Bored Boozing

The following is a game I’m going to play with myself over the next few hours because I’m really bored. The rules are simple: I will continuously consume beer and/or wine throughout the night. Periodically I will take a shot of Jameson for that added kick. After a certain amount of shots of Jameson I will respond in one or two paragraphs to talking points I have outlined earlier.

The initial subjects will be very light and informal, and as the evening progresses they will get more serious, political, topical and nuanced. The reason for this is simple: the more in-depth and serious the questions, the drunker I should be when writing about them -- because it’s funnier that way.

All of the text will be unedited nor proof read in order to preserve the authenticity of the drunken ramblings. And tomorrow morning, at the moment I wake up, I will immediately write a short paragraph describing in detail exactly how I’m feeling at that particular moment.

So, I've been out already, imbibing a few beers and shots, therefore now is as good a time as any to commence with my first talking point (note: there is a new talking point for every shot of Jameson consumed. However, beer and wine will be consumed on top of the whiskey, I just won’t be keeping track of how much -- although I’m sure it will be plenty. )

(new note: I've already had quite a bit of booze tonight, so this should be fun.)

1) ONE SHOT -- Reflections on living in Buenos Aires:

Fuck, that was miserable. The Argentines aren't big shot takers so I'm a little out of practice. That sickly sweet burn was absolutely miserable. Im going to hate myself tomorrow. Anyway, thinking about the few months I've lived here I guess I've enjoyed it. No, I've really enjoyed it. I spent two and a half years trying to get the money to come back down here and, after I finally got it, I've had three of the most fulfilling months of my entire life. I've had a blast and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But, to be perfectly honest, I have bad dreams about the things I had to do to get here. That's the worst. I don't think it's necessary to get into the details, because it's no different than what hookers do on a day-to-day basis. 

And it feels just as bad.

2) TWO SHOTS -- Current North American movies:

My god, I didn't think the second shot could be worse than the first... but it was. It really was. Okay, back on topic, I guess I'm supposed to talk about movies or some bullshit like that. I actually like a lot of the movies out right now. The problem is that it takes so long for current new releases to get down to Argentina. But I go almost every weekend. I saw drag me to hell and I can't remember the last time I had such an awesome time at the movies. Then, the other weekend, I had a couple of cocktails and saw the hangover. I know I'm supposed to put titles in a quotes and capitalize letters and shit but I don't give a fuck. Anyway, I drank a bit then and went and saw the hangover. Argentine audiences are awesome. They really get into the movies. Whether it's comedy or horror or drama, they're just good audience members. And this time was no different. Unfortunately I was the one who ruined it for everyone by getting up to pee twice during the movie.

Sorry Portenos,

Chris

3) THREE SHOTS -- Healthcare reform in the United States:

This was the worst idea I've ever had in my entire life -- and to put it all in perspective, I've made an unnatural amount of bad decisions in my life. This is just stupid, though. I'm fucked up right now. really fucked up.

What's my topic now? Health care? Honestly, what the fuck? Anyway, I've been away for a while so all I get of the dialogue is the loonies on youtube and the daily show. I understand that it may seem presumptious of me to label every opponent of universal healthcare a loony, but, then again, all I have to go on is the internet. There are people with guns and signs comparing Obama to Nazis and at this point I don't understand it. Granted, I'm fucked up, but I can't even pretened to be a informed critic under these circumstances.

but really? Giving poor people access to healthcare means the US is  commie? I don't know, lesser countires than ours have given their people healthcare with zero problems. 

I just don't understand a lot.

ANd I'm fucked up.

4) FOUR SHOTS --  Ideas for the future:

I am not kidding, this was reaterded. I don't want to do this anymore.   i hate myself. I'm watching 2-year-old reruns of "To Catch a Predator" and am fucked up on Jameson. This is no way for a person to live a life. What are my ideas for the future? I don't know, to not become a fat, argentine pervert.

Fucker bitches

5) FIVE SHOTS -- A planet in crisis:

No one in the free world is stupid enough to do what I'm doing right now. I  will be epically hungover tomorrow and I'm still trying to push it.Okay, I['m done. Who gives a afuck? My only concern is that I  want to be with mu friends

6) SIX SHOTS -- Potpoirri:

faaaarrrrrrt

THE NEXT MORNING:  I am unwell.

 

1)  

An E-Mail to Phil

(I don't really feel like writing anything so I'm just going to copy an E-mail I sent to a guy named Phil Ramirez about a week after I arrived in this city. On top of looking like a white-supremacist gutter punk version of Alex Von Ferstenberg, he's also a good friend who helped me get down here. I want to keep this E-mail for posterity because I enjoy how happy and excited I sound about having finally returned to Buenos Aires. So, as you can see, the reason I'm posting it has absolutely nothing to do with Phil)

(Oh, and FYI: The "Chris Early" referred to in the middle of the letter is a giant maniac who looks like Sloth from "The Goonies." And  the "Butterfly" referred to at the bottom of the letter is a coke-addict stripper I'm pretty sure I made cry)

Sergio gave me this e-mail so hopefully, unlike your evilelf account, it works.

So after a narco-induced near coma I landed in Buenos Aires and somehow managed to check into the loft. The first couple days were rough, since for the last three years I've been living in converted patios and storerooms. The place is so big I even thought about sleeping in the back walk-in closet just so I could feel more at home. It was like some weird Shawshank Redemption experience where I couldn't adjust to life outside the prison. But after a day or two I settled in and even got used to the fact that my bed isn't inflatable. The first night I stayed out so late, drank so much, made so many awesome/bad/epically glorious decisions that when I came-to the next day I was certain that if things continued at that unrelenting pace, I would be dead within the month. Over the next couple of days I had to learn to stretch out the nights. Things don't shut down at two here. Where we were all wrecked by one in the morning before, here in this city people aren't that drunk until four or five. Maybe even six or seven. 

The women are the biggest problem. I'm pretty sure they outnumber the men and are a stimulating presence everywhere in the city at all hours of the day and night. I've even wanted to take pictures of random women I've seen eating in restaurants because I couldn't believe how beautiful they were. I was at a down and dirty tango club in one of the oldest, filthiest, greatest neighborhoods in this city on Sunday night and I saw a girl in a black dress that made me want cut my eyes out of their sockets with shards of broken glass.

See, all the girls born and bred in Argentina are of mixed European blood and it's a potent combination. I never want to hear you say "I don't like Chris Early's wife so I don't think I'd like Argentine women." ever again. I'm going to try and be as tactful and respectful as possible when I tell you that YOU HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! Or what you're missing, for that matter.

Other than that there have been the Brazilian flight attendants, the Columbian bartenders, the girls studying from Peru, the Paraguyan girls with playmate bodies sitting alone at bars.

Then there's the food: Steaks and ribs and chicken and lomo and sausages, all grilled asada-style in a pit over hot coals. These "parillas" are everywhere. It's a culture that sustains itself almost exclusively on meat and italian food. And it's the best beef in the world. I'm sure even Japanese grillers of Kobe beef have contemplated sepuku after tasting the steaks here.

I'm telling you all this because Sergio hinted that you may be in. This time the place even exceeded my expectations. You'll have nothing less than one of the greatest weeks of your life if you come here.

I'm not sure what will happen four or five months from now, I'm still not sure where this whole thing ends. So hopefully you come now, while everything is still wide open.

Anyway, hope all is well in Los Angeles. I miss all you guys, and whatever ends up happening, this wouldn't have been possible without you.

That's something that I can't ever forget.

Oh, and tell "Butterfly" I'm sending my sweetest sentiments to her from here at the end of the world. He he

Wallace out

Fat Face

"You've gotten fat since the last time I saw you"

"Really?"

"Well, not your body, but your face."

I ran into a girl I hadn't seen in a while and that was the first thing she said when she saw me. I probably would have let it get to me if it wasn't such a glaringly accurate observation. I've learned the hard way over the last couple of months that a diet plan revolving around pizza, pasta, empanadas, and a whole bottle of wine every night of the week isn't exactly a shortcut to eliminating body fat and burning calories. In fact, the consensus opinion is that it's actually unhealthy. 

The problem is that there are only four things to eat in this city, and I've already named three of them. The other is steak, and combined with the other three Argentine food groups you have a pretty potent -- and potentially lethal -- diet. I guess I could only eat salads and nothing else, but then again, I could also shove a goddamn railroad spike in my eyeball and get the same satisfaction.

The girl remarked that my bloated features were mostly concentrated in my face, but that's kind of misleading. My panza (gut, as it translates to in English) is swelling to a fairly respectable size. I actually look like Damon Wayans in "The Great White Hype" except only slightly less black. Before I left for Argentina there was about a month or so where I was fairly svelte. One night a girl at a bar actually told me I looked like Peter Pan. If that was true then, now I am more like Peter Pan's older fat alcoholic brother with bags under his eyes.

In an effort to curb my expanding waistline and engorging jowls, I actually picked up my jump rope for the first time since I bought it over a year ago. I've heard from reputable sources (like YouTube) that jumping rope is the most efficient way to burn calories, even more than jogging. That's a good thing, because running for no other reason than to run is the apex of stupidity. Not that I was really excited about the prospect of skipping rope most days. I hadn't had one minute of exercise since middle school -- almost twenty years of complete muscular atrophy -- so I was more than a little out of practice.

Over the course of a couple weeks I got used to jumping up and down with the rope, which is more difficult than one might imagine. There's a rhythm involved that means the difference between a smooth, rapid workout or tripping over the rope for ten minutes straight while screaming "fuck" at your wall. But once I did get the hang of it, things only got worse.

Jumping rope isn't fun. Working out isn't fun. There's nothing enjoyable about any form of exercise. A friend of mine once told me that a lot of people actually enjoy the rush of working out, the juice you get from pushing yourself to the physical limit. I know that's true, but I also know that those people are morons. They have systematically destroyed their brain cells over the course of a lifetime spent in the gym and way too many protein shakes. A guy may be able to deadlift a few hundred pounds, and that is impressive, but ask the same guy what his favorite movie is and the answer will likely be somewhere between "Kickboxer" and "Big Momma's House."

But I guess the rage I direct towards exercise is only a smokescreen to hide the fact I'm just not any good at it. Most days I only get about ten minutes through a jump rope workout before I collapse on the floor with my lungs on fire. If my calculations are correct that means I burn about 100 calories in a session. That isn't even one cup of the bottle of wine I consume nightly. And if it's beer I'm drinking? Well then I manage to work off one beer out of the eight I will inevitably have that day. And the pizza and sausage sandwiches I've eaten before the drinking even gets started? Not a dent.

I know where this long road of fatness will end: my father. People who knew him have pointed out that I look more and more like him as I get older. And that is more frightening than one could ever begin to imagine. He was overweight in middle age and now, well into his sixties, his physical appearance can only be described as "snowmanlike."

One day -- assuming I'm unlucky enough to live that long -- I too will be obese and without an identifiable neck. All the marathon 10 minute jump rope workouts in the world won't be able to change it. Which is why I guess it was always important for me to travel as a young man rather than an old man. At this phase of my life I can meet women in Latin America and there will be the very real possibility of mutual attraction. But when I'm older I'm sure they'll just look at me and want to roll me in flour. 

Or I could always just give them a gold bikini, wrap a chain around their necks and tether them to my fat leg while I stuff my face with empanadas in my nightclub.

...But I Do Know Crazy

I've managed to go my entire life without being robbed while traveling -- except for the time my wallet was stolen by a group of 6-year-old girls.

That actually happened. I was about twenty at the time, on an excursion to Tijuana with a group of friends. We took the bus across the border and about two minutes after being dumped on Revolution street I was mobbed by the kids. They swarmed me under the guise of selling roses and by the time I managed to shake all of them off I realized that they had my wallet.

A couple years later I managed to talk a large and burly corrupt Tijuana cop out of rolling me, so I have some street sense... I'm just no match for toddlers. 

After the shame wore off I promised myself I wouldn't get taken again, and in nearly six years of travel I have kept that promise. Granted, I don't have much luck in the United States, where my personal belongings get stolen from me like I was a human "going out of business" sale. But in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Cuba, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru and Argentina I am just fine -- which is why alarm bells went off in my head when I found myself in a dark basement in the seedier section of downtown Buenos Aires, the door in front of me blocked by two hookers and the biggest goddamn Porteno I've ever seen.

I was walking home from the bars one night and decided to check out a small hole-in-the-wall club around the corner from where I live. I had frequently passed by the place on my way home from picking up food or coming from a night out, and decided that a dank underground bar called "Eden" was just the type of place I needed at that moment. A smiling and friendly middle-aged women (probably a hooker) out front led me down a flight of stairs to the bar area -- which was completely dark. In fact, all of it was dark. And other than the hostess, a large Argentine doorman and young waitress (probably doubled as a hooker) it was completely empty. As I was processing the scene the waitress approached me.

"Something to drink?'

"Beer," I said taking in the empty bar, neglected pool table and dancerless dance floor. Not that it would have mattered if dancers did show up because there was no music. It was just dark, empty and silent. I made the decision that this was not the joint where I needed to "make my scene" so I turned around and headed for the only light there was but the doorman placed himself between me and the stairwell.

"You gotta pay for your drink," he growled while eyeballing me like a psychopath.

"I don't want it anymore," I reasoned, but he wasn't having  it. Neither were the women. They joined their doorman friend, forming a trio of people who were obviously going to rob me.

"How much is it?" I asked.

"30 pesos," he said while continuing to stare me down.

A ten dollar beer in a country where beers routinely run you one american dollar was pretty stiff and I wasn't excited about paying it. But what could I do, really? Time seemed to slow down as I relaxed my vision and considered my options. I could just give up 30 pesos and hurry out of there, but if I took my wallet out the guy was likely to steal the entire thing. I could fight him, but me winning a fight with that giant, scrappy meathead was about as realistic as me becoming a Hugo Boss model. As I glanced back at the doorman, the tension in the air reaching a fever pitch, I considered a third option:

I could open the floodgates.

I had used this tactic one other time in my life to great effect. I'm sure it was great because I survived unharmed. About four years ago my friend Hunter and I decided to walk from a loft party in Downtown Los Angeles back to our Apartment complex in Los Feliz -- a distance of only about five miles. In the middle of the night. Through the ghetto. While drunk. Needles to say, it was a poorly thought out decision. And once we neared the railroad tracks and section 8 housing we truly recognized that we were in over our heads. But I had an idea to get us out safely:

I would act batshit crazy.

I logically surmised that no matter how violent someone may want to get with you, they will probably steer clear if they think you are a lunatic. The reasons for this are twofold: crazy people are unpredictable, and crazy people are confusing. So whenever we would pass a populated stretch of road I would flip the loony switch. I screamed at Hunter as loud as I could and was expecting him to respond in kind, thus making us a sort of tandem, runaway train of belligerent lunatics. It didn't happen. Hunter, a fairly even-tempered person by nature, felt it was above him to put on such airs, therefore forcing me to do all the heavy lifting. To the outsiders who watched us as we passed by, it must have seemed like a quiet and normal person was taking a paranoid schizophrenic out of the hospital for a walk. I would yell and scream at him as we walked, my face about two inches away from his ear. He would silently take the abuse I laid on him, which for some strange reason always devolved into homophobic verbal attacks.

"You like running around like a fucking faggot all the time, don't you, faggot?!!!!!" I would scream as he continued to walk with his head down.

"You're a buttfucker!!! A BUTTFUCKER!!! You fuck butts with your dick!!! YOUR DICK!!! BUTTS!!! AGAHGAHGAHAGHAGAHGAH!!!!!" I continued. He still didn't say anything. 

"AGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGGAGA!!!!!!!!"

That was pretty much our routine until about an hour later when a cab picked us up. And as I said, I still consider it a success because we weren't murdered. 

I decided to employ the same tactic in the bar. After the doorman demanded that I give them money for a third -- and what sounded like final -- time, I raised my eyes and started to pace around in a circle. Slowly at first, but gaining momentum. I then started talking to myself, quietly at first, then louder. For them it was confusing. They couldn't put their finger on what exactly was happening, but they did know something was happening.

I started talking in gibberish and berating myself.

I started spinning around faster.

The three of them actually took a step backward, unsure of how to proceed.

I was now screaming at the ceiling.

I was now jumping up and down in a circle.

They were shocked silent as I continued to bounce around and yell. I considered ripping my shirt off and scratching my chest in faux self-flagellation but decided against it (I only have about three nice shirts that I can wear out). Then, almost instinctively, and without looking at one another, they stepped apart, opening up a path to the stairwell and signaling that it was more than okay if I wanted to leave. I took them up on their tacit offer and hopped to the stairs. Halfway up I turned around to see them still silent and confused. I felt the urge to gloat, but the adrenaline I used to psych myself up was still going strong so my taunting, which I wanted to come out like "Ha ha ha, fuckers!" came out more like "AGAGAGAGAGGAGAGA!!" complete gibberish. But I screamed at them so long the doorman got fed up and made like he was going to come after me. I immediately switched off the rampage and booked it out of there, up the stairs, out the door and onto the street, running back to my apartment... laughing all the way.

Once safely back in the old loft,  I took stock of what had just transpired... and decided it was awesome. After hearing all the stories of expats getting robbed, beaten, poisoned and hustled by everyone from the police to the mafia to college students, I had maintained my near perfect record of never being taken advantage of in Latin America. I had smartly calculated the best course of action to get me out of a harmful situation with absolutely no one getting hurt. Taken into account everywhere I've been, and how I have fared, I can rest comfortably with the knowledge that I possess survival skills that should help see me through the traps and pitfalls common to travelers...

 Even though I still think about crossing the street whenever I see a 6-year-old girl walking towards me.

Responsible Professional

I came down to Buenos Aires two months ago with the intention of finding gainful employment and becoming a productive member of a foreign society. And for the last two months I haven't really accomplished much other than drinking myself stupid and stealing movies off the internet. My original plan of attack was to blitz Craigslist with ads offering my services as a private English "Professor." Despite a seemingly bare market as far as English teachers native to the U.S. are concerned, I didn't get one bite. Well, not one interested in learning English, anyway. An Israeli salesman did respond to my ad asking if I would be interested in signing up for a pyramid scheme.

I then tried my social connections. Through local acquaintances I was put in touch with a girl in her early twenties who was interested in taking classes once a week for an hour and a half. She was studying at the University and her finals were coming up in a few months, so she wanted to brush up on her English before the big test. It was a good situation for both her and I. For twenty pesos an hour she would have a native helping her with English and I would have my first client. With luck maybe she would pass the word along to her friends and I could build a steady stream of revenue.

The first class went very well. She was pleasant and fun and we spent most of the time going over a workbook she brought along and practicing conversation. The teaching actually came pretty natural to me. Despite failing miserably as a writer in Los Angeles, I discovered that twenty years spent in the practice of writing gives even the biggest fuck up a pretty good handle on the English language. I'm living proof of that. So, all things considered, I felt that I had somewhat of an aptitude for helping people learn the language. Everyone has to start somewhere, and I was off and running.

There was just the tiniest bit of a professional setback after our second class, when I slept with her and then subsequently broke off all contact due to my overwhelming sense of shame. She was nice and very attractive, but the act itself was just another affirmation that more often than not I make poor decisions. So, on the one hand my teaching career was brought to a screeching halt while still in it's infancy due to a stupid mistake. On the other hand, I did get sex out of the stupid mistake, so I kind of look at it as a push.

There were a couple other opportunities that didn't amount to anything. I interviewed for a job writing press releases for a marketing company run by a couple North American expats. The guy I interviewed with was nice enough, despite working in marketing and being an obvious cocaine addict. We chatted outside of a Starbucks, throwing around marketing buzz terms like "SEO"  and "rapid deployment" like two giant douchebags for about half an hour before I went home and took a rape shower. In the end it worked out for the best, because they ended up going with someone else. I may still be unemployed and running out of savings, but at least I've never had to write a press release hyping some bullshit mobile application for the Iphone. And that means I still have my soul.

So, in the end, I've earned a whopping nine dollars in my two months spent in this city. I'm going to have to dig a tad deeper if I want to be able to support myself in the coming months. I'm probably going to have to start waking up before three PM, ease back on the binge drinking, suddenly become proactive, sociable and above all else curb the virulent rage that wells up inside me every time I meet some asshole from the United States living here -- which is most of them.

You're Not Really Going To Fuck That, Are You?

(Note: I'm writing this about 20 hours after giving myself alcohol poisoning at Gran Bar Danzon, so if the normally corpulent prose is lacking that certain pop, it's because I'm almost dead.)

I met Maricella about a month and a half ago at a small get together I threw in my downtown apartment. My place is way too big for just me so I try to have people over as much as possible. However, back then I really didn't know anyone so the "party" consisted of Augustina, the young Paraguayan immigrant who works at the corner store, two of her gay sidekicks, Rodrigo and Diego, and Maricella. I had the bar stocked and ready for a gathering of at least twenty, so with only five people in total, we weren't wanting for booze.

I had a little interest in Augustina. A nice girl of around twenty-three, she's a Paraguayan, which automatically means she's attractive. But when she brought Maricella my compass was thrown off. I remember that she was tall with big brown eyes and a large smile that seemed like a nice contrast to my negative disposition. I also noticed when she told me she was only eighteen. Now, If my math is correct, eighteen is the very definition of the term, "barely legal," it is also a giant red light that signals any rational adult to change course. There just wasn't much I could do to make it work. I mean, I couldn't start telling everyone I was nineteen, but unfortunately everyone who knows me has already figured out that I'm 30.  Even though the legal age of consent in Argentina is 16 (the only liberal viewpoint in this country I shy completely away from) eighteen was still too young. I could talk to her, get to know her as a friend and admire her from a distance... but I couldn't sleep with her.

About three hours later, after sleeping with her for the first time, I lied awake next to her in bed considering my behavior. It wasn't that I didn't like her, on the contrary I thought she was sweeter than Dulce de Leche and decided that I was very lucky she ended up liking me. I was just worried about what it would lead to if it continued. But maybe it would lead to nothing. I wondered if it was just the one night for her. I had been in a few situations in the U.S. where women have woken up next to me hungover and completely sickened with themselves. On top of being a wonderful feeling knowing that you were someone else's drunken mistake, the other certainty is that you'll never see or hear from them again. Half of it is because, unlike Zach Effron, I am not young, physically attractive, wealthy, successful or even intelligent for that matter. In fact I have strikingly few redeemable qualities, if any at all. Therefore I can't fault the women that are nauseated at the mere idea they let me enter them in a blackout. The other factor is cultural. The United States is a tad more puritanical than most other developed nations and there is still a stigma attached to sex. If a woman in the U.S. sleeps with someone the first night they meet them then they are more likely to beat themselves up about it than they are in other cultures. Which makes absolutely no sense at all.

Unfortunately Maricella was not repulsed at the site of me the next morning, nor did she feel she made any kind of mistake. After that it was out of my hands, I was dating an 18-year-old. I was like Hugh Hefner without any of the actual achievements. Things were bound to get interesting. 

Actually we got along surprisingly well and fell into an easy routine. She worked six days a week waxing wealthy Portenas at a salon in Belgrano while I slept in, watched cable, drank and didn't write. She would come to my place around 9:30 and I would make dinner and then we would have sex on every piece of furniture in my apartment. After that she would go to sleep and I would stay up watching movies on my computer while killing bottles of Malbec. I would stumble up to bed around four or five in the morning, she would wake up when I lied down and then we would have sex again. Thinking back on it, not only was it an easy routine, but awesome, too.

Reality hit home one day when I went to my English-for-Spanish exchange that I do with a therapist in Palermo. Once a week I take the train to her place where I edit documents and e-mails to her North American clients. In Exchange she gives me Spanish lessons. Sometimes, if she's had a particularly long day at the office listening to expat businessmen from Connecticut complain about not being able to find a good housekeeper or ball washer, she passes the buck to her 11-year old son, Mauro. My time on this earth is rife with incidents of abject humiliation but there's nothing quite as degrading as being yelled at by a chubby pre-teen for not knowing the present continuous of the verb "Traer". One evening as the child held my hand through some painful vocabulary exercises, I looked at him and realized that, age wise, it made more sense for Mauro the 11-year-old to be dating Maricella than it did for me to be dating her. He was that much closer to her age than I was.

But I liked her. I actually liked her staying at my place most nights and enjoyed having someone to sleep next to. And being a hot-blooded Latina, her body was exceedingly warm. She was also fun. At eighteen she wasn't weighed down by life and self-loathing like me and whenever I looked at her I saw a person infused with the joy and innocence of youth and in her eyes I always saw the promise of happiness in her future. She didn’t know anything about loss or failure or love or heartbreak. She only knew how to have fun and be pleasant. In other words, she had yet to take her first steps in this life. But I still couldn't take the next step. Whenever it would come up I evaded the topic or got off it as quickly as possible with a simple, "I can't have a serious girlfriend now. I'm not good for anyone." Those words were irrefutable truth that a statement can be both true and complete bullshit at the exact same time.

Her nineteenth birthday was on a Wednesday but we had the party at my place because it made more sense. I stocked the bar, bought the cake and got her a bag from a boutique as a gift. I've never had a long-term relationship with a girl (other than frighteningly protracted casual partners) and had only been with a girl on her birthday one other time. That one ended abruptly and I wanted this to be better. I wanted to make it special for her. 

I think it was. About twenty people showed up to the party with the birthday girl in a fairly stunning blue dress. The group were all friends of hers and really good people that I enjoyed talking to. I think they even enjoyed talking to me, despite my broken Spanish and being close to a decade older than all of them. Everyone got drunk on Gancia, Martinis, Quilmes and Vodka and gay Diego turned my television area into a nightclub after he threw on a Michael Jackson CD, which got the girls onto the makeshift dance floor. A couple hours later everyone sang the Spanish version of "Happy Birthday" (I really can't remember the words and didn't understand them anyway) and she blew out the candles on her chocolate cake. A few hours later the party died down and a little while after that I dragged my drunk ass up to bed. That night I slept alone.

The next morning I woke up around noon to the sounds of Maricella cleaning the kitchen. She was doing the previous evening's dirty dishes, even resorting to cleaning the plastic cups and stacking them in a pyramid on the counter. I was too hungover to make the trek downstairs so when she was done I called down to her. She came up and lied on the bed next to me. 

"Did you have a good birthday?" I asked, tired and smiling.

"Yes, I was with friends."

"I'm glad," I said. And  I meant it.

She told me her mother wanted to see her so she had to hurry out the door in order to catch a bus to the provinces. I let her out and kissed her goodbye. I told her I'd talk to her Monday. 

I never saw or heard from her again.

I was reading an article in some magazine I can't remember that was written by a terrible writer. The tip off was that the story had no substance and the ending was even worse. Not having an actual end to his piece, he resorted to what I call the "Hemingway Hail Mary". Don't have an ending? No problem, write a couple simple declarative sentences that don't mean anything but sound deep.

 

EX: 

I watched her go and then went upstairs and brushed my teeth. I never saw her again.

She wanted more than I could give, so she left. Then I brushed my teeth. In the rain.

She was with another man and I didn't care. And then I watched the bullfight. And it was good.

Those aren't endings. they're just pieces of bullshit. In the true end I realized that I will miss her more than I thought. For many reasons. Because I didn't appreciate her as much as I should have when we were together. I didn't give as much as I should have. Because she was a genuinely fun time.

She'll cross my thoughts every now and then, and I'll miss her almost as much as I miss my own youth, which is just as dead as that fledgling relationship.

But I was still dating a fucking 18-year-old. I should have my goddamned head examined.

A Mexican Invasion Part 4

Saturday presented us with a problem specific to Argentina. The country was having their version of the midterm elections on Sunday so, as a precaution, all bars and clubs were forced to stop serving alcohol at midnight, Saturday. This was yet another safeguard put in place to prevent the Argentines from committing murder. Whether it's soccer or politics, these people can always come up with a reason to beat the shit out of one another. So it was looking like the most exciting night of the week to be in the city (Saturday) was going to be cut short.

(note: due to the fact that I normally operate in a booze-induced haze, I can't seem to remember if the events of Saturday afternoon actually took place on Saturday afternoon. For all I know they could have occurred Friday -- or even Monday. Either way just go along with the notion that the events did actually occur some time during the weekend... probably.)

Saturday afternoon we went to the posh cemetery in Recoleta that is home to some of Argentina's most landed, albeit deceased, gentry. For a shitload of money you can stow your loved ones in a tomb or mausoleum so large and gaudily decorated that it could easily pass for an upper-middle class apartment in Paris. The caretakers of this thriving tourist attraction are the families of obese cats that roam the interior. I was never a cat person anyway, but walking amongst the remains of dead Portenos while these things stare at you with the cold, calculating eyes of feline serial killers, is more than enough to loosen the bladder.

We saw the Duarte family tomb, home to Evita Peron, who, as everyone knows, is Madonna. Other than that she was the damaged wife of a dictator in the forties and early fifties. She had a god complex, built a tiny amusement park for children and dwarfs, got cancer, died of it, and now lies in a cage where locals leave flowers and tourists take pictures. After that we continued our stroll, stopping occasionally to admire the masonry, artwork and actual human skulls that make up the tombs. The masonry and artwork I can get behind, the skulls, on the other hand, tell me a spring cleaning may be in order.

That night we had dinner at a restaurant across from the cemetery and nestled in between the upscale brothels called Puerto Zuelo. It's very nice with good food, but is popular with North Americans, which is an obvious drawback. After the steaks and pork chops were devoured we lingered at the bar for a while. Juan ordered a twenty dollar snifter of absinthe. They just legalized absinthe in the states but don't allow the addition of wormwood, the active ingredient in the potent liquor. Without the wormwood, the absinthe they now sell in the U.S. falls under the category of most things in my native country: pointless.

I tried a sip of it and immediately got the sensation that someone rubbed smelted metal in my eyes while simultaniously pouring battery acid down my throat -- with a minty aftertaste. After that I decided to stick to my rum drinks. I thought I would try something new that evening and the bar had a happy hour special on two for one strawberry daiquiris. Sergio informed me (multiple times in the course of five minutes) that the reality of me drinking the daiquiris was twenty times gayer than just the idea of it. But what the hell, they tasted good. Although I did switch to beer afterward.

Later we went to the Irish pubs in downtown and quickly found out that, although bars couldn't legally serve alcohol past midnight, they could easily circumvent that little inconvenience by bribing the cops who stopped by to make sure they weren't selling. But even though we could find booze after midnight, there were so many places not selling that hardly anyone was out. After a few pints of Heineken we packed it in and headed back to the loft. For a city that is alive when the sun goes down, trust me: there's nothing more soul-crushing than a quiet Saturday night in Buenos Aires.

The next day I lied in bed like a wasted sack of shit while the guys went to the Sunday afternoon street fair at Plaze Dorrego in San Telmo. I would have gone too but the marathon drinking sessions over the last few days had left my alcohol-soaked body in need of a brief respite. I had to nurse myself back to health, mostly because we were going out again that evening. So around ten we headed back to San Telmo.

Every Sunday night, during my first month in B.A., I would go to Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo, sit at an outside table drinking a Quilmes, and watch the locals who would come out to dance tango in the open air of the courtyard. It's one of the most relaxing and fulfilling ways to spend an evening in this city and the fact that there are people from my country who live here for close to a year and haven't experienced it is infuriating. I hope they all get Hepatits C and die.

Unfortunately Cris, Sergio and Juan wouldn't get to experience it either. It was raining and most people were at home watching the election results anyway, so the courtyard was empty. We went to a jazz bar across from the plaza and had a few beers while we listened to a trio of locals bust out the standards on a tiny stage. Afterward we headed down the street to a dark and moody milonga called Tasso. It's my favorite place to drink Malbec and watch people dance, and every Sunday night around midnight they put on a show with a couple of professional dancers. To see it is to truly experience the history and beauty of the Tango. 

Of course, because of the election, there was no show. Looks like the guys picked the perfect weekend to spend in B.A.

We had dinner there and then headed back to Puerto Zuelo where we lounged, drank and chatted with a couple of Brazilian girls about the merits of putting ketchup on French fries (the Argentines, like lunatics, prefer mayo). We went home late and passed out. When I woke up the next afternoon I promised myself I would never drink like that again. A promise I think I broke around eight or nine hours later when it was time to go out again.

The day the guys left we had lunch at Cafe Tortoni, that musty old relic down the street from the Casa Rosada. It was a nice enough meal but a relatively bittersweet experience as the guys had to leave for the airport at five. When five did roll around they got their stuff together and we all said goodbye. I'm sure they had a good time but could have used at least an extra week to really get the city. Trying to see Buenos Aires in five days is like trying to beat off in a bathroom your entire family is waiting for: It's just better when you have more time.

When they left I guess I was sad. There isn't much I care about back in the U.S. There's no culture to miss and I have no roots that pull me back. The only thing I would like would be able to see friends again...

To spend more time with them...

To have more weeks like that one....

And to never have to see Sergio naked ever again.