Cancion para mi muerte

The absence of hope? Or quite the opposite?

pieces of a letter thrown to the wind

when did it happen? when did it stop being enough? when did its utterances become hollow? the sounds, impercebtible, only dead weight floating on the surface. where did that mysterious line get crossed, stepping over the edge into the abyss? the point of no return? there are silences now that fill up the time, the space. silence or roaring waves of anger. it is the same after all, two sides to the same monstrous face. the air grows thick. i can't breath. i feel choked. it is cruel. nothing crueler than to realize that one has no hope, no reflection. the mirror gives back only what isn't there.

Hallelujah

Does Satan wear a suit and tie
Or does he work at the Dairy Queen
Does he listen to rock and roll
Does he feed the mean
Singing Hallelujah
What about Jesus
Didn't he do it too?
Hang out with prostitutes
And have a drink or two.
Power of example
My mama said it and I heard
She says one ounce of action
Beats a ton of words.
Singing Hallelujah.
Mama said there would be angels
Mama said there would be sun
Is the devil in Elvis to go where no white man went
Or hiding in Hugh Hefner's body or maybe even Larry Flynt.
Say, hows about the President shielding all them stones
Man if I could find a shield like that I'd run 'round naked
in my glass home.
Sippin' Hallelujah
I think my angel's gone to Vegas
Sippin' Hallelujah
Holding aces in her hand. Hallelujah
As she's singing rock of ages. Hallelujah
On the table at the Sands. Hallelujah
Does Satan wear a suit and tie or
Does he work at the Dairy Queen.
Does he listen to rock and roll
Does he feed the mean
Streak in all of us.
All us saints here on earth
Hypnotized and over-advertised
'Til we're numb at birth
Singing Hallelujah
And my angel's turning pages
Singing Hallelujah
And she just don't understand. Hallelujah
That the devil's hot on her trail. Hallelujah
On the road to broken promised land. Hallelujah
On the TV and the radio. Hallelujah
Good and evil look the same to you.
---Martin Sexton

ode to bobby dylan

the words the words the words are only a part, a small part, an infinitesimal part, transfixed by the slow smile, the blue, blue, bluest of eyes and the warm chords and sad sounds emitted from the guitar that wants to be a man and the man that wants to be a guitar, how does it feel to be selfish and in love? how does it feel to be at the top of your game to know that it is all a steady rolling stone down the hill to the end, ending waking, walking burning with fire inside? you were my first love, my first world, my first peek at myself.
how does it feel to be out, hung loose for the world to see, needing no one, but the fire within and the feelings that turned themselves into a universe inside you? from you i learned how to be a woman, alone, in the water, tangled up in you, in the darkness, and organ falling in cascades of oceans of rivers of faucets that drip in lonely one-bedroom apartments in greenwich village and the people that took you for a ride, did you feel it, did it take you where you wanted it to go?
the words fall away in aharmonic soliliquies of pain and solace wrapped up in one. it is always the music, the music, the music whirling around inside of you, inside of me, inside our collective head, a century, condensed down into one pure moment. i have a dream and it is the same dream of the masses of the millions of every single one that breathes with you in their head, a word, a word, it closes slowly, the type-writer clacks away, the pain in your back slackens, for a moment, with a motorcycle between your thighs, my eyes, will see you forever, since the first awakening, of my mind, which is just a part, infinitesimally small, eternally slipping insignificant, like yourself, in a dream, before you.

Culinary catastrophes and lessons learned

Although I may make myself out to be a miracle worker in the kitchen (a role that I like to play no matter how for granted I may be taken) I, too, have bad days.

Sometimes salvage missions go terribly wrong...

Take for example last week's attempt a making a guava jam. When I was sick (seems so long ago now) I kept thinking, "why don't I go get some guayabas, everything will be better then." And then lo, at the neighborhood co-op there, in the reduced produce section, they leapt forth as if meant for only me. Except... they were not the smooth yellow-skinned ones of "home" but rather had a dark green and slightly more bumpy texture. They purported to be "Hawaiian pineapple guava" but they still had the distinctly pungent scent that I so desired, and a kilo for a buck, well how could I go wrong?

Thing is... I don't know this kind of fruit and it didn't taste like I wanted it, actually it didn't feel like I wanted it. Instead of the soft, sweet, pinkish center, it had a sallow, jaundiced look about it and it was mealy, grainy and in all other ways unpleasant (ok big confession for the day, I do have an oral fixation - always have a pen or something in my mouth- but I am hyper-picky about the textures of my food... I know I am totally neurotic, I am embracing the neuras). So I let them hang for about a week in my fruit basket and when I finally had time to spend in the kitchen (last friday), baked brownies for my colleagues and superiors (nothing like "buttering" them up with chocolate that goes straight to the hypothalamus:), made an Ilana version of Mexican lentil soup (tomato, garlic, onion, chile, cilantro and kielbasa sauteed and added to the previously cooked lentils - veggies can easily omit kielbasa) and decided that it was time to make good use of the otherwise not good guavas. But... half had already gone bad, the other half were not at all sweet and when I added them to the pot with water to simmer they needed extra sugar, and... I got distracted, as I am wont to do, by abstractions in front of an LCD.

Lesson learned: if it smells like smoke, something is probably burning.

One week later, after boiling, soaking, adding bicarbonate and more, I have given up on dislodging the burned sugar from the bottom of my stainless steel pot (this is why I should invest in cast iron cookware - I know, some day, when I have a cozy farm house and the fog rolls in off the water, and the horses are in their stable to the side of the house).

I also had a run-in with the non-flammable effects of heat on Triple-sec. I. wanted french toast, and while I had to cut the edges from the bread (I can't figure it out, but the heartier the grains in the bread I get are, the more prone to rapid molding they seem to be), I had a handful of bananas that were ready for rapid consumption, so I thought I would flambé them with some liqueur instead of the staple maple syrup. Sauteed in butter and sugar is a banana's most glorious form, and the light orange syrup that is left promised to be a delicate addition to the morning. Problem was, of course, that I added it too soon, and then I could find no matches, and I desperately tried burning napkin corners on the other burner, but each time I brought the flame near the pan, it was damped. After the third try, I humbly gave up.

Lesson learned: if you mean to flambé something, have matches ready as soon as you pour the alcohol.

But while I am on the topic of food, I might as well share a few serendipitous discoveries too.

Discovery 1: Cooked radish makes an excellent stand-in for mushrooms.
Don't ask, some times these flashes of experimentation swoop down upon me. I made a cream-based pasta sauce that included zuchini, but I had all these sliced radishes left over from the pozole guarnishing, and I remembered that although I never ever buy or cook them, parsnips and turnips are quite good when cooked, and radish seemed like it might do the same sort of thing. In fact it did! It loses its bitterness and although it doesn't get altogether soft, it has a texture similar to that of a mushroom at its prime moment, just wilted but not soggy.

Discovery 2: Swiss Chard is wonderful (but much better when you don't leave it three weeks in a sealed bag thereby having to throw out half of it after picking through) in fritattas. I was on another rescue mission and feeling a bit adventurous (I wanted to make a quiche, like the tartas de acelgas that I so loved back in Miramar, but had no pie crust nor any desire to make one from scratch) so I sauteed what remained of the fresh nopales (after, of course, washing the slime from the cactus), the rainbow chard, onion, garlic and mushrooms, in the bottom of a deep calphalon pot (these pots don't stick, and yes they are very good, although I still can't understand why a set of pots and pans should cost almost $500, I mean, they are not that good). Then I added cubes of queso fresco (panela) which in English is a light, rubbery sort of pressed, semi-hard cheese - a bit like paneer in the Indian tradition, and finally the beaten egg, I covered it and let it rise up, and all told was pleased with the results.

So, I have been starving (not literally, in fact I have been eating a reasonable amount at proper intervals) but I just feel famished for the last three days. Can you tell?

When I Met My Muse

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

---William Stafford (1914-1993)

Ausencia III

Ausencia III
Originally uploaded by lunita.

i can just see you show me your garden
i thought you'd grow roses and grapes on low vines
i wanted to know you when we were both older
i thought there'd be more of those wonderful times
i can lie to myslef
and say i like it
but i would love it if you were here
---Sarah Harmer, "You were here"

Dog dreams

Classes have begun again, and thusly, anxiety dreams.

I don't think that I am who I am because I am teaching a class on statistics and I have no fucking clue about statistics. But there I am, an instructor, no, I am not naked. I like being naked and actually when one person is nude and others are not it changes the power dynamic in favor of the person who is unclothed. No, and in fact the anxiety is actually also unrelated to my lack of mathematical knowledge (though strangely almost all anxiety/school related dreams are related to having missed the first six weeks of calculus class, or having failed to do math homework for a month and having a test the next day, being cornered in the hall by the instructor etc.) but to the fact that my dog, which I don't have, somehow managed to come to school with me and it would be BREAKING THE RULES to allow him into any kind of school building unless, of course, I were blind.

I have never had a dog but sometimes I think that I would like one. In the same way, I suppose that I would like another baby. Distant thoughts far from the reach of the long arm we like to call reality. But I do love dogs despite being a cat myself. There have been a few. I loved Blackjack, my childhood neighbor's black lab. He and I would play after school every day for years, until we finally moved away. I remember when I was 10 they would be having a backyard BBQ and I would be invited over as the entertainment, their guests would ask me questions and marvel at my (I can only imagine) precocious responses. They would ask, and it never got old, "how old are you 30?" "No, silly I'm 10." "Oh, 10 going on 30."

Asynchronous to the core. I have decided that age and time don't really exist.

I like rules though, they make sense. I suppose that in fact I would have liked statistics, and perhaps one day I will abandon literature and become a social scientist (there are urges sometimes, I resist, but I can envision myself sabotaging my own career at some future date just so I can learn to be something new and completely different). But instead, long ago, I opted out of stats and calculus (as undergraduate math requirements) and in their lieu took an introduction to computer programming. I remember exactly nothing, or rather the amount of knowledge accrued in the space of one semester when my brain was already hijacked by a baby (if people speak of pregnancy and how women become distractable and forgetful, it is totally and absolutely true.) is totally obsolete and useless to me now.

I also loved my friend Jobi's golden retriever Jake, he was the smartest damn dog that ever was. And my friend Sue and Ben's border collie, also Jake, god I loved that dog, even after my brother picked him up and he bit his mouth trapping his teeth in his braces and propitiating an emergency room visit. My parents were in the carribean, just like they are today, no that's a lie. They were in Bermuda for a week.

But the dog I loved the most was a dog whose name I never knew. When I was a small, small child, I went to a crunchy hippie school in the lovely Rose Valley woods. No one made me learn how to read, in fact I made it through kindergarten without decoding a single word, but I would write works of theater, and poems and songs, just had to have a scribe. My memories of Rose Valley are mostly wonderful, though my parents tell me I was miserable by the time they stopped taking me, allowing me at age 8 to spend my long afternoons at home alone in front of MTV. We had free rein of the woods and we would play kick the can and capture the flag, or we would dress up and act out our high fantasy. We would collect tadpoles and pick blackberries and honeysuckles, and explore our bodies (I think I mentioned this before). It was a highly permissive atmosphere, but at the same time, highly creative. I spent most of my playtime building geodesic domes with construction sets, or having stories read to me. Aesop's fables, Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories (I still remember the banks of the great grey green greasy Limpopo). The Princess Bride (and Iñigo's spilling entrails), "The highwayman" (Alfred Noyes) and the shortening winter nights, waiting, waiting. But in our outdoor play there was a great white dog, he was huge, with massive paws and shaggy, brilliant white fur, and he was alone. He was a herding dog of some sort, and I loved him like I loved no one, perhaps precisely because he was alone, and therefore he became my own. He was like the dog from the Japanimation cartoon that I also loved "Belle and Sebastian" (and, incidentally, I was crushed when it ended). He would come lumbering out of the forest, from a neighboring house and he would play for hours in the waning of the day; we would talk, or at least it seemed that he understood me in his patient silence, eager to accept the caresses that my 6-year-old hands would dole out endlessly.

This is the age at which I had my very first (memorable) anxiety dream. The setting was The School in Rose Valley, around the side of the preschool building, under the chestnut tree. My great white dog was nowhere to be found, and there was a line of marching baby alligators, neatly defined marching, marching in the straightest of lines up the ladder to the top of the slide, sliding, landing, walking in a semi-circle to join the tail end of the line. Why would I classify this as an anxiety dream? Well, perhaps only because of the sensation that it left in me, a blind terror that I had somehow misread the appropriate and previously agreed upon rules and for that reason, I was left on the outside looking in. Or of the horror of uniformity, of sameness, of conformity to an unattainable ideal. I had that same dream for years, and it was quietly replaced by another dream of terror, being trapped in an abandoned car, or a supply closet or my own home, guarded by sleazy men in low-riding cars, that had the intention of kidnapping me, of hurting me. How? I never dreamed that part, it wasn't the fear of the acts to be committed but rather the fear of enclosure.

I still have a hard time doing my work indoors. I need to feel like the sky is literally the limit. Perhaps that explains why in my dream I was so mortified by bringing my white dog into the confined spaces that are so neatly marked, so stained by decorum and apropriateness. I think that maybe there is a need for insurgence, a reclaiming in human humors the spaces that break us down into nothingness. There must be something liberating in the secret "mis"use of a space, just like the owning and redefining of epithets that are made to oppress and convert themselves into something beautiful, unique, intransferable.

metamorphosis

And Gregor awoke to find that she had converted herself in a man, capable of only one thought... (fútbol).

And the realization dawned, with terror, that the hair that she had so meticulously carved from her skin, for the last time, would carry an altogether different social meaning.

She thanked himself that there would be no one to see the mortifications of their flesh.

El celaje

¿Adónde fuiste, amor; adónde fuiste?
Se extinguió en el poniente el manso fuego,
y tú que me decias: "hasta luego,
volveré por la noche"... ¡No volviste!

¿En qué zarzas tu pie divino heriste?
¿Qué muro cruel te ensordeció a mi ruego?
¿Qué nieve supo congelar
tu apego y a tu memoria hurtar mi imagen triste?

¡Amor, ya no vendrás! En vano, ansioso,
de mi balcón atalayando vivo
el campo verde y el confín brumoso.

Y me finge un celaje fugitivo
nave de luz en que, al final reposo,
va tu dulce fantasma pensativo.

---Amado Nervo (1870-1919)

Lost... and found

Obladi oblada...

Nothing like lovely women to remind us that we're here and real. A phone call with Jenny and then Juliet. A Tuesday night dance party with Kirsten, Peregrine and I. Life does go on. and on. and on...
Immortality while tempting, must prove terribly lonely. My god, if one can't even make it through the night alone, what can one expect of an eternity missing all the people that we have loved and have left us.
Suicide for the undead? Deicide? I've been pulled back into myself, my identity, fractured but still integral. Tomorrow I will go consort with my cohort because, after all, I am what I am, isn't that what is said? Who am I to deny where I come from?

I should wear mini-skirts more often. I should, maybe all my days would end so enjoyably. Nothing like dancing around the living room with one of my favorite single moms, discussing masturbation (a sleep aid), drinking red wine (the surefire way to wind me up) and gyrating our booties to the ryhtms of our memories. Billy Jean, Respect, I will survive, I'm too sexy... with children clinging to us as we twirl eachother around in circles. Letting go, letting go. Living inside one's body, however imperfect or unloveable or in pain, letting loose with the music in swirling, sweating colors. Ragin' cajun music, and the Beatles to boot, and our children snake between our legs, rocking back and forth as our hips swing in time to the music, and their hearts beat faster. They fight, they hug, they cry, beg for a sleepover, half-clothed; and we push their bedtime back just a little bit longer, starved for adult attention, real conversation, release.

More bizarre love triangulation

As we all know, this here blog is a democracy... or at least an oligarchy, which means... your wish is my command (within the realm of the reasonable and legal). In fact, I don't even require a quid pro quo because frankly giving is a much nobler endeavour than receiving (or at least I tell myself that because I am really bad at receiving). Anyhow, due to the technological limitations of this (ha ha) genre... I opted for the version that Frente did in 1994 seeing as how the techo-rhythm was not only an improbability, for me, but a virtual impossibility. I will have you know, though it doesn't matter, that there was a time in my life (I was 11?) that I really liked New Order, but then I have always had somewhat eclectic tastes in music, back then I would have been as likely listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons (spring was my favorite, followed by autumn), Don McLean's "American Pie" (I think I spent that summer listening to it over and over and over until I memorized all eight minutes of the lyrics) Billy Joel's Innocent Man album, Beethoven's fifth (this was pre-ultra violence phase), Jimmy Cliff's The Harder They Come (hold overs from my wasted youth;), Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", INXS, or Debbie Gibson (hey! I was 11, what do you want from me?). Yeah, random. There is a DJ in my brain that is on constant overtime, but I'm told that I am not the only person that thinks in song lyrics. I comfort myself with this fact. Anyway...here goes:

Bizarre love triangle

Every time I think of you
I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue
It's no problem of mine but it's a problem I find
Living a life that I can't leave behind
There's no sense in telling me
The wisdom of a fool won't set you free
But that's the way that it goes
And it's what nobody knows
While every day my confusion grows
Every time I see you falling
I get down on my knees and pray
I'm waiting for that final moment
You'll say the words that I can't say.

---New Order

Le Chiavi di Casa

Fantasizing about more children (again) seems to be a theme for me these days, and as I believe I have said before, there is nothing sexier than good fathering in action. Even the hint of parenting skills are enough to melt even the iciest of hearts (not that I have this problem... in fact quite the opposite, I think I can be accused of a sanguine temperament). And of course the other is a tendency to select films that are both extremely beautiful, and at the same time, terribly painful to see. Maybe I have been seeking the two things together, and maybe a shrink could help me figure this out and resolve it. Oh, wait, I think I know exactly what it is about, but it is not up for public debate...

This film, directed by Gianni Amelio, moved slowly, and infuriated one (read: me) with the father's utter lack of a clue (leaving severely handicapped child unattended in a public arena), but ultimately, was truly satisfying because it was unafraid to demonstrate a profound sense of male affection, fatherly affection for an imperfect boy-child, without falling into stereotypes about bravado or pride; crafting characters that were absolutely robust, complex, lost inside their inner universe of pain. The acting was phenomenal and the illumination, the glimpse into a moment in the life of a child with "special needs", was more than sobering. If, as a parent, one feels that they have (at least in part) lost their identity in lieu of their child's burgeoning one, I can only imagine how impossible, how shattering it must be to have a child that isn't self-sufficient - ever.

I shan't recount the details of the plot, as it is not a film about action, but rather a study in character development. It is a story that parts from a grain of sand exploding into a desert of emotion. And, while some might find the open ending a frustration, I found it to be metaphorical for all that the job of truly being a father implies: unconditional love tempered by the exasperation of knowing that one can never really change the inevitable outcome of their child's life. And of course, it was also so much more than that.

(Note: I say all this while I. lays next to me frustrated, practicing writing her letters - homework - "why do I have to do it all now? Oh yeah, oh yeah, because it is important... If I do this page can I go back out and play?")

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.

From irksome to truly dismal

Irksome update on obnoxious health problems: (I feel mostly better, ok, not so much, but for the purposes of our virtual interaction, no one wants to hear me continue to whine).

Phone rings. University number. No no one that I want to call will be calling from this number. Must be the clinic.
"Hello, Ilana? This is Dr. X."
Surprised pause. "Hello."
"I'm calling to see how you are doing, are you better?"
"Mostly, well, no but the stomach thing seems under control."
"Oh, good, well I just wanted to check in with you."
"I was under the impression that my labs had been sent to the county. No results?"
Of course she hadn't checked, but she didn't say this either.
"Oh, well, that's really not a concern, if you had had outcome 3 we often don't even treat that, and really it is only important if there is an outbreak. In any case, whatever it was it should have been knocked out by the antibiotics. If you're still feeling bad in two weeks you can call and come in."
"Thanks."

WTF???? It isn't important to whom? Not to mention that she didn't think to suggest probiotics to combat that medicinal time-bomb that was lobbed my way, good that I'm a grown up and know how to take care of myself.

And a potpourri of things that make me a little sad (or at least perplexed)
I. had her very first homework assignment this weekend. I was under the impression that it was due on Monday, and it was quite a few pages long. Sunday night I. is getting sleepy, but I remind her that it is important to finish her homework. She tries but leaves a few pages for the morning. "It's ok baby, there won't be time in the morning, but I am sure we can finish it once you get to school. Next week we'll start earlier."
She sleeps in her blanket bed, the only way to even dream of distancing her clutching hands from my undesirous (not undesireable) cleavage, and as she is a sleepwalker/sleeptalker she sits up as we are watching a movie and cries, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't finish my homework." She mutters a few more unintelligible words as she settles back into her pillow.
The following morning as I coax her to do the rest of her work as we wait for the morning bell, her little amiguita Damaris runs up. "¡Ay! ¿estás haciendo tarea?"
I smile at her, she is sweet and it is good for I. to get excited about speaking Spanish with her friends (although almost all of her friends also speak Spanish at home, but not among eachother) "¿Hiciste tu tarea?"
"¡Ni la hice ni la traje!" she replies, proud of her lack of interest, she goes on to tell me about the reasons that she couldn't do her work, Mamá came home from school, then Papá had to go to work, then we ate then we all had to go to bed. etc.
I felt suddenly conflicted. There is definitely a socio-economic component to the resistance to homework, especially, I fear among little girls, but then is it any better that I. is totally traumatized, having anxiety dreams about homework in this her third week of kindergarten? Agh! And it turns out that her homework wasn't due until Thursday and there I was sermonizing about the importance of completing our academic responsibilities in a timely manner. I am a horrible parent! Help!

But I was most saddened by her this morning. She couldn't play on the jungle gym because her mom had been ironing on the bed and she kicked the blankets off and burned her foot. (The legally obligated reporter bell in me goes off, even though I am no longer a public school teacher, and this really wasn't what seemed to be an abuse issue.) She ran a few steps and then limped. "Sweetie, if it hurts, it's ok to tell the teacher and have the school nurse take care of you." "Oh, no, no. I can't do that!"
There is such a mistrust (and rightfully so) of the government institutions that this little girl is trained to prefer suffering through a totally treatable injury rather than exposing the interiority of her family to any sort of questioning. I feel sad and thoroughly useless.

Quote of the day

K. relays this quote from Spring.

"Oh fuck, you know we're getting old... marriages are falling apart in catastrophic ways."

Harboring feelings

Harboring feelings
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Le Bateau Ivre

Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles,
Je ne me sentais plus tiré par les haleurs :
Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles
Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.

J'étais insoucieux de tous les équipages,
Porteur de blés flamands et de cotons anglais.
Quand avec mes haleurs ont fini ces tapages
Les Fleuves m'ont laissé descendre où je voulais.

Dans les clapotements furieux des marées,
Moi, l'autre hiver, plus sourd que les cerveaux d'enfants,
Je courus ! Et les Péninsules démarrées
N'ont pas subi tohu-bohus plus triomphants.

La tempête a béni mes éveils maritimes.
Plus léger qu'un bouchon j'ai dansé sur les flots
Qu'on appelle rouleurs éternels de victimes,
Dix nuits, sans regretter l'oeil niais des falots !

Plus douce qu'aux enfants la chair des pommes sûres,
L'eau verte pénétra ma coque de sapin
Et des taches de vins bleus et des vomissures
Me lava, dispersant gouvernail et grappin.

Et dès lors, je me suis baigné dans le Poème
De la Mer, infusé d'astres, et lactescent,
Dévorant les azurs verts ; où, flottaison blême
Et ravie, un noyé pensif parfois descend ;

Où, teignant tout à coup les bleuités, délires
Et rythmes lents sous les rutilements du jour,
Plus fortes que l'alcool, plus vastes que nos lyres,
Fermentent les rousseurs amères de l'amour !

Je sais les cieux crevant en éclairs, et les trombes
Et les ressacs et les courants : Je sais le soir,
L'aube exaltée ainsi qu'un peuple de colombes,
Et j'ai vu quelques fois ce que l'homme a cru voir !

J'ai vu le soleil bas, taché d'horreurs mystiques,
Illuminant de longs figements violets,
Pareils à des acteurs de drames très-antiques
Les flots roulant au loin leurs frissons de volets !

J'ai rêvé la nuit verte aux neiges éblouies,
Baiser montant aux yeux des mers avec lenteurs,
La circulation des sèves inouïes
Et l'éveil jaune et bleu des phosphores chanteurs !

J'ai suivi, des mois pleins, pareilles aux vacheries
Hystériques, la houle à l'assaut des récifs,
Sans songer que les pieds lumineux des Maries
Pussent forcer le mufle aux Océans poussifs !

J'ai heurté, savez-vous, d'incroyables Florides
Mêlant aux fleurs des yeux des panthères à peaux
D'hommes ! Des arcs-en-ciel tendus comme des brides
Sous l'horizon des mers, à de glauques troupeaux !

J'ai vu fermenter les marais énormes, nasses
Où pourrit dans les joncs tout un Léviathan !
Des écroulement d'eau au milieu des bonacees,
Et les lointains vers les gouffres cataractant !

Glaciers, soleils d'argent, flots nacreux, cieux de braises !
Échouages hideux au fond des golfes bruns
Où les serpents géants dévorés de punaises
Choient, des arbres tordus, avec de noirs parfums !

J'aurais voulu montrer aux enfants ces dorades
Du flot bleu, ces poissons d'or, ces poissons chantants.
- Des écumes de fleurs ont bercé mes dérades
Et d'ineffables vents m'ont ailé par instant.

Parfois, martyr lassé des pôles et des zones,
La mer dont le sanglot faisait mon roulis doux
Montait vers moi ses fleurs d'ombres aux ventouses jaunes
Et je restais, ainsi qu'une femme à genoux...

Presque île, balottant sur mes bords les querelles
Et les fientes d'oiseaux clabotteurs aux yeux blonds.
Et je voguais lorsqu'à travers mes liens frêles
Des noyés descendaient dormir à reculons !

Or moi, bateau perdu sous les cheveux des anses,
Jeté par l'ouragan dans l'éther sans oiseau,
Moi dont les Monitors et les voiliers des Hanses
N'auraient pas repéché la carcasse ivre d'eau ;

Libre, fumant, monté de brumes violettes,
Moi qui trouais le ciel rougeoyant comme un mur
Qui porte, confiture exquise aux bons poètes,
Des lichens de soleil et des morves d'azur ;

Qui courais, taché de lunules électriques,
Planche folle, escorté des hippocampes noirs,
Quand les juillets faisaient couler à coups de trique
Les cieux ultramarins aux ardents entonnoirs ;

Moi qui tremblais, sentant geindre à cinquante lieues
Le rut des Béhémots et les Maelstroms épais,
Fileur éternel des immobilités bleues,
Je regrette l'Europe aux anciens parapets !

J'ai vu des archipels sidéraux ! et des îles
Dont les cieux délirants sont ouverts au vogueur :
- Est-ce en ces nuits sans fond que tu dors et t'exiles,
Million d'oiseaux d'or, ô future vigueur ? -

Mais, vrai, j'ai trop pleuré ! Les Aubes sont navrantes.
Toute lune est atroce et tout soleil amer :
L'âcre amour m'a gonflé de torpeurs enivrantes.
Ô que ma quille éclate ! Ô que j'aille à la mer !

Si je désire une eau d'Europe, c'est la flache
Noire et froide où vers le crépuscule embaumé
Un enfant accroupi plein de tristesses, lâche
Un bateau frêle comme un papillon de mai.

Je ne puis plus, baigné de vos langueurs, ô lames,
Enlever leurs sillages aux porteurs de cotons,
Ni traverser l'orgueil des drapeaux et des flammes,
Ni nager sous les yeux horribles des pontons.

---Arthur Rimbaud

Thanks to Yuré for this épigraphe opportune.

Invisible ink (made visible for a few fleeting moments)

There are some things that never change. And others that seem to flex and grow with us despite the paths we take.

Example of a thing that doesn't change - my embarassing fascination with detectives and mysteries, ergo my need to decipher and decode secret messages. Clearly the media have changed but the underlying trait remains unchanged. When I was six my brother and I used to make up coded languages and write eachother messages in invisible ink. I don't think I have gotten past this.

Example of things that flex and morph - meanings of song lyrics. Take for example this one, by Pink Floyd:

When I was 12, I was certain that I fully understood this (but of course I had the lyrics all wrong, and not having internet beyond the monochromatic screens withcomputerized text "bulletin boards" that consumed my brother's afternoon hours and accrued multiple thousands of dollars of phone bills (big oops, boy was I glad it was him and not me) on modems that were slower and more miserable even, than the exit of this current regime, alas I was left to my own faulty devices. Of course, it was all about a boy longing for a girl, or vice versa (I think Jason Marquis, with his non-ass, and pants that fell somewhere below his boxer shorts was the object of fascination at that time, briefly, thank God.) But now it seems to me to be much more about a mid-life crisis and one's inability to act upon the things that one wants because of the constraints of society, because of the social contracts into which we have been inscribed, and the rules of engagement.
"Cold comfort for change." I don't know if I can live that way, I don't know."Did you exchange, a walk-on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage?" Well? My penchant for escapism is one of those other things that acts as a backdrop to my days. Yesterday a professor and I were discussing the fact that I am terrorized by stagnation, absolutely horrified by it, while he prefers routine, knowing that he can do pretty much the same thing for the next twenty years without major upheaval. It occurs to me that academia might be the one profession that can accomodate two such wildly different personalities. I need constant change, the possibility of going to a different country every summer, researching totally disparate areas, and I can still do that, some day... I hope. Why do I need constant tumult? I think that I am like the kid who sees a glass of unidentified liquid and decides to dump it out all over the place to figure out what it is and what it is doing there. Not a terribly efficient way of doing things, I fear. And speaking of inefficiency... now that I have moved offices (everyone was whining that we had to change offices, except, you guessed it, me, who loves moving as often as possible) and reconditioned my space for a creative environment, I am once again reminded that having a computer anywhere near me is a danger, so I must return to the tree of productivity or incur my own inward wrath for not accomplishing (am I really accomplishing anything?) the sufficient quantity of reading for the day. Ugh. You know it is bad when you are quantifying what you read and not qualifying it, but I am almost, almost, almost out of the dark ages, and perhaps if I chain myself to my tree, then I will finish this week!I hope. Or, I could write my examinations in invisible ink and make the advisory committee think that they are the only ones that can't read what I've written. Now there is a novel idea. Only it's not.

Adventures in Student Health

Note: This post was partially inspired by Dean's hysterically funny recount of the Customer Service for Costa Rican Telecommunications, and partially by events from real life.

Day 7 of illness: Ilana decides that it is best to bite the bullet and call for a doctor's appointment, only to find that there are no appointments for that day nor the following one, but that she can be seen in the urgent care section of the health center (strange bureaucratic situation as all regular doctor's visits are currently being routed through same office).

Day 8: Ilana drags herself out of bed, rousts her child unhappily from her crumpled blanket bed, careful to not step on her as she stumbles again to the bathroom. Drives her the 2 minutes to school, feeling guilty for using gasoline the whole way there when it is a 10 minute walk, but feeling too sick to deal with schlepping child behind on a bike or walking at a brisk pace. Guilt subsides partially when she parks the car and unlocks the bike to ride over to the "hospital".
She is seen almost immediately, the medical technician seems pleased with himself for this minor feat, but then insists on re-doing her whole chart even though she has been in to the office about 6 times in the past month.
Enter Doctor X.
"Hi what seems to be the problem."
Ilana explains again the nature of her illness.
"I see."
Ilana waits expectantly for a reasonable resolution to the problem.
"You see, this sort of thing is normally self-containing, so I don't think that we should give you any medicine."
"It has been 8 days."
"Yes, so why don't we run some tests just in case, and if you are still feeling bad in two days come back, the results should be in by then. I won't be here, unfortunately, but Dr. Y and Z will be. But I bet you'll be better by then." Patronizing smile.
Ilana grumbles to herself but understands and appreciates the ecological ramifications of over-zealous antibiotic use. Ilana suffers through more unpleasant testing.


Day 10: Ilana awakens unable to breath or swallow, and feels as if her head has been colonized by multiple aliens, who have been sledding down her throat with cheese-grater tobbogans. This is new. She drags child unwillingly from sleep, once more, deposits her at school and returns for a melt-down at home. Ilana's spouse, after said melt-down drops her off once more at Health Center. Service is decidedly slower today. Nurse N. comes in.
"What can we do for you today?"
Ilana wonders why they bother to have medical charts if they don't read them before asking questions. She then manages to give a curt recount of the story (after explaining to everyone else all the way up the food chain).
"Dr. X did a dictation," nurse N. apologizes, "It's not here yet."
Ilana wonders why not given that she was instructed to return in two days, but wisely keeps her mouth shut.
"I was told the results would be in by today," she calmly explains.
Nurse N. "what results?"
Ilana explains and Nurse N. thinks it best to actually go speak to the lab technicians to find out the results. Ilana agrees.
Nurse N. returns after a few minutes.
"Well there are two possible courses of action, I think the first is the best."
"..."
"The results show that there is something, but they are not conclusive. Tomorrow is Saturday and we're not open, the results will be ready monday. (**creative license will be used on this section of dialogue here to spare you the ugly details) You can take Medicine A, which won't solve the problem but it may be useful in alleviating discomfort. This is the best option."
Ilana: "No. I won't take that medicine, I know what it does to my body and I have no interest in participating."
Nurse N. "Ok. the other option is to take Antibiotic F, which we usually give when we don't know what it is that the patient has but we suspect outcome 1, which has already been ruled out. Now it could be outcome 2 or 3, but you are not quite symptomatic enough for that, but we can't rule them out either. So we can give you a three-day course instead, but it would really be better to know what we are dealing with."
Ilana: "Look, I understand your desire to not over-medicate, and frankly if I can avoid medication I generally do, however, I know my body and I know that this is not the way it is supposed to be. And I can tell you from personal experience that it rarely acts the way it is supposed to. For example: When my ACL ruptured from a swift kick it took the doctors several weeks to realize why my knee was totally destabilized because there was absolutely no edema. None. The most classic symptom of a knee trauma is swelling and I had none. I am perfectly willing to believe that my body is once again rebelling against your normative structures."
Nurse N.: "Ok, so what I will do is give you a three-day course of Antibiotic F, I mean you really do have something, the lab technicians said it was really pretty disgusting."
"Yes, thank you, I felt pretty self-conscious about the whole ordeal myself."
Nurse N. continues, unphased by her apparent lack of tact, and bedside manner. "Worst case scenario you spend $20 and we treat you with the wrong medicine, and on Monday we'll know for sure."
Ilana tries to muster some sense of dignity, though her psyche has already taken a good hard beating for the day.

Nurse N. excitedly exclaims as they are walking down the hall. "Here's my card. Call me on Monday because now I'm really curious about what you have!"
Ilana refrains from making one of her classic snide remarks about how she's glad that someone is excited about this.
Ilana proceeds to procure said medicine and within a few hours begins feeling better.

Day 13: Ilana calls Nurse N. and is routed through urgent care. Receptionist-in-training tries three times in vain to send her call to "the other side" which is a hallway exactly 15 feet from her desk. A message is taken.

Several hours pass and Ilana receives no call. Ilana is not a very patient person, as we all know. Ilana calls back, and again confronts the trainee.
"Yes, hi. I called earlier, I need to speak with Nurse N."
"What is it about?"
"Test results."
"Oh, you know, usually if there is nothing wrong they don't call you."
"No. We have already established that there is something wrong. I am taking medication, they were re-running some tests because they were inconclusive."
"Oh. Ok, how do you spell your name again?"
"Ok. This time I'll walk the message over to her... in a little while."
"Thank you, have a nice day." (you can't hear gritted teeth, can you?)
"Ok, you too."


Several more hours pass. Cell-phone rings with the unknown number ring. Ilana excuses herself from rant with professor to take the call, knowing it must be Nurse N."
"Hello, Ilana?"
"Speaking."
"Hi, this is Nurse N. I have been really busy with patients today, in and out. But I thought I would try to call you back quickly since you called twice." (3 hours after second call and 6 after first)
"Thank you."
"Soooooooooo. The really interesting thing is..." she begins excitedly, "you know how I said the results would be in (yadda yadda, yes I remember our conversation it was three days ago.) weeeeeeell, the results were inconclusive again, they found something, they just don't know what! So we had to send it out to the County office! Now I am really curious."
Ilana refrains again from breaking the fine line of decorum and professional courtesy even though it is her health that Nurse N. is enthusiastically following, as if it were nothing more than the outcome of a tennis match, or the superbowl, or worse, congressional hearings to examine a candidate for new chief justice.
Nurse N. explains that the results will possibly not be in until the day after tomorrow, and Ilana resignedly agrees to bide patiently, not really caring one way or another what the final outcome may be.

Ilana comes home and writes a disinterested account of what many others might find a horrific experience in customer service, but, Ilana has been through far worse, so she has learned to just let these things go, and laugh about them when she can.

Sobering thoughts from my former self

A visit from my 23-year-old semi-ex-pat self (forgive the naiveté and the factual errors, and the fact that I failed to link this day to my own government's blatant disregard for democracy in Chile - this was what I wrote in the moment before all the real news trickled down…)
And strangely… nothing is different, yet everything is changed.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Today truly is a day that will live in infamy. Pinna woke us up w/ the NEWS. We had all been feeling tense and upset since arriving from Cancun – which was accentuated when we ran out of gas at night in the middle of Periférico in bumper to bumper traffic after visiting Miguel’s great-grandmother Inés. We drove last night (evening) back to Yautepec in the rain with no windshield wipers and Pinna overly hysterical about leaving the girls alone to go home. In part that was due to the fact that the previous night at the gate to the parking lot right in front of the house, a woman was robbed of her car. In any case no one expected what was to come..

“Ilana – the World Trade Center is on fire – 2 airplanes crashed into the twin towers.” It didn’t occur to me that it would be a perfectly orchestrated terrorist attack, taking 4 commercial planes and hijacking them, crashing them into not only the twin towers, but the Pentagon and camp David. The twin towers crumbled before our eyes on live TV. I think the last time I have been so stunned by live television was when the Challenger exploded in 1984(?). It feels surreal and the images seemed like scenes from a Hollywood B-extravaganza which just goes to show how excessive the violence we watch on TV is. The most incredible thing is how Isabella keeps being a baby, just the same, playing, dancing, shouting, doing adorable intrepid things like serving herself water from the jug or opening the door w/ the help of a rug. Meanwhile my whole concept of security, the whole basis of our country’s power is crumbling before my eyes. In waves I start to assimilate and react. I begin to feel. Is Jenny OK? Clayton? Irv and Esperanza? Miguel’s cousin Eduardo? My parents are OK and I feel better knowing that, but I fear what kind of war might come of this. The Palestines in the west bank are celebrating and this evening there are fires in Kabul, Afghanistan. And once again I find myself a spectator of the World stage. We still don’t know who or how, or how many thousands of casualities and everyone becomes expert speculators on foreign affairs. I want to speak w/ Kirsten… I feel lucky dad was on board a plane ready to fly out when they shut down all US air space and airports. 2 of the hijacked flights were from Boston to LA, one from Dulles to LA and one from Newark to San Francisco. Human bombs hurtling through space to their unforgettable demise.

And these damn mosquitoes still bother me? How can that be when the world has been turned on its head and war seems imminent in a land that has grown fat and complacent in its belief that its soils would never again be soiled by foreign attack. And from my position, there is nothing that I can do but hope Bush doesn’t follow in his father’s footsteps and launch a war on the Middle East. And yet my humanity prevails as does Isabella’s as she joyfully clutches her Nanny whose missing head grasped in hand is no bother, and has no association whatsoever w/ violence. Life will, of course, go on, but what will it be like? What will we be like as a people, as a community, as a sovereign nation? I suddenly feel safer here in Mexico than in the US, and how can that be? I fear for biological warfare or worse, Nuclear warfare to come, and I think that I am being absurd. But what isn’t possible in a day where the World Trade Center ceases to exist in a matter of hours and the people of New York run through the streets as if Armageddon has truly and finally lunged upon us. And perhaps it has. The rain outside has darkened the night prematurely and Miguel is concentrating hard on fixing an old record player so that we might listen to music and be transported to another time, Cuba, when the world was in a Cold War and the US was the big bad wolf to Latin America…

Isabella asks for a ball, Mami, please. She crawls up me and tries to snatch the pen from my hands, as I write. 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.

The thing about love letters

If brain research shows that men have a difficult time hearing (understanding) women because of the timbre of their voices (oh there's so much, you all know I am not about citation - some says it is because the higher range is harder to decipher, others because the gammut that our voices run is more complex and a long list of etcéteras), then perhaps someone could elucidate for me what kind of research would be necessary to explain why men don't "hear" women through the written word. (Anyone want to take a good sociological whack at that one? Nah, didn't think so).
And yes, I have Deborah Tannen's book (not her ebonics stuff, I mean obviously, You Just Don't Understand) neatly stacked on my shelf among the other scads of "ne touche pas" things that I would rather be reading than what I am presently chained to. However I am struck, once again by the fact that we are truly doomed to not understand one another, hell of a basis on which to construct a life, a family, a just society...

I was pondering writing a letter, a real handwritten letter, one that would somehow make clear all the things that hurt me, that I am grateful for, that I need. I rolled the idea around my cerebral cortex for several nights in a row, feverishly composing in my midnight brain (very removed from my daytime one) the insights that I would have, the things that I would say, how I would say them, how I would peel down the distance that is ever-building, tearing down walls with my words. I wanted to write beautiful words that would demonstrate the depth of my feeling, that would make it impossible to fall into the same unfortunate patterns, that would open up the doors to a meta-conversation necessary to cure all our ills.

But I stopped myself.

Better to hide one's self and one's true feelings.

I realized that it doesn't matter what words come from me after all, they are always his words, the ones that make or break my dangling thread of hope, and they are never, were never, will never be in that format. And so I decided that once more, I would guard my silence because an unrequited love missive is perhaps the most treacherous of all written communication.

And it occurs to me (as I am trying to recreate love letters between a man and his wife for one of my many silly projects) that I have absolutely no idea what a love letter from a man is supposed to look like, to sound like, never having received one in this short life of mine. How do I write, with verisimilitude, something I have never seen, will never hope to see?

Le ciné club du semaine

To assuage my hunger for all things French, and seeing as how my degustation was forcibly non-oral (sadly) I had my very own club de cinema this week on my now defunct television.

I think I have mentioned this before, but movies that I don't like are few and far between, and this week's selection was no dissapointment. Not only were the films well developed in their narrative, beautiful, but their soundtracks were all worthy in their own right.

Today's recommendations:

The Dreamers Directected by Bernardo Bertolucci
(Written by Gilbert Adair - adapted from his novel)

If anyone could make incest both irresistibly sexy and visually stunning it is Bertolucci. Not to mention that I, personally, am fascinated by the events of 1968 in Paris. The film does an excellent job of examining multiple philosophical view points without falling into stereotypes, and it focuses on the sexual exploration of a trio of cinephiles, two Parisian and one Californian, embroiled in the political tumult of the era, children of a famous and out of touch writer, bourgeois with socialist leanings, and unable to set themselves free from the emotional codependence of their years together.

The Agronomist Directed by John Demme

It has been a long time since I have wanted to watch a documentary, but this is well worth it. It amazes me how similar Haiti's situation is to so many of our other beloved countries ravaged by poverty and dictatorial governments, and how easily it slips through the cracks. The object of study was Jean Dominique, an agronomist by training who became the voice of free Haitian radio. The most incredible part of the documentary is that it covers a span of almost 15 years of interviews with Dominique, who was a luminary figure and whose luminescence is transmitted through his facial expressions so much so that you feel as if you were having a personal conversation with him from beyond the grave. I think what most saddened me was to see the misery to which the Haitian people are subjected, after Papa Doc and Baby Doc; to see that the hope inspired by a popular leader, Aristide, could inevitably be stamped out by his failure and ultimate corruption.

Look at Me Directed by Agnès Jaoui

What I love most about the French, at least in their cinematic language, is their violent rejection of all that could be interpreted as a Hollywood ending. In the end, the main character is still overweight, her father is still an asshole, and she finds that she too is not blameless. And yet, there is a transformation that occurs, a deeper understanding of human nature, of the nature of our relationships. It examines how fame, and art should never mix, and the depths to which one can sink with an unresolved oedipal complex. What I found most enticing was that the character development was not linear, but rather staggered, and it alluded to deeper yearnings and marital discontents present in several relationships without the need for a red flag. Add to that a beautiful focus on the finding of one's voice, and one's own happiness. Aside: Great party scene in which music goes from Bachata to the laments of Radio Tarifa to House of Pain, now that takes style.

My week in pictures

Stood on the fence


Set sail


Floated about


Slogged through work


Re(a)d books


Self-medicated

Took the long way home

My seven (ig)noble truths

Ah yes, lacking proper footwear and anything useful to say to the world are two salient traits of mine. The others, perhaps only slightly less noticeable; like the fact that I am a sucker for silly surveys that claim to determine some sort of (surprising!) truth about ourselves that we hadn't previously pondered.

No, I haven't taken any trashy women's mag-type surveys, not since I was 12 and the greatest pleasure was to sneak around with my girlfriends and read the sex Q&A section in Cosmopolitan. Side note of no consequence: I still remember being both horrified and fascinated by the woman who wrote about her lover's penis being so large that it hurt her as it slammed against her cervical wall, of course now, if I were the sex columnist I wouldn't recommend different positions (per se -though it helps in some cases, I suppose) I would ask her if she were really that turned on before beginning the sex-act, and suggest that perhaps they try some more exotic foreplay (including massage and visual stimulation among others), because as we all know a woman's cervix actually opens up and moves back when she is in a heightened state of sexual arousal. Ah yes, but I diverge from my original path.

I was feeling alone, (by golly, that seems to happen a lot!) and nobody (least of all those I most want to read) had posted anything since last I checked, so I branched out and began perusing blogs of their friends, and friends of friends... You see where this is going don't you? I feel terribly guilty because there are so many interesting things being written out there even as we speak, but lacking the proper emotional investment in the people that are writing them, well, I'm not particularly a voyeur (exhibitionist, maybe, voyeur, not so much). Not to say I don't like, um, watching... but it is generally my preference to participate, to dig in and get my hands dirty, to feel things myself, to lick them, smell them savor them. (I am wont to generalize but I don't think I am the only woman who is drawn to the tactile). My... literary (yeah, that's the ticket!)... response is prompted by an interaction, be it ever so slim, a trickle of tangential thoughts, that orgiastic rub of words across miles of silicon conduits...
Yes, I said, I was alone again tonight. Clearly my mind is exerting its own will on my fingers.
So then the guilt sets in, you see, because in order to feel like a good (cyber)friend, I need to feel like I have the emotional energy to invest in being a regular reader... I can't bring myself to sprinkle random comments over peoples lives for no reason, with no intention of ever returning, I need to feel like I can reciprocate in some deeper way, and though you might not believe this, I am not quick to trust, not quick to hand myself over to others (except in the few bizarre cases of people who seem to know me inside out almost instantaneously). I am careful to choose people in whom to invest my precious hours, I am a cat, not a dog, not needing just any attention, but the right kind of attention, the proper manner of stroking, the appropriate fingers under the chin to elicit the purr that lies within. Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to my point for this evening.

I stumbled upon a survey about what Religion would suit you, in the Quinto Jinete's journal, and I was compelled to complete the survey, just like I have taken ones on psychological defects, depression, and political beliefs (among others) and unlike in previous cases, where I had no one with whom to share the results and no way to do so anyhow, here I felt like I couldn't comment because, well, what does he care what my results are, after all, I was a transient, passing in the night, and I felt silly, and then I felt silly for being so stilted in my ability to relate to others, but well, this is about my truths for the night, so I may as well be honest with myself and the world, right? So despite the fact that none of us (well almost none of us) really know eachother in "reality", I hate imposing myself on others, stepping on people's toes, invading their personal space, or being where I haven't been explicitly invited. Some might argue that a public forum implies an invitation, but the (really and truly I have one) shy part of me just can't make that extra step... I almost always wait for people to come to me, and generally they do. Anyway, to end this metaconversation with myself, here is the funny part:

I am not a religious person, I was raised in a faith (or in such a way) that is more about a cultural identity than a religious one, and I have always had a problem with authority. I believe in learning, and enlightenment and the human spirit. I believe that people are often good, and that through kindness, teaching and tolerance we can work towards being better, as individuals and as a group. I was a renegade at Hebrew School, all the acting out that I never did in "real" school I did at the synagogue. I remember Devorah who was a kind and lovely lady, with no patience nor pedagogical approach to speak of, who would literally tear out her hair with our devious stunts. I remember Shmuel, recently arrived from Israel who tried to force military propaganda down our throats and who would banish me from class on a daily basis for asking, ad nauseum, "Why?" Why should I support a military just because you say that I should identify with it? (I was 11 - I made his blood boil) Why should we be donating money to support the collection of weapons? Why should I celebrate the victories of wars, and marching soldierlets, and waving flags just because you say so? Why are we supposed to be so special? It was usually at this point that he would shake an angry fist at the door with one solitary finger pointing accusationally and scream, "Out! Out! Out!" It wasn't that I was opposed to believing in these things, I just wanted him to give me some good explanation, an explanation that I could wrap my brain around, so I could understand the thing, instead of just blindly following his words without any sort of critical examination, but I also have to admit, that it was a secret pleasure to watch him grow impatient and then furious, like clockwork, every time. There was some satisfaction in the repetitive action, and of course, I could then go and have long philosophical discussions with Rabbi Rick in his office, instead of watching movies on the Six-Day-War, or on the Holocaust. Don't get me wrong, if it weren't for my Hebrew School education I wouldn't be who I am today, I wouldn't have been forced to confront and question human's inhumanity to itself until much later in life, and I believe that this has made me side with the underdog, and condemn violence towards other human beings in all of its manifestations (which doesn't mean that I hold myself above it, perhaps I condemn my own violent tendencies the most, precisely because of this.)
In any case, I always question insitutions that claim to posess the ultimate truth, or the last word, at the expense of others.

So this little survey that I took made me laugh because my top three religious choices were: Buddhism (71% match) Paganism (58%) and Satanism (40%). Is life suffering? I don't know, I certainly seem to enjoy it, revelling in my personal pain and misery on a regular basis. But K. and I were having a big laugh the other day about these so-called California Buddhists, you know the kind, the ones who live on eternal retreat from the real world, and eat only macrobiotics, and meditate for 12 hours a day while subscribing to beliefs of presumed transcendence. The joke is, of course, that "they are so fucking attached to being unattached!" Yes, when your whole identity hinges on being untouched by material wants and needs, well, it turns you into a slave in a prison of your own making (comercialization of "non-commercial products" anyone?). That aside, I believe that buddhist thought has quite a bit to offer our hurting society (licking its wounds of war, materialism, mass-produced crass comercialism), but I just wanted to point out that any philosophy taken to extremes is ultimately as binding as any other, which is exactly why fascist and communist totalitarian regimes (including ones that are "democratically elected") look almost exactly the same despite absolutely convergent ideologies.
And those, my dears, are my truths as I see them, tonight.

But if you try sometimes...

Someone somewhere once said that the hardest job you'll ever love is parenting (or was it teaching? same difference).

Wise words...

I. is an amazing person. Truly. She is often the only reason that I get up in the mornings, that I take time out from my "important" duties to smell flowers and splash in the water, and laugh until I cry.



But of late she has been, how to say it? Impossible!

When I signed up for this gig I was well aware of the fact that it meant that for the next twenty years (assuming I never have another baby... ok, won't go there today) my needs were to be subservient to hers in an inversely proportional (roughly) relation to the number of years passed. I was ok with that. But I can't take the whining, I can't take it, I'm going mad!

Ok, add to that my feeling ill (I am going to the emergency room in the morning, I promise) and the understandable stress incurred upon entry in a new school setting, but honestly, I really don't know how much longer this can go on.

Last night she weasled her way into a blanket bed on the floor, but then at 2 am I found her with one leg thrown over me, casually as if she belonged (until last week, this was true, she looks with her puppy-dog eyes and wants to know why in kindergarten they want her to sleep all alone?). Instead of disturbing her slumber I slipped out of the bed and went to her generally unused one. 20 minutes later she is crying... "mommy, I had an accident in your bed!" %*#(@! "Ok darling, go to your bed, Mommy's not mad at you, no, shhh, don't cry, breath, breath, please calm down, breath!!! I'll be there in a minute, yes, just go to your room, NOW!"

I dry the bed, while acting as referee, and all I want to do is go back to sleep and make this stomach pain go away (my heart really goes out to all those uninsured people that don't go to the doctor despite severe illness because they can't afford to pay: I got a taste over this long holiday weekend as by the time I realized how sick I really was it was Friday afternoon and the University Health Center was closed until Tuesday and the thought of paying $100 out of pocket for a visit to the community emergency clinic was enough to keep me home). We sleep curled together in her single bed, and I slip away just before she awakens, and lie, saying that she slept alone (if she believes in herself, maybe this transition will work!)

But sleep problems aside, she has been wailing disconsolately over the littlest issues, because she couldn't climb a tree, because she couldn't get down, because I told her she couldn't have a juice box because they were meant for her snacks. She defies my authority with the most blatant flair, her eyes like a wild filly, she stomps the ground. She sobs at the top of her lungs while swimming in the deep pool because she is angry at me. For what? I'm not sure, but I have a sinking feeling that I know.

I used to be able to make her laugh, singing "you can't always get what you want..." when delivering a negative response. She would express her annoyance, but laugh at our little private joke, and she would always remember the end of that line... "But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need..." She seems to have lost her humor about these things, flying off into a raging bent when confronted with any unexpected outcome, but I keep trying, I keep trying to help her help herself. So I let her sit up in the tree that she climbed while wailing that she wants mommy, and I coach her down, "put your hand there, swing your leg through, use your baby muscles, you can do it, sweetie!" and when she finally gets down, I regale her with verbal praise, "I'm so proud of you, see? you did it all by yourself!" Why can't I do the same for myself???

Car-otica: the triste final

Back by popular demand (ha ha). To read part 1 first, click here.

En una noche bien obscura
sabrás que te va ir mal, mal, mal
si una voz te hace parar
Ya no hay ciudad segura
decía nuestro regente
y menos si te dejas guiar por esa gente
...
Pole, pole, pole, pole, policía
en paz déjenos
si hacemos mal hemos de pagar
pero dejen de extorsionarnos
---Policía, Los Yerberos

In a flash, I am back on my side of the car, his mouth shut in a tight grimace, my nipples neatly allocated to their appropriate compartment. I smooth the silk, back over my seat. I brace myself for an embarrassing explanation, my face burning. Instead as Roberto rolls down the window, there are four men leering, two brandishing clubs in the backlight of the patrol car’s high beams, two leaning in to the driver’s side window.
“Dónde radicas?” (I learn a new word, gleaning from context that it means to reside).
“Right there,” we gesture to the FOVISSTE high-rises just inside of the chain-link fence.
“Aja…” he hems, and haws for a few moments, letting us squirm in our seats.
“¿De dónde son?” and before we can answer, the other officer steps in from behind, “Saquen sus identificaciones”
Roberto fumbles for his IFE card, and I miraculously have my passport on me which I mistakenly hand over, assuming that these are normal police officers, and that they are going to process our minimal transgressions duly.

They don’t ask us if we know why we are being approached. They don’t explain what part of the civil code our “antisocial” behavior has broken. They just look us up and down.
“Linda la güerita… sería una lástima que le pasara algo…” He drums his fingers on his hip holster. “Where did you say she was from?”

Roberto’s face grows steadily paler. He clears his throat several times. The two officers that were standing behind the car seem to multiply, and there are suddenly more circling, sneering men, approaching my door.
“You wouldn’t want us to have to take you down to the Delegación…”
“¡Sí!” I interject, “Llévenos a la delegación… are you going to be so kind as to tell us what it is that you are charging us with?”
”Indecencia en la vía pública,” he responds, casually, fanning the pages of my passport between his fingers. Roberto shoots me a look of pure panic, and I say, sharpening my withering stare “Ok, and what exactly is it that we were doing?”
The officer clears his throat, he draws in his gut that is hanging over the edges of his dark pants, his gold-crowned tooth flashes as he smirks at us, he rests a meaty hand inside the window frame of the beat-up Volkswagen bug. His stocky frame blocks out the stars and the view of the Popocatépetl that looms in the distance. “No nos gustaría tener que expulsarla del país,” he smiles slyly, knowingly at Roberto, as he waves the other officers away with his unoccupied hand. “How can we fix this?” he asks and then steps a few feet away from the car, the bait cast, waiting to reel us in.

I am about to open my mouth in indignation, to clamor for my right to speak to a representative from my embassy, anything, furiously, I laugh in derision, “You want to deport me for this? Go ahead, it’ll make a great story” I hiss through clenched teeth, Roberto, rests a hand on my knee, “calma, tranquilízate…” He searches his wallet for cash, I offer him all that I have, $50 pesos, he pulls out another $200, all that is left after our visit to the theater. He hopes it is enough. Enough for what, I wonder. He draws himself up, trembling slightly, he signals to the lead officer, while another comes to my door and yanks it open, “vámonos linda.”

“Momento, momento,” Roberto’s voice is controlled, commanding, secure, “podemos arreglarlo.” I glare at the man who is about to put his grubby hands on my arms. The other officer waves his cronies off, “déjenla. Let’s step inside my office.” I slam my door shut again, seething as the officers try to flirt in their pea-brained way. “¿Qué hace una chica tan bonita aquí solita por la noche? Didn’t anyone tell you it’s dangerous on the street at night here?” There is no irony in their voices and I am filled with rage. I could jump up, and run, I could take two of these fofos on myself, but Roberto? I look over at him conferring, his head bent in concentration, his shoulders slightly curved, his fingers running nervously through his hair, which is growing wilder with each pass of his hand.

He walks back to the car, with our identifcations in hand, looking defeated. The other perros leave me and join their partners in crime, they get into the two patrol cars –when did the second one arrive? I ask myself – and drive off into the night to extort their salary from other unsuspecting trasnochadores.

We park the car, walk towards my house, sit on the bench in front. He rests his head on my shoulder, tries kissing me, but I shy away; and it is not that I am not grateful, but it feels like something has broken inside of me. I don’t notice, at the time, that the watch that his father had given him when he was ten is no longer on his wrist. He looks up at me with his mournful lachrymose eyes, the darkness and masculinity mixed with the neediness of a little boy. “Quiero que seas mi novia.”
And I answer, “I’m not sure.”

Medieval mottos to live by

One would think that a seasoned student like myself would be able to sit down (ok, lie down, I prefer the flat on the stomach approach to reading) and plough through a couple hundred pages, no sweat. Except, you see, I become intrigued by random details in the introdcutory essay by Keith Whinnom and begin pondering the essence of courtly love (as well as discovering myriad new uses for my fountain pen, but that is another story) even before I get to Cárcel de amor. Again I am confounded by how little the human animal has evolved.

On Concupiscience: Why we shouldn't feel so bad about our passionate enamorments, and why rationalization only sort of works. A tempered version of Jimmy Cliff's "You can get it if you really want" ?:

concupiscentia est naturalis homini inquantum subditur rationi; conscupiscentia non ligat totalitier rationem: nisi forte sit tanta quod faciat hominem insanire. Et tamen passio concupiscentiae dimiuit peccatum: quia levius est ex infirmitate quam ex malitia peccare.
---Santo Tomás de Aquinas (Summa theologica 2-2) .

But quite frankly, I liked this one even better (self-serving, I know)... aka, "sex: the anti-drug" or "just say yes: the war on conservative values" (debunk, debunk, debunk...)

perfecta abstinentia ab actu carnis corrumpit virtutem.

---Ok, so the author of this quote is unknown to me, but it serves as an example of the heterodoxy of the times, and mind you this line of thought was subsequently repressed as heretical (abstinence as sin?! How could this be?) by a French theologian, Esteban Tempier, in 1277.


Also quite useful are the three commonly held beliefs for the cure of the malaise that we like to call love (aka limerance)- a branch of melancholy or mental illness (we will forgive the phallocentric bent). Now, some medieval doctors felt that the first two were drastic measures only to be implemented in the most severe and hopeless cases. I think that maybe theirs was a wisdom which we no longer possess:

1) Easiest and most efficient cure: Give the man the girl he wants (only possible if said girl is available, lest the injury of love quickly be overcome by the injury inflicted by jealous spouse).

2) Reduce the "brain inflammation" by satisfying his sexual desire with another woman (sometimes even marrying her to him... seems a bit unfair, but hey.) Note that this is considered a temporary fix.

3) Distract the infirm man with a totally unrelated activity (and of course remove him from contact with the woman that has propitiated his illness). So terribly rational it hurts. Examples of such activities were: hunting, fishing, dice and other games of luck, the company of other happy young men, and rest in the country. Perhaps today's versions would be: hiking, camping, role-playing games, dinner parties (aka drunken stupors with one's age cohorts) and blogging. (Just a thought).

Food for thought, wine for, well, you know what that's for

Ok, I was about to apologize for not writing anything for a whole day and a half, due to HORRIFIC stomach illness, but honestly, BFD, right? No one was too concerned, least of all me.

The world is ending, its all a big huge mess, and we should all feel guilty writing about anything that doesn't refer to some heavy-handed condemnation of the current non-government. Except. Umm. I don't really want to talk about those things, I'd really rather write a silly little post about my forays into French cuisine.

So forgive me gods of the bloggosphere for my callous disregard for human life (it isn't that my heart isn't bleeding, but I can only bleed so much, at least publicly, before returning to what the readers are tuned in for, Self-involvement 101 - and no, I wouldn't dream of spending thousands on shoes at a time like this, especially if my presence were actually required by anyone of import).
And speaking of which, a big drum roll please... Thanks to Oscar and Dean for inviting me to participate in their non-political, non-personal (so far), fabulously self-referential meta-bloggerature site "De blogeros y blogs" if only to give me an excuse to post occasionally in Spanish (my adopted tongue). [end of shameless self-promotion... I am really a different person in Spanish, curious.]

So what are the French good for? if not great wine, food and sex... and er... maybe I'll stop there.

I rarely call to talk to my dad. I love him, for sure, but the phone conversations with him generally are distilled down to a few distracted grunts and then an apologetic excuse that he has a lot of work to do (which in his case is always true). No, Mom is the one who calls several times a week, hoping for a videochat with the girlchild, but usually catching us just as we are headed out the door for dinner at a friend's (this has happened, quite literally, four times just this week). But, the two nights that I actually dedicated to food preparation were both virgin attempts at French dishes, and frankly, they were not half bad.

Wednesday night, after spending our requisite three hours at the rec cen (I read La Celestina while I. splashed about in the kiddie pool) we discovered that once again I had left my keys dangling in the ignition and locked all the doors. I really must be a certified moron, or just highly distractable? So while we waited for M. to come and rescue us, I. climbed the car and I machinated dinner plans. What can you do with fresh mushrooms, chicken breast and a bottle of two-week-old wine? Survey says:

Coq au vin.
Dad is the French chef, and unlike with my mother, cooking is not a social experience that involves shared responsibilities, but rather is a solitary expression of one's culinary genius. I called for the recipe and explained that I didn't need the real recipe, just a rough outline because I was locked out of my car with no writing utensil and a slightly faulty memory (as evidenced by my lack of ability to remember to remove aforementioned keys before locking).
He procured his recipe book and shot.

This is how it turned out:
Sauteed chiken breast in a few tablespoons of salted butter (it calls for bacon but that is not a product that I ever buy, and I wasn't going to start then). Browned the breasts in a heavy stockpot, and then took a large onion (quartered) and mushrooms, sauteeing as well. Added a mix of poultry seasonings including rosemary, thyme, black pepper, salt etc. Poured half a bottle of Shiraz, and a quart of consomé. Boiled for a good fifteen minutes. Great save.

Thursday night: starving, foodless, grumpy. The only available protein were scads of frozen seafood products. Rock-solid, six o'clock. I search through the wonderful reference that Laura gave us for Hanukkah in 2000 (I still use it!) How to cook everything (Mark Bittman). I am not a big cook-book user, but I find this useful not for following ingredient for ingredient, but rather as a general procedural and technical guide, as well as for its host of ideas.

Bouillabaisse

I had a pound of frozen filet of sole (which I had been meaning to make into a Florentine - spinach, sour cream etc. but never got around to), frozen shrimp, scallops and calamari. What to make??? Well I quickly abandoned the procedure that the recipe called for, but rather boiled the frozen fish in water with salt and two split cloves of garlic for the broth base. Then in a another pot, I sauteed chopped onion (1 1/2) two bay leaves, garlic powder and salt until the onion became translucent, at which point I added a can of (I know I cheated) peeled plum tomatoes that had been seasoned with fresh basil. To this, a dash of salt and pepper, and the contents of the other pot, in its entirety. The fish flaked apart just as I had hoped. I added the frozen shrimp and scallops and let it simmer for a good 10 minutes, while adding another half jar of strained, jarred tomato puree and a few cups of yet another (different) Shiraz, in order to make it more robust. About five minutes before the end, I added the calamari (they get tough if cooked too long), and parsley (harvested from the Kibbutz on which my brother lived) only to discover that we had been invited to dinner at Liber and Laura's house, and that my cooking had been in vain! Ah well, this sort of a stew does better with a few days under its belt, and was perfect tonight for a shared meal with Kirsten, Peregrine and her mom, after a relaxing day at the beach.