Black Friday

The escalator lowers me deeper into the heart of the beast: Forever 21 the day after thanksgiving. Most people refer to this day as a holiday of it’s own right, Black Friday, a day of alleged deals and discounts, when for some reason everyone feels compelled to hoist their bloated post-thanksgiving bodies into the driver’s seat and gun it to the nearest shopping center. Why? The reason is beyond me. Yet today I am one of the crowd.

People, like herds of cattle, mill about the store, chewing the cud of the corporations who lured them there in the first place. Suddenly even the most outlandish of merchandise become must-have items. A woman in her late forties dangles a pair of plush green elf slippers from her fingers in deep contemplation. Teenage boys previously happy to defer the chore of clothing shopping to the nearest woman buckle under the weight of the jackets and flannel shirts draped from both sides of their skinny arms. I watch two young women quarrel over the last pair of Fry-inspired cowgirl boots that stand between them in solidarity like two guard dogs refusing to choose sides, no doubt mourning the recent departure of their fellow mass-produced shelf-mates.

Thanksgiving has barely passed in yet Christmas tunes are sped up, overlaid with upbeat techno tracks and blared throughout the store, serving the dual purpose of whipping the shoppers into a frenzy and providing the allusion of the "Christmas spirit." However, there is nothing generous or Christmas-y in the eyes of the women lined up en mass for the fitting rooms. They are not yet ready to play Santa Claus. After all, they've had such a trying last few weeks. Surely that 10-page report they managed to churn out in between extended bouts of Facebook "browsing" is grounds for splurging on those red, sequin undies. So perfect for the holidays, and you-know-who. After all, they're marked down a whole $2 from their original price of $10 for a fabric that costs almost nothing.

I wonder how long it will take all this stuff to end up at Goodwill, or, more likely, splayed atop the burgeoning heaps of a landfill. No doubt these novelty scarves will go through the same process that almost every cheap textile goes through: born at the fingertips of some exhausted, underpaid foreign laborer and then shipped overseas to bask in the frenetic but short-lived affection of some thoughtless consumer before being relegated to the cool depths of their closet. So, what better way to celebrate the holidays than by perpetuating this vicious cycle? I think, as I hand over my credit card. Happy, happy holidays :)

Larissa

I still have all her shit – her toothbrush, a Grow-Your-Own-Mushrooms kit that she actually purchased at Whole Foods and the hair-wrap that a wandering street hippie gave her in Indonesia which she promptly cut off upon returning to the States. It still has little pieces of her tangerine hair sticking out of it in all directions. I am repulsed.

Our breakup was surprisingly normal compared to our relationship, a mutual agreement that things “just weren’t working out,” though I can’t help feel that somehow they could have, if she had wanted them to. But she never asked for anyone’s permission, especially not mine. She was the type to steal an entire steak sandwich right off your plate if she decided that she liked yours better. It didn’t matter that everyone around us was staring, judging. And when she bit down on that greasy sirloin it made you want to personally lick off the mustard bouncing on the side of her cheek.

She was the life of the party, without even showing up. Her erratic antics and drunken faux-pauxs provided the people who knew her with hours of entertainment from gossiping alone. Someone always needed to be filled-in on the latest. However, one could not help but suspect that the silences in between the uproarious laughter were filled with the fledgling desire of wishing they had the nerve be as ridiculous as she was.

She was a fabulous liar—like Holden Caulfield, on cocaine. She could hold you in bug-eyed rapture listening to one of her tales you knew was neither fact nor fiction, but the carefully woven lovechild of both. Truths so beautifully enshrined in falsities that you wouldn’t even recognize them if you bumped into them on the street. And the scary thing was, you didn’t care.

And when she left, she was gone, leaving only the things that you wanted least from the relationship such as the germ-infested toothbrush, the unmanned, putrid fungus operation that was beginning to take over the entire kitchen and the abominable hair-wrap with her goddamn hair STILL clinging onto it...

...and as I carefully pinch each of these items into a giant trash bag, along with the three vodka bottles I have gone through this week, I am careful to include the regret I harbor from no longer being with her. I feel I am finally ridding myself of the Vulcan death grip she held on my life, body, spirit and mind. I feel almost as though I could levitate knowing that as soon as that garbage truck’s incessant wailing permeates my sleep at some ungodly hour and dumps all this trash into it’s massive caboose via mechanical forklift, as soon as it’s front wheels grind against the asphalt and away from my apartment, as soon as its tail lights blend into the endless flow of traffic and eventually disappear – So. Will. Larissa.

Sound Snake

I swear to god this beat is following me. Sometimes I hear it playing quietly out of a boom box at the back of a run-down restaurent, sometimes it comes wafting out of the ice-cream truck that lingers up and down my street. It’s a simple beat, but also very distinct. Something you might hear at a Salsa club: maracas and drums.

It fades in and out but mostly it follows me, snaking its way through the crowded sidewalks, inhabiting the headphones of the man next to me on the Subte. I like to think of it as Argentinian, like some quintessential national song that everyone here listens to, but somewhere along the way my brainwaves have twisted it into something less positive – the sound of a timer, ticking away my time here.

Three months is an awkward amount of time for a stay in a foreign country. It’s too long to be a vacation in yet too short to qualify as a move. So what is this sixth grade girlfriend of a trip? Is that not what all travel is, just a tease? I cringe to think of how the bond I have formed with this city will be severed when I board that plane, how the relationships I've cultivated will be put on hold.

I find myself channeling a lot of this tension into spending. I frequent the local crafts fairs, buying knick-knacks almost compulsively. But it’s not the matte gourd or the alpaca sweater that I want so much as Buenos Aires itself. It makes me nervous to know that, no matter what, I can’t pack away this country in my suitcase. The fruit stands, the cafes, the bookstores, the pulsating rhythm that follows me throughout the day and keeps this city alive until all hours of the night is all too intangible to bring home with me so instead I buy up one piece here and one piece there in a desperate attempt to recreate the whole.

In yet it's killing me. When I think of all the beautiful places I’ve traveled, all the places I'd like to live, it makes so anxious I want to explode. At least then I could leave a few parts here to enjoy Buenos Aires, and the rest could be flown back to the States.

Teatime in Buenos Aires

Living in Buenos Aires has been a culture shock in a number of ways but one thing that has particularly captured my attention, AND my frustration, is the difference in cafe culture here versus the United States. For example, the term "to go" or in Spanish "para alla" has little or no significance to the baristas here in Buenos Aires. For Portenos, coffee is something that is meant to enjoyed sitting down, in the company of one's friends and preferably over an abundance of sparkling conversation. While on our better days we Americans will enjoy our coffee in a similar, more social manner, overall we tend to treat our coffee the way we treat our prozac, as a necessity that ought to be ingested at all costs, in any way possible.

I find that this reflects much more than an inability on my part to obtain a much needed iced coffee "for the road," but rather a difference in our cultures altogether. To put it simply, Portenos know how to "chill" a lot better than we Americans do and it is not uncommon for a Porteno to spend hours drinking mate, eating lunch, or simply chatting it up with a friend at the grocery store. To them, it is not time that is of the essence but rather one's relations with the world around them. This can often be frustrating when, say, you are at the back of the line at the bank with an urgent issue and the person at the front of the line is giving the teller a highly animated play-by-play description of their niece's last soccer game. However, it is definitely something to consider. In accordance with the Buddhists teachings, one might even might even call it a more mindful way of living. For, rather than focusing solely on the future and all of its various mundane tasks, Portenos are able to wholly submerse themselves in the ephemeral beauty of the present, whether it be over mate, coffee or simply a chance meeting of a friend.