My writing and my writing about writing will be written here here on out:

Come on!

She came! And noticed things I'd never, like how the Madrid gov is hip to graywater and doesn't waste freshwater on it's public lawns nor streets. I'd only ever whined about how wastefully often the streets in the center are hosed down.

And noticed, on her own, things I had once noticed, but since forgotten. Like the extraordinary giant in the Cathedral of Toledo. When I went to the Cathedral, as a student, I had thought the giant mural represented Goliath (he being the only biblical huge guy I knew of) (is the respectful term for giants "big people"?) but was laughed at by a friend from these parts, who explained that the dude was lucky, a Saint whose image conferred blessings, and therefore was often represented out of scale for extravisibility. The internet just says it's Saint Christopher; apparently he was very big. Who knows!

There's old Cristobal. I think he's especially striking in person because HIS person is the entirety of the fresco. No background, yknow?

Ms. Aunt Darling also enjoyed and photographed many of my favorite places and people in Madrid, luckily for both of us:



The Reina Sofía extension entrance.



A charming fachada near my neighbourhood.



My Swedes, at their goodbye party, in a beautiful ancient bar.


Post-prandial silliness with my housemates.


And the same with Lolin! Who, along with all my friends/Spain, was very taken with my beautiful aunt.

These are my poem a day poems.

Every Day

There will be more.

Every day there will be more.

From the Salon:

Right


Left


Straight ahead.



My room from below.



My room from above.



The hall is not always so dark.



Honeys mines I've been, let's see, 3 months out of Madrid, um almost a month on New York's couches, this is math, um another week at home, I was in Germany for more than a week and then later one day more, I just can't count the houses and beds and friendships I crashed on, we'd better ellipse...I got into Madrid the 27th and I didn't move into anywhere until the night before last. I'm homestarved, I think in this state any old bunker would satiate, BUT: this house is sunripened, handpicked, local grown organic uh a 20 year old WOOFer named Michael with a beard played flute to it while it grew...it's a good apartment.



The street is called Costanilla de los Desamparados, which means "itsy sloping street of the Homeless." Which ho ho ho, feels right. We're certainly camping at the moment, unmoved in, unfridged beer and floorspace conferences.

It's Atocha zone (by the gorgeous train station), metro Antón Martin, officially part of the Barrio de las Letras, or Literature Neighbourhood, where famous phrases have been bronzed and hammered into the pavement.

Our flat! Right about Lavapiés, where we lived last year. It's up in the world, and it is where we have moved. The rooms are big and sunny, the hall is big enough to gallop up, down, wide enough to lean in and converse, all four of us plus someone's friends, the floors are wood (excepting that of the big chummy kitchen, which is brick)...there's a balcony in the living room, plenty of traffic noise tra la. We're all pretty in love at the moment, with the apartment and with each other for having stuck through and stuck together and found this THING, this beautiful sunny thing. Ewan already is making noises about staying in it more than the (age! age!) year we have contracted.