this time, hopefully
though technically, if we follow it from a historical perspective, the spark for this recent tea run would appear to be pat. his impending visit compelled me to buy not only tea, but cow's milk as well. but really, since pat's departure, my tea drinking has tripled, and it is one of the few positive byproducts of this project proposal which otherwise is just evil evil time munching [and here i refer to even munching time which could belong to the project itself] shit. i feel myself needing to take a minute out to first of all wash the little saucepan that i use to boil the water [in this house, everything must be washed before using] make myself a cup, and sit down to do some more work.
fantastic byproduct of tea drinking: urinating all the time. which of course provides another break.
me alejo un poco del cuadro. estoy estancado, agitado. he hecho las partes más fáciles, pero ahora me quedan las difíciles. ella se acerca a ver el cuadro.
the proposal is coming out of me like kidney stones. every word hurts. it's possible that tonight, real late, when i can't sleep, i will just do the fucking thing. then i can print out the horrible mass of it. fucking take to it with an axe, and then preen it a little until it's submittable. i'm so unsettled by it. luckily i have euskera class next, and the sheer mass and speed of thoughts in that class leaves me alive. and then i have painting. so i should make it through the evening. may even make a veggie lasaña tonight. who knows.
simple as that. next week maybe.
what i want to submit in place of my 2000 word project proposal due at the end of the month:
i still haven't figured out exactly where it will all lead, and i will only get there in the process of writing. i promise, i will read a fair bit, talk to lots of people, think stuff over and work hard on the writing. is that enough?
patty came, brought adam and jim with him. we shared man-hugs at night time. we ate bravas and drank beer at the speed of the irish. we sweetened our coffee with separatist sugar. patty gave me two rastas, and now i feel almost complete. then the boys crashed out and slept while i headed out with kim. the old town was a mess. the barman danced naked on the bar. he had a pair of tongs stuck on his arse. i drank enough water to not have a hangover.
so, the prednisone i self-prescribed seems to be kicking in. lung-inverting coughing fits now seem to be coming with long, almost forgettable gaps in-between. although the whole spe-up metabolism thing meant that i had to make myself a tortilla at about 2am last night. and i was in too much of a hurry to cook the potato and onion properly, so it wasn't the best. but hey it killed my hunger.
also, looks like my sister might be coming over in february. very cool. been a long time between boogies.
prooject proposal should come along fine. waffle waffle waffle, nationalisms, enacted and lived spaces, drunkenness, smells, methodologies. really i could just submit those few words.
i think really i'm the only one who is still surprised by the inventiveness of my stupidity nowadays. turned up at uni today at about 12:40 for a 1pm class that is on monday, wednesday, thursday. today, of course, being tuesday. my next class is from 7 till 9. i spent about an hour tis morning thinking thinking thinking now what is today, what classes do you have, what time, ah yes! i know, it's all crystal clear.
but it's all ok. because i have a copy of both a tousand plateaus and poetics of space in my bag. i can probably read about seven pages of each in that amount of time.
patty and adam come this weekend. hurrah! host and translator roles are super-super-fun.
there's talk over here. amongst the europeans, and the spaniards (spaniards of course being europeans, unlike, say, me; or, the turkish). in fact, they say there's even been talk between 'moroccan authorities' and subsaharan states. that's to secure repatriation agreements. in the eu, the talk is of cooperation, more resources, and even of increasing aid to africa. this is all because over the last few weeks there have been more and more migration attempts along spain's southern borders. ostensibly spain has southern coast and not southern borders, except for the enclaves of ceuta and melilla, the scraps of the iberian empire in morocco. there are big wire fences with razor wire on top. migrants get together in the hundreds in the bushes at night. they wear gardening gloves and whatever they can find or are given to protect from the wire. they have makeshift ladders to scale the fence. it happens quick. ladder up all over if part of you gets caught forget it, morocco is africa africa is the old life europe is now the shoe that got stuck is old the skin shorn off is old old old forget it europe is the new world. and every night people are injured climbing scraping falling. several times, the moroccan authorities have found themselves obliged to shoot. the other night they killed six would-be migrants. sometimes there is uncertainty as to whether the moroccans or the spaniards did the shooting. though recently there's been footage of an 'exceptional incident' of the spanish guardia civil kicking the shit out of a migrant on this side of the fence.
so clearly, what's needed, is a solution. more recources, yeah? that'll fix it. maybe more fences, they're saying. that way at least, it slows down the process, and leaves enough time to arrest them all, take them to the 'reception centres', and them dump them back in the desert (images of that on the news the other night). having been in berlin a couple of months ago, it's really hard not to recall the checkpoint charlie museum. they have a history of the development of the wall. started as wire, and steadily was upgraded into the reinforced concrete graf target that spawned a thousand authenticated souvenirs. so let's think on this image:
it's one of thee icons of the berlin wall. 1961, conrad schuman, east german defector. we see him running towards us, towards freedom. we imagine the guns at his back, determined not to let him out. conveniently, at the moment, along the borders of ceuta and melilla, we can still imagine the guns at their backs. the moroccans have them covered. only thing is, if the moroccans miss, now we have to imagine the gun in our hands.
in berlin i couldn't help thinking: if the berlin wall hadn't been the most fantastic publicity exercise that the west had, would the west have eventually felt forced to build the wall itself? or maybe, if conrad schuman had been black, would the west german border guards have shot him?
we were all in a car together, my father driving, my eldest sister sitting next to me remembering where to go and asking for compliments. we were driving up a hill that got steeper and steeper until it was at least vertical (now that i think about it a weirdly common occurrence in my dreams), and my father realised that the hill we had climbed earlier was actually around the corner. i got out of the car (nation, home, etc.) and ran ahead to find the other entrance. my dad started reversing down the hill but the car slid rapidly down, everything was gravel and he couldn't slow it. my first thought, as always, was 'shit, he's gonna fuck the car!'. amazingly he didn't, but the car wouldn't stop and he started spiralling down this track that curled down wildly along the inside of the mountain. when i realised the car wasn't gonna stop i started chasing it down, and eventually a girl who i studied spanish with at uts had my father by the hand, he with my brother out the window in his other hand. he manouvered my brother over to a ledge but let go too soon and he fell. a minute later the same brother was back, and he fell again. i saw that he was falling close to some sort of object, so i yelled in quick abortion, 'grab'. he tried to grab it quickly but just sort of bounced off and continued falling. i looked away before he hit the ground. i decided to get up.
alba
another skinny white boy
antipopper
asti
english lessons
hon
no se puede
somnambulist
today
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
visited *loading* times
