Today was cool. Literally and metaphorically. I’ve been living in Buenos Aires since mid-October and for the first time in a long time, it was cool enough for me to walk around and enjoy the city. I took a lovely wander by myself to the parks of Palermo and then stopped at this Parisian-like cafe. This man Jose is a regular. He’s always at that table. It’s his house. We sat and talked and I could tell he was a quirky kindred spirit when someone came by and asked him how we was doing. “Cada vez peor,” (“every time worse”), he said, laughing. Later we talked about life and he told me that cosmically, in the grand scheme of the universe, we are no more than the “gas de una mariposa.” If I am not mistaken he meant the gas passed by a butterfly. I just thought this formulation was too amazing to go unrecorded. Viva conversations with strangers in 2013.