it still hurts

this time, hopefully

the dude on the computer in front of me

has spent the last hour on a site titled sexy o no? in which you go through photos of guys and girls, and click sí or no. i haven't seen him click sí once. every now and then he pauses, as if considering some girl who is clearly a million times sexier than he is, and then clicks no.

posted by: joelistix at 18:28 | link | comments (1) |

some women whilst travelling

on the train down to barcelona:

she received numerous phone calls, and spoke slipping in and out of euskara and castellano like they were two skins both oh so smooth and fitting. she could start a single sound in one language and come out of it in the other. she was all wondrous meticulousness. she had a bokata wrapped in foil that was carefully opened, repositioned, closed, half-eaten, reclosed, placed away for later. the lid of her lip gloss must have been slightly off, because she had to hold it tight with a hair elastic, two times round and slid to the centre. she peeled a mandarin as the light streamed electric through the window, and shot through the acid spray that the peel spat out. she adjusted her striped tights over her body-coloured thermal. she had a quiet mullet and a strong nose. she stared hard out the window like a prophet. my grandma would have called her plain with that jaw, but what the fuck would she know.

at hotel ali in fes.

her age could have been anywhere between 30 and 100, changing not by sequence but by whim. this year 40, the next year73, the following 32. she called us madamoiselle and monsieur and spoke to us only in french. she mopped the floor of the toilets with her handbag hanging from her arm. when you passed her in the stairwell you wished you'd seen her coming earlier so that you could have appeared more casual, more together. but you never saw here coming because she never came or went anywhere. she moved because she knew that everyone wanted to be passed by her. she moved out of compassion.

posted by: joelistix at 18:26 | link | comments |

basque class beauties

i just came from the most stunning basque class. there were only five other people. three girls, two boys. only one of the boys wasn't totally hot, in that basque country youth sort of way. and even he wasn't particularly unattractive. where do they get these kids from?!

posted by: joelistix at 17:56 | link | comments |

subject troubles

the other day i found a class listed as: 'the psychopathology of everyday life'. and since it sounded to me like a mix between de certeau and the situationists, i figured i had to take it. it starts at 8 am, which meant getting up at 7 or so. the class is actually bizarre pop-psychology/self-help kind of stuff. there is a compulsory text called living with pleasure, inteligence and love. according to the teacher the class starts of looking at the bad pathologies in life [forms of maltreatment] and aims at reaching love. life drives pretty much seems to be divided more or less into those that stem from fear and love. sound familiar? the teacher walks around the class as she lectures systematically touching people on the arm, playing with their hair, looking into their eyes. i almost want to keep doing the class just so that at the en of the course i can stand up and tell her i think she's the fucking antichrist.

the problem is if i don't stick with this class, i'm really struggling to find others. i'm gonna try to do one on contemporary sociological theories, which includes bordieau and habermas and a whole bunch of people on its reading list. i'm gonna do one about spanish novels. and i'm doing more oil painting. and basque. but that still leaves another subject or two. i may end up sticking with the psychopathic study of everyday life. at least it's not boring.

posted by: joelistix at 10:38 | link | comments (2) |

he vuelto

i'm finally back in pamplona, trying to choose subjects that make me feel the least like i'm back in year nine, sitting in the english/maths/history block of my old high school. i've recovered from my moroccan food poisoning, but the rash from the fluro green 'hangover cure shower gel' [go on, tell me you would have been able to resist buying it] hasn't gone away yet.

i'll post up some verbal and perhaps visual happysnaps of the trip over the next couple of days.

and danna, if you're reading, i think it might be time for us to have a talk again. i know i haven't written in a long time, but we're going to have to get reacquainted i think [any letters sent to danna will be posted on the blog].

posted by: joelistix at 15:02 | link | comments (1) |