mi vestido

This first thing I ever wrote about Alejandro was about the way he dressed.

He wore skater-style sneakers, baggy jeans, and a black t shirt with some sort of tattoo-related design on the front. He usually wore a leather jacket with a hooded sweatshirt poking out the collar. He had a shaved head and dark stubbly facial hair. I, on the other hand generally looked rather bookish in collared shirts and cardigans (July 2011)

Seven months later, I described his style again

Alé often wears an Ed Hardy shirt with a tiger on it that he told me he bought at the El Alto market one Sunday. He wears baggy light colored jeans and black Adidas shoes that often have the laces untied. His dark brown leather jacket has a sweatshirt hood poking out the collar. He shaves his head to the second lowest setting once a week. He has small black flesh plug earrings, and his right hand has a tattoo in black and red of a rotary tattoo machine that says “calibración.” (February 2012)

It’s now been one year and 7 months that we’ve known each other. I’ve met his family. I’ve seen him quit 2 jobs and survive another attempt at school (in Art & Design this time). I’ve been apartment hunting with him (for both him and myself). I’ve cooked with him a few times and given up and eaten Mr. Pizza or street hamburgers far more times. I’ve fallen asleep watching movies at 8pm and stayed all night drunkenly engaging in what could be considered Marxian arguments with him. We’ve dealt with Bolivian bureaucracy together. And in general I’m rarely surprised by him.

But on the night of January 12, as we unloaded tattoo equipment from his car he startled me.

Me gusta tu vestido. Es muy vintage!

the dress in question

Granted, Alé’s style has changed as I’ve known him. On New Year’s eve he lost the sweatshirt that always went under the leather coat. He wears a grey and black striped hoodie almost every day, now. His jeans are darker and slimmer, and he’s switched from DC sneakers to Adidas. He’s grown out his hair, and its parted slightly to the side. He’s let his beard grow out, and his mustache is verging on handlebar. I suppose you could say he’s got more of a vintage look going on too lately.

But this still surprised me. I always thought of our styles as polar opposites.

But then I remembered other instances. He once told his friend Ro that I had to be an expert on Johnny Cash because I had horn rimmed glasses and a red plaid shirt. He admired my t shirt with a Warhol print of James Dean. And now he always tries to steal my imitation Ray Ban sunglasses (25 Bolivianos at Plaza San Francisco).

Our musical taste seems to be growing more similar as well. Or maybe its always been that way, I just let my assumptions get in the way. Maybe its only a surprise because I thought I had him pegged so clearly. But as I get to know him he becomes more than the stereotypes. And I suppose everyone does. I think back to what I wrote about my grad school cohort the first day we were introduced. How we’ve grown together, seen each other through divorces and deaths. They are not who I expected, but I wouldn’t ask for anyone better  with whom to decide that Friction is not worth reading or that doxa is a pointless concept. Maybe the truth is we all have more in common than it appears on the surface. And maybe that’s part of the point of anthropology.

buena onda en la paz

I am so much cooler in Bolivia.

“Really, I am!” I want to shout at people I meet here in DC.

I suppose it’s a matter of social positioning, and I can’t really help it. Here I am a grad student and adjunct professor. I either stay in sweat pants all day or try to fight my younger-than-I-actually-am appearance by trying to dress like an academic. I hate when librarians ask me if I’m looking at information for a class paper. But in La Paz, I am one of the cool kids. I wear vintage, rockabilly dresses or ripped jeans and t shirts given to me by tattoo artist friends. I’m a live music junkie, a tattoo shop groupie, booze-slinging benefactor, restaurant aficionada, mural-painting sidekick, dj enthusiast, and a legitimate luchadora who rarely pays for a drink.

I wrote in May that I’m famous in La Paz (only half-jokingly), and its (half-jokingly) true. La Paz has the feeling of a small town, and if I don’t know everyone, I at least know someone who knows them. DC is small too, but rather than being comforting, its almost oppressive. When I left here in April 2011, I had good friends and a comfortable repertoire. I return to a place that feels empty. Most of my friends have left (such is life in such a transient city). With others I have grown apart. Evenings feel empty here as I crave distraction, camaraderie, excitement.

I came back in a depressed state, and googled “post-fieldwork depression.” Most of what turned up was written by people who disliked their field site and were depressed in the field. I felt the opposite. I longed to return to my friends, my usual days of training, reading, writing, visiting friends workplaces or homes, nice dinners served by my favorite Belgian, and the free tequila shots that went along with it. I missed the guessing games of who I’d run into on the street (there was always someone, but you never know who). Slowly it gets better. Easier. I instinctively put paper in the toilet, and don’t turn my nose at tap water. I wait patiently at bus stops, and thoroughly appreciate my electric heater. But I’d happily give it all up, even knowing there are horrific electric showers waiting for me on the other side.

But this is how it happens. We re-integrate ourselves to the best of our abilities. We find the little things that make us happy (hot water in sinks) and try to forget the things that were so magical about our other home (evening light on Illimani). And at the very least, I’ve found a bartender here who hooks me up as well as I was taken care of in LPZ.

suspensión corporal

WARNING: possibly gross-ifying picture below

...and in an interesting turn of events, i noticed that on 7 october 2007,  during my first semester of grad school, i wrote this

while taking a break from reading today i notice True Life: I'm a Coney Island Side Show Performer was on. I didn't watch it, but it made me think those dudes that pick up heavy things with chain links pierced through their skin would be an interesting study. 

well what do you know? i'm now friends with some people that do that. i've been thinking the next project will be about street art or something, but maybe i should go back to that old idea.

el fin del año 2012

there are years that ask questions, and years that answer. 2012 was a mixed bag. there were good moments and bad moments—many bests and worsts. but just as last year, i learned from the bad and fully reveled in the good. here are those worth mentioning

Best Meal

the megacenter tour with jonathan: appetizers of burritos and nachos in La Cueva, the main course of Factory chicken wings, and we finished off with dessert in the Dubliner. i think i gained 10 pounds that night.

Worst Meal

la paz ceviche for breakfast with nico (note that pictures are of delicious ceviche for lunch with lorenzo in lima)

Best Completed Project
Will Roman mural

Worst Uncompleted Project
reading El Hobit


Best Party
afterprom

Worst Party
carnaval in oruro (being sick, sleeping on a wood floor, no windows, and no running water was not a good combination)

the worst of it

making the best of it

Best Success
finishing a draft of my dissertation before turning 30

i celebrated with these afterwards

Worst Failure
never quite getting the double tijeras llave


Best Student Experience
being greeted with "hey darlin" at aaa

Worst Student Experience
seemingly permanent back pain before my first lucha event


Holiday Celebration
halloween with mau, derren, rylan, kicho, & gus (2nd year running that halloween takes the honors)

Worst Holiday Celebration
st. patrick's day

at least the day started well with a strongbow and chapter 4 at 7am

Best "Illegal" Activity

the week clandestinely spent in the forbidden hostel room

Worst "Illegal" Activity

strapping $50,000 US to my belly and taking a 12 hour bus ride

and worse yet, at the end of the bus ride i was stuck in potosí for 36 hours

Best Birthday Gift(s)

its a tie

my tattoo and my lady blade portraits

writing 1, 2, & 3

Worst Birthday Gift

6 tequila shots in under an hour thanks to jaime and lucas

Best Acquisition

my pollera

Worst Acquisition
several pairs of ill-fitting jeans


Best Encounter with an Animal
horse riding with el profe

Worst Encounter with an Animal
dog bite in obrajes

Best Fight
villa copacabana lady blade contra black spyder

Worst Fight
over hip hop music with jonathan and lorenzo


Best Death Defying Feat
urban rush, face forward

Worst Death Defying Feat
almost careening over a cliff during a car crash between puno, peru and the bolivian border

Best 24 Hours
el centro to la cumbre to mallasa and back

Worst 24 Hours
one of the many stomach dealies, throwing up every 2 hours and running out of potable water.


so there is my year, simplified to superlatives. the good were good and the bad were a learning experiences, thinking moments, or at least sighs of relief for not being as bad as they could have been. i'm lucky in so many ways. i met so many new wonderful people and grew to love so many old friends this year. my life will never be the same, and now i've got a tattoo to remind me of bolivia every day, now matter what hemisphere i'm in.

la lista de musica 2012

i wrote last year: people generally make top 10 lists this time of year to prove to the cosmos that they were paying attention and didn't let the year pass them by without notice. for the most part, they reflect on the past year and the new things that have brightened (or contentedly saddened) their days. and sure, there's a small part of the process that is aimed more at proving to the reader that the writer is cool enough to be on top of things and listen to the "right" stuff, and see the "hip" bands, and by paying attention to relevant music, is relevant themself.

this list lacks that second part completely.

i generally listen to pretty awful music. and its usually old (but not so old that its cool again). so i offer you this top ten tracks of 2012 list. but most were not released in 2012. instead this is my list of songs that will forever mentally transport me to afternoons spent in south american bars, late nights in makeshift paint studios, and sunrises seen from bedrooms in la paz. these are the songs that will likely stir strong emotion for decades to come. these are the songs that made 2012 what it was for me.

extra special mention

i am convinced i can start a cult following of Surfin’ Wagner, and i like them for reasons beyond the fact that they are mentioned in my dissertation. not only do they wear lucha masks and hawaiian shirts while playing surf-punk music, they’re nice guys with a sense of humor, and their website is just plain hilarious.

10. 

it was all the rage, but i resisted listening until it hit big in bolivia. a week later i appeared on the same television show with this particular video.

9.

practically perfect in every way. and even better in italian.

8. 

in a transient place, it describes so many relationships. sometimes comforting. sometimes heartbreaking.

7. 

sometimes you need to feel like a ninja. sometimes you need to feel like a primadonna.

6.

from beaches of the caribbean to andean mountaintops it followed me everywhere. by the end i grew to love it.

5.

good times. best friends. shitty tarija wine.

4.

the perfect soundtrack for construction, mural painting, and learning vocabulary like malirpa.

3.

when you leave and return as much as i do, feeling like you’re back in the groove is essential.

2.

i have a theory. after this song is played, nothing can go wrong. in fact, things usually get much better. especially if you play it 18 times.

1.

he called me and 5am and requested jim beam and this song. i didn’t know where to get booze at that hour, but he was content with the musical offering alone.