A girl who IRCs on one of the channels I'm on these days is getting kicked out of the country by the INS. She's originally from New Zealand and married a US citizen. She has to stay in NZ until her visa goes through here in the US. That's at least several months. They've been married just over a year.

Jed has been a lot more paranoid about the whole INS deal than me. He's the one that has wanted to make doubly sure that everything is as it should be. Me, I figured we have a lawyer, we have our papers in, we asked our questions, now we just wait. Now I wonder, could this be me?

Unlikely, not for the same reasons anyway. But I suppose there is always the possibility that someone somewhere along the line will screw something up and not leave us with enough time to remedy it. And what would I do then? I can't imagine having to leave for several months, maybe years. There is nothing for me in Chile--there hasn't been for a long while, and some time ago I promised myself I would not go back. I know that a couple of entries back I said that I would have a nice if somewhat discombobulated life should I have to go back, but it's not true. I don't want it to sound like a threat, so I don't like saying it at all, but I know that at this point there is no going back for me.

Could this be me? My heart wrings itself into a knot thinking of it. For her. For myself a bit, because just imagining it feels like someone is cutting a chunk out of my chest. But for her, for her, because she's the one that will be at the airport in two days.

It seems the Bush administration has backed up a bit on at least using the term amnesty and is now considering a "guest worker" program. This might be ok, except that, in general, when people are in a country illegally it is because they don't want to leave (which is what they would otherwise be made to do), and "guest" implies a limited term of stay. What makes these authorities think that people who risk all kinds of things every day in order to stay in a country are going to willingly sign up to be a guest worker, and therefore have to eventually leave, is beyond me.

The Bush White House is considering granting legal status to millions of Mexicans who are living in the country illegally. Part of me thinks good for them if they get it, but part of me has some issues with the proposal. First of all, why just Mexicans? Other than Bush's relationship with
Mexico's Vicente Fox, I can't come up with an answer. Sure Bush is sucking up to the Hispanic vote, but he could do that just as well by passing a measure for a broader group. And yes, I am aware that Mexican nationals make up a large chunk of the illegal immigrant numbers, but, again, it seems to me that passing such an amnesty for all illegal immigrants that meet certain requirements would achieve the same thing. Then there's the more personal issues: I have been in the US since I was thirteen. I don't feel at home anywhere else. All my friends are here; my education, my life, my points of view have little or nothing to do with my country of origin (Chile) anymore. And yet, I have never been legally able to work. I am twenty-two now, and just got a work permit because I happened to marry a US citizen. If it wasn't for that, I would still be forced to go to school, paying several times as much as my classmates, no matter where I lived or for how long I'd been there, ineligible for any kind of loan or financial aid, and prohibited from working unless I had authorization from the school, and then only on campus and part-time. After I finished school, I would have a limited time to find work in the US, otherwise I would be forced to return to a country I haven't lived in for more than ten years, a country that has nothing for me. If I did find a job in the US, my visa would restrict my working only for that one company. If I got laid off or fired, you guessed it, back to Chile it is.

I knew plenty of people who were here illegally. They worked as waiters or waitresses or some other similar low-paying jobs, got help from charitable organizations and the government when they could swing it. They lived in fear of being deported, but it never happened. I realize that for some people, leaving their country is a matter of life or death (or unbearable living conditions). I don't necessarily oppose an amnesty, but an amnesty alone for just one nationality seems woefully inadequate.  Immigration laws in this country are in dire need of a rehaul—people who try to follow the law find themselves with few if any options. I suppose it's only symptomatic of the state of things that, even to someone like me, who has a nice life here and who would have a nice (though somewhat discombobulated at first) enough life in Chile, sometimes the illegal way just seems easier.

The Talk

I was almost brought to tears when I found out about sex. I was in second grade and it was by accident—I overheard someone else's dirty joke at school. We lived in a rural area, and sure, I'd seen cows and horses going at it, but I'd never related what they were doing to how my siblings and I came to be. Oh sure, I knew that babies spent a good deal of time in the mother's tummy, and I laughed knowingly when other kids were told of cabbages and storks. Me, I knew how things were done. Parents got married and shared a bed and then decided to have children, so they prayed a lot, and next thing you knew there was something growing in mom's belly. The marrying wasn't necessary, I knew, because somewhere I had heard the expression "single mother" and asked my mom how a single woman could get pregnant.

"Well, sometimes," she told me, "if a woman is single and sleeps with a man, then she gets pregnant."

Ah. I was satisfied with this, but what if I shared a bed with my baby brother? That was different, she explained, and left it at that.

So you didn't need to be married, but you had to share a bed. Oh yes, I was wise in the ways of the world.

My first reaction when I heard the joke was shock. Well, maybe animals did it that way, but not us. Well, maybe some people. "Maybe these modern couples," I distinctly remember thinking. Not my parents. The idea sunk in, eventually. I then spent several years pretending I knew nothing of it and uncomfortably awaiting The Talk.

I recently asked a friend how his Talk had gone. He had been a young kid in school, and realized that he got a reaction when he asked where babies came from. Delighted, and much to the despair of his teacher, he started asking just about every day, until finally, distraught, the teacher called his parents and asked them to explain it to him. They walked to his room and sat on the bed with him, and then explained sex to him in what was doubtlessly a nerve-wracking experience, because they forgot to mention the vagina. For some time after this, my friend was convinced the way one became pregnant was through anal sex, and wondered what the purpose of women was. Men already had all the parts required to reproduce; women were just lacking a penis.

Time went by and my classmates started sprouting breasts. Mine had been there for years: two small lumps, looking hopelessly out of place, as if a sculptor had set down two balls of clay while she answered the phone and then completely forgotten about them. The girls and guys were segregated and shown film strips about periods and other puberty mishaps. We were given pads and propaganda by a sanitary napkin company. The girls in my class were elated when, one after the other, they all got their periods. I thought they were insane, and hoped I could get away without it until I was close to eighteen. I wasn't that lucky, but managed to be a couple of years behind nonetheless.

Even then, I never got the talk. After I started getting my period, it became clear it wasn't going to happen. I don't know if my parents decided I was smart enough to figure it out by myself by then, or if they simply put it off too much because they were embarrassed.

Years later, I nearly jumped up and gave my dad a high-five when I saw him surreptitiously putting a box of condoms in a suitcase my mom and him were taking on a weekend getaway.

[Originally posted to the Other INTP List]

Last night, shortly before going to bed, I heard a delighted squeal coming from up the street.

"Oh my GOD!"

I could picture a girl of about my age jumping up and down, horribly excited at something stupid. I could picture dogs all around the neighborhood twisting and squirming in pain as the already high pitch rose higher and higher. She could've just been told that she'd found the cure to cancer, for all I knew. No matter. The cure for cancer was clearly a shallow endeavor if it necessitated such squealing.

"The problem with this neighborhood," said my husband as we were going to bed, "is that you hear all kinds of noises and you can't tell if someone's getting murdered or if they just dropped their mocha."

A couple of days ago, there was screeching of brakes and the unmistakable bang of a car crash at the corner. "Sucks to be that guy," I muttered, not even looking away from the monitor, not skipping a beat in my typing. My husband and his friend went to the window and saw that it didn't look serious and that someone else had called the cops. Later, I was astonished at my lack of caring.

People always mention that case of a girl who was murdered within earshot of all the neighbors. In New York, wasn't it? Nobody did anything about it—they ignored it, it was Someone Else's Problem. But this, of course, is New York, don't you see. People there are jaded and soulless in New York. New York is a Big City, with alleys and grime and public transportation. People get murdered by their neighbor's window there all the time. It's a risk you take, you see, when you live in New York. In fact, they probably make you murder a couple of people of your own before you're allowed into the city. No, we are different. What kind of a person just sits by and says "Sucks to be that guy" without even looking away from what they're doing when they hear a noise that clearly indicates someone's in trouble? Only a New Yorker.

Because of our proximity to the frat houses we get all kinds of odd noises. Someone screaming about burritos, less-than-sober renderings of George Michael songs, grunting, squealing. If I'm woken up by them, I mumble curses and go back to sleep. If it was death-squealing, death-grunting (death-George Michael?), I would shoot up from the bed and run, no, fly to the phone and save someone's life, I tell myself before falling back asleep.

[Originally posted to the Other INTP List]

I have been thinking about money a lot lately. I'm 22 and I've never had a job. I actually have a perfectly good excuse for this: I've been living away from my native country (Chile) since I was 13. I couldn't work in the US because of my visa, and later, in Argentina, I wasn't old enough. When I did reach the legal working age for the country, I moved back to the US on a student visa. This, however, seems like just an excuse and not really a reason. I could have worked after my first year as a student, part time, had I managed to be lucky enough to snag one of the part-time, on-campus jobs (these were gone quickly to the many other students, international and US-born). But, of course, I didn't.

I should receive a work authorization from INS any day now. I'd like to think that, so far, I haven't held a job (an every-day, all-day job), because I couldn't, not because I was just lazy. I couldn't legally work. I couldn't physically get out of bed (arthritis). I was too busy plotting ways of killing myself. I dread the day I get the authorization. It could be that I am, after all, just that lazy.

I recently did a website for my chastity belt friend. He owns a company that runs one of the more visited sites on the subject. A job offer has been dangled on and off, seriously and jokingly, for a while. Just think, I could tell my parents that I work for the adult industry.

I was browsing through the UW jobs page the other night, and saw an opening for 'Animal Technician.' It involved taking care of 'nonhuman primates'--shuffling cages about, feeding, monitoring, etc. It sounded interesting—I’d get to water monkeys for a living!

In reality, my first real job will probably be dismal office or computer stuff. When I was a young kid, I made money by drawing pictures of whichever anime characters were popular at the moment and selling them to my classmates. When we moved to the US, my mother printed out some flyers at Kinko's and started cleaning houses, a deeply humiliating experience for her. My dad, after finishing his MBA, got a cushy job with that great evil corporation, Wal-Mart, that moved us to a whole-floor, five-bathroom, $3000+/mo apartment in an upper class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. My dad quickly became disenchanted with the company, and now works for the LDS Church in Chile, training people, helping small business owners, and organizing workers into unions. Chile's unemployment rate is anywhere from 15 to 20 percent.

One sultry summer night, I took the service elevator (Heaven forbid The Help use the same elevator as The Rest Of Us) up as far as it would go, and then took the stairs, hoping to get to the rooftop to watch the stars. At the top, I found two small rooms, smaller than a third of our living room, door open, one, perhaps two windows. This was where our doorman and his family lived.

The poorest person I've ever met was the man who worked at the dump in the quaint, tourist-friendly, largely German town I lived in in the south of Chile when I was eight years old. He lived at the dump with his two daughters, in a shack of plastic, cardboard, and plywood, in the neverending stench of our rotting waste and the sticky black smoke of burning trash.

If I had to work to survive, if my next meal didn't magically appear or my bank account didn't quietly fill up with the loan money I get at the beginning of the month, I might be too tired to feel guilty one night and forget about it the next.

I spent a ridiculous amount today, without a second thought, on a wind chime.

In which she has delusions of grandeur.

I wondered today whether my previous entry had been too knee-jerk. Couldn't it be, after all, that the question had been meant in a perfectly nice way? But there is no way to tell—no context, no introduction, no nothing. No email address to respond to privately. Just a demand for information. Who asks this kind of stuff, anyway? That's when it dawned on me—I am a celebrity. There is no other explanation. Celebrities scurry from place to place as people shout questions like that. I have arrived.

Would you buy my merchandise?

And to answer your question, Dearest Readerperson, no, I will not lose weight before I get married. In fact, I am under the strictest of diets just to assure that my weight will stay right where it is. I've already got the dress, after all, If I started losing weight it might not fit right. And my fiancé might not want to marry me after all. He did propose to me while on my current weight, and he might feel disappointed and deceived should I shrink by our wedding day. I realize that this might be shocking (how could anyone be so shallow, you ask), but you never know—better be on the safe side. Oh, if you only knew what a great responsibility hangs over my shoulders. All kinds of things hinge on my wedding weight. If I lose any weight, the place where we intend on getting married would have to be completely rearranged; feng shui, subtle changes in the Earth's gravitational pull, all that. Bridesmaids and attendants would have to change their own weights to compensate, creating a chain reaction that would reach the outermost corners of the land. No, Dear Reader, it is not meant to be that I should lose weight. Not for myself, but for the good of humanity. I will accept, then, my fate, and become the first overweight woman ever to get married.

Your invitation, by the way, is in the mail.

Dear Anesly

A Frequent Reader (sc-24-165-88-67.socal.rr.com) asks:

Are you gonna loose weight before you get married?


Dear Frequent Reader,

Please get back to me after consulting a dictionary.

I'm an orange moon

[or not]

It is 4:46 AM. Civilized people are asleep, and I am too lazy to use initials.

Jeremy got sick of Evergreen and decided to give the UW a try, so he came and spent a few days at the apartment while he found a place to live. Even though we weren't very close friends in high school, I always felt like he 'got' a lot about me—and more so after we'd both left the LDS church. It was nice.

His mom called and spoke to me to get my address to mail some things for him, and she wanted to know if my last name was still the same. I was somewhat confused. 'Well,' she said after a pause, 'I guess no point in changing your last name before you get married.'

'I'm not changing my last name after getting married.'

'Oh. Ooooh.' Long pause. 'Anyway...'

When she called later and spoke to Jeremy, she asked him if the boy I was marrying was mormon (though I'm fairly sure she knew he isn't, and that I don't go to church anymore, and all that—but of course I could be wrong). Fine mormons we'd be, living together. I suppose my parents aren't the only ones who have fits of denial and hope a nice mormon boy will set me back on the straight and narrow.

I also told my parents I wasn't planning on changing my name. Actually, because I'm a big chicken, I told my parents that I was thinking of not changing my name. They both seemed somewhat upset, specially my dad. Men, he told me, love us a lot and will do a lot of things for us and put up with a lot of things for us, but some things are very important. But if Jed thinks having the same last name is very important and he's unable to tell me about it when we're planning on getting married, we have a problem, I argued. Take the American name, insisted my dad, you'll have a lot less problems, people will treat you better. Nonsense, I told them, there are people in Chile who are of European descent and there are people in the US who are of Hispanic descent and have been there for generations and generations and they simply are Chilean and American, respectively. But while I argued with them, I hated knowing that in some ways my dad was right; some people won't ever accept someone who doesn't quite fit their idea of what an American should be, and changing my last name might make some things smoother for me. But I can't agree to that, and I console myself with the thought that this'll weed such people out.

Then my mom joined in. I could just do what they do down there, she suggested. Now, I should explain. I have four names, as is customary in Chile. My first name, my middle name, my father's last name, and my mother's last name. My mother's maiden name was [removed], but when she got married she became [removed]. The idea is that when you get married you drop your mother's last name and add your husband's instead.
But I can't—no, I don't want to do that. I tried explaining to them that I wouldn't just drop either of their last names.

My dad sighed.

My mom told me she could see where I was coming from.

I don't even want to imagine what it's gonna be like when they realize that the closest thing to grandchildren they're gonna get from me are my cats.

It's gotten harder and harder to write these updates, though I'm not sure why. Three major things have happened since I last wrote, almost two months ago: I moved, I cut my wrists a bit, and I got engaged.

I live a couple of blocks away from the University of Washington now, which is a really nice change; I can walk just about everywhere, and even if I can't, drives are much shorter. I love the apartment and CJ and I have had a really nice time here, though it would be nice if RF lived a bit closer.

I felt horrible one day, I don't remember exactly what triggered it, but I took a sharp blade to my wrists and score and cut them a bit. I don't know if I was actually trying to kill myself; I felt curious, for the most part. At any rate, I felt very guilty about it and told my doctor & therapist. They both were somewhat freaked out; my doctor put me on a new dosage of antidepressants which has made me incredibly tired and sleepy all the time, as well as terribly terribly forgetful.

CJ and I are getting married March 3.

I don't know if I'll be able to keep writing this anymore. I don't know—maybe something will happen that'll shine a light onto whatever it is that is wrong with me.

Shame on me. I didn't write at all through November.

First of all, <a href=http://deadletter.org/go/pets>pictures of the cats</a>.

When I last wrote, I was taking GK to the doctor. On our way there, I asked her if she was going to vote on the upcoming election.

"Oh...well, I don't know, there's no one with charisma to vote for. Clinton at least had charisma..."

I stifled a groan and mentioned some of the issues I thought were important. Charisma was the least of my concerns--I just wanted a guy who was pro-choice and not an idiot, in other words, not Bush.

"Are you registered to vote?" I asked her as she tried to change the subject.

"No...cause when you register then you have to go to traffic school, and plus then they draw your name out and put you on jury duty."

"I think," I told her, trying to not laugh or sound patronizing, "that what you're thinking of is that you can register when you get your driver's license."

But I didn't push it. My head asked me half-jokingly if I really wanted people like that to vote, and the doctor's office, mercifully just up the street, kept me from getting any more complacent.

"Is there anything of mine that you like?" she asked me later as we sat in the waiting room.

"Huh?" I was taken aback.

"You know, anything you'd like to have. I'm giving my stuff away," she said, and stifled a sniffle.

Of course. She was sure she was dying; she had found a lump on her breast a few days earlier, and we were at the doctor so she could get it checked out. There was a time when the thought of my own death made me sad and teary-eyed. I'm not sure what happened; maybe I have no soul, but it hasn't bothered me a bit for some time now.

"Well, you know, you're going to die anyway. The lump probably won't be anything to be worried about, and you could be walking out of here and get hit by a truck or have a meteorite land on your head. On the other hand, it could turn out to be cancerous and you could get it treated and live to be a hundred,” I shrugged.

For some reason, this didn't seem to be of any comfort to her.

[And no, it wasn't cancerous. She's doing perfectly fine now and has forgotten all about dying and giving her things away.]

news brief

I've gotten a second kitten, this time an actual female. Her name's Kumori and she's much mellower than Mafalda (which isn't hard, considering Mafalda is the most hyper cat in the Universe).

ramblings of an oversized chew toy.

I haven't written for a while because I honestly don't know what to write about. I could go on about being depressed, but I imagine that'd be dreadfully boring. And besides, I'm not depressed all the time; I don't feel like a complete failure all the time, though perhaps I should. I do have a pretty nice life, all in all. I've got a nice family, a good place to live, an insane but sweet cat who likes to chew on everything, a good roommate, and a great boyfriend who puts up with my fits of self- bashing and doesn't mind my silliness.

Writing about anything other than what goes on in my head will eventually lead to me telling you about the people around me, and I'm not sure how to do that without bothering them or myself. I could write about some old one-night stand or about things with CJ now or our plans for the future and the things I find myself daydreaming of, but I worry about what he'd think. Ah well.

Tomorrow I'm going with GK to the doctor. GK is a girl I met while attending a program at the hospital for depressed/bipolar/etc people. She refuses to try medication, and sometimes that really bothers me. She is, all in all, a nice person, and never before have I been so bothered by someone I actually like. Everything with her is just really complicated—it’s never yes or no; picking a place for lunch can be an hours-long endeavor—and she likes so many things I despise. She likes hanging out at the mall, boy bands, and wants a traditional family; she's unhappy with the way she looks, but she won't do anything about it because she doesn't have a guy to do it for. And so on. All these things make me feel so smug and superior and conceited and judgmental. I don't think I should care about these things; it is her life, after all, and it's not as if she's trying to make me change the way I want to live mine, but she gets this very strong reaction out of me nonetheless. One of the things that I really really strongly believe is that you should be free to do whatever you want as long as you're not hurting anyone else; so if she wants to hang out at the mall and follow boy bands, I should not only be ok with it but I don't think I should feel superior. Feeling superior, in my mind, shows a lack of respect for her choices. And where does it say that having Sartre instead of Steel on your nightstand makes you happier or better?

And yet, I do think the things I pick are better, there's no denying that; otherwise, I wouldn't choose them. And so it's back to the previous paragraph. This makes me a hypocrite beyond what I'm comfortable with (I'm ok with everyone being a hypocrite to some extent, as long as they're aware of it), and so I feel really uncomfortable around her when I let myself think of these things.

But anyway, I'm going to the doctor with her tomorrow to lend moral support. Later, I'm taking my cat to the vet. Luckily, I have no superiority issues with my cat, and to him I'm just an oversized chew toy who brings him food once in a while.

I'm depressed and a bit cranky. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I did alright for the first week of school, even though I couldn't for the life of me remember any of the old math stuff. Chinese was easy enough, and I even had some hope that I could hammer physics into my head. By the start of the second week, though, I was barely able to stand up I was so dizzy—the people at my pharmacy screwed up my medication refill and the dizziness was part of withdrawal—so I missed class. By the time I was able to go back, I was stressing out big time; I was throwing up and getting sick before school, and I started having panic attacks in the parking lot again. It just got worse, until I was useless. Again.

That's pretty much it. I'm withdrawing. Again.

Hi, my name is Anesly, and I'm a big failure. Nice to meet you.

RF and I went to see an immigration lawyer to see if there was anything that could be done about my situation. He said that basically there was nothing we could do until I graduated. He suggested I take an extra hard load and get my degree as soon as possible. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I emailed my parents over two weeks ago because I was really depressed. I sent them pictures, and I begged them to email me back, just a short note letting me know that they had gotten my message ok if nothing else. Several days later, my mom called. To remind me to send her some documents. They hadn't even looked at email. She promised she'd look at it as soon as she got off the phone. Nothing happened. To make matters worse, when I went to withdraw money from the bank account, there was nothing there. They have a habit of doing that without bothering to warn me. I suppose they figure RF will take care of me. I don't know.

I have felt very sad lately. I'd come home after school, undress, and curl up in bed with my cat, and try to sleep the day away. But there's only so much sleeping you can do. I don't feel comfortable anywhere; not here, and not at CJ's, and of course not at school. I can barely set foot in the place without throwing up. I was spending some time in the car, driving, and that felt a alright, but I don't have money for gas, and sitting in the parked car in the garage just doesn't do it. It's gotten to the point where I feel uncomfortable in my own skin, like an eternal itch; all I want is to be able to leap out of myself and find some place peaceful.

CJ comes by after school, and that helps, but the problem is me, and maybe I'm broken beyond fixing.

parentheses

I've felt better the past couple of days. In fact, I feel a little too ok with everything--school starts tomorrow and I've made no preparations. My therapist (yes, I have a therapist—bite me) is going to have a field day with this.

twitch, twitch

School starts on Monday and I'm not feeling all that great. I've been incredibly fidgety and nervous. I sleep intermittently until noon, dreaming suffocating dreams, and I wake up tired and with my mouth dry. I lay in bed for a long time, staring at my surroundings, hot and uncomfortable, not really thinking of anything; my brain tries to make small talk and occasionally throws in a thought of all the things I should take care of today, or of what to wear, or of the weather. I finally get up, taking more time than necessary, and I slowly waste the rest of the day; while my movements are slow, my mind is racing, latching onto small pointless things and obsessing over them. That is why, in these past few days, I find myself eating too much and spending too much money on stupid things. The smallest thing--cheesecake, a pair of shoes, a book, underwear, a drink, whatever, anything to keep my mind away from what's really bothering me, grows until there's no room for anything else. In the evening, CJ comes over, and having him around brings me a little bit of peace. At night, after he's gone to sleep, I lay in bed, awake, at first thinking of nothing and only making sure to not cry, until I find something to latch onto, until the silence and my thoughts become deafening and I fall asleep exhausted.

things i've bought lately:

• wire
• knitting needles
• embroidery threads
• goat milk
• rose-ish underwear
• books by gabriel garcia marquez and isabel allende
• cat litter
• fishing line
• wire cutters
• shiny orange sneakers

---

My mom's surgery went ok. She's on medical leave from work for some 20 days. The trip to Alaska was wonderful; I may post some of the things I wrote while we were driving. Though by the end I was ready to be home, it felt odd to be back. While we were traveling, the only things that mattered were where we were going to get gas next, when we got hungry or sleepy; I had books to plow through, knitting to finish, driving to do, and so forth. And then, we were back, and I had the house to myself, with nothing that I really needed to do. I slept.

I'm putting off taking my medication this morning. I've been feeling tired and sad and somewhat angry; I loathe the cold stiffness from within my bones, the dull swelling pain that grows giant inside me. And yet, some days I almost hate the two white pills that make me able to walk and drive and type more. I hate them because they remind me, and because I'll be chained to them until God knows when. I hate my body for not working as it should, my immune system for being clumsy and confused.

I'll take them, probably as soon as I'm done writing this. And then I'll take my cat to the vet and run errands and come back and be lazy and forget all about it, until tomorrow morning, when I wake up with slightly stiff joints and am reminded of the damn round pills.

My mom called me today. She is having surgery next Thursday. They're taking her thyroid out.

She asked me about the upcoming trip to Alaska.

"Are you taking a camera?"

"Yeah..." CJ had just emailed me about that. "And lots of film."

"Maybe, you know, if you see a temple on the way, you could take pictures."

"Sure..."

"Maybe you guys can go to church on a Sunday if you find one along the way..."

"Mom," I started to say, but stopped and sighed quietly instead.

"But really, that's kind of difficult when you're on a trip, because you're all dirty and wearing pants and..." she went on, rushing to fill the silence.

Maybe I will try to explain it again next time. But not today—she’s having surgery next Thursday. I wish I could tell her that even though I can't bring myself to go to church, I worry about her just the same and that my thoughts will be with her.

Todo Cambia.

It's almost midnight. RF is running around downstairs and CJ is asleep upstairs. We went to bed at the same time, but I got up after he dozed off. I couldn't sleep, so I got back up and came downstairs.

I am mostly listening to Mercedes Sosa singing "Todo Cambia" over and over. One year ago, I was heartbroken and in Chile. It was nice seeing my family, but I wish the circumstances had been different. I was, however, fine—bad enough that thinking of how I felt makes me shiver still, but well enough that I'm here a year later and that I can laugh it off.

I finished my Japanese classes. I did well, and yet that does little or nothing to ease my anxiety about the upcoming quarter. I have excelled and failed miserably in school. This is my past.

It will probably be a long time until I see my family again. My dad liked sitting on his chair with a poncho on and reading the paper; my mom always got sleepy early and disoriented easily; my grandmother would never just sit down and stop doing things. This is my past.

CJ and I leave for Alaska on Friday. I am taking Chinese next quarter. This is my future.

We used to walk four km to church on Sundays. We lived in a small house in the middle of nowhere. In the summer, we'd pick blackberries and my mom would make jam. I liked sitting at the top of the small hill next to the house and watching the wind turn the fields into a sea of golden waves.

We lived in a nice house in a cul-de-sac. We had no furniture in the family room; later, we'd find a beat up leather recliner and take turns sitting on it when we watched TV.

We lived in a crammed hotel in downtown Buenos Aires for several months. I used to wait for everyone to fall asleep and then drag a chair to the terrace and sit there through the night watching the stars. I used to sleep in the morning.

We lived in a large apartment in a nice section of the city. I always think of it as “the five-bathroom-apartment.” A few blocks away, people built shacks of tin, cardboard and plastic by the train tracks. I used to lay naked on my bed on hot summer nights, window open and heavy wooden blinds drawn, listening to the passersby and hoping for rain.

This is my past.

RF is here downstairs. Maybe he can't sleep either. I used to love him, and we lived here together. This too is my past.

CJ is asleep upstairs. RF and I live here now, roommates.

I'm going upstairs. I'll try to open the door quietly and sneak in without waking CJ up, but I'll fail; he'll stir and smile, and I'll get in bed and he'll draw closer. We'll sleep with the window open.

This is, perhaps, my future.

It was my dad's birthday last week. He turned 47. I called to wish him a happy birthday and found that he'd been ordered to be home and not do anything for a couple of days because of a bad case of the flu. My parents (and when I say “my parents,” I usually mean my mother, father, and grandmother) aren't all that good at that--being home and not doing anything.

I was a bum today. I loathe Mondays and it seemed like a worthy way to spend a Monday.

I'm much better at it than my parents.

Is that how life will pass me by? For some people, it's working all the time and never stopping. Maybe I will be a bum and never get anything done. My parents and grandmother are always busy. My grandmother is nearing 90 and we still had trouble getting her to sit still long enough for her leg to heal when she hurt it. My parents work and work and do things around the house and go to church and read self-improvement books and listen to new music and watch movies and raise children and puppies and move from country to country and get masters' degrees and learn new languages and and and...

I play on the computer and take drives and go to school. I buy useless orange things.

Do they like working so much? Do they consider all of it work? Is it in how they were raised? Is it that I've had everything so easy? Am I just a lazy person?

I feel alienated.
I really miss my family.