I L N Y

My brother's rottweiler licking my face was enough for a wake up call at 7:30 this morning.

It's past 9 p.m., the sun finally set a while ago, and I just got out of the shower. The drops falling down my face are no longer water. Those evaporated a long time ago. These are coming out of my body. THIS PLACE IS TOO HOT!!!!!!!!! (En este momento marca 26 grados celsius pero "feels like" 27. Claro, por lo que el viento sopla, pero de para adentro.) And I am writing these lines thinking about cold, cold February...

"Dear passengers: if you see any strange behavior or package don't keep it to yourselves. Please inform the MTA authorities or call (call!!!!!!) 1 888 FREAKED."

The London bombings have had their effect in the subway. It is not as I expected, people are not running away from trash cans and lost bubblegum or something like that, but there's this feeling in the air that everybody has their eyes wide open. I was aware of that when I was changing lines today at around 3 p.m: I was moving from the red line to the yellow one when I realized I was missing something in my hand. Not my bag, somebody would've freaked out. And not the chilled Coke, something a little more important. OK, the housing lease, the newly opened checking and savings account numbers, paperwork from the international student's office. All lost inside a train. And I had been in NYC for 14 hours...

My first thought was that there was no problem. I had nothing important in those files. Nah, wrong. Lots of important stuff. So what next? I was thinking about the MTA's lost and found I saw someday in 'People+Arts' (or was it in 'Friends'?), the phone call asking if someone had found a red file, all the time I would spend on this, but then it hit me. What else did I have in my hand? The Coke. Surely I had changed the file for the bottle.

I didn't run into the yellow line but instead I changed direction over the red one and turned back, uptown. I rushed out at 110th, ran three blocks (remember the heat?) and then found the Coke machine. At the top, sitting there like there was nothing else to do, my file was in the same position I left it. The guy from 362 Riverside Drive who wouldn't let me in to take a peak at my future home "because the paper says clearly it is during or after August 1" laughed at me (with me?), told me how lucky I am (I know that) and said things seemed to be starting out quite alright for me.

I agree.

Ladies and gentlemen...

...welcome to New York City.

If the Taca-Tica hadn't said that before in Spanish nobody would've understood a word of her pig English. But then again... I just wanted to let you guys know it's 3:27 in the a.m. of July 27, I haven't slept in three days, I just got off a plane in JFK and, (unlawfully) stealing words from someone else, there's something about New York that makes sleeping useless.

Bye, gotta walk the dog.

Del ahogado, el sombrero

Es bueno saber que Efraím Medina Reyes (si, el wannabe Bukowski colombiano) descubrió a Harold Brodkey. De pronto, si estamos de buenas, a sus seguidores les da por leerlo también. Es, tal vez, el más importante escritor norteamericano del siglo XX. (Yo sé, también estuvieron Capote, Roth y Auster y Salinger, Whitman, Bret Easton Ellis y Hunter Thompson y decenas más, pero es que Brodkey...). Bueno, el caso es que si estamos de buenas, de pronto a los lectores de Medina les da por leer a Brodkey, descubren de qué se trata la literatura, y dejan de leer a Medina.

Life as I knew it

Ok. It's simple. Life as I know it is about to change dramatically. After three years I'm leaving my job at the paper to move 3992 kilometers (2481 miles) from Bogota to New York City. (That's the reason for the post in English. Gotta work on my typing.)

Right this minute, I'm finishing a zillion small and annoying things for the paper and in a while I'll pack my desk inside a carboard box and head home. Tomorrow I'll be here 'till noon, then I'll split. The 26th is my flight, leaving at 3 p.m. from BOG, stopping for who knows how long at SJO and arriving, close to midnight if I'm lucky, at JFK. The nice part, I'm sleeping in West Orange, NJ. It's only a two-hour ride with the three bags that hold my belongings. All of them.

Then I'll move to my SHARED BEDROOM!!! in Manhattan, at Riverside Drive and 109th, some 8 blocks from the university. Class for international students starts August the 3rd and actual classes begin the 8th. I'm freaking out cause I have SO MANY things to do and no time to do them...

I'm nervous and excited and I have to get back to work before time runs up today. I am working on a piece about the pope saying Harry Potter books have "subtle seductions," capable of corrupting young Christians, according to The Times. I'm glad this guy has nothing to do with God (whomever she is).

OK. Later.

Julieta

La idea era alguna vez en la vida conocer a Julieta Venegas, después de haberle hecho un par de entrevistas por teléfono. Dice que se acordó de mí y de mis entrevistas y dice que un beso. A mi, la verdad, no me importa si es mentira.