Uma Semana

One week to go before the marriage. Posts will probably be hard to come by the next few days.

After we say I do, expect to hear all the juicy details.

About cake.

I do love cake.

On Stage

If you enjoy this blog, then you'll probably enjoy an evening at As Was Written. It's a show that my friend Tim and I co-host that brings together on one stage writers from diverse styles. We're doing it Saturday, October 25 at the Lyceum in Alexandria, VA.

I'll be reading a piece that I can describe as blog-esque. It'll be about Brazil, but will include stuff I haven't felt comfortable putting online in print for the world to see.

We've filled about 50 seats so far. Seventy are left.

Everything is here: http://aswaswritten.com.



...And...end of plug.

Up Front

For the lion's share of the last decade, I've had a job that requires travel. It's a perk I've consistently enjoyed. My job has taken me to over half the states in the US and five foreign countries. Without a doubt, there's a lot of this big world that I wouldn't have seen without it.

That doesn't mean travel is always a luxury. For every cool trip I've taken, there's been a 26-hour run to St. Louis to go with it (I've been there twice and only seen the Arch once, from a plane).

During the height of travel season each year, I commonly find myself in Terminal C of Reagan National, my face resting in my hands, listening to the same woman on the intercom every five minutes saying, "The USO Lounge is open daily..." and thinking about the lonely Holiday Inn room waiting for me way over there in one of those other time zones.

The goal for all business travelers who trek our carry-on bags deep into coach is that we can one day sit up front with the lucky few. First class. It represents everything that flying can be. It's like traveling with the characters from Mad Men minus the cigarette smoke. It's the opposite of draining. It's like you're not flying.

Airlines dangle frequent flyer programs out in front of travelers and we gobble them up the same way young boys 23-year old men stay up all hours of the night playing video games: If there's a level higher than where we are and its within reach, we're going to do what we can to reach it.

My first trip in first class didn't happen until last December--a good six years after I started traveling for my job. I had cobbled together enough US Airways miles within the calendar year to reach Silver status and then Gold. The trip? A 25-minute jump from DC over to Philadelphia...at 6:55 am.

I boarded like a king. Took my seat. Watched all those little people drag their sorry asses to the back. Drank my OJ. Ate my snack.

Sure, we sat on the runway for a longer period than we spent in the sky. It didn't matter. I had made it.

The truth is that reaching x status doesn't really mean much of anything since it doesn't guarantee first class. You learn this quickly when asking for upgrades that never take shape. Furthermore, your shiny little x status is only good for domestic upgrades. The international stuff is saved for mileage rainmakers like George Clooney in Up in the Air: Emotionally impotent travelers who spend such a huge slice of their lives in the sky that the airlines treat them like actual friends--people these travelers so desperately wish they had.

Now that I'm in Brazil full time, my shiny status doesn't seem to serve me much good, which is ironic since earning big chunks of miles 5,000 at a time flying to the US has never been easier.

It's all soul-draining stuff. The constant ebb and flow of wasted hope on upgrades that don't happen. I know the truth of it all. You really want to fly first class? Pony up the cash or let go of the dream.

It's this kind of attitude that left me completely floored last week when a kind, beautiful, perfect, flawless, goodhearted, loving US Airways desk lady nonchalantly tapped a few keys at my asking and printed out a first class ticket with my name on it. Charlotte to São Paulo. Nine hours and fifteen minutes of unlimited food, drink, movies and a seat so big it was both a window and an aisle, a chair and a bed.

I was the first one to board the flight because I was both A) more excited than I ever had been before to fly and B) I still didn't fully believe this was happening.

Zone One was called out on the intercom and sure enough, the boarding pass for seat 2A beeped under the scanner like everybody else's.

The next four hours were spent eating bad (but better than coach) food, drinking free cocktails, starting and then abandoning a host of recent comedies and awkwardly holding the classic "hot towel" that my flight attendant brought me.

By the time I decided to extend my chair out into a bed, my head was spinning to the point that I had to sit down in the bathroom for a few minutes before returning to my seat. I felt like a freshman in college, still figuring out what this booze stuff was and how much of it I could handle. Keep it together, JMD.

I laid down and awoke in the daylight. We were 20 minutes from landing. I didn't want the flight to end. I wanted to sleep more. I wanted to eat more. I wanted to put on the socks they gave me in my little gift bag.

As thrilling as it all was to have finally made it to the front, the dark cloud of coach misery still hung over me. I could see it whenever I looked around. There were 20 first class seats on my flight. I counted six other passengers.

It depressed me because even though I was upfront with the kings, I knew there were dozens of me's sitting back there in the darkness. Their upgrade requests denied. Their statuses, useless. How many flights had I been on where this amount of prime real estate lay vacant? No wonder it never happens and may never happen again.

I shook my head in disappointment, took off my Bose Quiet Comfort headphones, put down my breakfast pastry and waited for the wheels to touch down. All this while thinking, "How can I do this again, and again, and again?"

High Wire

In São Paulo, it's easy to find yourself walking a thin line of safety. Most people try to avoid these situations.

I'm here in town for a brief few moments between USA trips. My co-workers Brian and Laura are also visiting. 

This afternoon, Brian and I went to the mall for a quick errand. As we walked back, we crossed the bridge a block from my house that spans over the bustling Avenida Vente Tres de Maio.

"Woah," I said, interrupting a story Brian was telling me, "watch this."

In front of us, rising above the heads of the other sidewalk pedestrians, a man appeared. His clothes were a mess. His face a little dirty. A short cigarette hung from his lips. His feet were perched on top of the bridge's hand railing--the railing that separates the safety of the sidewalk from the traffic that swooshes some 50 feet below.

He loosened his grip and slowly straightened his torso. He stood tall and upright. Passersby came to a stop.

The man turned from the highway and focused his attention on the handrail under his soles. He put one foot in front of the other and walked toward us, along the rail, toward the center of the bridge. His pace was jarringly normal. His demeanor, calm.

This particular handrail is maybe two or three inches wide.

Brian and I passed him, eye level with his shins. We stopped to watch with some others. This all happened in a handful of seconds so surreal and unpredicted that I turned to Brian and nonchalantly said one of the most horrible things a person can say, "Well, do you wanna watch this guy fall to his death or do you want to just go home?"

Everyone around us could not believe what was happening. We chuckled intermittently to break the tension. Anything to divert us from the glaring reality that we were about to watch a man lose his life and possibly take a few innocent motorists with him.

I squatted behind a concrete barrier. From my vantage, I could see the man and his feet, but nothing below that.

I vividly remember in my final year of college driving around a corner just as a drunk driver in front of me lost control of his vehicle. He sped recklessly into a ditch. I saw the telephone pole in front of him. I diverted my eyes. Later, I realized this reaction was my body telling me, "Don't watch this man die." Today, instinctually, I felt myself doing this again.

Another few seconds passed and the man's nimble feet took him all the way across to the other side. He hopped down to safety and took a few victorious puffs on his cigarette. As we turned to walk home, he turned in the opposite direction and continued down a path I'll never understand.

Brian and I needed a while to decompress afterwards. I thought about how different things could have been. He could have fallen, yes, but what if he fell just as we were passing him? What if one of the eye witnesses got it wrong and said we had pushed him? That's not a position either of us want to be in as English-speaking foreigners.

When we returned home, I poured us a few necessary cocktails. We told Daniela and Laura the story. We sent work e-mails and made wedding phone calls. Washed dishes. Set the table for dinner. Another hour and the moment was past. There was no way of telling where he was by then. Life, like him, walked on.

Born to Win

My first trip home since arriving in Brazil in late February. Been here in Alexandria, VA for about 36 hours so far.

-Greeted at the airport by this young man:

-Immediately go to Five Guys, not home. There's no time. The first few meals are already selected. Five Guys for lunch on Sunday. Los Toltecos for dinner. Royal Thai on lunch for Monday. Ben and Jerry's after lunch--Cherry Garcia to start. Chadwick's $4 chicken quesadilla for dinner.

-Of everything above, the one that hit the hardest in the this-is-exactly-what-I-was-missing category was undoubtedly Five Guys. Absolute perfection. Ben and Jerry's takes second.

-Stars and Stripes forever taste like:

-Overwhelmed by the beauty and cleanliness around me. I realize immediately how accustomed I am to the graffiti-ed walls and littered streets of Sao Paulo. America looks like the future.

-Get to work immediately on all the things I have to do. Renting a tuxedo here instead of Brazil in order to save roughly $500 in rental fees per suit. It's outrageous there. The place I want to go is slammed. Leave. Go get haircut. Buy a shirt at Old Navy. It's Tax Free Weekend.

-Reach an awkward sort of breaking point while using the free wifi at a Starbuck's to make a call on my cell phone. Feel like I do not fit in anymore in this world. This was my place, but no longer. Brazil is just different in all respects and my brain has adjusted to it. That's reality now.

-Everyone is so good looking. They look upbeat, healthy and happy. Cheerfulness all around.

-Arrive back home. Don't think to turn on the AC.

-Drive a car for the first time in 5.5 months. Immediately start fooling with my cell phone. Difficult at first to deal with cars that are in front of me when I don't want them to be. I'm used to walking on busy sidewalks where you can just go around a person. It's the first time in my life I realize how limited driving is in comparison to walking. When you're walking, you're always calling the shots.

-Without a doubt, the drawback that catches my eye the most are the cop cars quietly crawling up and down the roads waiting for drivers to make a mistake so they can write a ticket. This feels inexcusably like bullying to me. In Brazil, police don't pull drivers over. They're constantly on guard trying to stop real crime. You can jaywalk right in front of them. You can pull your car onto the sidewalk to park while you run over to an ATM. It doesn't matter. That's not crime. I feel like I can do anything in Brazil as long as it doesn't involve drugs, guns or hurting someone else. Here, the idea of being penalized for going 57 in a 45 is outrageous. But you're the cops. Go stop criminals.

-See groups of old friends. So refreshing. It feels like no time has passed with any of them.

-English. Everywhere. Like deep breaths of pure oxygen into your lungs.

-Never remember to turn the AC on the first day. Wake up to a house that's about 77 degrees. Turn it to 75.

-Start to feel more at home.

-Return to the tuxedo rental place Monday morning. From the moment I walk in with no solid idea of what I want till the moment I leave with measurements taken, paperwork completed, deposit paid: One hour. No one cried. No champagne. None of my friends gave me their opinions. No photos taken. Just simple in and out. Take 20 steps away from a tuxedo and every one of them looks the same. Thank God I'm a man.

-Go to my office for the first time since February. The familiarity hits me in the lobby when I hear the elevator chime. Have to shake my arms to get the tension out.

-In a surreal move, return to my old desk (unoccupied at the moment), sit down just like I did in the past, open my laptop and go to work. Same guy across the hall from me as before. Same view out the window. The closest thing to time travel I've ever experienced.

-Happy hour out in Old Town Alexandria. From this familiar place to that one. Light Horse does karaoke now on Mondays. Sing "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak to about five people. One person buys me a drink halfway through the song.

-Walk the quiet streets of Old Town by myself. More than ever before it looks like a movie set. Since returning, I have zero fear in America. Find myself looking over my shoulder constantly out of pure habit. Force my muscle memory to cooperate with my mood, which is at ease. I feel completely safe at every moment. My bag can sit unattended over there. It's okay if that door is unlocked. It's okay to walk past this stranger at night when there's no one else around. Crime is that thing that happens in far off places beyond the curvature of the horizon. It does not happen here.

-Board the Metro late in the evening. I'm the only one in my car. After years of living in DC this has only happened two or three times. The coincidence feels apt. In my 36 hours here, more than anything else, I'm feeling amazed at the sheer luck of it all. The enormous blessing that I used to incorrectly label as "life." The fact that I was born here and not anywhere else. 330 million out of six billion. And I made the cut. The game was over before my first step.