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!

the rat and africa

Usually rodents are rather skittish
But this rat was just standing there
in the middle of my office patio
it was about 3pm
when there is a lot of people around

I am sure she was sick
Otherwise she wouldn’t be there
Just sort of balancing from one side to the other

My first reaction when I saw it
Was a little of surprise and fear
But right away I felt this huge sorry for her

I had a headache and the knee hurting
And some cramps too
the headache, although thankfully not a migraine
has been in my head for about 5 days now
So I related with another earth fellow
The rat!
I know how it is to be sick
And I feel sorrow for the animal

Then again came to my mind
The thousands of human beings
And kids that are sick and poor
All over the world
Suffering from hunger, sickness and cold
some mistreated by either war
or their own families

And I felt miserable for complaining so much
Sometimes
I complain and complain when I have a roof
Over my head and more food than what I can really eat
when i have a somehow healthy body
I felt empty thinking of all the things I have
And others don’t, and I still complain
while my head might hurt and I write all this dark stuff at the blog
after all I live in heaven compared with most of the people out there
and I am thankfull for that

That’s why I was talking about Buddhist
And giving up selfish dreams that just focus on myself
And my own pleasure, instead of trying to give back something
To life…

And I remember then the original dream!

A while ago I had this dream
That I didn’t give up but sort of left for later

Strange that the sick little rat at work
Was the one that made me think of it

The dream, a neat help project in Africa
About 9 months ago, this was my travel plan
Then the plans switched, but I might just back to this one
sooner than what I thought

The African dream!
I wanted to go as a volunteer for 2 or 3 months
To develop a little help project in Africa
This organization finds a way to help women from Ghana
While you volunteer working on your own career
For example, if you are textile designer
Your job might be help African women to develop
Garments and or clothing to sell and help themselves

If you are a chef, they might find you a project to
Help an African woman opening a little lunch restaurant

Here the link
http://www.womeninprogress.org/
And this brief description
Women in Progress is an international volunteer organization promoting volunteer work abroad through volunteer vacations. Our international volunteer programs help the growth of small businesses in Africa through voluntary work abroad.
Through a short-term volunteer vacation, you will be able to use your skills to help others and make a difference in the future of women and their families in Ghana.
Please visit this link too!
http://www.womeninprogress.org/volunteerhighlights.asp#
with examples of some of the projects

I can’t believe that
An awkward moment
With an earth fellow the rat
Brought back this beautiful dream to my mind
This dream is one I should never give up
No matter if I can do it soon
Or later in life

I need plenty of money for it
The plane ticket is expensive
And you do have to pay for your stay
to support the center
also I don’t have that enough vacation time
therefore I would have to ask a permit without salary at my job
while I still have to pay my home’s rent

although I figure it out that with about 3, 000 dollars
I can cover all the expenses! So it might not be
That unreal after all!
The goal
To create a little fund among friends and family
Or anybody who wants to cooperate with my trip
One dollar or two might help
After all is to help African women

Ah! I will need a good camera too, to photograph
A place like Africa…
One day, I do hope I can be there…

Oh! And the rat, after an hour or so
She was gone… probably she hid again
or not sure if she's with us anymore
I hope if she had a purpose in life
As any rodent might have
That she fulfill it before she got sick and depart
Or who knows? I might find her around the office again
Happy and hiding behind trash cans…
I'll let you know
tonight I go to bed tired but with a half smile
the one of having hope of maybe being able to help some
another woman one day, one the other side of the world

chuck palahniuk

this dark but brilliant writer
chuck palahniuk
has before, stirred some dark feelings
in my soul

tonight, i remember
two of his quotes

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."
-Fight Club, 1996

"The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person."
-Invisible Monsters, 1999

the first quote
i wish i could restart my brain and my soul
i wish, like a computer,
i could wipe off all the memories
and install a new operating system

i feel like an older computer
maybe is my internal old windows xp
an outdate computer i am
maybe because windows vista is coming out
maybe because there is always a newer
and brighter computer than myself

maybe it is time to give up the old dreams
and just rest from this apprehension
that having dreams causes

somehow i got tired of this self-competition
of, as joseph posted, trying to fulfill somebody's
or my own expectations

i nicely give up, knowing that i gave all i could

the Buddhist principle
i will try to apply
the one of having lack of desire
no more expectations
no more desires for love nor glory
some dreams are better to give up

if you don’t want or expect anything
then peace will follow
a strange lonely freedom
not waiting for anything
not having hope anymore
refreshes tonight with a thin rain outside
and i smell this old loneliness of mine
coming back

half moon sunday

I haven’t been around this corner for a while
And I missed it

So much that tonight
I must come back

And as I stood outside
½ moon California sky
midnight Sunday
and the world goes around

I remember Joseph’s comment
And thank you!
Bukowski, & his spark
his poem & your comment has come back
to my head many times
And Clare’s words
Your always precious words
her poems her prose
And lisa’s comments, my beautiful friend
And your words outside here too
And thilo’s, aah!
And all the silent dear ones! That I know

And some of you
If you read again
I thank
And some faces I’ve seen
Some digitally
Some live
And the oldest one I know
In person I realized
Is Beto!
Mexico city
no doubt the most talented graphic designer I know!
proud to have worked with him!
Every day routine, musica
And the “hard rock café”
So it sounds like a cliché! Great
Ha!

So anyway

Many days have passed
And again this Sunday night
La luna
Me out for a smoke (ha!)
Since my tía visits and I cannot smoke inside

And many things have passed
The theatre
And I was happy again
And then sad
Happy, and sad again many times

But tonight
Is midnight and is Sunday
Night
And I stopped
Looked up and saw the moon
Ah!

She sleeps profoundly
As I type… my aunt
And I almost sure
These clacks clicks clacks
Of the cadence of the type
Are a cradle song for her

And for a change
All the lights of the house
Are out
Only the screen
Illuminates my face
As I type

The past memory of 3 seconds
Outside
Where I took
This blurry map
A map of another day
Another night
In a California
Southern
Night

I found the turn this time!
Just not sure
Why this bad photo I took
Shows a full moon
When in reality
It is just half…
But seems that so is life

a Déjà vu of late
And before visits
Of my aunt
silver screen computer
and words
write/type

in the waiting line

a beautiful song
by zero 7
listen while waiting in line...


Wait in line
'Till your time
Ticking clock
Everyone stop

Everyone's saying different things to me
Different things to me
Everyone's saying different things to me
Different things to me

Woooohh
Do you believe?
In what you see?
There doesn't seem to be anybody else who agrees with me

Do you believe
In what you see
Motionless wheel
Nothing is real
Wasting my time
In the waiting line
Do you believe in
What you see

Nine to five
Living lies
Everyday
Stealing time
Everyone's taking everything they can
Everything they can
Everyone's taking everything they can
Everything they can

Woooohh
Do you believe
In what you feel
It doesn't seem to be anybody else who agrees with me

Do you believe
In what you see
Motionless wheel
Nothing is real
Wasting my time
In the waiting line
Do you believe
In what you see

Ah and I'll shout and I'll scream
But I'd rather not have seen
And i'll hide away for another day

Do you believe?
In what you see?