Interlude
Kate sipped at her latte, staring out the window. The sun reflected off the building across the street, blinding her. She enjoyed the brilliance for eleven seconds (she counted) before turning and looking in the other direction.
That young woman was at the café, like usual. She came every day—she and the café owner were involved in a romance. Or so it seemed to Kate. Their body language gave them away. This afternoon, she had her cute little boy with her.
Kate smiled at the little boy, who made faces at her as he ate a croissant and swung his feet, and then returned her attention to her computer. She had a blog to hatch.
She began to type, but then deleted the words. She tapped out some more words. Pausing, she looked at them, lips pursed. After a moment, she shook her head and deleted them too.
The man across from her leaned into her field of vision. "Are you okay?"
She blinked at him. "Don't I look okay?"
"You look like you're in pain."
She thought about that for four seconds (she counted that too) before nodding. "That's a fair assessment."
"Are you doing homework?"
"I didn't do homework when I was in school. Why would I do it now?"
"I don't know. You look studious."
Kate pointed at his laptop. "Are you doing homework?"
"I'm on Facebook. Is that what you're doing?"
"No, I'm working."
"What are you working on?"
"Why all these questions?" she countered suspiciously.
"I'm doing a survey of what people do in cafés."
"Liar."
"It could be true." He shrugged. "Are you going to tell me what you do?"
"I'm a romance author."
"Liar." His brow furrowed. "Wait. Are you lying?"
"It could be true." She shot him a Mona Lisa smile and returned to her blog. She knew exactly what she was going to write about now.
Snapshots in Time
I'm at the Readers Cafe, a.k.a. my office.
A digression: I love the Readers Cafe. The baristas awesome, they make excellent lattes, AND it's attached to the public library's bookstore. Ergo, there are books everywhere. You gotta love that.
Anyway, I should be working on the chapter where my heroine gets ambushed by baddies, but instead I'm staring dumbly at Tucker, my on-the-go writing companion, who decided to take the day off. I've tried to talk him into working for just a little while, but no go.
So I'm kicking it old school—pen and paper. And instead of writing my chapter, I'm observing what's going on around me and taking mental (and literal) snapshots.
Kyle, the barista, is wearing a teal T-shirt. His shoes match, and he has a pink water bottle.
A stylish little girl in glasses hovers near my table, staring at me. She seems fascinated by my writing, or else she's fantasizing about making me over. I hope she moves along soon—she's creeping me out.
That man has a bicycle helmet (gray) on his head and a fluffy dog hanging in front of him, in a doggy version of the Baby Bjorn. He's hovering near me as well. Too close, dude. Back off just a little, please.
At the counter sits a young woman in four-inch wedges and a tiny strapless dress. Her shawl is leopard print.
Just wandering in: a band of tourists. Why do tourists always look lost?
Oh my God—the helmet-headed-man was just joined by, assumably, his wife. Shockingly, she wears a bicycle helmet (white) and also has a dog strapped to her chest. Her dog is wearing a pink sweater.
If I could, I would steal one of those dogs for my sister. She has a strange affection for those rat-looking creatures.
A man trails after his girlfriend, saying, "I guess you can read here." She ignores him and forges ahead toward the bookstore.
I love my shoes.
Another man makes googly eyes at a stroller. I imagine there's a baby in there, though I can't see it.
She drops her fork. When she reaches to pick it up, I see that she's wearing purple from to bow in her hair to the ballet flats on her feet. What makes a middle-aged woman wear unrelieved purple? Maybe she's a big Prince fan too.
Who was the 24th horse, that he deserved his own book? And why weren't the other 23 horses important?
A provocative place, don't you think? I'm still wondering about the horses too...
In a New York State of Mind
A lot happened last week. Unfortunately for you, I'm not ready to talk about a lot of it. Also unfortunately for you, I'm in the mood to do one of my awesome photojournalistic blogs.
My original topic was one so obscure some of you would have gone away, scratching your head and wondering if I'd finally gone off the deep end. But I'm going to save that for another day and instead tell you about some of my adventures in New York.
As most of you know, I'm visiting my sister Parisa. This is the two of us in her kitchen:
Parisa, of course, is the one on the left. She's fond of telling people she's the cute one. I just humor her.
Because I suddenly have more work than any sane person would agree to do, I've been hanging out in a lot of cafés. The café culture is different in New York than on the West Coast. People go to cafés to socialize, not work. I know—it's the strangest thing ever. A lot of cafés frown upon laptops even.
But there are a few choice ones that people use as their office-away-from-office. One of them is the B-Cup in the East Village:
One of my sister's friends saw Julia Stiles hanging out at the B-Cup. I haven't seen her yet. The cute Israeli boys who work here are especially friendly.
Speaking of working... My agent and I have had a number of meetings with industry folk. One of our meetings took place in a chocolatier. As we left, among the chocolate-covered Cheerios and Easter baskets, we spied Peeps dressed in chocolate tuxedos. When I (foolishly) let it slip that I'd never eaten a Peep, my agent decided that it had to be remedied. And documented...
My hands shook from the sugar for hours. I also realized that my agent has serious sales skills, if she can get me to eat fluffy marshmallow crap.
I was at the MOMA with a friend, looking at an exhibit of live naked people hanging on the wall (seriously) when suddenly he asked me if I'd ever had a true New York deli experience. I hadn't, and he felt compelled to fix that. So we ended up sharing a reuben at the Carnegie Deli, apparently the most famous deli in town:
Yeah, that disgusting looking pile of goop was the reuben, hence the reason we shared one. Actually, we shared less than half. I've been eating leftover pastrami for days now. I've never seen sandwiches the size of what they served there. It was obscene. Also obscene were the slices of cake. No, I didn't have one, but I may have to go back to try.
The next photo is of a friend, who came into the city to hang out one afternoon. However, you're going to have to imagine the picture because I forgot to take it. Duh. It's too bad, because we had a cupcake orgy in the park.
Stay tuned for another week, when I may or may not have pictures of the Hachette offices, the Doughnut Plant, tangoing, Culture Espresso Bar, and the firemen at the grocery store.
New Year's Adventure
I had vowed I would never go to Café Tortoni.
Why? It's the most famous café in town¹, ergo a tourist trap. Tortoni is the type of place where they dump busloads of Americans for an expensive, mediocre lunch. The first day I was here in Buenos Aires, I could feel the rip-off vibe as I walked by it. Plus the people manning the front looked belligerent, as only those who deal with tourists all day do.
But I broke my vow.
On New Year's Eve, I opted to walk down to the waterfront area, mostly because I miss the ocean, and the river is the closest thing I have. I sat on a bench and watched the young and drunk saunter by, marveling at the women in their super short skirts and four-inch heels. On cobblestone no less—ouch.
A little before midnight I left to walk back home—it was cold (around 75F) and the walk was long. It struck midnight as I reached Avenida de Mayo, a main thoroughfare.
There were very few people on the street², so the two guys loitering outside the closed-for-new-years Café Tortoni stood out. I smiled at them and wished them a feliz años. Conversation ensued. Then one thing led to another, and they invited me into the café to help them celebrate the new year.
Lukas opened a bottle of Chandon, and Ricardo broke out the alfajores. Champagne and alfajores are heaven separately, but together they transcend.
We sat around a small table, happily sipping and nibbling. Conversation flowed late into the night³. If you knew how limited my Castallano is, you'd know how amazing that was.
I couldn't have planned a better New Year. I couldn't have asked for a better way to kick off what's going to be the best year ever.
¹ Café Tortoni first opened in 1858. A lot of famous people have gone their over the years, including Carlos Gardel, Albert Einstein, Hillary Clinton, and me. I bet Hillary didn't have a private New Years Eve party there in her honor though.
If you're really interested in its history, check out Wikipedia.
² When I walked out of the house on New Years Eve, there was hardly anyone on the street—people or cars. Everything was closed also, including all the cafés and restaurants. It was the strangest thing ever. I felt like the entire city went underground. Or that there was a secret party but no one had bothered to invite me.
But once midnight struck, people poured into the streets, cabs and buses began running again, and general Buenos Airean insanity continued as normal.
³ Topics ranged from travel to writing to what great boyfriends Argentinos made.
Sunday, Lovely Sunday
Everyone's been emailing me, asking for pictures. So... photojournalistic essay time!
Really I'm killing a few birds (so to speak) and giving people what they want. Some of you will be able to live vicariously through my vicarious living. The rest of you will (hopefully) get your entertainment fix for the week, in the form of my blog.
See how good I am to you all?
Sunday morning started with a writing session at Bar de Cao, the café across the street.
I've been going there most days to work. It's quaint inside, the waitresses are friendly and leave me alone, there's plenty of seating, and the doors aren't tricky. All pluses.
After a couple hours at the laptop, I decided I'd walk to the Feria de San Telmo to see what was going on. Mostly I just wanted to work off the medialunas I ate.
The walk is roughly twenty blocks I'd say—twenty-five minutes if you trek like I do. At one point, I had to cross Avenida 9 de Julio:
I've been wondering what happened on the 9th of July that warranted having such a big-ass street named after it. The picture doesn't really show how huge it is—the sucker is twenty lanes across (ten each direction). Yeah, I could look up to see what historical significance the date has, but I've been having too much fun speculating each time I cross the road. (Today I theorized that it was named after the day the first Starbucks opened in Buenos Aires.)
Anyway, I walked on to the Feria. A feria is basically a street fair. The one in San Telmo is each Sunday and the largest one in the city.
Lots of artisans selling their wares. Also lots of musicians and tango dancers, though the dancers didn't impress me (my sister has raised my bar). There were a couple flamenco guitarists who were awesome though.
To the left, there's a square where people have strange booths set up, selling not just antiques but weirdness. Like there were these two old women dressed up as babies or dolls or something. What was up with that? And there was a man dressed as a big eyeball. (I'm not clever enough to make that up.)
See the hordes of people? It's like that for blocks and blocks:
But there's plenty of opportunity for respite. You can pick up a cold beverage and grab a curb, like the people above.
Jugo de naranja (fresh-squeezed orange juice) is very big here. There's an orange juice vendor every five feet. So if you have a thing for OJ, Buenos Aires is the place to be.
And lastly...
Me, happily disheveled at the end of the day, looking forward to the next morning's medialuna fix.
The New Office
The first thing I did when I arrived in Buenos Aires was to look for a café.
Actually, the first thing I did was join a gym. The national food here is pizza. And meat. And pasta. And bread. So unless I wanted to gain twenty pounds, it seemed prudent to find a gym pronto. I may still need a triple bypass from all the steak and cheese, but at least I'll look good under the knife.
The next thing I did was look for a new café (or two) to write at. I decided I wanted one close to home and one further away, because sometimes a girl feels adventurous.
I found the close-to-home one on my way to the Microcentro (the downtown area). It looked perfect: light and appropriately studious with a few women and half a dozen men in suits working on laptops inside. I thought I'd try it to see if it had bueno ondo (good vibes, as they say here). I walked up to the door and pulled on it.
It wouldn't open.
Figuring it opened inward, I pushed on it. Nothing still. I stood back and stared at it. Then I looked at the store hours, wondering if they closed for siesta (though cafés don't typically). Nope—they were open till 8pm.
I did what any normal person would do: I shoved on it, and then yanked back for good measure. Accomplishing nothing except attracting the attention of every patron inside.
I have, of course, not been back since. When I do go back, I will be appropriately disguised.
But I did find another café—one that has an open entry so I didn't have to mess with the door. The waiters are forgiving of my awful French-accented Argentinian Spanish, and it's a lot of kitschy fun inside.
So you can picture me spending the late morning/early afternoon at one of the little tables in front, drinking a café con leche, eating medialunas (the Argentine answer to a croissant), and hacking away at my laptop. Note: I reserve the right to order a Coca Light every now and then. Gotta follow your whims, you know.
Hopefully Romantic
"Can I ask you a question?"
Sighing mentally, I look at the guy sitting next to me. What I want to say: "Can I stop you?" What I actually say, with a smile: "Of course."
He twists in his barstool to angle himself closer to me. "I heard that guy say you're a romance author, so you're probably tuned into what women want."
I nod. "Ironically, I'm also a woman."
"There is that." He leans in closer. "I have this fear that women think men are wimps."
Pursing my lips, I take all of two seconds to reply. "Yeah, pretty much."
"I knew it." He smacks the bar countertop. "See, I've had this suspicion all along, but no one ever confirmed it for me."
"I'm happy to help." I smile and start to return to my notebook.
He grabs my arm, preventing me from turning. "Is it all hopeless?"
Taken aback by his passion, I blink. "Hopeless?"
"The whole man-woman thing." He waves a hand. "Are we men screwed from the beginning?"
Frowning, I ponder this for about ten seconds. Then I shake my head. "I'm a romance writer. Of course I'm not going to believe it's hopeless. But men need to step up. They need to go for what they want. And they need to understand that romance is important to a woman. It's a lost art. I've been on countless dates over the past couple months, and only one of those guys made an effort to romance me."
"Romance. Lost art. Got it." He taps his chin.
I tip my head. "Do you want some paper to take notes?"
"No. But I may need refresher." He smiles—hopefully. "Maybe over dinner tomorrow?"