6/16/25 #NoKINGS

Lesson of the week: Do not listen to Elliot Smith when sad. He is unhelpful in this.

Back to it at Spanish class, which feels good. I just need a job where all I do is rote memorize stuff and there is no consequence to failure. Perhaps I should be a weatherperson.

I think I made a friend…. I feel somewhat foolish about the level of excitement this is instilling in me. Like I called my mom to tell her I made a friend excited. And we already have plans for Tuesday.

Today I just feel very sad as I contemplate what it would mean to not hate Mike. The idea that maybe we ruined our relationship, he was just no longer willing to repair. If bipolar 2 means big emotional swings and Mike kept those on lockdown, so much makes sense. Especially if he was using alcohol to stay in an upswing. It explains how I developed my expectations around what did and didn’t work for him. It also explains how that changed for him during down cycles in ways that felt inexplicable and sudden to me, since of course, they were unexplained. In fairness, for a long time, unexplained to Mike as well. And what I saw as reasonable requests, consistent in the context of our relationship, must have felt like I was asking for mountains to be moved. I don’t blame myself, in fact, I maintain that the onus to share, to provide context, was on him. And he never did this, he’d say I was asking too much, he’d say I put burdens on him, that he needed more space. Sometimes those statements were at least semi reasonable, but sometimes it was the most mundane of asks, so much so that most people wouldn’t even think of it as an ask “We need to figure out our airbnb for this trip”, “Around when will you be home?”, “Would you rather have X or Y for dinner?”. But he wouldn’t say ‘I feel overwhelmed’ or ‘I have so little energy that I’m scared to use it on this’. And of course in upswings, he’d be happy to do whatever it was. I am angry that I allowed his distance to make me anxious.

I suspect he felt like something was wrong with him and was preempting any defensiveness by telling me how unreasonable or controlling I was. I suspect he dislikes himself and that it juxtaposes with a kind of arrogance that I both understand and find confusing. I suspect he feels like he needs to fix himself and like that’s his burden alone. I suspect he doesn’t fully internalize that this is an illness and doesn’t get cured so much as managed and that people who love you can actually help. I suspect all this and it makes me very sad.

In a sign of personal growth for me, suspecting this doesn’t make me feel like I let him down or failed to do something. It’s a very calm sad. I do find myself wanting to tell him “I think I get it now” and I don’t know why I want to do that. I don’t know if it feels like I’m putting something to bed, if I’m just wanting him to know I see him, if I want him to feel like he’s missed out by his rejection of me, if I’m just so pleased that I think I finally have some understanding, if I want him to verify that I’m seeing it correctly. Some piece of all of the above most likely. But I think I’m not ready to talk to him. I still want emotionally vulnerability from him. I still want him to acknowledge that this hurt him too, that it cost him something. And I still think he won’t. Maybe that’s why I want to share it, some part of me thinks that if I’ve unlocked this piece of his brain and share it with him, he’ll have to be vulnerable with me. I wanted us to be friends. But I just can’t do it while he insists on having a shallow friendship. It feels like not a friendship, more like an acquaintanceship, And it really really sucks. I don’t do well with the idea that I made an 11 year mistake, I don’t do well the idea that I could be strangers with someone I knew so intimately, and I extra don’t do well with the idea that he could meet me with no sense of shared time, camaraderie, sentimentality, what have you, no acknowledgement of past. Whether it’s truly no sense or repressed.

But actually all of this feels a bit like healing today.

Saturday featured a mini #NoKings protest. Fran, her partner (Gus) & I walked to one of my favorite plazas to meet up with the larger group. Then our small but fierce group walked over to the US Embassy about a mile away. I ran into Adam, who i know from my hiking group. It was both Fran’s and his first protest. I heard someone else talking about how it was their first protest. It was so heartwarming. Although, I did feel a bit bad for them that it was so small in scale and not super well organized at that. We later heard that folks didn’t know there was a march planned and gathered, confused, at the meet point. In fairness, I didn’t know there was a march either, just sorta assumed. My small group made an agreement that I was in charge of teaching all the English chants and Gus was in charge of teaching all the Mexican ones. And so we shouted “Hey Hey Ho Ho Donald Trump has got to go” and “Se ve. se siente! El pueblo esta presente” and “This is what democracy looks like (no drum, so just very awkward clapping), and “Donald escucha, estamos en la lucha”. And I may have teared up a little.

Embassies have a way of reminding me of my naivete. They are never open and welcoming as I think they should be. And indeed this one is surrounded by some remarkably ugly fencing (granted the building itself is no beauty) with razor wire on top. A few songs were played, a few speeches made, and the naked bike ride cheered us on as they pedaled by.

And then, as the rain started, we all taped our posters to the fence.

So very clevely, I have my left my raincoat in Portland. And omg the Mexico City rainy season is not to be trifled with. I’m honestly quite unsure my raincoat, unaided, would be sufficient.

This city of over 22 million people goes inside.

I suspect it plays no small role in the stereotype around Mexicans having a loose idea of timeliness. Folks huddle under overhangs outside the grocery store, couples cling to each other and stare at the downpour, cars simply pull over. Traffic lights turn off somehow knowing they are no longer necessary and we’ve reverted to a free for all. Some stores just close after exhausting the efficacy of their limited mop supply. It’s raining, go home.

But not me, because I am from the Northwest and we don’t let a little rain stop us. This was foolish and I was the wettest I have ever been by the time I got to Leo’s school about 6 blocks away yesterday. Like dripping. And while it’s not the bone chilling cold rain we get in the NW, it’s also not exactly tropical, wear-shorts-with-it rain either. It’s like 63 and pouring sheets of rain with lightening overhead. It”s kinda magical and terrifying.

I started a gratitude journal. Being grateful makes me cry (lol what the hell doesn’t these days). I think I feel so fragile that I am hyper focused on the fragility of everything I see around me and it’s a strange combo of awe at its very existence and sadness at its temporal nature. Tuesday evening it was walking through skyscrapers and concrete and catching the overwhelming smell of lavendar, because some lovely Mexico City idea involved planting like 40 lavendar plants in this one plaza.

Tacos of the week:

Ok, we’ve done this one before, but may I once again present Taqueria Gabriel.
This was the closest taco joint to the protest. On the right we have a chicken taco loaded with chimmichurri and tiny french fries. On the left we have their duvalin (not a type of taco) which features two different trompos, I think one carne asada and one other with adobo? and then some veggies and guac.

The chicken solid, the duvalin was exceptional and their serve their agua de jamaica in giant heavy goblet style cups which just makes ya feel special.