Para Sol Para Agua

2010-08-16T22:32:00.001-07:00

My writing and my writing about writing will be written here here on out:

Come on!

2010-07-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Sweets

Aren't they just the correctest?

And one day Martin took us out in the Red Betty.

We paused to enchant an island.

Sweden says "hej hej."

2010-06-21T06:56:00.000-07:00

A while ago the second-grade teacher asked me to print out drawings of maybe a garden, something for the second graders to color in "with pointillism" "that will take them a long time to finish."

So I hated everything I could find for free online, so I decided the real point of working with kids is to regress, so I drew:

The kids especially liked the kitten-squirrels in the tree, but my favorite is the rabbit-anteater-bear:

Tomorrow is a field trip! The other assistant and I had to plan games. Remember Red Rover? That is the absolute most fun but someone absolutely always gets hurt. Just like teaching adjectives by having the students describe one another.

2010-06-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

Tourism!

I loved Porto. I think it's one of those cities that's been waiting for me for a while, so that even the pink guys in hats didn't bother me really. We also saw some local corners I wouldn't have found without Hannah or without getting lost. And oh the fishes we ate. So many creatures disappeared that weekend. Well.

But mostly we didn't photograph that place. Half the time I was by myself, which is a wonderful way to travel. But sometimes I was in Lisbon (no photos) and in Sintra's fantasy castles,

in the sweep of this force:

So let's drink sweet wine in the name of love.

2010-05-30T02:39:00.000-07:00

"Pegs" Kraemer-Dahlin, downing a book a day.

2010-05-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

Granada Pt.2 Pt.3

This is a cave where a bea hibernates.

And here where her guests carry their candles.

Outside the bea's bedchamber, a sink one must bring the water to and take the water from, and a gas stove.

Outside! You can sit here in the sun in the morning.

If you look left you see this:

And sometimes when you look down you see this!

And that is the end of the story of the bea and the two dirtylocks who lived up in the gypsy mountain.

2010-04-26T15:42:00.000-07:00

Granada part 2 part 2

Walking up to Bea's cave at night.

Bea is actually hyper beautiful, much more than mentioned by these pictures.

And --walking down from Bea's cave in the morning! I am wearing her dress: notice what the little man in the traffic sign is wearing.

This is why we would walk down the mountain:

Down down down.

Bless Granada.

2010-04-14T12:52:00.000-07:00

granada pt. 2 pt. 1

So firstly, yah, we couldn't escape La Alhambra this trip. We couldn't get in it, either, but that's just so typical of omnipresences. Cuz Bea's cave home was up a mountain from whence the Alhambra was just always There. Plus if you go to Granada the Alhambra IS always there, in the good dark beer and in what people ask you about and in the heartz and soulz. So here, we got into the gardens, check it:

But most importantly we got around it.

You should wikipedia the Alhambra, man.

2010-04-11T04:45:00.000-07:00

When Sam was here, man.

We lived the good life.

Thanks to Angie's little hiding head for photos.

2010-03-26T05:44:00.000-07:00

They don't sell white eggs here.

So I used beet juice and old wine to dye some brown eggs murky.

Then I dropped them. That was an accident.

They're very tender and lovely inside. But are they easter?

2010-03-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

Sam's life in Uganda:

"My average day:
1. I eat bread and coffee
2. Walk up and down hills to Buiga sunrise
3. Perform tasks like poster making, class teaching, handywork, etc
4. Help teach computer class
5. Eat beans and posha (Posha is maize mash)
6. More tasks
7. Maybe play volleyball with friends
8. Long walk home
9. Help in making fire pit by starting a fire in the designated area
10. Make dinner or buy dinner and Senator beer with Adibo (the security gaurd)
11. Sleep
12. Other things include washing dishes, taking malaria pills,
showering (Bucket of water), etc."

2010-03-14T12:57:00.000-07:00

Just treasure the stuff they make us. Aida from second grade presented me with this pop-up card last week. Outside it says PARA SOUFi (for Sophie) and her name, and inside it says ¡PARA TI! (for you!) and there is a pop-up blonde crosseyed queen with heart cheeks. Ooh! I think it's me!

2010-03-07T12:58:00.000-08:00

2010-02-22T07:41:00.001-08:00

Dani, 3rd grade's "bad boy" (cute glam shorthand for "unparented neglected and probably hit kid with lots of aggression and no attention span") (who I think has made a lot of progress this year, what with special tutoring etc., and the first time he raised his hand to answer a question I nearly cried, and since then he has paid more and more attention in class, although his contributions are usually shouted word-associations)(also he has a rattail and laughs "ha-ha" like the simpson's bully) drew me a picture.

Pictured: two blue clouds snowing on a centerpage mountain with a brown peak. A sun shies away from the clouds, openmouthed. The mountain says "R" (scribbled out) (ha, was it originally for the other teacher's assistant? Her name starts with "R") and "Para Soufi." Spongebob stands front and center, proffering hugs. To the right, in a sheer skirt and either yellow boots with striped tops or green pants with striped bottoms, I am climbing the mountain.

Do you remember how long it took to draw those "snow" pictures when you were in school? I remember the snowflakes getting bigger and bigger as I went along. Dani's are pretty even, but they don't reach the bottom of the page.

Also, can you tell? Spongebob's legs were erased and redrawn. My striped cuffs are six-tone. Kid worked on this. He put it on the teacher's desk as soon as he got in (tardy) and spent about half the class trying to signal that it was for me, then that I should open it. (Dani is about the only student in the school who hasn't figured out that I understand Spanish). After class I squatted by his desk and opened it, and he hid his face. Waaaaaaaah.

Waaaaah.

(Also it's funny that in all of 3rd grade it's the two most difficult students, I mean the two I have actually yelled at, who have drawn me pictures) (And who both think I am named Soufi).

2010-02-20T09:07:00.001-08:00

2010-02-16T13:47:00.000-08:00

She came! And noticed things I'd never, like how the Madrid gov is hip to graywater and doesn't waste freshwater on it's public lawns nor streets. I'd only ever whined about how wastefully often the streets in the center are hosed down.

And noticed, on her own, things I had once noticed, but since forgotten. Like the extraordinary giant in the Cathedral of Toledo. When I went to the Cathedral, as a student, I had thought the giant mural represented Goliath (he being the only biblical huge guy I knew of) (is the respectful term for giants "big people"?) but was laughed at by a friend from these parts, who explained that the dude was lucky, a Saint whose image conferred blessings, and therefore was often represented out of scale for extravisibility. The internet just says it's Saint Christopher; apparently he was very big. Who knows!

There's old Cristobal. I think he's especially striking in person because HIS person is the entirety of the fresco. No background, yknow?

Ms. Aunt Darling also enjoyed and photographed many of my favorite places and people in Madrid, luckily for both of us:

The Reina Sofía extension entrance.

A charming fachada near my neighbourhood.

My Swedes, at their goodbye party, in a beautiful ancient bar.

Post-prandial silliness with my housemates.

And the same with Lolin! Who, along with all my friends/Spain, was very taken with my beautiful aunt.

2010-02-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

Explaining "As much use as a chocolate fireguard" to an adult student:

"So a fireguard is a little iron wall, and you put it in front of the fire for safety. So the children can't get near."

-"Aaah, yes, I know.

"So, how useful is a chocolate fireguard?"

-"Not useful!"

"Good! And why not?" (I want to see if he knows the word "melt.")

-"It is not useful! The children will eat it!"

2010-01-25T08:47:00.001-08:00

Oh.

Everyone should just make art their friends like.

Cuz no matter how special one's friends are, there are still tons of people like them.

2010-01-21T13:01:00.000-08:00

These are my poem a day poems.

Every Day

There will be more.

Every day there will be more.

2010-01-18T06:42:00.001-08:00

Color Party!
In an effort to peel off our winter crusts (because scabbing hides infection) we threw a color party in our flat. The theme was color both in defiance of winter and to encourage our guests to wear something other than slimming black. It didn't really work:

But I guess super beautiful people have flower faces anyway. See my housemates, Ivan and Elodie and Ewan, flanked by Gonzalo and Patri:

Elodie and I made colorful food. Some of it also tasted good.

I guess it was a good party. Our couch got moved. This is Rosanil who uses her excellent English to call me "little fellow."

Unfortunately I fell asleep with a headache a sore throat and jetlag early on, on a pile of coats.

Then Hannah came! We ate. She should live here.

2010-01-12T12:53:00.000-08:00

Secret surprise!

Beginning: Mary Kate cut my hair! So see here's how it went down: I was shaggy, so shaggy. Then! It was the first day of school. So! I hopped on a bus and went to school, and there were maybe three teachers and six students and no coffee and it turned out the governor had decided that due to snow (snap out of it, europe) classes were canceled BUT schools were not closed. Yep: all schools must open, but no teaching allowed. So! I and the other auxiliar de conversación were sent home (we took cookies from the teachers lounge to make up for the 7 euro transportation costs) (not that we won't be paid for that day) while some of the other teachers who had not listened to the radio that morning stayed and watched the stranded kids whose parents had also not listened to the radio that morning.

End: So! That's why my hair is different.

okay Middle: Sooo I called Mary Kate, who also works for a snowstruck public school, and with sweets and coffee manipulated her into spending oh maybe an hour slivering my hair off. Mary Kate, as the Spanish say: muak muak muak.

2010-01-10T07:58:00.001-08:00

Ah.

It's snowing.

2009-12-16T06:45:00.000-08:00

Fifth grade ran out of steam today and the teacher declared a game of hangman. Fifth grade is tricky, partly because only three of the 20 students are girls, and partly because the bilingual program only came to the school two years ago. Because they didn't have the advantage of starting young, fifth is struggling with more or less the same lessons as the third graders: past, present, future, and whatever vocabulary their science book demands (jungle animals, currently).

Hangman is fun, though. A boy spaced this phrase on the blackboard:

"- - - - - - - - - - - -"

"A" someone said (yelled).

" - - A - - - - - - A - -"

One of the three girls shot a hand up. "Yes, I know, it is Play Football!" she said. Correct. Everyone laughed. Football=soccer, remember...all the kids are obsessed. "It's so easy to know what boys are thinking about" she said in Spanish as she spaced her word on the board. A long word:

"- - - - - - - - - -"

They still don't know how to guess. Instead of starting with vowels they choose the obscure consonants. The first correct guess, with half the man hanged, was "C"

"C - - C - - - - -"

"Crocodile!" said (yelled) one boy. Correct. "It's so easy to know what girls are thinking about."

2009-12-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

Papa said photos, put up photos. So! While I wait for photos of Lisboa from Hannah, and photos of floor-mosaicking from Rocío, and photos of last summer from Elen...let's look at pictures of music.

Did I even mention how nice my single day back in Berlin and reunion with Heiko was? It was about as pleasant as something exciting can be. We just mainly were near guitars. I sang along with Heiko at somebody's birthday party and at this concert here at a patio bar/gallery:

We are in a box. The door is supposed to be closed, the musicians only visible by screen and peephole, but since all the kids at the event were playing inside when it was time for Heiko to perform we let them stay. They played all the instruments I had been nervous about having to play while Heiko sang his songs, and then we all sang "Beat it" and it was REALLY FUN only we were all yelling and one littler girl started to cry. Which is why we put children, generally, in cradles and parks and not in boom boxes.

Onward! In November I met these lovely Swedish ukulelists, and because they are tall and beautiful and like Beirut and the Magnetic Fields I took them to Eszenas, that flamenco/tea/hippie/unlicensed place I always talk about.

They are Martin and Inti, and for this month we are in a band called The Autism. We hope the name does not sound mean, it is meant in homage.

So this is what some people look like these days!

2009-11-17T13:34:00.000-08:00

La EKKA is hosting a Free Market this Sunday. Baskets and buckets and barrels of free clothing, free coffee, art for to freely view music to freely hear.

Also Juliana will be doing her truly funny SCUM Manifesto one-woman show. ¡Julí!

I am to play the ukulele and lose my voice and forget things.

The picture is NOT retouched. It is lit up cuz the natch light was weak. It has nothing to do with I cannot balance a ukulele on my head and look pretty simultaneously.

2009-11-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

Propaganda

In what sort of mood was I yesterday? The absolute best possible thing was Constructivism.

2009-11-10T16:01:00.000-08:00

guys today one student who was also my student last year called the berlin wall "The Fallen Fence."

2009-11-04T15:15:00.000-08:00

Oh guys. Gosh. I'm sorry I I every day coming back from school in the train, often with a cookie took from the teacher's scrounge oh ho ho i mean lounge, honeys, I take the train ride back and I think of all the Moments and all the Notable Differences and all the Ducks and all the Analyzable Structure and then I read my book and fall asleep and wake up and come home and do the grocery scrimping and then I do not update my blog! And it has been ages. My oh my. What's up. I love my little school. I hate waking up early. Today I used rubber bands to explain muscles. I also hugged a bunch of kids back and also swatted another kid who was making fun of someone crying. A Difference. Hugging and swatting. It's so good, so useful, especially in a bilingual school where communication is precarious. But! What I've been excited about this week: the kids are learning English. They ARE. Everyone suddenly can speak a little, can definitely understand a bunch. Especially the 1st through 3rd. The difference is palpable.

2009-10-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

From the Salon:

Right

Left

Straight ahead.

My room from below.

My room from above.

The hall is not always so dark.

Honeys mines I've been, let's see, 3 months out of Madrid, um almost a month on New York's couches, this is math, um another week at home, I was in Germany for more than a week and then later one day more, I just can't count the houses and beds and friendships I crashed on, we'd better ellipse...I got into Madrid the 27th and I didn't move into anywhere until the night before last. I'm homestarved, I think in this state any old bunker would satiate, BUT: this house is sunripened, handpicked, local grown organic uh a 20 year old WOOFer named Michael with a beard played flute to it while it grew...it's a good apartment.

The street is called Costanilla de los Desamparados, which means "itsy sloping street of the Homeless." Which ho ho ho, feels right. We're certainly camping at the moment, unmoved in, unfridged beer and floorspace conferences.

It's Atocha zone (by the gorgeous train station), metro Antón Martin, officially part of the Barrio de las Letras, or Literature Neighbourhood, where famous phrases have been bronzed and hammered into the pavement.

Our flat! Right about Lavapiés, where we lived last year. It's up in the world, and it is where we have moved. The rooms are big and sunny, the hall is big enough to gallop up, down, wide enough to lean in and converse, all four of us plus someone's friends, the floors are wood (excepting that of the big chummy kitchen, which is brick)...there's a balcony in the living room, plenty of traffic noise tra la. We're all pretty in love at the moment, with the apartment and with each other for having stuck through and stuck together and found this THING, this beautiful sunny thing. Ewan already is making noises about staying in it more than the (age! age!) year we have contracted.

2009-09-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

tomorrow i find out EVERYTHING. everything. times, places, fates, faces for the names. candy for the baby. all things!

2009-08-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Guys,
I am coming to the East Coast, which is where some of you sometimes are. Are you there? I would love it if you were. I will be in New York City and in New Jersey sometimes, but I am without itinerary generally. I come the 24th of this month and I leave the 17th of the next month so I have some time to sleep on your couch and discuss being lost in this world, which is big. Let's compare struggles and cook, sometimes bake. Also can I sleep on your couch.
With my utmost request,
Sophie

2009-08-04T13:57:00.001-07:00

¿se conoce alpedrete?

2009-07-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

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2009-06-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

A lot of the women from the Eskalera Karakola are lesbians---or bi, or trans, or otherwise queer--and many are immigrants. The Sunday brunch often turns into a discussion of various forms of discrimination these women experience, at work, in the street, and in the gay community. The term "gay pride" is particularly controversial, in part because "gay" conceals lesbian presence, and in part because, for most of these women, pride has never really been the issue so much as basic rights and dignity. Most have been victims of hate crimes, some have lost friends, and, as much in Spain as in their home countries, many have lost jobs. Since Spain allows gay marriage, facilitating gay migration, it is seen as a hub of gay culture; the Pride celebrations here attract zillions of tourists from all over the world.

The mainstream pride celebrations are mostly held in Chueca, the (expensive and male-dominated) so-called "gay" district of Madrid. My wonderful abundant Asor made the poster above to advertise various alternative activities the Ekka and others have organized: lectures, marches, fundraiser concerts and discussions focusing on the plight of immigrants and other otherized minorites. I've been participating as much as I can in these last few packed packing days--saw Asor and Camila speak, saw some legendary women rappers at a squat in a graaaaveyard, hoo, and have littered my neighborhood with propaganda.

I love the women of the Eskalera Karakola, and can't imagine this year without them. They accepted me completely, they've given me so much---many became my students, and many my friends. They're one of the biggest reasons I'm excited to come back.

When Mary Kate was here we hung out with them a lot. She was also impressed by how open and kind (and fun) they were--how the Brunch was truly a social space for women, not a cruise bar or a cult. We all went to see Clara in a concert in which Pedro Guerra and Ismael Serrano also played. Also a dude from my neighborhood who works in my favorite bodega.

Clara and the dude she played with:

The triumphant metro ride back--we pushed Anixua, the gorgeous Canary sexologist in the center, to get her photo taken with Pedro Guerra and Ismael Serrano like she wanted, and now she loves us very much:

The next day we celebrated Asor's birthday at a Cuban restaurant:

Anixua, Asor, Asor's childhood friend, me, Stef--Mk is taking the photo:

2009-06-14T08:46:00.001-07:00

It's the last ten days! I'm miz, really. But how pretty things've been: Mary Kate was lovely here, charmed my friends and will hopefully send over some pictures so I can prove how charming. Since she left two more guests have come and gone.

Last Thursday morning Lizy phoned, saying she was near the center and would call me once she reached Lavapies. I said great darling, I'll have a student in my room but you can bop around and make tea. I said I live in the plaza my address is--and she said oh I'll just call you. So, lovely. My dear student Pablo arrives, we discuss the poetry we read last week (W. Carlos Williams Plums/K. Koch parody of), we---we are distracted by what sounds like my name outside. I balcon.

There is no one. We resume class, 6 minutes pass, then I am sure I hear my name again: "Sophiieee, Sofía, guapa, Sophiiiia," balcon again and indeed, Lizy is calling me from the street (having fully circled the plaza). I beckon from balcony and she bounces upstairs and all is golden apples.

Later we picnic with Bea. Bea is someone I have mostly known through others: Sergio calls her his beloved, Lizy calls her her twin/shadow (and indeed when we met up Lizy wore long white and Bea long black, amazing). I'm so glad we finally made it into each other's lives. Bea's extraordinary, a witch baby but a real woman: someone, like Sergio, I'm sure I'll meet again. After Lizy left she stayed another night, before being off to Francy and Sicily.

Since Ivan left we've filled his room with guests every night. Last night I slept there, as that's where the sheets were. Soon I'll be a guest--then truly at home--then hoopla dee.

2009-06-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

After Allison Bechdel drew me, or drew a photo of me, I remembered my desire to wander fiction in fictional form. It will happen in time. Sergio, when here, gave me a copy of his super super funny comic, Serio te lo digo.

This is he drawing something in the front:

And this is that thing:

Roundheadguy: Excuse me, can I ask you something?

Myhead1: No

Myhead2: No

Myhead3: Yes

Roundheadguy: Well...nevermind.

I THINK depicting me as a threeheaded contradictress was cuz drawing someone's face is hard but with three resemblance can be approximated. Yes? No?

2009-06-07T17:55:00.000-07:00

Duckums! So way back a week or so ago came one Katy Jane Tull, lately of Bard College. It was lovely to have her here: she is a thoughtful house guest and a total blast. She's been abroad for months, and'd just been in Israel, and made me authentique hummus to prove it, and one day before I went to teach we lunched thus in the Retiro:

Then went to rainy green beachside San Sebastian/Donostia!

It's way up in the Basque Country, edging into France. My Basque housemate tells me Donostia (the B. name) is also known as Ñoñostia, or Prissville, perhaps cuz it's spense and well-dressed and considered the Cuisine Capital of Spain. We ate only pintxos (tasty tapas pegged onto bread) and wine from Navarra. Pastries also figured heavily. No regrets.

Everything's different from Madrid. (Dusty Hot! Landlocked Castilla/Green, Cold, Seaside Euskera). We went to a church to listen to service in Euskara (Batua, Gipuzkoan, Bizkaian, Upper Navarrese, we couldn't tell which). We blew about the rocks by Chillida's Wind Comb. I love the Wind Comb. It leaked rust over the stone it juts from. (We had already gone to the Chillida museum, landscape of grassy swells and mysterious rusted angles. We had a picnic and drank wine and rolled down one of said swells, all of which made the surrounding statues even heiroglyphicker) But here is Katy's red hair rusting the sea warpéd rock:

Oho! In the foreground: who knows.
In the background: a statue of Christ, on mount, reaching toward the city.

We climbed up to see: his hands and head are enormous, his spine is laddered, someone planted an antenna twixt his shoulder blades. While admiring the antenna we made friends who shared füet sausages with us. They told us there was another Chillida statue down the hill, so we wound down the leafy fascinating path, ignoring The Clouds Overhead. The statue was ugly. A storm broke out! We sheltered on a museum patio facing the sea, with some in-love teenagers and a sort of sprite in tiny guise of a 60-something Basque woman. We could see the lighthouses whitening the fog. Our friends gave us oranges. Hail just hurrrrrled at us, and we all retreated to the wall. What is that poem about hail popping on the lawn? Juicy hail balls bursting on the lawn? Actually it was bouncing off the patio and hitting our faces.

We took a nightbus there, and I took another back, arriving at work rumpled and salty.

Katy Jane took a train to Paris, making way for my friend Sergio from the old days, who, once having floated to Brazil, left space for Mary Kate, who is here now. On that, more later.

2009-05-30T09:06:00.000-07:00

Oh I LOVE how the NYtimes writes about teenagers as if they were this alien life form. From an article about how huggy teenagers are, which also includes accounts of schools where hugging has been banned as "dangerous," and parents bizzarely mourn the decline of the "high-five":

Some parents find it paradoxical that a generation so steeped in hands-off virtual communication would be so eager to hug.

“Maybe it’s because all these kids do is text and go on Facebook so they don’t even have human contact anymore,” said Dona Eichner, the mother of freshman and junior girls at the high school in Montvale.

Maybe these kids have carpal tunnel syndrome from being on Facebook? So handshakes hurt?

2009-05-30T04:42:00.001-07:00

ALSO I heard the best story ever from this other dude who teaches English:

So his father's business associate, like a zillion years ago, walked out of a building in NYC and bumped into this guy and this guy just fell right over and then a week later died in his sleep. Punchline: Andy Warhol. The guy was Andy Warhol.

2009-05-29T02:04:00.000-07:00

Oh I should write about how super it was to have Katy Jane hereabouts (and how striking was San Sebastian) and also the gorgeous supper the Liss's treated me to (and how I shamelessly asked for the leftovers) and also the astronomic gastronomic party we're throwing for Ivan's third and probably final 26th birthday celebration tonight----but!

All I really CAN write about is how Archie is finally going to choose between Betty and Veronica and he TOTALLY has to choose Betty. Because she really and truly loves him!

2009-05-22T07:58:00.001-07:00

Oh Yow!

So here's the news: last Sunday was Ma's Birthday. This Sunday is Posie's. Katie Jane Extraordinaire is here in Madrid and we're trading gossip. Tonight midnight we bus to San Sebastian, city I have been jonesing to visit since I damned got here. Saturday my student who reminds me of Hannah meets the Prez of the Dominican Republic, whom Hannah has also met. Sunday midnight I come back and teach again. A pigeon just landed on my balcón. This whole week has felt like vacations.

2009-05-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

I suppose I ought write bout El Patio Maravillas.

The Patio is a squat in hipsterville Madrid. It's the most beautiful squat I've ever seen, and one of the loveliest liveliest places in all Madrid. The middle is an open patio, and all the floors above have outside passages, so the activity is nicely centered. It's full of beautifully executed graffiti, ditzy politics, concerts, workshops, blah blah. The aesthetic is comparable to Smog/Feitler at Bard, but, dare I say, the people are friendlier.

[Blah blah: There is a hackers workshop which has hooked up two telephones from which to make free international phone calls. There's a daycare. There's a restaurant and a pretty hoppin bar. There's a free clothing store which I use as a second closet, and a free bookstore which is pretty useless. There is legal advice and free Spanish classes for immigrants (and think, think how goddamn useful and kind it is to provide that service in a country so flooded with folk who literally floated over on a raft), as well as free English, German, and French classes. There's a rooftop garden, a bike workshop, an art workshop, and clubs for yoga, dance, queerness, political everything, yes.]

Like an anarchist Small World...

I've started going once a week to the German Stammtisch which, now that the weather is gorgeous, usually meets at dusk right here in the central patio, in front of the bike workshop. Most patio activities happen after seven pm. People spill out onto (not over) the balcony passageways, or bring chairs out and conduct their workshops/meals around us. Today the English Convo. class sat RIGHT next to us and I got v. confused.

Anyway, dear Government, please don't shut down El Patio Maravillas.

2009-05-08T04:09:00.000-07:00

Another favorite student has a particular request. See she's a curator, or an apprentice curator, hopefully heading to a MOMA next year, and she needs to read in English. I suggested "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," (she reads v. well) and she LOVED it. She loved it so much that she now trusts absolutely in my ability to recommend novels of art-historical import, and has requested I find a follow-up novel about the U.S. art scene in the 60's-70's. Any suggestions?

2009-05-04T15:02:00.000-07:00

So! I've been told extra virgin olive oil, being good for All Parts of One, makes a killer conditioner. Thing is, though---I already soak my scalp in vinegar. So! The question is, how hot is it to dress like a salad?

2009-04-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

Multimedia blog update! (tho I hate to see my Bechdel self scoot ever down the page ugh)

Firstly all things taste good in a pita, and all things look good from a balcony-y, particularly in sunlight, and any plaza with so many children playing and so many adults selling beer cans hidden in the trash cans and so much sunlight and so much pita full of hummus and dal while I look at it must feel like a neighborhood.

I'm putting everything in pita these days. It's the warm weather. Now I'm going to a party--made red pepper hummus and bought cheap rice wine from a Chinese-owned grocery store, and come to think of it what country am I even in. I made up a tierful joke nobody at the party will understand. It has to do with the concept of a pity party and the fact that everyone will have brought hummus and baguettes*. Instead everyone will be making a joke YOU guys won't get, which is that it is a mostly-gay party and everyone who will not have brought hummus will have brought tortilla de patatas.

This song by Clams' friend Dibs is beautiful: href="http://audio.dibson.net/albums/dibs-bleeds-books/03-Suzie-Queue.mp3"

*You get the first joke, right? [(pity-y)+party]+a=pita partyyyy!!!! but everyone will have brought baguettes, which is a PITY!!!!! ha! what is the area of a full circle? ha HA! okay party time.

2009-04-15T04:19:00.000-07:00

I had a good conversation with a student yesterday:

Me: Well, I need to go prepare my next class now.

Him: You prepare your classes?

2009-04-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

OH my gosh.
So, some news is good news: Alison Bechdel DREW me. She drew me!

I---it's----oh! Man! Yow! (Mang I take comfort knowing my Bechdel self is much more articulate than the self I have right now. Whenever I am at a loss for words I will look to her, smugly logophiliac, recently caffeinated).

Look, she drew my arms and hand exactly as they are in the photo. My face is smarter in the picture, but my arms hold exactly what they held.

Trivia: Jaya Ch. took this photo when she visited me in Madrid in 2007!
Significa: Ben Stevens romanced this photo from Bechdel when she visited Bard. This was the exchange as documented by B. Stevens:

I started the Q&A by asking whether
she could draw as a cartoon someone from a photograph?

"Sure!", Alison said.

A photograph I had printed out from facebook? (I printed out three,
for options.)

"She looks like a cartoon character already!", Alison said.

Flummery: I did not request such a favor, but I absolutely implied that, you know, if I were to be in the presence of the creator of "Dykes to Watch Out For" and "Fun Home" I would definitely do something nice for any luckless absentee in my life. Ben, and Bechdel, went far beyond my wildest hinting.

2009-04-03T18:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight was horrible. Supposed to be gorgeous, but made horrible. Later I'll say why, but I wanted to mark this before throwing myself into bed. Horrible, horrible.

2009-04-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

There are many things to say and do, but I had an unexpectedly carefree day and spent it on a ten buck haircut.

It has all the bumps and innecessities needed to justify my historically 30buck haircuts, without the charm of the free ones (O Christine) often ignored by historians, but anyway, awesome.

Spring! Also spite. Ten or so males whose business my looks are not have told me not to cut my hair since I let it ducktail out. So I curtailed it, bitchily.

UPDATE: I confused myself while using the verb "ducktail," and spent some time googling. The ducktail haircut is a 50's dude presley thing, and this is from the obituary of the inventor, one Mr. Cirello:

"Mr. Cirello, who lived in Williamstown, N.J., and operated a shop in Society Hill for years, said he perfected the DA around 1939 by experimenting on a blind boy who used to keep him company in the shop. ``He didn't know what was going on,'' he recalled in a 1979 Inquirer interview. ``He didn't ask. He just sat there. He was only too glad for the company. And I was only too glad to have him to work on.''

2009-03-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

I like when I am doing anything and then the song iTunes plays is one of my friends's.

2009-03-25T04:02:00.000-07:00

Dang, dearheart, is Granada beautiful or hwhat. Spent a day or so with hippies from the olden studenten days of Madrid, whom've max-exodized to Granada proper, where rent is a hundred a month and nobody can find enough work to pay even that. I crashed in a three person house with about a hundred other people. Reminder: Granada is all white with orange trees and china plates on the inner and outer walls of its houses.

Imagine I took photos!

This tiny beautiful person taught me to make coffee with ginger. Another taught me how to make cheese in twenty minutes with only milk and lemon juice. Wow really cool.

Here are what these people are nicknamed: Codo, Chema, Mele, Fani ("Fani eez funny!"), Almu...

I wish I had photographs! Then we went camping at this free festival thing. Tristan was there! Like a fairytale! And we froze at night in a circle of crowded tents but in the morning we could eat! That's the best part about camping: eating outside with lots of people. Baked potatoes and zillions of torn off bread hunks with stuff. I didn't even get sick til I hitched a ride home with some kids who umm were sleep impaired. An' ate a bunch of sausage and paprikachip sandwiches. OH my gosh never again.

That's the story! Also, today I found 20 bucks, my phone charger, and affordable greek yogurt. Oh ha ha.

2009-03-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

This is still my favorite part of my thesis transl. introd.:

"Translated wordplay such as “the mama donates/ beauty” function mostly by sending the reader back to the original text on page 201, “la madre dona la/ hermosura,” during which transit the words “madre dona” and “mama donates” undergo a species of magic-eye congelation, a cross-eyed bilingual reading from which the Madonna emerges."

When I wrote it I laughed and Emma said "what what what" and when I read it to her she had many many more whats to what

but it's an important point, that third-eye of ze reader of parallel poems, the 3D spanglish congealing down the page divide

2009-03-04T16:59:00.000-08:00

I never posted Carnaval photz.

Well Carnaval is not such a huge thang in Madrid, though there is some weird tradition where a sardine is buried... but stuff was fab enough in Toledo. We went to a house party, then a plaza party (with a big paid-for sounding cover band and zillions of costumed people. Smaller town means I think elaborater costumes) and then a converted mosque (converted into a dance club, ooh this world) (that was probably the most fun of all) and then oh chocolate and churros and heavily slept through bus ride home. But Toledo, strangers:

We the Madrid contingent did not dress up so much. Truthfully we were pathetic. Ewan and Ivan were "rockstars." Gonzalo + Juanjo + María were "hippies." Elen and Keith were two Americans who took an earlier bus to hacer Toledan tourism and were exhausted.

I was "a dude."

Kids in Toledo were dressed to the nines, often in groups of that or more. A huge group all in one costume...6 cross dressed brides, 5 pawns, eight Snow Whites would not be a ridiculous troupe. The whole thing was so silly, so wigged and extraneous and cute.

E+I+I's embarassingly attractive friend A all went to a week-after-Carnaval costume party.

Note Ivan's hat, the same hat (his) I wore the wknd before.

2009-03-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

2009-02-24T14:43:00.000-08:00

Even remotely delightful.

2009-02-15T00:24:00.000-08:00

Oh tiny rainy California, thanks. Though two weeks of seeing people, no other plans, somehow never allows for as much time as one'd like with each-- still I got to see my family and some beloved friends, and phew thank goodness I did. The facts be that though I live in a sweet sitch in Madrid, home/reality/whatever is wherever my loved ones are. And a family is becoming, not just had. My family is becoming a family better at accepting itself. Thank you for all of you welcoming me.

Saturday and Sunday back in Madrid were pretty unreal feeling, really, but Monday I had three classes with sweethearts and felt much more present. Ivan made dinner and Ewan bought the bread and he and I cleaned up--charming, normal, sustainable.

All of a rush home: a hole in the clouds! I LOVE to fly cntnntl: they feed me meat and white bread and iceberg lettuce and something sweet, they give me a wee scratchy cushion an ugly blue blanket. Sometimes they pay me to bump myself from a flight! Cntnntl!

Sun flowers sun windows--but days and days of rain.

A behind the scenes shot of Posie's dance-date-distortion art project, which can be viewed on facebook.

Mama kept all her hair on for my arrival. It washed mostly off all of a sudden one evening. She put all the clumps on a paper towel and we all came and witnessed. I can't imagine not having been there. Hair loss should maybe be the least of cancer, under the pain and the exhaustion and the fear, but its visual impact is significant. The woman without hair is the image of cancer, and mama is not otherwise the image of cancer. She's tired, but she looks healthy, so I think the hair loss was something we all needed to see.

Here, with hair and flowers:

Hi, Beautiful.

Hey!

5 days went swimming by and I got no pictures of Monroe! Said Ma: "Oh, so it's like he was never here." Mmph.

2009-01-29T04:01:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! Well. I finally picked up my Pitre-treats from the p-p-post office, and oh-my-gosh how delighted forever. Items: one gorgeously houndstoothed cap (pictured on head) which comes JUST in time, as my ears were cold; one gorrrgeous painting of my name (pictured on door) which triggered a massive synaesthetic episode (shh) and features a supine stick chick and golden dollar signs, which, now that I'm a big self-supporting teacher adult, are way appropriate. Thank you Henry! Lastly and way not leastly, yow, a mix[ed] cd (pictured in the air) from the apparently super hip Zach. Dang, Zack. "Like Humans Do" is one of my favorite songs, and you are right on about M.I.A, Gnarles Barkley, and oh man did I mention the White Stripes were like my first "real" concert experience (even though I was sober and my whole family was there). So--delicious.

Thank you! I think this is a photo of me trying to show off the hat and the hat brooch (pictured on sweater) and the sign and my great nose all at once.

2009-01-28T03:04:00.000-08:00

Dearest beloveds,

Look what Ewan did:

That is allllll the cooking salt in the house, now with glass! Now we have only sea salt and salt of the earth.

Here is what else Ewan and Ivan did: lots of favors for me yesterday. Salt of the earth!

2009-01-25T05:36:00.000-08:00

Dar-lings. It's been a nice weekend. I still fear deathly grippe, so I've been drinking tea. No table wine, no terrible beer. Folks and I stayed out until 5am or so dancing last night, I lightly caffeinated.

Trifles: The caffeine in tea is (colloquially) called teína. In Spanish thought coffee, café, has caféina, and tea, té, has teína. Makes sense!

Klarifikation Korner: Mama, the photos I put up here are either taken by others or taken by my computer itself. My camera, and therefore my [missing] camera-computer cord, play no part. Thus the abundance of pictures of my room and window.

Thank you. Please enjoy this memory of Ronda, which, remember, memory, Christmas.

2009-01-21T11:52:00.001-08:00

I came here with a little rolling suitcase and a huge duffel bag Papa sweetly donated. Since arrival I've bought a current converter, a permanent shopping bag, a shirt and some socks. I got a coat and some sweaters free at a beautiful squat which is now being shut down, before I had the chance to give anything back. I have swapped books, in a casual take-these-I-will-take-this manner which may or may not have augmented my collection. Christmas brought me some curiosities, and I hear the mail is bringing me more. That said: I don't have a lot of stuff here.

But I realized--as I hung my sheets to dry everywhere in my room, the rain outside having mooted the laundry lines--if everything one owns is multicolored, one really only needs about half the stuff. Look how that space filled:

2009-01-15T14:13:00.000-08:00

Congratulations go to Rosie for being accepted by her top choice: Eckerd College!

Waaw.

I'm glad I'm not the only one in our family whose top choice was a college nobody else had ever heard of. Big hugs to you darling: you've worked harder at more than most college students have.

2009-01-12T02:51:00.000-08:00

Silent morning mishap.

2009-01-11T11:28:00.001-08:00

Lightning! then the nightmare. and loosening!

I spent last night with some kids I am tentatively calling my new friends, all actually friends and classmates of my b'loved housemate Ivan. Ivan is great, awesome, we get along super. I'm always glad when he's home--which he rarely is, since he is a sort of architecture grad student and spends all his time studying in this studio he and his fellow future architects rent collectively as a study/party space. No classes: just working on some huge final project for a year. Hannah and I went to the New Years Eve party he and his archipals threw collectively in the studio, since which very enjoyable occasion I've felt welcomed by all. Ivan and I spent most of yesterday making pizza dough, and topping shopping (creme fraiche white sausage eggplant sweet baby tomatoes). About nine people altogether ate mmmm seven pizzas of varying circumference + fatness. Almost everyone collaborated on one or another pizza. Oh it was very nice, my and Ivan's first pizza making though his girlfriend is Italian and everything. Someday I'll picture put up.

2009-01-09T06:59:00.000-08:00

Sometimes outside the living room is thus:

But this morning when I a-rose for work---thus:

And by this afternoon:

Yow!

2009-01-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

Salamanca, Late December.

My house, Epiphany.

2009-01-06T06:08:00.000-08:00

Ode to Hannah Sunshine

by Hannah Sunshine

2009-01-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

Ronda! With Nick and the adorable Rhodescholars.

Dear Christmas punkins,

There will be more photos. Especially this one:

2008-12-19T01:59:00.000-08:00

I love you, Mama!

I love you, Moominfamily!

2008-12-16T16:43:00.000-08:00

Thanks Ma!

2008-12-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

2008-12-06T03:49:00.000-08:00

2008-12-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

One sweet ego trip many second language teachers take is students picking up our little verbal anachronisms. And they do, somewhat--but much much quicker do we begin to speak like them. And TO them, unfortunately. Super clearly, enunciating, slowly. With a smile.

I've got a TOEFL class who are oh, delightful. They all contracted different amounts of hours, between 36 and 48, and they're all peeling off to take the test one by one. We've set a date for a "Fiesta de No More TOEFL" (Spanglish is funny in two languages).

This class--they blew my mind today. We spend the class speaking English, they're all people I know. Jaya who works with kids and wants to study abroad in the UK; hipster artist who wants to go to Berlin; extrovert in eyeliner who spends more on clubs than I earn; sugarface geek...and then today I mentioned how everyone here tries to teach me to clap Flamenco-style, and they all break out! And suddenly everyone's Spanish, olé, and where is the wine and when will the women stand up and dance? "It's in our blood," they laugh. And class ends and they just can't speak English anymore, even the eager ones who stay behind and practice on me. We'll dance flamenco at the Fiesta de No More TOEFL! We'll eat tortilla española! They say.

2008-12-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

That yellow building in the middle there is mine!

Note this, that this listed address is not mine. Don't send any peanut butter to 9 Lavapies etc.

2008-11-28T03:33:00.001-08:00

Hullo honeys. Happy día de Acción de Gracias, which is what the Spanish call Turkey Day. I missed calling my family in Riverside, though I tried many times. I'm pretty sure the line was busy each time. Guys!

I did celebrate, though. Like most Americans here, I attended more than one Thanksgiving Dinner---one last week and one last night. The first was thrown by some sweet friends of Chase, a friend from work. They're nice hippies who do things like the Camino de Santiago and Couchsurfing. They invited 300 people from Couchsurfing to their leetle apartment, but luckily only about thirty people came. One of them was a friend of Brittany's, who I'd already met at the only other ex-pat event I'd attended. Ah eddies of slender currents of illegally expatriated college grads in full teacher makeover. I'm a teacher, who are you? Oh you're a teacher too! Then there's a pair of us--don't tell! They'll banish us, you know.

That dinner was delicious: applepie, cranberries, gravy, stuffing, and chicken.

An' last night another friend from work, another delicious dinner, this time with Turkey (baked in a toaster oven) (scrumptiously), garlic soup, corn, green beans, camembert on crackers and Lindt chocolate. Chase was also there, putting him in the three-card lineup of friends I've had two away-from-home thanksgivings with. Ariel, Christine, you're the others.

Double-Thanksgiving Friendship

In fact, yow, wow, now that I notice--two Thanksgivings ago, while I Studied Abroad, I also had one Turkey dinner and one Chicken dinner.

http://parasolparagua.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html

2008-11-22T02:03:00.000-08:00

Good morning!

I mean, good night, last night, of the sort on whose strength I returned to Spain. Keith and his friend Sophia and my friend Pastor and I went to a Yam. A Yam Session. Any English word beginning with a "J" becomes a "Y" word in Spanish, a completely unfair compromise between the Spanish "Hh" and English "Dg."

The Yam was in this lovely upstairs hall, incensed, dotted with cushions, dotty with hippies. We all, somehow, knew people there--Keith and Sophia realized their cool Spanish professor had told them to go to that same Yam, so two of their classmates were there. Pastor of course had music friends there. I saw people I hadn't seen since two summers ago, including my friend Topo, who ended up singing to Leandro's flamenco guitar at the very end of the night. Topo has an incredibly beautiful voice, and a face so expressive as to turn muppetlike when he sings.

I was having a beautiful shameless night. Funi, a tiny woman I know from the ye-oldens, was clowning to the music with a classic rattailed lavapies dude in some sort of flapping salwar kameez. The rattailed dude clown-courted me into his dance, so I had a fun clumsy time with them, enough so that I got up and danced later. Dancing in front of People is still embarrassing for me, even after Bard, where all parties were small enough for everyone to notice everyone's dancing. But I love it! I love it, and if I can't let myself look ridiculous now I'll never be able to humiliate my children at various graduations and birthday parties in the future. Last night was an investment.

In other news, I'm looking for a new room in an old building, any old building. I found a beautiful one immediately, but I'm still waiting to hear back from the charming tea-drinking Italian painter who owns it. Her apartment is little and sunlit and painted in pale spongy greens and blues, and I want to live in it and drink tea.

Splash,
Sophie.

2008-11-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

You see, I have no photos for you!

I'm editing the draft of some interview questions my favorite student is going to ask Wangari Mathaai, oh wow.

I taught her and my other favorite two these two poems in conjunction, because they are conjoined:

-------------------------------

When You are Old, by W.B. Yeats

When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
---------------------------------------

and

----------------------------------

Breast Cancer, by Frederick Seidel

The intubated shall be extubated and it rains green
Into the uptown air because it is almost raining.
You can smell the sidewalks straining.
The sidestreets are contagious but serene.
The disease is nutritious.
The bitter medicine delicious.
The beautiful breasts are repetitious.
The much older man you love is vicious.

The man will be even older by the time
She takes down the book to read the poem.

-----------------------------------------

2008-10-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

(He did perfectly well--being "poor" after college is part of the system)

2008-10-26T03:53:00.001-07:00

Has there ever been a glam band called The Gilded Lilies?

Yes we would perform in goldface duh.

2008-10-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

Lunes 21,00 horas. La eskalera Karakola
C/ Embajadores 52 . Metro Embajadores, Lavapies & La Latina

Como actividad extra del Brunch de Gurlz, empezamos un grupo de conversacion en ingles, para que las que se animen se acerquen a mejorar su pronunciacion y oido. El grupo lo van a dirigir dos chicas californianas Elvia & Sophia . Cada semana se tratará un tema diferente. El local se abrira a las 20,45h para empezar a las 21,00h en punto. Durará una hora y se pidira una aportacion de 3e . http://www.sindominio.net/karakola

S'right, darlings, this thursday at 9:30pm the women of former occupied house La Eskalera Karakola will have their first English Conversation session, directed by dos chicas californianas, Sophia and (probably) Elvia. Three euros, one hour, tea and English.

2008-10-12T03:43:00.000-07:00

The funny thing is, I met my poet. And, and I've told so many of yoo fyoo hoo read this blog this story. I'm absolutely uninterested in writing it all down, though it deserves such treatment. Oh soon.

Last night I accidentally brought Rob to the Spanishest thing in greater Madrid. José's little seedy bar, La Peña, has swanked up a bit. There's a lovely new stage, and they were charging 15 euro for a drink and cheese and ham and Flamenco. José swept us up in squeezy hugs before we had to be embarassing about refusing to pay that sort of buck. I felt guilty eventually, because they kept feeding us thinny cured ham and fabulous manchego. The flamenco was good, lust theater of babyfaced guitarrist playing to the fierce dancer. What hands those people.

At threeish we stepped out into the raining rain. Buses were confusing and Rob and I splitskies, he to La Latina and I to La Zebra Coja, where I had missed seeing Omega Power play, but was fed melon soaked in honey and hierbabuena and probably rum. At half past five I slept---now I run to meet Elvia for brunch at La Eskalera Karakola, kasa okupada de mujeres!

2008-10-03T02:49:00.000-07:00

Since graduation I have had these dreams about friends from Bard in which we hug. The hugs are not just visual or narrative dream-hugs, but physically felt. On waking and thinking "What did I just dream about?," I am answered by the physical memory of embrace. It's nice, though sad: a lot of the hugs are goodbye hugs, as if I were seeking closure subconsciously. Others are of reunion, which is sadder.

Graduation is one of those big losses it takes one a year to swallow, I guess.

In other news: I wish I could have photos without having to take photos. Madrid is a stunner, but I'll never sink below her coiffed surface if I'm schlepping bout a camera.

2008-09-30T03:29:00.001-07:00

My BEDroom.

(I was trying to think up a joke based on the idea that most of my room is a bed)

I live in Puerta de Toledo with a lovely Ecuadorean woman named Monica, her son Jonathan, and his girlfriend Diana. They're very kind, and everyone respects everyone's space, which in a teeny apartment is v. important.

2008-09-30T03:20:00.001-07:00

So, news. I have a job teaching + tutoring English, mostly test prep courses, with a company called Club Ivy (http://clubivy.com/). I guess their angle is that they're gonna get you into Harvard. I start this evening.

And, other news: my my my poet and I are meeting early next week.

And more other news: Rob and Keith are apparently coming to Madrid. I'm excited to catch up with them, though I'm also cramping around the idea of seeing anyone I know well. I just got here, I'm still finding footprints.

+ more news. Here's a photo taken by E. of my street at night:

2008-09-30T03:18:00.000-07:00

Elvia, by the way, before we ever met, took this photograph of the plane we were boarding in JFK:

2008-09-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

I didn't anticipate, seem somehow to have known, how familiar Madrid would feel a year later. Without making a reservation I planned on staying in a hostel whose location I never bothered to verify, remembering it close to Lizy's old place: later, leaving the Metro, I wound a few blocks up with my Santa Clothes bags and ála, found it footprinted in my mind.

People I've seen: Gustavo, Sofía, Álvaro, Ivan, + many nameless known faces. New people: many. They ask me how are Lizy, Codo, Mary Kate. I say Humming Who Knows Deciding.

In the Airport I made a friend:

Elvia! She speaks the same body language as Julie la Amsterdame, but she's much tinier.

Which is good, cuz it means she fits into my room and pasta plans.

Dinner in bed. Almost as glamorous as breakfast, lunch, reading, talking on Skype, folding laundry, doing work, and sleeping in bed. My room is really small.

2008-09-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

(That's me in the corner)

Ahumph. I'm madreeth. It's awfully familiar here. And homesickening nonetheless. I'm struggling to find room + work. Lovely hot sun coaxing me into this time zone. Occasional surprise encounters with old palses on streets, some say oh I know someone looking for a flatmate, ... I call a million numbers, wander streets, look at rooms, meet people once. When I need downtime I go to Xe.com Conversion and calculate my savings into euros over and over and over. No! It's fine! I'm fine! The hostel is draining me---it's like living in a bar, yknow, full of noisy Australians. Met some nice old kids who spent 6 hours in the Reina Sofía the other day, ups to them.

The Shipping News: good to read.

No human self yet, gimme a wait.

2008-09-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

In Queens, honey and honeypie; also schnukumpts and snookum, tuckapie, plumwich, gumption. I like them.

Emma mapquested and phoneguided M + I from the Freeway.

Sam fed us handmade spaghetti carbonara, oh my mother.

2008-09-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

In their old house, post-Rothko.

Monroe works on something awesome for his job teaching college classes to five year olds.

I, pre.

Was sea monkey unfurling in water glass.

No pictures of Peggy or pup, new house, monarch fields, the wild woods, music, forgive me.

2008-08-04T23:07:00.000-07:00

What do I believe in? Do keep forgetting. American Apparel was giving away free "Legalize LA" t-shirts, and I do believe in immigration reform and I do believe in free clothing but I do NOT believe in free advertising all over my front (visible in the signature cut more than in the shirts text, which really does mostly say "Legalize La: Immigration Reform Now!). And do I believe in companies getting involved in political activism? Is that admirable and responsible, or is it an abuse of power, or is it just , again, an advertising campaign? Rosie and I picked up shirts (size XL mens--do I believe in the beautiful unashamed shapes of the human body or do I believe that covering up is the most valid feminist stance I could possibly take at this point?) and then I went to work, talked about immigration reform with a few people (good! but oh the pamphlet Am.Ap. handed out was so ditzy--a Timeline of attitudes about immigration reform with entries like "Sept. 11th changes many attitudes towards immigration." ???) And then a girl came in and told me about her absolutely miserable impression of Dov Charney and what a sexist hebephile asshole he is, and I told her about Clams meeting him and Ruth working for them and the miserable impressions they got, and then I went home and read more and just hated him and his, and looked at those anorexic teens and hated it, but then again what company would I not hate if I read as much about it as I have about American Apparel? It's all for profit and it's enough to make one never buy and enough to make one accept a free t-shirt and be bought.

2008-07-05T22:41:00.000-07:00

I am absurd, and I return again to this poem. Blessed Yeats.

Her Praise

SHE is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I have gone about the house, gone up and down
As a man does who has published a new book
Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,
And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook
Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,
A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,
A man confusedly in a half dream
As though some other name ran in his head.
She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I will talk no more of books or the long war
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
Manage the talk until her name come round.
If there be rags enough he will know her name
And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,
Though she had young men’s praise and old men’s blame,
Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.

2008-06-01T22:49:00.001-07:00

text message buzz in my pocket. am i coming down and is such descent desirable?

just sputtering in the shallows. got nowhere to go therefore cannot be lost. marry me john. is this my last time calling home home? or will my vagabundia leave me here time after and again?

2008-05-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

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2008-04-06T23:50:00.000-07:00

My plans to go to the city thwarted, I spent a beautiful, productive day at home doing all the work I should have done this week anyway. I am, truly am, a nerd--or, to speak grown-up speak, an academic. Oh I love my thesis, I love translation, I love/hate/love Benjamin, Derrida, I love/love/revere Olvido García Valdés.

Christine got into graduate school, University of Chicago, so I'm hugely proud of her and happy for her as well as pitifully without a plan for next year. I don't really need a plan, just a place, but the places I want to go (Granada, Berlin) all seem to think I should have a plan (a job).

But. Here is Christine in winter:

And. A poem by García Valdés, and one of the paintings it references.

Ambulante se pinta
cuando no puede ya andar. Leve,
de despedida, sobre lo rojo
el gesto.
Casi el rojo
de la visión, toca
blanca, curva de estupor
ante la lucha, la lucha con
el ángel. Klee, Gauguin.

2008-02-10T00:46:00.000-08:00

yes it is possible to waste your life. you waste your life if you spend it putting pomegranates into packages.

pomegranates are packages
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2007-09-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

I ran into Phillipp, German Phillipp who I used in "Similes" sophomore year. How are you!! He's great. He was in Russia. How was it!! It was wonderful, a kind of a love affair. Did you have a love affair!? Well, yes, actually.

My math class is illuminated by Hannah Sunshine and uh sapped by this octupussy suck-up sort of boy I wrote the "slick" poems about my freshman year. He provokes infinite spite in me. He sat in class and laughed at every cliché employed by the professor, a bearded statistician from Marist who really does want to make statistics fun. Many jokes about students fleeing the classroom upon hearing the course requirements. Many, many, each eliciting a laugh from Slick. I sat and oozed spite. A note from Hannah Sunshine in the margin of her notes: "I am really enjoying your facial commentary."

The Professor moves on from jokes to pure dull charts and graphs and terminology. Some things are binary, he says. Gender, for instance. A new note from Hannah: "Clearly not a Bard professor!" If I pass this class awake, it's thanks to her.

2007-08-29T02:43:00.000-07:00

I know folks don't quite read this anymore, but here it still is, and I still have 4. Things to write publicly. You know.

1.Things to not say.
2. Things to say.
3.Things to write of privately.
4. Things to write of publicly.

And that won't change any too soon. Tomorrow is Last Day, a beach day with my family, and then I shake the sand off and fly horribly away. OH I do look forward to you, Bard, but cripes--I've been home a month. The littlesiblings are teenagers, so they're always out with friends (as I was when I and my friends lived here), or working of skipping around the country. Chilluns mine! I miss them. The good news is that we keep growing up. I'm close to my parents in a way we couldn't be before.

The day after tomorrow I'll land and drag my baggage through a bus and into Poughkeepsie, where Christine will pick me up with the beautiful Guy (not Yves), whose acquaintance I am excited to make. So many friends in love! And then, my little house, and my blog will become relevant again (to my royal Ma).

Blue kisses,
Soulfan
(how arachne addressed me once.

2007-08-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday!

2007-07-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

And what do you do to numb the pain, in between cathedral-gaping (a scarf around my shoulders, as the only dresses suitable to Italian July are denied entry by the Italian Church--Italy is too hot for Catholicism, oh there I said it) and museum meditating and street gadding and hostel gabbing--what do you do, oh? You are me and you read. In Montottone I finished the last two books I had bought in Madrid, A Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez, and The Nymphs by Umbral, and read a great deal in my book of spanish poetas. In Rome I read Orlando by Woolf, finally, and now I too am in love with Vita Sackville-West. In Florence I am re-reading Orlando, because my gosh, but I found a spanish-language book shop in Rome and bought DON QUIJOTE at long last, so that will be for Florence. Really if you travel alone and are not a smoker going through a philosophical crisis I do not know what you do bookless. There are moments that need an occupation, thoughts coming in other than my-how-pretty-hot, beautiful places to sit and be for as long as possible and too many people to watch the whole time. To walk all day I, at least, need my thoughts in dialogue with those of another, and Woolf does marvelously.

2007-07-07T07:33:00.000-07:00

Woomph! I'm gone. That sound, that woomphing sound? That was the vacuum suck of my absence in Madrid, the smack of her womby walls sealing behind me. Ick, agh. Distaste, distortion. I am fearing my memory, trying to remember everything pat in place, ha. Sending emails, trying to tie up some ends, loosen others. I've had several dreams which are neither nightmares nor not nightmares, in which disbelief and the less glamorous moments of polyamoury play against a backdrop of goblin parades, whooshed through with limey gibbering ghosts. I miss Madrid. I miss all the potential. Alfred de Musset is a young man with a great future behind him. Nico, who does not yet distinguish between Italy and his grandmother's house, California and his schoolyard, is tired of hearing about Spain. I'm no better, swooning over memories of nonspecific arms in specific bars and tea-houses, particular singing people in certain plazas, while the news, always on during mealtime here, shows the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Ah yes Spain, I say, I love Spain.

Yet I'm in Italy with a dear baby eating pizza on the beach, being driven past acres of wilting sunflowers. Can I put up pictures I cannot. I look forward to coming home, being there, and leaving again. I look backward prematurely and obsessively. Hymning and hemming and hawing.

2007-06-05T04:19:00.000-07:00

Jaya came! Charming. Here she is eating indian food with Lizy´s darlin childhood friend, Courtney-of-Berkeley. We (I) made her speak Bengali with the waiter, because the rest of her visit involved lots of her having to listen to MY conversations in Spanish.

Codo and Lizy! This was Codo´s first time eating Indian food, which is bizarre, because he lives in a neighbourhood full of Indian people and restaurants.

Not pictured but certainly present: Me, Caitlin, Mary Kate. All the Bard kids are peeling off and going. I´ll be the last to do so, since Lizy is staying through next semester (and into infinity, perhaps). It is incredibly tempting, not that I have a choice. As Lizy said, it´s really a beautiful life, here.

Anyhow! Jaya helped me resee the Almudena. It does have the most fantastic ceiling. The rest of it is ugly, but the ceiling...I apply a superlative to the ceiling.

It was a good visit! We saw bits of concerts in my favorite lavapies places and Jaya saw great art and we saw eachother, hurrah.