Love loves to love love.*

It is almost V-Day here, and this year there are advertisements galore. I thought that the Spanish weren't as into the holiday as the U.S., but I think the retailers here are jumping at any opportunity to sell anything. Most of the marketing reeks of desperation, more so than V-Day marketing usually does.
But love, well, what can I say...most of the time, I love to love love.

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!