I find myself, in the bubble of my car, cursing the culture I drive through. While I say obscene blanket statements of frustrated ignorance, I feel a duality: 1) Hell yes, this feels good, I agree, amen! 2) What small mindedness to hold within yourself, how easy this is to answer it all. It astonishes me, and flashes my synapses back to intro to sociology, when I discovered the notion of ethnocentrism. It is this weird game I play, where I feel what I feel, and simultaneously acknowledge that it is not the true truth. I almost laugh, because apart of me feels it with such conviction, and at the same moment I know...I know it is just not that easy to be, "me right and you wrong."
In Mexico, public curbs are co-opted by private citizens, who block them off, and become gutter valets. They back you in, take your keys, and promise to protect, all for a small fee. I find it fucking aggravating, but I am not scraping by in a sea of 22 million. Today, I drove for a little under 2 hours. I was going to a park 2 miles a way. I made it to the park in 15 minutes. I circled the neighborhood for a very long time. Every inch of curb has something in front of it. And every opening is barely big enough to fit half of my car. It is a sick game of chance. Some days, most days, it works out fine--timing is the key, and I have yet to find the perfect recipe.
The dogs ran hard in the park--they have been cooped up with sick old me.
I went to a clinic today to be tested for pig flu. The test amounted to me hocking a green loogie of lung butter into a cup and sealing the top. They said come back tomorrow and we shall see. The doctor, who the school sent me to, told me she could not have me go back to school until she got the results. I have now told everyone that I am being held at bay against my will. But then I thought, who the fuck is this lady? What authority does she have at the school? If I went to school tomorrow, would anyone know that I was not in the clear? I have been proliferating her decree to all that I speak to, so now it feels like god ordained fact, but I still question it. In Mexico, you have a lot of people who assume control over a lot of overlapping things, ideas, places, beliefs, etc. I am learning to live within the many cross sections.
For tonight, I stay up late once again, because I can. My absentee lesson plans are submitted, and might I say, I am doing a damn good job of teaching from a laptop.
So it goes, and the wind can't blow it all away.
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