To my readers - sorry for the long absence of posts, but you'll have to excuse me. I'm in South America, a strange world where the poles of everything you have become used to as a constant become inversed. A place where the middle class is a radical margin to national politics. Where you hear screaming so savage, coming from the neighboring apartment, that you consider dialing 911 and reporting domestic violence, or some heinous new form of torture, until the reverberating shout "gol" makes you realize that its just someone cheering Boca - and they're winning. You understand if I haven't been able to be my usual ebullient self.

I said I was in South America. At the moment I feel like I'm lodged somewhere deep in Buenos Aires' eye. I say this because of it appears Buenos Aires is trying to weep me out with a stream of near boiling water.

A lack of hot water has always been a problem for me, as a person that likes to luxuriate in the steam, sometimes for upwards of a half an hour. So you can imagine my surprise when, after adjusting the silver knobs to the perfect temperature and beginning my "knees-to-shoulders" soap-dance, I was abandoned not by the hot but by the cold. The water starts to warm up slowly, which is not nearly so ominous as the water cooling down, but in a few short seconds is up to flaying strength.

A shower that runs out of cold water? Can someone please explain this to me? More bizarre than toilet water spinning in the other direction.


More posts coming soon.