veiullez agréer

i can't think. i can't move. i can't write. más sé que no soy incapaz...
we rode down to del rio. there would be a border patrol checkpoint:
-leaving del rio towards big bend
-leaving big bend
-leaving del rio towards san antonio

we would be detained:
-taking a nap on some picnic tables in big bend
-for running a yellow light
-both times we entered the US from ciudad acuńa

camping we cooked some food and ate it. one time we made several shish kebabs with stew meat and a thick curry gravy with stew meat and had all of this with the bottle of black label we got on the way up. we had ham and butter sandwiches most of the way down. duylinh said "this is so french." one man wanted to interest in his gift shop in ciudad acuńa and he spoke english so well. i asked him if he had lived in the united states, and he said he had for about 25 years in chicago as a child, graduated high school with honors, then got deported. we went around some taco shops asking for fajita tacos or tacos del trompo and finally ended up at some place with a pedro ---- poster, the actor with the tequila drunken crying serenading the mujer llorona in his military uniform. natha described his movies to me last summer as: "machismo, borrachismo, tanto cantando, mujeres sumisas." we came up with exactly enough money to cross the bridge and pay the tax on our alcohol bottles. one article in the big bend gazette is the new regulation starting at the end of 2007 that anyone who wishes to enter the US from mexico or Canada shall have to show a passport. my hometown is already a sort of a militarised zone with the border patrol (migras) constantly swarming up the highways. all along the river in texas border patrol outnumbers actual police officers. for people living along the border, going into mexico is a regular part of life, but most do not have a passport. they can be costly for poor families, moreso with new "security fee." i think all newly issued passports will have biometric features in the near future. we went to a local bar in terlingua texas where there was open mic. frank and daniel got drunk and told stories on the mike about the broken angel statue, the walk to lockhart. the night we allowed beef fat to drip onto the soil we went to bed scared that a bear or a mountain lion would catch the smell and rustle us up. we were awoken by frank screeming one night as a baby rabbit hopped around near his tent. two fully-grown jackrabbits got killed by our car and promptly eaten by turkey vultures. i think the turkey vulture population is boosted by the roadkill. they love to eat snakes and dead rabbits. driving back we felt as dirty as the beggars and as unshaven as the coyotes con el coyote no hay aduana...



i am doing things like consolidating deferring student loans, telling them my bicycle size, changing names on the cable bill, throwing away everything i own in a fit of exasperation. somehow those four backpacks the box full of dry pens, cd covers, pennies, chain links, plush dolls from past girlfriends, shirts with only a few bottons, printers, coffee tables, ice trays, a tarp, i hate it all. i made myself believe that all of the things i own are causing me to yawn so much. now that all the housegusts are gone i can get some work done and arrange a trip to monterrey. i always have this desire to run and jump and hit the wall. maybe i will stay frozen in the air. i will have a good vantage point. duylinh and i don't get much accomplished besides cooking, for she is the maniac who is frightfully anxious that the future will never come so she had better sit on the couch and wait for the future to come to her, like the man of yore who lies on his grass mat waiting for fortune to arrive, and i am the maniac who fears that the future is painfully imminent and that i must do everything possible to prepare for it, but oftentimes impossible things appear on my list of everything possible and the fear that the list is so pitifully incomplete glues me to the couch to take one long fresh breath