Righteous Glen

Anyway I didn’t actually disappear. I had to ask them what happened because I couldn’t tell myself. There was no way to tell if I was real or not.

I’ve been so anxious about my life here. I keep asking myself what’s next. What am I doing here? 

On Thursday I woke up surprised the peso rose to 34 to the dollar. Obvious bad news. Then, as I was sitting reading through a class that never showed up, another student came in to tell me it reached 41 pesos in the course of the next hour. Everyone’s salary was just cut by 30% or something.

I’m not good with numbers, but I know it meant saving to come home or whatever, became even more difficult.

I went to see Animal Collective that night which was a bit of a release. Their show felt like a holistic cleansing. It felt like a sacred ritual I returned to for the first time in years. After the show I stepped out into the brisk night to say goodbye to friends and I find my bus stop. I don’t take screenshots of Google Maps nor remember all that well the names of streets, so coming home from different parts of the city always feels like a small adventure; especially alone and high.

The following night I made myself a drink with the rest of the pisco I received on my birthday, welcomed Kike back home, and took off to meet Areeb somewhere in Palermo. I had this toxic energy to keep moving. It was done only to prove to myself that I could do it. To my own surprise, I found Areeb at after party on the roof of some bar I had to wait until the door was opened to me and convince one of the bartenders closing in broken Spanish that I belonged there. Areeb and I agreed to buy a couple bags of coke because ecstasy was out of the question. Thinking back on it, it was the only I wanted to go out: to get fucked up and meet new people.

It was just ok. I mean, for the first few minutes after every bump I felt good but the rest of the night I felt like I had to justify being out until 8 in morning. Areeb usually carries the energy for any group but tonight I had to act on my own, which I did. Areeb left fairly early so I stayed back with two of my Venezuelan friends who don’t speak English, if barely. Again, challenging myself with this kind of environment was the point. 

The whole experience was a challenge. Just to listen to other people, which usually comes so easy to me, was exhausting. But it got easier, at least one on one with someone. These two guys, these brothers, are something extraordinary. I found myself humbled by their stories. They’re here working, getting fucked up, sharing with me horrifying stories from the streets of Venezuela, how their aunt and parts of their family are living outside of Miami - paradise. 

I met another Yankee that night from Florida as well. His story was altogether different. He was on an impromptu vacation while his boss was away, traveling through parts of South America on the long weekend. He was an engineer or worked in tech or something. I just got the impression he had a comfortable, if boring, living situation because he repeated how badly he wanted to move out of Florida. What struck me was when he was speaking with Areeb about their work and neither one of them could name or place exactly whom or what they worked under. They were at the bottom of some hierarchy with a comfortable salary the idea of which filled me with an unusual mix of disgust at my own lack of purpose and position within a defined career and gratefulness for still retaining something of my independence. 

On this Valentines Day I sat in front of Twitter with a plate of food and read about 17 more kids being shot to death in a highschool. 

Inspired by a Dan Harmon tweet about depression and my girlfriend’s breakdown last night as the two of us laid under a noisy fan in complete darkness, i put it to myself to write something, anything, today.