays euchre and gambles with several of these ladies, from what I gather. Today, my mom and I went as well. The group praised my mom highly for her pie-making abilities and traded their own methods for making crusts. I appreciate the elderly so much for making the simplest facets of life a wonderful topic of discussion, interaction, and weaving conversation.

Down deep

Ellis Island: Years ago and generations back, my family passed through this little island, their thoughts and fears I can only imagine in a thousand ways. Although my own time spent on this island was brief, I did manage to learn a little about immigration in the U.S. Also of interest, I discovered that the words bum and bummer come from the German language and hunky-dory from Dutch. Strange how our extended ethnic heritage can reach into our daily, personal household language without any conscious recognition or recollection.

Statue of Liberty: Loved, glorified, over-priced, propagandized, replicated, battered, weaved deep into the American consciousness and that of people around the world. Based on the museum at her feet, you'd think she was the most sacred symbol of democracy ever to exist and perhaps you'll believe it, perhaps not. I was particularly interested in a brief paragraph within the statue's history that mentioned another potential vision of the statue, one of a fierce woman with a steel weapon and a flag. Naturally, folks were frightened by this idea and stood solidly behind the passive, benign, receptive image, a waiting beacon. Rather than demanding freedom and democracy, she awaits it patiently, lighting its path, waiting, waiting. Is she still waiting?

Movin' On

Boundaries: New York City is far too big for me to wrap my mind around. Even if I never come back, I will think of it often. It will become like an enigmatic stranger for me, I'll look for her in familiar and strange places. Or perhaps like a long-lost childhood friend, who I'll wonder about but will only find in a small dive bar in a rural Michigan town. Oh, this city, what will become of it and what has it made me. Like I told a down-trodden friend last night, "when it comes to questions like these, time's the only answer."

Direction: Now I am heading for Philadelphia for a few days. Due to my skewed, NYC-perspective, now all cities that I once thought were large and imposing seem village-like, Kalamazoo seems like an unfamiliar name on a smallish dot in Minnesota. And Petersburg? I doubt that it even exists. When I get to Mexico and come back or move on, all places, my sense of time, my sense of space will be distorted all over again, for better or worse. Or perhaps, it doesn't matter at all. It's like a game or a distraction, I suppose.

Suitcase

Packing: is miserable. I'm leaving New York with much more than I came with. This city encourages consumption the way a well-stocked liquor cabinet encourages alcoholism and that's probably the top thing, hands down, that I will not miss. What I will miss is the constant motion, the people, having things at your fingertips that you neither need nor want but the sheer opportunity is enough. Strange that these things would grow on me. At the same time, once I leave the city I probably won't miss any of it, will only remember car exhaust making my eyes burn and over-crowded Times Square, waiting for the subway train, or spending way too much money on coffee. I hope, though, that I'll really remember the great people I was able to spend short amounts of time with, the absurdity of Coney Island, the little surprises I would encounter on the street, and late night hookah cafes.

Funnel vision

Nickels and Dimes: Now I feel a bit like a coin reaching the narrow end of a large, yellow, plastic funnel, like the kind you find at the zoo or a children's museum. The coin gets dropped with a mix of excited anticipation and a slight expectancy of disappointment, a balance of fears and hopes that rides along on the textured edge of the coin. Breath held, eyes steady. The great satisfaction comes from watching the coin speed into a frenzied blur, becoming one large ethereal coin hovering for a moment over nothingness before falling suddenly out of sight.

I had no idea what to expect this summer. Now my New York summer is fading and I'm left with a brief encounter with a city that's much like a country, where after such a small amount of time here it feels like you've been chasing minnows for an afternoon or trying to talk with shadows. I'll miss it, just having barely gotten to feel along the edges, but other distances are laid out ahead, and familiar paths will intertwine with new ones. I don't have expectations but high ones.

Pizza Party: I am convinced that there was no better way to leave Democracy Now! but to crowd into the 6th floor office with staff, interns and volunteers and watch Amy Goodman set a slimy, nonsensical pseudo-journalist in his place on corporate-sponsored, right-wing television (Hardball, to be exact).

Salt

Coney Island: I met a German yesterday who had come to New York a few days ago truly thinking that Coney Island was an island and wondering why he couldn't find it on the map. It occurred to me that I had never thought that and I wondered why. They say it's the last year of Coney Island, that a boogey man developer is setting out to destroy the gritty and unique beauty of the constant carnival, to replace it with high rise hotels and clean it up a bit. People talk about it in a resigned way, like they've been anticipating the death of Coney Island the way one waits for an aged and ailing relative to pass on. I took the German there to see what we'd find and we met a French guy there, the 3 of us perfectly in time out of our lack of punctuality.

The neon lights themselves seemed faded and even when we walked directly between the Zipper, the Wonder Wheel and other creaking rides, it reminded me of walking past the fair grounds late at night, hearing bells and screams and metallic voices but being in another place. It was somewhere between a time warp and oblivion, almost that it had never existed at all. Even at 10pm, families aimed water guns at targets, determined to win a stiff, stuffed bear holding a heart, or a basketball. And despite the painful lurches and slams of aging thrill rides, people lined up for their chance to face..what? their fears? their childhoods?

The air coming off the sea smelled thick with salt, thicker than I'd smelled it before in that spot and I breathed in deep. The boardwalk was dark, making it impossible to walk without tripping over the countless boards that were trying to leap up out of the wooden walk way. It was like learning to walk with a limp. I got a corn muffin and a corona and we talked about subtleties in languages and culture and where everyone was on September 11th; everyone agreed that the video looked like a very bad movie, very unbelievable yet apt for a film about NYC.

Q: I've come to love the letter Q. Everytime I see it, lit up in yellow, I feel a sense of familiarity, I've got the stops memorized and I feel safe aboard. Someone in the office, reading a bottle cap, said that the letter Q is the only letter in the English alphabet that doesn't appear in any of the names of the U.S. states. To me, the Q has its own language and when I see it slowing towards me, I understand.

Movement

Tornado in Brooklyn: I wouldn’t have known at all that it was anything but a lot of lightening if I hadn’t read the staff email sent out sometime in the afternoon last Wednesday. I woke up just before six am to a very loud pop, followed by a roar, boom and a rumble. For the next hour my room was lit up by near-constant flashes of white light and my windows rattled from the snapping thunder. Rather than disturbing, the storm was soothing to me and I stayed awake to listen to it. Car alarms went off in the street, muffled slightly by a fierce and steady downpour that carried on for about an hour. When I got up for work, I imagined a soppy and cold Brooklyn morning. Instead, it was blazing hot and all the puddles that were boiling up off the sidewalk made the humidity wrap around you like a thick, damp blanket. The metro station was chaos, not a train was running in near all Brooklyn and even in the city, many were down or backed up. A harried attendant pointed us toward the Flatbush 41 bus, a few blocks down, and dozens of us grudgingly walked there together. Already about 60 folks were at the bus stop, one of many along the length of Flatbush Avenue. A bus came down the street, didn’t even slow down for all the people on it. A few minutes later, another one did the same thing. I realized there was no way I was going to get to the city by bus either, at least not in the next few hours. Plus, the bus would only take us to the Atlantic stop, still 2 stops away from where I needed to go and surely the trains would be backed up too.

I started wondering what would happen if New York was hit by a truly terrible natural disaster, instead of a slightly stronger than average thunderstorm. Here were hundreds of people stranded in the city because of the lack of public transportation, and taxis definitely couldn’t keep up with the demand. Thinking about this, I started to walk. I had no idea how long it would take, but I was going to be late for work one way or another and I’d rather be walking than standing at a bus stop watching buses pass me by for who knows how long. The walk proved to be long and probably something that shouldn’t be done in that kind of heat or if you have to be somewhere at a certain time. Luckily, it was just a straight shot pretty much to the bridge and the walk was easy. I found that I really liked walking- I spend a lot of time on the subway and rarely think about all the stuff I’m missing above ground, so it was a good change in perspective. Well, all in all, it took me about 2 hours and the Brooklyn Bridge was certainly a beautiful sight that day. By the afternoon, everything was back to normal, save the fallen tree branches and roofless homes.

Days off: The heat from the storm wore off by Thursday, withering away to cold and rainy and pretty dismal if you ask me. On Friday I forced myself out of the house to meet a perfect stranger and I ended up very happy that I did. We hopped a train to West Harlem to the Hispanic Society of the Americas after a much-needed hot coffee and a break from the rain. The Hispanic Society is a combination of archives and museum and on a wet, freezing day way up in Harlem, was pretty empty. Mostly 17th century religious artifacts from Spain and a few things from Puebla, Mexico were on display. The true enjoyment was in our poking fun at the silliness and creepiness of all things Catholic (a turkey-shaped incense burner? eyeless saints? flying baby heads?).

After the departure of my new Bostonian friend (who left me with a Red Sox shot glass, commemorating her unplanned trip to a baseball game which resulted in her actually beginning to like baseball), I went to the Museum of American Folk Art. It was small and the art was very kitsch and mostly neat, especially the weathervane collection. Yet, I do think that whoever said that the museum mainly serves as an excuse for a gift shop is probably right. Or maybe they thought to try and create some idea of an American culture so that people don't have to actually try to seek it out themselves and instead find comfort in complex quilt patterns and wooden dolls. After the museum, I caught the tail end of an Indian music performance by a dedicated trio in a plaza outside of the Lincoln Center. Yasser arrived just as I got back down to downtown, we meandered through Littly Italy a bit but the cold and long day encouraged us to go home pretty quickly.

On Saturday, I finally visited the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, a serene expanse of green and colored shapes and buzzing wings. I smelled more than a dozen types of roses, made Yasser nervous as I teetered over the lily pad pond, hugged a great and huge weeping willow and followed all types of flying insects in their pursuits. The day was beautiful with a swept-open sky and finally a tolerable temperature and oh, the sun that I’d been missing. We left the gardens in search of halal food and found a West Indian halal buffet on Flatbush. My, sweet potatoes, yams, and fried plantains are really all I need to be satisfied. But the black-eyed peas, salty greens, and corn made me grin ear to ear. Yum.

Balance

Highway strangers: Yasser & I gratefully caught a rideshare off of Craigslist headed for Chicago. To meet our car host, we took a Metro North train way, way up and out of the city to the Katonah stop. Luckily, the 4th rider also missed the earliest train and we all met up on time. Our driver was headed to the DailyKos Convention in Chicago to see the Democratic candidates. A chatty and lively woman, she reminded me of my mom in many ways (and she also turned out to be descendant from Italian immigrants). The other rider was a tango dancer/teacher/extraordinaire, en route to creating a tango dance network that will span the nation. We all alternated with stories and sleeping and made good time to Toledo, Ohio where my mom was waiting to pick Yasser and I up. The U.S. really needs more ridesharing of this sort if we're gonna love cars so much. Heck, even I, environmentalist and activist that I am, romanticize the American Road Trip.

Michigan: A bizarre landscape when compared to New York. Slow-moving things, green, fields of crops, thick sweet-smelling air, dirt roads, empty streets, quiet. I felt restless and content at the same time. In NYC the constant bustle and noise and colors compel me to seek out action, life, people, music, anything. In Michigan, the calm eased me into accepting that I can be content taking a long walk, sitting in the cool air of the library, biking with neither destination or companion, sitting on the couch and reading a book. I was happy to see old friends, I really felt good in Kalamazoo. I was moving on my own time, accepting who I saw or what I did as they came and understanding the limits of my time there. I also got to spend some nice time with my mom, on her birthday and also for a few hours when we first arrived to Ohio and Michigan. And I was happy to see the rest of my family, I just never have enough time there. Returning to NYC after Michigan, I had that familiar feeling of not being sure whether places are changing or if it's just me.

Parks: I very quickly got back into the pace of things in NYC, subways, work, hurrying to wait and all. Chad came to town for a brief minute before his flight back to Cali and we wandered around Park Slope with a friend before getting Thai food. It was good that he arrived just as my roommate was going crazy or I would have thought it was me. Tuesday I saw some nice spoken word and singing in Tompkins Square Park. There was this little kid, maybe 4 years old, dancing like wild to the beats and dancing really well. It was impressive and it was very disappointing to me when a woman came over and grabbed him by the arm, leading him to a chair to try to get him to sit still. Being taught to sit still is one of the great tragedies of growing up, especially when it negates such a beautiful expenditure of energy like dancing.

Yesterday I saw a great outdoor theatre performance by the Bread and Puppets Theatre group from Vermont. When I walked up, I saw the flapping of large, steel-grey wings. Enormous metallic birds were circling the stage, making such a beautiful noise as their heavy wings rose and fell in clangs. They swooped around and behind the stage and soon smaller, more tinny-sounding birds hopped out and squawked a bit before disappearing. The show was very political and brought up a lot of points about accountability, autonomy, and personal responsibility. I really enjoyed the working class folks who wore great masks and plaid, overalls, and long, patched skirts. There was also a nice skit about the death (and rebirth) of agriculture. Gunny sack turkeys and a wild swaying cow fought side by side with the peasant farmer and his pitchfork-wielding wife against the suits for a triumphant victory in the name of small farmers everywhere. In a different skit, a terrifying computer-faced bird-monster screamed at complacent humans who also later put on computers for faces and screamed back at the monster, scaring it clear off the stage. I really liked that one a lot too. The band was great too, TWO banjos, an accordion and a buncha brass.

DN!: Time at Democracy Now! is winding down. One intern left yesterday, others are leaving soon. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time there, though I'm still unsure whether office work is for me or not. I just can't imagine working an office that's not just like the DN! office or the Peace Center. I also want to work with all my friends and be able to come and go as I please. Away with the self-exploitative work ethic, I say.

East River 2: Today the East River looked like a dull, dented silver cup. A day of full rain churned all the colors out and even the sky was left a ghastly grey-white. Because it’s warm, it isn’t easy to notice the lack of a clear, blue sky. But because I looked for it, I was able to appreciate the softness of a grey and white day that was neither too hot nor too cold. At the beach yesterday, though, it was very easy to notice the after-rain chill, being more accustomed to sandy places that are hot and muggy.

Banana Juice: I had two couchsurfers last week, from France, though they came from Montreal. Manon and Cédric. They were both young and happy and we all tried to not let the language barrier come between us. Cédric would speak quickly and often, stumbling rapidly over strange syllables and sounds, while Manon would speak slowly, and carefully, after periods of thinking. Both are very sweet people who I offered floor space to on a whim via the couchsurfing website. Not being the most familiar with this city, I took them to a part of Brooklyn that I vaguely know. It was after another long, rainy day and by then the rain had become no more than a consistent mist, which dampened our hair but caused no harm. We walked through Williamsburg, chasing the river, through many an abandoned building and crumbling sidewalk, before we found a hole cut in the fence. Ducking through, we came upon a whale-grey river bordered on its far side by a foggy Manhattan skyline, with buildings occasionally appearing among the dense clouds. Everything was very quiet except for the wind that would sometimes pick up and splash the water up onto the cement ledges and walls around where we stood. The landscape was very surreal and looking down we read, spray-painted in white under our feet, “Am I dreaming?” Climbing back through the fence brought us closer to the reality of the city, of people, of noise and bars and coffee shops. Hungry and cold, we found a place where pizza came with free beer. The live music ended up being a disappointment but Cédric asking the bartender for banana juice was not. After wandering the streets some more, coming across bars and studios in the most unlikely places, we headed for Pete’s Candy Store, sure to find free live music there any day of the week. The music here was much better and another beer made the night lively and silly, though I didn’t worry too much about having to work the next morning.

Pass me a square

Palm cards: One of the ways my job at DN! and my exploration of NYC coincide this summer is through handing out palm cards at a variety of events around town. A palm card is a small, thick piece of paper with some info about DN! on it, how to listen to the show and such. Amy encourages us to pass them out at any and all events where there'll be a lot of people, and so, we do.

After doing this at several events now, I do have to say that when some hipster hits a card out of my hand, it affects me far less than when folks come up to me thanking me for being a part of the best show on tv and radio. Some people just shout, "Yeah! Amy Goodman!" That's rewarding, too. I try not to think about how many palm cards will be swept up at the night's end and try to remember what it was like for me to discover independent media for the first time and the whole torrent of consciousness and information that followed.

Freegans: I went on a trash tour with these folks last week, ended up with some good salsa and beets. NYC dumpstering is different. First, because there's no dumpster. Second, because it's right out in the open and on the street. Just opening garbage bags as you see them and trying to stay out of the way of people on the sidewalk. And, well, then there are the rats. We didn't see any (thanks God) but if you don't get to the trash quick enough, they will. Today a tiny mouse jumped out of my suitcase at me and I screamed like a child- a rat would probably paralyze me. I also went to a free (really free, they emphasized over and over) market in the East Village. At first, I thought I would only look for something I really needed, like sandals. 3 pairs of pants, 1 skirt, 2 pairs of sandals, a sweater and an armload of books later, I knew what I really needed was to get out of there (especially because I felt bad for not having anything but a lone book to donate). But the folks, from a group called In our Hearts, were more than generous and I even got some iced tea from the Freegans. It was a nice little quadrangle of people, although at events such as this in Kalamazoo, I would know most of them and here's not the case. I also didn't have time to stay and chat with many people because I had to go to Coney Island to pass out palm cards.

The Strand: Miles, miles, miles of books. I don't know how they measure it but what it amounts to in my mind is endless. I wove through shelves, scanned frantically, struggled to remember the names of various authors and books, climbed ladders and stairs, dreamed up stacks of books for my future bookshelves. I finally left after many hours with a portable Ingles-espanol diccionario, some Arabic lessons, and a Saadi Youssef poetry book. Love books, love the Strand.

Speed

Sometimes trains move at the speed of a funeral procession. When they are going very fast they shake and jolt into the darkness and I get anxious. When it is very late, the train slows in tandem with my waning energy. If I'm late for work, the train can miraculously make me on time. Other times stops come quicker when absurdity finds itself in one of the cars. A practicing preacher, a maniacal isolated dancer, a family of musicians, story tellers, avengers. Passed out passengers and explosions don't really seem to slow the trains down much. Watching a train pull out as you come down the stairs sure does.

East River to Moss

East River. Nearly every day I cross the East River on the Q. As the train approaches the Manhattan Bridge, I find myself wondering what color the river will be today, pulling my guess from the sun and time of day and musings about the city's feelings. Sometimes it is liquidy cement, like the edge of Manhattan finally couldn't stand up to the summer sun and slid down into the river bed. Other times it's a seaweedy green and the boats are thin silver fish skipping over a pond. And then there are the days where it hints at a deep blue, a faint reminder of the river's past and the islands' history, in the days where things were not made of steel or glass, but of thick forests and clear waterways. The river is always different, not one day the same, and I appreciate it for this. I like to see it daily, how it interacts with the bridges, how people look up from their books and papers to watch it glide underneath us, how it reminds me (us) that the city is so shaped by water and we so easily forget it.

Sights and sounds. I have been trying to utilize my monthly metro card to the fullest (and I have to buy another tomorrow). I've deepened my appreciation for smaller galleries, finding myself bored, distracted and overly air-conditioned after more than an hour in any museum. Luckily, this city abounds in small galleries in addition to the mammoth-sized museums (or the museums with mammoths). I saw a nice Brazilian photography exhibit at the Americas Society and a mixed-media exhibit on the 2005 riots in France at the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Art (easier to write, and more fun to say: MoCADA). Also, despite a temporary stomachache, Chad and I saw an interesting mix of "orientalist" art at the Dahesh Museum (right near the Trump Tower, a strange thing to see, for me)- I especially liked a painting that featured fog and camels. There were a lot of architectural drawings that didn't interest me as much. Tomorrow I'll be breaking this trend by going to the mammoth of mammoths- the MET. I've also had the great luck to witness some amazing concerts. Most notably: Manu Chao (free courtesy of volunteering with Celebrate Brooklyn!), Cafe Tacuba (also free, in Central Park), Built to Spill (free AND back stage, gracias a dn!), and tonight, the woman of many guitars, Ani DiFranco (free and sangria, dn! rocks). Also saw Zoe, a Mexican rock band who was enjoyable, along with the Pinkertones, an electronic group with a lot of energy and dance-y beats. Coming up soon are Neko Case and the Siren Music Festival (though I've yet to see who's playing). Finally, I've seen a couple of films. One, 'Y, tu cuanto cuestas?' was good, had funny and poignant moments though a bit long. And the other, Wait Until Dark, was shown in Bryant Park and it was certainly a good film to watch out doors with a big crowd. It also brought back many memories of playing the role that Audrey Hepburn plays when I was in the play way back in high school.

News: Working at Democracy Now! is great, better with each week. True, the office has bizarre undercurrents and moments (what office doesn't?)- but how many people can say that they work for an organization that they truly support with all of their heart? I mean, I feel really proud to say that I'm working with DN! because I run into so many people who love the show and respect Amy very highly and support our work. It's inspiring, really. Even being a intern, low down on the post, so to speak, is a great experience. It's actually quite the lovely mix of not any actual authority, free concerts and lunch, being surrounded with wonderful, experienced, dedicated and conscious folks, and the fact that, ultimately, Amy Goodman is my boss. Highlight: Amy called yesterday personally to get Katie (another intern) and I tickets to Ani. Nice. Also, our supervisor Clara is wonderful and I'm really happy to work with her.

Moss: This city is certainly growing on me. I need to start looking at schools to see if it's really a good idea or some heat-induced, summer fantasy inspired by too much good music and art, too many great people, and too much luck in this amazing city.