The Summer Journals

All right, Summer holidays are finally over here in Brazil and they turned out to be better than I could expect. Vag broke up with me and lifted a weight from my shoulders, because I ended up not having to do it. So, here goes the 1st part of my Summer Journals.

The 24th Of December, 2005 – “The Summer”

These summer holidays have just started and they have enough to be the best ever. This year, instead of staying in my “paulista” shell, I travelled back to where I come from: Bahia.

Bahia is a state filled with different cultures and colors, the African mostly, and in my opinion is the best picture of my country. But this ain’t about my state’s ethnicity. It’s about two specific places.

First, Vitória da Conquista (aka VCA). I spent in this town most of my adolescence, so a lot of significant things were lived there. The greatest part of them were filled with selfpity and poor state of consciousness. I was a slave to my feelings and little I knew about myself and how to deal with people. I thought that being complicated and mysterious would make me stand out among the crowd. Yes, I was foolish, but I had my fun, my first drinks and the timid iniciation of my party life. I used to be an indoors type of guy and having a good time was watching some movies at any friend’s house; but sometimes I partied out and had loads of fun: since howling to the moon till Goth photoshoots at supposedly haunted houses.

So this time I was decided to have fun. The outdoor fun. But there I realized that my fun lied on my capacity of enjoying each moment, and this I had developed very well for the last two years. So hanging out with my best mate, Alais, was more than wonderful. Especially now that my homo side isn’t anymore a secret. We spent days watching The OC’s 2nd season and Desperate Housewives’ 1st. I’m really sure that our friendship is stronger now that we don’t have any deep secrets between us. We talk about our dreams and frustrations and even sexual desires, which is pretty fun.

On the December’s 17th, Saturday, we and Gabi went to this party that had everything to be crappy. But we were decided to have fun. And I NEEDED (still do, actually) to dance!! When we left Alais’ house we stopped at this cheap bar where we ordered two “Cearás” to each of us. What is a Ceará? Well, it’s a "Tequila wannabe". We weren’t too interested in knowing exactly what that thing was, but we joined the game and drank the Ceará as if we were having Tequila shots: salt + Ceará + lemon. Heavenly! I had three and a half shots and still was on my feet!! I know this is kind of dumb, but I was really happy that my drinking-mojo was back. However, Gabi wasn’t all good and this (ugly!) guy started hitting on her. So Alais and I were up to save her from him, whom was trying to convince us to go to this whoever’s birthday party. Then we used the guy to give us a ride to our party and sent him away. Poor loser, but we were wild that night.

There we bought two “Capetas” (Vodka with a LOT of stuffs I still have no idea of). And this time Alais was the sick one. As soon as we entered the club she made out with this dude we met there, but then hurried to the girl’s room to throw up. Gabi went after her and I hung outside the door. I was pissed, because I knew Gabi was making out with Alais into the restroom. Okay! They’re two girls, but yes, they had homo tendencies. Alais didn’t want to kiss Gabi (as she told me later), but she was too drunk to fight Gabi out, so…

Afterwards we were dancing and I was having the best time of my life. Alais was still sick and lying on a lounge there at the club, as Gabi and I Thechno-ed and Funked all over the dancefloor. Alais’ dude appeared again and took care of her while we danced. But a Martini and a bottle of Water later, the four of us were dancing wildly and having the greatest time. Interesting fact: at one moment we were all lied on the lounge and Alais’ bloke (whom by the way was HOT!) started to caress my hair fondly. As far as I knew he was totally straight. Besides, I was too wasted to care anyway, and I could had imagined it all due to the alcohol: so it passed. We were the last people to leave the club; actually we were thrown out and then, we walked home, completely drunk, singing Isaac and Can’t Get You Out Of Me Head at the top of our lungs on the empty streets, but extremely happy.

Later that week, I visited some old friends of mine there in VCA and they filled me in with news from the last couple years in which I was absent. Livia’s married and pregnant, Luanna (my teen crush) is dating a younger guy, Mylena’s in Salvador, just as Larissa. Paula is in Law school, also in Salvador. Tamara lives in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais), studying Architecture and loving it. She told me Jorge Bruno had a motorcycle accident last year and was 15 days in comatose. However she even told me that everyone’s the same and nothing has changed since we all parted. I don’t know if it’s ego-feeding (actually I do), but I felt a glow inside me due to the fact that everyone had been telling me how different I am, and most of them are still the same.

December’s 23rd, Friday: I woke up in a hang over. I had four or five kiwi Caipiroskas (they’re Caipirinhas but instead of Cachaça it has Vodka, and instead of lemon it has kiwi) the night before, at my dad’s birthday. We (me, my dad, my sister and Alais) were travelling to Salvador (the second place I’m to talk about; aka SSA) that morning, but I had this thing inside of me, this weird sensation. Erroneously, we tend to ignore these feelings, so I blamed the hang over and held my silence.

The road to SSA is completely shitty. There were more holes than actual asphalt, but I was happy despite of that persistent feeling. It was like I knew something was to happen.

So, when we were an hour from SSA and the road was decent, my dad was driving in a 110 km/h (which is normal in highways) and Alais and I were singing Mother And Father out loud at the backseat. It was right after the rap that I had seen a red car doing an illegal return into the road. My dad had seen him as well and light-signed, but the motherfucker carried on in a lesser speed than ours (which is forbidden in highways), so my dad went to the right in the hope of crossing him away, but the idiot did the same and we crashed at his back. We had nothing, we were all okay, but the car died. Well, after that we hung on the road for three hours. Alais and my sister were taken to SSA by my uncle (whom we called right after the wreck) and I stuck with my father.

A pessimist glow got me meanwhile, but I blew it away from me and thanked G-d for being alive and healthy. But to be honest, I still feel a bit frustrated for not having heard my intuition. That, I will make sure that will not happen again. And the car is doomed (drama queening!), but I won’t let it ruin Christmas (again!).