SFO

The airport (and all it implies) was sort of omnipresent this weekend and into the first part of the week. From the driver's seat of my Subaru I watched the last three pulling their suitcases through the sliding doors and I didn't pull out right away. I realized that my friends whose summer travel somehow involved me are people who had or have formed, continue to form, or who just recently arrived to form the core of my support circle. They departed (or will soon do so) for or are still in points in Europe, the U.S., the Middle East, Asia and the Américas and will be having life-transforming adventures and experiences: an unexpected vocation, an expression of commitment to a relationship, a holy pilgrimage, reunion with family, an opportunity for CV building and networking, a brilliant career move.

Not until the last party's departure did I wish I were going somewhere, but was really just from guilt. Yes, I finally admitted, like they said, I should be in Río. But I'm not ready. And I actually don't want to go anywhere. I can't. Not until October.

I knew I'd miss them all, but thought that maybe some time solo would be good for me. I never used to mind alone time and in fact would quite often crave it. But over the past years, and as my social circle has expanded and deepened in a way I never thought it would since moving here, I haven't really felt as often that urge to just be alone. And I think that speaks volumes of my friends.

I look forward to when they all come back, transformed in large and small ways, but hopefully not unrecognizable. I want to hear about what they've done and seen and heard and tasted and smelled and felt. And while a drive to the airport is not in my plans for their returns, I wouldn't be surprised...

"You're only as old as you feel."

Philosophically, I agree with age adages like this one. However, they're no consolation when I feel like buying and wearing one of those boxy, shapeless, snap-front dresses with thigh pockets that my grandma and her sisters used to wear at home when they weren't expecting anyone. "Housecoats", I believe they're called.

"If a child lives with..., it learns..."

That poem (?) just popped into my head today during the second part when I was lying face down. I couldn't remember any of the words, specifically, I just remember the contexts, ranging from hate to love and their consequences, ranging from negative to positive traits. I am disappointed that I'm not one of those people, like Profe Sam or Carlos Monsiváis, who can still recite poems learned in childhood. But its image certainly came clearly to mind, the red and blue ink, the font, the cartoon children. I read it over and over while waiting in a doctor's office for check-ups. Also, it must have been everywhere in the 70's. Someone had given my parents a poster of it, and it hung in my room for a while. I also remember seeing it the house of Donna Snodgrass, nurse practioner and much more sage than most of the M.D.'s she worked with during her many years at IHS. I forgot to tense up against the massage the muscles that most needed it as I recalled that small bird-like woman and her daughters. I wondered what had become of them, if Donna is still here...

As the massage advanced, the names and faces of other wise women I knew as a child came to mind. I want to try to write their portraits in later blogs; it's important to remember them and the examples they set. I don't think I'll ever be one of those wise women... (among many reasons) I am, by nature, too urban, or at least have become that way and I think that the cities can sometimes distance and distract us from nature of all sorts. Certainly, I don't mean to imply that there are no city-dwelling wise women. There are. Their wisdom is just...different. But it seemed to me that the wisest seem to have some connection to the earth, to healing, or they work with children, like the women I knew on the rez and thought about today. I hope that I have learned and accepted from them some of the knowledge and other good qualities they transmitted, consciously or not.

I know I haven't left the country.

Tiffany Diner

Tiffany Diner Exterior

But New Jersey just feels like a whole different land. This place embodies the music from the 50s and 80s. It's a place where people seem so orderly, as though they pack away Winter clothing, storing it properly when Spring gets here and replacing it with more seasonal apparel. Hair is just trimmed or styled more neatly here. The pizza is the shit and I'd say there's a diner culture.

Oh, and yes, every fifth person I see does look a character from The Sopranos.

Yesterday I decided to lie down for a 20-minute nap at 6:30...

...and I did indeed wake up at 6:52. Just 6:52 this morning.

I miss being in seminar.

Had I been in that one I would have explained why I think the director shot the protagonista walking around her apartment, then sitting to count her money in just a shirt with her nether parts exposed. It was to direct the gaze of the viewer lower, but not to objectify the character. So what was the point of this? Titillation? No. To make the viewer uncomfortable? Perhaps, but it's more than that. Think a bit. Which part of their bodies do prostitutes associate with their earnings? Caye went into prostitution for 2 very specific reasons. She is saving her earnings to get a boob job because she thinks guys are attracted to women with bigger breasts than hers. And she's not talking about the guys who are her clients. She wants romantic, happy ever after love with a man who will "come pick her up after work". It is for him that she plans to buy the breasts. Since they will not be shared freely with clients, they remain private and as such, they are kept covered up in all the shots we see of Caye. Meanwhile, her "privates" are anything but and the director's choice to make them so very public indicates that he does indeed understand at least a little something about the nature of prostitution and the prostitute herself. This also evokes the stereotypical refusal of the prostitute to kiss on the lips, something echoed in literature and film, such as (and I hate to admit that I've re-thought this movie) Pretty Woman. The kiss was also reserved for a lover, someone who elicited feelings. Prostitutes, in their work duties and while submitting to health inspections (say, of the Porfiriato or in Nevada) were able to turn off all feelings that might otherwise flow to and from the area below the waist. Their genitals function as tools of the trade. Perhaps because of their proximity to the heart, Caye's dream breasts belong more to the realm of love.



Sorry, but no, I can't go back and edit. My battery level is 8% and my computer's is only slightly higher.

Obra Germinal seminal incia Semana Cine Prostitucional

The cinematic version of Gamboa's Santa was the first "talkie" produced in México, 1931.
I get to see it tomorrow!

"You need to get out of your comfort zone every once in a while."

So, I'm auditing 2 undergrad classes. OK, to be honest, one is definitely in my comfort zone - Sexo y crimen en México durante el Porfiriato. And to be even more honest, attending that class is a partial requirement of the 8 unit independent study I'm taking with its professor. However, the other one is a class on Latin American Cinema. It's being taught in English and is held in a big lecture hall on the science-y side of campus. The course must have over 100 students and the nearest coffee is not Cargo Coffee. Oh, and, I'm really living dangerously...I haven't even bought the book yet.

It's so evocative, it's almost unreadable...

This work of devastating, saturated fragility and anger is so beautifully heartbreaking I can only read a few pages at a time.

So, to "writer's" block, I add its less-glamorous counterpart...

...lesson planner's block.

And just what does it say about me that I had to resort to singing, along with Fergie, in order to spell G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S properly?

If you must know...

I finally acquiesced...

...and agreed to buy bedsheets somewhere other than Target and with a thread count of over 7863. What do you know? There really is a difference - these new sheets just feel dark red.

Blog de Anywhere #2

I can't possibly be the only person who'd rather be online than in the casino of Cactus Pete's in Jackpot, NV, but there is a lobby with this one working computer with free internet access.

In the category of things I should have realized way before I did:

1. Of course none of the hotels here have wireless in the rooms, they'd rather the guests be playing...

2. The trip goes by faster when you're the driver.

3. That's Mick Jagger singing back up to Carly Simon on the chorus of "You're so Vain".

"Hello,"

I answered the phone. "How are you?" she asked, in a tone that made me suspect that the answer wouldn't be "Fine." when I returned the question, but I asked it anyway, "I'm fine...how are you?" "Oh, I just got back from getting my hair cut." "And...?" What she said next struck a chord of terror somewhere deep in my soul.

"I think I might have a mullet."

Guiltily, I realized that somehow over the years I've managed to transmit my irrational fear of the multi-level hairstyle to several of my friends and family.



So of course I didn't just hang up and leave her wondering. I went over to confirm. And marched her back to the hairdresser, as fast as the time I marched there myself when she told me, "Val, don't freak, but, your hair...""Whatwhatwhat?!?!" "You're looking a little...mullet-y."

Flashbacks brought to you by a colossally bad hair day - as bad as it can get without my having a mullet, anyway.

One of life's ironies...

...is that spilled soap is one of the worst messes to clean up.

I felt so virtuous as I unscrewed the cap of the eco-friendly handsoap refill pouch with its lightweight, minimal packaging design. I held it over the dispenser, ready for the familiar slow ooze of the liquid soap. I'd spent years perfecting my pour technique and haven't wasted a drop since my second time. Needless to say, I was totally unprepared for the gush of watery liquid that came splashing out all over the countertop and onto the closed (¿?) toilet seat. I spent about 5 minutes wiping everything down with a sponge until there were no more suds. Guess it's a different formula..."foaming" handwash, rather than "gel". When all else fails, read the label.

I guess it could have been worse. For instance, having a bottle of Axe shower gel leak all over the inside of one's gym bag whilst on the road in one's 1970 Ford. Or maybe not..."One" claims that as one drove by with one's alluringly scented cargo, every woman between Clear Lake and Vallejo plastered herself to the sides of the truck...



Disclaimer: String of Lights does not condone the misogynistic TV ads of the above product, though it has been known to chuckle at one or two of them...but I think that those of us who do chuckle are not deriding the women in the commercials, but rather the absurdity of the situations and by extension, any men who believe themselves capable of driving women to such ridiculous behaviors by slathering on Axe (or anything else they do, for that matter).

Apology: String of Lights sincerely apologizes for the sexist nature of the last part of the Disclaimer.

"I don't know why. I just do."

If there's no passenger demanding otherwise I only turn it on if it's 82 or above. Yet perversely, once the temperature reaches about 91, I shut it off and roll down the windows.

Últimos capítulos...

About eight years ago we began the sporadic after-dinner ritual of rushing into the living room and flinging ourselves, Simpsons style, all onto the brown couch and always in the same order:
person/dog/person/dog/person.

The brown couch has long since replaced, and we've each staked our claims on the purple couch (him), the yellow chair (her), the red love seat (me) and several dog beds (them, not their choice, really). But the other elements of the ritual remained. We always watched the entire opening sequence for the first episode. After the first episode, intermission for dessert and someone asking "¿Uno más?" Then, the next day, swearing much more than usual.

We watched on VHS and DVD, waiting impatiently for the second and third seasons and without such urgency for the last three. I managed to not find out too much about the last season, so the end was a surprise. Or perhaps the surprise was that after a second or two of initial disappointment in not knowing what happens I actually appreciated the last episode's unconventional ending. I suppose for real life situations, like on the job or in any other kind of relationship or some less excellent TV series I'd prefer an unambiguous ending, "ripping off the bandage...no anesthetic" but this conclusion was a refreshing change, as was the first episode...And, as after the gran final of most series or telenovelas, there is a letdown. I'll miss the characters and I'll miss the ritual.

mechanical reproduction

Perhaps it does lack the aura of the original. But for me, it retains its emotional impact.



Even when I look at its reproduction each day.

Pachucha and other extremes

Most years I'm fine. Today I was selfishly isolationist and inexplicably immobile, even during the run.

Around sundown, though, I didn't feel as fragil anymore. It happened somewhere between the second sentence of Emilio's essay on Arenas' autobiografía and the second straight episode of Grey's Anatomy. A phone call from a friend, a shiny clean red car, a glass of red wine, someone else getting sucked in to my telenovela and chocolate cake with pink frosting also combined to lift the mood. I wish that easy, non-medical prescription would work for everyone...and I hope that everyone has something similar for those times when she/he está pachucha/o.

The best part of the morning was that the coffee I spilled on my skirt didn't have any milk in it.

"The work of Borges, written in a Spanish difficult to read without admiration, is one of the American scandals of our time,"

writes Fernández Retamar in "Caliban"*, in which he posits Caliban, rather than Ariel as the symbol for Latin America. He (15 years) later states in its follow-up, "Caliban Revisited" that his canonical and incredibly well-developed essay was written "...in a few days, practically without sleeping or eating, feeling myself pressured by people for whom I have the highest regard, are responsible for a number of loose ends in the piece that gave rise to misunderstandings" (54-55)

I don't believe that his comments and criticism of Jorge Luis Borges were "loose ends", but they may have given rise to misunderstandings. Certainly, I found them a bit surprising, having only ever read, heard and probably uttered or wrote gushingly positive observations about JLB. Fernández Retamar is respectful yet assertive (y muchas veces acierta) as he critiques the author who has been for so many and for so many years, untouchable. Granted, Fernández Retamar is a revolutionary (¿marxista? ¿comunista?) and writes from and for the revolution. It was nonetheless interesting and illuminating to read his assessments of the author argentino who may or may not have foreshadowed the Internet in the short story "El aleph"... I'll limit my discussion to citing just a couple of those assessments. Fernández Retamar does acknowledge that JLB does not pretend to be a leftist (he stops short of saying that Fuentes does), but also points out on several occasions a kinship between Borges and Sarmiento, for whom neo-colonialism might have been a delightful possibility.

"Borges is a typical colonial writer, the representative among us of a now-powerless class for whom the act of writing - and he is well aware of this, for he is a man of diabolical intelligence - is more like the act of reading. He is not a European writer; there is no European writer like Borges. But there are many European writers - from Iceland to the German expressionists - whom Borges has read, shuffled together, collated." And a little más adelante, "The writing of Borges comes directly from his reading, in a peculiar process of phagocytosis..."** (28).

All of this and more says the man who persists in using characters from Shakespeare to symbolize América.

*Excellent translation by Edward Baker in this edition, Caliban and Other Essays, published by the University of Minnesota, 1989 with a forward by Jameson)

**If you click that link, you'll be directed to a site where you can see what this looks like at the cellular level.