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runswithscissors


Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Suddenly, overnight, it's November. And I find myself asking an old, familiar question: how the hell did that happen?

It's easy for me to lose track of time's slipping forward here at this time of the year, given the lack of Stateside seasonal affect. Halloween? Not much of a cultural touchstone, barely puts in an appearance, and what there is seems largely to be a function the occasional store window display or a bar looking for an angle to bring in customers, at least here in the city center. A recent arrival as holidays go, carrying little weight, especially compared to, say, today (All Saints Day, el Día de Todos los Santos), or even tomorrow. A national holiday, many businesses closed, many folks away for the four-day weekend. Huge numbers of people bolted on Friday, causing massive traffic jams that groups from the agricultural sector took advantage of, blocking a major highway or two to call attention to their unhappiness with spiraling gasoline prices and the current level of government support. (News reports showed footage of swarms of men clustered across a highway, stalled traffic extending off into the distance, police trying to clear away uncooperative protestors.)

My friend Jorge invited me to join a group of friends heading off into the mountains for much of the weekend, I decided to do an overnight, returning to the city with a woman from the group late on Sunday. Packed a bag late Saturday afternoon, made the ten-minute walk to rendezvous with Jorge and a friend of his, Tony, waited while they crammed bags, bicycles, related detritus into Tony's tiny Kia, found myself stuffed into what free space remained of the back seat, trying to peer out through darkly tinted windows at the passing streets of Madrid. Windows tinted darkly enough that I finally gave up, settling for the teeny slice of untinted view I could see through the windshield.

A rendezvous followed in one of Madrid's new northern 'burbs, construction happening everywhere, blocks of flats and office buildings being thrown together along newly created thoroughfares, shopping centers sprouting up amid it all, traffic around the rendezvous point bumper to bumper, moving at a crawl.



Jorge spotted one of the group, parked in a service station/convenience store island, directed Tony into that compact zone, through cars, gas pumps, pulling up by a concrete barrier, Tony complaining the entire time. A slender 30ish woman got out of the other vehicle (María), came over for hellos, stood by Jorge's window chatting until we got out to stretch legs, when a third car appeared, containing the group's final two members (Juan Carlos, Almudena), folks I knew from excursions and evenings out last spring. Greetings, conversation, then individuals re-distributed themselves among the three vehicles, me ending up with María, happy to be in a front seat, surrounded by undarkened windows.

We were to follow Tony/Juan Carlos, that plan fell apart once out on the highway, between María's lack of driving testosterone and her car's modest horsepower compared to Tony's, who floored it, disappearing off into the distance as we headed northwest, evening falling as the mountains gradually drew near. We're driving along, making conversation, my Spanish feeling a bit sloppy, me realizing it was because I was tired (my bod dreaming about getting horizontal, me knowing that wasn't in the cards for many hours). María had spent a month traveling around the States a year, year and a half ago, we talked about that for a while. Time passed, it became clear that we'd truly been left in the dust, neither of us had any idea how to get to our destination. María's mobile phone got dug out of her shoulder bag, I found myself on the horn with Juan Carlos, whose family's country place we were going to. He began reeling off directions, enumerating names of exits, towns, landmarks to look for -- I knew within seconds that I'd never remember any of it without having it on paper. With no writing implements in easy range, I shoved the phone at María, she gave JC some heartfelt shit about them leaving us behind, went through directions with him, seemed to do all right.

Seemed to. But suffered from a certain vagueness, a chronic uncertainty that took us off the highway too soon, through a pueblo whose points of reference were not a match to Juan Carlos' directions. We bumbled along, eventually finding what seemed to be a correct turn, winding up on a country two-lane, no lights anywhere, the occasional car that came up behind us riding the rear bumper, passing as soon as they could, immediately impatient with Maria's slow, vacillating pace. Her headlights were out of adjustment, illuminating little of the pavement ahead on low-beam, she clicked back and forth between high-beam and low with nervous frequency.

Juan Carlos had told her, she said, that the village we sought would appear quickly. Twenty, twenty-five minutes later, we continued bumbling along, finding no mention of the village on road signs to that point.

[continued in next entry]

************

Someone at El País, Spain's largest-selling daily, may be trying to channel Raymond Chandler.

From an article on the Italian fútbol league in yesterday's edition:

"The fury of the melancholy is usually terrible, because it's a cold, methodical fury, born of will. Milan, the most melancholy team in Italy, ran over Juventus in San Siro, they hammered them to death and only refrained from tossing the body into the river because the law doesn't allow it...."


Madrid, te quiero.

rws 7:48 AM [+]
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BLATHERINGS

August 2001
September 2001
October 2001
November 2001
December 2001
January 2002
February 2002
March 2002
April 2002
May 2002
June 2002
July 2002
August 2002
September 2002
October 2002
November 2002
December 2002
January 2003
February 2003
March 2003
April 2003
May 2003
June 2003
July 2003
August 2003
September 2003
October 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
June 2009
July 2009

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .


MORE FOCUSED BLATHERINGS


Travels:
London '01
Pamplona
Italy '03
U.K. '03
Sevilla
Casablanca
Stoke-on-Trent
Barcelona
Québec/Ottawa
Boston/Lisbon/Madrid
Italy '04
Montréal
La Sierra

Events:
Madrid -- arrival
9/11
Emergency Room I
Holidays 2001
Holidays 2002
Holidays 2003
Holidays 2004
Holidays 2005
A neighbor's passing
Madrid -- March 11 bombings
  and aftermath
Emergency Room II
Israeli friend/Madrid Marathon
Madrid -- Royal Wedding
The DELE exam

GONE, a novel:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10

THE BASTARD CHILDREN OF
JOE ROCCO, a novella:
-- Part 1
-- Part 2
-- Part 3

BURBANK SHRUGGED,
a screenplay:
-- Part 1
-- Part 2
-- Part 3
-- Part 4

Short stories:
Murphy's Wife
Another Autumn
La Queja de Una
  Hermanastra Muy Conocida

Autobiography
-- Personal History
-- Hormones On Parade
-- Accidents, Random Mishaps,
    Personal Problems

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .


OTHER SOURCES OF WHOLESOME ENTERTAINMENT

People/Weblogs:
dooce
foxvox
fudge it
fear not
rebekka
bookslut
802online
idle words
madhaiku
wockerjabby
grow-a-brain
rebel market
letting me be
out and about
kung fu grippe
fanatical apathy
baghdad burning
wfuv's music blog
kexp's music blog
mimi smartypants
between the miles
just a hippie gypsy
the impossible cool
tomato can brushes
vermont homestead
sugar mountain farm

Good Clean Fun:
gizmodo
futurismic
postsecret
dave barry
human clock
mcsweeney's
spaceweather
book-a-minute
internet archive
self-portrait day
my cat hates you
out of context quotes
surrealist compliment
  generator
strindberg and helium

Makin' Musical Whoopee:
last fm
stereo8
pandora
soma fm

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .


ABOUT RWS/CONTACT





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runswithscissors would like to thank everyone who's ever lived for everything they've ever done.



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