You see them all over these days.
A lot of them are tall, but wide. Wide is the key. And pasty, as in pasty-white.
Nominally they are either tourists or resident gringos. Either way, they come from outside.
And if you were wondering what is the difference, sir, between tourist gringos and resident gringos, it is that resident gringos don't go home quite so soon. It takes a while to grind through the gloss of glittery newness and for the grit to build up in their shorts.
Then they go home.
After they've given up and decided to blame their despair and fatigue on the place and not on the crabbed and seeping, infected nature of their own expectations.
Which feels like grit in their shorts.
Because it's a place. Here. Here is a place with skies and clouds and sunrises and sunsets and dirt in the streets and stinks and noises like any other place at all and it isn't paradise, not even a little. What it is isn't bad.
That is to say it (here) is Not all that bad for just another place, mostly because it's different from what I'm used to. And there's no snow. And lunch is cheap.
My first thought on arriving was grubby, which was also in my head as I was leaving six months later. Grubby describes it, but is too small a word to cover everything. Me, for example — I fit in there too. You could describe me as grubby, and who would argue? Who?
It's all in your head, after all, and if your head is pointy or flat or spherical or covered in spikes, well I'm certainly not going to come over to get acquainted, even if it is to set you straight.
And besides, I don't care. You don't interest me, not even a tiny amount. I have my own problems to hack at without adding you to the list. You are from outside anyway. Way outside. Outside my circle of giving a flying duck. No — I don't care about you or what you think or where you came from or how much grit you carry in your underpants.
You are as much an alien to me as to the people who were born here and have then lived here forever. You are only strange meat hanging on another odd carcass.
Three heads? You actually have three heads? And you expect what kind of reaction from me? An award? Congratulations? A little gold star? What?
Go away. I'm bored.
By you, of you, with you, at you, and all the rest. I've seen you, all of you, all my life. You are my people. You are my relatives. I know you and I don't care. I'm working on other things now, so come and go as you will and leave me to work at my own work.
Which is mostly trying to pass for someone who isn't totally crazy or stupid or inept, and also who is trying to just enjoy the sunshine.
That's about all I can handle, and if I can keep two of my three heads hidden from view, then mostly I'm still having fun. On my third try at this. Here. At this here.
