Night Moves

I looked around my apartment/office yesterday. I was alone, and searching for a kitten that I'm kitten-sitting, and which hides all day under either the couch or my bed. Or behind the suitcases next to Luke's desk or on Liz's chair. Or in the bodega surrounded by Becca and Katie's (her mommies) stuff. Or anywhere really, that is nowhere near me. Because the cat hates me.

She hates me so much that she waits until I am mid-way through a beautiful dream - where I am a lonely back-up singer for a faceless, guitar-playing gentlemen named Jack Crawford, who one day sees my latent talent for pitch-perfect harmonies as exactly what he needs to bring focus to his next album and we form an indie music duo, fall in love, develop a dedicated cult following and refuse to go mainstream; just as we begin playing our intimate farewell concert at the Great American Music Hall to an emotional crowd (so that we can retire and I can begin my second career as a private detective)- to curl her little paw into a little fist, and punch me in the nose until I wake up. It is 4am.

It's like she can sense that I have a dog preference, or that when I see her little food bowl in my room I flash forward 10 years and I'm changing some other cats food bowl and cursing the day I let the first cat into my life. Why is it only ok to be single and have a dog?

She was a street cat, rescued and nursed back to life. She's had a hard life, and she's in a new place, with lots of traffic noise and weird gringo volunteers coming in to use the bathroom. Why don't I feel more for her? Am I as cold and heartless as so many believe? Or are cats just ridiculously creepy?

Vive LaKeaneo!

The Vive Latino music festival, held in Santiago's Club Hipico (its a racetrack) on Sunday was my first concert since I moved to Chile. I can't believe it, really, since I used to see live music once a week when I lived in New York, and it isn't like they don't have any here. Just poor prioritizing, I guess.

In our usual form, we only caught the last four hours of the 12 hour festival thanks to an unfortunate map-reading blunder and my tendency to ignore everything that anyone says to me in the street, even if it is directions to Club Hipico. Its a defense mechanism, really.

I was familiar with some of the bands in the 22-strong line-up, and was happy to be introduced to Los Jaivas and Vicentico (formerly of the Los Fabulosos Cadillacs...if you don't know the song "Vamos a Bailar Toda la Noche" you should). It was also just nice to be outside; as the weather gets colder this will happen less and less.

But of course, there was a lot of random weirdness. For example: The fest was sponsored by Cristal. I love me some Cristal, because there is a giant billboard (which lights up in happiness, and shows the time and temperature) on the roof of my buiding, and because they make beer in green, red and black flavors, which is awesome. The whole park was filled with giant inflatable Cristal cans, tempting and teasing me. But there was no Cristal to be had. Actually, after 8pm there was no anything to be consumed, and people lined up around random water spickets to hydrate.

The other thing was...Keane. They were the closing band, drawing the biggest crowd. I have nothing against Keane, and as it turns out they were successful in Chile before they even broke out in the States....but at a Vive Latino festival? Really? Que raro, po!

Aquí Estamos

I'm letting this speak for itself....

Always the Best Friend, Never the Bride

The title of this post is this short story that I'm working on, which is very self-effacing and dramatic. I was going to post a excerpt of it, just to have it out there so in the hopes that I might get some feedback and get over my fear of ever having anyone read my work. Since I've been selling writing now, I'm going to have to get used to people actually publishing it. But I digress. I've decided not to publish said short story excerpt, for now, because many more people read this blog than I thought (I'm tracking you all, pts)...and I'm simply not ready for this kind of committment.