Dona E. Bowens

Not too much runway remains ahead of me. Just twenty days…even less because I plan to spend my last week in America doing debaucherous things. That leaves just a smattering of days in which to get real shit done. Real shit like the selling of the car and the moving of the last shit to my brother’s basement. Those things will get done next week. Have to. Joy is starting to kick in. My brain is buzzing again with a new adventure to gnaw on and solve. My body doesn’t know what’s coming yet, but I’m here to tell you, body, get ready to walk to the beach again and, remember how we used to carry grocery bags for blocks without thinking twice? Yeah, we’re about to get back to that routine and you’ll suffer at first but be grateful later. Amerikka tried to kill my ass with unwalkable cities and fast food cheaper than fresh vegetables. But I can feel the comeback and I packed the target dress that I hope to be wearing again come winter—Uruguayan winter, that is.

I spent this morning exchanging emails with my airbnb host in Spanish. It’s stupid shit like this that thrills me. Airbnb asks that you send a little note to the host with a picture when you request a booking. My first instinct, which lasted only a millisecond, was to write in English. But then I thought, no Dona, start the transition (and practice) now. Dashed off my little note in Spanish—purposely confusing the words “coger” and “tomar” just to add a little tomfoolery to the day. To say, “Take a taxi” in South America they say, “Tomar un taxi.” In Spain it’s, “Coger un taxi.” HOWEVER! In South America “coger un taxi” means “to fuck a taxi.” Did you follow all that? That I said in an email to a man from South America that I planned to fuck a taxi to his apartment? Yeah, I’m silly that way—and he caught it. <insert giggling emoji here> My impending exit got me feeling naughty and creative again…boy have I missed myself.

With less and less to do here, my thoughts have begun strolling the 2 blocks from my apartment to the beach of Montevideo. You know I got on google maps and scoped out the neighborhood and was so relieved to find that there are benches about every twenty paces on the beach. My ample ass is going to need those benches as pit stops as I walk my way back into a healthier world. My thoughts are already wondering in and out of the shops along the beach before sitting down in some random bar for futbol and a cortado—and I’m not even a coffee drinker. Wait, I was a coffee drinker in Spain but I never found a cortado that could compare here. Let’s see how Montevideo does theirs. I’ll know soon enough.

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