unicidades

I want to bake for a living. I want to write for a living. I want to dance for a living. I want to design for a living. I want to love life again.

When I think I am going to take a break from life's complications, I open the door again to more turmoil.

I've booked my trip to Los Angeles and I already booked a hotel as well. I can't wait to see my friends from grad school, the people I used to work with, the Hollywood Bowl, Santa Monica, Trader Joe's, the hills... I haven't been to Los Angeles in the past five years. This time around I will bring my tango shoes as well. It's going to be fun.

Tired.

Even if the anger subsided, I would still be in a place where loneliness is the best emotional policy. Loving is taking chances. Does that mean that when we calculate the risk we're not loving?

You never realized how hard it was for me to bear the feeling that I had big shoes to fill. Literally. I've always told you I was a tango dancer. I guess I never understood your passion for dancing and you never understood my passion for dancing tango. We collide like two machines that have to operate in the same factory, but somehow have different functions. They depend upon each other. But they aren't coordinated enough to make the factory a productive place.   I couldn't sleep last night. It was just me and thoughts. The water you brought over to my table. Me looking at you like I couldn't see the real you. You wearing one of my favorite shirts. You looking at me and asking to dance with you. The two ladies seating with you. One of them the cause of some fights. The other one staring at me as if I were guilty of something. Listen lady, from this place of loss where I am right now, guilt is not exactly a feeling that I can have. His loss. The baby's loss. The los...

Lesson Number One: Relationships turn sour even when they contain certain elements that are essential to any healthy relationship to work. Relationships are very hard to sustain. Lesson one and half: Chances are that a relationship will deteriorate very quickly if the "essential elements" are not there. (I have done this a couple of times, I can assure you, this is almost a postulate - you can actually write it down. It never fails, it's not even worth giving it a try, unless of course there's something you want to learn from it that can be applied in your life. If you think that that particular relationship is the only way you could possibly learn that one thing about life, then go ahead. Although, I think that's a very selfish reason to be in a relationship because (among other things) breakups do hurt. They hurt like hell and you don't want to put yourself or anybody else through that, right? Lesson Number Two: You shouldn't start a relationship wh...

I guess I will be a conflicted person for the rest of my life. Everybody else seems to know exactly what they want. I don't. I thought I did, but I don't know anymore. If I am able to go to the beach when I leave work today and then decide on what I want to have for dinner, I will consider myself lucky.

Not well spoken languages sound bad, don't they?

The first thing that comes to my mind is maybe. Not the kind of love that is taught. Not the kind of love I imagined when I was a child. Not the kind of love I wanted it to exist so I could think that there was some kind of better place. My mind wakes up in the same place everyday. I wonder about what could have saved us? Knowing less? Talking less? Less time spent together? I do realize now that winter is coming and you're leaving. I missed you last night like you can only miss something that's part of your own flesh. Remembering our first dances in my living room, where days later you'd start to say that what we had was our private milonga. Milonga La Bordeaux. So, winter is coming, but this time I will know the perils of being yours.

I was so sure, I walked into that room so confidently. I knew exactly what I was doing. I was moving on. Somehow after what I call to be the incident - the most difficult decision I've made - it's hard to let him go. I am clinging to this stupid idea that I might have dreamed this nightmare. So, maybe it's all my responsibility to be stuck in the desert, thirsty and discouraged.

Losing someone you love not to death is the closest pain you can feel besides losing someone you love because they're gone. Killing someone who is alive inside of you is mourning the loss of a million shattered hopes. Esta noche tengo ganas de buscarlo Ending a romantic relationship leaves you with bruises and deep cuts. The bruises will go away. The deep cuts have to be treated. If you're lucky enough, those deep cuts will heal quickly. You'll see the scars, though. You'll feel them and for good or for worse they'll be there next time you dare to love again and you'll be you and those other people you loved. Because in a way, they made you who you are in this exact instant. They taught you something. You learned by their example. Or their bad example. The only thing you know for sure now is that you're free to dare being free and on your own right to keep your sanity. To yell if you have to. To question, to demand, to go into rages and to bleed until y...

Title: Peekaboo Photo by Norman Black Edited and named by Me.

Poetic Justice. That's what I wish for.

Coming Apart is the name of the book I was reading today. How do people deal with break ups? One of the ways to deal with a break up is to write a poison letter . You should vent about all the things that went wrong in the relationship. Write it all.  All the problems and the things that hurt you. The book tells you to cherish the relationship that you once had instead of lamenting that it ended. It seems like a nice idea. It would be nice if I could actually do that. I guess I am not lamenting our break up, it doesn't seem logical to do so. I was the one who actually initiated the process, but the way I see it is like I was forced to do that.

Life responds to you, always in a very ironic way. I've been once asked by a man standing in my bedroom: what do you want? I told him I wanted love non-stop. Dedicated love. Passionate love. Love. Love. Love. Then I got that answer without even asking. He was there, in a different corner in the room - which now looks very different, he was standing too and moving back and forth, telling me that he was doing what he could, he was giving me love 24/7. This time I was the one who was laughing. Not on purpose. It was like a nervous laughter. Somehow, crying in front of you just so humiliating and this time around I was just so, so tired. I am so numb that I don't care. Then as if he was trying to bring me back to reality, he held me by my arms and shook me screaming that I was driving him crazy. The truth is I was. I recognize that. Even now I kind of don't understand, why? Why was I driving him crazy and why he did that.  I think I empathize a little bet...

Sometimes you're lucky not to have what you want. That's what I am coming to understand.

I am getting a dvd with all my photos today. Yay! I can't wait to see them all.

Life is not peaches and cream, but your dessert can be. Minus the cream, of course.

Is it worth to try to work things out? What's the limit?

...or my gemstone on self-help that will spare you from reading a bunch of useless books that repeat the same basic idea over and over again. So, here we go: The Secret To Happiness is to convince yourself or to genuinely believe that you are who you really want to be, that what you have achieved is more than enough, that you have a good support system, that your parents did the best they could, that life is wonderful if you look very closely (not too closely) at the bright side, that people do bad things, but it's never NEVER personal, that if you don't accomplish your dreams or your hard work does not pay off it was for the better. Yup, I think that pretty much summarizes it.

It happens to me sometimes. I can't help myself, but observe people walking down the street. I park my car on the busiest street downtown. I am in a small town, somewhere. I am heading to a store, but I tell myself I can walk and kill some time. I should visit the other stores first. A couple of stores that I like are closed. So I watch from the window a seahorse and a shawl that are so pretty. Then, I cross the street. A hot breeze touches my face. I drink some warm water. My green dress moves back and forth, I feel eyes staring at me. The dress is a simple dress that makes me feel like some sort of bohemian chic. I am neither.  I go into a store that sells Indian products that are probably dirty cheap over there. I look at the bracelets and necklaces, but I cannot make up my mind. They're also very expensive. It kind of bothers me that someone would go to India, buy things at a very cheap price and return here and make a huge profit. I guess that's capitalism, but I didn...

O sol se pondo Nao sou mais aquela de antes que conheceste bebada de amor e entre bracos brancos. Reza em mim todo um ritual banhado em luz  Requinte Quase cruel ao dizer-te: adeus.  E em minhas preces, um sorriso de aurora. Photo by Dan Garver.