¡hola babayyys!

MAZATLAN, MEXICO
March 1st, 2004

I'll try to keep this brief....

Cuz I've got HOMEWORK!!!!

That's right, boys and girls, today was little Lisa's first day of school. Taking a Spanish class all this week, four hours a day, plus an optional hour of pronunciation practise every morning. I think I can only afford one week, unfortunately, but that's a good start. Of course, the most difficult thing for me will probably be having to be there at 8:30 every morning. It's at the Centro de Idiomas ("language centre", obviously, though this dumb old - well meaning, very nice - broad from Ottawa had actually told me it was the CENTRE OF IDIOMS. Like something from Star Wars.

So excited.... I actually went out and bought notebooks and pencils.(And I have these awesome new erasable gel pens that I got at Zellers before I left home, they are sooo cool.... yes, okay, fine, I´m a nerd, but they really are the greatest thing since sliced bread (which is overrated anyway). Resisted the temptation (thus far) to use this as an excuse to buy a whole new wardrobe of kicky mexican clothes. ("I am not blowing my money, I'm back to school shopping.")

This school teaches group classes, but I ended up being the only one in my group. (Is it on my file wherever I go; does not play well with others?). Luck of the draw, I guess. It makes class a bit more daunting, because it's always me on the hotseat....but I also don't have to wait around for other people, who are inevitably not as bright as I am, to catch up to my level of brilliance.

Mornings are with Gloria, who is awesome, and very tough. I sat in on one of her classes last Friday, and was a little afraid I'd get her, but was also amazed at what she had taught to a bunch of beginners in the course of a week. The afternoon is conversation class with Ana, who today seemed distinctly unimpressed by me and my pathetic lack of vocabulary until the end of the class, when she asked me where I had studied Spanish before, and I told her that I hadn't. Anywhere. She was properly impressed, the natural order of the universe was restored, et cetera.

And you were right, Mom, it happens quickly. I'm up to talking like a retarded five year old already. I'll be jabbering away like one of these crazy Mexicans in no time. Now if only I could understand what they were saying...

Mel, you can tell I've been staring at Spanish too much...I've forgotten how to speak English. When Nicole emailed me that your address was agalnamedmel@hotmail, I stared at it for minutes wondering what in God's name an agal na med mel was. Idiot. (Me, not you.)

I guess I'm getting rather tanned, because the tourists all think I'm a local. It gives me a great ability to fly under the radar here: the Mexicans can tell I'm a tourist, the Americans think I'm Mexican, everybody leaves me alone. I was at a restaurant yesterday (on the Malecón, watching the sun set over the ocean, enjoying the most incredible seafood soup IN THE WORLD - God, I love this town) and this American guy walking by noticed my book sitting on the table (Invisible Monsters, by Chuck Palahniuk). He asked, in Spanish, if he could see it. I said (also in Spanish) sure, and he looked at it for a few seconds, then blinked and said, still in Spanish, "but you´re reading this in English!" I told him that I was Canadian. He had a heart attack. Turns out his wife, over at his table, is from Toronto. Small world.

After leaving that place (following some dumb girly drinks and plenty of entertainment courtesy of the singing bartender, crooning along with a mixed tape someone donated to the place in 1984 - "Welcome to dee hotel caleeeforneea....we aben´t ads that speereeet here seence nineteens sitchty nine"), I went over to the sea wall to meet... the potsmoking reggae-playing surfboard-toting young Mazatlecos!!!!

Wait, I can explain. Last week, on the beach, I met this twenty-two year old surfer dude, Diego, and ended up hanging at the beach all afternoon with him and this little orphan kid Luis Angel. (Okay, you won't believe this, but just now I had to interrupt typing because suddenly Diego was here standing behind me. And I've been trying to avoid this guy...!) Anyway, before he got kind of annoying, he was kind of cool, and speaks pretty good English, and it was nice to actually be able to talk to somebody. Although it was just as cool to hang out with the kid, just pointing and speaking crap Spanish and smimming and running around.

So, the other night, on my way to the singing bartender, I ran into this guy on the street and he invited me to go out with him and his gang, some of whom play in the reggae band with which he plays guitar. As it turn out, we aren't going anywhere because he can't get the car. Who the hell was I hanging out with here? We were just going to sit around on the sea wall. Oh, and it was at least half an hour before any of his friends arrived. I suspect a plot. (But hey, it was a plot that landed me under the moon and the stars watching the waves while a cute guy played a guitar and sang songs to me in Spanish. There have been worse plots.) By the way, the waves are sometimes fluorescent blue in the moonlight. Apparently this isn't usually the case, but this is one of those years that the plankton that cause it are in abundance. Beautiful.

Anyway, when the friends did arrive, it dawned on me pretty soon that Diego, at twenty-two, is the elder statesman of this crowd. So I'm sitting around at the roadside, drinking booze out of a paper bag with a bunch of sixteen year-olds who don't speak English, and my Spanish is kind of terrible. It was just weird. And I'll tell you, nothing like a bit of substance abuse to send the old (or rather, new) foreign language skills down the tubes. Combine a slight case of paranoia with that, and with being the old person around a bunch of teenagers and...well...I didn't stick around too long. Paranoid moment number two: how do I get out of here, (A) without letting this guy walk me home, and (B) without making him look like an ass in front of his friends? (It all worked out in the end.)

Had my first Mexican theatre experience the other day, at the absolutely stunning historic Teatro Angela Peralta, which is a block away from my place. An all-ages contemporary dance piece about street kids. A little uneven, but the design was amazing, with some beautiful puppets and great scenic painting, and some real moments of stage magic. Pretty cool.

Oh, and I did watch the stupid Oscars. I thought this might be my year of escape (Damn you, Andy Bunker! They keep pulling me back in!) but there I was watching them in my room, with loud spanish dubbing. I could barely decipher any of it, the spanish being loud enough to obscure the english, and the english loud enough to muddle the spanish, not that I would have gotten most of that anyway. But there I sat, like a sucker, checking off my ballot and wishing I could figure out more of Sean Penn's speech. Something about penguins....? Anyway, I hope you knew to enter LOTR for screenplay and makeup for me, Andy. Those are the ones I forgot - and other from that, I did pretty damn good.

I think, Gregg, that I'd have a pretty good shot at winning the Miss Skeptical Tourist pageant. Nobody does the cynical smile and wave quite like me. But what would I wear for the ironic evening gown component? I'm afraid all the clothes I packed are a bit too earnest.

Speaking of earnest (yes, I am, in fact, QUEEN OF THE SEGUE!!!), have a great first read this week, David and Evan, and Whittaker. I can't believe you guys are starting rehearsal already...but those poor Pygmalion buggers have been there for, like, six months.

OTHER PEE ESSES:

Barb: Right on, amazing face healer! Keep it up!

Brian, and Nancy, and Doug H., and anybody else who is sick - get well. I am blowing healing pacific breezes your way.

Gregg: You win the prize for best definition of bad humour. May none afflict you. (Or I'll have you leeched.)

Xine: Do not despair. And kick that guy's butt. An actor is just an asshole waiting to happen. We must be stopped. Hi to Robbin and Dave. Keep well. More later.

Madboy: No purple polar bears yet. But I think I ate a giant guinea pig for dinner tonight.

Love to toute la gang. Y:

¡Hasta mañana, manzana!*
¡Hasta pronto, tonto!
In a while, crocodile,

Lisa.

* See you, tommorow, apple!
See you soon, idiot! (!!!!)