http://www.mexicanyear.odinsoli.com Nick and Nooshin spend a year in Mexico Tue, 12 Jan 2010 04:14:22 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Whoever started to build this tortilleria ran out of money to finish it.  From a distance it looks like a lean-to.  Just three cinderblock walls and an unsecured tarpaper roof that’s sliding off.  The entrance is the missing wall, leading into a small dirt floor covered with the tools of ... http://www.mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2010/01/11/keeping-it-professional/ I haven’t been able to sleep since I plunged into the frigid Pacific, provoking Nick to save me again.  It was the culmination of our first fight.  I keep reliving that afternoon at the beach – the argument with Nasrin, my overwhelming frustration at Nick’s aloofness, the angry tenderness of ... http://www.mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2010/01/10/severely-sleepless/ “Are you sure this is the first call you want to make with your new cellphone?” Nooshin glances over from the passenger seat of my truck.  A headscarf is tied loosely around her beaming face.  There’s an open Telcel box in her lap.  Finally – a replacement for her crappy pre-paid ... http://www.mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2010/01/09/beaches-of-tijuana/ Nick is always striking up conversations with people, going out of his way to introduce himself to friendly and sometimes not-so-friendly faces, like shop clerks and curious prying neighbors and soldier-cops with M-16s slung over their shoulders.  Also muchachitas, which drives me crazy – especially when they flirt with him, ... http://www.mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2010/01/08/a-world-coming-closer/ The Archivo Municipal del Ciudad de Tijuana – city archive of Tijuana – is a forgotten rancho-style annex at the back of the municipal offices.  It languishes beneath an overhanging Spanish tile roof and arabesque parapet, besieged by a courtyard torn into moonscape.  Construction equipment and gouged piles of muddy ... http://www.mexicanyear.odinsoli.com/2010/01/07/archivo-municipal-del-ciudad-de-tijuana/