Homework.

If I had to choose a favorite novel, I would say Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates. It has been made into a movie starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet. Yes, they were in Titanic together.

´´Rose! You´re so stupid, Rose!´´

´´Draw me like one of your French girls.´´

Etc. What a movie.

Now, as much as I enjoy Titanic, get thee to a bookstore or library and read the book before star-crossed lovers Jack and Rose forever replace Yates´s own star-crossed lovers.

In other news, I went to Costa Rica for three days in order to renew my tourist card. It was an experience that I may or may not blog about at length, but know this: having spent all of yesterday in the company of Nicaraguans who work there and were coming home for the holidays, I am shaken by the sacrifices these men make in order to keep their families afloat. Obviously I´m aware of people living similarly in the States, but there was something significant about being on the road, shoulder to shoulder, with these guys who hadn´t seen their wives or children for 51 weeks. One of them befriended me and guided me through the border, and on the Nicaraguan side we took a series of interlocal buses in order to disguise the fact that we were coming from Costa Rica. He was carrying a year´s worth of earnings, and if we were to take the express bus to Managua, he was afraid that upon disembarking we would be robbed, as thieves are well aware that around holiday time, anyone coming from Costa Rica is like a walking bank.

The fact that, as we speak, men are losing everything they worked for over this past year -- and to their fucking countrymen -- it makes me sick.