I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m on vacation now in Texas. But I just got back today from a sidetrip to Mexico City, where I spent three days.

Initially, I was going to New Orleans, but the hurricane coupled with the fact that I don’t know anyone in NOLA made me reconsider. So, Mexico City became an option, in that I knew someone there and it was closer to Texas than it normally is to San Francisco. My mistake was in mentally transferring the three night stay I had in NOLA to a three night stay in Mexico, given all of the additional flight time, customs, and other factors.

So, aside from it being way too short, it was a great time. First night, as soon as I arrived, Miguel (with whom I was staying, and old school contributor to Oasis) and his roommate Marcel took me out to have a late dinner. It was fantastic and put my fears aside about trying to be vegetarian while there. I had an amazing portobello carpaccio and tortilla soup. It wasn’t quite Weight Watchers, but it was much closer than I thought I’d get.

The next morning, I went to the anthropological museum. I could write “museo de la anthropologica” and such throughout, but I certainly tortured enough Mexicans with my horrible Spanish this week, no need to continue any further.

After the museum, Miguel met me as he left work, and we went to a modern art museum after being joined by Arturo, a current Oasis contributor. Arturo is a univeristy student studying medicine and was all decked out head to toe in white, as is required at school. After the museum, we all headed back to Miguel’s place, met up with Marcel, and went out for some dinner. We walked by Frida Kahlo’s house (it had closed 15 minutes earlier, unfortunately), and then off to a place for some tequila and food. This was more on the order of the queso and bread that I expected. But it is a vacation, after all.

After Arturo went home, the three of us headed back to the apartment and Miguel invited his friend Mauricio over. Mauricio is an actor in the city, mainly doing theater. So, all four of us hung out at the apartment, after I went to the supermarket with Marcel, who was getting wine, to get salad fixings in me before more queso appeared.

The next morning, I helped Marcel pick up some chairs at Sears that they bought for the apartment, and then went to the Metropolitan Cathedral and the Independence Plaza(? look up later). The Cathedral was huge, dwarfing St. Pat’s in NYC. Some things I didn’t quite understand, and not just because of my lapsed Catholic standing. There were ribbons tied around the wooden railing, where people wrote to the saint they were praying to (I assume), and at another station, a table was covered with locks, also covered with written intentions to the saints. Never saw that before. Not sure if it is unique, or a Latin thing, so anyone with answers, drop me a line.

After that, I went to the Museum of Modern Art, and got to see some Diego Rivera paintings, but no Frida Kahlos. Then I went back to the apartment, had a late dinner with Miguel and Marcel, as Marcel was headed to the airport that night. This time I ordered well, crepas con huitalacoche (corn smut), but when it arrived, it was covered in some rich sauce and, of course, queso. Still good.

After Marcel left, Miguel and I watched the bootleg of Almadovar’s Bad Education (La Mala Educacion), which won’t play in the States until December. Of course, it was not as advertised, and had no English subtitles. But the movie seems pretty intricate, and seeing it with subtitles will only help it make sense to me. Only cost 20 pesos ($2?), so not a big deal.

Then, Miguel’s friend Luis came over, whom I had met before from when he visited San Francisco. We all went out to a gay bar, CabareTito, which was a lot of young Latin boys dancing and drinking. A few cute ones (shock), but I wasn’t really in the mood to play “no habla espanol” with a lot of people, so mainly kept to eye contact. Fun club, though.

After that, Luis (who has a car) drove us around the downtown area and he and Miguel pointed out the sites. As I traveled alone during the days, a lot of things eluded me, not to mention the timeline was tight, so it was nice to get a quick tour through the city.

Sadly, my main quest did not occur. Gael Garcia Bernal remained elusive. Miguel and Marcel were having dinner on Sunday afternoon and in the same restaurant, Gael AND Diego Luna were both having lunch, and a camera crew showed up and disturbed them. But, the odds of us running into them again were too great. And Marcel and Miguel didn’t care that they got to see them… Isn’t that always the case? Pity.

I returned to Dallas today and went to the Weight Watchers meeting, and lost 0.2 pounds, which given the Mexican dining, tequilas, margaritas, as well as pizza in Dallas beforehand, is a successful week. But there will be weight loss in DFW next week.

Things have been… tranquil lately. Which is good.

Todd Oldham FINALLY delivered my chair, although I’ll have to hold off on the party aspect since I’ll be on vacation for the next few weeks.

Vacation… I tried not taking one. I really did. I wanted as many hours saved up as possible, so I could cash it all out when I leave the job next year. But, I needed a break, so I took it. I’ll mainly be hanging out with family in Texas, with a stint in Mexico City for a change of pace.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since I was in Thailand. I just talked to Jamey recently and his contract is almost up where he’s teaching, and he plans to go teach yoga at the Sanctuary for a bit before heading off to India. I’d like to visit him again while he’s there, so we’ll see what happens.

Otherwise, the rest of the fall seems to be about being frugal. Well, my version of it anyway. Like, I bought the $70 Bridge ticket, but skipped the $45 Bill Maher show and the $35 Morrissey/Dashboard Confessional/Tears for Fears show in Golden Gate Park this weekend.

This week will be crazy at work, since you pretty much have to cram a lot of work in before you take a vacation. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still 9:30 until almost 5 each day, but less web surfing during that time.

I think I’m giving up on getting laid off. I mean, I couldn’t be less engaged or interested in any single aspect of what I do there. But it doesn’t seem to matter. I’m not allowed to interact with the CEO, at his request. I tried making the new markting person think I’m incompetent. But the system continues to route around me. Things still need to change.

Bradford summed it up well in a recent post. He said, “Stability without happiness is not living.”

I wouldn’t say I’m unhappy overall, but work is clearly eight hours (I count the commute to hit the eight, btw) of soul-dredging weariness. I think everything changed once I wrote the novel. I know I can do it. I have a huge, bound version of the novel here. I know so many things I want to do to make it better. But, I really can’t bear to face it after writing that nonsense all day.

I think there is just a fixed amount of time whereby I can creatively write each day, and at present, they are on lease to my employer.

To be honest, a lot of this is my own constant dwelling on how awful the job is that makes it even more unbearable. I know this. But, still, it’s true.

For a while, I was goig to bed at like 8 p.m., and waking up at 4 a.m. to write. On a majority of the days, that worked. I felt fresh going at the book, and by mid-afternoon at work, I could barely put sentences together. I was fine with that.

So, as it stands right now, the more money I save, the quicker I can quit. So every dinner is another press release. Every concert is 2 hours of joy for more hours of misery.

Christmas is going to be more spare this year. I’m going to put more thought into the gifts, but less money. No Broadway shows on the trip home.

It’s time for focus.

Speaking of focus, Weight Watchers has been going well. After all, why write a book if you’re going to have a pudgy author photo (it’s all marketing!)? In like 5 weeks, I lost more than 15 pounds, so I’m happy about that. Still losing the weight I gained since I last lost weight (naturally), but that’s fine.

I’ve also been going to a gay Buddhist group in the Castro, but I think I’m going to abandon that to start taking an ashtanga yoga basics class upon my return. They occur on the same night, so I have to choose.

So, no real theme to this entry, just all over the place. But, that’s life, I guess.