By the time he was done — about ten or fifteen minutes after I had arrived and stood silently before him counting clouds in the Houston sky — I had finished my coffee and was holding the plastic to-go container in my right hand, glancing around me for a garbage can which I would fail to find, even after our one-hour interview.  He introduced himself — or maybe I did, because he probably thinks he needs no introduction — and he sent the first missile.  The whole thing (mind you, still on the sidewalk looking into the gym) was Russian KGB with almond-shaped eyes.  What do you do? Where do you live? Where are you from? Of course he had been in the oil and gas industry as a business development manager.  He could not stop speaking about himself and how cool he was, even when he was 50 pounds heavier and a drinker and smoker back in the day when he probably was happy.  He had been certified in all areas known to man, had sucked up all the books you might need to read in a lifetime to find out when to eat beans, and was of course the only person in the world who knew how you should exercise.  He had tried all other gyms which, of course, could not compare to his barebones warehouse in a trendy area of town.

I knew it was a bad idea not to tell him that I had a severe case of loose sphincters and needed to go home, or that perhaps I had a plane to catch I had completely forgotten about.  We went inside the gym, which was indeed a warehouse with tires and no equipment, just hand-made rubber elements that you may use to exercise but did not look like you would.  The place was a Les Luthiers for body-builders, and he showed me around until we got to the coolest place in the whole warehouse…the restroom.  He claimed he strove for excellence and he was pretty confident he succeeded at it.  If people did not join his gym, they probably were not worth it…

In a forty-year life span,  if therapy and being an Argentine citizen have not allowed me to lead a better life, at least they have given me tools to read addicts and people who are too much to deal with in any environment.  It is my duty to put up with them at work, but my choice to have them in my extra-hours.  J may be the coolest guy on earth to people whose self-esteem is either higher than his or so low that they won’t notice he is a fake.  At least, my self-esteem is about average, and I know he is an addict.  You can pick your addiction…wine, cigarette, sex or workouts.  I think when you switch addictions, you become a purist of the impossible, and life becomes a boring succession of days in which you are not addicted to what society praises…a major reason to think you are indeed cool.

Yes, I admire J, because he could replace addictions and get a few people to buy his time for $300 per month to attend a gym with no equipment and just a restroom.  I admire him because during the course of a full hour he was unable to offer me a recycling-friendly bin where I could throw my empty coffee cup.  I am sure he is going to do well in a society where success is all that matters, even if it is a lie and underneath the surface you are as dysfunctional as the fat guy next door.  It is always good to be the living example of The Biggest Loser and boast how you beat the odds and stayed outside them.  However, when you close the door of your expensive high-rise  condo at night, switch on the energy-saving lights of your living room and pour yourself that glass of Evian…isn’t there something missing?

You think legally-binding contracts will hold you liable and make you risk less than your own skin when tempting the devil, but even that fails you. Ubi maior, minor cessat. Yes, even the law will hold you accountable for your dreams and let your hand go when you least expect it. The law is as impersonal as our own fear of its consequences. And it leaves you naked in a dark corner when you think it will be your pillar of strength, the real thing to hold on to.

Life is a bitch, and then you die. It seems I may die waiting…for the woman I love to realize time runs forwards instead of backwards, for the seller of my first house to come back from the dead or honor his own commitments, for the US labor department to understand that I do deserve a chance to outlast my Green Card suspense. Waiting is what life is all about…oh, yes…and then you die.

- The fact that you can talk things over does not mean that they can be resolved
- The fact that somebody loves you does not mean they will necessarily do anything about it

Little did I know that my life would be changed on that Friday 13th as I walked out of the store with my Macbook Air hanging over my shoulder in a designer plastic bag with the Apple logo…which, by the way, I still refuse to sport on my car or in any place where its visibility could betray me.  No, if you ask me, I still think Apple is outrageously expensive, full of proprietary hardware that gets on my nerves, and cute for the sake of making computer users totally unaware of what goes on inside their machines.  I still say…if your Mac shows signs of distress, there is no way you can intervene.  Windows lets you interact with the inner world of your PC, and most of the times there will be a way of solving a glitch that will get you thinking you are a genius…but you are not, you can only barely google.

Now, I’m typing this on my new toy, which proved to me that I could be heard.  I was looking for a portable laptop that would be more than a netbook without being less than a notebook.  My voice was heard, and it was Macintosh that heard it first.  This is a very light computer that does what I need it to do, gives me a decent keyboard, flash-based memory and is slim enough to fit into my purse.  I only had to buy Office separately but, other than that, it came with the trimmings I needed to make my life easier.  I had never used a Mac before, but now I seriously wonder if, as I turn the page into a later part of my life, this is not the way I want to go.  Yes, maybe I want the ClubMed of laptops instead of the nice, decent hotel that is conveniently located but comes with few perks.  Oh, well….I am aging…so what?

I was never drawn to drama, so I am not sure how I got myself into this. I am trapped in an icy prison, like that Dead Man Walking the Houston Grand Opera decided to revisit with Flicka Von Stade as the mother of the convict. I’m probably a dead heart walking, only that mine still beats, despite myself. I wish it did not. I wish it were free…to death or to a happier fate, if something like that exists.

I was recently watching the last movie version of Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, with  Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes starring as the lovers whose fate is doomed by a too likeable husband (somewhat like a Brief Encounter type, with more screen time) and by the mother of all fates and relationships: circumstance.

Timing is always an essential ingredient to relationships, and yet lovers take it for granted. Perhaps because I am behind these prison bars now, I can look at happy couples with a renewed eye, knowing without their sharing in that knowledge how lucky they are to have fallen for each other on a tabula rasa, with no past to pay dues to, or to feel they have to. I did not know how much circumstance shapes facts and options until I met you. Perhaps it was because of the extended suspension of disbelief that accompanies the anesthetized initial romance, or the pursuit of seduction as a game, as an option, that fleeting moment in which we think we know where things are going, and when “inevitable” seems like an infallible word.

Oh, well, I’ve learned that “inevitable” is a nice umbrella word to cover up for the fantasy of thinking that we know, when we really do not. We do not know the secrets, the hiding, and mostly the lying that accompanies each strategy of seduction, the moves behind the scenes  to get what we want, not thinking of the future because it scares us, because it is too far to think about. Greene’s Maurice Bendrix is consumed by jealousy for what he cannot change and he cannot understand…for what he cannot see. In my version, there is only emptiness, as my side of the story becomes a tepid version of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black.

And now add to the tragedy of a lover’s plight the fact that you may be ill, and then the terror of hearing the worst prognosis is superseded by the certainty that I will be external to you in any process, as you let circumstances take over the fragile texture of a life that a radiologist’s report can change forever. I know more than you do, despite your technical expertise and the medical degree that probably decorates some wall in an unreachable house. I know that rotting out is not paying homage to whatever is left of your time anywhere, be it long, fruitful years, or the sad and lonesome count of a calendar the family you think you are protecting imposes on you. Rotting out is another kind of prison, one that you build around yourself, one that is hard to resist without real love if real love has come to you. And I know it has, and I wish you could stop fighting it like a disease.