Just as the first seven days of the year have come to pass, I find myself with a little peace and quiet, enough to write a post.
Since the night of the 29th, my brother and I have been sleeping on inflatable mattresses in the living room. That first night was just practice, as the guests would arrive the following day, leaving us with no choice (really?) but to give up our beds for a while. The mattresses aren’t terribly comfortable, and it’s not a good feeling to wake up in the morning and seeing people walking around and talking as I try to get a few more minutes of sleep. Impossible task.
Our guests are currently staying with another relative and will return tomorrow, so I find it best to take advantage of this moment instead of waiting until they travel back home.
I finished reading Gabriel García Márquez’s Doce cuentos peregrinos (“Strange Pilgrims“) on the 30th. The last of the twelve short stories in the book is the one I’ll remember the most because I had read it before … or it had been read to me before, some ten years ago, possibly more. My sister was reading El rastro de tu sangre en la nieve (The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow) on my parents’ bed one day, and I just happened to be around. Not sure about whether she read the whole thing to me or if I did some reading of my own, but I’m surprised that I still remembered most of the story, more than a decade later. Back then, I didn’t know that García Márquez was the one who wrote, but the short story of newlyweds Nena Daconte and Billy Sánchez de Ávila –I admit that I didn’t remember the latter character’s name– managed to stay clear on my mind to the point where I instantly recognized it when I read Nena Daconte on the first page of the story just eight days ago.
When I was done reading the book, I spoke to my sister, trying to tell her that I had no idea that he was the one who wrote that story, the one about Nena Daconte, and that I remembered it well. She didn’t pay much attention –she was busy with other things–, so I had to keep my amazement to myself.
If all of García Márquez’s writings have a similar power to stay fresh on the mind for so long, in addition to being as enjoyable as those twelve stories are, I’m interested in seeking more of his work where I can find it. Just looking up, at the row of books above the computer, I can see that we have two other works by him. Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude), which Jessica mentioned and which I’ve been hearing about for ages, is not one of them. It may or may not be one of the books stored in the back room. I doubt I’ll be reading them right away. There’s already a backlog of books, and I just don’t know if I’ll get some peace and quiet during the day when things go back to normal the usual.
I thought that, it being 2011 and all, there would be some sort of change to my situation, but it doesn’t seem like that will happen. As usual, I’ve been having trouble keeping food down, even when there isn’t any food to keep down. That, in addition to some coughing that at times becomes uncontrollable –but which has somehow receded today–, has kept me from going out with our guests as much as I probably should. Oh, poor old me. One of these days I will get you, Bad Health monster. I will get you, real bad. One … of these … days …
In other news, my nephew is getting baptized. I honestly couldn’t care less about it, and the process of arranging a baptism seems like quite a hassle. If it were up to me, I’d forget about it, but there’s little chance of that happening when the majority would be against me. At least they didn’t consider me to be the godfather. Having to explain myself would be stressful and possibly alienating. Just my mother’s reaction to my atheism is a good indicator.
What else … no, it seems like that’s all I have to say … or at least all I have to say that I can say at the moment. I guess that’s it for my first post of 2011. First post of January. First post of the first Friday, and so on.
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