Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Captain Chavela

Last night I had that dream, again. I was pregnant. I had a huge belly. I woke up aching.

So.........

This is for the fetus that invaded my dream last night:

I don’t want you anymore. I kissed you goodbye on my 37th birthday. Remember? I placed you on a paper boat that had your name on it.

Chavela.

Captain Chavela, captain of her paper boat.

Please stop invading my dreams. It is time for you to invade the dream of a 26-year-old uterus. Mine is too old for you. Mine is for black birds that need a place to fly. Go rest your baby Buddha head on somebody else’s shoulder. Take your pacifier, your bib, your red little coat, and your diapers and go away. You’re better off being something other than my daughter. You’ re better off being a blue sky. A sweet orange. A yellow M&M. A handful of rice. Cold water in a cup. The last autumn leaf on a maple tree. I don’t want you. I don’t want your Mother’s Day card and your photograph on my wall.

I had enough of your cruel baby invasions. Please stop.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

no internet

I don’t have access to internet. For Christmas I received technical difficulties. I’m writing from a coffee shop. Yesterday my husband and I took a long walk. The ocean is about three miles away from our house. The following are images we collected:


This boy asked Santa Claus for a litle bit of ocean.



He was not invited to Christmas dinner. He spent the day with the Pacific ocean.



My hands. I had forgotten what they could create when there is not a keyboard in front of them.



" y mami?" asked the boy.
"tu mama esta con nosotros" the father said.
The boy looked around, but he only saw the Pacific ocean in front of him.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

...

That night people around me were slowly drowning in small talk. I’m not much of a conversationalist so I sat in the back of the room and listened. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I began to spit out phrases from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

A teaspoon of soil

We can leave the library then, go back to the creek lobotomized

Emotions are the curse, not death

Self-consciousness……hinder the experience of the present.


Nobody listened.

Monday, December 21, 2009

because

Because I dream,
that is not what I am.

(from the film Leolo)

Random thoughts

1.
My first psychologist, a UCLA graduate, straight out told me on my 11th visit that my problem was my hair. Yes, my hair. The problem was not my mother or my father. It was my miserable, shitty, scruffy, dry, mother fucking hair. She advised me to buy a hairdryer.

Mrs. Dalloway said she would by the 'hairdryer' herself..

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Proposal

Todavia and I invite Mr. Crónicas Urbanas to reenact the Louvre scene (Godard’s A Band Apart)





Also…..Mr. Crónicas Urbanas would you like to recreate this scene?

smithereens

There is no school for the next three weeks.
No students.
No lesson plans.
No exams to grade.
No conferences with parents.
No California Standardized Test preparation.
I can go to the restroom anytime.

I desperately need to rest.....meditate.....touch sand....sit down....

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Sunday

Thoughts of the end of the world arrived early today. These apocalyptic thoughts made me hungry for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a Czeslaw Milosz’ poem I read many years ago when I was in my 20’s. The poem is called A Song On The Day The World Ends. Without an ounce of shame,I wrote a pseudo version of that poem, um, well, it's more like a shopping list for doomsday.

Oh, and Mr. Milosz, please forgive me........

On the day the world ends…...

A man rides a bicycle to work.
A cat sleeps and dreams of a big juicy moth.
An apple rots on the ground.

On the day the world ends….

A seahorse gives birth.
A 17 year-old boy shoots up heroin.
A mother washes a spoon.

On the day the world ends...

White seagulls fly to Anacapa Island.
Chavela Vargas sings yo quiero luz de luna
A first grader learns to read the word, mat.

On the day the world ends......

I wear blue jeans and an old red sweater.
I don't remember Nietzche.
I don't remember God,
The periodic table,
Or Daniel Marrodan, the Argentian boy who broke my heart at 15.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Returning

I'm returning to work tomorrow. I can't complain. With the budget crisis here in California, having a job is a priviledge. Resting the body and mind was good. I painted with Matisse. I read a little Zizek (just a little). I listened to Nina Simone and Karen Dalton. I even watched this great film called The Road (I haven't read Cormac McCarthy's novel). I sat down and did nothing (something very difficult to do in these United States). Overall, my vacation felt like the following song in this video......I didn't attend Woodstock (i was too young and too busy sticking my tongue out at the wind), but can you find me in the audience?

Sunday

My vacation also felt like this lady's hat (front cover of the New Yorker by Maira Kalman).

Friday, November 27, 2009

Los cuatros Pablos

(perdon....mi español no es bueno)

1. El primer Pablo llegó a mis 16. El era un jardinero. Yo era su ayudante. Pablo me alimentaba de cuentos de plantas silvestres y hongos. Me intoxicaba la lengua con los nombres de algunas plantas en latin. Malum. Malum. El hablabá lento, surfeaba las olas de todas sus palabras. Su uniforme de jardinero era un pantalón de pechera y un sombrero de Van Gogh. Pablo nunca me besó. Nunca me tocó. Sin embargo, un día, me llevó de trás de unas plantas de alcatraz y ahi escondidos, sentados y callados, le hicimos el amor al tiempo.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

True North

This morning Jimmy Page has blue wings.

I listen to Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On. I travel to 1974. I’m on Paradise road with my father. We pick-up a hitchhiker, a shirtless hippie man with dirty blond hair. In broken English, my father tells the skinny Jesus that we are only going to the store to buy milk. Only. In broken Spanish, the hippie informs us that he is heading north. El norte is not here. My father lied to me. The north is not a small apartment for eight people. The north is not a grapevine. The north is not a place where tired children help their parents pick table grapes. The north is not a place where a teacher tells her student that from now on durazno will be peach. I want to go north.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Ode to Saura

I’m descending to my rabbit hole and I'm taking little Anna Torrent with me.

In this hole, I see that woman who once paid me 40 centavos to leave her house. That woman was my madrina. She didn't have time to spend with me. She was too busy watching telenovelas. Here, go buy yourself some candy, she told me. I took the coins and planted them in one of her geranium pots. My fingers angrily inserted the coins deep into the soil. I heard the sweet, snapping sound of roots breaking. I left her house with a smile on my face.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Cinema

I like the word, rechifla.

Me rechifla el cine, you said.

The term is perfect for me. I fell in love with Santo films on Sundays. They were perfect for those good versus evil mandarin days. And when I didn’t get the cute guy at 16, $5 gave me a piece of John Hughes heaven. Five dollars went far in those days, I felt smart with Zhang Yimou’s red lanterns. I got high with Wong Kar- Wai.

I discovered you in Krzysztof Kieślowski films. You were the blue candy wrap….. the string on Veronique’s hand. I waited too fucking long to touch you. I was five Julio Medem years away from you. I wanted to be your Lucia all night and your red-headed Clementine Kruczynski from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind all day.

Now we share strong coffee and clean house on Sunday and feed two big, fat cats. We argue about Y Tu Mamá También while folding laundry. I love it, you hate it. Sometimes we hold each other tight in the kitchen and fill the little hole on that Angkor Wat wall we saw in a film.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

because you should look at the stars



Originally uploaded by Olivia Bee
this is a beautiful video .........song by elliott smith

Because you should sing on Sunday too



this is a cover of an old Elliott Smith song.......scott matthew and holly do justice to this favorite of mine..........

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

the chair

My grandfather was not sleeping in his bed. There was a full moon outside. My grandmother had been gone a year already, so he found it logical to wait for death when the moon was full. He sat on an old wooden chair and waited quietly.

( a dream i had last night about my abuelo teodoro who lives in mexico)

Sunday, May 31, 2009


Dreaming green and blue in the city of Portland.

Change



There is a song by The Cure, I can't remember the title, but it says something like this, the very first time I saw your face I thought of a song and quickly changed the tune. I live my life. I go to work. I wash the dishes. I feed my cats. I listen to the same song of my life every day, but when we visited Portland, Oregon last week, I also thought of a song and quickly changed the tune.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009



We visited Portland, Oregon. This is one of my favorite memories. More later.

Friday, May 15, 2009

túnel

No se nada del tema “near death experiences.” Tampoco estoy segura que al morir caminaré dentro de un túnel donde una luz brillante me espera en el fondo. Sin embargo, me gusta la idea. La luz no me importa mucho. Ya viva he recibido varias promesas de cielo, paraiso, etc. Estoy cansada de promesas. Ayer recorde la pelicula, Millenium Mambo del director Hou Hsiao-Hsiens. La pelicula no tiene nada que ver con el tema de “near death experiences,” pero su empiezo me recordó a ese túnel que dicen nos lleva a la muerte. Me atrae la idea de caminar a mi muerte despierta y conciente de lo interno y externo, sin miedo, sin expectativas......sin resentimientos. No espero despedidas y encuentros con drama, pero si espero poder abrazar la vida por ultima vez y abrazar la muerte por primera vez. Quiero caminar con una sonrisa y dar saltitos contentos. Quiero levantar mis manos y pretender que son, no se, papel de celofán volando, quizas.

Creo que el empiezo de la pelicula de Hou Hsiao-Hsiens me da una idea de lo quiero.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

old fashioned

I think I still have a foot in the 20th century and I’m far away from becoming a postmodern chic from the 21st century. After two or three hours on the internet I want to cut yellow lemons in half and sweep the geranium petals off my balcony floor, turn a page from one of my many unfinished books, sing a Christmas song (even if it’s May), take a photograph of something dull, but beautiful…………………

Thursday, May 7, 2009

nostalgia and envy (not in a particular order)

I'm envious of V's ability to write daily. V always has something to say. Of course, V tells me that the daily writing is a recording of the day, a way of saving our experiences and events. I don't want to forget the day either, but somehow, i can't sit down to "record" the day.

Today while I was at Blockbuster video, I found a film that I'd seen in the 1980's, I've heard the mermaids singing. It isn't the kind of film that wins awards, but it brought back memories of my life I had at that time. I think I was 19 years old when I watched the film and somehow it made me feel less ashamed of riding my bike and dreaming.

It is okay for me not to write, but I wonder what memory, the film Twlight will bring in 20 years?

Friday, February 20, 2009

for us


Selly from wartezenstein on Vimeo.

memory

According to the dictionary, memory is the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences.

My husband has difficulty remembering mundane events of daily living. He forgets where he places a spoon, a bill, or if he cleaned the cat box already. He is only 37, yet he tells me: Así siempre he sido. The strange thing is that he never forgets sunsets or a sunrise. He never forgets to tell me goodnight. I, on the other hand, forget words. I insert a wrong word here and there like dropping trambones in a piano sonata.
I think our poor memory took a bad turn the other day when we forgot our wedding anniversary . We didn't seem bothered, on the contrary, we laughed about it. Perhaps one day we'll forget our birthdays, Christmas Day, 15 de September and 2 de octubre. We will forget to look for mama whale and baby whale in the afternoon skies. We'll forget chocolate ice cream, our cats, and blueberry pancakes. Our memory will become a long Saturday afternoon, still and orange.

Monday, February 16, 2009

strawberries came early

After having time for myself, I came home and my husband surprised with this photograph. He took the strawberries out of the Driscoll's ugly plastic box and placed them in my favorite green bowl. I thought of William Carlos Williams and his poem about plums.

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
savingfor breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold


Of course, my husband later confessed that he didn't eat any of the strawberries claiming they were delicious, so sweet, but so filled with chemicals........

de regreso

La creatividad y la gueva son amigos traviesos......o la creatividad a veces se disfrasa de gueva para burlarse de la persona quien la espera......wait, wait....stop......writing in Spanish makes me self conscious. It makes me uncomfortable thinking about accents, spelling, and grammar. I have my husband next to me. I could easily ask him where an accent goes, etc....but it's tiring. It's an interruption. It's a test of his patience (which he does have), but I don't like to interrupt him.

What was I saying about creativity and laziness? Actually, I really don't have a point. I just wanted to fill an empty space with words (more like babble). I came today to record the day. Nothing exciting or remarkable happened, except:

1. I made my kick ass enchilandas for dinner
2. I finally finished my sewing projects
3. I managed to get off my sorry ass and go outside for a long walk
4. I didn't work today because it was a holiday
5. Rain woke me up.
6. I drove my husband to work (this made me happy because he loves his bike more than my car).
7. Our cats slept on our bed for most of the day (I love it when this happens because I have an excuse for not making the bed)
8. I managed not to do any school work
9. I saw half a rainbow during my afternoon walk. A half rainbow is better than none.


I think these are enough words for today.

Monday, February 2, 2009

and she dreams of the past (again)

She's lost control

Sometimes I have to look at myself in the mirror (as cliché as it sounds) to see if I am the person I once dreamed of..... The problem is that I don't exactly remember the dream. There were so many candy cotton dreams.

I don't even know if I once was the 17 year old girl I remember now. Was it a dream too? The white tennis shoes. The Ian Curtis poster. Hours spent in my bedroom , not dreaming my life away, but dreaming my dreams away.

I still dream, but my dreams are different these days. The I want to be dreams are less. The I want to have dreams have also diminished.

Because I dream, I am not
(from the film Leolo)

Saturday, January 31, 2009

trabajo

Regreso al trabajo este lunes. Se terminarón mis vacaciones de seis semanas. Seré otra vez adulto, responsable y amable. Se terminaron los "FUCKS" que salian de mi boca a cada rato. Ahora empezaran de nuevo el "good job," el "let's try again," "please," y "thank you!" Adios pajamas de la tarde. Adios cabello de escoba.
Adios Amy Goodman, Decor8, Flickr y YouTube.

Hola lapices amarillos. Hola borradores. Hola niños.

Bueno, por lo menos caminaré.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Class Struggle


When I'm bored, and I mean, really bored, I like to click on "next blog" hoping to find life in this universe. I've found some gems, lots of advertising, and a lot of desperate, boring people like me. I've been blogging for less than a month and I already became aware that I belong to the disadvantaged class of bloggers. In another post I'll talk more about the traits of the underprivileged class, but for today, I'll mentioned some of the special privileges that the upper class bloggers enjoy:

1. They were saved by Jesus (Dude, where is my Jesus?!).
2. They have cute, well-behaved children (I don't have children, but the ones I know are a bunch of ugly rude little fuckers).
3. They collect beautiful things such as Hanna Montana dolls, Jonas Brothers dolls, etc. (the only thing I collect is clouds, but they are not as sexy as the Jonas Brothers, dammit!).
4. They are technology savvy (I don't even know how to get rid of that annoying clock I have).
5. They have interesting things to say about life, and when they say it, they say it well using polysyllabic words (I still struggle with speeellling).
6. They have a large number of visitors (I think I'm going to give free chocolate chip cookies to every person who writes a comment on my blog).

Anyway, welcome to my class struggle as a blogger. Underprivileged Bloggers UNITE!

Clock

That clock on my right side is beginning to annoy me. I don't have a clock on any of my walls at home. What was I thinking when I placed it on this blog? Was I really that dense and fell for the aesthetics of the clock? It does look cute and interesting, but sadly, it is only time. Actually, I take back the word "interesting." There is really nothing interesting about time. It moves forward. If I could only find a clock that moves backwards or sidewards, perhaps I would keep it.

Friday, January 16, 2009

favorite flickr photo

I saw this beautiful artwork on Christina's photostream (flickr). Check out her amazing art by clicking here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/christina76/3187263003/

waste

I waste time.

The floor needs sweeping and at least three loads of laundry need washing. Birds can circle the skies of time aimlessly. So, I hang my plans next to my husband’s baseball cap. Let them get heavy with wasted time and dust.

Birds sit on wires. They don't worry that he's never coming back or that she forgot your name. I sit in front of a laptop with headphones on. Silvio Rodriguez sings something about a carabana de sentimientos but I just want him to sing soy feliz, soy un hombre feliz y quiero que me perdonen por este dia los muertos de mi felicidad.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Since I don't know what to write..........


Memories of Fantasies Forgotten from Dovely on Vimeo.

que?

I don't even have a week with this blog and I've already reached a "writer's block."
Sad.
The great news is that I'm not a writer, therefore, I shouldn't feel remorse or any sort ill feeling for not writing. Hmm, I think it was Pablo Neruda who said that we need more readers than writers. I wonder if somebody in this planet thinks that we actually need bloggers.

Monday, January 12, 2009

De La Chingada

I just want to say one thing: I feel like crap. The misery of having a winter cold is difficult to describe with words, well, maybe not for a real writer. But for the average Joe like me, it is quite difficult to describe the itchy eyes, the runny nose, the ache in my jaw, without sounding like a over the counter cold medication. Anyway, enjoy your dry nose..... while you can.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Beginning

In the beginning there were a laptop, a desire to start a new blog and time. There were no questions. There were no answers. Just time, a laptop, and this wild desire. Perhaps the word "wild" was an exaggeration.