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."

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.

Propaganda




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

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.

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

Home



Home



Home



Home



Home

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:

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.

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.

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.