Rites of relaxation

So, in general, I take vacations that are really nothing at all like vacations. I come home after running around the country, or the globe, spent and swamped with work that I dragged around behind me, unable to entirely let it go, but unable to engage with it in any real manner.

This may be true once again, but, not only did I not finish my work before leaving, I did some of it while on vacation, and still managed to relax. Just a little. A friend of mine recently made me remember what it was like to be a kid whose one object of affection (parental unit) was too busy or distracted to actually be with them. If I have done one thing, it has been to be in the present with my kiddo, and exploring the world together, well... I have forced myself to disconnect from my other stressors (mostly) and just play with her.

Today she hiked a good 6 mile, and only slipped into the water at the end, tired from the trek. West Fork was beautiful, and replete with vegetation unimaginable just 2 miles out, in the sand-blasted red rock desert, and I smiled to myself, in secret quiet, because in part I was just doing what I was told. It is the only way for me to relax, to be ordered to do so, as I am fully incapable of doing things for myself. I. exclaimed, "this is the best day of my life!" She has said this at least on three different occasions, "This is the best day because I get to see petrographs! and ruins! Hey mommy, do you remember the ruins in México, oh look, it is Frida Kahlo..." as we walk past a store front. She tastes, and likes, buffalo jerky. She bounces across streams. I promise her that from now until the summer we will go on at least one hike a weekend. It is true. It feels great to be outside, after a few minutes of such excitement (the same stream-of-consciousness chatter follows us into the wild) I hush her, but not unkindly. "Stop. Listen." We close our eyes and map the sounds, listen for birds, and ground squirrels. We walk along and discover incipient life, budding flowers, crumbling rock.

I try to close my eyes and push everything else away. I make promises to her that I intend to keep, camping trips to Yellowstone, someday, and to the Channel Islands, mid spring (We listened to the entire audiobook of Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins to get us in the spirit of eco-tourism. And I remember the wonder, like the bears K. and I saw entering Yellowstone all those years ago. And I laugh because there are some things that I will always still do, like the "Ilana in the bathroom" shots that I only recently realized I always take, almost everywhere I go ever since we took our famous floating in the air bathroom shots (ok, not famous to anyone but us, but hey). There is always me, in mirrors or water or both. I don't know why I feel such a compulsion to record these moments, like the San Diego, leg from the toilet, or the Portuguese green light glow, or the Los Angeles series with fabric trailing behind me in the Omni, after having the most impressive panic attack of my life just the night before, and I realize too that this is part of my relaxation... Quirky and neurotic as that may be, and of course for no one's eyes but my own (more likely than not), my obsession with self-reflection (both written and photographic) is much less about narcissism (or, to quote another dear boy "hey, I wouldn't fuck myself... it would have to be someone a heck of a lot cuter than me to convince me) and more about somehow ordering my universe. And I think of Ani's lyric from Puddle Dive: "what if no one's watching, what if when we're dead we are just dead." So I go back to trying (and failing, but trying nonetheless) to live, if only for a few days, as if no one were watching but my sweet beautiful child (who has puppy lust -and incidentally, baby lust, but this is a more difficult proposition -and may just convince me to get a dog someday to go hiking with us).

Un par de poemas recientes

"Cómo hacerle"

Pregunto yo,
cómo se hace para no escribir
lo que uno necesita decir,
lo que reclama voraz, desde adentro
y que no se puede evocar--
mudo silencio--
cuando el trazarlo es lo único que queda
de una infinidad de deseos
posibles anhelos,
fracasos.

Cómo se hace para no esconder
todo lo que se siente debajo
de una sábana de papel
blanca,
trazada con tinta,
amarillenta,
olvidada
para ser leída otra vez,
con nuevos ojos.

Esa imposibilidad,
creo,
es la luz tenue,
antes del apagón final.
Tortura con su inefable
nombre
su intocable cuerpo
labios, piel, hueso
y se convierte en materia
de novela
y poema
disipándose en la eternidad.

Cómo puedo yo,
infinitamente pequeña
contra el peso de los siglos,
contra esa voluntad ajena,
contra el muro,
no susurrar lo que urge decirse
en ríos y montes,
cauces secretos,
inacabables.

Cómo puedo yo,
contra quien me desconoce
quitándome lo último
de mi sosiego,
mi paz
no gritar,
opuesta a la injusticia
del tiempo y de la vida
la que no es mía.


"Noche serena"


La noche en que llegaron las sirenas,
Estrellando rojo y azul al vacío
Noche de no te me olvides,

Era una imposibilidad decir lo indecible,
Y sin embargo se dijo,
Todo y nada de lo que quisiera decir

Fue el momento de la última cabalgada,
La última oscuridad en que lloráramos juntos
O solos por el dolor de la ruptura

De ser únicos en nuestro dolor
De isla, y de mar, de manos atadas
De velas amargadas, lanzadas al aire

Fue la manzana en proceso, la piel arrugada
Cada imperfección depurada en millares
De años luz de distancia

Y esa voz que pide,
¿De dónde salió? Tan tuya, tan mía
tan desgarrada entre los murmullos

El puño de arena, el golpe seco
Acumularon silencios contundentes
Espesor, candor, milagro y espejo.

Noche serena en su último estrago
Último grito impotente de angustia,
Descansa eterna, irremediable, sobre sí.

La revancha

Revancha, mistakenly in my mind revenge, for years, or days, which is all the same in malleable narrative.
Leo would cockily hold up the last card, and I would slice through him with 7 de espadas.
"Quiero la revancha"
"Dale"
Y dale y duro and on and on... and I realized that I am much more keenly aware of linguistic particularities in a language setting that is not my own.

"Cámara, güey," as the raztecas, slap hand, touch fists, and bring their hands up to their heart in a brotherly peace-out.

What do people in my country say? How could I possibly know this? Am I stuck in the 90's too? Oh, god, I am, I am, how could this happen? Well? I abandoned my own language more or less in 1995, with only brief forays into it between then and the year 2004 when I met my match, for the eternal revancha, not revenge, just another lob back across the metaphorical net, the ball can always be thrown back to some one else's cancha.

I must observe keenly, English speakers, speaking English. This sounds like such a simple task but proposes to be harder than all that. No truco, no real envido... no "se le botó la canica cañón" all these mysterious constructions I could translate with footnotes on cultural context (the last, my favorite musing of late: the marble popped itself out to him/her, canyon/cannon = se volvió loco cabrón (it is indeed an adverbial expression this noun-cannon, not saying someone is an ass, or a cabrón, nor the proverbial chivo expiatorio, but rather, cabronamente... pesadamente, muy mal...)

Now for interpretation of the slang used by people who are as likely to share their secrets with me as they are their mothers? I can slip on the mask, the guise, the short skirts and see-through tops of the undergrads, but what will it do? Can I actually fool anyone? Maybe if I smile, giggle and act dumb. I do listen in on cell-phone conversations, but still, I am unable to eek out the unique trends. I am not quite strange enough to notice such conglomerations of usage. But it dawns on me, as I am packing my bags and my work for vacation, that I have to transcribe an interview that I recently conducted, and what I really want, (and now that I got my refund check I can have) is a very large capacity ipod and parabolic microphone so that I can surreptitiously record such conversations and then collectively process data. There is a thought. There is always that, the revancha. The rematch. Once again.

The parlance of pegasus

The parlance of pegasus
Originally uploaded by lunita.

A play written and enacted by the first graders of OAS. Synopsis. There is a narrator, pegasus who tells the story of the evil metal business guy and the snake that hatch a plan to destroy the forest. All the forest animals band together with the help of the rock star surfer girl and her dead rock star friends. The dead chipmunk rider searches for the dragons in an effort to help, and they all come to stop the destruction of the forest, in a big benefit concert. "All we are saying... is give trees a chance"

My baby was the narrator. As drama is her forte. (mine too, it would seem, even when I try my damndest to avoid it). Today she lost me in the book store, and went straight to the register to have me paged. She has been feeling neglected, it would seem, but what can a mommy on her own do? She was in near hysterical tears, and I was close, having thought I lost her or dreamed it repeatedly of late. She then proceeded to re-enact her trauma over and over. "And then I was like: 'mommy, mommy, where's my mommy' and I thought I had lost you forever, my little mommy that I love, and that I was going to have to be adopted." Generally anxiety reigns over our household, and I hold her hand and hug her to me, and wipe away the tears as she snuffles and buffles, and I think, dear god, and I want another one of these? Because I took a survey today that asked about future plans, and it questioned just that. Do I want more children? I think I might. But not now, not now, nononononononon. I. states, "I wish you could just make enough love." "What?!" "You know, so you could have another baby..."
"Well... I'll just have to practice I guess. But I'm not very good at this love thing, anyway." I think this part, but don't say it.

Later on campus, we sit in the sun and I grade, she cuts her paw on a tree and cries. I kiss away the blood, and the tears, and send her on her own, again, to search for the bathroom. Perhaps I want too much independence from her, but she is seven years old, it is about time she started going to the w.c. on her own, and I was strapped with computer and piles of grading. We sat and the world walked by, both Davids (not the renaissance ones) incidentally, and we schemed for a dinner party in which no nervous breakdowns would be had (baking cookies and watching Gray's anatomy on DVD for hours a night absolutely calls for rescue dinner social life). So soon, I will vacate, for a few days at least, bringing work with me, as always, the life of the grad student, no? 200 hours a week of work and all the guilt of all the work that lies ahead... soon my acting skills too will be employed, but in a more torturous way. Ah, that's if I get my act together and that abstract off. Who ever invented the concept of an abstract was either brilliant or completely insane. But I'll opt for the former, as things stand.

As the pressure comes down, down, down, I get sillier and more inappropriate. I. tells one of the Davids about P. and his fascination with taking pictures of his penis. We chortle, and she continues, interrupting our conversation to describe it some more. I tell her that some boys never get over the fascination with their members, I don't use that word but the proper anatomical term that she shouts in the middle of the quad for no one in particular. It does have a particularly nice ring to it, rolls off the tip of the tongue. I'll give it that much.

And now, I shall clean my excess laundry in an attempt to stymie the stalemate that I have with my work, or perhaps in order to thrust it over the edge into the abyss...

WA101

Course Description:
Studiously avoid work and hone your procrastinational skills to new and spectacular levels.

Example class:
Sign in to computer and multiple chat programs before getting out of bed. Read RSS feeds from friends and others.

Chat extensively with darling girl in Amsterdam.

Undress, dress.

Upload pictures, rearrange photosets.

Chat with other darling friend in Minnesota.

Ignore excel spreadsheet open on desktop.

Undress a second time, lounge in bed. Take a few picures of the ceiling. Write a bad story.

Think about eating and decide against it.

Keep reliving portuguese romances and dramas with friend across the ocean.

Maintain a side conversation with another friend from Costa Rica. Let her absolve you of guilt before going back to her work.

Get dressed, go to campus. Find a friend to have lunch with for further work avoidance.

Instead of just eating, leave campus and go bowling. Get very sweaty, and sore. Practice splits, both kinds. Speed bowl for an extra push, be at a 77 by 6th frame. Make jokes about playing with balls and getting sweaty on lunch break.

Go to a café do finish work, together. Chat about each student's funny constructions. Give up on productivity for the day.

Start again tomorrow.

On getting over oneself

I. wails, “I’m sooooo tired, I need mama.” And I try to calm her down, because she, like me, has had a rough day, and we are both a little weepy, and tired. She is dirty, in the way that only children who spend the greater part of the day out of doors can get, and I smile because at least she won’t have nature deficit disorder, but I don’t feel very happy, and in fact, the more I don’t write the paper I have to write, the more I feel like hands are coming up from below and choking me, and I feel so so tired, and I just want to be comforted, but instead I do the comforting. It is the next best thing. And she cries, and cries, and comes up to me with her wet, grubby cheeks, and it is late, and she says, “I think I am a bad person!” and I say "no!", and she insists, she begs with her hot little wet little cheeks pressed up against mine and her hand searching for cleavage, “mama, I need you to teach me that I am not a bad person.” (if I could only teach myself this, and if I could only make my emotional needs so transparently known)

And I insist that she is a good person, and I hold her and rock her in my lap, and I ask if someone hurt her feelings today and she nods, and crawls under the sheets, and I say, “I know baby, my feelings were hurt today too,” and she stops for a minute, and asks me to tell her about it, and I do, omitting names to protect the innocent, or mostly so she won’t repeat things or hold grudges that for me will have long been forgotten while for her in memoriam perpetuam. And she asks me to tell her a story, so I begin, but she doesn’t like my story, because it is about her, or so she claims, and I give up and lay back against my pillow in the dark, and she asks if she can tell me a story, and if we can write it down. I say yes.

This is the story that I. told: (she hasn't been formally introduced to the concept of allegory, but just the other day we were discussing metaphor and its narrative function)

Once upon a time there was a lamb, it is a talking lamb of course, and there was a little lizard. They loved to play together, they did jump rope, they did everything together. Until one day, one of them wanted to go do jump roping and one of them wanted to do hopscotch. So they got into a big fight about who’s gonna do which game they were gonna do. So, they said, "if we’re not gonna be friends, then we’d rather have some alone time!" But then the next day, they were feeling much better. But you should know, if you wanna play one game and your friend wants to play another, you shouldn’t judge them on what they wanna play, you should say, "I don’t want to play that today, I’ll find another person that would like to play with me, but I’ll go looking with you to find your friend that can help you play jump rope."

But does that mean that you are not friends? NO!

That’s it. The end. Good night mama.


Words of wisdom from the child. I should learn to listen to what is spoken, not the deformed sounds that I interpret. And tomorrow, it will all feel better.

Not just men

I walk into the bathroom. I shouldn't start, because when you drink, once you start, it never stops. But my bladder sends signals to please, please, please relieve, and so I obey. Sometimes there is a higher order that one must follow.

I feel hot, and happy, the beauty of letting onelself go, dancing, is that once you start no one else is there, no one matters, nothing matters, but the patterns of light and the tactile sensations, synaesthetic surges, and the movement that flows. One does not have to apologize for lack of beauty, nor disavow future failings, one just falls, swaying, stumbling in place. Re-enacting the sublime. At least it is that way for me. I used to think that I couldn't dance because I didn't want to feel like a fool, like I was being watched, now I know I am a fool, and it doesn't matter who sees me, the watching is all in the eyes that I want to see me. I can decide who matters. Whose lack of interest doesn't hurt.

The girls in the bathroom, and I use this term liberally because they were not indeed "girls" were friendly, nothing like restroom solidarity, they giggled, "I like your underwear!" one exclaims to the other as the thong sneaks out above the low-rider jeans. "They're Tom's favorites... I was hoping I might get laid tonight." "Yeah, I hear you, me too..." this is said with a slight longing, and an air of dubiousness, "I wore Mike's favorite underwear too..."
"Hey!" exclaims the first to the third who has just emerged, "You're going commando!"
And the second declares, "I love newlyweds! She's going commando..." giggles and OFF.

And I smile to myself, and I know there is a lesson in all this, a reason why relationships seem to fade, wear thin. And I glide, happily, drunkenly but still with a bit of grace, if it could be said that I possess any such thing, back to the floor, where I close my eyes, and invoke an image of myself that I would like to believe in, build an aura of light around myself to protect me. I am free.

Adventures in aggression (or why do these things always happen to me?)

So I took I to the dentist the other day, and instead of the young Indian man who usually attends to her, it was a much older one, who walked past the exam room with open doors twice, as if checking me out. I. played quietly in the chair, drawing pictures in my notebook, I stood huddled in the corner, hair still wet, hunched over a pile of papers that I am feverishly grading as I slide into the home stretch.

"you the mother?" he asks gruffly, and my hackles are instantly raised.
"isn't it obvious?"
"No, you look more like her sister." I smile sarcastically at this.
"No. There's a good twenty years between us."

I act my most business-like and he is demeaning and condescending. A few minutes pass and I studiously ignore him, speak comforting words of Spanish to her, to his irritation, he doesn't seem to understand. He asks how many other children I have. I glare and reply only one.

"She is very beautiful." he comments, he is watching me, instead of her as he says this, he is not treating her very nicely, though the more I talk to him, the nicer he gets to her.
I glibly reply, "must be the father."
He snorts, almost amused by my hostility.
"I get that about my kids a lot," he continues, stopping to scold I. for closing her mouth thereby making him take longer.
"hmmh." I grunt.
Reach out and touch her foot, "todo estará bien, mamita..." I blow her kisses and she blinks acknowledgment back at me.
"What?"
"No I was just telling her it would be fine."
"My kids," he continues... "I have kids too, I know how it is."
Funny, I don't feel any solidarity.
"They actually look like my wife."
"Yeah," I look up for a moment from the grading again, "she actually looks a lot like me when I was a kid, save for the coloring."
"Oh..." he tries to be casual, "Is that your natural hair color?"
"um hmmmn." I turn back to my work, read a few more essays, pull my hair from my face, bite on the tip of the pen, sigh heavily.
"Everything ok?"
"Yeah, just bad writing."

He asks about my job and I give barebones details, in my most teacherly way. He asks about the quality of the undergrads, poses questions with vaguely racist undertones, his assistant, an hispanic man, shoots me amused and exasperated looks. I am annoyed because he berates his underling and complains to him that the doctor before screwed up and how the business was going to take a loss. His assistant never answered. He explains in an aside to me that I shouldn't pay attention, that what he is talking about is only for them. He then explains that she will be getting a "good" filling for free, and I explain that I would much rather have had them do the job right the first time. We stare in silence. His assistant smirks, turning his face away. The doctor hastily finishes up and I have serious doubts as to whether he even finished the job, and put in the fillings that I did pay for. Before I leave I take advantage of their disorganization and I ask for photocopies of her dental records, filed away, just in case. (Always good to build one's case before evidence can be destroyed).

And then, as I write this, meditating on (some) men and their lack of couth, I hear a little blip on my screen and the following person appears, with an icon of a motorcycle and a location of Italy, with a blurb that reads "Hasta la victoria siempre" trying to contact me in a chat. I agree because one never knows if one knows someone, and the following ensues.

marcio 3/17/07 3:51 PM
hi
ilanaluna 3/17/07 3:52 PM
do I know you?
marcio 3/17/07 3:52 PM
I don't know?
ilanaluna 3/17/07 3:52 PM
so?
marcio 3/17/07 3:52 PM
So what? (blushing smiley)
ilanaluna 3/17/07 3:53 PM
there must be something you want to say
3/17/07 3:53 PM
so say it
marcio 3/17/07 3:53 PM
...umm
ilanaluna 3/17/07 3:53 PM
más facil en español?
marcio 3/17/07 3:53 PM
no ok english
3/17/07 3:53 PM
I'm italian
ilanaluna 3/17/07 3:54 PM
so it says
marcio 3/17/07 3:54 PM
33 years old
3/17/07 3:54 PM
you
ilanaluna 3/17/07 3:54 PM
not italian, not 33
3/17/07 3:54 PM
che
3/17/07 3:57 PM
so I guess it wasn't me that you were looking for (smiley)
marcio 3/17/07 4:03 PM
sorry
ilanaluna 3/17/07 4:03 PM
LOL
3/17/07 4:03 PM
for what?
marcio 3/17/07 4:03 PM
I'm boring you
ilanaluna 3/17/07 4:03 PM
no you are amusing me
3/17/07 4:04 PM
but I don't understand how or why you contacted me
3/17/07 4:04 PM
do you know someone with my name?
3/17/07 4:05 PM
or did you find me from one of my sites?
3/17/07 4:09 PM
what are you sending me?
marcio 3/17/07 4:09 PM
look
ilanaluna 3/17/07 4:09 PM
no, tell me
❦
marcio inviato il file "194.jpg" ai membri di questa chat
3/17/07 4:10 PM
marcio 3/17/07 4:10 PM
flower

[here my curiosity is piqued, he sent the file twice, the blue and white stripes blink across the bar as if it were a sideways pole dance, is it really a "flower" or would it be an unsolicited pornographic display, a cyber-perv flashing open his brown trenchcoat? My curiosity hovers, but I imagine that despite I have a mac there might be some sort of spyware or trojan horse virus and no trojan pastic barrier to protect poor little Lucy. My fear of infection outweighs my desire for free porn (it could be amusing after all and very little offends my sensibilities save for real physical aggression) so I let the blue swirl maddeningly and continue...]

ilanaluna 3/17/07 4:10 PM
why?
marcio 3/17/07 4:10 PM
for you that ìs all
3/17/07 4:10 PM
if you want
ilanaluna 3/17/07 4:10 PM
I need to understand why you wanted to talk.
3/17/07 4:11 PM
before I accept anything...
3/17/07 4:11 PM
rules of the game
marcio 3/17/07 4:11 PM
be quiet
ilanaluna 3/17/07 4:11 PM
why?
marcio 3/17/07 4:12 PM
ok bye! (smiley wave)
ilanaluna 3/17/07 4:12 PM
ok


So, I scratch my head in bemusement, and I cancel the petitions for file transfer. No curiosity will kill this cat. I wonder what makes people think that they have the right to demand (or is it sheer maladjustment?) and I laugh because I need nothing, nothing at all. My cup it runneth over.

pourquoi le vaseline??

quand le force suffit?

Or was is the other way around? He spread vaseline on my lips with a cotton swab, rubbed it on, with the rubber tipped finger. Massaged my neck, my chin, my jaws. This was not, not what I had expected from a trip to the dentist. It occured to me, with my chin in his hand, that he was the one that so perplexed certain people I know. It made me totally happy, but then I love to be touched. Can't help that. One is as one does, or is it not so? And so we discussed the benefits of flouridadted water, and tears practically welled up in his eyes, I nodded knowingly. I know, so little information, so much ignorance. Truly, and policy is made based on such ignorance. Tomorrow it is her turn, drilling and anesthesia for her. None for me. I like all my drilling done with one-hundred percent sensitivity, I like the dizzying vibrations, the waves of white pain that wash over in anticipation of nirvana and the nothing-center, in the center of pain is pleasure. I know this. In the center of pleasure is pain, too. And my work is never done, and the overtime is killing me, and I tell this to no one, but I don't care. Jimmy crack corn, the master's gone away.

There are universes of randomly constelated pieces of information that agregate themselves and then dissipate. I can't hold the universe in my mind, but on the tip of a pin, prick my finger, let it bleed. The night falls, and the work lurks, leeching life from me, there is not seamlessness. The woman looks over, and her face tightens. It must hurt, to think, that someone younger, more beautiful, more alive could steal the love of your children. She tugs the girl's sleeve. Let's go. I cast my head back, I don't mean to look, but I am curious, to see how that pain might manifest itself in someone else. Someone who could be like me, in a couple more years. When I mean nothing to anyone anymore. There is that possibility, and it isn't so frightening as it is complex, like the overtones of an aged libation. If I were to pour it out, over my head, drink from the rivulets that run across my body? Would there be an answer for the insignificance of any individual life?

I don't think so, but I muscle through it all, keep pushing towards something, I don't know what, but if it isn't there, then there is no fun in the process. Here's where the story ends. It was cold and grey today, and I felt the sunshine on my face for a few fleeting moments, felt a warm glow spread through me. Then it was gone, back to my drab existence. Back to my ant-like eternity. Back to the page. Sublime.

Sor Juana and the vanishing nature of beauty

Sor Juana, she wrote in her defense, in the defense of her mind and work before she renounced and succumbed, as a little girl cut off all her hair, because a head so bereft of information dare not adorn itself with such glorious a crown.

Me? I just cut my hair off because I can't seem to finish my work. Unworthy? certainly, but in different ways. Self-effacement, or defacement can be soothing, and so much weaker than actually hurting oneself. Six inches of hair falling around my feet, and the fleeting thought that I might just finish the work I promised. And isn't the most beautiful of crowning jewels a piece of work, put to rest?

A study in eyes and fur

A study in eyes and fur
Originally uploaded by lunita.

Maddening work schedule means no time to write, save for brief, stress-relieving interludes. This will all be over soon, I just keep telling myself, breath, breath and it will all have to be over by virtue of the passage of time. Meanwhile, I can always find a few seconds to snap a picture of my pretty puss.

NOTE for (well, you know who you are) Now you can click on photos and get the large size images :)

So bye, buy miss american pie

"I drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry..." her little voice carries over the railing, down the stairs. Some mornings, we just wake up singing... still free, fair use and all that.

I add in, "for ten years we've been on our own, and moss grows, fat out of Rolling Stone, but, that's not how it used to be..."

And I let the water run over last night's dishes. We could not do her nature walk last night, mostly because she told me about it in the shower, this morning, with the water falling over our naked bodies.

"Mommy," she asked yesterday, "qué es un sádico?" (this was all my fault, all all all my fault) We were at the dentists, being ignored, abandoned and gouged, and she sat with a blanket of lead over her, (why do they need to x-ray every time?) "Es para que los rayos X no penetren tus órganos," I explain, when no explanation is asked for nor required. "Te acuerdas de las ondas de luz ultravioleta? las que te hacen daño con el sol? Es una idea similar, es para bloquear, dispersar..."
She nods, in agreement, she remembers, and then with a sneaky smile, "now can you tell me all that in English so I can understand it?"
"No! You understood me," she laughs at me, and I tickle her tummy, sneaking my hand under the leaden overgarment.
"Feed me Seymour, feed me all night long..." I sing to her and she giggles, and I laugh with her because the image of Rick Moranis and the singing venus fly trap and a very young Steve Martin as a sadistic dentist on a motorcycle with a leather jacket spring fully formed from my head.
"Oh, es como una de esas plantas que comen moscas..." she meditates after I explain the story to her. Sort of, I muse to myself, like Sweeney Todd (her very favorite thing to listen to in the car, and to which I always say, "no, no more") "Freely flows the blood of those who moralize!" she bellows and I smile despite myself.
"What is a sadist? Well..." I begin, "someone who derives pleasure from causing other people pain." "Todos los dentistas son sádicos?" she ventures, waiting for my confirmation. "No, no sweetie, no they don't mean to cause you pain..." (I wonder to myself if this is true).
They mean to cause my wallet pain, that is for certain, as the smiling accountant dentist (they pull of a perfect good cop/ bad cop routine) steps in to show me how they would charge me 1400$ for the work that they need to do on I.'s dientinis (as we like to call them at our house). I say, "Yes, but I wouldn't be paying for any of these because they are covered by insurance, are they not?" He agrees, flustered because I saw through his failed attempt at psychological manipulation. "But, if you pay up front, instead of 495$ you get our discount and pay only 292$. Just sign here." He whips off an explanation of the rights that I am to sign away, and I know that I irritate him by stopping and reading each paragraph in its entirety before signing. I hand over the plastic, because when I ask, "so I can pay you before the work is done at the next appointment." and he responds, "No, to get this price, you need to pay before we make the appointment." (this is my child for fuck sake, not a car dealership)and I grit my teeth and stand in growing irritation as the inept secretarial staff show little to no interest in customer service.

When I hear "And while Lennon (Lenin?) read the book of Marx, the quartet practiced in the park, and we sang dirges in the dark, the day, the music died..." I can't help smiling, at my kid, while thinking of the movie that I saw last night, Temporada de patos (Fernando Eimbcke) whose gorgeous black and white was something that an international audience might consider Jarmuschy (think Stranger Than Paradise) but those familiar with the Mexican idiom would have to immediately think - Gabriel Figeroa meets the Mexican 21st century landscape... and the line in which the little girl, hanging on the liminality of her inbetweeness, says, "look, there's four of us like the Beatles" and the boy responds, "But the Beatles were all men," and she retorts, "Lennon was a woman." And the man who became an ethologist, and couldn't find work, finally told his boss to stuff it, and quit his dead-end pizza delivery job... but I get ahead of myself...

So I smile, and the irritation at my celular company and their ineptitude, is soothed, now that they have rectified their mistakes. Every month it is something. And I write it all down, because, well, because I have to. Because, like I was telling a new found friend last night, that is the real benefit of writing, no need for a real human on the other end to process with, at least not in real time.

There were no tears this morning, because I forgot to say goodbye. Yesterday there was drama, and not in the good way because I failed to say a third goodbye, but today, after signing up for the class that I will teach this Friday (I have been doing cooking classes at I.'s school for the past month) I smile at the soup pot of songs, and think that the idea of a melting pot is so bland only an American could think of it. And more hot pies, made of hypocrites, a la Sweeney, might be a solution to all this.

Hazy looking down from above

dos mosquiteras?
Originally uploaded by lunita.

I liked this one. I have been trying to treasure each moment I have with this kid, even when she asks for (and wins) blanket bed at the foot of mine. I stylishly avoid work from this place for hours, we have dinner with K. and P. but no more living room dance parties now that she lives on a second floor. There are so many things I should be doing, and I am not, but I will just rob a few more minutes from sleep, yes, I can always do that.

Sheer brilliance

(and no, I am not referring to the lingerie I bought for myself today... nor the cycling paraphernalia, though those terms could refer to either, perhaps if shifting in meaning - damn those loose signifiers, I swear)


"Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. "

I was just ruminating (in all my bovine glory) on this idea of nostalgia, and how I spent the better part of my (mostly) wasted youth, pining for an era that was not mine to pine for, and singing Carole King's Tapestry if not at the top of my lungs (out of respect for non-participating parties), with some sort of abandon. And I was imagining how the lyrics, as an entire whole were so precisely about what in English we don't have a word for "desamor" and the tug of forbidden, or at least denied longing.

And then I come across this little gem, Blooming, ready to be quoted and stolen, not in the Abby Hoffman sense, or perhaps yes, in a little article that examines citation, re-apropriation, and the age in which we live. It would be appropriate to cite, in proper academic manner, then, but I think that it would destroy the point, which was so brilliantly elucidated with examples as diverse as William Burroughs, Bob Dylan and Lee "Scratch" Perry (the latter two being major influences on my very own brand of ecstasy), which is that none of us, not one, are free from the cultural ambience in which we are raised.

I. sings "Well it's too late baby, now it's too late" and we really did hum a few bars and fake it. If only for a while.

And looking out over the ocean, with the glimmer of the waning daylight glancing off the waves, I am no longer uninspired... and I think to myself, what a wonderful... time to be alive. Copyfights, and rights, and the rest of it aside, I love what I can do and find, and the interwoven textures that form this tapestry, of which the cities so gray and so vulgar, are only a part, that we can dance circles around in the sun, if we remember why, it’s not too late to be forever young.

Yes, I do see the pathos

It is true, the fact that I am excited about something, and I don't have a single real person to call up and tell about something as trivially exciting as the unfolding of a new novel, the conception, really, in which it is both imbued with that spark of life, and bafflingly unfolds itself in mitotic proliferation, mirror images that split themselves, not shattered, but refracted into a thousand pieces.

I don't have a friend to tell, (that is, I do have friends, but not with whom to talk about these things) so I write it down here, in this strangely intimate, private place, that purports to be public, but because of sheer lack of interest is just as private as if it were for my eyes only. And still it isn't, because there is this need to tell, the need to feel like there might be, could be, possibly a positive end to the negative chare, a circuit completed, magnetism, or zen.

There won't be, but that hardly matters, what matters is the soothing in the telling, the need that wells up in the chest. I can feel it coming like a slow orgasm, the deep kind that build from your center, not the quick ones that are pure surface, and the names begin to auto(bio)graph themselves, and I run home, to my computer whose F8 key the %^@@&^ cat destroyed last night in a fit of fiendishness, and tell no one, because I think it might happen. I might be able to do this, this outline thing, where I lay out certain plot points, and birth a few characters, sketch them in charcoal, blend away their edges and then let them interact in strange and unexpected ways. I have never written this way, and I don't know it will work, but is so exciting that suddenly there are twists and bumps (literally) in the road that make the new path ultimately clearer, more involved, less linear. Lines cross one another, forming planes, these planes slice eachother, they wrinkle or shatter, they double one another in complexity, richness. There are overtones and undertones, and reverberating sounds that augment one anothers amplitude.

And now, my kitchen calls, to make Lasagna, I always crave lasagna when cooking for men, don't ask why, and I suddenly remember that meal, that fateful strangely alligned meal for the film-maker guy that I picked up (or he picked me up?) in a friendly sort of collection and came to my house and J.J. and M. and Clayton were all there, and I managed to find the proper ingredients, or an approximation of them from the Superama, on Río Churubusco, although the ricotta was not what I wanted, and mozzarella, nearly indestinguishable from other purported cheeses. And how the film-maker and I went to Coyoacán and I danced in a long skirt and sandals to the beat of the eternal drummers, in the plaza of Coyotes, where I. and I. watched the concheros dance just two months ago, and I laugh at myself because I was followed around the supermarket, the one I never go to, by a man that meant to seem casual, if a penetrating stare and then standing over one's shoulder while she searches futilely for decent curry in the spice aisle could be construed as casual, but the story stops there, because I skipped down the aisle in search of other products and he went on to, one must presume, continue his life. And there are stories, everywhere there are stories, and there are scenes to be imagined, and I feel suddenly fertile, fecund, ripe with life, but not that sort of life, and the pain has gone away, briefly, and the disappointment doesn't hurt so much, and I plan a girl-trip to Mexico for the summer and now, now, now, must really return to the house and its calls for attention, litter to be removed, food to be stored and then prepared. I must go, I will, and besides, no one else is here.