Life, love, voyage round your own little world.*

Well, it has been nearly nine months now. Oops. Life here sometimes seems like an alternate reality, another world, where time has a separate existence. Everything in the U.S. seems to continue along obediently following time, whereas here, I feel like I have stepped off the wheel. It keeps spinning, but I am standing still. Yet, time passes here as well, I am now 30 years old and I have been here for nearly a year. It is cold again, the leaves are changing and falling. The Christmas lights are on. But I don't yet feel a part of this time, I still feel like I am living in somewhere in the middle.

A lot has happened in life and love in the past nine months, and I will update you all on the events as I struggle to get my blogging momentum going again! The picture below is from the catacombs in Tarragona from a trip with my parents in March.

Life is many days. This will end.*

Well, I apologize for the long absence, but it has been tough in Barca-world the past month. Your noble blogger has been rejected from four MFA programs (I will not name names to keep them safe from ridicule and humiliation in the future when I am a multi-millionaire poet). I have not heard an electronic peep from the rest of them, which, according to the MFA application blogs I have been stalking, is a bad sign. There have been some stormy scenes on the home front as well, which I cannot discuss on ye-world-wide-web, but soon, this will improve. So, keep an eye out for renewed vigor and joy in postings! More to come!

Wild sea money.*

Last weekend, Mikael and I went down to Sitges to get away from my evil computer telling me bad things about MFA programs. It was hard to remember why I wanted to go to classes in cold places back in America while watching the sunshine on the Mediterranean.
And remember my friends, we're broke, but we'll always have wild sea money.

Take all, keep all. My soul walks with me, form of forms.*

James Joyce? Alive in Barcelona?

Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed....Poached eyes on a ghost.*

Blue skies are back again after a few days of a systemic virus that has kept me bedridden. I will spare you all the nasty details (even though you know I love sharing nasty details), because this one was just too much to believe. Happily, our water, which was off for two days during the spewing part of my illness, came back on today. I have never appreciated the simple power of flushing as much as I do today. Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day!

Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail. Gulp. Grub. Gulp. Gobstuff.*

The blog has been lonely the past few days as I have been a bit ill. Lying in bed, clutching my sore throat, drinking gallons of water and OJ. I have been going to farmacia after farmacia miming, "my tonsils are disgustingly infected and hurt." But so far, have only found some sort of mouthwash containing castor oil. I am feeling better today though, so here are a few more photos.

One thing that I will discuss more when my mental faculties are up to speed, is the fact that the graffiti in Barcelona is not what it was three years ago. But here are a few cute pieces. Oh, and the first one, that is how my throat feels, like I am swallowing shards of a broken vinyl record. Yum!

He's a caution to rattlesnakes.*

In cages within cages within razor wire, these creatures live in an exhibit at CCCB, the Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona. The overall exhibit explores Apartheid, but I felt that this piece creeped under the skin of the modern human condition. There are monkey men, wrinkly grey bird-like men, and one tall birdmonkeyman with a parachute of wires. The interior of the inner cage is covered in red plastic gloves and rubbish. It made me think of war, genocide, and cloning, an unsettling sight in an otherwise quaint little square.

Woodshadows*

These are some required pictures of the inside of my apartment building. The stairwell is decorated with green tile, the stairs are slippery-smooth marble, and the doors are rich mahogany. We live on the tercero floor, which, according to sneaky Spanish custom, is actually the 5th floor. Happy legs.

Jest on. Know thyself.*

Here are some of my new friends.....

Pampooties*!!!!

Apparently, there is quite a lot of action going on in this alley behind our apartment. Prostitution is fairly obvious in Barcelona, with the actual sexes of the prostitutes being a little more uncertain. They not only keep the lollipop industry afloat, but they keep lonely alleys like this company with their hard work.

Confession. Everyone wants to.*

Here are a few samples of churches in Raval, the neighborhood immediately adjacent to my La Rambla abode. The last picture is one of the many bell towers that elegantly mark the time in Barcelona. Sometimes it seems like they speak to each other in their leaden bell tongues, wondering how the last hour was in their part of the city, passing ancient gossip, laughing at the little humans listening with awe.

...through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins.*

Never know whose thoughts you're chewing.*

Here I am, in my on room on La Rambla, with my new camera, wearing a fan on my head. !!Note of warning!! I will have very little overt organization to these musings, please bear with me. Also, please note that all lines with an * are quotes from Ulysses.