Why the barking dog in the sweltering heat of Buenos Aires takes me back to winter in NYC I don’t know.
Photo by eflon
I was in a panic of mania and the cold searched out even insulated crevices of skin and got inside. I had fled from the bus station in early morning darkness and I was hunched and scurrying in an ill fitting pair of jeans with a frozen pretzel gripped in my hand that I had unhooked from an unattended vendor’s booth. I was gnawing bits of it off, the burnt flavor and its frozen texture at odds and a man blocked my way.
I took the opportunity to ask him for some change. His short business cut and a thick wool overcoat over his stubby body, he had a desperate look in his face and he asked, “Can I hold you? Just rub your body and hold you? I’ll give you five dollars.”
“No,” I said simply and tried to move around him.
“Please. I just want to hold you.”
In an uninvested way I was pissed off. The disparity between us was so obvious. Maybe he didn’t know I’d been sleeping in the bus station or that inertia has sent me reeling through streets so cold the air seemed to be made of ice crystals. Or maybe he could tell and that’s what made him think he could say, “I’ll give you five dollars if you’ll just let me hold you. Touch you,” making his own isolation so much plainer than my own. Begging the beggar.
“No! Fuck off!” I said, my oversized boot tips flopping on the frozen sidewalk as I lurched around him, the cold turbo-charging my legs, spurring them to take me somewhere else. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. More than spare change.
Photo by orchidgalore
I just had to get away from the dark brown-orange tile of the bus station basement, the lumps of people sleeping, and and into the city. I had fled the would-be life partner I’d met on the Greyhound who swore his name was Robby Bobeé and who’d given me the jeans I was wearing that bunched up in my crotch as I walked and made me feel like I was wearing a diaper.
He was back in a dusty heap with my duffle bag loaded with 9 useless nail clippers, my car title and whatever else my psychotic mind had told me was necessary for the dramatic gesture of fleeing Louisville, the family that had had me committed to the institution for what I swore was the last time, college, and my crackhead neighbors.
I had taken the poverty I had refused to beg my parents out of with me to a New York winter.
My friend V and I went to the movies the other night. And I’m glad we went with her pick.
For one, I thought Papás a La Fuerza was the twisted drama starring Robin Williams (who I hate) called World’s Best Dad and made a pretty good bid to see it. I heard that an autoerotic asphyxiation death plays a pivotal role in a drama directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. Well, who wouldn’t want to see that?
V, apparently, who saved me from actually watching Old Dogs, Disney’s latest heart singeing offer. No thanks. Not even autoerotic asphyxiation could redeem a warmed over pile of shit in the vein of Look Who’s Talking, Too starting John Travolta, Robin Williams, 7 year old twins and, apparently (since all that wasn’t cutesy enough) a St. Bernard.
Original Image by Charles Haynes
Instead we went to see It’s Complicated with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin the title of which was translated to “Falling in Love with my Ex” (Enamorandome de mi ex). For Spanish speaking markets (of which Argentina is one, duh), movie titles are translated for effect rather than literal meaning. I scowled as the real title flashed on the screen. Seeing a movie that utilizes a FaceBook relationship status as a ‘witty’ title seemed a far cry from how I would have preferred to spend the evening.
Just moments into the movie, I had to beg V to move with me to another seat. Behind us was a couple with an enormous bucket of popcorn, the female component of which was, it seemed to me, taking two pieces of popcorn at time and chewing them as loudly as possible, never actually closing her mouth. It would take her the entire movie to get through the bucket and I had already started to imagine that I could feel the warmish steam of her breath on the back of my head.
We hopped up and scurried to the front of the theatre, one seat away from a schlubby woman sunk low into her seat and mercifully popcorn free sitting next to someone else. While I hadn’t had high hopes for the film, I was enjoying myself, so much so that I forgot to critique the subtitles and couldn’t tell you if they were on the money or not. It was much funnier than I expected it to be.
I heard a snuffling sound, looked to my right and the woman one seat over from me was crying. She was dabbing her eyes and blowing her nose. This was odd because what we were watching could be described in a booming, authoritative movie voice as a rip-rollicking comedy. Yet here was this woman slung low, tears streaming from her eyes, repeatedly blowing her nose and dabbing away her tears with a quickly disintigrating tissue. I nudged V. We were already laughing. This made it so we had to squelch the sound to avoid inapproriately laughing out loud.
Image by 竜次
When the crying stopped, the talking started. I had imagined this woman as a single loser with her elderly mother at her side, perhaps too blind to read or senile to understand the subtitles. What other explanation could there be for someone speaking in a whiney but conversational tone throughout the course of a comedy. She had to be speaking to an old woman who couldn’t otherwise understand.
Upon further scrutiny, however, I noticed that this pair next to us was a couple. Whether her husband or her boyfriend, this woman’s unceasing and indistiguishable commentary was directed to someone she was on a date with. The only time she stopped yammering was when she was crying soundlessly but for the intermittent nose blowing and snuffling. So during any scene in which someone was emotional or confused, I would whip my head to the side and was never disappointed. Without fail, the woman would be crying.
The best part was when the camera panned from face to crying face of the adult children of the Meryl Streep character as the movie came to its emotional crux. One crying face, another crying face, and then I panned my vision towards the right. There was no interruption in continuity from the silver screen to the train wreck to my right. V. and I shared a laugh over that.
Photo by gabofr
I suppose, having gotten such mileage out of this woman’s misery, that I should have been less annoyed by her talking. I was aware, though, that she wasn’t having to explain to an old person what was going on and that the incessant chattering had more to do with her constant need to emote than it had to do with augmenting the cinematic experience of a shrivelled and half blind old prune who needed her assistance. And it was annoying as hell.
It was probably half an hour from the end of the movie that I looked at her pointedly and commanded, “Para.” (stop). Her teary eyes flashed me and angry look that seemed to say, “¿Qué carajo es tu problema?” (What the fuck is your problem?). What the fuck is my problem?
The nerve of some people.
I’m very late with this entry which is a sort of chain blog and collaborative effort begun by Katie at TripBase. I was invited by Lola Akinmade, editor of MatadorGoods. The idea is to create a giant Wiki of travel tips that are destination specific. Cool, right?
Always remember to carry your own tissue. Image by stevendepolo.
I know this post is supposed to be about places to go and things to see, but there are a few things you need to know when you’re in Buenos Aires that will just help you fare better in the city and make the most of your time. In the interest of improving your overall experience, I offer the following tips.
1) Papel Hygienico/Toilet Paper
There won’t be any in most of the places you are going and fear of dirty toilet seats causes much hovering and splattering. I recommend carrying tissue with you at all times to be sure you won’t have to drip dry and that you follow the example of those who went before you and hover.
Also, watch the length of your skirts. If they hang at toilet seat height, see to it that you steer your hem clear or you’ll be adding a little character to your apparel.
2) Monedas/Change
If you plan on taking the bus you will need this and it’s in high demand and short supply. I hear some businesses pay more than the change is actually worth to have it on hand.
Two out of Four Dogs Pooping. Image by the author.
You can get it in the bank in the morning 10 pesos at a time. Go in the afternoon and you’ll wait all day. You will be asked by store clerks to pay the small change on purchases. If you can understand them, lie about having it if you’re planning on taking the bus.
Pay for your subway trips with two and five peso bills. You can almost always get change in the subway and when trips cost $1.10, that means 90 centavos per trip in your pocket.
3) Caca de Perro/Dog Poop
Watch where you step. Looking at the sidewalk more than you normally might will serve the dual purpose of saving you from cleaning yucky dog poop from your shoes and keeping you from looking like a starry eyed tourist gorging your eyes on the beautiful city. There is dog shit everywhere. Remember, you were warned.
There is something about being an an atmosphere in which you can understand everything that’s being said after being away from such an atmostphere for a long time that can make for smugness. At least when that atmosphere is the Southern United States.
Photo Courtesy of opalandtheidiot
Southerners have a reputation for being stupid. Maybe it’s a combination of the drawl, the overt, unquestioning and judgemental breed of Christianity, the lack of a sense of urgency and a certain form of politeness that comes off as idiocy. But then there are glaring, even shocking examples of stupidity that could be ruining it for the rest of us.
Today I was stuck behind someone going 25 in a 35 zone. I let everyone else pass. I wanted to get a gander at the person obliviously holding up progress. As I neared the orange, mini pick-up, I saw a massive head that seemed padded on all sides with downy flesh, peppered with age spots – a cabbage patch kid made adult sized – with a grey-blue beehive. In the back window of the truck, there was a sticker. A rebel flag with the statement in all caps, “FIGHTING TERRORISM SINCE 1861.”
Shuttle in the Altanta Airpot as photographed by Manicosity
In the Atlanta airport after nearly a year and a half away, I was playing a game with myself. Seeing people in conversation, I generalize, get closer, evesdrop and see how accurate I was in my assessment.
Airport shuttle. A frosty blonde in a Talbott’s twin set is talking to an overweight elderly bespectacled man pushing 60.
Assessment: Born again. W level IQ.
She says to him, “Yes. He’s just wonderful. He said to me ‘These are treacherous times. These are treacherous times,’ he said. I’m going to have to look that up. Treacherous.”
Was it politeness, ignorance or a lack of time that prevented her friend from simply telling her the definition?
“Have a blessed Christmas,” she said before we both got off in terminal D.
Assessment confirmed.
Oh dear. I thought I was sick. Well, this made me feel better about myself.
Yes, there are no less than three searches for something called “toilet brush fucking,” which, as twisted as I am, I never imagined existed. If words alone are not enough, I recommend you visit a charming little site called SlutLoad and see for yourself what this might mean. (Obviously it’s NSFW, so don’t come crying to me if you’re too stupid not to click on it on front of your 5 year old or your boss. It’s called SlutLoad, dumbass.)
Other winners are, “when should I use a toilet,” and “can i know the use of toilet.”
And I must point out the preponderance of users searching for the answer to the ever stupid, “How do I Use a Toilet Brush.” Who knew my blathering was good for anything more than entertainment?
Happy Hanukkah, everyone!
P.S. – Also from today and and not figuring in these archives is the one that brought this post on:
do not piss on toilet desk
I have no idea what this could mean and it might slowly drive me crazy a la Lewis Black if I think about it too much. Oh, world. You’re so mysterious!
I am not sure what brought this to mind, but this is one of the stupidest questions I was ever asked.
Ah yes. Where do I begin?
I was once friends with a girl I’ll call Holly after a song I once wrote about seeing her beaten up called Bloody Hollywood.
I’d known her since high school and even then she was taking her clothes off for money, having bought an identity from an older girl.
Neon Stripper by duncan
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself because the incident in question was one in which she was driving the little red Audi she had before the sugar daddy stepped in with the SUV.
I was working as a cook in a little pizza joint at the time and didn’t have a car. Near the end of my shift, she came in and had a couple pints of beer and when I clocked out I joined her for one.
At that time, there was a club in town called the Toy Tiger. I had seen it since I was a kid, but never been inside and the neon tiger on the sign had always held a certain mystique for me. He brought to mind the Pink Panther and his tail wagged in a neon arc as he stood leaning Fonzie style against one edge.
Image of Where the Toy Tiger once stood by 60 in 3
On this particular night, we were both lit and going down Bardstown Road – Holly was driving and I saw a sign at the Toy Tiger for a hot legs competition. I told Holly she should do it and as we were yelling at each other over whatever music she was blasting in the car she lurched violently to the right and hollered to the guy at the door to see if the competition was still going on. It had ended and just as impulsively as she had entered the drive, she peeled out, braking violently before punching it to speed back onto the road, jumping the median, and making me think she had ripped something out from the underside of the car.
Those hazy nights were always full of hotdogging and near misses. I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Strippers can’t drive. I have argued with people about this and been told time and again that this supposition is wrong, but every stripper I have ever known has had a higher than average incidence of car accidents. Perhaps it’s an occupational hazard of being paid to drink with people.
Well, hell knows what we did that night. It blends in with so many others. Was it the night I got food poisoning and barfed in her bathtub?
Drano. It's like gold, you know. Photo by 365bunnies
Maybe it was the time that I got blitzed and went on a rant about plastic surgery and she ditched me at a biker bar after screaming at me, though no one would have known she had had breast implants until she made a scene. I guess she felt insulted. I made it home on the back of a bike, too drunk to be afraid.
Was it before or after we went to Sturgis on a Greyhound bus and I spent what seemed like hours listening to her scream (not exaggerating) and bitch indignantly when they stowed a borrowed backpack she had sworn she wouldn’t let out of her sight on a bus other than the one we ended up on after the first bus broke down?
Biker Bar Photo by V'ron
She refused to pay part of my reentry to the campground after I went to town for groceries, cigarettes and beer and hitched a ride back into town with a deaf hippie with a tattooed face and a baby in search of propane. I made it through that trip as a salesgirl in a leather booth by the grace of some old road warrior’s generosity.
I think I had had enough of Holly even before I sobered up. Though she could be a lot of fun, it was her violent rages and humiliating public talking tos that cured me of any affection I had for her. I got tired of the one way nature of the relationship. She would do something horrible, like deliberately giving herpes to a married man during a breakout, laugh about it, and then need consolation over her poor self esteem at another time. It got to be too much.
Maybe it was that she quit hanging out with me when I found out that someone dear to my heart had slept with her. I asked her if she told him about her herpes (not quite sure that was the only thing she had) and she told me that she hadn’t. So I told him. I didn’t tell him about the early morning bouts of anguish as she confided unprotected encounters with strangers in alleys or specific details about why she might not be the best sex partner, only that he ought to be careful and that if herpes was the only thing she had that she was a damn lucky person. I don’t even think he told her what I’d said. I think I told her. And I think that was the end of a turbulent friendship.
Years later I was approached by another friend. “Holly told me if I ever see you to tell you that she misses you. She wants you to call her.”
“Why would I do that? Is she nuts?”
“Well, she’s in trouble.”
“What else is new?”
“She really misses you, but also she wants to see if you would testify for her in court.”
“Ah ha. Now we get to the heart of it. Of course she misses me, now. What happened?”
“I guess there was this time at the Toy Tiger. Some guy says she ran into him with her car. Messed up his leg or something. She wants to know if you’ll be a witness.”
“Are you fucking kidding? I remember that. She was driving drunk. I’m not sure either one of us would know if she had hit someone. Do you think that’s the kind of testimony that she wants?”
“I don’t know. She just wanted me to ask you.”
“Well, you can tell her to fuck off for all I care. No fucking way I’m getting mixed up in that shit.”
That was far from the end of her decline. I hear she got mixed up in shooting dope and who knows what she’s up to these days if she’s still alive. I can bet that she didn’t have a witness in the suit, though. Tough luck, Holly. I hope you didn’t hit him, but I couldn’t swear to it.
What were his parents thinking? How did they arrive at that name?
I can’t help it. I first heard his name on the BBC World Service in the middle of the night more than 10 years ago and I wondered if I was insane or hearing things.
Awesome Cartoon Image by GasBombGirl
Imagine the torture he must have undergone as a child.
What were his parents thinking? Was his dad some super militaristic asshole with a “Boy Named Sue” aesthetic, demanding that his son be able to withstand the force of ridicule of, well, a dick army? Or what?
Most apparent, the name brings to mind an army of dicks. Even more graphic: a veiny dick-like arm or an enormous arm-like dick. So when they called his name in homeroom, he was probably the first, starting with A and the teacher probably said, “Armey, Dick?” And he was forced to raise his hand [on the end of his (dick) arm(y)] and say, “Present.”
It is not my purpose here to analyze Armey’s connection with Freedom Works or wax poetic about his “[a]lleged role in organized disruptions of August 2009 town hall meetings on health care reform” (Wikipedia’s Dick Armey page), but simply to ask: What the Fuck, Dick? Why not Rick? Why not Richard? Why not your middle name, Keith?
Well, one thing’s for sure. No one’s forgetting your name.
Okay. Maybe this seems like a stupid question, but it’s not.
by Rennett Stowe
While I seldom go to the doctor if I can help it [a habit that has surely sprung from my experience with inept doctors, fraudulent chiropractors (well, one in particular: a Carol Ward of Louisville, Kentucky - and yes I'm naming names here and I swear she's on the take), my lack of insurance and the fact that lucky for me, most things I get seem to resolve of their own accord], I have had the chance since being in Argentina to be seen by more than one doctor.
Image by lanchongzi
The first occasion was when I went to get a routine exam to be accorded the privilege of starting yoga. Legislation here (which seems to be enforced in a hit or miss fashion) mandates that those who would exercise in a professionally run work-out facility must first get an EKG to insure that they wont be dropping dead on the treadmill. Smart, huh?
So when I went to the doctor before beginning yoga classes, I was told by an old man sitting behind a banged up, old metal desk in a room with a medical table to take off my shirt.
I didn’t understand when he said, “Saca la blusa,” and so he mimed the action for me. I was to take off my shirt, right in front of him with no other nurse or aide around.
I was taken aback. Litigation (and perhaps rightfully so – my point is not to condemn the patient or the doctor here) has made it so any female patient (Guys? Is this true for you, too?) being seen in the United States must have a “witness” present if any disrobing is to be done. Not so here.
To have to take any portion of my clothes off in front of someone else has always had quite different implications for me as a corn-fed American woman. I can think of several occasions when it has happened, but it has never had the dusty, old, routine feeling of detachment and professionalism I experienced on this occasion.
I was told to lie on the examining table and the doctor checked my pulse, listened to my heart, and then he swabbed my flesh with alcohol, took some round, stainless steel things about the size of a dime, settled them between my bra and my skin, and clamped some lightweight, plastic clamps to my wrists and ankles.
Were this procedure to have taken place in the United States, it would have required that sticky, disposable pads that were brand new be unwrapped from their sterile packaging to be affixed with their wires dangling prior to being attached to the EKG machine to be thrown away immediately afterwards and likely treated as a biohazard.
Image by clevercupcakes
When I went to the eye doctor, there was no need for me to be weighed or to have my temperature taken with a disposable plastic sheath. I was going to the eye doctor and I saw no one but the doctor to whom I told the nature of my problem. There wasn’t even an entire room, just a cubicle and I sat on the other side of a machine from her in a line of other patients sitting in front of other doctors and had my eye problem seen to. Nothing to throw away besides the slip my prescription was written on.
The main issues under discussion in the debate about national health insurance in the U.S. seem more to be about the waste in manpower, and the corruption and disorganization in the system than they are about the rampant and unnecessary disposable waste that we expect and demand as a part of what we consider responsible care. When you have items that have to be purchased for the most simple appointment and companies charging $15 for a band-aid, out of control costs pair with unnecessary waste to produce wastefully high costs.
I don’t think that things like this are likely to change anytime soon in the American healthcare industry, but when you see the lack of materials used in another system, you realize that what we’re used to isn’t the only way. In the no frills hospitals and doctor’s offices that I’ve been to here, I’ve come to realize that a lot of the procedure and sterility in their U.S. equivalents is more show than it is function. We are a society in which mandated procedure trumps judgement and it shows in the bottom line.
Today’s stupid question is one that I asked. It’s stupid in the way that other stupid questions on this blog are stupid in that the answer leaves something to be desired.
If you care to hearken back to my very first post, you will recall that two tenants moved out around the same time. It was this post that sparked the following exchange on my Facebook page:
While these offensive statements are perhaps uncalled for, you must admit that no names are mentioned. If you add to that the fact that I have a private profile on Facebook and that I was not friends with the parties in question, and that no one really gives a shit what’s on my Facebook page anyway, you might surmise that there would be no way I would personally offend either of the parties in question.
You would, however, be wrong.
Less than a day after posting what you read above, I received a diatribe of an email. The letter began by stating that it wasn’t an attack, but continued by calling me a fraud, rude, “on the internet pretending that [this person] is some kind of pervert”, and asking me what I was running from, among other accusations.
I will bet now that the person that wrote this letter to me is going to be one of the first people to read this post. In fact, I can guarantee that he is one of my biggest fans.
Without going into more detail, I will simply focus on the second response I wrote. You can see it below.
After the word vomit that we had both spewed forth into the e-universe, this is short and sweet and asks a simple question.
Here is the response it received:
Pretty patronizing, right? Slander? Not once has this person’s name been written, nor was the party in question ever insulted in any serious or hurtful way.
But then the Internet is a cruel place that can reveal what people really think about you if you care to repeatedly stalk them, insist on taking offense at what you dig up when you go where you’re not invited and then confront them about it.
And the answer is stupid. Especially when my settings are private. I have done nothing to change any of them since this exchange and the screen-caps are below.
When I logged out of my page and googled even the exact words on my page, googled myself, pasted my profile into the URL bar on my browser, I could see nothing.
Then I decided – enough with the obsessing. That’s for perverts!
Not like this:
Image Courtesy of Jo. Click the image to go to her site. Many thanks!
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