Meddlin' in Medellín

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Baby bear and label

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In Bogotá

I’m in Bogotá, Colombia now and have been since this past Wednesday. I’ve talked to one person at the first hostel I stayed at, a very nice German chef from Munich, who shared a joint with me. Apparently medical weed is now legal in Germany. Besides that, I’ve not talked to anyone. I’ve been brushing up on Spanish, but I can hardly have a conversation with that: it’s all I can do to say “soy de los Estados Unidos” (which may be erroneous, but I’m not going to check), and I get shy and trail off halfway through. I think part of the reason people can’t understand me is that I’m talking so damn quietly, because I’m ashamed of speaking poorly. It’s just that I’m a little shy.

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The one who got away

I was at a party talking about the “ones who got away” with some folks, and I mentioned that I’d had a weekend with a girl I’d dated and now wasn’t seeing but for whom I still had feelings. Then in a different context I mentioned that I keep a blog, and I was asked whether I blogged about this missed connection. I was embarrassed to say I hadn’t, so I’m going to change that.

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Travel check-in

It’s been one hundred and thirty-four days since I left Chicago, and I haven’t blogged once in that whole time. Sucks to suck, I guess. I’ve had other stuff going on. In brief, my itinerary has been: Denmark, Thailand, Japan, France, Belgium, USA, Canada, USA again, Scotland (now), and then France again and back to the USA. Then maybe Brazil before a longer stint in the USA for a 200-hour yoga teacher training in San Francisco, which really is a delightful city.

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Here we go again

So here we are once again. I guess it’s terminally online of me to immediately turn to the internet to say what I’ve got to say. The blog is strangely public and private at the same time. I’m not sure why it feels so natural, but it does. I know I don’t write at the level of some people: for example, I learned in a previous post about Sara Ahmed’s blog feminist killjoys, where she says far more interesting things than I do. I’m just working through my feelings, I guess. A semi-public private kind of life.

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Move-out check-in

I’m moving out of the apartment that I moved in to almost two and a half years ago. This is the longest I’ve ever stayed in one flat. I was in my college apartments each less than a year, then in the place in Bologna for a couple months. The only places I’ve stayed for a longer time were the three houses I lived in with my mom.

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Reading notes for the near future

Beginning to move

So I’ve begun to clear my apartment out in quite some earnest. I’m way ahead of schedule (my lease ends in this apartment on this coming 31st of March) but I reckon there’s hardly such a thing as too early early when it comes to moving: if I’m prepared for the end, then I won’t be rushing around stressed.

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End of Master's Check Up

I haven’t been sleeping well the last couple nights. I took my last final on Tuesday: that’s the very end of the Master’s in Computer Science. I have no doubt that I’ll pass the course, but I’m waiting on a final assignment to be graded to see whether I’ll get out with a 4.0. I keep thinking I could have done more, could have studied harder; you know, the usual shit. It’s been keeping me up at night, and I’ve been trying to distract myself. I’ve played around with Instagram and TikTok, but got pretty sick of them. They led me down a rabbit hole into pornography, which feels filthy every time. I don’t know: I just can’t enjoy myself like I used to. I’ve been devouring books (Voyage Au Bout De La Nuit, Fahrenheit 451, The Plague of Fantasies, currently on De Rerum Natura), writing, practicing the guitar, tidying around the apartment. I broke up with my girlfriend two weeks ago, so that’s put a lot of time back in my life. I’ve been spending more time with my cat.

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