Kristen P. flew in from Frankfurt to visit me in Madrid.

The first night, Friday, I took her to Pio to look at the city from the top of the buried trash heap. The view was magnificent; one could see from the river Manzanares in the south all the way to Plaza España in the far north. We went to bed fairly early as Kristen was tired from the flight. In the morning we got up around ten. We smoked and went to the Retiro for a stroll through the Bosque del Recuerdo (the Forest of Memory). Art at the Reina Sofia took up the rest of the afternoon. I took a nap at siesta while she read Thoreau. The race was the "Yeti" Allycat and I came in dead last but a kid named Juan offered me a spot as a bike courier. The courier service is called Trebol. I was wanting to make some extra money. I don't know if it's worth risking life and limb though. Kristen took some photos and I talked about fixed gear bikes with the couriers. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Sunday morning we caught the train and two buses to Manzanares Viejo where the Piedriza is. The bus took us through plains and past lakeshores to the little city center. We jumped a fence and climbed around the old castle. It was completely empty, standing over the lake below. Kristen and I sat in the plaza and ate a Spanish tortilla from the cafe, drinking sangria. Then we walked up through town till we got into the hills and kept climbing up through the boulders strewn about. When we got to the top of the hill we sat down to smoke and watch the sun set behind the lakeside city and the old castle, the mountains off in the distance.
It was pretty cold waiting for the bus on the way back but after the long haul in the early winter dark we walked up the hill to Lavapies from Atocha and went to the place with no name to drink Te del Bosque. Later, when we were at home and about to fall asleep, I thought about 30,000 miles ago to the last time I'd fallen asleep with her. It'd been a February morning and I'd set off through the frozen snow down at the end of Ohio headed for Chicago. I told Kristen "Feels like my life is going by real fast, sometimes." Looking at me with her big green eyes she said "Only when you look behind." That made me chuckle. She is twenty-one, now, and full of thunder, ready to storm. It's a wonderful thing watching her grow up.

This morning when I kissed her goodbye underground at the metro I said to her what Bones said to me: "I'll see you when I see you."

It's a long way back to Germany.
It's a long way back home.

peace.

madrid put up its christmas lights so i guess the holidays are here.

i had to make merry christmas posters at school. i almost said no, but then thought better of it and bit my tongue (would you ask a christian to make a satan poster?).
this illustrates the nature of my job: I get paid more than a $1500 a month to make construction paper posters and yell at kids to sit down properly in english. i don't think any of them are actually learning anything because the administration is a bureaucratic mess of joe heller proportions (surprise surprise). i'd try to change it, but i'm basically an intern with no power and i'll be gone in six months. while in terms of actual work it is the easiest job i've ever had (and the highest paying!), in terms of job satisfaction/lack thereof, it's probably on par with my stint making sandwiches at subway when i was seventeen.

*sigh*

at least the kids are cute (2nd grade! ouf!) and i have lots of free time. speaking of which. i finished the first draft of the novel, around 50,000 words (on the slim side, i know). copies are available upon request, but you'd better actually read it and give me feedback. i'm now in the endless revision process. maybe by the time i'm unemployed i'll have it done. it'll give me some false premise for hope before it gets rejected a million times and i burn the manuscript and cut off my ear and mail it to my agent in a fit of rage. then i'll die penniless and unloved in an alley. shit, i need to find an agent. i'm really not looking forward to that part.

i had a psychedelic experience the other week when a friend of mine came over gave me some infusion. she said "it doesn't have caffeine or teateine in it," but neglected to mention that it'd make you feel reeaaaaal funny. i thought i'd been shroomed at first. luckily, it only lasted a few hours and on the whole was very enjoyable although it pretty much made me incapable of rational speech.

i've been riding my bike all the time, eating loads, and working out, all to no noticeable effect. i probably still weigh 120 pounds like i have since i was fifteen. i got lazy my first few weeks in madrid and grew out a goatee and ended up keeping it. sometimes when i lean down to talk to a student s/he will grab it and give a good yank.

i'm trying to go veg (again). i only buy/cook fish and tofu and am too broke to eat out. sometimes i slip 'cause there's this greasy spoon around the corner that has the best cheeseburgers i have ever tasted in my life and they're only 3 euros. the place is called Los Gauchos, which means the argentinian cowboys.

for christmas i'm going to gay perry* (get it? get it?) to visit my dear sis and see the folks, then olivia and i are off to rome to revel in the new year wih the pope. she and i had a blast in dublin. i have a great picture of us on the beach. it looks like the end of the earth. i'll post them when i get to a scanner.

oh yeah, for the record, i would like to state that EVERYONE HERE HAS A MULLET! yes. a mullet. men and women. mullet-hawks, poodle cuts, bangs plus mullet combos, even DREAD MULLETS!!! sometimes i crack up on the street. it's too much.

well, i'm off to the bicycle co-op. gotta be a good collectivist.

i miss you all and everyone take care.


love and rockets,
rafe


*paris