Intifada vegetal (or, the good, the bad, and the ugly)

There is a silent revolution going on in my household. It is nothing visible, just an encroaching love of vegetables. I., get this, of her own volition, asked for salad with dinner, and even ate a few leaves of lettuce (before biting a spicy piece of the mesclun and spitting it back on her plate). And two nights ago she ate molletes (french bread toasted with black beans and melted cheese) and even ate avocado on top. Last night I made a tomato soup (tetra-pack organic Imagine brand- problem with these soups is that they are always totally insipid) but doctored it with some extra bouillion, vermouth and a guarnishing of chopped pistachios (I didn't have peanuts) and a swirl of cream at the end. I. sits down and asks "Do I like this soup?" and I say, "Of course, you love it!" Which is good enough for her, she settles in, and inhales deeply, thanks me for the meal, "Ay, qué bárbara, mamá, qué bárbara!" She exclaims (where does she get these affectations, I wonder), "Me encanta." I feed her the fresh corn bread that I made to accompany and she says, "It isn't like the kind that they make at school because real bakers make that." I feign offense, and she says,"I mean, you're a baker, but not..." "You mean and institutional kind of bakery..." "Yes, that. That's why you're a mommy, to bake bread for me." Yup, pretty much.

On other fronts:
Doctor X called once again to confirm what we had suspected all along, that indeed I had outcome 3, and that my body just responded asymptomatically, or at least abnormally. See? I am even an involuntary non-conformist. Go figure.

Note to self: stay away from Scandinavian films when you are already in a depressive funk. How many times can one's heart break? Over and over and over it would seem. The beauty of film, literature, art (but let's be honest, film is the genre that requires the least amount of planning on my part, and due to its short format, imposes the least amount of time-guilt) is its ability, when done properly, to evoke emotions in the human animal, catering to the voyeur in all of us, assuaging our morbid curiosity, to live vicarious lives of passion and demise.

I watched The Inheritance (Directed by Per Fly) and found myself curled up in a ball of misery, sobbing into my pillow. Beautiful, crushing and decidedly not for the hyper-sensitive. Although the thing about Scandinavian film that I find most compelling, its sepia tones, its slow development, its study of character, is far from the action-packed entertainment that the masses tend to seek, and is not meant to have the tear-jerking emotional roller coasters that hot-blooded audiences crave. Anyhow, to not spoil it, it is a study in how to destroy every ounce of possible happiness in your life by taking a job that you hate and buying into its vacuous ambitions because of what your family wants.

Incidentally I also watched Les choristes (directed by Christophe Barratier). Beautiful in its simplicity. Gorgeous, heartbreaking, stunning voices. For anyone who has ever loved a little boy, or been one (I imagine) this is a film that celebrates the secret spaces inside boys that are broken by the world into which they were born. Unfortunately the effect that it has on me is wanting to have a little boy of my own, (add to that I.'s constant pressure, "when am I going to have a baby sister or brother? Oh yeah, after you finish your PhD." Right, among other unmet requisites.) I loved it so much that i intend to watch it again before returning it to the video store. (Random connections it evoked for me memories of La mala educación and The Magdalene Laundries.)

Of course, every now and then there is a movie that fails to deliver, and I'll Sleep When I'm dead (directed by Mike Hodges) was one of those. While Malcolm McDowell as villainous sociopath accompanied me on oh, just about every first date that I had as a teenager (I know I am a strange bird, what can I say, A Clockwork Orange was my movie of choice - barometer for ascertaining the future possibilities of any relationship), in this film he was a beast with no history, and therefore no interest. The film revolves around the suicide of a small-time pretty boy drug dealer, flitting about among the pretty people of London, who, it seems, had a brother who was a hard-core gangster and who dissappeared from the scene 3 years before, and revived himself as a lumberjack. Random. Problem is, you never give a shit about the characters, and the suicide -propitiated by a premediated and yet pointless buggering rape- acts as the crux of this ultimately wasted piece of celuloid, that ends with a slew of uninteresting acts of violence and no understanding of the character's motivation.

And finally, I have been reading (really and truly, I actually got some work done this week, despite my shattered peace, I am still allowed to exist in the real spaces that I tend to frequent. I am giving myself permission.) medieval treatises on death and love. El libro de buen amor while worthy, I am sure, was too painfully long to receive more than a glancing blow from my eyes, but Manrique's "Coplas a la muerte de mi padre" and the Dança general de la muerte which deal with death, love and filial piety (not in that order, per se) inspired me, if briefly, to poetry.

I know that I am not a poet, not like Ignacio who sneezes and out comes a prize-winning poemario, (that's not fair, he works his ass off for that, I am just feeling sorry for myself) but I like the idea of painting pictures with words, and as I am decidedly not inclined to the visual arts (or not enough to not embarrass myself for lack of ability) I will stick with my own tools. I know that ultimately there is no point at all in creating, but given the alternatives... I choose life.

Which is why last night I made a kick-ass pozole and we went to celebrate Mexican Independence day with the rest of the Mexicans in the university community. I met some very interesting people, drank too much rum (Iván kept insisting), wine and then beer (horrors!), which lead to singing (the boys brought a guitar after their escapade). My voice is back and I am a sucker for an adoring audience, so while I rocked my baby to sleep, I let a few harmonies rip to accompany M. as he cradled his guitar. Then, if that weren't enough, I took to dancing (not with death, I don't think), an activity which, in my case, is rarely visited. Of course every time we get together with Laura and Líber (like the time we took our five-year-old to La Rumba, and she danced to her heart's delight, converting herself in the star of the night, pulling the singer off the stage (willingly) to dance with her), he makes me dance with him, which is generally traumatic because while he is an excellent dancer, I have two left feet. But with sufficient "inspiración etílica" I too, can move my feet in ways that I didn't previously imagine, or at least I can enjoy the metaphorical falling, unaware of, and uninterested in just how ridiculous I must seem.