putting on the same clothes as yesterday

June 30th. 

I’m sitting at a restaurant by myself. I just ordered an Aperol spritz and I’m waiting for Vincent and Pol to come meet me. I woke up so hungover, but alas. I wanted an Aperol spritz.

I’m next to Honest Greens. A few days ago I sat there, having maybe $20. What if I work at a hostel in Spain? I assume you’d meet a lot of people… I keep getting attention because of my boots. I don’t really have any commentary about the ethics of it. 

I saw Brad Pitt yesterday. I KNOW THAT I DID. Vincent gaslit me and said that it wasn’t him, but I promise that I did. He definitely got work done, and he looked very tan. I’m not sure, it could have just been a lookalike. But, then again, he looked rough and I know he’s been going through a lot lately. It would add up… I think two of his daughters wanted to remove his last name from their birth certificate. Something like that. 

Last night, Pol asked if this election is any different to 2016 when Trump was elected. Lena and Vincent sat around the table and listened while we discussed gun control. There’s been another shooting. I’m reminded of “progressive prosecution.” We discuss viable revolution, he doesn’t believe in any of it. I’ll return to you in a bit, I just finished my lunch.

I’m exhausted, and it's because it's 2pm and I’ve had prosecco but no coffee. I feel a little insane, but the proper amount. God, I’m yawning, I wish I could have taken another siesta! 

This weekend has been a perfect trip. I love Vincent and his friends in Barcelona are great. There’s so much to do! It reminds me of New York, only in how I feel and not in how it actually looks. Very much the heat, the tourists, the intensity. I don’t think I’m making any sense. I’m so tired. I’ll talk to you later. 

I'm waiting for Vincent at the beach now. Boys are jumping from a jagged concrete pier. What can still be imagined by looking at the broken concrete. A Bershka in a historic apartment building, a cafe terrace overlooking the Cathedral, old theaters becoming bars. A mural painted with images of more stores, resembling more windows to look into.

I guess when people insist that the US has no culture, they say so because it seems like such a young nation in comparison to this part of the world. Maybe one day the villages of ski towns and the ruins of old office parks in the suburbs will be made into museums, or made into examples. 

I pray that things will be okay. I’m really worried about the direction of my country. All I have spent my time doing this past year is researching the collapse of my parent’s home countries, and learning more about my nation's exploits in other places. The political situation feels so drastic that I am constantly on edge, wondering when it’ll be our turn to be attacked, punished for all of the horrible things we’ve done.

I keep throwing around the word schizophrenia. I make jokes about being so invested in politics and surveillance that I sound like I am going crazy, like someone who wears an aluminum hat to protect themselves from 5G. I tell people these things and I laugh, but that’s also covering up that I honestly don’t really like joking about schizophrenia because of my brother, but sometimes I say things out loud and I can’t take them back. I wonder what will happen to me. 

I’m not even halfway done with this journal and I feel like so much has happened already. I wonder if I will complete it this summer. I think that will be my new goal.

I’m at the hostel now. It’s 9:34 pm and I’m waiting for Vincent and Pol to get ready. We’re going to dinner around 10:30-11, then to meet Lena for drinks. I have one hour, so I am debating between going upstairs, or back to the bar area to give myself something to do. It’s Sunday, so it’s a lot less busy than it has been earlier in the week, but I chose to stay at a place with “Party” in its name. Here there are still some people lagging around, making use of the cheap alcohol and the free amenities. I don’t think the bars we go to will be very busy.

I’m in love with Barcelona. I don’t know if I would move here, but I would love to be close to it. The fact that they have such high tension with Spain makes me feel like it would be unfair for me to find my home here.

I asked Pol about Catalunya the first night that we went out for drinks. Vincent invited his friend Lena, who was just as tall as I was. I think she was also wearing boots. Pol was from Barcelona, Lena’s family was from Lleida… it was the third time it had come up. Obviously, because of proximity, but it seemed I could not run away from my night…

The two of them spoke Catalan, so they led the group in asking for a table. The server had just turned away two guys, apparently because they were tourists. He sat us down at a wonderful table under a tree on the terrace, next to doors which led into a theatre. We’re all buzzed, we’re whispering to each other, like, only speak in Spanish and Catalan so he doesn’t regret giving us the table. 

We order a bottle of Cava - Vincent explains to me that it's to Catalans what Champagne is to the French. He looks to Pol for confirmation. The ruse of speaking in Spanish dries up quick, and we’re all happy gabbing in English over the long stretch of evening. 

I ask about the tension between Spaniards and Catalans. Pol and Lena look at each other, and then they begin to talk about Franco. Their families both have horror stories. One points as the other shares what their Grandmothers and Grandfathers told them, pointing back, like, me too! Lena said that her family’s home in Lleida still has bullet holes from the Civil war, and her aunt makes them pray next to it every year. Lena tells me that her aunt will never let her forget about the war - she and her extended family are invited to visit every summer, generations and miles removed from what happened less than a century before.

Pol talks about his grandfather’s mother cherry tree. During the war, Pol’s family would collect what was rotten, crushed, smeared, because it was all they had to eat. Pol’s great uncles and aunts ate the pit and the stem of the cherry too, and hissed at their children to do the same, knowing how little else there was to eat. Pol said that they had an outhouse, and he grew his hands wide above his head to measure the mountain of waste they’d create. When it would compost, break down as it does, all that would be left were cherry pits.

Vincent is great at choosing friends, and boyfriends. We had a wonderful weekend going to bars, and even when we waited twenty minutes in a line for a club, conversation let the time pass by sweetly. We went to the beach, and so I absolve myself the memories I made on that terrible day at the beginning of the week.

I’m drinking a beer, but it’s clara…? So they added some soda to it, I saw. I’ve noticed I’m very skinny lately. I've been feeling less self conscious.

There was this really beautiful boy today at the hostel, and I am wondering where he is now. He was ginger and had freckles, and he seemed very excited to speak to me. I hope he’s around and hasn't checked out yet.

I’m looking down the window into the courtyard, and I see some couples traveling. I always wonder what brings these people together, especially when they look so different from one another. If I were to be a match maker, I wouldn’t think to connect the two people sitting at the cafe on the ground floor.

I’m on the roof now. I’m listening to people talk about California. I don’t seem to really miss it, honestly. I miss my family and my friends, but truthfully, I don't feel the same connection to my city that I used to, or my bed at home. I seem to be forgetting about New York City. Maybe I would be happier, and spend less money, in Spain or Argentina.

These people in front of me are talking about drugs. I feel like I am currently in the era that I wanted to be a part of. That is unfortunate. I loved looking at the 70s and connecting with the revolt of the 60s, which I came to realize was essentially a PR stunt. Now, I’m in the thick of a fantastically absurd wave of neoliberal politics. I guess that explains the bohemian situation with the crochets and cut offs and mini skirts. It's not a costume anymore, like 90s does 70s, but a lived feeling. The coming struggle is imminent, and everyone’s responding by wearing dirty clothes, and fucking each other after meeting unremarkably, and making horrible music from scratch.

People are uncomfortable by the politics, but it is happening so quickly that everyone must register that this acceleration will not stop, and it will affect all of us. It isn’t Roe v. Wade anymore. Everything is crashing.

These people in front of me are talking about whales and sharks. I wonder if we all will survive how hot it will get. One of them is talking about going to Harvard. I wonder if they know Fernando, but probably not. He was on the football team, which I think probably put him into a bubble.

I guess you can say that I’m going crazy, but I don’t even care anymore. The end is fucking near! Ahh!!

Now I don’t feel so bad about everything I’ve done to my body. We’ll all end up in the ground, or we’ll end up toppled over each other. Once it is over, it is over. I have to accept that and cherish every day that I am offered.

I wonder where I will end up for the rest of my life. I wonder how much more time I have - I hope I have a lot of it. I’m so scared but I am set on making the world better. I will be joining some sort of group while I am in San Francisco. Or, maybe, when I’m in Spain. It depends where I live.

I want to get Spanish citizenship. I am supposedly 40% Spanish. I wonder if that will help.

I am praying. I am looking for a higher power, something to tell me that I will be safe. I wish that someone could tell me that I will be safe.

I’m in a Cabify right now

CHICKEN SCRATCH___