Metro-Sexual

Welcome back everyone, thanks for checking in on me.

I know you hang on every word I type in this thing, so allow me just pre-emptively clear up the title of this post; I have not become in anysuch fashion a so-called "metrosexual." I don't have a short mohawk and tight jeans and a form-fitting tank top with some big skull montage picture that covers 80% of the front. No, no, quite the opposite, I'm just as I ever was. The title is a play on words, you'll get it later.

So I'm all moved into my new apartment on calle Iztaccihuatl, please note that the address given in my last blog post is simply a dummy house number, please email me if you would like my actual address to send me something. I'm currently accepting letters, postcards, pictures, locks of hair, cash, checks, and pizza. They don't have good pizza here.

I've so far got a bed, and, yeah that's it as far as furniture in the apartment. I've got some couches on order, custom made, but they're still 2 or 3 weeks out. I'm really struggling on what to do for a dining table and coffee table, furniture stores' are damn expensive . . . I feel like I could just go to some café and say, "listen dummy, I've got a cool $1500 pesos here that says you could do to part with a table and four chairs. Nobody eats here anyway, face it." Then it would just be getting them back to my house . . . always a struggle. I moved a microwave and a cabinet to my house in a taxi last week, that was a fun adventure.

And I feel like i could just make a coffee table out of something . . . . but what? If anybody has made a kooky-yet-functional coffee table out of everyday items, mail me. If it involves severed heads, I'm going to be very upset.

So I've just been lying in bed reading a lot, no TV in the apartment to speak of. I eat dinner on my living room floor. I still need to buy plates and bowls, i finally got my refridgerator installed, now just to fill it and have stuff to eat out of. Apparently there's some market in the centro where you can buy plates and silverware and all that for cheap, I just need to find someone to drive me there. D'oh.

So now that I'm paying my own rent at my place, I've been saving money in other areas of life. Notably transportation: in my early times here, i was dropping $5-6 bucks (50-60 pesos) each way to/from work in a sitio taxi (the kind you call on the phone that don't rob you), as well as being at their mercy insofar as availability (sorry, there are no taxis now, call back in 5 minutes . . . 6 times in a row) and traffic are concerned. Now I'm hip on taking the Metro, aka the subway. Is it safe, you ask? Well, I mean, not really I guess, but I've taken it everyday for about a month and never had a problem. No pocket-picking, no harassmanship, no armed robbery, none of that. The real kicker: it's 2 pesos each way. Total of $0.40 cents per day expended getting to and from work. That's a weekly savings of a cool $48 bucks, right there.

However, with the savings, there are other non-monetary expenditures that are incurred. Like, oh man, have you ever been body-pressed on all sides by Mexican strangers? To the point that you are unwittingly sharing serious body heat from fat guys and old ladies on either side of you, completely unable to move whilst sweating profusely? No? And this is what you're calling a "life" that you're having? Psshhh.

Yeah, that happens on the subway about every third day on my connecting train south to Coyoacán. It gets wicked crowded on the platform waiting and when it shows up, it's like an old-fashioned Slayer moshpit to get into the thing. Problem is, once you're all squashed in there, the fun is over, and you have to stand like that for 6 stops until you get to work. (Note: I've never been in a Slayer moshpit, nor do I know if it is considered "old-fashioned")

And that's another thing i don't get, i've got my sleeves rolled, up, top button undone, holding my coat on my arm, and I'm sweating like a Colombian. Those damn sweaty Colombians. But then, all the fuckin' Mexicans around me are sporting like, Starter jackets, sweaters, overcoats . . . looking cool as cucumbers. It must be cultural. And it makes me want to get culture-kicky.

So yeah, way more hot body-on-body contact on the metro than I would like. Is it worth it? I don't know, probably. My sexy custom leather couches say so. Or they will, in 2-3 weeks, anyhow. Frown.

I bought a big Colorado flag to hang in my room, gotta represent. For the main room I've 2/3 completed a project of paintings i've put myself to, watercolors, 36 paintings in rows and columns of 6 to hang together on one of the walls in my main room. It's going to be awesome when I finish, I'll take a picture. Still need to buy a cable so i can connect my digicam to the computer, though.

Meanwhile I've designated my extra bedroom to being a pillows-for-furniture groovy chill-out room. I've got a cool Indian tapestry hanging on the ceiling, a funky lamp and some candles, my sweet baby Elizabeth got me a matching set of tea cups, and I'm going to get my custom furniture guy to make me like 8 big 1 meter square pillows for it. Then, if I can just get the lady 3 floors down to keep her window shut so that her handicapped daughter's repeated yells of "Seeeeeeeee yaaaaah . . . . DING!" don't interrupt the tranquility, it'll be all set.

That wasn't a joke, by the way. There literally is a handicapped girl 3 floors down whose window looks onto my side of the building who for hours on end yells "Seeeeeee, yaaah, DING" with slight variations every few minutes. It is maddening, but you simultaneously have to feel bad for them, I've talked to the lady who's daughter it is, and she's nice enough, I can only imagine what it must be like to actually live in their house, considering it drives me nuts from 3 floors away. She does pretty much never keep that damn window shut though. Lousy old bag.

So that's it. Tacos are still delicious, I still haven't done my dry cleaning, and life is good. See ya. DING

--Lee