Al Sur

I'm trapped in my own foreign film and from this point of view is awfully hard to read the subtitles. Where can you find it, you ask? In the discount section - to the right and all the way back against the wall at Blockbuster, in the midst of a full fledged blowout liquidation amongst hoards of people, teens desperately trying to get their hands on the latest R rated movies to stash with their soft core porn that their mother secretly knows about and 50 something year old women buying out every sentimental feel good to ease their pain of being alone on a saturday night and alternative 20 year olds looking for obscure documentaries about the life of patti smith as told from the point of view of her pet bullfrog that she killed when she was a child - hidden deep within a recycled cardboard box is a movie, my movie, that i will promise right now is not worth the wait. Overly decortative with rogue accents sandwiched between consonants, the cover is a shot of a beautiful city with gorgeous people, spilling culture and art in the places that aren't overwhelmed with smog from the bus system... and then there's me. Yeah, take out your glasses, or binoculars, right there, down on the lefthand side, that girl. No, no not that one, she's better dressed, I'm further left, clinging to that one-zipper backpack like it's my youngest of kin and reeking of a different brand of isolation that knows no name. Ay, mira esa mina, que lastima, que triste. Ay, pobrecita, tan confundida como melodramatica - deja de quejarse.

It's not that i'm complaining (well, that's a lie, and i recognize that a whine by another name still sounds as sweet), just narrating the constant stream of consciousness that isn't yet strong enough to break down this language barrier. It has to go somewhere. If not out my flailing lips then maybe through my fingernails, past the tips, onto this screen. If not to be heard by others on my program who i am too quick to call friend (because my spanish vocabulary is that of a 4 year old who never eats but just smokes and drinks), then by those interested eyes browsing the ether for something more distant from the lives of their own, because hey, you guys have to live your lives all the time; why not take a break and peek into mine. Es una experiencia, they say, and i agree, all too aware that there is a very deliberate reason for not placing an adjective before that noun. It changes, not by the day nor hour, but by fleeting moments that can only be measured in catcalls and extended eye contact, by las tazas de cafe amargo and trips on el subte. What comes out is instead the strangest side of my personality that i have ever seen (and take note that i've known myself for almost 21 years, maybe even more if your a diehard pro-lifer): i cling to people i don't know or necessarily like, and those that i do are doused in an overeager attempt to fasten any kind of relationship a little too tightly. I walk with a certain caution, little ease, and unforturnately no sense of direction. Appreciation of that time alone with my feet treading new pavement and my eyes darting rapidly from parts of my surroundings has disappeared, quickly replaced with a discomforting new tension that i'll get robbed or raped or worse, that someone might try to talk to me. And these fears that never had a permenant residence in my mind have started a barfight with a clan of pseudofilosophical ideas, outdated pop-culture references, and confident yet sleezy pick-up lines - i don't think i need to spell out which gang is winning. But alas, it's 10:20, and just minutes ago i was charmed by the meal stored safely for me in the microwave. At 10:40 i'll be busy thinking about which soap was mine in the shower and if this new ultra-femme smell it has is drastically changing my natural scent. And so on and so forth until i find another outlet willing to hold my thoughts.