well! it certainly has been quite a while since i've posted, and as far as i can tell the person who last wrote never really existed, much less lived in another country. i've fallen back into the american rhythm of life - mostly, that is... there was a little incident with me almost dying on a runaway horse - as seamlessly as i left, and now i'm back in new york. teaching grammar. yes, the very thing i said that i didn't want to do now occupies at least 5 hours of every day of my life until the beginning of december.
it's not so bad. the people are great, and their english is so good they can absorb - and even respond to! - my pseudo-philosophical rambling. the things that really suck about it are 1) only sleeping in once a week, 2) working 9-5 both days of the weekend, and 3) my creepy boss. i have a lot of creative freedom, half days from monday to thursday, and, because of the unrestrictive curriculum, a renewed interest in doing the work necessary to keep a classroom afloat. i would even go so far as to say that i'm honing my craft, and that i might even be more suited to working with this population than i am to working with NYC teenagers. or am i? only time will tell - because god may strike me dead if i don't get myself a Real Teaching Job soon. or at least get the weekends off.
y otras cosas - ahora hay un hombre en mi vida. we met this summer and it was like something out of a nora ephron movie (well, if nora ephron movies had protagonists who think actual thoughts and/or smoke drugs) complete with starlit beach cuddling, couples mini-golf and a bunch of other stuff that i am ashamed to say i totally enjoyed... the kind of stuff that sounds horribly cheesy when you're recounting it but was so much fun when it was happening. i can't talk about this anymore - i'm never watching another romantic comedy again, or at least until i can feel like my experiences aren't the montage in some hack screenwriter's first act.
but fuck that. they were beautiful, (dare i say it) meaningful experiences - they may have borne more than a passing resemblance to all of that schmaltzy drek that's forced down our throats from the moment we can say "cinderella," but they felt good when they were happening. this is how it goes, i guess, and it's a terrifying thing, because i can look at my life from one perspective and see it as my own, my experiences and feelings as genuine and irreplaceable, and then i can look at it from another and see myself as a facet of this manifold human beast and see myself as a sort of pawn, doomed to play out scene after scene of The Human Game.
it's so much more than i can even put into words - somehow the act of writing a blog entry with the knowledge that someone i know, or perhaps more intimidatingly, someone i don't know, may eventually read it makes me balk, makes my thoughts (and "Me") come off half-baked, insincere, dimwitted. i wonder how many other people are sitting right here in this very city writing this exact entry about how they don't have any
oh god. that's enough. alright, let's stop with the metameta bullshit - no one's even reading this anyway, so i may as well come out with something straight and readable, something i'll be able to look back on and actually use. so here's the real story, because that's what we're here for, right?: i came back from mexico, had a harrowing experience that left me with a sprained ankle and sense of malaise i can't quite shake (the realization that, a la don juan, my death is indeed sitting - lying in wait - on my left shoulder), taught Nature and got a sweet tan. i met an incredibly sweet guy, a quiet, smart person who brought me flowers for no apparent reason other than that he really likes me (something no one has ever done as far as i can remember), a guy who has that really sexy pair of muscles that stand out on his lower abdomen and what can only be described as Soccer Legs, and we had a tremendous amount of fun, and then i moved to (back) to New York City. i started working for an ESL school, and my students were from all corners of the globe, and i learned more about how to be a good teacher from them, and i saw a bunch of people i hadn't seen in a while. i also realized that i have to tow my own load now financially, that i am indeed a Grown-Up (Groan-Up, more like), and that i am the only person directly responsible for myself and my sense of satisfaction. and there is much much more to tell, and i will be endeavoring to tell it, if i can only get out of my own way long enough to see that it doesn't matter if 10,000 other people almost exactly like me are having the same experiences because this is my goddamn life and my goddamn story.
(...and no one is reading this anyway.)
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