For those people remembering 9/11 today, the people who will never forget, what are you not forgetting? I think we all need to ask ourselves that question.

First, of course, we need not to forgot the innocent people who were killed in the event and the people who died trying to save them. It was tragic. In addition to honoring the memory of our fallen brothers, we need to try to remember a little bit further, not just what we consciously thought, but how we felt, the reasons that we felt this way, and what happened next.

As I conjure up these ten year old memories now, what I remember most vividly were two airplanes hitting the twin towers and this image being repeatedly driven into my brain. There is no way I will ever be able to forget that image because I saw it thousands and thousands of times, so I believe it's a little redundant to say we'll never forget. Of course, we won't.

I remember people jumping out of windows. I remember being scared shitless and vulnerable. I was 17 and it was the first time that I realized that this illusion of living in the strongest country in the world was, in fact just that, an illusion . And this feeling of superiority that was ingrained for years by my parents, by my media, by my schooling was wiped away.

9/11 aroused our dormant patriotism, yes, which I believe is what you are remembering, too, a feeling of nostalgia for a oneness, a nation coming together over the most horrific thing we had ever seen in our lives. We didn't know what else to do. We had to rely on each other because we were so shitting scared. And it felt good.

But do you remember what that patriotism led to? Do you remember how our government used that patriotism? Two wars that are still being fought today and many more lives, including Americans, lost, all at the expense of the American taxpayer, don't forget, while making a few war profiteers richer.

And who was this enemy? This Osama Bin Laden. This terrorist? Did he really exist anywhere tangible or just on the evening news when they would show clips of someone we were told was our enemy who said evil things, or so we were told on some indescriptive scroll on the bottom of the TV screen. We salivated at the Hate and at our Goldstein, the enemy to our ways, to the beautiful American way of freedom. And when we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, we cheered because it was the only way we could fill the emptiness that was left by 9/11. We had to regain that superiority that we lost. And we trusted our government; we had to. We all shared an enemy.

It was a year before Osama Bin Ladin came out and laid claim for the attacks. But to us without a doubt it was him, and we knew this a short time later. Isn't that weird? I don't remember waiting a year wondering who did it.

And the word terrorist, now that, is a strong word, though extremely loose in its application. What happens when the government starts doing something that's legitimately wrong and you want to fight against it?

So will it make us terrorists if we demonstrate a true concern, whenever the time may arise? In their eyes, maybe it will, the discretion of the U.S. government is a funny thing.

I don't know whether today we are on a yellow defcon flag of terror alert 7 because I am not there. And it's taken me a few years standing outside of my homeland to realize fully how ridiculous it all really is. But it's a good country and we need to keep it that way. As good warm blooded Americans it is our responsibility to pose these questions to ourselves, question the environment that surrounds us, and fuck our girlfriends with our boners. Because if we don't do that, then we are not informed, and a public that doesn't question, is a public that is taken advantage of. Just keep a boner for your girlfriends and for America. Just make sure you know why you have a boner.

I had this thought after drinking cheap wine and beer…last night…

What do I know? Or think I know.

First things first. My body.

My body is made up of bones, blood, tissues, and organs. They are made up of cells. The cells are made up of things that I learned in my ninth grade biology class like the mitochondria and the nucleus. These cells contain my DNA, Deoxyribonucleic acid. This is something that makes my external features like my nose and my decently sized nostrils. DNA is also called genes, not like blue jeans like I thought before I turned nine. These genes decide the color of eyes and the size of ears. But they don’t look like eyes and ears. They're too small to be seen by eyeballs alone. Genes come from your parents. And for that reason, when you see someone with big ears and pink eyes, feel free to laugh, but please, blame the parents for fornicating and creating monsters.

I have genes. Like the hair falling out gene. Some day I will pass this unfortunate gene down to my children. I don’t know if I want children, but it’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re also supposed to get married

So the smallest unit is the cell, but what is a cell made out of, I guess atoms. Atoms have nuclei too. Atoms are protons, neutrons, and electrons, and they float around each other in some way or another. So is there anything smaller than that? Is the universe as infinitely small as it is large?

I have toes and fingers. Sometimes I put my toes in socks and then into shoes. I put my fingers in all types of places, too. My favorite place to put my fingers is in a pussy. Pussies are warm. They feel good. I know that pussies feel good and are warm. I don’t have a pussy though, I just like them. I have a penis, which sometimes I put into pussies too. It’s better to have a penis than to have a pussy. Because penises are more than pussies, in a matter of substance. They are long and can be seen easier. They go in. Pussies get penetrated. I put, not receive. It really is a power thing.

I also have a heart. This heart pumps blood through my body, to all the different places that there are in the body like arms and legs and heads (and my penis when I see T&A). My heart also feels sad and love. My heart makes me feel bad for starving people in Africa, but not enough to do anything about it. My head stops such ideas. My heart also makes me feel love towards women that let me put my fingers in their pussies. Sometimes that’s bad. But sometimes it’s good.

My head makes me “think.” It makes me say jokes and other funny types of things. It also allows me to make ideas and try to make sense of the world around me. My head makes me understand when I am being lied to. But sometimes it takes a lot of “thinking” to realize that I am being lied to.

I realize, because of my head, that I am made of atoms, maybe something smaller, and that I know that I like to put my fingers in pussies. It sends signals to my fingertips and then my fingertips touch this keyboard, which more and more seems to be becoming another part of my body.

Sandra got her period, which I'm thankful for and disgusted by. She came in bed this morning and laid down next to me, returning from a long stay in the bathroom.

"I have my period," She said.

"That's nice," I said. "Do you want me to feel sorry for you?"

"I feel so shitty. You don't know what it's like?" She said.

Exactly, I thought. I don't. Women have been taking advantage of this period thing since the beginning of domesticity and you know what, I'm sick of being the sucker, not just for me, but for everyman in the world that has to suffer, plead, work harder, sympathize and be a scapegoat, for something we know nothing about. Mind you, this isn't one day out of a month, it is a whole week. That is a quarter of the time, a quarter.

I have no idea what it's like to have a period. How do I know? But, am I just supposed to assume it is as bad as they say, so they can have a free week of servitude? No, no, no, chicas, not this guy, no more.

You'd think after years they would get used to it. And you know what, I bet they do. There has never been an instant that they haven't rub it deep into my skin that they are biologically different. It's a conspiracy at the highest of levels, an entire gender committing fraud. No more free bitch passes, no more back rubs, nothing. I am treating them as normal human beings from now on.

Just because I see blood, I will not cower. Ha Ha Ha. No more.

Earlier today, Sandra said, "No, it's different for every girl. It used to not bother me."

"Oh. It didn't," I said. "Until you saw your older sister say, 'Daddy, I can't go to school today I have my period.' And from then on, it hurt you just as bad as it seemed to hurt your older sister. Right?"

"No. No. It really hurts me."

Sure it does, Sandra. This blog isn't just to you. It's to all those woman who have made me suffer from my ignorance. I will be ignorant no longer. I smell the deceit from the feminine beast. And it smells strong.

Life is good with Sandra Montecarlo. Except when she forces my fingers on her crotch in the morning when we wake up, like some sort of female antichrist.

It's fine, but I just need a little coffee first.

I eat bananas on my toast with honey and butter. It's what she prepares most mornings this July. I used to eat cereal with yogurt, before she arrived There are people in this world that don't consider cereal cereal when it's mixed with yogurt. That's a very American way to think about cereal, I think. Anywho, I used to mix it with kiwis. Cereal is cereal no matter what dairy product it is mixed with. I wonder what kind of breakfast I will be eating next July and where that July will be or maybe even the July after that, what kind of breakfast will I eat? I hope I am not eating assholes.

SM wants me to be in Cordoba next July. That seems far away though, but I bet she would make me toast.

I have to be in Ohio in July to go to my cousin's wedding. That seems far away though, but family is family.

I have written a poem for Sandra Montecarlo in her native tongue. I have been experimenting with my Spanish poetry a lot lately. I usually tell her something like this to help her sleep. It usually works.

Estar enamorada es estar gordo.

Somos Elefantes gordos con orejas grandes?

Estos suenos parecen nubes hechas de ácido sulfúrico.

El lobo del mar mira los pinguinos y nuestro amor.

Encontré nuestro amor en una bolsa de fruta con un bebé

Dónde ésta el aguadulce de vida y mi amor?

Fin.

Ficky. Ficky. I want Ficky.

All day long I think of Ficky.

Ficky Ficky in your eyes

Ficky Ficky pecan pie

Chicken Chicken

Finger Lickin.

Where is my Ficky Fickin?

Carlitos is the ghost and he has a little boy ghost too that lives there with him. There is a whole family of ghosts, actually. They all live in limbo.

I would like to live in limbo too with them in the stairwells in El Balcon, but only if a stark black nothingness really is death. I could at least watch the tango show every Sunday, as long as the doors to the building stay open and tourists continue to visit. Really, Carlito's eternal lingering was interrupted much more often in the nineties, in the heyday of El Balcon The Tango House, mostly by loud tapping feet on the wood floor and the amplified sounds of the classical guitar accompanied by the Bandoneón. Carlitos prefers the stairs, where now not many climb, to the balcony that overlooks the square where maybe he was assassinated many years ago when the foundations of the antique neighborhood were still being transplanted by immigrants from Italian barrios from across the Atlantic sea.

Carlitos has a peaceful afterlife now as the restaurant begins its descent into the same place he lives, partial-existence. No more do the tapping feet of dancers keep him afloat all night and through the week. Now with the limited hours, the weeks for Carlitos are sleepy and tranquil while the weekends bring on a subtle party that most don't know about and only find out by employees in the cold weekend street begging them to have a beer at half of the price of any other place in the vicinity. It will be closing soon and Carlitos will have his peace, a long needed peace.

One of the owners told me one day, as I polished the imperfect glassware, that on the terrazza there is a vortex. Where this vortex went, he did not say, but I imagine another dimension of some sort. I stayed away from the terrazza after I learned about the vortex. But he assured me, that the aliens, the ones he talks to, hover above the smaller mountains near Cordoba and usually stay away from the bright lights and the attention of the big city. For this I was relieved, but didn’t understand what this had to with the vortex on the terrazza. But then he went on to say that the Aliens told him that, compounded with his own research, the world would be ending next year. But not quickly like from a comet, more like a social decay, for which he was preparing by buying supplies i.e. dollars, weapons, and tools. But still I didn’t understand the vortex.

What I’m getting at here is that I won’t ever get my chance to witness Carlitos and his family of ghosts with my own two eyes, and I will never accidentally fall into the vortex because I don’t work for El Balcon any more.

I enjoy Wednesday mornings. It is winter now, but it feels more like fall as I walk out of the apartment to the slight smell of smoke. I can see the yellow haze that comes from somewhere, that hangs above San Telmo, and that doesn’t seem like smog. As I walk down the stairs to the underground, I put the smoke to the past and the stuffy concrete scrawl that is the C-Line becomes my present. I search my pocket for pesos and I pay the peso-ten that it costs and I stuff my self in the tube.

When I emerge, I am miles away from where I started and the smoke is gone and I see the red, blue and white flowers that are being sold outside the train station and, sitting quietly beside is the Chacarita Cemetery. Tall palms guard the entrance to the graveyard and atop the train station large single orange letters read Frederico Lacroze Estacion. They remind me of the Miami Airport in the sixties, at least this is how I imagine airports looked in the sixties. It doesn’t have the turn of the century feel of the other Buenos Aires Train Stations. I walk inside, passed the Pancho and Magazine stands, and I wait in line for my ticket to Villa Lynch. I walk to the platform and board the train.

I sit down on the baby-puke green vinyl seats across from a man who stares at a newspaper. I’m not sure if he is reading it or if he is only looking at it to make me think that he is reading it. I begin to write this when the whistle blows and the doors slam shut. The hollow cabin putts down the line, passing the Doric columns that provide entrance into the cemetery between high-stacked skeletal remains that have been locked inside concrete mausoleums for a century or more. The tranquil train takes me between highways and old universities with green greens and old brick buildings, between soccer fields and city busses, and between fields of crops resulting from some sustainable living college program. I listen to Argentine conversation that I don’t understand. And we cross intersections where cars wait and we, the train, slow and stop and I think only about the coffee I will drink when I reach my class.

And then I think about naked girls.