Sensory Overload

A una coqueta

My maternal grandparents, Samuel y Maria, live in a little trailer in Edinburgh, Texas.  Alone.  'uelito is 83, often seen wearing his cowboy hat, and 'uelita is 81.  They have been married 50+ years.  My grandmother broke her leg last week and I talked to her today, when my parents went to visit her.  Speaking with her, laughing with her, made me so unbelievably happy ~ the strength of her character and the lightness of her laughter wiped away weeks of weakness that have been weighing me down.  She is amazing.

The women in the family are all coquetas on the outside and profoundly strong on the inside ~ the men are macho on the outside and cariñoso softies on the inside.  All of us have a special, playful way of speaking to each other ~ we're never entirely serious ~ the gentle goading usually bundles up any serious words or worrisome thoughts and pushes them into corners of our minds, to be unwrapped later. So, my conversation with 'eulita about her fall and her broken leg went like this (in our informal version of Spanish, with the English translation down below):

Me:    Mire, señorita, qué, 'staba patinando otra vez?
'eulita:    [laughing] Bueno ya sabes....me gustan mis patines.
Me:   ¿Bueno, qué paso?
'uelita:    Ay mijita ~ la hice 81 años sin ninguna fractura ~ y mira.  Pero que hacer?  Así es la vida.  Pero vienes de material muy, muy fuerte mija.  No se to olvide.  Pero, si quiera aquí estan todos con migo.
Me:    Ay 'uelita, si quería atención no tenía que hacer todo eso!
'uelita:    [laughing] Bueno tu abuelo y tu papá andan comprando una tina para bañarme en el garaje, para dejarme toda perfumada.
Me:     Escándalosa!  Y la pierna?
'uelita:    Me tienen en un yeso, y me pusieron un tornillo y una barra.  Como tienes en tu espalda!
Me:    Somos las mujeres biónicas!
'uelita:    Ay mija, tengo muchas ganas de verte.

In English:

Me:   Look little lady, what, were you roller skating again?
Grandma:   [laughing] Well you know...I like my roller skates.
Me:    So, what happened?
Grandma:   Oh sweetie ~ I made it 81 years without any broken bones ~ and look what happens.  But what can you do?  That's life.  But you come from very, very sturdy stock sweetheart.  Don't forget that.  So, at least everyone is here with me.
Me:   Oh grandma!  If you wanted attention, you didn't have to do all that!
Grandma:   Well, your grandfather and your dad are out buying a basin to give me a bath in the garage, to leave me all dolled up.
Me:   You are scandalous!  What about your leg?
Grandma:   They have me in a cast, and they inserted a rod and screw.  Like what you have in your back!
Me:   We're the bionic women!
Grandma:   Oh sweetie.  I really want to see you.

I have written before about my grandmother's strength ~ she is also una coqueta linda, and I love her very much:

On the phone, my grandfather arrived, with the basin they were going to bathe her in. He still calls me "marisita," as if I was still 10.  He survived a cancer scare last year, and rarely leaves my grandmother's side ~ except maybe when he's cutting a rug:

I'm making plans to visit both sets of grandparents in August, in the stifling Texas heat which will surely be softened by the sparkle in my grandmother's eyes, my grandfather's quiet confianza, and their sunny laughter.  I hope to live such a long and loving life as they have; I hope to be as strong as they are ~ someday.  For now, I will let them fuss over me, as if I'm still 10, because even though I am the oldest grandchild in the bunch, I have always been their baby.  As proof, I leave you with the birthday card they sent me when I was 22 or 23, complete with sparkly stickers inside. ~ :).

 

once more, with feeling ~ redux

I never re-publish old posts ~ but once in a while I have an amazing day, or a disheartening day, and often an old post will ring true ~ again.  Sometimes I think that is a good thing ~ like keeping my emotions in check, or recognizing how I react to the same certain things, or, even better, realizing how often I have amazing days.  Other times I think it is awful ~ wondering whether I've been spinning my wheels in the mud for years, and still haven't learned my lesson(s).  I can't decide which category this week falls into ~ either way, good or bad, it has been eventful, enlightening, intriguing, and insightful.  And so, this old post, from December 2, 2004, still rings true ~ loud and clear.  The original post was written from a more dispirited perspective, after a particularly tough day ~ but the feeling I had after writing it was intensely positive.  Today perhaps I'm re-posting this from that positive perspective, but I'd sum it all up in exactly these words, in exactly this emotion ~ 1,268 days later ~ 30,456 hours of life lessons.  Back to square one?  Or 360-degrees back to the real me?  You tell me. ~

Mutts by Patrick McDonnell.

I've been told I eat my corn flakes with passion ~~ that I can talk to a tree with such fervor it'll reach out and hug me.  My past boyfriends always adored my "passion," until we had an argument and then they would simply castigate it as "irrational" and "emotional".  Me, I like my passion, crazy as it is sometimes...OK, it's often loud, sometimes disruptive, occasionally misguided ~ but never not true, never not profound, never false. Recently I was asked, "yes but aren't you just faking it?" when I expressed how deeply I felt about something; and that question cut through me like the double-edged sword on which Yin and Yang balance precipitously...deeply, emotionally...enlightening.  I've been cut down recently, the fire behind my passion has been doused with the doubtful waters of the disbelieving  ~~ last night's music and food and conversation was a bit like twine, wrapping itself around my damaged limbs, helping me hold it all together.....and so I remember that I love my passion ~ fueled by Mexican sensibility, tempered by  an Americanized sense, colored by clove and cinnamon emotions. 

If you feel passion about something, show it ~ shout it ~ share it.......and if for some reason something keeps you from feeling, or expressing, your passion, then mooch off someone else's passion until you can grow some of your own to share..... just don't cut down anyone else's passionate personality ~ our forest needs those kinds of trees.  In that comic strip up above, Earl is the lovable pup, who is always hanging out with his best friend....Mooch, the curious cat from next door.  If you can't be an Earl, be a Mooch ~ or maybe a Tom-Tom.

the good old days

Thank you to the very cool OaklandGoods for showing me the way to the wonderful online Oakland Collection at the Oakland Museum of California's website.  The Oakland collection includes over 7,000 objects, from as large as a fire engine to as small as a stone marble, and some amazing photographs of Oakland’s past, some dating back to the 19th century.  I love vintage photographs and I lost myself for over an hour learning more about Oakland's colorful history through sepia photographs, blue-tinted portraits, and cloudy black-and-white images.  The website also gave me a brief account of the birth of Oakland and my little neighborhood (aka No Sleep Til Brooklyn):

Oakland, as a city, was founded 150 years ago, in 1852. Initially it was a small village along what is now Broadway. In the following decades, the village grew to become a commercial center, especially after it became the western terminus of the first transcontinental railroad (1869). It grew still larger by annexation of Brooklyn (1872), Vernon Heights (1891), the area north to Berkeley (1897), and the area south to San Leandro (1909). In 1910, the visionary Mayor Mott founded the city’s first municipal museum, the Oakland Public Museum. As a cutting edge museum in 1910, it began to acquire the California Collections, which now, over 90 years later, number more than one million objects.

These are a few of my favorite things:

Playing for Keeps (1891)

Fashion model posing with a 1935 Packard 12 automobile
at the Lake Merritt Bandstand




Lake Merritt fireworks, Golden Gate International Exposition (1939)

How do you know you pissed off a Mathematician?

Note the Memo:

I don't know if this was real, but a friend forwarded it to me and I love it ~

the (mis)adventures of Snow Ninja

A few Tuesday's ago in March, deep in the soul-less darkness of a late-night Council meeting, a friend said to me, "Come snow camping with us this weekend!"  I thought I heard her say, "only a couple of miles to hike in," and "curl up around the wood burning stove."  It was late; I had a brutal cold; I was disoriented; I was unclear on the actual intersection of the concepts of "snow" and "camping."  So, I said "Yes." ~~~ I thought the weekend would look something like this:

The actual weekend was something like that photo ~ except without the cozy.....or the warmth.  Because it actually started and ended with hours of this:

Snow camping, it occurred to me too late, involves hours of trekking in the snow and wind to actually reach the mythical snow hut, where you imagine a cozy wood burning stove and plush pillows are waiting for you.  ~ But I am getting way ahead of myself ~ I need to back up, to explain how in the heck I found myself trekking through snow and wind and sleet and ice, on legs that felt like wet noodles after a few hours, wearing the most ridiculous outfit known to woman-kind.

So my two friends, who shall be known here as Mama Bear (MB) and Papa Bear (PB) (because they were so good to me), are really great outdoor enthusiasts.  PB, in fact, is an extreme climber, skier, hiker, biker, and all around scaler of tall mountains.  So I should have known that when he said, "Oh it's just a few miles," that what he really meant was, "You will experience many Into-Thin-Air moments and you will feel like you are near death for most of the trip."  He and his friends call this "Type-2" fun ~ you know, not real hilarious "Type-1" fun but the kind of fun that you don't know is fun, until well after the shock has worn off and you realized you survived; then, it's fun.  But I didn't remember all this when I said, "YES!" to their invitation.  I figured they said snow trekking, in snow shoes, not skiing ~  anyone can do THAT!  I was glad we weren't going to ski up the trail to the hut.

Because you see, I have really only been skiing once.  Years ago.  I was too cheap to pay for a lesson, so a friend, an expert skier, gave me a few tips, which mostly involved his shouting "just go pigeon-toed!"  I didn't fall too much during the quote-unquote lesson, so I put on a brave face and said, "Let's do it!  Let's hit my first run!" . . . . the bunny slope.  Woo-Hoo! 

It was my first time on a ski lift ~ and you know, those damn things move WAY too fast!  And how are you supposed to gracefully jump/slide/fall/slip off the lift at the summit?  I thought of all this as we went up, up, up the slope (OK, well, not too far up ~ it was the bunny slope after all).  On cue, I fell off the lift at the top of the bunny slope and ducked just in time before the chair bashed my head in.  Then, I tried to stand up boldly, as if I totally and completely meant to perform that acrobatic feat off the lift, but I had fallen down too close to the path of the lift ~ where it was pure ice, not snow.  Again, on cue, because I'm good for that, I started sliding, I mean skiing, down that run.  I was frantically waving my poles around, unsure how the hell to steer the damn skis.  I tried to avoid, and then purposefully hit, the perfect kids who were slaloming down the damn run.  I started gaining speed ~ TOO much speed ~ I got scared ~ I remembered that my friend told me that if I wasn't sure how to stop, that I should just DROP, just FALL into the gentle, soft, welcoming snow that will cushion your gentle descent. 

So, I did that ~ except (a) you should never really just FALL OVER when you're racing down the run at an ungodly speed, and (b) my skis DID NOT POP OFF.  Skis are supposed to pop off.  They are supposed to do that so they are not in your way when you fall, and perhaps start rolling.  Mine stayed on.  Which means that as I tumbled down the bunny slope, I looked like a shambles of a tumbleweed as the skis pummeled me while I rolled down the mountain, I mean, bunny slope.  And, because this was the bunny slope, and I was near the bottom, the chair lift was very close up above.  So, I could hear people, literally, shouting, "OOOOH!" and "OUCHHHH!" and "UGHHH!" as they watched me.  Roll.  Down. A Bunny Slope.

And then I came to a full stop.  At the bottom of the bunny slope.  Face down. In the snow.  With my skis still on.  And little kids zipped past me wearing ski outfits that cost more than my car. 

So, that was the only time I have ever been skiing.  Remember this, OK?

Now back to the story.  We drove to Lake Tahoe Friday night, to stay with friends and get a little acclimated to the altitude, since we would be climbing so much the next day.  The next morning, it finally occurred to me to ask what the plan was for hiking in ~ by then, at least I knew the hike in was *6* miles, not 2.  But I can do 6 miles, so I wasn't too worried.  I just wanted to know what trail we would take in.

"Well, you see," started PB ~ "here's the beauty of my plan: we are going to shave off the first two miles of the hike!"  GREAT, I thought.  Four miles will be NO problem!  What do we have to do?  So PB begins to explain: "Well you see, we're going to take the Mt. Lincoln Express to the summit behind Sugar Bowl...."

"Wait, the what?" I asked.  "What's the Lincoln Express?"

"The ski lift!  That way, the LIFT takes us up the first two miles!  Brilliant, right?!" . . . . I stared in silence.

Then he says, "Oh, but wait, there is just ONE CATCH." . . . . My silence gets louder.

"You see, you have to actually have skis or a snow board to get on the lift ~ they don't want people snowshoeing up there behind the closed area, so we do have to take boards and skis with us."

I disregarded momentarily the phrase, "closed area," and asked, "Wait; skis and boards AND snow shoes?  Where do we put all that?"

"Oh! We're just going to strap you into my snow board, and we'll tie the snow shoes to your back pack.  We'll take the lift, jump off at the summit, trek in a bit, and leave the snow boards under a tree somewhere until we return."

Seriously.  PB said all this with a straight face as he sipped coffee and munched on wheat toast with jelly.

All I could say was, "OK ~ I'm just a passenger on this bullet train to hell anyway."  And then we took off to Sugar Bowl.  Here I should note that I did not have snow boots ~ I had waterproof HIKING boots.  "No problem!" smiled PB ~ "we'll strap you in tight to the board."  I admitted I've never been on a snow board.  "Haven't you been on a skateboard?  It's the same thing!" ~ This did not help.

We arrived at Sugar Bowl, bought our lift tickets, and meandered up to the Mt. Lincoln Express lift.  I tried to delay strapping into the snow board as long as I could.  At the end of the line, with little old ladies and toddlers speeding past me doing handstands on their snow boards, PB and MB strapped me in, one foot only, and then instructed me to SHIMMY or SLIDE forward, kinda sideways.  LIKE A CRAB.  With snow shoes strapped to my backpack!  Oh yes people ~ this is as sexy as it gets. 

When we reached the front of the line, we saw HOW FAST the lift was swinging towards us.  "OH!" I thought ~ "THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT THE MT. LINCOLN EXPRESS!"  Oh yes, the altitude had made me slow, too. 

For now, let me show you the "Before" and "After" picture of preparing for the hike in ~ that is, Before having to suit up for the trek, and After shimmying into several layers of ninja-black fleece:

BEFORE ~ fresh-faced, naïve, unaware of what lay ahead.

AFTER ~ scared to death, I mean, ready to kick snow's ass.

 

TO BE CONTINUED ~ . . . . . .

 

no lazy mon here

I just finished the little translation gig I mentioned a few days ago ~ I translated campaign literature for a Green Party candidate outside of the Bay Area running for Congress.  It was fun ~ I really enjoy translating English to Spanish, especially phrases such as "Democrat/Republican cabal" and "clean sweep of Congress."  Technically, during that contract job, I was up to four jobs ~ my full-time policy job plus two others I won't even tell you about. 

Now that I'm back down to three jobs, I'm hustling for more translation or editing work ~ I feel like my Dad.  When I was growing up, my Dad always seemed to have 2-4 "entrepreneurial projects" going on ~ he always had his construction work, but then there was the used car dealership, the rental properties, a restaurant I think, and a few others I am probably forgetting.  My mom has always helped manage my father's businesses, but she's also always had her hand in various home business ventures, selling all sorts of "products for the home" to las vecinas y las comadres.  I grew up with boxes piled around the house, of merchandise from Stanley, Avon, and Tiara, to name few; and these days it's vitamin supplements which she swears will help you live to 100.  Bless her heart.

When I started college, I didn't really need a job because I had a scholarship and was living at home ~ but I had worked since I was 14 or 15, so I didn't really know how to be just a student.  I found a job at a chiropractic office, translating for Spanish-speaking patients and other office work.  Then, one of the patients, who was some VP at Smith Barney, asked to hire me for cold calls to companies in Mexico.  So, I would wake up around 5 am, work at Smith Barney from about 7 am to 9 am, go to class, then go work at the chiropractic office for a few hours after class.  In law school, even though you're not supposed to work in your 1L year, I kept managing the law office I had worked at for several years.  During my summer clerkships, I would clerk during the day and work at the old law office at night.  It was only partially for the money ~ mostly I didn't want to abandon my old boss and his busy practice.  These days, it's for the money.  ~

Over the years, my side jobs have run the gamut from portrait studio baby photographer to pet food pusher to box office girl at a gay night club to posing as a "businesswoman of color" in several ads for high-tech companies; someone called me once to say, "I'm at the airport, and, um, there's a huge poster of you with the words, 'The Revolution is Coming'."  How's that for varied experience?

When I hear someone talk about their one job, I laugh and think of that 'Hey Mon' episode on In Living Color where the daughter brings home a doctor and the family exclaims, "ONE job?!?  HOW will he support you!?!?"  So, as I begin my on-line search for another job # 4, I leave you with this hilarious 'Hey Mon Airlines' episode ~ it's brilliant.

Visions and Villains

A year or so ago, I began reading Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, A Memoir in Books.  I didn't know anything about the book when I saw it, but I was immediately interested in it because it was about exploration of the works of some of my favorite writers: Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Jane Austen.  I also thought it would be an interesting way to learn more about the politics of Iran, the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, etc.  Plus, the book was "free" because I bought two other books that day.

Initially, I was captivated by the writing ~ it was at moments vivid, intimate, uninhibited, and, in certain phrases, simply lovely.  But after a few chapters, I found I couldn't identify with Nafisi and her personal story ~ she seemed to me (from what little I read) to have lived quite a privileged life (her literary and political family, her life before the Revolution, as a professor, as a writer, and later her life in the States).  I couldn't get past the image I quickly created about her; and so I put the book down (actually, I complained loudly and tossed the book back on my bookshelf).

Recently, for some unknown reason, I decided to give the book another chance.  I told myself that I do appreciate the beautiful writing and that perhaps that appreciation would outweigh, or even enrich, whatever criticism I had of her personally.  I also read a little more about her and about the book, and various critiques of the book ~ for non-fiction I do generally like to have the "back story" on the writer and the narrative in general.  I learned more about the wholeness of the story before I went back to consider the particular morsels of the moments that sum up the story.

I reached the chapter where Nafisi discusses how upset one her students becomes when she hears the label the others have placed on her, how they define her ~ whereas one is a poet and another a painter, they sum her up as a "contradiction in terms."  And today at lunch, sitting out in the sun, this part stunned me in its stark reflection of my reality, at this moment in time:

The sun and clouds that defined Nassrin's infinite moods and temperaments were too intimate, too inseparable.  She lived by startling statements that she blurted out in a most awkward manner.  My girls all surprised me at one point or another, but she more than the rest.
~
In class, we were discussing the concept of the villain in the novel. ~~ Humbert, like most dictators, was interested only in his own vision of other people.  He had created the Lolita he desired, and he would not budge from that image.  I reminded them of Humbert's statement that he wished to stop time and keep Lolita forever on "an island of entranced time," a task undertaken only by Gods and poets.

And I sat there on the warm grass, lamenting the cold reality of the visions and villains in my own life ~ of someone creating an image of me so idealistic that there was no living up to it.  And when I failed, as anyone would have, the dark rigidity of the image would not bend to allow any new light into its corners.  The darkness of this helplessness ~ as someone else shapes the ball of clay that is You, and then destroys it, and then never lets you place a hand on re-centering and throwing the ball of clay back onto the wheel, to reshape it ~ it is blinding.

Years ago, through some freak accident, I suffered from Vertigo.  I felt like I was spinning and whirling, completely, for about a week.  Everything around me seemed like it was moving, but then so did I ~ it was like a double dose of a swift orbit ~ around me and within me.  And recently this feeling has surfaced for me not only in the three-dimensional world of my reality, but in the simulated two-dimensional Web 2.0 world: you present and perceive certain images ~ of yourself and of other people.  I see now that when the fluidity of cyberspace and your real personality are confronted by the rigidity of the zeros and ones of our computers...well, reality and flexibility and lucidity are lost ~ and so are you.

And all of these themes ~ control, betrayal of vision, fear, deception, loss ~ are beautifully portrayed in one of my favorite films: Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.  I adore James Stewart ~ but I was struck more by a simple line uttered by Kim Novak, as Madeleine: Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere.

And that's all I thought about today at lunch ~