Altared States

My favorite time of the year approaches--Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. I wrote "Altared States," a piece about Oaxaca's unique take on the holiday as well as some of the traditions around it. Go Galavanting, an online travel magazine geared toward women, published my article. Here's the link:

Altared States

Freak and Geek

Something I never get used to about living in Oaxaca is how I'm, in essence, a freak. I'm a big tall lady with a big Jewish afro and I'm not, you know, a quiet person. In my most insecure moments, I think every laugh on the street is a laugh at me. But now I've joined a health club and I stand out even more.

I'm the type who gets bright red in the face and sweats when I work out. To the point that people in the U.S. even noticed at times. In Mexico, where many people not only do not seem to sweat, but they also do not appear to mess up their hair or clothes while working out, I feel like a sweathog. Yeah, I'm Vinnie Barbarino or probably Arnold Horseshack and I'm strutting in saying "Hey, Mister Kot-ter," while everyone else comes and goes speaking of Michelangelo.

It's not like I have ever aimed to be cool or anything, but I wouldn't mind the advantage of occasionally being able to keep a low profile.

It hit an all-time low this morning when I went to Pilates. The Spanish instructions had me a half beat behind everyone else. I towered over everyone, all the more apparent with my bright red face. And then they brought out the medicine balls. Is that what they're called? Those giant exercise balls. We were supposed to balance ourselves supine across them in order to lift or stretch or exhale or inhale, but I found myself uncontrollably rolling around the room.

Panic rose in my throat, but I kept one goal in mind: just don't roll over anybody. If I can get through the class without flattening my classmates, I can call it a success. But will I ever go back?

Half as much

I've been busy since school started with serious party-hopping which means many pinatas to be broken. I've also had some great fun hanging with new friends such as Lauren, Sadie and Heather. The upswing in social activities means that we do way less village exploring and it means that we wind up at home between parties rather than out and about.

I'm a Cancer and I like hanging out at home, but something shook me the other day. I was walking out of my Osho meditation gathering and saw a house for rent. The house was on Jacobo Dalevuelta, right next to the house Steve and I rented when we lived here 12 years ago.

All of a sudden, I saw a different life unfold for me, where we lived in the centro as opposed to in a quiet-ish neighborhood. Where we'd be smack between two parks, across from a yoga center and right by a Friday tianguis. It would be the hubbub life, where you step outside your door to see what's going on. Twelve years ago, we would stand on our balcony and listen for the calenda processionals, dashing out to follow the brass band.

I felt myself longing for that version of Oaxaca. But does that version include kids and getting them up to Volcanes for school every day? Crossing bloody Ninos Heroes de Chapultepec--in essence, commuting? It seems silly to commute to take kids to school when Steve and I both work at home full time and enjoy the fact that we can take a back country road to the school and get there in 10 minutes. And that I can walk back in 25, stopping for a cactus smoothie breakfast on my favorite median strip.

I like rituals and checking in with neighborhood people, but I also like ambient buzz. Maybe we don't have enough of that around here?

Then I wondered if the old life I romanticize about includes the ability to have Jenny around. It reminds me of something I said to my grief group therapist a couple years ago, that I lead a second choice life with Jenny gone. I've reconciled that somewhat because I suspect many people don't even get their second choice life.

Then I remembered something Jenny said that I think I blogged about before. My dad once told us, "We Makofskys always have to work twice as hard for half as much." Jenny said, delighted, "Half as much! I love half as much. That's enough."

House of Cultcha

My lovely friend Nina introduced me to the wonders of La Casa de Cultura. Here is one thing Oaxaca's government seems to get right, funding an ornate building with arches around two inner courtyards, with creative arts classes going on in classrooms tucked behind the arches.

I took Max to his Introduction to Theater class there on Sunday, and spent the time listening to violinists practicing, watching ceramicists forming dinosaurs and catching glimpses of children practicing folkloric dances.

The experience made me think about the childhood I'd like Max and Geni to have, growing up pursuing creative endeavors at La Casa de Cultura. At one point, Max caught sight of a boy his age carrying a large canvas with the beginnings of an abstract painting. "That's what I want to do!" he insisted. And chess. And science. And origami. All of it amid the galleries and colonial architecture, the strains of songs and stomping feet, like something out of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel.

Back to School Again

I've got the school supply list for Colegio Teizcali's preschool in front of me, which caused a certain amount of headaches. Here's the list, including some of my bad translations:

1 workbook with small squares
1 workbook with big squares
2 professional notebooks for drawing, each 100 pages
1 double-lined notebook in the style of Italian binding
2 pencils (for writing, not drawing)
2 boxes of wooden colored pencils (24 colors) tagged with name
1 plastic pencil box tagged with name
2 pairs of rounded point scissors
1 "migajon" eraser
1 toothbrush, little cup, two toothpastes with flavor (except mint), tagged
1 comb or brush for hair
1 industrial gray robe with long sleeves (for sale in "Boneterias) or "mandarla hacer") with the name embroidered
2 educational games for the class library (puzzles, blocks, memory, "chalupa" [Ed. note--isn't chalupa a dish at Taco Bell?]
1 box of 24 crayons
1 small towel for hand-cleaning
1 big shoebox with the top covered in ultramine shade paper with her name
For swimming: bathing suit, swim cap in the color indicated by the swim teacher, goggles, sandals, and towel or bathrobe

It makes you tired, doesn't it?

Welcome Back to Teizcali

We've begun our third year at Colegio Teizcali, so you would think we'd start to feel like old pros, but there is still the first day of school nervousness and confusion. The principal, maestro Daniel, sets up a path of flowers for children to follow as they enter school. I was pleased to see Geni chose not to throw herself down on the flowers and succumb to sobbing like she did last year. Instead, she just hid her head in my shoulder.

I was prepared for this year to feel different, like maybe I'd lose a little bit of the wide-eyed newcomer's wonder in things, but nothing beats having the kids at school all day to bring back some of that everything-is-new-again excitement. My walk home, past the bright concrete buildings, hidden gardens, rusty metal signs and women cooking on comals in doorways, was like meeting old friends. I stopped by my juice lady for a cactus smoothie but, due to my slow meanderings, got there only after she had run out. She promised me, "I'll set aside a green one for you tomorrow." Which she did.

I set to spending the day writing like a demon, finishing up an article on telenovelas--soap operas--for Aishti, and a bunch of web writing that wasn't nearly as interesting, all the while kicking myself: never plan a packed work day on the first day the kids are back in school. The first week, really, because you need to be flaky.

Geni's teacher at Colegio Teizcali is Maestra Alma, a teacher so wonderful that Steve was inspired to say, "She just might be as good a teacher as you are." I think she might be better...a bit more patient than I ever was. Max has Maestra Clara, a teacher who earned fame for transforming her classroom into a haunted house last year. We can only hope for such grand permutations this year.

But I believe the highlight of all the changes and the returns this week has to be what happened today. We discovered another neighborhood street market. Nothing pleases me more than a tianguis, an open-air Mexican market that extends for blocks upon blocks.

This market, in the Infonavit neighborhood, had many of the standards--a couple ladies ladling tejate, my favorite drink; booths of piratas or bootleg DVDs and CDs; the newly-popular Indian clothing puestos; croc knockoffs; and Tokidoki-like purses of Japanese cartoon characters. There were a few surprises as well, such as a crepe stand, a manicure booth, a waxing booth, modern paintings, a guy selling exotic leafy plants out of the back of his pickup truck, and a practical joke and magic trick stand.

It was a Fellini movie moment as the man at the magic stand did trick after sleight of hand to advertise his wares. We oohed and aahed and purchased three for Camillo's birthday present, and then Max got a container of moisturizing cream with a fake snake coiled inside, ready to spring up at any sucker who took up Max on his offer of hand cream.

The magician puffed on fake cigarettes packed with talcum powder and I felt the market watching us watch him. Who gets to be this lucky?

Boolean Operators & Pippi Longstocking vs. Ikea

Sometimes I forget how interesting and odd that sister of mine was. Luckily, I have the Barnard Zine Library and Jenna the librarian to remind me. She has just posted Jenny's graphic organizer, "Boolean Operators & Pippi Longstocking vs. Ikea," from an old issue of "Have You Seen the Dog Latley?".

We've both always been very big on Venn.

You Know You're a Sister When

My friend Carole introduced me to a website called The Sister Project. There' a writing exercise on there, where you finish the phrase, "You know you're a sister when..." I like this exercise, because it reminds me that I still get to be a sister, even though Jenny's gone.

when you appropriate her memories, not being able to distinguish if something happened to you or to her.

when you have someone to fill in the blanks of your random associations. I called Jenny once and said, "What is the word I'm trying to remember? The one that the book Me and the Terrible Two was all about?" She didn't have to skip a beat. "Nepotism."

when you don't have to think about what you're saying.

when half your clothes are actually hers, and vice versa.

when you dream about her and all the world of having her comes back to you like it is just there waiting for you, if you could just summon it up at will.

So you think you can dance?

I cannot pay adequate tribute to our 8-day journey from California to Oaxaca, especially since, after we returned home, we all came down with the stomach flu. I blame the bootleg Chuck E. Cheese pizza parlor and arcade off the highway in Puebla.

Puebla, in general, was not good to us. We found ourselves in Friday's late rush hour, stuck at an OXXO (sorta Circle K) essentially giving up. We could not wrangle our way through the mess and the gnarl, so we decided to make the 4-hour drive to Oaxaca on the almost-done tire over the rocky road. And then, like a beacon, the City Xpress hotel popped in front of us. A strip mall. A generic trying-to-be boutique hotel, flanked by a bowling alley and a aforementioned Chuck E. Cheese. Max said, "This is the nicest place we've stayed the whole time." You can take the boy out of the suburbs, but...

Why lead with the low points, though? I could mention the Mazatlan mini-vacay, with a 10pm visit to a quickly disappearing Olas Altas beach as the tide came in. I kept yelling to Max, "Only five more minutes!" but it was truly beautiful. On the way out of Mazatlan, I leaned out the car window and asked a roadside vendor for a bottle of fresh, cold coconut water, which is sold at many busy intersections. Mexican road trip food has it all over U.S. road trip food (except for Poblano pizza).

The definite high point caught me by surprise. We were all cranky over the recent loss of Snuggles, Max's favorite stuffed gorilla that he left in the hotel room in Los Mochis. I suggested we take a half-day vacation from our road trip, and veer off to Guanajuato, a place Steve, Jenny and I used to hang.

It worked. GTO is a city of subterranean streets, tunnels, bridges and cobblestone alleyways, all of which appealed to Max's "I'm lost in a labyrinth" and Geni's "I'm Velma from Scooby Doo" fantasy mentalities. I dragged my kids along to see all the old favorite haunts, and they did not complain. They loved the gardens and crumbling remains of the ex-Hacienda de San Gabriel de Barerra. Max willingly discussed the artwork and its symbolism at the all-Don Quixote museum, one of my little strange treasured places. And they even hung for a 9pm visit to Truco 7, the funky kinda bohemian cafe where we scored blacky purply mole enchiladas. It reminded me why Guanajuato was always our second choice, after Oaxaca.

Coming home to Oaxaca, we're caught in this strange time warp of waiting for school to start but also trying to get better from the stomach bug. I can tell I'm starting to improve, though, because I was researching an article and came across a mention of Bollywood Booty dance fitness, and I got excited, thinking, "I will have a Bollywood Booty." Now that I'm two years into this Oaxaca lifestyle, and perhaps have this freelance for a living thing figured out (knock wood), it's time to focus the year on dancing, I think.

Jenny Makofsky's cartoon "The Beats" on view

One of Jenny's standout ongoing contributions to our old zine 'Have You Seen the Dog Lately?" was her comic "The Beats". The strip followed Bart and Beulah Beat, two beatnik best friends who made observations about philosophy, pop culture and pop tarts, all in beat-speak. Anyway, one of Jenny's best strips, "Post-Monsterism", is now posted on the website of the Barnard Zine Library. Get your "Beats" fix on:

Post-Monsterism

Pacific Northwest Heyday

Welcome to my first blog post as a 42-year-old. It is not the highpoint of my trip al norte, what with it being 3am and my balancing my laptop on my knees as I type in the bathroom of the Medford Motel 6. But the past week in the Pacific Northwest has held many highlights:

*Stopping at Granzella's free olive bar on the way up
*Eggplant burger at Gepetto's in Ashland
*Berry-picking at Sauvie Island
*Walking Alberta Street
*Hanging with Jen and meeting baby Marley at Wilshire Park
*Dancing at the NIA studio with Megs
*Playing in the water area at the Children's Museum with Max and Geni
*Aladdin's twice for veggie Mediterranean
*The all green paintings show at the vegan shoe store
*Singing "The Night Chicago Died" in honor of Jenny at The Alibi Tiki Lounge with Mary Lou and Meg
*The Stella meet and greet for Max
*Playing Frogger at Ground Kontrol with Steve, Max, Geni and Meg
*Powell's with my mom, Steve and the kids
*Seeing J.R.'s new paintings
*Hiking to the top of Multnomah Falls with Max
*Chilling for four hours in Alberta Park, watching Max and Geni swim and make friends
*Indian sides and talking love, sex, marriage and babies with the Stephanies
*Explaining to my friend why she might want to have sex with her boyfriend before breaking up with him
*The water and light show at the Enchanted Forest
*To come: a morning playing in Lithia Park along the creek

Go Moto

One of the advantages of our strange location in Oaxaca (not quite in the center of things, not officially the municipality of Oaxaca) is that we live near moto-taxi country. Motos run on the back roads only, because taxistas have licenses for the main roads.

A typical moto consists of a motorcycle front with a little roofed cart attached to the back. Usually no doors. The windshield sports a nickname, possibly quite descriptive and sometimes in English, such as the man with the "Night of the 1,000 Loves" moto-taxi last week who asked for a Spanish translation of the nickname and then laughed delightedly.

When the car is broken (often), we grab a moto to get the kids to school, joining the legions of mommies and daddies hauling babies, backpacks and market bags into these lightweight taxis.

Paying for a moto is a fixed price affair, 5 pesos per person, although you never know what happens with kids. Some throw in the nena for free and others go for half price.

Since the motos have to stick to a pretty defined, limited area, the routes do not vary widely. I used to go into a long description of where Colegio Teizcali was located before a friend was kind enough to point out that all I have to tell the moto-taxista is that I want to go to "la posta", which, I believe, is the large post located on a corner across from the school. To get back home, rather than awkwardly trying to pronounce Rio Quiyotepec and then trying to direct us there, all I have to say is "a la antenna", which is a giant antenna structure two blocks from our house.

Moto-taxistas are big on swerving. They like to turn off the engine and coast down hills. They hook up CD players, Ipods and flashing lights to pimp their rides. They are often young, maybe pre-driving age, and there is a healthy portion of women operating them.

When we ride moto-taxis, my kids become puppies with their tongues flying out of their mouths in the open breeze. Every bump, ditch and turn is up for speculation--will we make it?--and conversation--we made it! Graffiti is brighter, the air a little less diesel-tinged and the markets something to avoid rather than to dive into. Whenever we take a moto up to Colegio Teizcali, the kids tumble out laughing and thrilled, like we just got off a roller coaster. And me, the one gripping onto Geni to keep her from jumping for joy, holding the backpacks between my knees so they don't get lost as we sail over a speed bump, trying to grab onto the driver's unbolted seat to hold us all in place, I love it all dearly, too.

Post Mastectomy Alternative Clothing

It has been a hell of a two years since my mastectomy, weighted down with a heavy silicone prosthesis and one of those very modest bras meant to hide the slightest hint that you ever had surgery but that show when I wear the slightest v-neck, scoop neck or skinny strap tank top.

Because these sturdy, practical items are in need of replacing, I've started doing some online research to find alternatives to the very modest, cover-it-all-up options for post-mastectomy patients.

I'm extremely happy to share a blog entry I found, addressing my challenge:

Post Mastectomy Supplies by Hester Hill Schnipper.

She talks about various options, and links to a wonderful website called BreastFree.

BreastFree, in turn, links to many places to order lighter, different breast forms, cool tank tops, and all sorts of stuff.

I wanted to share this information in case anyone else out there is searching for new options.

Super Seco

New dimensions of Oaxaca have been revealing themselves to me lately. Firstly, there's the wonderful ecstatic dance experience I've discovered at Casa del Angel yoga center. It's called Osho Moving Meditation, I believe, and it combines manic, freeform, barefoot dancing to live drumming with sudden, absolute stillness. It reminds me of the great Freeze Dance game you play with preschoolers, or that old statues game I can never quite remember all the rules for that I used to play with friends in the backyard at Vestal, New York.

I finally hit the other "big" organic-y natural market in Oaxaca, at the old railroad station. It's very lovely to see a market under the old signposts and waiting area for trains to arrive. I wish there was still a railroad system here. Our friend told us he and his girlfriend used to take the sleeper train to Mexico City, which included dinner served in the dining car and foldaway beds. Deluxe! The market itself was small, but there was a vendor selling organic seeds so I have now sourced the beginnings of our organic rooftop garden. And I also found a woman preparing fresh blue corn tortillas to make wild mountain mushroom tacos.

We also finally ventured to Atzompa, spurred by the incredible pottery show we saw at the State Folk Art Museum in San Bartolo Coyotepec. The pottery here is glazed, unlike pieces in other villages around Oaxaca, and it is phenomenally, shockingly cheap. We came home with a trunk load of plates, bowls, planters, garden boxes and dishes for catching water overflow, and we spent under 50 dollars.

My dad comes for a visit soon, and I'm already beginning a mental list of the places we'll go. Yes, of course, Italian Coffee Company, Oaxaca's version of Starbucks, my dad just can't stay away. And there will be the everyday things, too, like coming to Max's final presentation at school and his 8th (8th!) birthday party at Poing Poing, the super doble fiesta de Max y Inoa. Super-seco! With a Madagascar theme, in honor of gender neutrality.

But just in case you thinks it's all organic honey and bougainvillea over here, take heart: our new rooftop patio is sporting a split beam, the key supporting beam, and sagging dangerously. The connecting pipes in our water catchment system has fallen down due to, well, rain.

Imagined Birthday

Felicidades, Jenny, you would have been 40 today. I'm trying to conjure up what you might say or think about it. You'd wear a great shirt or some killer black boots, and your sparkly hair clips. You would meet Megan and I at Cafe Royal, which I don't think exists in the exact same form anymore. You would have a nonfat latte, no cinnamon, and a croissant. We'd try to get the couches.

Meg and I would force you to open your gifts and exclaim over each bit of wrapping paper, sticker-covered gift tag and contents within, most likely having to do with art, craft, kawaii, folklore or an inside joke. We'd talk about work, passerby, Max, our families, guys, movies, books, zines, politics and plans, always plans. It'd be the season of the fun list, after all, where we comprised goals for summer diversions, like having a gourmet picnic during Shakespeare in the Park, or stenciling up a neighborhood with a secret slogan.

Then we'd rush off to our various corners of the universe, but you'd have a day full of celebrations. People, maybe the Eating Club, taking you to lunch or dinner, preferably for something ethnic and spicy chased with some fried plantains. You might hit a movie or a cafe, or people might expect you to come to their houses and grace them with your presence. The party would go late, and then you'd come home and tell me the details and show me the goods.

If you were in Oaxaca with me, we'd have started the day with the kids tackling you in bed. You could have joined us in mango for breakfast and a mototaxi ride up the mountain to school, where each bump merits a laugh or speculation over whether we can make it. We could have walked home, commenting on the stellar banana plant in blossom or the vintage rusted Wonder Bread sign hanging by the Walkway of the Secretaries. We could hit Cafe Cafe for organic cappuccinos and pan dulce and then go to a museum. Or we could hike to the waterfall in San Felipe. For comida, I'd take you to La Biznaga for cocktails and salmon or shrimp in tamarind mole. Your gifts would be artesania from the villages or daily items from Abastos.

We would sing old pop songs and old-timey tunes loudly, off key.

Can I summon up this day for you, and you for this day? Because 40 is something special, I think. xoxo

Do something brave

It's three days until Jenny's 40th birthday, and I find it only fitting that I'm reflecting on what Hilair told me she does to remain inspired by Jenny: do something brave.

There are a million small moments of bravery, I think, like when Max told me he was ashamed that I mentioned my mastectomy to Liz, a parent at the school who works for a gynecologist and knew where I could find a new prosthesis in Oaxaca. I told Max he could be proud of me for fighting cancer, but my insides wanted to cry when he said that to me. Maybe the bravest thing is to reflect on what happened to me nearly two years ago, because I don't let myself think about it, read about it or even look too closely in the mirror.

Another type of bravery, I think, is meeting new people. We spent the weekend visiting the houses of new friends. On Saturday, it was Miguel, Rosa and Kobe for an afternoon talking about art, writing, children, gardens and books. Rosa shared a story about how, years ago, she was sitting in the zocalo when she was approached by a man. He said he was a painter and asked if she would model for him. She agreed. The painter turned out to the maestro Rodolfo Morales, and the painting was the famous huge mural in the municipal palace. In the painting, she is making some kind of offering.

On Sunday, we spent the afternoon at the home of Sadie, Anthony and Jasper. Sadie made a delish Puertoriqueno lasagne, with plantain stuffed inside. We sat on the porch and watched the children play and sing and, in Geni's case, sometimes pee, and it seemed to unfold like a beautiful (if flawed by occasional reminders of body functions) movie. We talked about compost and travel, painting and families. The world continues to offer up fascinating people to meet.

I'll be seeking out something symbolic to do or to connect with in the next few days. I'm struggling over this, foundering over what it should be, maybe something to do with art or some kind of happening. I will have to be somewhere and be receptive so I know that it's right for Jenny and me.

Get on the life rollercoaster

A day of ups and downs. It began with Geni's teacher encouraging me to come to flag ceremony to see Geni in action, marching to the patriotic song. I show up, only to see Geni firmly placed on the sidelines, not participating, while her classmates march and sing. I felt bad for her, even though she was happily playing with her shoe, because I worry about her being left out of things. She's behind in language and in her motor skills, and I perceived that the teacher might find it easier not to include her. I walked home feeling down, but found my newest green juice lady, which generated some cheer.

I got home and finished my article on Japanese artist Kenichi Yokono for Hi-Fructose, which was a blast. Then, I found out my tutorial "How to Make Out with Pop Rocks" got published, albeit not where I had hoped (I wanted it on Cracked.com, but it's on eHow). Here's the link so that you, too, can start making out with pop rocks.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5024347_make-out-pop-rocks.html

It's actually quite informative, I assure you.

Then, we got to take Geni to the early childhood stimulation center, if that's how it translates to English. This was her first appointment. The psychologist is hoping that she can boost Geni's motor and language skills via her method of rehabilitation. Geni loved the session, and will continue going three times a week.

So Geni's happy, but I can't get over this possible snub. I tried removing myself from the emotion of it, to look just at the pure series of events, but it still seems like she was excluded. She loves Colegio Teizcali, to the point where she waits at the door every morning with her backpack in hand, asking "Maestra? Maestra?" She runs into her classroom without looking back. This is what I tell myself: This is what matters. Her perception of events are more important than mine here, right?

I needn't live her pain when she has had no pain but, the crux of it is, if she's can't express herself to me, how will I know the depth of her feelings? I remember a mother posting on a forum about her silent child. She said, "I long to know his inner world."

We Need a Pitcher Not a Belly Itcher

I have been feeling way too dependent upon my weekly writing gig, which offers tons of work at mediocre pay. So, I've been trying to branch out.

I do the usual, applying cold through ads, putting in some bids, writing notes to my contacts, but I avoid writing pitches, and I can't figure out why. I have a list of good magazines to pitch, and a ton of ideas, but I've become lazy, I think, with all the work, and the idea of going through the whole pitch-and-get-rejected process seems insurmountable.

I'm stuck in this syndrome of writing for short-term goals, but not looking at the long-term and broadening my client base.

Two months ago, I was on the beach, and found this man selling extraordinary paintings on the street. I interviewed him on the spot, bought a handful of paintings--he was the ideal outsider, visionary artist, taking a traditional Mexican art form and completely reinterpreting it with his visions. His work just jumped out at me, and I wasn't the only one. As I talked to him, almost everyone who passed by stopped to take a look at his work. I took a bunch of pictures and knew I had a story. I assembled a list of alternative art magazines, but the pitch drifts somewhere out of reach. How can that art and the potential article about it keep me up all night with excitement and, by day, elude me because I don't want to write the pitch?

The good news is that I've garnered some excellent gigs in the past couple days, including a quick tutorial on "How to Make Out with Pop Rocks Involved", a review of an art show inspired by monster movies and, my favorite, a piece on Stacy and Clinton of "What Not to Wear". Pop culture paradise.

Somewhere, in here, is a lesson for me, but I'm not ready to learn it.

The Mathematics of Laundry

With four people in the house, including a grubby preschooler, we have to do a load of laundry about every other day. Laundry in Mexico is interesting, at least my version, because we have no dryer, so everything goes on the clothesline for my over-analysis of whether it has been cleaned to a worthwhile state.

And I am the only one who does laundry--the sole portal through which all filth must pass, which drives me to some puzzling conclusions about what happens with laundry.

I'm not talking about the lost sock syndrome over which so much has been written. It's everything else that winds up on the clothesline. Like the other day, after hanging it all up, I tried adding it all up. Why was it that Genevieve's only piece of clothing drying on the line was her giant green tank top that she wears as a mini-dress, accompanied by eight pairs of underpants? Am I to believe that, over the course of two days, all she wore was a saggy tank top and four pairs of underpants per day? It seems unlikely and uncomfortable.

Then there's Steve who, in this hot weather, seems to enjoy wearing two or three black T-shirts per day, no pants, and an extraordinary number of socks that I do not even bother to match up.

Max is more predictable. Lots and lots of pajamas and shorts, but no shirts. I know his habits, loving to jump into pjs as soon as possible, alternating from this routine only to wrench on his too-small Ninja costume to see if it has magically enlarged to accommodate him in the past week. He, too, seems to wear a lot of underpants, if the clothesline tells no lies.

This is what I am left to wonder, is if the clothesline is just an abstract symbol, representing the chaos theory of our weekly lives, whittled down to the essentials, the socks, the underpants, whereas the embellishments, the hand-knit sweater great grandma made in the sixties, the light-as-dandelion-spores shirt I bought in the market, get sucked into the black hole of the laundry that will never be washed, never worn again. My dirty laundry broadcasts my failures--no, that's too strong of a word--my never-realized intentions. But maybe that's okay? I mean, it's just laundry.

Expat Paranoia Syndrome

Well, Colegio Teizcali and every other primary school in Mexico has been closed for a couple weeks now, and this may be the cause of my sense of reason tipping.

It was set off a couple nights ago when we got a random phone call at midnight. The phone rang and then beeped, indicating there was an urgent message. This unto itself was strange because very few people know our cell phone number, even fewer people use it, and no one calls us a midnight.

I checked the message and it was a man stating my full name, a long list of letters and numbers (beginning with T-H)and a message that I could not make out, not a word of it, for the life of me. I listened about seven more times, jotting down the random letters and numbers. I caught the word "urgent" and I thought I heard the word "vehicle". There was an address and an insistence that we show up to withdraw ("retirar") something.

I am not a worrier, but my heart was pounding in my ears. I ran upstairs to our terrace shouting, "I think our car's been stolen", but there it was, sitting on the street.

And here is where Expat Paranoia Syndrome sets in. Because I live in a foreign country where a certain amount of daily life remains incomprehensible to me, my mind leaped to many unrealistic conclusions. Someone was about to steal our car! It was a warning.

And then my mind wandered to kidnapping. We had to withdraw money from the branch ("sucursal", they said) because they had our kids. But they didn't, our kids were in the house, asleep. Or were they? I checked. They were. But how long would they be there, snug in their beds? I had Steve check all the locks.

Who knew my full name, my cell phone number, and wanted me to withdraw something urgently? Was someone following my wanderings from Colegio Teizcali down to the Volcanes Friday market, to the cactus juice lady on Martyrs of Cananea Street by the Elvis Tortillas shop and then to my bank? I am a creature of habit, I know, and my rituals are downright predictable to the minute, I suspect.

I laid awake feeling like I was in the movie I had just seen that evening "Get Shorty". You never know when a gangster or a mob boss or an investor and his bodyguard might slip into your living room and turn on "David Letterman", do you? And, in a foreign country, with a message I didn't understand, and no working knowledge of how to call the police via my cell phone (or even knowing if police in Oaxaca are a good thing to call, when most evidence points to the contrary), I felt the only solution was to stay awake and ruminate.

In the morning, I stopped the guy that was delivering water to our house. I handed him my cell phone and asked him to listen to the message, that it was urgent and I was worried. He looked at me seriously, listened for a minute and said, "It's DHL. They have a package for you. You need to withdraw it from their branch."

And, you see, this is why Expat Paranoia Syndrome is so insidious. Because, as far-fetched as my midnight wonderings were, it is also ridiculous that a DHL employee would call me at midnight and leave an urgent message to pick up a magazine.