Plan, plan... what is plan?

Before I left on sabbatical, some colleagues were teasing me about the lack of much of a plan that I have for these eight or so weeks. Now - admittedly, there's some family stuff going on that's causing me to hesitate to cast it all in stone, but even without that as a factor, these past two weeks have already been a lesson in how little control we mere humans truly have, and an adventure in living in the moment.

Still in Queretaro. The plan for today was for the Student to go to an archive here, and for me to visit the art museum (a former convent) and a regional cultural museum, and then to do a little shopping for folks who've asked me to bring stuff back besides Guadalupe souvenirs, Catholic kitsch, or pharmaceuticals.

But upon arrival at the archive, the Student learned that it was closed for the week. OK - on to Plan B, an archive in Ceyala, a city about 60km or so away, mas o menos. (I will learn to do accents, truly I will.) Took a taxi from the zocalo in Queretaro to the bus station and hopped the first bus to Ceyala. And in Ceyala - the archive was unexpectedly closed - the one person who controlled access had taken the day off.

And so it goes.

Two weeks ago, I think my borg-brain would've still been in overdrive, trying to construct some sort of solution to it all. Instead, we had lunch in Ceyala and then caught a bus back to Queretaro, where I proceeded to wander over to a local mall to check things out (and picked up a CD). Lazy evening in the hotel, complete with room service and watching a movie the Student had brought along.

Tomorrow - back to el DF - Mexico City. Or such is the plan for now. Another friend is headed into town on Wednesday, and because of his tight schedule, I think we'll probably have some semblance of structure from Wednesday through Sunday. All bets are off from Sunday 'til the flight home on the 11th, though. Might be back in Queretaro, might be in Guadalajara, and a new name came up today - Guanajuato. That could happen, too. That's next week, though. For now, this week is enough.

Or even this evening.

For those keeping track at home, we've been on three bus lines now:

• ETN - the elegant "executive" service. So smooth of a ride it's not even real - floating around enough to make Dramamine a good travel accompaniment.


• Primera Plus - nearly as elegant as ETN, same weird floating feeling, just a little less space per seat.


• Flecha Amarilla - which I've only just learned this instant owns Primera Plus. That explains why, when we went to the Primera Plus counter in Ceyala to get tickets back to Queretaro today, we ended up on a Flecha Amarilla bus. Much less elegant, no bathrooms, but the sensation of being on a sailboat was absent, too.

Going to check out ETN schedules for our trip back to el DF tomorrow. Still a few posts behind, but hope to catch up soon.

Thunderstorms in Queretaro

Dear God, how I love thunderstorms...

Internet connection is spotty; there's a huge thunderstorm over Queretaro right now, Santiago de Queretaro, to be precise. (And no, I'm not sure how to make the accents with the Mac; if I figure it out, I'll come back and correct this post.)

I'm about five days overdue for updating this thing - lots to tell about Zamora, about La Marcha del Orguello de el DF (LGBT Pride) yesterday - 200,000 people in attendance according to the official report, which means it can be off by an order of magnitude here or there. Might write more tomorrow; for now, I think I'm just going to listen to the rain and the thunder and lightning, and be very much at peace.

Zamora, Michoacan

This'll be a short post, sin fotos (without pictures). Both my laptop battery & camera batteries are on their last little bits of power, but I thought I'd check in.

We took a 6.5 hour bus trip to Zamora, a little town in Michoacan. The Student has a meeting with a professor tomorrow, and I'm going to wander around town, checking out the place. Right now I'm sitting poolside at the hotel, listening to the crickets, and enjoying an utterly perfect evening. It's maybe 65 degrees, 50% humidity ... bliss.

Once the laptop & camera are resurrected, I'll post a few more photos to the Picasaweb page; if you click the link a post or two down, you'll get the latest (there's maybe 48 photos there now). Already found things to check out in Zamora - just not tonight.

Feeling grateful for so very much tonight - to the borg for that 'sabbatical' thing, to my family for encouraging me to make this trip, to everyone who's helping out with the Kid (who is in Georgia tonight - first night of two weeks!), to the Student for asking me to come along on this part of his research. (Somehow I don't think Zamora would've been on my short list of places to visit otherwise; I didn't even know it existed!)

More tomorrow, 'night for now. Listenin' to the crickets.

The Revolution May Not Be Televised...

...but the Sabbatical Will Be Blogged - And Photographed.

Finally managed to get the Picasa Web Album doohickey figured out. There's a slideshow of the first 14 images (not yet tagged) floating at the bottom of the page - or you can simply go to the public album at your leisure.

And with that, this geekgrrrl's gonna get some rest. Hasta luego.

But first...

Before last night's hellish hotel experience (OK, it was pretty funny), I had the extraordinary privilege and joy of attending the Mexico City production of Eve Ensler's fabulous theatrical experience, the "V Monologues". (No, I've not developed a sudden twinge of prudishness; I know of a few folks following my rambling musings who would find the full text extremely NSFW.)

I've not seen the US production, although I've read a bit of the text, and thought I knew what to expect. I was surprised by how deeply moved I was by the experience, and that was even given that I only understood 50-60% of the rapid colloquial Spanish with which it was presented. Some of it transcended any language barriers, though, such as the quite convincing rendition of los gritos ("las gritas"?!?) during the latter portion of the show. The production's hot, steamy, serious, challenging, devastating, joyous, shattering, and an utterly amazing reflection of the joys of being a woman. I can't recommend it highly enough, and may go back to see it again here before the summer's through.

The production is in a little hotel in the Zona Rosa ("Pink Zone"), the LGBT part of town. There's daily showings, and I was surprised to see that well over 150 people - mostly women, but some intrepid men as well - were in attendance. The three women who presented the 'monologues' were very different, yet the joy and emotion they brought to the storytelling was so consistent, and so incredibly profound.

There's a post I've yet to write and can't quite figure out how to frame yet, although I think I'll situate it in the context of the Mexico City Metro (subway). Being una mujer in el DF is qualitatively something unlike anything I've experienced. The Metro has certain hours when only women and children can ride in certain cars. There's buses along Paseo de la Reforma during rush hour that are reserved for women only.

An analysis of women on public transport in Mexico City isn't inconsistent at all with a theater review of the "V Monologues" - just not sure where to take it yet. Suffice it to say that if you've not seen the production, get thee to the nearest one. And if the nearest one is in el DF, let me know. I'll go again.

The Metro - that's another post, for another day. Maybe this day, since it's past midnight now in el DF, but we'll see.

Livin' it up at the Hotel California

I kid you not - that song was blaring at about 12:30am this morning from a bar across the street from the Hotel San Francisco, the latest stop on our hotel tour of Mexico. After four days at one place with no working phones and marginal at best Internet, we picked the next stop based on location - near the Alameda and just a couple blocks from the previous place - and a few reviews.

The first clue that things were amiss was their inability to find the prepaid reservation. No matter - they gave us rooms anyway. My room had a large metal "X" blocking the window. Fellow borg-dwellers will recognize the feature - it's earthquake-proofing. The beds were conveniently pre-indented by all of the bodies who've slept (or not) on them over the past 40 years. They promised wireless Internet and gave us a code; when no signal was picked up, they shrugged - no problem. No Internet. The phone in the rooms worked, and as promised, phonecard calls were allowed - but were double-charged. Using the phonecard would result in the same two-dollar per minute rate as a direct dial call - as well as depleting the phonecard.

Nothing, though, compared to the band playing loud 1980s/1990s rock at an ear-splitting volume just across the street. Did I mention that the street was a sound corridor? The hotel was tall, and a new building was being built across the narrow street - a wall of uninterrupted concrete. Made a perfect echo chamber and amplified the noise quite nicely.

I'll skip the other details - the 70 or so teenagers - mostly from the US - who seemed to have the run of the place, without chaperones. Or the 50 or so ten year olds who were running around the lobby. Oh, and then there was the matter of not one but both elevators going out at about midnight, one crammed full of teenagers.

The Student wandered out just before midnight (he took the stairs) to make a phone call from a Telcel phone on the street. I camped out in my room and tried to read, but it would've been like reading at Satyricon or the Pine Street back in the day. So instead, I sat in the groove in the bed and sang along. I also decided that four-day reservations be damned, we were getting out of there today.

And so we did, packing up and checking out this morning. The rooms were prepaid, and I'll take that up with the online agency tomorrow. (The hotel lied about the availability of some services, so I'm prepared to put on my pushy lawyer hat with the travel company to get at least some of the money coughed up.) By 11am, we'd found another hotel and proved the song wrong. They may check us out any time they like - but at least we were able to leave.

We're now ensconced in a place where the Student stayed several years ago, conveniently located to the Zocalo and Cathedral, lovely rooms, nice staff, great rooftop courtyard, absence of Eagles, Radiohead, Nirvana, and other covers. Oh - and the elevators work. Bonus. I think I'll sleep tonight.

Up for a bit still - maybe I'll get some photos posted. Still trying to figure out photo resizing on the Mac. Oy vey.

Moving Day

OK, not really. Moving from one hotel to another that's about 2.5 blocks away. The first hotel was booked from the US for four days; now that it's clear that we'll be in el DF for another four days, we're heading to a hotel just slightly better-located, with the added benefit of allowing long-distance phonecard calls from the hotel room.

Not a whole lot else to report. I'm trying to figure out how to use iPhoto to manipulate photos so I can post them easily, but haven't sorted that out yet. Picasa doesn't seem to work on OSX, but a friend said yesterday that she was pretty sure it'd work somehow, so that may be a task for later today. We'll see.

El DF is ... el DF. Nothing quite like it. I'm still in love with this place of 20-30 millionish people. I'm remembering my conversation from last summer with an expat who'd been here something like 40 years - "Nobody really knows how many people live in Mexico City; if the government really counted them, they'd have to provide services for them all, so it's best for them to remain vague about exact numbers." Sobering thought - and yet also curiously compelling. It's a good place to detox from the inflated sense of importance that working at the borg can bring. 30 million people here just don't give a damn. ;)

The photo above is from an outdoor Dali sculpture exhibition that's about a kilometer from the hotel where we've been staying. I'm hoping to get to the rest of the exhibition at a nearby musuem before we leave town next week.

And no, I don't know where the next stop is - not yet. Maybe Queretaro?

Did I say something about Mexico?

Mexico City. Two days in, and I'm just now beginning to exhale, to settle into my own skin again in a way that I only really feel when I'm here. My earlier posts about "have a nervous breakdown" as an item on my to-do list before the trip were telling; thankfully, that's one of many tasks that I didn't manage to accomplish before leaving.

The hotel we're staying in for a few days has spotty Internet access, so my idea of blogging daily (at least) may not be met. Crackberry's functioning just fine, though, so I can at least get email at my gmail address as needed. But two days immersed in Mexico, and I'm already asking myself why I bothered to have any sort of "goal". It's enough to breathe, and the breathing's blessedly good down here.

A couple notes for the casual reader. The Kid is still up in Portland, hanging with his dad, dad's SO, and dog. He'll travel to visit his paternal grandparents in a week, freshly-equipped with his first cellphone and email. Should you be of the sort who might know him and wish to drop him a note or call, let me know & I'll give you the info.

I'm traveling for a few weeks now with one who'll be tagged "the Student" - a close friend working on a PhD in Latin American History. Such a providential arrangement - I don't know that I'd think to travel to some of the places where he needs to go to check out archives; I don't know that he'd necessarily be able to do as much of that travel without the flexibility that having someone around who's not living on a student budget can provide. Works well - I'll be seeing some parts of Mexico that I'd not likely encounter on my own - ever.

But for now - our second day in my favorite city, one I not only would find on my own, but in which I spent eight days in December, solely because Mexicana had a fare sale and the ticket was too cheap to pass up. It's sooooooo good to be back.

Yesterday was surreal, as I kept asking myself and the Student - "Are we really in Mexico?" It was a day with few plans. The Student had a couple things to take care of at the Basilica, so we trekked over there, said hi to Nuestra Madre, and just reveled in the peace of being present there. I had a bit of business to do for someone from the Kid's school - so we did that too. We closed the evening wandering around the Zona Rosa ("Pink Zone"), dinner and being among familia. Not bad at all.

Today the Student is doing studenty things - meeting with a professor here, checking out a library there. I took the Metro with him out to his first appointment, and in the course of trying to find the building where he was to go, we tripped over a few librarios - bookstores. And so I find myself in one of those now. I'm always struck by the depth and breadth of the works that appear not just in Mexican bookstores, but even in the piles of books sold by street vendors. No less notable is the literacy - cultural and otherwise - that's just an assumed trait of the educated classes here. Of course, the class divisions are significant, and I'm acutely aware of the privilege I'm accorded as a gringa running around town. Lots to think about every time I'm here, and now I have time - nothing but time - to think.

Will probably hang out here for another hour or so - get an editing job done that's way overdue, and then venture back to the Metro to pick the next destination for the day.

Countdown

Up since 5:15, looking at the time now and realizing that in 12 hours, I'll be boarding a plane to SJ. Am I ready? Ha.

• Print boarding passes for tonight's flight as well as tomorrow's trip to Mexico.
  
• Need hotel reservation for tonight (thought about sleeping at the SJ airport, but I don't want to be a zombie tomorrow).
  
• Need to go to the Kid's school - he forgot his cellphone on Friday, and we found a library book to turn in.
  
• Need to go to the credit union and cash a check - doing some administrative work to help out a little church tour group that's going to Mexico in August, and have to buy tickets with cash.
  
• Powell's. Fluffy airplane reading.
  
• Visit my folks - Dad's b-day, help Mom with a couple of quick things.
  
• Finish ripping a few of my CDs that I want to have on my laptop/iPod on the trip.
  
• Make a couple of quick lists - one for the guys about kidstuff for the next week, and one for the friend who's crashing at my house for a few weeks.
  
• Call the contractor who's doing the fireplace tile work while I'm out.
  
• Bunch of work email to send out, as well as setting up "out-of-office" message.
  
• Finish corporate required training for 2008; my manager will be pleased.
  
• Change work network password so I can get back on the network after sabbatical.
  

I'm sure there's more, but that's a start. Kid, however, is packed, and I'm mostly packed, too. Feels like I'm more ready than not, which is a pretty good feeling, all in all - but I know it'll get crazier as the day goes on. Ah well. It's as much inertia as anything now, I think.

I Have Left the Building

Me and Elvis, that is. I'm outta there, and as the sign indicates, I'm going to avoid all those "disturbing office personnel" for the next nine weeks or so. (And yeah, I'm sure there's some that muttered "good riddance" under their breath as I headed for the door.) I have a handful of emails to sling forth today, a couple of quick meetings to call into on Monday, and then on Monday evening I'll jump aboard a plane and leave town.

It was a strange feeling to walk out the door after 8.5 years. I left with a colleague, the person who's covering for me while I'm out, and who I'm partly covering upon my return, when he'll have just left on his own sabbatical. I'm not sure I'd have made it out of the building had he not reminded me that we were due for a going-away lunch for three of us headed out for the summer. I was cleaning my desk, rearranging papers, double-checking expense report submissions - anything to avoid facing the reality of being done - having no real role there for the next several weeks.

Monday evening I'll hand this laptop over to a friend and fellow employee at the borg. She'll keep it safe while I'm out, and more important, it'll keep me from being able to check work email, scan the intranet, or otherwise keep a finger on the place that's been such a pervasive part of my existence since just before the kid turned two. My crackberry will still be getting mail, but I think I've figured out how to hide the icon that tells me it's there and lets me access it, so I'll give that a shot on Monday.

And so it goes. Today I'm packing, cleaning, and heading over to my parents' to celebrate Father's Day and my dad's birthday. I'll probably drop by their place again on Monday before I leave town - but then I'm gone. Kid will be with his dad & dad's SO, cats will be with my aunt and uncle ...

I just can't imagine it right now. Still feels pretty freaking unreal. Just like Elvis' death.

One More Week

There's a lot to do in this last week. Perhaps "have a nervous breakdown" is on the list somewhere - and that item will be anywhere it damn well pleases on the list, I guess. Today - well, today it feels like it's headed to the top of the list. Tomorrow's another day, one that promises to be even more stressful. Then - well, then things should settle out a bit. Oh wait, no they don't. I have a work trip to go on still. Ugh.

But in one week - from this very moment - I should be headed to the cheapest hotel I can find in San Jose, where I'll spend a fitful few hours not sleeping before heading to the airport to catch the flight to Mexico. Just trying to focus on that right now, and not let the rest of the stuff get to me. Not terribly successful with that, though.

One item on the list did get done - get the Kid a cellphone. McAuley's not at all sure about the phone. Not edible - so why is it here again?

T Minus Nineish Days

Crap. Where did the time go?

In something like nine days, I'll be flying to California. Won't even be there twelve hours; the next morning I'm up and at the airport to catch my flight to Mexico City.

To say I'm exhausted & ready for this break would be the understatement of the year - or of 1.5 years, really, since I first was eligible for sabbatical. By day, everything I need to do before my trip seems manageable, but at 3am, the details swirl in my head and they're just overwhelming. For the first time in a long time, I'm letting the lull of the BBC radio announcers soothe me back to sleep, or at least distract me from the things that send me into a half-alert tailspin.

• Visa card - where did I put it? Need it before the trip. Cancelling it will mean the new card arrives after I leave. (Reality: BofA issued replacement card today; I'll have it in 48 hours, no charge.)


• Lawn - it's a disaster. When will I mow it? What will happen when I'm gone? (Reality: Still TBD. That'll be another 3am round...)


• Money - how on earth am I going to afford this?!?!? (Reality: Oddly enough, traveling around Mexico for a month is not going to be vastly more expensive than simply living in Portland for that same time. Some expenses are more, others are way less. And I did budget for most of this - it'll be fine.


• ... and so on...
  

Kid is excited about heading off with his paternal grandparents, though, and is not too disturbed about my departure. Some angst, some moodiness, and I don't expect it to be easy, but he'll be fine. He's getting a cellphone too, which fascinates him.

Promise, subsequent posts will be less angst, more photos. Right now, I'm in the angsty phase, and I don't know where the USB cable is for my camera, anyway. Don't think Picasa exists for the Mac, either, so there's a new photo process to learn. Maybe I'll just reference it all from photobucket. Another topic to consider at 3am, I guess.