http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com Nick and Nooshin spend a year in Mexico Sun, 27 Apr 2008 01:14:29 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I came out of rural Iowa like a bullet from a gun. I was done with Worth County High School, reached after five hundred years on the bus. I was done with all 43 members of the Class of 1999, including my ex-girlfriend Ruthie Krenzel who was done ... http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2008/04/15/restraining-order/ The coastal highway isn't living up to its name yet. I'm still landlocked in these winding lanes of asphalt. Around me is a blurring tedium of truck traffic and road signs in Spanish and little crosses that memorialize the victims of fatal accidents. 12 hours of driving ... http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2008/04/14/midnight-something/ This wing of the Mayo Clinic is a bright malignant spaceship manned by aliens in face shields and surgical gowns and puffy bootie-feet. All the doorways are disturbingly wide, and inside them are machines pumping stuff in and out of prostrate victims. Every door that isn't open is ... http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2008/04/13/the-long-run-on-sentence-that-nobody-bothered-to-read/ If I could do it all over again, I'd tell Nick sorry, forget it, I'm staying here forever. I don't care if I give birth on the air mattress on Inez's mom's floor. Anything is better than risking the traffic of Mexico City. It wasn't bad an ... http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2008/04/12/the-worst-driving-in-the-world/ The world is beveled with rain, an angular downpour that slants under the terminal canopy, grasping wetly at my cargo pants and hiking boots. I stand there indifferently, gazing into the headlights that slow and pause and speed up again. Beside me is a businesswoman in a black ... http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2008/04/11/pilgrimage/ I'm leaning over the tiny balcony that juts from the apartment building's facade, basking in another warm Mexico City night. The railing presses comfortably against my pregnant stomach, taking some of the weight. Traffic is ebbing tiredly through the cobblestone street below. Teenage girls flash teeth and ... http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2008/04/10/ill-never-be-alone-again/ I'm the last passenger to board the plane, banging down the aisle and sweating angrily under my UCLA t-shirt and cargo pants. I just finished sprinting through Mexico City International Airport, a surprisingly plush obstacle course of queues and ticket counters and armed security checkpoints and terminal corridors that ... http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2008/04/09/bound-for-america/ Lost. I'm lost in Mexico City. The kind of lost that seems almost existential, like God is having a bad hair day and taking it out on me. Because really, how else do I explain getting lost when the stupid cab dropped me off right in front ... http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2008/04/08/lost-in-mexico-city/ Things I Love About Mexico City is a very short list, but here's something right near the top -- even in this gargantuan frenzied dystopia, you stumble across pockets of unexpected beauty and calm. And I'm not talking about the well-known retreats, like the lush glades of the Bosque ... http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2008/04/07/saint-hispanic-barbie/ The father of my child is drunk. At 11:37 AM, according to the slanty digits of my runner's watch. On a Sunday, with church bells pealing through the smog, a holy appeal to the vast and overwhelmingly Christian population of Mexico City. Not that Nick cares about the religious implications. ... http://mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2008/04/06/la-casa-cultura/