Tim's Big Adventure/Inventing Sleep/Valencia

Bom dit a tot!

Okay, that's all the Catalan I know. If you were wondering, Catalan is about as closely related to Castellano as Portuguese is. It kinda *sounds* like what you learned in Spanish class, and I can understand it if it's spoken slowly (Ha! like that ever happens), but it's pretty different. But everyone *can* speak Castellano here. It's kind of like Texas decided that it really should be it's own country, and failing that, rewrote the State Constitution to start off, "Naow y'all lissen up, y'hear?" as a symbol of national pride.

Thanks everyone who wrote me. I know I'm the world's biggest geek for writing back en masse, but I'm paying 800 pesetas an hour to do this, so it's just gotta be this way until I get access at work.

Well, the big news this week was the trip to Valencia. Valencia is the third biggest city in Spain, still part of Catalunya, except that instead of Catalan, the speak (you guessed it) Valenciana. Which is kind of like Colorado wanted to pretend it wasn't owned by Texans so they stopped using the word "y'all". Anyway, I packed up my stuff and worked out an Itinerary to take me all the way down the east coast of Spain, down to Morroco, and finally to Lisbon. I took off last Friday.

Valencia was breathtaking. Pretty in a very different way from Barcelona, only three hours north. Everything is, well, really really old, like built before the "nail" was introduced in the USA. Oh, get this, Valencians *invented* paella (saffron rice with shrimp and mollusks and a whole lotta chutspa). They had a beach that rivalled Miami or even Beau Vallon in Seychelles. My second night there I met some Danish folks and partied until 6am. The next morning was, well, horrible, but in a very beautiful place. It occurred to me that night that sleep must have been invented in the first 24 hours that people were on earth. Like, Ug and Zug were sitting around, banging rocks, and Ug says to Zug, "Man, this is hectic. There's rocks to bang together and dinosaurs to run away from. To top it off, I think I must be getting sick... I can't concentrate, and I try to bang the rocks together but I miss." And Zug says, "No, hey man, that happened to me too, but Fug showed be a trick. Watch." And Zug goes off to sleep. Ug sees that Zug has become still and quiet and worries that maybe Zug's died (death being one of the first things invented on the first day when Pug tried to invent flight)...

Anyway, I sat down and looked at my checkbook and my itinerary on Sunday, and decided that my money would hold out, but that I wouldn't. I realized that I actually missed working. Crazy. I'm going to save this email and read it again when I really hate working again. So I called my boss back in Barcelona and told him I was ready to get started, and we slid that date back to the 1st of June.

So I hopped a train back to Barcelona. Cool. I'm pretty dang bored, so I checked with Medicos sin Fronteras and Cruz Roja and found out that they need some help with their computers, so I'm going to go see about doing that tomorrow. Tell you how it turns out.

BTW, someone asked if I was planning on writing the guide for Consultants Working in Spain. Maybe. There sure is a helluva lot to know. But it's been worth it in droves so far. I really love what I'm doing, and I haven't done a lick of work yet, so we'll see what that's like. The Danish guy I talked to who was working as a Steel Engineer in Valencia seemed to think he'd died and gone to Engineer's Heaven (what would that be like?), and he was being paid as an intern (read: not much).

Well, the meter's about to click over. I'll write back in a few days. Take care everybody, and contact me especially if you plan on getting to this part of the world, everybody's welcome to come stay, I live in a cool place with a neat church (Sagrada Familia) on the corner and a spare bedroom. Cuidateis. Love, Tim

My phone, flat, and the Persianas story...

Hey Everybody!

Bom dit from luverly Barcelona. It's the prettiest day for a long time here, it's starting to get hot, and the tourists are coming here from everywhere. Yay.

My flat is almost liveable now. The water company has assured me that I will have water in a day or two, and I should have electricity and gas soon. I also got a phone, a mobile. One of the great things about living overseas is the english-style stuff that have here. For instance, my phone is from the line "Movistar". I had a choice between "Movistar" and "System Joc", which is for sporty types (y'know, Jocs). Almost as good as when I was in Japan and the popular car stereo system was the "Lonesome Car Boy" (I assume a take off on "Lonesome Cowboy").

Speaking of lonesome carboys, I put on my cowboy boots and my Stetson yesterday and played guitar in the Plaza de Pi, and made about 2300 Pesetas in just under an hour ($15.54 US). Hell, maybe I'll quit my day job. I even made a couple of Deutch Marks (Germans and Italians being notorious for tipping in their own currency).

Oh, hey, big news. My Permiso de Trabajo came in. I have to take a physical and then go to Paris to get the stamp put in my passport (they can't do it here in Spain). That sounds like great news, except that I was kind of hoping to do some more site-seeing before I started working. It looks like I'll be working in less than two weeks. Dang. I was kind of looking at the 4 month wait as a good time to chill out and see the sights, but it looks like my efficient paperwork handling (learned in the arduous processes of getting into Annapolis and the Peace Corps) allowed the Spanish government to process my request in record time. The good news is that all the money I had piled up to survive on is now unnecessary, so I can spend it on some vain frivolity like flashy clothes or a pension scheme or something.

¿Qúe más? Ah, I have good Spanish days and bad Spanish days. I won't bore you with that, except to say that it's surprising how much you can accomplish with hardly any words at all. Oh, I promised the Persianas story. Persianas are a popular type of window blinds here, popular since France and England weren't friends (well, were actively enemies). There were a couple of ancient Persianas hanging in the windows in my flat, and as part of my rental conditions, I got a break on my first month's rent (YES!) if I fixed the Persianas.

If only I had set up a video camera, I coulda won "America's funniest home videos" (or at least "Catalunya's funniest home videos"). I got to know the guy at the hardware store on a first name basis (a feat here, as everyone has twenty first names). The old Persianas weighed about sixty pounds each, and I was perched up on a ladder six stories up removing these things. Every few seconds I imagined myself years from now telling the story, "and that's how I went blind/became crippled/fell screaming to my death in Spain". There was a lot of banging and dust and dropping things. I felt foolish several times. I finally removed them and carried the whole 120 pound mess four blocks to the hardware store. Anyway, I got the new ones in, and it'll be a great apartment as soon as there's water and light.

Oh, hey, I'm reading "La guía del autoestopista galáctica" (you guessed it, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" in Castellano). Great news: Douglas Adams is funny in Spanish, too.

Well, enough of that. I hope everyone's doing well, I think about you all very often. I'll be here for a minimum of two years, so please come visit whenever you can. As a Spanish worker, I get 30 days a year off (how damned civilized is that? why can't we do that in the US? sorry, sorry) so I can definitely take some time off. Take care, I'll write in a few days. Love, Tim

The Tim Allen Barcelona FAQ

Dear everybody,

Well, I found a cheaper email connection, so I'm able to write again. I'm sorry to respond to you en masse, it's just pretty dang expensive to write individual emails from here. But I've got a little more time so I can answer some of those burning questions I've been getting from you all.

1) Hey Tim, how are you spending your days out there?
Well, really, my main purpose right now is learning Spanish, or Castellano rather. They do speak Catalan here, a lot more than you'd think. Although Franco tried to squash the Catalan language, everyone kept speaking it. The end result is that everyone over 50 seems to be illiterate in Catalan, but speak it all the time. Something new to learn. All the signs are in Catalan.

But anyway, I just rented a place around the corner from Sagrada Familia (the really weird, beautiful church designed by Gaudi). The process was arduous. I had to go through three different agencies to find it, and there was a lot of standing around, finding out that the agent had no keys. It was an excellent opportunity to practice the language, though. Now I'm all depressed cuz I found out how much a bed costs here (too much). However, there is an IKEA here(!), so I'm going to go check that out.

Other than that, I've been busking a lot out on La Rambla (Busking: vi, Playing street music for money). I've met some of the other musicians here, who seem to be living on the 1000 pesetas they get each day, I don't know how. I made friends with some Bill Wilson fans, too, and am hanging out with them a lot.

2) How do I contact you?
Email remains the best way. I have an address now, but I'm not certain how that works, since I don't even have the keys yet. I don't have a phone yet. I promise to update all of this for you all.

4) Are you writing?
YES! finally, after months of nothing, I started up the novel again. I'm changing some of my old characters, but the storyline is still basically the same (Seinfeld style: no storyline) There's a lot of great material here.

5) How's work?
Well, I'm still waiting for the Permiso de Trabajo, so no work yet. But I did meet my sponsor here, the other OLAP programmer who seems to be the guy I'll be working with most. I went to the offices, which was cool. They have better laptops here than we had at Oracle US! And everone smokes. It was like, Hi my name's Juan, do ju want a cigarette? Lots of big ashtrays on the desks. Everyone has a mobile phone. No one has a car.

6) Are you running?
Funny you should ask. I've been running a lot, there's a great hill here overlooking the whole city. The return route runs through the Guadi museum, which is kind of like running through the set of "Yellow Submarine". I just signed up for "La 21ª Cursa El Corte Ingles", which is a 12km run here at the beginning of June. 12km... I'm assured a PR, cuz I've never run that distance before.

7) Are you getting news there?
Not all that much US news. No one really seems to talk about the shootings in Denver. There is plenty of anti-OTAN sentiment about the situation in Kosovo. But people don't sit around yacking about the US a whole lot, which surprised me. I would have thought that everyone would spit when they said "USA". But no.

Oh man, I saw a pretty bad accident between a motorcycle and a taxi, though. I think everyone walked away from it, but it was a little scary there for a bit. A day later, I found out about the big tornado in Kansas. On the whole, the motorcycle accident made a much bigger impact on me, if that's any indication of how things are news-wise for me.

8) Would you like some more email?
Yes. Sí. Ja. Anio. All that. I'm checking my email every other day or so. If you're trying to ICQ me, forget it until I get my own connection.

Well, anyway, that's how things are in a nutshell for right now. I really miss you all. The homesickness is wearing off some, though. And yesterday was a really good day for some reason, like, I suddenly realized that I could understand Spanish. It was like someone had just stuck a babel fish in my ear (if you don't know, don't ask). Which is cool. I'm still going to look into school here, but at least I'm not going to starve to death. It's getting warm. There are many Italians here now. I miss you all. -Tim

5 minutes

Dear Everyone,

Dang, why do I always seem to only have 5 minutes left when I start writing? Well, thanks to everyone who wrote (and for the rest of you, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys). Well, things whip along at a frightening pace here. I just rented my apartment here, a process requiring much stamina. Not so much painful as just kind of... bureaucratico.

I just realized I´ve only been here for a week and two days. I expect the world out of my Spanish. Every time I commit a minor faux pas I expect everyone in Barcelona, nuns, little catalan guys, british tourists, to run after me amenazando me with papers, bibles, copies of El Pais, yelling, Juu must to leef now... Barcelona was a nice plase til juu got here.

Yahh. I have to go, one minute left. Mom, pay the checks, it´s okay. I´ll get you back. I love you all. Tim

Actually in Barcelona

Hola everybody!

Well, at long last, I'm actually here in Barcelona. Good lord, I've been going to be going to Barcelona for like six months now. Thank god Oracle USA re-organized and gave me an excuse to punt.

Anyway, I'm here at the prohibitively expensive Cafe de Internet on the Gran Via dels Corts Catalanes (which *is* the Michigan Avenue of Barcelona). It's my fourth day here. I've had like two real conversations since I got here-- I mean, when I say I speak Spanish, I'm using a very broad definition of the word "speak". And I'm all confused about this Catalan Frangspañol thing they speak here.

Now I'm waiting again for my Permiso de Trabajo stuff to go through so I can actually begin working. This should take about two months. I plan to use this time productively, sitting around, drinking coffee, and playing Guitar. If you have a mind to come visit me here in Barcelona, this two month period would probably be a good time, 'cuz I have time to play now. After that, you're all welcome, except I'll be working so you'll have to put up with me being all stressed-out and uptight again because I'm so dang dedicated to my work. Right.

Anyway, I'm headed out to Las Ramblas to play a little street guitar and see how many Duros (which *are* the nickels of Barcelona) I can pull in before the cops run me off (just kidding mom, busking is legal here). I miss you all. Now would be such an excellent time to write me a long email. Take care. -Tim

Connected

*Connected*
-----------
My laptop is tied to the world
by a thin silver cable

and I am tied to you by that sullen electronic string--
but for the image in my mind and the wired words
"we" would not exist--
at times the most frightening thought.

feeling from the bottom of 
the soul
the gut
from the bottom root of everything
my chakras and your chakras
forever tied and granted blessings of
connectedness

(we communicate on seven levels, highest to lowest to lower than lowest, 
each level a color to listen to: red orange yellow green blue indigo 
violet)

kiss my rain with your light
hold this hand with your hand
with my one hand in your both hands
with the one thought
in our both minds

stretch the wire tight
into my wrists
rope burn your image into
my tight mind
and crush my mind with the depth of you
til only the diver heart is left
to swim your blue ocean, your blue ocean
a sky inverted, clouds and waves:

send your fire across me now
connected fire, fire fly over the water
and find me feverish and bedeviled
by your icy heat

i am you
i your name
your people me
you my only cure

deeper still than any words
read from a computer screen
blue screen light screen
in the damp hotel room

break the wire
break the screen
stand up and shout without connection
but only through the true connection
my heart to your heart- direct
my  heart  to  your  heart- direct Now
shout
  shout
    shout
      shout
and i will hear you to the bottom of my waters:
You are here
and
This morning is Ours
-Tim Allen

Dancing

*Dancing* (Raleigh, North Carolina, 27 Sep 98)
---------
My father before me
I see him now, 
now solid and ridiculous 
in his brown chair throne

But then...
Then he was light-- took my mother's wrist smoothly
gently, but firmly,
and planted the first steps that would bloom
to a blossomed foxtrot,
slide glide across the parquet floor,
shining back up the reflection of my mother:
Now a housewife past,
Then a diafanous cloud, 
a driad swaying lazily and gracefully as a willow,
draped over my father's shoulder.

This pair that I never believed in as a boy
had only each other to believe in for so long
that they need no one else
and in their eyes I saw shine that same miracle
as they stepped out to "Take the 'A' Train"

Hard to believe
this stooped grey couple protecting each other
as they cross streets
once was the couple to watch on the dance floor
He the dashing Captain of Marines
tall and thin and dazzling in his Dress Blue uniform
And she the most beautiful and unusual woman
most men had seen
Oriental but dark, with an accent that melted men's hearts

They wrote letters as we do now, my love
never knowing for sure if they were right
for years they wrote, 
talked about the little things of the day
things friends had said
what color shirt they had bought

Without instructions they found each other, 
discovered the spell to conjure each other up
to hold each other when times were bad, 
or just when they felt like holding each other
though they were physically three time zones apart

They held each other in their hearts
as we now hold each other in our hearts
your image as real to me now as the tear running down my face,
your voice as real to me now as the sound of the North Carolina wind

Let me hold your hands in mine
and press your fingers to my lips
and thank the universe 
that we spent so much time holding hands
that we remember what it felt like
(remember-- my right hand in your left, mine behind yours)
I am with you now
and you with me
so close together
that we can hear each other breathing

Close your eyes
and listen to us laughing
so much like music
laughing
and the notes playing high and higher
and the floor beckoning
take my hands, Älskling,
take my hands
and if this song sounds right to you,
Would you care to dance?
-Tim Allen

Iron Tower

Iron Tower (980924 - Raleigh, North Carolina)
__________
Behind my Grandmother's house
behind the place we played in the turtle ditch
where there was mud in our toes
and a tire swing that smelled like horse urine

A rusted iron bell tower stood, bell-less

Undefiant, it was as inanimate as the church it stood next to
strangely out of place in the small southern town
a thing more suited to a third world country, or Spain

and we, only three feet high, would climb
it seemed weeks from bottom to top
and we would sit and read the scratched in inscriptions
until we were not afraid to look out over the city

the iron tower had lost most of its paint,
turned reddish brown of rust
and the wind was almost white with heat
a heat that had baked the life out of the churchyard grass
which shook in the breeze below, a broad expanse
of yellow, punctuated by the brown mud hills
of crawfish mounds

from here we could look beyond my grandmother's house
and see far, far away, to the red brick methodist church several blocks away
I still do not know what kind of church erected the iron tower
but it was not methodist.

And the Silsbee summer was almost silent in those days,
silent but for the occasional car drifting past in no hurry
the only other sound the wind through the line of 
short maple trees between my grandmother's property and the churchyard.
Honeysuckle blossoms stained the wind a sweet incense smell

We sat in the iron tower and pretended to play
but mostly we were silent, thinking about nothing,
moving clouds with our minds
I do not remember if we realized how magic that time was
if we knew how good we had it,
but it seems that we did

On my last trip home I went by the old churchyard,
but the iron tower was gone
sad, because I had intended to climb it again,
though now I am 25 years older
and I know about tetanus
knowing that you can never really go home
does not seem to make it any easier
were I a child, I would return there
and will, when I am that age again.
-Tim Allen

Folding

Folding
    Rut respondió: 
    "no insistas en que te deje, retirándome de ti: 
    porque adonde tú vayas iré yo, 
    y donde tú mores moraré yo.  
    Tú pueblo será mi pueblo, 
    y tú Dios será mi Dios.  
    Donde tú murieres, moriré you, y allí seré sepultada.  
    Que Yahvé me castigue de todos maneras si otra cosa que la muerte me separe de ti."

    And Ruth answered: 
    "Please, please.  Entreat me not to leave you, or thrust me away from you:
    Where you go, I will go, 
    and where you pitch your tent will I sleep.  
    Your people will be my people, 
    and your God my God.  
    Where you die, there will I lay me down, and be buried.  
    God watch over me that nothing but death ever keep me from you."
                                       -The Book of Ruth

How fast do minds have to run
before they catch up with what's in the soul?
fold paper forward
fold the soul back
fold the ingredients together until
they aren't what they were
but something else altogether.

The mind folds into itself
a sharp edge at the corner
carefully sharpened
carefully
not to cut the finger that folds
a red cut to match the red lips
the sunlight red through closed lids.

Two ingredients
equal parts of equal partners

Open your eyes now
the red still there
the question still in the air and the answer breaking the birth water
I'm drowning in you and watching you breathe again
will this breath fuel your next word
or fuel my insecurities further?

Life forms the long question mark,
curled around us as we curl around each other
naked in this bed
your hair tickling my leg
folded up under yours
following the fold of your elbow with my index finger

Breathe again
the heat on my cheek
your nose pressed to my face now
your eye dark and deep
as close to mine
an inch away now

Breathe
and your chest pressed against mine, now
now-love a question for the then-love

We only have less than this day
this breath
this air hanging between the question and the answer
folding us together
or apart
and no space between us now
between the beat of my heart and your heart
the seconds tick
the breaths tick
the answers tick
the clock
and 
wait
  wait.
    Wait
-Tim Allen
Antigua, Guatemala, August 1998
Copyright 1998 Tim Allen

Connected II

*Connected II*
--------------
I love you 
and feel you 
tight against me in every moment.
Let that passion awaken in you, -- 
I need you to be right here, 
tight against my skin, as my own skin.

I dream of kissing your hair, 
of smelling the taste of you, 
of remembering the lines of your face, 
of your feet, 
  of your hands, 
    with my fingers.  

Make me alive with your life, 
with our life, 
with the lives of our unborn children, 
make me alive with you, 
with the fire and the water of you, 
with the cold earth and the hot wind 
of you, 
with the music and the silence and the spark and the turn of you.

Touch my feet with your feet
and laugh until we can't breath, 
and wet each others' cheeks 
with the laugh tears, 
and take this feeling seriously, 
because it is only one that matters, 
as close as life, 
as death, 
as the importance of the sun: 
find my hands with your hands, 
my fire/water, 
and never never lose my hands.
-Tim Allen