Phoenix Corner

I should be sleeping... or something

2010-09-23T05:18:00.002-04:30

I have to admit I cheated on this blog.

I went and decided that I wanted to go cavewoman and write, on paper, on a notebook, countless ramblings about subjects that tortured me over the summer.
I'm past half the notebook by now, and I read it all today... one can always find awesome ways to torture yourself.

In an interesting note, not that it is so important, I'm back on having odd: sleep patterns, eating habits, anxiety attacks and thoughts. Not that 'That' ever changed.

I've learned that possibly anxiety attacks are just excitement. That's a novel idea.

That if I'm hungry I won't probably go to bed.

The thoughts... well they have been odd all of my life, I don't expect them to change.

All I can think about right now, it that I need to find $24,000 to finance my thesis.

Just because I can

2010-07-01T04:29:00.002-04:30

So i'm writing this entry in a complete state of drunkness, and I expect it to be full of gramatical errors and nonsense.
I went out drinking today with my friends and came home to eat prosciutto with bread and it feels awesome to just let go of control and enjoy being 20 something.
LA is such a place, like anyother I might add, to get looose and enjoy the lesser pleasures, like blasting singing and drunken madness and gettting hit on by guys you're never going to see again, or so you hope.
I just wanted to write, a few lines to say this is the aftermath of a night i didnt predict would be so fun: I'm going to bed drunk, fed and with swag: 2 t-shirts from AJ from the transformers movie, it rocks... any day.
Love ya all... I'm ready to move on from things that have kept me tied, this has been a pretty awesome day so far.

A Moment Of Silence

2010-06-16T04:32:00.003-04:30

In a city like Los Angeles, depending on where you live, is really rare to find "quietness". Everything in a metropolis like this hectic place is noisy, active, fast, crowded, specially if you're busy.

These past months, I've learned to appreciate those moments that brought some hygiene to my mind; whether it was while driving to location in my car at 5am while everyone snored around me or sitting on a fire escape well past sundown while smoking a cigarette as everyone was looking for me... I guess the word 'Escape' suited that well.

Nowadays, when the madness of production is on a rest, I sit outside my apartment at 1am and just see how everything gradually starts going silent. Some days its later on, more like at 3am, when the clubs start shutting down, when the police cars stop doing their crazy rounds with the helicopter and the spotlight randomly pointing at places.

The place where I live is a place that either you hate or love depending on the day. Its filled with people going by, every kind of people, tourists, students, girls out on the town, limousines, screams and then the occasional couple having sex somewhere you can't figure out where they are that are being entirely too loud. I used to have these neighbors that picked 2am to burst out in a full on fight. After 3 months of calling the police, they finally moved.

When I sit outside in observance, I sometimes ponder why am I here sitting, sipping my cold drink and smoking and not doing exactly the same out with these people... And I know the answer. I already did that.

When I was younger, and I do realize I'm not old, but say, when I was 15 yrs. old, I used to live in a vibrant place just like this, filled with clubs and booze and all that the party scene can bring. It was a great time, or at least I remember it so. But like everything after a while, it grows old and decadent, the same thing over and over again, so much that the security guards know you by name, they probably know all your outfits, what you usually drink and the number on your car plate.

From those days, I remember that after a while, going out with my brothers and their friends was the most fun, making ways to get those outings different each day, finding that our own thing, past hitting the clubs and doing what everyone was doing, was far more productive and fun. We found ourselves sometimes in much trouble but at least was something different.

And then there was that moment when everyone was past their energy level and just sat in silence in front of their selected decadent "Past-Midnight Snack" and just sighed. It was that moment of silence, where all the bullshit from trying to make the best of the night went away, and you just sat there reflecting on the next day, week or month. If we got very philosophical... maybe you could be planning for your next year or decade.

In those moments, depending on how deep you went, you kind of looked around and most of the times you found yourself realizing you were exactly where and with who you wanted to be and it was sort of magical.

There are a couple of people that were the usual last to go and part ways at 4am, and you knew that the next day it would be all over again and you would still enjoy cracking the same jokes and remembering past moments of silence. Hell, even the dog knew that those tranquil moments sitting on the side walk were very important to just lay and sigh with us.

Now, I sort of skip all the outing, and wait or look for that moment.

Now, I realize I don't really need to be exhausted to be in the mindset of finding that space in my head where I forget about my surroundings to keep in check that I need to think about things that I should ponder on.

The hard part is realizing that because of where and how I live today, I do most of these moments on my own. Right now, I can't turn to my side and see that familiar face that shares that moment of silence with me.

Months ago, I sat on this fire escape and gazed at the LA night lights. It was chilly, dirty and I was exhausted. The day wasn't over, and everyone was running like crazy trying to make the day's work, and in that environment I still found myself gazing at those lights and the activity around me and realizing that I needed to take a deep breath and listen to myself. Maybe to not forget of my path, maybe to not get caught in the frantic pace of my chosen life and the city's own heartbeat.

When I do this, whether it happens there or in the hall of my apartment, or maybe outside the stage at school, I often make silent pleas of what I want my life to be like, and right now I try to remember if I ever asked to be where I am right now.

When I find myself the time to be in true silence, depending on the day is a cleansing moment, or a reflective moment, or just a moment I find to protect myself from facing reality. Tonight, while sitting out and listening to the silence that a Tuesday night in Hollywood can bring, I don't know why I felt foreign but so at ease. At moments overwhelmed with realization, and asking myself that maybe many wishes came true in such a fast pace that I should had found more moments of silence to keep myself in check.

A year ago, or two... I know I asked fervently to be in the place I am right now, and when you ask for things, sometimes you don't quite grasp everything that comes with your desires and wishes. The things I've asked for in those moments of silence have in some way come to realization and I'm happy for that, because many of those wishes are of true satisfaction for me... some others need work, and patience... I just hope that I can still find moments of silence to keep myself in check and keep going.

I wonder if my friends have gotten those wishes from those inebriated moments of silence to come true. I wonder if the wishes I myself have made over the course of these years have proven themselves to be the right ones, or the ones I really need.

Some of those wishes I'm still wishing upon, and having some other wishes granted and having found that some were not exactly my flavor, I wonder too if those that haven't come around ever do get to come true, will I figure that I really didn't want them?

Maybe what I really need is more specificity.

Maybe we needed to ask back in the day, every now and then, to have these moments with the people that we were sharing those moments with.

Maybe the answer to the feeling I often get while pondering is that while wishing to live life, sometimes, you also have to wish to know how to live it, and be O.K. with it.

The utility of those moments in silence back in the day I see it now as our need to wind down and bare to the basics... to go to bed when everyone else was getting up, having a blank slate that allowed to start a new day having new refreshed attitudes about what a next day can bring, to keep going, and let go of the old scene and look for the new one... maybe it is still all about that.

Ramblings from an odd place

2010-06-14T03:22:00.003-04:30

The fact that I'm sitting out in the hall of my apartment building, well past midnight, writing on my computer, tells you a few things about how I live today:

- In an apartment that has poor air circulation.

- That I do not care that pedestrians and neighbors look at me funny when they walk past me and see my makeshift porch.

- That my hours of operation are totally shifted.

- That I may be bored.

- That this is very different from the life I lived last year.

I've arranged to also wear headphones so I can hear the episode I'm watching right now, I've brought out a cushion for more comfort, drinks and, yes, my cigarettes.

I'm smoking, yes, and I should quit again.

I had been meaning to write on my blog again for a while, always promising myself sometime, but that obviously never happened, most likely because I was busy as hell, and every time I thought about being busy, I remembered a friend that hugged me before my first day at AFI and said: "Welcome to the busiest year of your life". I haven't seen her since then, because she was right and this has been indeed the busiest year of my life.

You know this when the sense of accomplishment comes from managing to have enough clean clothes to dress yourself and look decent for the next 2 days, or at least ones that don't smell (that much) or to have at least string cheese to eat for dinner, hell, that you made it to your house in one piece without getting a ticket for falling asleep at a stop sign a block from your place is one big deal.

You know that you're pushing yourself to the limit when you forgot the last time you ate, bathed, slept, what day is it, week, or month... well at AFI you don't forget days or weeks, but they mean different. You live your life by "I'm producing week 7 - cycle 2 but OMG my next film is week 2 - cycle 3, I'm going to die!".

I've found myself referencing birthdays to names of productions that ran that week, or trying to schedule my best friends wedding to match the tiny little break where I achieved to not get assigned to work 4 weeks in a row. I planned naps between safety meetings and set visits from faculty, sometimes under desks. Sometimes, those didn't even happen, 'cause someone needed peanut butter and jelly on the set or the last card for the camera ran out. Or something caught on fire, but that was only once.

These past days, I've made a list of things, deeper things than nagging that I would like to write about, and then I figured how also, through out this year I also learned that everything in writing and online will be read by everyone. Maybe some things are still meant for the Diary.

This is just a stretch out of my fingers to continue writing in the next weeks... just thought to let it spread, see if I could still hold a sane thought put in writing.

From The True Truth and The Questionable Ones

2009-09-12T23:10:00.004-04:30

I was invited by the guys at ExpedientesX.Es to participate on the Jose Chung Month, which very much served as an exploration of this episode.

After much thought, I hope you understand my point with this longish attempt to analyze this idea I had for a while. Sometimes, it takes a second read. So ... bear with me.

For the Spanish version, click here. Picture taken from the original article.

-.-

A lot has been said about the truth or the truthfulness of things. The fact is that the truth will always be… relative. Like everything in life.

Sometimes you find yourself in the presence of the truth, biting your hand, jumping in front of you, making faces and you, however, only know that can’t be true, “It can’t be!” because it goes simply against everything that you hold as true.

The encounter with the truth not only means a discovery or a satisfaction in case this doesn’t conflict with your belief system, but it is also a critic moment in the life of a human being. Is not a simple act upon a discovery, which ever size it is, is an event in life that brings change, whether you like it or not.

When watching “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”, the truth and the encounter with it is questioned from the very first frame of the episode. I’m not really going to dig too deep into the whole “do I relieve in this or not” deal, this is not the objective of this micro dissertation, in reality, for me is more fascinating the fact that depending on your own motives, surroundings, actions, etc., the truth could be a flexible, ever changing and dynamic entity, that at the end could end up being completely different for each of the participants of that fact.

I’m sure I’m not splitting the atom here with these lines, but think about it. During the episode, a situation like the “kidnapping or abduction” of this couple is being studied for a person that, to begin with, doesn’t believe in the truth of his subjects of study or the people around them that try to find logic to it, in this case, Mulder and Scully.

In reality, if there’s such a thing, the episode might be based on the complete mistrust in the individual truths of each person, given that these truths challenge a value system to which each of us is attached to and by instinct, human practice, etc., each of us wants to protect. Is in fact what holds us together.

Let’s look at the couple, Harold Lamb and Chrissy Giorgio. Both of them were “kidnapped” by the same entities, in the same place. However, the way they both lived the same experience, this truth that they both faced, is completely different.

Not only their interpretation of the tangible facts that they lived changed due to their own interpretation systems, but it did too because of the interaction with external agents like their families, the FBI, doctors, etc., At the end, for this couple, the truth about what they lived is just a draft of what could had been, to the point that they themselves doubt their own experience.

Why? Because it never happened? Because the truth it self is in fact a way of denial? We may never know, but the truth may rely on the fact that it’s an experience that rattled their own foundations too much to risk losing grip of their own reality.

Then we could analyze Roky Crikenson as well, a witness to the “kidnapping” and a partial player of the event. This person not only faces the experience, but also the alleged presence of the “Men in Black” that are actually trying to dissuade him of believe his own experience, or the truth that he claims to have experienced, and that he claims to be true.

Not only is he facing his own mistrust and trying to adapt to his own version of the truth, that is comfortable to his belief system, but he also has to fight and defend that truth from a group that is threatening him on his most basic fears and pushes him to forget his experience, and with it block his own need to live and remember what he has registered and faced.

Crikenson has assumed that his truth is strong and powerful enough to not only preserve it for himself but also good enough to be proven and convince others that are not necessarily available to believe.

To what extent is his truth true or a fact, also will remain a mystery, but its curious how this man holds onto dear life to his beliefs, while others may find that task a lot harder.

I wondered what made him different… is it his age? His experience? The lack of dependency from others? Does he have anything else to lose if he were to defend this truth to the end?

Sometime the truth becomes just that, as we saw so much in the series, a matter of life and death and how far would you go to defend that truth. Would you risk everything if you were sure of the truth you know? How do you know that what you have in your hands is not an illusion created by your own mind in this effort to keep it together?

Then, we face Blaine Faulkner, the young man that wants to be abducted. He could very well have nothing to lose. He’s not only looking for the truth “out there” but he’s also running away of what should be his own truth, face the facts and the reality instead of creating it. For him, the non-truth is a truth preferable to the total truth.

The denial of his own truth not only brings him a total stall in his own life, but prevents him from being in touch with reality, if this should ever exist, and doesn’t allow him to evolve in the organic way that we all do, Discovery and progress. For everyone that doesn’t follow his or her own truth, in my opinion, gets locked in this useless search of road that leads to nowhere.

Maybe this is a very abstract concept, but in reality it applies perfectly.

Take for instant the conclusion of the episode; after all of the efforts of the author to publish a book in which he doesn’t even believe in, meaning he’s actually starting from a point where he’s the principal aggressor, denying the credibility of everyone’s truths, he gets an acknowledgement from Mulder, who identifies perfectly that the purpose of this book not only is wrong, but the consequences of its publication wouldn’t only mean no advance and also is going against the development of his own truth, of his purpose in life, and ultimately, is a book without an objective other than satisfy a monetary desire.

The truth, that is out there, everywhere, in reality, is inside every individual, because the truth is no other than the psychological interpretation of a fact. The truth is not a fact, the fact is the fact, and the truth is only the glass we use to look at the complex actions and experiences that become the fact.

At the end of the day, we all go to bed with our own version of the truth. I believe, reflecting on this, and looking at the series just from this episode, had Mulder ever hold the complete uncorrupted truth in his hands, or the facts that constructed then the truth, all of it, like any of us, we could had never been able to reason it, and at the end make it our own.

Avi Quijada
Sept. 2009. For the Jose Chung Month organized by ExpedientesX.ES

3 Weeks

2009-07-16T19:40:00.002-04:30

The last time I blogged, here at least, was long ago. Many things have happened. If you are reading this blog, you are probably are also my friend and have heard my rantings over and over again and nothing of this will be news to you. But in the slight case that you need to be refreshed, here's what has happened in the last months:

I've lost 58 pounds. (Impressive right?)
I've sold my car, my movie collection, most of my furniture, and my apartment.
I had to sleep in the floor for several days.
I moved to 3 different places in less than a month. I still have to move once more.
In case you're wondering... I GOT INTO AFI.

Right, right... you have heard this plenty. I'm sure. Countless of times over Twitter, Facebook, Skype, etc... but the truth is that well I owed it to the blog as well.

In 3 weeks, after I'm done with Embassy appointments, and hopefully some conscious packing, I'll be leaving Venezuela for Sunny LA. In the space of 3 months I've gotten many blessings I think, or good luck or whatever you blame good things happening to people on. The truth is that this is a fantastic time for me, yet I'm scared, terrified.

Anxiety settled comfortably on me like 3 days ago, when over people constantly repeating praises or wishes or just plain hopeful comments make me feel overwhelmed. What if I'm not up to par? I second guess myself on the 3rd day of my period, is a known fact. Today is that day.

I like taking things with no expectations, none at all, blank slate, tonight that plate is like vibrating and I can't honestly stop it.

To you, you, you know who you are, the one that looks over me everysingle day ever since you parted my life at different times. Thank you. I hope I can still take that pencil up the stage.

100 Days...

2009-03-10T17:19:00.003-04:30

This week has been a blur, actually, everything since February 13th has been this swirly place I barely understand, only to figure out that this place is my actual life. Before that, I don't think it was that much clearer either.

Decisions and choices that I've probably mentioned before have made me be in a continous jump from string to string, since almost a year ago, and while very exciting, I would sincerely like some comfort in my pocket.

I don't even remember why I started writing this... I'm watching Lost and probably drifting out too much into my own toughts.

This is what happens when you're forced out of your comfort zone, the rutine and your dynamics. The thing is that in the past year I haven't had that, every time I suppose I'm close to thinking that I can sit down and put up my plant in the desk, I jump... again.

Ironically, the only place I've found comfort in is out there, in the air. It only lives in the ungraspability, in the brief phone calls, in the urgency of something that, in the reality of other people and some time our own lives, does not deserve such urgency.

Even when this is unexistant thing in the material world, it has brought me the most satisfaction I've ever had in my whole professional life, because for once, I love what I do, with the people I do it with. This is the difference between what you do because you're told and what you do because you love.

So in the course of keep doing the things that I love, this week I've numbed my mind enough to not think that much, the days go by and I keep counting them. I've been sitting and waiting for 100 days of 105 periods of 24 hours that brewed a decision, that guess what? Another set of people made for me.

This time around, I gave them permission to do so.

And it so happens that I've always wondered about hunches, about signs, about leads that make you think that you're on the right path, that you took the right decision, that whatever happens, its for the best. In my case though, the implications, I'm afraid are too great.

I've come to the point where I've not allowed myself to read the horoscope (something I do every Sunday, yes, I'm somewhat supersticious) My brother offered to call a person that reads the cards and I was too afraid to do it, I don't want to even give myself the chance to think that this decision would not favor my wishes and that at the end, I'm back to square one.

In this little annoying, asphixiating, depressing, dark square.

To this point, I'm even afraid to dial a phone.

What do you do when you question everything? yourself, others, the steps you've taken to get here... what happens when you're so over critical of yourself that you never think is going to be enough?

It's all about who came first

2009-03-04T02:47:00.002-04:30

So maybe its not a well known fact that I'm not only the first child in my nuclear family, but also the first grandchild of both sides of the family, that well, if you don't count that my grandfather had a gizillion children outside of marriage that had a tendency to be very reproductive as well.

So, anyway, I'm the oldest of my cousins, the oldest girl, the one that graduated first, the one that when I was 4 years old everyone fantasized I would turn out to be a Miss Venezuela.

In a country focused on beauty, it was natural for people to wish a girl to be a beauty queen, after all they get to travel the world, and if you are smart enough, and this was my take on it, you may turn into such a personality that you could become the major of a very popular city, a human rights authority, hell, even more frivolous things such as singers and actresses.

The thing of course is that I never did embrace the 'Beauty Queen' Concept. If there was a definition for Tomboy, my picture must be beside it. I actually have to remember myself everyday to be femenine; I spent my childhood running after my brothers or from my brothers, pinning them down, beating the bejesus out of them, climbing, jumping, bruising, scraping, breaking and yes, the ocasional small explosive in the paint can was also observed.

Its the wonders of living in the country: no one cares as long as you don't burn the plants, kill a cow or maybe, just maybe, burn someone's stash.

So being 27 now (oh my god...) having had a list of relationships with an expiration date no longer than 6 months and so many plans still on my waiting list; because I'm the oldest, I'm expected to surrender to my femeneity and do what my mom had already done by now, and what, yes, my grandmother wants... Have children.

Children.

Small bundles of joy that shoot out of your body demanding food and care and your time and love and parents and who knows what these days, cause kids are all kinds of special and complicated and generational and you name it. Children, but oh no lets correct that, Greatgrandchildren. Because the whole deal is that Grammie wants ME to have them. Not my brothers, not my cousins; ME, because I came first.

And I go like this...

1) I'm still not over someone pulling a feeding tube out of my stomach. A feeding tube, it hurt, but aparently is nothing compared to giving birth, I don't want more pain for another couple of years, thanks. The manager.

2) I don't have a boyfriend. And in this subject I realize I'm the most girlie, probably naive, "read-too-much-fanfic" kind of person... I will not settle for something other than swept off my feet, painfully exagerated in love of this person that I haven't met and have no clue where it is. Believe me, I've looked, I still feel that maybe lives in another country.

3) Even if I went to a donor, which I won't, its out of the question. Even when I adore kids, I practically raised my little brother, babysat all of my cousins, and many stranger's kids. Even when kids love me because I throw them in the air which apparently is so freaking thrilling, even then, I don't want kids for now.

And believe me, I've felt the clock, ticking, back and forth, its annoying, deafening some days, and I find myself gazing at baby pictures, baby furniture, baby clothing, baby diapers, and me and my friend, who's about my same age, we sat that one day in my bed, sighing at these baby programs and said to ourselves, "Fuck, we're doomed"

Is that in this day and age, EVERYTHING got delayed. It normal to get married at 35, babies at 40, yet, triumph and goals and money were somehow pushed earlier, 'cause everyone aparently is now expected to be a billionaire by 25, and be smoking hot, and own stuff. So to those like me that are 27, that the credit card company calls every week to find out about my payment, that freelances to not say that is unemployed, that are single, still planning on some extra education and with so many other dreams unfulfilled and that are stuborn, so very stuborn, these parameters are so unrealistic and conflictive. Time sometimes feels as if is not enough to please everyone and yourself.

So my grandmother wants to have greatgrandchildren, and that puts me in a timeline, since she's 82 and not getting any younger, and she's bored, and specially, jealous. "Why?" you may say... well my grandfather had them, her friends have them, the friends of the friends have them, and they all have pictures, and baptism parties, and baby showers that set her own clock going too... the one that tells her its time to have new blood in the family and the one that tells her, that unfortunatelly, there's not that much time for her to wait around until I gather my crap and streighten my mess.

So, I tell her, "you're not going anywhere, anytime soon." She crosses her arms, wrinkles her forehead (if ever possible) and says "you think you have the devil by the beard, don't you?"

Honestly, I have no clue what she meant by it. Maybe that I think nothing will happen, that I'm invincible and so are others, maybe that I can get away with everything, maybe all of those options or none, but the truth is that the timeline that is set for us based in pre-exisiting agreements you don't remember signing, have clashed with the changes in our current society... and my grandmother just won't understand.

She thinks I'm a spinster just like my aunt, that at 50, just found her 'sweep of her feet, heartbreaking, pasionate, overwhelming, curling toes, heated love' that she was looking for. At 50, where the contraceptive is menopause, and retirement if not a dot in the horizon but actually the house 2 blocks over. A whole life it took, and in her own standards, she's happy. Of course, she was not the oldest, but then again my oldest aunt, never got married, and yes she's the cat lady, only that she hates cats, and has 16 dogs.

Today, my grandmother brought the subject up again, and completed with the spinster comment, my dad was in the room. The terrified look on his face said it all.

No matter that I graduated with honors, that I'm fairly good looking, that I know 3 languages, that I've traveled a fair part of the world, that I understand computers, that I can write a line or two, that photoshop doesn't intimidate me, that I've lived by myself for 10 years now and survived 2 holds ups, no matter that I have these dreams that i want to come true, when it comes to being a girl, and being the oldest, and so many other little details... You must stop at some point according to this family and say, "hey I have to get serious and procreate."

So this is my Schedule for the next 10 years, since is aparently necesary:

(feel free to compare it to Rachel Green's guidelines to getting hitched)

2009: Get into AFI and move to LA (no matter what, this is not negotiable)

2010: Get a scholarship for my second year. I'm going to be broke.
XF3 should begin shooting, and I should be offered a job picking up the kleenex, or distributing gum, of just going to get machiatos with maple syrup. SOMETHING.

*During this year it would be nice to find "someone" I mean, I'm not asking to get married... yet, but waking up every morning alone, its getting old.

2011: I'm supposed to be graduating, so expect that to happen, also... if any kind heart wants to sponsor me as a talented professional to stay in the US, that would be swell. I too think that by this time, Obama has solved the economic problems, brought back the troops, fixed the Guantanamo mess, ended the commercial block on Cuba 'cause Fidel died and Raul couldn't care less if dictatorship stayed or not.

2012: Hey... XF3 has to premiere sometime... 2012 would be smoking but if there's time to make XF4 I wouldn't mind... a girl can dream and be obsessed about Xfiles. I should had either mantained a relationship by now, I mean, I'll be 30!!! And maybe, just maybe, I can have a good careeer going by now...

So, if the mayans are wrong, and we survive Dec. 21st 2012, I would think of marriage and a good date for me to have babies, would be 2014 to 2016. 32 - 34 yrs old... its not bad! Do you think that if I present this timeline, my grandmother would approve????

2019: I get my house in Malibu, and visit the philemune every weekend with my philes in training, while producing the next great blockbuster.

If anything were as easy as I came first, its my right to have this or the other, I would ask for the right to stop the world, cause is suddenly going too fast.

"I don't know how I am here"

2009-02-27T21:37:00.002-04:30

Today, I'm back at my mom's. I'll tell you later why.

And I sit with my grandmother, just because I enjoy it so. She's sitting with her new friend, this old lady that has Alzheimers and that in the space of 2 hours, has told her at least 4 times the same story. Somehow, I think my grandmother is so caught up in telling her own stories that she doesn't notice.

Old age is weird. You have these two ladies that are basking in their own memories and in their simple handmade gowns and flying here, I spent 45 minutes with a lady about their age that was sporting Converse gold All Stars, a Cali hoodie, jeweled jeans and a Gucci bag. Somehow, I think my grandmother needs a deeper pimping.

Coming back from my reverie, they're talking about the island they come from. How everyone knows each other, and even though they met in their 80's, they have old friends in common, they know all the names, all their old businesses, who they married, how many children they had, who died and especially which town of the island they came from.

It's so that they come to explain that people in this old island, have so many old interesting names. Some come from old practices such as the kids being named after their grandparents that already had "interesting" names, others sporting names like "Peter of the Valley Virgin" after a promise given to said Virgin, the island's most important religious figure. Other names came from the Almanac. If it was Saint Peter's day, then said boy (or girl) would be named after said saint.

That's how my grandmother's name is Ezequiela. Yes, April 10th, St. Ezekiel day. And then she says: "I don't even know how I'm here." and she raises her hands to the sky. "I was saved just out of luck!"

And this is why. Back in 1926, in Margarita Island, the towns were nowhere near of having anything; no decent roads, sanitary fixes, or housing. My greatgrandfather had a friend that owned a donkey, in which he would carry logs for fire and other furnishings if hired. My greatgrandmother, very advanced in her pregnancy, got up in the middle of the night, thirsty, and with the need to use the non existant loo.

He gets up, takes the bucket, and walks to the well, about 10 minutes from the shack, and leaves her to go into the backyard. Long story short, a tummy ache mistaked with labor pains ended up with my grandmother landing into this world, face first to the gravel of the improvised bathroom.

When my greatgrandfather came back, the water was used to give newborn Ezequiela her first bath of planet earth.

It marvels me that aside from my greatgrandfather having that friend with the donkey, he used to be a sailor that would go to Curaçao and bring bootlegged goods. She remembers that the boat didn't have an engine, but sails, and that they knew the sea so much that they would steer back and forth and didn't get lost.

From being a poor family with a mud shack and an outhouse, he became the owner of 2 plantantions, 3 houses around the island, and my grandmother became the heiress of a great inheritance.

She then says: "I named my son Ezequiel, not because he was born that day, but because its a great name for a boy"

The Countdown

2009-02-02T23:50:00.003-04:30

3...2...1... go

Have you noticed how much we count stuff in our lives? We count money, relationships, days over due, minutes until midnight, weeks late, miles over the speed limit, points missing from the score, seconds left in the microwave... debt... numbers rule our lives, even when we try to avoid them. Damn, my math teacher was always right.

And so was my mother, but that's another story.

Today a sort of countdown has begun; one that should had started, and did indeed, back in December, but that had been stalled and stopped a number of times, and for the most ridiculous reasons you could ever think of.

It's a wait that might change my future, as I've said before; It's a wait that will keep me nervous, will keep me guessing, will keep me wondering, and will make me question every part of what I've been in my concious life.

You see, little details, little decisions, little hesitations... little seconds, might represent the difference between me staying stuck and the shot at having a future. Yes, I'm dramatic, but then again, I live in the land of Telenovelas, where Chávez tunes into my life as he pleases and makes a living hell out of it.

Other days, I count as well for different reasons. I count them as they pass and they never come back, and that's the sad part of living in this country. Days that will never be granted to us once again, days lost in hatred, in violence, in mistakes; one after another.

And don't get me wrong, I'm all up for mistakes; you learn from them, because they bring the best and worst of you, they show you who you are, and if you're at least worth the while, you could become what you want, what you need. The problem is that in this endless thread of mistakes, it appears nothing has been learned, nothing has been won, nothing more than division and pain.

This countdown means to me the escape to this thread, and I blind my mind from negativity, cause in the past, all efforts failed, and this might as well be my last chance. Yes, again, I'm dramatic. My back hurts, I'm tired and I have brown circles under my eyes.

This blog is not exactly a work of art, is just a way to vent.

Either way, and I feel like I'm writing just like I speak, have you wondered how many countdowns do you have in your life? I've lived in a constant countdown and at 27, I'm tired. I want to stop counting down and start counting up.

Only a few people will understand, but I want to count the number of times I can walk the entire Venice broadwalk in a day, I want to count how many grunions I see at night, how many waves it takes me to learn to ride one, I want to count the one candle on my friend's baby b-day cake next year, the number of times I can hug my virtual friends for real this time, I want to count kisses, smiles, goals... the only thing that I want to count down is the size of my pants.

These 40 something days will be the end of me, but also the start... do you believe in fairness, in wishes, in prayers? Do you believe in crossed fingers? Throw all of that for me... I'll keep you posted.

Sighs

2009-01-27T00:55:00.002-04:30

I should be organizing interview questions right now. I am, but my soul, while it struggles to be in these questions, and how much I want them to be answered, my soul is just somewhere else.
I always dreamed to be the voice asking these questions, yet another dream slipped through my fingers today, maybe it was more than one dream.
As you grow up, your desires mature, or at least you would expect them to. I weirdly enough always asked for good health... that, well, that never happened.
If you know me any, you know I refuge myself in my work life. The workaholic in me has a job right now that not only I adore, I thrive on to, and thank every day that I came across it, and the people and the happyness that has brought me over the last few months.
I've identifyed myself so much into my own work dreams, it became my life dreams, and today one of those pieces of life, died.
Back in 1998, when still undecided on what to do the rest of my life, because at 16 aparently you are expected to take the most important decision of your life fresh out of your barbie dolls and the stupidity of middle school, back then when I had just seen some episodes of a show that now runs my days, back then I admired something, I dreamed something and I looked in awe as an illusion became the pursue I have as my life goal.
Kim Manners, though back then was just a name at the beginning of a show, joined other names that just like him became teachers, idols, examples, or just the bits and pieces of people I wanted to hang onto to have hope that one day, I would escape a reality that gradually became obnoxious, asphixiating and just, hopeless.
Him leaving this world, as we all will eventually, comes as a painful shock; the one that makes you realize that time passes, people grow and move on, and while we are pursuing these dreams that morph into what they become or not, so comes the eventual acknowledgement that some of them will never come to you, and they shall remain, just that... Dreams.
The 16 yr. old in me that once said "Wow, I want to shake the hand of this person" wants to throw a teary tantrum right now, but life doesn't even allow me that at lenght. The 27 yr. old that lives in my body now, stepped into her living room this afternoon and suddenly, everything about her things and her space, seemed different in shape, weight and sensation.
Its like every dream that you have defines you in every sense, its your point of reference, your GPS, what gives you the drive to move forward or backwards.
The tenacity Kim professed for every little thing he did was something I wanted to witness first hand but now I guess that dream that I felt died today, might have morphed into following said example as a guide into what good leads you should follow, into the reference of what he was and still will be even though he's not amongst us anymore. He followed his dreams, it powered him to move forward, and that leaks thru every minute of film he ever produced or directed, in every smile people give at his memory and in every tear we could had shed today.

Perlanation and Moxed

2009-01-06T14:39:00.001-04:30

This was the hill from my essay

My Scully!

2009-01-03T19:31:00.001-04:30

Remember the stories of this car? This was my very first, red chevy corsa bought on feb. 23rd 2005. A petite fast redhead! I loved her so! I hugged and kissed her today... It was an emotional encounter.

New hair color

2008-12-01T20:17:00.001-04:30

So I Voted...

2008-11-23T15:06:00.004-04:30

A lot of people don't understand the Venezuelan voting system. Its different from the American one in that we don't vote to win a certain number of delegates etc... we vote directly for what we want. If one guy gets 5 million votes, is 5 million votes you got, you don't have to deal with wining states that have the most delegates, its pretty simple.

The next time we have an election will be on 2013... then we'll choose if Chavez goes, then again we have chosen for him to go so many times that who's gonna believe he's actually going to go?

So this is how it goes... You have sign up to the CNE, that's the electoral college, in advance of course. You get assigned to the one voting place closer to your residence, but I haven't changed residences since I moved to this building so I get to vote half way across the city, so for me going to vote is great. I run into old friends and acquaintances, eat at my old fav. bakery, etc... But voting in this country is far less friendlier than this description.

Here's what happens... Voters are in no way distributed fairly. Some voting places have over 5000 voters. Mine is one of them.

What that means is that I have to get up at 4 am and get there to vote if I want to be out of there before noon.

Damn you Skype Files for keeping me awake, I overslept.

We have automated machines and safe measures... I think we may have way too many. First, whenever you check yourself on the list, the NATIONAL GUARD yes, not a civilian checks it out and intimidates you because they're armed with AK47's. Then you go and stay in line, for as long as you can imagine since with your luck all the old people will be assigned to your table.

You get 1 machine for table and 1 table for 500 voters. Average time for voting is 6 minutes. You do the math.

So then after you're called in groups of five you go through the fingerprint scan... yeah, that... if it doesn't match... you might be stuck there until they decide to let you through. If you're lucky, then you go an get your position on the voting books and give your ID to the president of the table, she explains the shiz to you and then you go to the machine... and punch the buttons to get your vote, then you might get errors, you pick one and the print out tells you you voted for another, etc etc etc and these things always go overlooked... but at the end deal or no deal, you have to dunk your pinky on an ungreasing solution and then into this deep radioactive purple that makes your skin itchy... yeah this is the ultimate solution of venezuelans to prevent people voting twice or more.

They may not trust computers, or ballots, they trust nuclear ink that smells like preschool classes in the afternoon.

So if you survive the unhappy masses in line, the broken machines and the faulty technicians, the fighting over people thinking the military is out to violate their rights, the people being suspicious of everything, the Chavists going by with loud music and chanting that Chavez is going to win again, even though Chavez is not running for anything, his party is, but leave it to its followers to be as dumb as not to realize that you have to vote for effective authorities, not an extinct ideal of a madman. That... and pray that it didn't rain, because the mud might be out to get you.

So if you survive this, you go home, with your stained falange, and you sit in front of the TV to wait for the electoral college to tell you at 4:30 pm that people have to remain calm, cause even though no one is saying anything, they anticipate that people will get mad, Live and learn.

See the thing with voting in this country is that, either way, we don't trust authorities, but we want to believe; We feel defeated at fighting so much for a better future, without such different realities and division, and of course without Chavez, and not getting any forward... but still, deep down we think that maybe there is hope. At the end, after almost 10 years of disguised dictatorship and hurt... We don't want to give up on a miracle.

What do you know... Maybe all Venezuelans are Philes.

I voted

2008-11-23T12:17:00.001-04:30

Sophisticated method of control by the venezuelan gov

The line outside my voting plead from further away

2008-11-23T09:25:00.001-04:30

Notice the mud on the ground from the rain that just stopped. Yes. I got drenched.

The land outside my voting place

2008-11-23T09:21:00.001-04:30

Self Loathing in Caracas

2008-11-16T18:29:00.003-04:30

So I write this blog cause I have not found a way tonight to get rid of this anxiety attack I'm having... It just hits, angst kicks in and I feel all kinds of nervous... for real.

So, I'm unemployed but occupied, like lots... maybe that's one of the reasons... i get into these activities that sort of matter too much to me, and I'm scared I'll fail... I have 2 weeks to complete stuff that might change my life forever... yeah I think that's definitely playing a strong point into this nervous walking all over my tiny apartment, if I were spidy I would be crawling the walls right now.

That's another thing... Sometimes I would do hand stands or round offs or maybe just splits to get rid of this bad feeling, but even that I'm either scared o nervous to do... I fear I might fall, break something or maybe realize I even got too old to do that... I see the wall, I prepare myself to do the handstand... and ... walk away.

Yes, I'm stressed out, it takes me 10 second to go into the second word of every sentence I start, I need ritalin.

Or booze... whatever happens first.

It's 7:30 pm

2008-11-15T19:35:00.001-04:30

And i'm at the bank! Cashing my check and maybe buying something for a phile...

Win!

2008-11-04T23:50:00.001-04:30

Who would have thought this day would come?

Alfredo, the cool lad

2008-11-03T02:01:00.003-04:30

My mom's youngest brother was for me and still is the ultimate rebel... at least in my family.

His life could be the center story of any series like Californication, a guy that after being the picture of sucess, in the normal and regulated world, his life crumbled down into this reality where he lives in a tiny room, remembering his sorrows every night accompanied by a bottle of Jack Daniels, praying that it helps him sleep.

In that dull slumber, he often dreams of a tiny house of mud walls on the beach, where he lives with the wife he couldn't keep, and the dream that slipped away. My uncle, the rebel, has this sting of sadness in his voice that peeks thru the happiness when he speaks to me every 6 months, and tells me of his life in New York City, and how he has lived there for 10 years now and still struggles to speak english.

In 2004, I graduated and my aunt, his sister, bought me a ticket to go to NYC and see him again. Since 1998, we handn't seen each other, my uncle, the cool lad, and the minute I saw him, I remembered all the times that the neighbors called the police 'cause it was 3:20 am and he was playing the most beautiful songs in his way too loud piano, and his heartbroken voice sang these profound lyrics that got to your soul.

I cleaned my back ups this past week and found a cd he gave me in that trip. It had been so long since I had last heard him sing, that now, much maturer and had lived myself my own very sad stories, brought tears to my eyes and made me think how we all live in complicated lives, miles apart, but inches away.

This song he dedicated to me. The name "Eres una en un millón" translates into "You're one in a million" a cover from the venezuelan songwriter and composer, Ilan Chester. My Uncles name is Alfredo Mata... and I miss him a whole lot.

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9 minutes, 9 minutes, hey!

2008-10-31T11:47:00.001-04:30

Again. Did not pick it. To all xfners you know what that 9 means!

Is all around right?

2008-10-31T09:34:00.001-04:30

I'm just getting to my meeting and they gave a badge to wear while inside. Notice the number. Where i'm from is always 1013. I swear i didn't pick it.

Habitant of Venezuela

2008-10-30T00:08:00.004-04:30

A few days back, I was asked to film myself ranting about something that would make me upset about my country, or something about it that I could say, but my country upsets me so, that's what came out.

Anger welled up in me that afternoon, cause I had to go thru this whole collection of memories about my recent past in this country that I sometimes resent to call my own.

To see the result of what came out that day... in short minutes, here's the video that I did for Perla.

THE EXPO DIARIES - 3 months later

2008-10-23T12:15:00.009-04:30

I'm bored and in no mood to write but I thought I could share some of the pics that were not published anywhere about my trip to Santiago.

These I took while walking down the streets, probably trying to get my tourist worth of the city that I visited and still don't know enough of. LOL

So here they go...

It was winter in Santiago... cold, but bearable indeed, these pics are part of my stroll thru this avenue near my hotel.

I just liked the dried flowers and the whole ambiance of it... very european yet so like Baltimore...
Can I go back now?

THE EXPO DIARIES – DAY 1 – 9/10 – 07 – 08 GETTING THERE

2008-07-20T22:56:00.008-04:30

I currently live in Caracas, Venezuela. Not exactly where I want to be, but a very convinient location if you want to go anywhere in the Americas. Of course, for that “moving around”, you need money, a matter rather delicate right now in my life... at least, more than usual.

So this all started about 2 months ago, when, already compromised with another stunt, and out of complete cortesy and admiration for something i would not dream achieve, I got invited by a fellow Phile, to the X-Files EXPO & Convention in Santiago de Chile.

The main event... Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz in a Q&A, for the first time in Latin America.

My first reaction was... SAY WHAT?? I didn’t know what to do; called a venezuelan phile and screamed out at her what had happened and she screamed back at me... She wanted to tag along but couldn’t and in the way convinced me that I definitelly had to go.

“A once in a lifetime opportunity” She said, between dissapointed silences... She wanted to go so bad... so, I turned around and eyed my video camera that had been sitting in my closet more than just forgotten, said goodbye to warm fuzzy feelings from being out in the field with her, and told anyone that could, that my first big property needed to be taken off of my hands in change for some of the money I would need. A day later, I had my plane ticket in hand, and with it, a momentary anxiety attack that had me almost weezing. I do not take exciment lightly.

In all of the time that has passed from that day to this day, waves of feelings have washed over me, with different grades of size and force, only to be made even worse by the slowly but growing amount of appereances, trailers, tv spots, spoilers, pictures, songs, soundtrack samples, interviews, theories, and... the widget. In fact, both of them. Seesmic has my soul by its balls.

Somewhere along the way, it occurred to me that, since this is a Latin American event, not very publicized, as have almost all events in the US, unless you are following every lead and have a tracking device on Chris’ foot, that it wouldn’t have much exposition for the north american philes, let alone people from other parts of the world.

I opened my mail and offered the “wise one” a.k.a. Holly (Bows and does a graceful reverence) to cover the event for XFN, aqnd so this experience was bound to be recorded in letters, pictures and if the luck is on my side, some video.

I put my “producer” skills to work and got all the info I could gather from the busy bees (no pun intended) that are organizing this event, and checked any leads I could gather to comence the first continent-sized X Files Adventure I was to embark. The first of at least 1 more to come.

I drove to the airport on the early afternoon of the ninth, a few hours ago, with my cousin by my side, her only remarkable words to me that I can remember right now: “You must be feeling like you’re on your way to Heaven...” Actually, now that I think about it... I think I felt even better.

So, I sit in the waiting lounge, bored and waiting to be called to board the plane, and in my mania, I txt msg some of the XFN philes... not 2 minutes later, “New Tv Spot!” Blinks on my screen and I’m going crazy. I actually paid the most expensive internet service I’ve bought so far and saw it in all of its glory. “Don’t.Give.Up!” has a new meaning to me.

The 2 stretch plane ride to Santiago is uneventful, actually confortable and kind, with a service that could and should be envied by American Airlines considering I got to sit in seats that were exactly in front of emergency exits. I arrive at 2 am at the nearly frozen city, that resembles a little of Baltimore or Washinton itself, and I’m already living in a dream.

More to come later tonight, after a coctail and a press conference. If you didn’t notice, I arrived on the 10^th and I’m leaving on the 13^th, in true X Files fashion.

Empatía o el vínculo invisible

2008-06-30T03:41:00.002-04:30

Alguna vez se han detenido y han sentido que alguien los ve? Que la situación les parece familiar? Que simplemente sienten algo en la boca del estómago que los hace sentir vulnerables o quizás sospechar que algo no está bien?

Yo se que me van a decir que eso me pasa por ver tanta película de terror, pero la verdad es que ha sido así toda mi vida, y no soy la única.

La intuición me ha llevado muchas veces a ver más allá de lo aparente, de lo que se ve a primera vista, de todo lo que la gente te deja ver y más dentro de lo que pretenden ocultar. Así, he protegido a mi papá de varios malos negocios, he dejado de andar con gente "sospechosa" y más de una vez me he salvado de una muerte segura... es el sexto sentido, no? Todos lo tenemos, en diferentes grados de desarrollo.

Lo diferente es cuando, en contra de lo aconsejado por tu subconsciente, vas en contra de todas las señales, por terquedad, por inocencia, por caer en ese "denial" e igual, cometes el error que tu ojo mental quería evitar. De qué sirve entonces tener la visión cuando no se quiere ver?

A mi parecer, después de haber traicionado a mi subconsciente muchas más veces que quisiera admitir, me doy cuenta que no solo es aconsejable en ciertos casos, sino necesario. Muchas veces se ha dicho que nadie aprende de las experiencias de otros hasta que las somatiza dentro de su propia piel, pero hasta que punto es esto cierto si eres tu mismo el que te dice que no debes hacer esto o lo otro? No deberiamos estar ya en cierta forma somatizando e internalizando el mismo hecho de que sabemos cuál será el resultado de una acción? Qué nos hace caer, que nos hace saltar al vacio cuando sabemos que lo que hay en el fondo son rocas y no almohadas?

Está más que registrado el impulso humano de auto destrucción, pero que papel juega este mecanismo dentro de nosotros? es acaso algun sistema de autoregulación planetaria? de autoregulación de la justicia divina?

Toma mi mano

2008-06-28T04:02:00.002-04:30

Decidí esta noche, que como todas mis noches son, jeje, nocturnas, trataré de contar lo que mi cansado, acontecido y raro dia me traiga.

Freak out - parte II vendrá pronto, por ahora, quiero compartir esto que pense después de ver muchos videos en You Tube.

Hoy alguien me dijo que soy buena cubriendo lo que siento; antes esta misma persona me había dicho que era una persona fuerte, que ella no tendría mi misma entereza, otros han dicho cosas similares, en similares situaciones, y en otras muy diferentes que han requerido que yo mantenga una expresión tan plana como sartén y un control tan fuerte por sobre mis sentimientos y mis impulsos que cuando me doy cuenta, los dientes me duelen, los puños me duelen, los ojos me duelen, en si, es un esfuerzo físico bastante complejo.

La verdad, es que esta forma de yo evadir cualquier liberación emocional, no ha sido sino un esfuerzo realmente constante de no darle el gusto a mi mamá y que ella se diese cuenta que no puedo controlarme.

Toda la vida, desde que tengo uso de razón, y mi madre de la mia, me increpó multiples veces que fuese tan llorona, y en muchos niveles aun lo soy, no lo puedo evitar, pero ya no son sollozos que retumban, ni pataletas en el piso, ahora son lágrimas rebeldes que, aunque incontrolables, tienen una inteligencia intrínseca que solo las deja salir en momentos un poco menos escandalosos.

No se equivoquen, yo lloro, yo me dejo llorar, pero creanme antes la cosa era estrepitosa.

Entonces por un lado, me hizo bien; me proveyó con un control bastante bueno de mis emociones, pero por otro lado... creo que la falta de lubricación lacrimal constante me ha hecho más dura de lo que pensaba. Dura, conmigo misma y con lo que espero de mi.

Llorar se convirtio para mi en un signo de vulnerabilidad, en la razón de porqué los hombres no lloran, me convertí en una machista hacia mi misma cuando no debí hacerlo, y la idea está en mi cabeza como algo que da vueltas y vueltas y cuando me dejo ir, y las lágrimas salen, me siento estúpida porque le he dado el poder a algo insignificante de poder descalabrar mi "cool exterior" y develar que en realidad dentro de mi existe algo que puede ser lastimado lo suficiente para que la niña dentro de mi salga una vez más. "Los chicos no lloran" decía Bosé... a veces me tengo que recordar a mi misma, que está bien ser una niña.

Creo que crecer como la hermana mayor con dos hermanos, de esos bien machotes, tampoco colaboró mucho... tenía que hacerme respetar. Ya ellos son más grandes que yo, y ahora ellos me pasean, no yo a ellos, ya tienen suficiente edad para que no les de pena comprar condones y tienen problemas de grandes, como cuentas por pagar, planes de emigración y novias ninfomanas. Ya no se pelean por carritos... mentira, todavia lo hacen, pero a gran escala.

Mi reflexión acerca de este punto estriba en que, todo este esfuerzo por cubrir esa parte vulnerable en mi, me ha hecho un poco inexperta en dejar que la gente vea lo que debe ver para darse cuenta que no soy un cyborg, "the softer side of sears" como quien dice... si lo se, soy muy gringa y la mitad de ustedes no entendieron la referencia... pero bueno, lo que quiero decir es que, mi protección me proteje demasiado y no deja ver lo que yo creo que reside en mi.

Después de ver por lo menos 5 videos de esos bien románticos, super románticos, por supuesto de Mulder y Scully, y no pregunten más quienes son, cultura general amigos, por favor! Me di cuenta que necesito a alguien que tome mi mano, por unos buenos 5 minutos, y que no me hable. Que solo tome mi mano. Es un gesto no amenazante, pero en mi libro, es tan íntimo, que ahora que escribo estas líneas se que lo necesito tanto que si me lo imagino puedo sentir esa otra mano en la mía.

Y en si... creo que estoy donde estoy, porque en mi empecinado objetivo de hacerme mi grande y lindo muro alrededor para que ningun ejercito me invadiera, mi fantasía más grande es que como en los cuentos de hadas, esa persona que aun no conozco, tenga la suficiente valentía para escalar la pared, matar al dragón, pelearse con los güaruras, sobornar a la patrulla de la PM y por fin llegue hasta la página del cuento en la que estoy yo, sentada, mirandome la mano, que pide ser estrechada.

Disney nos echo a perder la vida de muchas maneras, y yo siempre trato de evitar pensar que nuestras vidas que revolotean en Manolo Blahnniks de cristal, o clinejas de extensiones de cabello natural, o en manzanas light, o en la ultima generación de downers que nos ponen a dormir como tablitas derivan directamente de cuanta muñequita boba bailó con venados cuando teniamos 5 años, pero la verdad es que de vez en cuando, con tanta maldad y tanta falta de magia, me gustaría pensar que por un momento nos podemos olvidar que aparentemente para crecer, ser tomado en serio y vivir en este planeta que nos está empezando a odiar, hay que convertirse en un cuadriculado cubo de hielo.

Son las 5:30 am. y ya las tuberias empezaron a sonar. Hasta mañana.

Freak Out - Parte 1

2008-06-27T02:35:00.003-04:30

Hace unos meses, si meses, no semanas, que estoy en mi casa. Haciendo cosas, trabajitos aqui, trabajitos allá, pero aquel que se le ocurrió que el quedarse en su casa era la forma segura de no meterse en problemas, estaba no solo equivocado sino que desfasado de los tiempos.

Hoy en día, y esta es la razón por la cual me estan leyendo, las computadoras son una ventana al mundo que a través del internet, nos permiten que entren millones de visitantes a nuestros hogares y aparte nosotros podemos visitar a millones de personas en menos de 10 minutos, hacer las compras del día, chequear las acciones, las noticias, los chismes, incluso averiguarle la vida a tu peor enemigo. Lo peor es cuando te haces adicto a "googlearte" a ti mismo, solo para saber si estan hablando de ti.

En estos meses que he estado "trabajando en casa" el internet y mi computadora me conectaron a un eterno amigo, un amigo adictivo, de esos que te seducen, te dan esos consejos malevolos en los que haces las cosas más malas, pero las mejores... creanme... por un momento crei que me habia ganado el Kino, o por lo menos un terminal.

Y así es que, estando en el momento menos estable de mi vida, me voy de viaje 3 veces en menos de 3 meses a lugares desconocidos. Y estos son viajes reales, no a través del internet... estos son montandome en un avión, haciendo mi maleta, y como estoy hoy, estresandome por lo que significan estos viajes.

Si me conocen y si no, soy fanatica loca, pero loca mal, de los Expedientes Secretos X. Mis nuevos amigos fanáticos de chile me abrieron la puerta de su casa, y en pocos días me iré en mi propio viaje quijotesco, a perseguir a otros locos como yo, a Santiago de Chile. Serán 4 días de gente como yo, que tambien encerrados en sus casas dejaron que otro visitante en forma de pantalla de televisión les presentara a ese peor mejor amigo.

Si alguien conoce a algún fanático de esta serie sabe varias cosas importantes si se ha tomado la molestia:
1) Nada es más importante que los X Files.
2) Siempre hay lugar en nuestro día para asociar algo con la serie.
3) Todos soñamos con conocer a alguno de los artistas, creadores, escritores, es más chica, al señor que barría el set que seguro debe tener más de algún secreto por ahi guardado.

Y ese momento parece haber llegado en algún tipo de aproximación casual que se acerca en un momento rarisimo de mi vida. De verdad no se si este es el mejor o el peor año de mi vida.

La verdad sea dicha, yo siempre he preferido el esfuerzo a la comodidad, la sorpresa a la predictibilidad, esa necesidad de estar en el vilo de la supervivencia, en el borde de la locura y sobretodo con una sobredosis de adrenalina y emoción.

En este momento me declaro una junkie. Me he vuelto adicta del mundo virtual que me ha hecho llegar a tantos lugares insospechados cada noche, con todas las posibilidades que me ha traido y con absolutamente todo el susto que cargo encima en este momento.

La adrenalina por esto es mi droga. Y este evento me trae como 2 pastillas de ex con un red bull. No duermo, mando emails como cadena de ensamble de la Ford, llamo por teléfono, me meto en chats en 3 idiomas, jalo bolas, ruego, cuento, explico, y todo por lo que los locos llamamos, 1 oportunidad única en la vida. Creeme si no eres xphilo, no lo vas a entender... Todo esto pasa en una noche, aparte, duermo unas horitas en la mañana y todo comienza de nuevo a golpe de 11 am... cuando ya hace mucho calor y el ruido del agua entrando en las tuberias de mi edificio nuevo pero viejo, golpea y hace ruidos que bien pudieron salir de uno de los capítulos de X files.

Todos hemos soñado, por una u otra razón, con diferentes motivos llegar al lugar que buscamos, pero cuando estamos cerca... hasta el rulo despeinado te molesta y el experimento de los seis grados de separación parece de 2 grados o menos. Hace unas horas sali de mi cuarto, y --- I freaked out. Si alguno de ustedes se ha ido de mochilero conoce la sensación... todo es incierto, no sabes que va a pasar, no tienes tiempo suficiente y todo se viene encima, pero sabes que a último momento todo tendrá sentido... absolutamente todo... si solo me pagaran por esto.

Y si me pagaran por esto!?

Stay tuned...

Estudio Antropológico de la Ejercitación Corporal

2008-04-23T01:15:00.003-04:30

Hola, mi nombre es Avi... y soy adicta al gimnasio.

Quien me conoce de mis últimos años sabe que esta es una frase bastante absurda viniendo de mi. También saben que tengo 26 años a dieta, que nunca me quejo de ello y que me tomo la cosa bastante light. Literalmente.
Yo soy de esas que no se dieron cuenta que ya no había azucar en los supermercados porque es que no la compra sino para eventualidades especiales; esa que ya ni se acuerda a veces como es que sabe el pan de matequilla de Holsum, y a la que le dan las fiebres de las ensaladas con almendras una vez cada 6 meses.
Y como si fuese mandado a hacer, en el momento más extraño de mis últimos años, me metí en un gimnasio, lleno de aparatos y cosas con los que estoy medianamente familiarizada y que además tiene en su haber el más polifacético popurri de usuarios... desde la señora de su casa que esta tratando de quitarse la flacidez de los brazos, hasta la miss Venezuela del año, pasando por el mister, el atlético, el super atlético, la niña bien, la niña sexy, la tipa que se cree sexy, los niños ociosos y los que se creen que estan buenotes pero no son más que gordos con actitud. A lo mejor yo estoy en ese grupo.
La verdad es que una vez que pasas la primera semana, ya vas en góndola, y te encuentras anticipando el momento de ir a "botar las toxinas" como dice la tipa del cd del conde del guacharo; suda que te suda, y se vuelve adictivo, llegar más lejos, durar mas tiempo, darle más rápido y más duro... esto es ejercicio, no sexo, by the way.
En estas semanas me he dado cuenta que el gimnasio es el lugar perfecto para hacer un estudio antropológico de por qué estamos como estamos en este país. Solo hay que fijarse en quién ejercita qué y por cuánto tiempo, vestido cómo y con qué pose... si hay poses, y ustedes lo saben.
La niñita fresa, la niña sexy, la mamita rica, el papeao, el modelo, el demasiado sexy, la tipa que no le importa nada, el viejo que se recupera del infarto, el viejo que le va a dar un infarto, y todo por la riquiquita que esta en la escaladora de al frente con el hilo dental que se le marca con el sudor en la licra blanca mientras sube hasta la cima del empire state como si modelara para Urbe Bikini... y todo con el mejor reageton de su ipod.
Ni hablar de los instructores y las tipas que hasta te venden las licras en el vestidor porque es empezar una analogía de lo que por un tiempo se llamo Sabana grande.
Y la verdad es que si es acerca del sexo, de ser más atractivos, de no tener la lipita, de conseguirme el novio buenote o el resuelve demasiado explotado, y se abre la puerta del baño de hombres, y la fantasia sexual de tantas series como Nip/Tuck, Queer as Folk, Sex and the City y Will and Grace te dan un poco de miedito de caminar sin preparación dentro de alguno de estos vestidores...
Y pensando en la naturaleza humana, me pregunto, porqué es que para botar estres, adelagazar, liberarse y encontrar placer hay que hacer algun tipo de actividad física? ¿qué es lo que le hizo decidir al creador o a quien sea que ustedes le recen que nos tenemos que parar de nuestros culos para que no nos de un infarto en medio de una caminata ligera?
Y es que nuestro mundo se ha rodeado de tantos avances tecnologicos que es realmente extraño que alguien aun considere estas prácticas; pronto los carros volaran, ya nadie pensará y por supuesto... el sexo, nuestro estimado, que digo estimado? querido! sexo se hará cada vez más alterado por entes llenos de baterias, latex y mucho lubricante.
Para muestra un boton: En este edificio, en el del gimnasio que empecé a contar y que se ha diluido en mi exploracion de la locura, dicho local queda en el 2do piso de un edificio de 18 pisos... a los primeros pisos se le puede llegar por cinta transportadora, saben esas como las de los supersonicos, y aun así hay gente que espera montarse en el ascensor, sin que les dé un ápice de pena aun cuando llevan el respectivo atuendo de que van a dicho gimnasio a "botar toxinas"...

Todo sea por un cuerpo más duro y que mi doctora me felicite por mis trigliceridos.

Acompañada

2008-04-14T23:18:00.003-04:30

A veces, uno camina por el mismo camino por tanto tiempo, que las cosas se vuelven automáticas, predecibles y parte de uno mismo. Cuando una mata se muere o hay un hueco nuevo, tu lo sientes, tu lo sabes, te falta o te sobra algo.
En estos días de meditación obligada, me he dado cuenta que las cosas que estan en ese camino son necesarias para:

Aprender sí te quieres lo suficiente.
Conocerte a tí mismo.
Probar tus amistades.
Saber qué tan lejos puedes llegar.

En esta "caminata" me he dado cuenta que... si, como muchos dicen aun soy muy joven, pero esto no quiere decir que no conozco la diferencia entre la verdad, la justicia, la honestidad y la sinceridad. La edad podrá traer sabiduría, pero la verdad solo está para aquellos que no se dejan cegar por luces pasajeras, por encantamientos y por sobre todas las cosas, para aquellos que la saben reconocer y saben que la verdad no puede ser ocultaba bajo artimañas. Así pasen 100 años, siempre sale a flote, y es aun más gratificante cuando al alejarte del engaño, puedes ver la verdad aflorando cada día.

Aquellos que me acompañan, prueban cada día por qué estan en mi vida, por qué son parte de ella en cada minuto, por malos o por buenos, están allí para enseñarme, para hacerme crecer, y para mostrarme sobre todo otros caminos por los cuales a lo mejor quisiera caminar.

Y allí precisamente es cuando conociendote a ti mismo, sabiendo quién realmente eres, quién te acompaña y por qué razones que sabes que tan lejos puedes llegar en estos caminos que muchas veces nos parecen interminables, peligrosos, y muchas veces tan poco satisfactorios.

Estoy satisfecha en este momento de ver mi camino y saber que aunque puedo llegar muy lejos en cualquier camino, he sabido escoger el mejor, o por lo menos el que me ha enseñado más, que me ha llevado a los mejores escenarios y aparte a conocer a las mejores personas que alguien podría pedir conocer... sin salvarme de aquellos que con intenciones mal sanas me han mostrado quiénes son realmente las mejores compañías.

Examina tu camino, y date cuenta si esas luces repentinas no te han hecho seguir el camino equivocado. La vida es vida, no un contrato, ni una competencia, ni una oficina lujosa en un piso alto; la vida es tu capacidad de disfrutar un momento en el tiempo en el cual aprendas a reconocer las bondades y regalos que solo tu te haces merecedor al encontrar dentro de ti mismo el mayor bien.

Yo estoy muy bien.

La complicidad de una compañía o lo efimero del concepto de la soledad

2008-03-13T22:23:00.002-04:30

Como respuesta a un tema bastante subestimado, estudiado por la China Mafiosa, he considerado por unas cuantas horas el álgido tema de la Soledad.

Yo, como sabe mi público, tengo ya casi que 10 años viviendo sola, digase, sin mis progenitores, con la compañia ocasional de compañeros de apartamento, que al fin y al cabo también tienen sus vidas, y en ellas sus propios problemas y ocupaciones.

En esos 10 años, la soledad como tal ha jugado un papel casi que fundamental en la mayoría de las decisiones y las no - decisiones que he tomado. No voy a retomar el tema del perro... ya hemos discutido porque no lo tengo, pero la verdad es que como todo en este mundo, todo tema esta interconectado, tan o más que las sinapsis de tu cerebro.

Cuando vives solo, y digase, en una situación mental solitaria, te pasa como a mi que agarras manías, una de ellas, y vayan ya a imaginarse mi locura, es que hablo sola. Esta faceta ha llegado a aflorar en mi vida fuera de las 4 paredes de mi apartamento, y lo he identificado como una conducta bastante común de la soledad. Quisiera decir que es locura y satisfacerlos a todos, pero en realidad, ¿Quién dictamina qué es la locura y qué es la sanidad?

Quisiera decirles así mismo, que es que yo he decidido ser parte de este estado mental en el cual necesitaba estar sola, pero no es así.

¿Qué pasa cuando tu no quieres estar solo, pero no te queda remedio? cuando te obligan a estar solo, cuando escogen por ti? Becca tiene razón en un punto, si tienes amigos, familia y un gato, perro, periquito que te quiera, no estas solo... pero la mayoría de las veces, para aquellos que queremos otro tipo de compañía... una mascota, una tía lejana y un amiguito del colegio no es suficiente.

Por mi, han decidido varias personas que merezco estar sola, o ¿será que ellos han decidido no estar acompañados? Y así, en mi afan de la autoexaminación permanente, me estudio, me analizo, me pregunto qué está mal en mi... y siempre llego a la conclusión de que mejor analizo a otros y no a mi, no por temor a lo que encontraré, y a lo mejor es simplemente un espíritu algo narcisista, pero lo cierto es que más allá de lo normal, no se por qué estoy sola.
Estoy convencida que hay gente mucho más insoportable y más fea que yo que no solo esta acompañada, sino que aparte se da el lujo de mandar para el carajo al elemento que lo esta fastidiando.

Es que el asunto de la compañía y de la soledad es una materia orgánica, muchos dicen que es que uno nace solo, pero la verdad, ahora que lo analizo, no hay nada más equivocado que eso; uno no nace solo, siempre esta acompañado, lo estas por 9 meses, recibiendo atenciones, cuidados, etc, vienes al mundo con un monton de gente a tu alrededor que le grita a tu mamá que te saque porque tu abuela te quiere ver, te ponen en un reten que de solitario en estos días tiene muy poco, y así vas por la vida mas acompañado que gemelo siames. Creanme, la verdadera soledad es realmente rara.

Entonces, si la soledad puede convertirse en una buena situación para examinarse, para conocerse, y para encontrar millones de cosas y de tiempo para dedicarse a los deseos más egoistas que podamos encontrar, la única razón que le puedo encontrar a la molestia que pueda causar la soledad es que simplemente no hay nadie con quien compartir dicha soledad.

La falta de pareja, la ausencia de compañía, no es soledad... no porque tengamos otras compañias de otra naturaleza que no contamos en la lista, sino porque en definitiva, la soledad significa otra cosa.

La soledad podría entonces ser tomada como la completa carencia de una presencia mental y física de un elemento opuesto al tuyo, del cual existe referencia, más no contamos con un intercambio dinámico que contrareste el sentido de nostalgia que pueda provocar su ausencia.

Y si tomamos en cuenta este concepto, entonces, ¿existe la soledad?
En este sentido, para mi la soledad significaria un completo estado de Eter, en el cual no existen pensamientos, ni presencias, ni compañías, ni actividad de ninguna clase, la soledad debería entonces ser la nada para comprender así lo que es realmente estar solo.

Y cuando esto ocurra? que pasa? Nos vamos a negro o nos vamos a blanco?
Para mi la soledad no es simplemente presencia, es ausencia de todo, porque inclusive tus pensamientos actuan como compañía.

El concepto de soledad en mi mente, para este momento, nunca ha sido tan controversial, y así mismo no debería entonces haber un concepto totalmente diferente para lo que hoy llamamos soledad? tal vez todo lo que hemos llamado soledad, es falta de compañía. No estoy enferma de soledad, es de nostalgia; no estoy sola... estoy no-acompañada.

Si el nacimiento es la representación más fuerte de la compañía segun mi despeje, la muerte es la representación de la soledad o de la no compañía?

Eso se los dejo a ustedes... yo ya me canse de pensar.

Lo definitivo de lo poco definitivo

2008-01-28T23:00:00.000-04:30

En los 10 años que tengo residiendo en esta enferma metrópolis, he dormido en dos lugares, vivido como en 4 y definitivamente debería aprender que se vive en los apartamentos y no en los trabajos ni en las universidades.
El resultado de esto ha sido que he vivido 10 años entre cajas, estantes temporales, cocinas peligrosas, baños con diferentes grados de fallas de plomería y, por supuesto, la interminable falta de superficies y espacios para sentarse.
Es increible como mucha gente sueña con carros y con dinero, etc... yo sueño con un sofa y unas 4 sillas. Si soy un poco más ambiciosa, quisiera unas mesitas de centro y unos cuadritos, por favor.

El problema está en la poca capacidad que tenemos las nuevas generaciones de decir: "es aquí donde me voy a quedar, y ya me mando a hacer ese mueble inamovible que se quedará en esa pared para siempre"

La temporalidad de lo definitivo es un poco amenazante para mi.

Probablemente es la razón por la cual nunca termino de tomar una decision drástica; me quejo de mi Papá que se toma años en decidir pintar la casa y yo creo que yo soy peor.

Esta es una lista de cosas que no he hecho en mi vida por pensar que el minuto que viene traerá una realidad diferente que las hará obsoletas:

Muchas veces he dejado de comprar ropa porque estoy en medio de una dieta. Resultado: Llego un momento que solo tenia 2 pantalones, 0 faldas, 15 franelas a punto de huir de mi closet y como 4 pares de zapatos pidiendo perdón.
Nunca he comprado un sofá porque es que me voy a mudar mañana. Resultado: TENGO 10 AÑOS VIVIENDO EN CARACAS!!!!! 10 años!!! ningún sofá!!!!! mis amigos han aprendido que una cama gaveta sirve, o un colchon en el medio de la sala, o simplemente y en mi más nueva invención, una caja llena de libros con un cojín encima! Por ende las invitaciones a la casa son limitadas.
No me he comprado ninguna planta que pueda morir por falta de atención... todavía me sigo preguntando cómo la sábila sobrevive en un apartamento que solo visito para dormir.
No he desempacado cosas que probablemente ni siquiera se que tengo.
En mi primer apartamento, del cual si me mude, pase 7 años sin arreglar las tuberías... Resultado: El apartamento estaba en el 5to piso... cada vez que descuidaba la lavadora, que por supuesto también necesitaba arreglarse, terminaba secando toooooodos los pisos hasta el lobby del edificio... ni hablar de los resbalones sobre el marmol...
No me he comprado un perro porque mi apartamento esta lleno de cajas. Examinemos esto: en esa oración hay tantas cosas que estan mal que dan lastima. Debido a que mi apartamento no tiene los elementos básicos para almanecar cosas, o que no puedo decidirme a botar nada, tengo por lo menos 20 cajas en mi sala que estorban, se llenan de polvo y serían una tentación demasiado fuerte para un ser de 4 patas, muchos dientes y garras.

En realidad... no me he comprado el perro por otra "poco definitiva" razón... en esta realidad nacional, en la cual todos estamos planeando el proximo viaje en balsa a la isla democrática más cercana, si me compro un perro es como sentirme que ya estoy establecida, y el símbolo del perro es como cuando te casas... aun cuando sabes que lo puedes meter en una cajita, y buscarle los permisos, etc... es como una atadura, algo definitivo, dentro de lo poco definitivo...

Ven... todo es culpa de las benditas cajas.

Las cajas son la muestra más significativa de lo definitivo de lo poco definitivo, como guardamos en nosotros las cosas definitivas de las situaciones poco definitivas, arrastrando el peso de todas aquellas cosas que son más que basura a la cual nos apegamos y que no nos permite adquirir o buscar aquellas cosas que realmente necesitamos.

El sofá, ya vendrá pronto...

Todos ustedes saben que es así...

2008-01-22T13:32:00.000-04:30

Escribo esto para los pocos que como yo comparten este sentimiento.

Recuerdo con añoranza como hace solo unos años, que a veces parecen tantos y otras veces parece como si hubiese sido ayer, que cada domingo en la noche, me apuraba a conectarme a mi internet robado, para poder tener las más nuevas fotos y transcripciones de los guiones de Expedientes X.
Si Loly, tu sabes que tu lo hacías también...

Y era horrible la anticipación, el saber que ya la serie tenia tiempo al aire, y conocer que por supuesto todo lo bueno tiene que acabar en algún momento.

Así fué, todos nos despedimos con ese trago amargo de no haber recibido todo lo que queríamos, de saber que discutiriamos por horas, dias, semanas, meses y si, Rebe, años... los hechos que ocurrieron en el tan llamado final, en lo que Dios, digo, Chris Carter indicó como un cierre de tramas, aun cuando lo que hizo como sabemos es confundirnos más, enrredarlo más y por supuesto dejar toda clase de dudas sin responder para que nos dieramos gusto escribiendo cuanta pendejada se nos ocurriera.

La verdad sea dicha, esto, como cualquier otra situación, no es mas que una nueva oportunidad para poder emprender un nuevo camino, una nueva afición, y otra perspectiva, pero como lo he dicho ya, y Rebe fuiste tan amable de recordarmelo anoche, Confunde y Vencerás.

La pronta venida de esta nueva película no solo me hace sentir un poco impaciente y emocionada... sino confundida y temerosa...

A qué le temo?

Temo que una vez más, todos los Noromo ganen... lo siento chicos, shipper hasta el final!
Temo que todos los detractores de la serie tengan razón y Dios no sea dios, y por fin nos demos cuenta que Chris Carter nunca supo escribir, acabó con el personaje de Scully y pinte una vez más a Mulder como el mezquino ser que muchas veces tratamos de obviar.
Temo que el mercantilismo gane por sobre la fidelidad, y una vez más nos encontremos ante una pelicula con poca sustancia, con menor profundidad y que no asegure así mismo e irónicamente una ganancia suficiente para poder vivir de la esperanza de que en algunos años más tendremos como nos fue prometida, una franquicia de esta maravillosa serie ahora vuelta película.

Se que a lo mejor es un tinte un poco cobarde ante algo que aun está en un proceso de creación, pero ante la repetitiva seguidilla de malas secuelas (No voy a hablar de The Matrix, lo siento ya me harté) no hay más que esperarse que como todo, para muchos no sea suficiente, y nos encontremos una vez más ante la decepción.

Mi recomendación hasta este momento de este blog, es que hagan como yo cada vez que voy a ver una película con un pana que el sabe quien es... No esperemos nada de la película, no nos preguntemos todo lo que pudo ser, no creamos que porque paso el tiempo la gente mejora ajuro y por sobre todas las cosas, aprendamos de una vez, que aun cuando suene un poco enfermito, en nosotros está la posibilidad de crear en cada una de nuestras formas, realidades ficticias para satisfacer todo lo que nos ha hecho falta en el universo de los Expedientes X.

Me rio... porque yo pretendo sonar logica ante una vaina que es totalmente ilógica como ser fanática de una serie. Si mi mamá supuese que estoy tratando de ser crítica ante el tema se empezaría a preguntar de la forma más dramática que en que fallo y si acaso me estan faltando vitaminas.

El 25 de Julio, si es que llega al submundo en el que vivimos en esa fecha, yo no quiero ir al cine y salir para ver caras de decepción, tripeense la vaina... de pana no todos cuentan con la suerte de tener una segunda oportunidad...

La crítica, la guardamos para cuando se acabe la luna de miel, y cuando venga, que sea acompañada por la constructiva solución o idea que nos ha demostrado que como fanáticos somos mejores escritores que Spotnitz y Carter y si no, que Leyla Harrison nos supervise desde donde esté para aquellos que todavía lo dudan.

A todos les deseo una feliz espera... ya Enero casi se fue, solo faltan 240 días.

Continuous - Continuo

2007-12-12T01:00:00.001-04:30

Upon realizing so many things of my life in this year past, and so the 44 previous posts that I have migrated from MySpace... I realize that year long thoughts tend to make you uncomfortable with so many memories that might open old wounds.

I realize now that I'm foolish to think people are merciful, or kind; I was naive to think that the good in you might be stronger than the convenient in you... and that at the end individuality might get the best of you, leaving the rest of us suffering from the bitter part of yourself.

People think they know what's best for them, the most important things, the most valuable memories and possesions... and throught out this year, I've come to realize that it takes a lot of effort and so much emotional intelligence to even approach the very beginning of your path, that one that might get you slightly close to what is convinient for you, good for you, good for your life and you world.

I began writing this... I dunno... in January, perhaps? and four months into this year, you would say the appreciation changed... but no... I'm more convinced right now that a cubicle brings the worst in many people... and even more, adulthood and the illusion of importance, brings to perfectly good human beings, the possibility of turning into mechanical beings, defendants of a virtual reality they call a "successful life"

And so, a person that could live a balanced, karmic-free life, becomes a person creating karma with others, debts that I wished could be paid for in this lifetime, but the bets come along pointing to a doubtful future of inter-existence debt stubs.

And there goes my aspiration of actually growing above my karmic debts and trying to learn useful teachings above the nonsense that I've been pulled into. I don't need to learn from it, I already know it, what amazes me is the fact that people that traditionally you would be encouraged to admire, live so below the range of acceptability in the matters of justice, truth and honesty.

We all know it, the world is basically filled with people like this, and still, my only fault might be naiveness. And in that, they might be right; I was naive to believe that there may be a different approach to an organic structure, that you can actually live and share with people that consider others, that believe in fairness and that good might reign over all.

Nothing could be farther from the reality.

You have to come to realize that maybe, in the hopes of actually having one, the one hope that drives you around to actually have something to live for, might be something ephemeral. There's nothing.

Perhaps we never even out. Perhaps today the faults live to hurt and tomorrow die into their rightful owners... the shadows always find the way to their bodies. And in the way, it might be impossible to avoid getting into more darkness.

I don't really believe in the unreliability... what I believe in, only the people that matter know of, only the people that deserve it know of, and even when now you might be feeling proud and high over a conquest futile and shadowy, tomorrow, the universe will even out. The cosmos always rectifies in some way or another, above us.

What's left is conscience.

Administrative Closure

2007-12-07T00:36:00.003-04:00

Category: Blogging
Today, about a month an a half until the year is gone... I decided I'm gonna close all accounts and prepare myself to enjoy whatever was bought and prepared during the year. This is, basically, I'm gonna stop making plans for the little days until 2008, stop filling my days with things to do, stop feeling as if its necessary to be busy to enjoy life.
All thru this year I discovered I'm stronger than I thought I was, I'm weaker than I thought I was, I'm girlier than I though, and more than any time in my life I found out that I'm a hard person when it comes to myself, and even harder when I don't accomplish my own very high standards.
So right now, I decided in this administrative closure of the year 2007, that I'm gonna enjoy all the hard work, good or bad of this year, and go ahead and just like in every big company that right now is preparing itself for holidays ahead, I'm gonna party, I'm gonna relax, I'm gonna enjoy the little days left of this difficult year that has left a big scar in everyone's life.
Last night, I went for a drive... part of my undeclared leave, I drove under the rain for good 2 hours. With that time behind the wheel, I could have gotten to the beach for sure, but my two venturous friends in the back of the car where hesitant to go anywhere further than the boundaries of Old Sloppy & Asphixiating Caracas...
Last night was all but confussing, after having a drunk guy trip over my friend and talk to himself in the street, watching a pregnant prostitute in a bikini hustling under the rain and getting the dirt into the most intimate relationships from people we really didn't appreciate as the enjoyable and exciting crowd... afterall... who wants to know how does a 70 yr old shaves down there???
I repeat, last night was just the start.
I've been rambling about David Duchovny's new series, Californication... and I realize now, that living in any big city in the world has nothing to envy the crazyness of living in cities such as LA or NYC... with the very appealing differences in between.
I won't go into explaing the everyday madness that Venezuela goes thru with the SOB that pretends to be our king, but there's something exciting about the particularities of going out at night and getting to know the nitty gritty of the low and high end human waste.
I guess I became more crude, unpolite and definitelly more grotesque this year as well. I blame it on Archi. It's not the cartoon, it's more like an eye opener.
I wonder if actually being on top of the world would feel this terrible and this fun... I've learned to appreciate the stress of my life, is basically the only drug I'm into this days, and that right now has became one of the things that make write today and not last night or the week before.
There's nothing like feeling that you are alive, even when you just felt that you were about to die, and this year taught me that, as the single and most important realization I could have this year.
People around you don't matter if you don't love, no matter how much you try, they don't. People around you might feel as the trees that you pass by on a road when travelling really fast if they dont get you or you don't get them.
I don't care anymore for excuses, I am what I am... with my almost too harsh sincerity, with my harsh comments, with my crazy way of walking thru life and the crazy people that entertain me day to day... I don't ask you to understand the way I interpret sex, or other lives, or religion, cause may be you might get stuck into a reflexion that might throw you into a coma. Leave it up to me, its my life and I don't expect you to learn how to live inside my brain.
Administrative closures mean that right now you enter a space of time where you need to let go, take it as it comes, don't question nothing, forget the budget cause you already bought all the party favors, just sit with that bowl of spiked punch and the table of cheese and eat it by yourself if you want it... is not that the world is gonna end... is that the party will come to an end and you will have to figure out what kind of party central you want your life to be... wether is a rave or a coffee by yourself.

Si tuviera una vagina

2007-12-07T00:36:00.001-04:00

Luis Fernández (Diario El Mundo)

Si tuviera una vagina y si tuviera una cita con 'el hombre de mi vida' forma muy común de etiquetar al sujeto del encuentro cuando digamos, esta noche se tiene vagina, tendría por ley que hacerme las dos preguntas fundamentales que me definirían como mujer...
En primer lugar, tendría que mirarme largo y tendido en el espejo y afirmar: ¡estoy gorda!, y acto seguido abrir las puertas del closet y preguntarme: ¿qué me pongo?
Esa noche, él hablaría de temas variados, fingiría estar interesado en conocerme mejor y en su mente rondaría el único objetivo de penetrar mi vagina. Yo tendría que imaginarme teniendo sus hijos y envejeciendo románticamente a su lado.
Luego haríamos el 'amor' o, al menos, eso tendría yo que creer.
Finalizado el acto, y aunque la cosa dure escasos 13 minutos, y tenga que fingir el orgasmo, tendría que hacerle la segunda de las preguntas: ¿papi, tú me quieres? Él respondería con un monosílabo indescifrable, y yo pasaría la noche en vela convenciéndome de que no soy una 'perra'.
Al día siguiente esperaría ansiosa su llamada, y esperaría, y esperaría. Él nunca llamaría y yo comenzaría a desarrollar ese resentimiento crónico contra el hombre que unifica a toda fémina arrecha. Empezaría a crearme expectativas imposibles y cada día sería más y más difícil dar con nuevos 'hombres de mi vida' hasta envejecer conspirando eternamente con otras mujeres arrechas... y solas.
Y es que detrás de esas terribles preguntas aparentemente frívolas esta todo:
'Estoy gorda' no sirvo, no doy la talla, no soy lo suficientemente buena para merecer ser amada...
'¿Qué me pongo?' Qué hago para que me quieran, De qué me disfrazo para que me acepte, Cómo lo convenzo de que puedo hacerlo feliz...
'¿Papi, tú me quieres?' Me valoras?, Te das cuenta de lo extraordinaria que soy?, Puedes apreciar las virtudes que yo misma ignoro?, Quiéreme por el amor de Dios!!! , aunque yo me deteste...
....Interrogantes que dan pie a consideraciones demasiado profundas y dolorosas para ser comprendidas en toda su dimensión por la mente básica de un macho.
De modo que, si en verdad un día amaneciera y tuviera una vagina, y además tuviera la bendita cita (que ya no sería con el hombre de la vida de nadie, sino con un carajo al que me provocó dársela.... Me miraría en el espejo y, pasara lo que pasara, me vería estupenda. Comenzaría por valorarme yo y no perdería el tiempo tratando de complacer tanto a terceros. Me pondría lo primero que encontrara en el closet y saldría a la calle sintiéndome divina y bien buena Con él, hablaría de fútbol, de cine y un poco de moda. No haríamos el amor, pero 'tiraríamos' rico.
Por supuesto no le preguntaría si me quiere porque, vamos a sincerarnos, yo a él tampoco lo quiero. Le pediría, eso sí, que no me llamara, que en todo caso yo lo 'contactaría'. Al día siguiente habría olvidado su cara, su nombre y su mediocridad, continuaría mis días sin tener ni la más remota necesidad de 'realizarme' como mujer, de casarme, de formar un hogar, del nefasto 'para toda la vida' y todas esas zoquetadas sociales.
En fin, si tuviera una vagina... ¡SERIA UNA MUJER QUE ME AMARIA YO MISMA SIN ESPERAR NADA DE NINGUN HOMBRE, QUE ME IMPORTARA UN PITO SI PIENSAN QUE SOY PUTA O NO...TOTAL VIVIRIA MI VIDA COMO MEJOR ME PAREZCA .TOTAL LA VIDA ES UN MOMENTICO Y CUANDO VOLTEES SE TE VA EN PENDEJERAS...PENSANDO EN CUANDO LLEGARA EL ' HOMBRE DE TU VIDA'......!
Luis FernándezPublicado en el diario El Mundo

The Wooden Pic, or sort of the gift for one of my brothers

2007-12-07T00:33:00.000-04:00

I met a place in my mind where no doubts, or judges stand to critize,
where there's a lot of noise, but at the same time...everything is calm.

Perpetual voices scream and shout
their desires, their needs, their pain, their joy...
No one needs to be sedated
No one needs to find a way
No one needs to be sane
When you're in this place.

I know you love to visit,
to get knee deep into this shit
to inmerse yourself in all the crazy combinations
of deluded selfs, of rushed feelings,
of crushed meanings...in that place in your mind.

This is the road to crazyville and I'm loving it.

Anger swells and burns,
stretching veins,
making me one huge flame,
of dissapointment,
or regret...
The voices speak but I can't hear
I chose to forget why they live here.

You don't know me, don't judge, I already have the voices to tell me
I'm a failure sometimes.
I scream
I scream
I scream

Let the voices go for a walk
Let them tell me what to do
Let them guide me
into this town
into my mind
into this place
into pain
into a flashing of what has been my life.

You don't know me at all...
I bend and feel I could crack at minute now...
Sometimes anger is not enough
Hate is not enough
Regret is not enough
Violence is not enough
I feel it building... and blood is not enough.

I hit
and hit
I scream
and scream
this town is my sight...
You know its all about to start...I lost it... and let frustration take over.

I'm broken...maybe its time to start another...
God knows I'm not out of voices...

Not To Feel overwhelmed or anything

2007-12-07T00:32:00.001-04:00

I think I've started to feel a little numb... no wait... I'm numb.
You know when you sleep on your side, on top of you arm, and when you wake up that arm feels as if it doesn't belong to you? that's how a part of me feels... Its not my heart, or any of my limbs, but is something inside.
A part of me has turned numb from so many things, from hurt, from restrictions, from the inhability to see the future in this place sometimes, that many I know just transit these days as if we're made of metal, insensitive, not a feeling in our days... no wait, there are feelings, of impotence, of anger and dissapointment.
This is a never ending hell, the one we're living in.
What is a country without any working force? or illusions... or dreams... or future?
What is a life without anything to look foward? are we in the path into which we're gonna become this image of fullness just there to fill a spot, to populate a place without sustance, without entrance, without exit...
This situation is lacking a solution, when people that live among us have not met better conditions, or better posibilities, or just plain better lives.
What about us the ones that used to lead a better life, that wish we had enough strenght to build a future and now can't afford it?
I once said I wouldn't speak politics in this space, but what if politics just won't respect my boundaries? Politics have crawl into bed with me, into my family dinners, into all of my phone calls, into the plane ticket, into my internet browser, into my grocery store and the most important place... my exclusive peace of mind.
I doubt anyone has peace of mind these days.
The world is going thru some serious problems these days, and each and everyone of us holds a microcell of the reality that surrounds us... filled with dispair, threat, terror, lack of hope and intolerance.
Fortunate each one of you that can wake up everyday feeling that you just woke up to do the things you want to do and that by the end of said day you will be on your way to achieving it.
Some of us do not have that privilege, some of us wake up feeling that tomorrow we will wake up with less hope.

The nature and effectiveness of an apology

2007-12-07T00:29:00.002-04:00

Current mood: crushed
Category: Writing and Poetry

I've kind of wondered these past hours about what does it take to feel satisfied by an apology... about those words or actions that make people feel better after something has been hurt, after they have been offended, after something has been broken and needs fixing.We go around life, never knowing when you'll have to apologize or never ready to receive one. And its that, none of us really know how to do it, how to receive it, or actually how to act so you'll never have to apologize at all.Let's see. will attempt to rationalize over these options, in the case any of you are stuck in the sorry situation of being in any of the ends of these umcomfortable parts of life.

How to apologize
Let's say you have done something wrong... it's a small fault... no biggie... you stepped on someone's foot... Immediately turn around and say with a kind of surprised, kind of sad, small hint of a plea: "Oh, I'm so sorry!" You have to watch for the reaction of this person, since a lot of people have not read the second part of this blog that explains how to receive an apology, but most of all what you're looking for in that person's face is how bad you hurt that person's foot. You have no idea if the person has a very sensitive skin, or a foot problem, or its overall very sensitive and if it was the case... it actually didn't hurt at all cause either they are wearing steel toed boots or their foot is fake.Apologizing depends on so many factors of human nature that the event is filled with all the fears that our race is plagued by... threat, discomfort, fear itself, insecurities, you name it... even pride. To apologize to someone, the first thing you actually have to do is recognize the thing that was done wrong... that you actually have hurt someone and if so... recognize the necessity of letting the other party know that you know it was wrong and that you don't feel good about what happened and that ultimately you need them to know that.For all of this to happen... you need to have some insight into what's right and what's wrong... 'cause to apologize, really, you have to know you actually have to do it. The thing about giving an apology is that people shouldn't have to be told they need to apologize. It must come from within that person to be effective; 'cause even if you give it out, and that other person accepts it, it won't be long until that other person realizes that you weren't sincere and the whole thing will be worse than before.Of course, the gravity of this will only be enhanced by the gravity of the fault. Maybe you don't need to worry if that person you stepped on while rushing thru the hall didn't believe your apology, but what if the fault wasn't that mild, what if you betrayed? what if you cheated? what if you lied? what if you did something that requires that other person to really believe you're sorry, but, unfortunately, underachieve in your attempt of letting that person know you know it was wrong?
What if you don't know it was wrong? What if you simply don't want to apologize? I will go on into this topic later on.

How to receive an apology
It hurt, it was unexpected, and it had to be today: the day you decided to wear the strappy Manolo Blahnik sandals that you have been hiding from your dog for 3 years, and now, besides the red spot that threatens to turn into a purple bulge in your fresh pedicured foot, the strap of this cherished shoe, its detached, broken, ruined, ...in one word... lost. Yeah, I'm a girl. This, believe me, in girl world, matters; its effort, its money, its the little girlie stuff inside us that yells "my precious" to a 600$ pair of shoes that mean "I feel wonderful" even when the worst day is ahead of you... And then, there he is, the guy that stomped on your foot... or the girl, cause shit happens. There could be a number of things you could do.. You could scream and curse, you could even cry... you could also listen to see if the harm that can't be undone can be at least lessened by some explanation or some heartfelt apology.
Yeah, there's an option. You can get an apology, and depending on how conscious that other person is, you might in the craziest of times, get a new pair of shoes to mend the harm. Yeah, sometimes, pigs can fly.The thing about receiving an apology is that you depend on the clarity the other person has about reality. You depend on how much the other person is in touch with their own feelings. You depend on the ability of that other person to put themselves in the strappy sandals and walk in that bruised foot. Hell, for what they know, they might have even broken a bone.And then you realize a stomped foot might be the very symbol of how the world turned into this crazy place where we go around and simply don't know when to start apologizing and when to simply give the other cheek, and accept people make mistakes.You look into that person's eyes, and you try, you turn into an investigator, you search for clues, if it was up to you, you'd get all CSI on them and pry open your dusting kit and look for the finger prints of that empathy the person might be feeling over your pain and discomfort. They say they are sorry... but why should you believe them? Is it actions you need? is it urge in their voice? is it that something that even on a letter makes it believable? I think, right there, you have struck gold. There's something really human into making an apology believable; I don't know what it is, but it might be some special sense we're equipped with to recognize when we should accept someone else's recognition of our pain.But then again... what if our pain is too great? What if there are no more of those strappy sandals to replace the broken ones? What if you can't get over the pain? What if the harm went deeper than a broken bone, but to break your spirit, your heart and the very image of yourself?How can you accept an apology, if you ever get one, after you feel so bad that it blinds you?Some of us aren't that advanced into forgiveness to receive an apology from a person, maybe because we're too used to phony excuses, to lies, to insensitivity. And when that happens, even when we run into an honest apology, sometimes, our senses are too clouded to figure out what to do, and go for the easier answer, the human answer, and the age old answer... the violence.And this becomes a vicious circle... for so many reasons: people that don't give apologies, people that don't believe apologies, people that fear apologizing and avoid it at any costs, and people that over bad experiences respond to apologies the worst way the find and traumatize a potential apologizer or apologee to go and spread the madness... humans cannot be sensitive about the fact that they are what they are... simply humans.

How to avoid apologizing and apologies

Yeah, I could go for hours saying how you can do right, how you can be good, how you will never hurt anyone and be free of guilt, pain, deception and sorrow. But is that really living? Now we could try to lessen the harm, we could try to hurt less people, we could try to learn from the pain and see what went wrong so only this time we have to suffer, but never have to visit this place again.Unfortunately, apologies, like pain, cannot be avoided if you have to give them and if you have to receive them, but is up to us to forgive, is up to us to believe in that person's understanding, is up to us to grow into some sense of knowledge of ourselves and how bad it will feel to be in the receiver's end of the pain... and why not? Actually have some soul into our hearts and feel sorry about it and stop the madness.
Yeah, you know them: they travel in packs, they walk funny, they scratch themselves, and they don't apologize. These people can't recognize any event to be sorry for. These people don't feel the necessity of letting another feel relieved by the apology, these people have a limitation to put themselves into the sandals or have chosen not to feel sorry for anything.These people, I think, have a lot to learn. The inability to ask for forgiveness and the inability to forgive have turned our lives into a never-ending race to make the other feel our pain, to make the other feel our wounds, to make the other step into our hell for a single minute... or forever.This analysis didn't come into my mind just for some ethereal study of our environment; it came because, just like this, I stepped into some shoes I never had walked on before. Practical example of an apology situation

I go around life trying my hardest not to hurt anyone, and if I have to do it, I try at least to make them learn something useful from the situation and try my best to put into that person's shoes to know if, really, I have to apologize.When I have to receive an apology, I try not to look a lot into it, because I can't recognize all the time when people are being sincere... let's admit it, we don't have supernatural powers to strip a person of their liar costume, but we try.And at the end, ignorance is bliss, and sometimes, part of the forgiveness... If we don't know we're being played, we may be avoiding a confrontation that might not be worth our time, our pain and our tears.
The bad thing is that I ran into someone that maybe has the inability to step into my shoes, that mattered in my life enough to not be ignored, that couldn't or wouldn't give a truthful apology... and really, I doubt, right now, if he even meant to give one. Is that, again, to give one, you should know why...So before we go and get hurt, before we get "chewed on & spitted out" maybe, just maybe, we need to know why apologizing hardly works these days... People could be amazed if they knew how important they are to a lot of people, sometimes it even means the ability to recover, sometimes it means a closure, sometimes it could give meaning to someone's pain, sometimes it might give purpose to someone's life, sometimes can mean a lot...sometimes it might save one or a million lives.I won't die from not being apologized to, but it made my life a little bit sadder, it made my life a joke, it made my life a little shorter, because like the strappy sandal that was lost by damage... I lost time, I lost my pride, I lost my self respect, I lost my self esteem, I lost my confidence, I lost my ability to trust, I lost something I thought I owned and never did.
In the way, my heart shrunk a little, my ability to be surprised, the ability to believe in people, the ability to find the good in everything and to actually go thru life without expecting an apology, where lost... because there are some actions you can't avoid apologizing for and some actions you can't avoid be apologized for.An apology, a sincere, heartfelt, understanding apology might have avoided me from writing this long attempt to teach, at least one person, the importance of having some retribution after harm and the importance of receiving it. Then again, something good might have happened after all this pain and someone could be picking up the phone to say "I'm sorry." Someone could be forgiving now, someone could end a fight... someone could understand why right now I feel I lost myself in the way and now I'm looking in the mirror and finding a reflection I never had seen before... Someone could choose not to be hated, and actually learn from harm and never make themselves and others suffer from this same pain again.
We come into this world to learn, we might as well do it.

The stain in the glass

2007-12-07T00:29:00.001-04:00

Category: Writing and Poetry
In the window, by my room, I keep staring at the life passing by... the people running after hopeless dreams; the ones standing in the sidewalk, turning their head every way, just too afraid of risking... too afraid of getting ran over... and the wiser ones that walk, because they already now that there's no sense in getting tired... your destiny always catches up with you.
And I see you, staring at me, staring at you walking in circles by a bus stop, undecided, yet so determined. You know where you want to go, you know what's waiting for you... you're just not sure that you really want it.
And I understand you, as I have been sitting by this window, analizing everyone, every path, every failure, every person that never comes back to this window, but never actually getting the courage to step down and join the army of believers that still think there's a place where you go and feel... accomplished.
Is that secretly I depend on you walking by this space in time, letting me feel that I'm not alone, that you too have been staying at this bus stop, because I can't find it in me to forget that my fears are not unique, not one in a million, not unreadable, but so common, and true, and justifiable as yours... but you're just waiting for me to realize that... and I'm trapped in the vicious circle of feeling vulnerable.
Sometimes... I just feel I'm the glass in this window that is meant to be detailed, examined, wiped and beaten by the rain, scorched by the sun and forgotten by the light... in the shadows, the glimpses of light that manage to get thru, only enhance the imperfections, the damages of time, the things I try to hide behind raggy courtains that cover nothing.
'Cause just as me, you've been analizing, studying, and getting desperate. Everyday your wait is heavier, and I realize now that is because of me. 'Cause you got tired of me being a coward... and trying to escape life.
How can we manage to know? how do you know that if I take your hand I can walk with you? how can I trust you'll never let go? how? how do I shut my fears? how do I make me numb enough to feel life? how can I forget about the blemishes in the surface and pretend that one bad day the stains will be too opaque, too dark to see life anymore?
You touch the glass... and for a minute, it seems too fragile to bear such an invasion... You're the one to know that under the fire, such fears, can only become liquid.

Paper pattern

2007-12-07T00:28:00.002-04:00

Category: Romance and Relationships
Regulary, I can't help but hearing people around me that are being questioned about their plans to have a family and how the clock is ticking and we are not doing something about it.
Our parents, back in the day, were married and had kids at our age, many of them had a fairly organized plan of life, and for many of them, the search was definitelly over.
Us, the children of those parents, were brought up with a drawing on paper of what our lives should be and when it should be... only to find that now a days is harder to fullfill outdated customs or plans... mostly because now we have more options, life isn't just about populating the planet.
Then, in my case, and I'm sure in the case of so many others... I haven't found a way to hold on to the person I think that might come close to that paper pattern that I drew and have been modifying over the years.
Recently, just out of luck, I met a guy that was ok... the kind of guy most of my friends say is husband material... but was he really? For me, he was missing the "it" factor. And now... what's the IT factor?
For me, is a gathering of a number of details, desires, models, and so many other things that you witness, live and see along your life that you recognize as the things you might want... drawn into a pattern, that you hold up to everyone you meet and check if they fit. Its not a physical thing, its not a personality thing, not an spiritual thing... it might be something that in my case was missing from the perfect example of the good boy that you dream to take home to mama, and make her proud of your choice.
The problem is not him, is me ... that in my search for perfection have decided that the paper pattern doesn't fit that easily onto everyone.
Then... thinking about it, I realize that, the pattern acts as a baby proofing of sorts, that prevents me from taking chances, and try the old crash and burn... what if no one really fits that pattern... It factor included? Couldn't it be true that someone can grow to fit that drawing and fill the It shoes? doesn't it need to have some of me to become IT??
Now, freak out... the perfect fit might have been discarded a while ago without even notticing... it was fun, but deep down I still believe that It is still out there... Success might not relate to following the pattern, but to actually building a pattern that fits you and not some other rule.

echo

2007-12-07T00:28:00.001-04:00

I sat on my bed the other night, sleepless, tired, and frustrated. My heart was pounding unconfortably, way too much, as if suddenly I was scared of something, or someone.
Sometimes, I realize how dumb it is to feel as if you're missing something, or forgetting something and don't remember for days that that is wrong. I've learned to fear this moments, 'cause even when some of them might be accompanied by exciting events, my mind has learned that sooner or later I will find out something is wrong.
Tonight, it was different. I was scared of me, scared of standing still, scared of what I've done, and what I didn't do, of my thoughts, of my desires... scared that I'm wrong and that I was never right.
The fact is that I go around saying I'm gonna fight for what ever it is I want, and I realize that right now, at this moment, in this second... I don't know what I want.
I've been standing still, in the same place, sort of floating in a place I can't step out from. And now I realize why I'm here... 'cause being afraid of possibilities I've been too fearful to take on to risky situations that would expose whatever weakness I possess.
I have made up my mind to confront all the things that I think might pull me under a rock. I've made up my mind.

Nonsense

2007-12-07T00:27:00.001-04:00

Category: Blogging

Latelly, I've been in this faded mood, where I no longer care for the things that should have been important to me. You might say is not a good way to be living the 3rd month of the year, but I don't remember the last time I was extasic with my life... wait.. i do remember!
It was just a few years ago. It was just a few months ago. It was just a few weeks ago... definitelly not a few days ago... See the thing is that some of us has set a label on to happiness.
Hapiness means this : (insert your sureal desire right here)
We go around life listening to each others miserable prediction of life, sureal goals, unachievable dreams, and most of all, the desire of all of us to control something that is so completelly unpredictable... Life.
I must confess that I'm a control freak. For those who know me, you know how my closet looks, how my drawers look... geez, how my desktop looks! and how I act among others... always telling people how things should be done, and why is better my way... is very hard to be lead, so you can pretty much imagine how hard it is for me to swim into something that will not follow orders, that changes everyday, and that, at the end, is meant to be that way.
I've learned though, to be patient enough to cruise through the waves, to bend with the wind and to breathe deeply everytime my mind gets tested. Its not an easy task, believe me, I've found myself restraining my need of punching something when I'm really mad, just because anger will not change my reality, it might seem like it, but unfortunatelly, growing desperate only enhances the worst of the feelings that you get over this: dissapointment.
I won't tell you the reasons why I feel dissapointed right now, they might probably seem useless and not relevant to your own personal crisis, and the truth is that even though they might seem that way, we're all related in our problems. Yeah, its all a circle, the butterfly effect is right, and everything you do in this uncontrolable sea is gonna come back to you full force to ruin that sand castle you've been building way too close to the shore.
Years, Months, Weeks, Days.. and still I'm not even sure what true happiness means to me.
I used to think having a good job would bring me some, it just gave less angst; people used to tell me that living by myself will bring me freedom, guess what? I've been living by myself since I was 17 and I had never felt more tied down to the invisible nothing than right now. Then there's the always optimistic want of your relatives, that follows the always pesimistic commentary by said people that you will and should get married, that you will and should have kids, and that you will and should live a normal life.
I don't remember if it was my idea to want to have kids, or to want to get married, or so many other things that they insert in that chip, for you to ride. So on top of all of the uncotrolable things you have to face, you also have to achieve all these goals... that might have not been yours, that might not have been in your mind if it weren't for the need of others to control your life too. I mean, they can't control theirs, why should they control yours?
I found that riding your needs as the surface might be the sanest of ideas, to sit down and try to pick you brain might help you know yourself, analize why you do things and you might find what you trully want from life, amazing huh? You might also have an objective in this planet that is not influenced by others but your true self.
And if you don't, dont worry, sometimes when in the lack of a plan, a guideline is always usefull, only make sure that convinience doesn't step into your own system. Comfort should not and will not satisfy a need if it overlaps something you trully desire & need. In other words, fulfilling some desire that neutralizes another will make you unhappier, there's no lie in this, you have to be true to yourself, and know what represents more to you, even if it looks smaller.
And so, I stand into this blank space, I've picked my brain so many times that I no longer know what would make me happy, 'cause I've lost my way so many times that I think I just got lost in a road that sometimes seems eternal... and even here, is just a road, look at it, maybe after all might take me somewhere I didn't know I wanted to be at.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

2007-12-07T00:24:00.001-04:00

Blogging Madness
So I haven't posted any recommendations for anything.. give me a break real life sucks, I'm too busy and dealing with some new house issues I have to resolve!
So, suscribe to my blog, and when I have a rec, i'll have it...
Congrats to you all, and have a great st. paddys!
Avi

Ok, you're right...

2007-12-07T00:23:00.001-04:00

Current mood: happy
Category: Blogging

Yeah, you're right, there's life out there :)
And is so funny that people have to intoxicate themselves to give them a chance to explore new posibilities...
I guess it is true what you say about me, I have to stop being so uptight...
Its amazing to see myself from another perspective, and that's what happened to me in a matter of days. Sometimes we realize that we're so inmerse into our goals, our premade ideas, into our absurd dreams that we forget that there are other possibilities... and yet you don't want to rush things into something that could ruin the possibility as it is.
Someone did say this to me once... I admit that premade ambitions did come in the way into acceptance of the concept, but we have to admit that when it comes to matters of such importance is difficult to look away when you're having such a great time.
And this happens with everything in our lives, from work to love, we let opportunities pass just because we have been focussing too much into trying to lift from the ground, trying to lift off and let our efforts make it so that we achieve our desires, and forgeting that there could be easier ways to get to the same goal.
When you get the time, do the paintor thing, stop for a minute, step back, take a deep breath and look at the canvas. You'll begin to see that when you look at things from a broader expectrum, you might consider other details you might have forgotten while painting in a micro vision.
Give it a try... :p
Avi

Weekly Music - Feb. 12th

2007-12-07T00:21:00.000-04:00

Category: Music
In the lights of last sunday... I will comment about the good things. Since talking about all the winners might be a long task that I won't be putting you through, I'll stick to my favorite genres these days, Rock & Alternative.
I won't go around filling you with the dissapointment I encountered with some of the choices that were made by this group of people that I don't know when was the last time they listened to music, but hey, not everything is bad these days. So in a sort of exercise, I invite you to compare some of the choices and make your own decision.
The categories that in my opinion should be revised are: Best Rock Instrumental Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Rock Album, in the rock genre; Best Alternative Music Album & Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, just to name the few categories in the whole thing that should be really revised from the get go.
Go to Grammys.com, and look it up... makes for a good exercise into knowing and exploring music... I know most of you have never listened to many of these songs but, hey, its a very good time to begin forming an opinion!
As promised, The MySpace Music Recommendation starts today. So this is the first Rec.
Shanti is, according to her MySpace, a new promissing artists, who's influences come from Pop/Club/Dance. The one song I like from the 3 she has uploaded to her page, is "Three". Nice beat, it should do wonders with a better instrumentation, but what can u do?
If you wanna look up her up, go to http://www.myspace.com/shatiofficial.
'Til next week...
Avi

make me...

2007-12-07T00:20:00.000-04:00

Category: Religion and Philosophy

There's a path, that my emotions follow without any restraint... it broadens and stretches before me, looking long, looking eternal. Is just a road, that at times seems to end before my eyes, and it takes a few blinks away, to form again, like a dream, like a spell, only triggered by my fantasies...

Walking this path, I've come to see all these projections of myself, as if they were rooms I'd go into, sort of a movie playing before me; and believe me, there's nothing stranger than fiction.

I would imagine these rooms as possible lives I could have lived, and I tend to think that each one of those rooms might have been a better reality than my current… but is nothing like that.
When I look at my road, there, shinning, almost surreal, almost ethereal, there's a thing that still drives me mad with curiosity. Might it be the reason we never settle for the conscious opportunity? For the firm reality? For the normal situation?

There's a lot of us that live like this… always waiting for the next thrill, for the next bump, for the next experience that pushes all the air out of our lungs only to return a few moments after, leaving us wanting more. We starve for fresh situations of life.

I sincerely think that after me, there's a whole battalion following, waiting for me to make the wrong move and loose all my head start… and turn me into this settled reality I've run from. And the truth is that consciously, I began to slow down my trot a while ago… to see if, at last, normality catches up to me.

From this point where I'm standing, with all reserve and fright, I have to admit is not only different, but good in so many ways to think about just settling, is comfortable, is socially accepted, is normal. Who wouldn't want to get rid of all the persecution??

I know I wouldn't mind.

Each day, I get reminded that this path I'm walking should be some sort of honor, some sort of retribution to others of what I should be grateful for. I blame that on some twisted teaching of the catholic faith.

Now don't go on hanging me in the middle of the town square, but its true. For us latin american folks, our parents order us to honor them, to put their names up high, and praise them as if they were some sort of gods.

I got news for you.

They are not, and never will be, GOD. We tend to live our lives thinking is shameful to think, do, respond, act and live as we do sometimes, thinking that we will get punished by our behavior, that our parents just will be short of dissapointed and might as well disown us for good.

I wonder what happened to acceptance...?

In a society that changes so fast, and that has turned itself outwards time and again, why do we have to wait for others to accept that reality has changed? what of the people that deny themselves the punishment of living the lives others have decided for them? Why should we settle? why should we live other lives but our own?

I love my parents, I love my family, I laugh at their jokes, I consider them smart and sweet, but very handled by religion even when they do not think so.

I turned my back to catholicism about 13 years ago, if not more, and I'm only 25...I was clear enough back then to realize there was something very wrong about living your life out of fear and being ruled by people that sometimes do even more harm in a single week than you will ever do in your present life.

I know, you already screamed that you believe in your faith as for one that doesn't force you to believe, but you want to believe, that doesn't make you forget your questions, but to embrace them, that you have honorable priests and leaders... sadly that wasn't the case in my life, and among other reasons, I decided at that short age that in order for me to at least have some control of my life I had to walk away from things that did not seem right in my life.

When I look back at that path before described, I realize that right now I feel as well as I predicted, that I met people I never dreamed I would have, that I look at the world from a place where no wars have been started in the name of my faith, and that overall, is a path that doesn't expect from me anything less or more than what I'm able or wanting to give.

Not to be politically correct or anything, cause that actually doesn't exist, every religion has acts of faith that shape your path in the right way, but getting obsessed about the right way or the wrong way, makes it just the opposite to the meaning of a religion or a believe that should rule your life.

Faith should be that part of your life that makes it so that you find solace without having to compromise or feel threatened or afraid. It should fill you whole, and leave nothing behind.

Weekly Read & Music - Monday, February 05, 2007

2007-12-07T00:19:00.000-04:00

Weekly Read - Feb. 05
Current mood: calm
Category: Writing and Poetry

I'm in the mood for another coffee table book...
A friend of mine gave me for my Birthday one of the installments of a film poster collection by Evergreen Publishers, and collected by Tony Nourmand and Graham Marsh.
He gave me the Horror one, and its just fantastic! Sir Christopher Frayling gives the foreword of this book, and makes for a very useful short story to all of them guys that haven't been initiated into the wonderful world of Horror Films.
I've been a sucker for this genre since I was a child, and have a nack for vintage items, so this book has a lot of what I love. Apreciating the development of the genre through the movie posters is just hillarious and sooo entertaining.
The synopsis of each and every poster makes for a great eye opener of the importance of this movie in particular, they might be great, they might be poor, but they have a significance in history... you might be surprised by what you find in these pages!
Of course, it would be great to have the whole collection, but starting at just one makes for enough if you just want to broad your horizons.
These books are on Amazon, so as usual if you want to check them out you could go there, or your local B&N or Borders to sift through the colorful pages of this collection.
Get reading!
Avi

Currently reading : Horror Poster Art By Tony Nourmand Release date: 01 September, 2004

Weekly Music - Feb. 05
Current mood: calm
Category: Music

Heya guys!
I've decided to move this section to be posted on mondays, since I figured that if I'm sooo tired on a saturday morning, you must be too...lol. So to continue in more eclectic recommendations, I give you a group from my country.
Desorden Público is a well known group from Venezuela (it would be unfair to name a city, since a lot of them come from various parts of the country) that has driven masses around here crazy with their sound for about 20 years now.
They have established themselves as a Ska Band, but mixed with different undertones such as 2-tone, caribbean instruments, jamaican influences, but most of all, they have been known for describing their music and their sound, as organic.
If you have the luck to know your spanish, you know that the name translates into "public disturbance" and they are, in my humble opinion, one of the most important creators of songs that call into the social conscience and the various topics that constantly trouble our continent and beyond.
Most of their productions are very upbeat and party-like, at least to me, without forgetting of their protest lyrics and the deep conscience they put into each song. The latest is Estrellas del Caos (Stars of Chaos) I think is too soon for you to order through Amazon, or something, but earlier works by them are available online.
I do not need to tell you how well known are they outside the barriers of my country, but if you want to know a lot more about this band, I suggest you go to their website: http://www.desordenpublico.net You won't regret it. This is a piece of world music you will apreciate.
The golden Rec of this week goes to Marvin Gaye.
What can you say about him that hasn't been said before?? The romance soundtrack of many movies, it should work right, 'cause his voice is just slow and has this inviting texture that drives people crazy... Don't burn me, I just go by experience...lol
Now seriously, another love child of the Mowtown system, this guy has been the interpreter and author of many songs that have been established as landmarks of an Era. I don't know if I'm an ancient 25 yr old, but I just love songs like: I heard it through the grapevine, How sweet it is to be loved like you, Sexual healing, Let's get it on (known among the younger audiences for being the love song of Mr. Evil in Austin Powers), among others that I won't list here 'cause it would go on and on for ages...
So if you're interested in the 60's - 70's wave, in a guy that wrote excellent songs, that is part of the heart of Soul music, that is one of the all time big sellers of R&B hits, and that of course was inspired in a troubled life, followed by an equally troubled death, then, believe me, Marvin Gaye is your guy.
It's easy, buy the record, download the song, watch the movies, or just go into the world's best known cliff's notes AKA Wikipedia and check out the guy. You can also go to YOUTUBE and check out the old videos.
Hoping to hear from you, like always..., next week, I'll introduce a new short recommendation of new artists, such as the struggling guys that you face everyday around here in MySpace. Some of them are worth the mention.
See you next week!
Avi
Currently listening : Valle De Balas By Desorden Pblico

The reviews are back! Weekly Music - Jan. 24

2007-12-07T00:17:00.000-04:00

Current mood: accomplished Category: Music
Hey everyone!
After this long break, I decided to take action, and come back to these reviews. Now, now, for all of you who messaged me saying I was quitting, I hope this serves as proof that I won't... lol!
This weeks recommendation is Primal Scream's latest CD... Riot City Blues. I have to say I had listened to some of their prior songs, but really didn't take any interest in even downloading some.
I had the oportunity to produce some promotions for a new series at HBO PLUS called London Live Specials. One of the groups is Primal Scream... I enjoyed this so much, you have no idea!
This is very good rock, the one that makes you all happy and with so much need of banging your head and jump that I almost started doing so in the middle of the editing room... now don't look at me that way... the editor was already jumping in his chair!!
My favorites from this one are Dolls, Country Girl, Nitty Gritty and When the Bomb Drops. This one has a lot of traditional rock & roll sounds, and the girls in the chorus are just great... a voice to enjoy I guess...
If you want to explore this group, the previous releases are more to the electronic side of the rainbow, but very enjoyable.
I owe you the golde rec and the weekly read for this week... but I'll get you nice recs for next week!
Bye bye's
Avi

PS. If you get HBO PLUS, the latin american feed, don't forget to check out LONDON LIVE SPECIALS (Primal Scream & The Killers) on Feb. 16th. 22:00

Currently listening : Riot City Blues By Primal Scream Release date: 22 August, 2006

Dawn or Dusk - Monday, January 22, 2007

2007-12-07T00:16:00.000-04:00

I've learned I'm deaf... and blind. Going around dissmising things that seem of so little importance, and yet, in a matter of days you hear again your very same words and discover that not only are you deaf and blind, ... you have actually forgotten how to listen to your own voice.
I wonder now if I didn't notice important things going on in my life just because I didn't listen enough, or read enough, or just payed enough attention.
I already feel I'm limited enough as it is to add something like this to my long list of things I regret doing sometimes. Right now is too soon to feel as if there's something to learn from said situation.
I go around analyzing myself from dawn to dusk trying to see where is the clue, that telltale thing that guards inside of me and that keeps all the information as for why I feel so clueless, lost in myself.
I wonder now if my life could have been any different if I didn't dismiss important touchstones in my life. Was is for the better or for the worse? Where's that divine justice that we find so little in our lives?
I know is just a corny thing to think about, but unfortunatelly, the choices that we make sometimes without even thinking or noticing that we did, tumble like a snow ball down the hill, crashing into us full force when we realize that... we were just blind, deaf and a little mute too.
Right now I feel as if I'm floating, in a place where I'm not able to move foward or backwards, just here, waiting to hear, waiting to listen, for that something that was said to me before... I think I'm ready to listen this time, I think I know how it sounds, and what it means.
If there's any such thing as a second chance... people should be granted a heads up when you do get it, so in that one more opportunity, we go from dawn til dusk enjoying every minute of light, every change in the wind, every new moment, every new life.
I realized this afternoon, after seeing all of my day pass by my window, that life IS short... that I no longer think that I have all the time in the world to be or have all that I wanted, to grow, to change, to own or to love... My life ain't ending tomorrow, but the rest of my life should be of better use.
I answered today a question "what do you want to do before you die?" and I mean this... I want to live... I want to live my life, and all that it brings, full frontal, big and little, everything about it. I want to stop dodging bullets, and suffering, and pain, and dissapointment, cause even from that, we live. I want to trade every scar I've avoided for each and every wish I've guarded in my heart. I want to live.
The moments between dawn and dusk make your life...

Birthday low steam - Jan 8th

2007-12-07T00:15:00.002-04:00

Category: Blogging
How to overcome a feeling that I guess is embedded in my mind...?
Every year, my B-day comes and goes, leaving a left over taste... somewhere between sweet and, oh so sour. Its not depression over turning older, or a f*** ticking clock that we women have on our minds, or the examination of your past, present and future... Is just this feeling, in the back of my mind, in the middle of my chest that tells me that things just won't go as planned. I can't explain it, I fear my B-day, cause is filled with deception.
I fight it every year, try to come up with different ways to make it different, to celebrate instead of grieving it, to try to turn a dreadful day into something I won't forget ever in my life. Few occasions have worked out, and it wasn't like this year was a terrible deal, I still couldn't manage to dodge the sour left over.
A friend took the time of reminding me why b-days suck so much. In 10 different ways and reasons why in particular my Bday was doomed to begin with. Among other reasons is the date per se, so close to other holidays; the ever growing list of ex friends, the bad economic situation of people, the fact that people go on vacations on these days, etc... and then there's the fact that people just forget how much importance you give to a day, that is meant just for you... and well the other 100.000 people that came into this world the very same day as you did.
I won't change that position; we only get to have one f*** day that people celebrate you. That they celebrate the fact that you're alive, that you share your life with them, that you exist and make this world different, for better or for worse.
But what is the objective of this long rambling? well... none.
I realized in the 25 years I've been living in this world, that only few people are going to realize the importance of this aspect of my life, only my true friends and the people that trully care for me step up to the plate to know me enough to not let go of my hand, to hold me when I'm about to fall and to understand that this solitude is not a choice but a circunstance.
To all of you that remembered, I'll cherish the love you grant me everyday of my life, I'm a lucky girl to have such wonderful people, that even when scarce, fill my heart and the voids that my mind has saved for useless missions.
I luv you all.
Avi

Over rating issues - Wednesday, December 27, 2006

2007-12-07T00:15:00.001-04:00

Current mood: contemplative
Category: Blogging
Human beings live all of their lives based in expectations... yeah, don't come to me saying that you don't... we all do.
Even in the simplest of situations, we have a small hope of the way a thing is going to develop, is inserted in whatever chip controls our emotions and controls our feelings over things.
We are told over and over again to live, give, act, without expecting anything to be received, done or responded in return; some sort of method of protection from dissapointment, some sort of reasurance for humility, not sure why, but its common knowledge.
There are some cases in which the expectations play such an important part of whatever is going on, that, if in the event of dissapointment, hits harder than possibly the worst feeling you've had so far in your life.
Dissapointment from said expectations are, sometimes, just too hard to face.
Take, for example, this advice from my grandma: "Never believe anyone that tells you that you're pretty or beautiful, you'll be setting yourself up for dissapointment cause they don't mean it, probably motivated by jelaousy or other motives... " In a nutshell, don't trust anyone, don't expect anyone to be true about your assets, and then you won't be dissapointed when it turns out that guy didn't mean it, or the person that complimented you was really after your trust and possibly your job.
I've lived part of my life based in that philosophy. And its sad. I never believed a guy that told me I was beautiful, ...possibly hurting his feelings; never have been comfortable receiving compliments about my work, possibly shutting myself out of greater realities... and so on... in an effort to actually live without expectations.
And that's only a part of it. Now that Christmas is almost gone, and that the season evolves into this frantic desire to share some sort of feelings in more than words but tangible things like presents, trips, etc. the common feeling is that we never do get what we desire or deserve. Given the fact some might put a lot of effort trying to show some love or appretiation, others just sit tight waiting to be served, cause for them, They've worked enough. These are the ones that think that they always deserve EVERYTHING.
I've been troubled from the start. Even just being "christmassy"
I never think I've had a good christmas; if it isn't the presents that were crappy and that showed no knowledge of the things I like, was the fact that every chrstmas seems to be sadder, crappier, distorted, dissolved, and "extremelly unchristmassy"; cause even for me, the one that tries not to have expectations, I can't find it even to feel those basics of the season: to share Love as a sentiment, not material items, with the ones you love.
So expectations over being rewarded with some warm feelings of brotherhood, love, etc, basic expectations like such, don't even those can get fullfilled.
So I come to wonder... should we just expect nothing, like the saying goes, or live a life of giving, trying to educate along the way all the people that don't take a minute to consider what a person might feel the minute that hears, sees or gets whatever has been chosen with such care and detail for them?
Don't get me wrong, just because I've grown tired of crappy presents, it doesn't mean that I don't go into that store and pick exactly what I feel that person would love, more than anything... I just die for that smile and the spark in the eye of that person when they see what they got. Its like everything for me becomes simpler, an issue of innocence, or just that, the basic need of approval, of reasurance that you've done your job nicely and that you actually read that person right.
Is that sometimes people think that they gave enough... but what is enough? should it be enough for me or for you in the receiving end? why should we settle for enough and not aim for greatness? or even so, when it comes to just sharing feelings, and not money, which scarces so much these days, why are we so cheap?
Unfulfilled expectations and the fear of dissapointment have turned and destroyed many relationships, many families, many carreers, some for expecting too much, some for expecting too little.
Expectations, actually, drive our lives... cause we expect love, fortune, rewards in general that we learn from the beginning that we won't get, just because you don't get to have everything in the world, and from then on, we judge everything in our lives with that same principle.
Expectations play a fundamental part of our fear, insecurities, of our drive, of our balance, and of our demisse. I've kid myself saying that that is more important than others knowing me, cause basically, I've also shut myself from others, following said advice from my grandma. Ironic huh?
Sometimes, I just secretly hope for a person that does the very same thing for me... analyze me, study me, and then... fill the expectations that I've hidden not to get hurt... I'm still waiting.
Avi

Monday, December 25, 2006

2007-12-07T00:13:00.000-04:00

Dec. 25th Read!
Current mood: creative

Continuing with my holiday recommendations, this time I'll give you a title that might be out of targetif you're a grown up, but so good if you're looking for a good gift for a child or a preteen.
Enid Mary Blyton is one of my favorite children's authors. I think I read most of the Five Find-Outers adventures, a series of adventure stories that tell the crazy happenings of a group of friends and their curious dog.
It makes for a good gift for an imaginative kid, introduce them to reading, which is always a good investment in the future.
I personally recommend Mistery of the Secret Room which is one of the first I read about 17 years ago.
I hope that if you do come across one of these, even in your local library you give it some space and enjoy it... it goes by in a second!
Bye bye, and Happy Holidays!
Currently reading : The Mystery of the Secret Room (Mysteries) By Enid Blyton Release date: 01 January, 2003

Dec. 25th. Music!
Current mood: content
Category: Music

Hey everyone!!!
First of all, Merry Christmas!!!
I know, ages do not suffy to all the time I've been away, but I intent to recuperate and get on track again with my regular sections and some general reading for all of you faithful.
So to get right to the point, my first musical recommendation, and probably one of the lasts of the year is Snow Patrol. The Eyes Open CD/DVD is great!! I got this as a christmas present at my office, and its a treat. First of all the presentation is cool, includes a booklet with some very cool pictures from them behind the scenes, and both cd and dvd.
The music, if you know Snow Patrol is still great, if you do not, You'll like it, especially if you're in the mood for some soul reaching rock.
I love the strings in this one, and my favorite songs in the cd are You're all I have, Hands Open, Open Your eyes, and Shut your eyes... of course, Chasing cars is very famous, with the Grammy nomination and all.

The golden one for this recommendation edition is Billie Holiday.

I decided to talk you into her since I mentioned her song Strange Fruit in my last blog. This time I won't recommend an specific album, but to experience her songs in general.
For you that haven't come across this wonderful woman's voice, you better start educating yourselves!! Even reading about her story is heartbreaking. Her songs come not far, filled with melancholy, and that touch of nostalgia that I personally love. I'm a sucker for the old times.
She's also popular for colaborations with very famous singers such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and of course, Louis Armstrong.
Well, hoping you have a good one and that you buy some interesting music and share, I'll see you a next time!
Avi

Currently listening : Eyes Open By Snow Patrol Release date: 04 May, 2006

Oh My God Real LIFE!! - Tuesday, December 12, 2006

2007-12-07T00:12:00.002-04:00

Hey Guys sorry I haven't posted in such a long time, but I've been going thru some real life issues, like moving to a new apartment that doent have a phone or internet service....and being really busy at work so... I'll be trying to post some rec's in the rest of the week, hopefully!
so... see you soon, and thanks for all of your messages, I'm fine really just a little too busy and incommunicado... lol
Bye
Avita

Weekly Read - Nov 18th

2007-12-07T00:12:00.001-04:00

Current mood: blah
Category: Writing and Poetry

See I'm moving to a new apartment now... brand new, it doesn't even have lamps or light switches, and I don't have furniture besides my bed and my fridge so... even when so out of character for this section, this book came in handy when trying to find an orientation in my new challenge.
New York Style by the series Icons from Tashen, is a compilation of pictures from well known scenaries and beautiful lofts from New York City. It gives for a great reference towards decorating or exploring the shabby chic, the urban deco, as it says, the New York Style, that we all know is just unique.
Even if you don't need it for a project or something its always good to have around, just for a coffee table book; the compilation is very interesting, the pictures unbelievable.
I believe is available in most of the bookstores everywhere, but you can find it through amazon too.

Currently reading : New York Style (Icons) By Christiane Reiter Release date: 09 March, 2006

Weekly Music - Nov. 18th

2007-12-07T00:11:00.001-04:00

Current mood: thankful
Category: Music

Hey everyone...
I don't usually recommend soundtracks in this section, but the ones like this one are just too good not to be suggested!
Baraka is, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest documentaries in history, and its music is not far from less. Most of the songs are inspired in oriental sounds and tribal chants, almost ethereal, transcendental, unique, simply perfect.
The thing with soundtracks is that when they're good, they move, create atmospheres, and if you enjoy them makes for a good exercise, a mental one that is. Everytime I listen to it, I just travel somewhere else away from all the madness.
If you can get your hands on this cd, steal it, buy it, just own it! And if you can get the movie too, its just perfect!

The goldie one for this week... one of my old time favs.

Nina Simone is the most passionate singer I've heard so far. I discovered her through a recommendation, so I hope you discover her as well if you haven't yet.
Besides all the story behind her persona, which is very impressive, she's one hell of a singer that refused to be categorized. She had a wide range of styles to pick from everytime she created.
You've probably heard her, since her songs have been feattured in a countless number of films and commercials and many of her songs have been sampled by other artists such as Mary J. Blige and Kanye West; you've probably wondered what was that beautiful voice on the speakers and forgot about her later, so give it a chance this time.
Right now the song that comes to my mind is Strange Fruit, originally sang by another one of my favorites, Billie Holiday. But if you're in a chirpier mood than this deep longing, I recommend to you songs as I put a spell on you, Feeling Good, and Don't let me be missunderstood.
You know the drill...Have a wonderful weekend!

Avi

Currently listening : Baraka: Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack By Michael Stearns Release date: 24 August, 1993

Weekly Read & Music - Saturday, November 11, 2006

2007-12-07T00:08:00.000-04:00

Weekly Read - Nov. 11th
Category: Writing and Poetry

Thanks to all the new readers of this section for your comments!
This is my recommendation for this week, Nov. 11th.
Cronica de una Muerte Anunciada is a 1981 novel by Nobel Prize Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
This is sort of a police novel, combined with the element that has been the signature mark of Garcia Marquez; the magical realism. Based on a true story, he plays with all the characters without faultering to the reality of the journalistic cronicle he intends to do.
The topic: a wedding story gone wrong and what a family must do to keep the honor. It might sound naive, but none of the novels writen by this author seem so. With more than 30 novels and works under his belt, his works are some of the most entertaining and well writen of the literary world nowadays.

Give it a chance if you haven't yet and try some new thing for a change.
Avi

Currently reading : Cronica de una muerte anunciada By Gabriel Garcia Marquez Release date: 07 October, 2003

Weekly Music - Nov. 11th

Hey guys!
Continuing on my domestic recommendations, here's mine for this week.
Los Amigos Invisibles (The invisible friends) is a funk/kitsch/pop band from Caracas, Venezuela. Their name is inspired on a popular cultural tv program from the eighties around here, called Human Values, and they mix local sounds and likes into their songs.
Its a popular band around here, specially because its THE PARTY BAND; they are famous for non stop sets that drive everyone crazy. Its a lot of dancing, singing and laughter 'cause their songs aren't just the typical love song, they push into the funny part of life, relationships...even zits! yeah, zits...
I guess they just reflect the venezuelan personality over everything.
All of their cds have been in the top position in Venezuela, and latelly they have been invited to events such as Latin American Idol and have opened for artists such as Jamiroquai. You can find all of thier cds on Amazon and other retaileirs. I recommend them all, you'll get a playful taste of whats to be a Venezuelan.

The Golden Rec of this week is Tommy Dorsey. This is the kind of sentimental music that often reminds us of WWII, and the nostalgia over old americana. This jazz trobonist is a signature item in the big band era. I dunno about you, but big bands put me in a good mood sometimes.
I found a great compilation the other day browsing thruogh amazon, The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing: Centennial Collection. Its a great quality, fair price collection. Just listening to these song are just too great of a soul encounter.
I know that sometimes I get too focussed on the 40's - 50's so next week I'll be trying something a little bit newer...hehehe

Hope you have fun experimenting.
Avi

Currently listening : The New Sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera By Los Amigos Invisibles Release date: 28 March, 2000

ash - Tuesday, November 07, 2006

2007-12-07T00:01:00.000-04:00

Ash...?
I thought I heard you...
but then I recalled that you're gone.
Even though I know you are around me
I'm too used to talk to people with a face.

I wonder what its like to not live at this level...
People say that there's a hellI don't think so...
I believe at life in many levels
and I sure think that I live in the lowest one.

I have to face everyday the demons in my mind
that tell me that I'm simply not enough;
not enough, not even to be a human.

I laugh, they think they can beat me
I sometimes fear they try too hard and win.

I wish there could be a phone to call you
but I guess my mind is supposed to be it...
if only it wasn't broken...
I've come to think that I should call someone from the phone company...
You outgha think that I lost it...

Maybe its true
is that ever since you left
I have no body I live in a house with no doors and no windows
I don't even know how I got here.

You know, Ash,
even though I miss you´
there are so many things I can do better without you,
Like...Breathing, imagening, talking, moving
if only there was someone else
who could see me.

The thing is that
if nobody is around...how am I supposed to know I'm alive?
when I don't even know how not to think of you?

You may say
what's wrong with you?
is that with you around at least I moved
at least to fight and hit you as hard as I could.

And then, after I begin feeling tired
there is a sensation in the back of my throat
that tastes like remorse
maybe I shouldn't have hit you that hard that time...

The demons again
their voices sound like yours
I'm beginning to think that is you
haunting me from your grave.

And that's a grave that doesn't even exists
'cause, how the hell was I supposed to build it?
I sure can't be any goodnot alive, not even dead.

I hear the steps outside
and suddenly it starts to rain inside
I wonder how can that be possible...
I guess is you, getting on my nerves again.

The vanishing fog, surrounding me
but I can't see it that easily now
it seems like its part of me now
almost everything its part of me now.

In the mean time,
I distract them over negotiations
I manage to keep them of my mind
confussing them with my thoughts.

To think that I was afraid of them...!
all my life, I was scared of what would happen,
I guess it isn't at all as I supposed...
Its worse, but I can handle it.

In the few conversations with you...
and consider this my most important and last question...

Why did you kill me?

Sin To Feel

2007-12-06T23:57:00.000-04:00

a touch,
the soft and tender caress of sweet love
the strong and brave pulse of need
the warm and wild instinct at its bloom.

a sigh,
the misleaded sign of tiredness
the unbearable breath of passion
the shinning clue of contentment.

your touch,
the only thing that makes me shiver
the strongest reason for living
the burning sensation of you.

your sigh,
brings me to tender memories
takes me to the spot
of loving you for the clear sounds of your soul.

when you touch me,
you transmit your feelings to my skin
crawling into my heart
transporting me to a higher state.

when you breathe me,
I hope that you can smell the happiness in me
I pray that my love can flow through the air
and beyond the physical walls often built around us.

when I touch you
I want to make you feel how much I want you
I want to let my senses take over
and feel the velvet that covers your deepest secret.

when I breathe you,
I want to take in all of your essence
to breathe all of your life
and paint it in my memory for good.

to touch us, to breathe us,
takes more than life itself
to build inside us
what makes us humans and deities at the same time...

True, unforgetable, and infinite love.

Missed Walls... or the reachable way to remain - Saturday, November 04, 2006

2007-12-06T23:54:00.000-04:00

Current mood: bored

I wonder about distance.

That element that plays with you..., I've told you before… pulling from your legs, distracting you, making you long for that something you don't have at hand's reach… distance that makes you miss, distance that makes you long, distance that makes you hurt and scream and cry, because is like a wall, keeping you apart, keeping you staring at it, like a big, bad, boss, telling you all the reasons why you can't even dream of tearing it down.

That.
A big wall.
I don't think I deal very well with distance…

Is that sometimes distance is not physical; is that element that separates us from one point to the other, from one conception to the other, from beliefs, from feelings, from desires, from all that is dear or wanted by us, that life conveniently keeps from us, maybe because we have to learn something, just to be prepared to enjoy "that" that we want so much.
If it only were so easy.

Mental distance, I think, makes the worse enemy you can ever encounter. Plane tickets you can buy, but to set people in the same page requires more than some can handle. I'm happy 'cause some of that distance that keeps me is a real sea, and not a sea of thoughts.

To miss something still existent but away, is still tolerable and bearable… to miss something you can never get back… now you're talking.

Today I walked the halls you used to own, with your screams, and laughter… you owned full halls of happy people that praised your voice, that admired your knowledge, and that over all, trusted.

You're one of those that won't conquer that distance, 'cause you're gone. And almost hearing you by my side, makes it no better.

Those halls are still yours, they still smell of stale cigarette smoke with a hint of coffee; and people, even though they don't sound the same, now they understand the mental distance that kept you from staying with us.

You had decided to walk… and just kept on going.
That's a wall that's never coming down.

Some other distances keep me from treasures… some I own, and gave some liberty to walk… some I don't, I still have to conquer those. You know what you are... simply there, always, the cool, relaxed, centered, that always said that her friends are a fruity combination of crazy…, and as deranged as it sounds, I don't blame you for fleeing… I wish I could do the same… as for this, the only thing I own and that will forever be mine, I give my words every now and then to remain friends, confidants and stars. The ones that will always be, and always understand, in this part of my life that only you kind of get.

I'll pray for this distance to remain only physical, only a plane ride away, only a phone call away, only material stuff away…
The other walls should be studied for better examination.

Weekly Music - Nov. 4th

2007-12-06T23:52:00.000-04:00

Current mood: curious
Category: Music

This week I'm going to review something from my country for a change. Now don't be scared, we have lots of better things than bad politics, and that's things like Masseratti 2Lts.

This is an electronic chillout group, focused on the down tempo, mixed by 2 twin brothers that live appart, one in France and the other here in Venezuela. They've combined numbers of beats, sounds and elements to make one amazing chillout collection, thanks to the music and styles they have been exposed to in the different countries they live.

Latelly, they combined folk sounds from Venezuela and some very interesting mixes that set a great mood. If you're wondering what good does it make to recommend something from here that's probably unavailable to people abroad... well let me tell you that you can get almost all of their cds in ITunes, CD Baby and some on Amazon.

This week "Golden Rec" is Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. I don't think this record needs any introduction what-so-ever... But well, there are some that haven't been fortunate enough to face this music.

This one is THE JAZZ RECORD from the get-go. Miles Davis is simply great, and his performance is flawless considering this was recorded in almost 2 shots by song... amazing, huh? John Coltrane is the tenor saxophone, so you can pretty much know that this is great music.
My favorite tracks are "So What?" and "Flamenco Sketches", the last one has been re-released in a reissue in 1997 that is great as well. If you're a fan of jazz music like me, you probably already own this, if not... all of you my darling readers, go ahead, you know what to do...
See you next week!

Avi

Currently listening : Exposicion Verano-Verano By Masseratti 2lts Release date: 06 June, 2006

Weekly Read - Nov. 04 - Saturday, November 04, 2006

2007-12-06T23:51:00.000-04:00

Current mood: content
Category: Travel and Places

To all of you that have been enjoying this section, thanks so much for the emails!
Nov. 4th Weekly Read for all of you faithful readers!

Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder is, I think, one of the most amusing books I've read in my life. This may be because, I admit it, I have an inner geek that struggles to get out every now and then, but this book is really something.

I'm a fan of Gaarder, I must say, and this was my first book from him. And having read it more than 7 times, I can't do any less than recommend it to you. It makes a great way of introducing young minds to such dense subjects that often scare you and them away.

Thanks to the adventures of Sophie Amundsen, the reader learns with her the true meaning of many philosophical teories, from the very beginning of philosophy... call it Plato for Dummies, but it goes beyond that... its an suspense adventure, with a little brain in it.

I wouldn't call it a novel and its not entirely a light read, it has more than 500 pages, depending on the edition, filled with anything you can imagine and you ever wondered about the human study of himself. Is not the regular story, and the end couldn't be any more ... surreal... or amazing.

I recommend you pick it up and give it a bite... read some and chew slowly on it, believe me a lot of things that happen everyday in your life will begin to have some sense or explanation...hehehe.

Hope you give it a chance and enjoy it!
Avi

Currently reading : Sophie's World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy By Jostein Gaarder Release date: 01 March, 1996

Weekly Read & Listen -Saturday, October 28, 2006

2007-12-06T23:49:00.000-04:00

Weekly Read - Oct. 28
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Writing and Poetry

Charles Baudelaire is one of my favorite french poets of all time. Most of us faced him in High School, and for the lucky ones, it probably changed your life just a little bit.

I recommend you my favorite, Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil). The book is divided in 5 sections: Spleen et Idéal (Spleen and Ideal),Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil), Révolte (Revolt), Le Vin (Wine) & La Mort (Death).

You should know that this book was of great importance to the symbolist and modernist movement, because of the great images that the poems evoke, filled with mistery, decadency and eroticism.

My favorite parts are Flowers of evil and Death, and even now it shows you how even if you think how advanced we are, and how technology has changed us, even when we might feel different, we still are the very same people all the time.

I won't go on so I won't influence your opinion on these poems, enjoy them and let me know what you thought of them!

Avi

Currently reading : Les Fleurs Du Mal By Charles Baudelaire Release date: October, 1985

Weekly Music - Oct.28
Current mood: calm
Category: Music

Hey everyone... Weekly music recommendation for all of you...This week I decided I'm gonna do something different; besides not only including one more recommendation, I'm gonna add some news. Let's see how it works for me in the following weeks and if you enjoy it, I'll keep it up.

My first recomendation of the week is Chapter V, by Staind. This rock band has managed to score some big points on the charts in the past, being named best selling band, and this is no different. I already know most of the lyrics to the songs, they fit most moods, not all of them alright, I won't fool you. This 2005 production has great tracks like Run Away, Right Here & Everything Changes. If you haven't already, give it a spin, the worst thing can happen is that you don't like it, huh? Thanks Jason for reminding me of them, I'm hooked again!

Now, my second recommendation, and part of the new section of this, hehe, section, is gonna be what I should call the "Golden Rec" of the week. Today is gonna be Ella Fitzgerald's The Last Decca Years 1949 - 1954. This great compilation that unfortunatelly I do not have the privilege to own, but have enjoyed widely thanks to a friend of mine, it has a great mix of classic jazz & swing songs, and of course the beautiful voice of Ella. Great for dancing and just chilling out if you want, if you find it somewhere, buy it... is a great addition to a respectable collection.

On the news front, well some of you already know there's a new and first Latin American Idol, and even though some of you might discard the idea of a reality show popping out respectable singers, in the positive spirit of a friend of mine, let's support them. I did and our very own, Mayré Martinez is the first Latin American Idol. She's got a powerful voice, great technique and now the opportunity to offer us a new proposal... So, let's patiently wait for that to happen.

Hoping you have fun experimenting with my choices, see you next week!
Avi

Currently listening : Chapter V By Staind Release date: 09 August, 2005

Floating device - Saturday, October 21, 2006

2007-12-06T23:48:00.000-04:00

Current mood: content

What do you do when time and distance plays with your fate? When you know that a future is made up of decisions, how do you make it so that each one of them is the right one, to build that path that fulfills your dreams and ultimately makes you happy. There are so many options, you take roads every day, they seem insignificant, but even ordering in modifies your life… everything is made out of choices.
This game, life, seems so complicated contemplating the path you have already strolled, sometimes marveling you with all your achievements, sometimes just making you sad with the little list of things you hold under your belt.
Nowadays even being alive is an achievement.
I've lived my life, so far, riding the wave. Making adjustments as I float, just to be able to stay above the water; sometimes I swim in one direction, the one I think the shore is at, and either a wave pushes me back to beginning or that shore that seemed near, was just a spell.
It's true, you do learn from those bad decisions, from those bad roads you walk, from that huge wave you couldn't climb, but it rattles you, shakes you, plays with you, and for a second you feel as if there's no air in your lungs, …a bad decision feels like that. Plays with your fate.
But you eventually should learn how to surf.
I found a table the other day, figure speech that is, and if you're still reading this blog, and coping with my nonsense, I have to tell you, I like my new table. It's an exciting one, that has given me some leverage.
Unfortunately, this table of mine is far away, and I have to imagine brand new ways to see this table, to get to know it, to learn from it, to get it to know me and make my life different in this sea. Sometimes, I just hurt over the fact that this table is just so far… I lose my floating level a little.
If this distance that keeps me apart from this table is so constant, could it be a spell? It might be a spell, another shore I swam at and disappeared in front of my eyes… I just don't want it to disappear… I want it to help me and to teach me how to float over this sea and forget about the time and distance that plays with our fate every day.
I'm happy floating as it is… right now the sea is calm and kind…

Weekly Music & Read- Oct. 21 2006

2007-12-06T23:44:00.000-04:00

Weekly Read - Oct 21
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Writing and Poetry

For all of you not afraid of wandering around the self help shelf of your choice book store, I'm gonna recommend this book to you.
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is a deep approach to the ability of our mind to control our life by living the day, living in the now as he says.
While reviews of this book have been mixed, the core of it rests on the Buddist way of appreciating life and dealing with the challenges a person is presented with.
Personally, I think he puts very complex concepts of life into concrete thoughts, and he has built the book so that you can rest your learnings out, adding breaks so you can digest what you've read.
The most important thing about this book is that teaches about the power of the ego, and how good habits and bad habits reflect on the way you feel about your life, and how to change the way you've been living it thru meditations and self examination.
I wouldn't say is the ultimate solution, but it does shake you a little. A good contribution to your self education towards your own good.
Hope you enjoy and experiment with this book.
Avi

Currently reading : The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment By Eckhart Tolle Release date: 29 September, 2004

Weekly Music - Oct. 21
Current mood: relaxed
Category: Music

Hi everyone!
This weeks recommendation is more in a lounging mood, to enjoy with a good martini or a glass of wine, next to your lover of choice, he he he...
Sergio Mendes for me is one of the greatest singers of all time, maybe the best out of Brazil... My favorite for sure. His songs are the soundtrack to that collective memory we all have of Rio de Janeiro and Bahia... and this new mix makes it all better for those new generations that didn't have the slight idea of the existance of this great music, and makes it all fun to us old fans.
I'm 24, probably not that old to be an old fan, but I've been listening to Sergio all my life.

Timeless counts with great collaborations by The Black Eyed Peas, India Arie, Justin Timberlake, Erikah Badu, Steve Wonder and numerous other singers and composers that make this record unique. Its a new aproach to samba, bossa, with a mix of new rhythms. I have favorites but I'll let you experiment with the whole cd, believe me, if you buy it you won't regret it, and if not just download it while you can (nowadays you don't know when they're gonna end with free mp3 bliss)Enjoy, and feel free to leave your comments!

Avi

Currently listening : Timeless By Sergio Mendes Release date: 14 February, 2006

Weekly Read - New Section - Saturday, October 14, 2006

2007-12-06T23:43:00.000-04:00

Current mood: cheerful
Category: Writing and Poetry

Hello everyone!
This is my weekly rec. for those of you looking for a good read.
Paulo Coelho is a very well known brazilian writer, so you probably have heard from his books already... If you haven't you're in for a good treat.
Veronika Decides to Die is a very interesting story, from the very beginning captures you, so if you don't believe this, go into your local bookstore and sneak a peak,... you'll buy it.
Then you can go on an buy all of his books, they're great.
If no more, this story should be made into a movie, because it evokes images so powerful you can almost see the actors playing it out on the big screen...If you read it already, drop me a line, we'll talk about it... if you haven't, rush into your Borders or B&N and eat those pages!
Avi

Currently reading : Veronika Decides to Die By Paulo Coelho Release date: 08 May, 2001

Weekly Music - Saturday Oct. 14th

2007-12-06T23:42:00.000-04:00

Current mood: happy
Category: Music

Time for another music recommendation from yours truly...This time I'm recommending something more fresh.
Lily Allen is a new singer, something different from all the hip hop we've all been listening to.

Alright, Still is her first Cd, and Smile, her first single can be heard from Top of the Pops to MTV. If you don't get any of those, please watch the video on You Tube... its very amusing.That particular song has some reggae rhythm into it, some new style that reminds me of the mexican pop singer "Natalia y la Forquetina". If you like Lily, you'll like Natalia...
So enjoy, and please drop me a line sometime...Avi

Currently listening : Alright, Still By Lily Allen Release date: 01 August, 2006

Pacheco is arriving, slowly... so slowly - Sunday, October 08, 2006

2007-12-06T23:39:00.000-04:00

Current mood: contemplative
Category: Travel and Places

I know most of you don't live here, not even 100 miles from here... Caracas that is... but hey... its a pretty good place even if its so troubled these days.
Around december, while the nordic cities and countries go cold and bitter, we are still in the tropics... somehow Caracas is different.
Surrounded by mountains, the temperature goes down a little bit, that not really used to do this during the year, people start wearing jackets, even during mid day... with the blasting sun, its still cold enough not to be hot.
When this happens, we call it "Pacheco"... after an old man that used to come down to the valley near december, just when the weather was just right... Like its getting to right now.
There's something about december... or the months before it... this start to look brighter, the sky is always clear... and the music... well the music is special... its not like xmas carols, even though u hear those... but a lot more partier... like everything else around here, there's always an excuse...Am I a sucker for christmas? Probably, but even though I'm not even a christian, I value the importance of a time like such, when people get together and share the so little things we usually have... and let others just share theirs with...
Christmas or december its the perfect excuse to regain some humanity, to become a person again.
Its still a good 2 months away, probably a little bit less, and I'm just looking foward to see people smile, plan gatherings and just be happy.
If we put into our lives a dossage of christmas spirit this world might be different, we should not save it just for a period of 30 days, but spread it for 365...

Weekly Music - Saturday, October 07, 2006

2007-12-06T23:38:00.000-04:00

Current mood: awake
Category: Music

I've decided to open a new section in my blog. A weekly music reccomendation. So this being the first, I didn't know what to start from.
So it's not really a new cd or band or anything, but my first recommendation is Reanimation, by Linkin Park.
Its a rather old cd, from 2002, if you can call that a long time... but it has very nice tracks in it, a variety of sorts for me since the selection can drive you from punching madness to love depression... so it makes a good buy if you don't have it.
My favorite track is My December, a slow song that its not really that popular, but its very nice and very true in what it says...Hope you enjoy it!

Currently listening : Reanimation By Linkin Park Release date: 30 July, 2002

If Imaginary... does it threatens mental health?? - Friday, October 06, 2006

2007-12-06T23:34:00.000-04:00

These days I've been invited into some serious pondering... The type of pondering you get yourself lost in... the one you see in your mind so vividly that it almost feels you can touch it...
If dreams could come true just by having them, even when it sounds so corny... there would be some serious dissasters around us...
Dreams could be achieved so easily that we wouldn't spend all of our lives trying to achieve that something that has escaped our hands so many times... and then what would be of our lives if we no longer have something to go after?
Someone said to me that its the very same answer to the question "what if we had all the money in the world?" that once you accomplish that dream, another dream would emerge and it would get accomplished too and so on... but would it be apreciated? will it be special?
If dreams were so easily accomplished, they wouldn't be dreams anymore, just facts, or easy desires.
Dreams are so hard to materialize because they are... dreams.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
Its, if you humor me, like a battle or like falling in love, even when they feel so distant, they too are very close. If you win a war that you didn't fight, if you get that girl or guy without even trying, doesn't feel the same, you don't value it as much, is not that important, its just that frame in the wall that really doesn't catch that much attention.
And so would become of a dream that in the process of existing didn't make us cry, bleed and become frustrated by the sole complex hability of the dream to seem so distant, and yet so near and inviting.
That's why talking about this dream made it different for me.
It's a likelly dream, its a dream that could turn in to a reality, it's a shared dream... if you understand that... then you have probably been in the same situation.
In the logical evolution of the life time of that dream... there could be a couple of obstacles, like cowardness, and fear, and prejudice. I already feel that I've been true to the dream... but I probably have an aftertaste I don't feel so eager to share.
Its that when you have these dreams that in your life threaten to be life changing, the simplest thing might spoil it... and then yet, destroy the ability of that dream to evolve.
If you are here, half of this dream, I want to confess I'm afraid.'Cause I like this dream, and thinking about the dream, and imagening its close, but I'm afraid that if let the water run, might ruin your half of the dream...I do believe that it will come, but the balance that needs to grow makes it really hard, yet interesting to play along.
Don't be the spot in the horizon.
Smile.

sleepless - Thursday, October 05, 2006

2007-12-06T23:31:00.000-04:00

Current mood: contemplative
Category: Blogging

I want an IPod.
I used to have an mp3... I sold it for like no reason... I definitelly didn't need the money... I miss not hearing the junk around me.
Having your own soundtrack its amazing.
I should buy one. It might help shutting out all the thoughts that are circling my mind and sometimes give me this rush.
Like for instance, I keep thinking about choices, about the roads we drive and transit every day, just because life ain't a one way ticket... you're always coming back and going foward, like it were some sort of a tide... drawing you back, pushing you out... sometimes just keeping you in a steady place that brings you no achievement.
I like change... change brings natural renewal, new choices and opportunities... changes are necessary... even if they're bad, changes are exciting, shifts you and tests your ability to sail, or to fight that tide.
I rather ride it... I've learned that fighting just brings you pain, and that being stuck might be comfortable but at the same time, its freezing your evolution.
I'm having a great time right now, overall, if I don't count details, its just great... and that makes me satisfied... I'm living my life with all the juicy chaos it brings.
Still I'm ready for a major shift... I want to wake up tomorrow and feel as if I had to get ready for a defiant (is that even a word) situation... facing an edge, a limit... sometimes that noise around me its just dullness, and boredom...When you're concentrated in resolving a situation, nothing else matters, its very silent and peaceful when you do get to focus... there are no insignificant details to take in, no sharp edges to watch, its just living.
Come to think of it, we don't need to mask the noise, we have to go away from it or just shut it... and make our choices.

hmmm - Sunday, October 01, 2006

2007-12-06T23:29:00.000-04:00

Current mood: calm

Even though I live in such a hectic country, always in a constant fight, being laughed at, yelled at, lied to, betrayed... I refuse to talk about all SERIOUS things that for years have poluted our lives and have made living in this country almost impossible.
I rather talk about the weird things that happen that are so not so bad... the things that make u think, the things that are the symptoms of our reality. There's this guy that lives in the street, I guess, even though he's always well dressed, he's always laying in the floor or something in the sidewalk.
Every sunday he comes up the hill, screaming his lungs out, in english... I live in Venezuela... That's not common. Then he proceeds to curse to every politician's name he can remember... I swear if anyone had the nerve to go up those guys and tell the exactly what this deranged man says... I think things would be a lot clearer...And then you wonder if a guy like this doesn't think that being in this regime is fair... who the hell thinks it is??

I miss simple things - Wednesday, September 20, 2006

2007-12-06T23:27:00.000-04:00

Current mood: calm
Category: Life

Remember when you were a kid and things were pretty simple if you had a good life...?

Everything was better, brighter, simpler, funnier... just wonderful. And then growing up everything shatters... ilusions, dreams, wishes... sentiments...
Nowadays I just wonder what is like to just believe... just purely believe.
Sometimes I just think that if everything around us just becomes simpler, we could lead better lives, happier ones, and be at peace.
But in a world were everything is driven by the human instinct it no wonder we often find ourselves just a brink away from murder.
We humans are just that... violent til our very deaths.
If we can turn this around, 'cause I refuse to believe that we are doomed, how long and what will it take to be different? What will happen to us once we learn that self destruction isn't just a way of life but the very essence of us that has turned this world in what it is right now?

So I thought - Wednesday, August 09, 2006

2007-12-06T23:25:00.000-04:00

Current mood: tired

You know when you have this nagging thought in the back of your head and it doesn't go away no matter how hard you try... I have one that has installed itself in my brain, the thing is that I don't exactly know what it is...
Yeah, I'm loosing it I know, but its keeping me entertained...
In just a couple of weeks I'll be moving to my brand new apartment, and I'm already thinking in great ways to decorate it... I have something that belongs to me at last!!!
At the same time it makes me realize that we put so much weight in material things that is really ridiculous... we should be caring for a greater cause, even if trying to bring some confort to ourselves kind of makes for a worthy one......

Reflections over a terrible cold - Monday, July 31, 2006

2007-12-06T23:24:00.000-04:00

Current mood: blah
Category: Life

You know that you're pretty screwed in life when you're sick, bored at work, with no boyfriend and nothing to do at your house but watch tv... today is one of those days... when a runny nose its treatening to make me go home just because I can't hold it in for more than 3 minutes... I know, pretty disgusting to be discussed in a blog but I decided that today I'm going to pretty much write whatever I want.
If there was still any doubt, yesterday's questions and facts were confirmed into the conflicting matter that occupied our thoughts almos 2 months ago. Came as no surprise at all.
Right now I'm in a state of mind that really creeps me out, just because I take everything that comes without questioning, just for the fact that fighting it burns ways too much energy...

Abstract Thoughts - Tuesday, July 18, 2006

2007-12-06T23:19:00.000-04:00

Current mood: contemplative

Life appears as something rather confussing upon turning points in your story... I don't think we're ever prepared to face the truth or reality in full force, 'cause just like that we avoid suffering at all costs, even hurting a lot more.
Laura, well, she taught me a lot about life, about death, about living, about enjoying life as you build it for yourself. I don't think I'll ever have such interesting conversations as I did with her, I don't think anyone could understand me any better than she did, and instead of being sad, although I am, I think I should feel happy that that is actually true.
For a long time, I fighted the idea of being just a follower, but then I realized that most of what I am in my professional and personal life, I owe to her. It doesn't feel like a burden, nowadays feels like a privilege.
And thinking on missions and well doings, makes me realize that there won't be anymore "children". We are the only ones, the only thousand, where there could had been more...
Somehow I don't think the next generation would have done anybetter, with or without her, she had left LIFE per se a long time ago.
It makes you wonder how much love you need in your life and how good it does to keep you alive. No matter how loved you are, no matter how good you do, if deep down you don't have what you need, ... I'm sorry to say, that some of our heroes might turn into humans and just like that decide over the only thing that we may have full control of, our deaths.I don't feel that she's truly gone, but more alive than ever, 'cause now we realize that she's in every single one of her thousand daughters and sons.

Welcome to la esquina caliente

2007-12-06T23:18:00.000-04:00

Este es mi primer post y pense que era más que justo mudar todos mis blogs de mi cuenta de MySpace a este lugar.
Ahora, todos ellos o casi todos para ser justa, estan en inglés, y queridos, no pienso traducirlos.
Diviertanse leyendo, aprendiendo del idioma y con las cosas que me han pasado en el transcurso de este año inconveniente, desnutrido y un poco hilarante.
Siempre de ustedes, nunca de nadie, procedo a través de mis blogs de todo 1 año, a contarle todo lo que puede pasar en él.

Avi