Days 4,5

Over the course of two days I wrote very little, in part because I am at a difficult stretch in the project, the turning point of the novel, as it were, and also because I was distracted by the temptations of Barcelona. Specifically I drank too much on Day 4 and so was too hung over to write on Day 5.

I am struggling with time on this trip. If I stay in and write, then I am denying myself the experience of life in Barcelona. But if I go out, then I am wasting this essential period of time that I will freely be able to write. I presented this dilemma to one of the hostelmates and he answered, "You Only Live Once." But I already knew that..

I befriended a Chilean graphic artist whose name I cannot remember. He was about ten years older than me and he was gay, which wound up being problematic. But he was travelling all through Europe and also, he told me, trying to make into reality his dream of immigrating from Chile to Spain. I went out drinking with him and an older man he'd met on Grinder (who took to calling me Peter Parker, which I chose to take as a compliment), and it was all enjoyable enough, but over the course of the night the Chilean developed the desire to sleep with me, and the next day he was very overt, even aggressive about it, presumably with genuine hopes of persuading me in his favor. Surely I would have slept with him (if only out of politeness) if not for the fact that I'm uninterested in men, which was mutually understood from the beginning. In truth, his advances made me angry, because they had the obvious effect of poisoning our comraderie, brief though it was, and in the end I could hardly wait for him to leave the hostel for good. I can't remember his name, and honestly I'm glad that I can't.

The ambulance sirens in Barcelona sound very different from in America. To my ears they sound almost beautiful. It sounds as if they are repeating some foreign three-syllable phrase. It might be that the only thing I remember from Spain is the sound of the ambulances.