"Hey you with the pretty face, welcome to the human race"

You know how when you listen to that one song that makes your throat get all gulpy and mesh and swell with your tear ducts and the subcutaneous layers under your face start to feel puffy and goosey somehow and you realize you're almost crying, but you don't know why the hell you're almost crying because you're not sad you're actually really happy but you just think this song in this moment was written for you, which you realize is ridiculous? And you like the song so much that you keep starting it over while you're driving down the road before it even finishes which makes no sense at all and now you're totally losing it? No? Okay maybe it's just me.

Day 3: A song that makes you happy: Mr Blue Sky by ELO



Mr. Blue is due at the end of July. He was made with love, and let's be honest, a shitload of expensive science and the build up to his formation included a lot of torment for a couple that was already dealing with more shit than they should have been.

Luisito and I have been together for 13 years. I remember him telling me at the very beginning that even if we broke up, he still wanted to produce offspring with me because we were meant to mate (in Spanish it sounded really romantic).

When we first got married it wasn't the right time, according to me. I was going back to graduate school and even though every bone in my body wanted to say fuck it, let's make a human, we waited. Luis always always wanted to at any time since the day we got together. After graduate school we moved back to Spain and we thought it would happen soon, very soon. But then I got a new job and my boss announced she was pregnant and would be needing a lot from me to help out while she was away. She was back to work a few months when she announced her pregnancy with her second child. I knew it was wrong for me to let this influence me, but it did and I worried about my employers not taking me being pregnant well. So I continued to insist that we wait while Luisito continued to want children whenever would say yes. And then the problem was that we were still in that shithole and I wanted a real home before we started a family and I didn't picture my life like this and Luisito just pictured his life with me and some kids and nothing else mattered.

And that's when I screwed everything up. I got depressed with my life and lonely and angry and completely withdrew from Luisito for the first time in our 10 years together. I pushed him far away from me and we almost lost each other, and when I think of how close I came to being alone without Mr. Blue and Luisito I feel gutted. When we finally started to patch up and fix our problems, we had to face infertility. The guilt I held for waiting for so long to find that I was no longer fertile was almost more than I could bear.

But that was before and today it's a beautiful new day.

Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong

Hey there Mr. Blue
We're so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do
Everybody smiles at you

This song will forever be my happy song about my baby Blue. I'll sing it to him in the car, I'll sing it to him while I rock him to sleep. I'll put it on and watch him dance. And I'll never ever take for granted again his Papi who I'm finally seeing happy for the first time in too many years. Today is the day we've waited for.

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''You know I could never be alone"

Jesus it's dirty in here. Sorry I didn't respond to all of your comments in the last post. They were nice and made me happy.

But the crusty laundry is piling up in this place, I've got a sink full of dishes with the remnants of food on them that I don't even remember eating. There is a layer of grime and dust on the creative parts of my brain, I haven't mopped in months, and the sheets haven't been changed in god knows how long.

The thing is, the filthier this place gets, the harder it is to throw the moldy cheese away that's on my counter no matter how sick I realize that is. Unfortunately, I'm the type of person that unless I can organize the place down to color coding my spare buttons and find the time to iron my damn sheets, shit's just gonna get moldier.

But today it was as if someone had walked in and I felt ashamed of the unidentifiable smell exuding from the fingerprint-tainted refrigerator and I decided that if I at least throw out the stinky shit and DO SOMETHING, I will be a better person for it. So I'm here to prove to myself and maybe to other awesome people I won't mention because they know who they are that I am not a moldy cheese type of person.

I'm a storyteller, dammit.

And I'm intrigued by a damn meme. Because it allows me to tell you stories and show you how cool I am because of my taste in music is all at once. Either that or it will make you once and for all realize we really have nothing in common.

So it's 30 videos in 30 days, so help me fucking god.

Day 1: Your favorite song

Alright, so unfortunately I have a problem with this meme already. How can I possibly pick a favorite song? It's too much pressure. So I'm already changing the category - I'll pick a song that brings me back to a time when I was one of the most favorite versions of myself.

After days of wandering around Madrid in a state of awe, I met Fernando. Fernando had creamy 18 year old skin with dark sugary eyes, longish black hair and the teeth of a toothpaste model. He spoke with the perfect boarding school English of an Argentinean that had been born into just the right family. His charming, educated manner and his nuanced table etiquette contrasted with his wrinkled heavy metal t-shirts and his black and white Pakistani scarf, symbols of rebellion against his family that was pressuring him into an aristocratic life he was nowhere near ready for and that his favorite songs and books told him was the enemy.

He too was lost in this new place. We had both just landed on this strange continent without a friend or a plan, but Fernando had the language down with an accent that made me drooly and he carried a thousand US dollars in cash in his underwear and a knife to protect himself from the unexpectedly benign world of European youth hostels. I was as naive as he was, if not more, with my water droplets which I thought were going to make the Spanish drinking water potable (turns out it puts Phoenix tap water to shame). We clung to each other in our foreignness and naivety and maybe without being fully conscious of it, our refusal of a mold other people had made for us without our consultation. We both seemed acutely aware that this was temporary, that we would be forced to fit into some tight box soon, but now everyday represented a refusal to be anything but what we wanted to be that day.

We had nothing to do except catch trains to Toledo in search of old graveyards to creep around in or lay lazily in the sun on a rowboat in Retiro Park letting each other listen to our tape collections with our headphones. Fernando was way more into harsh metal shit and didn't know any of the blues or Dylan or Dead or indie stuff I liked, but we coincided that day in the park with this little Rolling Stone's number.

As much as I enjoyed Fernando's company during those couple of weeks, my head was full of all the people I wanted to meet, places I wanted to go, languages I wanted to master, books I wanted to devour, new music I wanted to hear and having anyone glued to my side the whole time would have been a burden. Besides, we already had conflicting ideas about how to travel. The money in his underwear had to last him six months and he had to be careful. He started his day with mate for breakfast and skipped meals. He followed me around while I ordered food and claimed he wasn't hungry. He was proving to himself and to his family that he could make it in the world without them and I respected that, but I had two freshly cashed student loan checks in American Express travelers checks and a study abroad program that included my room and board so this was spending money, baby and I wasn't wasting any time or thinking about tomorrow.

My 21st birthday rolled around and I had only one person to celebrate it with, and I wasn't having any of that frugal bullshit. I needed someone to not think about the future with me just for a day and I reeled him into my quest of finding a bottle of wine from the year I was born and ordering it no matter what the price. We walked for hours, soaked in the pouring rain, in and out of expensive looking restaurants and bodegas to see if they had anything from 1977 without any luck (or maybe with a lot of luck, Jesus, what was I thinking?).

We finally settled on a nice expensive but not outrageous wine, and I told him to order anything from the menu, it was my 21st birthday, dammit. He ordered a plate of octopus and I ordered the paella. We sat next to a window overlooking a side street off of Puerta del Sol and if I close my eyes right now I can be there in that moment and hear the sounds of the street down below, the noisy clinkering of glasses and silverware and the chatter of the Spanish lunchtime crowd and the suits and white tablecloths. I can hear the accordion player trying to lure the pesetas from the tourists seated under the beige umbrellas just under our window.

I know that moment by heart because I mapped it into my guts and brains and the thickest, most fibrous parts of my soul. I must have closed my eyes and feared that if I opened them it would all be a dream, that Fernando and Spain and the accordion player and the octopus and me, the me I had always wanted to be would all disappear. Actually, Fernando and the rest of it could have very well disappeared, but I wanted to open my eyes and still be the me I was right then. The one that was confident for the first time in my life and looking to nobody else as a reference for how to behave, for what kind of music to like, for what I wanted to look like, for what I should think. The one that was open to experiencing things for the sole purpose of someday making my own good stories that were more mine than any other belonging I could ever own, that I've unfortunately gotten shitty about sharing. The one that saw the world as a never-ending series of open doors with mostly good things beyond them. The one that didn't feel even remotely dampened by a future unknown, and that appreciated the fleeting effervescence of life in its most vivacious and ripe stage - the now. The one that felt the intense heated color of gratitude - a feeling I knew then, that I lost touch with for some time and that I have found once again today.

I had to take off for Seville and I made it known to Fernando that he wasn't welcome to tag along on my adventure, we were parting ways. He was a good sport about it and didn't take it personally and was ready to venture off somewhere else himself. We kissed in the rain and I was surprised at how his long face bounced off me with an indifference I had never experienced before, especially for someone that would have at another time turned me to butter with a glance. He said he was sad that if we ever saw each other again it wouldn't be like now. I smiled, because I didn't regret it at all. I would still be me.

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Tips for the discerned lady traveler

As a seasoned lady traveler, I thought I'd share some tips with you, still fresh in my mind from my recent week of leisure in Northern Spain.

1). Opt for the most luxurious accommodations your pocket book can afford you. Being a more adventurous traveler, I often find myself far away from my many summer estates, which often requires adapting to more bourgeois living arrangements, with a staff that is unaccustomed to my rigid requirements. When selecting such accommodations, consider the calibre of the fellow lodgers, as the inevitable exchange of pleasantries may be required, and you'll want to find yourself amongst the gentility of your peerage. I usually find the fellow lodgers at the Ritz hotels to be of a tolerable cultivation, and it is hence a suitable compromise when I find myself on the road. If this is not feasible, a lady like myself may just have to deal with the beer filled fuckers flying the pirate flag at the next tent over.



2). Upon making your reservations, insist on ocean views when seaside. I highly recommend requesting a suite with a wet bar stocked with the finest imported beverages, a grand piano for nightly entertaining and separate sleeping quarters featuring a king-sized mattress of the highest orthopedic advancements. But if need be, you can always just chuck all your shit into a two sleeper and pump the air back into your mattress in the middle of the night in the pouring rain.



3). Be sure to select among your staff the chauffeur with the most experience in mechanics for untimely roadside repairs. Remember your rank and resist the temptation to get out of the car to help. You may, however, bark orders from behind the windshield and act like a pissy bitch tapping on the glass and pointing out what he's doing wrong.




4). If local giants move in on you and make attempts at intimidation, use your wit and charm to gain their confidence.



Failing that, throw those bitches down with your weak ass trembling quadriceps, but remember, your knees will actually come in handy afterward, when you need to run to the outhouse in the middle of the night.



5). Have your staff pack your trunks lightly. You would be surprised at how a simple pair of black Jimmy Choo pumps can transition perfectly from a daytime stroll of fine shopping to the nightly entertainment offered at cocktail hour. A T-shirt can also easily substitute for a turban, should the scalp scorching sun require it, like if you decide to hike 12 kilometres up a horseshit mountain at high noon.



6). When making a wine selection, opt for a Le Montrachet DRC 1978, served only in the finest hand blown Venetian crystal goblets. If you find this superb choice unavailable, a Carlos Serres 2005 will also do, or as my travel companion likes to refer to it, "the best shit at the camp store", served in a plastic cup.



7). Being away from your culinary staff may require intestinal adjustments, but do try the local delicacies if you can muster it. If you are an especially delicate eater, consider preshipping your capricious preferences such as caviar and baby eel ahead of time to await you upon your arrival. If this is not feasible, a slab of meat the size of your head should get your shitter functioning again, quick like.



8). Ensure that the personal chef assigned to you is skilled in both classical and modern gastronomy, maintaining a synergy between sweet and savory, and is capable of creating culinary harmony through elaborate preparation, emphasizing the visual spectacle and employing irony as a fundamental ingredient. Actually, you know what? Fuck it. Throw those vegetables that have been sitting in a pool of melted ice in your cooler for days now over the fire and then pick the black gunk off of them after you scorch the living shit out of them. Gracefully pretend to enjoy burnt onions.



9). Choose a resort with a saltwater infinity pool, which are quite fashionable nowadays. If your resort of choice has more antiquated playgrounds, a traditional salt water pool such as this one should do quite nicely:



10). A swim up bar may seem very passe and even low class, but even a lady while on holiday will let her guard down and welcome a little pool time horseplay. If you are not fortunate enough to enjoy a swim up bar, you can always bribe your traveling companion with the promise of awkward tent sex if he gets up and buys you a beer from the ice-cream truck looking thing.



11). Do make time for a spa treatment while on holiday. Caviar facials will do wonders for your fine lines and an Evian bath will get your body rehydrated. For the feet, opt for a diamond peel microdermabrasion treatment. Or you can try one of these organic scrub treatments to make your fugly cracked heels look less like horse's hooves.



Remember to pop the blisters you got hiking with your Swiss army knife before indulging in this luxurious treatment.



I hope these travel tips do come in handy while you are out living the life of leisure you have earned this summer. Don't forget to send me a postcard my darlings.

Muaaaaa!!!

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Photos:
all ours except the pirate flag one and the feet one.

Just Sunday

Yesterday was the ideal Sunday.

After a Saturday filled with midday partying (which is so underrated), causing me to fall into a beer slumber at an unusually early hour, I awoke Sunday at the bird-chirpingly early hour of 7:30 a.m.

After talking a reluctant and sleepy Luisito out of bed with the promise of tea and milk and lemon madalenas, we watched a blood-orange sky drop hints that a triumphant sun would rise over this sleepy Spanish city. The days here are cloudy and unpredictable making for the loudest, most incestuous tangerine and pink grapefruit sunrises, where exaggerated violets zealously mate with silky blues and apricot yellows, thrusting me back to the Phoenix monsoon summers.

After the sky flaunted the pinnacle of celestial achievements and the sun fearlessly confirmed a coup over dreadful weather, I dropped the blackout shades in my bedroom and crawled back under the feathery down comforter with my cat and patiently waited for him to find his position at my ankles and I fell into a blissful lazy morning nap.

At 10:30 I awoke rested and ready for Breakfast Part II: coffee with cream and french bread toasted with drizzled dark green olive oil and heirloom tomatoes.

I settled in to a long-overdue session just me and Microsoft Word and click clacked away letting my brain unreel and my thoughts disentangle as my fingers unshackled phrases that have been tugging at and crowding my neurons persistently all week; nothing spectacular to speak of, but a release all the same.

Soon we mosied downstairs to a nearby Mexican restaurant where Luisito consented to me ordering everything on the menu that had melted cheese on it. I washed it all down with a Corona.

Since it was cold outside and was hardly the day for a casual stroll through the Alameda, we made our way home with hurried steps and I ran a hot bath, turned on my audiobook and soaked my ice cream thighs in sultry bubbly goodness.

Soon we were two in the tub and my pruned feet claimed ownership of Luisito's shoulders while my arms almost involuntarily linked themselves around his wet calves. We steeped in silence, Luisito patiently waiting for me to finish listening to my audiobook. I disappeared for awhile into the story, hypnotized by the voice of the narrator, barely conscious that I was smoothing the hairs on Luisito's legs with a washcloth.

When the book finished, further naked activities commenced, but their impracticalities were soon recalled as knees and elbows and ankles seemed to multiply in the most unexplainable way and press themselves into unforgiving porcelain. An immediate transfer to the locale of standard procedure was in order: an invitingly fluffy bed where I had already spent a good portion of the day but was happy to return to under the auspice of far more lively undertakings.

Nail-biting tautness was contrasted with the clemency of timely release as we felt the heavy strain of two jumbled minds fall under the irrational persuasion of our much more resourceful bodies.

That night with very little convincing, Luisito agreed to make vegetable lasagna from scratch and I somehow found room to welcome more melted cheese into my belly. This was finished off with a slice of decadent chocolate cake that I had slaved over the day before using some premium German chocolate I had picked up at a gourmet shop.

Then, we melted into the couch under a blanket, the cat curled up into a donut between us, the heater warming our previously neglected toes to lazily watch a little TV before turning in.

Luisito turned to me and said, "Hey Honey, it's Valentine's Day."

I really had completely forgotten.

Of course, with Sundays like these, who the hell needs Valentine's Day?

Old doll, old wall, new window

“This rug tape won’t come off.”

I stopped what I was doing and gave him the please-for-the-love-of-god-figure-it-out look. “Put some more paint thinner on it,” I offered. “Use a razor blade” and then I mumbled from the other room, “Or just leave it there. Let the next tenant deal with it.”

I rushed about the place, as we were already late in turning the keys in. Violent arm and leg movements hurriedly slammed cupboards, tied trash bags shut, kicked a random screw under those horrible sofas that the furnished rental had come with, wiped the cheap faux wood table down one last time where we’d had countless meals.

This was it. These were the remains of our valuables, the only hints of the five years we’d spent in this flat: a shriveled plant on the windowsill reminding me of my inability to accept responsibility for anything, some old cleaning rags and a bottle of Don Limpio that got the place sparkling to a state that contrasted sharply with how it had looked while we lived there, a couple of old winter coats that didn’t make their way to the suitcases we’d stuffed to breaking point, a half a dozen unidentifiable gadget pieces we weren’t sure if we should throw away or if they would end up being the secret essential pieces we would need to get our vacuum cleaner or coffee pot to work again when they break. Everything went into the last crate.

He took the crate from me and started down the stairs to the car. “Vamos.”

“I’ll be down in a sec, I just have to grab the mop and stuff.”

I just needed one last look. I’m a glutton for this I guess. I suppose I had seen my dad do it on his countless relocations. This was what I did when I moved. I just needed to do some final mind engraving, some psychological mapping, some primitive photography. I took it all in. It was just so. The sofas were over there just like that; we had sat just right there, with the TV over there and right there was the window where he had stood. I can't forget.

I shouldn't.

Those walls. It was the walls that needed to get in one last finger shaking at me and they called me back in for one last talking to, as if I were in my late teens moving out of my parents home for the first time, getting one final scolding on not meeting curfew the night before my move.

You know the kind off walls that are out of style nowadays but that everyone had when we were younger? The ones with the drywall spray texture that created all sorts of camouflaged eyes and pointing fingers, hidden demons and genitals that turn into clowns? Now they angrily pulsed and swirled until my cheeks finally became wet and then they stood still again.

I had snagged on these walls, they had pulled at my weak loose strings and had latched on until I had unraveled completely, until all my innards of spongy stuffing had spilled out before them, right here on these cheap sofas. They had seen that, contrary to popular belief, I was not actually stuffed with diamonds and rose petals. I was stuffed with possibly-toxic synthetic material. They were so judgmental, these walls. They loomed over me and forever scolded me and never ever forgave. I guess these particular walls didn’t have the chance to see much of the good parts of me.

He had picked up my stuffing and pushed it back inside me carefully. He had sewn me back together slowly, trying not to damage my original form along the way, remembering what I had looked like brand new on the store shelf, the smell of sweet plastic, unopened. Once he had put me back together again, he scrubbed my face clean and combed back my stringy hair, and straightened my tattered dress. I wasn't the same, but he wasn't one to throw imperfect things away.



Those walls had been witness to all that goodness too.

He finally placed me in the crate to take down to the car. He was taking me away where the walls could no longer get at me.

I dried my eyes and closed the door for the last time.

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I suppose my new walls are in a state of shock from the Ecru #C2B280 they were so generously coated with, intended to erase their memories of the previous dwellers.

These walls and I are still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase and actually I’m quite agreeable initially. I have the kind of face that looks attractive the first few times you see it. You have to look at me awhile before you begin to notice that one eyebrow is actually higher up than the other, that one eyelid droops down slightly, that my forehead is always either frowning or raising my eyebrows up to exhaustion, that my mouth is unusually small and that my thumbs belong on a member of some mythical diminutive race. I’m actually quite funny at first too. I can be witty. I let out little jabs so one will know what kind of cultured individual they are dealing with. To those walls, I must look like a brand new doll; that sweet smell of strawberry plastic.

But I’m not afraid of them here. They don’t have the hidden genital clowns embedded in them. They are smooth and stainless and they don’t have any opinions yet. And there aren’t as many of them to gang up on me unexpectedly like before.

Besides, all the windows in this place keep the walls in check, and I find windows to be altogether friendlier.

Don’t you?

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Nukke 2 by vaula from flickr.
Doll with cracked head by zen from flickr.
Sister of chucky by peasap from flickr.
Untitled by Luisito

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I almost got you a keychain

Well, it's been awhile and according to my ego, you are waiting for an update from me. But my ego is extremely unreliable and so for now I won't say much about my time away.

Besides, you know I can't write under pressure.

I overslept, I overate, and I overspent, alright? That's what vacations are all about. Not much else to tell.

But I did think of you along the way.

In lieu of stories, I brought you a few souvenirs. Just some little trinkets I picked up on my journey for you to put next to your mini Eiffel Tower and your I heart NY mug on your mantel.

Here they are, I hope you like them:

1). Sister giggles

Sister giggles are extremely rare, often counterfeited, and can usually only be found for a couple of weeks in the summer and at Christmas, and sometimes not even then. They grow in unexpected places, and their release almost always requires mental tickling or self ass-making, but the latter usually proves more fruitful. The ones I brought you come all the way from the bottom of the Grand Canyon. In order to capture these giggles, I had to hike 10 miles and then while heavily dosed with muscle relaxers, attempt to lance a blister on my foot that was competing in size with the canyon itself. Further sister giggles were picked up on a boat on a river in Sacramento where I attempted wakeboarding with a posse of psychotically fearless lesbians. My ill attempts to get up on the board unleashed a plethora of these cackling gems, which I captured with my squinted eyes and saved for you. Their authenticity is guaranteed.

2). Upside down mountains


Upside down mountains are really the best kind of mountains, when you think about it. They are great for when you feel upside down yourself, at home but not quite. Best of all, they don't require climbing like right-side-up ones do, which is great for still-blistered feet, but they sometimes beckon you to skip rocks on them. The ones I brought you have been well worn in by skipping rocks on an early morning. I had to go all the way to Mammoth Lakes to find them for you. Please do not turn them right side up, as they get dizzy and may result in me drowning.

3). A crater-sized lemon meringue pie all the way from Mars

Um, I mean from Death Valley. You would be smart to enjoy this pie with a bottle of water, something I forgot to have with me while driving through this strange planet, tempting fate with my engine light ablaze, in the middle of a hot summer day. I guess I figured if I broke down and got hungry there would be plenty of refreshing lemon pie to go around. As it turns out, I made it through the mortal valley of doom and so the pie is intact for you.

4). This Song

I'm sorry, but the one you get is not exactly as you hear it there, which may be preferable to the version I brought back. The one I brought you was screamed by me at the top of my tired and secondhand smoke filled lungs in a club in Vegas at 4 a.m. Unfortunately the DJ cut the song off, so the one I bring you is not quite complete. But I can assure you that its breakage was not taken lightly and the legitimacy of the DJ's birth and the virtue of his mother was questioned in a shouting nature by virtually everyone in the joint, including myself.

5). A fertility prayer

What? You don't want it? Neither did I when my dad and his wife cornered me in the rental car parking lot and attempted to lay hands on my apparently barren womb. I grimaced and squirmed, befuddled as to how they even knew we were trying to conceive and why they suspect I am infertile even before I do. So now I'm trying to get rid of this thing, so I don't have to thank them when I get pregnant, but no one is having it. Are you sure you don't want it? I think it would be funny to pull it out at a party if you want to see the room clear.

6). Pine trees for picking

Don't be fooled by imposters. These are the only pine trees on earth whose scent in a milisecond could remind me of Grandma's cabin, egg nog, bee stings, forts, and tree swings all at once. They just begged me to pick them like a flower and put them in my pocket and bring them to you. Please be careful though as they are highly flammable, and while it might not seem like it, there really aren't that many of them left.

7). Cold feet

I only deliver the good kind of cold feet-- the kind that you can only get from a quiet lake of melted snow in Yosemite, the kind that give you goosebumps and make you not care that your hair is tangled. They can make you finally adore the sun again and remind you of everything you missed the most about your country. Be sure and take extra gulps of the coldness to save for when you'll need it most, like when you come back to a hot stuffy apartment in Spain, and reality sets in that vacation is over.

You know what? I'm sorry, but I think I'm gonna hang on to the cold feet if you don't mind.

You understand.

Sister Giggles by Luisito
Upside down mountains by Luisito
Mesquite Dunes, Grapevine Mountains by Jim Dollar from Flickr
Pines by Luisito
Cold Feet by Luisito

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