I lived alone in Washington Heights for 2 months one summer. It was serial killer hot and a saxman lived across the alley from my 5th floor walkup window. I lived on my Saturday night credit card and spent Sundays reading in The Park and walking through shabby chic fairs of the Upper West Side, frequently attending a Unitarian service or the Museum of Natural History. It was exquisite. Except for the attack cat and the roaches and the one time that one cab driver got a little too handy it was very safe and sound.

Being apart from Malcolm is about 99.9% crappy. One night for watching indie/foreign/classic films and working on my novel is divine but any longer than that and I am lonely. No one to laugh at my jokes, no one to cook for, no one with whom to look at the ocean. Turns out I am not the Steppenwolf; I am no longer the hero of my adolescent poem celebrating solitude and pretend self-reliance. I not only love spending every day of this life with Malcolm I also thoroughly love being married to him. It´s the thing for me. I can even do my dance when he´s around.

Careminet laundry service and long distance phone call shop plus loteria desk also happens to be the best internet cafe in progreso. Yeah, I was as surprised as anybody. You may not be aware that I have been coming attcha from various spots in Progreso last week and today rather than nestled in the office. My Mac is down and rather than paying $1400 pesos for a power cord from the shop in Merida I am waiting for a replacement from the States and in order to work and communicate I have been hopping from one little place to another.

My biggest complaint about the two locations I was frequenting (on 29 and 31 respectively)  is that for a mouse pad they use dirty bits of old baby blanket taped to the desk. That is just disgusting. Secondly, it is about 9 degrees in there. Third, there are too many teenagers, yilk. Mm, thats about it. They are fine places for checking your mail or making sure the world outside hasn´t blown up but for sitting 5 hours a day and typing? not so much.

Last time I was dropping off the wash I noticed the spanking new machines here in the unairconditioned lobby of Caremenit. Flat screen monitors, new towers, and actual mouse pads. So here I am. I have a rack of Breton crackers and a can of coke thanks to Old El Paso and I am sitting comfortable enjoying a snack and working. Sure, there are distractions. This is a prime place for playing the annoying gambling game machine which I still dont understand and theres the general chatter of a place of business but it is much better than the other options.

Well, I think that is all I have to say about that. Sorry we didn´t have the ha-has we usually do together but I am just trying to be direct. Informative is not really my forte.  Oh yeah, it is located on 31 and 29 more or less, kind of next ot Rikos pizza and across from Optica Rejon. Costs maybe 10 pesos an hour.

What: a 1950s American kitch style soda fountain, serving milk shakes and patty melts, etc. It will appeal to expatting baby boomers as well as locals. Keep the menu simple and make the theme the thing. There are a million models in the States and even Cancun has a Johnny Rockets but making it a true Mom and Pop business would make it all the more adorable. Dress the waitresses like car hops (why are there no waitresses here?) and install a jukebox stocked with all the classics.  A scathingly brilliant idea, no? yes.

As mentioned in a previous post, I cherish the personal freedom to treat myself with pharmaceuticals. Additionally, I can buy my own contact lenses without an exam or presciption in hand. Yesterday I walked into a shop on Calle 29 and asked for my number, 4.25. They were out so I bumped up to 4.50 and now I can see through skulls! It is awesome!

Babies who wave at you and look at you like you are marvelous and kids who ask you what you are doing when you´re reading on the combi when clearly that is all you are currently up to and when you explain this in brief he is satisfied and goes back to looking out the window. Combis can be great fun.

okay, pills, babies, combis, sure, sure sure, the obvious ones, but what else…

scooters. cute couples on scooters, two fat girls on scooters with their colorful spandex butts and bellies, scooters piled wide and high with families and shopping. Scooters are adorable and make so much more sense in These Economic Times. There are many things you cannot do in a scooter but I bet there are things I have never heard of that are not just possible but fantastic.

privacy and quiet. I can remember living in a Brooklyn apartment and feeling sick and stifled by all the bodies constantly around me. They are under, over and around you at home, pressed up against you on public transportation and restaurants and always in seeing, smelling and hearing distance no matter where you go. I know you shouldn´t wish for solitude in New York because you end up with some kind of post plague scenario but sometimes you just want to get to work without seeing a guy clip his fingernails and eat a samosa.

The VIP room. The Dark Night. a reclining chair. Black Label on the rocks. Tell me what you think of the movie when you can get tickets two weeks from now, Americans.

Everything to do with The Current Economy goes without saying. And really this is more about what is positive in Mexico rather than negative in America, but I should mention that not having to think about gas prices is great. And not pumping my own. Gas attendents are mandatory. As are housekeepers. Not for everyday; I don´t mind the dishes but the floors?! I never want to mop another floor again. Plus, Fabuloso is aptly named. That shit smells awesome and works for damn near everything.

Speaking of Mexican panaceas, there is a wealth and breadth of yogurt options. I dont happen to care for the taste but it is comforting to know it is there. I also have grown to appreciate Muriotic acid. Clogs and enemies of all types, beware. ´

No matter where I am there are things I love and loathe and it is always good to remind myself why I here and how terrifically lucky I am to be.

Addendum: though this post was at its end I am currently witnessing at a kid wearing a T shirt that reads Dont Get Your Bikini Bunch and that in itself tells the tale. There is a lot of humor, intentional and inadvertent infused in everyday life and that is a big one for me.

The class was small. The teacher, one student and her small daughter were already practicing when I arrived minutes after eight and only slightly sweaty. Manisha Elizabeth is an exquisite belly dancer and beauty. Her movements are precise, subtle, almost staccato, and accented by the silver chimes of the coins she wears on a wrap around her hips. Without interrupting her serpentine movement she sorted and sized me while I took my place behind the others.

The space was sparse and lit with incense. We moved all together - arms, wrists, fingers, elbows, shoulders, hips, toes, thighs, feet - without much instruction. Manisha directed us but made the didactic feel organic, as if we had collectively and spontaneously choreographed the dance. It is a chthonic and not a learned activity; my teacher explained that as women we possess this way of dancing, we know how already and are merely remembering, with her as guide.

Virgil/Dante-Beatrice/Inanna, the first god to go underground, face demons, including her Other Self and return a hero for the sake of humanity. I pretended to be Salome. I smirked about Can o´ Beans and Dirty Sock which brought me back to the mirror and my movement because I am working on focus and being present in the moment and my body so that I stop dropping glasses and being so clumsy. This is a kind of grace I can achieve. Belly Dancing takes practice. Next Tuesday I will try again.

Manisha Elizabeth teaches belly dancing on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday mornings in a pink house on Calle 9 between the Circuito and Calle 40 in Pensiones. The cost of 8 classes is $ 280 pesos. Bring a towel and a bottle of water. Introspection not required. But a map does help.

• Be a twin and marry a twin and live next door to my sister and both-ways-brother-in-law in matching houses
• Be a real ballerina and dance outdoors onstage in Saratoga where I saw my first Sleeping Beauty and very possibly get deafening Bravas of adulation for my incredibly prolonged forte/piroutte series
• Embark upon a lengthy and very filthy affair with Christian Bale (he is both Batman and Laurie??!)
• Be the headmistress at a New England Ladies College of Some Importance where I will be both beloved and revered for my forewarned thinking mind and unconventional beauty
• Go to space and hang out there for awhile (real black matter deep space not that Virgin Galactic shit, although, admittedly, that is also cool and I will grudgingly accept it as a substituation)
• Own a Birkin Bag (but you could feel free to send maybe like a dollar to help get me started. I have a Paypal account)
• Discover that I was switched at birth with a girl who though not my twin looks strikingly similar to me has been, for the past 18 or so years, acting as the princess of a small obscure European country and in light of this revelation and since their monarchy is nothing if not just it will be determined that we both will reign jointly enjoying all power and privileges and will of course become the dearest of friends and swap clothes at least one time much to the consternation of her minions because she is so taken with my American causual and I absolutely must know how I look in a diadem and haute couture
• Be a very idealistic young aid worker someplace resembling but not actually Africa where I discover truths about the interconnectdness of all people and also wear lots of sweat stained but still flattering gray t-shirts and khaki shorts
• Be able to knit. It´s just confusing.
• Have a monkey. Malcolm is firm on this one.

I know, I know, you should never say never, but I really must resign myself that (most of) these will never happen, since I am almost 30 and very happily married.

Tripod’s trip to Planned Pethood was a great success. She’s puppy free and clean as a whistle. Dr. Nelson and everyone there are gentle, kind, thoughtful and thorough. Pod’s in the cone until next Tuesday and in high spirits as you can see.

I did hear him ask me for my identification, which gave me pause, and when I reached around to my bag realized that my wallet was missing. All at once I noticed the two police cars, four cops, a small man being handcuffed, and a blanket on the sidewalk displaying an array of ragged possessions on the street behind me. So I stopped. I was approached by a policeman who spoke English despite my attempt to speak Spanish with him. I soon realized that I was the victim of a quick and easy crime. Not even a break in, a reach in and grab. And just as easily, apparently, the cops had intervened and the whole mess was being sorted in the lawful light of day.

I confirmed that my wallet contained my license, a bank card and a 200 peso note (when will thieves learn that stealing from me is an exercise in futility?) and when I called my cellular phone from Malcolm’s - which had been in plain site on the dashboard - I heard it ringing in the front shirt pocket of the second in command cop. I just wanted to get the hell out of there and of course was very grateful that justice had been so swift and I didn’t have to arrange for yet another check card when I realized they wanted me to go to the station to file a report or press charges or whatever.

I explained that I needed to find my husband and father-in-law and that I’d be back straight away. When I returned with Malcolms Elder and Younger the officers were pleased to have a man to man to man conversation and assured that there was a rightful owner of the Jeep and that we liked living in Mexico very much and soon my belongings were in hand and we were all three in the Jeep and getting away from the scene of the almost crime feeling unscathed and lucky. They did not expect a mordita, and I dare say they might have been scandalized or offended had we attempted to bribe them. It was, all in all, a tidy non event, which is why I hadn’t mentioned it.

But with all the bad press Mexico gets and since I’d been feeling a little negative of late I thought I’d remind everyone, myself included, what a very civilized place indeed is Merida. The situation was polite, orderly, even matter of fact. The only reason there had been a problem to begin with was that I feel so secure I have gotten careless, leaving my purse out in the open in an unlocked Jeep. So, that’s it, honestly. Anticlimactic really, no ironic ending or madcap denoument, sorry to say. After my money wasn’t stolen we went to Chili’s for some boneless Buffalo wings and Southwestern eggrolls. And it doesn’t get any more outlaw than that, my friends.