Capri suits? Stop it.
Author: admin
Overheard: Birds of a Feather
After a few minutes in line for the bathroom the girl next to me asks the guy in front how long he’s been waiting. “A few minutes,” he replies. “Hm,” she says. “Did you try . . . pushing the door?” He steps forward, turns that knob, and pushes the door open.
Later, the same guy runs into a friend. She comments that he’s drunk. He denies it. She asks if he’s high. He says no. Their conversation turns to a tall friend of theirs, and she mentions his height. The guy responds, “Dude! Why do you keep asking if I’m high?” “No!” She says, “H-I-G-H-T!”
Delicacies
Every morning, the hotel brings us complimentary breakfast, which Bryan calls the “bucket of toast.” Breakfast elsewhere in the city is equally toast-centric, or made up of confusing components. We ordered breakfast at a tourist place, and they brought us toast, fruit salad, and two slices of cheesecake. The dinner menus, on the other hand, are rife with omelet options. So it’s not that Argentines have no use for breakfast; apparently they just prefer to have it the night before.
A few days into our trip, we discover the wonder of empanadas. I warn Bryan that they’re hot inside, but he forgets in the five seconds it takes to lift the empanada to his mouth. His face contorts.
Me: Oooo. Is the roof of your mouth still attached?
Him: (swallows) No, but it’s delicious cooked.
Mate
Mate is Argentina’s afternoon drink of choice. It’s kind of like tea, but you fill the special cup 3/4 full of herbs, then stick in a straw with a filter at the bottom so you can drink it.
It tastes like a cup of sweet clover steeped in warm, slightly diluted bile. I would ingest something like it again only if a pleasant hallucinatory experience were to follow.
Sparkle Motion
On our first night in Buenos Aires, our taxi driver took us to a tango salon in Palermo. After a few hours of watching impassioned couples slinking around the floor, we decided–in a bout of overconfidence–to learn how to tango. There was some red wine involved. OK, an entire bottle.
The next day, in the mildly irritating light of morning, we booked two hours of instruction for each day of our visit, and began our search for tango shoes.
If you’ve never seen women’s tango shoes, imagine the kind of monstrosity fuck-me pumps you’d ordinarily find in a fetish Manga comic book. Now coat them with red and silver glitter, and affix a large leather rosebud to the ankle strap. Voila!
Bryan found a pair of attractive suede-soled sneakers in the first store we visited. I scanned rows of weapons-grade, structurally unsound affronts in varying degrees of sparkle. Did I want the purple and green sequin ones? Or maybe the orange reflective velvet ones with floral silhouettes burnt into the fabric? I finally found some black practice shoes with heels wider than toothpicks, but taller than necessary.
After 16 hours of tango instruction, the balls of my feet are like tender cutlets of raw chicken. You could bread and deep-fry them, and I’d find it soothing. I bought some of those silicone toe pads to ease the throbbing, and they’re so heavenly that walking feels vaguely obscene, like I should reciprocate somehow. I want to tile our kitchen floor with toe pads; I want to stuff them in my mouth. I’m pretty sure they’d taste like whipping cream.
Omnipresent
Is there nowhere on Earth you can escape Rod Stewart?
Suerte
Lunch conversation in a restaurant filled with bottles:
– If you’re lucky, I’ll be one of those guys who collects novelty whisky bottles.
– What’s the lucky part of that?
– It would be something we could do together.
– (shakes head)
– Um. We’d get to go to bottle shows!
– (shakes head)
– Um. I’d spend most of my time in the basement?
Where in the World
For the last five years or so the airports have had a new program to detain me at every possible opportunity. I’ve experienced seemingly every new development in airport security as it comes up. I was among the first to have my cuticle scissors confiscated, remove my shoes to have them carefully searched for hidden wiring, drink from my flask to prove it didn’t contain lighter fluid, have my computer dusted for chemicals, have my bra hand-searched for hidden explosives, remove my underwear for chemical testing, do the required gyrations to shake loose any wiring attached to my person. All that stuff that’s become a standard part of travel in the U.S.
Anyway, I’m happy to do it. I’d rather be delayed for fifteen minutes than face the gradual erosion of our belief in the basic goodness of humankind. Or, you know, death.
A few days ago, we flew through Dallas, where I learned of a new security development. It’s a machine that looks like an elevator compartment with glass doors in the front and back. When you’re one of the select few who gets to step inside, it blasts you with a series of air “puffs.” They’re supposed to blow chemicals off of you to see if you’ve been mucking around with nitroglycerin lately.
These “puffs,” are surprisingly forceful. When you’re not expecting them, it’s a little like being blasted with twelve mini fire hoses. Except, you know, creepier and more invasive.
Anyway, I passed. We’ve been in Argentina for a week or so. I’m on steak number 73.
The Dalai Lama
I had to stay home and work this weekend, but Bryan and his sister worked at the Dalai Lama’s meeting with several religious scholars in San Francisco. I spent the morning writing, and walked over to meet them. The hotel lobby was filled with people in festive dress and a few long-haired guys in trance states. Bryan ushered me through security, and opened the ballroom door. And there, right in front of me, was the Dalai Lama. My life is weird.
See You at Chicos
One of the most surprising things about turning thirty is how my pulse no longer quickens when I pass an H& M. I feel like I need to fortify myself before entering, the very idea of it exhausts me.
The only way I can now face this store is with a Power Bar in my pocket, and a machete to clear a path through the racks of anemic hippy cotton. I wander from item to item, tilting my head at a blouse, trying to figure out how it fastens, or recoiling from the exact multi-tiered ruffle skirt that I wore in my Welcome to the Dollhouse days. I spend three hours there and emerge with a pair of earrings and a pressing sense of disquiet.
Mighty Girl 