Thirty-Forty Split

These are some things that happened to me in my thirties: I got pregnant in a drunken one night stand by the third back-up guitar player of some two-bit Guatemalan rock group (he fucked me after I passed out and all I remember about the entire thing was that he had on a nice shirt); I eventually lost the baby in a near fatal miscarriage in a dirty public third world hospital (even though it was a date-rape baby, I still wanted her desperately); I hemorraged for six months afterwards and was eventually diagnosed with a seven centimeter pendanculated fibroid tumor (which I have to this day); I got held up on New Years Eve by gunpoint and machete (and with my pad money stolen, I was forced to sit on a chicken bus for the next four hours bleeding visibly through my light yellow cotton pants); I did cocaine for the very last time with, Charlie, the American junkie epileptic hitman (who, despite/because of all his failings, I loved very deeply); I was robbed of the chance to say goodbye when Charlie died a few months later, sick and forever alone (but I did eventually write a lovely comic about it—sadly, the greatest romance of my life); three of my four dogs died in one night, and the fourth died a few years later (I loved that last one, Three-toe, more than any other living creature before or since); with increasing bouts of severe asthma and chronic bronchitis, after twenty-five years of over two packs a day, I finally quit smoking cigarettes (the single greatest achievement of my life); I started to black out out every time I drank, and woke up many mornings in the most extreme of circumstances (front door smashed in, mean Frenchman snoring beside me, and my bum bleeding profusely, for example); I took a Greyhound bus to Sturgis, got hammered, and fell off a balcony—twice—demoing the left side of my body as if I’d really been in a motorcycle accident (lightning bolt scar still hangs off my left eye for proof); I got hepatitis and almost died from liver failure (the absolute best thing that ever happened to me); I never started drinking again, but instead fell in love, for the first time in ten years, with the meanest, most arrogant alcoholic alive today (who ripped out my heart and spit and shit all over it, leaving me permanently bitter and fearful of love).

Also: I left the Third World, I moved back to Canada, I became a slum lord, I made peace with my father, I lost my best friend, I swam in the Mekong River, I shook Werner Herzog’s hand, I wrote a book, I learned to garden, I quit waitressing, I discovered Istanbul, I went on a pilgrimage, and after living the three most random, thrilling and intense months of my life touring Ethiopia with seven hot Italian clowns, I realized I’d never be the same again, nothing would ever be the same, and so I said Fuck-It-All and moved to Argentina.

And now I’m forty, finally learning to Tango.

Ear Plugs and Pack Wrecking

I open my eyes and she knows it. How she knows it, I don’t know—I haven’t stirred or even yawned. But still she’s waiting. Rita Ciccarelli is waiting for me to wake up. Not the singer with the mini-non-hit that rocked Toronto AM radio sometime in the early 80s, but my dog, Rita Ciccarelli. I’ve just called her my dog on public internets, so I guess it’s official now: this bitter little bird-faced, Border Collie dwarf cross (who was originally known as Chiquita, a name that I deemed very early on as too boring for such an extraordinarily agile and skiddish ankle nipper) has finally gotten her way. Rita Ciccarelli and I are now an official item.

“Hallo!” I call out to her through the window in a funny accent. Today it’s Swiss. Yesterday was Chinese. Tomorrow may be Coronation Street or Lionel Richie. Sometimes I use the Conky voice, but not usually this early in the morning.

I talk to all the dogs in English. There are 23 others where Rita Ciccarelli came from, just next door, on the other side of the fence. And they can all understand me perfectly. But only four of them, besides my girl, are small and/or agile enough to pass back and forth, from that side to this: Pepina, also known as Peanut (to celebrate her rancid peanut butter breath that you can smell from ten feet away), Dante La Roux, the long-legged teenybopper with fish eyes and a tendency to lovingly eat poop all afternoon (very lovingly, like he was enjoying a full-on dégustation of foie gras and chocolate truffles), Hilacha (literally, Loose Thread), the off-white arrogant skank ball who I never pet, and the newest addition, a nine-week old black puppy, the fugliest little fucker I’ve ever seen, with crossed eyes and a skin disease, who I call Little Scabie Bear.

These are just the crossovers. The other nineteen have to be invited in and let out. As a rule, I only do this for one of them, Poom, my champion, lean and brindled and wolfy with a missing back leg and an affinity for pancetta. He also has half an ear chopped off and six toes on one foot. I like to scratch his one side and watch his ghost leg twitch joyously. The rest of his pack stays pretty much to their side, though I do reach through the fence every now and again with a cookie for old Luba or crazy little Ting Tong or maybe a careful pat on the head for Koochi, the hyena off-shoot.

Now that Rita Ciccarelli is sure I’m awake, she sits in the flower bed under my window, tail all aflutter, and starts to sing-moan-howl-whine, and she won’t stop until I open the front door and take her into my arms. Is it me she loves? Or the crackers that I will give her in a few minutes? Or just the bits of exclusive and trusty affection I make a point of giving her, even when the cuter puppies are around? She’d obviously been abused, majorly kicked around, before she was rescued by Moni and taken into the big pack next door. With me, it took months of pointed work and a variety of pork products before she’d even let me pet her belly with my foot. And in the end, for better or worse, she adopted me. Of my 24 neighbours and the hundred other local strays, I frankly never would have picked her. She’s a little too small, a little too skiddish and yippy, not exactly easy to love. (A canine mirror, perhaps?)

But there’s no fighting fate. It’s a done doggie deal. Four months I spent twenty feet away from Moni and her twenty-four dogs (I’m probably the only person in town who could have held out for so long in this place, thanks to a preference for mutts over people and a nine-peso set of earplugs.) And Rita Ciccarelli courted me the whole time. So when I leave here in a couple weeks for my new (amazing, truly amazing) house, I’m going to have to break up the pack and take the little ankle nipper with me.

Dear Cesar Millan, Dog Whisperer, Hot Little Alpha Mexican Dude,

I am writing you from San Marcos Sierras, Argentina, to tell you about a very special dog person. Her name is Moni and she is the local “protectora de perros,” a lone woman who personally and thanklessly provides all the services of a Humane Society in a town that lacks any such group.

Between the local criollos, who really don’t give a shit about their dogs, and the hippies, who come and go as they please, leaving a whole slew of sweet but maladjusted dogs in their wake, Moni has her work cut out for her. She cures street dogs who’ve gotten roughed up in fights, she provides food and adoption services for pregnant, unwed doggie mothers, and she encourages, and often pays for, the spaying and neutering of dogs of all kinds. [“Castration” as it is called here, is very looked down upon in all of Argentina. Even the local vet has to be pressured and coaxed into snipping the balls of a healthy boy dog—he seems to take the whole thing very personally, like his own cojones were the ones being taken out of commission.]

But on top of all this outreach, Moni provides a permanent home for 24 rescued dogs (and counting), many of whom are too ugly or sick or plain all-fucked-up to have a healthy place anywhere else in this world. Here, just on the other side of the fence, all these critters get a bed, a big yard to play in, and two plates of homemade food daily. She goes through each of their coats every night, removing fleas and ticks, and she tours the yard twice a day, playing with the mutts and cleaning up their shit (though Dante La Roux, Poop Gourmet, helps her out a lot.)

Cesar, I think this woman, this pack leader and benefactor, this neighbour and friend, is amazing and I nominate her to receive your coveted brass-plated pooper scooper prize for outstanding effort in the field of international canine affection and rescue. If not, maybe you could at least send her a bit of money to help pay for the new puppy’s stage-four mange treatments.

Sincerely,

E. the Pack-Wrecker

The Good Life Part One: Clogged Arteries

First off, the word “barbecue” is a lousy translation for the carnivorous Argentine concept-lifestyle of the asado. The North American barbecue, so easily foreshortened to a mere “BBQ,” has the two most basics in common with the asado: food cooked outdoors, and people gathered there to eat it. But there are no hamburgers or weiners at an asado, there are no charcoal briquettes fueled desperately by zippo fluid. And I’d be willing to bet that there is not one single over-priced, tank-like, gas-fuelled BBQ, like the ones so many Gringoes up north are so proud of, with their extra burners, and their side sinks, and their bullet-proof silky silicone covers, no Colemans or Brinkmans or Char-Grillers, in this whole country (not owned by a self-respecting Argentine, anyway.) I’m not being an ungrateful cunt here—some of the best moments, and meals, I had back home were driven by a barbecue on someone’s deck or in their backyard...warm summer afternoons with hot Italian sausage juice dripping down my neck, or crisp fall nights with grilled salmon brochettes and foil-wrapped potatoes, or even that Christmas turkey we had to cook on the ‘cue because the electricity had gone out.

But here, BBQ is beyond all that. Here, the asado is not just an important part of Argentinian life, but it is an actual Way of Life, an all-encompassing socio-religious philosophy type thing. To begin with, it’s an integral part of Argentine history—think sexy Gaucho on the plains grilling up one of his twenty thousand heads of cattle, no cutlery, no plates, no accoutrements, just the knife unsheathed from his hip and a couple co-Gauchos gathered around the fire, feeding themselves under the stars in the most sophisticatedly primitive way imaginable. Nowadays, maybe the lead-up has changed, but the asado itself remains basically the same.

Anything can call for one of these meat-driven gatherings, a kid’s birthday, a 50th anniversary, an average Wednesday night after work, any and all occasions, and while an asado is no big deal, it is at the same time a full-on party, no matter what. Each one, big or small (though really, there are no small asados) is a unique, down-home celebration of humanity and the dead animal(s) that it’s managed to acquire. [I won’t get into the modern-day problem of the mass sowing of un-mouth-watering soya for sale on the Chinese market, replacing vast tracts of traditional cattle-grazing lands, driving the price of meat up by 50 or 60%. Just the word “soya” is enough to drive an average Argentinian into a passionately angry tirade, especially if he has a chunk of meat in his hand. And yet, if the worst thing that can happen at an asado is to run out of meat, these people, hearty and crafty and true to their land, despite the rising costs and bad economy, always somehow seem to manage to find a way to grill up a surplus of carne. Ironically, it’s also a big faux-pas to have any meat left over at the end of an asado, encouraging excess and over-gorging for all. Everybody’s broke, but their bellies are full and their arteries stay hard. Way of Life.]

The fire, the heart of the asado, never gets started before sunset, which comes very late in summer (hypoglycemics, take note and bring a secret sandwich). The wood must burn itself down to a very specific size and quality of coal before any meat can be placed on the grill. And the grilling area can really be anywhere—I’ve had fantastic asados downtown Buenos Aires cooked completely on a piece of corrugated tin on the cement—but most people have built a long, waist-high, brick grilling-bed somewhere in their yard, where all the holy meat-fire action takes place. The point is: none of this can be rushed. The pace of the asado is always slow, deliberate, and invariably pregnant with plenty of human revelry and chamuyo (useless blah-blah-blah). (Most people would also cite the necessity of several bottles of wine to accompany the meat and the night, but this seven-year-sober chick doesn’t feel that necessity anymore. But hey—go ahead! Salud!)

When everything is perfect, the grill burned clean, the coals just right, the people on fire with hunger, then and only then are the sweet potatoes and onions tossed straight and naked into the coals. After that come several of a dozen cuts of beef I’ve never even heard of—vacio, palomita, nalga, matambre—all doused with rock-salt (hypertensives should maybe think of doing a double dose of Lipitor) before being placed lovingly on the grill, alongside spurting homemade sausages, thick and gloopy blood sausage (I’m still not quite there yet), fatty pork solomillo, and sometimes chicken. The key to perfect grilling, I’ve been told by some men (there seem to be no women asadoras) is not to watch or smell the grilling, but to listen. If you can hear the meat’s fat dripping onto the coals in perfect intensity and rhythm, you’ve got yourself a proper asado.

Once the first round is cooked (there are always at least three), the whole lot is laid out on a big wooden board in the middle of the table and people reach in and help themselves. No pass-me-this-or-pass-me-that manners required. Forks and plates are also optional. Sometimes there’s a salad, but who fucking cares. It’s ALL about the juicy, succulent, carnivorous perfection that has gifted me, time and again, at every single asado I’ve ever been to, with the best meat I have ever, EVER put into my mouth. Piece after chunk after slice after wad, sweet grease blotting my chin and knuckles, my chest afuckingglow with the best that Argentina has to offer, asado makes me stupid, giddy, alive on death, and I wonder, retardedly, how the country’s eight vegetarians manage to do without.

I’m drooling while writing this.

And I’ve never been fatter in my life.

No Safer Place

In honour of my fast approaching fortieth birthday, I decided to tempt fate and all the muses by dropping acid for the first time in more than ten years. What a frikkin feat! And what a thrilling relief to reacquaint myself with Don Acido, feel him course down my spine, through my mind, and up behind my cheek bones, once again, after all these years without. Back in the day, in the ugly 80s, acid came to define me as a person, my habits, my mental aesthetic, my raison d’être. It was even my nickname in highschool. The first time I tried it, on a warm summer Soo night when I was only 16, I swore, as soon as the feeling had me taken over completely, that I would continue to drop “until I died.” But aging forecloses itself on such lofty ideas and there came a time, a million trips later, when I wanted nothing more than to want to do acid, but only that initial idealized desire remained. I had, like little Jackie Paper, unwittingly grown up and in doing so, grown away from my dragon, who, without me, sadly slipped back into his cave and ceased his fearless roar. (The song still makes me cry.)

But the other day, right out of the bluest skies, opportunity, in the form of a little square paper, fell right onto my now-willing tongue. I loved the idea of dropping acid ten days short of my fortieth birthday—I could still be a rebel and do irresponsible, ungrown-up things, even AT MY AGE! And no one could stop me! (“Fuck You I Won’t Do What You Tell Me!”) And with that one little hit, I was led directly to twelve straight hours of virgin-pure pleasure and play, Fun with a capital F and laughter straight to God, and I’m sure it trimmed at least six months off my total year-bank. Surrounded by clean dirt and stick-bugs, I tripped around the Rio Seco, my pockets heavy with quartz and candy, and the sun bored itself into each and every one of my pores and my sweet skin shone with the heady security that THERE WAS NO SAFER PLACE IN THE WORLD FOR ME. I was carried forward by my armpits and set down face to face with the wind and that secret underscore of reality that Albert Hoffman, that blessed old Swiss dude (R.I.P., old friend), gifted us with, from that fateful moldy piece of bread, over 70 years ago.

To my surprise (and relief) I managed to trip the whole trip in Spanish. Even with all the liquids in my head gone bonkers (flowing snot, salivation turned up to eleven and tears popping uncontrolably from my eyes—but still no dislodging of the puke ball trapped in my throat) my mind wrapped itself around the Spanish version of the words and they actually emerged as such, from my mouth, whenever necessary. That little slice of our psychedelic world remained for me and my tripping partner, A., consistently, linguistically, hispanically, intact. This was a good sign—I am a better person in Spanish, and the fact that I could not only PERCEIVE in Spanish, but COMMUNICATE too, upped my ante as a human, in my own eyes anyway.

After it was all over, I waited for the comedown for days. But there was none, not even an iota. The whole post-trip week was sweet and light as cotton candy. I ate well and slept full and felt consistently giddy and grateful. Eight days later, good things continue to happen to me and the hit’s blessings continue to shine on: an older body but one more connected to its own fountain of truth; a stronger, saner, more situated brain; and a heart safe and relaxed enough to truly embrace the coming Argentine autumn (and beyond that, the first full winter this cold-sensitive ass will have faced in seven years.)

But I have a tuque now.

And a hot-water bottle.

And an acid connection.

I have almost grown-up.

Immigrant Tuque Chick

Eva Perón came to me in a dream last night to give me some sound, compassionate advice. I can’t remember exactly how it went, but it was something like the country (me) was made up of good parts and bad parts. We (I) had to have more compassion for the bad (which is never really bad) and actively work to encourage the good. A National (Personal) Balance was possible, according to Madame Perón, and I woke up feeling light and ready to heed her challenge.

(Do new Argentine immigrants in Canada dream of Stephen Harper? What symbolic shite would he try and feed them?)

For the first time in my life, after all my travels and all the far-off places I’ve lived and tried to become a part of, I am, here in Argentina, now, finally, an actual immigrant. When I was in the States, I was way too illegal to feel settled. In Europe, no matter what I tried, I was always too New World. In Colombia, I was too drugged out to be truly welcome and in Guatemala, I was too utterly foreign to ever have more than TOURIST stamped in my passport. (I did adapt to Guatemala, but it never adopted me. I managed to live there for years though, but always in a state of happy ex-pat otherness.)

In Bolivia, I came close to settling and getting my actual residency—I spent months going back and forth to the capital, struggling to get all the right papers, going step by step (or more like one step forward, six steps back) through the opaque and illogical third world bureacratic machine. I found a sponsor, paid my dues, even managed to get my INTERPOL clearance. But on the way to hand in the final forms, the ones that would lead to my permanent, legal residency, I got cold feet, stopped at a travel agency and bought a one-way ticket back to Central America. I had this idea in my head that if the shit really hit the fan, and everything collapsed, I’d never be able to find my way back home to Canada to die near where I was born. I’d never make it from Bolivia to the Soo, but I could probably manage it from Guate. So that’s where I went. Back to Guate. For four more years of wishy washy ex-pativity.

These days, I don’t really care how close I am to “home” when I die. The quotation marks symbolize evil anyway. What I do want—it’s very clear to me—is to live out my years here. And if the shit does hit the fan (Oh 2012, will you prevail?!), I’d much rather be in these parts, with these people. In these hills. In this country of immigrants, I am not an ex-pat, but a simple Canadian immigrant, starting a new life, and feeling safer and more at home here than I ever did anywhere in North America.

And ironically (I feed off this shit!), I have finally found and proudly wear, here on the opposite side of the world, the ultimate symbol of my Canadianness: a tuque. It cost two bucks at the corner store and now my life is complete. This is not an exaggeration for an old, cold-headed punker of Northern Ontarian origins. For half the year, I’ll sleep with the thing on, unfolding it down over my eyes like a blinder, then take it off only to shower and work. Or maybe go to a nice restaurant (but in this case, I’ve sent a request that my purple angora tuque be shipped to me from Canada.) Since I lost my original tuque on the bus on the way here, I have for the last seven bare-headed months, felt obliquely empty. This new tuque doesn’t just complete my fall-winter-spring look, it completes me. Like high heels complete a certain kind of woman or a favoured ball cap completes a certain kind of guy.

Big dreamer. Recent immigrant. Tuque chick.

We all eat succotash on this newly autumnal sunny Argentina afternoon.

And the south winds blow.

Getting Up There

Car ride to the city today! (Excited like a little dog!) But the result wasn’t so thrilling—it was time to say goodbye to my favorite little old lady in the whole world. I watched her wheel off through the airport doors and I walked away, but then I surprised myself a bit when I turned and headed back to wave one last time. And she was there waiting, waving too! I’d taken care of her a few times, shuffled her around, wiped her bum, absorbed her company. It made me feel useful for the first time in forever. Fucking fulfilling to be of service and yet not in the service industry. (My sacred vow NOT to be a 40-year-old waitress still underway.) With R., it was as if I was recooping some of the bad care-giver karma I’d earned over the years, taking care of my mother and my Uncle Ray. Where I was so torn and resentful with them, my own blood, I was all patience and understanding with this near stranger. I liked her and I liked serving her. I loved her, even, and we spoke only in French.

The other French-speaking old ladies that I’ve loved, the women who helped raise me, have all been dead since the early eighties. And this year will mark, just after I turn 40, the twentieth anniversary of my own mother’s death. Georgia never got to turn into one of those old ladies, gone at 46. She seemed so old to me at the time, but now that I’m nearing that same age, I can see the tragedy of it all, not just from the point of view of a resentful twenty-year-old forced to drop out of school to take care of her cancer-sick mother, but through the eyes of a strong and beautiful woman, mother, friend, worker, in terrible pain, having to say goodbye to it all, and worse yet, be cared for by that aforementioned, whiny, self-centered cunt of a daughter. What would Georgia think of me today? Would she have approved of San Marcos, of how and where I’ve chosen to live out these years? Or would she be disappointed by my lack of career, lack of family of my own, lack of all those things that most people my age have?

All this, and more, morbidly adult shit racking my mind as I approach (so quickly! just a few more days!) forty. FORTY! The age of an undenyable grown-up. And what have I got to show for myself? Not a hell of a lot. A bicycle, and a good sense of humour. I know it’s no excuse, but I really never thought I’d get this far—I truly never planned on ageing. When I was young, I didn’t think I’d live to 19. Then surviving that with flying colours, I upped the ante to 25. Then 30. On the eve of my 33rd birthday (the Jesus year), I actually thought I’d magically die in my sleep, avoiding the future entirely. But awaken I did, utterly unprepared for a life in the long term—I had a massive life insurance policy, but no health insurance; I had a legal will, but no plans of any kind. I knew more people that had died than I knew new-born babies and I could much more easily envision my own death than giving birth to my own child.

Today, almost seven years later, the Córdoba sun rises on me and my experience (all I’ve really got, besides the bike and the sense of humour). I cashed in my measly RRSP last week for meat money for my birthday barbecue and I’m still ignoring even the possibility that I’ll become one of those French-speaking old ladies who needs her bum wiped by a stranger.

Making me think.

Will I ever grow up?

Crystals and Donkeys

I wake up today, slowly, heavily, as if I had mercury coursing through my limbs. This happens sometimes here in San Marcos Sierras. The town is built on a giant slab of quartz crystal and some new age “experts” say that sometimes the energies or the biorhythms or the fuck-knows-what reverses itself and sucks downward instead of emitting out. This supposedly brings some of us down. I wouldn’t know if others share my weighty blood today, because I’m not getting out of bed. If I chose to, I’m sure I could consult with a reflexologist or an airetarian or an Akashic channeller as to why exactly my body feels so heavy. And they’d probably prescribe me some bitter tasting drops or an impossible-to-pronounce meditation or maybe just give me a big, energetic hug. Don’t get me wrong—I believe in a bunch of weird shit myself. It is how it is and not how it isn’t, or so I’d like to think. But really, I need these people, these all-walks-of-freaks surrounding me and I insist on living in a community like this one, full of all sorts of whatnot. It makes me feel safe. And a bit normal. For a change.

Here, and not tucked away but prominently situated in town, there’s a magnesium-chugging “Prophet” who’s building a 100-meter-wide inverted pyramid into the earth, there’s at least one U.F.O. research station on nearby Mount Uritorco, there’s a yearly gathering of South American Women For The Healing of the Planet that draws thousands of people, and I’d be willing to bet that ninety percent of the population knows both their Chinese and there Mayan zodiac signs. So my love for bejeweled baby Krsna and my glow-in-the-dark rosary (blessed by revolutionary Peruvian priest, Padre Cipriani), my magic rocks and my voodoo oil, and my decision to stay in bed all day because my limbs feel weighted down by some mysterious crystal powers, all these have a place here.

There is only a light breeze blowing through the trees outside, the mulberry, the fig, and the pink peppercorn tree they call the Awarivay. But the tops of the crazy-tall eucalyptus up the road are gnashing about in another, more violent stirring of wind. A High Wind playing out on another strata. If there were a tall building in San Marcos, five floors or more, it would be swaying. But two stories is as high as it gets, and there are only a few of those. People live close to the earth here, everyone. The local Criollos, the Gaucho types, the hippies and the urban dispossessed. The Original Inhabitants called the Comechingones (literally, Dirt Eaters.) And the barren gringa herself. All of us. Maybe not all down-to-earth, but still earthy nonetheless.

A boy comes by my door with a rope in his hand. He’s lost his donkey, he says. I don’t get out of bed, but talk to him through the window. “She’s white,” he calls out. I know what his donkey looks like—she’s a rebel donkey, always running away, and the poor kid is kind of retarded and spends half his days searching for her. I haven’t seen her, I tell him. Sorry.

She could be anywhere.

There’s not a single traffic light or paved street in this whole town.

And it seems that rebel donkeys are not as susceptible to mysterious mercurial crystal tugs as I am.