Denise
Dear Diary. Today was the birthday party of my son's cousin. Since I'm not related to him I couldn't be bothered going. But I still had to drive Girlfriend, 6-year-old, 1-year-old, and my mother-in-law there. On the drive there, I pulled out in front of an incoming car at a roundabout. The driver honked his horn at me. Luckily no one in my car noticed.
I listened to the song American Pie on the drive back home. The song is so long that I was almost home by the time it had finished. By the way, every time I hear the words American Pie, all I think of is the movie where the guy sticks his dick into an apple pie.
While my family were at the birthday party, I went to a social meetup group in Girona. It was organised by a German girl called Denise. She's new to Girona, so she made a Whatsapp group for other foreigners in Girona. 50 people joined in the WhatsApp group in one day.
Today she organised a picnic in the park. There were initially four people there: the German girl Denise, an Asian girl called Tina, an Italian girl called Cristina, and a Spanish guy called Jesus.
As more people arrived, I realised I've always thought these meetup groups are for sad pathetic people like me who can't make friends normally, but I couldn't have been more wrong. These groups are for people who are friendly, extroverted, and sociable. The complete opposite of me.
Denise was interesting. 28 years old. Blonde girl from Germany. Living here with her boyfriend.
"I used to work in a prison in Peru," said Denise. "It was a children's prison for boys. I couldn't speak Spanish well, so the kids would say things like 'I'm going to kill you, I'm going to cut your face off', and I would just nod and smile because I couldn't understand. I would organise football games where the boys would go visit the girls' prison. I don't know why they didn't just try to escape."
It's funny because I grew up next to a prison. No one told me it was a prison until I was about ten. I had the ignorance of youth. Every night I'd hear catcalls and caterwauling, and the sound of prisoners sharpening their knives. My mind would just interpret it as background noise.
"I'm living in an Airbnb until I can find a real apartment," said Denise. "My apartment has no oven, just a microwave and a toaster. So everything I cook, I have cook it in the microwave and toaster. It's okay for things like popcorn because the settings are programmed into the microwave. But if I want to cook something different, like pastry, I have to experiment with the settings."
She'd brought some homemade pastry spirals with her. I tried one. It was raw on the outside and hard in the middle. It was inedible. I put it back.
A guy from Croatia said, "One day I wanted to make cheesecake. So I got all the ingredients together, the eggs and the cheese. Then I remembered I didn't have an oven."
"I've got five chairs in my apartment but only one plate," said Denise.
As they were saying this, we were all sitting in a circle on the wet muddy grass. Someone had given me a bag to sit on so I didn't wet my bum.
Their lives certainly made me put my own into perspective. My life might be bad at times but at least I've got more than one plate.
I had to leave, to go pick up my family. "Well, goodbye," I said. "I hope you all have a great rest of the weekend."
So that was today.
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