Try to catch me White and Nerdy

Hello patrons,

Thanks for stopping by to read about me. Nothing too exciting has happened, but maybe as I start to write, something fun will re-occur to me. Here goes nothing.

So I did end up going to the pyramids at Teotihuacan the other weekend, i have pictures on my camera, but i haven't gotten up the gusto to bring my camera in to work and plug it into my computer here. I don't exactly sit in an office, not a lot of privacy for non-work-related computer goings-on. But, imagine me in front of some busted looking pyramids, with a bunch of Mexicans all around. You got the gist.

So that was cool, then that night I ended up going with my friend Carina and the whole crew (mostly her immediate and non-immediate family) went back to their spot in Itztapalapa (which i think is Spanish for "wonderland of garbage-eating dogs and houses built out of old tires and soda cans," it's a colloquial translation) to attend the birthday party of Carina's uncle or somesuch. Naturally I was the only "guero" (read: whitey) there, and since we had been in Teotihuacan all day, i was still rocking the shorts. Turns out they don't sell shorts in Mexico City. So, nobody has them. Except whitey.

So man, this birthday party, her uncle, whose b-day it is, introduces himself and asks what i want to drink, i say i'll just have whatever my friend here is having, Miguel, Carina's boyfriend. Well, he's having a brandy and coke. That sounds fine. But, alas, it doesn't sound so fine to Mr. Uncle.

"Que, no te gusta el tequila?" (wha, you don like-a the tequila?)

"Oh . . . pues, sí, me gusta el tequila" (um, oh, um sure, of course i like tequila)

Of course I like tequila, pal. I thought perhaps this was just a cultural inquiry, wondering if someone as gangly and un-Mexican as I could enjoy the fruit of the mexican, um, cactus . . . thing . . . or however they make tequila.

Alas, this was no cultural inquiry, guy comes back with Miguel's refreshing-looking brandy and coke, and my shot of tequila and a lime. Ah, just what the doctor ordered after a day in the sun. A shot of room temperature tequila. And of course, he hawked over me until i had finished it, and promptly got me another. Ah, just what the doctor ordered after a shot of warm tequila after a long day in the sun before dinner, another shot of tequila. Mexican doctors apparently are really shitty at knowing what to order.

So, yeah, eventually i switched to "palomas", a cocktail that is tequila and squirt soda, actually pretty tasty. But man, at this point, Johnny Uncle now is demanding to know whether i know how to dance. Well, sure I know how to dance. I mean, i went to junior high. I can "shout". I can "jump around". Hell, I can slowly revolve to "On Bended Knee" all night, pops. Bring it.

Yeah, well, he meant like, dancing with a partner, where you have the one hand up and the one hand on the hip, and it's like two steps here, one backward there, some spinning action, little bit of toe-tappin, maybe some light bravado . . . yeah i don't know how to do that. Maybe if I had let old Gary drag me into that swing-dancing fad she was so big on . . . but i'm pretty sure i thought that was really ghey at the time. Which ain't helping me now. Naturally, lonely single Aunt somethin'orother wants to teach me to dance. Except not really, she just wants me to dance with her, and then look at me disappointedly when I suck. Great.

Turns out they eventually put on some other kind of music, cumbia or duranguese or something, which is more of a quick-stomp kind of dance. Well, i apparently excelled at this one. Lonely Horny Aunt was quick to grab me out of my chair and get me dancing with her, and this time no looks of remorse were inspired. Other random aunt got up and phsyically advised me to keep my hands behind my back for this type of dance. I guess that's the way you do it. So yeah, dancing like this takes a lot of energy, and I'm running on tequila fumes, sand and a big june bug i swallowed on the ride home at this point. The machine is clearly sending out the DO NOT WANT call, yet Sally Auntsalot is having nothing to do with it. I sit down between songs, she is back to grab me as the next one starts up. Holy bad sausage, it was rough. Luckily they hired a live mariachi band to play, and they showed up and the other kind of dancing took hold again, and even their 90 some odd year old grandma at this point had given me a dancin' chance, and quickly regretted it. So i got some rest. All in all, it was a great party. Great like a carbonite hangover is great. "I can't see!" "ya-to, ya-to."

So, yeah, beyond that, I've been hanging out low-pro in Condesa, walking around looking at possible places to rent when the time comes for me to get out in my own place on my own dime, which is around August 20-ish. I'll very most likely be staying in La Condesa, there are plenty of places for rent, and the safety and quality of restaurants/bars/closeness-to-work are mighty fine.

I also went to Puerto Vallarta two weekends ago, my parents Laurel and Steve helped get me invited to join them on the Pepsi Center corporate sponsor thank-you trip, which was awesome. Really awesome considering I did very little sponsoring of the Pepsi Center this year. It was great to see the folks and some other CO people, chat in English and such.

The first night i had a few beers on the beach at the welcome dinner after watching the USA win at soccer over Canada in the Gold Cup. I ended up at the hotel bar next to a smug bald guy who proceded to grill me about my love for America, and when i didn't gush patriotism, proceded to grill me with "you had an opportunity, the opportunity of a lifetime, and you blew it" for about 2 hours. Guy kept saying how fantastic my abilities in Spanish and English were, and how I was a really smart kid, which he would immediately counter with "you talk too f*cking much, you need to learn when to shut the f*ck up" and such. I eventually tried to figure out what said "opportunity" was that i "blew," only to eventually get him to mention that he used to be in the military or something, and that I should go to Peru to be an "operative" for America, or something like that. He mostly just yelled at me and made numerous drunken futile attempts to re-light his cigar. I hope that guy dies in a fire.

Then the next morning we went a-swinging in the jungle, sliding on crazy rope-swing things on this "canopy tour." That was a trip, they hook you up with the full climbing-gear harness, and then there's a whole team of guys that travels with you from little plastic platform at the top of the trees to other platforms, they hook your harness to the rope and you just slide across, like hundreds of feet at a time, about a hundred feet of the ground. It was awesome. It ended with a free-rapell, which was new to me. All in all, very enjoyable. The "free" part didn't hurt either.

Basically the rest of my weekend consisted of drinking in the pool, walking the beach, eating seafood, and going to nightclubs downtown Puerto Vallarta. Turns out, even if you speak fantastic conversational, formal, and slang spanish, Mexican girls still don't want to dance with your big white ass, even if you are the only guy coming up to their group of 8 girls, even if you play the cool glance-re-glance game, even if you blablablablabla, and you make them laugh, doesn't matter. You are a big gringo and you will be dancing alone this evening. So yeah, massive strike-outs were involved there. Quite humbling. All i wanted was someone to dance with. I figured "psshh, the American girls, ha! I speak Spanish, I live in Mexico, i'm gonna go find a Mexican lady to dance with!" Oh, ho, yeah. Not so much.

So yeah, I'm back in Mexico City now, back hard at work trying to sell some billboards. Let me know if you want one. Rates are rock-bottom. Yeah. Still not too sure about this whole "sales" gig. Pretty much an awful idea for how to act/work. But, it has brought me to a new country, doing new things, so, can't complain that much .

I'll post those pictures sometime soon. Hope you are all rocking, possibly also rolling.

--Lee