all these years i've been moonlighting as a mimic

Squirrel snorted and maybe spit milk all over when I told her that it might be that I lost my personality when I turned 25. She chalked it up to melodrama too and the possibility that I was confusing this with an inability to lay my hands on those damn keys every morning when it's time to run for the bus. You can't lose your personality the way you lose your wallet or shoes after too many martinis. You can lose your teeth and your hearing, your virginity, your sanity, and your ability to run a 4 minute mile...but who's ever heard of losing your personality? Do you mean your identity-like your social security number? Maybe you have to face the facts that you never had one to begin with. (That's how Squirrel shows concern: equal parts derision and laughter.)

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If it weren't for my mother's weak heart I'd take a foreign lover and move to Brooklyn. Ettienne & I would spend our days lounging in bed in our underwear, drinking red wine and smoking gauloises. Reading Le Figaro, too. If it weren't for my father's relentless limp Phileas Fogg & I would fire up the hot air balloon and sail away, cutting the ropes and watching the sandbags smack the backs of the circling sharks in sea below.

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Last night we went to Dios es Amor Iglesia around the corner where the women in long skirts and men with moustaches sell pupusas real cheap. After giving our order we sat in sky blue room at a long table with people eating food from Styrofoam bowls. The walls were cracked and all the appliances were mismatched except in their humming and smoking. The air conditioning unit strapped to the ledge over the door leaked rusty water on my head. Streaks of everything swirling around me I could understand: the smells, the fistful of dollars collected by the man with the calculator, the chatter of the little kids and their tamarind juice. A couple to my right and two solitary men to my left and I've never studied their language beyond the CD that promised to teach me how to communicate from the safety of the driver's seat in rush hour. Mira los colores de mi vida. Una mesa para dos por favor -- that's it. But what I'm trying to tell you is that I've been in that room most of my life.