Obeying the Argi's sense of time

In the span of one week, I turned old, finished a short video and moved to Argentina. I had been told that as a freelancer, I should forget planning two months ahead of time because that "now" moment might move you to another country for three weeks. the key, I gathered, was to go with it... who knows if I'll be able to take that other trip I was planning in May anyway? what if I'm working then, what if I'm dead?

I planned to post from my lovely, adoptive city --a sort of jobless on assignment-- but let me tell you a little something about the porteno (the term for the Buenos Aires city dwellers) and their sense of time. In five days, I've progressively stayed out later at tango milongas, began to eat after midnight, avoided (or conveniently forgot) the most obvious of errands (getting a new set of keys), and am now sleeping until noon. Lunches take two hours and if my friend and I are not going to order desert, we should be sure to show our regrets to avoid that "Americans" look.

I've come to Buenos Aires before, but for work, and with all the American comforts of my swank hotel--highspeed internet, good food, air conditioning, a shower basin... yup, our shower is a curtain and a drain in the floor next to the toilet. Of course, I never thought of the these items as comforts, but standards, right? Not quite so. For highspeed internet--which my friend has worked to get set up for two weeks--we've got to be willing to haul a laptop to a corner cafe (it's not exactly a good idea to walk around with a mac laptop) and wait for the battery to run out before a full day's work is complete. So I think, why work?... let's go have a te... because that is so easy to do. Work is definitely not encouraged, and I'm going to say it's outright frowned upon. Seriously... it's like swimming against the current! Well... I could get used to this. And with the exchange rate as good as it is here, this is a jobless haven. It's true... I've met tons of jobless ex-pats. I must be in the jobless capital of the world!

More on assignment from Buenos Aires... next time I can get an internet connect.