Let’s kick this off by saying “I’m fine” I guess my musings on old age and death gave some people the impression that I’m “down” or *gasp* “depressed”.
Understandable, I suppose…you don’t usually find happy-go-lucky people wondering about such topics, but haven’t all of us done so, pressed tightly by some 2:00 a.m. restlessness of mind?

And if you haven’t then let me be the first to take your hand in mine, shake it heartily and say
“congratulations! what’s it like?”
“What’s what like?” you might venture to ask, a bit taken aback.
“Never pondering ends, beginnings, maybes, and nevers…that’s what”
“oh, that. well…well…it’s pretty hunkydory!”
and there it is…I have no argument against the power of “hunkydory”, nor would I want to try to form one.

the hunkydories of the world are few and far between, they need to be nurtured and kept replete with “hunkyness” and lavished with “dority”
I’m no Hunkydoryite, though. Oh, I’ve had my hunkydory days, don’t get me wrong. but I’ll be the first to admit that my waters run a little darker, maybe no deeper, but certainly with their shadows and undercurrents. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Waiting.
Limbo.

I feel like I’m in a giant 10,000,000 person waiting room. Maybe it’s bigger than most, but it’s still a waiting room. worn couches and chairs. an impressive backstock of People, Cosmo, Home and Garden, Time, Newsweek, and if you’re really unlucky, Sunset (but if lady luck has a grin and a wink just for you, National Geographic). The walls are an indecipherable color…maybe teal, maybe mint. but wait, isn’t there the faintest glint of sky blue? olive? damn, it’s like a chameleon caught in the 70’s, impossible to pin down, but you just know that at some point the words “avacado” and “burnt orange” are going to waltz through your mind.

Do you see me? There I am, the balding guy wearing the colombian guayavera shirt. Yeah, there.

Right now I’m flipping through the magazines.

in a bit i might study a few of the people around me. The old guy with the colostomy bag. The twins covered with poison ivy. The girl with a face full of infected piercings. The little dog with the shaved armpits. The naked lady palpitating her breasts. The sprinter with a needle lodged in his right buttocks, the young guy whispering only the last words of ee cummings poems: “new” “breathing” “love” “answered” “dark” “still”, the housewife making a dayglo needlepoint kitty doily. They’re all in here. Waiting. For whatever they’re waiting for. I won’t actually go so far as to ask any of them.

Maybe I’ll wander over to the coke machine, pretend to be interested in its selection, as if it actually offered something I haven’t seen in the 4,000 other coke machines I’ve pretended to study in other waiting rooms…but there I am, perusing the wares, as if suddenly I might spy a can of “Lord Banestroff’s elixir of double enlightenment” or “Faerie’s fingernail juice of worry banishment”, or the latest rage, MoKaMeTh “two days and two nights without a single blink. Guaranteed.”

After that I’ll study three chewing gum stains, on the floor next to the coffee table, that look like blind man smiling.

then I’ll try to pick my nose (discreetly), all the while delving into my childhood archives to try and remember what a booger tastes like (without actually having to experience it again in the present).

then I’ll start to panic a bit when it feels like a glob of mucous keeps lingering on my left nostril rim. phantom boogers.

Then the magazines again,

more people watching,

counting the leaves on the fake ficus tree,

I wonder if the receptionist is asleep, or even dead. I can’t really tell if she’s breathing.

Jesus, it’s been hours, and it feels like months!

but I’ll stay. I’m committed to this appointment. In fact I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

I’m waiting for an answer. just a simple “yes” or “no” (ah, but those words, while simple constructs, envelope the most wildly complicated, skewed, contorted reasonings (or lack there of) we have to offer.

Please don’t misconstrue my tone. I’m not walking around in a constant mope. sighing heavily every four minutes, absently pushing my food around the plate, dragging my feet, watching the rain through a sooty window, sleeping in till 2:00, convincing myself it’s because I’m “just a bit blah”, etc. No, my friends. (may I call you that?) I’m a busy muthaf”$*er. And buenos aires is awesome.

I’m taking ensamble drum classes on wednesdays: 20 people hammering on various percussion instruments, with a director shaping our sounds into sometimes amazing collective rhythms. On tuesdays it’s my drum technique seminar where the teacherman shows me how and where to hit the drum correctly. (deceptively tricky thing to do) On fridays I’m volunteering at a homeless shelter, serving sandwiches and tea to Over-40 homeless people. I’ve already met a senagalese woman who swears she’s a prophet put on earth to reform broken families (a hell of a lot better than preaching the apocolypse), As well, I’m teaching isrealis, south africans, englishmen, americans, Swedish and canadians how to say “Cómo te llamas?” “me llamo ________. Mucho gusto” etc…
I go to crazy soccer games, where 40,000 people are wildly singing and screaming for their respective teams. (me too, although half the time I have no idea what I’m screaming, or why) I watch amazing street musicians painting little worlds in notes, each aural realm extending as far as the sound of guitar, voice, sax, drum, flute, violin will reach. I talk with travelers from around the world, read books like “dersu uzala” and “murder on the rue morgue” in spanish, I plow through Shantaram, and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I watch 2nd run movies on cinecanal, Isat, TNT, Hallmark, MGM, Universal, FX, and Sony. I drink mate, and coffee, and tea, and wine. (OK, and beer). I buy used sweaters and wool smoking jackets in old markets. I run 3km, 5, 10. I do pushups, pull ups, sit ups, dips, squats, curls. I watch leaves shiver in the breeze. I watch waves breathe onto the shore. I watch a man sleep in his own urine. I watch tired eyes stare out of the 5:15 bus to Palermo. I hurtle through the curved tunnels of the subway. I watch a little brown bird clean its nest. I think and I hope and I dream but….

but most of all…

I wait.

That’s what I do right now.

And my days fly. And they crawl. And time nibbles at the 1’s and 7’s of my week. at the january’s and december’s of my year.

and believe me when I say that I am happy.

happy to be here.

writing this.

to you.