The InBetween

Since last I posted I've discovered many things, and have written many a blog in my mind only to hit a wall of disenchantment or unenthusiasm or social interaction or other such manufactured distraction to keep me from divulging every smattering juicy detail of the past months.
I have been here in Barcelona for nearly half a year now, and feel this time as both lengthy and dreamily brief. I have learned many things about Barcelonians; their desire to follow a routine , each day, coffee at 10 breakfast at 12 lunch at 2 nap mid afternoon meal tapas at 10 drinking til dawn. Their scrupulous attention to detail, which, I've been assured, is more of a European thing than a Spanish one, and makes for decadent, tidy, button-upped, bag-closed fashion, but also makes for a presentation before people approach to life, wherein the emotions, the desires, the fullness of being is sacrificed to straight stockings, a well- bloused scarf, a well-ordered egg display. 2 weeks ago, I was at the local supermarket, Dia, perusing the soups, and a sales woman began edging in front of me to straighten the barely out-of-place soup cans and packets, without regard for the fact that I was there considering my purchase. Presentation first. There is a ritual, routine, a kemptness that accounts for my passing the 70 - yr - old grandmother donning a cocked feminine fedora, pointed heels, long, fountaining fur-collared coat, while gripping the palm of her high-booted granddaughter, but also accounts for the frowns on their well-manicured visages.