Today I didn't even have to use my A.K.

Remember that Ice Cube song "It Was a Good Day?" It came out I think around 1993 (Jesus, I'm getting old) and was about a day that was good for mostly pathetic reasons. Like he didn't have to kill anyone. That's kinda how I feel about today: I got a cell phone and had a conversation with my neighbor, both without having to resort to "¿Habla inglés, por favor?" One thing about being in a place where you don't speak the language is that whenever you are able to communicate effectively, it feels pretty great. The problem with my phone (aside from the fact that it's just kind of shitty) is that everything (instructions, menus, voice prompts, etc.) is, of course, in Spanish. I've figured out the basics, but my voice mail message may be a Spanish recording for a while....

There's something really decadent about waking up on a rainy morning and going right back to sleep. That's what I did this morning, and it felt good. It finally stopped pouring rain but stayed pretty grey all day, so I went to the Picasso museum rather than the Sagrada Familia like I was planning to. Crazy architecture should be seen in sunlight. Anyway, I would love to go back to around the 1960's and give Pablo Picasso a big hug. He was adorable. And absolutely fucking brilliant. He could have stopped around age 20 and still had a remarkable career. The museum focuses mostly on his early works; he was producing phenomenal paintings by age 15. Fifteen. Wow. Also, there are three rooms full of paintings from his Blue Period--those alone would have been worth the price of admission. There are almost none of his cubist works on display, but you barely even miss them because his other stuff is so amazing. Also, Picasso has this great quote about punctuation being the loin cloth that covers the private parts of literature. I like that.

In other news, there was a guy playing the accordion on the subway today, which made me miss New York. He seemed to be making a lot more money than the average NYC subway performer. Also, there was this homeless woman sitting on the sidewalk with a cat. And the cat was wearing a scarf. What kind of cat would put up with that? Oh, and on La Rambla, which is one of the main streets here, they sell birds in cages. Mostly typical pet-type birds: parakeets, cockatoos, etc. And pigeons. Who would buy a pigeon?? I can't imagine why you'd want one, and even if you did, they're everywhere for the taking. I guess maybe they're hard to catch?