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Friday, May 26, 2006

Melina En Nueva York: Episodio IV, El Enfermo

Hoy es viernes, entonces I had another date.

This guy was sick the first time we were supposed to get together, so we didn't, but it seems he actually *was* sick and did want to reschedule, so we'd sent each other about 30 emails by the time we actually met. This actually made me kind of anxious. What if he changed his mind? Life is too short for the coy email exchange.

But we did meet. I liked El Enfermo (he seemed recovered from his illness). His excellent spelling on his e-profile made more sense once I learned that he was a magazine copy editor, which meant he spent a lot of time ensconced in his own little world, poring over text and shaping it into its ideal/correct form. He seemed a little gloomy but I wasn't really sure why. What it seemed like, was, El Enfermo was a man who had been born in the wrong time.

Ma and I have this discussion sometimes - Ma sometimes thinks she was born in the wrong time. And this guy had the same feeling. He enjoys the austerity of copy-editing: working on his own, righting the little sins of the article writers one by one. He lives in Brooklyn surrounded by hipsters. He's not comfortable with grownups "acting like they're still in high school, only with credit cards" (El Enfermo doesn't own a credit card, as he doesn't believe in spending money he doesn't have). He hates Oprah, because even if she's doing good by bringing attention to important causes and making people happy, she seems shallow inside, so that's not okay. He doesn't like cookies in the office, because people giving him cookies are trying to buy his happiness, and cookie-based happiness is temporary and fleeting.

In spite of being so down on everything, El Enfermo made me almost snort out my drink a couple times. Pretty funny guy. No pretences.

*****DISCUSSION QUESTION:*******

El Enfermo does not enjoy postmodern times. How about you -- are they rigt for you? Do you think you'd have done better in some other place or era?

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4 Comments:

At 11:16 PM, Blogger melinama said...

Postmodern? I didn't even like modern. This reminds me of Robert Griffin trying to teach me to play seventh chords when I hadn't really reconciled myself to chords which include the third.

At this very instant, Melina, your brother Zed is playing Straffod Moder un Dotter on his trumpet.

 
At 12:20 PM, Blogger Cap'n Sylvia Sharkbait said...

I used to think that perhaps I should have lived in the past, when things were slower paced and the world was not so disposable. But I think because I am a mouthy, opiniated woman I probably would have been stoned to death or maybe thrown in an insane asylum.

The future frightens me, the way so many humans wreak havoc on our mother earth and each other. Even though I'm curious about how it will all play out, I'm not sure I actually want to live there.

So I think I'm comfortable being where I am, straddling two centuries, able to be an organic aging hipster when I like, watching DVDs on a flat screen TV if it suits me, enjoying my sports, hanging with friends, working, travelling, taking classes, and having the luxury to take advantage of much of what modern life has to offer.

 
At 1:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You may find that your copy editor is not only a bit gloomy (that probably doesn't have anything to do with copy editing unless he works on depressing material) but also unusually literal. I'm a copy editor (books). When you spend your days cleaning up sloppy, ambiguous, confused writing, you automatically try to sort out the exact, intended meaning of everything ... even the things that aren't supposed to be exact and literal.

 
At 9:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nothing much post-1890 makes sense to me, at least as far as art is concerned. I may be stuck in the wrong era, but "I'm not the only one."

(Well, I do like contemporary music.)

 

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