sunday, midday

Okay, I can officially use two hands to type again, so here goes my first decent post in a while. First, shoulder update: So after all the stress and phone calls and x-rays and worrying about whether I was going to have surgery or not, it turns out that my collarbone isn't actually dislocated at all. It looked that way on the x-rays in the eyes of the three doctors who looked at it last Thursday, but they brought them to the hospital's top radiologist over the weekend and the conclusion was that I just have oddly constructed collarbones and the difference in angles of the left and right x-rays. This doesn't change the fact that my shoulder hurts a lot and I still can't use it for that much (I still immobilize it when I have to walk a lot because otherwise I swing my arms as soon as I stop paying attention and that hurts). I am very sick of hospitals and doctors, this year has been too full of them.

In other news, we're in the middle of the "Fiestas Patrias." Tomorrow is the actual independence day, but the party here lasts for a week plus, starting last Thursday and going through next Friday. So yesterday I went to a "fonda" in Providencia (one of the comunas next to mine), which is basically like a county fair in the states, with lots of traditional crafts and games and performances and fried food. It was really fun and I'll definitely go to the big main one in Parque O'Higgins tomorrow. Rosie met me at the one yesterday and we walked around and watched things and got a really, really unhealthy dinner (really fatty pork, white bread, baked potatoes and french fries and Pepsi). Then we talked about our whole state of affairs, which was hard and made me sad. We went back to her apartment and picked up some wine and chicha (the official drink of this whole week-long party--it's a fizzy grape drink but isn't champagne) and called Durham and Tim Becker and had a little party in Rosie's room watching Barb Wire with Pamela Anderson. Then we went downstairs to Vickie's apartment, drank some more wine, argued about where we should go and decided, wisely, on Bellavista. We ended up in a tiny little bar off Constitución where there was a guitarist and two singers performing and we got some shrimp empanadas and beers. It was a good time, not crazy or anything because that's still out of the question for me with the shoulder, but still it's always nice to just laugh a lot, and we did. Tim and I split a cab home, but I still ended up paying 3000 because the stupid cabby took a roundabout route and by the time he had taken the turn away from the quick route (it's a fork so I couldn't tell until after he'd done it which way he was turning) it was too late and we were on one-way streets, so I couldn't say anything. Oh well. He's gotta eat, too.

In still other news, for those of you who don't know, Michigan thrashed the shit out of Notre Dame yesterday IN South Bend, 47-21. I was at the fonda during the game but as soon as we got back to Rosie's apartment I checked the score and all my sadness melted away, replaced, at least for a little while, by straight jubilation. Now, I will sing the fight song at the top of my lungs.

HAIL! TO THE VICTORS, VALIANT
HAIL! TO THE CONQ'RING HEROES
HAIL, HAIL TO MICHIGAN, THE LEADERS AND BEST!

HAIL! TO THE VICTORS, VALIANT
HAIL! TO THE CONQ'RING HEROES
HAIL, HAIL TO MICHIGAN, THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WEST (GO BLUE!)!

Now I have goosebumps. Man, I miss school. Also, in the past week, my relative immobility has meant I'm following international news a lot more closely, which has been good. And I watched the whole second season of the Sopranos (unreal), Batman Begins (terrible, Lincoln, you were right) and Rosie and I went on Thursday to see "El Rey de Los Huevones," which is a comedy by Chile's most popular filmmaker, Boris Quercía. It was fantastic and we both understood about 90% of the dialogue and 100% of the plot, which was really cool and encouraging. Highlight from the film: Quercía's character, who's a cab driver, is taking a couple of gringos to a flight at the airport and for reasons I won't go into here they end up being really late, so when he asks them to pay the man gringo says, "No way, I'm losing my flight!" I guess they didn't bother to consult anyone who actually speaks English when writing the script. Also, they're stopped by the side of the road and the man gringo says, "How the fuck did we get ourselves into this fucking mess?" The actor did a pretty good job with an American accent, though. Anyhow I guess I'll cut it off there. Feels good to actually write a full post, better than I was expecting at the beginning. One last thing, for Dad or anyone else who's interested: If you're looking for a new CD to buy, might I recommend "Valentín Trujillo al piano" by, you guessed it, Valentín Trujillo. It's a recording of Trujillo, who is Chile's greatest pianist, giving a concert to a small group of family and friends and a lucky few others of Gershwin and Cole Porter and other old American classics. He's a wonderful player and all his commentary is left on the album, so you can hear him talking about the music. I guess that wouldn't be as cool to you because you don't speak Spanish, but still, he has a great voice. My host brother did the lights for a show of Trujillo's and met him afterwards and got him to autograph the CD. Apparently he's a great guy, to boot. Okay, that's it. Take it easy, everybody.