llegada

Eyes wide open and crusty at 7:30 am. Jet lag. I lay there for a moment, remembering where I was, a little smirk creeping onto the lips, thinking how different (different wonderful) this feels cause I know I'm going back this time, thinking thank god I'm not here for good. Pad across the living room, cold saltillo floors under fleshy feet, open the door to feel a nippy 45-degree morning. Everything is where it was, except they've thrown out the black pleather couch, now the den of the last surviving cat (apparently my mom ran over the other one - you can laugh, I did). That huge oak tree, the one that reminds me of the tree of life, at the opposite end, that deep blue soot-free sky speckled with wisps of clouds, and not a trace of airplane tracks in sight.

A mocking return. The strong nasalised accents, the oversized asses, the use of golfcarts in airports, flip-flops everywhere. The land where everyone looks the same, at least, the women in Texas. I doubled over when this girl of about 15 - you know, the slender blonde chick that is going to be someone's sidekick, but never the alpha, in delta delta delta - rolling her eyes at her dad, saying no, serious-ly, really no serious-ly, no serious-LY with that wonderful valley accent that falls at the end of words and makes them sound like whiny questions. I could not believe I had just spent the day before drinking pink champagne and smoking shisha. I can't believe I can see the entire sky! I can't believe that the first night I'm back, I hear that rumbling thunder that shakes the house, a sound that we miss in good ol' Ingerland .

llego pronto

packing to classic duran duran. you know you like it. in less than 48 hours, i'll be over the atlantic in a big metal tube with wings, en route to texas for exactly one month. ho-bot's getting married and i've never been more excited to be someone's bitch. my sole responsibility is to entertain her and ply her with drink. though, the former is much easier after the latter... if i'm lucky, some chill nights of randomness with surya, jesse, kirk, celeste and agnieska. 2 b-days to celebrate, bro's 28th and my 24th. a weekend in south padre to heal my woes. 5,000-word paper to write and a government exam i haven't prepared for. (but don't tell that to anyone, that last bit about not studying - would dash pappy's hopes of a brilliant future under the guidance of condi rice). and maybe, just maybe, i'll see this much-touted austin reception weekend...

this is where i emit a high-pitched eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (like the knights of neeeeee).

who will be my playmate?

beauty in the breakdown

perhaps it is simply spring. there's a buzz in the air, everything is so much MORE. i listen to keane and frou frou at least once a day, vocal chords experiencing heights they haven't reached in years. i want to spin in warm texas downpours or taste wet grass.

what is it?

the more i hurt, the more i believe in life and love. the older i get, the younger i feel. everything is full of ambivalence - i want to scream always, both from rage and joy. i want to do something extraordinary or nothing at all. i sometimes find myself tugging at my shirt, pulling at my chest, subconsciously trying to crack myself open. this body cannot contain whatever is trying to get out. perhaps lightning is about the strike.

springtime in london

spent 5 hours lazing about in regent's park today, observing the shadows grow long on the soft mossy green as the sun marched west. discussed virtually everything under the sun, from the chasm between eastern and western spiritual traditions to whether wonderwoman can actually fly (and what kind of background music she has). couples whispering between kisses, lips still touching, toddlers squealing with delight, black water fowl puffing up feathers in spring flirtation, dogs and human forms sprawling among the tufts of daffodils. mating season is here.

es facil olvidar

The perfect song for such a beautiful day as this...

'Perdonar es divino' - Gustavo Cerati

tu voz en el mensaje
me pide que te hable
pero puede que sea tarde
para cuando me escuches

asi que voy a verte
cuelgo y voy a verte

a mi me es facil olvidar

por la ruta despistado
fue oportuna tu senal
si en mis ojos hay diluvios
en los tuyos leo destinos

me cuelgo la guitarra
vuelo y voy a verte
es que
a mi me es facil olvidar
tal vez puedas olvidar

a mi me es facil olvidar
tal vez puedas perdonar

freak of nature

sipping on a starbucks' white chocolate mocha in the blue armchair in mere kamre, computer in lap, vast expanse of bright blue cielo beckoning from outside. the coffee was supposed to be a pick-me-up, a way to cargar las pilas and get cracking on the theory essay. last week, it was grey and snowy and windy. all-around miserable. and wtf?! spring crashed in with a vengeance yesterday. now we're in the high teens, people are down to tees, skirts, and sunglasses. the sun is shining and everyone is suddenly bubbling over with smiles. how can i be asked to work?!?! well, at least i'm not in an office. days like these make me realise how great it is to be a student. i can just dash out and run around, say to hell with work and have an impromptu picnic in hyde park, close my eyes and feel the lava-lamp orange on my lids...

curry and the ontology of literature

while gorging ourselves on indian food - me, chicken curry, keema nan and kashmiri rice; cameron, lamb pasanda and keema rice - we watched a stereotypical british expat - beet red, shock white hair, horrible french, highwaters and half-tucked t-shirt - hosting the first guests in his new b'n b in france. he killed a bee on the breakfast ham and just wiped it off, adjusting the ham back to a presentable shape. then it was supersize kids - about 2 horribly obese kids in england. i laughed my ass off when one kid said his dream was 'to be a footballer and make 400K a month, or a week, what-eva'. and then you see him kick a football. i've never seen a more disturbing gap between perception and reality.

then, somehow, cam and i got into a prolonged conversation about literature and art and the function of the artist. he was incredibly stunned, shocked into stuttering wonder, when he realised that we had totally different ways of reading literature, had completely different constructs about art. the low down: he views art as a communication between the artist and the viewer/reader. he also is of the cult of the author i.e. he reads very consciously aware of the author and believes knowing about the author makes reading a richer experience. i still refuse to give my definition of art but it resides somewhere between the art and the viewer and has little or nothing to do with the artist. when i read a book, i'm completely unaware of the author and he is, for all intents and purposes, non-existent. i acknowledge that somewhere someone wrote the book that i'm reading but i could care less who that person was. the author is divorced from the text.

restless

very vata. would re-arrange my room if it were big enough. should be reading for the paper due a week from tomorrow but instead, i'm changing the blog template. i just want to be on the damn plane already. or better yet, sitting on the porch of trudy's and sipping mexican martinis.

stares

crumpled shades of red under folded cafe au lait limbs, ondaatje's book lays open, its pages fanning out, neglected. the windows of this room face east but the sun arcs along a southern latitude. bakerloo runs under us so the hand mirror trembles, but there is never a moment when it is not quivering, almost imperceptibly. houses on dunes. eyes drawn to the waves of the curtains, some glowing white, others grey in the shadow of their own folds. and there's that wall again, the few inches that frame the top of the windows. it's not really there. the thought that always comes to mind at that spot.

musing in lon-don

I often wonder who, between the two of us, is more self-absorbed.
- contessa to wonderwoman

dry flirting - term coined by wonderwoman (11 March 2005) to define flirting with the a priori knowledge that it will not come to a head. Pun intended. Other idiomatic uses of dry - dry wretching, dry humping.

Seems wonderwoman and myself exert a strange power all our own when we go out together. Alone, it is never this weird. A few weeks ago it was a strange ego-maniacal Sicilian and two coked-up Polish lads. Yesterday it was a giant stranger in a Moroccan club hovering, half leering, half just high on what I'm guessing was X, followed by a pissed-up Spaniard in the bus at 3am saying 'comeme el punto del pene' sandwiched between other Spanish palabrotas. The conversation lasted, surprisingly, the entire corrida from Regent Street to Dorset Square. Hasta luego chicos.

self-absorption, cubed

If Closer is an 'honest look at modern relationships', I pity Mike Nichols.

excerpts from a single day

...The intuition of a woman. Go figure. It sucks. In a beautiful way. Or perhaps it's beautiful. In a sucky way...

...And then he said it. I am obligated to tell you that I've been seeing someone. I was in shock. And yet not. How long? was all I could ask. He went on for a few sentences but I don't think I really registered it. My body was in shock. I felt numb, or rather, tingly all over, as if I were having an allergic reaction. Get angry? Cry? Sign off? Call him? Vomit? But none of these happened. I just stared at the little box on the screen, blinking, awaiting a response. I feel ill. I sign off. Grab the phone...Luck is with me and Natalia has just stepped into the house. The magnitude of the shock registers when she asks me if I am all right and there is a long pause because if I squeeze my vocal chords my voice will crack with the sting of tears. And we begin to talk. And then she takes over. And she knows exactly what to say. I don't feel stupid at all. I'm just listening. Listening to her being there. And I remember that this is love...

Zygmunt, mon vieux

Reading Zygmunt Bauman's Modernity and Ambivalence in preparation for an upcoming paper. Synchronicities abound. Art reflects life or vice versa?

On closer scrutiny, the hope of arrival turns out to be the urge of escape.

Not being what it ought to be is the present's original and irredeemable sin. The present is always wanting, which makes it ugly, abhorrent and unendurable. The present is obsolete. It is obsolete before it comes to be. The moment it lands in the present, the coveted future is poisoned by the toxic effluvia of the waste past. Its enjoyment can last but a fleeting moment: beyond that (and the beyond begins at the starting point) the joy acquires a necrophilic tinge, achievement turns into sin and immobility into death.

men.

i keep wondering at what point the irritation is justified.

following the rabbit

I lay in bed last night, listening to the wind howl high-pitched and sharp and then peter out, watching through the sliver where the curtains don't quite meet, thinking how odd, no bright yellow light from the window in the building opposite my line of sight. An early night? Maybe not yet home. I look down at the foot of the bed, a stool - piled high with books on theory and papers and a Zeliang shawl - framed by the edges of a Monet print - London sunrise - I have failed to hang for several months, framed by a blue cloth that ruffles occasionally from the wind rushing through the flue of the fireplace. Can't see any of this clearly, I just know it's there. Varying shades of obscurity. My mind just fills in the details.

And then, my feet, playing in the sun and shadow of the lace curtain against the floor-to-ceiling dresser in my room. Small fridge next to the door, filled no doubt with pierogi ruskie and juice. Behind me, a window that lets onto ulica Slezna, the number 9 and 20 trams my regular route. The plain white door, my head bowed, mechanically inserting the keys, mumbling czesc to my neighbours. The door kept locked. 'Prosze' to enter. I remember that door so well. I stared at it. A lot. And then I tried to remember the way out, out of the building. Through the door into a long passageway with that kind of floor that looks like rust-coloured confetti has been scattered everywhere. On the right towards the kitchen but no, go left and into the stairwell where on the left there is a window, but high up, so you can only see the tips of the trees. Down the cement steps, slippery when wet, and then to the right - further down, the laundry lady whose genuine smile and cheerful enthusiasm in our limited 2-word interchanges brightens my day once every 2 weeks - enter another corridor, the walls painted a vibrant teal blue, the register's office on the left and then the glass doors and through those, a glass enclosement like at a bankteller where you have to leave and pick up your door key. A foyer and then the next glass doors, to the outside. 4 sets of doors from my room to the outside world. Down the steps, to the right is ulica Komandorska. Funnily enough, I don't think of snow. I think of those bright friday mornings in late spring, when I had to catch a bus to Krzyki for a lesson. Those mornings were always sun-ful.

It's only now that I realise I'm thinking of Poland. Poland. I was there one year ago today. And the March before that? Madrid. And the March before that? Austin, probably reading Halperin's history of Latin America at Pacha. Wondering if there is a thread in all of these movements. There is no method to this madness.