Fume

My hateful big job is done. The steamrollered feeling that comes of working every day, every evening and some nights for two weeks has almost passed. Thank you very much for bearing with me (assuming I haven't been ceremoniously struck out of any address books).

Too, spring has sprung here: the air is warmer (except in my icebox... I mean office... but you can’t have everything), the evenings are lighter, and the sunshine is golden.

So I am feeling really quite human, and I have some big long blog entries to write about exciting things I have done.

In the meantime, however, I am rather fuming about something…

Today I met a man called Git. This is what he is, so this is what I shall call him. I did consider calling him My New Least Favourite Person, which he also is, but that is a bit too unwieldy.

He has just arrived here to do some volunteer work while he writes his PhD thesis. Now, you can tell that he is one of those people who exists solely to make other people feel bad about themselves from the fact that he feels the need to do something to “keep himself occupied”, writing a PhD just not being enough.

Git and I having just met and having no particular conversational ground I asked him if he is staying in the accommodation block (the single rooms which exist for short-term visitors, in addition to apartments and houses). The answer is yes, but he is trying to move out soon.

Which led us on to where I live. So I mentioned how I’d thought about moving out too, but what with the rent being paid for me, and the five-minute walk to my office, and the fact that I don’t drive and have a horror of commuting, and the free wireless internet, and not having to worry about gas and electricity and all that stuff, and the laundry and the cleaning being done for me (though I didn’t mention that bit, it’s sort of embarrassing being quite so cosseted) it just doesn’t make sense for me to move out. Even though I’ve agonised over it.

And Git said, “The only problem is you’re missing out on Mexico, but Oh well.”

And the “Oh well” there clearly said “well you’re missing out on really living in Mexico, but that doesn’t really matter for an unadventurous, pathetic grunt like you”.

Now, possibly I am hypersensitive on this issue, but only because I really have agonised over it and part of me does feel like I’m missing out.

The thing is, I couldn’t live in Mexico City – it would be an impossible, crazy commute without a car. So what I am missing out on is living in my local town or one of the villages up in the hills. Both of which would be cool in different ways, and the commute would be conceivable, but on the other hand it’s not exactly difficult for me to get there from here by bus or taxi if I want to hang out in either place.

So am I missing out on being part of a Mexican community? I guess I am. But I’m not convinced that moving out and living on my own somewhere would suddenly make the difference and I’d develop an exciting new circle of friends.

I have sat and listened to friends of friends singing heartbreaking and uplifting Mexican folk songs. Almost every day I eat lunch with my Mexican colleagues/friends and they tease me about taking me out to eat brains and how delicious eyeballs are, and we play ping-pong and I lose less badly than I used to. I have taken part in a pre-Hispanic ritual with weeping Mexicans (one of the things I’m going to write about). I buy fruit and fish and cheese and bootleg music at the market. I dance to norteño and salsa music with Mexican colleagues when we hold Friday after-work parties, and play appalling pool, and eat tacos.

But, you know, Mexico, it’s passing me by.

It’s true that I don’t go out carousing much in the evenings, and I’d like to carouse more. Some people seem to arrive in a place and immediately accumulate a circle of cool, up-for-it buddies to go out drinking and dancing with. I don’t have that knack, I just don’t seem to work like that and I have no idea how to and I am a little bit jealous. But would a new house make the difference?

Bugger Git for reopening this particular anxiety.

Also, Shakira (who I love and would LOVE to see live, especially here in a Latin country) is playing on my birthday. In London. Since learning that the things in ‘Ironic’ are not actually ironic I’m a bit afraid of using the term, but nonetheless I believe that is an example of irony at its finest.

Spleen vented. I will now go away and sort out photos and compose proper posts and start catching up with my mountain of emails. Oh, and clean out my hamsters.

And make a voodoo doll of Git.