Por irme...parte 5

Domingo 18 Septiembre; 2 días antes de irme

Tree pose in Tigre, January 2010.
Con Taylor

Para el blog hoy (OK OK ayer), había planeado en escribir un testimonio medio pesado sobre el significante de irse y dejar atrás en yuxtaposición a llegar y comenzar. Pero tuve un día tan lindo, lleno de ocio y amor y besos y amigos y diversión que hoy solo me sale energía y palabras positivas. Así dejaré dicho discurso por otro momento.

Fieste de cumple sorpresa, 1 Sept 2010
con los chicos.

Si durante el día ayer me agarraron ataques de pánico y me sobrecargaron la ansiedad y tristeza, tal vez se esperara que hoy sería aun más difícil con aun más lágrimas. Pero fue exactamente la opuesta. Desde juntando con amigos anoche, sentí un disminución de ansiedad. Claro empecé la noche tenso –varios amigos se dieron cuent– mas después de varias copas de vino me relajé y se me escaparon las risas.

Almuerzo, hoy.

Y hoy (domingo) seguí de buen humor. Desperté abrazadito al medio día. Hicimos licuados con Agustin, Mercedes, Pablo y Mariano. Almorzamos en un lugar tan rico (y tan cheto!). Y paseamos por horas en la ciudad que me fascina desde mi primera llegada en enero de 2007. Terminamos con una cena simple y deliciosa de empanadas entre amigos.

Torre YPF, Sept 2010. Con Mercedes y Luis

Marcha del orgullo, Octubre (?) 2010.

Tengo suerte, tanto suerte.

Por irme...parte 3

Viernes 16 Septiembre, 5 días más en Buenos Aires

Con Lulo, Mayo 2011.

Ayer no escribí. Bueh qué quieren que diga? Mea culpa. :-p Tuve un día apático, que soy así cuando no sé bien como manejar las emociones. Empezé a empacar y me escondí en la cama con el gatito Lulo.

Tal vez se preguntan el por qué estoy escribiendo este blog todos los días si los resultados son melancolía y lágrimas. La verdad es que sin escribir, si expresarme el resultado es ayer: esconderme en la cama. Por documentar (en algún sentido) estos últimos días en Buenos Aires, me permite procesar todo lo que siento. En alguna manera, cuando escribo estoy ficcionalizando la realidad. Es una representación de quien soy en el momento, y resulta que puedo dejar la ansiedad acá en esta representación virtual.

Noche de máscaras. Marzo 2011,
con Marce, Patricia, Andres y Juanpa.

Pero no se confundan. No pasé todo el día deprimido en cama. Terminé cocinando la cena con algunos de mis amigos más queridos, tomando y riéndonos hasta tarde. Así gracias!

Hoy en la mañana también tuve una visita! Ariel pasó para desayunar y regalarme un dibujo orinial. Muy lindo (ver abajo). Ya tengo el primer trabajo de arte para colgar en la pared de mi departamente en londres (che, tengo que encontrar un departamente en londres!). Desayunamos pancakes con fruta y crema. Rica comida y rica companía. No se puede pedir más!

Ciudad por Ariel. Septiembre 2011.

Por irme...parte 2

Miércoles, 14 Septiembre; 6 días antes de irme de Buenos Aires

Equipo San Luis, Septiembre 2012

Porque si una meta es expresarme la gratitud a todos mis queridos amigos en Buenos Aires durante escribir un blog cada día en esta última semana que me queda en Buenos Aires, vale escribir en español también...

Desayundo del sábado. Septiembre 2012

Este sábado pasado, la mañana después de mi fiesta de despedida, me encontré en pijamas en el cuarto de Pablo acostado en la cama con Mercedes, Tati y Pablo. Desayunamos facturas y jugo. Pasábamos el mate. Todos teníamos resaca. Nos cagamos de risa acordando de Tati improvisándome poesía en inglés sobre cuanto me quería (I love you, the things you say, the things you don't say. I love your silence. Yes, I love your silence), y Pablo regalando alcohol a todo el mundo, sus brazos cargados con 10 latas de cerveza a la vez y su cara brillando una sonrisa enorme. Entre las risas y los mates, me quedé pensando en las amistades que se han desarrollados en los últimos tres años. 

Febrero 2009; con Luis.

Las personas que viven lejos de sus familias seguramente entienden la importancia de los amigos y amigas íntimos. Con ellos pasamos la Navidad y Día de Gracias. Con ellos festejamos Año Nuevo y nuestros cumpleaños. Pablo siempre me invitaba a pasar Día de Madre con su familia porque sabía que la entrañaba mía. No se puede reemplazar la familia, pero sí se puede crear nueva familia a través de compartir experiencias únicas y momentos íntimos.

Septiembre 2009;
con Juanpa en Las Heras.

Mayo 2009; con Fran. Foto x Thomas Locke Hobbs.

Son aquellas experiencias por ejemplo cuando no tenés dónde vivir y un amigo te invita a pararte con él por dos semanas, y esas dos semanas se vuelven a dos meses. O cuando tu compañero de casa te lleva en sus brazos a tu cama porque estás pasado después de una noche de joda y estás llorando porque "hay cosas en tu cama." Cuando peleás por un pelotudés porque sabés que podés sin miedo de peder el otro. Cuando se comparten los momentos más duros y más pesados.

Ilustración por Juanchi Marquez.

Son aquellas relaciones que tardan en desarrollar; que te hace falta cuando estás lejos. Pero son aquellas relaciones que tampoco perdés por algo tan intrascendente como la distancia, aunqué sean 10 mil kilómetros.

On leaving...part 1

Tuesday, 13 September; 7 days left in Buenos Aires

After neglecting my personal blog for quite some time (see new political blogging project here), I've decided to return, this being my final week in Buenos Aires. Those of you who have read my blog in the past know that I'm prone to long, detailed entries told mostly as narratives. However, rather than attempt to cohesively and coherently convey my conflicting and at-times overwhelming emotions of dread, guilt and loss, of excitement, anticipation and relief in one single entry, for this next series of posts I will write one short bit each day until my departure date, 20 September 2011.

April 2009. With Ricardo in Palermo.

For those of you caught unawares, at the end of the month I will start my PhD in Human Geography and Urban Studies at the London School of Economics. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan because my official enrollment is dependent on a few last transcontinental errands. (My multi-city plane ticket, however, is non-refundable). It's ironic how something that has been in the planning stages for three years still comes down to the wire. And it's funny that the consequences of a series of choices I've consciously made during the past year and a half feels as if they've crept up on me, that they've blindsided me at the last moment.

May 2007. My first neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Constitución.

San Jose del Pacífico, Mexico; August 2008. When I began
researching UK grad programs.

I remember when I first started researching graduate programs in the UK. It was during the (northern hemisphere) summer, and I was traveling in Mexico after having recently graduated university. In my journal, between pages devoted to Oaxaca and my 23rd birthday in San Cristobal, I scribbled down the names of various UK universities. Between buses, I had devoted an entire afternoon to researching geography programs in an Internet cafe.

Halloween 2010. With Davin. Me as
a Manhunt profile (also subject of my
MPH thesis; he as zombie punk.

May 2011. With Agustin.
Mustache party.

It's normal to feel pure excitement when hatching a new idea, like elaborating the details of a thrilling daydream. I suppose I maintained that feeling during much of this past year, even while filling out tedious applications, writing countless drafts of personal essays, and negotiating with multiple academic departments separated by nearly 7,000 miles and the Atlantic Ocean (OK maybe that shouldn't really count as part of the thrilling daydream metaphor). As a close friend confessed to me last week, her eyes wet and red with drunken tears, "This whole time I've told myself it was just an elaborate lie–that you were hypothetically going away–but now it feels real." Until I bought my plane ticket yesterday, I think it all felt hypothetical to me as well. Now I'm faced with the very real task of packing up three years of my life, of saying goodbye.

December 2008. With Mercedes y Juan Ezequiel.

Leaving Buenos Aires is one of the most difficult choices I've made. Blogging about it will deny me the ability to suppress my feelings, but I hope that it will also allow me to work out the complexity of those feelings and express my love and deep gratitude to all who have made the past three years of my life so incredible.

Vegetarian super protein recipes

Saludos Boludos!

OK today I’ll write a bit more practical and a bit more cheery than yesterday (my sick day).  As many of you know, I’m a vegetarian: five years and going strong.  I think vegetarianism runs in the family.  Grandma Ellie was a vegetarian for decades; Grandpa too, although I think he probably cheated.  Dad never liked red meat, although he has a weakness for BBQ ribs, and Jessie, my sister, has been an on-again-off-again vegetarian since adolescence.  My cousin Taylor is a vegetarian too.  (If you’d prefer to skip ahead to the recipes, be my guest.  Just scroll down.)

This isn’t a blog about why I’m a vegetarian; there are many authors who have talked about vegetarian and food politics more convincingly than I could here (see the New York Time’s Mark Bittman, for example).  In short, I became a vegetarian for simple reasons: I don’t need to eat meat in order to maintain a healthy diet, which means I don’t need to kill other living, sentient beings; the quantity of meat that the average US resident eats is unhealthy, as is the quality of the meat; and lastly the production of meat in the United States (and in most industrialized countries) is bad for labor and for the environment.  (And before anyone starts to form the counterargument about all the environmental damage that is done by the overproduction of corn and soy, be it in the US or Brazil or elsewhere, let’s remember that the vast majority of the corn and soybean crops are used as animal feed.  Don’t believe me?  Google it.)  Enough politics, back to the point.

I love being a vegetarian.  First because I am healthier now than I ever was.  Until I became a vegetarian at the age of 20, I didn’t eat vegetables.  No veggies.  Not one.  My diet largely consisted of meat (every day), refined carbohydrates, melted cheese, and fruits and nuts.  One time when I was 10 my dad paid me 5 bucks to eat a green bean and I gagged on in.  Seriously.  Once I gave up meat I become a conscious eater; I paid attention to what I was putting in my body.  Not only did I gradually begin to eat veggies, but also I learned a lot about what a healthy diet looks like, and more importantly what a healthy diet feels like.

I get lots of sympathy from folks when they hear that I’m a vegetarian who lives in Buenos Aires.  “But they have the best steak in the world there, man!”  Yup, they also have incredibly high rates of heart disease and chronic constipation.  I learned how to cook as a result of being a vegetarian in Buenos Aires; and to this date I’m not sure that I have a more valuable skill. 

I never felt the limitations of vegetarianism until I decided I was too skinny.  A couple of years ago I worked my ass off to put on 10 pounds.  It took 6 months of weight training and constant eating (and I mean constant).  It wasn’t fun.  Nonetheless, I never thought about adding any animal to my diet other than dairy products, which I had never given up.  I did, however, begin to have doubts a few months ago when I found myself regularly lethargic and in need of at least nine hours of sleep a day.  I had started Crossfit (crossfit.com) and the intense workouts left me exhausted.  Crossfit as a philosophy is rather anti-vegetarian and the message boards are filled with arrogant information about legumes, carbohydrates and general misinformed vegetarian bashing.  But there was one thing that I couldn’t deny, I was tired, I mean really tired.  I tried to eat more iron, more vitamin B, more vitamin D.  I tried doubling my soy protein consumption.  But soy protein isn’t the best quality, and it’s rather expensive on my budget.  I was on the verge of giving in and adding fish to my diet, but after encouragement from my grandma and from my doctor (who ran a blood analysis and told me that all of my nutrient levels were excellent), I decided to get serious about cooking vegetarian super foods.

After two months back in Buenos Aires, I feel great.  I have more energy than ever before and I’m still working out 4-5 times a week plus I’m up to my nose in thesis research (will blog on that later).  The main addition to my diet is eggs, and lots of them.  I eat at least four large brown eggs a day.  I know, I know, the cholesterol!  The concern is legit, but the jury is still out whether or not eggs should be considered good or bad cholesterol, and for an active vegetarian lifestyle, I’m not all that worried (if you are, just take the yolks out).  The other big difference has been quinoa.  If you don’t know what quinoa is, you need to.  If you haven’t tried quinoa yet, you need to.  Quinoa is a versatile grain grown in the Andes mountain region (Northern Argentina, Boliva) and contains all twelve amino acids.  That means it’s a complete protein.  (check out Wikipedia for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa).  I pretty much have swapped brown rice (which had replaced white rice) for quinoa, making a big batch at the beginning of the week (along with a batch of black beans) and storing it in the fridge. 

RECIPES-------------------------------------------

I want to share two vegetarian super protein recipes that are healthy and packed with protein for the vegetarian athletes.  Feel free to play with them to suite your diet and tastes.  The first is an original breakfast recipe (or lunch).  The second is a recipe I adopted from Whole Foods.  Both recipes are easy and cheap!  I would add photos, but my camera is broked!

Power protein breakfast burritos

Ingredients:

Flour tortillas

Refried beans (black or pinto, your choice) (homemade or canned, your choice)

Scrambled eggs

Shredded cheese

Pico de gallo (or other Mexican salsa)

Hot sauce (optional)

This is a super easy recipe.  Scramble your eggs and gather the rest of your ingredients.  Spread a thin layer of refried beans onto a flour tortilla and set on a warm griddle over low heat.  Layer the scrambled eggs, shredded cheese and pico de gallo and cook until the tortilla is crisp.  Season with hot sauce and enjoy!  I eat one while preparing the next!

Quinoa Tarta

Adopted from “Quinoa egg bake with tyme and garlic” (http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2309)
(photo from the original recipe)

This is a great recipe that you can do pretty much anything you want to.  See below for additional ideas.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon butter
1/2 cup uncooked quinoa
8 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
4 cloves minced garlic
1 teaspoon chopped thyme (fresh or dry)

1 teaspoon chopped oregano (fresh or dry)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Cayenne pepper or other chili powder to taste
1 medium to large shredded yam or sweet potato (your choice)
1 cup finely shredded Romano or Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch x 8-inch glass or metal baking dish with butter; set aside.

Put quinoa into a fine mesh strainer and rinse with hot water; drain well.  Note: if you buy pre-rinsed quinoa (most of what you buy in the US will be pre-rinsed) then you don’t need to worry about rinsing, but if you buy untreated quinoa you’ll need to rinse it vigorously with hot water for about five minutes.  This removes an outer layer that is very bitter.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, garlic, thyme, oregano salt, pepper and chili powder. Stir in quinoa and shredded yam, then pour mixture into prepared dish. Jiggle dish gently from side to side so that quinoa settles on the bottom in an even layer. (This probably won’t happen but don’t worry about it because the added yam will help form the crust). Bake until just set, about 45 minutes. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake for another 15 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool before slicing.

The great thing about this recipe is that you can throw pretty much any vegetable you want in it.  The original recipe calls for spinach but I replaced it with the yam in order to give it a denser crust.  You can replace the spices with Mexican spices and add tomatoes and onions and have a Mexican quiche (serve it with a dollop of sour cream on top) or you throw in additional root vegetables for an even heartier dish.  I’ve cubed the left-overs and pan fried them with onions, peppers, and tomatoes for a break breakfast skillet.

Much love and many vegetarian besos

 

Monday March 7, 2011

23:50

Sick in bed. Wondering why when I’m sick I really don’t feel like doing much of anything at all. It’s a long weekend in Buenos Aires, a holiday weekend. President Christina Kirchner reinstituted the Carnival celebrations as national holidays. The military dictatorship wasn’t all that into Carnival–too festive I suppose. Anyways, here I am not doing much; in bed with a sore throat during Carnival. Not that there is much to do in Buenos Aires during carnival. There is the usual long-weekend activities: lazy days lounging in the park; escapes to the Tigre delta an hour north of the city on the commuter train; Sunday- and Monday-night clubbing. My friends are doing all of the above. But my throat decides to go red and inflamed and scratchy. So here I am in bed. If I were one of those super productive sick people I probably would have transcribed the rest of my thesis interviews, mapped out exactly how I’ll go about the systemic analysis of qualitative data of subjective material. But I’m not. I’m one of those useless sick people who stay in bed all day watching movies and eating junk food. Junk food makes me feel good while I’m eating it, but then of course afterwards it really just adds a stomachache to the list of symptoms. The best thing about eating junk food might actually be before the first bite–thinking about eating it. The anticipation; because it’s never actually as good as I imagine it will be. Gosh I can’t believe its March 7^th already. I didn’t even blog about my trip to the States. Haven’t even mentioned the PhD program in London. Well, not much use at the moment. I’m having a sick day, as I’ve already mentioned. Out of commission. They say blogging is done anyways. At least for non-public figures–that’s me, for the time being. Adolescents have already stopped blogging entirely. Facebook and Twitter offer more accessible, fluid platforms to express the “self” in real-time. Well I think I’m done for now. There you have my stream-of-consciousness paragraph. If I were a real writer I would go ahead and break it down, separate it by themes and then by thoughts, expanding into several different entries no doubt. But, like I said: it’s a sick day.

travel "worries"

Saludos boludos,

Worrying has never been my strong point. Don’t get me wrong, I worry far more than la vida demands, but I tend to screw up the process. I neither productively utilize my anxiety to stay ahead of the game (such as packing well before my departure dates or keeping a calendar), nor do I maintain the consistent levels of distress necessary to win me a Valium prescription. Both of these personal failures were recently made evident before my visit to the USA. On Sunday my blood progressively pumped through my veins quicker and more forceful; my breath grew shorter and my brained seemed incapable of concentrating on anything but the hundreds of things that I had left uncompleted. It felt as if my scheduled biannual life crisis was fractioning into trimesters. Walking home from a White Elephant Christmas party, I had a mini panic attack.

While no stranger to worrying, panic attacks are well out of my usual emotional responses, and as a result I was quite, well...worried. I was unable to focus on any one subject; rather my mind raced from my empty suitcases still stacked in my closet, to unpaid bills (my cell phone has since been cut off...oops), to unanswered emails and phone calls. In other words, I was fucked. However, true to form, the suffocating anxiety that might have spurred me to stay awake late into the night editing research proposals, laying out holiday outfits and searching for my immigration forms was short-lived and conquered by 1.5 milligrams of melatonin. Two hours later I was home drinking mate (mah-tay) with my friend and laughing at just about anything and everything. I can pack tomorrow, I told myself.

I woke up early, but I had a breakfast date with a friend who was visiting from Australia which meant I had roughly five hours to pick up my laundry, take out rent money, pay my phone bill (late, too late, still cut off), print out and bind a 150-page thesis on virtual identity construction on Internet dating sites; buy alfajor cookies, yerba-mate, wine, airport snacks and headphones; call the airline to request a vegetarian meal, call to order a taxi to the airport, have coffee with my professor downtown, have lunch with my friend at my house, get my documents in order, and pack my bags. At four in the afternoon I had finally unzipped by bags and starting wrapping my jeans around the wine bottles when the taxi driver rang my doorbell (he was supposed to get there at 5:30)! It took 20 minutes to chuck everything that was categorized and piled on my bed into my bags and another five minutes to throw on shorts and a t-shirt (an act I later regretted sitting in the 50-degree airport terminal). Upon climbing into the taxi, the chauffeur told me that the piqueteros were planning a protest that would cut off the main highway, which is why he came to get me so early. But there was no protest on the highway. No traffic at all actually. I arrived five hours before takeoff.

Despite the mini panic attack, the irresponsibly last-minute packing, and the to-do list with half of the to-dos left unchecked, once I was in the taxi I was golden. Embarking on just about any trip, as soon as I drive away, as soon as my house is out of sight, any residual anxiety tends to fade away. Images of items that I possibly may have forgotten to pack flit through my mind, but I easily calm myself by remembering that I have credit cards. This has been the case ever since I started traveling solo. I love the hours spent in transit. It’s so easy to just relax and submit to the authority of another (don’t get carried away by your imaginations). I’m not driving the taxi, or the bus, or the plane, which means there is nothing for me to do. If anything goes wrong (and it often has, it’s certainly not my fault. And it’s far easier to simply not think about all of those 500 tasks left undone while in transit. Twenty-two hours in two planes, three airports and a commuter train? No problem. Thirty-six hour bus-ride? Yes, please! Indeed, often when I’m out walking in the streets of Buenos Aires stressing about my thesis, I see a long-distance bus drive by and I day dream about being seated in one of its plush seats, on my way to someplace else, doing nothing more that looking out the window.

Arriving five hours early to the airport, I had plenty of time to wait in transit, however sadly without the plush long-distance bus seats. I watched the sky burn from blue to orange and from orange to pink and purple before it finally settled back to blue. While my taxi driver had the foresight to leave two hours early so as to avoid the highway-blocking rush-hour protest, the crew of the Delta flight did not, which unsurprisingly meant flight delays. After a worry-failed 22-hour trip during which two Argentine adolescent girls sweet talked me into giving up my window seat, a subsequent conversation with a cute Quebecois backpacker about working in French-Canadian rock quarries, and 1.5 hour customs process at Atlanta International (ATL, you be a mess), I arrive in Miami and hopped on the train to see my abuelita divina.

More on her later...

with amor and besos