Scribbling on the back of a page from last month I sit in the new café here on Third Street in front of the park, in the very building, old house, where Nina Moreno grew up and recently had her gallery of art.  Her old hand-lettered sign (Mexicans are REAllly good sign-painters, when they want to be) OUVERT AU PUBLIQUE is now back up over the door, minus the words GALERIA DE ARTE.

*Sigh* - hers was a landmark gallery here in the west end of downtown Tijuana - and this was the very house where she grew up after her father brought the family up from Villaflores, Chiapas.  Unfortunately the running of the gallery was taking too much of her energy and truth be told she wanted to work more on her own painting, and now she is.  Now she is.

But ay Robie I will miss the evenings sitting around your carpeted gallery floor listening to Tijuana artists talk and talk into the wee hours of opening nights of her exhibitions.  True I only came to five or six of her openings in the past four years but I shall miss them nevertheless and be glad and grateful that I did attend those few and listen to the music and conversation here. 

Here in this very room where I am sipping at a bistro table while I scribble on the backsides of a couple sheets I brought with me covered with verses I am working on for 12 old postcards with purple poems and my unpolished shoes rest on the recently stripped and polished rough wooden floor - no more carpet in these rooms, but the espresso is strong and tasty.  A double shot for two dollar something.  Almost as expensive as on the other side, getting an espresso here but at least it is good and I can sit and look out the window onto the sidewalk and street and beautiful green park across, over, beyond, here.

Tonight Luisa is coming by to pick up Mikey and me and head over to the CECUT to attend a book presentation by Eduardo Arellano.  He will read from his new book, Estado de sitio about how his grandfather introduced him to Borges - who also inspired me to write like Henry Miller and he - and Eduardo is no relation to the Felix A's, thank God.  He is also one of the most intelligent poets I have ever met and we have met a few, yes, but some of them here in Tiyei blow us away... this is the end and the beginning of the world and... shut up, Danial

I smile.  Yesterday Mikey and I were right here in this room at this table drinking espresso and talking about the wonders of election year on the other side at home with our beloved Unitedstatesians, and how strange and weird it seems - though no one thinks of it like this - that President Bush II has announced within barely fifteen days of himself that he proposes amnesty for millions of "illegal" workers and also a dream to set up colonies on the Moon and Mars. MMmmmm yes we love election year silliness and all its stupid fake-sounding anger and backbiting and then we join hands and conquer the world (and the other worlds, too, it seems).  I am still convinced that GW will lose like his father lost before him, but Mikey is starting to waver as the economy shows sings of recovering - which is good news, because, as they say, when the U.S. catches a cold, Mexico gets pneumonia.  So recovery is not just a metaphor, here, no.  Anyway, like I said we were talking here yesterday that would be writing this today and