Death

My children complain that I talk about death too much. Every now and then, having heard of another distant relative who’s passed on, I’ll go into my usual story of what I want done with my remains after my turn comes. I tell them exactly what I want done before and after, in reference or deference or commemoration of me—like I deserve any such celebrations. I have a playlist in my iTunes I’ve titled “Music For My Funeral”. I tell them they will miss me and that it’s ok; and I tell them they’ll stop missing me after a while, maybe a long while, and that that is ok, too. Too much, perhaps, but I have my reasons.

My grandfather died of a heart attack when he was 76. My grandmother died of a heart attack when she was 65. My father died of a heart attack when he was 55. My uncle died of a heart attack when he was 42. My brother died of a heart attack when he was 36. I have a bad heart—and have spent plenty of nights under observation at the hospital while they stabilized my erratic heartbeat—so I keep telling the family that I feel I’m living on borrowed time.

My father spent plenty of nights sitting on a chair in the dark, out in the back yard, smoking a cigar and drinking a little cognac after dinner, supposedly waiting for the Martians he saw fly their saucer over a lake when he was 26 to come rescue him from the unjust punishment living on Earth must be. Life on Earth, I gathered then, was a punishment, a harsh sentence aliens paid for some crime they committed—we are a penal colony. This meant, of course, life is nothing to be terribly clung to, and (more importantly) that death is not an end, but rather a transition, a happy one, from this punishment to the real life from which we came, a parole from this prison. And so, when we found my father’s dead body on his reclining chair in front of the television, with a smile on his face, we cried as we should cry, but I thought that smile was all the message he could give me that they had finally come for him.

One day, it will be my turn.

That is the one truth no one can hide from: death will come. I don’t know what death is, what comes after, but I do know it will come, that it will be my turn to die someday, that my children will be left with the responsibility of doing something with the decaying remnants, this thing they used to call dad and for which they will mistakenly still feel love, not realizing that I, their real dad, have exited the train and simply chosen to use a different conveyance to reach points beyond. I don’t want them to feel what we felt when my father died: that we had never talked about death and that we had no idea what he wanted done for him, with him, to him. So I’ve engineered a terribly complicated ceremony to allow my children to feel they have done as I wish. Though I may be gone to the next step of the journey, I can give them some closure.

Still, it must be done in a way that will allow them to laugh. I want there should be fun. There may be a dead guy in the room, but that dead guy will be me, so we cannot make this a somber occasion. That will simply not do.

So this is what I’ve told them: go to my computer, get the music I’ve selected for my funeral, get a gathering of friends and relatives going—they know which ones—and get them all drunk remembering the good old times we all shared. In the morning, those who feel their lives would be improved by it should pray, but not unless they would have otherwise done so had I not died: I want no hypocrites on my side. Then, when my body has been cremated, gather up the ashes and take them to the hills. Find a sunny slope and bury them there with an avocado seed, somewhere such a tree can grow. Make sure, I’ve told them, that it is at a place that’s particularly hard to reach. I don’t want them to feel guilty for not coming to visit me past the third anniversary of my death. After all, that is not me: it is just a small pile of ashes.

When and if the tree should grow, wait until it can hold a sign, and then hang one from its branches that reads “EAT ME”, and should I feel the need to visit the little pile of ashes from wherever I have gone, you can be sure I will smile. But, to be honest, I don’t think I’ll do that. I’d rather visit my children, and their children, just to make sure they’re ok. That would be a much better use for the nearly unlimited time I presume one must have after death.

So then, to end, just to make sure the list is not lost if this computer should die before me, here is a list as of today. These are the songs. Each has a meaning, known only to me, and hopefully the one for whom I picked it. I don’t expect anybody other than my children will care, and while I’d hope they didn’t, I’m afraid their Judeo-Christian upbringing will require some action from them, so they should do something:

1 Take Me Home Country Roads (John Denver)
2 I’m In A Hurry (Alabama)
3 No Time To Kill (Clint Black)
4 Amarillo By Morning (George Strait)
5 Neon Moon (Brooks and Dunn)
6 Hechizo (Ana Gabriel)
7 Se Murio De Amor (Bobby Pulido)
8 Solo Los Tontos (Alacranes Musical)
9 Viviendo De Prisa (Alejandro Sanz)
10 Sexo, Pudor Y Lagrimas (Aleks Syntek)
11 Jamas (Camilo Sesto)
12 Nobody Does It Better (Carly Simon)
13 Amor (Cristian Castro)
14 Space Oddity (David Bowie)
15 Man Who Sold The World (David Bowie)
16 Magic Dance (from labyrinth) (David Bowie)
17 Love Child (Diana Ross and the Supremes)
18 Mad World (Gary Jules)
19 La Mia Storia Tra Le Di (Gianluca Grignani)
20 Mi Historia Entre Tus Dedos (Spanish version of 19)
21 Una Magica Storia d’Amore (Gigi D’Alessio)
22 Que Alguien Me Diga (Gilberto Santa Rosa)
23 Kol Hatziporim (Harel Skaat)
24 Haruach Teshane Et Kivunah (Harel Skaat)
25 Fire And Rain (James Taylor)
26 The Origin Of Love (Hedwig and the angry inch)
27 I Should Have Been A Cowboy (Toby Keith)
28 Eleanor Rigby (Beatles)
29 El Frio De Tu Adios (Olga Tañon)
30 Hasta Contar A Mil (Jotdog)
31 Burbujas De Amor (Juan Luis Guerra)
32 Dos Locos (Monchi Y Alexandra)
33 Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (The Platters)
34 Solitary Man (Neil Diamond)
35 No Me Doy Por Vencido (Luis Fonsi)
36 Yesterday (Beatles)

That should give the guests about two hours of drinking time—enough for a buzz but not enough for a DUI, I hope. Thus does it stand for the time being, but I firmly believe that in death, more than in life, everything changes…

Porque solo los tontos...

Se enamoran igual que yo...

It’s raining in L.A. Cold, wintry winds drive shards of icy pain deep into my jacket as I smoke out by the lonesome little eucalyptus tree by the side of the building. It doesn’t mind the weather like I do. Youth, it seems, treats both trees and humans just the same, and Mr. Button’s case notwithstanding, I propound there’s nothing for the skin like youth, giving it both firmness and softness—both qualities long lost in mine. The bark of this little eucalyptus doesn’t mind the bending almost parallel to the ground in the strong wind; it loses none of its smoothness when it comes back up to challenge the wind yet again by bending ever so slightly into it. What mighty roots has this three year old tree! Wish that I had done in my four decades what it has done in a third of one.

So there are three of us now in the apt. Just now do I realize how much of a loner I really am: I like the noise to be nearly but not right by me, so I isolate myself a bit and let them do whatever it is young people do (which is usually noisy), while I play online, or watch TV, or read—though I’ve been doing that less and less these days. Lethargic by nature, I’ve gone into a semi-catatonic hibernating state these past few weeks, evidenced by my growing weight. Ugh! It’s time to start going to Bally’s again.

We’re working on a big project again. It’s a lot of fun to search out all the little bits of a large project and then assemble them all together as a puzzle, seeing the thing take shape from the bottom up. It is all for a quote, though, and I’m hoping we are significantly more attractive than the competition. A big project right about now would be good for the company—and all us little folk that work in it. It’s precisely what lets a small company weather the rough economy. Ora Pro Nobis!

Now, the new roomie listens to what we might rudely call chunty music. Brassy, very much like Polka, the music more typically heard in the Center-Northern states of Mexico is usually harsh, uncouth and unrefined, and for that reason sounds more honest, less an interpretation of the feelings, and more along the lines of a simple story told just the way it happened: truer. Trying to get past my cultural prejudices, I’ve started to listen to a couple, and ran into this song which reminds me of me: Solo Los Tontos. The version I heard is by Alacranes Musical, who play Duranguense music though they’re form Chicago (go figure!). It took me a while to get past the idea of the music and start listening to the song itself. I liked it. The guy’s a fool who falls in love with a smile and a look, and the girls take advantage of him—and seriously! Who doesn’t do that more often than they care to admit? I know I have, and probably will again. That’s how I met the new roomie in the first place. Go figure!

December Rain

Sunday again, a rainy December afternoon in Los Angeles. Funny how time flies. We just came back from El Nido—a nicaraguan restaurant in Los Angeles which I highly recommend. Don't be afraid of the area, of La Brea less than a block north of I-10. Every time I go, I end up ordering two plates: one to eat and one to take home. Good food! Reminds me of the good old days. Even my mom (though quite reluctantly) had to admit the food was great when we went there—last year when we were all still on talking terms.

We started year-end physical inventory at work. It is a longer process than most companies take, as we only have a limited number of people who can count past 10—regardless of attire. I hope we're done by the long weekend coming up, with all the audits we have to do after we're done counting.

One of my roommates (I have two now) got this movie off Ebay called Girls Will Be Girls and we're getting ready to watch it my room. It is an insanely funny movie—I've seen it once before. It is both insane and funny... it is truly a guilty pleasure.

They're going to order pizza... how many meals do skinny people really need in one evening?

Well, that is it for now... nothing particularly consequential to report...

But I'll leave you with this link, which should take you to funnyordie.com where you can find a tiny little musical starring (among others) Jack Black. It is very funny indeed. I hope you like it.

Prop8Musical

Let's do the time warp again...

These days, I'm sick of politics! Don't get me wrong, I'm a political creature, and followed this election from the very end of the last one... I figured it would be fun, full of interesting turns... betrayals, revelations, all the good stuff I'm too "manly" to watch soaps for... but then it went like the soaps do... FOREVER... Sweet Mother of Jesus! By the time Obama won, I celebrated as much out of sheer relief the race was over as I did in support for his campaign. They should be limited in time, these campaigns. Start in July. Not a word till then. From anybody. But since I support the first amendment, I guess I would never support my own proposal.

Plus, now that the election is over, I feel less obligation to write about the ongoing political climate of the country--one of the many excuses I used to avoid writing in my blog this long. A friend tells me politics in the United States is like playing football between the 49 yard lines--the unending attempt to differentiate yourself from the clone standing right beside you. Another excuse is the downfall in the economy. I've actually been a bit depressed by it: looking at the economic indicators reach the levels they were when the current president took office, or even before. He's effectively negated his own administration. We've just lost 8 years. Talk about the end of an error... There is, of course, the fact that the country is now going on a downward trend, economically as well as politically. So, in the end, we're worse now than we were then... I pray we do better over the next four years. I know it'll be difficult, but Americans have never been shy to work hard. World dominance is not accidental, however maligned it might be.

So I'm sick and tired of politics. I came to Palm Springs to celebrate my birthday. My friend came with me and she's about to go gambling, and because I don't gamble, I'm going to play pool instead. It's funny how everybody warns me about the bar I've chosen to go play pool at: it's gay. Ooooooooooh! You'd think in this day and age people would outgrow their petty fears of homosexuality. I wonder if the men think how women feel going to ANY bar considering the treatment they (the men) expect to get when going to a gay bar. I've had many interesting conversations with friends about the passing of proposition 8 by so many supporters of Obama, though he stated he'd vote against it. Go figure. People forget, these days, that democracy is not the simple, unyielding rule of the majority--we are all, after all, in a minority sometime or another. Catholics, Blacks, Men... Power, Freedom, are really truly exercised only when they are restrained, tempered by tolerance and understanding.

I'm sitting at the corner of the pool bar, fully dressed and drinking, blogging while people dripping in chlorinated water come by and chat it up, waiting for their drinks. A middle aged white man came by, whom I figured out the moment he arrived: as a buyer, I make it my business to develop schemas of people's personalities, and while I try to keep an open mind to change my preconceived perceptions of people. I have to used them, manipulate them, overpower them at their own game. It's an expensive hotel, and though I'm sitting here reading Kafka, drinking single malt scotch, and typing into a very nice laptop, he asked if I work here. Knowing a simple denial would be insufficient, I turned my face into a condescending scowl and told him "Heavens, No!" as I smiled and gave a knowing look at the hottie sitting beside me (my friend, who is, as far as the man is concerned, my girlfriend). Embarrassed, he apologized, began only then to talk to me as an equal, and bought me a drink--though I'm sure he wasn't happy to find out it's $20 a shot. It's things like this that make me wonder if we are truly ready to have a "Black" president, a non-white president. I wonder if Bush lost it for McCain instead of Obama winning... the result is the same, either way, so I don't mind. The process is not as important as the result anyway.

I wanted to write a monumental opus for my return to blogging since my trip to Chicago. I wanted to be erudite, insightful, composed, stuffy. But to hell with it. I can only apologize to Mamacita (link to the right, if I updated it), for her incredible support even in my absence. She barely knows me and still, I feel she keeps me in her heart more than many people whose bills I pay. Oy Vey!

Updates: I killed my car, got a new one, got two roommates, am planning to use their rent money to get a better car, and have weathered the stagnant economy better than most. Thank G-d for that last bit. While it's true that it helps to be good at what you do, there is a lot of luck or divine intervention involved and anybody who says otherwise, those who claim you make your own destiny, just don't get it so there's no point arguing with them.

By the way, my friend and I were at a tapas bar last night and this couple got seated with us... they're Israeli, and we started a conversation, and it was wonderful! You might remember (if you've read my previous posts) my Israeli ex-boyfriend... he built a special spot in my heart for his people (Jews in general and Isrealis specifically) and I felt warmly towards them from the start... however, the Rosseta stone people want $600 for the course, and I'm too cheap for it... maybe I'll just attend the local community college. Lucky that living in the San Fernando Valley, there's plenty of places to study it. I hope they can overcome my Arabic name and background. :-)

So I'm going now. I hope those of you who know me and accidentally happen upon this post will forgive my quick departure. I toyed with the idea of promising to write daily for a month, but I just won't do it... so I'll do this: I promise to write at least once a week for a year. Ultimately, this is a record for my children to remember me by when I'm gone--if they happen to run into it. I find that I can be more honest here, hidden behind the veil of anonimity the Supreme Court promised those who chat online.

Be well! May you weather this rough spot... may we all...

A Land of My Own

I have posted before about my feelings regarding this country. Having seen so little of it, I've always felt apart--it is, after all, my children's home, and only a shelter for me. Grateful as I am to have been so received, I cannot get past the foreign-ness of my accent.

But dear Trishy has helped me take a few steps out of my shell. I've now seen so much more than I'd ever have imagined possible--even as recently as two years ago. The world is wider but not for that less cozy, warm, and familiar. Everywhere I go, the plants are green, the water's mostly blue, the air too. It is so warm, reassuring that it be so. And though most travelers might laugh at this obvious observation, it never was a given to me. Humanoid beings occupy most spaces, and at least while I'm traveling the United States, they speak English (after a fashion). I think I've also posted on Americans' use of the language and will refrain from doing so again--for now.

The best part is not in the differences, which I expected, but in the similarities. It is all one country, from the dry desert near home to the wettest forest outside Seattle, to the wide, wide river that flows (not always quite so gently) through this new city I am now visiting. I regret not having been able to spend more time at Mamacita's (link on the right), but when ever would I get a chance to drive on over to the arch? And boy! What an arch!

The thing is bigger than the t.v. shows I've seen about might lead the careless watcher to expect. It is breath-taking! At 7:30a.m., the three little Mexican people who happened to arrive at the parking lot at the same time I did, and I, walked up the little walk from the structure to the arch, and nearly gasped when we reached it. Somebody said the Statue of Liberty would fit under it--and I don't doubt it. It is so shiny and pretty, so new in its uniqueness, and yet so far from foreign. Seattle, Portland, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, St. Louis--a short list, perhaps, to many, but to me a sufficiently widespread sample to say with little hesitation: this land is my land. At long last, these are my people. Black, Mexican, any of ten different kinds of white (like my new little Irish-kind-of-folk in Indiana), immigrant and native-born, boys and girls and everything in between. English-, French-, Spanish-speakers, and those who tried to teach me sign language in Santa Monica, or the two-year old who signed "thank you" at the airport when I left for here--they are my people, too.

Trite though it might sound, and though you've heard it often, the blood's all the same color. But, more importantly, the top light, the red one: it means stop. The red flashing hand on the other side of the street means don't cross. The round green symbol, with the girl in the middle and the white letters means: come get a cup of overpriced coffee. We are all the same because we've chosen to be so. More than land, more than language, more than anything at all, anywhere and at any time, this is my land, these are my people, simply and only because I claim it so. No paper can make that more real. Nothing else anybody else can do will welcome me home like the thought that I belong. It's silly, I know, but anywhere I go, from now on, I'm always going home.

Thanks!

And just to avoid leaving this on a "deep" note, I just wanted to show one more pic, to see if it looks to you like it did to me. Tell me how this looks:

Sagitario

A mitad del camino de mi vida, I came to realize that there really is no point. There is absolutely no evolutionary necessity for my continued existence after my genes have successfully escaped my body and ensured the continuation of the species. It is at this point that I sought to console myself through the usual hedonistic ways "we" often follow. Still, at some point, "we" grow tired of these ways. Though I was a late bloomer, now that I'm done blooming I find I skipped that middle part and went right to old.

And now that the universe has turned yet one more time as a cruel reminder of my neglected youth, the hunter returns. The "otro yo" that allows perversion under the guise of insanity. The weirdest thing is that I'm never the only one.

There'd be no predators if there were no prey.

You Lost Me At Good Bye.

Yo no nací para amar.

I should have just given up when my parents forbade me to date la criada next door. I was only ten, and she was twelve, and we were really just friends—I guess—but isn’t that the way it always starts? I mean, I’d go out to ride my bike but instead, I’d sit for two hours chatting with her about nothing in particular. She wasn’t well educated, nor very smart, but she was sweet and she was sincere, and she was funny. And it certainly didn’t hurt that she was severely over-developed for such young age. But the instinct for the continuation of the species is far stronger than any parental threat—though sometimes misguided. Gender, you see, never made any difference in my attraction to people. I can say with a certain degree of confidence that it wasn’t merely “liking” like in friendship, though at the time I didn’t know any better, because at this age, I’ve learned the subtle differences between merely liking and liking. And boy, I liked them. Still, I reached high school age and hadn’t managed to get the liking past just that to turn it into the decadent debauchery my classmates proudly claimed at the confessional on Saturdays—and my penance was always shamefully much shorter than theirs.

En el mismo lugar, y con la misma gente.

And then one day friendship led to love and love led to marriage and I had two kids! Callooh! Callay! All we needed then was the white picket fence—and I swear that despite all my other perversions, I still dream one day to have such a silly symbol of stability of normalcy. It was a dream so close to gotten, that I was twice hurt when the marriage fell apart. I cannot say I ever stopped loving her, but I don’t like her quite so much these days. Trust is the only thing you have, sometimes, and unlike the tails on lizards, it doesn’t grow back. One day, in the heat of a fight, she asked me to leave. “If I go, I won’t come back,” I said; “I think you should leave,” she said; and I left. I remember my daughter watching me take the last of my clothes from the dryer, asking me where I was going and when I was coming back. But though I visit often, I haven’t gone back. They’re still there, in the same house, with the same neighbors—and they still say hello when I stop by. She’s asked me three times to try again… but there is not try, like Yoda says… “Do, or do not!”

If you want to be happy for the rest of your life.

She’s now twelve years older than she was the day she waved at me as I drove away, December the twentieth, a clear, sunny, bright, and dismal day. I’d rather have a blustery day, cloudy, rainy and drizzly, and an old movie, black and white perhaps, and a cup of hot chocolate with the little marshmallows floating on top, and a dash of cinnamon. There should be someone there, with me, to share the coolness of the air and the warmth of the chocolate, and if a fireplace be handy, the little crackly noises of the wood as it burns. But there need be no one. If you make solitude your friend, you need not trouble yourself with loneliness. It isn’t an easy thing to do, but then neither is keeping just ten pounds off, or keeping the top of your desk’s hutch dust-free. It takes work, patience, perseverance, dogged determination to complete oneself. In any case, the greatest stories of love were about love that never happened, or was brief and sour.

I can do well all on my own.