the fotocopiadora is the bane of my existence

i know i know they a lot a complaining happenin around here...
but i have got to say this, the first couple weeks of school the fotocopiadora has been a nightmare.
on the one hand one might be thankful that one is not required to buy really expensive textbooks and that since there are no copyright laws in chile one can aquire all the required reading over at the good ole fotocopiadora.....howev.

we all got to go there especially in these first few weeks which means that the crowd is outrageous and the lines absurd and as we should all know chileans are not actually big fans of lines per se, so when i say line im actually reffering to a jostling mass of people who are all trying to get to the stressed out lookin dude behind the counter

now the key is to have all yer shit ready to go right? the little request slip, the cash whatev, have it all in hand and work yer way to the front where you will attempt to catch homeboys eye...sounds pretty simple right?

wrong

ever been at a crowded bar and had the bartender not only not notice you but take orders from everyone around and behind you as hands reach over yer head with they cash and whatev, thats what its like...

i have been dreading the inevitable trips to the good ole fotocopiadora which are necessary if you wanna read the crap the profs are gonna test you on asap...and they dont usually make available all the reading for the whole semester so you do have to make several trips...later on in the semester this is a minor annoyance, in the very beginning this is absurd.

so they just put in place a new system where you take a number and wait for the number to flash on the screen above yer head, the chilenos immediately began working out ways around this system such as handing orders to friends whose number is coming up instead of waiting, and now the system is practically useless since some people have taken to grabbing handfuls of numbers just to fuck it all up...

thus we are all doomed to spend many moons waiting impatiently for the fotocopiadora dude to notice us and finally take our order and tell us slowly and loudly as if our faltering spanish actually indicated brain damage exactly when to come back for our often smudged, sometimes opening bassackwards never fuckin bound even if we check the lil box which signifies that we would like our selection bound en vez de stapled big ass pile of arent you excited as hell to read say foucoult on literary theory in spanish??? or the book you couldnt find anywhere, missing a page which actually means two since the entire novella is fotocopied meaning two pages to every one that opens backwards which means you think maybe it would have been worth the trouble to keep looking for the actual book since one cannot really read this much material under these conditions anyway...

so there it is.
my beef with the frickin fotocopiadora...but the semester is now off, a classmate is willing to let me buy the book they have cause they already finished it anyway and my ass going to throw in my smudgy backwards missing a page copy along with the amount they paid cause it actually seemed like a decent novel that id like to actually read...

well gotta check out for now, paper due tom at 10 am and im about to bullshit my ass off in spanish...check you cats later.

chilenos are fucked

aight so i know and you know that i gots lots of opinions and usually i am unable to give them when it comes to the relationships of others HOWEVER i am no longer able to shut up about the fact that like evry person i know who is dating a chilean is having something along the lines of the almost exactly same flavor of drama.

i will give you some examples but please note that the names have been changed to protect the innocent

ok.
chilena adorable and chileno rasta/rat-tail
they cute, despite the rasta rat tail which is a dready tail and actually hes got two in the back of a longish faux hawk making it a star wars tribute rasta rat tail mullet. despite that hes cute and friendly and sweet and always kickin it in a very chill style with the chick who is similarly adorable calm fun ect...

until one day when i witnessed the following scene.
she is heading to a concert, hes not going cause he isnt into the music...she sits down to eat he asks why she doesnt just have salad didnt she eat lunch not long ago she says im hungry and im going to a show so i need to eat now he looks displeased and leaves the room.
she finishes eating commenting that if he thinks he can tell her what to do he picked the wrong girl.
he then insists on leaving at once and tells her to hurry cause hes giving her a ride to the friends house who she is meeting up with before the show which is hours and hours away. she says she will take metro.
he leaves without a word leaving an icy silence behind. he returns at some point and this gringo everhears the tail end of a convo in which he is accusing her of getting over emotional...

what the hell was that all about? oh my dear dear friends. that was the attack of the otherwise chill as fuck sweet good natured funny chileno...

heres another
gringa rubia is in a re with tenacious chileno. they are practically the perfect couple and clearly very much in love. most of the time they are joking and chilling and having a good time. one night tenacious chileno and his pals and gringa rubia plus her pal, me all get together for a barbeque. it is immediately obvious that something is wrong however bc the chileno is literally ignoring his girl, he says practically not a word to her the whole night while she saves him a seat asks if he wants another beer and basically tries everything she can think of to get some communication going...finally she takes him aside and asks why he is acting this way and he DENIES EVERYTHING!!!!!! he says that not only is he not ignoring her but she is ignoring him and he wants to know why!!!! she assures him that shes not while he keeps pressing to know if she is mad at him or what...the night continues in this way, she running after his passive agressive dumbass self until shes so pissed off and angry that she starts yelling at which point he wants to know what her problem is why shes making a scene in public and why shes been acting so freaky all night...

these are not isolated incidents my friends. i have witnessed similar scenes many many times...

we have the extreme example of the buena onda gringa and chileno metalico who out of fucking nowhere and generally only while very very drunk will make and unbelievable ridiculous scene, will latch onto some small thing that she did that somehow pissed him off and use it as an excuse to act like a complete and total fucker to her while she tries in vain to get him to chill.

we have ten minute phone calls in which tenacious chileno not only denies having acted like a dick the night before to the rubia, knowing full well as we all do that he saw her GASP HORROR speak to another man and proceeded to treat her like a stranger the whole night, not only will he completely deny his actions he will argue for hours that SHE was acting strange to HIM and he wants to know what her problem is!!!!

we have the case of the hip hop chileno and gringa extraña in which for no apparent reason he will literally ignore her for hours and hours and hours, he will sit across the room not say a fuckin thing to her, look and act aggrieved if she insists on speaking to him and then ask what she means if she asks what the problem is...

these are just a few examples my peeps of what i conclude to be the usual behaviors of angry or annoyed chilenos...these generally buena onda sweet tempered louts, most of whom dont know how to cook or clean up for themselves apparently have been accostomed thier entire lives to a vicious cycle of passive agressive bullshit wherein upon becoming angered with their chick for whatever reason...

note that the usual reasons include doing something he dissaproves of wearing something he dissaproves of eating something he dissaproves of or for the ever present paranoid jealous fantasy having tenacious chileno, the possible speaking to looking at or being looked at by another man which he generally dissaproves of...this was not at all the case for hip hop chileno who is much more likely to become annoyed when asked to pay attention to his chick as opposed to being annoyed when others do...

but whatever the reason for the anger the cardinal chileno rule seems to be to never ever ever say it out loud to instead exress your anger by both acting like a jackass and simultaneously deny that you are doing so, bugging the shit out of yer chick until she snaps and you can then ask why she is making a scene/acting irrationally/being overly emotional/sensitive ect

thats right its a fucking built in cultural tradition not only do these guys not discuss whats buggin em they work it out so that they never even have to admit to ever being bothered in the first damn place!!!

its brilliant!
these buttwipes have taken passive agressive behavior to a whole new level.....
and they have done it in a way that is specifically designed to drive any woman right out of her fuckin mind...

goin to the chapel of looooooove

so things have been a little hectic what with the adding of classes attending of classes gettting out of bed to go to classes and staying in bed reading for classes...
having a literal mountain of things to read, coming off a crazy weekend with that boring fucker martin rivas in prep for my first essay test i find myself coming down with a cold and unable to wake even after the second alarm goes off (i set alarmclock for 7.30 and my phone beeps in incrementally louder at 8) i blew off my first class today figuring fuck it i didnt do the reading anyway..
the new budget proceeds apace despite purchase of a darling new green jacket, it is starting to really feel like fall here so i felt this purchase justified...

but the real news is that my roomate lesha is planning on marrying her chilean boyfriend felipe...also known as the monkey...

let me just say a little about this. these two have been inseperable since the day they met, and spent the summer together while the chick and i took off for parts unknown...
under normal circumstances this would lead to a possibly serious relationship, not a marriage...but the looming spectre of our return to california has prompted what seems like a somewhat wacky decision to get married so that the monkey can accompany lesh back to california...
anybody else had told me this and i woulda said im sorry your planning on what again???
but the other factor is that lesh is very below the radar, shes very calm and resolute in her daily life and not at all prone to drama or dramatic decisions, so when she tells me she wants to marry her monkey despite a few complications within the relationship which i am not at liberty to discuss...well i just gotta support her and start planning the wedding

because she wants to get married in our house, in our living room to be precise and the ash and i have been brainstorming color schemes (a cool violet purple and soft chaparral green) lots and lots of flowers...candles...tulle...and we will be removing the furniture from our bedrooms to install a dj, opening the back patio for food and holding the ceremony in the living room which will also be emptied of its rightful furnishings and filled with folding chairs....

so while there are some doubts i think in everyones mind about the speed with which this plan was hatched, we were informed of monkey is coming back home with me upon our return from vacation, and were getting married followed soon after...but now we have a date which is rapidly approaching and the wedding planners are getting a little anxious about such things as what we will wear and bachelorette parties, a lingering doubt remains in my mind as to the wisdom of this match, not based on how happy and good for each other my little monkey pair so clearly is, but on the speed with which everything is being planned...yet my knowledge of the lesh calms many of my fears for her imminent union knowing as i do just how chill and self assured she is convinces me that if she is convinced this is the right thing to do...i have no choice but to follow suite...

in other news, martin rivas and i have parted ways following the quiz and i have returned to the lovin fuzzy arms of my teddy, sal...

well i have to go read a shit ton of crap if i hope to survive...more news later..

passing piola

well i have several updates. i have to say them quick cause i got class in 13mins..
have successfully moved from a pink phase to an unforseen green
have started second semester with once again 5 courses, 4 in lit.
have finally recieved grades from last semester all good except for an f in a class i flaked out on...guess its bye bye to grad school...
have created with the chick a new philosophy to allow us to focus a bit more on school and avoid the mujer y sociedad fiasco, the final project we never did which led to this now inerasable f on my gotdam transcripts!!!!
here it is, the new philosophy that will keep us out of turbo, ooops i mean trouble in the foreseeable future, we like to call it espionage...

we got this whole weeknight chilltip thing goin on, where if we do go out on a weeknight we enter all quiet have two beers or one mixed drink at most and leave all quiet early enough to get home at midnight at the latest

and its actually worked on at least one occaision....

even as i move into my green ash is moving into a pink phase out of a green, we did not plan this people, it just happened...

and as far as espionage goes i have quiet permission to do all the reading for my theory class in english since its mostly translated from french anyway...

have also begun cooking, thats right, cooking!!! me!!! have picked up a few skills and am now arranging once a week cookoffs with the chick that provide leftovers for the week...

last weekend we made black beans and rice from scratch, they was hard and dry when we started, spicy and delish by the end...

plus have become addicted to the newest chilean telenovela which is waaaaaay over the top in a particularly chilean way that i love, and have a new hot lover named martin rivas...only prob is his ass bores the hell oughtta me, i take him to bed and i end up falling asleep...but i gots no choice im bouts to get tested on this dork in a few days so i need to finish the book...apparently its hella important to the trad here in chile as the first important novel...but its like reading jane austen in spanish....

bouts to rent the fuckin movie...
talk about piola...

meet virginia

i was planning on writing a different kind of blog when i recieved an email from one lovely and loving jeremias telling me his grandaddy had died, detailing what sounded like a peaceful and tranquil end of over a century of life. so moved am i both by my sorrow for what he and his family have lost in losing the living presence of an old man who planted the seeds of the amazing j who we all know to be one of the best and sweetest of men to walk the planet, as well as a whole orchard full of apples in virginia. i never got a chance to meet his grandfather, just listened as he shouted over the phone and joked that the phone was unnecessary if he talked that loud surely his grandad would hear him all the way in virginia anyway.
i just want to pay tribute here somehow briefly to the amazing generous and loving spirit of the rhoades family.

to his mom and dad and sister who are all among the kindest and most loving, thoughtful, and tranquil people i have met yet,
to aunt nelda, who is one of my favorite members of the fam, much more energetic and boisterous but just as generous and compassionate, just as devoted to making the world better one balloon ride or fabulous meal or dedicated public service at a time..

...and most of all to the amazing set of miraculous coincidences that created the man i love and to the family that helped him to learn how to nurture and keep being the wide eyed sweet spirited loving thoughtful exquisitely beautiful creature that he is i just want to send my thoughts and thanks, as clearly its been a hell of a century.

home at last with my brazilian flag panties

gringa sola en barra da lagoa

homeward bound

when we left our fair heroine she was being rained on in lagoa, and about to hop on a bus into el centro to hit a little carnaval before going home at long last...she glossed over the strange fact that like four different dudes (1 chilean 1 argentinian 2 brazilians) had tried to completely kiss her since she had been kickin it gringa sola in barra da lagoa...

they were all basically nice and took a hint and backed off, after i yelled whoa there buddy or ya basta.. but still it was so frequent i couldnt help but wonder if it was really just a result of hangin out alone and ending up being accompanied by some random dude for the day or if this was something having to do with carnaval and the madness of the season, summer coming to an unthought of end, the unhappy nonluck of the recent breakup...

guys are usually like puppies they can sniff you out but never at the right times, like when you meet someone new dudes be fallin out the sky all a sudden...same goes for just went through some form of breakup and the last thing in the world i want is some dude up in my face tryin to kiss me...whatev

so i headed into el centro and this brasilian on the bus picks me up, this is tough cause he speakin portugese and im speakin spanish but basically offers to show me around until its time to get my bus...and he is a lovely capoiera practicing black man so i agree to kick it, and hes cool, takes me to different spots where there are bands playing and crowds of samba crazed beautiful brazilians dancing in tiny tiny skirts...

and now for the bad news. i have no carnaval pictures for you fine folks. this being my last night i thought to take some but somehow i just couldnt, i was having too much fun dancing and watching everything, and it was a crazy mad mess with samba schools and drag queens and little girls dressed like hookers in wigs and high heels practicing they brasilena strut and lovely people of every shape size and color dressed up but skimpy and the warm air and the bands and balloons and decorations and people selling food and the dancing crowds....

well it was fun, homeboy also tried to kiss me but backed off when i said no and was cool to just dance till time for my bus..then he accompanied me back to the bus station and we hugged goodbye and i thanked him for showing me around and he did get a kiss then but just a light one and i was ready to go so i grabbed my shit and headed for the place...

where the dude said your ticket is for yesterday, and i just about fainted dead away...i was like nuh uh today the 26th sunday midnight fuckin domingo 26th today and he said but now its monday the 27th and i said man i just wanna go home...so he was like wait and ill see what i can do...

at this point im nearly in tears, the last time i missed a bus and already had a ticket they was like your bad...so i was freaked...and a little amused as i noted to sal that brasil is like the hotel california you can check out any time you like but you can never leave...

turned out i wasnt the only one made this mistake and homeboy the bus dude worked it out and put my ass on a bus home...boy was i glad about that one...so the next day i made a coupla chilean friends plus they was one gringo kid on the bus playing guitar at the rest stop, this half japanese kid from guess where? wrong. kentucky!!
so we all smoked pot and wandered stoned through brazilian immigration which luckily the bus dudes basically handled...we were on that sucker for two days and two nights, and then at immigration into chile up in the mountains there is ashley but she freaked out cause her shit didnt get stamped coming out of argentina and now she has to pay a fine...but it isnt too big and she and nick work it out...

they the most intense comin through, they unload the bus and xray everything, even sal, and they all sqoozin him like he a drug smuggler...

got home that night and hardly knew what to do...still cant hardly believe im really back and summer is over, all the roses in the front yard are dying...i have just puttered around and cleaned out the fridge and done laundry and grocery shopped...school starts on the 6th and so i guess its back to the grind for me... real glad to be back though.
that first night sal and i just curled up all happy contented girl and bear in our very own bed in our very own house in santiago chile...