It's 4am in Buenos Aires, it appears I'm the only one awake in the neighborhood, my head is pounding, and I'm making a cup of nasty instant coffee with a dose of milk that comes in a specially sealed carton giving it a shelf-life of about three years - when kept out of the fridge. Now I'm reading why Brokeback lost. Spineless Hollywood cowards.

I had to get up because I couldn't sleep, not because I was dying to read the Oscar results online. Now I'm downloading the Brokeback Mountain theme song, hoping it will lull my brain back into a drizzly, Rocky Mountain calm. I'm sweating.

In about four hours I'll walk out of our living room and into our apartment building hallway, take the elevator five floors down (provided it's working), and walk out onto Scalabrini Ortiz, where - if my headache isn't gone - the traffic and glare, the horns and mad taxis, cops and dog-walkers, buses and delivery boys on screaming mopeds will try to scare me back inside. But I have to make it to the corner of Scalabrini and Soler, where I can buy more long-lasting milk. It tastes the same as normal milk.