Nico gives advice. Hilarity ensues.

Boot, at least, will catch the reference in that title. Lemisia might.

Several weeks ago I went out for coffee with a friend, who was at the time dating not one but two Mexican girls (one of whom knew about it). Buddy, it's people like you taking more than your share that leave some of us short. Anyway, he explained to me the following situation: Girl1, who was not aware of Girl2, saw him and Girl2 dancing at a club and became upset. The next day, which was when we were having coffee, Girl1's friends were engaged in a "find out what's going on" storm of text messages. My friend had to shore up his position. "I know I could smooth this over," he told me, "but I definitely won't get away with anything like that happening again. And Girl1 is kind of dramatic, so this is kind of fun to watch. Advice?"

I thought for a moment.

"Well," I told him, "I used to work for a guy who once cracked open a TV, filled it with gunpowder, and ignited it. Moral of the story: sometimes it's worth losing a TV to watch it explode."

My friend considers this some of the best advice he ever got.

When living here feels good

Before I write up the quick post I brainstormed on my walk over here, I want to comment that this is one of the sadder things I've seen in the news recently. I know it's not proportional, but I didn't know the four boy scouts or half-million Burmese. I mean, I didn't know Tim Russert either, but he still had a small place in my heart.

These are some of my favorite moments:

Walking on the street, I pass a Mexican guide with gawking tourists in tow.
Tour guide: "Up that way is a McDonald's..."
Me (interrupting: "It's actually a Burger King."
Tour guide: "Are you sure?"
Me: "Yes."

Me: "Hi, we ordered a pizza that was supposed to be delivered an hour ago, and we're still waiting."
Pizza Hut: "We tried to deliver it, but that address doesn't exist."
Me: "Yes it does."
Pizza Hut: "Our guy went all over. The house numbers start at 100. There's no house 3."
Me: "I live there."

I love feeling like a native.

Epilogue: An hour and a half later, the Pizza Hut guy met me on the street a block from my house with the pizzas. I showed him where my house was, and he showed me the slip where the address had been printed wrong. Since my host mom ordered, I highly doubt she gave the wrong address, and they do confirm with the phone number, which I know from past experience gives them the right address in their database. I think they forge this stuff to avoid admitting a mistake, and sure enough, I had to pay for the pizza.

Less than three weeks to go

My time here in Mexico is winding down... I can't get my head around it. Rob told us that the two hardest things we'll do this semester/year are get on the plane to come to Mexico and get on the plane to go home. I never really had a problem with coming here... it's just not my style, I guess. And others may (and have) scoff and snicker at the idea that I think I'm (mostly) immune to culture shock, but I have witnesses who concur that I never really had a problem adjusting.

But going home... that's going to be tough. Mexico has become my life. I have evolved and become a different person than I was in the United States. I have made new friends and learned to dislike new people. I have new foods, new routines, new preferences. I have new emotions and opinions and mannerisms. How can I pack all that into a box and bring it home with me? I'm over my luggage limit as it is.

Soon I'll be home with all the friends who were my friends a year ago, and they will expect me to be the same guy they remember. I'm not him. I won't want to do the same things, I won't wear the same clothes, I won't hang out with the same people. I'm afraid it will be like when I go back to Goshen and realize just how bad my life was back then, and how good it is at Manchester. Is Manchester going to be a painful memory too, now that I've had Xalapa?

I like to run away. To leave everything behind. That isn't a problem for me... the problem is going back and seeing the pieces of that old life and not knowing how - or particularly wanting - to pick them up.

Here and now, in these last weeks in Mexico, I'm sort of torn between loving life and hating just about everything that's happening in it. Ironic, huh? I think the downside to this blog being read strictly by people who know me is that I can't write about any of them. If I do that, people will start avoiding me like the preacher on a Friday, and for the same reasons. Yet people are such an intricate part of my life, especially right now.