Me and the Boys

Last Friday, I flew from PeeVee to Mexxico City (aka Distr1to Federa1 or DF for short…it’s also commonly referred to as “Mexxico” which can be confusing at first “Aren’t we in Mexxico?...”).

A. (I’ll call him Manita which is short for “little sister” and is a bit of some Chilango [Mexxico City people] slang), his mom D., and his friend “Panque” picked me up at the airport. It was so great to see Manita after about 1.5 years. I was happy to meet his mom too because she had stayed with my friend’s J. and T. (one of her 3 sons) in eNYC for about a month and J. spoke so highly of her. Right away, I knew I was still in love with DF. It’s like love for anything…you can’t always articulate why exactly you love it, but even though it’s often love at first sight, it’s often lasting. Pretty soon it started down pouring and I was loving that because the rain hasn’t started yet in PeeVee. The power went out in the apartment and they were sort of apologizing, but because I live in Mexxico, it doesn’t faze me a bit.

J. and T. arrived later. The mom D. was literally pacing around the apartment and every time a phone rang or a buzzer buzzed, she jumped up. She was so anxious to see them…it was really touching.

The next morning around 7:30am, the rest of the family arrived from Z@catecas: A. the youngest brother (he’s also referred to as the “straight brother” because his 2 older brothers are gay…it’s very cute), their dad, and Mama Lupe, their grandmother. I’m not going to anonomize Mama Lupe because she’s like a character from a book or TV and needs her name. J. got up to meet the family, but I rolled over because I needed a bit more beauty sleep.


So there we were, 8 of us packed into a smallish 2 bedroom apartment in DF. Most of the morning and sometimes well into the afternoon, was cosumed by everyone eating breakfast/lunch, and showering and getting ready to go out. This was often comical with Mama L sitting in the corner and making comments about everything going on around her. Their dad was often making exasperated faces at me upon discovering what I couldn’t eat as a vegetarian. The rest of us (including their mom who’s only 10 years older than me…whereas my friends, her sons, range in ages from 22-13 years younger) joked around a lot.

The biggest joke began when Mama L woke up in the afternoon on Sat from her nap (she had arrived on an overnight bus) and I said “Buenas Tardes”. (good afternoon) She looked at me and said “No, Buenos Dias”. (good morning) I was a bit perplexed because I feel like I finally have the “dias” vs “tardes” vs “noches” thing down. So I asked “Es “buenas tardes”, no?” Her response was, “No, para mi es “buenos dias””. (transl: for me, it’s good morning”). As usual, I sort of shrugged and assumed I was missing something. But it soon because clear that Mama Lupe thought she had slept 30 hours and she thought it was Sunday morning. As if that wasn’t funny enough, no one in the family would tell her it was really Saturday. This joke actually continued until Sunday or Monday. It was very strange, but also hysterical and it really felt we were part of some strange Mexxican sitcom.

The second big joke was that for some reason Mama Lupe likes to hoard toilet paper. D. went into the bathroom to find the roll finished. She later found a huge wad of it in Mama L’s suitcase but when Mama L. was confronted she blamed it on me! “Fue la muchacha”, she said in her little voice, which means “it was the girl”. She kept referring to me as “la muchacha” which was also quite funny because I think D. had told her I was 28. Mama L. is very judgmental and has said things like D. isn’t a real woman because she’s only given birth through Cesarean and hadn’t experienced the pain of childbirth like a real woman. So I’m sure she’d have a lot to say if she knew I was 40, never married, no children, and hanging out with the young guys.

Anyway, it was great seeing everyone. J. and T. had brought me tons of stuff I had ordered online from NYC as well as my photo magazines, a load of Indian food and other assorted goodies sent down by our mutual friend R (muchas gracias R!). It was really fun hanging out with them in DF and funny that we tried to keep speaking in Spanish a good amount of the time. We ate lots of good food, drank lots of café, shot pool, and laughed a lot. Being with Manita was really like hanging out with the little sister I never had. He likes to wear cosmetics (not to look like a girl but to enhance his existing good looks) and is a snazzy dresser so he always had advice for what I should wear and let me borrow his eyelash gel. (I gotta get some of that stuff!)

I also got to see L. who I briefly dated in Va1larta but who is from DF. He was always a little too muscular but now he’s almost grotesquely huge. Hugging him was like hugging an oversized statue.


The last day and night, I felt like I was a teenager again. I took a photo of A in front of a Doors poster, we went shopping at a trendy stored where all the clothes were sort of punky and striped – exactly like the stuff I loved when I was a teenager back in the 80s. That night we hung out with some other boys from their housing complex and went and played pool. I’m not exaggerating when I say boys…one was in braces and if they were 18, I’d be surprised. Later we got Pacheco (a new Mexxican slang word for me) and drove around kind of fast listening to the music really loud. For a moment I wondered if I was being an irresponsible adult but I let that go and just enjoyed being a kid again, enjoying life and just living in the moment.

I was very sad to leave. More important than it being a fun trip to a city I really like, it was great to be around people, part of a family, and with close friends. We laughed and I felt appreciated and loved.