I really do deserve a treat!

No, seriously. There now exists another "hijo de mi intelecto" all thirty odd pages are out and in a cohesive argument with, believe it or not (I surprised even myself here) some insight and novel thoughts on a topic that was as beaten as a dead horse can be. I even think I didn't build suspense into it (my downfall) but at the same time didn't make something that was horribly boring either. Of course tomorrow when we discuss it in class I will surely be humbled, but right now, I think that I do deserve something extra special...

Pride goeth before the fall...

But since I have now excised Darío from under my skin, I thought I would share the book review that was just recently published on a bilingual edition of his "Cantos de vida y esperanza" which, to what would have been my chagrin if I hadn't already finished with it, was recalled to the library the other day. How awful. One feels somehow guilty for forcing someone else to actually recall a book from you, as if you were selfishly hoarding a pound of Neuhaus chocolates in your desk drawer while claiming to have nothing good to snack on...

So, here is the link (even though I am a moron and cannot figure out how to make links actually happen in my blog - or is it just because I use a Mac?):

http://www.panam.edu/dept/modlang/Hiper1indice.htm

And now, in addition to a treat, I am going to go finish grading a pile of compositions that I failed to complete with I. at the Coffee Cat yesterday, our weekend work hang-out. She drinks steamed milk with hazelnut syrup and draws pictures and writes words, while I try, in vain to focus on my student's writing, or a book, or whatever.

So, while the treat I really want to indulge in is literary, I fear that I still have too much to do to go around ogling texts, mine or others, except for the ones that remain to be conquered for legitimate purposes.

My new best friend.

These days my computer (these days? Ha- M would say I have had my nose buried in my power book since we set up the network) has been my constant companion, my new best friend. Ok... no my life is not so pathetically empty that I am having delusions that computer interaction is the only kind possible... in fact I have been doing very little interacting with anything but my highlighted and scribbled on texts and my keyboard.

Side note, Isabella at dinner: "What does 'pathetic' mean?... well... something that you feel sorry for. Hmmm. Pa-the-tic -in her best Brittish accent. Also funny, this whole week she has been waking me up in French. "Bon jour maman!" Bon jour ma petite... So what if she is limited to, Je parle le francais, and Je t'aime... it's the intention that counts. She's going to be my language learning buddy... In fact, I am astounded by how much French I understand, we sat in on a translating class and I had no problem following the whole conversation... but ask me to speak or (horrors) write... and I will cringe in a corner...

So back to me and Lucy (I named her several months ago) we go everywhere together. It's like the my buddy doll, only it's not a doll and I am not a toddler. Indeed. Ilana, you really are a freak. I know. No really. It's this whole birthing process, it has me all in a tizzy.

Writing academic papers is akin to giving birth. It takes several months to gestate before it is fully formed. By the end all you want to do is get the damn thing out of you, it sucks all of your energy and attention away from other endeavors, and it is extremely, unbearably painful as it is being excised from your darkest cavities. And last of all, you have no idea what the fuck is going to come out at the end, and you only hope it is healthy and functional.

Maybe that is just me. I mean, I have taken several classes between now and the last time I had a monstrosity to write, but I feel so mentally atrophied, and all those papers were in English for education classes (which I hate to say it, but were more or less a joke, not because studying education is inherently an unworthy endeavor but, my god, you can only cover the same material in so many ways before you want to drill your eyeballs out, or take a hacksaw to the students next to you who, despite the fact that they are going to be teaching the next generation, can't formulate a gramatically correct sentence structure in their native language if their lives depended on it.) Arrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhh.

Think panting breath and dilation (of course this didn't work for me but the mental preparation might help). Breath in, breath out. Wax on, wax off. I can do this, I can, I can. And then I can forget him... I mean Rubén... and move on with my life, having birthed something that, once the mucous has been sucked from its nasal cavities, might be able to breath on its own.

Hung over before I even started.

I spent the day, such a wonderful day, being extremely productive. I took Isabella and Peregrine to school. I didn't die depite the fact that the pilot lights for all four burners went out. I biked to school at a pleasant pace. I found useful ways to incorporate my professor's work into my paper. I had a good therapy session, which helped me be a little more honest with myself and a little bit less harshly judgmental of the same. I had real food for lunch, a salad and grilled protein providing substance. I got quite a bit of writing done on paper. I biked home. I picked the girl up. I bought mixed greens, apples and gorgonzola for a salad to take. I came home and chopped apples and yellow bell peppers and toasted walnuts, completing salad. I showered. We went to Marcelo and Rosa's house. I drank too much red wine, and laughed far too long. We ate tortas de camarón en mole de olla. Met really cool woman who is from DF and is in the choir with me, and her husband, also very cool, it was like being home, in one of the strange homes that I eternally lack.

So, why do I get hungover before I even go to bed. Is my organism that unable to withstand the toxins? I feel like an old lady. And my head hurts. And I hate waiting for everything to be back to normal. And I am sleeping alone again. Whine, wine, wind me up, but you need to do something with me or I'll explode. Ah well. Off to bed.

Still thinking about Toscana. I meant to recommend a book to him by a woman, about a woman librarian. I found it in the free pile at the Manchester Public Library last year when I was still allowed to read books in English (and I went a little overboard, I think) It was called "The Giant's House" or something to that effect. My memory is rotten, but the book was excellent and quirky and totally unexpected. I will have to get his email and write him. But I also want to know this: Do all men really not like to read women's writing? Are we really that boring and predictable? Or that pathetically wound up in relationships. It kind of makes me want to go back and throw out all of the ridiculous things I have written. But that would involve too much effort. More than I am willing to make and more than others would be willing to read too.

Aghh. Dry mouth is setting in, this is a bad sign, I better go to sleep, or hydrate myself, but not in that order.

More writerly thoughts...

Today we had a visitor to present his new book. David Toscana. What a charismatic man. I had a book of his sitting on my shelf from several years back when my readerly ambitions were high and my choice of novels had not yet diverted its course of language. I brought it with me and snuck in a half-hour of reading before heading to class. I was immediately sucked in. Then his talk was even more interesting, and of course there was no pretentiousness, just a very interesting philosophy on readership and its status in Mexico (and the world) right now. There are so few good readers.

Which brings me to my double rant for the week. (triple? - first complaint is, of course that I have no time to do the reading I want to because I am doing all the reading I don't want to.)

But. Really. Last night to unwind we were half-watching prime-time reality stupidity on the one of three channels that gets reception. I would say that the American public's moronic and retrograde tendencies could not be topped, but then we also get Univisión, so I know that our southern neighbors have equally miniscule brains as a general rule. TV is so not worth it.

Then there is the other thing. There are so few good writers available for my general entertainment (as if I had time for such things)... At least in relation to the majority of blogs (probably mine included) It is amazing how boring the word fuck can be and people who claim to offer tantalizing tidbits are really in most ways just crass people with poor writing skills. thouroughly dissappointing overall. Of course, Laura, I am still waiting for some new posts... I know that I could count on you for quality, and Mikey you certainly offer some respite (I still want more of the story dammit, you haven't told me how you ended up where you are!) As for the rest of you, well, what can I say... I am bored and desirous of entertainment, but it seems that I will have to find my own, like Toscana's novel which he so kindly signed, dedicating it to words and to my eyes, that read them.

That is, of course, once I have finished all my other work... (so no time soon, but perhaps over break).

Oh wait, I have another rant about the irritating qualities of a wet bicycle seat on my way to work. After descending from the bike and dropping off the small person I realized that there was a wet spot square in the middle of my bottom. I had to go to teach in a cold-sweat with a wet ass, and my sweater got wet in the bottom of the bike trailer, so my tight grey shirt absorbed all the liquid wicking it away from my breasts but accentuating the curves in a dark outline. Highly unpleasant and embarassing. But, I suppose life could be worse. After singing tonight I came home to a wonderful meal, and it was a great surprise, so all told the day was much more good than bad. Guess that is all we can hope for sometimes.

The death of a writer

She knocked on the office door. I was alone and the rain saturated sky masked the time of day. I aroused myself from my dream-like work trance to open and I saw her there, perplexed.
- No. She wasn't here. Yes, she might have left.
Her bedraggled curls hung limply with the moisture and her eyes drooped, sadly. My gaze interrogated her. She said, -Hunter S. Thompson killed himself. Her face went two shades sadder.
-I'm sorry, that's terrible. Who is he?
-He's a writer. My favorite writer. He was only 67.
I reached out to hug her (at times like these you hug first and ask questions later)
-I always imagined I would meet him. I really wanted to meet him, I felt like I knew him.
Funny how we feel that we know people through the words that they leave on paper.
-I don't know his work, I say, but I feel like I have heard the name.
-He was a journalist, he wrote "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
-Aha, yes that sounds familiar. Sweetie, don't get any ideas.
-That's what my friend just told me.
-She's right, you know. The sadness that seeps from her daily is tremendous, only absorbable in small doses. I don't want to be sad like that, I know that my light hasn't gone that dim, I doubt that it will ever. I wish that I could help her feel better.
-One of my favorite authors died today too, but he was old. Guillermo Cabrera Infante. (I don't think this made her feel any better) I am sorry.
-I dreamed of meeting him, it was one of my life goals. She ambled off down the hallway in her grief to share her story with the next office's inhabitant. I was left alone in reflection.

G. Cabrera Infante is dead. My immediate thoughts are with my professor, who is out of town and who was a close friend of his. In fact, in class we talked about the fun that they had at word play. She talked about their collaboration and I wondered (I am always making up stories of intrigue) if maybe they didn't have an affair... perhaps just a literary one? He told her that they should write a novel together. She never could. I imagine what it would be like to collaborate with such a genius and I am saddened. Maybe R. was right, life is sometimes too painful, and you have to find a way out. I hope she'll be ok.

As for me, all I could do was go sing, so that is just what I did.

Another test of my will

Yes, it seems like there are an infinite number of tests and trials laid out before me. And then of course the ones that I make for myself. I am a bit closer to the center, I think, but at the same time, who knows how far off the mark I really am. This paper is moving at its own torturous pace, not nearly as quickly as I had hoped, but perhaps a bit more complete as well. I wanted to have a relatively organized rough draft for Tuesday's class, but I keep getting sucked in, and pulled slightly akilter. There is only one person who really counts in all this, the professor, so I can only hope that what I write pleases his sensibilities. Otherwise I am screwed. Five months of arduous labor down the drain. Ok. Wish me luck;)

La noche pesada

Durmiendo entre tos y tos, o no durmiendo como sea que lo vea. A la princesa le duele la garganta, lloriqueos y besos. Mamita abrázame, niñita déjame dormir un ratito, aunque sea, un ratito. La noche pasa, no pasa y pasa toda la noche con los pensamientos revolcados como tirados por la ventana del tren. A pesar del dolor ajeno hay un secreto placer en oír la vocecita ronca, ronca de toser. Quizá seré mala, pero me encanta escuchar el punto en que se quiebra la voz, la voz de bebé de la que ya no es bebé, pero por unos momentos es bebé de nuevo. Y el deber se explaya. Y el requerir se difunde. Y me sonrío por lo que tengo, y lo que no tengo aún, por la posibilidad de lo que queda por venir.

"Love" is a four-letter word

Incidentally it is Isabella's first written word, that is, after her name and Mom and Dad. So if I have been feeling like a miserable failure, I can at least rest assured that I am doing some things right.

In line with my silly little attempt at a story (amazing how rusty one gets so quickly) I feel like a new woman. What a nice little clutch-free automatic drive shaft curled gently in one's hand won't do to rejuvenate a lass. In fact I feel human again, after six months of utter and pathetic dependence on another, I did everything I needed to do today all by my self! We went to the book store to aquire a gift for Isabelle (the neighbor)'s third birthday party. (I think now we get at least a month until there is another requisite party, gracias a dios.) Then, after a mid-afternoon nap - so much for a productive day - and a few hours of modernista mysery, Isabella and I went to return a movie, fearlessly flying to Trader Joe's for... what did I buy? I am not sure, but I did it alone, so who cares. M. is already thanking himself for he will never again be forced to do the grocery shopping while I am around and carful... Then she and I went to the University because I was tracking down a quote and we had the journal in the bibliotheque... Walking around in the darkness is not so scary when you have to be the one doing the protecting. There was a "Take back the Night" event going on and girls chanting something about hot wet pussy... hmmm indeed... Isabella was afraid of monsters and the trees that cast strange shadows, and there is something eery about the fact that every lamp that we passed seemed to go out as if in reverse motion-sensor action. Her chattering and my whistling kept the demons at bay as we waded our way through the obstacles in front of the library. She wanted to know if I knew the words to the song I was whistling and I told her that no, it was Mozart. She wanted to know if Mozart was dead - not the cat (we lost our 20-year-old twins last year, Mozart and Beethoven, the Jellicle cats) - she began to mourn his loss. No, not the cat, Did she die? Mozart was a he. Why did he die? To combat the boredom of eternal life perhaps? Mommy. I know, I am too silly.

Pondering independence and love, and their intertwining relationship.

What marvelous banality! My life is mine again.

Independence Day

so many sheep i quit counting
sleepless and embarrassed about the way that i feel
trying to make mole hills out of mountains
building base camp at the bottom of a really big deal
and did i tell you how i stopped eating?
when you stopped calling me
and i was cramped up shitting rivers for weeks
and pretending that i was finally free

and you can't leave me here
now that your back
you'd better stay this time
cause you say the coast is clear
but you say that all the time

---Ani DiFranco, Independence Day

The fireworks exploded over our heads, the stars popping in pulsing rhythms, streaking the blackness with colorless brilliance. I pulled away from the camera with its infrared night vision to appreciate the reality of the fireworks through the majestic plate glass windows twenty stories above the city.

You were somewhere below me, having deposited me neatly at the front door and disappearing into the darkness to be alone. I was left in a room full of people that I only vaguely knew trying to explain away your absence. I eventually gave up all attempts.

Five years earlier, before I knew you, before I had felt the tug of your mouth at my throat or needed your hands and your voice to guide me to ecstasy, I was a young girl sitting in the high grass of a New England summer, far from my home, wondering. I lay then, looking up at the stars and letting the warmth wash over me. I watched the yearly ritual whose significance was lost on my adolescent mind with detached indifference, a practiced aloof gaze that hid my amorphous desire. I asked myself when you would come, to fill my lack, my emptiness, having no face nor history to attach to my need, I silently wondered and wanted in the heat. The sweat trickled down the nape of my neck, turning the curled tendrils into painted rivers against my skin.

The silence that followed the finale was a deafening roar of white noise. The cicadas and the crickets played their evening symphony, and I lounged back, hidden in the wooded grove where the older boys came to smoke weed and drink the forbidden beer that they had swiped from their parent’s overstuffed coolers. My older brother was somewhere nearby but I pretended that we didn’t even know one another when Eric and his neighbor Phil came up to me.

“Are you coming back to the house?”

“Maybe in a while, “ I threw my head back letting my damp hair fall to the ground, exposing the pale V of skin that opened down into my chest. Phil cocked his head, and his eyes focused on me. He arched his eyebrows at Eric and he sat in the discolored pine needles beside me.

“How long will you be in town?”

“A few days.”

“Do you wanna have some fun?’

“It depends.”

“On what?” he asked as he leaned in to smell the perfume of my neckline. I quickly turned my head, swatting him like a mare does a fly with her tail. He leaned closer and I could feel the warmth of his chest, the tight muscles under his shirt. He popped the top of a Budweiser and offered it to me. I sat up to hold the aluminum in both hands. It was with great effort that I did not make faces, but calmly, casually sipped the bitter swill with an air of bored sophistication. I leaned back again, this time a bit closer to Phil.

“Sis, it’s time to go back to the house, they’ll be waiting for us,” my brother’s intruding voice punctuated the blackness and Phil, looking sheepish, stumbled to get up, creating the illusion of distance between us.

“Ok, hey, don’t tell mom I was drinking a beer, alright?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever sis.”

We shuffled out of the darkened clearing, three boys and I, down slippery hill to the baseball field where the rest of the town had been watching the fireworks. The glory of victories past filled the air and the carnival added to the carefree atmosphere - unsuspecting, of course, that ten years later, their boys would be coming home in body bags. We went back to Eric’s house and sat in the basement. Phil stayed to the far side of the weight-lifting equipment, watching me, but not ever getting too close in the fluorescent glow. We drank a few more Buds between the four of us and when our parents called for us, we got up to go. I threw a glance back at Phil and he stood, along with Eric, to give me a goodbye hug. His arms encircled me and a shiver ran down my spine.

“Don’t fahget to cahl me if you come back to Wahtatown.”

I wouldn’t forget him, but it would be years before I was in Watertown again, and by then he would be in the Army and far too muscular and macho for my refined tastes. What is it about the Fourth of July and thwarted romance?

So I simply waited for you as the other guests shuffled out in pairs. When you finally showed up, smelling of sweat and beer I tried to kiss you but you just pushed me away with the back of your hand and a non-linguistic grunt. You pulled the white sheets up to your chest and tugged as you twisted, offering only your smooth back to me.

What could I do but offer myself to you? I didn’t know how else to feel love, how to express it. I comforted myself, burying my face in your back with the hot tears seeping silently down my flaming cheeks. You wielded your power over me unjustly, but I kept coming back for more.

The first time that you told me that you weren’t in love with me anymore, we had been lying across from one another, miles apart in a double bed. In the early morning silence I had been contemplating the growing distance in your eyes, but the declaration still felt like a foot in my stomach. You looked over at me, as if nothing were amiss, you took your hand to my face and you said simply:

“I don’t think that I am in love with you anymore. I was, but now I'm not.”

Then you proceeded to kiss my neck, and run your hands down my thighs, taking me because I let you. Because I had nothing left to lose.

When I was younger I believed, I truly believed, that I could make someone love me. That summer, when the darkness settled over me, I thought that if I truly wanted, the sheer force of my wanting would be enough to call love into my fold. Not just any love but the love of the one person that was eternally escaping. I knew that if I just loved hard enough you would have to love me back, but instead I learned that the only way to make you love me was to stop loving you altogether. It wasn’t the force of wanting but the force of not wanting anymore that called you back.

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to know me. I am afraid of dying alone without ever being known.”

“Why have you come back for the last of my pride?”

“Because it is mine, you offered it up, don’t you remember?”

“Not anymore… there is none left for me or you.”

And still I wait for you to say something meaningful, for your words to soothe my pain, for you to find that secret key that will open up my love. You just watch me squirm in the silence which grows like a cancer in the breast of the little girl you once loved. You smile to yourself because you think that you have taught me patience. Perhaps you have. I am learning to wait for the next blow with my jaw set firmly and my feet planted in the ground.

The explosions are ringing in my ears as we sit silently in the car. You drove me to watch the flames over the river, but you still said nothing to make me change my mind. I turn to go and you catch my hand in yours. Your eyes implore me but you are unable to articulate the things you want to tell me. You want me to interpret your silences like I have always done. I won’t do it anymore. I think I’ll wait for the words to come, but maybe they will come from someone else. I waited for years for Phil and his body came home wrapped in a flag. His death was as meaningful as the one-sided conversations that we used to have late into the night.

I turn to go, trailing the years of fishing net behind me. The weaving was wasted but to entangle the siren in her own snare. And you ask me, “Penelope, do you still care?”

Carless no more

M. came home this morning with the idea of buying me a car. Could it be that he is trying to hurry me off on my own? Is it an act of selfless kindness (possibly) Or, more likely, is he tired of coming and going, driving me places and dropping me off...?

Perhaps a little of all three. It seems however that the goddesses are colluding, this time in my favor. Two days ago we were (unbeknownst to me) offered a second parking spot, and M. has aquired an excellent, honest, mechanic (of which there are few in this world -or at least Santa Barbara- it would seem). Said mechanic has a friend with a car dealership in Ventura who was selling several cars for under $1000 (our max)so the two of them went to look at cars, check out motors and such, (boy things that like comics and computers hold only limited interest for me)and I am now the proud owner of a $700 leather-interior automatic BMW, in excellent condition (I had toyed with the idea of going German, but I was imagining a Jetta or something of the like)...

So the excellent new is that now I can go to the Saturday morning farmer's market and the spring break road trip north is indeed a feasibility... Now. Back to work.

More poetry (not mine)

“Camped-out super-butch” Kirsten sent along some second hand Valentine’s poetry (along with love). She wanted to know what those of us who are both the intellectual and the lover do… grand question indeed. (Gray spaces and all) I was just thinking this morning about how poetry will always get me…


The intellectual is always showing off,
the lover is always getting lost.
The intellectual runs away.
afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love
is to drown in the sea.
Intellectuals plan their repose;
lovers are ashamed to rest.
The lover is always alone.
even surrounded by people;
like water and oil, he remains apart.
The man who goes to the trouble
of giving advice to a lover
gets nothing. He's mocked by passion.
Love is like musk. It attracts attention.
Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.
(Rumi)

The question is, my dear, do we revel in the liminality of our beings, rubbing up against the gray until we break the skin? Do we give up or do we just give in? Do we renounce the unthinkable, the unlivable, solely for its impossibility? Or do we dig deeper, until our hearts are threadbare and heady, drunk on sin?

Insomnia is taking its toll

Last night I was awoken by a mistaken phone call at 1:30 and then couldn't get back to sleep. It is funny how the ringing phone can make your heart beat faster as if in some distant place in your psyche you are always waiting for some important piece of news. Because I spend most of my nights alone these days I comforted myself with the glowing blue light of my computer screen, pouring over work that needed to be done and writing that didn't need to be, as if I was waiting for another sign.

This morning it was raining and I was up at 6, finishing some work that I couldn't focus upon in the wee hours. M. came home early to drive us to school instead of loading the girl into a soaking wet bike trailer. Also, the low grade hill up to the sidewalk is killer because she gets heavier each day and my energy level is low.

I wanted to make significant headway into my project this afternoon but I felt like I was going to faint or have an aneurism (which would have put a damper on my current way of life) instead I came home and slept it off. Then I had an inordinate craving for Italian food, but seeing as how we have been spending far too much money on eating out (plus I have yet to find a worthy Italian restaurant downtown), I made food instead... It has been over a week since I actually cooked a meal, I seem to have less and less energy for the kitchen and it is usually something I love to do:(

I made pasta (how many nights of my childhood were fed this way?) cooking it with olive oil and salt and M.'s secret a split clove of garlic. Gambas al ajillo (aka shrimp scampi) and a salsa fresca using four roughly chopped tomatoes, fresh basil, several cloves of garlic, a chopped onion and several mini zuchini in rounds simmered down to a melodious melange. Topped, of course, with grated romano...

At least I will be satisfied on one front tonight. The rest, later if possible.

Musing for the day…

For the last several years, at about this time in the year, I was forcing my poor harried high school students to study the masters of Spanish art… I made them learn the names of the paintings, the dates, the media, I even made them write comparative essays in Spanish about them, as if they were in a good history of art course. We would sit in the darkness and I would prance about in front of the projected image, circling objects, gesticulating, getting excited, telling them stories. They would scribble furiously and wonder how much they would have to remember for the exams.

In essence they missed the point, or at least most of them did. I wanted to transmit the feeling of wonderment that I had experienced in front of these paintings, or to sense something outside of their own little cocoon. I told them stories about how the paintings looked hung in the Museo del Prado, or the Museo de la Reina Sofía and what it felt like to be their age wandering through the streets of Madrid, temporarily off my leash, stopping traffic, as the lecherous Guardia Civil practically fell off his horse to watch me pass. I wanted to transmit the smells of difference but the sensation of ultimate human sameness, of feeling tiny and encircled in marvels. I think our communicational chasm was too wide to bridge, but, oh, how I tried.

There was a painting by Velázquez that I loved. “Las Hilanderas” one of his last works, and in it was the coded message meant to elevate him to the status of demi-God or at least of nobility. It depicts the story of Arachne and Minerva in the moment of competition, before Arachne is smote for her challenge of the goddess. It is a weaving of stories like the golden threads of silk that fall between her hands. But within this story there is yet another, a citation of Titian’s “Rape of Europa”, a second level of meaning, or of petition to the crown for its favor. Truly fascinating, the intertextuality that springs forth from the luminescent flesh of a woman, born of the brush of a man’s imagination.

I truly miss the study of arts beyond the merely written. While my skills of discernment may be somewhat lacking, I miss the visual and sonorous worlds, and I am feeling bound by the restraints of my academic program to not spin off on a tangent. But aren’t the tangents what make life worthwhile? I will put my nose to the grindstone and accomplish what I must, but I need to find a way to spread my arms wider, to incorporate more, always more into my world. Why am I never satisfied with what I have before me?

Adoring Ani, combatting ennui

This was a different Ani than I remember, still brilliant, beautiful... still rhythmic. Less angry. Perhaps a bit more hopeful. As openly critical of the eternally expanding status quo as ever. But while everyone (gay or straight, it matters not, is bound to want to possess her the way a man posseses a woman) desires her, I saw her on a different plane than before. Perhaps I am just older and not as starry-eyed? It was a bit short, although the return to an acoustic sound made me feel aglow.

She closed the concert - pre encore - with a beautiful version of "Overlap" from _Out of Range_. accompanied by violinist Andrew Bird. She has this way of always speaking to someone, and I was glad to be there to hug Alison, as the words spoke to us all. And Mikey, she played the song you quoted me. Curious indeed.

"Overlap"
I search your profile
for a translation
i study the conversation
like a map
'cause i know there is strength
in the differences between us
and i know there is comfort
where we overlap

come here
stand in front of the light
stand still
so i can see your silhouette
i hope
you have got all night
'cause i'm not done looking,
no, i'm not done looking yet

each one of us
wants a piece of the action
you can hear it in what we say
you can see it in what we do
we negotiate with chaos
for some sense of satisfaction
if you won't give it to me
at least give me a better view

...

i build each one of my songs
out of glass
so you can see me inside them
i suppose
or you could just leave the image of me
in the background, i guess
and watch your own reflection superimposed

i build each one of my days out of hope
and i give that hope your name
and i don't know you that well
but it don't take much to tell
either you don't have the balls
or you don't feel the same

...

i search your profile for a translation
i study the conversation like a map
'cause i know there is strength
in the differences between us
and i know there is comfort
where we overlap

Watching movies

Isabella's birthday bash was a success in every way... so what if I stressed out all morning, hurrying everyone out the door to pick up the cake...

I set up the community center and M.'s insistence upon buying a case of Pacifica for the adults was admittedly a really good idea. He also insisted on buying pizza which turned out to be a good thing too, all guests seemed very happy, and the weather held out for us to let the kids play in the playground and the serendipitous valentine's day decorations made it seem like we were super organized...

I swear she is the happiest child in the world. With the arrival of every guest she was thrilled and every present was "exactly what she wanted". Now we are watching one of her presents... Ice Age... one of the more palatable animated movies and a present from one of her "grown-up girls that are friends". As is customary, most of our friends (not the New England crowd sadly) were there, partaking of the beer and pizza along with the parents that we have been getting to know after the several weekend parties... I did have to switch the pizza order to have at least one cheese pizza so Isabella's best friend could eat - she only eat's halal meat and obviously never ham or pepperoni. Isabella has this really funny habit. She only ever wants pepperoni pizza but then precedes to remove all the pepperoni and discard it. But god forbid you should give her plain pizza. I guess I am not the only neurotic one.

So, while I decompress from my three-hour catch up visit to the office Sunday (it's like a party on the fourth floor everyone is there working away...) and I got sucked into translating a letter for Juan.

So since I am half watching a movie, I thought that I would reflect on some movies that I have seen of late and failed to comment upon.

At the theater upon Laura's recommendation, we went to see
"Finding Neverland" (2004)
Directed by Marc Forster, Written by Allan Knee (play) adapted by David Magee.

I loved this movie. It was beautiful and Johnny Depp is always a pleasure to admire. How Peter pan was born. This is the one that broke my heart several weeks ago. I think, though, that the saddest part wasn't due to the movie's inherent tragedy (of which there was sufficient) but rather on my own personal interpretation.


"Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran" (2003)
Directed by François Dupeyron based on the novel by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt.
This was also a gorgeous film, the coming of age of an unwanted child and the love of a childless man. Omar Sharif played the part of the spiritual guide, a teacher in the true sense, not a moral guardian but a practitioner of faith in the way that it should always be practiced, to love and care for others.


"La pianiste" (2001)
Directed by Michael Haneke based on the novel by Elfriede Jelinek.
Prize winning performance by Isabel Huppert (who I love) aside... this movie left me feeling nauseous and deeply disturbed. Now, I can usually stomach sexual perversion, and am not bothered by voyeurs in the least, the violence with which this character unravels is overwhelming and unpleasantly so. The acting was fabulous, and perhaps this is a tragedy in the Greekest sense. The fatal flaw of the pianiste was her need to control everything, but as we wish and pray that this truly dispicable character will be redeemed in some way by love (hey, I wasn't hoping for Hollywood happy ending) that is, that we won't feel such a violent rejection of her, but it never happens. Instead she infects everything that she touches with her sickness and the scene in which she callously crushed glass and places it in her student's coat pocket so that she will slice her piano-playing hands is truly wretched. The catharsis comes (does it come?) when her lover beats and rapes her while her obsessively controlling mother listens, locked in the adjacent room, just as she had asked him to do, but not in the way she would have wanted. The movie ends with her piercing her breast and the crimson moving so slowly that she can still leave the concert hall with us behind. Beautifully filmed, amazingly acted but really awful.

So, now it's time to go back to an essay by Virginia Woolf on the question of characters (for the French translating class that we will be visiting for the next two weeks). All this so that tomorrow there will be ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE to avoid working on the Dario paper. Blah. Off I go.

Cleaned house...

In the broadest sense of the word that is. First and foremost we have spent roughly $200 on this really low-key party that I planned... but when it come to my principessa... I am just weak. Ok, so Isabella's party is not actually being held in our house, but just in case visitors should come around, I also felt the need to reorganize my closet in the wee hours of dawn. Ok. It had to be done, and after that I sent Isabella to clean her room. She did a spectacular job, although I caught her several times perusing books that had accumulated in piles around her bookshelves instead of actually cleaning. She comes by it well, I suppose.

I tried to take a picture this morning of the temporary tatoos that she made on my feet and her feet last night while I was "vaporized" for the first time in several months. Temporary release and I had all these fabulous ideas but instead of writing the stories that were coming to me (it seems almost silly to keep writing stories anyway) I ended up rereading myself for the last month. My production has slipped for obvious reasons.


We liked the doctor, despite his being a man (I say we, but the despite is really only referring to my own personal reservations). Isabella was funny, she acted shy and tried to bury her head in my chest, she was embarassed at having her privacy invaded by a man... but after was really quite brave. The nurse and the doctor were trying to talk around the fact that she needed vaccinations, referring euphemistically to the shots... cryptic communication is only useful if the interlocutor can decipher the code... but I just blurted out, 4 or 5 what? Shots? I am of the school that we should never lie to our children about pain. That is, never tell them something will not hurt when we know for a fact that it will. It is amoral and undermines their trust in us as parents and, I believe, in humanity itself. I won't be a party to that. I tell her that it will hurt but I explain the reason that the shots are necessary and that I will hold her and that the pain will pass. Our bodies forget pain quickly, it is our minds that let it fester. I don't want to fill her with fear, on the contrary, I feel that if I give her all the information she needs (within reason) she will be more able to make choices for herself as she grows, and after all, isn't that what our job as parents is?

I remember Pinna, my mother in law loving this phrase that popped out spontaneously when I was speaking to a three-year-old Isabella: "Baby your mine... No, I have you on loan until you are able to be your own" and that really is my philosophy in a nutshell. I am trying so hard to do right by this amazing little person, this gift that has found its way into my life, and who can always, always make me smile and make my heart explode with love.

Today we ordered a princess cake, far over-priced, but from a real bakery, not just the industrialized crap from the supermarkets. I made a makeshift vegetable lasagna for lunch, because we have been eating out far too much (yes we went out for Indian food again yesterday, but when you are starving from a two-hour doctor's visit, and your small person wants a treat for her bravery, how can you really say "no"?

So the real question of course is... have I gotten any work done? Well I have looked at the test... graded a few compositions, but mainly I have been organizing... I hate doing these birthday party things but it is just a rite of passage... once a year. Of course this is the first year that Caleb and Noah won't be here and that it won't be at my mom's house. Though while she and my father are in the Dominican Republic, I am indeed happy to not be on shovelling duty in miserable cold but rather letting my hand washing dry in the sun.

So, back to work would be a lie, just... to work, the noblest of endeavors.

The work week is over...

If wishes were horses... I would have a lot of horses... and then what if I wished for a horse? Would I get two? one for the wish and another for the transformation of said wish?

Perplexing. Miguel has taken up his own blog and curiously I see a different side of him. His blog is:www.lunameztli.blogspot.com if you read Spanish or you want to make the attempt, he's really quite funny.

It seems that the weeks get longer and longer and I get less and less done. I sent off my work (which I had to polish several times late into the night last night). M. overslept, that is, he fell asleep and didn't put on an alarm and we were woken by the ringing phone at 1:20, he was already twenty minutes late for work downtown and ... well it really wasn't my fault... but then I was awake and couldn't get back to sleep. Sleeping alone in such a large bed is actually quite disquieting... it's like the Joni Mitchell song "My old man" - where she has this great line that dips into a minor key... "But when he's gone, me and them lonesome blues collide... The bed's too big the frying pan's too wide." Funny how comforting the presence of another is no matter what all else is going on. I think that I am perhaps afraid of being alone. Why should I be alone? One would ask...

I'm not quite sure. I don't necessarily want to be, but part of me feels like I am failing to be a good partner and so maybe it would just be better, and I could discover who I really am. It isn't that I feel lost, per se, it's just that I am finding pieces of me that I had forgotten, and they are causing noise in my daily life.

Now... Final project for one class is already taken care of, and I have a project outlined for other class: I am going to do a comparative study of the identity formation of the adolescent male character in Josefina Vicens' novel "Los años falsos" with the adolescent female character in Poniatowska's "Flor de lis". It might not get done by the end of the quarter but that's ok with the professor. Meanwhile she gave me a good idea which is to use the undergraduate thesis as a source for snaggling various and sundry articles in Spanish but to focus my energies on bringing Vicens to light in an English language book because there are none currently extant.

So it's just the egregiously arduous paper on Darío that is haunting me. I can't even start, though I have a hand written intro that should get me going. I just need a complete and uninterrupted day, but tomorrow, my day of catch-up work will be dedicated to Isabella's five-year check-up. I can't believe it, I know her birthday has already passed (the party is this Sunday... more stress) but in some ways the annual physical is a more concrete marker for me. I still remember the first visit after the hospital to see if her blackened umbilical cord had fallen off appropriately and if she had gained back her weight (they lose a pound or two from birth as they assimilate breast milk and begin their steady upward growth). I remember the evil nurse that bloodied her fingers, as she wailed inconsolably, squeezing droplets into a pipet to gauge her blood-iron level. The mama bear instinct is greatest when they are newborns and I wanted to womp the nurse a good one, that's for sure.

Right now she is drawing amazing pictures in her diary. She has drawn an elaborate "tree dressed up as a human and two monsters" under which she has written "Noib, Mom, Dad, Isabella"...

TIme flies and at the same time it moves everlastingly slowly, dripping like honey on a single strand of hair in the sunlight. How is it that these two seemingly opposed notions of time can happily coexist in reality? Despite feeling exhausted by the week I am feeling rather content (first time ever?) with my life. I feel like I have wonderful friends in my life and I thank everyone of you (whether you read this or not, I am sending the good energy your way) that has thought of and written to me of late... You are many and I love you all. I am suddenly not plagued with fear of the unknown future stretching out before me, and am just happily taking life one day at time while keeping my eyes fixed on the prize.

Ok. Time to go watch a movie (ok, I know I should be grading my student's essays but I am going to spend time with my family instead, so there).

People are generally good...

I am avoiding work, for a few minutes but I need to decompress for a few moments. This four class thing is wupping my butt. Just trying to hold it together weekly is like band-aids upon a gushing wound.

But... some good things...

1) The Real Academia Española, the great Institution of Hispanic culture has accepted as a valid term "Matrimonio" when referring to either hetero or homosexual unions. Go RAE! It's just the f'ing puritanical bushwacking petrol bastards that are clinging to a bigoted tradition of privilege.

2) I spoke with author of play... and while a translation exists, it was never published (several years old) and she asked to see my work, encouraging me to continue my project... (Now I just have to be absolutely brilliant...)

3) First couples counseling... painful and hard but positive and a good step towards familial bliss... no? At least we can learn to be kinder to one another.

Ok. Pathetic showing indeed, but work and real life are absorbing all my time!

More movie reviews

http://imdb.com/title/tt0379917/usercomments-1

Otra vuelta (2003)
Santiago Paravecino
Argentina

This feature length black and white film is a slow moving, contemplative attempt at neo-symbolism. I say attempt, it is more like a nine tenths succesful film. It was billed as director's first (feature length?) but apparently it was not his first film.

This is a thinly veiled meta-referential piece whose name: "otra vuelta" can be read on multiple levels. On a first level, it refers to the return to the director (cleverly renamed with the same initials) to his hometown of Chacabuco. On a second level, it refers to his addressing the making of a film based on a story by Haroldo Conti, (also of Chacabuco and dissappeared, it would seem, in 1976) called "La noche perfumada" whose validity as subject matter is questioned throughout the film by the protagonists various interlocutors. Curiously "Los perfumes de la noche" was a medio-metraje (mid-length film) made in 2002 based on a play by the very same Haroldo Conti and adapted by Santiago Paravecino. In this way the second time around is the return to the subject matter of his previous film. On a third level it can be read as Paravecino's (or his incarnate film double's) following the geographical path of the author Conti, home. And lastly it can be read in the echoing parallels between the story of "La noche perfumada" and the end of the life of his friend who recently committed suicide.

Visually stunning, there is a relatively strong rope of intertwined stories reducing memories to the plane of the ephemeral, reducing art to shreds that explode in the night, but perhaps a few too many loose threads for the film to realize its maximum potential.

Cites the left-behind lover of the recently deceased: "At the end, after it is all over, there are no more images left, only words... or was it the other way around?"

As is usual

someone as already said it better and felt it more fiercely than I...

sigh.

My Ani hiatus has been far too long, it coincides, almost perfectly, with my self-silenced voice. What was I afraid of? Unleashing the monster of my true feelings, exposing them like a naked wire ready to spark at the lightest touch, grating metal slicing fireworks into the night?

I think I was afraid of confronting my dissatisfaction. Or of confronting the reality of my unhappiness. Afraid that in five years the anger would have gone away and then I would be left with the guilt for having felt the things that I did.

Five years have passed. Yup! the anger's still there (I checked) so I guess the self-imposed censure was unwarranted after all. Oh yeah, the guilt is still there, but I am trying to teach it to metamorphose into something more productive.

Why can't I write this without the tears welling up in my eyes? Well I am ready to embrace the angry womanhood, and join the ranks of the righteous babes once again... and yet... this is how I am feeling, trying to reconcile what I know is true with what I have to do, what I dread with what I need, but no more silence, not from myself, anyhow.

Says Ani DiFranco:

i think i'm done gunnin to get closer
to some imagined bliss
i gotta knuckle down
and just be ok with this
i'm gonna knuckle down
just be ok with this
'course that star struck girl is already someone i miss

Says me:

Amen to that sister, self deception is sometimes the only way to go.

SBIFF

Being sick forced me to abandon plans of productivity and relinquish control of my day to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Two negative points. Poor organization and pretentious, obnoxious, self-involved “film buffs” with dubious skills of discernment and no real criteria abound.

That said, film festivals are always a good time, though I wish I could have gone to see some shorts (one of my favorite genres and sadly, like short stories, highly unmarketable and therefore hard to view in any format – much less on the big screen)

So waiting an hour in the inclement sun, feeling woozy but determined to maintain consciousness we went to see:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0362518/usercomments-1

Corazón de Jesús (2004) the third film by Bolivian director Marcos Loayza. I admit lack of familiarity with Bolivian film, although it seems that Loayza studied at Cuban film workshop (whose name eludes me) whose sole goal was to inspire a group of young filmmakers from all over Latin America to return to their countries and found “national canons”. Indeed.

There were moments of hilarity as elements common to many countries whose economic development is stifled by the long arms of bureaucracy, the “mordidas” as Jesús, who works at the ministry of finance accepts willingly; the random shuffling of papers that can change the course of a life, the inefficiency of hospitals, the frustration in dealing with insurance companies.

In many ways this was an excellent film: it doesn’t moralize, in fact, the protagonist (with whom we identify profoundly) has only dubious moral standards: he is a victim of a society that requires situational ethics, but rather elicits, in laughter, an examination of the Institutions that bind and destroy the average person. The imagery, while not shying away from the realities of “La Paz” which include heart-breaking poverty, does not fixate on these elements. This is not a movie of social decadence or denouncement. Thank God.

However, the film’s absolute downfall was its attempt to divide, in chapters, with epigraph-like interludes by a less-than-talented trovador. There was no coherence beyond the poorly sung and repetitive lyrics whose tangential relationship to the themes was extraneous at best, distracting and painfully annoying at worst. The first interlude with the staged singer is bearable, the second leads the viewer to believe that there will be a cleverly worked meshing of realities that will neatly tie the intertwining stories together. By the third the viewer realizes that there is no intention of reconciling these two unrelated spheres and there is a sense of dread as we are forced to listen to the monotonous and imitative voice several more times throughout.

The end of the story is extremely clever but the movie ultimately fails because it closes with the camera fixing on the tomb (for far too long), not of a known character, but of an unrelated, unknown personage, whose pertinence to the story is non-existent. It doesn’t close with an air of mystery, but rather leaves the viewer thinking: what was he smoking and why did I waste my time?

Here the overall value of the film isn’t greater than the sum of its parts but rather lesser for the sum of its parts. That said, if you can ignore the bad performance (someone’s friend or lover?) the rest was quite enjoyable.

Cutie Honey
Japan (2004)
Hideaki Anno
Based on cartoon by Go Nagai

For someone who finds practically no interest in cartoons, and much less Animé this was actually a good time. Super cute actors and actresses in hyper-kitsch Japanese pop-culture saving the world by use of computer-aided reconfiguring of the human being. Isabella, who clearly cannot read subtitles was as able to follow the plot as one who could, as the words were mostly trivial and unnecessary. The point was, of course, to see the power of love. The triptych that laid itself before our eyes in super-sexy splendor had a deeper thrust which was (despite the campy power-rangers pokemonesque – as Isabella pointed out- action) that to work out of hate will leave you empty but to work out of love, to breach the limits of corporate alienation imposed on the über-developed countries of this world, and to find companionship in others is the ultimate path to fulfillment.

Definitely worth the 4 bucks at the Isla Vista theater, especially because of the audience participation and the permission to laugh at the absurdity of the very well portrayed Japanese pop culture, including evil-doers whose weapon was a karaoke microphone.

Not high art, but who doesn’t enjoy a super honey super hero once in a while.

too tired to think of clever title

Does it happen to you that the more utterly exhausted you feel the more elusive sleep becomes? Granted, it is only 9 pm, but I feel absolutley wasted, unable to articulate cogent arguments or even reason at all.

I have been feeling a bit unwell, nothing too exciting, nor even cathartic, just a general malaise that leaves me tenuously hanging, waiting for the other shoe to drop, to actually become so sick as to confront it in some real way. Instead I am just sleeping poorly, and drinking too much caffeine, which leaves me shaky and uncertain if a stomach bug is lingering or I am just feeding my body poorly. I almost wish I were sick, I mean really sick, so sick that I could not be held responsible for my own care. That would be liberating for a few days, but I am sure it would get old...

Back at my last check up I was anemic, and though Miguel bought me vitamins, I am a poor patient, never lasting more than a few days ingesting anything other than actual food. And as I have mentioned but failed to remedy, I often forget even to eat these days (hence a logical explanation of general malaise) I would have been a horrible birth control pill taker, because I can't ever remember even to take antibiotics regularly... although, come to think of it, California has been doing wonders for my chronic allergic rhinitis... Sexy non?

Who needs to feel sexy when you've got so much work that you can never imagine the end of it? Not me, certainly.

Funny story today, as I sat in the sun reading between classes. I was preparing to leave when an attractive woman approached me purposefully: "Can I ask you a question?" Well, I didn't point out that she already had, and I looked up, in my busiest aloofly disinterested tone. "Um... I guess." "Where do you get your hair cut?" Very strange question. As hair is my best feature and I was having a "good hair day" I can only imagine that my sun-bleached mane called her to me, because she had made a bee-line directly to me with several other tables equally occupied by others... "Actually, I reply, both truthfully and surprisingly to her (she had to change her tactic on a dime) my husband cut it in the shower with kitchen scissors"

Quick thinker that she was, "well then maybe you will need this..." she proceeded to try and sell me a package of four visits to the salon... ha... if she only knew how little I care and how unwilling to spend any money *whatsoever* on beauty and primping... I kindly explained my status as poor graduate student, not that she didn't try to make me see the economy of her deal... I just wasn't having it. I definitely believe in natural beauty and nothing more, nourished by the sun and good excercise and devilish thoughts on occasion. Oh, and comfortable clothing, the truest key to beauty if there ever was one.

After my class on women writers I was feeling overwhelmed with work once again and the desire to cry was welling up inside me. The sadness is not really a sadness, that is a misnomer, it is a desolation a loneliness that springs from within, a sort of self-isolation, in the sense of an isolation from oneself... my own happiness will always be a mystery to me.

The doubt that surrounds my daily activity isn't so much destabilizing as it is debilitating. I ride by the mountains and I contemplate the crisp beauty that they paint across the bright blue, I smile almost against myself at the palms that bend, individually craning their long necks towards something better. The birds of paradise in their prickly mystery call to me, obliging a closer examination of their pistils and stamens, the patterns that overlay in their precise formation. And still there is a heaviness, a wish for the embrace that will release instead of bind.

I rode the man-bike to school today because it is connected to the new bike-trailer. I still don't change gears but I have found a comfortable middle-ground. Isabella likes the ride to school and it is so much faster than having to hurry her along or perch her precariously on the seat and let her lean against me as I wheel the bicycle up the path. I rode home in darkness with no helmet or bike light, but the flashing one on the back. It is the second day in a row that there is a strange sort of thermic inversion that trails patches of balmy and frigid air, especially noteable while riding beneath the underpasses. It is a strange phenomenon, much like the spots of unexpectedly warm water in the ocean that leave you wondering if maybe someone didn't just pee in that very spot. It is an enigma as to how air currents or water currents function, swirling in chaotic patterns, much like the human psyche, strange combinations, sometimes churning up a deeply chilling revelation and at others a spreading warmth. And the writing is the only way to call the chaos back into order. There is always the fear, in the ocean, of sharks, that menstrual blood, unexpected or insufficiently blocked might call to the animals from miles away, inviting them to tear at your flesh in the icy turbulence. Perhaps that is just me.

The writing helps, it releases some of the pressure. There are some stories that I want to tell, but I promised myself that I wouldn't tell them until I finish this monstrosity of a paper. Let's see if I can resist. I am also being called back to the ocean at Miramar, the long days spent listening to Joni Mitchell, writing in my diary on the lonely beach, being followed by packs of scruffy yellow mutts that commanded control of the entire shoreline, in their little gangs, sometimes snarling over food or just eliciting caresses. I remember the white dog with bi-colored eyes whose gaze seemed so intelligent and so present.

I have been thinking on this idea of "presence" hinany... (sp?) to show up and make your presence be an act unto itself. At times it seems that is the only thing I can do, be present, meet every requirement set before me as if my life were an eternal obstacle course that had some divine meaning or was some divine joke being played out so slowly that the humor was lost.

Sigh.

I hope to go to a film tomorrow despite the fact that I should be working on aforementioned project. I better not jinx myself. I am going to services with a friend for her father's yarzheit. It seemed a good enough reason to go, not so much for the religion of it (which frankly, you can guess how I feel about that) but precisely to make an act of presence, to be a friend in the memory of her loss. Maybe the numbing qualities of communal incantations will be relaxing for me, and I won't feel so nervous.

On other notes, we are singing some really beautiful music, the loveliest is about a wayfaring stranger, and the melodic "I'm only going over Jordan, I'm only going over home" rolling like the lapping of the ocean against the sides of the boat that is collectively rocking with the swells of the world and the swells of my heart, the growing and the loss, the searching and the emptiness and the confrontation of a reality alternative to the one that I created.

You have palm trees and we have fried pickles...

Says Mike, my newest reader and fan. He is currently living in the deep south and I get to watch his saga unfold, we've been separated for at least four years now, and more if you count me being a negligent friend while off at college and involved in all-consuming "relationship" etc. etc.

Ok. so what if he is my _only_ reader and fan, at least someone loves me, right? Actually, several people love me and do read my mental wanderings if only once in a while.

Back to the idea of being known to others. What is it that makes us, as humans, seek community? There is the constant tendency to isolate oneself, to shut off and become an island unto oneself, and then the tug to find a community in your own isolation.

These days I am too busy to be either isolated or a good member of any community, and I will make a blanket apology to all friends who have been much better at friending than I, I can't seem to organize my thoughts towards others in a meaningful and productive manner. Too many hoops being jumped through. I gave a presentation today, and though I was nervous, being tied up in knots before, when I began, (it is a class of 3, but the profesor is the one who sets my nerves on edge) there was a pleasant unraveling, not in the negative sense of the word, but rather an unfolding of a cohesive and articulate argument that I had no idea was mine until it began itself... I wasn't a complete moron after all, even if I often feel that way. Commenting with my singing buddy, Barbara, why is it that we as women have to be twice as good to be considered competent? Will this inequity ever be ameliorated? I have my duvidas...

Now, learning languages, that's fun, and Portuguese is so similar that it is more about learning differences than actually learning a new language. It is curious to think about how others conceive of their world, language being a map to the collective mind of not only an individual but a culture.

Next will be French, and perhaps Italian after that, though it seems like a waste of good energy seeing as how it is a relatively useless language (for me) also thinking on the economy of post-colonial politics... there just aren't that many places where they speak Italian because as a culture they failed (or weren't interested? couldn't get their shit together?) to spread their empires in the modern world... Now some could pat themselves on the back for this, but anyway, French and Spanish, and even Portuguese (to a lesser degree) are spoken in many more countries in places whose history is fraught with conflict and strange sex/ race politics... so naturally I am attracted to them. So, in the spirit of prioritizing, which is what I have been doing (hence being a bad friend because personal communication has been displaced to a back burner, along with cooking good meals and eating, for that matter) the effort/ reward ratio is much higher on the other languages, so they necessarily win. For now. Who is to say that at another time there may not be extenuating circumstances or factors not previously considered in the equation and at such time, there will be a reassessment and a re-prioritization.

Right now, that's how I see it.