So all my underwear is hanging on the clothesline outside Jorge's window right now. I swear I did an entire load of laundry consisting of only socks and underwear (okay minus the 2 pairs of jeans, t-shirt, and camisole I threw in as well).
Jorge is moving out. His newly raging sex life was cramping our coexistence in the apartment so he decided to silence the moans and sighs for good by leaving. I can't say I'm not sad to see him go. The four of us have become a pseudo-family, but we shall prevail nonetheless. Farewell Jorge, and thanks for helping me augment my Spanish vocabulary. I know the vieja next door will be happy that you're leaving, as she has frequently complained to Marlene about the "odd sounds" that preclude her from sleeping at night. Can't say I blame her for being somewhat annoyed, but really she just needs to find a hobby besides envying and being bitter.
In other news, I have started the new semester and am loving my classes. I am taking Arte Español Contemporáneo (Picasso, Dalí, Miró), Cine Español Contemporáneo, Literatura Hispanoamericana, and of course DON QUIJOTE! The profesor who teaches the art class is the father of the profesora who teaches Don Quijote. I love this father and daughter -- the Losadas. They are the most interesting people, both of which employ what I characterize as the bourgeoisie in Barcelona.
I have to talk a little bit about the Losadas because they are just that worthy. Daddy Losada is an 80-year-old German man who wears a bristley beard yellowed with age and has permanant swollen bags under his eyes. Although German, he speaks perfect Spanish (to which he proudly attests) because he learned it when it was 9 years old. He has survived four plane accidents, spent a year as a blind man (he only had 10% vision in one eye) due to an eye surgery gone awry, is deaf in one ear, and takes garlic pills everyday to preserve what he describes as "immortality."
He told us that during his blindness he was so depressed that he had planned to take his life, but before he would stick his head in the way of a train, he would first go to the cafe on Aribau right outside the facultad to have a coffee. "If any of you ever decide to commit suicide, it's important that you have a coffee first," he informed the us. This note of Professor Losada's reminded me of Papa Hem, who decided to eat breakfast before he committed suicide. I guess taking one's life is something that should always be done on a full stomach.
Anyway, Daddy Losada told us that art saved his life. That day at the cafe on Aribau, as he was sitting there in the dark (because when you're blind it's dark during daytime too), he heard the most beautiful music. Turns out that music was Beethoven's Opus 133 "la gran fuga," and D. Losada decided that he would take his life the following day, the day after he went to the store to buy some Beethoven records. Needless to say, Daddy Losada is still alive and kicking "with mostly everything working." After which he add that at his age "the thing that doesn't work isn't really that important anyway" (I love this subtley).
Baby Losada, who is really 50 years old and not a baby at all, has been one of my professors since I arrived in Barcelona. She was one of my professors during ILP (the Intense Language Program that we all had to endure during the first 3 weeks of our time in Barcelona), she taught my Barcelona en su contexto cultural class last semester, and now she teaches Don Quijote. I love her. She is austere and firm but has some really good stories to tell. B. Losada buries herself in books, falls in love with characters, and then returns to read the books again later. She told us about how one summer she fell out of a tree and broke her leg completely. She was bedridden for the entire summer and was only about 11 or so (I'm not exactly sure of the age but it was pre-teen or teenage). Being bored out of her mind, B. Losada grabbed the longest book that she could find in the house -- War and Peace. It lasted her the entire time her leg was broken, and she is convinced that Pierre Bezukhov is the best man to have ever existed. So she falls in love with book characters too...
Anywho, it's 10:30pm and it's eggs for dinner tonight. Woohoo! (Don't you love how I act as though someone else is controlling what I eat? As if I don't cook my own food every night...) Though, I never did think that I'd get used to eating dinner so late.
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Wow! When I shared a place with some buds one Summer in the early 1970s, physical filth was the only thing that we had to deal with. Thankfully, we didn't to deal with audio porno, although he dated a softcore porn model.
Our roommate was so filthy that he could stand his Levis in the corner when he came home from working at Chula Vicious Muni Golf Course. It got so bad that we had to burn his sheets because they were so filthy that the bleach required to bring them back to a white state would have destroyed the sheet's fabric!
We got him some cheap replacement sheets from an outlet store near the former Shelby's Cancellation Shoes in Naturally Sh*tty (National City). He fouled them just the same; but by the time they got so hopelessly soiled everybody was headed back to school. So we were relieved of having to deal anymore with his filth.
He's now a finicky attorney in San Bernardino. BTW, he's still a jerk. He just smells better.
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