Oh–HAI! I can has updaetz?

So uh–howdy! Contrary to popular speculation/fear/fond hopes, no, I’m not dead. I have, however, been busy as all get out.

Let’s see. This week, totally fuera de mi contracto, I taught first grade alone for two days. Let’s just say that by breaktime at 11:00 on Tuesday, suicide really felt like an appealing option. My voice was so ragged by the time I left that I couldn’t speak. They are animals, and I am no dog (or hyena)-whisperer. What’s more, the “apoyo,” or “support teachers” who were supposed to be in there chilling with me to help impose order (really, THEY should have been teaching the class) were of utterly no help; especially turtle dame and walrus man. Both older and accordingly old-school Spanish, they turned their backs on my class, hunkered down in the back, and graded papers whilst I tried to contain a swirling maelstrom of sound, color, action and general devilry in a sack of structured English/science lesson. It was great. I almost cried when I got home. Luckily, by some act of God, day 2 of Alone and Unafraid was better. I’m not going to go into details, but I will say I only considered offing myself once in the course of the afternoon. I did, however, just barely contain myself from swinging the extremely violent Alejandro around the room by his little blue froggies and slamming him into the trashcan so he would stop beating poor Teresa. I repeat: they are animals. ANIMALS!

In happier news, come Thursday I tramped through a mysterious animal parade complete with eagles in the grip of military men, seeing eye dogs, cages of pigeons, pretty shaggy ponies, cats, and ducks in order to get to San Bernardo. Why did I do this, you ask, and was I actually on acid? First of all: no. No drugs induced this vision and Noa and his Arc were nowhere nearby that I could see. The dog and pony show was real, though what purpose it served I couldn’t possibly tell you–I even googled to see when St. Francis’s day actually is, thinking that could be a likely guess. WRONG! The parade will remain a myster, I suppose, but my reasons for battling through it shall not! I made the parade trek in order to see my dear, sweet Ms. Hall, who is finally back from the estados unidos. It was a joyous reunion and she, Liz and I chatted, cooked, and otherwise caught up ’til late in the evening. I missed her horribly and with her reinstallation at The Palace, Madrid feels more like home.

Plenty of other notable things have happened between now and the last time I updated. Here are a few: Mary Catherine was here for a splendid 4 days of visiting; I ate phenomenal soyflower gelato for the first time; booked tickets to see Ali in London for the last weekend in January; baked Amber the ugliest birthday cake in the world (no picture included, thanks), and in part due to aforementioned soyflower ice cream and cake have made new resolutions to kick my ass at the gym after this overly extravagant month of wining and dining. It’s going to be absolutely badass and a fun challenge. I might even try a spinning class. With that said: if you have great workout song/album suggestions, please post them here; I’d be appreciative beyond expression. Also, if you have an awesome ab workout/move, let me know. I’m looking for ways to keep it fresh.

Random spurge: so after reading some buzz on the artist St. Vincent., of Sufjan-y background, I decided to give her new album, Marry Me, a listen. Being someone who loves Sufjan and has some SERIOUS affection for the mournful-voiced female vocalists (gangsta nods to Rachael, Regina, Feist and HopeForAGoldensummer), I was expecting to be amazed and enchanted by what the disc had in store. Sadly, it’s all so *almost* right that, as a whole, it’s maddeningly wrong. Lyrically, it’s a mildly pleasant clusterfuck. Musically, it vacillates between too complicated and too spare. Still, vocally promising–the woman is owner of some undeniably glorious dulcet tones. I was not delighted to have my new music hardon totally deflated. boo. Thank goodness my wimmenz Claire and Page Campbell and Deb Davis didn’t disappoint me in the very least with their new release Ariadne Thread. Just go. Listen. Go listen and fall in love like I did. Drink something sloe and strong, weep just a bit, be touched, and then go buy their CD. Get started. I mean it. NOW. I adore them, and I want them to be able to eat.

And now, I leave you with one of the few things that substantially tempts me back to Hartford, despite snow, cold, and the prospect of living at home for a year while applying to grad school.

Back in the saddle

I’d just finished explaning puppies and mammal birth when Georgina beckoned me over with her pudgy little chorizo hand.
“¿Profe?” she inquired very seriously. “Profe. Ven. ¡Ven!” (which, for those of you who don’t speak Spanish means “Teacher? Teacher! Come here. Come here!) Like the dumb, dutiful slave I am to these devilish six year olds, I lumbered over and leaned near to her tiny, blue-eyed face.
“Yo sé tu secreto,” she said quietly, looking gravely into my face.
“Mi secreto?” I asked her, brow furrowing. What secret do I have that she could possibly know, I wondered, growing suddenly more nervous. Had the receipt from The Blue Bunny Tienda Erotica slipped from my wallet and into the virginal, unwitting backpack of some little Spanish child? Did I rip one before making it to the bathroom? Was there toilet paper stuck to my shoe afterwards? What?
“Si,” Georgiana said, nodding and beginning to smile, “tu secreto. Nerea me ha dicho.”
So this was a secret Nerea, the creepy, hyper-sexual 6-year-old in my first grade class “knew.” My eyes narrowed.
“Siiiii, Georgiana?” I said. “¿Y cual secreto es este?” (Yes, Georgiana? And what secret is this?)
“Que,” Georgiana began, suddenly coy with a smile playing at the corners of her mouth and blue eyes widening. “Queeeee…¡que los Reyes Magos te han traido un novio!”
I stared at her for a moment before bursting out in laughter, “Si, Georgiana,” I told her, “los Reyes Magos me han traido mi novio de los Estados Unidos.”
Georgiana and Nerea exchanged an intense look across the classroom and tittered. I just walked away, shaking my head and smiling. I still have no idea how they found out, but whatever. Now my whole class thinks that the Three Wise Men “brought me “a” boyfriend for Three King’s Day. Ja ja fucking ja. I mean, doesn’t everyone love mystical handouts? Apparently my little children do. (:

So. As you may already have ascertained, today was my first day back to school from vacation (also known here in Spain as “bakachons” *wink wink*, Ms. Amber). It began inauspiciously: I spilled rather unattractively onto the line 9 metro this morning as the doors closed and, sweating (also rather unattractively), set to stalking against gravity and momentum towards the front of the train, hoping to get a seat. Instead, I stopped dejectedly to lean against a centrally placed pole upon coming to grips with the truth that there were no seats available. Loosening my scarf and palming perspiration from my face, my gaze happened to catch on the visage of none other than Nawaf, a teacher in the bilingual program at my school. He waved shyly, looking rebuffed and sorry. It then dawned upon me that, hey, there may indeed have been a reason I’d felt like someone was tugging on my sleeve back there. I sheepishly endeavored to smooth things over by saying hell, but the end result of this effort was the most constipated Spanish conversation I’ve ever undertaken in my Spanish speaking career. Sensing things going from bad to worse, I made my escape by mumbling something about wanting to find a seat, walking away, and collapsing into an open booth near the front of the train. This was not, however, before I’d nearly eaten it, tripping over a slick businessman’s polished mahogany shoe.

In fact, now that I consider it, my morning began even more inauspiciously (and earlier) than that. 1 a.m. saw me writhing in bed with a menstrually-induced migraine. A timeless-feeling thirty minutes later, I rushed to the bathroom and slid into home on my knees, making it to the bowl just in time to upchuck a delightful whorl of tzatziki and chickpeas into the porcelain depths. I don’t suspect I’ll be eating at Maoz for the next few weeks, but I did feel better after fifteen or so shaking minutes in the bathroom and two Excedrin Migraine pills. Today’s been a little better aside from a slight migraine hangover and the conviction held by both I and my jeans that I belong in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Anyhow, the rest of the day was fineish–rather what I expected. There’s still no lack of mucous in first grade. Christian’s golden mullet is even more resplendent than it was in 2007, which I’m sure comes courtesy of negligent parents and an unwillingness to sit still for longer than 40 seconds. It was nice to see Eli, Ana, and Araceli–and my fellow TA, Felicity, too. Not nice enough, however, to keep me from wishing I were still on vacation.

I know not how it gets to be 11:40 and I’m still not asleep, but before I go, here are a few thoughts:

There is a convenience store in the Nuñez de Balboa metro station where often I’ll stop to buy an energy drink or some licorice drops. Every time I make a purchase there, I drop the contents of my change purse on the floor and into the gum rack. Every time. Without fail. Could it be a self fulfilling prophecy at this point, or could there really be some sort of magnetized field that calls my wallet forth from my hands and forcibly prises the change from its depths, refusing to stop until my 1 and 2 euro coins are buried deep in boxes of strawberry-lime Trident Splash?

There is a certain spot in front of my apartment, near the planters where weekend partygoers piss, where I drop my keys at least thrice a week. Again: self-fulfilling prophecy or magnetic force? What the fuck? And am I really that clumsy? On the upside… I may have just discovered the locus of my constant Spanish sickness and it has nothing to do with 1st grade mucous…

Okay. Bed. More when I’m less snippy.