Month: February 2025

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.

I agreed to rent a 2-bedroom house today. The couple that owns it will send me the contract later this afternoon. 6-month lease. 12,500 pesos/month, which is 610 USD at the current exchange rate. It is a detached house with a parking space behind a garage door. The parking space will serve as my patio.

The couple’s family owns the houses on both sides.

The neighborhood is close enough to my current neighborhood that my supermarket will stay the same. The house would rent for about 1500 USD/month in my current neighborhood. My future neighborhood is a little more undiscovered, I suppose, and it has some low-income dwellings, mechanic shops and junk yards mixed in. It must be the most socioeconomically heterogeneous area I’ve ever seen. It has a few tin shacks as well as houses listed for 250,000 USD.

I’ve spent a lot of time the past few days walking around in the neighborhood, and sitting on the curb near the house I’ll be renting to gauge the traffic. The street has very little through traffic.

The new place has a much better kitchen than my current apartment, and has a washer and dryer in the house. The house is fronted by a high concrete wall. So you go through a metal door — or through the garage door — to get past that wall, and then there is a short walkway leading to the front door of the house.

I was in a car today for the second time since I moved here. The first time was the cab ride from the bus station when I first arrived on January 1. This time I was leaving to take a walk, actually to go look at a neighborhood where I might rent a house, and before I got to the end of the block my landlord Martha and her friend Margarita pulled up alongside me in an SUV and told me to get in. They would give me a ride to wherever I was going. I said “I’m going that way,” and pointed. I figured they weren’t likely going that way. They said OK, get in, we’ll give you a ride. So we left the immediate neighborhood and started heading toward the neighborhood I planned to visit, but then they began talking about an exciting new shopping mall they hadn’t yet seen, and her friend was like, “let’s go see the new stores,” and asked if I wanted to come. I said OK, and we drove to the new mall. I think their plan before picking me up was to go out to dinner somewhere, but the new plan was to go see the mall. Along the way my landlord spoke in Spanish and her friend, who was driving, spoke in English at first. I gathered she was visiting from Florida. They told me they met in school in 1962, presumably in Mexico. A little while later Martha told her friend to speak in Spanish so I could practice. We passed the place where I had a taco earlier that day and I pointed it out. They talked about how expensive it was to go the movies in America and so on.

We arrived at the mall and Martha said to pull into the parking lot but her friend said it would be more exciting to enter from the other side of the mall, so we continued another couple of blocks then pulled into the parking area, where we came to a gate with a sign telling us we needed to pay to park. But the sign also said you could park for free if you were there less than a half hour and you got your ticket validated. So we decided to park and go inside to see it, and get the ticket validated. Once inside we asked what store could validate the ticket and a mall greeter suggested the grocery store. The mall was very much a mall, an indoor mall like in the old days, with a cinema and so on, everything very new. Though an American mall wouldn’t have a large grocery store inside. We went to the grocery store and there a greeter told us we needed to spend 100 pesos in the store to get the ticket validated, so we went in and Martha and Margarita started talking about what they could buy for 100 pesos. We walked around a bit and got some food, splitting up at times and reconvening. Then we left, and they talked a bit about how rude the workers at the checkout were, and they they talked about politics a bit but I didn’t understand any of it. In the car Martha gave me three of her tomatoes and all the bananas she bought. Oh, and Margarita said now that they’re old they should get one of those carts old people push around. Martha didn’t seem to like the idea. I almost told them in America we call that a granny cart, but I was a little tired from listening to Spanish so I didn’t say anything.

Back in Martha’s neighborhood they dropped me off at the lavanderia, where I had some clothes to pick up. I got out and thanked Martha for the tomatoes and was going to leave the bananas in the car, because I wasn’t sure I understood correctly when she gave me the bananas earlier. But she said “and your bananas,” so I took those as well.

It’s a spontaneous blog post. Baba Rrahra Ra ra Tooof. Can you tell it’s a spontaneous blog post. Briggetta kickooo. You can tell from the strange noises.

I became a ZZ Top fan a couple days ago. Wasn’t expecting that. They have 6 albums with Spanish titles. Like, ok guys, we get it, there’s spanish in Texas.

I also rediscovered the band Helmet. I had forgotten all about them. They’re better than I remember. They might be the best metal band.

I can’t stop eating large chocolate-covered cookies for pre-breakfast. Then for breakfast I have canned salmon sandwiches. I switched from mayo to a combination of sesame oil and soy sauce in my salmon salad. And the usual chopped celery, onions and carrots. It’s a little perverse because a can of salmon in the grocery store costs the same as a fish taco at my new favorite fish taco place. But sometimes I want to eat at home. I pay extra to make my own sandwich.

I admit I got a warm homey feeling from some commerce. I received an Amazon delivery of reading glasses and a heating pad. Like all heating pads, it’s too hot on the lowest setting. So you have to put a couple layers of towel or blanket between you and the heating pad.

The temperature here is no longer an issue for me at all. The air is sometimes an issue. There have been 4 times since I arrived on Jan 1 when I couldn’t go outside. One was due to smoke from wildfires. (The very next day the air quality was excellent.) One time it was due to awful morning air quality that had no obvious cause. That cleared up by the afternoon. The very next morning it was bad again, but not as bad, and that cleared up by noon. And there was one day when it was just very gusty and so there was a lot of dust flying through the air.

Many, many people wear masks in this town, including on days when the air quality is excellent. So I don’t quite understand that. Though even on the best days, passing trucks can be an issue if you walk along the main arteries. I’m not sure how much masks help with that. Probably some. Young women might wear them to discourage men from hitting on them. It does seem like masks are most popular with young women. Though I do see old men and women wearing them. Yeah, they’re fairly popular across demographics.

Uhlubbbbubba gubba. I’m still being spontaneous in this blog post. Grugga splew spuleww; inchy binkle.

Oh, there is a nearby house for sale in an appealing location so I’ve been fantasizing, but will try to hold off at least until they lower the price. If they do. Supposedly it can take several months to sell a house in Mexico. It would of course make no sense for me to buy a house right now, and probably will make no sense in a few months. I’ll just keep focusing on all the reasons to not buy a house in Mexico. But if it’s still on the market in a few months and they drop the price 15%, I could see making an offer 10% below that level. Maybe I’ll look at it. Or if they drop the price, I’ll then look at it. It needs some work and is next door to a vacant lot, so maybe it will be hard to sell. On the other hand, it’s in a dreamy part of town. Very close to where I’m staying.