details

07Oct09

these days, the details seem a bit hard to grasp.  i resort to lists, mundane recollections of whatever details remain, hoping that they will add up to a memory that i can hold on to and say, this is what i did.  so that is what i’ll do.

- i just ate two bananas, finishing what was left of the 5 bananas i bought several hours ago.  bananas here are sweeter than in the states, so even though these were still a bit green, they were nice.

for some reason i always tend to miss the banana ladies when i walk to and from work, but luckily today she was there.  i walked up, not forgetting to smile, and asked how much they were, and asked for 4 of them.  there was some confusion.  i asked how much they were, and she asked how much money i had.  i laughed – i thought buying bananas would be an innocuous transaction, but she was going for the hard sell.  anyway i felt bad for laughing, so i ended up overpaying for the bananas.  unfortunately, knowing that i overpaid for them somewhat diminished my enjoyment.

- intermittently, i go to my couch and read a few pages from my book, the savage detectives.  it was highly recommended by leo, yes you get a direct shoutout, so i hope you’re reading.  each time i go back and forth i notice something new.  i’m staying in a guest house which is pretty far from the street.  the first time i got up, i saw three men standing outside the gate of the house opposite mine, which was a bit strange.  i’ve never seen them before, and before you all start calling me a racist for suspecting that they were up to no good, i’d say it was more the influence of the book, in which a family is held under siege by a pimp because they are housing his  prostitute.  speaking of which, there are lots of prostitutes on my street at night.  i may have already mentioned that to some of you.

the second time i got up, which was just now, it was pitch black outside.  i can’t even see the main house, which is only 20 feet from the window.  the night is kind of mysterious and exciting and scary… kind of like when i’d watch tv at home as a kid, watch tv all day and night would come without me realizing it, and i’d only realize it when switching programs, that split second of darkness making me see that everything was dark, outside, inside, everything.

mysterious, exciting, scary, dark… that pretty much sums up the savage detectives.  it’s funny.  not the book, but its effect on me.  the book is about young latin american poets.  as i’m reading it, i kind of wonder in what world poets could take themselves so seriously, that their poems would land them in jail or influence people or even politics.  in the book, the characters would say in passing something like, “we spent the night talking about the state of latin american poetry, well into the morning.”  anyway i found it hard to believe that poems could be so influential.  but as i write this dreary post, i see that i’m just channeling the author, roberto bolaño, writing in his voice.

- on my way to work yesterday i bought an orange at a stand.  while the young girl was cutting the orange, an older girl was teasing the guy sitting next to her, who was trying to send a text on his phone.  “when are you going to marry me?” she asked, waving a hand in front of his face.  i asked him why he hadn’t proposed.  “she is always bothering me,” he said.  ” i ask her to go away, and she stays.  if i marry her, she will never go away.”  we all laughed.  today i walked by again and the older girl was there.  i asked her if he proposed yet.  he said he hadn’t.  she asked where i lived, and i said nearby.  she asked if she could come over.  !  isn’t that a bit forward?  i should have said thatat the time, but instead  i just made up an excuse for why that would not be a good idea (do i even need to make an excuse?).  (how does one punctuate a sentence if it ends with a question mark in the parenthetical phrase?  like this?).

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  6 Comments