String of Lights |

But maybe that’s just because for the past 24 hours, I’ve wondered if it is, if it will be difficult for this city (México, el D.F.) to retain those parts of its identity that are not universal.

Or maybe it’s just me, surprised and disappointed by my lack of nostalgia. For the first time, on the airplane, I didn’t really feel like putting my novel down to watch our approach into the city. And even though I did, I didn’t scan the buildings, looking for the most colorful ones, like I usually have. My eyes and brain didn’t capture and absorb the information on every sign during the cab ride downtown and I didn’t roll down the window to smell the city. I didn’t take a very long walk after arriving at the hotel (but that’s mainly because I felt a little more insecure about going out alone). This morning I almost fell asleep in the expensive cab on the way to the conference and got quite impatient at several things that happened there, whereas on other occasions I would have let them slide, only because I was ¡en México! and so charmed by almost everything about this city that events could run hours late and I wouldn’t be put off at all.  Off and on today, I wondered if and why the city or I had lost something in these six years and was hoping I would actually begin to feel hands-clapping excited about anything about being here and worried by the possibility that I wouldn’t…the city had always been so magic realism-esque.

And then I found original issues of Azul, Revista Moderna, y Álbum de la Mujer. And wrote and said all the right things that would convince the librarian to let me look at them right then and there.

And after the conference I just walked on to the right bus en route to a taxi stand. And just remembered exactly where to transfer Metro lines. And how white corn in a cup tastes with just salt, chile and its own juices. And which way to leave the Zócalo station so the walk to the hotel in the heels wouldn’t be prolonged. And how to walk here, which is like walking in any city…

And I was glad to see these.

Even though they totally were, my tacos al pastor didn’t taste as though they’d been made with love. I thought my additions of cinnamon and clove would have given it the no sé qué that it was missing, but the marinade tasted, in my own lament, “…like it came straight out of a pinche jar!”

Come to think of it, the list of ingredients in that recipe from Bon Appétit (cero y van dos) was pretty short. Among the other missing ingredients was some sort of fat… At least the beans and tortillas tasted like mi cocina.

Back to the drawing board… I also just now remembered that I can do next Google search for the recipe in Spanish.

July 22, 2010

1. Gemini (5/21-6/21)

   Take a romantic risk today — but not one of your patented insane, go-for-broke, Vegas-type gambles. Try something a little more thoughtful, taking a risk with your deep emotions and true ideals. See it all through to its natural conclusion, without running off or quitting prematurely. Give yourself — and someone else — a chance, so something really sweet can flourish.

A status update expansion, as it were.

At least for now, until I can come back to this. Or until it can come back to me.

Valerie Hecht *likes* it when her stylist brings her white wine and lets her read Cosmo.

(18 hours ago via Facebook for iPhone Friends Only · Comment · Like)

I did like it. Quite a lot, actually. I think I’d only been offered beverage a few times. I always knew it was an option; Karl quite frequently drinks a Heineken while getting his hair cut. But I would never ask; it’s better to have been offered.

Going to hair appointments is so stressful in the first place, and anything that can ease the stress is certainly welcome. There were a few favorable responses to this post on Facebook, and in them I also read a certain acknowledgment and perhaps with a giggly approval of the decadence that mid-day drinking means to some people. For me, it’s become more than just acceptable; some weeks it’s par for the course. It’s not something I’m ashamed to admit. No, for me, the true decadence (bordering on shame) was leafing through Cosmopolitan magazine.

Cosmo still has some relevance to my life(style), but the interviews with celebrity women (this issue’s with Pink) are no longer interesting and the fashion spreads are even more inapropos than they were when I was of an age to possibly wear the featured clothing. And speaking of age,  I do realize that I am no longer in the target demographic. The respondents to the magazine’s polls are all listed as age 32 or younger. But I still like to peek at the mag now and again at the salon, and as “trashy” as I think it sometimes is, I also believe they’re missing out on a valuable opportunity not marketing a new version of the mag to readers my age. I mean, after all, there’s CosmoGirl!, pitched to teens.

Why not make a new publication and aim it at women in their 30s-50s? CosmoWhateverYouCallWomenInTheir30s-50s? Indeed, why stop there? I’m even picturing versions that keep apace with and embrace, [re]claim the images and verbages used to represent their aging continually developing readers: Perhaps…CosmoCrone? CosmoHag?

I think it could be fabulous. At least for salon reading…

As hard as it sometimes is for me to make eye contact, I like to look at faces. A lot. I think everybody must; it seems strange to just state, “I like faces”, but I think I’ve only just recently become cognizant of it.

My favorite photographs have always portraits. It’s not often that I get a chance to stare into someone’s eyes or examine features and expressions as long as I want without provoking some sort of reaction.

And now my fear of clowns and masks seems to be well-founded. I guess that any time the true face is hidden, it brings a challenge to our perception.

And now I know why I like Facebook so much! ¡I mean, you can’t spell Facebook without face! I miss the option of seeing all my friends’ profile pictures in the grid collage.

While I really do like photographer Cindy Sherman’s project, just once I’d like to see an image of her, sans déguise.

Dolls, with their unchanging expressions, are really just a simulacra of the face. Yet, sometimes, I still think that if they could express emotions facially, their faces would contort in rage most of the time.

Recently I thought I should see what Chatroulette is all about (though it really should be called Cockroulette); once I learned how to click “next” more quickly every time I saw a penis, I became captivated by the actual faces!

Even looking at my own face sometimes doesn’t repulse me. That is, if I’m looking at it in a mirror or in one of the (way too numerous) self-portraits I’ve made on the PhotoBooth Application of this computer.

I can’t help but turn and look into the windows of the cars next to me to see who’s in them, looking for a glimpse of their story of the moment or this moment of their stories.

Halfway through my run today, I realized that it’s been 3 years since I’ve been running regularly.  Exactly, if I count it by number dates.  Keeping a diary of the running has not been as easy a habit to form, but I did write something in my agenda that first day; it was “Ran” and I don’t even remember how long I went. It wasn’t for quite a while that I started writing the number of minutes after the verb. The important thing is to just not quit doing it. The important thing is that it’s become important. So much so that I’m trying very hard not to schedule travel plans too much around it…

I was glad that the running anniversary was on Sunday. Sundays are the days of the long[er] runs. I’d been going 65, but to do something commemorative-y I went 71 today. Why not 70? Because of stubbornness. When my watch said an hour had gone by, a song had come to an end. I figured that 2 more songs would take about 5 minutes, then I’d take it minute-by-minute and see how much “extra” I could run. There’s a rigidity to my running plans that I’d do well to copy and paste into other parts of my life; it’s regulated behaviors like not allowing myself to look at the watch until the end of a song that feel very much like self-discipline. So I didn’t look at the watch, though I knew that second song had gone on for a reallyreally long time and propelled me to point of no return. It was a remake of the first one.

Sometimes it’s the only thing that covers and comforts. So I suppose the fact that I was driving past Margarita’s on Redwood Ave. when I finally felt hungry meant that this was the kind of serendipity that it had to be. I’d been wanting to try Margarita’s for a while, mostly because the words “Salvadoran lunch specials” were among those painted on the windows, but since it was well after lunch, the words “full cantina” were just as compelling. It was my plan to order something  para llevar and wait at the bar while the cooks prepared the pupusas or, in case they were just for lunch, enchiladas suizas or the quesadilla de camarón that it turned out to be.

The interior at Margarita’s is reminiscent of a Perkins, with a bar in the corner. I was set to order my food, then sit and order a Mexican beer; since I was alone, tequila seemed a bit too much insult-to-injuryish. I was going to drink faster than I should and just go home…

But then I heard, coming from the wiry borrachito in the very back booth who could have been anywhere from 40 to 65, the opening lyric of “Esclavo y amo ” He sang this*  and other boleros in perfect, melting, comforting pitch.

I couldn’t eat while he was singing…and was sorely disappointed when he, like any other customer, raised, his arm, made the universal signal and pronounced, “Señorita, la cuenta, por favor” in those same añejo-tempered tones as those boleros that carried out their function without the accompanying copa.

… y en fin, la comida sí quedó para llevar.

* Three times

The recent graduates in my various worlds have their worlds spread out before them, for the discovering, yes, but also for the creating. I can’t help but try to remember how that was…

When I was young, I think I thought I’d be one of those people who wake up gently without an alarm clock, drink some lemon water and ease into some sort of yoga-stretchy exercise routine before gracefully leaving home with plenty of time to meet the day instead of being someone who’s usually alarmed by the alarm, staggers downstairs to make strong coffee, which I bolt down while plugging in to the computer for [way more than] a few minutes before heading out to run, formless, without having stretched at all, but sometimes for longer than I planned, which also happens to be how long I stay in the shower before frantically leaving home wondering what the day will be.

I probably should have written myself a letter, outlining a vision or something.  At least that way, I’d know exactly which plans I had no intention of following.

Like the one about coming home from work, making myself a nice cup of herbal or green tea and sitting out on my porch to unwind (with accompanying soundtrack of classical music) from a long but rewarding day before cooking a restaurant-worthy dinner for myself, my husband and some close like-minded friends being replaced by coming home from, um…¿work?, making myself a nice glass of martini to obliterate (with accompanying soundtrack of simplistic punk-esque songs) the pendejadas and any other ickiness from a long but (yes) rewarding day and standing in the kitchen ready to greet my husband and any close like-minded friends with the question, “Where’s for dinner?”

Of course I shouldn’t have had a second glass at lunch, for many reasons. But she did. So I did. And then we wrote matching status updates on Facebook. What can I say, we’re tocayas.

I took a nap when I got home, and that’s  not usually conducive to running either. But I wasn’t willing to not go today. I’ll take that as a good thing. I don’t want to stop running. Not sure how I’ll take the not willing to not order white wine at lunch.

… I realized today that by now I would have had to have changed, and not just once,  the title of my nonexistent “Things To Do Before I’m 40″ list.

Had I ever bothered to make one, it might contain the following:  1. Probar el ajenjo./Try absinthe.

It was lovely, shared with Jason in the company of the equally lovely Iliana y Raquel in Sacramento’s Shady Lady. “It’s a different kind of buzz,” he’d explained. “More mellow.” I won’t deny that I felt it,  but probably because we shared it, I didn’t feel it any more than I’d feel other spirits. And in good spirits, we rehearsed the scene two times, the two being separated by a necessary mocking of the lines, releasing that nervous hilarity from our systems.