Après le tournage (paréntesis catártico)

Hoy viajé en una rebanada de pan con mantequilla y mermelada de arándano de vuelta a la cocina en Travesa Pastoriza, en la bella barcaza arquitectónica que sostiene el laberintismo pseudo urbano de Compostela.

Siempre que desayuno algo que pertenece al hábito ajeno, me convierto momentáneamente en esa persona y mi percepción de la realidad adquiere nuevo plumaje cromático, es genial, pero esto es un fenómeno que sólo ocurre por las mañanas.

Te quería escribir y lo hago así, con las manos llenas de fruta desmembrada y con la tripa interna bañada y absorbida en el líquido más corrosivo que produce, ésta, la dESCONo(D)cIDA glándula del desasosiego. Ese miedo es el que surge para salvaguardarme ante lo inmóvil, ante el silencio de blancos cuerdos que se fuerza a sí mismo como partícipe activo dentro del delirio esquizofrénico de mi pintura. Hoy me encuentro rendida después de una batalla con el insomnio de algodón que me abraza a cuenta gotas, y de cuya fidelidad no soy digna. Cuya fidelidad me genera asco y me quema el vientre con la punta encendida de un cigarro torcido.

Pero lo duro, así, no siempre es desagradable. Lo duro agiliza el sentido de este porvenir envolvente que nos regala un segundo, un paréntesis de apreciación desorbitada contra el sublime que traemos embotellado dentro cada uno de nosotros. Somos seres subyugados al reino orgánico de la entropía disfrazada de un tipo de juicio que, vertido en plomo, nos impide ver el infinito del otro al que tanto reverenciamos sin saberlo.

Me hubiera encantado verte cantar junto con todas esas estrafalarias individualidades, desenvuelta en papiros sonoros de frenesí y fausse note; entre el cráneo partido a la mitad y el acordeón con los dientes de fuera. No había ningún espectador, sino una masa amorfa de psiques dis/ex/tendidas a lo largo del alfombrado compuesto por mosaicos de sangre vieja, según la máxima del juego. 

Así fue como llegué a conocer el mito original que forjó a la humanidad entera, el que aconteció tras un estornudo catastrófico de cabellos de hidrógeno enredado, de helio y de terror marítimo.

Estás atrapada en un suprematismo climático, pero no te dejes manipular por la impresión primera. No caigas en la aporía bífida que tanto derrama las bocas de tus consanguíneos. Mejor piérdete en la soledad tangencial que rige el soberano ubicuo de tu aislamiento americano. Nácete del ojo terrible que surge de esa majestuosidad que te vomita, a manera de ofrenda invertida. Vuélvete hacia y desde ti, ante el más acaudalado e inexorable de los monocromos absolutos. 

Li(e)bre de Beuys. 

Host University, over and out

Dear everything,

I have just finished my last semester in Galicia. Boy, was that a challenge! I guess being part of the Crossways gang secretly implies being able to stretch your limits, far beyond any previous expectation... We're all together, holding each other with our tangled hearts, clutching the edges of our psychologically driven vessels with our bare hands. We're hopelessly enduring the wavy bashes, as the storm washes over our entire conception of anything we've ever learned and pretentiously bragged about knowing afterwards. We're learning to unlearn, which is actually harder than the first bit.

I believe I'd never known love the way it's sucked on my blood it at this age, blended in-along with other pungent factors not necessarily included in the original recipe. For the first time I've felt like my skin isn't flexible enough to contain the whole of my expanding inner planet. It's bursting the canister, ma'am! and that is certainly a disconcerting feeling (or maybe it's just gas). I've never felt more out of control than right now, but I'm letting the current take hold of the steering wheel. Have you ever had "the greenies"? It's kind of like that, but with blueish strokes completing the palette, subtle and dis/comfortingly staring at you from the precipice. Like that killer bunny in that Monty Python movie which I still love. Yeah, that's nothing to do with the point whatsoever, but I won't erase this sentence. Fuck it.

Santiago was an ambivalent experience. Extremely diegetic, I'd say a complete descent into the maelstrom (in every fucking sense): Wagner gone dubstep. But first, let us start with the uni:

At the beginning, you get the feel that nobody knows anything regarding what you're supposed to do. Then, as time passes, you get the impression that people, further and in general, don't really give a flipping rats arse about what you're keenly attempting to be doing (in order to cope with the pseudo logistics of what's required of you as a student). Moments after (talking about months) you realize this is all true... you're on your own, gal! Our local coordinator must have been abducted by infected aliens or something. I don't know, but I'd never been to such ridiculously lousy classes-that unavoidably revealed such a lack of organization on behalf of the academic body. The logistics (or lack thereof) are all driven by economic impairments, as well as with the traumatic remainders of what a dictatorship sponsored by the likes of individuals such as Franco can do to the minds of regular citizens, especially those inhabiting the peripheries (by the way, you MUST watch that video of Franco attempting to speak in English, it is plainly a delight!). The thing we must be reminded of is that we're taking a masters course (to which, I'm investing DOUBLE than my fellow European mateys, just for being exotically Latin: yeah, such is the literal-price for getting to know the workings of the hegemonic "Western thought"), I guess I absolutely had to repeat kindergarten during my late twenties, for some sort of karmic balancing. Life takes very interesting turns, yes it does.

Fortunately, you have the Mundus gang to keep you floating about (although, I must admit it is funny enough to be considered a "challenged" being by your peers/tutors, only because you're foreign and supposedly don't know how master the language...). There was a new generation joining us this last semester, and we had the absolute pleasure of knowing people from all over the place: there were 15 of us in total! MUNDUS OVERLOAD. Besides, like I've been saying all this time: the thing that's really worth about this whole trip has to do with the people you meet along the way. We develop fantastic meta-discussions on Whatsapp over how repeatedly stupid it is to have the SAME class, over and over again (since the teacher is too old to notice that she-herself is becoming an entire analeptic cliché). Very Kafkaesque indeed... but then again, witty in fraganti comments do help you feel better; especially when the figure of authority you're dealing with keeps contradicting him/herself over the projected power point presentation s/he has (obviously not) prepared for class. You feel the need to breathe deeply, or to rip your layers of clothing like a rabid animal. Fortunately one of our gang was a yoga instructor, so we had our extremely useful sessions for calming the fuck down, whenever classes got sketchier in terms of academic proficiency (and everything else, really).

We had the worst time finishing essays during Christmas break. I'd never had the pleasure of visiting the ER in the South of Spain (due to excess of stressing over bullshit exams). It is a very fulfilling experience, if you must ask: you hear all sorts of conversations mostly dealing with old people trying to hit on young panic-attacked ladies, etc. However the food is amazing and the company is very enjoyable: people are more keen on dancing and singing, which reminded me of my dear own homeland... people in the North are more distant, for some reason (I mean, don't get me wrong, they can be rather nice, but the spacey human-relation thing does make you feel quite lonely from time to time). 

On the other hand, Santiago is stupidly pretty in the Spring and in the Summer: we had our share of endless picnics in the many parks that appeared to be exploding with colour and delight! I met loads of interesting people, including my lovely tutor (one of the many exceptions to the negligent majority), and therefore I leave grateful... missing caldo gallego and stuffy tapas from San Clemente. I shall keep you in my heart, dear Saint Jacques.

Perpignan is next... let's see what's up with that.   

In Betweening

Dear blog (it's like bog but with a beautiful extra "l", in the mid-el),

This past week has been hell (rhymes and all). Fucking October, you're always pulling on my existential braids mercilessly.
Time for mental mirrors and birdlike reflections: My remaining granddad passed away, literally away... far from here. It's as if someone invisible just suddenly removed the carpet from under my tiny incoherent feet only to be left there, as pathetic as can be: floating around in a void of hermetically aimless psychological spaces.

                                      (Yeah, classes are so boring I'm doodling like a boss)

First came the unexpected birthday crisis regarding my body's senescent condition, revealed, and now this. Death is pounding at the door, this time of year, anyways.
My thoughts are spinning like delirious flies around the subject of life's finite nature overall. But also and most importantly, I've been pondering over the human need for exercising compassion in general (while life lasts) and specifically as a way to achieve forgiveness, before the end.
Then again it's the in betweens that are sometimes hard to swallow: the liminal spaces. In this particular one I happen to have been hurt by misleading attitudes and under-grounded narratives dealing with colleagues of mine. Phew, Santiago sometimes sends you a personal black cloud to look over you, literally and in the most negative of ways.
I guess it's a matter of realizing that every person is only looking to satisfy her/his own needs and purposes, sometimes regardless of who they're stepping on along the way. The complexity of social interactions as a whole is a mind-fucking trip... talk about psychedelic experiences! In the end I guess we always tend to assume that others are Machiavellically plotting to make your life living Hades. But, the mission here lies in the fact that it's every person's responsibility to look at each situation with the eyes of a fluorescent spider (oh, so many, and so creepy, eww); and from every angle that's attainable. Oh Kant, what the fuck was your maxim? categorical imperativeness: "Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself" or in a cheaper and more self-help kind of way: "Treat others how you wish to be treated". Oooooor if you want to go extra mustachy nerdy: "Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law". Whatever, dude, nobody's listening. Besides, determinism sucks.

Will Eisner said that life and art have a similar condition in the sense that they both rely so much on an acute use of perspective. I always remember my painting workshops, where the pretentious teachers lectured us on how we're supposed to look at our canvases from the different positions our bodies could manage to take, within the available space. One must pull away in order to see the whole picture... Atferwards one must once again plunge into the contents of her/his creation, with a brush in one hand and a joint in the other. It's a never ending fight against one's own demons, Sisyphus. Sissy pussy. The more you get used to facing the taste of your liquid madness, your horror, the more emphatically autonomous you'll become. Since you'll be fearing less and less that which becomes more and more familiar to you, pathos-wise. For real, y'all, it's THE infallible recipe.

We do not own each other, oh, but how do we desire one another from time to time! Mundus masters sometimes turn into a real-bizarre sort of Televisa soap opera/reality show, where everyone speaks with a funky Spanish accent (myself included).

But anyways, I just wanted to invite you all to look beyond your obvious/apparent impulses. BE SILENT, BE STILL. As a drawing exercise, for life, I want to observe more closely at the people I'm hanging out with... I'm finding out nothing is what it seems, and I love it!
We are all oh so fragile and imperfect... I want to learn how to expand my understanding of the other person, I'll try that this week. Instead of reacting like a constipated bureaucrat I shall breathe and buy the fucker who's grinding my gears some un-poisoned doughnuts. The fancy kinds.
Will we ever be able to completely empathize with someone else? Since we'll never be that person, we can only be ourselves. But don't you worry, gramps, like I promised you; I shan't stop making an effort to become kinder and kinder, therein lies the real challenge, like you well taught me.


Anyways, stop fucking around (literally). I'll write more about Santiago this week.
 :)
Stay clean! (conscience wise)

Santiaguirri

So yesterday I ninja bombed-my way out of my own birthday party. Am I a dramatic nutcase? Yes. I have to admit, this was an entirely different event compared to that other crazy Scottish celebration that happened exactly a year ago.

27. The number pushes the texture of whatever's under my skin towards an effervescent edge, to the point that it's starting to tickle the hinges of my personality: this is something I've never felt before. I'm like an old teenager learning to breathe by snorting lines of blueish steam.

This is my second semester in Santiago de Compostela, but I shall write about the first one first, "second things third". Yesterday one of the newbies (yes, there are freshers now since/hence we have become the older generation) told me that my blog helped her cope with the anxiety of not knowing what to expect from this masters course. Therefore I'm writing a bit more, since at least someone's reading. Anyways.

My first impression of Santiago was lucidly dreamy. The wetness... Everywhere you look there's green, and blue, and yellow, and gray in all sorts of organic brush strokes that build up the tactile/visual character of this charming medieval-ish labyrinth. It rains so much you start to feel as if you're growing scales, or squamous flakes. Adaptation. Evolution. This is the mise en scene, a psychological madly-driven Antlantis whose streets are packed with (extremely) slow and irritable old people.

After a rather nerve-driven flight, (I almost didn't get my Spanish student visa, fuck bureaucracy everywhere) I arrived at Carmen's humble abode, where I was to stay until I found a place of my own. The "piso" was, and is just ad hoc: her personal empire of a doll's house, where her coloured pencils live in symbiotic harmony along with various postcards and other echoing remains of her (very) disordered European journeys. We both hang around to chat and draw around the city. And we always end up arguing about everything that we do, since we do it in opposite directions of thought. Yet we always meet in the middle, where we create enough arguable space for tea, and differing peace.

Some of the gals that had studied here during the previous semester lingered in town long enough for us to meet and learn from their experiences. We squeezed as much info out from them as we could, before entering the madness of the Galician Academia at USC... geezness, we had heard so many things already that had alerted our survival skills.
Our first nights out were quite subnormal (what isn't in this nomadic chronotope of a masters degree) yet we enjoyed the weirdness that each moment brought to the table. For example: one time my Thai and my Chinese friend were kind enough to accompany me to the Botafumeiro ceremony. So we entered the illustrious cathedral only to be greeted in smokey-funky English by the hosts: "Güelcom!" the robed figures muttered kindly, to what my companions reacted with expressions such as: "This is so exotic!"

*CATHOLICISM. IT'S EXOTIC*

Yeah. So there were three girls from the Saint Andrews gang that were also coming to study here in Santiago, all of whom were fantastic. Together we roamed through town, becoming familiar with our new surroundings, and trying out the gorgeous little coffee shops that dappled the whole of the historic cask. After some days we found out that other three gals from Sheffield (2) and Bergamo (1) had arrived to town to study here as well, so we decided to have a little meet-and-greet reunion in order to experience our existences in the flesh.
Our first dinner together was memorable: the (then) unknown lasses had, so amicably, fixed some yummy tapas for us to munch on while exchanging information about our first semester mishaps, and to test our overall compatibility, taste-wise. We are so similar and nerdy... it's disgustingly comfortable talking to any of these wonderful human beings :)

Anyways, my first impression of the three of them is worth writing about: I entered the fancy fucking apartment wearing my Japanese fisherman's trousers (they're orange and have a million pockets, very un-girly) with my usual disheveled hairstyle (slacker look Xal), dirty sneakers, and a regular tee. The hostesses, on the other hand, looked as if they were carved out from a magazine. Boy, were they intimidatingly pretty, the malditas lisiadas. However, as we got to talking a little I slowly realised these people were not the usual poshy-stuck up kind of girls, the ones who think they can own the world with their looks. Quite the opposite! We ended up engaging in diverse and fluidly interesting conversations that covered the topics I most enjoy discussing about. APPROVED. My heart had spoken. And I was truly surprised, for the good.

Day after day our interactions became more frequent as we kept sharing the good stuff until we finally decided to include the BOOZE factor, and BAM! we became the best of friends in no time. Social lubricants rule.

Brazilian Ana is dearly missed (just graduated, sadly and happily at the same time), one of the most wonderful people I've ever met. Her taste in music should be canonized. Yes, I just said that.
Romanian Cristinushki is just grand, every person in the world should get to meet her, she has a fairly contagious smile and loves reading Zadie Smith. Her sense of humour blows my mind to bits. Period.
Belén. The Murcian lady in the greenest of dresses, she is my daily inspiration for achieving greatness. I feel truly blessed to have met such an unbelievably extraordinary human being. I'm flabbergasted for life.

Tapas in Santiago are sort of a daily activity thing, therefore wonderful Isa, Carmen, Connie and myself now hung out with our new acquaintances and eventually became shoelace-tight, for we were to fight together against the horrid negligence of the academic zombies that passed themselves as postgraduate teachers.

TO BE CONTINUED.

St A Overall

So our local coordinators & representatives are asking about our opinions regarding what our overall experience has been (so far) while studying at the peculiar institutions we'd originally chosen for our masters course respective pathways...

FIRST SEMESTER: What I've got to say regarding what education feels like (for a short while, anyways), in that oh-so distinctively bucolic part of Scotland, is what follows:

(yeah, Charity Day with Mar)

Honest to FSM, I have to admit I am not necessarily fond of the institutionalized academic sudden eagerness to resemble, at least method-wise, the Spanish Inquisition. HOLD IT! I exaggerate, mayhaps... Nevertheless I shall proceed to develop my hyperbole, just for the fun of stretching our hold of reality (and to scare the newcomers just a little).
The accused, I mean, pupil here is exposed to a series of psychosomatic resistance exercises ("This is the Sparta of your miiind!'') that end up suspending his/her own sense of being worthy of a right to have a spot on this planet. What a way to challenge young humans in terms of proving their own intellectual potential by pulverizing their self-esteems! Yay! Well there it is! Why the fuck not; one must climb down this murky hole of endless desolation and further abandonment of his/her own hopes and dreams until reaching the neon sign that reads "Candy Mountain" (because, by this time, you're hallucinating, Dorothy). And then, when you least expect it, it is finally over, and you get your degree along with extra wipes to kindly remove the trail of blood and tears you've been leaving behind, ever since you entered Market Street from Albany (the paper's also good for filling up the hole where your soul used to be, never you mind).
I am le-kidding (well, sort of). But then again, I'm the abject in this play. I thus speak as one does from outside of his/her element (let us remember that us art students are usually more adjusted to the challenges of producing objects/relations/spaces through which our own conceptualized melodramas can become sort of materialized and further contemplated by other equally keen dorks). That is the reason why I was taken aback, first hand... HOWEVER, I'm sure any other fair-minded and overall prepared pupil will no less than endure those extremely stressful periods of machine-like paper regurgitating, and encyclopedia-reading until reaching the point where even the thought of food becomes irrelevant to your existence. I mean, come on! as if life itself could not tell us more about the theories we revised during class time (which ponder upon life's phenomena as seen through the eyes of magnificent mind-constructs, developed by individuals capable of forging simultaneous clashings of space and time and viceversa, ok) *...* but anyways, I guess I just wish I had SOME spare time to go to Edinburgh and sip a single pint without the hugeongous (yes, I used that word) remainders of my pending workloads seeping in through the cracks of my liquified pyche. But in the end (of your life) going through hell and being able to verbalize your experience to your fellow oneironauts makes you a stronger being, or just a fair enough person, or some other thing you can brag about to your neighbors and Twitter fans.

Scotland.

The views were fantastic. The food was... edible, almost (when drunk maybe). Some teachers were keen and helpful, others terrible... TERRIBLE (as human beings tend to be from time to time when acquiring enough artificial prestige to assume they're all so mentally infalible, especially when addressing topics that are in fact unattainable from inside of the egocentric schemata that so-well characterizes the "Western" kind of thought). You need to be humble and practice the elasticity of your ego in order to truly understand things outside from yourself (which reflect those inside of you) THEN maybe you can presume to talk about Magic Realism. BOG!

I found it particularly ironic how we studied the limiting incoherences within the cultural discourses that contextually frame certain peoples' way of abstracting reality, and further stuffing it into excruciatingly rational-categorical boxes (which constructs their distinctive regard towards others) ESPECIALLY IN THE UK. But then again our essays were marked under those same standards, which only reaffirmed (as the essence of the performative is explained by Judith Butler, meaning, construction by reiteration) the inescapably faulty squareness of the mind we were on the one hand so keenly criticizing... Odd. I found that to be a bit paradoxical (to put it in a nice way), but maybe I'm confused and wrong and did not learn get the gist of it all :P I guess we'll never know.

At least I find that back where I'm from, in Latin America (well, specifically Mexico) I can relatively manage to pull through, in spite of all the luminiscent nonsense that keeps us from questioning the processess by which the current systematic flow of powerworks inboththepsychoanalitic&economicchannelsofinterpretationreproducingitselfinthefuelthatistheexcessofhumangreedandslothblablablablaIliketurtless (SEE WHAT ST ANDREWS DID TO ME? I NEED REHAB FAST) But then again, that actually reflects how us post-colonial creeps get to live our days, such a weirdly-functional mess we're in, under the imposing capitalist foot of our adorable northern-border neighbors. Lovely.

Hahahahaha lolz, nay.

I think what I enjoyed the most of my experience (apart from learning shitloads of theories) was just LIFE, as shared with the ghetto gang (that sounds dodgy, but I'm talking about the Fife Park intl. student community, FWI). We all truly kept each other afloat during deadly-deadline periods (everyone had his/her own respective crises): we became a hardcore wartime family bunch. Heavy Hemingway-but-in-Rwanda kind of shit: As I've written before, the music room was our precious haven from the world, and we rocked that motherfucker when everybody else was already asleep (even the guard let us stay in for a bit more, he saw how important it was to us). But apart from that we also aced at coexisting with pure empathy: Some cooked (or burned food, depending on the house and its ''malfunctioning oven situation") for the rest. Some kept the coffee pouring during critical hours in the night (I love you for that, Juana). Some studied together destroying living rooms and drinking ethanol-tea. Some escaped to visit others at curious times... Some climbed through kitchen windows to wake up fellow classmates, when alarms failed and exams were needed to be taken (you're welcome, house 15). Some gathered behind the bushes to share songs and weird dances in spite of the cold and the erudite pressures of the approaching next day... just 'cause we were awesome to each other, and that made us pull through in the end.
See? the good overflowed as well. I can therefore proudly announce that I made myself a bunch of brothers and sisters with whom I plan on counting for, for future gatherings of all sorts and colors, since they're so fucking amazing: besides, the world needs these kinds of humans. MORE PLEASE!

I don't take anything back. I keep it all exactly as it went down. That's my perfect kind of narrative. 

*St. A*
(Next is Santiago, oh gawd).

Chacahua

Gawd, I haven't written in ages. So before I forget, here comes this other one.

A month back home meant going through a strange threshold-parenthesis thing, breaking the narrative of my previous experience as a nomadic masters course student in the Old Continent. But I was up for it!

For New Year's, my best bud invited me on a little trip to one of the best known pseudo exotic places in Mexico: Chacahua, an island of joy and joyness belonging to no other place than dear old Oaxaquita de mis amores.

My folks wanted some time off from our city, so we drove over to the center of Oaxaca firsthand, as a family trip thing (mom loves the arts and crafts world over there... I do too). The food there is known to be just heavenly... But afterwards I'd have to find my own way in order to get to the pseudo extremely secluded island where I was to meet Andrecito (my amiguitow del almaw).

It's funny how in some places you feel like a foreigner in your own country. It's even funnier how we had some classes in which we discussed this very phenomenon (I shall write about this later on) back in San AndrésEnEscocia, as my dear Juana once lovingly coined it. Anyways, this is something that happens to me a lot, but's it's just the particularly inherent effect of a place that's so fucking heterogeneous in essence and appearance, as Humboldt once reflected. Well, *Viva el mestizaje cornucopioso* after all (horny Extremeños back in the conquista days: hello post-colonial hybridity!).

So we went to the market to say hi to one of my dad's students, who's originally from there, and helps his mom sell milkshakes and juices during holiday season. After having safely arrived, we were to dine on delicious Tlayudas, which are huge Mexican sope-pizza things that will blow your fucking mind away; amazing culinary inventions. We ate as if winter was coming (which always is) the next day, until our stomachs begged for mercy... then we ate some more, and after that we had dessert. Cynical Mexicans. The mother did not want my father to lay a peso for the meal... it breaks my fucking heart to realize that, the poorer the people: the more generous they are at heart. And I have so much to learn.

Back at the hotel I grabbed my stuff and said bye to my peeps before taking an adventurously dodgy-looking combi vehicle that would supposedly take me to the main spot where I should arrive in order to proceed with the "getting to the magical candy island".

Kiss kiss, hop on, well hello-hello there sexy seat-mates!

The ride took ice-ages, and after some time of meditating in order not to puke my stuffed-guts out I arrived at another spot where I was supposed to take yet another lift to some other sketchy place in the middle of nowhere (as my little map said). I took a donkey, then an eagle, then a kite tied to rocket, then two hedgehogs as roller skates and finally, after riding a taxi all the way to the coast with two hens on my left side (this part was real, tho'!) I got to the swampy area, where people were enjoying the gambling thrill of cock fights (not THAT kind, you dirty reader, youuu!). They seemed to be drinking what looked like gasoline with straws *Viva el mezcal de veldá!*

A nice young man took me on his boat ("Quieeero, montarme en tu veleeeeero, ponerte yo el sombreeeero y hacernos eso ay ay AY AY!" Niet, as the Flemish would say) to the other side of the coast-thing, where I paid the lad with a smile and Mexican coins. I resumed the journey with my bare feet grazing the soft sand of my soul, I mean, with my soles. Ay sole-cito-de-playa, a huevo, bien ahí.

After asking every fucking person for Andrecito's palapa I finally glimpsed his outrageously distinctive nose. I had arrived at the right place: my mate jumped out of his hammock and gave me one of his world-famous unforgettable hugs. His little brother was there and so were two other dudes who studied photography and fine art... what are the odds? actually, once I dropped by humble luggage I looked around and, OH BEHOLD, the fucking island was PACKED with people from ENAP (my uni art school that's called FAP nowadays) or La Esmeralda (our nemesis). It was as if I had crossed the badlands, no man's ocean in order to arrive to the Mecca of the quasi-fake bohemian city-life escapists in Oaxaca. I felt really stupid, even more than usual.

Anyways, overall Chacahua is F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C, it's just grand, people... the sad part is that it used to be a natural reserve for biologists to study birds, turtles and the autochthonous flora of the amazing mangrove swamp of the southwestern part of my dear country... However, as it happens with everything that's natural and free and pretty; corporate assholes are trying to buy the land in order to build horrible hotels and ruin it all. So if you're keen fighting capitalist douchebags, you should help us by signing petitions like these:

http://www.change.org/es-LA/peticiones/senadores-de-la-república-mexicana-que-las-playas-mexicanas-no-se-vendan-a-extranjeros-2 and talk to others about this issue, since Mexican politicians are twisting the law in order to allow rich foreigners to buy off the coastal terra firma. Arrrrgh, fuck greedy competition, fuck it hard.

Anyways. Back to our anecdote: we had a fucking blast! there were bonfires during the night (New Year's y'alls!) for all of us fucking hippies to dance around and smoke and drunken blab-chat with everyone around and kiss each other on the earlobes (yuck). There were some guitar players singing Buena Vista Social Club songs (yep) all over the beach side, and I ended up holding hands with a dude that looked a lot like the last guy I dated. Andrecito was like "did you invite "fulanito" over?" And I was like, "WHATTHEFUCK?!!" and I ran away from the seductive doppelgänger.

We drank like thirsty beasts watching looking over the horizon, contemplating each other under the tiny colorful lightbulbs decorating our momentary sanctuary. I ended up giving my mate's brother a lecture on just "taking everything in the most positive way ever always; even when the other asshole might be throwing cynical/ironic/indirect references to your persona in a negative manner". He's amazing, and coped attentively all the way through. Bless the lad.

I met some funky dudes as well, there was a local douche who wanted to take advantage of the fact that we were all out-of-our-minds wasted in order to trick us into paying triple for our drinks. So I had a very interesting conversation with him: I somehow managed to slip into a conscious enough state of being in order to articulate a coherent discussion over the topic of how we (Mexicans in particular) should not treat each other differently/condescendingly just because we pseudo belong to different social classes and we're coloured differently on the surface, skin-wise (which is a taboo subject in my culture). See? it's a fucking idiotic issue that marks my fellow countrymen's way of thought; if you're whiter looking then your a rich conquistador asshole and if you're darker then you're a fucking poor indian idiot... same thing goes both ways. I told him we should talk as if we were REAL mates, standing on the same ground. I said I would believe him, then, if he solemnly swore he was telling us the truth. He automatically changed his expression into a discrete kind of giggle when I looked him in the eye (which I tend to often practice much working with kids in camps) and we ended up paying the fair price. Hell, we drank double. But my guts were on fire; social issues really bug me, especially in my own context... there's so much discrimination it's nasty to have to look behind your back always not to get tricked by anyone anywhere. I plan on doing something about it, naively as it may be, with my stupid little children's books some day. It's just a change of attitude that's needed. De-contextualize yo'selves! Then see what happens.

The next day I met two hippies that really pushed me to the limits, nerve-wise. We talked about a lot of cliché subjects (quinoa patchouli shit), with me being a real bully with their emphatic stubbornness; for "I personally believe" that if everybody just calmed the fuck down with the meat consumption, there would be no need for all the others to go all extreme-vegan-anemic-zombies all of a sudden. It's all about balancing our sides in life. But in the end we laughed our differences out, and decided to go swimming all together in the lake with the bio-photo-luminescent effect *awesome algae*. So I felt like in "Cocoon", yep that ancient film that I happen to love; playing with the light pills we created with our movements in the water and the silhouetted shadows around us... it was magical.

We freed cutesy baby turtles along with local kids and other more touristy-looking folk. Next, we climbed all the way the rocky side that takes you to where the lighthouse's at, in order to find Rimbaud's eternity at play out there, where the sun binds the ocean with the skies.
We met a lot of weird smelling dudes, fantastic German theatrical play makers (I've still to work out ideas for future collaborations!), vegan chefs and just enthusiastic chatters. I particularly shared some amazing moments with my dear friend Andrecito, under Orion's gaze... we've been friends since forever now. Oh, and of course; I got to discuss freakin' art topics with everybody in the freakin' island! Even the crabs had something to say against Damien Hirst... GOSH, I can't escape this shit, not even at the end of the world in the middle of bleepin' NOWHERE.

After saying goodbye to my lovely trip-companions, I took a ride back home with a Swedish guy who travelled all over the world to learn and teach martial arts, and another bloke whom I met during one of our awesome mental parties, so we talked all the way through about music and acute punches to the nuts. Random. Then finally reached the city, DF, and I was dropped off at my uni flat, where I was to take three showers in a row, after cutting off my algae beard (ha, jokes!). MY BED! At last I got some decent rest.

                                                 

                                       

                     
Tell ya some more later on, 'kay?
If you see Kay, tell her she may :D

¡Mægico!

Cambio a Español. Llego a DF. Aeropuerto Benito Juárez.

Mi primo a la entrada. El abrazo grande de siempre.
Cómo estás qué haces te extrañé. Y qué pues a tragar. Pues vamos. Una esquina y a la otra a la derecha en Insurgentes. Ahora qué quiere este ca...ay no mames ya nos paró la pinche patrulla. A ver aguanta que es vieja le aviento el cuento de siempre y vemos.
------El súbito apretarse de la feminidad a lengua suelta------
Oigaoficialperdoneustednuestrarotundaequivocaciónestánarreglandonovimoselcarrildelmetrobúsdiscúlpenosdeverdadsomosestudianteshumanosanimalesimbécilesnomerecemoslavidanoseamalamevoyamorirdehambredetodosmodosporqueestudiéhumanidades.
------El consecuente salivar tan cortado que le erosiona a uno la garganta------
Estábienseñoritalaentiendoperoasíestálacosaperoesperepueslaescoltamosentoncesacasadesuamigoperoeljovennoshaceelfavordeacompañarnosalcorralón.

Vete a hacer ese desmadre y te cáele acá después y vemos. Sin morderse la boca por dentro, seño, de favor. Cómo cagan los puercos. El intestino me palpita. Diamantes de a peso. Diamantina, más bien, en la suela sucia de tu tenis roto.
------Me saltan a la conciencia mis propios complejos sociales y me aprietan la yugular; me doy un verdadero asco yo sola a veces------ 
Se piden tacos. Se comen tacos. Y yo les tiro toda la salsa encima. Otra Pacífico y vemos los coches estamparse unos con los otros en las glorietas de nuestras mentes; la de Camarones y la de Cibeles y la de los Coyotes y la de la Palmera y de las Serpientes porque todas son la misma como lo somos nosotros igual.

El techo lo es también. Halem no llega, pero está Koko, chulo, charlamos. Fumamos. Comemos chetos viejos. Comemos manzanas. Mis maletas en la sala junto al arbolito de navidad castigado en la esquina. Prosopopeya. Entra en escena toda la gente conocida por la puerta roja. Regresa Josema con la fianza pagada. Regresa Halem. Abrazos.
Cómo estás qué haces te extrañé. Fumamos. Se van. Otra piyamada y el timbre sigue sin servir. Casa de Diego, casa del otro Diego. Diana y los gatos y los huacales y los sillones llenos de pelo. Y la bolsa de dormir amarillo y el cuarto color verdeazuladoverdosoazul. Coyoacán y los perros callejeros. Desayunamos tamales de la esquina (soy una cerda y pido siempre de dulce porque de escuincla no podía comer chile). Pasa una semana. Pasan otros dos días. Las noches de mezcal neón y las bachitas juegan a hacer pirámides en las esquinas. Una cama distinta cada noche. Y una azotea y un piso de mosaico vino. Pato. Mis padres furiosos porque no llego a casa. Mi perra mata-leones indiferente, porque no es mía. El camión de toda la vida, el camión de cada fin de semana por siete elongados años de puta cagada. Ciudad en degradados secos y el campo mexicano, el que no sirve porque no lo dejamos servir. Querétaro chido y odioso. Atardeceres plásticos.
La familia y mi cuarto se desenfunda en hojas cansadas y veo las cosas colgadas de la pared que me ponen en cara todo aquello de lo que no me gusta pensar y de lo mismito que sigo amando.


Escocia se ha evaporado. Estoy de vuelta y la cabeza me pesa como ancla.