The woman and the washboard

The man with the harmonica is perched as a symbol of all the good and bad and beautiful in all of my relationships. As his hand moves up and down clickity clackiting my thoughts out on a worn out washboard, glasses perched atop his bridge, dirty jean hat countering the many rumors and projections of his supposed "professorship" or "research position". No one gets an interview, no one gets a word, but we all have forged quite the relationship with this man, thinking, egotistically, that it is only ours. I watch as students morph into momentary cartoons as their feet lift a little higher, arms swing a little harder, smiles stretch a little wider for that 30 by 30 foot square of university pavement. I let my delusion get the best of me, thinking that he values me as much as I him. I dance, you see, every time, without fail, and he nods, and his eyes smile (mouth still busy harmonicing of course) and we prolong our moment as best we can, me to the beat of my shoulder swings and bouncing hair, him to the humming and strumming, complementing each others' art. I think, "yes, now. this is the time. this is the time when i should finally stop, and talk, and break the routine we've established, push it further, find out something new." But my feet have shuffled and sidestepped me on, and suddenly, out of the direct line of his magical influence, it seems so silly, so farfetched, so i keep on walking. I could talk, you see, clarify his role, tell him i like it, point at his importance. But such risk running is not actually part of the confidence i exude. What ifs come shooting to the surface - what if he doesnt in fact notice that im the one dancing for and because of him, that smile just the reaction of a self-involved man? what if he has many other boppers, millions of boppers, counting me as just another number? what if he's not the man behind the music that i expect him to be? and mostly, what if it's in the not talking that everything exciting and mysterious lies? There are no expectations, not even projections, that come to mind. Just speculation based on past smiles and head nods, the extended relationship, the fact that we built it all on top of a teetering jenga set, and one wrong pull may bring it all crashing down. Such is the game. Tense and fun and full of potential for disaster, which is, in the end, the final expectation. I still can't get myself to stop, change routes, or walk straight on through. Still, i'm increasingly disappointed on the many a days that he's not there. Such is the game.

DPS crime alert: good mood mugged by naturopathic sleeping pills

i sense the blinking light on recent personal developments. from the edge of my covers i see tissues and papers, garbage and empty grocery bags, pant leg after pant leg entwining in a form surely to be scolded by the school principal catching kids at prom, and if the next episode of the west wing weren't taunting me so i'd give it all a good stern talking to. pause, for everything. its gotta be biological, an unwarranted and unpredictable sexual and mental hiatus, although completely self-piloted, has got all sides of my instinctual body worn to threads, thinking and fucking passed out in their respective corners of the ring. It's been great, still in the quivering moments of total lacking. It's been a thrill, despite however i communicate it. It's still groundbreaking, even if over half comes from my untuned computer speakers. And as i etc. etc. etc. i keep in the meat freezer of my mind this reminder: It's 9 more days i got overstaying my welcome here.

g'mornin

Car horns sound and shoes scuff the pavement and people shout and life stays in motion as i slip under the scratchy grey blanket and stare up at my tiny barred window in this rented room. Gently placing my computer over my growling stomach, i let my hunger and the hardrive fans battle it out, winner determines my next set of actions. something is looming, hovering, dangling above me like a miny mobile of potential responsibility. I'm surprisingly soothed, as a baby should be, to the twisting and turning of test dates, flight dates, conversation dates, inscription dates. They dance to the car horns and the scuffing of shoes and the shouting and the rush of life through this city. Huddled deeper now in a pile of blankets, i think i should get dressed, join the honking and scuffing and shouting. And i would too if it were not for the unexpected hardrive fan victory, i hear it hum violently in celebration as my stomach growls the occasional whine of a sore loser.

i reach into my pocket of my jeans spawled like a murder scene from last night's debauchery. My phone pops out along with a crumpled peice of pink paper, the tail ends of girlish curling handwriting peeks out from the corner and i'm transported back into that eternal drunk-bitch conversation. its always the same, this one may wear the long droopy mc hammer pants of porteña style, but its got the same build, the same animated insides. "y me llamás? porque me gustás mucho! y tenemos que salir juntas, ay que suerte que nos encontramos acá, vamos a ser amigas, no? así que me llamás!" and theres shoulder pushing and hair tossing and we both flit off (because flitting is absolutely necessary in times like these) to other ends of the bar. I cant figure out why this number, with its curly-q's and light pink backing, exhausts me so, still shouting at me from across a noisy bar. Pull blankets tighter and twist to let the remnants of alcohol drain down my system. My stomach starts to growl with newly revived passion, and though i turn up the volume on my speakers to drown out reality with a catchy french tune, the mobile of to-dos whips rapidly around my head and the honking and scuffing and shouting and growling all wag their fingers and nag, "get the fuck up".

Do you remember your grand entrance? The scaled seats fill with town members into that theater, you wait behind red velvet, and suddenly like all theater majors nightmares realize you cant remember your lines? Thats probably why babies cry upon entering this world. They just werent readily prepared. Oh, but weve all heard the story. I was born of a mother sensitivity and a father sarcasm. Weaned on defensive humor and washed in nervous laughter, i began to embody my character. The plot develops: i played in a sanbox stocked from the beaches of ambiguity where the shores bearn no marker in particular and the constant whispers of an ocean tide seems to mutter your name. The worms i ate were imported from a monestary in indonesia, and there i devoured my silence. They wore soot robes and bowed their heads (or was it their tails?), spending all day inching in parrallel form, converting my one person playpen into a kempt zen garden. Thus i grew, with certain detatchment, anxious habits, an excess of words and too few spaces to stoe time. My ubringing surges to the tips of my persona the further i move away from it. With this continual restructuring of my internal feng shuei, some of the staples get pushed into a back room or kept in storage, for the time being.

¿sos una chica debil¿ his question was hardly spiteful, its genuine nature dances around his bluegrey iris, the opening act with an extended curtain call for a show ive caught snippits of, but only from back stage. He stared, posed, lids refusing to shut even for the slightest of moments until they sense my response. Si, puede ser, the audience claps. I feel dizzy, not the thrilling version of the sense but the kind that makes you nauseated and give you the shits. Its a dizzy pepto bismal could extinguish, or a dizzy missing its partner and with a few shots of whiskey would dance a dizzying pomerade around my feet. Dizzy not from my own spinning, absolved of all volition, but yanked by my big toes and tossed into the air, i tuck into fetal position and bounce across the hands of thousands crowded at the now rock concert. No, its not weakness, but the constant sensation, or perhaps reminder, that i belong to everyone else. Theirs to watch, to welcome, to whisper, to harrass. Their to touch, to shove, to fondle, to fight. Theirs to call chiquita, amorcita, mona, nena. And theirs to have, to hold, to know. In a week and a half i morph from one object to the next: a memory, a roof, a notch on a belt buckle, a miror, a love scene from a 1920s flick where no matter how cold hearted i inevitably wilt into the arms of my savior, a philosophy article to be digested and reintepreted, a new experience. So i decided to probe said weakness, take a scaple to its pulsing limb, peel its layers like string cheese, letting each one dangle alone and vulnerable before its consumed. Ahh, this piece is burnt, a flavor of lingering tobacco on a dive bars upholstered seats. This one spoiled, for it sat too long in the sun. Mmm, this section tender and young, fresh enough to be picked but lacking in profundity like a cheap wine. Part by part i tear and swallow, noting where the weakness stikes my pallate, sound humming off my teeth, my molars sing baratone. And the weakness twangs and wanes in achord and it strips itself bear until the curtain rises and it stands, knock-kneed and naked on that broadway theater stage. Lights hit, front and center, and the audience gasps in unison as all sensitivity, weakness, vulnerability, and feel seeps out and files into the pores of the observers. Y? Bueno? Soy debil? Who isnt.

Dear Candice,

Disclaimer: this is a complilation of just the tips of my sensations on overdrive. make sure your computer has a working cooling system and that youre feeling plenty empathetic to my clichés. Also, pardon the lack of apopstrophies... i have yet to master a spanish keyboard.

The Boeing 1640 hums quite a different tune when ascending, particularly when the passengers have mentally prepared for arrival. Like the hook of any great top 40, it lead astounding well into the string of indiscernable spanish swear words the foul mouthed middle aged woman seated next to me spit without hesitation. A nice pick up to surprise the crowd, we felt our organs push down against our lower intestine as we lifted again. Just as well im sure. I hardly feel ready to disembark into my utter lack of preparation. I switched on my music, eyeing the flight attendant to make sure i wasnt spotted, i had already felt the heat of his beedy glare. We recircled and i felt my the weight of my thoughts push back against their cranial cage, like ideas on a tilt-o-whirl. Hard they not been so tightly buckled, i assure you theyde still be recircling at a cruising altitude, passing on that heafty responsibility of adjustment, acceptance, and acknowledgement to my most instinctive of readtions. I gues the most rational, or maybe responsible, or all questions to ask for the time being would be WHY? Ah, but it seems so redundant, and yet exceptional, even phonetically speaking. The wh rolling its eyes at me, as if i didnt know it was everso cliché to begin with. A cliché so typical it needs no voicing but i decide to tattoo it on my tongue. And then the y lingering at the end, nervous and self-consciously shuffling its feet. Oh the burden that the y carries, but only sometimes. For such an occasional letter it sure has a lot to uphold. Why to too many circumstances, so ill start with the most immediate, as always, and hope to answer or rationalize at the very leasy the more more groundbreaking at a later date. Why chronical, journal, detail, explain, evade, or simply annote what im doing? is it more for now or maybe later? to fill the time (and abounding amounts of it mind you), give it some purpose, or give off some aparent purpose to tohers? Maybe its to empyt out the rogue words clogging the ancient brainage drainage so that the original issues clogging the system have a fight chance of surfacing and passing through. Have i ever stuck my toe into that enigmatic pool of so-called writing, the kind that drips ink on concrete after i take a dip into its fridgid waters? or do i just present myself as such? Im afraid im simply too afraid, because we are beings accustomed to the idea-editing culture. When your utensil is topped with a cap instead of eraser, well, what comes out? at this point, nothing truly significant. But im sure it requires practice, as all challenging sports do, so i desperately scribble, quite cognizant of the chance that only the first 10th or this book will be filled, and the contents are just as precarious. But in the spirit of all good intentions, new years resolutions, or intellectual epiphanies, i write, and commit, and i title it Day 1.

Latchkey

I count the minutes in grains of rice, scrapping my fork across the ceramic plate slowly transfering the heaping dinner from one side of the china to the other, difusing its heat to the tune of my stomach growling. He's not coming back, 15 minutes of rice maneuving tells me, about two thirds of the pile sits neatly stacked on the northwest side as an homage to my nostalgia. I scoop disappointedly at my unfinished progress; a little strong on the disinterest Toto, and next time ease up on the salt.

What is it about the host father that creates such towering hopes? Ah, yes, i think, i'm comparing to the real thing. A man who never was coaxed into conversations by sports talk or menial fillers, but enjoys sports nonetheless and if i were to bring it up i'm sure he'd have plenty to teach me. The menial, that too is an expertise of my old man, taking his 124 pack of crayolas to the prestenciled conversation and colors it sea foam and robbin red, bottom-of-the-sneaker-brown and a spalsh of crimson cow meat for good measure (latter two found in the Argentine Crayola version). Now part of me is hungry, in fact most is shocked when i glance away from the glow of my computer screen to stare at my empty plate. There was just homage there a minute ago. Nevertheless, my ID takes control of my fingertips and sprays breadcrumbs all over the glass tabletop in a fit of sexual and/or agressive instincts.

I look up again, reminded that he took his dinner to the bedroom, to join the host mom (and our apparent host buffer) while she sleeps. It has yet to be tested, but i'm venturing to guess that if we spent just a little more time together time itself would start to regress. Or the minute hand continues pushing clockwise while the hour counters, and they'd start to spin so rapidly that they get entangled in one another until the entire clock collapses, concave, in on itself, through the olive green wallpaper and into a dimension that knows no such discomfort. Ah, take me with you.

I'm learning a lot about other people recently, reading blogs, facebooks, innuendos, body language. This is only and most appropriately the product of fine tuned stalling for the obligatories of life. Far too often i forget that what my fingertips punch out into this 2 by 6 inch blog box is read by others, and not just for reflecting's sake in deperate times such as these very ones i am doggypaddling through. But now, readers, if readers there be, ye be warned. Because i've hopped on board the reading rampage, facebook frenzies and fancy-free powered by one too many mates sipped and two too few papers finished. Ah, he returns to start cleaning up. I think i head the ominous backwards ticking of time. Seguir, hay que seguir.

blasé for a group of undifferentiated readers

I decided to slip on my blasé today, skimming through simmelean theory, lingering in parts that pertain not in the slightest to what i am meant to be writing. And i lifted it up and i let it fall over my head and slid my arms through it's silky lining, my body covered in its warm withdrawl. He writes,

"just as an immoderately sensuous life makes one blasé because it stimulates the nerves to their utmost reactivity until they finally can no longer produce any reaction at all, so, less harmful stimuli, through the rapidity and the contradictoriness of their shifts, force the nerves to make such violent responses, tear them about so brutally that they exhaust their last reserves of strength and, remaining in the smae milieu, don not have time for new reserves to form. This incapacity to react to new stimulations with the required amound of energy consitutes in fact that blasé attitude which every child of a large city evince when compared with the products of the more peaceful and more stable milieu"

and his words in webs lead to an intricate entanglement of blasé, letters like a spilled boggle game suspended in the air, woven with the bleached sand from the broken minute timer. and i think back to all that i've stored and i feel bloated, not in the selfconscious sense of the term, no. but i am a little nervous that if i get squeezed just hard enough, my skin with turn to sponge and out will pour all of everything i've been soaking up, keeping clean, storing away, on another's perfectly white blouse. what if blasé could be my plaster, hardening quickly to store thoughts in its disinterest. or blasé in aisle three of the downtown Sears, a kitchen sink drain that safely sucks whatever i seep down a route of pipes, dilluting and polluting the local watering hole. i think i'd order my blasé with two scoops of cherry garcia, or would it have to be vanilla, for blasé's sake? i'd peirce it's nose and eyebrow and tongue and scar it's body with Ed Hardy inspired tattoos and something just slightly less than offensive, i'd dye it's hair black and shave half of it's head, thread safety pins through pant legs and shirt sleeves and patch on "like i give a fuck" to the back of it's tattered jean jacket.

ohhh blasé on a day like today, it made sun denying all the easier, and computer staring a little more justified. i think of all the excuses i have gleened throughout my years of eduactional failures. they've been so very elaborate at times that the excuse itself earned me a B+, or perfectly tailored to the authorities vulnerability that they simply can't say no. i think i can i think i can, steam roaring from my hardrive, and all i can get is

"my blasé ate my homework".