I failed at posting over the summer, so here’s here’s a quick rundown of the last three months or so:
In June, I went to Ecuador with Santiago. I stayed at his dad’s house in Guayaquil for two weeks. There were some things that were really fun (visiting Malecon 2000 (the waterfront park) with Santiago and his friend Adrian, eating fried plantain puffs with cheese in the middle, playing skeeball and pin ball at the arcade, drinking sangria (too much wine and not enough fruit) with Santiago’s dad’s girlfriend and Julio, Marlan’s soup and tortillas, watching Dexter until 4 AM, visiting Quito for the weekend), some things that were awkward (having not one but two very kind maids who wanted desperately to help me even when I required no assistance (it’s supremely strange to reach to pour a glass of water only to have said glass filled for you by a woman twice your age while you stand, in shock, directly next to the water cooler), listening to my boyfriend’s dad tell vaguely racist and sexist jokes while holding my tongue because he paid for my trip and was feeding me, leaving my suitcase against the wall in my boyfriend’s bedroom every day and coming back (every day) to find that it’s been moved into the closet for no apparent reason (more funny than annoying), attempting to explain “gender studies” to Santiago’s brother), and the downright unpleasant (returning to Guayaquil from Quito at the end of the weekend and spending the entire evening vomiting due to food poisoning (this happens to me way too much), being unable to eat most of the food that was prepared for me (I’m allergic to garlic, onions, and peppers and I’m a vegetarian, all things that are generally unheard of in Ecuador) and feeling guilty for turning down what was, in all likelihood, perfectly good food, leaving Santiago behind without knowing when, exactly, he’d be coming back to the States). Obviously it was “a learning experience.”
In July, I did very little. I returned to the States and spent the entire month in Philadelphia with my parents (save for a weekend with my mom at my apartment in Brooklyn, spent cleaning and organizing, visiting the MoMA, shopping at Pearl River (I want to live there), eating tasty pastries at Fay Da, and making vegetable tempura). My friends from high school M and S performed as The Something Society (they’re fantastic) during open mics at M’s parents’ wonderful coffee shop. M and I hatched a (failed, due mostly to my social incompetence) plan to make a literary magazine as a summer project. My tentative title was “Dead Platypus,” a (more than) slightly bitter reference to the Springside literary magazine, which both M and I worked on throughout high school. M and S also hosted a night of musical performances featuring chocolate covered strawberries and everything from Ke$ha and Rufus Wainwright covers to S’s original compositions. There was also a family reunion/birthday party, but I hardly remember it (I’m no good at parties anyway).
During this uncomfortably hot August, I rediscovered a bookstore I used to love (The Book Trader), came within pages of finishing two very long books (I feel a bit like a failure for not reaching their final pages before classes began), was reunited with Santiago (AT LAST!), and went to Cape Cod for ten days (so relaxing). We also visited my dad’s college professor Gene and his wife Brenda in a town just outside of Ogunquit, Maine (we haven’t visited him since I was in 4th grade or so, which was ten years ago). Gene is hilarious and provocative, and he made us all nervous when he insisted that Santiago explain and defend his position on Israel.
My summer was mostly about reading a preposterous number of online articles, getting riled up about documentaries, watching Dexter, and avoiding being a grown-up. Success. On my last day of break (yesterday), I watched three movies: Sunshine Cleaning (two thumbs up), Up (<3), and The Ugly Truth (dreadful but ultimately entertaining, like most of Katherine Heigl’s films).
I had my first day of classes, starting with an 8 AM (which would suck if it wasn’t a class I really want to take). Thankfully, Santiago just signed up for an 8 AM, too, so I don’t have to make the 7:20 trek to the L train all alone. I will make an honest effort to update more frequently during this semester.
P.S. I somehow never made the connection between Katherine Heigl’s name, “Katherine,” and mine, “Catherine.” Since I have never gone by “Catherine,” I rarely hear it pronounced–I’m so unaccustomed to the way it sounds that it seems sort of foreign to me. Weird.
