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Diary Calendar

Tijuana Gringo

14 August 2000 -- Date with Maria

WHERE WERE WE when Maria told me about her childhood home in San Luis Potosi? Turning the corner on top of Revolution, walking up to her taxi, freshly fed from that little diner on Eleventh Street. Diner Eleven -- Ceneduria Once -- it's called. We were so lucky, got in without waiting in line, almost always a line outside the door. "I don't know why it's so damn popular, but it is," my landlord said when he showed it to me last February. Just a little hole-in-the-wall somewhere near ex-planet Dracula, beyond the zone of body shops and food markets. Yes.

Maria and I were walking from the diner, up Eleventh and then around the corner onto the head of Revo, when we passed that tipico restaurant where she said mariachis play. A gigantic chicharron sat in the kitchen window. Maria loves mariachi music.

All was quiet that weeknight we walked and she told me about her old childhood house and its patio and tree. It was a weeknight earlier this summer, when I was still house-sitting in San Diego, but came back for classes at the Baja California Humanities Center -- where I met her last spring.

Early summer we started going out together after class. Then I came down some Sundays for weekend festivals. Now that I'm living here again it's easier to see her, but my selfish loner head is twisting, and I find myself wanting to spend more evenings on my own. Still, it's good to be close to her, and after a night alone I look forward to meeting her again. *Sigh*

Last Friday we went to see X-Men and she grabbed my hand when something scared her and I put my arm around her just like that it was so easy to... but no, I still haven't kissed her like lovers kiss, like boyfriends kiss girlfriends, like novios. Not yet.

I'm still acheing from that divorce year-before-last and afraid that it's too soon, but well... it's almost been two years now. Maybe... or maybe in a few months....

Oh shit. I don't want to lose the chance but I don't want to rush into anything, and... I just don't know. But I think there's a tree across the street from my parents' house that's the same kind of tree Maria says her family had in the courtyard of her childhood home in San Luis, before the family moved north for work in Nuevo Laredo.

Sapote, or something. Or something. Something yes. No? Yes? No? Yes?


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Copyright 2000 Danchar Thomas
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