1999 São Paulo

I found this photo, and wanted to share it...

I looked at it and I can feel just how happy I was in the moment, even more so now. It was taken 10 years ago on our first visit together to our favorite Posada in São Paulo. That evening, I remember, asking M if he had ever kissed a man in public (we were sitting in a very romantic little gay restaurant on a fashionable corner in the Jardims. Madonna's Evita was playing on a magnificent stereo/video). He said, "no". So I just did.... he started to cry, and I was so worried (especially as our means of communication were pretty funny, if not just plain precarious at the time). When he composed himself he told me that he was crying because he was so happy (estou chorando por causa de felicidade).

It was THAT little place, at a table, in the window, that we both knew that things were going to be different, for both of us. At the time we thought everything was impossible. But now, 10 years later we are together, he is here legally after a couple of h-1 visas and now a green card, finishing a doctorate... we are happily married, published a number of articles (our children as it were)... Someday I should write a tell-all book about all this.

It would be a great story, full of intrigue and impossibilities, some possible chapter themes in no particular order:

Fulbright Brasil
I have never done drag, but if I did, my drag name would be "Miss Communications"
ex's and parents
a study in consulates
how to take a shower in Brasil

fofoca
immigration
I am not fat, I am charming
Are North American nephews more or less annoying than Brazilian ones? A case study
schools and universities - same yet different
true colleagues and so called friends vs real friends - the same goes for blood relations
a son, 2 dogs, 2 cars, a house in suburbs
feijoadas, parties, weddings

the house on German street

Aristeo

World Cup
China Beach, Memorial Auditorium, and Prop 8.
The mighty Fiat and Rapido Serrano
Campinas, Amparo, Ouro Preto...

sigh....

Não existe pecado do lado de baixo do Equador...