A Break Up Letter to Rejection

Dear Rejection,

I can’t take much more of you. I understand that you love  me but I think its time we parted our ways. For some reason, my middle school education was peppered with Ben Franklin’s pithy quotes and I feel alas I may use them to get my personal message across. “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days”……my dear sweet rejection you have been living with me a month so you can imagine your stench is now too putrid to withstand any longer. I’ll cherish the time we had together and am sure our paths will meet again but please give me the space to heal. Thank you.

Warm Regards,

cris

Found…..college graduate angst

So I was looking at my word documents, mostly to reminisce over my college career and its utter lack of applicability of ‘real life’ and I found some poetry/free verse I wrote. I must have written this in the last quarter of college. enjoy?

Forced to listen to drunken bastards singing top 40 jams at the top of their lungs
Broken voices fighting to break out of ventricles swimming in forced concessions
Complacency settled deeply in the bones of those who use to dream child fantasies
I am afraid ill be there soon, living for brief moments of false freedoms
Laying in the backseat the world seemed so big and life was an endless playground of opportunity
Lolling my head out the window and making up songs
True love was the only goal, that Disney love no sex, no fights
No power struggles or uneven expectations
I wanted to ride the rollercoaster all day
But even then I knew I knew that ticking, beeping, seconds were unstoppable
Everything was whirling and there was nothing that could even pause it
No brief moment in which to look around Years passed in single breaths
No one noticed until
The used-up muscles ached.
he dreams were tainted.
Mechanic days of compromise

this one makes no sense except to me who remembers this stream of consciousness perfectly…..

Psycho psycho psycho I want to dance
I want to get out let me leave so that I can come back
I just made a dance station on Pandora
Wondering if I should open the bottle of Muscat wine.
I think yes. Ill use a glass that is clean and finish a bottle off
Mmmm sounds good
I am wearing the right hat for that kind of behavior
Maybe ill take a hit too
I think I deserve it
Having been a crazy prisoner all day
I look like steezer right now
I think it wont go over well but I like it
I am going to be cold
Because summer refuses to come despite the lateness in the year
I cant take this dance” music no more
Ok just kidding I love synth…
Far too much
Cheesy 80s crap makes me think of tourqoise and pink geometric shapes
My dog is eating his foot

I see a theme emerging….

I am torn between wanting to be free and getting lost in swirling circles and ringing tides
And the hum-drum bizzbum of doing what I should
When I speak of dropping flopping and flying high on something not on the track on the road to something official, plastic, pride, prestiege
I am scared don’t frighten me they say they say to me and I don’t understand
When the paths forked into two
They say watch out look for stormy weather, well yeah you too
You don’t know tomorrow and u may not know today
The clouds are going to come even in the stone walls of classical notes
So you might as well be free
Caught up in to
We forget it
Just entranced with smutty pornographic images
Never really wondering, questioning or exploring the flame within
Christian zealots, hippie hogwash for the rotten mind they say
Well I think I found the answer
And you sure as hell don’t want to hear it
Its not secure, its not right , its not GREAT-ness
I don’t care about tomorrow
Because today is becoming yesterday
And that child you knew once wants to be proud of you today
Don’t look back with regrets or to the future with other people’s expectations
Open roads, grassy knolls with hidden troves, clouds of gossamer wings weaving golden light from freedoms whispered voice
Rock n roll and folksy blues are the tunes that prance into the mind
Tumblers of the past they had something right
Cause life is long and I want to be alive and real and true
This world is shit, its no surprise
Your shit has blood, that dollar has blood, that poster is cultural genocide
Break out
Break out
Break out
The world is the relations, smiles, fights and screams
Go out into this world and be free

This one has a title and is my favorite.

Memory
The burial was quiet
No birds sang and no one cried
There was only me and a
Simple white box
Not everything was beautiful
There was a lot of pain
In that unassuming box
Its unadorned façade
Was a ruse
I wanted to cry as I dug into the earth
I wanted to laugh
I wanted to open the box and not put it away
But I couldn’t
it was to late
It was done
That part of me had died
I planted a single lilac
On that red-earth mound
I walked away
I didn’t feel myself again for a long time
Until one day, on a sunny afternoon
I felt something pure
And the white box soul
Came back to me
It was never the same
But it was still good
I know I have to bury other boxes
some will hurt more than others
but they will all come back to me

the end of the work week

Today is Thursday and it was a gorgeous day in Vera. It felt like a summer day in Santa Cruz and its only January! I have had a gloomy week so I was so happy to have a beautiful day. I got home and changed into short-shorts immediately. Then I went to my fridge opened a beer, lit a cigg, grabbed my book and went to read in my mini-mini-balcony. It was amazing. My batteries feel re-fueled. I am alive and young.

The sunny day made me realize that we all need to put the poetry into our own lives. So many times we are all screaming over each other and living our life without noticing it. Today after the sun I spent a good thirty minutes living ‘in’ the moment. It was amazing. I became conscious about the heat exuding from my body and the sweat forming on my brow. When Karl came home I really took him in as a human and realized how much I love him. I smelled him, noted his pale arms, compared them to my brown arms, contemplated the cute gap between his teeth and then stared into his serpentine eyes. No, no,no this is not going to start into a sex scene. It was so much more pure and better than that. It was like a poem in action, like a drug dream without the drugs, like sitting in meadow or a beach but in your own home. Quiet. Sweet. I think everyone should spend a little moment of their lives with eyes-wide-open. Just view a second of your life with complete honesty. Anything at all… even eating a sandwich at your kitchen table. I promise you it will be a poem or even maybe a serenade.

Cai-Guo Qiang

today the wind in Vera is really strong but also very warm. It is 20 C-degrees right now and overcast. weather like this makes me think of Cai-Guo Qiang’s work.
the world is brutally ending but in a sweet tranquil matter.

It’s a rainy day in Vera and…

there is nothing to do here today. I am bored out of my skull. I also just had the most unsatisfying lunch of all time: an omelette an sprouts. Anyhow this is not a post about complaining…ok maybe a little bit. Its more to do with how I really want to to see the 1992 movie singles again. I tried to rent it from itunes but it won’t let me because I am overseas. I am a little sad about this since I feel it would have been the perfect rainy day activity.  Until I get to see it I guess I’ll have to satisfy myself wearing flannel around the house and pretending I am wearing doc martins. 

I want this

I use to be a lioness now I am just a kitten

I cut off my hair. 

Before:

 

After (from the front): 

 

 

After (from the side, on a bike, with my cousin Carlos):

 

In retrospect I really miss my hair but at least I got to cut it off in Paris in a salon called “Glamorous”. It was a funny experience. I had dreads in my hair and actually got asked when was the last time I had showered was…I tried to explain my hostel was a dump that gave me bed bugs and the shower/towel situation was no better. Trés chic n’est-pas?

Food Lover’s Companion

My sister and brother-in-law recently sent Karl and I a Christmas package full of wonderful things like clothes, seaweed to make sushi and eat Korean BBQ, and most importantly the Barron’s Food Lover’s Companion. The book is a reference guide to over 6,700 foods, cooking techniques, drinks etc. Anyone who loves food and watches the Food Channel day and night should buy this book! My favorite game when I am bored is to open the book to a random page and read an entry. Here are some of my favorite random items that I have come to learn about due to this fantastic gift.

Filé Powder: “…seasoning made from the ground, dried leaves of the sassafras tree. Its since become an integral part of CREOLE COOKING and is used to thicken and flavor GUMBOS and other Creole dishes. Filé has a woodsy flavor reminiscent of root beer” (257).

(I have also learned that Creole cooking and Cajun cooking while both from Louisiana are very different. Creole cooking is thought to be more refined and use oil and butter while Cajun cooking is much spicier and relies on the use of Pig lard.)

B’steeya: “A Moroccan dish of Phyllo dough surrounding a mélange of shredded chicken, ground almonds, and spices. The “pie” is baked until a crisp golden brown, then sprinkled with powder sugar and cinnamon. Also spelled bastela, bastila, bisteeya, and pastilla” (92).

Lavender Gem: “This citrus fruit is a white grapefruit-tangelo cross with a pale pink skin and flesh and a sweet flavor. It’s usually available in specialty produce stores and can be used in any manner appropriate for grapefruit. Lavender gems are also called wekiwas” (381).

Syllabub: “This thick, frothy drink or dessert originated in old England. It’s traditionally made by beating milk with wine or ale, sugar, spices and sometimes beaten egg whites. A richer version made with cream can be used as a topping for cakes, cookies, fruit etc. It’s thought the name originated in Elizabethan times and is a combination of the words Sille ( A French Wine that was used in the mixture) and bub (Old-English slang for bubbling drink)” (681).

Varak;Varaq: “Edible, gossamar-thin sheets of pure silver and gold that for centuries have been popular decorations in India for special occasion desserts, confections, nuts, and rice dishes. Varak sheets, which are flavorless and odorless, can be found in Indian markets and cake decorating supply shops…Varak sheets are so fragile that they can dissolve easily with human touch and can be torn by the barest breath of air” (721)

If I am ever in charge of a bringing food to a fancy party I am going to bring something that I can put Varak on to make it look pretty. Also how amazingly magical is the description of its fragility…its like a fairytale. Have you ever seen the 1990’s film version of the “The Little Princess”?

If you have, don’t you agree you were semi-transported to those scenes when she is telling the Ramayana? Pure gold…no pun intended. 

Spain the land of Public Service Announcements

Spain has started a new safe sex campaign that is aimed at high school and possibly college students. It’s a pretty hilarious rap. When I first watched it, I thought it would be a failure. However, I think I gave the Spanish health ministry too little credit. Not only have I heard the high school students singing it but I also have even begun to sing it after the commercial comes on. Even though I still think its ridiculous and the teens who sing it do it in a semi-mocking tone, the health add has successfully penetrated daily life and continued to influence long after the television turns off. Anyhow, I am including it here so that you can all see it. I find the ‘hip’ (I have no real idea) slang particularly hilarious as well as the fact that it just doesn’t flow all that well.

 

 

Spain seems to be overwhelmed with many government ads and public service announcements. For instance, there are poster campaigns against domestic violence. The woman’s face (seen below) states, “Don’t even think about laying your hand on me ever” while the man’s face says “One stops being a man when he hits a woman”. I think it’s a great campaign and it was the first thing I saw when I landed in the Alicante airport. I like how the add attempts (possibly succeeds) in creating a new imaginary in which domestic abuse is neither a man’s right nor a sign of his masculinity but rather a cowardly and emasculating action. That campaign seems to be limited to only posters but they are in very public places that seem to not discriminate or focus on certain populations.

 

The other ads have a wider reach because like the safe sex announcements they are on television. The first is the very colorful and beautiful commercial against child abuse. The commercial does not reveal what it is about until the very end. Until then it simply a colorful world with a child’s dark shadow and hands that become part of the world. It is difficult to explain so just click play so that you can see it. It is very beautiful and seems almost like a combination of an ipod commercial or maybe an Of Montreal music video.

 

 

Another good ad that is near and dear to my heart is the one concerning Romanian immigrants. I have only seen that commercial in Alicante but I find it both effective and interesting. Spain has recently experienced an influx of immigration from sub-Saharan Africa, Morocco, Latin America, Poland and Romania.  The add I saw was solely about Romanian but it was a commercial dedicated to integrating Romanian immigrants. I think its particularly amazing when compared with US rhetoric concerning Mexican immigration. There (USA) as many scholars have noted the rhetoric concerning immigration uses negative connotations such as ‘flooding’, ‘tides’, ‘invading’. Furthermore immigrants are often characterized by the stereotypical idea that they are ‘lazy’ and sucking up welfare and social security. On the other hand, the Alicante add portrays a very dapper, elegant, man that is the heart of a very successful and luxurious hotel. The narrator is the owner of the hotel and he is explaining that his employee is hardworking and professional. The tone of the commercial draws in the spectator in such a way that one almost expects it to be an ad for some hotel  but instead it ends with the hardworking employee stating, “ I am Romanian”. The add ends by extolling all the hard work that Romanian immigrants are doing in Spain and how they should be respected and integrated as important members of Spain’s population. Having only seen US ads (that tend to come out in California during elections) of broken fences, dark shadows, and litter, I was pleasantly surprised to see an alternative view of immigration. Here is the ad so you can form your own conclusions. 

Lara’s Magical Timepiece

My friend Lara recently told me she is getting an old-school, pocket watch.  Lara has a long history of having magical items of which I am deeply jealous of. My favorite was a giant white, rainbow jeweled medallion that caused quite a stir where ever she went. For instance, a crazy ( or possibly a witch from another dimension that knew the power of Lara’s medallion…we may never know) woman tried to rip it from Lara’s neck and demanded that Lara give it to her. We promptly ran away but were left with the feeling that possibly the medallion was something more than a necklace. I am not sure what happened to the medallion but I hope Lara still has it tucked away somewhere safe just in case all those incidents were foreshadowing some event in the future.

Anyhow when Lara mentioned her pocket watch, I realized that it too will probably be magical. I hope it will be some sort of time machine that will allow her to take me around time like theses guys and make her an awesome historian/lawyer. 

(Lara-I totally get to be Ted)