irmão onde mil da arte

I have never lived anywhere else in the world, which I regret. Living in the United States has provided me with many advantages that people in other parts of the world do not enjoy, such as fast food, vast nuclear arsenals, and Lindsay Lohan. These, of course, I would not trade for anything.

On the down side, being an American citizen has left me with an unhealthy disregard for every other living creature beyond our borders. Occassionally some of those living creatures want to blow our stuff up or knock down our buildings, but for the most part, they are more annoying to Americans than anything else. And we treat them as such, sometimes eradicating them like an underpaid exterminator chasing down that last cockroach at the end of his day.

Without the internet, I might never have known about some of the beautiful people and places in other parts of the world. I have little compulsion to travel, and even if I did, I have even less time to pursue it. I have spent the last several years so consumed with hobbies/work/masturbation that I have never really experienced other parts of the world. Canada doesn't count; it's America Lite.

One day in late January 2004, I met a guy online named Paulo. He claimed he was a singer and performer from Portugal, which I sincerely doubted - everybody online seems to be pathetically phony. As I continued my conversations with him, I discovered that Paulo told me the truth.

At first, our conversations were difficult. English is not his first language, and often Paulo would ask me to clarify some of the terms I used with him. Like "goofball." Or "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." Of course, being American, I expected him to cater to me and communicate fluently in English, which he gamely tried to do. Since he can speak three languages, I should have been grateful he tried to deal with my monolinguistic disability at all. :)

In the first year and a half of our friendship we have had the same types of ups and downs that many fleshly friendships endure. I have let him down. He has let me down. We have been hurtful to each other at exactly the wrong time. And yet. at other times, we can make each other smile and laugh without being in the same COUNTRY, let alone the same room.

Through Paulo, I have learned a lot about Portugal, and the world as well. Unlike me, Paulo has traveled around Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America. His mother and stepfather work for the United Nations, which gives him a larger view of the world than I might ever know.

This breadth of experience shows in Paulo's personality. Unlike many Americans, especially in the Midwest, Paulo accepts so many more idiosynchracies in other cultures. He opens himself to opportunites with other people, and in fact cherishes those differences. Americans rarely do this, even though they declare loudly that they do. I know I don't, nor do those around me. But Paulo does.

Most of all, Paulo is a person with a huge, warm heart. The Portugese in him is hot-blooded, temperamental, and, as he says, "passionate." But life and experience has tempered him into a man who is a steady and loyal friend. Of course, being a 23 year old male model and singer has made him a little vain (LOL), but with so many wonderful experiences ahead, the possibilites in him are endless and exciting.

Even if I stay here the rest of my life, marooned in the center of an egocentric nation, I know I will always have a brother in Paulo somewhere in the world. He is the window I never knew I needed to look through until I did.

I will forever be grateful for the wider and more beautiful view.

Eu te amo meu irmão.