read to me dianna

this is how i felt most of the day. haven't been to see it yet, but will get there some day soon.

looks like we got the house. i don't know if that's good or bad yet. hopefully good. steve flys out on the 14th to los angeles. we have to deal with our storage unit and truck. how to get it down here, cost, dealing with my FM3. i may or may not have to get an extension because i'll have been here 6 months on the 15th of april. we won't be able to move the stuff down until may or june at the earliest. it's a drag to have to deal with all of this. the laws changed recently and every single person you talk to has a different story on what's going on. it takes days to get anything processed. otherwise, life is good. it wasn't quite as hot today. shepards pie for dinner (courtesy of sam's friend from london). delicious.

money's a little tight...thank go we're used to that. have a couple of jobs lined up back in the states. we still haven't figured out how to make money down here. so far, we've been surviving on our disability checks. but the savings are dwindling and credit card nearing max. so we don't have the luxury of just sending for our stuff like most gringos. they just have it all taken care of. if we had and extra 3000 or 4000 thousand dollars we'd just have all shipped down and that'd be that. the moving company's take care of all of the paper work, which is the biggest hassle. oh well.

it's hard to get too freaked out about money when the coolest things here cost nothing or close to it. so...we have it better than most. it beats the hell out of starving in the states. i haven't bounced a check since i've been here. in the states i was over drawn every month just trying to float us through the month. it was bounce a check, or not eat that weekend. that hasn't happened here.

on a lighter note...we've heard from john. i'm going to see if i can get a new link up to BORDERSTORIES. i'll do a separate post after this break.

grateful

a year ago steve was still in the worst part of chemo. the end. you're suppose to feel happy that it's over, but your body is so fried you feel like shit all the time. that was a year ago.

and now we're here. in mexico. how did that happen? so many many things transpired. it's impossible to tell you. but i'll try.

a bird has made a nest right outside my room in an old wasp hive. i'm pretty sure we've got a couple of eggs waiting to hatch. reminds me of the doves we rescued and raised when we lived in echo park. i loved taking care of them. except when i didn't love taking care of them. funny how i change the rules as i go.

because we are constantly with each other, sometimes this experience has truly tested the strength of our relationship. i have not been the most easy person to be with on a good day...so when i get depressed or in a funk here it i tend to be a real bitch (surprise surprise) and that's not what we came down here for. in some ways, i thought by just moving down here, everything would change and we'd be happy in paradise. it hasn't been that easy. housing has been difficult, to say the least. we've bumped around all over town. this is our forth place, and longest (4 months) since we got here. steve and i share a small room, and although we have access to the rest of the house, there's a certain lack of privacy that's been hard to get used to. neither one of us has any place to escape to, to have a break from each other. so, in that aspect, it feels like the world longest road trip. it doesn't feel like we've landed yet.

that being said, today i find myself so grateful to this city, and more importantly, from what i've seen, this country. everyday i learn something new or see a new color or element of something that's been here forever, that i just now discovered. i know that it was the right thing to do. all i have to do is walk out my door and a whole wonderful adventure awaits me. so while we go about finding our way here, the land holds us and sustains us with its beauty and it's big open skys. viva la mexico!

another day in paradise 2.0

steve's out looking for apartments. my hip still hurts, as it has for the past week or so. not sure i want to go into the whole thing right now. i hate getting old. but i feel so young compared to most people here. the best thing about being here is the walks. exploring, finding new places, parks, fountains, etc. so i guess i'm talking about my hip. damnitalltohell. steve's back. maybe i'll go hop/drag myself to some comida.

i see you and now you must die

this is my boyfriends eye. hot!

mable the wonder dog

this is my best friend and all around pal...miss mable!

we shot this a couple of weeks ago. a blacksmith shop past the art institute. i tweaked it a bit. it was so iconic.

BORDER STORIES

last october i moved to san miguel de allende after living in los angeles for twenty two years. my partner and i visited here last june. we fell in love with the place and decided to pack up and move on down. so much has happened since then. prior to leaving i started this blog, thinking i would have a public journal of my experience.

well, as you can see, there has been virtually no activity since i got here. there's always some lame excuse for not sitting down and doing what i'm doing now. i could give you a hundred different reasons why and 99 of them would be bullshit. i have to give thanks to my friend john for making me get off my tired ass and do something. he's the one doing the BORDERSTORIES PROJECT. the website hasn't launched yet, but i wanted to take a moment to share with you his last email. i'm so proud of the work he's doing. and if i can do anything to drive traffic to his sight...even my little blog...then i will do whatever i can do.

so here's the latest from john:



I am relieved the site is just about there. It's been really intense trying to shoot, travel and make a website simultaneously. That woman I hired in San Miguel was a real let down and basically took $2000 from our humble budget without returning a single, functioning component. We have essentially built the site from scratch, splitting our time between motel rooms and the back of my van. It's quite an accomplishment given the working conditions, not to mention the fact that we shot, edited and translated 5 stories simultaneously. Now that the site is up, we can shift our focus strictly to content and this has reenergized me. Our next story for example, will make you cry. We went to the "Casa del Migrante" yesterday in Nuevo Laredo. As we sat waiting for it to open its doors, we watched young men accumulate outside the small, run-down building's premises. By the time the doors opened, there were over 40 men eagerly waiting to be let inside. I talked to 5 or 6 of them as they waited in a line, all of them with young and tired faces and learned that the majority of them were from Honduras and had been on the road for 1-2 months. They had hopped trains, watched women be raped and companeros murdered. There hands were dirty, as were the seat of their pants and their shoes. Each one had a different version of the same story to tell. I had to fight to keep myself from breaking down in front of them. They're just boys, in search of a dream that according to them, has turned dark and terrifying since they first decided to leave. And yet, outside this temporary refuge, sparks of hope and youth could still be seen. And God bless the Catholic volunteers that open the doors to these men. They provide them with a bed, 3 telephone calls and a chance to wash their clothes. They also give each person a chance to tell their story in a closed office, where they are alone with only other person who is purposely there to listen. The idea is to try and help restore their dignity before they are returned back onto the streets where the next border crossing awaits them. The casa is just that- a temporary holding ground where each person that arrives at its doors is given a chance to feel like a human being for a day or two. They cannot house or feed them any longer than that because 80 new faces appear each day, all with horrifying shadows under their eyes. Can you imagine? And this is just one of a dozen major border crossing towns.

The volunteers that run this place offer gospel services to those that want to hear, but the purpose of the mission is strictly to try and help restore human dignity before the men and the occasional woman are forced to fend for themselves again. Never in my life I have been so touched by a humanitarian service, let alone one affiliated with the Catholic church.

We are going back to the Casa today and will spend several hours interviewing those that want to go before the camera. Our hope is to have something for our audience to see by the end of the week. In many ways, this feels like just the beginning.

Much love,
JD



now you see why i'm off my ass and online. when faced with challanges like people are going through everyday just to survive, it makes my lame excuses seem even more obscene. i hope you've enjoyed hearing from john, and i promise to keep you, and myself, up to date