Symptomatic 2

After striking out on the live social scene, I returned to spending a couple of hours each night at my laptop, writing a little, chatting with people I had never sat next to, and checking out the news in English on Latin American countries, but especially Mexico because it was fresh in my mind. I learned the country was suffering a number of difficulties resulting from battles among drug families, and about a disused justice system presented in the dramatic documentary Presunto Culpable, but most of the news I could find concentrated on mishaps in the north of the nation. Very few newsworthy events outside of the education arena appeared to be happening in the south. Any discussion of the situation in 1994 had a historical flavor to it, as if the most recent revolutionary fervor had now joined its brethren on the shelf and in the books. Upon switching to travel guides and noting there was still a call out to come and enjoy “the best the country had to offer,” I started communicating with the woman in Texas, discussing the possibility of being in her area and seeing if we could meet and size each other up. She must have concluded I had formed Plan B because I could tell by the way she said it “might be nice” without conviction in the tone of her words that she was being duplicitous as I was and both of us were too shy to admit our possibilities had expired.

Snowblind

I was freezing and my planned cruise to Central American ports came at a good time, but it made the return to this Arctic more unbearable. For five days, I drifted in a paradise of idleness, which helped to unstiffen joints, while my brain produced static impulses. There was nothing I had to do, and now that I have to, I don’t want to. I am aware of animation that lies waiting under this icy white blanket, but long for the beauty that lies fully exposed under black pin-pricked skies and radiant tangerine politics shared by smilers who express little need for the tangibility of current events while inexorably donning their consequences. We all must move forward, but some, like certain crabs, have chosen to shift sideways, and still, it gets them there. I must get away more often, but timing is everything, and now I require hot coffee.

Symptomatic

Met two women last month while out having a drink or two one night, and I guess that means I still have it; only I didn’t get it. The first said her name was Beth, and that she had recently settled in New York after a long stint of teaching English in Mexico, and when it came down to it, she wasn’t really looking for companionship, but what she said in parting caused me to whither, and I was glad to see the last of her. A little while later, I shared a drink with a woman named Samantha, who was on a side trip to the east coast before heading on down to Mexico. I knew there was no future in chatting her up, but I did for a while, mostly because I was trying to find out what the big attraction was South of the Border. Last week I was reading through CraigsList and read an offer that titillated, but I didn’t respond because when it comes down to it, I am looking for companionship. I am acquainted with a couple of women, one who lives in Boston, and another who lives in Texas; both of whom in prior communiqués have invited me to come visit. I might just take up the offer of the lady in Amarillo because if reality doesn’t measure up to fantasy, I could easily move a little further south.