Drink Life to the Lees

The entrance was a small window and a door lit by a string of lights. I walked in and waited a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting; it was darker in the bar than it had been out in the street. A bar eventually resolved around me but it took me a moment to recognize it as such. It was a room not much bigger than the living room of my apartment, which also wasn’t spacious by any standard. There were two tables with three chairs each, and a short row of stools along the bar. I sat down on one of them and waited for the bartender, a fat man wearing a red sweater, to notice me. The bartender appeared to be as much a part of the décor as anything else. The limited wall space wasn’t dominated by a giant mirror or row after row of bottles with colorful labels and syrupy liquids. Instead the space was packed with signs, notes, and comics written in French, Spanish, German, a few in English. More than a few of them were handmade,

With only a little more than a handful of weeks left in Barcelona, I’ve been thinking a lot about the fine line I’ll approach and cross come June. I’ll be leaving someplace ‘different’ and going home, but in many ways I’ll be leaving a home to go someplace ‘different’- different than I remember it, different than it used to be, different than I used to be. I don’t know how many things have changed in that town that never seems to change, but I know they have. I also have no idea how much I’ve changed, and I probably won’t know until much later after I return. Until then I’m here in Barcelona, thinking about the old and the new. Which was probably the best part of having Rick and Joy visit all last week: exploring a place I’ve only just gotten to know with two people I’ve known forever. It was a non-stop week that was part show-and-tell, part exploration and re-exploration, and part marathon. Much of the week seemed so natural that somet

7:56, just before the alarm. I set down the clock and rolled back over to look at the ceiling and wake up for next four minutes. A few morning sounds filtered in through my window, which opened up into the interior of the building. I listened to the indistinguishable morning conversations of my neighbors, birdsong from the cages hanging in other windows, and echoes of the noise from the street. It was relatively quiet, but I knew that soon the sounds of jackhammers and construction would invade through the walls. When I’d first moved in I would bolt upright in bed at the sound of it, cursing to myself and suggesting that the construction workers’ mothers were promiscuous and, perhaps, canine. Lately, though, I was already awake and getting ready by the time the work started. Today was no different; the first groans of construction were beginning as I got out of bed. I awoke fully and dressed. I looked briefly in the mirror and, not fo

Originally I was going to write a humble, what-I’ve-learned sort of review of 2010’s major events for me. That’s kind of my thing, anyway. But then I started listing what’s happened this year and I decided to throw the humility crap out the window. I’ll just say it: this year was awesome. I’d be doing it a disservice if I tried to play it down. 1. U of I- My second semester of U of I was filled with interesting classes, new friends, and a lot of fun. My classes were varied and I learned so much that I still carry with me. (I can have a basic conversation in French, I can draw and label a cross section of a brain- to a certain extent, I learned about force and momentum and electromagnetism and a bunch of other things I’d never have learned about in an English class.) I got all A’s and made the Dean’s List again. I spent a lot of time applying, writing, and interviewing for the study abroad program that allowed me to be in Barcelona right now. I survived Un