Mirá vos

I really hadn't searched, but since I am fiddling with final details and I had forgotten a few names of important things (like nightclubs... unfortunately almost all have changed). I stumbled upon this.

It looks like they are still using the same tourism photos from 15 years ago. But, it did make me smile.

And strangely, I have remembered just about everything correctly.

The other fun thing I came across was this dictionary of Argentinismos explained for Spaniards... I wonder if there is one of Mexicanismos, or vice versa... clearly I haven't looked very hard.

Wishes for this day

I wish that it were easier, that this life didn't hurt so much.

I wish that I could sleep instead of having this heavy sickness in the mouth of my stomach.

I wish that I could slip through this world unnoticed, untouched, unscathed and that I would never, ever be the cause of pain.

I wish I could go back and have a do-over.

I wish that talking about it made it better.

I wish that it didn't have to be this way.

I wish that comfort were enough.

I wish that I didn't care so much, still.

I am full of wish, I know, I wish I didn't need so much, to wish so much, to ache so much for everything that I have and everything I have lost, gone forever, my innocence.

Aspirations

-Mom, what are "aspirations"?
-hopes and dreams, baby. where'd you get such a word from?
- I don't know, I've just had it stuck in my mind. Ever since I was born!

(Funny I have had that same word stuck in my mind ever since she was born. And I have still not given up hope.)

For what I am most thankful

My baby






Note: she sleeps peacefully since 6 this evening. She consumed six electrolyte popsicles, and managed to keep them down. When she is ready to eat again she will have Cherry Jello and two different broths from which to choose: turkey and chicken.

I am thankful for being reminded of how lucky I truly am that my child is generally so healthy, and that she has been holding up so amazingly well through all this turmoil. And that she is so loving and beloved. (I could go on and on, but I won't).

blessings in disguise

I was feeling totally unmotivated to write. No, not exactly, I wrote quite a bit, but not what I had set out to do. I had the whole day but what did I do? I went out for coffee with my favorite librarian, and then out to lunch at the Indian buffet with Kirsten, Peregrine and her parents, minus my child, who was being cared for and playing happily. I came home to an empty house. Ah yes, empty, nothing to do but write. But then there where dishes which seemed to be accruing like the interest on a loan with unfavorable lending terms, so I have made a goal for myself to keep my kitchen if not immaculate, at least presentable, and since I have done next to no cooking this should be easy. Papers seem to multiply, much like Idealist Savant's secretly mating stuff, and I struggle to not throw up my hands in utter weariness, I try different places to sit, I plug in as my juice is running low, I sit at the "dining room table" which needs a good scrubbing because I. took a blue vis-a-vis marker for overhead projections (not teachers? my utter dorkdom is quite clear, I know) Actually come to think of it, I don't ever, or hardly ever use overhead projectors, I remember how proficient all my high school language teachers were with reinforcing vocabulary and grammar using those quaint little culturally "appropriate" colored laminate sheets. I am not that sort of a teacher. But I digress. I am struck by a wave of terrible loneliness. I try to leave one writing project and chase it away with words. I am marginally successful. I wash all the yams that I bought and bake them in the oven while I write. I remember that I haven't eaten anything since the single plate of lunch. I make myself soy-protein boosted oatmeal, with milk for extra protein. It tastes funny but I eat it anyway. I finish one jug so that there won't be two gallon-size containers cluttering my fridge. I bought one bag of salad greens, a bag of cranberries, yams, a corn bread mix, two loaves of sprouted-soy whole grain bread - this is what I feed my child, who is a toast addict, but each piece has something like 8 grams of protein so who cares if she eats it with nutella or cream cheese, right? I remembered two bags of yellow onions. So what was I planning on eating all week? I have some frozen salmon, which I suppose I can defrost and cook after tomorrow. Some chicken breasts so that I can make a stock and celery and carrot to complete a soup. There are a few tomatoes and chile, I can add them to salad or make a soup base. I have in the pantry: couscous, differing pastas, basmati and risotto. I have frozen shrimp. Damn! forgot to buy another bag of frozen peas, which I like to throw in small quantities to add some green to the spectrum. I have cereal for her too, and of course white cheddar macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets as the emergency catch all for her (I wouldn't be caught dead eating them myself.) And I have no desire to eat. The yams baked up nicely and I peeled back their skin, cut them into chunks and set them aside to candy with maple syrup tomorrow. That is all I am responsible for, Kathy said that everything else was under control. I will take her word for it. I have to travel exactly 300 feet to Kirsten's back door, and that it precisely the distance that I am willing to commute for this meal. I hear a thump on the door. "Mommy, mommy!" I open it, she comes bustling in the door, in good spirits though she asks me, "and why did I come home? because I wanted to go to sleep, I was getting cranky." We say goodbye and I close the door and lock it.
I now have absolutely no desire to keep writing, but I do, I make my little reflection excercise. I get her ready for bed and I settle in to my horrible wrist position with the bedside lamp to light my way. And then it happens.
First full-fledged crisis, she coughs and gasps, and then begins projectile vomiting. I try to talk to her to get her to react to jump up and head for the bathroom like she has been trained but she is a zombie, she is paralyzed in her illness. I rub her back until she can stop and then I make her run to the bathroom. I quickly pull all the afected bedclothes from the bed, making certain not to contaminate anything that was previously untainted. She huddles and shakes in the bathroom. I get her into the shower and she shivers and cries that she is cold. I remain calm, but I want to cry. "It's ok baby, it's ok." "I'm sorry mommy," she apologizes over and over and I say, "It's not your fault, it's not your fault sweetie, don't apologize." After she is showered I take the previously top sheet and just throw it out in the dumpster, sneaking the ten feet from my front door to the trash receptacle in nothing but underwear and a t-shirt. I hope that no one is walking by, and luckily, no one sees me, except perhaps someone from the neighboring complex with binoculars, but if they are that intent on watching, well they have already gotten an eyefull so what do I care, right?

So what is my point about blessings in disguise you wonder? Well because I had to shake myself out of the haze to address this crisis, I was able to sit down and finish my chapter, another 2,000 words. I also had the forethought to have her bring her beach bucket just in case she got sick again, and it fit perfectly over her face as she purged once again an hour later. Bad, painful and distasteful things can, and often do lead to other positive changes/ effects in our lives. I just wanted to remind myself of this. It is easy to dwell on the unfortunate ill, but sometimes that is precisely what makes us take stock of our own actions (or inactions) and change the course of our unfolding narrative.

But, now I don't know if I should trust her tummy and bucket to go to sleep, or if I should just stay up all night keeping vigil and writing... decisions, decisions.

Lost in translation

Although in my world, I love my boss (really he's awesome and a great friend, too.)
This poem of Quinto's struck me as something that some others of you, dear readers, might enjoy, so with his permission, I made a quick translation (yes, as you all must know by now, I prefer free-form poetry myself, and it is much easier to render artfully in another tongue, I find): May this long weekend free you all (here in the US, at least) from stresses and laboral disappointments, if nothing else.

Boss

I’m seated,
drink water,
Organize my things
And think of how his head would look
Mounted on a stake.

I am ever aware
Of his flourishes of power
His cold sarcasm,
And my chastisements;
Sometimes I think I could
Turn his head into mush;
With broken fists
Burying the fragments of bone
In the ground

To be honest,
I don’t like him;
I could tie him to a chair,
Excise his eye with my fingers,
Hold up his head
And violate the bloody hole that’s left.

One of these days, I’ll quit.

Harry Potter's adventure to the mountain of sorrow

(This is a new story according to I. - Slash fiction at a young age? Childhood wisdom outdoing adult rationale?)

Harry said one day, "We have a new visitor coming to our school and he's a very important man who needs to teach us sorrow." So he did come. While Harry Potter was going he found the dangerous mountain of sorrow and he climbed up to the highest peak, but the man couldn't come because he was dead. The dangerous snake of sorrow was looking into his eyes and then Harry Potter was wondering why he had died and suddenly he found the key to the chamber of secrets and then he went back to the school, he asked the book if the man could kill him and suddenly he went into the chamber of secrets, he found the man who he was looking for, he was just a memory that he sought.

The End

Love is a stranger
In an open car
To tempt you in
And drive you far away

And I want you
And I want you
And I want you so
It’s an obsession

Love is a danger
Of a different kind
To take you away
And leave you far behind
And love love love
Is a dangerous drug
You have to receive it
And you still can’t
Get enough of the stuff

It’s savage and it’s cruel
And it shines like destruction
Comes in like the flood
And it seems like religion
It’s noble and it’s brutal
It distorts and deranges
And it wrenches you up
And you’re left like a zombie

And I want you
And I want you
And I want you so
It’s an obsession

It’s guilt edged
Glamorous and sleek by design
You know it’s jealous by nature
False and unkind
It’s hard and restrained
And it’s totally cool
It touches and it teases
As you stumble in the debris

And I want you
And I want you
And I want you so
It’s an obsession

---The Eurythmics

Ok, so the working title of the "novel" is Stranger, and I was diddling around in google, as I am wont to do, stumbled upon these lyrics, and was terribly amused. No. Really. Gotta love pop-song psychology. Don't mind my lack of eloquence. I have given up the pleasures of the tongue. No cooking for me either. Barely eating. Ok. Doing better. No mind-altering substances, no caffeine, no nothing. Just me and the screen. That's all that is left.

Reflections on What I am

I'm not aware of too many things,
but I know what I know if you know what I mean.
Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box.
Religion is the smile on a dog.
I'm not aware of too many things,
but I know what I know if you know what I mean.
Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep.
What I am is what I am.
Are you what you are - or what?
I'm not aware of too many things,
but I know what I know if you know what I mean.
Philosophy is a walk on the slippery rocks.
Religion is a light in the fog.
I'm not aware of too many things,
but I know what I know if you know what I mean.
Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep.
What I am is what I am.
Are you what you are - or what?
Don't let me get too deep.
--Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians

What I am:

Woman warrior



Blind



Self-indulgent



Sad



Silent



Stretched to my limit



Supportive



Blurred in fantasy



Revealing

Allegory seems to be a family affair

Quoth the child:

"A tiger remains seated"

Once upon a time there was a little girl and that little girl was Little Red Robin Hood. And that little girl was walking along one day and found a wolf. And that wolf was hopping along with his grandma and then it reminded her of when her grandma doesn't like hot days, so she brought her some lemonade and she went all the way back home. Why she went all the way back home was because she loved it, but suddenly she saw a werewolf and that werewolf was so mean! She ran back home again. And then there was a tiger, the tiger was so rockin' roll tired because he ran "hoo hoo hoo hoo" super fast. He got in trouble and sat on a chair because his mom found him and he was running with the wolf and she always told him "never run with a wolf" and he didn't listen. And she put him in a time out.

The End

Scripts we live our life by

I was thinking about how to envision my life, myself, who am I, really past the pain and sorrow of failure, past the joy of success.

I wonder if it is as simple as rewriting certain scripts in our lives, ideas of how we are, and who we are that are predetermined and fatalistic.

I realize that this particular song was a script for me, for many many years, and when I came back to myself, just over a year ago, it seemed perhaps the only thing I remembered from my previous life. But I have changed, grown, metamorphosed. Perhaps I need a new script. I'm fully open for suggestions :)

There’s a man who’s been out sailing
In a decade full of dreams
And he takes her to a schooner
And he treats her like a queen
Bearing beads from california
With their amber stones and green
He has called her from the harbor
He has kissed her with his freedom
He has heard her off to starboard
In the breaking and the breathing
Of the water weeds
While she was busy being free

There’s a man who’s climbed a mountain
And he’s calling out her name
And he hopes her heart can hear three thousand miles
He calls again
He can think her there beside him
He can miss her just the same
He has missed her in the forest
While he showed her all the flowers
And the branches sang the chorus
As he climbed the scaley towers
Of a forest tree
While she was somewhere being free

There’s a man who’s sent a letter
And he’s waiting for reply
He has asked her of her travels
Since the day they said goodbye
He writes wish you were beside me
We can make it if we try
He has seen her at the office
With her name on all his papers
Thru the sharing of the profits
He will find it hard to shake her
From his memory
And she’s so busy being free

There’s a lady in the city
And she thinks she loves them all
There’s the one who’s thinking of her
There’s the one who sometimes calls
There’s the one who writes her letters
With his facts and figures scrawl
She has brought them to her senses
They have laughed inside her laughter
Now she rallies her defenses
For she fears that one will ask her
For eternity
And she’s so busy being free

There’s a man who sends her medals
He is bleeding from the war
There’s a jouster and a jester and a man who owns a store
There’s a drummer and a dreamer
And you know there may be more
She will love them when she sees them
They will lose her if they follow
And she only means to please them
And her heart is full and hollow
Like a cactus tree
While she’s so busy being free
---Joni Mitchell

When it rains, it pours

So, it has been quite some time, my faithful followers that I haven't sat down for a good rant. Today is the day.
And despite the fact that all of the individual components of my personal tragedy are decidedly unfunny, I think, as a whole this can be taken with a grain of heuristic salt.

So. I couldn't sleep last night, or rather, I spent until past midnight corresponding in confusing and unclear ways with several people and trying to write another chapter. I did manage to finish by 1 am, though I must admit, the only reason I have been able to keep doing this is that I have given myself absolute and total license to blow off all academic responsibilities, at least for this week, whew, that was a tough one.

So, I have this unwieldy monster of a fracture boot on my foot, whose ultimate utility remains to be seen. It causes more problems than it solves, I think, and that of course is because my foot really doesn't hurt. Unless, of course, I poke it, or try to bend my straining digits. To say the least it has had several economic ramifications: 1) $65 for the apparatus itself, to be billed to my BARC account, add that to the $26 that the crutches, used in tandem exactly one day. 2) Last night, because I couldn't ride my bike, I had to park in the HSSB parking lot for the translation studies focus group meeting, and because I have three-thousand things on my mind, I forgot that the Transportation alternative passes automatically shut off at 5 o'clock. There was a juicy $40 ticket waiting on my window when I finally came out into the darkened lot. (Perhaps if I frame my sob story just so, they will reduce it to a $10 administrative fee. Fuckers.)

So going back to not sleeping. At 5, I. wakes up and wants the waffle that I didn't make her last night at 9 because she crashed out before I could be convinced that she wanted to eat more than sleep. Apparently I was right, but at 5 she was pestering me to go downstairs, after only 4 hours of sleep. I refused and she fell back asleep only to give her eternal battle of "five more minutes resting my eyes." and a snit about the jeans that I wanted to put on her. From now on I am going to have to be a less fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sort of mom and make her lay out her clothing the night before, I just don't know how I can take the stress of mornings, and soon, I will have an 8 am class. Grrr. Never in my academic career have I deigned to take a class so early, but it is a requirement, and so I must submit myself to the will of others.

This is a very humbling experience indeed.

So I take I. to school and try to leave before the bell rings but then it does and she comes running for just one more hug, and one more kiss. I get shakily back into my car, exhausted and sad, only to be trapped for five minutes while no one lets me out. I finally pull slowly out to hear a sickening crunch. In my blind spot, in the loading zone, there was a parked car and I pulled over immediately to exchange insurance information. I wobble across the pavement with my stupid boot of torture.
"Lo siento," I apologize.
"Este..."
"¿Tiene seguro?" the man nods slowly, hedging, "Pero, no me gustaría involucrar a mi seguranza." (ech. I know, the use of seguranza instead of the appropriate Spanish word seguro or aseguradora (for the company) always makes my skin crawl, no time for linguistic snobbery, I'm the fuck up in this story.)
He relays that he doesn't want to have his insurance go up, and I reply that the only way I know how to deal with the situation is by involving my insurance, and that it is a trustworthy company, sure, he must be thinking, trust the fucking gabacha güera in the BMW) I reiterate my apologies. I explain that I can't insure that everything will be ok, but that this is the best I can do. He wants my phone number, I hesitantly concede, his wife has returned to their car and is acting as secretary.

"So you're sure that my insurance won't go up?" he is still reticent, in Mexico this is not usually how it is done, normally you slip someone a little bit of money for their trouble, or you work out a fair deal gang-land style (one day I will tell a really unfunny story about this). Here no one approached us, no one offered themselves as mediators, and really it was just a sizeable dent in his driver's side door. Ok, and the silly plastic trim popped of. That's what I get for having a sturdy metal car.
"Mire," le digo, "No sé que decirle, lo único que puedo hacer es que se arreglen los seguros entre sí, tengo el pie roto y estoy en medio de un divorcio," my voice wobbles, I am embarrassed form my clumsiness and my inability to fix this thing.

I get a phone call, "can you get together work clothes for me and there is some software that I need to take to the office."

I feel like my head is going to explode, now one might think that the world is conspiring to get me, but frankly, I am blessed with the ability to examine my life with amused (or bemused) detachment. And I had a good laugh, before I let myself have a good cry.

One

Angie

When life kicks you in the stomach

It is good to know that you can never be as evil as this bastard. (Too therapeutic not to republish - stolen from Jenny who stole it from somewhere else)

Bush in freefall (where can he possibly go from here?)

Can't conquer my nature

So you didn't think that I would really be able to stay away away, did you?

I feel this impulsive need to narrate my life, and no matter how much I process elsewhere, I still love the comfort of an old diary. Yes diaries are useless wastes of paper, I know, I no longer have a "real" notebook that I carry around with me, because this virtual one serves its purpose sufficiently, and there is always a computer around... although the back pages of my "academic" note books are always filled with random scraps of poems and beginnings of stories or letters to characters... but they dissipate into the entropic universe that is my desk. I don't like working at my desk because it is filled with books, books and more books. I feel guilty because there are still a good fifty to sixty that I am supposed to be diligently reading and I have robbed them of an entire month. Oh well, you only live once and a month isn't very long after all. But quite a bit can transpire in a month, no doubt about that in my mind or body.

So, as for writing... things are going well, I have about 80 pages (double spaced) which is roughly the size of my undergraduate thesis, although this is English, so it is much easier, but also this is "creative", so it is much harder. I am more or less a third of the way finished. In reality I haven't come up against the unnarratable, that is, I function in a highly specific way, and this always holds true with regard to Writing with a capital W (God, self-analysis seems to be the only thing I am consistently good at...or rambling on here). When I write it is a three-step process. First the idea stage is when I mentally prepare myself, talk to myself and others about an idea, coax it out and begin research (in this case, because it is "loosely autobiographical" the research was already done), the talking it out stage is the most important for me, I need to fully develop the argument mentally, verbally and then outline it. That is the second step, outlining. I make several outlines, but my outlines only make sense to me, that is, I am not a bullet style outline maker. I believe in scraps of thoughts, partial quotes and sometimes, lead-in sentences that I will later patch into the paper or feel guilty about leaving out. This is the longest and most arduous part of my task, and the mental preparedness requires a good deal of my psychic attention. The third and final, and in my case most fluid stage is the actual writing and I can never start until I am actually ready. That is why, as I am asked how I can consistently sit down and write thousands of words, complete chapters (or 30 page papers in an afternoon). The writing is the "easy" part. This of course is not to say that there is any inherent or intrinsic value in what I am writing, or even that I can vouch for its aesthetic quality, just that it comes and comes and comes. Once I have gotten to this stage it is like a volcanic eruption whose heat feeds itself.

Meanwhile little I. has been telling stories again, this time to her Bobie as she acts as virtual babysitter via video-chat and I run around washing the morning dishes, she sits and reads my child books from 3,500 miles away.

What a laugh I had, she's got a far more vivid imagination than I, but I am trying to recuperate my lost fantasy world, little baby steps at a time:

Once upon a time there were two butlers. They went to town and they
went in a church. And the church had a talking cow. And the cow
didn't talk like people; this is how the cow talked: "moo, moo, moo,
moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo." And the
cow jumped up and down after [sic]he said these words. (cow gender discussion ensued)

THE END

Writing induced stupor

Lou Reed never meant so much to me, but this song would pound in the background as my feet would hit the pavement in the very same town that I am trying to recreate. I am writing, I am writing, I am drunk on the sensation of creating. It is an addiction, and I don't know if I want to come down.

I don’t know just where I’m going
But I’m goin’ to try for the kingdom if I can
’cause it makes me feel like I’m a man
When I put a spike into my vein
Then I tell you things aren’t quite the same

When I’m rushing on my run
And I feel just like jesus’ son
And I guess I just don’t know
And I guess that I just don’t know

I have made very big decision
I’m goin’ to try to nullify my life
’cause when the blood begins to flow
When it shoots up the dropper’s neck
When I’m closing in on death

You can’t help me not you guys
All you sweet girls with all your sweet talk
You can all go take a walk
And I guess I just don’t know
And I guess I just don’t know

I wish that I was born a thousand years ago
I wish that I’d sailed the darkened seas
On a great big clipper ship
Going from this land here to that
I put on a sailor’s suit and cap

Away from the big city
Where a man cannot be free
Of all the evils in this town
And of himself and those around
Oh, and I guess I just don’t know
Oh, and I guess I just don’t know

Heroin, be the death of me
Heroin, it’s my wife and it’s my life
Because a mainer to my vein
Leads to a center in my head
And then I’m better off than dead

When the smack begins to flow
Then I really don’t care anymore
About all the jim-jims in this town
And everybody putting everybody else down
And all of the politicians makin’ crazy sounds
All the dead bodies piled up in mounds, yeah

Wow, that heroin is in my blood
And the blood is in my head
Yeah, the god’s good as dead
Ooohhh, God that I’m not aware
I just don’t care
And I guess I just don’t know
And I guess I just don’t know

Dear readers:

I am going on an adventure...

I am not sure when I will be back, but be sure that I will be... before snowfall. (ha ha)

I will try to stop in and visit you at your "homes" when I can, but I am curbing my use of the internet to early morning and late night rounds. Period.

Hernán Lara Zavala gave a talk last night that moved me to this, or maybe it was Quinto's beautiful poem, or something deeper and darker... I don't really know. But I was struck by one of those Carpe Diem moments.

It is a writer's job to write, and to complete the cycle, one must publish, but, for now, I will not be publishing what I write. Not here. Not now.

If you should feel so moved, please visit, email, call... I am not going to be incomunicada (Tuesday night "dates" can be kept;) and please feel free to peruse my archives here or at www.cuentocuentos.blogspot.com (where I may still drop a few poems here and there... even if most of you probably won't like them)

The big question, of course is, will I be able to resist narrating my mundane existence in lieu of another much more tantalizing one?

That remains to be seen.

This is all for now, cryptic though it may be.

I love you all, every single one of you.

besitos...