Last night the rain came down so hard I couldn't see. I thought it would be great to have windshield wipers for my eyes, or better, just some longer eyelashes. My genes forced short eyelashes onto me, and running through the rain, I really wished they were longer, for purposes beyond beauty. Like a llama, or a camel. I bet you didn't know that eyelashes work just as well to keep the rain out of one's eyes just like sand.
We stood, hovering at the edge of dry and sopping wet, waiting for the final spark that finally set us off running like racing hounds, splashing in giant leaps and with great inertia on block after block of concrete. My feet tied into sopping, soggy, stinky sneakers jumping over currents of rushing street water, all shimmering from the street lamps.
Dry like sand, dry like porous hot tiles, dry like watercolor paper, a restaurant is full of people who are sitting and eating juicy steaks, washing the meat from their teeth with dry red wine, holding both their knife and their fork. They chuckle at us on the other side of the glass, as we dash by like a pair of drowning rats. Hair juicy with Buenos Aires cloud water, I laugh and joke (in Spanish) "hey, you got any soap?" He doesn't think it's as funny as I do and moves his legs faster leaning forward against the rain.
15 blocks later we are soaked to the bone, lifting our magnetized clothes off our pruning skin with a suuuucking sound, thumping down the gum-stained gritty stairs to the "subte", the subway. The humidity is thick and oily. It smells like molten garbage and hot electronics. As the subway stops, street water leaks from my shoes and an older woman in heals lifts her shiny leg to avoid the black water streaming down the car, which I'm not sure is black because my shoes cost $25 dollars and the dye is leaking, or if the street water was really that dirty.
The next day riding the crowded bus back from classes I see a giant sign neon with a giant neon eye: “Eyelash Implants” it reads. What the???
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Today on the subway, which I had to take twice, as well as two "colectivos" (buses), I heard some great music, and as the musicians passed through our subway car a girl got in and sat down. Her face was twisted and furrowed into a pitifully distressed look. The woman sitting next to her looked like she was about to open her mouth a few times, presumably to ask the girl if she was "ok". When the musicians started playing, a simple flute and guitar duo that was the best subte music I've heard in a while, her face melted back to normal. It was really something to see. Amazing the power of music.
Last night I killed three cockroaches. Let me rephrase that: last night I killed three GIGANTIC cockroaches. The first two were nosing, or rather, probing their way around my kitchen, which made me really angry, and so I killed them with one of Isa's combat boots.
The other one was trapped inside the cheesecloth mesh that is my ceiling. (I can see the roof through my ceiling, which is made of tin and is incredibly loud when it rains). I stood on a chair for a long time waiting for it to come back out after I scared it away with my first attempt. This time I killed it with a flip flop, and a really loud shriek jumped from my throat. Now there’s a huge brown stain on my white wall. Some say that if you kill a cockroach more will come. Won't stop me!
Speaking of cockroaches:
My TEFL teacher (who lives in Villa Crespo- I think of it as “Crispy Ville”) said that during the worst rainstorms we had in the last week, her entire lower floor flooded, and as a result all the cockroaches starting escaping the rising water from every filthy little crevice imaginable, scurrying the walls, as an army of one hundred atomic-bomb surviving vermin.
They say if they are small it’s worse because it means there’s a nest nearby.
So glad I live on the upstairs terrace is all I can say. (Despite the dog the that barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks all NIGHT LONG).
The other day I had my first steak in probably way over a year. It was grilled and medium rare, and tasted and smelled like dead cow. And all I could think about was how much I love cow eyes. But I tell you the truth, I ate the whole thing, washed it down with some dry red wine, and left a 10% tip for my nice waitress- the only person I had a conversation with that entire day face to face. But it wasn’t the steak that made me feel bad, it was the fact that I was surrounded by families and friends, couples, kids, all eating and sharing together, and it really hit me how very far away I am from everyone I love and how happiness is only worth it when shared. I started to feel like this crazy woman, like I could invent myself if I wanted. I wondered if the people in that restaurant had seen me walking around by myself before, and when they looked my direction and spoke, I imagined they were saying "oh there's that lonely girl again, she's always alone isn't she? What a pity, such a waste". And then they go back to their steaks and laughter.
And then I fell asleep in my mascara. That was my eventful weekend.
Room mates returned from the beach, all tan and with food poisoning. I made them white rice and broth and now they are asleep in each others bronzed arms like babies.
A man on the fifth floor above me, is sitting at his window and playing old romantic tunes on his guitar and singing along. I swear it's these little details that make my life a movie.
Good night all of you that I love.
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