i really can’t tell you how different it felt to be in this place (not included in foto, this is a view del otro lado de la calle) as compared to the banks i was turned down in. man. the banks were well vacuumed, well furnished, had coffee and couches and glass walls and well-dressed and perfumed people and even when they were nice, they were icy when it came down to rejecting me. the banks were business as usual, tons of cameras and a stifling and intimidating air. sort of how i felt when i’d go to someone’s house for dinner as a child and realized that they lived in a different world, a world where you weren’t allowed to sip out of the bowl, where you had to watch where your elbows where, and generally felt uptight about everything you did.

this credit union didn’t turn me out, they had worn benches, wood benches, a dirty rope instead of a velvet one, wood floors that almost smelled like a dog was somewhere in the joint. the first thing i noticed was that behind the counters (so short you actually sat down at them to do your business with the teller) the room was so informal and cluttered that it felt (and looked) just like someone’s house! books, junk, pictures hung up, shelves overloaded, plants, worn wood. the tellers knew all the people and laughed and talked with them, joked with each other. and this non-latino woman was talking fluent spanish with some mexicano at the counter. and then behind me, another one, and then i realized that the majority of customers were brown! whoa!

i sat down at the counter and the (‘white’) woman asked me if i preferred to go by my first name or middle name, and i just smiled and said my first name. (mexican naming consideration and such). and we spoke english (good thing for me) but i felt at home. i really liked how all the mexicanos were treated like good people. just part of the flow, as we all should be.

if they ran my credit, i couldnt tell. in the bank, when the supposedly-friendly man (there were signs everywhere, clearly part of tthe banks’ ad campaign, different lines about “nice people do this, do that, smile pretty,e tc, welcome mat said WELCOME NICE PERSON!) when he ran my credit his face soured like he had just smelled a fart and then his Nice Man Voice got trembly and clipped at the edges and he told me they couldn’t help me and i walked out feeling so stupid, but in this place there was none of that and she simply told me that i would need to wait until this date to access the cash, and after a few deposits of the same check, they wouldn’t need to hold them anymore, and i could cash them right away.

the rail was rusted on the outside of the joint, and i put my hand on it smiling, walked out of there, and went back to the “classier” part of town. where i seem to live. (though in a cheap apartment building.)

rale! i just spoke to josé from méxico. it’s very exciting. he asked me if i would be interested in taking part in a new weekly column feature in [edited because i'm wondering if its better to keep it under wraps until it goes through], a mexico city newspaper. one “half” of the “head to head” type of column will be written by (a friend, actually) a “gringo living in mexico,” and the other by a “mexican american” living in the USA. sounds like a newspaper version of a reality show! and it pays. not in pesos!
so it’s not 100% percent sure, but he said from what he has seen so far, the people at the paper are very excited about it. so! what do you know. i guess i won’t starve the ole UMX blog of oxygen yet. in fact, i’ll have to pay a little more attention to it.

it’s funny. it’s so easy to think you are just typing some text into a window that only you can see. you forget that people all over the world are looking into the same window.