jueves, diciembre 30, 2004

Vacation is almost over (thank god)

So, I will permit myself this one last rant before the new year, before I become the woman that I want to be… the one that I am proud of and not the pathetic one that I don’t like very much… yes, before that women re-emerges gorgeous, shining from the smoldering ash, brilliant… of course… I want to recall the last trip we took as a family, before, that is, the moving trip - which hardly counts, or has to be told some other time.
Let me preface this with a note of gratitude, a bit chagrined, but gracious just the same… Now that all my finances are back in order (more or less) I must give thanks to the wallet snatcher of Veracruz, who so kindly emailed Miguel several months later to see if he needed the contents, because his actions precluded my need to flag our credit reports this time around as it had been done last year. So there. Always something good out of something bad, I say.

Kirsten and Joe had sent the wedding information nearly a year in advance, and so I had decided that the end of August was absolutely reserved for the wedding of one of my dearest friends, despite the rocky start that she and my now husband had suffered upon her visit to Mexico when I sprung on her that I was pregnant. I say rocky, but spiny might be a better descriptor, the bristling mutual mistrust and the opposing viewpoints about what was best for me. But of course, all that was ancient history. She “forgave” me for having a baby, I forgave her for being conflicted about it and he decided that she was ok after all when she visited and my 2-month-old daughter fell asleep in her arms. To the wedding we were headed.

Meanwhile the months went on. Early mornings dragging myself from bed at 5 to shower and race outside, hair forming popsicle-like frozen tendrils that hung in spiraled shards, and heat the car or scrape the snow in mid-winter blackness. The lack of sun was compounded by my being trapped within the walls of a public institution, one in which I was supposed to be the rule-enforcer, despite my decided apathy for the upholding of all but the most basic rules of mutual respect. Honestly, what did I care if the kids wanted to smoke a joint in their car during lunch, or ditch class here and there. I would have done the same if not for the fact that I actually _loved_ class, it was all the other social crap in high school that I dreaded. I was an utter failure at cafeteria duty because I refused to harass the students about their potty-mouths (heck, fuck is one of my favorite words) or to chastise their mildly-amusing food fights or gambling ventures. Yeah, as far as I was concerned, as long as no one was injuring anyone, lunch was time for them (and me) to be free. Some days, when it was overcast, I really didn’t see the sun at all, other days, I would have about an hour between when I left school to pick up the child from day care and the sun sinking behind the pines. Travel plans always happen when one is at her most desperate. My husband was working on a degree in graphic design, and working for the State Council on the Arts as an artist-in-residence during the school year, so he and I were conveniently off for the long summer months. I debated working as an exchange-program coordinator like I had the summer before, but decided that I preferred my sanity to several thousand dollars and somewhere around mid March we decided that we would spend the summer in Mexico looping through California just in time to arrive for pre-school-year workshops and the opening of classes. We purchased the tickets through STA, conveniently discounting both students and teachers, and embarked on a 7 week vacation.

Now some people might think that seven weeks of vacation sounds like heaven, but let me tell you, there is nothing fun about having nothing to do but lounge around for seven weeks, especially when all you can do is watch your paltry bank account diminish daily. The thing about Mexico is this: the cost of living is lower, which is in line with the earning potential of most jobs – a relatively balanced economy, it would seem, BUT… that is for your basic needs, food, clothing, housing etc. All of the extras, like going to the movies or out to dinner, and travel, however, are much more in line with American prices, making these things almost inaccessible to the average Mexican, but so indispensable for us that we didn’t really realize how much we were going through until it was too late. That and of course the end of the trip required renting a car and driving it from San Francisco up to Arcata and then back down in time to catch the flight.

This would be a perfect trip, we decided to scout the Universidad Veracruzana, and maybe the next year would be the year we would finally move back to Mexico for good? Melissa had finished the school year, teaching with me, and had just moved to Xalapa to be with her now husband Oscar, so it seemed like a perfect plan, we would spend some time in DF, some time in Yautepec, take a course on the history of Muralism from pre-Colombian times to present that his mother, the art history teacher, had prepared for me and that I actually got to pay her with public school funds as part of my staff development. We visited with “La Comuna” we visited with family, we stayed in the apartment in Tlahuac which was part of the Villa Centroamericana – short-term housing solution to host the Central American games in the late 80’s that had somehow morphed into permanent housing for thousands. Back in Yautepec there had been a flood, the same yearly flood that used to be on a three-year cycle. The family’s house stood white and glistening next to the river, and with the rainy season, the water mark that was left arrived roughly at my shoulder. And Pepe, his stepfather lost 90% of his recent work just prior to a one-man exhibition. When we arrived there were still canvases spread all over the house, the back wrought iron stairway and the grass, having been power sprayed and left to dry in the hope of salvation. We had missed this adventure, by just one week, but its repercussions were clear in the dusty town, and they manifested themselves just a few weeks later in our very own organisms.

Days stretched out into weeks. We visited murals in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the Secretaria de Educación Pública and in several other public buildings in the city. We made an excursion to Tepotzotlán to the Museo del Virreinato on our way to Teotihuacan. We got waylaid in heavy traffic in Ecatepec, the most horribly industrialized zone in all of Mexico on our way to Teotihuacan, and ended up staying, quite unexpectedly, with his aunt and uncle who work for the INAH on site in the town. It was a fortuitous accident of fate because they have spent the last 30 years on this particular archeological site and they had access to murals not open to the public. We saw the most incredible Tlalocan that was just recently restored, and for which Miguel (his uncle) was responsible, at least in so far as archiving all the images. We returned to Yautepec, a four hour drive, only to start feeling a bit ill. It was then that I got the message from Kirsten. Or rather first from my mom, that she had left a message on my answering machine sounding sad. (I think I knew then and there, there was this prescient dread that formed a knot in my stomach). She confirmed the bad news in my throes of sickness, the wedding was off, and Joe was going to become a Buddhist monk.

The weekend that was coming we were planning on the three of us going to see Melissa in Xalapa, and visiting the Universidad, but then Miguel (my husband) got very sick to his stomach. This of course is common when the river overflows, all kinds of unpleasant and foreign microbes are stirred and no one is really safe, much less those of us whose intestinal flora are lulled by insipidly safe American food. We thought he would be better in time to leave by Tuesday, but just as he was starting to feel better, both the nena and I fell very ill, so much so that I couldn’t even walk to the corner store to buy her paletas de limón for rehydration purposes (also, everyone thinks I am a freak in Mexico because giving something cold to a person with a fever is the ultimate no-no…I am just happy to get fluids into her… but then, maybe folk wisdom isn’t totally bunk? I am not yet convinced). I couldn’t even get half a block up the street to call Melissa because every time I made it to the police officer’s caseta (reminiscent of here in Santa Barbara where you can’t get into a neighborhood without special permission or a goddamn transponder, but rather more rustic) I had to turn around and make a dead sprint for the bathroom. This was bearable but the baby (ok, not so baby) had a high fever and we ended up both going to the hospital/ emergency clinic just to get a prescription for lactobacillus and some generic antibiotic that we could have gotten over-the-counter (pharmacies are a good deal more lax in Mexico). The doctor suggested that once her fever was back down, we should check her for a heart murmur. A heart murmur?! Why had no one ever caught this at her yearly physicals? Doctors… you just can’t trust them, can you?

Needless to say, our departure was postponed until Friday, we stopped in Puebla and spent a few days and then arrived in Xalapa. Sadly, the University had just closed for the summer the Friday before. We took a cab to the Facultad de letras, but, perhaps due to its lifeless state, or the fact that there were piles of trash everywhere the eye could see, we decided that Xalapa was not going to do it for us. Just goes to show you, a case of the runs can change the course of your life. I decided that I definitely did want to go back to school, and that the coming trip to California would allow us the chance to scope out schools in the bay area, especially now that Kirsten was going to come down to not be in town on the day of the wedding that wasn’t. We visited with Melissa, still struggling with adjusting to her limited earning power as an English teacher and living with her “cuñada” instead of her novio, and we left her with something of the same stomach illness that we had just barely managed to kick.

Next on to el Puerto de Veracruz… and this is where it happened. The mid-August heat was oppressive, especially coupled with the thick humidity that left rivulets of sweat running down your neck if you stepped outside. Our money was quickly vanishing, and so, beyond having lecheros at La Parroquia, we were trying to fly low on the radar. We found a hotel with a pool on the interior patio, but our stinginess was outshined only by our bad luck. We rented a non-air-conditioned room, for several hundred pesos a night less, but the sweltering heat made it almost unbearable and by the third morning all we wanted to do was be back at home. Home home, not California, but good old Manchester, NH in our microscopic two-bedroom apartment, with our own stuff and pillows and bed and air-conditioning. Alas, that very morning Miguel’s wallet was nowhere to be found. When we replayed the events of the evening before, leaving Sanborn’s, escaping food that made us feel ill, he was putting his wallet away as we walked into the open-aired central plaza, a gorgeous plaza, the oldest colonial plaza in Mexico. It was there, we decided, that a young guy who brushed by him, managed to snag his wallet. Thank god I always keep his green card with travel documents (even though he is supposed to have it on him at all times says the unpleasant man at customs). The closing shots of Veracruz, are of me, at a public phone, shouting hysterically at my mom, asking her to contact the bank because I can’t get through and canceling all of his credit cards, Isabella pulling at my skirt, Miguel looking really pissed and impotently so, and the sweat and blinding heat…

We spent one more week in Mexico, arrived in San Francisco, spent three nights in Oakland, me driving everywhere in the rental car, Miguel having no license to drive – gone, too, with the mystery wallet. I visited some universities and we decided that California was definitely a possibility. We met Kirsten at Berkley, and we all stayed with Becca and Adrian at their house in Concord. On the day of doom and gloom we went sailing on a lake inland and Kirsten has all my respect and admiration as a human being, she not only held up amazingly well, but made a joke about the whole absurd situation over ice-cream on the way back. Two more days and we spent the last night at a motel near the airport. We were exhausted but decided to go out for Indian food. My last night of rental car nerves, and we drove fifteen minutes to San Mateo, pulled into an open spot. Got up from the car and my wallet was not in my purse! Oh my GOD! I can’t take it. We turned around, in a state of near panic, I raced up the flight of outdoor stairs, hands smacking the whitewashed railings. I opened the motel room door with such force that the curtains lifted with the vacuum I had created. There it was, beautiful, shining, black. My wallet was still there. Anger was once again averted or converted into laughter. We drove back to the Indian restaurant, sat down and indulged, very much like this evening.

And the next day, it was all over. Thank goodness for work and the end of vacation!

Anaïs c'est moi?

Watched a fabulous film last night, by Phillip Kaufman (who also adapted Kunderra's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" in which I adored Juliette Binoche) based on Anaïs Nin's supressed diaries and her epistolary with Henry Miller... "Henry and June" (1990)... M. picked this one at the last minute because the store didn't have "María Full of Grace", and what a surprise... Of course he started to watch it the night before and that is what sparked his attack of paranoia. Am I really like her? Perhaps maybe just a little;) Dancing, watching the world around me, wishing, wanting (the deviant in me)... Maria de Madeiros (Anaïs) was incredible and the interplay between her and Uma Thurman (June), the raw tension and electricity, was magnificently captured on celuloid. A young Kevin Spacey, was a delicious surprise as he played a minor character, the friend who introduced Miller to Nin, but whose behavior foreshadowed the action of the whole film. I think I was just talking about this the other day. I am not into pornography because of its decided lack of eroticism, but this... this was exactly the opposite, the sensuality was heightened by the lack of graphic sex, but the lush fabrics, the movement, the images of the "viewer" and the "viewed", the interchange of glances made the film extremely exciting and powerfully moving. To write... to write... What I wouldn't give for the freedom to experience... (yes, tempting the thought of a secret diary safe from prying eyes) and yet, safety and comfort seem to have a stronger pull. And of course these are ultimately different times.

To travel outside of oneself for only a few hours, immersed in a story, perhaps that is all we can really aspire to after all.

miércoles, diciembre 29, 2004

Fromage...

First off. Damn the evil elf that made me start writing again because I just can't stop it now... and it is truly taking its toll. The rain ended early this morning and it was so strange to awaken in somebody else's bed. (No, nothing exciting). Alison met me at the café I have been haunting, three days in a row was enough, but I was actually reading and thinking on Darío project that is killing me because while there are individual poems I like, there is nothing, I fear, to be said that hasn't already been said far more intelligently or knowledgeably, and I just don't feel like reading 1001 essays on the man... ughh and 10 more weeks of this, but at least it is prose... there is only so much Parisian Parnassian Greco-roman crap one can absorb...)

Whew. Deep breath... so we went lingerie shopping, but only half-heartedly so. She had a gift certificate and wandered around looking at thongs and such but then didn't feel like buying anything, especially because, underwear seems superfluous to her... and bras totally so. I wish that were my problem... but for many (mostly moral) reasons breast reduction surgery is not an option:( so I will have to live with myself as flawed unless I get mammary cancer and then maybe I would be the only woman happy about a double mastectomy (and no, I am not heartlessly making light of other's suffering).
End result? No expenditure, no transactions. The cobbled stones were glistening from the rain and because I keep forgetting to eat, it was necessary to partake of nourishment - really tasty spinach salad from the California pasta co? something like that... it seemed a dubious spot, and indeed had its failings (ie. no on site bathroom - and I thought that that was against health code regulations) but I was happily surprised by the excellent dressing. Then we decided not to go to Soho even though there was a band that sounded like it might have been worth it. We went back to her house instead, and drank a bottle of red wine. We had decided on a night in, on the comfy white couch, but then she knocked over the remainder of the wine and we decided that we needed to go out to the Firebird. Very mellow, pleasant enough atmosphere... the game plan was to have someone else buy the drinks... no such luck we thought, no one to tag-team flirt with beyond the bartender who had a complex with his age... we were young enough to be his daughters... now where have I heard that shitty line before? So what? we are not... long and short of it... He had an interesting theory on sex (all this while she and I discussed the kinkiest sex we had ever had and who had offered the best cunnalingus - the poor guy behind us didn't know whether to hover or take cover) which was that men and woman have age opposite sex-drives and that 20-something women should be with 40-something men and 30-something women should be with eighteen-year-old boys... hmmm. real or just self-serving rhetoric??? This, of course, is not new theory and has probably been proved empirically time and again, but alas, not by me. We polished off a lovely Pepperwood Syrah (Alison tasting it with minty gum still in her mouth - she rocks my world) and nibbled on dark chocolate truffles. mmmm. And then the sweetie only charged us half for the wine...so he got the other half in tip. Needless to say we were in no condition, by midnight, to drive a borrowed car in the rain back to Goleta, so we stayed over at her place.

I had a mild panic attack early, but once I was home and slept a little while longer and did a little work and read some crazy ass shit (could it be true?) about HIV being a cultivated disease whose development started in 1934 along with the Tuskegee project. And that the African-American genome was studied and targeted for population reduction and "eugenics"... Extremely creepy and not that implausible but... maybe we insist on believing that people couldn't possibly be that horrible... maybe that complacence is what keeps the status quo chugging along full-steam ahead. However, I can't be responsible for discerning truth from propaganda today, not on so little sleep.

This afternoon at the university, we wandered around the deserted lanes and I fixed some more of my financial woes. Well, I didn't actually fix the underlying problems, but at least the pretend money (ie-subsidized loans that I will pretend are the lottery!) that I have coming to me will make it to my new and improved bank account... dun da dun! Sound the trumpets... Now I have to redo all my online bill-paying things, but the insidious fear of commitment with the big box of mutual checks that was gnawing at the back of my psyche was squashed flat 'cause I have to buy new ones and I will buy only a box of 200 this time. Yes, a much more reasonable number of checks to share. I want to be out of debt! I want to be free of horrible responsibility! whine whine... this is a monthly thing... no not pms, pmhs - pre- money hemorrhaging syndrome... compounded of course by this stupid wallet loss thing.

So, after stopping in at my office and picking up next quarter's course materials (I should at least peruse what I am supposed to be teaching, no?) Miguel wanted to go somewhere. I was feeling sad (big surprise!) but it turned out to just be low blood sugar (I keep forgetting to eat!) Isabella suggested that they leave me and go to a movie, but that didn't work either. No. We ended up down town, again... but here is the crowning achievement of the night... The first totally unexpected and absolutely fulfilling meal in downtown yet! There is no good Indian food, and the place that is said to be the most passable is always not open when we try. The Argentine food is only vaguely reminiscent of what Argentine food should be. The Thai food is good but not stellar and the Italian food (ok, so I have only been to three places so far, and this, is of course the most abundantly covered cuisine) well, I don't know, insipid (or overly lipid?) would be one way to describe it (not the Country's fault, just the chef, who was undoubtedly Mexican or Central American so who can blame him, right?)

French food! A little crêperie “Pacific Crepe” off the beaten path, the owners are from Brittany and don't speak English, lucky for them their son does... an unpretentious little cafe, excellent flavor, and not overly-laden with fat, they even put the gruyere on the side for the soupe a l'oignon... It made me feel twinkly and the best part was that there was hardly any English being spoken in the whole place - a French conversation groups meets there on Wednesdays it seems -a group of Korean women, and of course us, speaking Spanish. I felt as if, for one moment I was transported from this rotten excuse for a country to a better place. And, I left totally satisfied (for the first time in a _long_ time). Nothing like crepes with nutella and strawberries, or a little fromage (brie with salmon and mushrooms:) to brighten your day.

The book that Lucila was reading...

And, incidentally, I was too...

Laura Flanders (ed).(with research by Phoebe St. John and Livia Tenzer) _The W Effect: Bush’s War on Women_. New York: Feminist Press at City U of NY, 2004.

Particular chapter (167-172):
Bass, Emily. “Unconscionable Care: Is the Religious Right Compromising Your Health Care?” _Ms._ 6.7.01.

Ok. Part 1 of the PLAN... Start focusing energy outward not inward.

Part 1.2 - actually do it...

Part 1.3 - I mean it. No cheating...

Part 2 - make every piece of work count towards something bigger, despite decided lack of capacity to effect change in the world.

La cruda realidad

Ay! qué maldita cruda tengo. Es la resaca de sueño junto con el exceso de vino tinto... Dormir en casa ajena, cama ajena, con sábanas blancas, eso sí. La luz entró demasiado temprano y tuve la necesidad de llamar... por qué? por que sospechaba el pánico escénico de la escena de estar sólo, una sola noche...y la conclusión de nuevo, la nueva conclusión de que estamos condenados a fracasar... Sin embargo, sin embargo... sin embargo al llegar con el té de la india, para recordar, para despertar? para revelar, los brazos reconfortantes se abrieron para dejar paso. Paso. Paso? A ser qué? No sé qué. Me he vuelto loca, o me he vuelto yo? El barman de 40 pidió sólo unos ojitos de cachorro a cambio de dulces de chocolate y Syrah, y permiso de escuchar la conversación, claro está. Sex and the City, versión no tanto dinero, ni tanto sexo, ni diálogo tan falso, el fluir de los deseos, escurriendo por "the mouths of babes" así es? Parece ser, dice él, que las mujeres de San Pancho son más inteligentes... bien puede ser... bien puede ser.

Creo que al esclarecer el cielo, puedo ver la posibilidad o la probabilidad de un futuro... El dolor del mundo late, late, dilate... nos desabriga y nos hace olvidar, y nos hace recordar de lo pequeños que somos, lo imposiblemente pequeños, insignificantes seres vivos en una ola inmensa que arrasa... y raza... y enfermedades maquinadas... todo parece tan insólito y a la vez tan infinitamente creíble... Conspiración, respiración, complicidad... deseo. Deseo que se va tras las olas, persiguiendo, y que se esconde entre el silencio del latir de un corazón humano, animal, uno solo y muchos... la mentira, la evasión, la tristeza, la condición humana. Qué imagen tan patética del hombre, condenado a lastimar, a herir, a destrozar a su prójimo por el simple hecho de sentirse vivo y con control.

El pulso de las masas de raza perdida, de estirpe extraña, de rango desvanecido, marchan... marchan y marchitan como las flores en su ciclo natural. La nada, vorágine voraz que vacía el mundo de luz, color. Y la bella campana de la risa, brío, brisa de amor, de renovación, de redención. Las palabras marcan el paso, el compás de la canción interior, el canto, canto. A quién mas el quebranto de la soledad y la inviolable realidad, de la cruda moral, la cruda mental, la cruda inhabilidad de ser lo que uno cree que es su deber en el mundo. Un lugar, un rincón, un aire fresco que conlleva la perfección, el esculpir y guardar como poeta los amados escritos, escritos al amado, la amada, en un cajón para descubrir algún día que el dolor persiste y que los pobres renglones no hacen más que abrir nuevos giros al mismo tema de siempre.

lunes, diciembre 27, 2004

war of the words

Funny how English has so many homonyms... just thinking of a few, especially because some people have noticed me devolving into a terribly typo-prone predicator... sorry, fingers often move faster than brain, and yes, I do know the difference between its and it's, and yes, I have reversed them, it's just that, well, if word doesn't pick it up in its heinous red-jagged underline, I usually don't notice it until too late and then it just feels like I am anal-retentive if I go back and fix all of those silly mistakes that nobody but me is reading anyway...


Of course there are your standards:
One...won
Two...too...to...tu-tu
Do...due...doo-doo
He... hee (tee hee)
Tea...tee...
Red...read
Reed...read
Heed...he'd
Led...lead
Leed...lead
Dye...die...day (ok... if your a kiwi)
Hi...high
Hey...hay
Bite...byte
Wait...weight
Whole...hole
Fowl...foul
Their... there...they're
Here... hear
Please... pleas
Cougher...coffer
Your... you're... yore
Vein...vain... vane
Pain...pane...payin'
Weed...we'd
See...sea
Rains...reins...reigns
Use... yous (just a Philly thing)
Fair... fare
Flare...flair
Stair...stare
Where...wear...ware
Bear... bare
Play right... play write...playwright
and variations on these:
Lair... layer
etc.

and other more complex ones which lose their difference with accented speech like:

Vary... very... berry (yes, depends on the origin of the speaker, but this can be really confusing)
a piece... a peace... appease
Scares...scarce
Sin(g)...seen...sin...scene
Sole...soul...sol(d)
Did...deed
Hate...ate...eight
Bin...been...bean...bein(g)


Ok. Too many silly ones to enumerate, but they're countless. English is truly evil in its exclusionary pronunciation... but it is fun to play word games... when one is avoiding one's work.

Treacherous tsunamis

Nothing like international tragedy to put one's own life in perspective...God...and I was feeling sorry for Miguel with his string of bad luck. The worst part is that massive death tolls will make any possibility of justice seeking all but impossible in Sri Lanka... Time to humbly be thankful for what we have, and hug the people we love, because they might just not be here tomorrow... and maybe try a little harder to convince our government to send aid and rescue there instead of creating the need for it other places...

domingo, diciembre 26, 2004

The best laid plans...

Grrrrrrr. (shake fist in air in general threat to no-one in particular)

We were supposed to go to the movies today. We were going to ditch the nena with Alison and go see "La mala educación" since its NC-17 rating absolutely precludes us from dragging her in with us to watch a "grown-up" movie. She's not too keen on those anyway, and as a side-bar, I discovered that in addition to the "grown-up" film festival coming soon, there is a kid's film-festival in April. I. has already made me promise to take her.

The plan was perfect, we were showered and ready to go, small person dressed and shod... and then Miguel's wallet was nowhere to be found. We looked and looked and turned the house upside down... no not literally... and nothing. Fuck. Once again, I had to call to cancel all of our fucking credit cards. Yes, this seems to happen once a year, I am so embarassed, but at least it wasn't me... and at least I didn't have to make the mad phone calls from el Puerto de Veracruz like the last time.

So instead we went to Alison's and drank red wine and ate a marvelous mushroom barley soup, and listened to Neil Young... and then the girls went out for café on State Street.

Tonight is officially my last night of vacation, so I better stop this writing business and read my last pleasure novel.

Always Almodovar...

We watched "Carne trémula" which I got for Miguel's birthday last month. He didn't really see the point of owning more videos... (This time I failed as gift-giver, but at least I got him Cultura Profética's new cd on time - we didn't even have to fly to Puerto Rico this time to hang with them in order to obtain it... They are famous enough to have their stuff sold on Amazon - yay!) although I had been pretty proud of myself, also getting a very strange pastiche flick sponsored by Scorcese about the Cuban revolution called "I am Cuba." Very strange and I definitely want to see it again, in varying states of sobriety to see exactly where it is that I can understand the narrative language... But the thing is, every time I see an Almodovar, I feel something different. That, I think, is one of the big problems with dear old Pedro. Mmmm. No, I am not very coherent tonight at all. Let's see. How can I explain this. Every new movie that comes out seems to be his "best" even though every movie seems to be a variation on a theme. I can't complain. It is THE theme... but, for example "Todo sobre mi madre" was phenomenal and quite a bit more serious than the whimsical "Antonio Banderas as a sexy young thang" movies, but then "Hable con ella" was so truly bizarre, and at the same time so satisfying... There is always the sensation of the psychotic voyeur, chasing, chasing and then the desire (no it isn't an accident that his film company is El Deseo), the citation of other films... El amante menguante... that to me was the ultimate Almodovarian manifesto-a man wanting to shrink so small and crawl back inside his lover's vagina as if she were also his mother... his ultimate desire. Here Penelope Cruz played the pregnant prostitute, and for good measure Javier Bardem the cripple... And I really felt like this was the best one, which annoyed me to no end. Why do we have to claim a "best"... Now from what my fav boy Antonio says "La mala educación" is actually the worst one yet, and that it lacks coherence... And yet, others sing its praises... I will have to see for myself. But of course, I will have to see it just to drool over a certain Gael García...

Sorry folks... bad writing at its best, I will try harder next time:)

sábado, diciembre 25, 2004

A fair -y tale

Setting: Small unnamed pharmacy off of highway 10 in South Eastern California. Mojave desert, arid, colorless mountains, blue sky, empty highway. A single black Jaguar speeds into view, tires shriek, and dust is cast in a cloud around the car as it veers sharply into the practically unoccupied parking lot. The only other car is a battered, rusted-out brick-colored Ford pick-up, used primarily for agricultural work in its previous incarnation. There is a collection of general dry goods and behind the yellowing linoleum counter there is a metal sign, hanging on an angle that states “we reserve the right to deny service to anyone for any reason” This is partially obscured by the stack of baby-formula cans, all in Spanish.

Characters:
Lucila – pharmacist and general manager of the small family-run business. Her father has recently died. She is 28, dark skinned, small-framed, with long hair and teased bangs. She wears a white lab coat. She has a degree from ABC College of Pharmacy.

Preston Wentworth III – perennial golfer and driver of Jaguar. He is 68, white-haired, red-faced, tall with a large frame, and large pot-belly. He is wearing a pink shirt and plaid pants, in cleated golf shoes.

The door swooshes open with great force rattling the single bell so that it almost falls off its perch on the glass door. Lucila looks up from her book and Preston’s shoes clack as he approaches the counter with purpose.

Preston: Miss, I need this prescription filled. (throws a neatly folded prescription, with card onto the counter) Here is my insurance card.

Lucila: Excuse me sir?

Preston: (speaking exaggeratedly slowly). Sin-your-ee-tah… I need this prescription filled now, I am terribly late for tee-off, so if you could make it snappy? (snaps his fingers and chuckles obscenely to himself)

Lucila: (in perfect English) Excuse me sir? But I can’t fill a prescription without knowing who you are. (she picks up the folded paper and reads the prescription). So it says that your doctor is from the Palm Springs Hospital… Why didn’t you fill your prescription there?

Preston: (a bit sheepishly) I, uh, was in a hurry to get going, and I thought that I would be fine… but… well, my sugar was very high and it really is an urgent matter, so if you could please hurry… (now with more demanding)

Lucila: Well, if I could fill this prescription for you, I would first have to have some ID and speak with your doctor, as his name is unfamiliar to me, I really have no way of knowing whether this is a valid prescription or a forgery, now do I?

Preston: (through clenched teeth) Now why would I make up a prescription for Insulin?

Lucila: Oh, well that’s not for me to know, there are lots of things you can do with Insulin and not all of them are licit, besides, I am very sorry sir, but I cannot fill this prescription for you.

Preston: What?!

Lucila: Yes, I am sorry sir, but I cannot fill this for you.

Preston: You’ve got to be f-ing kidding me! Why the hell not, do you not have Insulin in this goddam backwater town? There are no pharmacies for 100 miles, I checked with Onstar.

Lucila: No, we carry insulin, I just can’t give it to you.

Preston: Why in god’s name can’t you. It is your responsibility as a pharmacist. I need this medicine. I could die for chrissake!

Lucila: Well, sir, perhaps you should have thought about that before leaving town, or perhaps you should have thought about the damage that you were doing to your body all those years of over-eating and drinking, because by the smell of you, sir, you have a had a few drinks today. Is that why your sugar is high? Don’t you know how to take care of Type II Diabetes? I am sure your doctor advised against alcoholic beverages. Here, take a pamphlet on diabetes care and use it as a reference in the future. (she hands him several pamphlets from underneath the counter, he does not notice that they are all in Spanish)

Preston: (Shouting) BUT I NEED MEDICINE NOW! Is it my insurance, here (he grabs a wad of cash and throws it at her face, the bills in their perfect crispness, float harmlessly to the counter and the floor in front of his feet) I’ll pay full price, just give me a receipt… (grumbling) I’ll just get my insurance to reimburse me, fucking morons….

Lucila: I am very sorry sir, but I am unable to fill this prescription, cash or no cash.

Preston: What is wrong with you, you little insignificant piece of …?

Lucila: Sir, no need to be rude, let me ask you this question. Who did you vote for?

Preston: (Bristling with anger and pride at the same time) George W. Bush (puffs out his chest) But I don’t see how that is relevant.

Lucila: Is that your “ha gwar” parked in the lot?

Preston: My “Jag-you-ahr? Yes. So? What is the problem?!!

Lucila: Well, I am not legally required to tell you this, but because you asked, I will. In my religion, we are taught humility, we are taught generosity and love for our neighbors. Under legislation mandated by your president, as a pharmacist, I am permitted to deny service, even in life-threatening or time-sensitive cases, based on my conscience and religious beliefs. And so you see…

Preston: Wait just one second… That is supposed to be so those loose women don’t run around buying themselves those damn morning after pills… But I _need_ this medicine. Let me speak to the “real” pharmacist.

Lucila: I am sorry, but I am the only real pharmacist here, and no, there are no such stipulations in the law. It simply states that we may deny service based on moral opposition, and I am morally opposed to a man who has everything available to him, but cannot be charitable with those around him - who would practice a sport which requires massive amounts of water to be diverted from the Colorado, from people who really need that water to live. I am morally opposed to a person who shows no humility in his actions. I am absolutely morally opposed to a person who goes against doctor’s orders and who drinks alcohol!

And, you can thank your president for this, because I am also morally opposed to offering service to a person who would vote to support a war that sends an inordinate number of poor kids off to kill an inordinate number of disenfranchised civilians, just so that they can guzzle more gasoline. And so, I am unable to offer you the service that you require.

Preston: (eyes bugging) snorts…

Lucila: (dismissing him with the action of returning to her book). Good day sir. Didn’t you have a golf-match to get to?

Preston: (Turning purple with rage or perhaps going into a sugar-induced slump… turns slowly, in silent fury, gets to his car and falls, knees buckling in slow motion, to the dusty ground, with his hand still on the silver handle, the pamphlets on diabetes care fall in the dust underneath the tires of his Jaguar)


Fade to black.

Images abound

So, pretty snazzy for someone who only weeks ago was totally illiterate in all things image related with the internet. I don't claim to have acquired any massive accumulation of knowledge... but I have been learning a few tricks, and at least I can post pictures:)

But the really cool thing is this... Miguel has been uploading not only current photos, but old ones from trips past. The hundreds and thousands (literally) of images will eventually all make it on to this site, but meanwhile there are some cool trips, including ones that I took by myself before we met, like visiting Teotihuacan and the Fesitval Cervantino in Guanajuato. So for those interested, go here:

http://community.webshots.com/user/lunatrips

and then there will be more...

Natal Accidental


Natal Accidental
Originally uploaded by lunita.

A last minute surprise once again makes a (happy) hypocrite of me!

Noche buena...

I feel so very happy. Safe. Warm. Fuzzy. I visited the Mission this morning with my parents. It was sad to think about the way of life that was destroyed with the arrival of the missionaries, but I didn't feel the sadness the way I usually do. I lay in the grass for a few minutes, letting the warmth spread through me, eyes closed, penetrating post-solstice sun. We went to the court house, and then with I and M to the beach. No dolphins today. They took her to the movies and then to Solvang, I think... at least that was the plan. I stayed home and read more stories, and showered and allowed myself a nap, from which I awoke a bit disoriented. M came home from his meeting bearing a huge surprise. A tree - dead:(, decorations and a trash bag full of (donated:free) presents! It was actually really exciting to put the tree up and wrap presents (we hadn't planned on any, save for the ones from my Aunt and grandmother that arrived in the mail the other day) but the idea of the surprise and joy that this would bring I. was enough to put me in a fabulous mood. There were even little gifts for Mom and Dad and for our dinner hosts as well (beyond the several bottles of wine and Asti... I can't help that I don't like champagne and that I will always have a preference for the sweet... so I might as well get what I want to drink for the brindis, right?)

We left the house with a ginger bread house perched on the coffee table, expectantly, and a tree with little wooden nutcrackers and a string of multi-colored lights with a snow man to crown its ittty-bitty tip (only other decoration available in house). I wonder what I. did when they got home? I can't wait for her to wake up and tell me all about it.

Once again, a wonderful and unexpected night surrounded by the warmth of budding friendships. Half of the dinner party was tied up in knots as they anxiously await the MLA interviews in two days, but the comida navideña was absolutely, wonderfully española, with a special cameo of a traditional Hungarian dish, and Brazil nuts, which, said Carolina, are typical for christmas in Brazil. Good food, good friends, good conversation and a plan for another larger party when all the rest of the travelers return from their respective countries, for noche vieja. After dinner politics, shooting the shit and rants about transnational corporations, transgenic corn and W. shrub's politics and their inherently negative impact on women, plus a discussion on the values of polygamy. Laughing... laughing. I really must just do this more often, no need for crying when the world is still opening its arms to invite me... there are still a million possibilities, nothing has been foreclosed upon... I can still learn the things I want.

Also, I discovered that I can indeed do a sociolinguistics specialization within the applied linguistics concentration that I am going to tack on to my degree (along with another concentration in women's studies). What is the relevance? I got so excited talking about the research that I want to do, that I am ready for vacation to now be over. On Monday I will take my books (which I have studiously ignored up 'til now) back to school and spend the week working on the paper that is due at the end of the quarter. If I finish the paper before the quarter starts I can polish the other work that I want to submit to conferences in the first weeks, and not be overloaded by taking four courses and teaching. I wish I could take more, but everyone thinks I am crazy for even taking four... but that will be one course less than last quarter, so it will feel like cake... and, then in the spring I can just take one "real" course and two other languages... This is so exciting, nothing like the new year approaching to put one's life into perspective.

I better go to bed now, must rise early to prepare a farewell breakfast for the 'rents and to watch Isabella open her varying presents (as if she didn't get enough with the 10 that my mom brought for Chanukah). I swear, even when we don't buy a damn thing, she always ends up with too much...(being the only child in the extended family, including non-blood relations) but at least the toys are art supplies, of which she can never get enough... Of course Santa won't come because he made a pact with the Reyes... They'll be by on the 6th of January to deposit a gift (also among the free) in lieu of her shoes. Silly? Sappy? Sure, but it is nice to make other people smile, especially when they bring me so much joy every day.

viernes, diciembre 24, 2004

Contemplative space


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Originally uploaded by lunita.

Life giving laguna


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Originally uploaded by lunita.

49 Palms Oasis


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Originally uploaded by lunita.

Serendipity


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Originally uploaded by lunita.

Leaving Joshua Tree Nat'l Park


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Originally uploaded by lunita.

jueves, diciembre 23, 2004

Ojalá pase algo...

Impunity… impunity… impunity. Check this out… yesterday Pinochet’s health was once again ok’d and still there is no punishment for his crimes against humanity. Strange how his crimes would be linked unmistakably with the anti-socialist US politics of the seventies (and still today!!!) including special training by special forces in the most effective torture methods (yes, the US probably did write the book, and Abu Graihb looks eerily like the underground school-cum-torture chambers that proliferated in the southern cone just thirty odd years ago). And Argentina's Menem, it would seem, left Chile the same day claiming that he (at 74) is going to come back to power after his 10-year right-wing strangle-hold that left Argentina’s economy once-again trashed (not to mention the social services). All this and our very favorite shrub will probably be slathering on the grease as he get ready for an All-American Christmas photo-op of some kind or another, with his carefully machinated smile… and his disgustingly comfortable family.

So, here, again my words are so much less than those of others, I dedicate this song to not just the current administration (the song was originally written to the US by a Cuban Trovador – at the beginning of the cold-war, incidentally) but to all those whose presence is imposed on others with often disastrous results. You all know who you are, but then _you_ won’t ever feel alluded to.

As a side note for those not familiar with Spanish linguistics, the term "ojalá" stems from Spain's 800 years of Muslim rule, and refers to the will of God – Allah… Meaning essentially, “would that it were”… but more along the lines of “if god wills it”, so in no way should this be interpreted as a threat, but rather as a deep and dear desire of so many of us…who feel our hands tied tighter with every tug of resistance.

Ojalá – Silvio Rodriguez
Ojalá que las hojas no te toquen el cuerpo cuando caigan,
para que no las puedas convertir en cristal.
Ojalá que la lluvia deje de ser milagro que
baja por tu cuerpo.

Ojalá que la luna pueda salir sin ti.
Ojalá que la tierra no te bese los pasos.
Ojalá se te acabe la mirada constante,
la palabra precisa, la sonrisa perfecta.

Ojalá pase algo que te borre de pronto,
una luz cegadora, un disparo de nieve.
Ojalá por lo menos que me lleve la muerte,
para no verte tanto, para no verte siempre.

En todos los segundos, en todas las visiones.
Ojalá que no pueda tocarte ni en canciones.
Ojalá que la aurora, no dé gritos que caiganen mi espalda.
Ojalá que tu nombre, se le olvide a esa voz.

Ojalá las paredes no retengan tu ruido de
camino cansado.
Ojalá que el deseo se vaya tras de ti,
a tu viejo gobierno de difuntos y flores.

Ojalá se te acabe la mirada constante,
la palabra precisa, la sonrisa perfecta.
Ojalá pase algo que te borre de pronto,
una luz cegadora, un disparo de nieve.

Ojalá por lo menos que me lleve la muerte,
para no verte tanto, para no verte siempre
En todos los segundos, en todas las visiones.
Ojalá que no pueda
tocarte ni en canciones.

Ojalá pase algo que te borre de pronto,
una luz cegadora, un disparo de nieve.
Ojalá por lo menos que me lleve la muerte,
para no verte tanto, para no verte
siempre

Me he equivocado sitio

I love the internet. I do. I love being able to get up in the morning and instead of turning on an awful television set (I got over my longing for mental anesthesia after just two days) you may actually select what information/ entertainment that you would like to experience. That said, it is still an awful addiction, but who is counting??? On occasion we make a mistake and insert ourselves in the wrong site... a place that calls to us, but that is not good for us... We become dependent on things that are façades, vile representations of what they could be. On the other hand... I believe that I once (or more) publicly uttered that I would try anything once;) I would like to rect-ify my position on this particular stance. Some things need to be tried more than once to give them a fair shot, because the mental preparation comes not with novelty but with practice... Mmm hmmm. That's what I think.

I also think that we are all liars. That the images that we choose to present of ourselves, that the ideas that we let escape into the realm of "reality" are just cardboard constructions of what we wish were true. That even now as I write, I am lying just a little, to myself, to others. I was thinking about the idea of authorial authenticity. Borges is a master of playing with the reader's mind, in the story of Pierre Menard he invents a new author for the Quixote, and in many a story he cites non-existent or false references. It doesn't make him any less of an author, in fact it makes him more of one. It is the fiction, unabashed that makes us examine reality with a grain of salt, so why should it matter if an author invents a story for himself and passes it off as truth? Does it make the social commentary that she creates any less valid? Of course not! Why can't people applaud creativity (fuck- the media spin of reality is so far from the truth it is generally laughable) instead of lambasting a perceived lack of honesty. Who said artists had to be honest, anyway?

Vacation Diary

Day 1:
We went in two cars. Miguel was going to let me go by myself with Mom and Dad, but then decided that he wanted to come for the weekend. He was sad that I didn’t want to be with him the whole week, but really, I just wanted to be able to be alone for a little while and not have to be stuck in the middle when he and my mom inevitably disagree about everything. ARRRRRGH. No such luck, or rather, we drove down in two cars so that he can go home after the weekend. And all was well…but we shall see.

Lunch in Santa Monica with friends of mom’s. Second time in two weeks we eat “Argentine” food with them. I say “Argentine” because really it was a failed attempt. Not bad food, just not Argentine. I had salmon with a lemon vinaigrette that pretended to be a béarnaise.
Leaving there was a great band, incidentally Argentinos, called “Los Pinguos”. Really good, really really good. Made the awful, horrendous LA traffic almost bearable. That and of course I wasn’t driving☺ What else did we listen to? Jack Johnson (soooo sexy – kinda like a mix between Ben Harper and Nick Drake) Silvio Rodriguez. Wait, could I get in trouble for writing about a Cuban musician? Cuba is a sanctioned country and he has spread anti-imperialistic rhetoric since the sixties. Uh oh… can’t have that, now can we? . And another guitar virtuoso, Pierre Bensusan. Yup. Nothing else. All men. Thankfully I did bring the IPOD along with charger and all for later.

Epic choices upon arrival at this very strange time-share in the middle of a desert waste land? Just whether to watch CSI or SVU. CSI won because we all agreed that we have seen just about every Law and Order made. Ohhhhh mindless television. I get to be happy about it for a few days or at least tonight, right?


Day 2:
Slept late. Not enough though, I was somniferous all day long. Breakfast (lunch) was at a little divy place - Greek/Mexican/American/Jewish?. Miguel had a strange version of huevos rancheros (they fried the tortillas but didn’t put them underneath the eggs – some people). Isabella had pancakes (I hate fake maple syrup humph double humph, why make corn taste mildly like something it is not??? Not to mention the implications with transgenic corn etc.) Mom and Dad both had Reubens and I had a gyro… heavy on the goatiness☹ Ah well, what more can you expect a place that evokes its ambience from the murals of a Mycenaean village and strange Hellenic plates scattered aimlessly about, next to the television angled out for maximum viewing potential (see, already annoyed with the boob tube). We journeyed out in one car and Isabella was already cranky, not a good sign from a child that is always happy. Against all logic, there were no publicly accessible hot springs (everything is privately owned commercialized crapola.) Blahh. Missing San Miguel and “El Escondido” where the hot water poured straight from the splitting earth onto your head. So Miguel was about ready to explode and I was a close second, we ended up at an art museum in Palm Springs. There were some interesting pieces, but I was in a particularly sad mood and contemplating the angles in which my blood would spatter and my bones would break if I just nudged myself over the edge of the metal and glass balcony. Of course these thoughts had to be controlled and once I was reunited with Isabella and she ran across the sculpture garden yelling with glee “mommy mommy” and throwing herself into my arms, to let me know that she was no longer mad and wasn’t I happy about that, I was indeed snapped back to reality… It is really my own fault for wallowing, and the book too. “The Hours” – Michael Cunnigham. The movie had the same effect on me, but the book is even more imposing of sadness than the movie. It reads quickly despite the excessive visual lushness, but there is so much sadness that I feel wrapped up in it, as if I too am an additional interwoven character. I found the book on my shelf, I think it was from a free pile somewhere, and I picked it up because a friend from high school mentioned that another mutual friend was Phillip Glass’s (composer of score for the movie) personal assistant. I think that was why it caught my eye. Funny, some people are doing important and exciting things. Mom cut out the wedding announcement of another soccer buddy and homeroom homework help seeker. She looked so happy. She’s an attorney and so is he. I wonder how long that will last… All I wanted all day long was to sit and write and write and describe how the billowing black smoke emanating from an unknown source (Hotel Indio – later found out) polluted the limpid desert horizon, and the way the sun played of the rocks, almost intangibly colorless on one side and with a darkening verdant grey on the other. I wanted to describe the asynchronous motion of the wind turbines and their precarious perching along the plain and on the mountains above, overlooking the highway as if they were bizarre flamingoes, white instead of pink, but still one legged, or perhaps lurking carrion eaters? No, they were too beautiful for that.

Of course I didn’t write those things, and after all what would l tell about them? What would be interesting about a mere description of reality, a reality probably distorted by my own petty focus? Instead I wallowed a bit in melancholy, which would be fine if I were alone, but each time I try to draw into myself, Miguel takes it as a personal rejection, and each time I try not to hurt him with my indifference, I hurt him more. I am truly a horrible excuse for a wife and I am having a terrible selfish stage. I fear that this stage may last some time, because as it would happen (I acquired the Woolf’s “A Room of One’ Own” in the very homeroom in which my homework assistance was always required by dear Chrissy) I think that not only do I need a room of my own, but perhaps a time-zone of my own. Ha Ha. But I just wish that it were ok for me to disappear, as it is I feel like I am constantly on fire, with a splitting searing pain, just entering the ebullient water and being yanked back out before my body can accustom itself to the new temperature.
How poetic. No, just selfish. I must be. Maybe I always have been. The more I am vying for space, the more it seems that other people’s needs gobble the secretly carved and crafted emptiness in half the time it took to ease myself backwards. Back up against a wall.
Finally after a family dinner in the kitchenette (mesclun salad, sincronizadas and fresh guacamole with Negra Modelos) Miguel and I went to the movies to see “Ocean’s Twelve”. Ok. Not exactly high art but entertainment in the true sense of the word. Beyond the eye candy (both male and female – mmmm George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones and the sexy man with an accent who I don’t recognize but could melt listening to) it was so silly and more old school “mission impossible” than the awful remake of itself a few years back. I left smiling having forgotten totally my own sadness. I know that’s cheap, and that in real terms, the quality, well, it is what it is. But I never claimed to be anything but silly anyhow, so why shouldn’t I take pleasure in what other mere mortals do?
Quick, I better go to bed before my mood turns again!

Day 3:
A good mood can only last so long, it would seem. That and sleeping in the awful crack between two twin beds shoved improvisorily up against one another to create the visual illusion (but certainly not the physical one, as evidenced by my wretched night’s sleep) of a king size bed. Isabella sleeping diagonally and pushing me over when Miguel is trying desperately to be romantic and I am feeling anything but. That’s not fair. I was trying to be the reciprocating partner, trying to return the love that is so kindly and sweetly and genuinely offered, and failing, like in so many ways I fail, this is truly just the icing on the cake, but failing because I suddenly can’t take the smothering closeness, and the pushing child-feet and the expectant breath and the twisted awful sheets and the evil crack into which I feel my life sinking. The morning was lost to fitful sleep and more reading, but we went out, leaving Isabella behind with happy grandparents, to hike in Joshua Tree National Park. I have always wanted to go here, ever since my early teenage obsession with U2 and my love of the album which bore its name. I often wonder why I can’t just give myself over to the moments instead of feeling a deep dissatisfaction with the world. The park was spectacular, but I get entangled in the petty details, in the “I want to go this way and you that”, or the “why can’t I be alone, or the why can’t I think about things other than the regrets I am feeling”, the ones that roll over me in waves, that make me feel like my life will never be the way it should be without the realization of the one thing I want and can’t possibly possess. Of course that thing is a changing thing, but I am still left holding the short end of the stick. Or at least that is how I feel. Miguel said that it seems like there are too many things going on in my head at once. (If he only knew!) and that it lately seems that while I am physically present, my mind has wandered off somewhere. A truer assessment of reality has probably never been made, but there is just nothing I can do to ameliorate the situation, it seems that my train of thought has blasted through the deepest crevices of my cerebral caverns and is going full steam ahead to the inevitable train-wreck that wiser people than I tried to avoid at all costs. My train it seems has left the station, but like Arreola’s mystery train (El guardagujas), it is probably better to just give up hope about waiting for it to arrive (much less on any particular schedule) that, or be prepared to conform one’s self with what one is dealt. Perhaps that is the biggest problem for me…when given the vertiginous freedom of alternative possibilities, I go into crisis mode. Perhaps that is why I married so young – to force myself into a world of limited possibility. And then something snaps and I am deeply and profoundly shaken, and I know that my doubt and conflict only serve to inflict pain on the one person who actually gives a shit about me in this world (no, not just one, I am sorry, I don’t really mean to say that, there are several, and I am being, perhaps, equally awful to all). But maybe that caring and that constant scolding are just reminders of all of the ways in which I fail to be the person that I wish I were, or that I could be, or that I could have been had I been stronger, not so weak to seek out the comfort of another - the weakness of the flesh, the need for warmth and security. I think my crisis stems from the realization that I have never been an adult alone! Nor has he. We have only ever been adults together and that is a horrifying thought. That the individual me who was me before I was an adult is screaming to come out and being shushed and pushed back in because she doesn’t generally agree with the coupled me. The dependent me. What happened to the girl who could take care of herself? The one that managed to find her way to an unknown house in Quilmes in the middle of the night when deposited by a bus in a dark park in Buenos Aires, and still take the test spectacularly the next morning.. Now I take care of myself and others, but at the same time I have relinquished something ever so much more, I am also bound up in being cared for, even if I wish that I was cared for less. Ridiculous. How many women wouldn’t beg to be adored by their spouses, desired, sought out despite the struggles, despite the years, despite the extra unflattering pounds that make one want to disappear (even when she knows that uttering those thoughts are going to result in chastisement (self and other)). What is wrong with me? Why do the big things matter so much less than the grating daily little things. Why do I dream of getting up one morning and walking and walking and evanescing into the mist, and rematerializing somewhere far off, exotic, where I would have to learn a new language in order to make communication just a little more difficult and therefore a more worthy endeavor?

I am feeling utterly unworthy of anyone’s love, and a bit like a feeble-minded child whose caring parents pat her on the back and say “there there dear, it will all be better in the morning.” And I want to believe it, I do, it’s just that I have far too much experience with this sort of thing. In fact I am coddled by parents even now, but I suddenly feel like some strange alien that sprung fully formed from the womb and resembled her creators very little. I don’t always feel this way, but today I do.

Day 4
Got better sleep last night. Frown my libido has died as suddenly and mysteriously as it reared its ugly head. I think that this is probably better, but I can’t help feeling a deep sense of loss, as if maybe this was the last chance for me to awaken. How terribly tragic and probably false. Went sampling dates with Mom, Dad and Isabella. Miguel went off for a long hike in Joshua Tree by himself. Part of me wishes that I took the hike, but most of me was so happy to be alone this afternoon, and feeling so marvelously shrouded in solitude, that I believe that it was much better for both (all) of us. It was like a weight being lifted, the stress ebbing from me in a fifteen minute nap, the sickness that wants to inhabit my lungs being allayed for another day? Of course I read like a fiend, stories and stories and more stories. I watched Isabella walk with muscular purpose and I felt that I had for a brief moment the perfect opening sentence, but then the word that clinched it (began with an “s”. I think) slipped away and I was left with only the image of the muscularly self-assured walk of my five-year-old, demanding in her singular presence, purposeful and deeply content and alive. Swimming together in the pool with my mom, and then me when I was torn away from my book (guiltfully sneaking an extra story, and only half paying attention to her – in my defense as a mother, she is an excellent swimmer and of course her grandmother was really the one watching her), her smile, her filling physical presence, her embrace and kisses, reminding me of all things beautiful in this world. She is amazing, brilliant, perceptive to her mama’s needs. When I asked her if she preferred to go with just Bobie and Zadie or if she wanted me to go along she responded “I love being with you mommy, but on occasion, I like to go places with just Bobie and Zadie”. Release, freedom. It is amazing how much perspective and peace are afforded with a few simple hours with no pressing needs and silence, a book full of stories and the endless possibilities of a fantasy realm free from inquiry (inquisition?) from others. A few blessed moments to think, and feel outside the neatly painted lines of appropriateness, with no fear of interpretation or misinterpretation and no complaints about the strange smile that invades my countenance when my thoughts wander away.
And then when everyone came home, I was ready to face them with cheer and food preparation Then of course, more recriminations☹ Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

Day 6:
Morning-
I was too exhausted last night to write. Exhausted from what? Not much. Miguel, Isabella and I went out to swim, but that only lasted a little over an hour, then Isabella left to swim again with the g’rents and Miguel went out, supposedly for short excursion to buy my present (which I insisted that I didn’t need but am glad that I didn’t insist too much!). Well, his little excursion took several hours, but that was ok, I read essays edited by Laura Flanders – “The ‘W’ effect”. Being outraged is ever so much better than wallowing in self-pity, which is probably why some people I know are constantly being outraged. I, myself, get tired but little doses are enough to keep me going. So Miguel and I went out for drinks in Palm Springs, and besides the obnoxious vacuous façades it would have been fine. We found ourselves in a restaurant with live music – covers of CCR, the Eagles, Los Lobos and Jimmy Buffet to name a few, but after to heavy-handed Margaritas the old politics came out and lead to us dredging up all our past mental and spiritual infidelities (lacking any real physical ones). We sat in the car for about an hour hashing out all the old issues (which was also, cleverly, a way for him to sober up before driving home.) I had been so pleased… he had read my mind and gotten me a digital camera so that once again I would have my own pictures, my own thoughts, my own reality…(I had secretly been lamenting all the things I lost, just the other day and among them was my camera – which Miguel broke in San Miguel when he brought it into the enclosed cave of the hot springs against my pleas, and then of course we shared a camera – a wedding present – but sharing a camera is a metaphor for everything else – the authorship gets all mixed up and you feel like you either have to relinquish your claim on the photos altogether, or you have to find a way to mark your territory) but then… oh well, why bother, it ended well enough, I guess. And we are really trying, it is just so hard. Just dig deeper. That’s what I keep telling myself. And the moments when he looks over at me, and brushes the hair from my face, he massages my ear lobe, I see my life reflected in his eyes and I feel utterly ashamed of myself and naked and invaded all at the same time.

Evening:

We took a hike into 49 Palms Oasis with the whole Dann (damn) family. It was impressive that there were no Joshua trees, but an abundance of red-barrel cacti and then the amazing pools of water in the middle of the desert, and the aviary life that sprung from the date-palms, some scarred from the burning that actually gives them new life. It was a beautiful amazing hike, and after, we headed home, making it back in a record 3 and a half hours (instead of the roughly seven it took to get there). We listened to music all the way home – same as on the way down. We were making plans for the band that is in its nascent stages. It was so nice to be home… I have been thinking about what I can do, where I can focus my outrage, how I can bring my particular skills to the table to make some kind of difference. I think I may have a plan too... Now I get to go to bed in my very own bed, and I won’t even complain about a small person’s foot in the middle of my rib-cage. And, maybe I will make up for lost time…

jueves, diciembre 16, 2004

A visionary? Ha, more like visionuda...

Ok, so it has been confirmed based on several silly personality/IQ tests taken in moments of boredom, silliness and one also done in an educational psychology class... all saying that I am a "visionary/ philosopher" and once my moral reasoning was judged (honest to goodness, this was a "real" test done in same ed/psych class) to be on par with religious mystics... or the likes of Ghandi.

Humph. That's bunk. I am no visionary, as I am more likely to lose myself in a paper bag than to lead anyone to a higher state of being. And while I hold myself to highly rigid moral standards, its mostly because I am too afraid of breaking the rules, whose rules? I guess my own, but still.

Now you all want to know what a visionary does with a few free days, right? She watches movies and goes swimming by herself (even when that doesn't make her a very popular person around home). Last four movies watched:

"A Day Without Mexicans" Sergio Arau

Amusing yes? Deep, no. This "mockumentary" is aiming deeper than it reaches, trying to use humor - creating a fictitious scenario in which all Latinos suddenly and mysteriously disappear from California, and California is shrouded in a fog so thick to cut off all communication with the rest of the world. There were silly moments, and it was Eduardo Palomo's last film before untimely death :( but the attempt to educate the public with real factoids was more distracting than anything else, AND the plot failed miserably to interest, no real exploration of what that day without Mexicans would really be like. Oh well, it was still worth the $2.50 rental, I suppose.

"Super-Size Me" Morgan Spurlock

Ok, I am kind of tired of documentaries, and frankly, the book "Fast Food Nation" does a more thorough job of exposing the fast food industry in the US for what it truly is, nonetheless, I felt that this was a "must see". I'm not sure. Lately I feel that everything I see that is "non-fiction" is preaching to the choir... It was obscenely grotesque at times, and what I might say excessively so... No need to watch someone else's laparoscopic stomach stapling procedure, and really, they could have been removing a tumor from his prostate and it would have made me feel equally queasy, and not swayed me in the least. I am not a fast-food eater, snobbily so, perhaps, and yet, Isabella conned me into buying her chicken nuggets at Wendy's the very next day. Of course that is not usual fare, but we were on campus and there is no good food to be had! So instead of starving my child I gave her what she asked for, in spite of the movie. I know it is bad to put evil processed muck into my body, and I usually don't. That said, I think the focus on school food should have been even more accentuated. After four years of cafeteria duty, watching the food that these children shovel almost perfunctorily into their mouths with minimal breathing, it makes you really angry that tax money is spent on food at all. Fries with every meal, and if you were like me, and you left your lunch sitting on the kitchen counter once or twice, requiring food at 10:45 (pavlovian reactions, now I can go until 2-3 without thoughts of food, but those damn bells and the knowing that it is your only chance to eat...), when you ask to replace fries with a salad (these are government subsidized lunches mind you) you can't do it unless they accidentally made salads with only one microscopic slice of tomato instead of two, otherwise you must pay twice as much for your lunch as it is considered "a la carte". What teenager is going to spend twice as much to have a measly salad instead of salty fries? No need to answer that one.

"The United States of Leland" Matthew Ryan Hoge
I don't think that the similarity of the opening (wide pan on an empty streets) recalling "American Beauty" or any of Hal Hartley's early films, was an accident, especially because Kevin Spacey plays a key, if understated role of father and so does my very favorite of Hartley fame Martin Donovan (I liked him better when he was just a little less thick...). The film attempts to examine the other side of teen crime, but not really, it is more like a Holden Caulfield renewed for the violence and school killings of the late 90's. It is the story of a writer, of several writers, and a child philosopher, disaffected, alone. I enjoyed the lack of moralizing, though what should have been better acting felt mostly stiff. The girl, Becky, with her drug problem recalled the scene of the politico's daughter in "Traffic" perhaps another small homage? I don't know, it was a sad theme and a sad movie, it's one interesting offering was the idea that other people's sadness is all around, and that if one allows oneself to feel, the sadness becomes unbearable. I liked that part. I connected with it. I am not sure that I would recommend the film, despite its star-studded cast. Well maybe I would, it made me think about the morality of people, that ultimately we do bad things because we want to, not because something made us do it. I must think on this a bit more. I definitely think the title was just a bit too tangential, even if referring to his states of mind...

"Sous le sable" François Ozon
A husband mysteriously vanishes into the sea and his wife had no idea of his depression. The movie explores her (failure) coping with the loss, playing, like only the French can, (actually it was rather Cortazarian) with multiple possibilities. Is she practicing polyamory with her husband's consent or is she just lost and delusional, imagining him still with her and feeling the guilt of those left behind? It was as if my mental wanderings forced my hand to pluck this off the shelf just to remind me that swimming out into nothingness would be totally unfair to the people I love and would leave behind... Beautiful filming, and acting, but the multiple handed masturbation scene, well, masturbating lightly through a red crinoline dress was definitely a man's aesthetic. I loved the final scene, by the ocean, the woman running as if on an asymptote, always approaching and never arriving. Fade to black. Very French, indeed.

Ah so are you all convinced? I sure as hell am not, but watching movies is so much easier than actually creating something of value, n'est pas?

Emmanuel has risen!

Hee hee. Everybody's favorite Masai warrior is alive and well, and looking for unsuspecting (and don't forget rich) business partners/ apartment providers. It is always so amusing when people resurface in your life, mysteriously when they are in need of something that they think you can provide. Of course, we can't provide anything for anyone, much less ourselves, so the advice for our "dear" friend was to save up and be prepared for high prices if he moves to Cali...

Another slightly related and funny episode from this afternoon: First off, I didn't realize that mormon misionaries were sent to convert students in university family housing, but there they were, pressed white short-sleeve button downs, grey pants, ties, blonde heads closely trimmed, blue eyes, friendly smiles. "Good afternoon m'aam, could we speak with you for a few minutes?" Wait, wait, this is not a third-world country... maybe the word has gotten out that California is filled with heathens, and that it has fantasies of emancipating itself (along with its massive economy) from Jesusland, but really, what _have_ we come to? "Actually," I smile (chocolate smeared across my cheek, unbeknownst to me) "I'm _really_ busy" This wasn't totally a lie, I was taking out the trash and recycling and attacking the tower of babeldish for impending parental visit this afternoon. "Can we just leave you this 'present'?" "Um. I'm not into Jesus." Card with Jesus o'rama info, slid back into its breast pocket. Two boys kept walking...Wow! If I had known that it was that easy, I would have used that line earlier...

We could make T-shirts, you know, "Sorry, I'm not into Jesus... but he's really into me" ;)

No intention of being disrespectful but frankly proselytizing just doesn't do it for me, you know. To each her own, but leave me the hell out of it.

This was a girl-girl thing

Our first meeting was what one might consider extenuating circumstances, ones that set the stage, foreshadowing the later unfolding of bed sheets. The camera zooms down from above, a tight shot focusing on our faces and then slowly retracting to a panoramic view replete with ionic pillars and curving stone arches lining a closed arcade . She and I were dancing naked in the twilight, amid a group of equally euphoric women, encircling a lighted font. The late August warmth persisted, despite the fact that the falling darkness began to prickle our skin, the cool of the fountain and many, too many of us, waiting in expectancy.

It could have been my fault. I suppose. I mean the shedding of vestments in such a short time. Perhaps the freedom came from my newness, from not knowing anyone, from ignoring how the system worked or how everything always got back, eventually. The cloisters seemed so private, so perfect, the moist green carpet of sticky-sweet grass muffling the sound of stepping feet, hands held, backlit bodies dancing, in circles around the central fountain, blossoms with dripping scent scattered carelessly about. We each dipped ourselves in the water in a rhythmic, cyclic pattern; some of the women recumbent and queen-like, overseeing the festivities held in their honor. She was the queen of queens, the one in the spotlight, and so I knew that she had to be mine.

She didn’t know who I was, but I knew that she was the president, the possessor of power, the one that everyone wanted, or wanted to be. I never imagined it would be so easy though, that she would fall, that I would suddenly be the one in control. I never imagined this as I kissed her sweetly on the cheek, trying to ignore the buzzing around her. I was the instigator, of course, but I also grew suddenly lonely and withdrew before my time had expired, before the stroke of midnight, before the couples dispersed, the circumstantial couples that linked for that one moment, perhaps never to be together again. But I left alone that night, shrouding myself in mystery, a cloak of loneliness thrown over my naked body, transparent and heavy all the same.

I did take note of the eyes cast in a warm, twinkling smile as I departed, the hand that lingered. There was hope, there was possibility. I had a story to tell when I got home, I had ideas and fantasies to fabricate. I practiced the art of willful thinking, casually wandering where I thought I might find her, lingering by the mailboxes, a glimpse caught at a repeating hour just outside the campus center, talking with her roommate, Eva, a lover? I wondered. I made myself ubiquitous, accidentally purposefully being where I thought she might go, just after class. A smile, a “hi” a visual appreciation, looking her up and down, and then letting my gaze rest, flitting away before it would be inappropriate to stare at her perfectly rounded assets. After a few weeks of this, and small talk, we shared a meal, and then more conversation. I procured tickets for a concert that I imagined she would like, I fretted, I assessed, I talked it out with my girlfriends. Should I ask her, would it be too awkward, would she say yes? I decided then and there that being a man must be the most difficult thing in the world, always being expected to make the first move, to take the risk. Here there were no men, and so the burden was on me, the one who wanted, the one whose curiosity outweighed her doubt. I craned my neck, and looked around, I held my breath, I dialed the phone. She said yes. YES! I couldn’t believe it. Was this a date, no it couldn’t be, would we go alone or with Eva? Were they lovers? no she wouldn’t have said yes, or would she? Oh.

We arrived early, but still in darkness. It had rained the day before, and the autumn leaves hung drearily, and lay in slippery amalgamations on the sidewalks and greens. The illumination of the theater was a welcoming home from the cool night outside, and we entered, still a little nervous, we sat, next to each other, not a seat apart, in spite of the relatively empty auditorium and the highly uncomfortable wooden folding chairs, holdovers from the fifties when the building was remodeled with its acoustic ceilings, and gracefully arching lines. We sat, huddled together, shifting, breathing girl breath on one another. “Is this a date?” she asked, older but suddenly seeming much younger than I. Aria was in my sights, I had her within an inch of me, and the envy that burned in the eyes of every one of the girls that said hello, tersely, as we entered, her arm grazing mine, was an electrifying sensation. “I don’t know, “ I let my fingers run up her forearm, hiding my smile behind a curtain of hair, “do you want it to be?” I observed the individual hairs perk as the goose flesh followed the line of my fingers. A sigh of pleasure escaped her lips. I leaned in closer, and she buried her face in my curls, her lips slightly opened and a tickle of wet warmth hinting at my neck. I leaned away, exposing a collar-bone, accentuated in the play of light and shadow of the dimming house.

So tonight was the night, it would be, I knew. Holding my breath, stomach tied in knots, muscles tightened in expectation, arousal already working its magic and the familiar heat rolling in electrical impulses from my fingers to her skin. The music ended in the blink of an eye, the fade out and in of the camera, and we were walking down the dark path to the blue-bus stop, waiting for the shuttle that would take us home. Holding hands, were we kissing? I think I enlaced my fingers with hers, and tipped her head back following the curve of her neck, along the chin to the expectant mouth, our tongues intertwined, saliva commingled, and the minty gum that she had shared, a fire slowly sparking, hands tickling and teasing. Her gaze locked on mine, the bus pulled in and we were practically unaware of our surroundings, we climbed the stairs with the excitement jittering, the bus rumbled to its final stop, leaving us in the deserted parking lot behind the campus center. Instead of walking towards our respective dorms we headed the opposite direction down the hill past the science buildings, the overwhelming smell of pine needles, up the hill towards Breckon, and walking, floating really, by the faculty housing. Would we go home together? Would we go to bed? She didn’t want to corrupt a minor, a freshwoman, in all her seniority, but my persistence, my insistence, the promise of being a good lover, the offering of my “virginity”, how could she resist, entangled in my hair, and words and devious plans, she came home with me that very night.

The blast of warmth hit us as we entered, and I pulled the curtain shut, closing the window hutch where just last week Pete and I had been kissing, me lost in his blue-eyed splendor, after he came to take me out on his new Kawasaki. Aria held me from behind, pulling me back to the urgency of the moment, her mouth more furious and fertile than before, we lay on the single bed, we slowly undressed each other, piece by piece, until there was nothing but sweaty skin against skin, her mouth on mine, and then trailing downward, focusing on my nipples, my fingers working madly, sliding in and out, and she drew herself up to where she rubbed against me, our sexes, awake and tingling, no penetration but the sensation of the wet grinding, rolling, laughing, she followed the trickle of sweet sweat down the valley between my breasts, past the vestiges of my umbilical cord, lower, her expert tongue probing, pulling, sucking in ways that no boy, not even Pete, had ever been able to do, I cried out in joy, ecstasy, rapture, I came again and again, we fell asleep, breasts together, hair mixing in liquid silkiness, forgetting ourselves in the world of men. The queen was mine. The camera pans wide, exposing girl parephernalia and artsy dorm decorations before the closing shot of naked girl bodies spent from hours of seductive sex, arms and legs intertwined.

martes, diciembre 14, 2004

Ha! Ha! Canadian TV! (Not Kids in the Hall)

Funny funny funny.

Zapa just wrote to say that he saw us (twice) on Juste Pour Rire somewhere (he's hiding from deportation police) in Canada...

Too funny. I never thought we'd actually make it onto Canadian candid camera... and yet, the silly episode of us being directed by blind police officer into another car on cobble-stone narrow windy Quebequian path actually made it on the air (albeit 3 1/2 years later), and Z confirms that indeed Miguel's look of astonishment and veiled fury were unmistakably his.

That was a nice trip. I had forgotten. It was just after Isabella turned 1, the week after my "official" college graduation where we had to schlep the baby and ourselves down to PA for ceremony and ensuing party at Edie and Andy's house (now sold and forsaken). How time flies. We took the graduation money and we took a memorial day trip up to the belle province... I love Montreal, but Quebec was very much quainter... and the creme brulee was delish... soon, all of M.'s efforts will pay off and this album too will be posted. I don't know the address yet, but since you are all clamouring (yes... all 2 of you:) I thought I would go ahead and get his graphics fidgeting ass in gear ('cause you know I can't figure that shit out).

Funny how time flies and how memories of trips are so much nicer at a distance. Of course the Canadians felt awful when they realized we were not stupid Americans but rather poor NH residing Mexicans... (ok, so I pretended not to speak English --there are little joys in this world, and being able to pass as not-American is one of my best and most secret ones) but I was still pissy for a good half the day.

That trip, if I recall was more about eating everything "french" possible and less about seeing, although we got some great shots of architecture and the Montmorency falls just to the north. Also, this was one of I's cutest stages (aren't they all?) and there is a picture in which she seems to be floating, hovering, as if cut and pasted, on the long wooden promenade that overlooks Le Quartier Petit Champlain, just before you pass Le Château Frontenac to the left and the Funiculaire that descends to your right.

Glorioius springtime, so far removed. And a good laugh on us, still being had by many a Canadian:)

The marauding maga strikes again!

My very own one-woman iron chef.
Still nothing new in the fridge (see previous list)

Did discover a box of soy milk which made going to the grocery unnecessary, and since I am leaving town Friday morning, it doesn't really make sense to get a whole bunch of perishables only to have them wilt beyond recognition in my absence, right?

I am so fucking cool, I just have to pat myself on the back sometimes;)

Tonight's feast:

Garlic shrimp risotto - using the last splash of 1/2 and 1/2, the last few sprinkles of parmesan, a single remaining scoop of garlic herb cheese spread, rum in lieu of white wine, salted water instead of broth (don't even have boullion cubes! or powder), sauteed shrimp in garlic butter sauce, sweet peas, and a few capers for good measure.

A romaine and onion salad with the last of the onion not used in the risotto preparation.

And, for color and splash of sweet/tartness for contrast - a garnishing of cranberry orange relish.

I am doubly cool because I have never officially made risotto (though I have stood over the shoulder of others through its preparation) and I didn't muck it up... Of course anyone who has really Italian taste is probably groaning and rolling eyes heavenward, but I have no prejudices and the more garlic, the merrier... I say.

Baby steps. Baby steps... I have to be proud of myself for something, don't I?

freestyle for (a) change...

Ok. So it seems that everyone I know (or almost everyone) is going through massive meltdowns. Even people I don't know. Cynicism abounds and hope seems to be flickering its last dying embers. Why? Well, I know for me the outcome of the elections, really the knowing just before, was a bit of a turning point. For months before we had all been so full of hope and possibility, believing that turnout to affected documentaries actually meant people cared enough to make a difference. We were all so liberal and proud of ourselves. We were going to change the course of history. Only we didn't. Was there cheating involved? Maybe? Was there unfair use of unlimited (and mostly stolen from the poor) funds? Sure. But we all knew that beforehand, so why didn't we prepare? Why is it that only now, after the fact, are people concerned about the monopoly on electronic paperless vote-counting machines? Would it have made a difference? I am guessing that the answer is "no", nevertheless, we all just seem to keep spinning the wheels, stuck in the mud, splattering all that hover around us wondering, "what the f--- is wrong with her (him, it)?"

So. That's one possibility. But the kinds of miserable depression and crisis that are attacking are actually mostly of a more personal nature. Not one day in the last week has passed without someone recounting a close-to-home account of someone's marriage falling apart, one partner stealing everything from the other, multiple families/lives, broken promises, dreams etc. Is there really more of it at this time of year? Is it just this year? I don't know. I think that maybe as the cycle closes we have higher expectations for the goodness of people. After all, we have all these futile constructions, "holidays" in which we are all supposed to be just a little bit happier, and really we are mostly just a little bit sadder. You can't possibly be alone for the season, but then, what if being alone is really the only thing that you want? You are a party-pooper, a scrooge, a miser. Therefore we all go into it, to some degree. Maybe only to add a little magic to your children's lives or to not estrange your spouse's families, or to not have the boss hate you or to not be the hated boss. We (well, not me, but I'll take cultural liberties) kill massive amounts of living, green, life-breathing trees in order t o create fire-hazards in our homes for what? So that we can say that we believe in something? Or to fill our houses with scents from time of yore? Perhaps.

Don't get me wrong. I loved visiting friends and watching the toy trains run around in endless circles, with hot cocoa and spiced cider and nuts to be cracked. I even remember one year that my friend Ben and I absconded with all the almonds from all the nut bowls and cracked them until our hands were raw, and then dipped them in melted chocolate that was left over from the chocolate house molds. Those were good times. But I wonder how they felt for Edie, Ben's mom, the years that she was alone with the kids, I wonder how it must have been... Probably every bit as depressing as the Pennsylvania mid-winter always promises to be.

What, then, do I propose? I say fuck it. I am tired of ennui (ha - tired of it - how silopsistic of me). So I just remembered why I am here in So Cal... so I can go outside and do shit and not freeze of my tuchus...I say we all stop wallowing and just start moving... aimlessly perhaps, at first... but then the motion begins to take on its own purpose. There is no such thing as good or bad, there just is, in the moving, cutting through water or air...

Today I started swimming again. Oh it felt so good to glide through the water and lose myself in the controlled breathing. I remember the summers chasing Chris Daly, his freckled back teasing me, taunting me to move just a little bit faster. His bleached smile, and blond head, and then together off to diving practice, the blue board scratchy under our feet, shivering in the early spring and basking in the glory of mid-summer. The conquering of fear as I dove in towards the board. I never did hit my head, just my heels once or twice. Reverse dives, arching in swan-like beauty backwards into a perfect splash-less entry. This is what I want to retrieve, this is how I plan to change the world, at least my world. Now, I don't propose that massive trips to the local gym are going to solve the problems of corrupt governments and the impossibility of human relations, but being an active agent, and not wallowing in self pity... well there can't be anything bad about that.

Let us observe the only stumbling blocks for my one-woman regimen...

The Pros and Cons of buddyless swimming (being an active agent sometime means doing things by yourself, a skill which I seem to have lost over the years but am slowlly recuperating)

Pros:
1) No one to mock my horrificly poor form
2) No need to share a lane (necessarily - see cons)
3) No one to see as my breast slides shamelessly out of my suit because the shoulder slips off (must use racing suit from now on)

Cons:
1) No one to keep me honest (I was totally done after only about 1000m - pathetic, but tomorrow I will do at least 1500m and so forth)
2) No one to fill up lane so that unwanted lane sharer feels free to share
3) No one to set the pace or push me...


It is a fifty-fifty split so, unless things change, I guess I am swimming buddy-free for now. Ah yes. There is one more con... no one to be in the shower with me as I de-chlorify;)

Yes. Get out and forget that we are supposed to be happy, free-style it, and just be happy dammit.

lunes, diciembre 13, 2004

Restos en el refri

Yum.
I am indeed the master magicicianessa of the empty fridge, whipping into a frenzy unsuspecting vegetables...

Alison came over for dinner too, so it was even more special:)

What there was at my disposal: (and a huge awful pile of imposing dirty dishes which multiply, like gremlins it would seem, with water)

melange of cooked carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes in a maple citrus glaze (old but still intact);
frozen chicken breast, scallops and shrimp from TJ's;
frozen peas;
2 heads romaine lettuce;
1/4 bag of baby spinach;
last pomegranate from Becca's mom's tree, starting to go;
shriveled, but still juicy, orange from Dad's visit;
onions and garlic;
grated parmesan;
half and half;
1 fuji apple;
walnuts (and sundry others);
cranberry sauce;
the end of the milk;
butter, sour cream and mayo;
1/4 cup yogurt (which little "I" polished off);
6 eggs (but we had a 3-egg mushroom, onion and cotija omelette for lunch);
pickles, olives, almond butter, capers and apricot jam;
1 serving of mexican black bean soup from Wednesday last;
whole wheat tortillas.

So... we agree. Pathetically empty fridge. Yes, this was everything available for consumption (except the boxes of emergency pasta and rice, and a can of tuna, but remember dinner had to happen in twenty minutes).

Enter wizardress cuisinistique...

Drum roll please:
Carte prix fixe -

Cream of parsnip, carrot and sweet potato, with a chicken stock base, orange juice, cardamom, cinnamon, thyme, rosemary, drizzled with light cream and sprinkled with parmesan upon serving.

Salad of baby spinach, crumbled gorgonzola and pomegranate seeds with a balsamic vinaigrette.

Chicken salad, comprised of chicken breast, walnuts, onion and apple, and a light garlic mayo for consistency.

Of course now the fridge really is empty! But it is so satisfying to hold out on going to the super... one more day. And then Alison and I went out for girl talk and Lattes... Also very satisfying;)