24 horas en miami

It is the first real spring-like day in Chicago, and all the Lincoln Park Trixies are dressed like they are headed to South Beach, and I’m the only one on this plane to Miami with a giant suitcase full of sweaters and wool socks. I thought my stay in Miami would be limited to a mad dash from the domestic terminal to an international flight gate, but it seems I’ll be staying for about 24 hours.

The flight out of Chicago was tight to begin with, and after being delayed twice, its just downright late. So the trip I’ve been waiting for since four years ago. Waiting for since I was a junior in college, really, I suppose. Waiting for tens years to set off on, has now been delayed another day.

So tomorrow, rather than sleepily stumbling off an airplane at 5am, through customs, and into the Ram’s car, I will be waking up in a cozy Miami hotel bed and wasting most of the day before my 10:30 pm flight. But perhaps this will give me a chance to get some work done. Perhaps I’ll work on that impending grant application. Or that book chapter, or journal article. Perhaps I’ll be productive and pay for hotel internet and send some emails to feminist groups or travel companies. But I’m totally unprepared for lounging by a pool or stolling along the beach. And the air conditioning may be the only thing that makes my misplaced wardrobe manageable. So, alas, productivity awaits. A Florida!

because on international flights, they're not allowed to release luggage once its checked, i only had the contents of my backpack and purse:

1 bra

1 underwear

2 hair bands

1 long sleeve t shirt

1 pair jeans

1 pair tall wool socks

1 pair leather boots

1 down coat

1 scarf

1 wool sweater

15 altitude sickness pills

1 nalgene bottle

1 wallet

1 swatch watch

2 pens

2 mechanical pencils

1 flash drive

1 pair bvlgari glasses

1 pair sunglasses

1 pair apple earbuds

1 canon camera

10 twenty dollar bills

1 canon G12 camera

1 zoom h2 voice recorder

1 jansport backpack

1 dell inspiron mini

1 binder

1 college ruled composition notebook

1 small recycled paper notebook

1 culture and truth by renato rosaldo

1 lonely planet bolivia guidebook

1 larousse pocket spanish/english dictionary

2 hotel vouchers

4 meal vouchers

1 new flight ticket

de donde eres?

well, in the last week i've been asked about twice daily where i'm from. and i don't know how to answer.

of course, there's the problem i've had for years. i was born on the west coast. grew up in the midwest. went to school in chicago. lived in new york. resided in DC.

but i could always fall back on the place i currently lived. the place i paid rent. where my car was registered. where i voted. where i paid taxes. but now that's over. my stuff lives in my parents' basement and closets. i sleep in a bed in chicago. my affiliation is with a school in DC. and in a week, i will physically be in Bolivia.

and so i stutter. i hesitate. i look to other people to answer for me. because i am no longer from anywhere. i am only to somewhere. to illinois. to chicago. a bolivia. and with my fromness, in a way, my history is obscured. if i'm not from dc, i have no school, i have no purpose.


leaving dc has been difficult. its the end of an era in a way. and i'm not sure i'm entirely ready for the next era. i'm hesitating about all kinds of things. but in a way, i suppose bolivia has come to symbolize a release. a relief. a place where i can just be. and there the answers are easy.

soy de los estados unidos.

desde lima 2006

something i found in a random notebook today

This morning I woke up at 7:45 but I stayed in bed until 9. I didn't fall asleep again, but was just thinking...first about sunrises...sitting on the beach with scammell and pete. In those coldest moments of the morning. And there were times when there was no magic moment. You wait and wait, and then suddenly you realize the sun is already a good two inches above the horizon. But that doesn't ruin it. And then I began wondering if that's the magic I'm missing. And if I'll ever find it again.

primas son las amigas mejores

i was feeling kind of down tonight. it may have had something to do with the fact that my phone keeps crapping out, and conversations with people dear to me are interrupted midway through with seemingly no way of re-starting them within 20 minutes. i was lying glumly in bed, catching up on my google reader, and thinking of how i should probably enmesh myself in an art project to revive my spirits.

and then the phone rang again. but i put it on speaker phone, and heard a voice that sounds quite like mine. it was my cousin ampbt (which is her initials, but kinda looks like it could be a new energy drink or something). and i can't imagine anyone better to have spoken to. we talked for an hour an a half about weddings, babies, husbands, clothing, weight gaining, aversions to running, old friends, new friends, crazy mothers, self-deprecating sisters, slow talking fathers, and cousins "on the other side" (though surprisingly, the meth cousins did not make an appearance in the conversation).

i often think that she and i (as well as her sister and i) are closer than many people are with some siblings. we essentially grew up together. from the nutcracker (see below) to late night denny's coffee, we experienced all the important stuff together. she tried to find me a date to my junior prom, and i begged her to go to homecoming with my friend, jbl (now jbl, esq.). and probably a lot of it was our proximity in age, similarity of interests, and the inescapablility of genetics. but what it comes down to is: there are very few people who understand me like she does (lou and char being the only other two i can think of-not even the nice or consueloz quite measure up).

all dressed up for the nutcracker (i'd guess 1985?)

and yet, we rarely talk. usually on october 27. or briefly on the phone to make plans when i'm in chicago. but only when we are actually in each others' physical presence do we have those late night wine fueled conversations that drift from topic to topic until we can barely keep our eyes open. but tonight was different. she called because she and char were at kap's place and char and kap started fighting. she just needed to talk to someone who could understand how ampbt spilling a bit of lasagna on the floor could start a fight between her mother and sister. and oh, how i understand.

and every time, we say, we shall make a habit of these talks. hopefully we will. i miss her terribly. i suppose the fact that lou is in heytown was part of my melancholy state. and hearing that the three parker-baker-tapia-belsan-s were together perhaps added to it. it makes me want to be in chicago so badly. it makes me regret so badly the bachelorette, and graduation, and birthday parties i've missed. but in time. i will be back. at least briefly. but i will relish it.

a casa (de nuevo)

a year & 1/2 ago, i wrote about coming back to dc from chicago. about resetting my computer's clock.

i've just done it again. school is about to start, and i'm painfully missing all that i left behind. but the strange thing is, i felt that way upon arriving in chicago 3 months ago.

the week before i left was magical in a way. it was one of those times when the senses are heightened and everything is urgent. And this was due in no small part to the immanent departure of several good friends. Having earned post graduate degrees, all were bound for greater adventures...in the UK, South America, and the Texas (yes, the Texas). And we celebrated in style. Late night margarita-fueled romps through our favorite garden. Galavants through the woods in the pouring rain. BBQs turned dance lessons. Jack Daniels-inspired antics, and a long night that began with Japanese bar karaoke and ended at 4 am the the Chesapeake basement.

The city felt alive and I wanted to kiss everyone. I wanted to pour myself into their lives the way Carolina kept pouring wine into my glass. But time was running out, and we had spent too many of our opportunities simply staring at maps in the cubicles. These moments were all we had left.

carolina pours me more wine

And then after staying up until 4am and stealing the Chesapeake basement bed from ben, i awoke on a wednesday morning at 8am. I with my wrinkled, sweat-soaked clothes from the night before and unbrushed teeth, shared a metro car with the world of good government workers, off to a boring wednesday in the office. And I wanted to shout at them "Don't you realize? I'll never see them again!" But alas, they went about listening to their ipods, reading free papers, and generally trying not to make eye contact with anyone. And then I loaded up the car and left.

I arrived in Heytown, and then Chicago a bit melancholy. For a few weeks I regretted my decision. But slowly the pain faded. I didn't think about those I left behind every day. I didn't wish to be at deluxe or cantina with the jag and futurama. I fit myself back into chicago. I ran into old friends on the street. I saw my sister as much as I liked. I went for bike rides, and brewed beer, made ice cream, and escaped the city for more rural settings. and it felt like home.

and then responsibility (or however one might refer to grad school) ripped me away and back here. and again, i'm going through withdrawal. i want to buy cheap avocados at tiangis. i miss my walks down Milwaukee ave. i'd rather be back watching world cup with 100 mexicans in a cuban cafe. salvadorans just won't cut it. i want my yoga room and basil plant back. i want postone. i want to sleep beside someone.

i suppose its a never ending (and i mean that figuratively...it better end) cycle of becoming comfortable and then ripping yourself away. Perhaps I'm lucky to have two homes, but that also means that one is never completely home. there's always something missing. perhaps this is the postmodern condition in which space and time are both compressed and stretched. perhaps this is the direction we're all moving. but one thing i know is tomorrow afternoon i will see the great majority of the people i love who live in this city. and i can't freaking wait to go have a drink with them.

chicago

this place is "comfortable" a friend told me last night. there's something about this city that just fits. its natural. i never feel like i'm squeezing myself into what someone here is supposed to be or do. i never feel like a tourist who has stayed 2 years too long.

and fate has a way or making things happen here. last weekend, i went to meet some dc friends for dinner. i walked into the restaurant and who happened to be sitting at their table but ms. snow. apparently her man-friend went to college with (the other) jk. so, she invited me to a bbq she was throwing for brunjeses. and when i showed up on monday the r____ came along and we had a mini JC reunion. on tuesday i accompanied brunjeses to the film fest in which our JC masterpiece was being shown (note that using the word "our" in no way implies i did more than take trips to the JC salvation army, the police station in the heights, and stand around for a few hours on 5th & coles on a wintery day). as the program ended i got a text from she-ra asking if that was my name she saw in the credits. Yes, people just keep popping up all around. it seems like every time i leave the apartment someone new (but really, old) crosses my path.

which is exciting, in part, because i've been thinking about friends. i seem to be at an interesting moment in life where there are tensions between new friend, old friends, and those that were sort of friends before, and following a period of absence are poised to become better friends. there are the people like ee and otto who are working their ways into my heart, but its an uphill battle. i'm not sure if its because i'm not open to them or if the chemistry just isn't there. there are the oldies like the r___ who seem to grow more distant each day. and though there are times when i want desperately to grasp on and do everything i can to not let the friendship slip. and others when it seems inevitable that this will fade away in time. there are the old friends that i never doubt will always be there, but more and more of them fall out of that category and into a more precarious one. and then there are the new (but old) friends, and the new-new friends. and i have little profound to say about them, except that taken all together, the different kinds of people in my life present a challenge. where does one focus energy? is it more important to keep the people you hold dear or make new friends where you are (whether for the moment or for a good while)? ideally of course, one could maintain all of them, but we know that we have limited resources. some kids must be cut from the team. or at least banished to 2nd string. (and now i commence a my boys-esque thought) but is a history of talent more important than future potential? What is the homerun from 8 seasons ago worth today? And are the well formed double batted swings on deck worth taking a chance on? I guess you never know until you try. And people make the wrong choices all the time. But maybe no amount of comtemplating or planning can ensure a playoff team. Maybe you just open up the call and see who shows up.

ok, enough silly rambling. as if things weren't confusing enough i am now contemplating giving the r____ the painting that i recently rescued from the r___.

a casa

there's always something about changing the time zone on my computer's clock that feels meaningful. the watch gets pushed ahead or pulled back usually when the time announcement comes over the airplane's intercom as we land. the cell phone clock changes automatically when driving from one time zone to another. but often, i consciously avoid changing the clock on my little laptop. when i moved to the dale, it took me a full month to admit i no longer lived in EST and pull it back an hour. and now, i find myself hesitating to push it the other way. to admit that i am back on the east coast to stay for a while. that i live here. that i live here.

yes, this is where my stacks of books and old canvases are. this is where my snow boots sit next to my old green converses on the shelf of my closet. where the Vegetarian Epicure my mother gave me rests atop the fridge, and my chola puppet and carebear share a seat by the window. but after a year and a half, it still doesn't feel like home. i've met some wonderful people that have opened me up to new ideas, and i've certainly had my share of fun. but it still doesn't fit. i really want to like this place. i try to like it. some nights everything falls into place and the people and timing and weather and architecture all come alive and i forget the reasons i've concocted that i should think this place is wonderful and i can just feel it. but then an hour passes, and the magic is gone, and its back to consciously concentrating on the small pieces of this city that i connect to. the pieces that remind me of other places, usually.

and so, i come back here from a week in a place i love, and everything is dulled. it rains, but without ferocity. i see familiar faces, but i have to prepare myself to smile for them. i find myself in a foul mood, and not even the things that usually snap me out of it will work.

and i don't mean for this to be too self-pitying or depressing. my life is quite nice and i have people here who care about me and believe in me. i'm getting to do what i really love, for the most part, and in a place that nurtures the things i find important in life. but i'm just not sure this will ever be home. maybe i've been misinterpreting robert frost all along. maybe its not that you can't go home again, because places change. perhaps its because once you've experienced something like home, its just impossible to find again.

but i did just reset my computer's clock.

noches gigantes

I stood there, among the dispersed listeners at the back of the pitchfork crowd, and the Hold Steady opened with “Massive Nights.” I thought to myself how those kinds of nights had been few and far between lately.

The summer began with two epic weekends; one at the beach, one in the city, but quickly simmered into a quiet small town molasses pace. Even once I was back in a city, the drinking and late nights could hardly be described as massive.

But that song seemed to foreshadow the immediate future. As the Hold Steady finished their set, Animal Collective began setting up for their headline set. I noted the frontman’s red hat—it looked just like mine. A few minutes later, two of the Fleet Foxes band members stood directly in front of me, talking to a woman in white cowboy boots, not nearly as cool as my sister’s. To my right were a collection of three mud people, covered in deep black Midwestern soil, liquefied by earlier rains, then hardening like body paint on clothing, shoes, limbs, and faces alike, dancing with flailing arms, and shaking asses. But when the set ended abruptly, it seemed as if it would all be downhill. The hipsters and hippies spilled onto the street, most waiting for buses or trains, but like us, many people joined an eastward migration on foot. It felt like a protest with the only message being an unwillingness to accept that the music was over.

Fortunately the three of us, all coincidentally clothed in white v neck t shirts, had another destination. MC had heard there would be an after party in our friend Jacob’s basement. With only the bikers traveling faster, we arrived in the first wave and made small talk while sitting on the hood of some old white car parked in the back yard. The yard slowly filled with people who looked more ridiculous than an urban outfitters catalog, surpassing even my experiences in East Williamsburg. Every man wore tight pants, a plaid button up or an ironic t shirt and painfully quirky glasses. Hairstyles varied, but ranged between bed head and alfalfa cowlicks. My favorite women’s look involved turquoise ankle boots, a vintage yellow dress that extended approximately ½” below the ass and white gloved hands which clutched an Old Style can. Even Ida’s converse, plaid pants and fanny pack were no match for this apparel.

As Jacob frenzied to get his drum in the basement, a trio of men dressed distinctively less hip than possibly everyone at the party, excepting the three white v necked t shirt wearers, walked around the side of the house. One wore a red hat just like mine.

Shortly after, we filed into the basement and Jacob’s band, Mung played a quick set, then No Age played before an infinitely more densely packed basement. As their set wore on, filling what had earlier seemed like a very spacious basement with vibrations and reverberations, and a number of people dancing under a thin water pipe seemed to be using it for support. The pipe bent like a spring twig in their hands.

Given my three flooding incidents this summer, I felt a fourth was inevitable. The three v necks decided to move to the back of the crowd. The set ended shortly thereafter and the crowd filed to the backyard. The yard was filled at this point, shoulder to shoulder with people infinitely more “hip” than we were. We checked a phone for the time and concurred maybe it was time to end the night, even without a sound from or conversation with Animal Collective. It took about five minutes to squeeze off the porch, around the side of the house, and onto the sidewalk. We got about halfway down the block when the sky opened up and filled the space between clouds and concrete with rain. It was one of those sudden unexpected torrential downpours that instantaneously created pools where curbs once were and made our raincoats, still in tow after that morning’s rains, totally ineffective.

After waiting a time for the bus, we decided the best plan of action would be walking to the nearest thoroughfare and hoping for a taxi. The plan proved effective, and after dropping MC off at the blue line, we continued to the red line Fullerton stop. We arrived on the Northbound platform, to find it empty; never a hopeful sign late at night. But we sat with our backs resting on a pole with a large F sign, and waited. And waited. And waited. Nearly an hour later, the platform having now filled with riders, an announcement was made apologizing for the delay. A train would be arriving shortly.Once on the train, our car was quite a side show. Next to us, two men bantered barbershop style. At the other end of the car, a group of college age men sang Bohemian Rhapsody. At the door near us, a young man gave unsolicited love advice to a middle aged business man who had just bid farewell to a woman he only first met on Thursday. After another 45 minutes and much hubbub about the train switching to express, we arrived at our stop and finally made it home safely.

(red hat + old style cans = not quite hipster)

la cuidad y el campo

i left heytown feeling down on home.

the train had some major delays but i made it to the city by 10. while there, i saw droves of old friends and like the weekend by the beach and stroh day weekend. its always good to catch up and reorient. especially when involving things like karaoke, tasty art, russian poetry, vodka, elevator music, awkward parties, and public playgrounds.

i got home yesterday evening feeling renewed, and then spent some time on the porch with the Ps, wine in hand, looking at the night sky, and talking about historical politics. it made me remember again, why i love this place. thick soft grass beneath my head. pure night quiet. a clear sky, with the most visible of stars. and the best company one could hope for.

i realize the sum up of the weekend is pretty lacking here, but i think its better addressed in a picture blog, to come shortly.

las estudiantes catholicas

i live in a bubble. if it doesn't pertain to bolivian constitutional reforms, professional wrestling, or gendered violence i'm not paying much attention.

yep, it took me over a week to realize i know one of the "catholic school girls" arrested in Chicago on Easter for their anti-war protest at the Holy Name Cathedral. i guess little bird is making a name for herself. i've been forwarded correspondence, and she seems as well as possible. i don't know whether to be inspired, or scared. in any event, i'm rather taken by her performative way of doing things.

i've grown calm in my old age. i now highly doubt i'll ever live up to my "most likely to be arrested in a protest" fame of high school. i'm not code pink material these days. at least i launched a successful attack on school policies and got 5 lovely people little reimbursement checks they so deserved. maybe that just means i'm more of a policy rather than street activist. on the other hand, it makes me feel a bit better to know that at least i'm still connected enough to the community that i have friends in media-attention-worthy places. i just hope all turns out well for her. she's a pretty amazing woman.

una hag de nuevo

well, perhaps it was inevitable, but all of my new school friends, other than the jag, are gay men. the last 5 people i entered into my phone were gay men.

but it feels like home. i haven't really been in that little world since my days of hanging at roscoe's and charlie's (and unfortunately, spin). sure, i saw dwt a few times in queens, plus leo and upside in the dale. but really, since 2003 i've been very absent from the gay bar scene. for better or worse.

so i have the option of going to an 18 & over gay club tomorrow night after class. i'll probably pass. but i am attending a gay dinner party friday night. i think i'm destined to never have female friends again...

piensos extranos

1. i acquired a tiny thing of grey pupon mustard recently, and damn its good. i mean, yes, i like mustard a lot. but the g.p. beats the hell out of safeway/shoprite brand dijon mustard. mmmmm...

2. i ran two miles on tuesday with the kronner. it was pretty pathetic at the end. there was a very slow but steady upwards hill that just killed me. but hey, at least i'm trying. we did get to discuss his thoughts on moving to chicago though.

3. my internet went down yesterday, and was fixed today. they guy who fixed it was from chicago, and we discussed the beloved windy city. then i got an email from smoyer who just moved to chicago. i'm now putting together something to send, but i have to find a few more things. its all making me miss chi town. and i won't ever fly through there for the holidays. i'll have to make a trip sometime soon.

4. it was a crappy rainy day, and my allergies were bad, but i decided i had to get out and go to the grocery story before consuelo z arrives. and when i left the apt, i had something very exciting from method in the mail. just a bag, no cleaning goodies, but still. it lightened my day.

5. as did this
i was especially heartened because a few months ago i made an ill-advised attempt to argue in class that the butter cow had something to do with citizenship. at the time i basically conceded that it really was only about belonging. but this proves the point. speaking of which, i should call duff.

bars and bad press

5 years ago, on 27 october 2002, a whipped up some yummy thai curry and rice in davey's rice maker, and had a lovely sit down dinner with my roommates. then we moved the table into the kitchen. then davey & i went to home depot.


we bought some long boards, some marble looking contact paper. some battery operated lights, some shelving. some 2x4s. we loaded it into the trunk of my rez-mobile, somehow, and drove back to hamlin street. we unloaded, took everything up the 3 flights of stairs, and pulled out my tool box (he certainly didn't have one). we nailed and leveled and covered and hung my painting behind it and stood back to admire our new bar.


this bar was the home to beloved space prom. it was home to the rainbow alliance party that ended in an ambulance call. it was home to a vagina monologues after party, a few improvisational parties, the party i threw when i finished my thesis.


so, here i am getting all nostalgic about a piece of wood perched against the wall with the vag mon. stools surrounding it. but the point is that bar was a central point to my senior year of college. as seemingly background as it was, without it things would have been different. all because of home depot.



(now here's where i get to the feminist ranting part of the blog)


but of course home depot has to go and decide that its stores aren't woman friendly enough. and i'm pissed. hell i spent a good number of lunch breaks when i worked at the arch. firm wandering around the h.d. on 23rd street. i was at home depot about 5 times this summer. i love the place. rather, i loved.


no more. home depot is dead to me. don't insult me! treat me like a human being with a brain and the ability to construct simple structures. come on! i guess i'll have to start going to lowes.