I Eat Green Tea.

ieatgreentea — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:46:50 +0000

half-read book – an achievement of a day?

clean apartment – an achievement of a day?

plans made for later – an achievement of a day?

the glass an curtains only separate me from the sunshine of day.

just. start. doing. things. outside.

on office

ieatgreentea — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 02:37:27 +0000

the slowness and unpreoccupiedness (!) at the office drive me off the rails. the slow computer, the lack of things to do, the tiking minutes of empty time. or semi-empty – because this is the time with unimportant little things which are not work – but rather things to do. to keep illusionary busy.

i left the office and i was feeling exactly, exactly how i was feeling back in buenos aires – exhausted, stuffed like a teddy bear with usefulness and empty things which u neither create nor consume.

i like busy office, excitement and getting things done. not fitting the whole agenda into a day – and then it makes sense, then it shapes up – not swallows with emptiness like with hunger.

ieatgreentea — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:37:46 +0000

on January 2nd, I am applying for the jobs and listening to Queen. my hands are still warm after washing a pile of dishes. green scarf from Rio. I am going to JJ Bean now to get a cupa coffee. For once I am happy there will no be wifi there. It is a good beginning of the new year and I already know the things I can upgrade, improve – and also the things I enjoy. Those are always there. happy new day. let it be. and let freddie sing from heaven.

ieatgreentea — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 19:46:10 +0000

went to the local market in Jujuy. old lady in a shawl dragging 2 chrismas trees from behind her booth. plus 30 degrees. merry argentinian christmas.

bought some fruits and mate on the way back to the hostel.

by the swimming pool. under the dried palm tress, crispy in the sunlight, eating apricots, drinking mate, writing, reading. marveling away with the piano music travelling through my headphones.

ieatgreentea — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:00:37 +0000

woke up ready to cruise the sunny streets of the yet new to me city of Jujuy, Northern Argentina. with the sandals and shorts, found myself staring at the wall of rain, the kind of rain that looks like it’s here to stay for a while.. fresh bun with dulce de leche and a strong black tea for breakfast, a village-style white mug with half-washed away flowers.. the mug gets warmer as tea gets colder. the streets are licked by the rain, smugged around the edges, wiped of all the dust that’s been accummlating in the region for the last several months, above thirty temperatures. inevitable siestas when everything – that surprisingly includes farmacies and restaurants – closes down from one to four pm.

from the second floor windows-floor-to-ceiling from the restaurant which names starts with “z” and where local enterpreneurs get together for a lunch and a cigarette and a cup of cafesito i see an old men, orange jacket, selling the newspaper on the stairs of the shop. he crumbles a bread in his hand and goes four steps forward, onto the pedestrian street’s pavement where the semi-black pigeon strolls proudly. the newspaper man spreads the crumbles in front of the bird. the bird steps back and then front with the same leg… little scared-but-hungry tango sequence.. the men looks encouragingly, with an interest.. then off the bird rockets, wings whish whish flop flop, into the air.. the german shepherd puppy on the leash, on his back paws, barking where! where! at the bird. rushes forward, jumps and falls, restrained by the owner in pink t-shirt.. the teenage girl runs to the puppy and pets him, lovingly, admiringly. the dog is overly excited, loved and happy. the owner pulls on the leash again and off they go. off goes the teenage girl. the semi-black pigeon comes back – he’s been watching the scene, too – to his crumbled treat. two more birds in sync picket down onto the pavement. it’s a dinner for three now, please. the newspaper man watches, paused with a newspaper folded, elbows on the knees. the rain stops, but the day remains rainy

about Buenos Aires. from Rio.

ieatgreentea — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 11:38:38 +0000

A different place. Un otro lugar. Another city. A city with no worried arrogance, with no overbearing thrive for excellence, with no constant, eye-twitching borderline state of a failure fear, this draining, sweaty, worried condition, oh so familiar to the over-performers who end up in a shameful midnight failure, sometimes crying sometimes swearing, always weeping afterwards, embarrassed, angry. A city with no high blood pressure that makes a heart rush rush rush– and if does not, well then subdued, kicked, twisted, barely obediently, bended, bondaged into a choleric state of thriving, again, of performing, again, of impressing and tantalizingly doing, doing, doing, for the sake of this doing being recognized, appreciated, looked at, exposed, desired, wanted, craved. A different city – a city that is not arching its back in a pre-orgasmic sensation, never being able to fully succumb to then skin-shaking, flushing bodily thrill. Always borderline, always thrusting, always shivering, but not with the sensation (for it has never been lived through, never experienced, never gained and emotionally engraved in the city with no memory) – with sensation’s poor and eternally romantic brother, an aggravated anticipation, still but always missing out, always curving the toes in vain, the pleasure wave always crushing on others’ shores. For the sensation, in all its tragedy, looked for is unknown and imaginary – city keeps on shivering with desire, with a painful, scornful, vibrating, pitiful ambition to achieve recognition, announce the sensation’s final arrival, thus constantly, painfully bouncing at the doorway of acquiring – sweaty, aroused, self-conscious, agonizing.

ieatgreentea — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 11:37:49 +0000

Travelling does this amazing thing – it switches the worries off and in turn completely inhibits their precedeeing space with the savouring of the unfamiliar, foreign, astonishing scenery, with a bliss of not dwelling on something particular, with a blessing of living the Now throughly, not just sparing it a tad bit of awareness, otherwise mostly sunordinated into preoccuping myself with things that passed and things that are yet to come – tentatively, possibly – scruffying through the options for the future and the tempting variations of the yet solidified past.
I found peace at the little sandwich shop today. The ceiling – drapes of coloured fabric, red, yellow, blue. Red-haired woman in a colourful skirt talking French to an Asian man at the other table. The woolen rag on the wall, traditional local ornaments, still has a tag attached to it. A fly passes by my cheek, aiming at the ring of the coffee mug. It lands and navigates the territory, the cold transparency of the cappucino foam sits at the bottom of the cup. A place so tranquilizing- with its biting woolen table cloths, its skin-deep low bass of the semi-Asian, Semi-Andean lounge flowing, plugging the ear with a cork of unruthmical sound, its wooden benches, which might as well have been massage leather chairs so good it feels to sit down, gratefully, after a long walk with a backpack clumsiliy hugging my back – I doubt this place is fully present, is even real, in the ungooglemapped northern Argentinian land, for its authentic transluceny it might as well be a tea shop in Beirut, veiled by a drape somewhere in the narrow middle-eastern street, seducing passers-by with its thick cool air. A guy brings a sandwich and a password for the Internet scraffed on a piece of paper, its ripped edges curl slightly. A soft glow of the mid-evening light is warming the bleached walls of the one-storey buildings. Buildings, that inevitably hide the patios behind the crack-riddled green and blue doors – sunlit yards, shadowed with crooked trees, populated with three-legged chairs and someone’s half-dried laundry that is, too, abosrbing the evening sunlight after the lip-drying day heat, embracing the coolness of a mountain night.
A local bus, only arrives an hour and several minutes late, I don’t really watch thearms of a clock as much lately. Sitting with a backpack and an old shoulder bag – a gift from a friend in breezy Brazil – I am reading the book in a bright orange cover. Little Bee, the title says, the number one New York Times national bestseller. I seat on a hot stony step which leads to someone else’s hostel. “American?” – tall (you can tell the person is tall even when he is seated next to you on the same stony step), pepper-salt hair, leather cowboy hat. “No”, – I wait a little too long to smile back at the man. “Russian”, I say. He is eating empanada and it’s a cheese one. He took it out from a plastic bag from his backpack and I wonder if there are more of those that he is taking on a journey. The plastic shrieks on the wind. The wind throws a yellow splash on sand in my face, in my hair wrapped with a fair-blue coloured scarf. The bus arrives. We wish each other good luck in the further travels. I throw a heavy backpack on the seat. The bus takes off immediately, the orange and yellow and green-ish and blue-ish mountains, split, scratch here and there by tall green trees and plumpy cactuses, they run past in the window. The wind pours itselfthrough the open windows. I hold my orange book on my lap. I feel the thinest layer of dust and sand on its cover. I don’t open the book. But I know there is an orange sand from the mountain valley in between its pages.

ieatgreentea — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 01:31:49 +0000

I am a backpacker in Argentina. With three books in my backpack. I have learnt how to travel without my Armani and Guess dresses. The sunset licks the mountains. I touch the yet watm walls of the uildings. The hand reaches into the bag for the camera over and over and over again. Yesterday I bought a sandwich – a tiny crusty soft and fresh baguette with salani. I ate it in the sun sitting at the footsteps of the pink and peachy church. The children in the park. The old man paused on his bicyle in between two streets. The handsome guy said Hola under his breath. I said Hola back, still munching away on my sandwich, crumbles falling on my knees, on the steps, on the cobbled ground, warm little pieces of bread in the warm mountain sun. The boy looked back, I smilingly read a hesitation in his walk. He kept on. I washed my delicous sandwich away with water. The trees sitting in the perimater of the square – they have oranges. The have actual plumpy and painfully orange organes on every second branch. They are rippen and juicy, citric suns under covers. The womanin the market cut me a piece of mango: “Aca, corazon, probalo”. Seemed strange – but then wait, that aint strange, that is fresh, that is running down the chin kinda of fresh. I walk on the streets that breathe hot air, I breathe the streets in. Children laughing, children running, children in the doorsways. The place full of youth and life and laughter, tanned cheeks, dark skin, the inspiring city.

Oct

ieatgreentea — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 23:44:56 +0000

I was coming back from the movie theatre. The Doors and streets empty of people, heat, light. Passed by an ice cream place. First, second, third. Stopped. turned, came in and bought a delicious cupful of mouse de limon con frutas de bosque. The guy behind the counter looked Russian. What other languages do you speak, I asked. Sasha is from Kazakhstan and has been here for ten years. Blue eyes that I have not seen for a while. Familiar face. Never met him before.

Then I saw a grey haired woman with three really hairy dogs. I asked if I could take a picture. She held my ice cream cup full of ice cream while I took pictures of dogs. Then I took a picture of her with the dogs. Dogs names are.. I have forgotten already by this point, although it was just an hour ago. She asked me to send her pictures by an email. I found a scarp of paper which was a discount coupon to an italian restaurant next door to the cinema. Offered her my notebook with che gevara picture on it. “No vale la pena”. She laughed. “Muy bluff”, she looked up to the dark sky, improvising the universal annoyance with poor guy’s fame. Her name was Elena. “Q te pasa bien aca, hija”, she hugged me.

Day 3. Buenos Aires.

ieatgreentea — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 21:00:26 +0000

Beat the recent record, slept for 12.5 hours.

Nice and fresh, cooked up a breakfast. In the midst of a feast, a phone rang. Came back to the table to notice a magic disappearence of a cheese from a bread. And to add to the mystery – here is Rosa in the corner munching on something. Magic, I thought and steeped some green tea.

Alejandro came to pick me up late afternoon. Buenos Aires at the discretion of the local. I just wished I came to BA not 2 days ago when I immersed myself into rainy and miserable streets, but today. On a day when the sun runs down my skin, when my hair r perked up and when we sit on a terrace in Palermo Soho, drinking ridiculously delicious and ridiculously cheap local wine. If all the days in BA can be like that – sunny, chill, inspiring, new, relaxed and immensely nourihing my thurst for impressions, communication and new street – I am all up for it.