Hello

So today was my first day in Santa Fe. I woke up at my new house and looked at this tree through my window. I slept on a futon on the floor in my room which has red wall-to-wall carpeting, 2 windows, a door to the outside and a nice big closet. I ate some cheerios and then looked on googlemaps for a while to try and figure out where the hell I was. Max came home from work to say hi which was nice. I copied down a rough outline of the streets into my notebook and then left the house, walking down this big street called Agua Fria.

This green arrow shows where my new house is:

I ended up at this coffee shop that Mary had told me about when she drove through Santa Fe last week. Tracy Chapman was playing and everyone working there was a lesbian. I felt right at home. Especially when I took out my wallet to pay for my latte and this girl next to me say my Metrocard and asked me if I was from New York. I told her yes and she said she was about to move to Vermont to train in a circus. She asked me my name and introduced herself as "Rain." So that's how I made my first friend. hahahaha NOT.

So I sat there for a while and ate an awesome bagel and looked through the Santa Fe Reporter, the free newspaper here, which told me about lots of cool shit going on. Apparently I was lucky enough to arrive here during "fiesta" which is the most beautiful time of year where fun stuff happens and people go a little crazy. I overheard all these people talking about how they had just gotten back from Burning Man and it was a little like I was in a cartoon. Turns out there was going to be this festival called Zozoba happening tonight where a giant man puppet is burned in a huge bonfire that people can throw things like divorce papers or mean letters into, as a symbol of closure and re-birth or something. it sounded kinda cool.

Max picked me up and we went to pick up Andrei from pre-school. We hung out with him for a bunch of hours which was awesome. He is the coolest, most good-natured little boy. They have never cut his hair so he has these wispy blonde locks and the biggest smile, its just adorable. We walked back to Zhenya's house because Max's car was overheating and we left it on the side of the road. Zhenya got out of class at 6:30 and we left her and Andrei and had dinner at this Cowgirl-themed restaurant which was sweet. I ate chilli. Then we went to Zozobra in time to catch the end of the burning man and to see awesome fireworks. There were SO MANY people there it was insane. It was a pretty rowdy crowd, but mostly families and some very drunk men. I had big plans about trying to meet people and make friends but that is a very hard thing to do. Also, TRYING to meet people and make friends is like the best way to do exactly NOT that.

We went to pick up the car and had to drive to Tesutue (this little town near Santa Fe) in order to get home and then the car started SMOKING like crazy so we stopped at a gas station and had to buy lots of different fluids to put in different holes. It was very scientific. We had to wait for it to cool down, and it almost didnt start up again but Max stayed very calm and in control and everything worked out.

Now we are at the office and I am posting this blog and Max is doing some work next to me. I start work on Monday because they need to get a space set up for me. I am excited to get that going. It's nice having these few days and this weekend to chill out though. I think tomorrow I will get a breakfast burrito and maybe walk down a different street. Also, this movie called Helvetica which is all about fonts and the last 50 years of graphic design is playing at the Santa Fe Film Festival tomorrow night which should be sweet.

I would like to make some friends though. I guess it's only been 24 hours. Max is a nice roommate and friend and I imagine he will be a good boss. It's just weird because he knows pretty much no one since he spends all his time working or chilling with his kid. Weirdly enough we are now both in the same spot in terms of being somewhere knowing no one, its just that I have all this energy because its exciting to be in a new place and he's a little bit over it and resigned to be alone forever. I think we'll figure out a way to be wingmen though. Provided we don't kill each other first :)

The air tastes really good which is a nice thing to remind myself that I am somewhere beautiful and it is more likely than not that things will fall into place.