The Cure: A steed, a stud...
My brain feels like it's broken! It's not irrevocable, especially if it can comprehend big words like irrevocable, but it fizzles when I type it…
I spent my evening watching “King Arthur” in Spanish. It’s kinda bizarre to watch Clive Owen speak in the wrong voice en español. Still not overly impressed with the movie as a whole, but he was
magnificent on a horse and I love, love, love that over-the-head sword release move. A little gratuitous violence and eye candy: very refreshing!
I don’t mind admitting I’m hoping for intermittent dreams involving Clive Owen and Ioan Gruffudd -- a steed, two studs and a bit of roaring.
Gatita lives another day
We’re in overdrive at the office trying to get a project in by a looming deadline, so my brain is slightly stewed right now…
Still wanted to make a note of two things:
Mom’s thyroid surgery has been scheduled for August 11. She is very tired from all the running around and she clammed up on me again. I think she is a little more anxious about it this time. But I am on it and I’ll do my part to keep her relaxed and as happy as I can make her until we get past this.
Finally, I got a clean bill of health – which has left my doctor flabbergasted. She says that without knowing my full medical history, she is convinced that I may be part cat -- I used up a good portion of a life, but I'm also part CGI and restored like some SIM Babe. My blood pressure dropped back to human levels (and she was convinced she’d have to hospitalize me). The new diet and the pills seem to have done the trick. The old ticker is still there and in good working condition, the cholesterol levels are normal. I can stand to lose weight, but it’s not adversely affecting anything right now, so I can take a little time on the quest to get back my waistline.
I have an intense three days coming up and a hellish week to follow, I may be silent.
Love/Hate
I remember a conversation at NerdNosh years ago about how we all create our personal fiction as memories merge with time… I find myself reexamining my childhood and cringing about it; because, despite all my efforts, I’ve forgotten nothing.
I was able to condense my life into a few dozen really good moments and discarded the rest (a good decade shaved right off the top). It was the only sensible thing to do. I couldn’t fix it and I never had any intention of going back anyway.
But over time, I have retained those rosy memories, devoid of context and subtext when it was necessary to give it a good spin. Generally, I was fine ignoring the extenuating circumstances. The result is a cacophony of contradictions that define me because I rejected them. Does that make sense? It wasn’t so much that I survived or overcame my past as it is a matter of defying it.
Still, just as my paternal grandmother built a relationship as adults and put aside the absence that existed before, I may rekindle more substantial friendships with these people that lived in the periphery of my life, just slightly out of touch. It’s neither necessary nor expected. I’ll make the best of it, but I can’t help but revisit the resentment and sadness that choked me to sleep.
These are powerful feelings, but they can’t take away the fact that some of those memories I have cherished were genuine acts of kindness, generosity and love. It may have existed in a vacuum, but it was real and the memories are true and mine!
GIGO
This is going to be an interesting week.
I suppose I will continue to do my virtual tango with the evil monkey until the dreams subside or drive me mad. Maybe it is a blessing that we have a huge project at work that will probably leave me too exhausted to care!
Wednesday it’s medical hump day. Mom goes to the surgeon to reschedule the thyroid operation. I go to my doctor to look at results of my last EKG and monitor my blood pressure. I suppose we needed the false start because this time around we are past the jitters and just want it done and over with, so we can move on to bigger and better things.
The rest of the week not spent as a TV-watching zombie, I’ll spend putting together a new food column for Barbara’s website about cooking with plantains. There are a few options running though my head: plantain chips, tostones, stuffed plantains… I am most familiar with Puerto Rican, Cuban and Dominican recipes. But I am considering whether to add Central or South American, or even West African ones as well. Of course, I’d have to try them first. And then I get hungry and light headed. See how I suffer for my art?
Dancing with the Evil Monkey
Something interesting (or terrifying, depending on my own clarity) is happening and I’m not sure whether to let it run its course or run for the hills. My 25th high school reunion is coming up. I didn’t go to the 20th (not in Puerto Rico or in Brooklyn, though I tend to think of the gang back on the island as my classmates because I was with some of them since kindergarten). Of course, I didn’t exactly graduate with them. I left after junior year for NYC.
Some of them never forgave me for leaving, as if there was a choice. I suppose another 5 years on the calendar won’t change one or the other.
But seeing their names, their faces, their children, our collective past creeps up. And with that, memories I have long buried come back, feelings repressed for sanity’s sake. I don’t look forward to awakening that monstrosity. No time ever is the right time, really. Nobody wants to look in the eye of the evil monkey after you drowned him in denial, alcohol, recreational drugs and dead-end casual relationships two decades back!
If not now, when? It’s time to do a little slaying, I suppose, if one is to accumulate new and improved monsters! If nothing else, I can take my revenge and perform some voodoo therapy by pouring it all into the novella, no?
Actually, that might be fun! (Be afraid, I have an axe to grind and plenty of lead in my mechanical pencil…)
Randy Pausch, 1960-2008
“I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there's no other way to play it. You just have to decide if you're a Tigger or an Eeyore. I think I'm clear where I stand on the great Tigger/Eeyore debate. Never lose the childlike wonder. It's just too important. It's what drives us."
Check out the tribute
here, including the Last Lecture.
This is really weird...
All things considered, it was a good choice to stay home yesterday and finally get some sleep during the day as the weather became a little more bearable for my body to adjust to, because late last night we had a light show, complete with a funky soundtrack.
At one point the room lit up completely and I could literally read the titles of books in the case across the room and a tiny dust bunny I missed in a corner. Then the thunder came down with a rage akin that of talk radio hosts – fast and furious, loud, unreasonable and just mean!
I’m pretty sure a few bolts touched down in the wooded area by the tracks. It boomed, echoed and made the house shake in its foundation (and this thing is made of limestone). Then every car alarm within a 3 block radius went off.
Thankfully, I was well rested because I was to get very little sleep. It’s a c-o-n-spiracy!
The aftermath was cooler temperatures, a little less humidity and one thing that freaked me out a little bit. Every corner had a pile of dried leaves that fell overnight under the bombardment of water that assaulted it. That’s normal. But not in July! Some of the trees bloomed in January, froze over and rebloomed. So now, in mid-summer, they are already in full autumn mode.
That just ain’t right!
Finally...
The temperature dropped about 10 degrees, but the humidity took up the slack and rose above yesterday’s highest temperatures. So life has become quite literally a contest of endurance. Sleep is more an idealized concept than something I’d recognize at this point.
The rainstorms they promised turned out to be more mold activators than a refreshing cleansing wave of relief. Lies, all lies! There was no relief, just different and never ending forms of torture to endure.
This morning I stared blankly into space, feeling like gravity was forming a bubble over me to crush me. I went back to bed; there was no point in even trying to even put on shoes. I doubt I was capable of solving that intellectual puzzle!
To my absolute shock, it turns out four hours of uninterrupted sleep (even if slightly sticky) lifted me to another plateau. My muscles were sore from sleeping in an unsavory position, but at last I was rested and my brain wasn’t cloudy. I even spent a few hours writing. Granted, it was a lot of staring at a blank page and 6 minutes of frantic output repeated for quite a while.
Then, to cap my day, I got an envelope from a friend with 4 CDs with George Carlin routines. If that don’t lift your spirits, girl!
Take heart: relief comes in one form or another… Laughter, medicine: work that magic!
Freedom humor!
Standing at the bus stop, sweating and cursing summer... A couple in their 50s were waiting for the bus. They chatted about inconsequential stuff mostly. Suddenly he looks across the street and laughs and points, “Look, oy oy!”
She looks uncomfortable. “What are you talking about?”
He points across the street again. “Look, right there across the street. It’s called oy oy.”
She rolls her eyes and ignores him and I start laughing.
“Oy! That’s funny right?” He thinks he has found a kindred spirit.
I look at him, trying to figure out if he is being funny or dense. “It’s not oy. It’s
oui oui.”
He looked from me to his companion (no way that was the woman who came with the wedding ring!). “
We we?! You need glasses, that’s not even close!!!” He laughed so loud that it echoed across Third Avenue.
“No, it’s
oui oui. It’s a French cleaners.”
The trophy looked at me with a pained expression and whispered, “He’s not gonna get that…”
I held my gaze and understood her pain. It was too deep for him.
Oy! It's so humid.
It has been an interesting four days. If you moved very slowly, kept the thinking to a minimum and remained in the shade, it only felt like the sixth circle of hell. Sadly, I know it could be worse. In fact, this morning we came close to it. The phone rang and it was the polite conEdison phone robot letting us know brown-out conditions in our area. Oh, joy!
It was so damned hot, I was losing language quickly. I couldn’t think straight and speech became a chore as much as movement and breathing.
Coming up next week we have a chance of rainstorms every day until Wednesday. I am looking forward to thunder and lightning and lots and lots of heavenly water – if it means it will stay below 90!
I experienced an inexplicable rush of creativity and I wrote a short chapter for the novella, and while I seemed to have reached a certain level of clarity on it to move the plot forward, it remains to be seen if it will hold water… Like I said, I wasn’t in my right mind. My brain was slow-cooking in my head. I am absolutely convinced it shrunk.
I told someone to think about this as a free spa treatment from God. But I think I may be over thinking this whole silver lining thing…
To entertain myself, occasionally I sing a chorus of
2 Live Jews’ “
Oy! It’s so humid.”
Rosemary's Little Princess
True happiness can only be achieved through enlightenment and by walking a path of beauty. (Pot, champagne and chocolate work too.) It also depends on perspective, on recognizing those things that you can change and accepting those you have no control over.
Of course, sometimes you find yourself existing in a toxic environment and a cesspool of negativity that permeates the air you breathe.
Then your only option is to fully understand what you are up against. Use knowledge as leverage to survive and rise above it.
Here’s what I know. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, I’m dealing with a pervasive case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). We have been infiltrated by a being that functions on a pattern of a grandiose sense of self-importance; is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love; believes that she is "special" and unique; requires excessive admiration; has an oversaturated sense of entitlement; is interpersonally exploitative; lacks empathy; is often envious of others or believes others are envious of her; and shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.
Now that I understand it as a mental deficiency, I can be more charitable with my patience. Despite the fact that this makes a person ridiculous, constant exposure leads to something insidious and malignant. I wish I had a coupon for a discounted exorcism… In the absence of that, I will simply say to myself, "She's just not right in the head, bless her heart." And go about my business untouched by her madness because it's just not about me.
A Global Village Indeed
Coincidentally, I came across the coolest news item today. The coincidence is that it regards an Amazonian tribe and I have been immersed in a self-imposed mini crash course regarding another Indian tribe from Brazil.
Unlike the Pirahã, the
Suruí first came in contact with the outside world just over 40 years ago. They have retained their language and culture, but they also have learned Portuguese and, through the efforts of their first ever college grad, have also embraced technology.
The
San Francisco Chronicle carried a story about how the tribe has literally Googled themselves, setting up a system to track down illegal loggers in their land using
Google Earth. You can watch
Chief Almir Surui speak at the Google Earth Outreach launch and enjoy the beautiful sounds of Portuguese (there’s a guy translating to Inglês).
I could give you a hundred reasons why this is the coolest thing you’ll read all week, but you’ve all heard it before and you’re just going to call me a geek again. But since I have been in no mood lately, my response would just have to be this: (_o_)
A Dark Night
I was really looking forward to today! We were going to meet at the office and head for the city for a signing event for the release of The Dark Knight’s soundtrack. After that, we’d throw caution to the wind and let that very wind to carry us – dinner, movies, comedy club, live music? We’d be in Times Square, the possibilities are endless!
Maybe I overshot it. But I promised I’d do it.
We arrived to the city around 6 and already there was a line halfway up Broadway and into 46th street. I went inside and bought the CD and in a few minutes joined the crowd. We milled around for about 40 minutes until they herded the geeks indoors. By 7:30, the guests of honors finally made it in, but we were not holding on so well. Mom was starting to look a little ashen and my back and legs (my feet in particular) were screaming bloody murder.
I estimated an extra 90 minutes in line and I simply conceded defeat. I decided to take Mom back home and the universe smiled on us and sent us an express train to Brooklyn. We stopped at a local restaurant so she wouldn’t have to cook tonight, that was always part of the plan. But in retrospect, instead of coming straight home, I wish I’d turned right and headed towards Little Brazil.
It’s a full moon tonight. We saw it peering down at us through the tree line before it darkened outside. I just hope it is done pulling down and making everybody crazy!
Not the best day ever, not the best outing, not the best dinner ever . . . we’ll jut have to try that again in a different configuration.
Beaten Dead Horse
Exhausting day… I
literally feel like the dead horse that gets proverbially beaten over and over.
Started rainy and gray, then I spent over two mindless hours at the doctor’s office waiting for a 2-minute thrill ride otherwise known as an EKG. I hate this because I feel it’s like the beginning of a really bad Gothic horror story, with me half naked on a slab with these ridiculous little taped taps on my legs and chest… I keep expecting an albino hunchback to stand over me and drool over me as he yells out,
“It’s alive!”
I know it’s ridiculous, but I just distrust people wearing white smocks. I learned very early in life that those sadist bastards lie a lot. I mean one of my earliest and most horrific memories involves a doctor, a nurse and a crazy woman in what under any other circumstance would be called felonious assault (I’ll spare you the details). I still have nightmares about that!
I fell into a deep slumber and was gently awakened by a lovely lady just as we were reaching the cannon on John Paul Jones Park. The bus driver and I hung out a bit, smoked a cig and chatted before we headed back down towards Sunset Park. I’d never tell him this but I call him “el jinete” (HEE-neh-teh), the jockey, because he reminds me of
Angel Cordero Jr.
The F-ing Frontier
The beauty of Netflix for us is that I don’t have to invest on cable television, we don’t have to put up with all the commercials and it costs me far less. I watch what I want, when I choose.
We are catching up to Deadwood, we’re huge Ian McShane fans here (loved “Lovejoy” and really loved “Sexy Beast” -- especially the part where Mom screamed out, "Oh my god, Lovejoy said fuck!"), and David Milch is an interesting character. We were curious as to the treatment he’d give the subject. So far, the preponderance of creative conjugations for the f-word has not been as distracting as the critics claimed. I only hope it doesn’t spill over into casual conversation now…
(Shut the fuck up!)
I was pleasantly surprised by Keith Carradine as “Wild Bill” Hickok – turns out he does a mean impersonation of Sam Elliott!
Out to lunch...
I’ve been alternating between unreal stupidity being hurled at me like acid-filled spitballs during the day and immersing myself into a half dozen articles and studies on linguistics during my evening commute. It’s odd but it keeps me relatively sane. The morning commute I spend reading a Janet Evanovich compendium on writing. My nights are spent trying to retain my humanity, spending a little quality time with the maternal unit and playing Bloons because busting virtual balloons with a monkey avatar with darts is surprisingly relaxing…
Dork Alert!
I was watching this slacker comic and in the middle of an alcohol-infused rift he mentioned Noam Chomsky (and attributed an incredible crude remark to him that made me gasp and cackle almost simultaneously).
Today I was reading an article about a 2005 paper submitted to Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã by Daniel Everett. Of course, Noam gets a mention because Everett claims that the Pirahã people from the Amazon naturally shun Chomsky’s theories of generative grammar and that there is no evidence of recursion in their language.
I read the article with a burning passion that has been missing for a bit, I called bullshit and although I was not able to print and read the actual paper I intend on doing that tomorrow. (Paradoxically, the University of Chicago wants to charge me $10 for the article, but I can get the
PDF for free from another university’s library services. This is why I heart Sergey and Larry!) There is also a follow-up article from last April's
New Yorker that looks very promising.
Yes, I am a nerdy dork but I am harmless if you don’t stick your fingers in the cage…
I'm starting to get ticked off...
What’s the point of being prodigal if the absentee ass is spoken of with great reverence, so that she might find her own self worth, and her actions (or inaction, irresponsibility and general contempt) are never punished, but instead those left behind pick up the slack and the malaise left behind?
Seriously, bitches will screw you.
Some days I wish I had the unmitigated chutzpah of lesser minds, because frankly nobody ever seems to call the ballsy on their rudeness.
I’m pissed. I’m venting here until I either explode or choose to stand up, say the obvious and stop grating my teeth about it.
Living in Artsy Fantasy
Last night, as fireworks burst around us, we sat back with a tin of chocolates and watched the 2007 Academy Award nominees for short action and animated films. Of course, I already loved “Peter and the Wolf” and watched it again with the same whimsical enchantment. "Even Pigeons Go to Heaven" and "Madame Tutli-Putli" were absolutely charming. "The Mozart of Pickpockets" and "Tanghi Argentini" were sweet. My favorite live action short "The Tonto Woman," based on an Elmore Leonard short story.
I did not know anything about it going in, but I felt it had a Leonard-touch to it – it had an inherent authenticity to it that simply took you there… We also found ourselves just spellbound by Francesco Quinn. (Apparently, I have a serious thing for Quinn boys!)
Part of this evening was spent just being lost in “The Princess Bride.” I know I own it and I have seen it 300 times, but I defy you to watch it and not end with a huge grin. As you wish…
Un monde de fantaisie
This week was the kind of hellish, mind-numbing, soul-crunching torture you wish on a cheating mate… I tell you I’d be more wounded if I truly cared, but I have learned that there is a time and a place for everything. I don’t always remember or even practice it, but I know it.
It has been more than 10 years since I’ve been to Montreal and I am simply not over it yet! So I am going to pretend I’m there for the next 3 days.
Walking down rue St Denis, partying down Ste Catherine and up Sherbrooke! Go
here and let the dizzying video transport you.
I can't be there, so I'll be here, thinking of there -- and I even picked a sweet and melancholic beat as my soundtrack: Gato Barbieri's "
Europa" alternating with the funkier Carlos Santana
version.
Bon jour!
Timothy Leary would have gagged too!
The
Charlie Sheen is a moment so surreal that you question your very existence and conclude you are having a
flashback (from your last visit in bizarro world), because there simply cannot be another, reasonable explanation for what is happening. (For the older readers, it's akin to the
Dennis Hopper.)
After it hit, I stood very still not wanting the predators in the group to realize I was silently freaking out (Street Law 101). I was almost convulsing – trying not to breathe, not to laugh, move or make a sound.
The Colombian ahead of me in the coffee line turned (did he feel a disruption in The Force?), and his head snapped back about 3 inches. He stood there stunned and wide-eyed, and slowly and cautiously he made eye contact with me.
I spoke first, “So I really saw that? You see it too, right?” He couldn’t speak. He just blinked.
Buying fruit next to us, stood an African American woman in her mid-to-late 50s in neon, lime green spandex Capris (skin tight and sequined), a too-small black thong interrupting the otherwise sculpted look. She wore a matching Lycra tank top (disturbingly skin-hugging and no bra), also shiny. She had Chinese silk slippers, also lime green and sequined on her feet. Her ears displayed plastic daisies, in green and shiny white petals, that hung down to her shoulders and clunked tackily announcing her approach. And the pièce de résistance, she wore a synthetic wig, metallic lime green – parted off-center, so that the “bangs” draped over half her face in a manufactured come-hither fashion. In the back, the wig gathered into a faux ponytail in a starburst pattern that bounced playfully as she moved.
I could not bear to look again. “She is wearing matching make up, isn’t she?” I whispered to my fellow traveler.
He stuttered something I couldn’t comprehend.
The rest of my day followed suit. How was
your day?
I don’t mind admitting I’m hoping for intermittent dreams involving Clive Owen and Ioan Gruffudd -- a steed, two studs and a bit of roaring.
