viernes, 31 de diciembre de 2004

School friends

Seems like I am starting a new series of posts about my past, but it's just chance that brought me here, nothing premeditated at all. Today I had dinner with some old friends from primary school, we've been good friends since we were seven or eight; pretty amazing we almost have twenty years in common behind us. I looked at them like I've been doing for the last few times we've met: I don't belong in their world anymore, but it's just alright to repeat the same stories once or twice a year; and even though our friendship is sustained by the same old anecdotes, by beliefs I don't share anymore. But it's ok, we love each other because of no particular reason, because we were kids and played in the same playground. That's nice.
However, I sort of feel I have escaped from my past faster than they did, if they ever did. It's not bad, even though it seems petulant to write about it now. Will they think the same about me? Will they think they have escaped but I'm still there? I don't think so, I think they just feel it's the way I've always been when they remind me of some anecdote I have no memory of.

jueves, 30 de diciembre de 2004

A gin-tonic with Torjman

I just had a gin-tonic with Torjman. I came back home by bus, and passed by my dear high school where I grew up for the first time (several "growing ups" have come later on, but I didn't know it at high school)
I have passed by my school a good deal of times, since its so close to my home. But today was different, of course. Today, for the first time, I have felt a sort of nostalgia while looking at the walls of the building where I entered with only 14 years, and left with only 18. I have felt the same I used to feel when I went back to my school, where I entered with 6 (I think) and left with 14 (I'm sure). I remembering walking into the school, and seeing everything very small: the classrooms, the dinning hall, the play ground... shit, how small it all was, or how big I thought it as a child.
Yes, the street entrance of my high school seemed smaller today, and the walls were not as impresive as before. The high school, my high school, has become smaller. And as I think of the years I had there, the women I loved there, the teachers I hated and the first cigarretes I had on the corridors, it becomes very difficult to picture a bigger building, to return to the size of my 14-18 years. The thrill is here for me to play with it, and yet the thrill is gone. Do you remember, Tais, when you used to play with my thrill? How young you were, I think now. A girl I would never look at now. And still, how young I think I was. And it's strange because you know, I'm the same guy I was back then, and yet I am so fucking different. The same but not the same at all. I see traces of the one I used to be, but they only become apparent in little details, little roads leading nowhere that I still take sometimes.
Maybe I need your presence, I'm not sure what your presence would bring me. We could make love, this time, sitting at the stairs of high school we would kiss like we didn't and I would say bye, go home. And then the building behind me, and then my turning back and my looking at the building face to face. I think I would think of running back after you, but finally I would walk back home, like I walked back today . And I would write.

martes, 28 de diciembre de 2004

Frontpage

I read the frontpage of several newspapers this morning, and I can't just entertain myself with the details of the devastation of the tidal wave in South East Asia. It just seems not fair to read all those articles with all those details about everything... as if you could possibly understand anything by reading them!
No, I don't read. I rather close my eyes and think, think that life is such a bitch, and nature its pimp.
How exciting it sounded when we studied tidal waves at University... forty physicists-to-be all entertained by the perfect workings of ressonance to make giant waves possible for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers, as if the absence of friction was effected and eternal movement thus possible.
Now I understand, once more, what a big lies it all is when you separate it from your heart and soul. Even tidal waves are not eternal: buildings and bodies are there to stop the magic of fricionless movement. You know what? Fuck frictionless movement and the magical, so beautiful equations behind it.

New Year's Eve

Writing about new year's eve with jojo has definitely installed one thought on my mind: what should I do, that night? I don't know. It's every year the same story... is it? What does it mean that I am twenty six, and still I don't know what the hell I will do for new year's eve? See, Landiman? In a way, it's your fault. In another way, it's nobody's fault.
Because you have dinner with your family and bum! it's 1:30 or 2am, and what you do? You don't have a friend's place to go, so you have to meet at the disco, or at most at a bar and then the disco, inevitable. And what you do, at the disco? Just another other night? No, you know, it's new year's eve. But what? Does it only mean you have to be happy, and stay up until 8am? What do you think, when you go to bed at 8am, the sun shinning outside, and it's first of january, 2005, and you're drunk but conscious in bed?
Maybe you should get a woman. Should you? I don't know, new year's eve... you're supposed to have your woman already. Or do you? Ah, lo ves, you see? It's complicated. It's the kind of trouble you have when you can eat four times a day and have a place to sleep warmly.

Smoking with a sore throat coming

I'm smoking and I shouldn't be, because I can tell I have a sore throat coming very soon, and very soon new year's eve is coming too, and though I still haven't made my mind about what to do on that sacred night, I don't want to have a sore throat when it comes. In a way, it's Ensiamada's fault, the woman of Croissant. Tonight she lighted one cigarrete after another and, so, I had to light one after another too, because I'm a gentleman, you know. Women should never smoke alone.
Ok, suddenly now I think it would be nice to spend it with jojo, but he's far. We would smoke (I'm a gentleman, and you know, gays should never smoke alone either) and dance, and we would talk about what those three years have operated on our souls, and we would see how our faces have changed. I wonder what would be the first sentences we would pronounce. "Joder, hola, tío, qué tal, cómo estás?" I don't know: what would be that first sentence, jojo? But I can tell we would go out of the last pub together, and we would walk back home, completely drunk and gay. And still, I know I would miss a woman by my side, and he would miss a man by his. That's life. The sore throat's definitely crawling up my neck.

lunes, 27 de diciembre de 2004

Yes

For those of you who were wondering... yes, the f comments are down again.

The meaning of la cosa

There's no meaning, lo sé. La cosa grows, y I don't know porqué pero yo me find myself metido inside, y allá estoy, totally dentro, without a way fuera. Difícil de explain, si no lo han vivido before. La cosa te atrapa y ya no te deja escapar, y eres consciente de ello pero ¿qué puedes hacer? Irte a dormir no es solución, porque al día siguiente despiertas y sigué ahí la cosa para interrogarte, para preguntarte. Y no encuentras respuesta porque no hay ningún meaning, lo sé, pero me incomoda mucho vivir con la cosa. Es terriblemente incómodo y, sin embargo, así seguimos, con la cosa a cuestas, y a vivir que son two days!
No puede ser, tienes que sentar head, que ya vas para los treinta y te preguntas las mismas cosas que a los dieciséis. La cosa, insidiosa, ahí sigue. Por cierto, felicidades, -f. Fue ayer pero sabes que me pongo a escribir tarde.

domingo, 26 de diciembre de 2004

Talking

I have just talked to my sister through the messenger. Suddenly, I realised I talk to her like any other of my friends, though she is much younger. It's something I have experienced this year: she is not a kid anymore, now it's talking to someone equal to me: honest, straight talk.
It's good, it's really good: when you have a much younger sister or brother, you get to see how they grow up, and it's such a wonder. And you see and understand many things you didn't see and understand when you were younger yourself. I have understood many things about myself through my sister's growing up. I'm glad I got to meet her, to have somebody there, forever, even if it's only through the messenger. A sister (or a brother) is to me the closest thing to a friend in a family, or that's the way it should be. Everybody should have a brother or a sister in their lives. Life's not complete otherwise.

jueves, 23 de diciembre de 2004

La cama vacía

He buscado en las palabras escritas la respuesta a las palabras que no sé decirte porque no quiero herirte. La cama está vacía, pero puedo verte durmiendo: los ojos cerrados, el enigma de tus sueños alimentando mis deseos. Me estiraré junto a tí, y acariciaré tus mejillas y tu pelo, y quizá despiertes y me digas que te deje dormir, abrazándome hacia el fondo de tus sueños y tu carne más íntima.
¿Qué voy a decirte, entonces? ¿Que ya no te quiero, que he mirado por la ventana y las brasas del crepúsculo ya no arden con tu aliento?
No diré nada, y te besaré otra vez, buscando en tus labios la felicidad de estar muerto y sentirme tan vivo.

Where's my English?

For the last four days, I've been posting in Spanish. I needed it. I said things I don't know how to say in English, and it helped to ease my mind. I am glad I haven't blogged much in Spanish, because believe me: it's too addictive to write in your mother tongue.

Testamento en vida de una relación

Sentado ante la noche de mi pequeño mundo, trato de sentir lo que sentía cuando contaba apenas veinte años, y los versos de Cernuda me mostraban la vida, y Neruda frecuentaba tu cuerpo junto a mis ojos adolescentes. ¿Recuerdas? "Libertad no conozco sino la libertad de estar preso en alguien cuyo nombre no puedo oír sin escalofrío..."
Del sol cae un racimo en tu vestido oscuro. Las raíces de la noche crecen de súbito desde tu alma, y a lo exterior regresan las cosas en ti ocultas, de modo que un pueblo, pálido y azul de ti recién nacido, se alimenta.
De ti mujer, luna mía, recién nacido. ¿Lo recuerdas? Un hombre le regala un anillo a su mujer en el día en que ella da a luz. ¿Qué más puedes pedirme? Apenas sé si escribo para amarte o para olvidarte, porque no puedo amarte y olvidarte a la vez. No, el olvido llega antes para condenarme por haberte amado.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche, y sin embargo no puedo sentirte lejos a mi lado, alimentarme de tu ausencia como el ciego se alimenta de destellos.

miércoles, 22 de diciembre de 2004

Desamor

Hace unos días he empezado a escribirte otra vez en castellano. Apenas recuerdo los trazos exactos de tu cara, tu cabello desarmando mis manos en el caos de una tarde junto a ti. Me dijiste que nunca te había sucedido algo semejante, y yo te creí porque éramos jóvenes. Sí, yo te creía y tú sabías decir las verdades piadosas. Ahora ya no te creo, ahora ya no creo en nada y por lo tanto nada me queda. Esto es lo que has sabido hacer conmigo, vida mía.

martes, 21 de diciembre de 2004

Abrazos II

¿Por qué dudo si abrazarte para siempre? ¿Por qué dudo si es el tuyo y no otro cuerpo el que quiero sentir junto a mí, respirando en la noche del alba, cuando la luz dibuja en tu piel la textura de la felicidad? Junto a otros labios me han despertado hoy las lágrimas que por ti lloré. Y parece que ahora esa tristeza me ha abandonado para siempre. Esa tristeza que tanto odié con toda mi alma, y que sin embargo tanto necesita mi alma ahora mismo, cuando estás demasiado lejos para ofrecerme las frutas del árbol que una vez plantamos en nuestro jardín. ¿Recuerdas? Era un jardín de tomillo y basílico, y una rosa azul y el color de la luna.
Esas lágrimas me han despertado, y he caminado hasta el baño a secarme la cara. Ahora, sentado junto a la cama, observo el cuerpo extraño que sueña bajo las sábanas. Aún no lo conozco tan bien como el tuyo, aún no sé donde se ríe más cuando le acaricio los pies antes de hacer otra vez el amor. Aún no reconozco en mi cerebro el olor exacto de su sexo y el tacto de sus muslos en mis labios.
Sin embargo, mis manos arden aún desde que entraron bajo su falda hace apenas diez horas.

Sabina, translated

"...nosotros que queríamos
vivir sencillamente
hermanos de la lluvia,
del mar, de los amigos,
pronunciar las palabras que
vencen a la muerte
buscar bajo tu falda,
alimento y abrigo..."

"We, the ones that wanted
to live a simple life,
brothers of the rain,
of the sea, of friends;
we the ones to pronounce
the words that win over death,
looking for nourishment
and shelter under your skirt"

I still remember your skirt, wherever you are.

Donde habita el olvido

Cuando se despertó,
no recordaba nada
de la noche anterior,
"demasiadas cervezas",
dijo, al ver mi cabeza,
al lado de la suya, en la almohada...
y la besé otra vez,
pero ya no era ayer,
sino mañana.
Y un insolente sol,
como un ladrón, entró
por la ventana.

El día que llegó
tenía ojeras malvas
y barro en el tacón,
desnudos, pero extraños,
nos vio, roto el engaño
de la noche, la cruda luz del alba.
Era la hora de huir
y se fue, sin decir:
"llámame un día".
Desde el balcón, la vi
perderse, en el trajín
de la Gran Vía.
Y la vida siguió,
como siguen las cosas que no
tienen mucho sentido,
una vez me contó,
un amigo común, que la vio
donde habita el olvido.

La pupila archivó
un semáforo rojo,
una mochila, un peugeot
y aquellos ojos
miopes
y la sangre al galope
por mis venas
y una nube de arena
dentro del corazón
y esta racha de amor
sin apetito.
Los besos que perdí,
por no saber decir:
"te necesito".

domingo, 19 de diciembre de 2004

Abrazos

El abrazo de la mujer apenas conocida, abrazo en el sofá al fondo de un bar con la música y el alcohol mezclados en el aire cargado de humo y noche oscura. Sentir por vez primera una carne distinta que seduce a nuestras manos y las confunde en su geografía abstracta y concreta a un tiempo. La mujer ríe y se esconde entre tus brazos y tu pecho, y apenas puedes abarcar todo su cuerpo. Cuánta felicidad renacida en ese instante, esa felicidad que creías ya olvidada para siempre.
Pero aprendes de nuevo, y dudas pero al final hayas el modo exacto de cogerla dulcemente, de apartar un cabello de su cara y acariciar su mejilla derecha con tu mano derecha, de decirle las palabras bellas del amor que agoniza apenas invocado. Te creías muerto, y unos ojos ansiosos de tus labios te han devuelto al mundo de los vivos. Y sin embargo deseas morir de nuevo.

viernes, 17 de diciembre de 2004

Law

While the neighbours are screaming like stupid animals downstairs, I am writing in front of the computer and smoking pot. I am doing something illegal, they are not.

miércoles, 15 de diciembre de 2004

Landiman

Landiman commented that my last post was rather hard. And he adds a worse tragedy: he had his moment in life, and yet he didn't enjoy it to the most.
I remember when I first saw Landiman... How much we have changed, Landiman? A lot, much more than we are able to understand. But we are doomed to be friends now, you know? We are, forever. And that is a moment. A tragic one, if you want. We both have worlds we wish to come back to. We both have places far away from our physical hearts. Places we would like to inhabit right now. Fuck, what if suddenly I went to bed and tomorrow I woke up in Berkeley, California, and you Landiman woke up in Vienna, so close to old Europe and the naked body of an ivy goddess? I don't know, Landiman. I have a map of the places I've been, but I lack a map for the places of my brain... it's all messed up, it's all too quantum mechanical. I just want the million eyes I used to look at, and the million skins I once touched and felt, handfulling my hand.

After watching a documentary about the Actors Studio, you know, the Stanislavsky method

What if we already lived what we had to live? What if the best moment of our lives, its meaning, has already happened? What if it happened three years ago, and you know that was it, and you knew even better afterwards, and now you can only lie to yourself in order to enjoy? There's no enjoyment when you know that. There can't be. It's gone, what is to come is just the remainings. Nothing else will matter as much as it mattered back then. Now, just the remainings... figure out how to avoid too much suffering till the end comes.

JJ

Jojo cooing, cooing jojo. I can't take this image out of my head. Damn you, jojo!

lunes, 13 de diciembre de 2004

Mong Kong

This is a picture I took in Mong Kong last summer. I like the colors and the sort of impressionist style.

My pigeon

For the last few days, a pigeon comes to sleep by my window. I can hear it singing now (well, making noise or whatever you call what pigeons get out of their throats) I heard it singing, and I thought I had to write about it. For it is really strange that suddenly, in the middle of the night, when you are reading and writing around in complete solitude, when you think you have to sleep because tomorrow you gotta work, and shit how much I hate that sort of thinking; then, suddenly, a pigeon makes noise. It's there, by the window. You can't see it but you can hear it. Maybe if you stand up to see better. But no, better just go straight to bed, without going much further into the life of the pigeon and your own.

domingo, 12 de diciembre de 2004

Some quotes

Miss Onekell is one of my favourite reads around. From her livejournal I took the following quotes:

"I have more faith in divine humour than divine justice (...) Divine is fair in the way in which it dishes out humour, or humorous in the way it doles out justice, you know what I mean"

"Cognitive dissonance is more enjoyable as an intellectual concept than a personal experience"

Do you also love Woody Allen?

Second hand emotions

In some ways, writing a diary is like running a second hand shop of emotions. I live my world and translate it here, for my readers to find something of their own in what I write... second hand emotions trying to re-live again in your brains and hearts.

Things I need to remember

This is an unordered list of the things I need to remember in order to reconstruct in the form of a short story the night I just had:
1) A woman in her late forties, sitting by the bar of a pub, drinking a lonely whisky in a tall, tube glass with just one ice cube on the bottom. Just one like her. Young people dancing around her.
2) Four young guys dancing on the top, bellow four women they are looking at. The thought of getting one woman each of them, an spending the night fucking in the four bedrooms of some flat in the city center. The morning after, a gorgeous breakfast with naked bodies.
3) The light flashing animated cross pattern of a pharmacy sign.
4) A pigeon making noises by the window.
5) A bingo.
6) Many people dancing inside a musical bar: they look like people that are going to feel rather old and depressed when they go out of the bar.
7) An amazing body moving amazingly, with a very low t-shirt that shows how beautiful a young skin can be.
8) A guy that wants to write but doesn't dare to be honest about the night he just had.

viernes, 10 de diciembre de 2004

They will never get tired

The mexicans strike back... lots and lots of noise coming from downstairs. I guess my mom will be going downstairs to scorn them really bad at any moment... Meanwhile, they screw me because i won't light my joint until she sleeps... mexicans, always the mexicans...

jueves, 9 de diciembre de 2004

Purpose for 2005

One of the things that makes me wonder whether I should go on with these english chronicles is that my English level remains the same. I thought maybe writing every day could improve my style, but at most I can only maintain my style, prevent it from getting worse. Yes, I got a little bit faster writing, but the bad thing is I think I am assuming mistakes by repeating them over and over (there's nobody to correct me!)
Anyway, all these leads me to a purpose: during the year 2005, I shall read and read and read and read the Collected Short Stories by Vladimir Nabokov (thanks for that marvellous book, -a). I shall read and read and read and read and read until I shall know the meaning and use of all the words that appear in the book. Then, I'll be prepared to die in peace... or to write better chronicles.

martes, 7 de diciembre de 2004

The essence of art

Lately, we've been discussing with Croissant whether there exists an essence in art, for instance in cinema, our closest ally. For essence I mean something essential that remains somewhere in the work of art, and that no matter at what time in history, makes us thrive. Croissant is a cultural relativist: for him, there's no essence, for art is a social construction. As for me, being a little bit more romantic as I am (though everyday less), I still think there's something in Casablanca that will touch my children and the children of my children the same way. The eyes of Ingrid Bergman as time goes by, you know, aren't they inmortal? Are they only a product of their time, or there's something religiously eternal in them? That's my reflection for today.

lunes, 6 de diciembre de 2004

Getting a job, getting a life

Yesterday night I talked to Ann, and found out she doesn't really enjoy her job. I though being in the media industry rocked, even as a video-editor-assistant-that-gets-paid-very-very-very-low. But turns out it's not that cool, and she's thinking of getting a job at a bank (I think she was pissed when I said: "come on, you want only 1500$ a month for your entire life?" ... but I still think a job at a bank is only that)
Anyway, I'm sure Ann won't even look for that bank job, even if I put it in front of her to grab it, I think she wouldn't take it. Because getting a job is getting a life. As sad as it sounds, but hell I wished I was taught that lesson earlier in my life. Because I was sort of educated to the idea that, as a mother would put it, "what you do is you get a job that pays enough to let you do what you really like after work ... because son, you like expensive stuff, so you'd better get enough to pay for it". Ultimately, this is a catholic-educated-woman statement. It's that moral of suffering in order to get pleasure afterwards. That sort of thinking has caused me a lot of pain and suffering, to the point that right now I feel completely lost about my future employment life. I cannot tell what I like from what I don't, what I'm good at from what I'm not. I have studied so many things, I have seen so much pain in the world,... that the right choice has just vanished. My right choice does not exist anymore. Anything I could do has an inconvenience. Even my dreamed life as a writer or a cinema director is starting to disappear from the shell of wanabe things. I finally got where I was walking to: absence. The dark hole I so much thought so far away has already eaten me. But you know what? I light a cigarrete and start a small bunfire to try to see clearer. I have to. I am not a loser. Not me.

domingo, 5 de diciembre de 2004

I used to be a young writer

Phase 1

And I would win each year the literary contest (of course, in catalan) at High School. Each year, except one: the year I wrote about love (you know, it's no good to talk about love when you are a teenager and are in love: you win no contests)

Phase 2

I grew up, and had no contests to win: I stopped writing. Actually, I kept on writing, but I couldn't be satisfied with the results, and so eventually I stopped. Many begginings, many projects... no results.

Phase 3

Actually, it came along all together with Phase 2, but I have no time to construct a better theoretical framing for my writting life. And what came along was the Internet: yes, with the Internet I wrote more and more: emails, msn messenger conversations, yahoo groups,... and eventually, this blog.

Phase 4

The Fruitman decides to be a young writer again, and restarts an old short story he found today inside a folder from language school. You guess what phase 5 will be all about.

Life's boring

According to google, life's boring has a lot to do with my blog. Ah, this has been a strange weekend, a weirdkend.