Mini moment: Saturday evening – I’m going to pick up Leo from school on an obviously familiar route. It has stopped raining, but the air here never quite gets the crisp cleanliness of a post rain northwest. And then out of the blue comes Frank Sinatra’s New York New York playing loudly. A newer shiny dark grey sedan rolls past with a blue-grey French bulldog in the passenger window, one front leg out the open window hanging against the side of the car, enjoying the view, and while he must have been on someone’s lap, you could not see the person at all. This dog looked like he should’ve had sunglasses on.
A block later I realized these were actually two separate incidents and a small older Mexican man wearing a portable speaker was actually responsible for New York, New York. But at the time there was not a shred of doubt in my mind that the Frenchie was playing the song. It was epic.
I have this urge to talk to you suddenly and I don’t know why.
Maybe I just want to know if you regret any of it. Not necessarily the divorce itself or even the sentiments you at times expressed, but how you did it. Do you regret springing it on me? Do you even understand that’s what you did. How long were you lying to me for? Do you even call it that? Do you regret quickly slapping boundaries on a potential future friendship with an ex who was moving out of the country? Do you regret unfriending me?
This week is hard and it’s only Wednesday.
Looks like I’ve got another weekend of activation ahead of me. Fortunately I had not already signed up for a hike, so at least it’s a relatively convenient weekend.
I keep vascillating wildly between moving back and buying a house and getting a new place here. Unfurnished. A place I could really make mine.
How am I still this volatile? Maybe this month of one year marks is doing a number on me. I honestly don’t remember what day you said you wanted a divorce. I know it was early August. So we’re a year out from that. I do know that Saturday would have been our 10 year anniversary. So much for that. I do wonder if you ever think of me. Even the things that felt so incredibly unncessary, the boundaries on a non existent friendship, the unfriending of both me and my friends on social media, all of that felt like you. Like when I couldn’t even get you to acknowledge it was sad that your grandma, you just kept repeating “She was old, people die” as though you couldn’t accept the kind of bittersweet sadness that comes with some change, even good change, just with letting go of part of your life. I would never have thought you could acknowledge this rupture as sad. But I don’t know how tight a lockdown you’ve got on it. Can you really do that with all thoughts and emotional content? I find it so infuriating, that kind of disavowal that our relationship ever had significance. I know you like to think of it as simply accepting facts as they are. I’m not sure either of us has this down pat, but I do think mine feels more human.
I keep going back to Albert Brooks concept of sort of pillars of happiness- community, purpose, faith, and enjoyment. Most of these things, I don’t have right now. I’m away from my community and in a space where it’s even harder to build, I’m trying to insert random purposes but have been frustrated by work a long time, faith- in which he means a sense of order or an understanding of the world- I don’t even care right now, and enjoyment, holy crap I am trying. But somehow happiness makes me sad.
And indeed it WAS a long weekend of activation. And I just realized only a little over a week until I head to Peru. I should probably get my act together on that piece….
In better news, I got an A- in my first class, which I felt was better than I deserved and then I decided to be nice to myself and recognize that the professor actually has tons more experience grading than me and I should respect his opinion and just be happy for myself. So that’s what we’re doing.
Tacos of the Week: Los Caramelos
On Monday, Fran and I went to a taco place in her neighborhood that she’d had before. Los Caramelos is a stand that became a storefront. They feature a lot of northern style tacos. Pictured above are a chicharron (on left) and a barbacoa de res. These were juicy tasty freakin’ tacos. Chicharron is interesting, it can refer to large fried swaths of pork rind, it can be pork belly, or these rendition which was more like a pulled pork. I believe techincally it means cracklings, but the variation is huge and I haven’t found a way to tell what you’re about to get. The one exception being if guacamole comes with chicharron, it’s definitely the large friend swath. This taco place may become a staple, despite being in the Condesa neighborhood and a solid 35 minute walk. They were really good and deeply satisfying. I’ve wanted them at least 3 times this week.
Year One Project 
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