A Canadian gal in Stuttgart, Germany, who loves nothing better than crafting by the seat of her pants. See her snip, sew, knit, knot, glue, sculpt, splatter, spin, and of course, talk about herself.
i am supposed to be in Cuzalapa today. i am not. oh well. i think i'll go tomorrow, as there are a couple things i want to take care of first. meanwhile, life is much the same here, i'm just tying up a few loose ends before i go home and hanging out with my mexican posse as much as i can. quite admirably, Ernesto (my little, well, ok not so little, redhead) has resolved to teach me to play the guitar in the few weeks i have left. he's so wicked. right not i'm working on some exercises and a 3 chord song by 4 non-blondes. i've decided i have stubby, wimpy fingers, but am determined to persevere. i'm beginning to wonder if i want a guitar with me in germany. maybe i can just find myself a guitar playing boy there?? just kidding!
in all seriousness tho, i'm kinda bummed today due to the combined sadness of my impending departure, which will mean leaving a group of kickass people, and the fact that i will not be in toronto to witness the greatness that is george clinton and the p-funk allstars this weekend. *sniff* it's ok, you don't have to feel sorry for me, i think i've got it covered.
the secret to a great karaoke expreience is realizing that it doesn't matter if you can sing, it doesn't matter who's watching, and it sure as heck don't matter if you know the goddamn song. an impromptu urge for beer last night turned into a big scavenger hunt getting people together, cuz although it was initially just me n my boy, i thought 'hey let's ask Jamie' which led to asking Carla, then Jasibe, then Coco and Chemo. so forever later we're hanging out outside the bar cuz it's packed to the tits and thre was just no breathing in there, let alone drinking. so where do we go? the hippest place ever...the ROTARY CLUB. this still kills me. anyway, turns out they've got karaoke. YAY!! too bad i don't recognize any of the songs in the book, except for the few ricky martin songs that i'm sure as hell not gonna sing, but after a few cawamas ignorance seems a petty reason not to get up there with the girls and sing 'La Vida es un Carnaval'
and what was even greater is that Cerillo has sung there before, and so the owner moseys over and asks if he's gonna sing a few, so he does. and i love hearing my boy sing :)
HOLY HANGOVER DELAY, BATMAN! (ie i almost forgot the weekend)
i now heartily believe in the miraculous, all-curing power of tequila. i think it should be included in first aid kits everywhere. this is because i dragged my sorry ass onto a bus headed to Barra de Navidad on the weekend slong with a head full of mucus and a general woe-is-me sort of malaise that i was pretty sure was not going to make me much of a party animal. but, Mary and Gael (crazy tramping bisexuals extraordinaire) had already made the reservation for us to go 'GET FUN!' (they love this phrase, they say it constantly.) at the beach. so off to the beach went my cold-germ-infested self, as did poor, exhausted, insomnia plagued Jamie. as J was just tired, he managed to fix himself up with some Ciclon, which i'm not sure we've got back home, but it's like red bull, in that when you mix it with vodka and give it to Jamie, it makes for all kinds of wrong!!! oh Jamie, what came over you?? if only i had brought my camera so all your little geography mates could see you grinding, all topless n sweaty, with Gael and that wierd fat guy. i was so relieved when you latched onto that cute random teenybopper from guadalajara with the nice ass, particularly since it wasn't the first girl you'd been eyeing, who, it turns out, is only 16. just our luck, since friday isn't technically the weekend yet, the only place we could find to dance at was almost empty excpet for a gang of jailbait from guadalajara in backless shirts. i think Gael, Mary and J all wet their pants while i just resolved not to let Jamie get sucked into the vortex. i can't tell you how many of this kind of temptress there are here. it's terrible. when we first got here it took us a couple weeks to realize that all the beautiful girls we kept seeing were under 18, cuz once they get any older most are busy breeding or leave town. crazy.
so back to the beach, we also ran into the most gorgeous posse of hippies ever. i would tell you what went through my mind at first seeing them, but then this would cease to be a pg-13 blog. i'm thinking if i ever get myself out of debt, i need to take a year to lollygag up and down the coast of some sultry aired country just camping here and there and getting by on necklace making, cuz these guys seem to be having a blast. having partaken heavily of the Jose Cuervo cold remedy (and feeling quite festive!) by the time they arrived, i was seriously considering just joining them then and there.
second night was much of the same, but at the SeaMaster (doesn't that sound like tuna from the dollar store?) where they had an open bar and the yummiest waiters ever!! there was much dancing, much over-heating, and much drenching with cold water, much to the amusement of all the bartending staff. and i ran into one of the Harley's boys!!! Harley's is a pizza place here in Autlan which only seems to employ hot young men. it's great. it's not a gimmick or anything, tho prolly done on purpose. there are a couple i've been ogling, and J keeps joking that i have to snag a Harley's boy before we leave. well, i ran into one in Barra, tho not one of the one's i wanted. this would be for the best, as i'm not sure my darling little redhead would appreciate hearing abot me getting it on with the pizza boy. damn! speaking of which, i'm supposed to be meeting him for a movie, like NOW. the matrix finally got to Autlan! i hope i don't wet my pants!
wanna hear something funny? i'm sickles. and with what you may ask? a cold. i've got a freakin cold. in Mexico. it's 32 degrees today for chrissakes. and when i went to lunch all i wanted was some meatball soup godammit!! yeah, i know, it sounds gross. it prolly is. but for some reason or another i've grown very fond of this quaint Mexican dish and i thought it would make me feel a little less belligerent. but alas, no meatball soup for me!
but i found a recipe online for albondigas (meatballs, duh!) stuffed with olives. as this makes me wanna retch, particularly the picture, i don't feel so bad about not having them for lunch anymore.
i'm not entirely sure, but i think i may be freed of writing any more case studies, once i'm done the two i'm working on now. i can't even begin to express what fantabulous news this is. and it doesn't even mean i'm not working on any more cases. on the contrary, i get to check out four that some other poor sap has ALREADY WRITTEN! i just get to look over them, mosey on over to one of the nearby towns, and chatter away to the people to make sure the final write isn't erroneous in some way or missing something they'd like to add. i even get to visit some wee little Mexican nuns! WOOHOO!!
yes, and i do recognize the irony of being such a suck about my case studies, while i'm blogging along fairly happily. perhaps it's the structure, or the deadline, or my issues with the Dutch, hehehe. but there's just something about having to write stuff up for Peter (el Jefe) that sucks the fun out of it.
ooh! ooh! in more exciting news, i have reason to believe the usb cable for my camera is at the post office and could have it as soon as tomorrow. this is wonderfully fortuitous, as i was thinking of doing a spiel on some of the cute people around town, and this would be doubly effective if i could get some pics to upload! now to figure out how to get a pic of the MILF who sells the agua fresca.....
in case anyone's interested, my friend Dan sent me this link to a great story on Bucharest. it's pretty long, but has some great pictures and as a newsophobe, i found it quite enlightening.
i'm assuming for everyone there comes a point where the place you've gone is no longer new and wonderful and exciting, but has become just the place you live. this may help explain why i no longer feel the overwhelming desire to write about every experience like it has never happened to anyone.
nevertheless i must write on!
it occurs to me that, although i've written about things i've done, i don't think i've described much of the town itself. Autlan is a town of about 40,000 people, mostly your average small-quiet-town people. their weekend starts on saturday, as there are classes and lots of people work on saturday morning. today, being sunday, is the main holiday, with some of the men being enthusiastic enough to start drinking as early as ten in the morning. you know when there's a mass going on because there isn't a soul in the central garden. correction, the 2 central gardens. the gardens are kitty-corner to eachother and each about the size of branion plaza (for non-gwelfies that means a small city block) and are peppered with trees pruned in the shape of cubes and cylinders. they are carefully tended, being watered most mornings, quite lush and make for great shade on the wrought rion benches. some morning on my way to school i see men with cowboy hats and machetes hacking them back into shape as about a dozen different types of bird chirp, tweet, whistle and caw. the garden closest to our house has a gazebo, while the other has a small, grimy fountain. other than this last fault they are usually pristine, because there are women who some by to sweep them. having visited a few other towns of the same size or smaller, Autlan is by far the cleanest and is endowed with many pretty buildings which are reminiscent of it's colonial past. but the best part of Autlan, as with most of Mexico, are the secret gardens. houses here face the sidewalk, with no porches or front lawns. most of the time doors are kept closed, and windows shuttered, but sometimes, as you walk by a door or window left carelessly ajar, you can peek through to the interior of the house and catch a glimpse of a courtyard filled with fragrant greenery, from small potted plants to full grown trees, vines, flowers, and the prerequisite patio chairs with which to enjoy them in comfort. in contrast, our courtyard has one tree, but it's a lovely tree. although most of it's mangos are gone now, it's still nice to sit under in the evenings. but damn i wish i had a garden patio.
it just really hasn't been a terribly eventful week. more of the same dragging my sorry ass to campus to sit in front of a computer and try to make something compelling out of a few confused words scribbled on my fieldwork notepad.
oh, and i've recently acquired a redheaded mexican boyfriend. yeah, i know, i'm a wierdo.
