summer is upon us

i've done it, i've broken down and bought my ticket back to the us for the summer. you don't want to know what i paid, but let's just say it's less than $1000. but not by much. and i have layovers in frankfurt, lovely.

so, my summer plans are set and here they are:

July 2-11: framingham, with a weekend yoga retreat in the Berkshires for the 4th
July 11-15: big star lake, michigan
July 15-Aug 10: nyc, working for da man. weekend trips to beer olympics (july 21) joie's wedding (july 29) and hopefully riis park, dia beacon and belmont
aug 10-14: washington dc
aug 14-10: new hampshire. internship at the sunny grange, other granola-based activities
aug 20-23: ogunquit. lewin family vacation.
aug 23-31: framingham. this is the frontier, the last week of the summer, mostly unplanned.
aug 31-sept 15: northern spain. camino de santiago

so there it is, folks, my summer. please make yourself a part of that schedule if you haven't already done so.

in other news, it has come to my attention that there's a little rumor floating around that i'm planning to move back to the us. this rumor has legs, and wings; it has crossed a continent and an ocean and five people to arrive to my terrace. so let me set the record straight: for the time being i have no plans to move back to the us permanently. although i do plan to continue spending 3-4 months a year there and eventually would like to be able to split my time.

sydney or bust

my dad has always let me know what he expected out of me without saying it outright. perhaps because i was such a damn well-behaved child, or because disciplining was mostly my mom's job, i can't remember him ever drilling into me the classic parental lessons of "eat your vegetables" or "don't talk to strangers" or "don't drink and drive."these types of lessons were implicit, rather than explicit.

however, i do specifically remember him making me promise not to hitchhike, or pick up a hitchhiker. this was said explicitly, and i promised like the faithful obedient child i was. i always wondered why he felt so strongly about this, was there a dangerous episode he wasn't telling me about? to this day i still wonder...

but of course, like most kids told not to do something, even the most well-behaved kids, i went out and broke that promise. ange and i discovered hitchhiking in fiji, where it was the only way to get across the island. our next stop was australia, where the idea of getting from cairns to sydney entirely on buses was suddenly unfathomable.

once you start hitchhiking, it seems ludicrous to pay for transportation. we set up some general rules for ourselves - which we mostly kept to - and spent long days on the road. we wouldn't get into a car if either or us felt the slightest creepiness or unease. we would stay awake, alert and watch the road. we wouldn't take rides from truckers. we would stop before dark.

the hardest part was just getting out of town, most people are driving short distances. most people have been told by their fathers not to ever hitchhike or pick up hitchhikers. but we must have been so cute standing there with our backpacks. it was never too hard to get a ride. most people couldn't believe we were hitchhiking, especially once they found out we were americans.

usually the people who picked us up were fathers who had daughters and were trying to save us from the dangerous fate of the hitchhiker, or other people who had hitchhiked in the past and were paying back some karma. i have mostly stuck to my promise of not picking up hitchhikers, but i do feel a special twinge of sympathy when i see one.

the hardest part was having the same conversations over and over again. we would spend three hours in the car with somebody, tell them all about our trip, where we were from, why we were hitchhiking, etc. then ten minutes later get into another car and have to start all over. sometimes the best rides were the ones where everybody was just silent. more often than not we met kind people who were unbelievably helpful and generous. without all the urban myths and fear, hitchhiking is a lovely system, a way of sharing and mutual convenience, a way to meet people you might not ever know.

so, sorry dad, i broke my promise. but i suspect you have at least one good hitchhiking story too.

unrelated: richard serra talks about the installation of his 40-year retrospective at moma in this new york times audio slide show.

bullshit blog post

i stayed in a whole 24 hours after that last post. then i spent the rest of the weekend walking around the city - through rain and shine. it's hard for me to really be a hermit.

the other night i saw pirates of the caribbean. man, i was just in the mood for pure entertainment, swashbuckling, etc. and this movie paid off. i sat with wide eyes for three hours, laughing and enjoying the spectacle. when i read any bad reviews for the movie i think: what a bunch of cranky pretentious mouth breathers. seriously.

meanwhile, spain had its local elections yesterday and there was a move toward conservatism, echoing a general trend across europe. i think it's interesting that in a county that is ninety-something percent catholic they vote on sunday (day off), causing me to wonder why we vote on tuesday (work day) in the u.s. it's because they want to discourage voting, right? most of the spanish people i spoke to said they usually go vote with their families then have a lunch. those of us who live here know that that is so typically spanish it's practically spain itself.

in other news, i've taken the first actual steps in a project that has been swishing around in my mind for some time now. i've been inspired by certain friends of mine who lately have grabbed their lives by the reigns and started steering themselves in productive directions. so i've decided to follow suit by putting some plans into actions. and wouldn't you know, it's super fun to have a new project to work on. details to come...

i suppose that may excuse this rambly disorganized and decentralized blog post, the type that i have tried to steer away from. coherence will return tomorrow.

happy memorial day.

precipitation frustration

ok i admit it, i like to bitch about the weather. i believe it affects my moods, i let it affect my moods. i take it personally. any therapist or sane person would tell me this isn't healthy. irregardless.

the weather sucks right now, it's been raining forever, and - as previously noted - we don't need the rain. the other day it rained so hard my plants suffered holes in their leaves. the forecast shows rainy clouds until saturday and i've decided to have a vigil. i'm staying in my house until the sun comes out. i dare you to lure me out.

i have a book, i have my internet, i have dvds. i have a new yorker. i have 3 economists. i'll be good for a few days at least. i refuse to spend one more minute trudging around the city with wet feet, being sprayed by passing cars. bah.

meanwhile, what a lovely moment for the morning news to post their annual awards for online excellence. lots of fun new sites to play with, hours of rainy day entertainment. and here is my first annual list of what i consider the best of their list to be:

• indexed. as they put it, simply brilliant. and hilarious. i only wish i could be half as clever and spot on. check it out immediately!

ok. that's totally the best site they linked to. the others i'm still exploring, but i'm sure there are tons of gems. also, they link to mindy kaling's site. this girl went to dartmouth with me and now she is not only on the office, but her blog is being linked to by the morning news -- under the header of "celebrity" blog. sigh. my blog is content to simply mention her blog. she writes about things she bought, like a mini cooper and a $1000 handbag. did i mention it's raining?

other links of late:

• not overrated, not underrated. the ten most accurately rated artists in rock history. (via amy's robot)
• the top five tv shows of my youth. you know i like lists. i agree, mostly, but shouldn't JEM be #1?? (props on the bitchslap to rio two-timing jem and jerrica)
• if you could check out one classic rocker live in concert, who would it be? well, here's your chance: wolfgang's vault has tons of vintage concerts streamed for free. (thanks dad)
• recordreviews is disappointed with the new wilco album. "father’s day is right around the corner: are you buying this for somebody or is somebody buying it for you?
  
  

the dreamlife of me

lately i have been having vivid and strange dreams in the mornings; i wake up disoriented and puzzled, having spent the last few minutes in my head under the strangest circumstances with friends and other people who i would never have expected to have conjured.

this morning i was riding around new york city on a magic carpet type contraption, flying through the streets and avenues, trying to make my way to the beach where i was sure there was a party. eventually an ex-boyfriend joined me, and we ended up underwater going through a plastic tube in the river.

i hesitate to read into dreams like this, partly because i have no idea but also because it would seem to be too easy to make it mean something convenient, what i might want it to mean. however, there are some recurring themes or events in my dreams and i often wonder why.

when i was traveling in 2000-2001 i had many dreams about my teeth falling out. the teeth would crumble into small pieces and i would end up spitting them out. i sometimes still dream about this, and i know it is a classic dream with probably a classic interpretation. i remember tony soprano once had a similar dream.

a form of nightmare, or unsettling dream, that i have had many times involves the friends i lived with in college. usually i come back from being away and they are all living in a large and strange house, sometimes labyrinthine, sometimes resembling a house where we actually lived, sometimes like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. i walk around, wondering where my room is, lost and confused. everybody else acts like everything is normal. i've had versions of this dream dozens of times.

the worst nightmares i've ever had used to occur when i was a child, usually when i was sick. i would dream of large imposing masses in space, closing in on me, dwarfing me. sometimes there would be large spheres spinning slightly off their axes and this would scare me more than anything.

any amateur psychologists out there?

happy bday katie

today is also my sister katie's birthday. katie is officially half my age: today she turns 15.

katie has that rare combination of intelligence, beauty and humor yet she pulls it off with modesty and charm. she is girly, sporty, silly and most of all tons of fun.

she makes up for her small stature with a big personality, and it has been such a pleasure spending half my life knowing her.

so happy birthday katie! can't wait to celebrate for real at six flags this summer.

happy bday kim

today is my "cousin" kim's 30th birthday. kim is a smart lady, she has always impressed me with her intelligence wit and humor. of all my friends, she has the most religious presence in her life yet she represents this part of herself in the way that is generous, non-judgmental and enviable. i wish all christians were just like her.

her friendship has been a wonderful example to me of how two people who have so many superficial differences can have so much in common where it matters.

so happy 30th kim. hope your day is full of red sox, karaoke and jon stewart.

100th post!

in lieu of words, i present a photo essay of the painting of a wall on my terrace by some very talented and artistic friends.

a question of etiquette

yesterday was lovely: a madrid holiday spent barbecuing, painting and appreciating the artistic genius of my friends. but there was one stain on the day, one situation that has left me with a bad feeling, as if i didn't handle something properly, as if i was not a proper hostess. after much reflection, i can safely say that it won't happen again, but i'm wondering, what do you do in a case like this?

what do you do when a friend brings her new boyfriend who is perfectly friendly, helpful at the grill and gracious...until he removes his t-shirt to reveal a swastika tattoo on his arm? what do you do?

my first instinct was to kick him out. nazis are, plainly, not welcome in my house. but, saying something might create a scene, might force a for-the-moment benign nazi to say something really offensive, raising the stakes, upsetting the sunny fun of my party.

so instead i said nothing, did nothing. went about my business, ignoring him, whispering to other friends, being appalled. a very polite simon told me that kicking him out would only fuel his hatred, would equate to coming down to his level. and what did i expect to change? it's true that while his tattoo said one thing, his behavior was quite the opposite: there were many gay people and lots of non-aryans (not to mention jews) around and he was hanging out with everybody.

what i should have done is pulled my friend aside and asked her to ask her guest to put his shirt back on because his tattoo is offensive. safe to say, future incidents of the sort will be prevented.

although at the time i felt justified in not confronting the problem, today i feel guilty, as if i didn't do enough, didn't do my duty. what do you think? what do you do when a nazi comes to your bbq?

i heart murakami

you probably already know about my love for the writing of haruki murakami. his book the wind-up bird chronicle is probably my favorite book, and i've read it at least three times. it is at once a mystery, a love story, a coming-of-age story, and a fantasy. he creates characters that are magical and strange and unbelievably ordinary, but who are as fully developed as characters in a good television drama and who have stayed with me over the years like old friends.

his other books have been hits or miss for me, but there are common themes throughout. he likes to write about average guys who are loners or misfits without being socially awkward, they are just outside of japanese mainstream society. he loves disappearing women, this often forms the central theme of his novels. he is fascinated by only children, animals, jazz music and american culture. he writes about a japan that i have not often seen portrayed in other media: absent is the hurriedness, the business-is-war mentality, the thirst for pop culture. murakami's japan is more easy going, mixing elements of foreign culture unconsciously, yet with a sense of alienation at its core. i would like to study his fiction in a class with a professor. i want to read and write essays about it.

although none of his books have moved me as much as wind-up bird, other notable mentions are hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world - which is his novel that is the most different from the rest - and south of the border, west of the sun - which is more formulaic but still lovely. his newest novel after dark came out in hardcover last week, and here is an excerpt (thanks emily). from a glance, it seems like vintage murakami, but intriguing. its events take place over the course of a night in a tokyo denny's. if anybody had read it i would love to know what you think, and i would love to borrow your copy this summer!

meow

"oh you fucking spanish people
makin' me smile
black-haired little cuties"
-chan marshall a.k.a cat power

word

we don't need the rain

spain is a country with a water shortage. water conservation is strongly encouraged by the government and, as far as i can tell, mostly observed by spaniards.

ever since i moved here, every rainstorm be it on a saturday afternoon or any other inconvenient time is met with knowing shrugs and the mantra "we need the rain." complaining about rain isn't allowed. spain needs the rain.

ok, well guess what? the reservoirs are now full. any more rain would have to be released into the rivers to prevent flooding. so we no longer need the rain. spain has enough water for two years. while this is great news, it belies how much rain we've actually had this year. tons.

granted, this is the time of year when the temperature crests the 90s and never looks back and rain isn't likely in the near future.

good, cuz we don't need it.

points, bulleted (bulletted?)

today i present a few tidbits, in list formation:

• bill clinton wrote a crossword for last weekend's new york times magazine (online only). i finished it, can you?
  
• the new album turn the lights out by the ponys is the best thing since sliced bread. definitely the best new album i've heard since crane wife. asked to describe this music i was at a loss for comparisons. strong beats, heavy bass lines and extremely addictive.
• if gwb wrote obama's book
• france elected a new president: nicolas sarkozy. for a clue on who this guy is and what he stands for, check out this great new yorker article. then go around asking people what they think of the elections in france, and sound really smart. at least, that's what i do.
  
• i've noticed advertisements in spain in portugal by the sides of the roads and on bus stops using the weak dollar to entice europeans to visit nyc. "the euro buys you more in new york." sure, once you get there. what they don't warn you about is that flights back to the us are now significantly higher than they have been in the last 2.5 years! and by hundreds of dollars. what up? anyway, any bright ideas out there? anybody work for the airlines or have some extra frequent flyer miles you don't need? private jets? i'm talking roughly jul2-aug 31 plus or minus a few days on either side....

happy 30th raf

my buddy raf turns 30 today. i met raf on my bday, when i was turning the unfathomable age of 23. back then he had no road rage, but i changed all that.

years later, raf remains a friend, somebody who i'm always happy to see, someone who usually has a smile on his face and who can bring a smile to mine. so happy birthday raf!

and by the way, i was listening to tribe the other day and i still contend that midnight marauders is their best album.

apology

i just got back from a great weekend in barcelona. this is my fifth time visiting the city, and definitely the best. rather than spending any time doing touristy stuff i saw friends, walked around neighborhoods i didn't know and relaxed. i sat on three beaches. i got a sunburn that was gone by the next morning.

to tell the truth, before this trip i often spoke a little disparagingly of barcelona. like boston, i would say, it is a nice place to visit but i wouldn't want to live there. or i had my big metaphor about barcelona being like one of those really good looking people who really doesn't have much personality.

but i admit when i'm wrong. sorry, barcelona, i just hadn't looked in the right places. i mean, you not only have a beach, but beaches that stretch for hundreds of kilometers in either direction. i like your wide sidewalks and flat streets. i like how every restaurant seems to think having organic food is a good idea. you're a totally fun place to hang out, plus lots of my friends live there. forget what i said before, my bad.

no crush for you!

i try not to complain about these things, especially here. however. it's not often that i meet somebody and actually find them crush-able. even the simplest crush can feel like a fresh breeze.

so, it was with considerable excitement that i realized last week that i had met one of these elusive fellas. and he walked me home!

fast forward a week, i have learned in a series of ever more disheartening pieces of gossip from friends that: 1. he has a long-term girlfriend 2. she's german and 3. actually, he left madrid. he lives somewhere else.

can a girl catch a break around here?

cooking is meditative

i read a piece recently in the new yorker that mentioned cooking as a meditative practice. this is interesting. although i often say that i have a hard time shutting my mind off in attempts to actually meditate, while cooking i enter a kind of trance that must be close to what i'm aiming for.

i love cooking and right now i'm in the throes of a cooking phase. i get off on chopping vegetables, there is something extremely satisfying about it. also, cooking is one activity - like shopping and going to museums - that is quite lovely to do by yourself.

last night i made meatballs in chipotle sauce and veggie enchiladas. currently i'm making brownies (from scratch). now is a good time to try to score a dinner invite...

fearless friday

i remember being in college in the mid-90s when there was this fleeting fashion trend of t-shirts with the logo "no fear" emblazoned across the chest. it annoyed me to no end -- no fear? please. the concept was ludicrous, especially as a catchphrase being sported by any and all mallrats and skateboard enthusiasts.

yet here i am, more than ten years later, considering the same topic, with gravitas: fearlessness. when did i become, or start to become, fearless? for me, this is a case of hindsight. the moments that i can retrospectively cite as being my most fearless were done with the most trepidation i can imagine. at the time i was fearful, yet decisive.

two examples that stand out were the two times i quit my "serious" jobs to go embark on "non-serious" adventures such as traveling around the world or moving to europe. both times i quit i did so without much popular support, certainly not encouraged by bosses or family to leave the stable corporate world without a return ticket back. i did it without making plans beforehand, little more than a plane ticket had delineated my future. and against the grain, bucking the trend of what had been expected of me. i had such great promise and such an expensive degree and was putting it to good use making money!

so, fearless? hardly. those are the two scariest things i have ever done, and ultimately the most formative decisions in my life. to me fearlessness is what a woman must rely on when the only faith she has is in herself. fearlessness is the power to reject other people's opinions or advice, to forge ahead with an unpopular path. and don't be mistaken, there is plenty of fear involved. it's not the shedding of the fear that is important, it is the overcoming of it.

this post was inspired by my friend joie and a book by arianna huffington called "becoming fearless."

r.i.p sol lewitt

i was surprised to read today in the new york times that one of my favorite artists, sol lewitt, had died this month.

although, to be frank, i can't be sure that i knew whether he was still living before reading the article.

much of lewitt's art consists of wall drawings, in which he provides a set of instructions that are carried out by others. although this has met criticism, i have always found the results to be transcendent.

i first discovered lewitt at a retrospective at the san francisco moma many years ago. my mind responds strongly to patterns, to geometry, to mathematical ideas, and lewitt's pieces offered all three, while still being "art." i like looking at art, but i like the visceral feeling i get when a piece makes sense to me, and lewitt's work always made perfect sense.

the dia:beacon, a beautiful art space in the hudson valley is doing a show of 14 of lewitt's wall drawings through sept. 10. i'm going to make sure i get there when i'm in new york this summer. not only is dia:beacon one of my favorite gallery/museums in the world - with its sparse unpretentious presentation and the highest percentage of pieces that "make sense" to me - it has many sculptures by my other favorite artist richard serra.

in other news...

ok, now that i'm done effusing about my trip, here's what else has been going on. our top stories:

hey, i turned 30! what an amazing birthday. i was overwhelmed with the amount of bday love i felt coming out of every corner: the cards, the emails, the gifts. i am truly blessed and lucky and couldn't be happier to welcome the fourth decade. i love all of you who helped make this the kick-ass birthday i promised myself it would be.

summer has been flirting with me. last night i slept with the doors to the terrace open, slightly chilly under my comforter, divine. this morning i awoke to the familiar but forgotten sounds of spanish men yelling and singing on the street. the terrace is almost ready for the non-stop party regimen of the hot months, you better get your bikini body ready!

i've been flirting with summer. i'll be back in the us for july and august and the weeks are rapidly filling up with plans. this time i'll be in the ham, michigan, new york, dc, new hampshire, maine and back to boston. looking forward to seeing you all on that side of the ocean, but we need to make plans soon because available days are almost gone! operators are standing by.

and now, a little friday list of things that have been catching my eye around the internerd:

• thomas friedman's piece in last week's new york times magazine was inspirational. american getting its groove back by leading the green revolution? yes please.
• slate has been featuring excerpts from witold rybczynski's new book about modern home development. my favorite part: an expose on america's on-again off-again love for ranch houses.
  
• this piece about being neighborly at the morning news made me smile. it reminds me of the time i lived with seth in soho and there was the alzheimer-diseased downstairs neighbor who would open her door naked. and then she died.
  
• my friend zoe put on lipstick for this, her new blog.
  

last vacation shots

the last stop on my trip was a tiny village in an area of spain known as picos de europa. these are rocky peaks, rising out of rivers and lakes as if a child had been asked to draw a mountain.

we did a hike along the cares river gorge, ten kilometers between two villages on a path carved into the side of a cliff. the mountain rose thousands of meters above and below our trail and everywhere was the most imposing, stunning, larger than life scenery i have ever seen. my guide book called it "a horizontal walk in a vertical world" and i think that is an apt description.

this is classic photos-don't-capture-it territory, folks. words are even proving to be quite futile. even the mountain goats were all like "dudes, can you believe this?" and we were all "um, no. get away from my lunch."

all i can say is that i highly recommend this walk for anybody who visits spain. it's not even that challenging, the trail is mostly flat, giving you the feeling of being among alpine peaks without all the pesky walking uphill.

check out this photo of michael resting by the side of the trail, my favorite from our trip. this was the last day of my twenties i can't imagine a more perfect ending.

tragedy

(vacation photos will resume shortly)

i don't like it when news of the us appears on spanish television. it's always something bad.

it's weird, i read the news every day and every day i think that there is something extremely wrong with this world. americans die in iraq every day, by the tens and dozens, both military and civilians. students and other innocents dying of disease, hunger, and shootings cover the front page on a daily basis. so is this worse? is the news today more f'ed up than usual?

i'm not looking forward to going to work tomorrow, or being asked to explain by any non-americans why such an unthinkable thing can happen in our county. and seems to happen with some regularity.

backroads

i sold my car two years ago, before moving to europe. the advantages are numerous. i mean, besides not paying for gas, insurance and repairs there is the self-satisfied feeling of not adding to global warming in one small little way. don't even get me started on parking. however, the benefits of having a car are not lost on me. one of the best parts is the freedom of your own wheels, the freedom to go anywhere there is a road.

and during my vacation i felt that freedom again, a whole week with a rental car, free to explore the backroads and little villages of spain. here are a few pictures from those adventures.

i love fishing villages more than regular old landlocked villages. perhaps because they remind me of rockport and gloucester and other towns in massachusetts where i grew up. i just like those colorfully painted boats and the salty men who own them. also, of course, there is the sea, never more forboding and full of potential then surrounding a town full of fishermen. and even though they say that the freshest fish in spain is in madrid, fish never tastes better than from where you can smell the salt air and meet the guy who caught it.

coruna

my guide book called coruna the most underrated city in spain. interesting, i thought, how can something so old and established be underappreciated? either something has changed in the sands of coolness, or there is some barrier stopping people from loving this place as it deserves.

and in the end, i can't say i found either of these cases to be true, and coruna is indeed one of the best cities i've visited in spain. maybe having santiago close by but infinitely more famous keeps the city slightly hidden in plain view?

it reminded me of san sebastian: modern, surrounded by water, with a kick-ass beach right in the middle. it reminded me of san francisco: can any city surrounded by water on three sides not be stunning? it reminded me a little bit of new england: the fishing boats sitting sleepily in the harbor, a breakwater you can walk along, even a building that is an avatar of one in boston.

but ultimately, coruna was completely unique and seemed perfectly appropriate for its location. you were never more than a few steps from the water in every direction. seafood bars and restaurants lined those windy medieval streets. cathedrals and plazas appeared gracefully, without seeming dominating or imposing. if a place can be energetic and laid-back at the same time, coruna is it

what, no easter bunnies?

easter in spain reminds me that i live in a foreign country. first of all the holiday occupies more space than at home, taking up four days that for a teacher stretches into a full week off of work.

however, long weekends aren't so rare around here. the real spanish-ness of easter is its religious/secular duality, much like the country itself. i've heard it quoted that over 95% of spain is catholic, yet i've never seen such a group of christians come off so liberal, so laid-back. in essence, spaniards are catholic in name only, yet the architecture and rituals of christianity are deeply ingrained in the culture.

and nowhere more so than during easter week. spaniards use jesus' death as an unequivocal excuse to go on vacation. there could not be less religious significance to the holiday. however, no trip to the beach during holy week would complete without watching a procession, an ancient and quite spooky parade of virgin statues escorted by hooded bearers and haunting drum music.

in the context of something modern and secular you have a throwback to medieval rites. and all around it, before and after, the people spill out of the bars into the streets, drinking, being spanish, celebrating easter by enjoying their days off.

castle rocks

if a child drew a castle it would look like this:











and if you were a child you would want every castle to be exactly like this. empty, rocky and pointy. with slits for shooting arrows and a tower to scale. no guardrails or roped-off areas, no restricted access. not to mention free. well done, portugal, yet again.

check out portugal

hey it's me. i'm back. a little older and slightly tired. lots to show and tell. first of all, i have lots of photos from my trip. the last week has been a whirlwind: cities, villages, beaches, mountains. since i'm not going anywhere for a couple of weeks, i'm gonna kick back and relax around here with some photo posts.

first we went to oporto in northern portugal. oporto is on the douro river and is famous for port wine and cod. i like it because the buildings are dirty; it makes me think that although they are doing their best to support a tourist industry, they aren't going so far as to polish off their buildings. despite the greyness washing over everything -- years of built-up exhaust and grime -- the city stays colorful. the red tile roofs, the charcoal bridge, the odd yellow building, the blue tiles. i also dig the setting of oporto, right on the river and near the sea. the bridge through the center of town is perfectly beautiful and useful: elegant, convenient and multipurpose.

we walked up hills and climbed a tower -- setting the template for the rest of the week's activities. windy medieval streets, check. stairs, check.

well there's lots more but my pictures are being uploaded to blogger at a snail's pace. more asap.

vacation message

my bags aren't packed but i'm on my way. tomorrow i leave for a week's vacation to portugal, galicia and asturias. i'll have my computer but i doubt i'll get around to blogging.

but before i go,

an early shout-out to my friend paul, whose birthday is tuesday. paul is my bff, except when he isn't. he's the best customer of my terrace hair salon. and although he calls me kiddo, he's still younger than me. happy birthday, beavis.

also, my friend joie has a new website along with her group of writer friends. check it out: crutial minuiae. joie is a writer and a thinker and i'll be checking out her kidz today column every wednesday.

see you when i'm 30.

yoga hostility

when i first read this article, slate's "the hostile new age takeover of yoga," i was nodding my head in agreement. yes, yoga has been commercialized, dumbed down and misinterpreted via its entrance into american gym culture. yes, yoga's eastern principles of meditation and breathing have been diluted, with the help of magazines, to include the very western concepts of power and immediacy.

yes, many yoga-addicted americans are more interested in the workout aspects of their practice than the breathing and focus that our yoga teachers are constantly telling us are of primary importance.

yes, yes, yes. ok. we're so american. this is not news, and certainly not the first article of its kind.

but the more i thought about the article, especially on the walk back from my yoga class yesterday, the more i have come to think: so what? so american culture tends to commodify eastern philosophy. so american women admit to appreciating yoga's physical benefits. so there are stupid magazines at supermarket checkout lines that speak to the lowest common denominator.

but does this really consist of a hostile takeover? i mean, i practice ashtanga yoga twice a week, and while i work very hard on the mental aspects of it, the truth is that i'm there for the exercise. should i feel bad about this? isn't it better that i drag my american ass to the class at all? am i somehow involved in a coup?

and what is more trite actually, the way yoga has been appropriated by american culture or the complaining about said appropriation? i find it hard to believe that there isn't a thoughtful yoga magazine out there, or a yoga studio that doesn't include a power yoga class. if the author is really so offended by his yoga options, perhaps he should move to india.

vacation horizon

i'm in pre-vacation impatient mode. semana santa begins for me on thursday at 4pm and i can't get there fast enough. after a slightly bummed out weekend, i'm ready to shed the routine and get out of town.

on the agenda: saturday morning arrival of mr. michael from the homeland. our chariot awaits us sunday morning (rental car) and we run for the border. two days in northern portugal then northern spain. galicia, asturias and picos de europa. i'm excited to see new parts of the country and spend a week disconnecting from madrid.

four more days.

meanwhile, happy monday. here's a list of some things i've been reading:

• bravo buys television without pity. will the snark end?
  
• the show with ze frank ends. slate answers the question, what's with the no blinking?
• did you read that spider article in a recent new yorker? holy shit. i'm at once appalled, fascinated and itchy. (hey, the new yorker website got a redesign. nice)
• guitly pleasure: happy birthday perez
• via whatevs: recordreviews.org
  

seasonal confusion disorder

over the weekend when it was 70 degrees i was marveling at the fact that it was technically still winter. i cautiously put away the space heaters and eyed my summer clothes. terrace parties, suntan lotion. talk of the "ool."

and just as spring actually arrives, the weather regresses back to winter. a cruel twist of events. and for the moment i'm at home, don't expect me to come out until spring returns.

humph.

goodbye

what a weekend. days on the terrace sunbathing, gossiping, playing with the puppy. nights staying out until dawn, saying goodbye to two close friends.

it's weird when somebody leaves. it's a very intense moment of sadness: the tense moments leading up to The Moment, the hugs, the ceremonial bequests of personal belongings.

(i made out pretty well from these two -- a tennis racket, a printer, a george forman grill, a shawl, a sweatshirt, a book. you might think, as somebody callously observed, i was circling like a vulture, just waiting to pick over the remains. but no! i cried real tears!)

anyway, what i find even weirder than the sadness is the way things return to normal mere moments later. we all shift and readjust and of course miss the person who has left, but shake off the sadness rather quickly. phone calls are replaced by emails. afternoon coffees in madrid are replaced by happy hour drinks in new york.

to live this kind of life, to move around, to find homes in many places or none at all, to just as often be the one saying goodbye as the one being said goodbye to requires this level of resilience. it necessitates a sort of friendship that isn't disturbed by location, or months without contact. it leaves a trail of friends across continents each punctuated by various goodbyes and hellos.

but i did cry, for the first time in probably six months.

moments later, i felt better.

photo by paul

happy birthday stib

who is that dashing gentleman in the fancy getup?

why, that's my cousin steve. nobody rocks a leather body suit like he does. and today he's 31.

steve and i both grew up without siblings, so we had each other in a pinch when the family situation demanded a child of similar age. like trips to see grandma in florida, or studio portraits at the mall.

i always thought he had the best toys. when we were kids it was the legos. later, the best bikes and skateboards. nowadays he had an amazing house and an even more amazing dog.

growing up we were always kind of a pair, we always hung out together and got along. the best part is that we still do.

my new friend

meet zas, my new little friend. weighing in at 1.7 kilos (3.7 pounds) zas is half chihuahua, half angel and half sweetie pie. he likes long walks in zoe's apartment, quiet nights romping in bed and harmless biting. he specializes in bringing the fun and the cuteness.

bracketology

march is here, which means it's bracket time. if you live in an office or if you're a guy, chances are you've filled out your ncaa championship bracket and have a little money riding on it. i like the bracket idea; elimination tournaments, while possibly not the fairest, are always the most exciting.

this year i have noticed a trend: bracket mentality is seeping into non-sports related competitions. competitions are even being invented to capitalize on the effectiveness and pervasiveness of bracketology in march. see the morning news' tournament of books (bracket here for easy printing) and accompanying blogger's office pool for all the literati who feel kind of left out while the rest of the world watches sports.

well, all my pondering on this subject was answered, or usurped, by slate's cover article today the enlightened bracketologist. their essay explains how the "ingenious" bracket structure can help solve some of "life's most nagging questions." the article is mostly fluff, but there are some fun interactive brackets aiming to sift out best ad slogans, best film deaths, best marital fights and best 'where were you' moments. they take about two minutes each and then you can see how your bracket stacks up against the "expert"'s.

it kind of makes you think: wow, what else could i decipher this way? maybe best sexual encounters? all i have to do is come up with a power-of-two numbered seeded set of things, arrange them judiciously so there are no easy outs in the first round, then make a series of either-or type judgments. what could be easier? turns out, skipping the exercise entirely and writing a blog post about it, then watching the latest episode of 24.

today's question: i did the best ad slogans bracket and 'just do it' won. any other results?

can't we all just get along?

i've been reading about, and hearing about, the daylight savings time shift in the us. the hysterics were reminiscent of the y2k meltdown. y2k-2k7? but over here in spain, nobody has their panties in a bunch about this one. in fact, nobobdy seems to know when we turn our clocks ahead.

so i did a little bit of research and turns out, rather than being one week ahead of the u.s. daylight savings time shift as in past years, we are now two weeks behind. this means we set our clocks ahead on march 25 and that for the next two weeks europe is only 5 hours ahead of the eastern u.s. that's right all you friends and family: think twice before picking up the phone to make that long-delayed call to yours truly. 5 hours time difference. you've been warned.

spring fever

with warm days seemingly here to stay i find myself out of my winter slump. suddenly my days are fuller, i have plans every night, i'm exercising more, i feel better. not that i don't appreciate seasons or the value of a crisp cool day, but it's safe to say that winter is not my best time of year. here in madrid it only lasts a couple of months...perhaps 8 weeks moping around the house is a healthy respite in a busy year? not that i was exactly in the bell jar, but slightly down from my usually chipper self.

i've realized that my moods are rather mellow. i rarely get outraged, or depressed, or feel ecstatic or miserable. as a result, i feel slight ripples in my smooth sailing acutely; i'm fairly accustomed to a general sense of contentedness and i like it that way. a slump can feel like a canyon.

tonight i face a dilemma: to go see a band i really like or go play a friend's new wii. seems like the band should by all accounts win here.

quarterly review

awww, kind of reminds me of home.

so, you may be wondering about my resolutions so boldly presented earlier this year. remember, they were fail-safe...or were they? how about a list?

• yoga: ok, i didn't start in february due to financial reasons. but i did start in march, and i'm in the second week. that means lots of pain and frustration at backsliding, but general feeling of well-being and renewed sense of amazement at the awesomeness of yoga. and renewed crush on borja, my instructor.
• 30th birthday: plans are moving along at lightening speed. mr. michael coming from brooklyn for roadtrip through northern portugual and northeastern spain. birthday bash planned for the following weekend. feeling wonderful about this birthday, check.
• guitar: check. playing on terrace, check. but i'm still a little shy to play in front of other people. i'll work on this one.
• edit the novel: not ready to hang the "mission accomplished" banner on this one quite yet. i did read it at the beginning of february, but i'm having a hard time uncapping the red pen for editing. it's not that i don't want to edit it, at least to a presentable-to-friends version, but process of editing a 120-page document seems imposing --not that writing one wasn't -- and arduous. i liked the productiveness of writing and what i expect to be the slow nitpicky-ness of editing just doesn't appeal to me in my free time. especially when there is a guitar to be played. any advice?

so overall, not so bad. 3 out of 4. and i still have 10.5 months. goals are fun!

and the cleanse, you ask? well, those results have been less visible. i'm on day 34 and faithfully sticking to the routine. in the cleanse's defense, i didn't have any of the symptoms or problems that it claims to heal, so i'm not sure what results i could have expected to see. my hair and skin are, well, fine. not sure i've lost weight. the inside of my colon feels...squeaky clean? i'll trust that it is.

so that's the update, folks. in the pipeline: a few visits from the us. a few trips planned. if you can believe it, the summer is already filling up. i have a new project in mind that i'd like to start, more about that soon, i hope.

fresh air achieved

given all the weekends i spent hanging around my apartment and staying out all night, i can be proud of an accomplished plan to get out of the city. saturday i woke up relatively early and hopped on train with sights set on the distant mountains. i went to el escorial, a city in madrid province and skirted the giant monastery on the way to the fresh air of higher elevations.

i spent a few hours climbing over a mountain, stopping to take in the panoramas every so often. there is a great moment when you leave the crowds of families and people who drove up to the lookout point and the noise subsides and you find yourself alone in the quiet among the mossy rocks and occasional cowbell. there is another great moment, pictured above, when you reach a small valley between two peaks and begin your descent down the opposite side, and are rewarded with a whole new vista in front of you. for some reason the rocky hillsides gave me vertigo as i traversed across them.

and i did get my minimum recommended monthly dosage of fresh air, but check out that picture above. check out that hazy cloud, which became brown and heavier in the distance over madrid. it was as if i was looking through a flimsy curtain, as if everything had been bleached by years of sun. perhaps this is why i can't breathe?

meanwhile, i thoroughly enjoyed the day alone. i have to remember to do things like this more often. and today, back refreshed in the city, i had my first pre-season terrace get-together. a few new faces, one that will soon be gone, and a couple old favorites. ah, spring is here.