mental dispersion
Arghhh. I am losing my mind. Really, I don't remember where I put it. Somewhere, perhaps, with the keys I locked in the car this morning while in cerebral limbo. What is wrong with me??? I drove to school this morning because the thought of hauling a small person behind exhausted me before even realizing itself as an action. Also, the skies threatened rain, and getting soaked in a downpour on the way home didn't appeal to me. Still feeling crappy. So I got to school with a whole twenty minutes to get to my office and figure out what I was supposed to be teaching, and as I arrived at my office door, I search for my keys in all the varied pouches and pockets of my oh-so-hip urban-dweller black gear-bag, to realize that I never took them out of the ignition. Shit.
Why can't I focus? Well, in addition to the several internal narratives that I have competing for attention, yesterday I watched parts of five different movies. In my class we watched Camila, strangely it is a story about a girl and her priest, who fall in love, elope and are ultimately executed by an oppressive Rosas regime in Argentina in the 1840's. Then in Portuguese we watched Pixote a film which predates Cidade de Deu by about twenty years but tackles many of the same issues and is terribly graphic and explicit with relation to the physical and sexual violence that these poor lost little boys suffer(ed) at the hands of their "reformers" and their cohorts in the reformatory (incidentally the free mini Brazilian film fest that we have organized for next week -all are invited- to prepare for the Keynote speaker on Brazilian cinema will feature Carandiru also by the same director - Hector Babenco). Then, as I mentioned Cilantro y perejil. I am tired of relationship movies, or at least of the cutesy ones where everything works out in the end despite the fact that both partners were happily screwing others in the interim, but that doesn't matter because as we are all well aware "love conquers all". Not that I am personally against this possibility in any way, just that it is rather facile to imagine that these things happen with no heavy duty re-negotiation of boundaries (although there probably wouldn't be any fun in watching that, hmm. No, I don't know... maybe as a "how to" manual?). Then we watched Son de mar a Bigas Luna film (no, no relation... while Diego is actually M.'s cousin on the side of his estranged father, the Spanish Luna is not) and as could be expected lots of gratuitous sex (remember Jamón jamón - Penelope Cruz's early career). It was a take on the Odyssey, with a main character Ulysses, who dissappears for five years and comes back to a wife who has basically become a whore for the local real-estate magnate who before she had never wanted. The female character was so flacidly bland and shallow, and the re-encounter, while an excuse for several relatively attractive sex scenes, got absolutely boring (how much panting, moaning and muecas can one really take with no underlying tension?) Maybe it's just me, but... ho hum. Finally we started watching a South African film The Wooden Camera but it got late and I. wasn't going to sleep, so we had to turn it off.
Wandering minds want to know. No? So this afternoon to my dismay I picked up the girl and she had been involved in a biting incident, being the receptor of said bite not the provider. She said she cried, but now it was better. The student TA was very concerned about my reaction, but heck, what's done is done, and no skin was broken, so I say she'll be fine.
oh... I am being invaded by the neighborhood children, with pajamed Peregrine and Isabel with an inchworm... nope, now they're off...
As I was saying... I can't seem to focus or remember anything. Her pictures from picture day were gorgeous, and I know this is totally a cheesy middle-class convention, but I had to at least buy a small picture with her class, so as to, if nothing else, mark the passage of years in a semi-systematic manner. And leaving, Izza needed to give I. some gum, so her mom and I discussed (horrors!) the possibility of a play-date (eek, another insidious middle class convention creeping up on me. What is happening??) and then I realized that for the second time in one day I had misplaced my keys... until I discovered that they were actually nestled not in my "purse" but the little paunch pouch of the sweater I grabbed to cover my bare arms from the afternoon chill.
So. It is decided, no? I have totally lost my mind. Sorry there, I will try to find it before taking "pen" to "paper" (or pixels to LCD?) again.
Why can't I focus? Well, in addition to the several internal narratives that I have competing for attention, yesterday I watched parts of five different movies. In my class we watched Camila, strangely it is a story about a girl and her priest, who fall in love, elope and are ultimately executed by an oppressive Rosas regime in Argentina in the 1840's. Then in Portuguese we watched Pixote a film which predates Cidade de Deu by about twenty years but tackles many of the same issues and is terribly graphic and explicit with relation to the physical and sexual violence that these poor lost little boys suffer(ed) at the hands of their "reformers" and their cohorts in the reformatory (incidentally the free mini Brazilian film fest that we have organized for next week -all are invited- to prepare for the Keynote speaker on Brazilian cinema will feature Carandiru also by the same director - Hector Babenco). Then, as I mentioned Cilantro y perejil. I am tired of relationship movies, or at least of the cutesy ones where everything works out in the end despite the fact that both partners were happily screwing others in the interim, but that doesn't matter because as we are all well aware "love conquers all". Not that I am personally against this possibility in any way, just that it is rather facile to imagine that these things happen with no heavy duty re-negotiation of boundaries (although there probably wouldn't be any fun in watching that, hmm. No, I don't know... maybe as a "how to" manual?). Then we watched Son de mar a Bigas Luna film (no, no relation... while Diego is actually M.'s cousin on the side of his estranged father, the Spanish Luna is not) and as could be expected lots of gratuitous sex (remember Jamón jamón - Penelope Cruz's early career). It was a take on the Odyssey, with a main character Ulysses, who dissappears for five years and comes back to a wife who has basically become a whore for the local real-estate magnate who before she had never wanted. The female character was so flacidly bland and shallow, and the re-encounter, while an excuse for several relatively attractive sex scenes, got absolutely boring (how much panting, moaning and muecas can one really take with no underlying tension?) Maybe it's just me, but... ho hum. Finally we started watching a South African film The Wooden Camera but it got late and I. wasn't going to sleep, so we had to turn it off.
Wandering minds want to know. No? So this afternoon to my dismay I picked up the girl and she had been involved in a biting incident, being the receptor of said bite not the provider. She said she cried, but now it was better. The student TA was very concerned about my reaction, but heck, what's done is done, and no skin was broken, so I say she'll be fine.
oh... I am being invaded by the neighborhood children, with pajamed Peregrine and Isabel with an inchworm... nope, now they're off...
As I was saying... I can't seem to focus or remember anything. Her pictures from picture day were gorgeous, and I know this is totally a cheesy middle-class convention, but I had to at least buy a small picture with her class, so as to, if nothing else, mark the passage of years in a semi-systematic manner. And leaving, Izza needed to give I. some gum, so her mom and I discussed (horrors!) the possibility of a play-date (eek, another insidious middle class convention creeping up on me. What is happening??) and then I realized that for the second time in one day I had misplaced my keys... until I discovered that they were actually nestled not in my "purse" but the little paunch pouch of the sweater I grabbed to cover my bare arms from the afternoon chill.
So. It is decided, no? I have totally lost my mind. Sorry there, I will try to find it before taking "pen" to "paper" (or pixels to LCD?) again.
posted by ilana at 5:54 p.m.
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