On becoming a nuisance...

AOG, Madrid

My seventy something father called me the other day. His wife had passed away just hours before.

It had all been very sudden. He was still in shock. When I last spoke with him about 12 days ago, he was still in shock.

Before I continue, let me just say that I have not seen my father since 1988.

A few years ago, when I was still in London, he started to call.

He was then, and always, hungry for news.

However, our conversations seem to be a very repetitive affair. 



• How are you?
• How’s work?
• Your partner?
• Your mother?
• Your sister?

My sister is always a tricky conversation. She is hardly at home and, when he calls, she is never to be found. So he complains to me about her.

He lives in Florida, and my sister is still in the UK.

Time differences aside, she does lead a very busy life.

Dog walks, training, and the usual hustle and bustle of living in the social milieu that is British country life.

So when he calls, she is hardly ever there to pick up the phone. Of course, when I call, she is hardly ever there either, so it is nothing personal.

Which is what I always tell him. Again and again.

Still, he complains.

When his wife was still alive, that is to say, the last time I spoke with her, she always enquired about my sister, my mother, and me.

As with my father, the conversation was always a repeat performance of the previous phone call.

I never met my father’s wife, but she seemed very sweet on the phone. I was glad that he had her in his life and, to be honest, I never considered the idea that he would outlive her, quite the contrary.

So when he called with his news, I too was shocked. The woman my father left my mother for had departed.

I had always known about her but, thankfully, my mother was not one of those women who blamed the other woman for her husband leaving, she was intelligent enough to realise it was my father who was to blame for that. But she never really blamed him for that.

So the years passed, and when my father called the first time, he was keen, for whatever reason, to ensure his wife and my sister and I spoke to each other. It was always a strange, and mostly unilateral, conversation.

“I love you both so very much”, she often said.

To which I could only politely say “that is very sweet of you”, or something like that, but little else.


And whenever she said those words, I cringed slightly.

It always felt so odd. I did think she was a very sweet woman, and a saint for taking care of my father. But I felt strange.

Almost as strange as when my father says he loves my sister and I. To this day I have not said it back.

And the reason why is because I don’t love him.

When I talk about my father to other people I always use this stock sentence: “I don’t love him, and I don’t hate him. I just don’t have any feelings”.

Maybe it is a cliché, but I do think it sums up perfectly how I feel. I don’t know if other people understand what I mean.

He has not been in my life much. Not physically. He has been absent from it for a ridiculous percentage of it, so if I ever had feelings towards my father, they dissipated.

In a way I think I am quite lucky since, at least, I didn’t develop hatred towards him. I think I just developed a huge sentiment of indifference, and that is what is with me these days.

When he called me the other day to tell me about the passing of his wife, my first reaction was 'And you are telling me this because…?'.

Of course, I didn’t say that to him, but I didn’t say much of anything then. He was in pain and I did what I could to give him whatever support I could, which I think was very little.

I have called him a couple of times since, to see how he is, and he is well, but lonely. He has a large uphill journey which more than likely he will face alone.

His wife had children of her own, but , although they live near him, they have their own father to take care of (I assume, I have never spoken with them).

Certainly they have their own lives to live. He told me this already.

Still, my father values his independence, such as it is. He is almost blind now, due to about 20-30 years of unsupervised diabetes. He has also developed cataracts, but when we last spoke he said he was going to see his doctor about them.

He has said very clearly he does not want to go and live with his brother, nor does he want to become a nuisance to his family or anyone else.




What am I looking for still?

AOG, Madrid

My search for the eternal past continues, but this time I think there is a lesson somewhere which is staring me in the face, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.

Thanks to the magic of facebook, a couple of months ago I contacted a friend of mine from when I went to primary school in Mexico City back in the Dark Ages of Disco. 

As luck would have it, he was going to be in London over the Christmas season visiting his brother and his new niece. We agreed to meet and meet we did. I waited for him by the National Gallery’s entrance in Trafalgar Square. 

If you’ve been there then you know that the entrance to this wonderful museum is a bit like a balcony from which to wave to one’s subjects. It was raining and I stood right by the balustrade to make sure I could see him. 

This is important to know because this past Holiday season, I have been the coldest I’ve ever been in December. London was a continuous rain fest, and although it is usually not cold when it rains, this past December, it was cold all the time. 

So there I was, unprepared for the weather (because I, who am so smart, left my rain coat in Madrid and went to London with a knitted jacket and little else), waiting for my tardy friend under freezing cold and wet conditions. 

He showed up about 25 minutes later, but I was happy to see him. He asked if we should get a beer, and I suggested we went for coffee. 

During this time my partner had opted to let us meet before hand whilst he had a beer and then meet up with us. A wise move I think, though at the time I was very nervous and would have liked him to have been there. But in retrospect, I think is was just as well he wasn’t.

No drama, just a fact.

So my friend and I went for coffee at Costa Café in Soho. We ordered, we sat down, and we started to sort of catch up. We hadn’t seen each other since about 1980. Where do you start?

We did the usual, married? Kids? Job? bit and moved on. He started to ask about my accent in Spanish, how it was very soft and although identifiably Castilian, it was not thoroughly Spanish. “I can hear some of Mexico when you speak”, he said. And rightly so. You can. I like that about me.

It was then that I mentioned that my partner, who is from Spain, had a much stronger accent. 

A few sentences later I went from partner to “he”. And I could see my childhood friend almost jump back on the sofa.

There was a very apparent and even negative reaction to this bit of news. Maybe it was just surprise. In any case, I think he quickly came to terms with the new paradigm and our conversation continued.

Soon after my partner showed up. Introduced himself, and we stayed for another half an hour at the café. Then we asked my friend if he would like to go for a drink.

“Yes, that would be nice!”

“We are going to a gay bar, are you ok with that?”

Silence lasting a very long second, then reply:

“Well, erm, I am in London, and nobody knows me here, so I think it is ok”.

Nothing else was said and we continued our conversation as if his reaction had not occurred. Of course, it had, and at that point I was torn between wanting to chat with my old friend, and wanting to say goodbye to someone who might be slightly homophobic. 

Still, all those years not knowing anything about each other weighed heavily in my decision and he did seem generally interested in being with us, even if it was at a gay bar.

At the bar we spoke for about an hour and then he had to get back to his brother’s place in South London.

I walked him to the bus stop at Centre Point in Charing Cross Road, and along the way he began to semi apologise for not having bothered to look me up at all.

“You know, in life, when I close a chapter it remains closed”.

To that I replied that my life has been very different, and that I tend to reopen closed chapters now and then.

Just before he got on the bus he said that he would have never bothered to look me, or anyone else, up. Was this an apology? Just a fact? I don’t know. I said to him that it was ok.

“I did the looking up for both of us, and I’m glad I got to see you”.

I walked back to the bar to be with my partner and our friends, who were curious to know how it had all gone. I had told them the night before that I was meeting up with someone I hadn’t seen since we were both 9 or 10 more or less.

I was feeling a bit strange about all this. I think part of the problem is that the last time I saw him was on a normal school day. I left the classroom at the end of the school day and never went back. I never said good bye to any of my friends. We changed schools in one day.

Is this why I want to see them? So that I too can close a chapter which was shut but remained unfinished? Was this some sort of childhood closure?

I still don’t know. Over the next few days, my Christmas tour continued. And when I say tour, I mean I slept in about 6 different beds and 5 different towns since the 23^rd of December before I got back home to mine. 

My thoughts about my friend stayed with me and I was wondering what was the problem with me. Why was I not happy?

Well, last week he contacted me. He was coming to Madrid. Could he stay at mine?

Certainly. No problem. It will be a pleasure.

So last night he arrived close to midnight. I made him a sandwich, and we sat to talk in front of the tv for a while. What did we talk about? Not much, not even small talk.

It soon became obvious that we were strangers who shared some sort of common past. But then he said something nice:

“This trip I’ve been thinking about our infancy. About the school, do you remember…”

And I did remember. And I remembered him, and me, but something was a bit off. Something was awry. But I don’t yet know what.

He will stay one week with me. 

Modern Neighbors

AOG, Madrid

The cool thing about growing up in America is that most of us (not all) live in homes large enough to house a small third world village in the backyard. It is one of the perks of living in a large country and of growing up in a place where most people rather live in a house than in an apartment or a flat. Of course, places like New York, or Chicago do tend to combine high-rise living with houses or town-houses.

However, this was not the case with me growing up in Texas. My home had a front-yard and a backyard. And my bedroom alone was larger than my entire ‘modern euro-studio’ in central Madrid. And no, I’m not exaggerating.

I have to say that ever since I moved to Europe, I’ve missed space. Not outer space. Living space. I miss walking around my home and not knocking into tables or armrests. Not hitting my shoulder on the doorsill. Having a backyard to look at (like I said, Texas, where the heat stops you from setting foot outside for anything over 1 minute). Stretching my arms out and not touching the corridor’s walls. Space.

My studio flat is very similar to this image, though smaller.

I also miss playing music loudly in the knowledge that the neighbors are too far away to hear it. Here, I can hear the couple next door make love. Which means they can probably hear me talking on the phone and everything else.

And I know they do because just the other day, a note was slipped through the door asking me to please not do any washing after 10PM. Guess what time I normally do the washing when I get home?

Yes, they did have a point, and yes, I was in the wrong, and yes, I should have known better. Yes.

So, once I cursed the day they were born (because I’m only human and I can't help being defensive at first) I decided I would be a good little Southern gentleman and post a note apologizing for my actions.

The next day, just as I was leaving for work, I noticed that the note I wrote on a small Turkish card I had leftover from my trip to Istanbul last year was on the floor, unread. Well, I only discovered that after I picked it up and noticed it was unopened. Yes, I was, again, in the defensive thinking “how dare they!!”. But they hadn’t dared, they just hadn’t noticed it.

So, again, I left it wedged in between the door and the doorframe. When I came home that night, it was gone. Had they read it, I hoped so. But had no clue.

One month later, or last Tuesday, this guy walked in when I was checking my mailbox downstairs.

“Are you our neighbor?”

I answered “Yes” expecting the worse.

We both got into the elevator.

“Oh, its great to meet you. We loved your card!”

“Thank you. I’m sorry I…”

“We thought ‘how wonderful to have a neighbor like you’, you know? People are so rude these days.”

“Thank you. But I was the rude one.”

“Oh, we were so pleased when we read your note. We couldn’t believe it! Nobody does that anymore. People are so selfish.”

“It’s very kind of you to say so, I feel really bad that I made so much noise, but you see...”

“Honestly, please feel free to count on us for anything you need. Anything at all.”

“I didn’t realize there were two of you.”

“Yes, my partner and I. We’ve been there for about a year now. But I travel a lot.” 

By now the elevator had reached our floor.

We said our goodbyes in the friendliest manner possible and I was feeling both good, for having had the kind of upbringing that would make note-writing to people you have bothered a necessity, and bad for having had the kind of life experience with humanity which makes you curse your neighbors for leaving you a note asking you not to do your washing late in the evening, and you thinking that that is the only time you have to do it but, alas, you will concede.

The thing is, right, that one of them had never been particularly friendly towards me ever. He’d seen me on the street, seen me leave home a couple of times, we’d even avoided taking the elevator going down once or twice.

And then he (or so I thought) left me a note saying the washing machine bothered him. A very polite note, I have to say. But by then I figured he really didn’t like me at all. 

So this turn of events towards the friendly and nice side of the Force really threw me. Of course now I wonder which of the two is the one that I didn’t think liked me much. In any case, it might be that he likes me a bit more now. Or not.

In my defense, I will say that when I first moved into the studio flat I call home, my neighbor at the time, this girl, knocked on my door at four in the afternoon one day because the music bothered her.

She was wearing a bathrobe, her hair was a mess, and she was really upset that I had dared to play music at …four in the afternoon, thus waking her up from her effing siesta du jour.

Evil, but ...

I was shocked at her request, but, of course, complied. For the next few months I was tempted to leave a note on her door asking her to climax a) less loudly or b) muzzled. 

Yes, for the next year and a half I could hear her orgasms at all hours of the day and night. And yes I was very tempted to say something about it…but never did. I honestly thought she might have been a hooker or something. 

But I think she was doing the same guy, who was probably married, which would explain the “all hours of the day” part of the equation.

So forgive me for thinking all neighbors are evil and must be destroyed. And yes, after our little elevator trip, I had to mentally recant all my previous curses.

I wonder if I need to fill out a form or something?

True Grit

AOG, Madrid

I don't like cowboy movies. I don't like Westerns. I don't like Country & Western music. 

I never have. I doubt I ever will.

I don't much care for cowboys beyond the aesthetics and the images of masculinity they portray. 

I liked Brokeback Mountain because of the story, but I hated that they were cowboys. 

I sort of like Hee-Haw for about 23 seconds back when I was a kid.

I don't know why this is. 

I grew up in Texas and Texas is a very cowboy-friendly state. And I don't have anything against cowboys or cowgirls. Just not on film.

So with this is mind, it is surprising that I've just come back from watching 'True Grit', the Coen brothers film.

It was a combination of things which made me go see it. 

The original catalyst was a friend from French class calling me up. Would I join them around 8:20 PM. 

I asked what they were going to see. When he told me, my first reaction was, no. Not in this lifetime. 

But then, and this all happened very quickly, my mind plucked a long forgotten memory from the past, and I changed my mind very quickly. 

You see, when I was a kid, my sister read 'True Grit', the novel by Charles Portis. 

I remember that she loved it. 

I never read it because, well, because it was a cowboy novel and I didn't like that type of thing. 

And so tonight, a couple of decades and a continent later, I thought, just to see what it was that she liked so much, I agreed. I would go and see the cowboy film.

No, I was not captivated from the start. In fact, I thought the start was a bit slow. But then, it did. It began to take a life of its own. The characters, the storyline, the, well, the everything about it. I have to say that I really liked this movie. But I also discovered something else. I discovered why it would appeal to my sister. 

She too had, has, true grit. She is a fighter. She always has been.  

I have always been the conciliator in my family, the diplomat. 

I signed the treaties, made the peace; and she fought the wars with guns a'blazin'. Yes, that is she. A real firecracker. Just like Madame Mère.

And I could see how a preteen girl growing up in Texas would find comfort in that book. She must have seen herself reflected, if only a little bit, in the movie.

You see, our childhood, was a very trying time for us. Moving all the time, changing countries, friends, schools, subjects, different cultures etc etc.

We somehow survived it.

As we all do. I envy those people who say they had an idyllic childhood.

Ours was not idyllic. It was adventurous and challenging. It was also interesting, exotic, cultured, and wild. Curious, moving, sad, happy, well, I think it was a lot of things, but for better or worse, it is now over. 

I never gave how we got through it much thought. But today, I got a small clue as to how my sister made it through.

I think this book must have given her strength somehow. It probably gave her a role model, a behavior pattern when faced with adversity.

It is so important to have a role model in life, even if it is only in fiction. 

I remember years ago when I was going through a rough patch, like we all do, I was telling her about it. And to this day I remember her words:"Stick to your guns!"

And at the time, I did. And I think, ever since then, whenever things go topsy turvy, I remember her words. 

I suppose she must have gotten it from Madame Mère, this fighting spirit. The two are so alike. And before you say it, no, I'm not adopted. I look just like my mother. 

And I have no clue where the diplomatic streak comes from since I don't think anyone in my family is particularly diplomatic. But there you go, authorship unknown, but still a fact. 

So I'm really glad I went to see this movie, and I will recommend it to friends to go and see it. It has everything a good movie should have: a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Believable characters, and a plot. 

Weak point? I'm nitpicking here, but the hoopskirts the actresses wear are not believable. From watching hundreds of photographs from the era, I can attest to the fact that crinoline skirts  had a different shape  and the fabric hung  and draped over them differently. 

I know, it is only a movie, but, like I said, it is the only thing that made me go "humm".

Will I go back to see another cowboy flick in the future? No, I don't think so. I may do, but listen, I hated back to the Future part III because of all the XIX century cowboy crap. Like I said, I don't like cowboy movies. 

Lost & Found

AOG, Madrid

This is the first post of January. I've been thinking about it for a long while but, frankly, I have been busy with "stuff" and I figured I just had to get the blog started somehow so as not to do what I did last year which was to leave it alone for months on end. So here goes.

So, what do I have to say for myself on this fine morning?

Well, if I may recap the past 13 days, the year ended in a more boring way than 2009 and at the end of it all, over the holiday season I  realized I'd found some things, and lost some others. 

Some, if you like, I found for a second time, since they had been, if not lost, then certainly misplaced, long ago. 

To celebrate the end of 2010, my partner and I went to the same Bar in Soho we did last year, with two friends of ours who also met with us on that occasion. 

Unfortunately, this time around the premises were was a bore-fest of almost epic proportions.

Why? Perhaps the economic climate had something to do with it. I don't know. But we were all a bit disappointed by the events. Something got lost in the past 364 days inside that place. 

The culmination of the night last year had been the broadcasting on television of the events down by the Thames -Big Ben, fireworks-, as well as the broadcasting of the celebrations around the rest of the planet up to that point. But this year, the bar in question decided to keep the TV off throughout. We all thought they would turn it on closer to the hour of midnight. But nothing. At midnight, all they did was play the Big Ben recording and some music. Anticlimax does not even begin to cover it. We felt like we'd been cheated somehow. I don't think we'll be going there again next year. 

Eventually we went home around 2:30 AM, and, on the first of January 2011 we went to the movies.

I have to say that the only other time I remember going to the movies on January 1st, was back in 1980. And it was nice to remember this. A memory I got back, and for which I am grateful.

We -my family and I- were living in Mexico City at the time, and I still remember that evening.

My mother, my sister and I left home in the evening; it was cold and dark outside, and we took a cab to the movie theater at the Plaza Universidad shopping center. I remember this because we always went there, the first shopping experience of my life. 

The first time I saw that famous Farrah Fawcett poster I was there. 

And my first Levi's and Lee ads, those with the feet and the sand, I was there. 


It was there where I saw my first ever copy of my favorite  late childhood/early teenagehood magazine: Vampirella. 

But back to films. The movie in question? 

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.  It was a movie I could not wait to see.

The next installment of the Spielberg saga, Return of the Jedi, we would watch in Houston, Texas, roughly three years later. 

I remember thinking how exciting it was that the movie theater would be open on such a day, and of how grown up I felt for leaving home on a public holiday. 

And I was over the moon that this movie was out. I think the Star Wars saga is one of the first, if not the first, movie I was anxious to see as a child. There was something about them that mesmerized me back then. 

I don't know quite what it was, perhaps an early form of infantile escapism? I don't know for sure. But I do know that something went on in my psyche back then which, to a large degree, is still with me now.

Childhood was slowly coming to an end, and a new and exciting period of my life was beginning. But, of course, at the time, I knew nothing of this.We never do, do we?

Fast Forward to 2011. My partner and I also decided on a Sci-Fi saga, but of a different caliber: Tron Legacy.

I have to say, the movie is visually spectacular., much like the original was at the time, yes. But the plot is a bit of a turnip, and I can't really say what the movie is about. 

But, of course, the Special FX are amazing and you can watch the movie and listen to the soundtrack on your iPod and not worry about missing the plot. 

The other movie we watched over the holidays was the Spanish animated film Chico & Rita. 




It was drawn by Javier Mariscal, one of Spain's top designers (and responsible for Barcelona's 1992 Olympic logo) and directed by the Spanish Oscar winning director, Fernando Trueba. 

We watched it in Spanish and my personal anecdote of the film is that, whilst listening to the dialogues, I thought to myself that they reminded me of the speech that some of the characters have in Pedro Juan Gutiérrez's novels, such as the King of Havana or Dirty Havana Trilogy.


Imagine my surprise when the movie credits roll and I read his name as the speech consultant on the dialogues! I must admit that Gutiérrez was one of my favorite authors of 2010 and I read both aforementioned novels this past year thanks to a work colleague who introduced him to me.

I was able to distinguish his literary speech style in a film and I was very happy with myself that afternoon and for a few days afterwards.  Certainly, watching the film has made me want to revisit Havana 10 years on.

Perhaps the only sad point of these past few days was the fact that I left one book on the plane. Something I've never done before.

It was a short book on the life and times of Emperor Augustus Caesar. 

I had only just begun to read it, having bought it two weeks before, and was hoping to finish it in a couple of days. 

Yesterday I went to the place where I bought it, a second-hand book store on Santa Catalina's Square, but they didn't have another copy. 

I am thinking about contacting the airport to see if it was turned in by the stewards on the plane. One never knows.

Baby 2010

AOG, Barcelona

A new baby brings with it so many things. So many things I never knew about. Mostly because I've never had a new baby before in my life.

The last time a baby entered my life, I was 3 and a half, and that baby was my sister. And I was just a toddler then, so I recall very little.

Ever since then, the only babies I've had in my life have been sporadic affairs. Friends of friends, or my parent's friends. Mostly it has been children my age, or a bit older/younger. 

But never a baby that was particularly pertinent to me.

But things have changed. Last August, my partner's brother and his wife had a baby. 

Upon our return from Istanbul we went to spend a few days with them at her parent's place just outside of Valladolid. And I was amazed.

Since then, especially this week, I've spent more time with him, and all I can say is that this baby is special. 

Lovely. Amazing. Yes, babies are amazing things. And he is. This baby is just awesome in every way.

I don't normally write like this, but I'm head over heels in love with this little person. I can't help it.

The Earth moves... again

AOG, Madrid

When I was a child, we lived in Mexico City for a few years. Mexico is a country where earthquakes and tremors occur with astounding regularity. Eventually you get used to them....sort of.

I remember my first one. We were then living in a hotel in the Zona Rosa (the Pink zone, Mexico city’s gay neighborhood…and we are talking the late 70s here, how’s that for forward thinking?).

It was early in the morning and I woke up because I could hear the hotel’s walls creak. It was a very odd sound. My mother got up and asked us if we were ok, and to be still. We were, and we did.

I remember I could see the wall see-saw and got a bit scared. Our hotel had about 10 stories, and we lived in the first floor at the time. I remember thinking that if the building collapsed, we were toast.

Then suddenly, it stopped. Within minutes, reception called asking if we were alright. We were. I never forget that first encounter with mother earth.

2 0 0 7

Today, many moons later, the earth shook once again. I woke up this morning with a headache (for some reason, in my family, whenever storms or tremors happen, we get headaches…or so we believe. It could be we get them anyhow, and then things happen?), and within 4 minutes of me just sitting in bed pondering the future of mankind and where my next job will come from, the walls began making a funny sound.

Then my bed was shaking. Not a lot, but enough to freak me out a bit. Then a few things on the edge of my bookshelf fell down. I looked over at the bottle of water I keep by the alarm clock, and the water was moving side to side. I was not imagining it, the earth was trembling. Here I was, living once again in a gay neighborhood (Chueca), and the earth was moving- though this time I live in a studio on the 4th floor, and not in a hotel on the first...gay part is the same though.

The funny thing is, time moved very slowly. I got up and bolted for the nearest door frame, and stood there for a few seconds (Earthquake Safety 101). Then it all stopped. All was calm again.

I switched the television on, and nothing. No news. Radio, nothing. I began to wonder if I had imagined the whole thing. The news were not picking the story up. I then got into one of my mental tirades. “I swear to God if this country ever gets bombed we won’t find out until the next day!!”

Eventually, an hour and 15 minutes later, CNN+ (Spain’s CNN), reports that a small earthquake of around 5.1 on the Richter scale, struck the peninsula and that its epicentre had been on the province of Ciudad Real, South of Madrid.

I haven’t felt an earthquake since I was maybe…10 or 11 years old. Never felt an earthquake in Texas, or London. And I come to Spain, and I am greeted with one.

I wonder what else I haven’t experienced in years I’m about to experience again….

Starting to settle....

AOG, Madrid

Yesterday I was in the north of Spain: San Sebastian. I'd gone over to a Saturday wedding in Bilbao with my other half and we had a free day to tour the Basque country. I have to say, it is the first wedding I attend where, out of 26 tables, 3 of them had two pairs of Marquises, one stand alone Marchioness, and a couple of Viscounts. You have to love Europe for things like that.

Of course, no one introduced the Aristocrats to anyone else and I, 1- made little effort to be introduced and, 2- had little chance to do so anyhow. What I liked best about the whole wedding shindig was being a little more accepted by my other half's friends. A small bond is in the making between them and I. They appear to like me, and I like them back with no appearances. I just do.

And yesterday, instead of staying in rainy, gray and drizzly Bilbao, we droved to rainy, gray and drizzly San Sebastian. Truly, it is a beautiful city. Although renowned in Spain for its culinary excellence, I have to say we were not very lucky with food. It was at best, palatable. I am not a food snob, but I have to say that nothing of note was served to us yesterday. I also saw the new Auditorium & Congress Hall, the Kursaal.

It is a beautiful glass monstrosity by my least favorite Spanish Architect, Rafael Moneo, which lights-up-at-night and has been plonked right in front of an immaculate XIX century boulevard facing the sea, ensuring that the residents who until then had enjoyed a sea view, no longer do so. I am surprised that no one thought of building it further down the sea walk where it meets the mountains and there are no buildings in front. It looks very out of place, and the scale, for a city of punctilious dimensions, makes it look like a baby doll looks like when placed next to a Barbie doll: humongous.



I had been to San Sebastian last (and first) in 1990. I spent an afternoon there with my mother. She told me about her childhood trips and the female bear she used to visit at the local zoo whenever my grandparents took her there. I have yet to see this zoo.

When I got back to Madrid last night, we spoke on the phone. She wanted to know the names of the bride and groom to see if she knew their parents. Somehow her connections to Bilbao tied me a little bit to that place. When I told her we had gone to the Hotel Londres on the beachfront to have a coffee and watch the Wimbledon final she mentioned she remembered it too. She gave me the hotel's full name, which I thought was funny since I too discovered its name once inside. Hotel Londres y de Inglaterra. London and of England Hotel, aka Hotel Londres, full stop. Perhaps the "Inglaterra" is seen as pretentious these days. I don't know, but the Inglaterra bit is not seen anywhere on the hotel's façade.

I have just read a post from a blog I read from time to time. The blog's author, Chris Cope, is American and lives in Wales. And he wants to become a writer.

In fact, he is a writer. I don't know what he has written, aside from a few columns of his I have read online. But he certainly appears to be more of a writer than I. For example...I have yet to acquire a column of my own.

But I do write. Occasionally, weekly, but not yet daily. Here in Madrid, last March, I placed an ad looking for writing buddies. I found three. They are great.

One of them is a teacher. Our writing sessions star and end as discussion sessions and little or no writing is done, but we do set the world right every afternoon. However, once in a while, we do manage to do a few pages. He and I have entered a writing contest for the Spanish Railways Foundation: RENFE. Not to win, just to enter.

The other one, a guy from Chile, is writing a novel set in an office. We meet and discuss the chapters he brings. We have written together maybe once. We also tend to chat a lot of the time.

My third writing buddy is the youngest of the three. From day one, we have always written. We have good writing days and bad writing days. But we write. We give each other praise and comment, and if something is not too good, we also mention it.

I wrote to my sister in Oxford the other day telling her my latest plans and life events as they have occurred. She wrote back:

"It's so so good that you are getting out there doing the things you enjoy like writing and acting. You must enjoy every day of your life and not waste it. It's also good that you are gaining a larger circle of friends. It sounds like you are starting to settle in and make a life in Madrid."

And I was very taken aback by her words: starting to settle. I guess I must be settling in. I just hadn't realized it yet.

This week and last week, I have been cramming for a Spanish television exam. About 18 000 people are applying for 200 jobs. No don't be shocked, this is quite normal in Spain. 1 job= 3 000 applicants. I have had to cancel my acting classes and the writing sessions. Creativity zero.

Except for the blog.

Once the exam is over, I'll start writing again. There is this small Mexican drama developing in my head since March. I have not given it much thought lately, though it grows and grows. In fact, what grows the most is the anxiety of not writing it. Surely a good sign?