she was teaching the class about the difference between the imperfect and indefinite past in spanish. and in a fraction of a moment, a german word escaped her.
how do you know that word, the boy asked the teacher. he was from austria and had never fallen in love.
the teacher looked to him and smiled slightly. her teeth were a bit yellow. her gums a bit pale. i knew a german once, she said. i learned it from him. she placed her wrinkled hands on the particle board desk. i saw her fingertips turn white like ghosts from the pressure. so white they were almost red. and then they self consciously disappeared into her lap.
they rose again. slowly, self consciously. as if she had been caught somewhere she shouldn't have been. quickly, she brushed her hair behind her ears, now short and coarse from the chemo a few years back. her hair used to be below her waist, she once told the class. she smiled at this, too. and then she looked out the window. there was just a wall.
i watched her eyes the entire time.
when her gaze returned to the boy, i thought of the tornadoes that had turned a nearby town into a picasso painting in the years past. abstract and out of order, she looked as if she had just been swept up into the hungry mouth of a twister and then spit out lackadaisically among aluminum siding and rusted tractor parts. i felt hollow all of a sudden. maybe sorry, even.
the teacher cleared her throat and swallowed. alright, now where were we, she asked.
page 73, chimed the chorus of mildly disinterested students. the austrian was fiddling with his mp3 player. he was asking the student next to him why he couldn't get wifi.
she nodded. or maybe she shook her head. her fingers gripped the book tightly as some of the others searched for page 73. they turned white again.
"bueno. el indefinido es algo que pasa una vez en el pasado y no tiene nada que ver con el presente."
it was all spanish from this point on.

spit me baby one more time

my school day began with a documentary on genocide and ended with a stream of spit in my hair and face from an unknown thief. suffice it to say, today was no good. granted, the span in between was rather nice as i was able to purchase and consume carbs and finish reading a good short story, but thanks to the primacy-recency theory, all of that has been eclipsed by the shit time i had at the park.

i was writing in my journal (oddly enough bits and pieces to remember from the past few days so that i could add them here later) at my usual park after a rather banal class. looking up from my notes, i pondered the scene as oftentimes this park is a potpourri of people and personalities. once, i witnessed a man barking at children. always be aware of your surroundings, they say. 

at any rate, i caught a rather plain looking lump of a woman working her way up the incline via the ledge upon which i happened to be sitting. nothing wrong with that. relatively common occurrence. i continued my scribing. all of a sudden, i felt a gentle tugging at the hem of my dress, and then saw a hand reaching for the straps. i immediately noticed the nails: sparkly baby shit orange. this was obviously a bad person. instinctively (as i told dad later), the only child in me snatched the bag with astonishing force and conviction, and i think this took the woman by surprise. she looked at me as if she had hyperthyroidism and pulled harder. shit. i can't even win against myself with a chinese finger trap. i didn't know how i was going to pull this one off. adrenaline must have started to kick in, and i soon began shrieking at her in english. and before i knew it, the tacky nails made contact with my shoulders and soon i was supine on the ground. unfortunately for her, my body was the ball and chain to my purse, and it was safe underneath me. still in shock and unable to comprehend what had actually happened, i looked to my purse. all things were there. i looked to my tights. there was a gaping hole. i looked to her with utter incredulity, and she reciprocated by rearing her head back like some foul boar before it charges at you with its tusks and then spat in my face. to that, i responded with a nonsensical and painfully anticlimactic, "I HATE YOU." as if my abhorrence of her would have made any difference. she proceeded to run off and i never saw her again.

like most things, the hardest part was getting up. my veins were still comprised of whitewater rapids at this point and because of that my entire body was shaking. i was just waiting for the hives. there were others relatively nearby, yet no one seemed to notice what had happened. or maybe they just wanted to pretend so. awkwardly, i grabbed my things (the bitch didn't want to take my notebooks or collection of f. scott fitzgerald stories, what a shock) and made the long walk home, where i would collapse into crying fits every 50 paces. and it was as true then as it is now that i couldn't tell you exactly why that happened. it may have something to do that i have just started the monthly process that consists primarily of tampax, tears, and cheese-laden products, or the fact that it was so hot out, or the fact that i'm realizing that things are coming to a close, (actually, i think those are all good reasons and in truth it was probably a cocktail of the three) but i suppose i will never be certain. more than anything, i think it has to do with how much i've romanticized this place. nothing like that should happen here. sure, i've heard others say they've had things stolen, been mugged in dark alleys, but not here. not in my granada. 

though the truth is that even princesses can't sleep in forever. despite how it may appear occasionally, i think today highlighted a bigger issue with which i've always had problems: i have quite a hard time accepting things for what they are. no, i'm not an overt optimist, nor have i experienced any major hardships in my life. yet time and time again when these things happen (as they have before; i must bear some sort of an invisible mark), i tell myself that i've learned. i've wisened up. i "get it" now. i see. but i never do. the truth is that i don't like to think that beautiful cities can have ugly underbellies, and i hate to think that people aren't as good as they may appear. part of me thinks that i should hold on to this, as it's quite a slippery slope to becoming jaded, which is an even quicker catalyst toward complacency, but at the same time i know i am crazy not to recognize this as truth and respond accordingly. 

in the meantime, my eyes are feeling heavy. i'm going to let my neurons randomly fire for approximately nine hours and hopefully when i wake up tomorrow morning, the dust will have settled some and i will be able to see a bit more clearly. i do, however, recall a quote from a shirt that i liked today, oddly enough right before i entered the park. it read, "lo importante es saber que es importante," or, "the important thing is to know what is important." and today, despite the shit storm, despite the spit and the ripped tights, what is important is that i am safe and, in spite of my blubbering, i am stronger than i think.

cafe stream of consciousness

(since I haven't painted a picture of a typical afternoon in-between classes. will be writing more about the real happenings soon.)

I'm sitting outside the usual cafe right now, avoiding the usual work, and replacing it with the usual carbohydrates supplemented by the usual calorie-free cola. Between bites of bread, I pick at the nail polish that I reapplied only an hour ago after chewing it all off six hours before that. I don't know how I feel about this shade of red; it's red light district hooker meets self-mutilating punk. Which makes me feel overly prudish for wearing underwear today and simultaneously under-angst ridden for not promoting my favorite socially controversial causes through the medium of various lapel pins. I stare at the bread. I shouldn't eat it. I feel jowly. I begin to think of Henry VIII and about the crane they used to lift him in when he got too fat to support his most likely inbred legs (I soon visualize my grandmother's purebred corgi). I then imagine myself being lifted in that same crane with similar jowls to Henry's, while dribbling the grease and fat of a turkey leg or something equally Anglican down my chins. Well, I'm going to die anyway. Stare at the bread. Pick at my nails. Succumb. Bite. Delicious.

Now I'm thinking of stomach crunches and the work that is beginning to inch its way further away from my peripheral vision and into my central vision. I think of doing both when I return home. Then I salt and swirl olive oil onto my bread with the finesse of a great sorcerer. I will do neither. A man with a poorly tuned violin shatters my gaze with the screech of his strings, and for a moment I ponder his story. Why the violin? Why Spain? Why those shoes? But soon the sound is so haranguing that all I ask is Why me? He finishes the four minute piece five minutes too late and smiles as if he has ended the genocides in sub-Saharan Africa and found the cure for cancer within the same five-minute span. He says gracias. Others around me ignore him. He sees that I am watching even though my eyes are veiled by fake designer sunglasses. The gnat approaches and extends his hand. I pretend not to see him and take an imaginary phonecall. The hand remains on the table. I receive a text message during my 'conversation' and my phone chimes and vibrates, falling out of my hand. My cheeks become the same color as my nails. I lose. Reach into my pocket and pull out some change, demonstrating my financial support to a man whose dreams are more resistant to death than Rasputin. He cups the coins and leaves matter of factly. I can hear my money jingle in his pockets as he walks away, and decide that that sound is worlds more painful than his screeching sonata in d minor. I feel defeated and ask for my check. My proverbial tail is between my legs and I saunter back to my apartment. I know I am close when I smile at the sounds of jackhammers and general discontent. Class on Muslims in an hour. Thank Allah.

the belgian bust

Good evening, all. I'm going to begin this entry with a supreme sigh of relief as I will not be going to Belgium this coming weekend. The initial plan was to meet my friend Erinn for her birthday in Bruges, however after realizing that it would require planes, trains, automobiles, and being double-jointed to get there, I decided that it was a no-go.

The truth is that I feel incredibly guilty for canceling and if I could I would grow a tail just so that I could tuck it between my legs, but the reality is that a broken engagement and an impulsive $150 thought are completely worth avoiding the hernia and/or ulcer that potentially await me while switching trains, speaking in Dutch (I sounded like a rogue mallard duck when practicing Dutch phrases earlier) and broken French in a foreign country all by my lonesome. For better or for worse, I know my limits, and I know that a two-day trip to Belgium is not something worthy of grinding my teeth. That would be a season finale of Project Runway. Anyway, the difficult task, more so than the money wasted, will be telling her that I won't be going. I guess this is one of those things that will help build my character or something, though it seems that with my flakey behavior I'm made entirely of phyllo dough and dandruff. There are worse things, though. I guess.

At any rate, this weekend was rather nice. First and foremost, no one was in the flat (I say "flat" when I also decide that I'm not going to end sentences with prepositions in text; they both make me feel a bit fancy and European), and therefore I was able to bite my toenails without closing the bedroom door. Libertad! Kidding. I love Loren and wished that she were here, however you have no clue how much of a vacation it was for me to not be plagued by Marisel's nasaly nuances of her favorite Glee! hits at every hour of the day. No, you dumb bitch. "Don't Stop Believing" isn't by Glee. It's by Journey. I don't even like them that much, either, but will defend them down to their last teased hair follicle out of principle alone. Now please shut the hell up before I throw you and your stickered iPod in the gas burner. That's something to sing about.

You see, Marisel was in Barcelona this weekend celebrating her birthday by most likely singing Glee songs in the Sagrada Familia with some of her twerpish friends. I politely declined the invitation to go, as I already have enough problems with popping my ears on planes. I can't even begin to fathom the possibility of them bleeding on top of that. Let it be known now that if and when I establish my own reich, Glee and flat-feet will be two of the first things to be abolished. (Yes, Marisel has flat feet. Thus the theory continues...)

Anyway, my Friday was a relatively tame one, as the night prior didn't end until approximately 7 am. Another night at the Camborio, another night of shaking my ass most likely off beat to post-mole Enrique Iglesias hits. Saturday, however, was choc-full of excitement. Or at least things that made me wear something other than a dressing robe and a grimace. I started out the day with an impromptu English tutoring session, and to be honest I was incredibly terrified. I had to look up direct object pronouns, independent and subordinate clauses all before meeting up with my tutee (such a funny word!) so I could at least appear academic and knowledgeable. 

I met my tutee, Cristobal, a friendly yet unfortunately overgelled boy from Cordoba, for tapas and tutoring. It turns out that looking up the nuts and bolts of English grammar was far too ambitious, as the only words he could muster (though only with probing) were "hello" (ay-low) and "goodbye" (gude-bai). Things didn't get any better when my tapa, a plate of sausages that looked like midgets' thumbs drowning in some kind of red sauce with mayonnaise, was thrust so lackadaisically at me that some of its projectile found its way onto my white blouse, clinging to the fabric like an attention-starved leech. Eventually, I decided that it was best to begin with pointing to objects and people and have him describe them in Spanish, and I would translate to English, and then have him repeat what I said orally and then write it as well. It was difficult, and I can't necessarily say that the warm-fuzzy feeling that comes with kindness was worth it, as no amount of good vibrations can remove a tomato-sauce based stain from a white shirt. But so it is. Two diet cokes were paid for, and he came out of it knowing about 20 more words and how to use them in a sentence. We'll see if I'm recruited again.

That evening I attended a party at a few Australians' flat. I didn't know them at all, but still managed to be comfortable enough around them to fall out of my chair twice while laughing. Always the epitome of grace. I went with Jeremy (the Belgian who gave Cristobal my name and number for English lessons without consulting me first...thanks!), Gregor, and Hedda, a German girl whom I actually find to be very friendly and virtually spit-free. We listened to music, drank some, and talked until the wee hours of the morning, at which point I excused myself to come home. 

Today was more or less banal, as the most exciting thing I can say that I did beyond putting cheese on a piece of bread was finishing my paper on Islamic monarchies. And doing that was about as exciting as applying Preparation H to a stubborn hemorrhoid. Though, I guess you could say I rewarded myself by backing out of my Belgium trip. Guillaume asked me to go out for a drink, but as I was already immersed in my Bach mix and Belgium-fretting (on top of the fact that I am beginning to feel that my bloodstream is composed of white blood cells, red blood cells, plasma, and malted barley), I postponed until tomorrow under the guise of a stomach bug and generally "funky" demeanor.

This week should be a pretty good one. Tuesday night a group of Turkish girls are hosting a party at a pub wherein they'll be serving Turkish food (I was sold at this point), and will be doing traditional Turkish dancing. Wednesday night a bunch of people are getting together for tapas, and Thursday Hedda is having a terrace party at her place. And my weekend is 100% free. Oh, what a tough life I lead.

an update of e p i c proportions

I should be watching a film about the reunification of Italy, but since my professor isn't present today nor does the film particularly pertain to the name of the course (Social and Political Movements in SPAIN), I will regard this film with as much relevance to my blogging as the film does to my course. Though I must tear myself away for a moment, as it appears an Italian version of Scarlett O'Hara is shrieking on a chaise lounge. What is it about hoop skirts and ringlets that make women so damned dramatic?

At any rate, I feel compelled to comment on my past few days here, as I have been treating this blog with about as much care and maintenance as the leg hair on my kneecaps. I just don't go there. There are tights for those kinds of things. Though unfortunately, a few yards of nylon can't conceal the fact that I have been remiss on updating my single follower on the goings-on with Spanish Sav. But don't worry, Mom, I won't be referring to myself in the third person for the duration of this entry...

Thus I will begin with Monday's minutia. I began it quite abysmally by completing perhaps the most asinine assignment of my life, wherein I had to comment on the different "systems" present in a specific area of my host city. I was told to choose a "busy" place where I wouldn't be disturbed. No, it made no sense to me, either. Given how confusing the assignment was phrased, I wanted to respond with an equally choppy and contradictory essay, however ultimately I decided that a good grade is worth more than good conviction, ergo I abstained from challenging the system in favor of writing about its numerous manifestations in a park setting. Pick and choose, I suppose.

That said, my efforts were soon rewarded with a cold beer and chorizo sausage, so I suppose the few hours of academic enslavement were worth it. I can only imagine how the slaves greeted their forty acres and a mule. At any rate, I consumed said concoctions with a Gregor, a Scot with whom I share two classes. He is funny and attractive, though made more so as he paid for the two drinks I guzzled prior to class.

Said class comprised of yet another absent teacher and a subsequent substitute, at which point in time we were told to rewrite the classic story of Cinderella (this was supposed to be, as I learned after completing the assignment, a mere test of our knowledge of the indefinite past, past-perfect, and imperfect tenses) and share them with the class. In mine, I decided that the lazy prince really loved the fairy godmother as she could produce social justice and an ideal welfare state that didn't crush the GDP all with a flick of her wand, and that he only wed Cinderella because he found out that FG once had questionable ties with a communist kingdom nearby and thought that, with his rosacea and all, he looked absolutely horrible in red, so it was a definite no-go. Meanwhile, he saw Cinderella from the corner of his eyes, sweeping up some soot, and figured that marrying a plebeian would demonstrate his political ingenue and general humanitarian interests well enough to appease the frustrated serfs in his kingdom so they wouldn't, at least for a while, stage a rebellion. So then the Prince married Cindy and they lived happily ever after/tax free. Only a few people understood my story. But so it is.

That night was also a landmark for me, as I decided to use my stove for the first time in my 40-some days of being here. The dish? Frozen green beans. No, it's not the height of gastronomy, but given that my cooking capacity until this point both started and stopped with a clean spread of jam on a piece of bread, these green beans may as well have been lobster thermidor. Though having never used a stove before, I decided to proceed with utmost caution. I watched a YouTube video, then meticulously applied what I had learned to my own stove. I turned to knob from "off" to the flame symbol and placed my pot on the burner, patiently waiting by the open window. Five minutes later, there had still been no change in temperature. And then the tidal wave of realization hit: I probably should have lit something. So, I quickly grabbed a lighter and placed it underneath the burner, only to watch in astoundment as a large blue flame spread over the entire counter for a split second before it proceeded to go back to normal. It only occurred to me as I was enjoying my green goodies that that was how some of my personal greats had killed themselves. Which made me wonder if maybe all of their deaths had been misunderstandings. Perhaps after dedicating so much of their time and brain capacity to other things, they too had forgotten how to use one of the most basic kitchen appliances, ultimately resulting in their demise. Though how unfortunate it would be for me to die in such a way without having a book of controversial poems, or at least some kind of addiction, first.

But I digress. Moving backwards in time, my Sunday was spent with two of my favorite vices: gluttony and sloth, respectively. You see, I was recovering from a night that didn't end until the morning, and what better way to recuperate than with a bed and thinly sliced lamb, chicken, a fried egg, and vegetables all wrapped into one pita about the size and weight of an Olsen twin? Yes, I started the day with a shawarma. Afterward, I felt a bit guilty so I spent the rest of my afternoon reading about the UN and NATO Resolution of 1973. As entertaining as that is, however, I really miss reading for pleasure (hint, reader). Though I royally pissed myself off after the thought "Damn it, I can't read; I've lost my charger" actually escaped my mouth.

In case you were curious, I was recovering from my Saturday night. It began in the evening with tapas with Guillaume, though unfortunately he brought two of his boring friends who were leaving the next morning for an equally boring country, Poland. Suffice it to say I had little desire to stick around to hear the monotony of their travel plans (Poland will be cold. Poland will have museums. Will it be cold? I think so. Too cold for their museums? I don't know. Depends on how cold it is, etc, etc), so I apologized to Guillaume (who later apologized for bringing the walking dead with him on our Saturday plans) and to the others, saying that I completely forgot that I had to meet up with some others and was running late. And that furthermore, I was a bit sick.

Which wasn't entirely untrue; I did have plans with others, and I was running late. And I was sick. Sick of their conversation. Anyway, I had heard earlier from Veronica (sweet Ecuadorian) and Gregor that there was supposed to be a massive house party in the albaicin that night, and that I shouldn't miss it. And as I had no desire to discuss Warsaw, I figured the albaicin, despite the uphill trek that still makes my quadriceps squeal like a pig in the slaughter, was worth it. In a bit of a hurry to meet up with them (we were to reunite at a Brazilian's apartment), I rushed into the nearest chino to purchase my usual beverages: vodka and orange juice. Pointing indiscriminately at the closest bottle of clear liquid, I thrust a few wads of cash at the clerk and made my way over. It was only after I arrived and began to mix my drink that I thought of my grandfather all of a sudden. And then I looked down to my bottle, and saw that, to my malaise, I had purchased gin and not vodka. He always used to drink gin and tonics, and I guess I just associate the smell of gin with him. I figured that a liking of gin could indeed be hereditary, so I gave it a shot (pun very much intended). It was terrible. But really, all alcohol is terrible. It's only not terrible if you're an alcoholic.

At any rate, once my throat was sufficiently burning like that of a fire-breathing dragon, we made our way to the party. I didn't drink enough to not notice the incline of the hill, and therefore was casting aspersions and imagining various anvils and grand pianos falling on the Portugese prick who decided that taking a 2 euro a person cab fee was just too much. Oh well, we can't always get what we want or something. The party was, for a lack of a better term, insane. The basement, where it was being held, was only found after heading down a labryinth of passageways and stairwells. From the top of the stairs, I could see a room that seemed to be the size of my house, and heads nodding up and down to the rhythm of a Pitbull song. Speaking of, there were dogs wandering through people's legs as well. My gin was quickly usurped from me by an unknown party guest, but for all intents and purposes I wasn't too upset. I wanted to keep my wits about me, especially in this setting. To do so, I ended up spending some of the night taking advantage of some of the unfortunate drunks by leading them to say very stupid and hypocritical things to make my calves feel better, as well as dancing with those whom I deemed fit. And there were quite a few of those.

However, the night ended, yet again, with me feigning illness in order to escape to a warm bed. This time, I was convincing enough to have a taxi ordered for me (sidenote: I cannot even begin to describe how elated I was to see Mr. Cheap puking his guts out over the balcony upon my exit; I felt as if I had won something) by Gregor, who made sure I got into my apartment alright among other things.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a pause now as my fingers are cramping up and the lights are coming back on in the classroom. It's time for our halfway break. Surprise, Italy is still divided. Surprise, woman in curls is still shrieking.