SOMOS LOS GAFAPASTAS...?

carmela hadn't heard of "woman without piano," which i offered by way of response when she asked us which spanish movies we'd seen. and apparently a film about a woman walking around madrid at night (largely without a piano) seemed uninteresting unto pretension, or just too arty -- and maybe i dug myself into that hole by trying to justify the movie's worth by saying something about its colors (which were striking). but if i hadn't brought up "woman without piano" then carmela wouldn't have snickered and called me what she did, which, judging now in retrospect the way she said it, must be the same kind of only kind-of insult that it is in the states, and we wouldn't have learned the word. they wear thick framed glasses, the gafapastas, and like to talk about el arte, and, you know...stuff. (gafapastas love art and stuff, which will surely make their inclusion in the gay or european game all the more interesting.) were we gafapastas? carmela said we didn't dress like them. (ever since the spanish class got pared down to just the three of us, a daily showdown between carmela and moniquipher, we've been happy to accept what we don't get done together as homework and make us of our time to talk.) then i got ratted out about my glasses. unfortunately, i didn't have the words to make a clear explanation about character variations across the eyewear spectrum, and carmela hadn't heard of jonathan franzen when i mentioned him the day before anyway. i would have returned the favor and exposed monique if she hadn't left her pair of thick, black framed gafas in a free box back in la ciudad de gafapastas in the old country.

and where were the gafapasta bars in sevilla? one of the best things about her city, carmela said, was that people didn't segregate themselves into specific groups and that the gafapastas intermingled with everyone else just like everyone else did. oof. the sevillanos like to make it difficult. although i suppose that everyone should have equal opportunity to snub us and not just one self-insulated group (carmela suspected -- and most likely and frustratingly correctly -- that everyone on the alameda assumed moniquipher was a couple couple).

but then on came the glasses. maybe not, because the experiment wasn't very well controlled, but the first night that i wore them out was also the night that we were invited to join the club. true, the bicicleteria had never been open when we'd passed it before, and it's designation as a private club was probably just the necessary means for the place to allow patrons to smoke inside -- and to confound americans who walked it from the street expecting a bar but not exactly finding one. still, we signed the book and we were in, and even though none of the other members there that night looked to be gafapastas (granted, we couldn't understand what kind of art and stuff they might have been talking about), i'm sure that the glasses had something to do with the ease with which we were accepted into the fold. the glasses and that andres, the proprietor of the club, spoke impressively fluid english.

so i probably should have put the glasses on again this morning. it's possible that they might have helped smooth over whatever faux pas i committed at ciudad condal that caused the morning server, usually so smiley when he takes my order for the americano he knows i'll be getting, to completely ignore me, even after i'd attempted to go sevillano and just bark at him (to which task i thought he might have been challenging me). i'll admit that my bark was more of a squeak accompanied by a weak gesture of my hand, but i was too scared to muster much more, and after that gesture failed i packed my shame back into my bag with my laptop, squared my shoulders and set off back up the alameda. the two older men i passed less than a minute later were definitely into art and stuff (and obviously suspected that i might be too), but i'd spent all of my day's courage in those fifteen minutes at ciudad condal and couldn't stand to be anything but alone, walking. damn the heat for making it impossible to wear my glasses during the day without them sweating off my face, i thought as i walked, and walked, wondering if the mean girls were working at cafe piola, and entirely without piano.