Summer Daze

This morning as we rushed to get ready for work, my significant other suddenly lost it. Somebody had been honking a car horn in the street and he just couldn’t take it anymore. He went to the front door and screamed, “What the hell is wrong with you people?!!”

I can relate to this; it is a symptom of living in this purgatorial city. The kind of people who thrive here are organized to the brink of dementia. They obsess about details. They are intense and determined to please. And sometimes, they’re a little frustrated too. Like too many rats in the cage of life.

“In spite of my rage I’m still just a rat in a cage” would be the district’s theme song if it weren’t already one continuous police siren.

Surrounded with insidious stress and frustration, it is especially important to focus on what is truly important in life. One thing I appreciate, especially in this exceedingly humid environment, is going to work without panties. That’s right, working without panties not only feels more comfortable, but has the added benefit of being a small but satisfying act of civil disobedience. A clear case of everybody wins!

Victor the lifeguard: “I’m here for the income.”

Sure, it seems ludicrous that I moved myself across the country to live in an intensely uncomfortable city that symbolizes many things I want to reject about American and western culture, but I believe there is a very good reason for it that will someday make itself apparent. The difficult transition to stressful city life has certainly taken a toll, but in spite of that I believe there are important things I can and will accomplish here. This next year is a chance to regroup and prepare; I can save a significant amount of money, address my health concerns, get some experience teaching English and earn a teaching certification. When I accomplish all these things, I will have the means to do something I have always talked about doing; go abroad to teach English, starting in Veracruz.

In other words I’m starting to think my time here will serve a number of essential functions, even if it is low in the kind of quality of life I desire, and therefore am bracing myself to optimize the time I am here. For now, I will resist the urge to quantify this optimization using Lagrange Multipliers.


Today’s Fun Facts!

$2762.32: the astonishing amount of money I have spent since July 8!

14: The number of times I have peed since 9:15 this morning!