Two weeks into Mexico City and I'm getting by — mostly. A woman at the market walked me across the entire building to find a spatula I didn't need, I took my first all-Spanish yoga class and spent most of it thinking about bolster hygiene, I upgraded the shower head, I still haven't taken my garbage out, I had one real wave of expat loneliness, and I ended up at a Walmart Express surrounded by Americans asking each other if they should get the feta. Also, my ceiling lights are nautical-themed for no reason.

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Thank you for listening, please do it again, and then replace your shower head.

Onefjef is produced, edited & hosted by Jef Taylor.

It's Saturday night.

It's about two weeks.

I've lived here in Mexico City

and I would say it has been 80.

Percent to 85%.

Great, good, great, whatever.

But today, today, today, I felt lonely.

I felt a deep expat loneliness

that.

One can only really feel when one is

a relatively long away, away from, most people that you know,

I don't remember feeling this in Korea I don't remember feeling that intense.

A level of expat loneliness that I felt tonight or today rather in Korea,

but maybe I did and I just forgot it because we always, you know, nostalgia

is just like memory without the details.

I really do love this place, this city, and I am always struck by the

friendliness of the people that I meet,

and my cynicism is like, oh, they just want me to come back to their

restaurant, or they want me to come back to their bar or whatever.

It's, but everybody in America or in the United States rather, I keep doing that.

Everybody in the United States, all bars in the United States

want, they want me to come back.

The restaurants, they want you to come back

in Mexico though.

They really make you feel like you.

Want to come back.

And I don't think it's insincere.

Maybe it is, I don't know.

But it's a real friendliness that I really can't get enough of.

And if, you know, I live here now, so when I tell PE, I mean people

at the barn, they're expats.

And then I tell 'em, I live here now.

And they're like, whoa.

And I wonder if part of.

The niceness is because I'm an, they think I'm a tourist.

Right.

This is my cynicism talking.

Right.

But yesterday I needed a new spatula and I went to the market near me.

This big market, I think it's Mein Market, I forget the name of it.

I think it's Mein and.

I had lunch at a place I was starving.

Had lunch at a place in the middle of the market.

Very nice woman works there and was basically like, you should

have this and this and this.

And I was like, alright, I trust you.

And she was right.

There was some taco that was, had a pepper.

I mean, it was, it was legit.

But while I'm eating, she comes over and checks on me.

I don't speak Spanish very well at all.

And I told her that, and she knows that, but she's still speaking in Spanish to

me just because she, she's doing it.

I appreciated that and I understood some of it, but at one point I was

like, I needed a spatula 'cause I know spatula in the house for some reason.

I have eggs, I have tortillas, and how do I turn these

things over without a spatula?

So.

I asked her, how do I get a spatula

I said, is there a spatula salesman in this market?

And she's like, see, blah, blah, blah.

I don't know what else you said.

And so I finished eating and I paid my, bill and I start walking away and the

woman comes up and she's like, I don't know what she said, hello or whatever,

again, I really need to learn Spanish, but she said whatever it was, and I

turned around and she's like, come, come.

And so she takes me all the way across the market, a five minute

walk, maybe 10 to show me where the special the sales are happening.

I don't know, man.

I don't know.

You tell me.

You tell me.

And then I bought a spatula with, it was for like a barbecue grill it

was not a spatula of four inside.

It was a spatula for outside.

And I bought it anyway because I felt obligated, because I

had been walked all the way.

She was gone.

But whatever I felt obligated.

So now I have the spatula that I have to literally stand like a foot and a

half from the stove to, to flip over the, like it's, but the memories that it

brings up are really what's important.

I think it's not so much the difficulty in using the spatula,

it's the memories that the spatula brings up in you that are important.

And this spatula,

this bachelor brings up solid.

Solid memories of kindness of Mexican

kindness.

Yeah.

I went to a yoga class this morning, my second yoga class here in Mexico City,

and the first class was taught half in English, which was, and it was good.

It was a good.

You know, gentle sliding into the yoga world here, but this one was

not, and I knew it wouldn't be.

And that was okay.

Anyway.

This class was entirely in Spanish and it was interesting because you have, like,

I've done a lot of yoga, so you know, basically what's gonna happen, you know?

But there's some differences.

Those of you who know me and yoga know that I am not a fan of the bolster.

I find the bolsters to be disgusting.

I know they don't wash those covers very often at all, and I know people

are laying there, sweaty bodies all over those things, and I resist that.

I do, I resist it.

And if anybody disagrees with this, you're wrong.

It's gross.

I've talked to somebody who works at Yoga Studio and says that the covers don't

get washed very often of those BOLs.

So I'm right.

I'm right.

people do weird things with bolsters.

There's all sorts of weird moves straddling, bolsters, like,

what are we getting into here?

If that's not being cleaned, like I'm not a germaphobe, but that's gross.

That's gross.

I'm sure there's, you know, bacterial scientists out there who would be

like, well, this isn't even the worst.

You shouldn't just, I mean, look at the handle of this thing you

just touched, but I don't care.

I don't wanna know your school learning stuff.

I just wanna know what I feel and what I feel is that a bolster is disgusting.

If you're gonna have a thing like a bolster in any kind of a thing, like

yoga, even basketball, baseball, whatever, a bolster adjacent thing,

you need to clean that cover.

Like all the time for me to be okay with that.

But again, call me a prude.

I haven't washed the sheets that I've gotten here.

I've been here two weeks.

I haven't washed them once.

I'm gonna do it tomorrow.

I will, when I was in Columbus, did it every week, clockwork.

It was like every weekend, changing the sheets.

Now I'm just like, I don't fucking care.

I don't care.

They're not that dirty.

Then you read some article on the internet that's like, how often

should you really wash your sheets?

And it's almost always like once a week I think this is part of the reason

I moved to Mexico City is because.

I wanted to be out of the realm of articles that are like, how

often should you wash your sheets?

I almost clicked on an article a couple, was it yesterday in the New York Times?

It was like the wire cutters picks for best products of the year, and I'm just

like almost clicked on it instinctually.

'cause I like the wire cutter.

I trust it, but I didn't because I'm like, what am I doing?

You just got rid of.

So much stuff and you're like, oh, but what's the best

new stuff that I could have?

Uh, I did buy a new shower head today because the shower head here

in this apartment is untenable, and it was, it's like $20.

So.

You know what?

I'll leave it here.

I'm like, uh, Johnny Apples sea of shower heads.

You know, I, everywhere I go, I upgrade shower heads.

I've upgraded many girlfriends shower heads, and, and I've

upgraded several apartment and house shower heads just left them.

I'm not Who's gonna bring a shower head with them?

They're not expensive.

A shower head is an upgrade in your life that most people don't realize is.

A solid, solid upgrade.

I remember I was dating this one woman and I, the first time

I took a shower at her house.

I was like, like thinking like, what on earth?

This is not even a shower head.

I don't even know how to describe it.

It was not a spray even, it was just like a, like a. Strangely

shaped jet of water at my person.

So I got her a new shower head.

And I mean, women, I don't think care about Showerheads because, or maybe it's

just me that cares about Showerheads.

But another girlfriend got her a new shower head, changed her life,

got her daughters under shower head, changed their life, one that

could be used to clean their dog.

Look at me.

So anyway, I bought a new shower head for this place.

The only issue that I'm gonna have is like, I don't have a wrench,

so I don't know how I'm gonna install that, so I might have to

buy a wrench too, but whatever.

It's worth it.

Like a bidet, a shower head is an upgrade that most people don't realize they

wanted or needed until they have it.

And then they're like, how did I ever live without this?

All right.

I think that's all for now.

It is.

It is all for now.

it's Sunday night, and it's been a bit of a tricky weekend.

It's been like the weekend of, of, inevitable

feelings of isolation and, and loneliness and like.

Honestly, like shock in a way of like, what, what, what am I doing?

Or what have I done?

Which is inevitable, you know?

it's part of the, part of the path, right?

It's part of getting outta that comfort zone.

It's the discomfort, you know?

But I have only been here two weeks and I do have people here, you know?

so it's not as if I'm completely on my own out here as I was in

Korea, and I don't know, looking back, I'm like, how did I do that?

How did I have the tenacity at 29 years old to go to Korea by myself?

Not knowing a single person there

to teach English for two years, but I did and I made a lot of friends there.

And by the time I left, I had a really good social life.

So, so there it is.

Um,

Interestingly, the internet does not like me spelling my

name with one F here in Mexico.

I think perhaps because JEF means.

Boss.

Well, JEFE means boss.

El Jefe.

That's the only reason I can think of that

it would do it.

'cause on Amazon it's, I mean, I've noticed it on several websites,

like it's adding an F to my name and I've changed nothing.

It's kind of puzzling, to be honest, this has never happened

before in my entire life.

It's like Mexico doesn't like m e spelling my name with one F. Maybe

it's confusing their systems or something, but it comes and goes too.

Like sometimes I'll go onto Amazon or whatever site.

It'll be like two F Jeff and sometimes it'll be one F. So

anyway, an interesting little, I don't know, thing that I noticed.

And another thing, you know, people talk about, I think the

dogs in Mexico City, Los Perros.

And it really is a thing.

There are lots of dogs in Mexico City, and I like dogs, but in my

building in which they're, I think five apartments, I think maybe six,

two of them I believe have dogs.

And sometimes they're great.

But sometimes they bark a lot.

They bark a lot.

And, You know, it's pretty sturdy, thick wall apartment

building, so it's not terrible.

But sometimes it is and it's really annoying.

But

yeah, there's a lot of dogs here.

There's a park, where there's just like a whole dog park there.

A huge dog park and you can go there and watch the dogs play for hours.

Super fun.

That's a magical park.

It's the park in Condesa, the, the park in Condesa with the art

deco and the meditation areas.

Anyway, great Park.

I'll wrap up with this.

The way my hot water works, and I think a lot of people's hot

water works in Mexico is puzzling.

there's water heaters, of course, but they're different than the ones in the

US and I'm not entirely sure how or why they're different, but when I stayed

at Patricia's, hers was definitely.

Strange.

You could like hear it making a noise when it was on, but it was always kind of

haphazard to whether you would necessarily get very hot water in her shower.

Here, I'll get hot water in the shower.

The knobs reversed.

In fact, every one of my faucets, it's kind of a crapshoot.

I should put letters because some, like, I think the kitchen one has

the wrong side is hot and whatever.

Anyway.

The hot water for some reason comes from this courtyard that's like in, you

know, it's more like a shaft, right?

That's in the area.

Like my bathroom overlooks it and it goes all the way down to the

bottom of the apartment building.

But when I turn my hot water off, it makes this giant slamming sound

like two or three stories down in this little chasm or whatever.

And it's loud.

Like at first I didn't know what it was, but then I think the owner of

this place came and told me, or his son said that that's the hot water.

And I don't know if that's how it's supposed to sound, but the other night.

I went in to wash my face before I went to bed, and I turned the

hot water on to wash my face and it was, I don't know, 1130 or 12.

And you know, I turned it off and there was a, you know, the giant banging sound.

And then I heard something, somebody stirring in one of the apartments below

me and I thought, oh, did I just wake this person up because I turned off that water?

That's weird, right?

And when I moved into this place the hot water tap in the

bathroom sink was turned off.

And I'm wondering if it was because it was disturbing the people below.

I don't know.

But they turned it back on.

And then I started thinking, was this person below me hate me?

'cause I'm always using the hot water and it's making the slamming sound.

I don't think anybody else's hot water makes a slamming sound like this.

I don't know.

I don't know what the story is there.

Very strange.

One more thing actually.

I still have yet to take my garbage out.

The landlord took it out once, I think, 'cause I couldn't possibly.

But yeah, I've got like a bag of garbage I've gotta take out.

And the way the garbage works is, I think I said, is you hear this dinging

bell and then you go out and take your garbage out and give them money.

But like I've heard this dinging bell so many times.

And then I look out the window, which looks out to the street, and I

don't see any garbage truck anywhere.

And I don't want to go out with a bag of garbage, just wandering around like

an idiot looking for a garbage truck.

Like it's confusing, and I think it was Saturday all day I heard bells and

I'm like, where is the garbage truck?

So I never, I never threw it away that yesterday.

Today though.

I heard it again and then I look out and there is the garbage truck like

flying by, like not even slowing down.

Like how is a person supposed to get out there fast enough to like, I don't know.

I'm sure there's a system to this.

I don't quite understand it yet, but it's weird and once I get the hang

of it, I'm sure I'll love it because you know, there's no garbage cans in

the streets and that's great, but.

Right now I gotta get this garbage out and like I'm in my place to send for ringing

bells all the time and looking around like a, like a paranoid schizophrenic.

Like, oh, there's the bells.

The bells.

Yeah.

Like c chalk that up under, like, one of the things I did not expect to, be

different or difficult when I came to Mexico City, but you know, you never know.

Also food goes bad much quicker because there's not as many preservatives in it.

Sleep tight American, sleep tight.

United States have a good time.

Enjoy your mega processed foods.

Seriously, the bananas go like, there's nothing in bananas, but the bananas

here even, even go right faster.

So maybe 'cause it's closer, I don't know what they do.

Maybe they do something to American Bananas or United States bananas,

which is a whole nother thing.

What do I call myself?

American.

Okay.

I gotta go to bed or no.

What I need to do is I need to prepare to go to bed.

It's interesting when you move to another country, the people who you

least expect to hear from, like you least expect to get a phone call or

FaceTime from are the people that you end up like, and it's not a bad thing.

It's actually kind of wonderful because it's like, oh,

I'm so glad that this person, I did not have any expectation.

Like some people you expect right?

Then oftentimes, not oftentimes, but sometimes they will

let you down in that way.

Like the people that you most expect to keep in touch with are the ones

that often don't, but then the ones that you don't expect to even hear

from again, are the ones that you,

and that's beautiful, really.

In a way.

There's something lovely about it.

There's also something to be said for like, you never know

who really cares about you.

I went to Walmart today.

Walmart Express is what they call these smaller Walmarts that

they have here in Mexico City.

I hate Walmart.

I hate the concept of it.

I hate everything about it.

Everybody does, right?

Of course.

The last time I was in a Walmart was in the United States of America,

and this was Christmas circa,

I don't know, 2002, 2003, and it was a last minute.

Walmart was open till midnight or 24 hours, so it was like

a last minute gift, like.

Scramble and it was like Calcutta in there.

No offense to Calcutta, of course I've never been, but I've

heard and I've seen the videos.

It seems very, you know, crowded and frantic.

That's my comparison there.

That's all.

It was like Calcutta in that Walmart and, uh, but Calcutta with, rural white

people, you know, like, you know, and me.

Anyway.

Walmart in Mexico City.

It's somewhat similar, it's mostly Americans because Americans are like,

oh, I recognize the name of Walmart.

You know, it's like people who go to, uh, Applebee's in Times Square.

Right?

It's the same phenomenon, I think.

Anyway, Walmart and it's overpriced.

There was a tub of Faye yogurt, plain Faye yogurt, the larger tub.

I think it was 2% or 5%, whatever it was, like $15.

So I didn't buy that.

Chobani was like a third of the price, but we can all be honest

about Greek yogurt quality and say

Chobani fucking sucks, there's a reason it's cheap.

It's a low end Greek yogurt.

I am not trying to get sponsorship from you.

Chobani trying to get Faye money.

Faye, I'm here for you if you need me to help you promote your product.

I'm a big fan, not a big fan, but a fan Enough to, you know, my mom also,

she loves your blueberry yogurt.

She loves the, you know, the side by side thing.

Big fan.

So there's two family members who enjoy your yogurt and one has a podcast.

So you tell me what we should do next.

Faye.

Or is it Fge?

Or is it faggy?

Oof.

I think it's Faye.

It's gotta be, I think it says in the container, doesn't it?

It's pronounced Faye.

Because I bet they had like a PR problem.

People would be like, gimme some of that Faggy yogurt.

And they're like, uh, we should put a little, you know, somebody in marketing.

It's like, what if we put a little bitty note that says how to

pronounce the name of the yogurt?

'cause it is a confusing word, sir. CEO, whatever.

Anyway.

Walmart, I did buy yogurt.

Chobani, the cheap shit.

What else did I get?

Oh, fabric softener.

But I dunno if I'm gonna use that.

I don't know if I'll use that.

I don't really understand.

Liquid fabric softener, to be honest, I don't get it.

I've never used it in my life, but I feel like the circumstance that

I'm in with no dryers, I think this is what it's for, isn't it?

I guess we'll find out.

'cause I got a big bottle of fabric softener now, liquid fabric

softener, and I cannot wait to.

Put in the compartment on the washing machine.

On the roof of my apartment building.

And yes, I'll be honest, I did feel somewhat dirty and disgusting

shopping at Walmart in Mexico City.

There's a lot of Walmarts in Mexico City is the thing.

But in this Walmart, it was not a big Walmart.

It was a Walmart Express.

It was smaller and there were definitely like, it was half Americans

or, well, no, I'll say Americans.

Should we get the feta cheese?

Should we get the feta?

Did you get the feta cheese?

Oh, there's not a lot of salads here.

Mm. Look at all the tortillas.

Oh my God.

Do you wanna get some salsa?

Let's get some salsa.

Uh, oh my God.

The yogurt's $15.

Oh my God.

Oh, they sell tequila Here.

Look, honey, let's get some tequila.

Okay.

That's all.

But I was there.

I was amidst it.

I just didn't speak.

I just remained silent throughout the experience until the very end when I

said, you know, grass, yes, for the guy to bag my groceries or whatever.

It's difficult moving to a country that you don't really speak the language.

And I am going to, I mean, I have to find a language teacher.

It's just, there's so many options.

Number one, and I don't wanna do virtual, but it seems like

that's probably the way to do it.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Who cares?

Nobody cares what you're talking about.

Jeff.

This is stupid.

Talk about Mexico City.

Don't talk about your dumb language lessons.

Well, I'll talk about the fact that it's 1130 and I have to go to

bed because I have to get up early because I've got a cleaning person

coming tomorrow, and I thought,

when I've gotten cleaning people in the United States, they bring all their own

stuff, the vacuum cleaner, all the things they bring, all that, all that crap.

But apparently here they do not.

They rely on you to have all the stuff, which I suppose

is why it's so inexpensive.

But I don't have all that stuff.

Like I don't, I don't have a mop, I don't think, you know, I

don't have a broom or anything.

There's some spray bottles under the sink that are just unlabeled,

so I don't know what that is.

Who knows?

Maybe you can tell by the color.

I don't know.

But.

When I found out that I needed to have all this stuff, I kind of panicked this

afternoon and I was like, what do I do?

So I like messaged patric.

I was messaging the, cleaning lady.

I'm like, do I need to have this stuff?

Like, how do I get this stuff?

I'm having trouble getting rid of my garbage at this point.

So like trying to get all this stuff is like a lot, it's a lift because I

still haven't gotten rid of the garbage.

I'm hoping that.

The cleaning people will get rid of the garbage, some magic of some sort.

They'll just be like, boom, it'll be gone.

That would be amazing to me I had to buy new garbage bags because one of

the garbage bags that's been in the hallway for about a week and a half now.

I picked it up and it had been leaking, so there's like a leak on the floor.

So that's gotta be cleaned up by the cleaning people tomorrow.

Of course.

Am I right?

At least I got something to do, but again, I have no mop.

So how are they gonna do that on their hands and knees?

No, they're not gonna do anyway.

Uh, it was leaking, so I thought, well, I have to get new bags, but I had

bought garbage bags already, but I had bought the wrong size, you know, small.

Garbage bag black in Mexico City is much smaller than small in Amer United States.

So I got large and the large garbage bags are about the size of the mediums.

I guess this is a thing, you know, like a large drink in Mexico City is

like a small in America, and that's why everybody in America is so obese.

Because portion sizes are so large.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Anyway, here I am in Mexico City.

I've been here for 15 or 16 days and I'm doing well.

All things considered.

I'm doing better than I thought I would be doing at this point.

So that's good.

And that's the end of this dispatch.

I ran the name by AI and AI said that dispatch was a

bad word for the name of it.

I was like, fuck you ai.

Fuck you, Claude.

Claude was like, your name is too boring.

I don't know what the word was.

It used, but basically it was like boring.

And then it was like, call it Mexico City Notes.

And I'm like, you think that's not boring?

That's the lamest name I've ever heard in my life.

So that was a good time.

That was a good time.

Why do I get so angry at artificial intelligence?

I'm not the only one.

You know who you are.

You know, you've all gotten pissed off at it and gotten in

a dumb argument with a computer.

You're lying.

You have, you have,

I try to catch my AI in lies and I'm like, what am I doing with my life?

What am I doing this for?

There's no winner here at all.

There's only a big, big, big fat loser.

And that loser is me.

That loser is Jef Taylor living in Roma, sir, here in Mexico City.

He's in Mexico City and he's inside his apartment arguing

with an artificial intelligence.

What are you doing, Jef?

What on earth are you doing

is an adjustment period.

It's adjustment.

And before I go, I really wanna tell you, I'll put a picture in the Patreon of

this, the ceiling light fixtures in the bedrooms of my apartment are so bizarre.

They're very out of place.

There was a joke I had years ago with a friend of mine about having like

a person who was totally into like nautical theme, like had a whole house.

It was nautical theme with like, you know, fucking anchors and big old steering

wheels and whatever else, and rope.

Anyway, these ceiling lights in this apartment are a nautical theme for sure.

It's rope, it's like, you know, big, thick rope with bulbs, but nothing else.

The entire apartment is nautical, adjacent even.

And that's all.

That's all I'm gonna say this week.

Uh, what an ending though.

Talking about the old light fixtures.

Good stuff.

Good stuff.

Jef.

This episode's called Light Fixtures.

And if there's a light fixture company that would like me to sponsor, I'd

be happy to help you, especially if your name is Light Fixtures.

If there's a company out there called Light Fixtures that actually sells

light fixtures, absolutely reach out.

My phone number is in the show notes.

There's also an email, onefjefpod@gmail.com.

Light fixtures.

I'm a big fan.

I gotta go.

I gotta go see if lightfixtures.com is taken.

I'll see you next week.