jueves, marzo 31, 2005

Symphony in white (or variations on a theme)

I. declares that with her meal she would like mashed potatoes beacause "they are white and delicious". I have a good laugh, and then this lightbulb flashes on in my brain, as bright white as any in a good old-fashioned cartoon. Today's thoughts have revolved around the idea of whiteness.

Now, I realize that this may be a taboo topic and perhaps that is precisely why I am adressing it. If I can't be politically incorrect within my own mind-sphere, where the hell can I be myself?!

On that thought, before I delve into the milky white depths of the blank screen, I must digress. Last night between the reporting on the rape of a 10-year-old girl by two late teens, and the tragic teen-driver killing unsuspecting Disney-land going family there was a little blurb about a student breaking into our "ultra-secure" university server and changing grades. Funny thing about the ease with which one can reset passwords and such... hmmm. Maybe there will be better security measures in the future? Imagine life in which identities could not be stolen... Where would that leave us, I wonder.

But I digress more than should be truly acceptable.

On whiteness:

Thought one: Sexuality, desire and what turns us on.
So, in Portuguese class today we examined several web-posted photos of American (and yes, also white) students on their trips to Brazil. We were asked to reflect on social differences, the most prominent one was the men's love of speedo bikinis. I personally find this to be quite unattractive, and not because of prudishness (although I have all these weird issues that pop up at the most unexpected of times, but we won't talk about those today), rather, men with nice chests and legs would be much better suited to either just plain nudity, or better, slightly loose slacks, that just hint at the prize underneath. But hey, that's just me. What I was really thinking about is this: how much of our sexual "deviance" or our personal tastes are dictated by our culture and how much are just personal?

The weather has lent itself to biking in skirts, and pheromones must be flying fiercely through the spring air, because the other day, as I was riding home, (and actually all day because it was windy)my skirt kept flying up. Now, nothing is visible when you are sitting and pedalling, but thighs, which are seen on a regular basis in other circumstances. But there is something irresistably inviting, it would seem, about sneaking a peek at that to which we are not supposed to have access. Therein lies the pleasure of a voyeur. In any case, I was shocked and amused at the whistling passerby's not because they whistled (I still do get the occasional piropo, even if I am not as cute as I once was) but because they were WHITE and they were college-age boys. White men, at least those under, say, thirty, never like me, it is just a rule of law, I have always had much more success with Hispanic, Black and Mediterranean men, and not so much East Asians but more South East Asians. It makes you wonder what it is that you possess that actracts one entire group of people and fails to attract entire other groups.

K. was discussing the Brazilian aesthetic: big booty, tiny tits (or at least thoroughly unimportant), and I was struck by the inherent constructedness of this collective taste. Why should that be attractive in one culture and not in another, and how do you explain the persistence of those same tastes in people removed from the prescriptive cultural setting? A mystery. Now in this country, bastion of powerful white men that it is, it seems that the prevailing taste is for women that look like barely post-pubescent teens, which explains why I had very few white boyfriends after age 13 (that and I scared the pants of them, quite literally;). Is it a question of power? Is it just a cultural lack of sensuality? What is it, I really would like to hear a good answer.

And what about fetishes? Skin color? Ears? Feet? Breasts? Necks? Asses? Armpits? Anuses? What makes these things particularly attractive to one person and not another, and is it a question of genetic programming, culture or a combination of the two?

What about those of us that, as with food, like to try just about anything, and find very few things that we don't like? Is that another fatal flaw? No answers? No? No one to even talk about these things.

Thought two: Mistrust of the anglo
So the other only somewhat tangentially related thought that falls under the rubric of whiteness is this strange cultural rift here in southern California that divides the Hispanic population from the Anglos. Now don't get me started on this whole stupid "Minute Man" mierda, because it deserves a rant of its own, but the idea of thousands of white guys with guns rushing the Arizona border, under the auspices of the US government, with a desire to "protect and defend" does not bode well for those of us who actually hope for peace sometime in the next century. M. was talking about how at the shelter the Mexicans all think he is crazy for talking to the white hippie-esque woman. "what do you want with her?" They wonder quietly, or not so, among themselves. They also, undoubtedly, think him mad to be married to a white woman, and there, they might be right, but not because of the skin color. Back in the Northeast the same incredulous, "you're married to a white woman? What you thinkin' man?" came from the Dominican population. "Dude, they ugly, what you want with them? There ain't no flesh to hold on to..."

Here the Hispanic population does not trust the anglos, and rightly so, when every few years there are sweeping throngs of xenophobic outlashes, before the whites remember that "oh yeah, we don't want to do these jobs for shit wages..." and they conveniently "forget" to ascertain document validity. This latest trend has just begun and may indeed have been sparked by an anti-American manifestation after a futbol match in D.F. where the US lost and the ruffian crowds chanted "up with Bin Laden" or things of the sort. Just goes to show that crass stupidity is an equal opportunity disease. But in any case, gleefully hunting down people who are already living in fear while providing major services to the citizens of this country can't possibly act in favor of national "security". All it can do is breed more hatred and incomprehension, which is, it seems, exactly the goal of this administration so that it can come in and establish fascist order with no one left to question the validity of the discourse.

I say the only terrorists that we have to revile and fear are the whitest of white men. White is the new black... no longer the color of death only in Asia, but all over the world.

Why am I not surprised?

I was checking my work email just the other day, and in a mass mailing, a professor included his blog at the end, with a link. Now if that isn't an invitation to spy, I don't know what is. So of course I went and looked. Nothing terribly mind-shattering, but some lovely photos of European sidestreets and some interesting stories too. Linked to this page was, however, another blog, and to that, yet another. All relatively tame (at least what I saw) but the truly amusing thing was that this particular man (well into his fifties) had significant identifying information, but on his profile claimed to be 37. I almost choked. What vanity? Why would someone misrepresent themselves in such a facile way, I wonder? Of course it may be to live out a fantasy of what it was like to be young, or to drum up the interest of some foolish young girl (or boy?) who might otherwise ignore his work, or be unwilling to share their own, on unjust grounds of ageism.

What is in a few years in the collective imagination? And if you are going to lie, why not go all the way and BE someone else? That answer is perhaps obvious, one's vanity does not permit one to go fully unrecognized, just in case possibility arises, a small dishonesty is easier to smooth over than a large one.

The good thing is, however, that I am ultimately reminded that we should all do more research before investing in lies, and when one enters into a pact, it should be done with full disclosure.

miércoles, marzo 30, 2005

I was planning...

This uplifting happy post about the wonders of springtime and all that is good in the world, but ummmm... I don't really feel like being all gushy and whatnot.

I don't feel as happy as I should which makes me feel guilty for not better appreciating everything that I have, as opposed to everything that I do not. I don't work that way. This blog should really be named "pessimistic tendencies" because my need to wander is really a product of eternal dissatisfaction with what I have/am/feel. I recall being accused of pessimism as a young child and feeling frustrated beyond belief because my only response (one of negation) was proof only of my inherent contrariness and negativity. I never could win.

I still can't. I have been being really productive of late, setting goals for myself, meeting them, setting limits for myself, meeting them. Why then does this inner turmoil not subside? Where is the carefree girl I never was?

I. is still happily chattering about, and yet every day I fear that I will ruin her. She has been crying when I drop her off in the morning, she just wants me to stay a little while longer, and I ultimately fail because of my need to meet all other external responsibilities. I called home, leaving the office after a work-filled day, and she answered, wailing because I wasn't there yet. Now, I am fully aware that this form of tyranny will go only as far as I let it, which is not very, but these bouts of melancholy that I have myself... could they be affecting her more than I realize? Maybe everything that I think I am doing right, I am really doing wrong.

I am apprised of my many shortcomings, my own narcissism, my propensity for histrionics, my fear of failure and my inherent weakness, oh yes, and my inability to master my genetic (M. insists, and I am sure he is right) inclination towards obsessive-compulsive behaviors. You know, it really is a wonder that one can function at all being so fucked up... life seems a big charade in which we fool one another about our true natures just long enough to embroil ourselves in other's lives, to create intertwining chords of dependency, that simultaneously bind us together and rip us apart.

And then, nothing makes sense anymore. But does it make sense any less? Probably not, but today the not knowing just hurts a little more than usual. And so does my throat. Damn allergies... what am I complaining about when my own fucking country is contaminating with radioactive warheads the future of entire civilizations? But I can't even make productive effort towards that either. It is amazing how quickly the sails can deflate when someone that you admire shoots you down. Among other things, I am having that experience with a professoressa whose contempt for me is only thinly veiled, as she implies that everything out of my mouth or within my brain is just American mèrde, tinged with godawful feminist rhetoric in a judgmental package. Ah well, what can one do but close one's mouth and mind and not let them in?

lunes, marzo 28, 2005

Just me...


Just me...
Originally uploaded by lunita.

My current state of existence... looking back in at me.

Trackback


Trackback
Originally uploaded by lunita.

headed home

Waiting for...go-go


Waiting for...go-go
Originally uploaded by lunita.

There seems to be a theme developing

walking on water


walking on water
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Rock City


Rock City
Originally uploaded by lunita.

We built this city on Rocks and ummm rocks?

Reading rainbows


Reading rainbows
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Baby and B.

domingo, marzo 27, 2005

Girls on the run

Babofilia

I. and I took the pacific railway north after deleterious car demons made it impossible to safely travel alone, and frankly, despite the extra hours, it was far more enjoyable than driving myself with her strapped tightly behind.

After accommodating our few belongings in the overhead bin, we settled into a comfortable arrangement, lifting the foot rests, and reclining our seatbacks. The man sitting next to us with heavy black boots and distinctive arm tattoos looked familiar, but I observed , snatching glances only out of the corner of my eye. He pulled out his notebook and began writing, I asked I. what work I should do first: the reading or the writing. She proposed reading, and when asked if I should do the fun reading or the not fun reading she insisted that I do the fun reading (also necessary) and so I acquiesced to her plan. Meanwhile she “read” Dr. Seusss and drew pictures and stamped in her rubber stamp kit, while I read a play.

After a short while she became bored and discovered a little boy her age, Luis Alejandro, several seats back. When his mother passed I asked her if I. could introduce herself, and instantaneously they were inseparable friends. “Mommy, guess what? He’s from Tijuana!!! We went to Tijuana!!!” They spoke Spanish all afternoon, and I. was unhindered by her lacking vocabulary, both of them communicating through sounds and gestures to describe all the stories that they wanted to tell each other. He was, it would seem, as much of a Scooby Doo aficionado as she, and he rivaled her in sociability and chatter as no one I have ever met. Dangerous thoughts were sparked, that is, that inner roar for a boychild of one’s own… I have always been thoroughly happy with just a girl, but this pequeñín was so endearing and bright, and so full of promise for the male half of the species that it created a desire in me to have my own to coddle and form. Ah well. Not now, maybe not ever. I. was invited to watch a movie with him and his little sister Paolina, and I was able to write several mini-sections of a story, brandishing Lucy for the world to see.

I splurged on the endeavor and took little I. to dine in the dining car, as we watched the mid-California landscape pass slowly as if in a parade before our eyes. And after dinner Alejandro and she snuggled in for a reading of the Sneetches and Other Stories. Alex said it was ok if it was in English because he was learning in school and he listened attentively commenting on the pictures and telling us stories about his friend Angélica. I. got excited because her Daddy’s name is also Ángel, and they took it from there, bouncing off all sorts of anecdotes about the time she slammed into the stairs and had to go to the hospital to when his friend Armando was knocked over by a forceful frisbee. It is amazing the power of storytelling, and how at such a young age children begin to learn that human interaction is ultimately based on such stories. Of course it helped that they had a common language, but I am sure that even in its absence they would have found a way to involve one another in their narratives. Alejandro’s father took the children down to the play area in the car in front of us, and Craig, and I introduced ourselves. Yes, he said, I was familiar to him, too. He was sure he met me when bartending. Indeed he did. A bartending writer, how exciting.. His move to San Francisco has been fruitful, he said, and he has been writing full time. Lucky man. He gave me some tips and the name of his publisher who, it seems, does not require a literary agent to consider manuscripts. Good information to file away for future reference. His seatmate, Dustin, was a newly unemployed 30-something civil engineer who pumped me for details on different countries where he could go to learn Spanish, and where the political and economic climate would be most favorable to him… ok, that part was my addition, he just wanted to know about partying, I think. The hours stretched on and on…

The trains do not run on time, and while fascism seems to be overrunning our country, a timely train is not this government’s priority (perhaps because it doesn’t pose the massive consumption of unrenewable fossil fuels?).

Finally, Becca was waiting for us at the station, and Kirsten back at her house. The babe was fast asleep in the back seat by the time we were at the house and it was girls, girls, girls for the rest of the night, catching up on the details that escape our sporadic phone conversations.

Mount Diablo

We set out on a quest for wildflower heaven (I myself desirous of a poppy-filled field). Upon entering the park, however the ranger suggested that children enjoy “rock city” and I. became singularly obsessed, and after visiting the summit we descended to picnic among the stones. A selection of dried fruit and nuts, apples and kiwis, multiple semi-dry artisan cheeses, and crackers spread themselves before us, and after we explored the ridge. Walking in the wild with scientists is always a treat because when I. asks what the different flowers and tracks are, she gets more than a mere speculation.

After basking in the sun for several hours and looking in vain for more than a smattering of wildflowers (including lovely clusters of lupine and aromatic grey sage), we went to assuage Becca’s 4pm chocolate craving and we delved into another discussion of the finer points of human relation (no, no solution to the problem of World Peace or the common couple).

Finally after a failed attempt at swimming (the water was far too cold and the baby swam across the pool howling before she decided that a warm bath was a reasonable alternative), we went down to Berkeley for a late dinner at Bosphorous, a Turkish restaurant whose décor was certainly outshined by its cuisine. Although, come to think of it, the cozy little candelit booth towards the back was an intimate space in which to share stories, and share we did as I.;s second weekend obsession was us telling stories about when we were little girls and we got in trouble (guilty conscience, mais oui!) I told her about the time Ari (age 6 ½ ) took me (age 4) by the hand and we escaped our parents in the Parque Güell hiding for over thirty minutes on the upper level when we had been playing hide and seek among the pillars on the lower one. Kirsten shared a story of torching the toaster with an icecream concoction under the not-so-watchful eye of a nanny, and Becca about playing with an abandoned strip of telephone cable in the backyard no-man’s-land, and whipping herself in the eye, scratching her cornea. But no matter how many stories we told, she just kept asking for more. Upon return I meant to only nuzzle with the girl until she fell asleep, but was overwhelmed by my own lack of sleep and didn’t rise until morning. (A well needed rest.)

Vacation accomplished

The practically unmanageable and unmangiable banana from the train ride was converted, in a group effort, spearheaded by Kirsten, into a lovely walnut, chocolate and wholegrain bread, which incidentally is accompanying us on the train ride home. We headed downtown to the embarcadero where we had at “Mijita” marvelous fish tacos, queso fundido, a bottle of wine, and thou… errr. No. Kirsten bought another amazing selection of cheeses from the stand inside and we had cheese, fruit and hand made corn tortillas for dessert. Kirsten left to meet Spring and Maggie at a Japanese tool shop and Becca and I wandered with little I. towards the Yerba Buena Gardens. We were distracted by the Comic Museum and explored its walls until closing. I must say, I am learning to appreciate the genre just a little bit more. We mused over our lack of directed activity, wondering if just a little extra testosterone wouldn’t make us more “productive”. We outlined our day and decided that we had indeed been more than productive in a vacation sense. We played together in yet another fountain and then headed for lovely Thai treats (coconut lemongrass chicken soup, pad thai, satay, the staples) with Kirsten, Spring and Maggie (who I had never met, but heard much about). They were headed downtown for a burlesque show (sigh… times like these make me wish I had a more exciting wardrobe and a portable nanny). Becca so kindly spent the rest of the evening with me, although we were bad and got sucked into our computers for an hour instead of interacting with one another. She drove us to the San José station this morning.

Reflecting once again, what can we get in life from our friends and how much do we really need to rely on a single partner model. Still no answers, just more questions. But I suppose that is what this game is all about. So the return train ride was everlasting (13 hours from door to door with I.' interminable obsession with the Easter Bunny and why it doesn't come to our house) but I began watching Intimate Strangers on the way home (ran out of batteries – am finishing now) and was left feeling like my life is an extremely unoriginal script. Add to that, returning to La hija del caníbal by Rosa Montero, whose laugh-out-loud insight into human foibles and the trials and tribulations of the impending doom of the aging process had me snickering inappropriately to myself for the last leg of the journey.

Once again in SB, I. insisted on Indian, as chicken tikka masala was the only dish that could sate her hungry palate. Und so… here I am again, no longer hungry, nor ill, rested, relaxed and enjoyed ;) ready to begin classes once more and a bit curious as to what the renewal will bring. The up note is… I know where and when I am teaching tomorrow, I just need to know what.

jueves, marzo 24, 2005

Hope reigns eternal

Thinking about grass roots activism for a person who is, on one hand trained to challenge everything, and on the other, at heart, extremely non-confrontational, presents a conundrum.

I've been trying to deal with this paradox in myself, indeed this oxymoronic state that leaves some of the most qualified people with their hands bound behind their backs...

As students and teachers how can we make a difference, seeing that we already know that this war is just plain wrong, and we have known it since long before it started...

This article proposes an interesting take on our role as educators... Ok, so I am not ready to throw my body down in front of tanks or take tear gas in the face... maybe that makes me a hypocrite (or just a mother). But maybe, just maybe, there are other ways to get things done.

And it is true, that these children that are being agressively recruited into the military are generally those with the fewest alternatives for higher education or upward mobility. Perhaps military is just another face of the world's oldest profession, prostitution of one's body (and lamentably sometimes mind) for lack of recourse.

With renewed faith in my profession, I am headed back to the classroom next week without fear of reprisal for expressing my beliefs. After all, what is job security when we compare our luck to those in, say, Fallujah?

miércoles, marzo 23, 2005

Life imitates art


Life imitates art
Originally uploaded by lunita.

A girl on a mission.

Fountains


Fountains
Originally uploaded by lunita.

A few weeks ago in San Luis Obispo (del otro lado)

More fountains


More fountains
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Dangerous currents


Dangerous currents
Originally uploaded by lunita.

I wonder why they don't also post, "dangerous assholes on the other side"?

El monte


El monte
Originally uploaded by lunita.

This felt somewhat like driving through the hills in Morelos, on your way to Tepotzlán. These were decidedly not the mansions scattered about to entice foreign buyers, but lovely just the same in its work-in-progress state.

Pacific


Pacific
Originally uploaded by lunita.

La bufadora


La bufadora
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Bufar... thar she blows...

Perros de la calle


Perros de la calle
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Dogs of the street are dogs of my heart... Too bad we couldn't save the kitten that poked its tiny head out of the drain pipe and courted us so shamelessly.

A cycle of waves


A cycle of waves
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Peace?

A plan is hatched


A plan is hatched
Originally uploaded by lunita.

This one speaks for itself.

Guns anyone?


Guns anyone?
Originally uploaded by lunita.

I mean, they must be offering something in return, ¿no?

La bola


La bola
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Cultura californiana...

Operación guardián


Operación guardián
Originally uploaded by lunita.

A testament to the lives lost in the name of economic progress on one hand and its shadowy antithesis... patriotic militaristic fervor and xenophobia.

sábado, marzo 19, 2005

Mission accomplished

Didn't think I could do it? Well, neither did I, but because I am physically hard-wired to fail no one but myself, I finished last paper, all 23 pages of it, at 11:30, and emailed it to professor in Mexico before midnight California time. She is three to four hours ahead of me, but my responsibility was to finish on March 18, which I officially did. So there. Considering I finished reading the book on Tuesday evening (well behind schedule, damn those pesky lists that serve no purpose but to make me feel guiltier) and having taken Wednesday as a personal day at home and going out to dinner with professor and classmates Thursday... Not bad...

Today was a bad day though, well, not because anything bad happened, indeed the rain made it actually bearable to be cooped up in the house, but because I didn't go to my office, I couldn't stay focused. The up side of this is that I had no need for compulsory dressing rituals, and instead wandered around the house in a t-shirt and fuzzy socks, while I. followed me, promising to be silent but pestering me in her beguiling manner for silly little things like food, toilet paper, a hand to wipe her... Then I was forced to do the dishes several times, and cook the evening meal. She actually fell asleep around 10 curled in my lap after asking if she could just sit there and watch me work. (Sigh, I am so darn smitten with my child I don't know what to do with myself)

We were both sick this morning, so going to school would have been a bad idea, and I should really be sleeping now, except, well, I can't. Too wound up, I suppose. M., before he left, was watching a really cheezy Spanish flick, which had some promise because of cuteness of actors and actresses whose characters were all embroiled in illicit mismatches, but was ruined by horrible need to include musical numbers. Let's leave Bollywood to those who can pull it off, shall we?

We did watch María Full of Grace the other day. Fabulous film. Solidly acted and believable. Meanwhile, little miss monkey has been watching The Neverending Story over and over again. Jeff, why do I have memories of you going "they looked like good strong hands" ? I've been thinking on how great those 80's fantasy films were in all their mechanincal-puppet-effects glory. We watched Labrynth a couple of weeks ago(and who doesn't love David Bowie in sparkly silver paint and skin-tight pleather?) It seems that a whole slew of movies from our collective youth are being remade, but somehow I just can't stomach such waste... and it just wouldn't be the same.

Ok, so over the next few days I am going to let the creative juices flow from wherever it is those juices come...And then I'll be back. I hope.

viernes, marzo 18, 2005

Los años falsos

Este vivir no es vivir,
es tan sólo un existir
sin lo que el vivir reclama:
el hoy, el aquí, el mañana.
Vivo a distancia de tí,
de tu voz, de tu presencia,
y por esta cruel ausencia
vivo a distancia de mí.
Vivir así, de esta suerte,
no sé si es vida o es muerte.

--Josefina Vicens (Luis Alfonso, frente a la tumba de su padre/doble)

Phony

And so, as my deadline draws near and I have roughly one hour for each point I want to make (I can write a few paragraphs per hour, n'est pas?) my need to do something different for five minutes has manifested itself. I have made a deal with myself to not mention the "p" word as it has grown awfully trite, but needless to say, I am working my way steadily down the list.

I am having the end of quarter body falling apart issue (tonsil-less though recreating absent parts much like predatory animals will morph their tissues in such a way as to blend with prey... or not?)

I have several pending things to write, all of which are on hiatus until I get this puppy out of me and onto the virtual page, but I was distracted enough to find this fascinating article that harkens to the one you posted, Jenny, which leads me to this rant about my cell-phone crisis (you know you are under duress when a non-confrontational altercation with salesman makes you go cry in the car for the duration of the drive home).

Any of you who had ATT as a wireless carrier may have been lulled into a sense of comfort, despite Cingular's aggressive takeover of that branch of the company. Who cares? you thought, now my signal will be stronger and I can take advantage of no roaming charges with this expanded network. Au contraire... While one's pact with the devil may still be officially respected, his big brother is going to do everything in its power to make you consolidate and switch your plan to his. Now, as the footsoldiers say, "we can't force you to switch over" but they will do everything in their power to make it impossible to have any kind of service for your ATT products, and then they will charge you an activation fee to switch over to their very own company, forcing massive dumping of perfectly useable merchandise all in the name of corporate profit. Ok, nothing new here, but strangely our children our learning this same lesson in Robots -one can only hope that it won't be a quaint fictional memory by the time they can make retail choices.

I am thoroughly annoyed that in a world that is litterally filling itself with trash, there are still no responsible companies willing to forego the "cheap" short-term profit for a vision of long-term stable growth through loyalty to a cause and the protection of our environment.
Of course this is no surprise when the morons in Washington are drilling in what should still be protected Alaskan land for a measly several months of petroleum... just because they can. When will partisan politicians stop thumbing their noses at one another and start taking care of what is really important? Like promoting the already existant energy alternatives. No wait, then they couldn't rape the entire earth reaping massive profits as the fuel shortage grows more marked in the next ten years... When there is nothing left, they'll start selling us designer bottled clean air at exorbitant prices and unveil their fabulous "innovations" in technology all for astronomical private profits of the few.

Grrrrrr. Now I must return to my absolutely trivial and unimportant work, routed in fantasy and the fight for sexual freedom...

miércoles, marzo 16, 2005

Laura, you are a brilliant woman...

And so... was ever thus, a girl in full command of her faculties. Of course, she grins, all you really need are a few good girlfriends...
To think, all I had to do was change to an open-source web-browser and all my formatting woes are over.

Thanks, my lovely Laura, sister-in-crime. (Never fear...I'll write all the bad stuff that you are not;)

And to the rest of you. Don't fret, I promise to not do this ever again.

Sadly, posting pictures is still not simple, despite my flickr account. But as soon as I start procrastinating, or stop doing my work... now wait which one is it?

martes, marzo 15, 2005

Birthdays, bikes and beautiful things

Tis strange that every year one particular day should mark our passing through, our growing older, wiser perhaps. More trapped in our routines? Well we celebrated María José's birthday this evening, eating far too much italian food (but ending with a cannoli which is always a good way to end things). Of course it is not her birthday today, although it occurs to me that it is the birthday of my first (requited - sort of) teenage love (that is, one of whom we would swoon and say "¡ay es el amor de mi vida!"). Why do I remember such things? Well strangely tomorrow, the 16th is the birthday of my first (very) Catholic boyfriend (prior to Leo by a little over a year) and that was easy to remember because it was exactly three months before my very own aniversaire... such coincidences are seldom ignored by a connection-making fiend such as myself.

Now the story of Mike was a story of convenience, one that may indeed be reworked into some marvelously fictive episode in forthcoming short stories (when I get to the memoirs he will be referred back to with regards to the "immaculate conception" episode... ah but I am getting ahead of myself. hee hee. Ok, guess I am the only one whose humor stoops to such guttural depths. (oh, I kill myself, but then, maybe it is only funny to me because I know what happens at the end;)

Indeed. And so I was saying. Today we celebrated because Mariajo, sevillana of my heart, chatterbox and general good-cheer provider, is leaving in the night for Mérida, México. Of course this means that I will be driving the six hours to Becca's by myself instead of with adult company, but I think I am more envious that she is going to see Izamal and Valladolid and all of the enchanting places, littered with musical rocks and seats that the Pope sat in, and scrappy dogs and snarky stray cats and tacos de marisco. Sigh. At least I get to spend the weekend in Mexico, albeit the opposite corner.

Today was a day like the kind we are promised when moving to (sunny, but you wouldn't know it) so cal... It made me feel like life is full of promise, that every day will be as beautiful as this one, that even in sadness and dissappointment, frustration and unfulfillment, if I just breath deeply, inhaling the perfumes, and hiking up my skirt, tucking it once again into the corners of my (today silky) underwear and ride cutting through the breeze, life is not half bad. I still feel the tug, especially after the sun goes down, the wandering bug that makes me want to leave... But if the days are beautiful and I can see the moon through the clear night, if I can feel the compression of my lungs as I breath, as I gaze under the stars... If I can create a thing of beauty, or even just find it, possess it, hold it in my hands... will this feeling go away?

Evangeline

Her cries implore him, “Father, Father,” and her eyes plead. He shifts uncomfortably; the stiff white collar suddenly tightening around his neck. The green gaze penetrates his chest and he can no longer breath comfortably. “You know I can’t…” “Can’t what? Father? I just need you to hear my confession. Once more.”

The sound of her breathing through the thin muslin curtain drives him to distraction. She can no longer see him, but he senses that she can feel exactly how uncomfortable her longing presence makes him, and yet she persists. “Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been a week since my last confession. Father… I have had… impure thoughts.” His voice chokes in his chest as if a frog has suddenly leapt between his vocal chords. He manages only a breathless “My child”. The heat invades him, and the lights suddenly swirl out of control. This cannot be happening. He reaches to steady himself, against the rushing ache. This is impossible. He could be killed for lesser acts of misjudgment. She is the daughter of the cartel kingpin, Manuel Covarrubias, whose gang controls all the comings and goings of this border town.

But her insistence is too much for any mere mortal to endure.

-----------------------------------------

He was born in 1966, two years before the youth uprisings that erupted all over Europe and here in Mexico. His mother was a prostitute in Prague. His father, a mystery. She was brutally murdered in the tumult of the times, although it was unlikely that she would have been involved with the underground student movements that inspired such fear in the power brokers of the time.

He was abandoned then, and the only scrap of his early life that followed him to the Spanish convent where he was raised was a vague recollection of his mother’s hands on his face, her clear eyes gazing lovingly into his. The language of his infancy shriveled up and died within him, and with it, an insularity was formed, a blockade to any human connection. He was touched with an air of divinity that the Priests discovered early, channeling him through the best schools, despite his lack of pedigree. Samuel learned like a machine, consuming every written word that was laid before him. He deeply suffered the plight of the humans around him, he ached for their misery, but he was unable to depend on them the way other children around him seemed so able to do.

--------------------------------------------

In his study, the mahogany desk glistened and the musky smell of old books irritated her nose. She rubbed it instinctively and delicately closed the door behind her. He sat perched on the edge of the curved arm of the burgundy chair, watching her enter silently.
“Father, I did what you asked me to. I wrote down all of my thoughts even the ones that I am afraid of thinking. What will you do with them?”

Samuel stretched his neck, lifting his eyes heavenward. She noticed the way that his Adam’s apple protruded, breaking the smooth line of his neck. He looked tired, and suddenly much older than his years. He looked down at his hands, and he reached out for the papers that she was clutching nervously in her hands, crumpling them up against her thighs and her sex. She took a step back, to observe him. To gauge what his reaction meant. Was he angry with her? Would he slap her after ripping the pages from her hands, for her transgression?

Sensing her hesitation, he pulled himself up, settling both feet on the floor, and reached towards her again. “Don’t fear, my child, you have nothing to be afraid of. Your thoughts are safe with me.” But it wasn’t father Samuel who she needed to fear.

Marina released her grip, his hand gently grazing hers. Their eyes met and she turned away, suddenly ashamed of the things that she had written, and hopeful at the same time of a forgiving audience. She turned the bronze handle and slipped out the door, racing down the empty Parish hallway, towards the arches that were bathed in light. He stood in the doorframe and watched her run, the backlight illuminating her hair in carmine hues. He exhaled slowly: controlled breathing and controlled thoughts.

Alone again in his study he sat down. He began to read, but stopped himself after the first few lines. It wasn't until a week later that he returned to her text.

----------------------------------------

Dear Father,

I don’t really know how to begin this, so I will just start writing. I don’t understand why you don’t want me to confess these things in person, but you must know best. I respect your wisdom, and I don’t know who else would listen to me

Father, I want to be good, I want to be a child of God, and do what I am supposed to, but I can’t understand a God that would make me suffer so. Why must I always fear his wrath, and be ashamed? I can’t tell my father the things that go on in my mind, he thinks that I should be locked up in my room or paraded around like a doll. I am the jewel in his crown, and he brings me out on display for his friends, to show them what power can buy you. I see the looks on the faces of these men and I feel dirty, I see the way their eyes drift down, resting on my bosom, my belly, and below. I feel dirty, but I begin to tingle, I feel this little flicker of heat that starts like a dull throb.

When I am alone, I want to touch myself, but I don’t let myself. I know it is wrong, I know God would be offended but I don’t know why he gives me these feelings if in feeling them I am dishonored. Father can you tell me? If God is a just God, then why does he give us desires, why does he give us temptations, if only to make us see the way of folly? I can’t have faith in a God that wants me to feel an eternally ruinous wretch.

Father, when I am undressing, I watch myself in the mirror. I see myself reflected and I wonder what it would feel like to have someone’s eyes on me the way my own eyes penetrate. I know this is vanity, one of many, I know I am wretched and evil and sick, but Father I don’t know how to be another way? I imagine… How do you do it? How do you turn your back on temptation, driving away desire? Is it that you just don’t feel desire, Father? Does God fill you up the way I long to be filled? I feel as if in mourning, like the feeling when my mother died. My father has never treated me unkindly, but I am still afraid of him. I see the way that he moves through a crowd, people part, they watch him in awe. They fear him. I have only once seen him angry, I had woken late in the night, and I stumbled out of my bedroom, lingering in the hallway. There was a man, his business associate, I don’t remember his name. My father’s knuckles were white as he gripped the edge of the table. The man had tears streaming down his face. Father lifted the table and slammed it back down. The man whimpered. And then he was dismissed. We never saw him again, and I think that is when I began to fear him.

When I was a little girl, he used to hold me on his knees. My mother was jealous of the attention that he gave to me, but then she died and he sent me away to school in Philadelphia. I was vain then, too father, I have always been this way. God will never forgive me my vanities and I am ashamed in the presence of a man of God. You who are so good, and pure, you whose belief is unwavering. How did you find His grace? How can I conquer my nature and bend my will to His? How do you conquer your nature? How is it that we have a God that makes us desire things that we cannot bear to have, or to bear things that we should never see? I want to serve God, to do works of charity, to lower my head among the humble. But...

Father, I imagine other things, darker things. I know that in order to be purified I need to tell you them all, but I can’t. I just can’t. Not yet. I am afraid that if I write them down, I may be invoking the demons. Or is it just another of my vanities? Father, beautiful, clean, wise Father. I am sorry, I am a lost sheep among the wolves.

Forgive me for I have sinned, and I am doubly evil for I cannot utter the words that would make me clean. I want to be free in His eternal love, in your eternal love. Please forgive me,


Marina

lunes, marzo 14, 2005

Ha ha!

Um, no, no work being done here. It was too beautiful out and the lagoon was too much of a temptress. Ah well.

domingo, marzo 13, 2005

It doesn't count if you are doing things for other people

I swear. It can only be considered procrastination when it is one's own guilty pleasure-seeking distractions. Therefore taking I. to the movies mid-afternoon -we went to see _Robots_ upon her request and we were way too close to the screen for my poor aging eyes to process fully, but it was still thouroughly enjoyable because she curled up in my lap and we leaned way back- doesn't count. Nor does making honey curry chicken (her favorite - today) or the curried red lentil soup for grown-up consumption.

Of course I would be lying to myself if I were to claim to have wasted no time searching for something to satiate my palate (and ultimately not finding it today) but I limited myself, and accomplished all required grading and grade calculation, and ILL book requests for next quarter's course... And of course, I have three hours to study (of which I may actually dedicate one) for my Portuguese final tomorrow morning, which should be relatively simple. I will also be paying an early visit to the PQ (I rarely stray) section of our friendly neighborhood library fully armed with call numbers of the remaining books on the list not already inherited by me, seeing as I had my little ritual book returning ceremony on Friday last, post therapy. (Adiós modernismo;)

I have this problem. With therapy, that is. I feel like there is no progress to be made because I am fully aware of all of my issues, I am just unable to do anything about them, and all the therapist does is validate my feelings, which, frankly, I could do on my own without wasting her time. I mean I feel guilty, like every hour I spend could be better applied to someone else... Ah well.

What can you do? Some days seeking culinary pleasure is a good out, and in an effort to absolve myself of all procrastinatory sins, I am offering up this recipe (therby making it portable for me, too) so that my time-wasting will be directed at other's needs and pleasures and therefore not seem quite so self-indulgent. Ahem.

Curried red lentil soup:
Iingredients:
At least three cloves of garlic, minced
1-2 jalapeño or serrano chiles, seeded (or not) and minced
1 1/2 cups red lentils (or thereabouts)
1 large onion, chopped
2Tbsp minced, peeled ginger
1tsp cumin
1 1/2tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 Tbsp curry
2 bay leaves (laurel)
8 cups chicken or vegetable stock
5-6 Tbsp (homemade is best) Mango chutney
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice (I had to use tangerine today)
3 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro (coriander leaf)
Yogurt for garnish
Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:
In a stockpot , heat oil enough to cover bottom and sautee onions until tender. Then add garlic, ginger, chile, curry, cinnamon, cumin and bay leaves. Stir for another minute or two, add lentils and then stock. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer until lentils are tender. Remove bay leaves. Stir in cilantro, lemon juice and chutney (more is always better). Correct seasoning. Serve with a dollop of plain yogurt (or in lieu of that, sour cream is an acceptable alternative, but just not the same...) Et voila...

It is good to have one's priorities straight...

"Mommy I need to tell you something" she calls me out of sleep, and continues,
"You know what? When I'm a teenager, I want to be a Home Depot Worker."

"...?!..."

"I'm serious!"

"Ok."

"Mommy, I didn't wake you up, I just talked to you, you were already awake..."

"I suppose that is one way of looking at things."

Ever so pleased with myself

Sleep has been chased away by loudly snoring bed-mate... And so, I have found a productive activity for burning the midnight oil. I have organized my stories and poems (which I will still keep posting here too, I suppose) into a Garden of Thoughts, which is linked right here on my blogroll. I am pleased with myself because I have started to decipher the code of my template and can now add things with some sense of where they will show up on the page. For you computer geeks, I am sure this is absolutely embarassingly simple, but considering I have no other way to learn, I am just a tiny bit proud of my cleverness. (Being plagued by insomnia has its advantages)

Now I might as well make use of my sleeplessness to complain to the blank page:
My back needs some major attention again (this always happens incrimentally proportional to my stress level)

I am utterly depressed by the news and disgusted by this country's barbaric behavior. Yet, I am incapable of fixing anything.

Wait... that's it. Nothing else to complain about? well that was short-lived...

On the up side:
I am half-finished grading student exams and will force myself to finish novel by Monday morning.

I got to take a luxuriant bath with a small person (highly recommendable activity should you get the opportunity)

She was wonderfully well behaved at the café, drawing pictures and writing words and then playing with the spatial-relations geometric shapes game that was mine when I was a little girl...

And on other miscellaneous tidbits:
Jeff says that to his surprise, the new Tori album is a must (there having been several disappointing albums in the interim from our high-school obsession days). So I might just splurge on some new music.

viernes, marzo 11, 2005

Fascism, California style...

Ok, so I am no investigative reporter, but this information comes from a source that is indeed reliable. Let me ask you... on how many levels is the following just plain wrong?

Woman A is Mexican.
Woman A has one known child.
Child of woman A has severe mental problems.
Woman A is an "illegal" resident of the state.
Woman A lives in a private shelter that also receives state funds.
Woman A receives court order from the State of California requiring her to present herself a Hospital X.
At hospital X she is informed that she must undergo a tubal ligation.
Woman A concedes to tubal ligation.
State of California pays for procedure.
Woman A's myriad social workers don't tell her that she cannot be forced to undergo such procedure.


This reeks of the mass sterilization campaign perpetrated on Puerto Rican women in the fifties by US military.

I'm livid. When will the state get their hands out of our vaginas???

Borges was notorious

For misquoting titles and citations, authors and facts. It was part of his "game" but mostly sloppy scholarship hidden by a brilliant mind. I'd like to think that all my erratas and errors could be as brilliant, but mostly my fingers move to fast for my brain and my brain doesn't always supply me with the right information.

I admit fallibility. I'm not the Pope after all. And I get to laugh at all the shit I write incorrectly... (happily for me, my readership is limited to a very few people, all who will forgive me my humanity... )

conjugal crisis and conjunctivitis

That's how I spent my morning. Rather sad indeed. Happiness seems like a distant country whose language is utterly unintelligible to me despite my darndest efforts.

But, now medicated and fed, life is looking up.

Progress list:
Concert: not total debaucle
Darío paper: revised and out of my hands
Translation project: complete enough, needs reflection (will do now)
Student grades: In my bag, not done yet
Exams: tomorrow
Portuguese exam: Monday
Vicens/Poniatowska comparison: Book yet to be finished, but... have a clever title, and therefore an idea of where I am going.

Which is... back to the laundromat and then to work.

miércoles, marzo 09, 2005

no time to write I'm busy writing

Ach. Can't take time to process personal thoughts... must get work done. Must...

Took five minutes to amuse myself with (procrastinatory) test on values, resultant score: Economic Left/Right: -5.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.08... that's right laissez-moi en paz...

I have almost finished, but had to leave novel half-way until other work is done. My social horizon looks frightful. Well. I have a performance tomorrow night, which, if we don't pull it together, at least the church acoustics will be favorable. (Dirty secret- I love churches... not to practice religion... but the meditative qualities inspired by the architectonic structures, what can I say, I fell in love with the mangled bloody cristo yacentes so many years ago). And I give an exam on Saturday morning (evil, evil and not our choice) which means that I have exactly six days to pull a decent paper out of thin air before I turn into a pumpkin and leave the country (yay!) And then, now that I have license plates, I can drive, madonna and child, to visit the Saint of Assissi displaced.

Nothing else exciting to report.

lunes, marzo 07, 2005

You see, I am not the only one...

"Nadie sabe que procrastinate quiere decir soñar despierto, cambiar de un día para otro, diferir, tardar en decidirse, nadie sabe que sueño y jamás actúo, nadie sabe que me creo mis ilusiones. Nadie sabe que invento acciones heroicas a lo largo de las horas." (Mariana, p.112)
--- Elena Poniatowska _La "flor de lis"_

La "flor de lis"

Ok. More uncanny coincidences (and I mean this in the most freudian sense) Poniatowska's book that I am (leaving it only briefly, I swear, just to post this) reading, in order to compare it with Vicens' _Los años falsos_ in terms of adolescent infatuation with parent of the same sex and the dialogue between authors, and possible critique of mid-century Mexican society...

It seems Elena, upon arrival in Mexico, was as obsessed with ownerless dogs (and water) as I... Fabulously interesting, I know, there are good dog stories out there in which dogs are not the villains (always).

I. had a great idea this morning, "Mommy, when we live in a real house - demonstrates its reality by emulating the triangular point of its roof with her arms - not like this one, I know, we can have a cat and a dog!" Someday. I always wanted a dog of my own, but my parents had their fill of an inane canine prior to my birth and I missed out:( Someday darling, we will have our tract of land and our farm and our equine companions as well as the canine and feline... Someday.

domingo, marzo 06, 2005

The "P" word

Every time I think that I have conquered my very nature, I am reminded that it is just a break, and that invariably I will crumble to my innate procrastinatory tendencies. This same theorem can be applied to most of my other defects (or attributes?), so you take your pick. Sisyphus... top o' the hill here I come.

Instead of doing work this weekend, that's right, all I accomplished all weekend was to grade tests, I spent last evening singing, and all day today in San Luis Obispo. I rediscovered my digital camera... and I nuzzled incessantly with a small person (which is ultimately the most worthwhile use of my time).

She never ceases to amuze and amaze me, her latest interrogation was about two protagonists in a story. She asked if they were going to lick eachother, you know, like they do in the movies.

It is funny how everything seems so interconnected... At the book store I came across a newly reprinted Hardy Boys adventure on the bargain rack and I was lost in my reverie of Nancy Drewness... In fact, I was going to be a detective... and I still look for a mystery in everything I do. Then of course I was accosted by the five-book boxed set of Harry Potter (which I refuse to buy until it is complete)... and of course is a guilty pleasure... my whole childhood revolved around the seven book box set of The Chronicles of Narnia (I spent an entire summer staying up all night reading under the covers with only orange juice and English muffins for sustenance)... I love fantasy worlds, I can't help myself... Of course then K. and I talked and I was reminded of my goal to reread "The Name of the Rose" that is sitting on the shelf and winking at me and knowing that I don't get to read anything I want for a long time...


No, I am still not doing my work. And I want a pet. And I don't want to read anything but what I want... oh. Then there's the other stuff.

sábado, marzo 05, 2005

Broken

She stood there on the edge of the water; the foam lapping at her ankles in a way that made her feel very uneven. Seven, fourteen, twenty-one, twenty-eight… counting in sevens made her feel more in control of the present situation. If she stopped counting, her heart would leap into her heaving chest and choke her with tears of anger and helplessness, so she continued, thirty-five, forty-two… The wind was harsh and whipped the sand against her already chafed face, cleansing her. Pain, she thought, was much better and easier to focus on outside of her head.

So she began like that. Counting in sevens because of the significance that number held for her. A scrawny yellow retriever, with patches of fur missing, eyed her, sizing up whether or not she had food to give. He was hungry, and rather pathetic with his half-missing ear flopping in the frightened gusts. She saw the dog. “Oh God, I can’t deal with this. I can’t give you food, or shelter. I can’t… I can’t.” She fell to her knees sobbing for the pitiful beast, for herself, for the loss of everything that was once worthwhile.

In the distance the waves crashed more furiously and the edge of the water surpassed her crumpled body, swirling around her knees and just barely the bottom of her thighs as they were flattened down to a wide fleshy mass in her position of supplication.

As the tide ebbed, it stole the ground from beneath her, sinking, sinking into the mud, incapable of changing her uncomfortable position, yet savoring the icy bite of the mid-March waters and the burning of her joints, “I don’t bend, I just break” she muttered to herself.

The yellow dog began to approach her - eyeing suspiciously and giving a wide berth – moving closer only as the water receded. More dogs, all hungry, with sunken eyes, dull, malnourished fur and battle wounds, began to circle, a few at first, and then more that came from underneath the rotting pier, and from distant corners of the desolate beach. Here was a rarity: a person, still as death, and vulnerable – yes.

She was unaware of the circling dogs. Or maybe she just chose to deny their existence, seventy-seven, eighty-four, ninety-one. Seven, seven, seven, seven, why?! Why is this happening to me?

She is vaguely aware that she is now fifteen feet into the swelling surf. Her reactions are slow, her movements deliberate and forced. She places her hands in the bitter cold ocean and pushed her legs straight, her back up like a cat, her disheveled hair wet at the tips and dangling in the splashing flood. She pauses to think and raises her head, slowly turning to face the land. She falls, or rather is knocked down by this immense weight on her, and slowly rises, soaked, wretched, shivering. The dogs begin to howl and yelp as she plods. Step. Step. Step. Drawing her withered, ragged body from the grasp of this blue death. She trudges, stoically, no tears. They have all been washed away. Her face granite, sand-blasted and tight. Too tight for a smile.

The street appears to be walking under her feet, endless pounding. Nameless faces, prisoners of this cruel world, pass by her, unacknowledged, their gawking stares of wonderment go unnoticed. The dogs have become constant. They won’t leave her side. They fight, beg, whine, biting each other in their excitement.

She walks into a bakery that lies along her route. She buys one loaf of bread. Simple. Fifty cents will buy her a ticket out. She turns to the dogs. There are seven, led by the scrappy yellow retriever, missing an ear from a previous era. She looks at them and they at her. And in that instant she realizes that she wants to swim not sink. But the dogs become frenzied, and like prisoners on a Nazi death train they attack the holder of their salvation.

She retracts her arms tightly to her chest and clings to the loaf, as the dogs tear at her, pounding her flesh into the ground, snapping their fierce jaws breaking her already wounded body, clawing her face. They have eaten. They walk away. All but the yellow one who licks a trickle of blood that oozes from her mouth. Her jugular bleeds dry. Broken.

July 1997


(OK, so don't judge me so harshly, this is an artefact from when I was only 19... and no, there has been no editing. Actually, it seems somehow apropos after watching _Mar adentro_)

Close encounters of the third kind.

Of course this will be of interest to only one person, I think, but I have found THE pivotal diary there among my things, (and started re-reading in a defiant act of procrastination) the one that actually marks the distillation of my silence, spanning from, December 24, 1998 to September 11, 2001. A testament to my “tragic vocation” (Jan 4,1998, April 3, 1999) It begins with a drowning on the beach and ends with, well, that’s an obvious one.

First page begins: “ It’s Christmas eve and things are going decidedly better than a few days ago. I am ok – not going to die.

Last page ends: “”Yes, I suppose life goes on, and I can be happy, as long as I allow the destruction to linger, just a little in the back of my mind. Death seems so small held up to those massive constructions; a snapping twig, a light goes out. But not one, not one-hundred not even a thousand points of light flicker out. A day closes and darkness falls on an uncertain tomorrow.”

Fitting that I should find that particular story, the one that in the back of my mind I had the intention of finding and posting, stuck surreptitiously among its pages. It is another take on the “perros de la calle” (previous by more than a year) to “Calle” the story about the anorexic woman who spontaneously (but not accidentally) aborts and her lesbian lover that holds her as she hemorrhages (posted here this last October, but written in 1998)…

Also, there was this imaginary dialogue with imagined (or foreshadowed?) interlocutor, which some of you might find amusing for various reasons.

August 25 2001

W: Don’t you ever feel like you’re just wandering along the surface of your life? Like this whole orb of a planet is just a microcosm of the emptiness inside –

M: You mean macrocosm

W: No, microcosm. The emptiness inside of one person alone exceeds the surface of the entire earth.

M: Oh, please, now you are being melodramatic. What’s getting at you anyway?

W: Don’t you see? We float along, without ever submerging ourselves in our lives. Isn’t it strange to you how you remember all of the people from your childhood so much more than the people you meet now? Why do their faces keep coming back to haunt? It seems like our relationships as a child were so much, I don’t know, not deeper in affect, or maybe, but, well, deeper in terms of how we ourselves experienced them?

M: Well, I for one am still traumatized by the smell of Kelly Brahm’s hair…

W: Shut up! You are not taking me seriously.
M: No, you are taking yourself too seriously…

W: You don’t get anything. I don’t even know why I am discussing this with you.

M: Maybe because you have no one else who will listen to you ramble endlessly and not have their eyes glaze over.

W: Oh, thanks. But honestly, don’t you wonder why that is?

M: What?

W: Why everything we remember seems so much more relevant than what we are currently experiencing.

M: Like this conversation, you mean.

W: Oh, you know what I mean.

M: Well, I guess I could give you my theory that our perception of time, and therefore cosmic relevance, is inversely proportional to its relationship with the percentage of time that has transpired in our lifetime. For example – when you were five, that 2 hour drive to Harrisburg felt like an eternity, but now the same two hours, to go from one side of this city to the other, is an insignificant blip on the screen of your life. Obviously 2 hours represented a much greater percentage of your life, so you experienced it much more slowly.

W: Thank you, Mr. Science. My soul is now assuaged in its quest for a higher meaning.

M: You didn’t tell me you were looking for God…

W: I’m not, I just…

M: Yes?...

W: I just feel empty and I’m not sure why.

M: Well, here I am. I haven’t gone anywhere…

W: I know.

viernes, marzo 04, 2005

Viernes de Ilana

No not Lautaro. Friday again and the sadness settles over me. Perhaps it was because I was up until 2 last night reading and re-reading, the story I wrote and looking and looking for meaning in the reflections of myself in the mirror. I was thinking about the concept of a double... is it the physical double that stands in, the replaces us, or is it the emotional or psychic double. We went to see _Mar adentro_ today. It was an amazing film, but I couldn't stop myself from crying throughout the entire function. It truly questioned the essence of what "life" is, and how powerful an interior fantasy world can be. I am so wiped out from work that I didn't even make it there today, but instead opted to sleep all day. That could also be because I took the night-time homeopathic cough medicine in the morning and it is meant to help with sleeplessness, but perhaps not good for day-time productivity.
In fact, the only good thing is that my throat is a little less closed and I should be able to sing at tomorrow night's performance, and with luck I will be fully recovered for next week's real performance. So what else is in store for me? Yet another four-year-old birthday party tomorrow morning and a novel to read and a stack of tests to grade. I know y'all wish you were me;)

Jonesy

My stomach rumbled as I scarfed down the meat-filled pastry from the Food-tek deli, that I had bought with the $3.35 I had managed to spare-change in the last 2 hours. I probably could have gotten more, but I was feeling too lazy and too stoned to be very active in my pursuit of money. I had a tattered cardboard sign that Jonesy the black vet who sits on the corner with his amputated foot sticking out for good measure, lent me on his way in to the girly show. He always had extra money, he did better than any of us, or all of us combined, but after all he was an old hand and he had the race thing on his side, I mean after all, who was gonna give money to a bunch of white suburban teens that were just hangin’ around instead of being in school. The sign said “Spare change for a Vietnam Vet” and on account of the Desert Storm thing and all those yellow ribbons on the houses, he usually made a killing off their guilt. As for me, the sign got a few snickers out of the people that bothered to actually read it, and I probably didn’t smell so good, so not too many people gave me anything and when they did, they sort of threw it from five feet away. It had been several days since I had been in a warm shower. Five, actually, not since I had gone home with that boy Jaime. He was a good fuck, and he let me have a shower after and he even made me a pot of pasta before I left. But that was last week and he probably wouldn’t be back around. He said he was heading west. I walked by his apartment the other day, but there was no one around. I guess he already left.

So, the really funny thing was that Jonesy didn’t lose his leg in Vietnam, he lost it a few years back because of his diabetes. He said he never could stick to the diets that they gave him at the clinics, and he hated flopping at the shelters because people would always steal his stuff. And anyway what was the point because he wasn’t gonna stop drinkin his malt liquor with his buddy Jack Daniels. He said it was safer on the streets, except for the damn cold. My fingers were freezing even inside the wool gloves from Peru or somewhere that I stole from Imagine last week when I showered. People felt bad for Jonesy on account of his missing leg, and I guess I felt bad for him too, he said it still hurt where his leg should have been, he could feel the freezing burn and itching, but he couldn’t stop the pain because there was no leg to heat up, to put inside a warm blanket.

Sometimes we would do better when we pooled our resources, two or three of us natty headed kids would take turns getting up from the sidewalk and asking for money from the people walkin around buying shit they didn’t need. The best place to get food when we were hungry was over in china town, we would walk the fifteen blocks from South Street and there was always a ton of food that the chinks and gooks would leave outside for us. I don’t think they really felt sorry for us, but it was a way to keep us from pan-handling in front of their restaurants and shops and we didn’t care because we were getting free food and so what if we didn’t know what we were eating. Then we'd hang around outside the Trocadero to see who was playing and sometimes score some hash or coke or 'shrooms or whatever we could get our hands on.

The night before was a bad night though and that’s why I was by myself that day. Elektra, Modeki and me were out in front of Abilene listening to Fugazi when the bouncers decided that they didn’t want no f-ing teenagers with heroin breath ruining their view, and when we didn’t move they started kicking with their steel-toed boots. If we had been shooting up horse it wouldn’t have been so bad, but we were all tripped out on some bunk acid and it was scary-ass trip. There were only three to start but the three turned into fifteen, coming at us from all directions with fists and feet like octopuses. They were as bad as any skin heads, and they’re bad, when they catch a whiff of us hippies they get sadistic. Last time I went home it was because some fuckin neo-nazi kicked my ribs in and when they took me to the hospital, they told me that if I didn’t tell them where I lived, they’d call DCYF and I would have to go into the system, so I told them and that’s how I ended up back at my house for the worst two weeks of my life.

My mom actually made me go back to school after the first week, but when I told the principal to go fuck herself up the ass, I spent the rest of the week in in-school suspension. ISS was actually pretty cool because I scored some good weed and a few tabs to keep me going, and that way I could ignore my little sister looking sad all the time and my step dad… I guess it would have been ok, but one day I got so bored sitting in that tiny room with the bitch who watches us all and doesn’t even let us draw pictures but says that if we don’t have work to do, we can copy words out of the dictionary. Like I need a dictionary to learn any new words. I would've brought something to read but then no one would even give me the time of day and she woulda thought she had won when really it had nothing to do with her. And I started fiending for a nic fix, and even though we all know she goes off school grounds during her lunch break to smoke half a pack 'cause she reeks so bad we could all get off on just the smell, she wouldn’t even let me go to the bathroom without watching me walk down the hall to the bathroom, so when the bell rang, after e period I just bolted for the door, and that fat piece of shit couldn’t have caught me if she tried, but I don’t think she did. It woulda been ok, but when I went home thinking that I was gonna eat the leftover tacos from the night before, I opened the door and I heard Susan crying and I ran to the bedroom door and there was my step dad in his underwear with his hairy crack hanging out and I just turned and bolted before he could do that to me again. I kinda felt guilty for my little sister, she’s only 12, but I thought that it was just me he did those things to and I didn’t know he liked girls. Just goes to show you. And my mom is so fucking weak she just stays with him even when he comes home drunk as a skunk and punches holes in the walls because she says that the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. I say the devil is the devil anyway you look at him, and I’d kill him if I could but it was just easier to leave again, and I already knew enough people around so I could find a place to crash for a while.

So the bouncers were beating on us and I think that they let Elektra and Mo go, but I didn’t stay to find out, I just ran like hell as soon as I could down to the pier and my lungs were burning from the cold and from so much smoking, and I collapsed by the statue of Christopher Columbus. I remember in third grade, before everyone thought I was stupid, I did a report on him. He was a pretty cool guy, he was from Italy but he lived all over Europe and he had all these different names and he explored new places and I bet he had servants to make food for him and he went to the Queen of Spain and she gave him lots of money just so he could take this really long trip on a boat and explore some more. My mom helped me make a model boat, just like the one he sailed across the Atlantic ocean in… But then she met Stu and that was the end of model ships and book reports. I never did get to go to the Jersey shore. That’s when they moved me to that other classroom with the kids that had learning disabilities, they said because couldn't concentrate and I couldn't sit still. Mostly, I think they wanted attention, and all the boys loved the teacher Miss Roach, she had long red hair and she would rest her hands on our backs when she leaned in to help us with a math problem of something we didn’t understand. I don’t know what the big deal was, she smelled funny to me, sicky sweet perfume and she seemed so sad. But that was then and this is now and I don’t need to be doing any stupid book reports for anyone anyway, what's the point, I mean books are good for company but not much else, and then if its cold they burn pretty hot, but not for very long.

I must have passed out because when I woke up the sun was rising and the smell of piss was all around me and it wasn’t mine. It smelled like alcohol and that’s when Jonesy came over and handed me the brown bag with a forty inside and said drink. I was too tired to argue and it warmed me up a little. Come on kid, he said, let’s go get us some warm pussy. And I didn’t argue even though the idea sounded really disgusting to me, it was nice to have some human company and Jonesy moved really fast for a guy with just one leg. He smiled his toothless grin and said that he liked using crutches better than a wheelchair, even though he could of gotten one on account of being a Vietnam vet and all, because he could use the crutches to defend himself if he needed. We walked back up towards center city on Bainbridge, so we wouldn’t run into those assholes again.

We walked back to where he kept his stuff and he said, look kid I'm gonna tell you a secret. And I didn’t really want to hear his secret in his slurred early morning state but he was gonna tell me anyway so I figured I’d humor the old man and besides he was probably gonna get me something to eat. He said, boy, I’m gonna tell you a secret and you better listen ‘cause its what been keepin’ me alive all these years, like a mangy ole dog… heh heh, he smiled his toothless smile and all of a sudden I was afraid of him like he was the bogeyman, but he said that the secret was he always remembered that Jesus loved him and that I shouldn’t forget that he loved me too. Then I just felt sorry for him. I know if Jesus is really real, he doesn’t give a flying fuck about me or else he would have made Stu not do those things to me, and he would have made my mom love me and my dad not die when I was too little to remember him and my sister Suzy cry all the time and he wouldn’t of made me so stupid. There was no Jesus for me but I didn’t want to make him feel bad, so when we got to his spot in the alley by the rusted out oil drums I asked him if I could borrow his sign and he said sure because he was gonna take the money he made and go get him some.

So I sat on the curb just outside the First Pennsylvania bank and propped up his sign and it didn’t take much effort to look pathetic because I had the crap kicked out of me and I probably looked like death warmed over and my gloves were already falling apart and my jeans were too long and all crusty with dirt from scuffling around, so in just two hours I had enough money to go in and buy some food and sit upstairs on the second floor and look out the big window down at the people who were just starting to move around below me. I watched and I watched and then finally the Greek manager came up and asked me if I was going to order something else, and he knew I wasn’t because I was counting out pennies to pay for the food I bought and he said that if I was finished that I needed to go because they had paying clients that needed to use the space. I don’t know what he was talking about because the place was empty, but I was too tired to argue, so I just went to the bathroom and walked back down, and out the door that jingled a bell as I left.

And I probably would have still been sitting there on the curb waiting for Jonesy to come back for his cardboard sign when I heard the gunshot and then the ambulance come wailing its way around the corner. And then I saw them come back out of the building in front of me with a stretcher and on the stretcher was a black guy that looked an awful lot like Jonesy. And when I walked over, Jonesy was still breathing and he caught my eye and said, boy, I’m going over home. I walked back over to where he had left his stuff and I found $300 stashed in the middle of his stinking clothing and I knew he wanted me to have the money, so here I am and that’s how I got the money for the greyhound and ended up here in San Francisco.

jueves, marzo 03, 2005

Quote of the day

I am greeted by a small voice that calls to me from the bedroom. I go. I lay down next to her and she contemplates me. Mind you this is a word for word recounting of the conversation.

"Mommy when I become a woman, I would not like to have a husband." (self-restraint is excercised, immense self-control, no laughter nor feminist rhetoric spurt from my mouth)

"You might change your mind about that."

"No, I won't. Izza's says she would like a husband. That's ok. But I want to be with you forever."


Well, it is nice to be appreciated, now isn't it?

Globalization and the yankifying of the world...

Yesterday I went to a really interesting conference about Japanese author Haruki Murakami in translation. Now I have no sustainable interest in actually reading his work (especially after hearing the East Asian dept. professors bash him) but the phenomenon of his translation into languages other than English was truly fascinating. It seems that he authorizes an English version and then subsequent western translations are re-translated from there. The polemic was that he is of the most exportable literary commodities from Japan and in his role as emblem of Japanese culture it is highly offensive that his work has nothing whatsoever to do with Japanes culture but he is rather an American wannabe... now, I could be wrong, and I certainly didn't venture this thought in a room full of intellectuals, but isn't that status of wannabe just a little bit indicative of a whole Japanese sub-culture? I mean, the American kitsch seems to be a fascination of many young... I think what is most offensive to the old school is (I was informed) that his work was initially published in journals that had him pigeon-holed as high-art and that this status requires from him a certain dignity. They seem offended that he should want his work available for consumption with a sense of global simultaneity, fuck accuracy. I don't know. There are arguments for purity of language for sure, but the idea of accuracy or perfection of language in translation is really only as good as your translator, and even then, it is a totally different piece of work...

More thoughts on the rule of international morality... (ok, not yet) it is funny how basic human sentiment is not so far removed despite the barriers of mutually unintelligible languages. Daily I am astounded (and humbled) by the existence of people far more brilliant than I whose knowledge is unfathomable to me. For example, I came across an author whose original novels are written in Spanish, Catalan and Italian. Imagine that, to be able to create something as complex as a novel 1, and to be able to do so in multiple languages 2. Of course, some stories need to be born by virtue of the language that tells them. I suppose I am just in awe of people who can do things of which I can't even conceive. Then, of course I am in awe of people whose knowledge of computer language enables them to create hidden structures in their web pages, things that allow them to know who has visited them and from whence they come. I would be happy if I could just figure out basic things, but I am decidedly not an autodidactic sort of person. I thrive upon human interaction, and I am not the only one. In spite of the gubernators budget cuts and his devaluation of the state education system, I don't think that we will ever become an exclusively on-line learning society. After all what is the point of learning. No, it is not to get a better job which in turn will give us more money (and less leisure time to spend it), it is, in my humble opinion. to make us better, happier people. We learn to make connections with others, to understand the inner workings of our psyches, to decipher the great questions of our times. We learn because we can and because it feels good to encounter others that see the world in similar ways to our own, or in ways that we never imagined but that still strike a chord.

So, in some ways the transformation of literary (or other) art in terms of americanization is problematic and worrisome, I firmly believe that it is just an appropriation that will serve, perhaps to transform the very culture that it intends to immitate, just like a translation can enrich the language into which the original has been rendered new.

Of course it is much more complex than that, and I don't claim to have an answer, but sometimes we should all just take ourselves a little less seriously. Sometimes a man is just a man, and his choices and desires are his - they are not emblematic of some sinister complot, or impending doom. But then, there are people much more qualified to opine than I, who might find my analisis lacking.

martes, marzo 01, 2005

Could my creativity really be drying up so soon?

I have realized that of late, my writing has been utterly boring and self involved... What's new? you'll ponder. No nothing really, I suppose everything is narcissistic, this damn habit of chronicling one's days is just a poor excuse for attention-getting.

It is kind of funny. I have about 15 tomes of diaries that I wrote between the ages of 16 and 20. I haven't read them over, ever. M. read them, and seems to know more things about me than even I do (or perhaps more than I care to remember?) but something stops me from re-reading myself, and it is not solely my hyper-occupied life, though that could be a part of it. For years, (and this is how I am using the blog, as an on-line journal, more for my own ready access than for anyone else's benefit, seeing as how, this all cannot possibly be of interest to anyone else) I was my only (or almost only) interlocutor. I never really felt lonely as long as I had a pen (always a pen for permanence) and a blank sheet available, and more likely than not, a walkman. In those days, when I was just recently initiated, it could have been Nirvana, or Smashing Pumpkins, or NIN as likely as Tori or Joni Mitchell or the Indigo Girls. It might have been Belly or Sui Generis, or the Redonditos de Ricotta, Depeche Mode, Neil Young, Gregorian Chant (which I believe was popular then), REM, Rage Against the Machine, Green Day or the Doors. It could have been Joan Manuel Serrat or maybe Janis Joplin, singin' "Me and Bobbie McGee" or Dylan, The Carmina Burana... see I didn't care as long as there was raw human emotion to be found...

I have lost that sense of music as companionship. Of course I still love music, and I still love making music, but it has been forever since I wrote a song, and I used to write them all the time and then, with my highly technical abilities and a double tape deck I would lay down the melody and then overlay the harmonies losing generation after generation in the analog format, but etching pieces of my soul into a film of plastic that could easily be lost or destroyed. What faith I had. The times I would run down into Swarthmore, avoiding the leers of the men that would cruise by the isolated parts underneath the blue route. The pounding of "Under a blood red sky..." or bouncing along to "D'yer Maker". I doubt that this brand of self-sustaining solitude is ever attainable again. I don't think so, but it is the part of me that I most miss, the part of me that was still full of possibility, boundless possibility for what life would become.

Not to say, of course that I am not still full of possibility (it just has its manifested limitations), I truly believe that we always have the opportunity to effect change in our own lives and the lives of others, but there was a freedom in not knowing, in having no idea whatsoever, about what was happening, what was going to unfold. I think 16 is the perfect age in which to situate one's inner child. Part of me will always be 16.

Maybe that is why I don't go back and read myself, because it would be too painful to remember who I was, when confronted with the impossibility of ever being able to recapture the perfection of my being. I would like to write the novel/memoir without re-reading myself and then go back and compare notes. (No I haven't abandonded the project, I am going to give myself a month after classes end to read the whole Quijote and write my novel in turns). I think it would be a really interesting excercise in the function of memory. How many details will I have whitewashed out? How much will I have altered reality in lieu of narrative perfection. Of course, it is frightening to think of writing something so monumental with no real audience, no real criticism, but let's not demotivate ourselves just yet, shall we?

No, I suppose my creativity hasn't been totally lost, but I can't wait to be finished with these latest hurdles so I can tell some more stories (there is one about an elevator that jumped out at me, while Marcelo and I were descending to Portuguese class today). In banal and boring news, my professor was extremely pleased with me, and while he will have suggestions, he admitted that he had his doubts but was pleasantly surprised by my mega-effort (it turns out that he was only expecting the first few pages). So at least it is not back to the drawing board for me. In other hoop-jumping news I managed to do my Fafsa on time and even scrounge up all our tax documents to go ahead and figure that out too. I even paid my bills on time. This only goes to prove that the busier you are, the more you can get done. It is all about prioritizing and finding the right space and mindset to do work...blah blah blah.

Funny thought for the day... Jenny emailed me an article about Alabama banning the sale of sex-toys and all things that would promote non-organic orgasms... as debilitating for the health of the state... snarf... I've been contemplating such objects of late. Maybe I'll write about it somewhere. Guess the southerners will just have to jerk eachother off. That is, of course, unless they are sharing a bed with children like our fav Santa Barbaran...