Mexican World Review

You can set up camp near town, on a nearby hillside or wherever. If you want. You can build a shelter there, live beneath tarps, etc.  After you occupy that land for three years, it’s yours.  When the government eventually apportions lots in the area you occupy, whatever lot you happen to live on is your lot. For free. This info is based on one conversation — I’m not sure I have the details right.  You’d need somewhere to put your poop. Some kind of composting toilet, or tank.  I presume. I don’t know how that works.  I’ll ask my Mexican friend.  It seems roughly analogous to buying a house in Detroit for $1.  I don’t know the details about that either. People who set up on unclaimed land, in the hills for example, are called “skydivers,” he said. I came upon one myself when I tried to hike up into the hills, but I didn’t know it at the time. Presumably when the area is developed you would then have a connection to the sewer.

take walks.

errands don’t count as walks.

Most dogs are behind fences, but there’s no taboo here on letting dogs venture out of the yard. One nearby family has two dogs that live on their patio, more or less, but can run out into the street any time they choose through a 10-foot wide missing section in the fence. Only one of their two dogs ever chooses to venture out. It guards the half of the street nearest their yard. This seems to be the expectation of free roaming guard dogs in this town. They are entitled to guard the half of the street nearest their owner’s house. When you come to such a property, you pass by on the other side of the street and there’s no problem.

One dog dragged its teeth on my pant leg, but didn’t quite bite down on the fabric. An oncoming car had nudged me onto the dog’s side of the street. By then I had a feeling about this particular dog and wasn’t afraid.

Some of the neighborhood dogs only did the guard-dogging routine 1-2 times and then switched to ignoring me completely. A guy near here works on cars in front of his house and a couple of his dogs will hang out nearby, sometimes sleeping under one of the cars across the street. The first time I biked past, one of his dogs chased me 3 blocks. Every subsequent time I’ve passed, it doesn’t get up off the ground at all. It doesn’t even look my way.

A yard full of dogs took a week or so of my passing by several times per day to start ignoring me. When their owner is present in the yard, they still make some show of barking at me when I pass.

earlier this year I thoughted it was very dry here; I said so; this was wrong; I think. it’s not very dry. it’s normal? I had a lot of chills in january.

I remember in DC sometimes in mi casa I would feel cold and then I would remember I had left the heat off, I had turned it off earlier in the day, for some reason, maybe because I had doors and windows open for some project reason. and I would get a chill and look at the thermostat and see it was only 62 degrees. then I would turn the heat on and set it at 68, I think that was my normal.

here it is often about 60 degrees inside, and I’ve gotten used to it. I remember wondering, a couple months ago, if it was something I could get used to. well, I have. I never use the humidifier that at one point I was so sure was the key to my happiness.

I rarely even use the heating pad at this point.

a couple days ago I was sitting on the beach looking at a ship. and a boy was walking past. a man. I said hello, and as often happens in this town, or country, when you say hello to someone, they stop and talk to you for 30 minutes. I remember thinking he was substantially younger than me. but the next day, yesterday, I realized I didn’t know how old he is. he might be about 40, or 45. on the beach he asked for my number, which seems to be a thing latinos will do. they’re less defensive than americans — I’m ready to generalize based on scant data. we made plans to go see the bufadora the next day. it’s a rock formation on a the coast, a rare phenomenon, I suppose, where water hitting the coast shoots up in the air in an exaggerated geyser-like manner and then rains down on you. so of course, as often happens with these things, the street leading up to it fills with touristy shops.

he picked me up yesterday and then let me know he would first take me past a couple museums just so I could see where they were. this is also a thing an American wouldn’t do. he was like “we’re first going to backtrack into town so I can drive you past the museums but we’re just going to look at them from the car” and I said, ok. then we went to the tourist attraction which was a ways outside of town and took us through the south part of the municipality which is more rural. and there is a concentration of Americans who, I suppose, want to live in this town without actually living in the town. he pointed out the community where Americans live. we went to the geyser thing, spent a while there, then went back to town, having agreed to go to the museums we had driven past earlier. but they were closed, so we drove around for a while looking for a bathroom. then he drove me past his elementary school and his office, where he works as a lawyer, and then we went to a taquería, but it was closed, so we went to another taquería. then he drove me home.

I bought a table today at a nearby saldo shop. I now have all the tables I need. I might buy a couple more chairs, then I’ll be done with furniture. unless I buy a larger guest bed. the place came with a large couch, a full bed, a twin bed, a desk, a small table, and a lot of built-in drawers and cabinets.

in total I have purchased two chairs, two small tables and one dining table. and some lamps. and a bike. I have enjoyed getting set up here, the challenge of buying just enough but not too much.

Something you don’t know about me is that the internet content I’ve consumed the most this year are interviews with fentanyl addicts, heroin addicts and tricks.  Tricks are people who see prostitutes. All the tricks I’ve seen interviewed are men.  I’ve watched a lot of interviews this year.

Another thing you don’t know about me is that last year I looked up how far Ensenada is from the border, and it’s 70 miles. Then I immediately thought, that’s probably about as far as New Jersey is wide and I looked it up and sure enough, at its widest point New Jersey is 70 miles wide.  That’s a true story.

Sometimes 70 miles doesn’t seem sufficient, such as recently, and then I fantasize about Asunción and it helps.  I don’t think I would want to live there as the climate is not ideal but when I think about far away places in South America, Asunción is the farthest.  It’s farther than the southern tip of South America because it’s a large city, and it’s farther than Buenos Aires because it’s less famous. Its access to the ocean, via a river, also makes it very far away. Asunción has a harbor and beaches.  I should do a tour of the south, hitting Asunción, Montevideo and Buenos Aires.

I haven’t had a single interaction with a gringo here yet. I rarely see any. Today I had my closest encounter. I was behind one in line at the grocery store, so I watched a gringo speak Spanish for the first time this year. I had a feeling like I was watching and listening to myself. That’s called an out-of-body experience.

Last night I watched an interview with someone who claimed to be a porn addict but it became apparent that really he’s a religion addict and a disability (wheel chair) faker (“devotee”), and perhaps some other things.

I’ve watched a couple interviews with people who claimed to be marijuana addicts but it became apparent that they’re schizophrenic.  True story.

Most of the watch dogs are behind fences but a few have ventured into the street and a couple have bumped at my heels with their snouts as I walk down the street. When this happens I keep walking at the same pace and don’t look back, and a short while later they let me go without biting me.  A few dogs nearby that used to erupt when I’d pass no longer bark at all, no longer even get up off the patio/dirt when I pass.  This is a discursive post containing true stories.

the air quality here has been bad enough the past two days that I can’t easily go outside. Since I moved here there has been around 1 day per week where the air is bad enough that I stay inside. It’s worse overall than I expected. When it’s really bad, you can smell it, and you can feel a subtle stinging in your eyes when you go for a walk.

I bought an air purifier yesterday, had one delivered to my house, and it works incredibly well. I’m stunned by what a difference it makes, and how rapidly it improved the air quality throughout this house. I also have a little air quality monitor, so I can see how well the air purifier is working, and I can test the outdoor air as well.

It’s funny to think I don’t have to stay in this town, or this country. I signed a lease for eight months, but I’ve begun to fantasize about Cuenca again, and Uruguay. And Buenos Aires. Places where you can pretty much always go outside.

In DC, there are some days where extreme cold or extreme heat makes the outdoors difficult to tolerate. But there is a little bit different feeling when toxic air is the reason you have to stay inside. And this air pollution is less predictable. You can’t make plans to play tennis or go on a hike in the hills a few days ahead of time, without the chance you might have to cancel due to bad air. If someone wants to visit me in Ensenada, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to go outside every day they’re here. It’s a matter of air blowing down from Tijuana and getting trapped up against the mountains that surround Ensenada. On the other hand it can dissipate very rapidly when the wind changes direction. The air can go from dirty to clean in an hour or two. Today marks the first time since I’ve been here that there were two straight days of terrible air quality.

I’m glad the air purifier works so well, but I’ll also want to get a HEPA mask in case the power goes out sometime.

holy crap, I punched a wall last night. In my sleep. I punched a hard plaster wall near my bed. I just remembered. And punching the wall made me wake up, mostly, about 80%. And I felt so lucky I didn’t break my hand. I thought over and over how lucky it was that my hand didn’t seem to be broken, as if I had to be grateful to prevent it from being retroactively broken. And I didn’t turn on the lights, but I moved my hand for a while to see if it was injured, and to keep it from stiffening.

I don’t remember who I meant to punch in the dream, but I think it was a human. Just now I remembered punching the wall, and then I looked down at my hand to see if it was cut, but there is no visible sign of injury. So then I briefly wondered if it was a dream within a dream, and maybe I only dreamed I had punched the wall in my room here, but I’m pretty sure I actually did. Now I remember thinking a little about padded rooms, and wishing I was in a padded room so I wouldn’t have to worry about punching the wall again in my sleep. Those thoughts weren’t a dream.

In one dream, last night, I was in a fenced-in yard and a dog was trying to get inside to attack me. But the fence was too high. Then I started to think I should check the opposite fence, to make sure I could climb it in case the dog got in somehow. And the dog saw me climbing it and ran around to that side. Then I wondered if I had accidentally showed it how to climb the fence, and I became conscious of a third gate on the other side of the yard and I went to that gate, and saw it had a gap large enough for the dog to get in. And it was about to get in when I woke up.

In another dream, last night, I had built a tall wooden structure with some friends, but I was in the lead role. I’m not sure what its purpose was, but I think it was mostly recreational. Maybe something like a deck, but taller. We built it on someone else’s yard, and didn’t necessarily have their full permission. We built the basic skeleton of the thing, and then I pushed on it a bit and saw that it wasn’t entirely firm, but I told someone that we could add some more bracing to make it stronger. That person wasn’t convinced, and thought we should ask another person nearby who we thought knew about these things. I didn’t mind the idea because initially I expected this expert to tell us the structure was OK, but he soon identified a major problem, that much of the wood we used wasn’t lumber, but was dead tree branches that in some cases were splitting, and he didn’t even have to tell me why this wouldn’t work. Rain was going to get into the cracks of those branches and degrade them over time, and anyone atop the structure would be endangered. It was just a matter of time before the structure failed. It was a little painful to acknowledge, but I realized in just a minute or so that the pretty much the whole structure had to come down, that all our work that day was pretty much wasted. When I came back the next day to work on it, someone had already removed the branches, perhaps the owner of the property, because it was so obvious the existence of the structure posed a risk and couldn’t remain there even long enough for me to return the next day and rebuild it.

In another dream, I was living in a basement area, what felt like a basement, temporarily, and there was an indoor swimming pool in the next room, but it needed to be rebuilt. There were people coming and going in the night as I tried to sleep in the dream. I would wake up and greet them, and could barely keep track of who was sleeping there in the same room with me, or nearby rooms, and who had left. At one point I realized I was alone there and had no access to any kind of assistance at all if someone tried to break in, so I looked around a bit for things I could use as weapons. The next morning I had to contact some kind of real estate agent about related plans for the swimming pool and so on, but it was very difficult to contact them. Difficult to dial the numbers and so on. At one point I got through but to the wrong extension, and someone was very angry at me. Then he found out my mom was his coworker so he felt bad, like he shouldn’t have yelled at me for calling the wrong number if I was my mom’s son.

Oh, and then I was involved in some kind of DIY movie theater project, setting up a cinema with some friends. And Orville Redenbacher showed up to offer guidance! At first we were like, uhh, I don’t think we can really learn anything from Orville Redenbacher. But then we all silently agreed it was nice of him to offer help, and we should be friendly to him and make him feel like we valued his participation. He stayed for a while, and it was like, wow, Orville Redenbacher is still here. Doesn’t he have anywhere else he needs to be. He was very kind, and had long thin arms and legs that had the same cross-sectional diameter.

I’m still a no-body-shaming absolutist, even now, in 2025.  People should not ridicule Donald Trump’s hair, or body weight, for example.  And this is less about wanting to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, and more about never wanting to make any claim of ownership, not even a glancing claim of ownership, over anyone.  I do not get to make unwelcome comments about anyone’s body, and this is true if I judge that person to be of high character, and also true if I’m tempted to judge that person negatively.  I do not own any part of any other person.  I do not own their internal states, or their body.  I do not get to speculate into others’ internal states, as that too closely resembles a claim of ownership.  I do not get to tell Barack Obama whether he is or isn’t a Christian.  I don’t even get to know to what extent his Christianity is or is not sincere, unless he wants me to know*. Because I do not own him.

If I did believe in god, I wouldn’t believe that I was god, such that I could choose which people get the benefit of my standard ethics.  And not believing in god, I don’t temporarily decide there is a god, just so I can assign myself to that role long enough to judge which people get the benefit of my standard ethics.  Respect everyone.  If respect means that your ethics apply to them.  Heh, easier said than done. But this is the ideal.

*Unless someone presents as a religious guide, then they need to be honest about their religious beliefs.

I lost the stability I had for the first ~50 days of the year, probably for these reasons: (1) Sleep disturbances caused partly by a nearby rooster. (2) Lapses in caution wrt exposure to America-related news/social content. (3) Reduced connection with Mexican society due to (a) my move away from the family I lived with previously, (b) completing the acquisition of basic necessities for this house, which involved repeated interaction with local merchants, and (c) reduced interaction with the new landlord after a week of gas- and water-related troubleshooting. (4) Gaining some free time after being thoroughly occupied for several months.

It’s Thursday. I moved here only two days ago? Three days and two nights.

I love it. It’s perfect. It has flaws. The hot water is working now. I already have internet service. I ordered it yesterday afternoon. They told me to expect an email where they would tell me the date of installation. But there was never any email and instead the technician just showed up today. I’m not sure how he knew I would be here.

It’s very quiet here at night. Trinidad was the quietest place I ever lived and now this is the quietest. It’s like Trinidad without sirens.

I cleaned the inside of the washing machine very thoroughly, it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time, but the machine works. It cleans clothes. And towels. I’ve used it twice. It works. It’s been raining here for a few days so it’s hard to dry things. There is a dryer but it needs cleaning and an extension cord. I haven’t tried it out.

I had lunch with my former landlord, and her daughter, the day I moved out. Tuesday. She told me her daughter was very religious and indeed Christianity and the bible were what she wanted to talk about over tacos. She wasn’t quite preachy, I wouldn’t say, but there was this subtle expectation that I might catch it from her if she talked about about how good Corinthians is. She said it’s about how when you accept Jesus into your life you start a new life. I said something like “it’s kind of like moving to Mexico,” and that fell flat. There was perhaps a little disappointment when I mentioned I was interested in Buddhism.

I asked them why there were so few churches in town, and explained that most Latin American towns have lots of churches. They seemed confused. They said there are a lot of churches. I don’t see them anywhere, though, or hear them. I’ve seen maybe four. I also told them I’m surprised to not hear any fireworks and that also confused them. They said people light fireworks on New Year’s Eve.

My new landlords are a young couple. Their family owns this house and the two houses on either side of it. They’re the only three houses on this side of the block, as about half the block is taken up by a municipal property that seems to be mainly a parking lot for trucks involved in public utilities. Most of that property is situated downhill from where my house sits, so I’m able to overlook some of the operations. There was a backhoe making some adjustments to one of the dirt parking lots and though it was probably a bit less than 100 yards from here, it wasn’t very loud.

The property directly behind this one is ambiguous, a courtyard surrounded by a few residential buildings that do not seem to have any direct access to roads, so they must be an extension of one of the houses on a nearby street, or they are somehow operated by the utility. I haven’t seen any people down there.

It’s a hilly neighborhood here. Parts of it. Some of the houses across the street have levels and terraces that look down on my side of the block, and out my back windows I look down on the utility trucks, houses and the nearest street that runs perpendicular to mine. And beyond all that, there are more distant residential areas lit up at night, with a wall of mountains behind them. Though the mountains are best viewed during the day. The combination of the very heterogeneous neighborhood architecture and the nearby mountains make it feel very Mexican, for lack of a better word, and certainly very, very different from where I lived during 1999-2024. The residential architecture doesn’t hide its temporal nature in the manner of American architecture, but foregrounds it, intentionally or not. Perhaps partly due to how expensive financing is, many dwellings appear to have been constructed incrementally, a little at a time, and rebar is often seen jutting from structures in the anticipation of potential future additions.

In American residential developments, you can’t always tell that time exists. You can’t tell there is a flow of time. Things generally are built all at once, and when there are additions built onto homes, they are made to blend in, more or less. Things that break get fixed, and the repairs are often invisible. In Mexico, the flow of time is apparent everywhere. Things that break don’t necessarily get fixed right away, additions on houses don’t always mimic the colors, shapes or textures of the structure to which they’re added. You can often tell just by looking at shelter that its purpose is to provide shelter, rather than to conceal history and pain.

This area is incredible. Right now I can’t imagine living in any other city in the world. And there is definitely no other part of the city I’d rather live in.

I’ve interacted with the landlords a lot in three days, partly because not everything is working as well as they expected, in some cases it’s due to miscommunications between the two of them. I wonder if the place was vacant for a while recently.

There is a parking space that I use as a patio. And it sits behind an automatic garage door. Seemingly a couple of times the door has opened spontaneously. But we’re going to watch to see if it happens again. I told them I was 97% sure I didn’t leave it open, but not 100% sure.

I had to order a propane tank for the hot water and stove. These things are not always assumed to be provided by the landlord. And then the water heater didn’t work, and that turned out to be the batteries in the ignition. The sparker thingy. So I got new batteries, and that fixed it for one shower, then it stopped working. So landlord returned with a technician, who determined the batteries I bought were regular old D batteries, and not the special kind of D batteries needed by the ignition. So he put in different batteries and now it works well.