Taking ages to get this damned post out. A lot of personal stuff again, and with no pictures to hide behind, I've been stuck a lot. I want to be as honest as possible, but how honest should you be? Is it ok to say i was depressed this morning so had a wank to cheer myself up for a few minutes? I guess there's only one way to find out...
Early June 2010, still in Buenos Aires
There are plenty of STDs about that don't necessarily show symptoms. Yes safe-sex i know, and do, but every now and then things get out of control. Anyway in Buenos Aires there don't seem to be any one-stop STD clinics like in London, or at least I didn't find one. I start by googling HIV test Buenos Aires which unsurprisingly takes me to a gay support site, but at least gives a clinic address. I turn up but am refused testing - it's a gay-only clinic, hey I should just have lied. They refer me to another address, a dodgy looking alleyway just north of Palermo. The reception is drearly and abandonned. I hover looking for signs of life, noting the empty condom dispenser, and faded wall-posters suggesting I'm in the right place. The building care-taker appears from a small office and invites me in. The room looks groggy but the needles aren't dodgy. Maybe he's not the caretaker - he gives me the spiel, takes my blood, and says come back in a week. He also explains that if I pretend I live here I can get the other tests done in a nearby clinic.
Feeling pretty peaceful i write in my diary which is near-illegible so here's a little extract "in this space of peace many things come to mind which I want to share. But after they come to mind as I'm walking down the street the thoughts somehow elude capture..... On religion for example... it has its cycle too, it is born, exists and dies off. But the energy from which it springs remains... Someone starts out with its purest essence and then tries to share this, over time becoming poluted and corrupted until it bares little of the essence from which it sprang. Jesus and others did this. And Lilia is now following a spiritual path grown from the work of a dutchman. Neither is right or wrong. One is newer than the other and may therefore be purer, but the newer it is , the less accessible.
Someone writes of the need for a garden in which to nurture the seed within our souls. Does it matter what garden that is? As long as there is light, and nutrition, and care. And if we cannot find that garden, maybe we create one in our world, a 'real' one as my mother does, tending lovingly to the other living things about us. How simply they respond to our care, they blossom. Not so easy for us people, so much more care and energy we need to blossom.."
Blast from the pastI feel like screwing everyone. A hot german girl travelling with her boyfriend. The two receptionists at the hostel. It's everywhere, relentlessly it goes on..
I've met dozens of women who miss their fathers, either because they were abandoned, rejected, abused, or simply not hugged enough. It's groundhog day in the love department.
Some soft words from my diary "I'm sensitive to the broken-hearted and I listen and listen and listen until I'm broke myself. We turn to each other but ultimately find this lacking as we are each limited in our capacity to give, so we turn to god who draws no limits. And by doing so we pray to open ourselves that we too may have no limits."
I book to see a psychologist or two, wouldn't you?
Tango therapy
Meanwhile a cheaper therapy -- back to tango classes at La Viruta. It's kiddy in a candy store - I'm stunned at the range of pretty latin women I meet in one evening: Venezuelan, Chilean, Spanish, Argentinian, Mexican, Brazilian. I enjoy the classes. Apart from anything it's a way of socialising without having to talk very much, which suits me. It's a huge challenge though, tango can only be danced with feeling, so if you're blocking your feelings, by being English for example, then it all gets quite comical. Nevertheless I have faith in my spanish roots and enough sense of suffering to qualify for tango.
The classes work like this: you pick your level (absolute beginner, beginner, intermediate.. etc) and join the group. Then grab a partner and "dance" to give the instructors some entertainment and a flavour of how bad you are. The instructors (a pair) demo a move, you have a go, swapping partners now and then. It's a lot of fun except when you get a girl (usually american) who decides to hang off your shoulders like an over-laden backpack, so that turns become the dance equivalent of trying to open a stubborn jar of marmelade.
That said, its a cheap night, and the hours fly by.
Kissing therapy
Another tango night, with some salsa and rock thrown in for good measure. More lovely ladies. This evening I feel a connection with one of the girls at the class. The tango embrace is intimate, and during breaks in the dance , that we are a second or so later in letting go of each other tells it all.
I invite her for a Capirinha and join her friends at a table. We stagger about the dancefloor some more, and it feels good even though we are both terrible. She has beautiful eyes and I'm trying to control myself, but when her lips break into a smile that's it, I can't help myself. Forget all the fantastic scenery in South America, there is nothing more beautiful than a smile on a pretty girl.
Anyway, during a break for air, I spot some of Lilia's friends on the dance-floor, which is a handy warning as Lilia herself (my ex-lover) soon comes into view. She had fallen in love with tango, a happy result of our meeting back in March when I first invited her to a class. Anyway we all greet and she seems happy, and later gives me a lovely warm hug, instead of a slap in the face which I might have expected in a tango hall.
Another tango night, with some salsa and rock thrown in for good measure. More lovely ladies. This evening I feel a connection with one of the girls at the class. The tango embrace is intimate, and during breaks in the dance , that we are a second or so later in letting go of each other tells it all.
I invite her for a Capirinha and join her friends at a table. We stagger about the dancefloor some more, and it feels good even though we are both terrible. She has beautiful eyes and I'm trying to control myself, but when her lips break into a smile that's it, I can't help myself. Forget all the fantastic scenery in South America, there is nothing more beautiful than a smile on a pretty girl.
Anyway, during a break for air, I spot some of Lilia's friends on the dance-floor, which is a handy warning as Lilia herself (my ex-lover) soon comes into view. She had fallen in love with tango, a happy result of our meeting back in March when I first invited her to a class. Anyway we all greet and she seems happy, and later gives me a lovely warm hug, instead of a slap in the face which I might have expected in a tango hall.
The passion and emotion of the evening takes its toll on me, and later i'm back at my hostel and want to weep but there are people sleeping in the room, so just a few tears leak into my pillow and I'm off with the fairies.
England 1 - USA 1
Days have turned into paragraph numbers, so i deleted them. Were it not for the World Cup I'd probably not know what month it is, let alone the day. All the matches are in the daytime here, which is perfect for a retired bum like me. For brunch I stroll to a local bar for a classic English fry-up and football f&ck-up.
Boarding school
Feeling really crap. Maybe lying in a hostel dorm and hearing the voices of some RP brits transports me back to boarding school. I didn't feel I belonged there. I ponder how the difference between cultures seems so much greater than the differences between people within the same culture. So coming from a mixed cultural background automatically makes me a social outlier, but with this comes greater creative potential. Put all the outliers together and you get a city, like London for example, and the collective becomes the new norm. And so it goes on.
Around this time I decide I don't belong to the regular backpacker collective and move into a hotel to go a little crazy on my own.
Small dose of sanity at a new tango class in the evening. Always feel better after surviving something a little scary.
How to measure an ego
Necesity is the mother of invention, and disatisfaction is the father of capability. If you are happy with what you got, why make it better?
Necesity is the mother of invention, and disatisfaction is the father of capability. If you are happy with what you got, why make it better?
I distract my my mind by doing some internet research on ego measurement and life cycle modelling. It's a developing area, and I'm both encouraged and concerned to find that the US defence department have recently (2009) started to fund some related research. Cue Michael Crichton a new novel..? Though his book "Prey" probably already comes somewhere close to it.
Psychologist
Therapy is basically freelance parenting. During childhood you get what you're given, after that its about 50 quid an hour. There are no rules to say how much parenting is right - whatever you get is a gift. Anyway I decided to go for a top-up today, to see a nice old chap who sat in an armchair patiently listening. What is said is hardly important, the point is having someone listen. So the following transcript is completely fictitious:
"What do you suggest doc?"
Doc: "Well, do you want to change?"
"Of course not, I enjoy shagging random women, it gives me a kick"
Doc: "oh wonderful, that'll be 250 pesos"
"Thanks doc"
Doc: "My pleasure"
No psychologist
Cancel appointment with another psychologist and go watch football instead at my local, which has a tasty breakfast and even tastier twins waitressing.
Plenty of time to think about time. If you think about it, time only goes forward if you think about it. This is because perception without action, such as looking at a clock, increases the amount of information in your head, reducing it's uncertainty, or entropy, so increasing the entropy outside your head. This entropic differential gives rise to the thermodynamic arrow of time. Typical symptoms include thinking the world is a mess, or feeling generally disatisfied. There is however a simple cure - stop looking at the clock. When you're not looking at it, it can go in any direction, including backwards. Really.
Back to tango in the evening, meet a lovely hippie with a big behind, an even larger heart, and huge hugs that squeeze tears out of you. She also does Akashic records reading and I ask her if she can do one for me one day. Like anything, it works if you believe in it, so for me it didn't really work, but I thought it would be cool to have a go, and get a couple more of those hugs.
Work
Spend a day sorting out some property issues back home. This is important as i'm living off rent.
Get very depressed. Write in my diary "What is this pain asking me to do?". The mind is a delay-response system designed to increase its energetic advantage. If no imaginable future action is predicted to achieve this, then the mind goes on strike, forcing faith to take over.
Meanwhile some simple tasks are still possible. I kill time by calculating my cost of living and travel in Argentina - its has averaged 45 quid a day.
Hippies
My hippie friend invites me to an indigenous meeting in Quilmes, I go but feel out of place, get bored, leave early, and go to hostel BBQ and feel out of place with some backpackers instead.
I think about shagging some whore, but decide to go for a decent massage instead, with happy ending. To balance things out, i visit an art gallery beforehand.
Early morning air
Wake up at 5am, doesn't happen often, but when it does i'm reminded what a good time of day early morning is. Must try it more often. I use the time to plan how i'm going to get to Colombia, an epic trip which if taken overland is about 150 hours.
Some random lists for the record...
Things i want to do
Learn to dance
Learn languages
Teach maths
Study on entropy changes in complex systems, eg life.
Stay in new and interesting places which inspire me and meet new and interesting people who dont talk a lot of shit.
Things i avoid doing
various admin, accounts, paying tax
sorting out finances
staying in touch
anything too scary
Argentina 0 Germany 4
Trainspotting moments as I watch this game from the comfort of my bed. My Argentine lover is spared the suffering of seeing her country thrashed, she is pleasantly distracted.
Argentina dropping out of the world cup is a good cue for me to move on. I have a small leaving dinner the night before to say goodbye to some lovely people, and take the train the next day to Cordoba...
