I can't do it, I just can't get inspired these days. I mope around pining for my days in Spain and all I can think about is how much I'd rather be there than here. Eating home-cured jamon and chorizo, recoiling from a tub of skinned rabbits (!), crushing wild chamomile between my fingers, and eating lunch at 2:00 pm (with wine), snacks at 6:00 pm (with wine), and dinner at 10:00 pm (with wine).
I spend my days now thinking about where I can go next for take-out so I don't have to bother to cook, and how I can afford my beloved Albariño now that it no longer costs $5.00 but $14.00 a bottle--AND ponder how I too can become an Albariño importer. I long for days that seem to be filled with endlessly attenuated hours, hours with no TV, no radio or Internet, no phones or any real news at all. For my non-Spanish brain, it was wonderful to have all the chatter that ceaselessly surrounds us reduced to static, signification-free and essentially meaningless. I was illiterate and dumb, and I had to work out the meaning in the world from just the rudiments that prop up language. It was the perfect vacation for an English major.
But I'm not there, I'm HERE. And it's hot and when I open my windows to let the cool night air flow in, it's trash pick-up day again and the trash guys not only seem to back down the street to maximize the beep-beep-beep feature of their fancy garbage trucks but also to shout even louder to each other in order to to be heard, given the hearing problems they all seem afflicted with, and THEN the newspaper slams against my door because I complained about it being stolen when they dropped it on the sidewalk. And I don't even have to get up for another hour. So I suffer.
But I've still got to eat, right? See Style Weekly for my review of take-out places this Wednesday, and if I can bring myself to cook, I'll post away this week and try to dispel the gloom of my tragically ordinary life.
I feel for you.
Posted by: ilva | Monday, September 10, 2007 at 09:03 AM
Welcome back! It sucks doesn't it when you don't want to leave a certain place and it's back to reality.
Posted by: veron | Monday, September 10, 2007 at 09:08 AM
I feel very, very sorry for myself.
Posted by: Brandon | Monday, September 10, 2007 at 09:11 AM
I am so with you on those thoughts! Do they have trash trucks in Europe? I do not think I have ever seen one!
Posted by: Tim | Monday, September 10, 2007 at 09:26 PM
The only thing worse than the summer doldrums after a fabulous trip is summer doldrums when you haven't had a wonderful trip! Reality bites!
Posted by: Deborah Dowd | Tuesday, September 11, 2007 at 09:34 PM
The trash trucks in mainland Europe usually operate in the VERY early hours of the morning.
Posted by: Toffeeapple | Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 07:42 AM
I had to take my trash (or my children did) all the way down to dumpsters at the end of the lane in Spain. I never heard a trash truck once and I'm wondering if it's because they used a smaller truck than they the enormous mastodon-like ones here. Any insight into this Toffeeapple?
Posted by: Brandon | Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 09:21 AM