Dispatches from The Mayan Empire

"All right, Popeye's here! Get your hands on your heads, get off the bar, and get on the wall"  - Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, The French Connection + + +  Of late things around here have been less than ideal. I prefer to not go into the daily minutiae of my difficulties. Suffice to say that thus far none of them have been caused directly by living in Mexico. So far, Mexico, its people, its culture, its food, and its shockingly polite drivers  have been very good to me. In happier news when I must cross the border into the forsaken lands known as South Texas there is a recently discovered beacon of hope I can always look forward to. About 18 kilometers or so (I have my GPS set to metric as that is how they roll south of the border, and I like to avoid speeding tickets in any country) from the border amidst a never ending sea of strip malls, tire salons, car washes... the dust.. the dust gets on and into everything, auto dealerships, pawn shops, and chain ...

"You bravos had better be ready to fight, or we'll never get out of East Texas tonight, but the trail is long and the river is wide, and my ride's here" - Warren Zevon, My Ride's Here + + + My day tends to start around 10:30am or so most of the time. No more early mornings on the corners barking or occasionally DJ'ing for Vampiz has allowed me to set my own schedule for work (writing, which tends to be in fits and starts throughout the day unless I'm on a roll). Which is nice, since I am not a morning person. I tend to shamble out of bed like something from the 'Legend of Boggy Creek' films, swallow my morning fistful of pills (allergy meds, the price I pay for my lovely cat, vitamins, and acetaminophen with codeine to allow me to move without wincing in pain constantly). After that its typically a lovely hot shower thanks to my miracle shower head with a built in heating unit. I admit its not the safest of showers, but it is hot, with...

"Home. . home is where you wear your hat... I feel so break-up, I wanna go home." - Lord John Whorfin, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension + + + Every time I cross the border from Mexico into Texas, in the US of A I get this weird feeling. This strange anxiety, in the pit of my stomach, that feeling you get when you know you've eaten some bad Chinese food but the effects haven't set in yet. [[When walking across the bridge I may have once or twice danced in front of this sign, just to say I did it Which I just did. So there you go.]] Its not dealing with the immigration officers on the Mexican side, unless I'm in my car. I'm always worried about getting Greta stuck in Texas after that one fiasco thanks to the state of Pennsylvania no longer issuing stickers. Its not dealing with the border patrol agents on the US side either. Though they have performed more than one "agricultural inspection" on Gr...

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." - Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas + + + The day started like most others here in Nuevo Progreso; wake up, be angry with the alarm clock, pet Tessa, shut off or forget to and be angry with secondary alarm (I'm not a morning person, at all), "morning constitutional", wash face and brush teeth, pet Tessa, get dressed and ready for the day, pet Tessa, inform Tessa she is in charge of la casa until I return, lay out her duties for the day (hunt any vermin present, eat healthy, nap frequently, don't go too hard on the 'nip, generally be a good gato pequeño until I return), and leave to walk the arduous one quarter of a block from Carlito's Cafe to Vampiz. After arriving I retrieved my flyer (theirs are laminated and thus reusable), said my usual pleasantries...

"Tourists came around and looked into our tipis. That those were the homes we choose to live in didn`t bother them at all. They untied the door, opened the flap, and barged right in, touching our things, poking through our bedrolls, inspecting everything. It boggles my mind that tourists feel they have the god-given right to intrude everywhere." - Russell Means, Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means + + + I saw an old stray dog today on the corner. He was the spitting image of 'Dogmeat' from 'The Road Warrior', an Australian cattle dog. He had mismatched eyes, one was almost pure white save for the iris, that gave him the look of an unwashed, coked-out, canine David Bowie. I called to him in both English and Spanish, but all he did was spare a bit of a sideways glance as he trotted off to wherever he was heading. That dog is still more polite than most of the tourists that visit this city. At least the on...