Took the laundry to town on my bike. They were closed for siesta. Stood there thinking “Goddamn siesta” while actually ringing the buzzer (thinking “only the gringo rings the buzzer”) a few times. Someone from the verduleria – a kid maybe 25 – was leaning against the building watching. There is always someone leaning against the building watching.

I turned around and faced away from the door. The sun was on my face. I closed my eyes. I opened them again and looked at the mountains. Then I looked at the dirt road going down to the river. The leaves were almost gone from the trees. It was getting to be wintertime. There were a few people and dogs walking down the road. There are always a few people and dogs walking down the road. I thought “I’m in Patagonia, Argentina at a laundromat that is closed for siesta.” Earlier I’d gotten up at 7:30 and finished all of my writing / editing. There hadn’t been any fighting. Layla seemed to be feeling better after being sick for a couple days. Stoke levels were neutral. I thought about what else we needed. We needed shelves. Down here you can’t buy wood at the hardware store, you have to go the aserradero, the lumber mill. It was all the way at the edge of town. I looked at my bag of clothes. Could I carry a bunch of 1 x 12 shelf boards while riding my bike with a bag of dirty clothes on my back? Would the aserradero be open?

I rode down there. As I approached I heard saws. The aserradero doesn’t take siesta. I walked in. There was the cut-wood smell. I felt stoked to be there. I’d ordered material, lumber and concrete and lag-bolts, all over the Americas. The lumber mill, the hardware store was universal. Ordering materials, the way the guy nodded when hearing your cutlist, then said ok louder than expected (hearing loss from saws), was universal. It was universal in a way that could be more powerful than religion or art or armies but then there was no way to contextualize it so it didn’t matter. It wasn’t a pop song or a sermon, and there wasn’t any audience, just the two of you there in a small office and other people busy stocking and retrieving materials in the warehouse.

I rode back up to town with the four shelves balanced on one shoulder and my duffel bag of dirty clothes worn like a backpack. The cranks on my shitty Argentine one-speed were loose and wobbling. It was about a mile back up to the laundrymat. I thought “fuck I need a vehicle.” I thought “when I first traveled in Latin America I’d look out the bus windows and there were always people walking and riding bikes with ridiculous loads, moving towards shitty-looking houses and buildings where other people and dogs were walking and other people stood against the buildings watching. Damn, what would it feel like to have one of those people’s lives?”