my desktop background

balboa park at night
this photo
(my most recent computer's desktop at home)
tonight, somehow
looks prettier than before...
huh?

an old poem

i found an older post
and some of it
tonight
makes sense (?)

monday is not green

Freeway entrance
Coffee check
Cup tight
no spill
Keeping always
All the surfaces
Clean

Noses little
Freckles
Dreams
Mouths chubby
L.A.’s dream

Hits
Lovers
Cups
Fashion
Scream

Noises
Currencies
African dead
Dreams

Corporate behind
Gimme some
Ganja
Marley
Imaginings
Reality-built-in
jade dreams

where did I read this?
...
oh i know! in my own stupid blog

image my kitchen ceiling
more of the strange saturday headache
light is one of the migraine mysteries i don't get
to see everything with a neon-ish aura for a couple of hours
is rather strange

a weekend in the limbo

during the headache I had on Saturday I played with this digital foto
the sharp of the branches the intense of the sun
Reminded me on a blinding migraine
Photoshop pill I took (& w/headache, was strange)…

As I get older
My body takes even harder these hormonal states

This weekend was lost in the limbo
Saturday I had a headache the whole day
Restraining myself from everything in order not to get a migraine
No TV, not much computer screen
not reading too much
no bad food, no caffeine! (a very hard one)
no spicy food
not walking too fast
taking care of not stepping too hard on my own feet
not breathing too fast, damn!
no nothing! the whole freaking day

Sunday was a little better
So walked to watch the Oscars at my friends home
I had a good time since there were 2 dogs and they
took turns to seat on my lap and keep me warm
I barely moved in 4hrs from the same seat
I was that tired and out of it

But today again... Monday, with lots of work
and silly meeting that I can't cancell so
work and...
A freaking cramp! A really strong one
One of those that make you sweat cold every 1/2 an hour
Feels like a knife through my belly the whole day

Saturday I was so out of it
And my photos not ready were anyway nor Sunday
but
Today I got 4 CDs with pictures from film
I took the past days! some came out OK
I took some at night with ISO 800
a challenge for me that I couldn't afford with the Canon point & shot

Although I am too tired to play with my fotos
Just wanted to document my health misery
And the mental states that these hormones bring too
Of course apart from the pain
I am emotional and sad and down
But careless somehow
Too tired
I should know by now, and this state shouldn’t take me
By surprise, that a couple a days per month
It is all just suffering, is all just desperation
And wrapped in a high dose of fucking frustration
Lovely! (sarcasm of course)
And also I am way more distracted and stupid over all
Intellectually, in any and all ways
But habitually, the symptom that hasn't failed for the past 3 years
a lot of physical pain

then once sick of all these hormones and senseless pains
of these nonsense flying in my head
I decided to treat myself
ah! The French Bakery at the corner of home provided a little fruit tart full of sugary happiness!

& 10 minutos 35 segundos de La Ciudad de México

a great short visual documentary on México City



with a nice musical selection for soundtrack
thanks to roddelcampo from youtube for this work
and yes México City feels like this many times...
Beto?

I lived there 32 years out of 37, I haven't been back since 2001
this short film style is very similar to the Qatsi Trilogy

• KOYAANISQATSI - life out of balance

• POWAQQATSI - life in transformation

• NAQOYQATSI - life as war

all with music by Philip Glass

life-changing films!
please watch, as mr. monk would say
you'll thank me later...

5'25" of hitchcock & stewart (& 7' 54" of bart)

1. oh I indulge! with pointless watching of a scene of Rear Window click to indulge too!

2. kundalini exercise, standing up, flex your upper body as trying to reach your toes, then start laughing, yes! laughing, from your stomach, when you realize, you are actually laughing! and loud... hold the laugh & position for 3 minutes... relief, ah!

43. I remember another book I read (lately) - The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger

and here another 7'54" of my favorite version of Rear Window, don't miss this one!

rain & fabulous flowers, with a side of banana whole whole wheat bread

today rained the whole day in san diego
around 2.30pm the rain stopped
a little gap with a hidden sun behind heavy clouds
so I went out and took some photos with the nikon
film cheap Kodak Gold ISO 200

while waiting for the film to be develop and put on a CD
I made whole wheat banana bread
here the recipe

INGREDIENTS

* 1/3 cup vegetable oil
* 1/2 cup honey
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup mashed bananas
* 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 cup hot water
* 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, beat oil and honey together. Add eggs, and mix well. Stir in bananas and vanilla. Stir in flour and salt. Add baking soda to hot water, stir to mix, and then add to batter. Blend in chopped nuts. Spread batter into a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan.
3. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes. Cool on wire rack for 1/2 hour before slicing.

link from allrecipes.com
the bread came out OK, it was a lazy day off, courtesy of President's Day

cardiff by the sea

a beautiful sunny but windy sunday
windy! & then some windsurfing...
at cardiff by the sea, california

windsurfing - w/the same old digital camera (smile here...)

happy chinese new year

Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later.

camera: nikkormat EL, film: FujiFilm Reala ISO 100
look closer...

flor at home, I planted this plant back in September 2006
it was doing fine, but in my vacation to Autlan, it became dry
since I came back I have been watering it more often
and added some plant food
the stems still seem dry, but a couple of days ago
it surprised me with a new lovely purple flower
this photo is from last Thursday, by today it has already another 3 flowers
it is still a new year, at least for the plant & the chinese!
hope that the moon brings you wishes to reality soon

café with press pot

while my aunt was here
I got a french press pot for just $7.99!
the jar glass is not very thick but it holds the heat nicely
but the colander/filter is great
a stainless steel mesh
nothing for breakfast as press pot coffee
it just taste 'earthier' than the dripping method

I also found this mexican peaberry,
that trader joe's (the best grocery store in the world!) has
just $5.99 the can, sadly, a limited edition
I usually like darker roasts, especially for espresso
and in the winter... but this mexican peaberry with medium roast
is, as you can read from the can, bright, smooth, and sweet... sweet!

the hope of a new day, comes along with the smell of a nice cup of coffee
no matter how dark some nights can be...
just have to remember, there will always be another day
arriving with a new morning, and if lucky with a nice cup of coffee
the morning coffee is a sign of a fresh start, everyday...

mi amigo: the grasshopper

this grasshopper

lives in my front little patio
for a while now
probably over a month
i see him mostly on the weekends
on that big palm
and when i water the plants, he jumps
by the chair or besides the palm
and waits until i am done watering
as i close the water hose... he jumps right away back
to his house the big green palm
i am sure it is the same grasshopper because
every time i see him
it is a little bigger...
my aunt said she saw him too
a strange & neat keeper to my front door
mi amigo the grasshopper
i must confess , i look forward seeing him on the weekends
he eats parts of the palm
sometimes, when i don't see him
i check the palm, if there's a hole in it
is that mister grasshopper had already his lunch

film

photography: time & light... Life.

ah! after many months of struggle to decide on a new camera
I got, at least for the moment, a new one
I wasn't really get into film these days but I found a beautiful in mint state
Nikon Nikkormat EL, almost new... original case
I couldn't resist... before getting it
I played with my old Zenit a little [photos]
film is tough and requires lots of patience and like all analog
media is moody and impractical
yet... when a film photo comes out nice
is like the melody of pure visual poetry

yeah! here samples of the film moodyness struggle

I embrace photography
I think
because encloses the essence of two magic elements
in nature/universe
2 mysteries that have capture always my heart and mind:
time and light (energy)

roböexotica

thank god for friends over-seas willing to share!
before Jaime & Monki have sent me neat packages
from Spain and Seattle
but a couple of days ago
i got a yellow padded folder from Vienna via mister Magnus!
i requested some stickers but ah! neat surprise
a beautiful screen printed long sleeve t-shirt!
and some very handy stickers (heh heh)...

click here to help the cause of an American Roboexotica
and cheers!
Danke schön Magnus

sparklehorse - it's a wonderful x-mas present!

one of my x-mas presents is
a ticket to see sparklehorse
a very unique alternative band
tonight! in a couple of hours...
at the belly-up, in solana beach, california
a 22 minutes drive from home

sometimes, somedays
it's a wonderful life!
here from their album with same title

books lately

The only bookstore in Julian, CA
April, 2006

here a list of
the books that I have read since April 2005

1. Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy
2. Paul Auster – Timbuktu
3. Paul Auster – The Brooklyn Follies
4. Paul Auster – Leviathan
5. Paul Auster – Oracle Night
6. Colson Whitehead – The Intuitionist
7. Colson Whitehead – The Colossus of New York
8. Emily Brontë – Wuthering Heights
9. John McNulty – This Place on Third Avenue
10. John Hardwood – The Ghost Writer
11. Yukio Mishima – Spring Snow
12. Yukio Mishima – Death in Midsummer
13. Kobo Abe – Kangaroo Notebook
14. Julian Barnes – The Lemon Table
15. Julian Barnes – Flaubert’s Parrot
16. Julian Barnes – Arthur & George
17. Haruki Murakami – A Wild Sheep Chase
18. Haruki Murakami – After the Quake: Stories
19. Alice Munro – Runaway
20. Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
21. Douglas Adams –Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul
22. Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner
23. José Saramago – El Hombre Duplicado (read in Spanish)
24. José Saramago – Blindness (in English)
25. Angeles Mastretta – Arráncame la Vida (Spanish)
26. José Agustín – ¿Quién soy, dónde estoy, qué me dieron? (Spanish)
27. John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces
28. Jasper Fforde – The Eyre Affair
29. Jasper Fforde – Lost in a Good Book
30. Nick Hornby – A Long Way Down
31. James Joyce – Dubliners
32. Alan Hollinghurst – The Line of Beauty
33. Lafcadio Hearn – Some Chinese Ghosts
34. Erik Larson – The Devil in the White City
35. Arthur Machen – The White People and other Stories: The best weird stories of Arthur Machen
36. David Sedaris – Me Talk Pretty One Day
37. David Sedaris – Holidays on Ice
38. Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
39. Chuck Palahniuk – Lullaby
40. James Frey – A Million Little Pieces
41. T. S. Elliot – The Waste Land and other Poems
42. Herman Hesse – The Fairy Tales of Herman Hesse

maybe I am forgetting some
I can’t shake that feeling of my head
that I am missing some

The list comes to 41 or 42 books in about 2 years
makes an average of 1.7(something) books per month

I have another list of ½ read books, the not finished ones
mostly because I didn’t find them engaging enough
or I know the require a frame of mind or deep concentration
that hasn’t suit my mood around that particular time

but the list above… all finished from the 1st to last page

some have been magical, some not as immense
some are hard and slow to read
some wonderful and hard still…
some surprisingly fast and inspiring
all of them always enriching
and a couple of them, truly life changing

from time to time
one regrets the wasted time in life
but I could never regret
a single second I have spent
behind the pages of a book

& endless thanks to all my friends
& all those titles above
I know through them
Some have been dear gifts
Some soulful recommendations

Dissipating the brumous

The past 2 days have been a rush of blood to the head
Crossing the border 7am Sunday morning / aunt to Tijuana airport
About to leave the parking lot
Hey! I have 2 more hours of free parking in Tijauan… so
A still-in-pajamas border fence photo shot session
The 2 magical hours!

Forgot how much I love parking lots, mostly the empty ones
And the further away from home, the better
The creative process restoring the soul
in contact with yourself real time
While creating or 30 years ago: playing
In this case, I - with my cheap camera, aha!
Away from any communication media
And meeting random every day people
chat with a parking lot employee
A woman on her late 30’s, with a life so different than mine
3 kids, second husband, part time job
the guy carrying suitcases, 28, arrived to Tijuana a year ago
wife and kid in Michoacán, expecting for pay check monthly
he smiled nicely, wisely, when he spoke of his son
soothing...

wow life was outside in parking lot at the Tijuana airport
then I saw the fence again, and what are those posters?
Images and energy re-considering a come back

a man standing, can see he's from a mexican small town
are you a reporter, señorita?
many people from the TV and radio come to see the posters...
a broken smile with missing teeth through these
his sunny soul made merry appearance
wearing wool checkered jacket
sun shining
clouds smiling

And tonight, unexpected late small banquet
at Parkhouse eatery, a fine selection of fish, meat, & seafood
little crab cakes
crème brule & a very small glass of champagne
on a Monday night? Things like these doesn’t happen anymore
and certainly not to me lately

all after a week of being host of one of the most wonderful and pure gold heart women
in the world, mi tia Margarita, a delight of human being

maybe I was taking life too serious?
And I forgot to wink at it?
I felt fine to believe in my old-fashioned quirky self tonight
In the weird slightly crazy completely foolish woman I am
but people smiled back

Not sure what’s turning around in my life today
And yesterday
guess the brumous was getting too thick
but as the days get warmer
life seems to be coming back around
to dissipate it

vinyl posters from Fence of the Mexican-American border
Tijuana, BCN México - February 05, 2007

memories

this is an old photo i took in 23July16 (according to the folder)
i assume the 16 meant '06
it is the same antenna, bit of ceiling, & sky
of every morning
means leaving home, facing life, the little antenna

in the mornings

why is it tha nightmares seem to stay longer in our memory than nicer dreams?

the morning after a nice dream is calm & quite but lasts little
the morning after a nightmare seems endless

also the bad impressions and bad things we do
always seem to keep in memory over the good impressions we left

i wish we humans could be less fearful
we tend to be as skittish like the little rat below

here another great Zero 7 song
just 'cause
i wish all the videos could end like this one...

on self-realization and yoga

tonight i am too tired to write
although i just sent an e-mail to a friend
who asked me on Kundalini yoga

so here i just paste what i just wrote him
since reflects what i have been doing the last days
with yoga & exercise

of course i am still crazy
some days more some days less
even with the yoga
and crazy and troubled i think i will go to the grave

cheers, at least i took another class tonight
and feel better, specially after the neat walk this morning
(yes i escaped from work) to the Mission Trails
a neat little park at the East (finale) of Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
beautiful California!

here the yoga letter that i wrote to my friend:

On the self-realization and yoga… very interesting too! Yes I am a little familiar with Yogananda Paramahansa, as I think I mentioned before to you, I do have his book Autobiography of a Yogi, I started reading it but I already had a couple of books going on, so I set it aside. I think is worth mentioning to you that is one of my mother’s favorite books of all times and also of one of my friends’. Now that you mentioned it too, actually since I saw it on your profile, I felt that it was just another ‘sign’ for me to finally pick it up and finish it. I think is great that you are practicing some kind of meditation at least once a week, most people these days just watch TV and settle for the pre-package happiness that modern and western life offers, and don’t look much inside themselves. I have always considered myself a spiritual person too, but I am rather undisciplined, to confess, the Homer Simpson in me sometimes is stronger than the Lisa. I am somehow familiar with some spiritual practices and I have always been interested in them. I remember a couple of years ago I read a couple books in Spanish on Buddhism, which I don't consider at all a religion, but just the growth of your own awarness, the development of kindness and care towards others and personal wisdom (I need plenty of this one). And now that I moved to California (I live in San Diego since 2001) I have been meeting more people interested in the field.

At the end of the last year, I finally enrolled the YMCA since I needed exercise and my regular schedule and disorganization wasn’t leaving much room for it. So right away I enrolled the Kundalini yoga classes, sometimes I take Hata yoga or fitness yoga classes too, yet Kundalini is for much my favorite, it includes respiratory exercises and some meditation and mantras chanting too, very fulfilling, I do feel nicely altered and slightly different internally after just a couple of classes.

And I guess is a problem of our times and culture to be more ‘cerebral’ than less emotive and soulful, yet as you mentioned once you discover a path then you start growing more in so many areas of your life!