The realms of chaos

Democracy

2011-11-02T16:53:00.001-07:00

Bad times when a referendum is considered anti-democratic. Governments not asking questions to the people, because they know the answer is something they do not want to hear.
Germany trying to control Europe through economy, ignoring the European institutions.
USA trying to destroy the Euro.
Riche people becoming richer. Poor people becoming poorer.
And education systems being dismantled. Education is the only option for the people. Only educated citizens will be able to fight this crisis.

Samhein

2011-11-02T16:12:00.000-07:00

Samhein came. I have not celebrated it yet. Didn't have time.
But it did not matter. Somehow I remembered people gone. Friends that crossed the veil. People who passed away.
Rosario, my mum's friend who used to saw like an angel.I thought about her when I was making my costume with my mum.Teresa, my friend who sawed the beautiful dress I wore in that theatre play. Who died of cancer some years ago.
And Laura, my friend who left us this year.I think about her every single time I put some make up on. Every time.Last August, a few months after she had died I had a dream. I was with my mum, and Laura and her daughter, watching a TV series with Richard Chamberlain. I had forgotten she liked him so much. So we were sitting on her couch, watching it, and she was smiling because she liked it. And then I turned round and said to my mother "But, this is not real. Laura is dead. This can't be real. She is dead.". And I woke up in tears. She was one of the most caring, loving people I will ever meet in my life. She worked so hard all her life, so hard. So good. I always have her in my heart.
Death makes you stop. It makes you think about what is real, and what is not. About what is important and what is not.
Somebody said that when someone dies, you not only loose the person who passes away. you also loose part of yourself. You loose what you were for that person. You stop being a mother, a cousin, a lover, a friend...And that part of you is buried with the person you loved.
There are some things in life that nobody ever teaches you to deal with. And I do not seem to learn either.

Everything at the same time

2011-06-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

So this is it, the irst weeken after Litha. And here we go. Something has made everything come together this weekend.

Saturday 9 pm: Band concert. I had less than a week to learn the music.
Sunday 6:30 pm: Flamenco show. I danc 3 dances.
Sunday 9:30 pm: Theatre play. As usual, one hour on stage non stop :)

All this mied with the endo of year assessment, meetings, and of course, the school show, and the preparation for July Masters degree.

Everything on the same day:)

Hold on there...I'll tell how everything went.. soon :D

Why am I bisexual?

2011-01-25T15:18:00.001-08:00

Every man I meet makes me a bit more lesbian.
Every woman I meet makes a bit more heterosexual.

Ole!

2011-01-19T15:06:00.001-08:00

I love dancing!! :D

Vertebrae

2010-12-29T00:22:00.000-08:00

Last week I entered the classroom of my 17 year old bilingual students. I stood in front of them and started talking : “Good morning,. Everybody sit down , open your books” And then I noticed her, A.
A is a 17 year old students that came from Romania a few years ago. Her Spanish is perfect and she actually helps her mum with paperwork and finding work as a cleaner in different places. She has this disease the name of which I ignore and which makes her body a hip of lifeless twisted bones and muscles. She can only move her head. She writes with her mouth and the teacher has to pass the pages of her books. She is intelligent and has no psychological disability whatsoever. I looked at her and said
-Good morning A. How are you?
-Fine- sh answered happily
-I see they have not come to get you.What class have you got now?
-English.
-Would you like to stay or would you like us to take you there?
-I'd rather be taken there- she said smiling
-Ok...so..could somebody please help A. to get to her class.
And so this boy got up, put her things in her bag and took her to her classroom.

My school is especially adapted for physically disabled children. We also have some mentally disabled ones, and sometimes a combination.
There is L, who is 13, and it is like if he was 6. He gets a computer to write, because he can hardly do it, and he usually throws it onto the floor, just to have a laugh. When you ask him, he tells you this with a naughty silly childish laugh.
And there are these two girls with a corset, and this boy who did not have any problems until he went for a very simple surgery, and woke up being unable to talk, or walk or eat. And now he is learning to do all those things, but he can remember he was not like that before.

And every morning A and everybody else are there, smiling back at you when you say good morning. And everytime I walk by them, I remember how lucky I was my broken vertebrae did no affect my spine.
December 28th was the 10th anniversary of my first two broken vertebrae. The day I decided to romantically go down a slope with a silly sleigh. I remember the moment I fell, the darkenss, the coldness of the snow, the fear when the doctor said to me “ You have broken your vertebrae”, and the tense question I could hardly articulate “What does that mean?”... but I can't remember the pain.I just remember my scream filling the air while I knelt on the snow. Humans tend to forget the pain.
So this year, I celebrated the 10th anniversary of me being born again, of me being so lucky to be able to walk, and dance.

And everyday, when I go to school and stand in front of any of these kids who fight so hard, who lead such difficult lives without even thinking about it, for whom everything is three times as hard...everyday I stand there and I know I have nothing to teach them .There is nothing in the world I could ever teach them. I can only learn from them. They are the lesson to be learnt..

IT sexism

2010-11-26T16:13:00.001-08:00

I hate being patronised. And I hate sexist remarks.
Today the IT guy taught the English department how to use the language computer room, within the frame of using ICT in our classes.
He started saying “ If you want to put a new program you need a password, so you need to tell me”. So I put my hand up and said “ the audacity “ : Then he says in a stern way “ And why did you not tell me before?” and my principal, who was there, goes “ What do you want the audacity for”
Talk about being open minded to include ICT in class. This is the first technique of computer people, trying to persuade you you do not really need whatever it is you wanted help with. The second one is installing another program that does exactly the same but it is much better than the one you had.
Then I asked him how the students could get to a file in the teacher's computer, and he said it was really difficult because you have to create a shared folder. Then I said “ So you just have to create a folder in the network” But he could not make it work, so eventually he said to me “ I would tell you that winx does not work well in closed environments, but you won't have a clue of what that is “, and I said “ Well, winx does not work well either in open or in close environments because windows does never work”.
Really, I wanted to say, “well, I don't know much about computers, but I know language, and I know what closed is, what environment is and, by the way, it would be winxP, and you pronounce it like win ex pi, because winx is a bunch of cartoon fairies”.
I hate sexist patronising IT people. Had I been a man, he would not have said this. He just thought I did not have a clue about computers just because I was a woman. I could have fucking smacked him on the back of his head.
But he did not know two things: first I am a woman, but independent and without a boyfriend, which means I have to fix my own computer. I have had a couple of IT person lovers, but they have never touched my computer. Well, I lie. One of them once fixed my roommate´s, and even looked at my PC problems another time. I guess I do not tend to ask things from my lovers. IT friends have helped me more often. But some lovers do not want to be friends, no matter how much you try, and I do not like asking for favours to not friendly people. Second, my internet never works, no matter where I go, which country I am in, what connection I use...my internet always has to be fixed and refixed and re checked before it starts working.
So there, that's why I know a bit about computers, even when I did not really need it to understand such an easy thing.
But I have something very clear, in the same way Odin created some trials for the man that would marry the walkiria Brunilda, like going through fire and being a good fighter, next IT person I meet is going to have to fucking reinstall my operative system before we even start to know each other. You see, last IT person decided that he had to take apart my desk computer to fix it, and, of course, never put it back together.

International day against gender violence

2010-11-25T13:38:00.000-08:00

One week ago I went to a school trip to El Escorial with my students, who are generally well behaved.

However, they are teenagers. And such as they are, they decided to insult each other..how did they do it so we did not realise? Via bluetooth. Bt they did not connect to each other and then do it, no. They wrote offensive comment for the other as their names for the bluetooth system, which made it quite difficult to find out who was to blame.

One o them called “ big tits” to a girl, who had already being said to “ eat dicks”. So I banned electronic devices and gave a speech about it in class. Anyway, I decided to tell the dean so he put some pressure on not using cell phones, and I talked about it to a couple of coworkers, all of them great professionals.

The dean said that it was better to make an intervention from the advisory class, and then asked “ iff she was really one”. And my female coworkers said that “ deep down she likes it “ and, “ she kind of brings it upon herself?And the dean?”

And wrath gets over me. How is it possible? Two WOMEN?! What do you mean she brings it up

The student can be whatever she wants to be and whatever she wants to do, she might like to be the centre of attention, but that does not mean that anybody has the right to talk about her or comment on her or her actions. Besides, she is just a regular teenager

Sexism is so down rooted that it flows out as soon as you look into human relationships

And no, I am not a crazy radical feminist that sees things where they are not and who is obsessed. It happens that very often, there is an appearance of justice and equality that does not correspond to reality. There are people that this it is enough to say we are the same and do some political correct thing. But there is so much more to be done. We need to change the way we are treated and we treat each other.We need to get rid of this kind of language and erase this ideas from our subconscious, and to confront this kind of comments.

Sometimes, I look at the world, and I just want to sit down and cry.

The voices in my head: carrying my bag

2010-09-01T15:22:00.000-07:00

I can´t avoid it. I have very strong convictions about things. And then, I have this habit of looking at things from the outside, particularly when I am feeling embarrassed or ashamed, or in trouble, and I repeat as a tantra "I will laugh at this in a year, I know, I will laugh at this in a year"

So there I go. I meet this nice guy at a bar, and we get on well, and he talks to me. And then, we move to another bar and he says " Let me carry your bag". The big bag full of things I carry around all day, with the dancing clothes, the little computer, a book, a notebook, etc.
His words get to my brain, and it takes like a second to actually process them " Let me carry your bag", they echo. And a respond quickly pops up in my mind " My bag? You wanna carry my bag? Why?" But before I can say those words, another voice answers, and they kind of start talking to each other.
-What do you mean why? -says voice 2
-Yes, why would he want to carry my big huge heavy bag-answers voice one
-Oh, come on, he is just being nice, give him the bag
-But what is the point? It is my bag, I am responsible for it, you can't just be going around giving your responsibilities to people
-Oh come on, just give him the fucking bag. It is just the way it is done. you have been carrying it around all day, and you are fucked. GIVE HIM THE BAG!!
-No, don't do it. Why would you do that.It's so.....
Then I shout ( in my head, but I Shout) "ENOUGH!"
I breath deeply and look at this nice guy who has been kind of confusedly staring at me for the few extra seconds this has been going on within my head. I breath, smile, blush slightly and say in a sweet voice while smiling " Oh!, Ok. Thank you". And hand the bag over.
And it is just such a relief to get some help to carry the bag for once. It is so nice to feel you can rest for a second and you don't have to be taking care of everything all the time.It is so nice to be able to relax for a bit, that you realize the voices in your head are all bullshit.They talk from sheer fear.The fear of knowing that being helped is so nice that, when you get it back to carry it on your own again,is going to be twice as hard.

Holy ( from holes, mening with holes in it) pants

2010-08-21T15:39:00.001-07:00

Last Thursday I got up to go to my theatre class in NYC.
I get up early to take a shower before the guys working in the kitchen of my friend´s apartment arrive. They are very nice, and I have nothing against them, but having a shower while you hear two guys you do not know talking next door, one of whom has already told you how “well equipped” you are...it's a bit weird.
So I leave early, and take the N to go To 42nd. But the train goes very slowly, and stops. A weak female voice coming from some speakers I can't locate explains something I can not quite understand. Five years of English philology, 20 postgraduate credits in English Linguistics and Literature, a masters degree in course by an American university, years living in English speaking countries, and still can not understand those vital things to survive, like the fucking voice coming from the speakers at train stations. I swallow my high school nerd pride, and ask an American looking guy what the lady said. Not a clue he says..such a relief for my self esteem, although still don't know what happens.
After some long minutes, I go out and find the real lady...the lady behind the speakers in the middle of the train. Until then, I thought she was just an entelechy, a legend. But she is a real person in the middle of the train. She explains something about trains, and tracks and stations..she might as well have carried on talking through the speakers. And then somebody says something I finally understand “ Uff...it means at least a couple of hours until the service works” Finally, some proper English.
I ran downstairs shouting, “ anybody wants to share a cab to somewhere?” And this really kind guy who is with two other woman that come at that point and join us, tells me he is going somewhere where I can take a train, and I say yes, without having even figured out where. I get in the taxi with these three people who seem to be coworkers, stressing about the time, and the train and the place to go and suddenly I pay attention to the ladies talking next to me...” I have never seen more than 2 butterflies together”, “Oh yeah..they only live for a day” Then I decide to go back to my world of being late and stress, expecting to see a butterfly flying across the cab at anytime.
I finally make it to the class, one of those long ones. When I finish I go here and there, I get a ticket for a fringe festival show, I go to the fat cat club to listen to music and write and end up in an eletronic music party that somebody I met in the street told me about, but I can´t find him. Instead a meet this nice guy and we talk and have a good time, and it gets so late I end up not going back to my apartment that night, to go back to class the following day.
Amazing people working in wonderful class. I love acting. And lots of memories of things that happened before...The topic of today: humilliation and love....I am fucking sorted...You all know my greatest hits list. No please, no...don't go through it again. I am going to quote my brother here:a list made up by the kind of things done by “ a pathetic Woody Allen character, but a boring one” Well, I disagree now, I get the fun of it.
And in the warming up, all the clothes flying while we dance. These young beautiful thin girls dancing around int heir sexy underwear. I knew I should have got some sexy underwear from woman's Secret. But...would it have been useful? I mean...you know...my tits...they have this rare tendency to escape all the time, even when I am just slightly running to catch a bus in the street.
And then, the wisdom of your mother suddenly strikes you like a flash of lightening in a dark night. All these years thinking your mum was crazy and laughing at her idea, when she used to say to you “Don't wear holy knickers, in case something happens to you and you end up at hospital”All this years you answering “ As if I am going to care about holy pants if I end up at hospital, mother”
And then, the moment where this dancing girl takes her pants off and strips down to her underwar. Your moment to decide, shall I go with her on this? Shall I take my pants off?And then, the lighting in your brain and your mum's voice echoing..hooooly kniiiickers...and for a second you freeze, because e you know you were down to your last pair of pants before doing the laundry and try to remember...did I put on the holy knickers that have been waiting at the bottom of the drawer to be sawn for the last 2 years? And you could swear the blue pants were not the one with the whole in them...but....can you be sure about it?
So you take the safe side. And dance away in you not holy leggings and your short skirt. Nudity in a tehatre class...maybe...Holy pants...never. Let's leave the humiliation for love,

Dreams and smoke

2010-08-18T18:52:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday I woke up in the morning decided to go to a burlesque class, because I am completely decided to get a cabaret number for next year...or sometime soon.
I forgot what happens to the NYC subway system during the weekend which, combined with my ability to always be late, made me even later.
So I get there, interrupt the class when I think there is a break, which is no break and join just at the moment where they were starting the strip-tease part of the lesson. And there do I sit in a circle,wondering what part of my outfit could I take off in a sensual arousing way. Although I could not avoid worrying about my non-matching underwear, as people were getting naked one by one, showing their sexy lace pants and bras. Then, my turn came, and the teacher decided for me to take my glasses off in a sexy way, which was very complicated because, as I can't see shit without my glasses, I could not really look at her and imitate her sexy movements. I would have much rather taken any other part of my outfit off, with or without sexy pants.
Then I joined the fringe festival volunteers, to be able to get help with the organization and get free tickets. Which sounds cool, And I got really happy.
Then I went to an old theater school, and I found out that the nice lady who was usually helping and enrolling people, died last December. She was not that old, and she was so nice and helpful, and a lot of other good things. And I got just puzzled.
Then I went to my theater class and saw my favorite teacher there, which made me smile inside ( what a bad sign), but my monologue was not the best. But hey...if singing the way I sing I managed to become a music teacher, I can become any kind of actress I want to be, even a good one
So,this is New York City, a bunch of weird things put together good and bad. A crazy roller coaster that takes you up and down, and keeps constantly showing you the darkness and the light. A place where you can find a glimpse of your dreams at the more unexpected corner, where you can catch the glare of your target star all around without being really able to nail where the light comes from, to loose the sight of it completely in a second. A place where you walk in the streets expecting, more than hoping for, that wonderful coincidence that is going to change your life, while you avoid rats and bedbugs, and open sewage holes spitting smoke at you.
That's what New York does: it raises the hope of your expectations to the highest degree to spit the reality at you in the shape of that slimy hot smog that comes out of the underground, which does not smell neither well nor bad and the origin of which everybody ignores. But I know where it emanates from. It comes from the dreams of the New Yorkers going down the drain: all those forgotten, lost or broken dreams entangled together with the tears of the disappointed ripped souls that go down the sewage system to the underground. Then, the tears evaporate into the air, and so do all those dreams.
And this is why the sewage smoke never stops in Winter or in Summer, in Autumn or Spring, because despite the defeats and the lost battles, New Yorkers keep coming up with new dreams to fill the city with that amazing glare that makes this city the most shining one in the world when watched from space. Because that glare does not come from Time Square lights, nor from malls, or houses or cars. It comes from the elusive dreams of the New Yorkers, while leaving a trail behind in order to be followed.

Back to you, NYC

2010-08-16T23:18:00.001-07:00

It's been a year now since I left you, NYC. And now I'm back for a month, even less, 25 days.
I have not even landed and it's already hurting that I am going to have to leave. I am happy to see you again, I´m happy to be wrapped in your arms again, to bathe in your polluted breath full of promising whispering and unfulfilled dreams
I am excited an nervous, and also scared. What is it going to be like to meet you again after such a long time? How are we going to feel? How are you going to treat me? The situation is different now. I don't really belong here, I've just become a passing by stranger for you. And yet, I still have this strange feeling of coming home to you.
Time has slipped away through the holes in my soul in every week, in every day...And all I keep doing now is trying to hold it, so it retains this moment , trying to understand.
Madrid is OK. I needed to be back there to heal, to find certain things. And everything comes together to close old doors and open new paths. And I walk them in joy, glancing at you from time to time,only to close my eyes and look away before your absence pierces my heart.
But now I am back, for a month, and I am just going to every second of the time with you. And after one more year, I'll come back again to see you.
In the end, we just depend on Fortune and the turning of her wheel. Fortune moves her wheel around in strange ways. IT pushes it and it moves around and then she stops it. Probably not even herself knows when or why. Because, who could have ever told me that I was going to want you so desperately?

Nowhere and a playa name

2010-08-16T16:15:00.001-07:00

Nowhere. Middle of July. A trip to a strange place outside everyday life.

Getting there is strange. This kind of events are linked in my mind to New York and the time I was there. Getting through the depths of Spanish villages, seeing those familiar small village houses and people seems strange. Like a strange don Quixote, living a different reality full of imagination, created by the need to be somebody else. A pathetic attempt of rejecting a self deeply embedded in the hidden caves of unconscioussness.

R comes with me. It is nice knowing that another knight gallops next to you through the arid summer lands of central Spain.. It soothes this feeling of weirdness that usually tints the trips I do to this kind of places.

As usual, we are nor sure we are going to make it until we make it. It is not very clear if the guy with a taxi who promised to take us is actually going to make it or not. In the end he comes in an old 4x$4 he borrowed from a friend. And we get to the place in the middle of the Monegros desert, full of fine sticky sand.

The first night in our camp, walking around, and dancing here and there. And setting the tent up...hey we are better at this than we thought.

All this people around, wallking in different outfits, or with no outfits, no judgement. Nobody cares. Do whatever you want. Amazing feeling of freedom. Walking here and there. Dancing here and there.

I get to sleep at some point at night, get up to see the sun rise, before it gets so hot you can only lie down under the tent or the middle of nowhere.

Another day, another night. People, things happening, places, heat, warm water to calm the thirst, art, creation, and more freedom.

An Sunday comes. So short. Life made it impossible to come sooner, like I wanted. Only this small slice of a different place. Probably all of us together are as big as a small burningman camp. Nevertheless, it still has it charm..

And one of this years, I'll come to burningman. It is just a matter of time. Wait and see!!!!....

I get in the taxi, with other people, and when I am about to get on the train, I realise...I FORGOT MY BAG!!! the important things bag: the passport, the cellphone, the money, the cards....everything. I probably did not want to come back to normal life. So I get there with the other people, covered in dust. R buys me the ticket home. And I keep trying to reach the people back in the land of Nowhere.

And finally, after a few days, two Canadians in the way back from Zaragoza to Germany stop at Barcelona to send my bag to Madrid.

I had doubts about my playa name. Any playa name need a story behind. I got one now. So..Chaos it is going to be. Definitely.

One of Bukowski's poems

2010-04-08T17:03:00.000-07:00

Consummation Of Grief

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I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the water
the fish cry
and the water
is their tears.
I listen to the water
on nights I drink away
and the sadness becomes so great
I hear it in my clock
it becomes knobs upon my dresser
it becomes paper on the floor
it becomes a shoehorn
a laundry ticket
it becomes
cigarette smoke
climbing a chapel of dark vines. . .

it matters little
very little love is not so bad
or very little life

what counts
is waiting on walls
I was born for this
I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead.

Charles Bukowski

Exposed

2010-03-02T15:42:00.000-08:00

I went to visit him. Every time I promise myself it will be the last, but I can’t help coming back, looking for him. He usually makes me wait a bit before coming to greet me, but this time it was special: I had been so nervous about this visit, regretting it on every step I gave. It was like if he knew it. He smiled at me and said with a soft voice

“ So finally, you came. Are you ready?”

He pulled the chair so I could sit down, and made sure I felt comfortable in the dim light, while a kind of soft music played in the background He knew that, even when you wouldn’t tell at the beginning, I am shy, so he was gentle and polite.

He held my head and made my body lay down while he smiled at me. Very carefully, he took my glasses off and put them in a safe place, so I would not worry about them.

I felt the warmth coming from his body next to mine, the familiar smell of his parfume, once again, the shape and color of his eyes so close to mine, avoiding staring at me.

As he leaned over me, I slightly opened my mouth trembling inside, knowing what was coming next.

-Don´t worry, this is going to hurt a little bit, but it is the worst part. Everything will be fine after it.

I nodded in an obedient way, opened my mouth widely and closed my eyes. He then took out a huge syringe with an even bigger needle and stabbed my cheek inside, and my gums. The bitter taste of the liquid inside invaded my mouth. The acute pain stopped, then he took the needle and stabbed another part of my gum. Little by little, part of my mouth, and even my nose went numb.

Then he started using drills and other strange tools in my mouth, for a long time. He dug, and pulled, and pushed with his whole body. And finally, he got a needle and a thread, and saw the hole he had opened back together. It did not hurt, but I could feel the needle going through my gums, and the thread pulling them together. He tied a couple of little knots, sat up, looked at me and smiled.

“That’s it: It was not that bad, was it”

I looked at him, feeling sweaty and tired, tasting the smell of his hands in mouth, with a strange feeling of pain and unwanted exposure.

With a kind of strange embarrassment and feeling of loss I stood up. Fixed my skirt, my shirt…my hair…He gave me my glasses back. Slowly I put them back. Looking at the floor, I picked my things up, said thank you and rushed out of the room.

The mermaid´s dance

2009-09-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

"I know what you want," said the sea witch; "it is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess (..)Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they ever saw. You will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow. If you will bear all this, I will help you.(…)”

She had never danced so elegantly before. Her tender feet felt as if cut with sharp knives, but she cared not for it; a sharper pang had pierced through her heart.(…)

Hans Christian Andersen

Today I went back to a dancing class, after a year of not being able to do any sports. The doctors said it is fine to go back to do whatever I want, and I just want to believe it. But it is not their back that hurts.

I joined a beginners contemporary dance class. After a year my body has changed, I have put weight on, my joints ache and my back keeps killing me, every day, every moment of the day.

I did contact for three years and contemporary dance for one. I was not particularly good or amazing. But now that I am back, every single little movement hurts. Even the simplest of the movements feels so much harder and difficult, more difficult than when I took a dancing lesson for the first time a few years ago. And I suddenly remember Andersen´s little mermaid, not the Disney version, but the real one. And I realise that the words he wrote a hundred years ago, that I read maybe 20 years ago, had remained somewhere in my brain, waiting to come alive.

I lie down and feel where my body gets in contact with the floor. And I feel the pain, radiating from the centre of my back, following my ribs, wrapping around my chest like a big long cuddle of a hurtful lover. We move around on the floor, moving in ways very different to normal life movements, and my joints start complaining, sending me silent messages through the nerves only I know about.

We stand up, we bent and allow our upper body to hang, and the spine breathes and the air comes in between the vertebrae in a painful kind of relieve. We keep bending and straightening up. I am familiar with this pain, when I bend to pick things up from the floor or I get up in the morning.

Then I lift my arms and we start moving them around. And different parts of my back muscles complains depending if they go up in circles, or straight, or around, or if they stay up on the side…

Working with the feet is such a relieve, and then we move on to a beginner choreography. And we have the music, and we dance a bit, mixing together all the elements with the different parts of the body, and we roll on the floor, and then stand up, and bend, and move our arms and bend our upper body and go down on the floor again and jump…And joint after joint complains, and all the muscles in my back find a moment to remind me of their existence.

Suddenly I can visualise the Little Mermaid dancing along this very same music, floating on cutting sharp knives. And I know exactly how she feels. I might not be the prettiest human being, or move as lightly as a dancer…but I know how it hurts and I am an expert at setting my heart on the wrong person. And something inside me moves with the music, and my dancing, and her dancing, and the sharp knives on her feet, and the huge axe across my waist, and the pang that pierces your heart and the blood that only you can see.

The class is over and I change. It is frustrating to have to start not from the beginning, but from a point before the beginning. I mix a couple of pain killers with some water and can’t find my little mermaid any more. She is probably back to being a daughter of the air. She still has two hundred years to go to find her soul. She still has hope, and so do I. After three fractures in my back, I might not float around like she did, but I am still dancing. And I smile, for her to count one year less of her three hundred.

Click here to read The Little Mermaid

Gay wedding/ Boday gay

2009-09-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went to a wedding in the middle of Spain, in Cáceres, where you can find one of the most beautiful historical towns.

I went there four days after comig back from New York, not knowing where I was or what for. I met some friends I had not seen for a year, and I danced and cried and ate and drank and flirt, in an outdoor night wedding next to a medieval castle, with flowers scattered all around, and a fountain, and lovely live music, and a great video that my brother made for the grooms, and beautiful speeches . The theme was The wizard of Oz and on every table there was the name of a movie to identify yours. Even when I still hate weddings in general, framing myself in the usual affected wedding mood, it was a great wedding. Despite the fact of it being a very expensive posh one. ( I told you, I don't like weddings)

I asked my friends if it was going to happen what usually happens to me in the gay weddings of my male gay friends: all guys are gay, all girls are straight...In the end it was a mixture of people, and I was more interested in sharing time with my friends, who I left here last August,than in anything else. However, when my brother was booking a room for me in the very posh hotel I told him to put somebody in the room with me to share the cost, and his answer was "Sorry, we all come in couples". And I said " Excue ME"

So there I was, for two nights... no, for one night and a half, in the big room of a posh hotel, on my own. I never go to posh hotels, unless I am with the band, and then there is two or three of us in each room. I told my brother I wanted to change the hotel for the youth hostel in town: it was 50 euros difference and, at least, you can go to the main hall and there is always somebody wanting to chat, but he persuaded me to stay there with the rest of the group. The group that shared a room with their partners in their expensive rooms next to my lonely bed.

I am used to go places on my own, particularly after NY. And I go places and I meet people. I am not obssesed about finding a partner, it somehting that happens, but I think about true love. My brother says I am just naive and stupidly innocent. Not so long ago, I developed a crash on a teacher, and it was great, because it was just a simple naive innocent honest thing with no intention of anything beyond, and it reminded me that sometimes, you meet somebody and something tickles inside you; it reminded me that there is always the chance that you might still meet that person that makes your eyes sparkle. It reminded me that love is something different from the guy that you pick up on a bar one night or the silly chats you have when you flirt with somebody that is ok and could be something, but who does not really matter.

I could not avoid feeling a bit odd. The odd number in between the even group of happy couples. An odd person in an odd place with odd clothes. I don´t have the type of clothes you wear in a posh wedding where people wore exclusive designer clothes. My concert clothes are winter clothes and are not so flashy and desginer like. I have a much better time in a burningman event, sleeping in a tent where my cajon and me don´t fit together, or at a BM party dressed like Isis wearing a couple of wings. I should have gone there with my Isis wings. But, instead a wore this old-fashioned top that my mum had made for me 15 years ago and fixed for me, and this nice skirt that is elegant but did not quite go with the top., and sandals because my nice concert shoes were coming from NY in a box...

So there I was, dressed a bit odd and not caring about it, which was also odd; feeling a bit odd; looking at places in an odd way like if I had just arrived from another planet...And then I realised that the oddity really came from inside, from something that was struggling not to die, like a big odd fat warm biting big chunks of something in my stomach.

And it´s all because, even when I am absolutely over the moon sharing time whith my friends and the people I love, NY hurts.

Back from New York / De vuelta de Nueva York

2009-09-04T10:40:00.000-07:00

I feel so much older. Not just two years older...but much older.

Maybe I am just more mature.Maybe I just see thigs differently.
All the struggle, all the great things, all the struggle, all the challenges, all the struggle, all the dissapointments, all the struggle...
What an amazing place, what a lot of incredible things happening, what a lonely ride in the city.

Now I am back, and it seems I just slept for two years and I opened my eyes to my old life. But something is different.
And I could sit down and cry. I could cry for hours and hours, about all the things that happened in the last 15 years, about all the things that could have happened, but never did. But they are just old tired tears over an old story.

And I just look out of the window, when everybody is sleeping, and feel a tiny summer breeze breaking the heat coming from the tar in the street. And I remember, and I wish, and I hope...
I hope for the things that will happen, and for the things that will never happen. And I dream

Me siento mucho más mayor. No dos años más mayor... sino mucho más mayor.
Tal vez solo soy más madura. Tal vez solo vea las cosas de manera diferente
Toda la lucha, las cosas maravillosas, la lucha, los desafíos, la lucha, las decepciones, la lucha...
Que sitio tan increíble, cuántas cosas pasando, qué pedazo de viaje solitario por la ciudad.

Ahora he vuelto, y parece que he estado durmiendo durante dos años y acabase de abrir los ojos en mi antigua vida. Pero algo es distinto.

Y me podría sentar y llorar durante horas. Podría llorar durante horas y horas, por todas las cosas que han pasado en los últimos quince años, por todas las cosas que podrían haber pasado pero nunca pasaron. Pero son sólo lágrimas antiguas por una historia antigua.

Y simplemente miro por la ventana, cuando todo el mundo duerme, y siento la brisa de verano que rompe el calor que viene del asfalto de la calle. Y recuerdo, y deseo, y espero...
Y pienso con esperanza en las cosas que pasarán, y pienso con esperanza,en las cosas que nunca pasarán. Y sueño.

LGBAC en Abril Gods and Monsters/ LGBAC in April: God and Monsters

2009-06-08T20:57:00.001-07:00

A couple of the pieces we played in April. LGBAC...and me among them :D Can you find me like if i was Wally?

Un par de obras que tocamos en Abril. LGAC... y yo con ellos :D ¿Me podéis enconctrar, como si fuera Wally?

Colposcopy and Edward Scissorhands/ De colposcopias y Eduardo Manostijeras

2009-05-10T17:21:00.000-07:00

(This post is for those women who are going to undergo a colposcopy and a biop[sy for the first time. Do not worry...it's awful, but not as bad as it seems.)

There is something in the tranquilizing words of a physician that is kind of uneasy. For example, when you are happyily at h ome, watching TV having a beer and the cell phone rings. You answer and it is the doctor , who says:

-How are you?

-Fine, thank you
-We got the results of you pap smear, and it is not clear. You need to have a colposcopy and a bipsy done. You have a displasia.But don't worry, it is not cancer
Worried? Who was worried? I was happily surfing the net until you called.And I never said anything about cancer.
While your brain is thinking this, the guy lkeeps talking at the other side of the phone, saying something you quite not get.

And after that, you get to the gyn clinic andyou have to sign a paper confirming that you have been explained the whole procedure and you agree with it. But you have been explained the whole proced

ure, in a shock state in perfect English, which is not your language, through the phone. So you sign you agree to something you did not really completely understand

Then you sit there, waiting for the doctor, wrapped in a huge paper sheet, looking at an enormous massive chocker-block microscope. And you think " Hey,. the doctor uses this to observe whatever he takes out. Because there is not way that can fit in there"So the gay arrives, you slide down and he puts the speculum in. In fact, I have never seen the speculum at the gyn's, because you can't see with the sheet they put around you. It looks like this, on the right. So the gay puts it in and you hear " wricki, wricki, wricki", and it is the thing opening. It does not really hurt, but it is uncomfortable. And because you stay with that in for a while during this test, at the end you get like period pains, because your body tries to get rid of it. But it is not really painful, do not panic.

Then the guy says, " Ok, I am going to put some vinegar in" And you think " Vinegar? I have had strange requests from guys on the internet like wine, or chocolate o icecream...But vinegar?" .
And just when you are there, feeling like a lettuce, the guy gets the microscope, you feel something warm, which is probably the light, and suddenly realize that, yes, the big massive chocker-block microscope fits in there. Again, it is not really painful.

Then he says," Ok, almost done" He puts something in with a cotton bud, which seems to be something like anesthesy, I think. And I think this because after this, he looks at the nurse who passes him an incredibly big pair of scissors, like the ones on the left, and he says " You are going to feel a pinch" And you think " A pinch??!!! Wait wait... what do you mean a pinch? ...what are you doing with those scissors... WAIT!!" And just when you have collected enough courage to say something, it is to late, because you hear the noise of the scissor closing " huich". I did not feel anything, not pinch, no pain, but I heard it, and this is why I think he had put some anesthesy.

Then he says "Ok, this is done" And you think " ok, ok, you keep saying ok, ok what? Take it out take it out" And he puts some more things inside with cotton buds, and finally takes the speculum out. You sit up and he sympathetically passes you a sanitary towel.

And then, you wait until he has left the room and go to the bathroom where you take the sheet off and get your clothes again. He talks to you, and the you have to wait for two eweeks to know the results.

And life goes on, with one small difference. Suddenly, Edward Scissorhands has lost all his sex-appeal.

Hay algo en las palabras tranquilizadoras de un médico, que a veces resulta inquietante. Por ejemplo cuando estás tan tranquilamente en tu casa viendo la tele tomándote una cervecita y te suena el móvil. Lo coges y es el médico que te dice
-Hola como estás?

-Erm bien gracias.
- Hemos recibido los resultados de tu citolog'ia, y no ha salido bien. Tienes que volver. Hay una displasia, pero no te preocupes, no es c'ancer.

y piensas "Preocupada? Quien estaba preocupada? Yo estaba tranquilamente mirando el internete, hace tres minutos, y no estaba pensando en c'ancer"

Asi que en este momento, tu cerebro se cierra en banda a lo que te explican que viene despues,

Y despues de eso , cuando llegas al gine,tienes que firmar un papel confrimando que te han explicado el procedimiento completo y que estas de acuerdo con ‘el. Y te lo han explicado, en un estado de shock en un Ingl’es perfecto, que no es tu lengua, y por tel’efono. As’i que firmas que est’as de acuerdo con algo que en realidad nunca llegaste a comprender.

Y te sientas ah’i, esperando al m’edico, envuelta en una hoja de papel gigante, mirando a un microscopio enorme y gigante. Y piensas “ Hey, el m’edico utiliza este microscopio para observa las muestras que toma. Porque esto no puede caber ah’i dentro”

As’i que llega el hombre, te resbalas hacia abajo en la camilla y te pone el speculum. De hecho, nunca he visto un speculum en la clinica del gine, porque no puedes ver nada con la s’abana de papel que te ponen. Se parece a esto, a la derecha. Asi que el t’io lo mete y oyes “wricki, wricki,wricki”, y es la cosa que se abre. En realidad no duele, pero es muy molesto. Y como te quedas ah’i por un rato, al final te da como dolor de la regll, porque tu cuerpo intenta expulsarlo. Pero en realidad no duele, que no cunda el p’anico.

Entonces el hombre dice” Muy bien, voy a poner un poco de vinagre” Y t’u piensas “ Vinagre?? He tenido muchas peticiones extragnas por internet como vino, o choclate o helado…Pero vinagre?”

Y justo cuando est’as ah’i, sinti’endote como una lechuga, el t’io coge el microscopio y sientes algo c’alido, que es probablemente una luz, y te das cuenta de que , s’i, el microscopio gigante s’i que cabe. Pero, de Nuevo, no es doloroso, solo asquerosito.

Entonces dice “Muy bien, casi hemos terminado” , y pone algo con un palito de algod’on, que es como anestesia. Y digo que es como anestesia porque despu’es de esto, mira a la enfermera que le pasa unas yijeras incre’iblemente grandes, como las de la izquierda, y dice “ Vas a sentir un pellizquito” Y t’u piensas “ un pellizquito??!!!Espera, espera…que quiere decir un pellizquito?...que est’as hacienda con esas tijeras…ESPERA!!!” Y justo cuando has conseguido el valor suficiente para decir algo, es muy tarde, porque oyes el ruido de las tijeras cerr’andose “ jhuich” En realidad no sent’i nada, ni un pellizco , ni dolor, pero lo escuch’e claramente.Por eso creo que puso anestesia.

Y dice “ Muy bien, ya est’a” Y tu piensas “ Muy bien, muy bien, no haces m’as que decir muy bien. Muy bien qu’e? S’acalo , s’acalo” Y te pone algo m’as dentro con los palitos de algod’on, y finalmente saca el esp’eculo. Te sientas y el t'io te pasa una compresa con aire de que pena me das.
Y entonces esperas hasta que se va de la habitaci’on, y te vas al bagno donde te quitas la hoja de papel gigante y te vistes. Habla contigo y tienes que esperar dos semanas para saber los resultados

Y la vide sigue, con una pequegna diferencia. De repente, Eduardo Manostijeras ya no tiene ning'un atractivo.

(Este post es para aquellas mujeres que tiene que hacerse una colposcopia y una biopsioa por primera vez. No te precupes…es asquerosito,pero no tan malo como suena)

Mice

2009-05-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

As I sit down marking papers in my classrooms, the mice that live here start running around the class. I sigh, make a noise and they seem to go, and I do not know if feeling like Cindirella and start singing with them, or like David Copperfield and write a 400 pages book about it.

Can you imagine what happens when in a class of about 25 15 year old kids, after spending ten minutes to get them quiet, a mouse runs across the class? People on top of the tables, people running out of the class, screaming....And when it happens at 8, and at 9, and at 10...I just sigh. It was bad enough not to get any respect from thekids in my class....But not getting it from the mice, it is just too much.

I got a thing that is suppose to make some kind of noise that human don't hear and makes the mice run away. But I can actually hear it,, when there are no kids, of course, and it bothers me, but the mice are still there.

I have to turn the grades in tomorrow. I told my boss that I am not going to be on time, cause the mice ate them. But he did not buy it. So I am going back to my classroom with my mice to keep grading....sigh!

Great video/Un vídeo mu chulo

2009-04-12T08:16:00.000-07:00

This is great. Do not maximize the screen after clicking on the link:D

http://users.telenet.be/kixx/

Este vídeo es genial. No pongáis pantalla completa despues de pinchar en el link :D

A dream come true: The Carnegie Hall ( versión española abajo)

2009-03-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

Some dreams are so unlikely that we do not even dare to dream of them. They are so unreachable, so impossible, that we do not even allow our imagination to linger on them.

And sometime, life is so amazing, that it delivers one of these dreams to our door, and we receive one invaluable gift, probably without deserving it. And suddenly, lots of different elements of our life come together in a strange magical way to form this dream, and everything starts making sense, and we look at the past with a different light. And we understand some things that we never understood why they happened, and we rejoice in things that, at the moment, did not seem a matter of joy.

All since I started studying music at 14, I wondered how it would be to be down at the stage with the orchestra. Down at the national Auditorium, or the Teatro Monumental , where the best orchestras play. But I never thought it would be possible for me to get there, ever in my life. And somehow, for some reason, for many reason that have nothing to do with music or my flute, last month I played at the Carnegie Hall...My heart beat still rises when I pronounce that name and I still get goose bumps.

It was amazing, walking down the stage, sitting down in the middle of the band and being a part of the creation of music, starting from silence. The seats, the people, the lights, the acoustics. And the wonderful music stands that can be easily adjusted without trapping your fingers in them.

I walked down with my new shoes and my concert skirt. The same skirt that my mum made for me when I was 16, to wear in my first audition at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid. How could I even begin to imagine at that point?

We had been given badges, and when I arrived, I had to look for the artist entrance. I am going to say it, just to enjoy the sound of it " THE CARNEGIE HALL ARTIST´S ENTRANCE"

Then I was waiting for a while. I put make up on in a big mirror with lots of bulbs, and put my high heels shoes. We lined up to rehearse for 20 minutes. I entered the stage and I could see the whole theatre, the orchestra, the family circle, the boxes…And we played a bit. The first two bars where much worse than usual. You could tell the fear of making it wrong. And finding that your sound is different from what you are used to at the Carnegie Hall ( I am going to say it again YOUR SOUND AT THE CARNEGIE HALL). But then we got used to it, and everything improved and the notes started finding its place in the immense space of the theatre.

After that we were allowed to go out until our call at 9 ( does it not sound professional?). I went for a coffee and at nine, there we were, all around, sitting down, talking, playing, warming up. The sound of all the different instruments, playing scales, small recognizable parts of the pieces mixed together with the laughter, the sounds of cameras. And then, our call came.

We lined up waiting to enter the stage. 10 minutes. That is always the worst part. The ten minutes before you have to play. We were there, whispering, concentrating. And we got on stage. The conductor was at the door, smiling at us, supporting us in our way to the stage.

The lights were bright and the audience received us with applause. We sat down, warmed up for one minute, and then the concertino, who is a clarinet, played a B flat for the brass and A for the woodwind, and we tuned up. Actually, we had kind of tuned before coming on stage, just to be on the safe side. But don’t tell anyone.
Then the conductor came on stage. Another round of applause. He looked at us, put his arms in the air and we followed him, putting our instruments in our mouths. One second of complete silence in the huge theatre. He marked the pick-up bar, and the ride started.
After the overture of Candide, there was lots of clapping. And then we played another very difficult one, a contemporary piece called Wild nights. After that, it was all easy. I was more scared of the two first ones, so after them, I really relaxed and enjoyed being there, and the music that we were doing together. And in the moments where I had silences, it was great to see how the conductor made the music happened, how his baton was dictating the music, and hear the other people in the band play. And the music kept floating around, like magic.
Particularly, the last chord on Elsa’s procession, from Lohengrin. It just hanged there on the air for a bit alter we stopped, all the sounds mixing together in that great Wagnerian chord and we were listening to it with our instruments in our mouths.
And we also played another contemporary piece, called Pilatus, and the Typewriter Symphony, which everybody loved.
And then we got a huge round of applause. The conductor went off and came back twice. And I saw my friends saying hello to me from the audience, and we went off stage like walking in a cloud, smiling our heads off and we hugged each other…
And it all was absolutely wonderful.

There was a time when I played at the Carnegie Hall, where the lights were bright and the music floated in the air. And magic came out of the conductor’s baton.

Some photos

Un sueño hecho realidad: EL CARNEGIE HALL ( english version above)

2009-03-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

Algunos sueños son tan improbables que ni siquiera nos atrevemos a soñarlos. Son tan inalcanzables, tan imposibles, que ni siquiera permitimos que nuestra imaginación descanse en ellos.

Y a veces, la vida es tan asombrosa que te deja uno de los sueños a la puerta de c asa, y recibes un regalo de valor incalculable, seguramente sin merecerlo. Y de repente, muchos elementos diferentes de la vida se juntan de una forma extraña y mágica para dar forma a este sueño y todo empieza a tomar sentido, y miramos al pasado con una voz diferente. Y entendemos cosas que nunca antes habíamos entendido por qué pasaron y nos alegramos de cosas que, en su m omento, no parecían ser causa de ninguna alegría.

Desde que empecé a estudiar música a los 14, me preguntaba como sería estar abajo en el escenario con la orquesta. Ahí abajo en el auditorio Nacional o en el Teatro Monumental, donde tocan las mejores orquestas. Pero nunca pensé que me sería posible llegar ahí, jamás en mi vida. Y de alguna manera, por alguna razón, por muchas razones que no tienen nada que ver con la música o con la flauta, el mes pasado, toqué en el Carnegie Hall. Todavía se me acelera el corazón cuando pronuncio ese nombre, y se me pone la carne de gallina

Fue increíble salir a escena, sentarse en el medio de la banda y ser parte de la creación de la música, empezando desde el silencio. Las sillas, la gente, las luces, la acústica. Y esos atriles maravillosos que se ajustan fácilmente sin atraparse los dedos entre las varillas.

Salí con mis zapatos de tacón y mi falda de conciertos. La misma falda que mi madre me hizo cuando tenía 16 años, para llevarla en la primera audición que di en el Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid. ¿Cómo podría ni siquiera empezar a imaginarme...?

Nos habían dado una tarjeta, y cuando llegué, tuve que buscar la entrada de los artistas. Lo voy a decir otra vez, para disfrutar cómo suena “ LA ENTRADA DE ARTISTAS DEL CARNEGIE HALL”

Después estuve esperando un rato. Me maquillé delante de un espejo gigante con muchas bombillas, y me puse los zapatos de tacón. Nos pusimos en fila para ensayar durante 20 minutes, y entramos en el escenario. Se podía ver el teatro entero, el patio de butacas, los palcos, el entresuelo, las luces…y tocamos un poco. Los dos primeros compases salieron un poco peor. Se podía sentir el susto que llevábamos todos en el cuerpo, y el no querer hacerlo mal. Y el encontrarse con que tu sonido es distinto en el Carnegie de lo que estás acostumbrado a escuchar en tu casa ( lo voy a decir otra vez TU SONIDO EN EL CARNEGIE) Pero luego nos acostumbramos, y todo mejoró, y las notas empezaron a encontrar su sitio en el inmenso espacio del teatro.

Después del ensayo, nos dejaron salir hasta nuestra hora de llama a las 9. Fui por un café y a las nueve, ahí estábamos todos en la sala de la orquesta, de pie, sentados, hablando, tocando, calentando… El sonido de los diferentes instrumentos se mezclaba en el aire, tocando escalas, o pequeños trozos reconocibles de las obras que llevábamos, risas nerviosas el sonido de las cámaras de fotos. Y entonces llegó nuestra llamada.

Nos pusimos en fila parar entrar en el escenario. 10 minutos. Estas es la peor parte. Los diez minutos antes de empezar a tocar. Y allí estábamos, susurrando, concentrándonos. Y salimos al escenario. Y allí estaba el director de la orquesta, en la puerta, sonriendo y animándonos en nuestra salida al escenario.

Las luces brillaban y la audiencia nos recibió con un aplauso. Nos sentamos, calentamos un minuto y el concertino, que es un clarinete, toca un si bemol para los metales y un la para las maderas.

En realidad, ya habíamos afinado más o menos antes de salir a escena, para asegurar. Pero no se lo digáis a nadie.

Entonces el director salió a escena. Otra ronda de aplausos. Nos miró, levantó los brazos y le seguimos, poniéndonos el instrumento en la boca. Un Segundo de complete silencio en un teatro enorme. Marcó la anacrusa y comenzó el viaje.

Después de la obertura de Candide, hubo muchos aplausos. Y entonces tocamos otra muy difícil, una pieza contemporánea llamada Wild Nights. Después de eso, todo era fácil. Tenía más miedo por las dos primeras, así que , después de ellas, me relajé y disfruté de estar ahí, y de la música que estábamos hacienda juntos. Y en los momentos en los que tenía silencios, era maravilloso ver como el director hacía que la música ocurriese, como la batuta iba dictando la música y escuchar a la banda tocar. Y la música seguía flotando alrededor, como magia.

Particularmente, el último acorde de la Procesión de Elsa de Lohengrin. Se quedó en el aire flotando, después de que dejásemos de tocar, todos los sonidos mezclándose en un gran acorde Wagneriano mientras escuchábamos con los instrumentos de la boca, con la tensión de haber tocado

También tocamos otra pieza contemporánea, Pilatus, y la Sinfonía de la Máquina de Escribir, que le encantó a todo el mundo.

Y entonces nos aplaudieron. El director salió de escena y volvió dos veces. Y vi a mis amigos decirme hola desde las butacas, y salimos del escenario como andando en una nube, sonriendo de oreja a oreja y nos abrazamos…Y a fue absolutamente maravilloso-

Hubo una vez que toque en el Carnegie Hall, donde las luces eran brillantes y la música flotaba en el aire. Y de la batuta del conductor, salía magia.

Algunas fotos

No pants ride 2k9/No pants ride 2k9 New York/ Viajar por el metro en bragas

2009-03-02T19:10:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday I had one experience of a lifetime: I went on the New York City subway system and took my pants off :D:D

Being pantless on the subway is one of those secret desires hidden secretos in our minds. Everybody has thought this at some point " What if I just took my clothes off here, in the middle of the crowd?" And that is exactly what I did.

New York is full of people, millions of people. So, if you need to do something you just post it around, and hudreds of people come to your call. And that's what happen for this events: hundreds showed up to take their pants off on a train in New York.

We were distributed by lines, ten by wagons, and we stood up, took our pants off and left little by little, and we got on the next train little by little too. And then we walked around all together, in our underwear, and we even went out in te snow.

Some people laughed, some people asked, some people were disgusted, but it was so much fun So,o I did it...Fulfilled one of those fantasies: I took my clothes off in the subway. :D

http://improveverywhere.com/2009/01/14/no-pants-2k9/

FIND NOT WALLY, ME Can you find me in here? :D

BUSCA NO A WALLY, SINO A MÍ, ¿me ves en esta foto ? :D

El S'abado tuve una de las experiencias de una vida: mont'e en el metro de Nueva York y me quit'e los pantalones :D:D
Quedarse en bragas en el metro es uno de esos secretos escondidos en nuestra mente Todo el mundo tiene esta idea en alg'un momento " Qu'e pasar'ia si me quito la ropa aqu'i mismo, en medio de la gente?" Y eso es exactamente lo que hice.

New York est'a lleno de gente. As'i que, si necesitas hacer algo, simplemente lo publicas por alg'un sitio, y cientos de personas responden a tu llamada. Y esto es lo que ocurri'o para este evento: cientos de personas se presentaron para quitarse los patalones en Nueva York.
Nos distibuyeronporl'ineas, luego poro vagones, y nos pusimos de pie, nos quitamos los panalones y nos bajamos poco a poco, y lueo nos montamos en el siguiente train tami'en poco a poco. Y luego transbordamos todos juntos en ragas y calzoncillos, e incluso salimos a la nieve.

Alguna gente re'ia, or preguntaba, otra estaba ofendida y asqueada, pero fnos lo pasamos tan bien.
As'i que lo he hecho...Cumplir una de esas fantas'ia. Me e quitado la ropa en el metro :D

http://improveverywhere.com/2009/01/14/no-pants-2k9/

A teenager on Iraq / Un adolescente sobre Iraq

2009-01-19T10:54:00.000-08:00

I have very strong clear ideas about the Iraq war, and everytime a student talk about it, I try to make them see that there are different points of view, apart from what the government says.
Last week, one of my students said that Osama bin Laden was about to be caught and that the war was going to end as soon as that happenned.
I would have told him that Osama bin Laden has nothing to do with Iraq, that it was a non religious state, that there are lots of innocent people dying there. But I didn't.

He is 15, his mum is 30. On the last day of school before Christmas he came to school really happy and high, because his mum had come back from Iraq for Christmas, and took him downtown ans bought him four diffeent hats with different bat-man logos. After the holidays, his behaviour has been terrible, particularly with female teachers.
So, when he said all that, I just looked at him and listened to that small nuance of hope in betwwen the osama bin ladens, the saddam husseins and the iraq governments that came from his mouth. A very small ray of hope. Hoping for the end of the war, hoping, I suppose, for her mum coming back home safe, away from the bullets, the bombs and the dead.
No point in telling him that his mum is risking her life because of a president's lie, for politics, for nothing, in an unfair stupid pointless war. He is angry enough as it is.

Tengo ideas muy claras y vehementes sobre la guerra de Iraq, y cada vez que un estudiante habla sobre ello, intento hacerle ver que hay diferentes putnos de vista, aparte de la versión oficial del gobierno.
La semana pasada uno de mis estudiantes dijo que Osama bin Laden estaba a punto de ser capturado, y que la guerra iba a terminar tan pronoo como eso pasase.
Le habría dicho que Osama bin Laden no tienen nada que ver con Iraq, que era un estado laico, que hay montones de gente inocente muriendo allí, pero no lo hice.

Tiene 15 años , su madre 30.El útimo día de clase antes de las navidades vino contento e hiperactivo, porque su madre había vuelto de Iraq para las Navidades y le llevó al centro de la ciudad y le compró cuatro gorras diferentes con distintos logos de bat-man.Después de las vacaciones, su comportamiento ha sido terrible, particularmente con las profesoras ( con los hombres se lleva bastasnte mejor)

Así que cuando me dijo todo eso, simplemente le miré y escuché ese pequeño punto de esperanza entre los osama bin ladens,los saddam husseins y los gobiernos de Iraq que salían de su boca. Un pequeño rayo de esperanza.Esperando el final de la guerra, esperando, supongo, que su madre vuelva a casa sana y salva, lejos de las balas, las bombas, los muertos.
¿ Para qué contarle que su madre está arriesgando la vida por culpa de la mentira de un presidente, para nada, por política, en una guerra injusta estúpida y sin sentido? Ya tiene suficiente ira dentro.Ya tiene suficiente cosas con las que luchar.

New Years Eve in New York- Mysteries of Creation ( Versión en Epañol más abajo)

2009-01-04T21:39:00.001-08:00

On the 31st I woke up early in the morning. This year, all that smoking during the holidays, my house was still a mess. I didn’t tidy or anything for christmas in the end.

I was going to go to the laundry, but when I looked outside some snow flakes danced in the wind. Can you imagine how much do you really want to take out a trolley full of dirty clothes in the middle of the snow?

I opened my email, and got the info for the party for the night. It is supposed to be an “underground” kid of thing, (how cool I am now I can hardly stand myself.) The thing is, they do not tell you the place until the day before. In the mail they said that everybody was going to be wearing costumes. And you know how much I love to do that.

So there I go, look around the internet and decide to dress up as Isis, following the topic of gods and goddesses and creation. And I think, “ If I make some Isis wings, I will be able to use them for belly dancing too” I want to start belly dancing, because my therapist, the physical one, not the psychological one, said I could try some gentle dancing…I did not asked the psychological one about it …yet...

So I go to my physical therapy. The snow starts to fall heavily. I finish and ran to look for a fabric shop. And as I am looking in the fabric shop stret, W 39th and 7th, a guy stops the bike in the middle of the snow,and says “ What Are you looking for? You are so pretty.. Give me a kiss” And he holds my had, not the one holding the broken umbrella, the other one, and gives me a little piece of paper, and says "I live alone. This is my number. Call me,. Give me a kiss” So I give him a kind of kiss on his cheek., and cheeky as he is, he laughs and leaves.

I go into the shop and look around. I call Elena one second and say to her “ Elena, for Isis wings, organza or lame,” And she and her mum answer, in 30 seconds, organza. So I buy some nice orange organia fabric to make the wings. And a belly dancing waist thing to dance. Thinking I could dance.

Then I go back to the doctors. The doctor appointment is going to be described in two posts, so I’ll keep you expecting that.

Then I leave and go to a grate costume shop and get some eye lashes, and some snake bracelets ( the cheapest), and go home to start making my cosutme.

I got home at about five and called my mum, in the middle of her New year’s Eve dinner, to get some tips for the sawing. Of course…no sawing machine, and, in organza, you always have to saw by hand.

So at 12 o’clock in Spain,I called home and eat the grapes. I remember, last year, at 6, I was in a much harder position in the hands of a very big Russian dermathologist. At least this year, I had already finished with the doctors ( I insist, next two posts) A couple more tips and I kept working.

So I kept trying to make my wings, and in the end, without finishing the borders, and just the easiest stich…to just hold the fabric. I would have used safety pins, but I could not find them.

I got hungry so I called the chinese restaurant at 8. This was my New Years eve dinner, sweet and sour pork, but from a New York Chinatown restaurant :D I gave a good tip to the poor man coming on New Year’s Eve in the middle of the snow to deliver some food to a crazy Spaniard.

I kind of finished the wings after nine and started with the other things I was going to wear. I took a quick shower. So this is how I spent my New Year’s Eve, sawing and eating chinese food.

I left my house at 11:40, thinking, “ I am going to be on the train at 12” It would not have been the first time. I remember once, when I was younger, I ate the grapes in the train, and I got so upset I could not stop sobbing for a while.

This time, I asked Isis, who resemblance I was trying to get, to get me there on time. And after looking at the minutes on the clock of the train go away with each stop, I got out, asked somebody and ran to a warehouse in the middle of a lonely place in Brooklyn. And I just got there when I heard Happy New Year. I missed the countdown, but I got the cheers and shouts. I also missed the performances...next time.

I put my wings on in the place, because it was freezing freezing freezing cold. And I went around, took some pictures, talked to some people, danced a bit, even when the doctor had not particularly adviced tt ( I insist, two more posts for that). I had a great time. Some people were wearing costumes, some weren’t, but the wings became part of me. It is really hard to move through the crowd with a pair of wings without hitting anybody.

In the end, I finished the party at somebody’s place, and I ended up going home with my Egyptian make all smudged up and my wings in a bag, dressed as a belly dancer, at five in the afternoon, when the spirit of the new year was starting to fade away.

You can click here for more photos.

You can watch the video, just to get a feeling of the place. Sound is awful, but you can play "Looking for Wally" and find me vaguely trying to move my wings

Año Nuevo en Nueva York -Mysteries of Creation 2008 ( English version above)

2009-01-04T21:38:00.000-08:00

El 31 me desperté temprano,. Este año, tanto fumar en als vacaciones, al final ni aareglé la casa para Navidad ni ná. Así que me levanto con la intención de ir a lavandería, porque tenemos una lavadora APRA todo el edificio en el sótano, pero pesnsaba que era pequeña. Miro por la ventana y veo unos pequeños copos de nieve que de vez en cuando caen. ¿ Sabéis las ganas que tiene una de cogerse el carrito con la ropa de tres semanas y tirar para la calle con la ropa sucia en medio de la nieve?

Abro el mail y me llega el mail de la fiesta a la que quiero ir : Mysteries of Creation.

Como se supone que es una fiesta “ underground, o sea, que cool que me he vuelto , sabes, pues no te dicen el sitio hasta el día anterior, porque debe ser legal a medias solamente. Abro el mail y pone que todo el mundo va disfrazado. Con lo que me mola a mi disfrazarme

Así que allá que voy, miro por internet y decido vestirme de Isis, siguiendo el tema de la fiesta de dioses y diosas. Y pienso “ si me hago unas alas de Isis, también podré usarlas para Bely danging”Quiero empezar a bailar danza del vientre porque mi terapeuta, el físico que no el psicolólgico, me dijo que podía hacer un poco de baile suave…No le he preguntado al psicológico sobre el baile…aún.

Me voy a rehabilitación. La nieve empieza a caer en masa. Termino y corro a buscar una tienda de telas. Y cuando estoy mirando en la calle de las tiendas de ropa, la W39 con la 7ª, un tío en bici se para, en medio de la Nevada, y me dice “ ¿ qué estás buscando?Eres tang uapa. Dame un beso” Y me gcoge la mano, la otra que no sujeta el paraguas y me da un trozo de papel pequeño y me dice “Vivo solo. Este es mi número. Llámame. Dame un beso” Así que le doy un casto beso en la mejillas, y él se ríe y se va

Entro en la tienda, miro y pregunto y llamo a Elena a España y le digo “ Elena, par alas alas de Isis, organza o Lame”y ella y su madre, a miles de kilómetros un poco flipadas, en 30 segundos contestan “ Organza” Así que compro organza para hacer las alas, y un pañuelo de bailar danza del vientre. Pensando que podría bailar.
Entonce voy al médico. la cita del médico la voy a describir dentro de dos posts, así que os dejo expectantes.
Entonces me voy a una tienda de disfraces y me compro unas pestañas postizas brillantes y dos serpientes de brazalete, o brazaletes de serpientes ( los más baratos) y me voy a casa a empezar a hacer el disfraz

Llegué a casa y sobre las cinco llamé a mi madre, en la mitad de su cena de nochevieja, para preguntarle algunos trucos de costura. Por supuesto...nada de máquina de costura y, de todas fromas, la organza es mejor coserla a mano.

A las doce de España volví a llamar para comerme las uvas con mi familia. Recuerdo que el año pasado, a als seis, estaba en una posición bastante más difícil que esta, en manos de un dermatólogo ruso gigante. Al menos, este año ya había acabado con los médicos ´( insisto, dentro de dos posts)
Así que, después d eun par de consejos más, intenté seguir cosiéndome las alas y , al final, sin acabar los bordes, y todo hilvanado...lo justo para mantener la tela. habría usado imperdibles, pero no pude encontrarlos.
Me entró hambré y llamé a un restaurante chino a las ocho. Esta fue mi cena de nochevieja, cerdo agridulce, pero de un restaurante del Chinatown de Manhattan :D Le di una buena propina al pobre hombre que vino a las ocho de la noche el día de nochevieja en medio de la nieve para traer comida a una española loca.
Acabé las alas después de las nueve y comencé con las otras cosas que iba a llevar. Me di una ducha rápida.
Y así es como pasé la nochevieja, cosiendo y comiendo comida china.
Dejé mi casa alas doce menos veinte pensando, " Voy a pasar las uvas en el metro" no habría sido la primera vez. Una vez, cuando era más joven, me comí las uvas en el metro y me dio tanta pena que me tire un buen rato llorando.
Esta vezle pedí a Isis, cuyo aspecto estaba intentando emular, que me llevase allí a tiempo. Y depués de ver los minutos pasar con cada estación de metro, salí, le pregunté a alguien y corrí hacia un almacén en medio de un solitario lgar de Brooklyn. Y justó llegué allí cuando escuché " Feliz año nuevo" Me perdí la cuenta atrás y las actuaciones...pero escuché la alegría y los gritos.
Me pusé allí las alas porque hacía mucho frío, mucho mucho mucho mucho frío. Y estuve por allí, hice fotos, hablé con gene, bailé un poco, incluso cuando el médico no lo había recomendado ( insisto, dos posts) Me lo pasé muy bien. Alguna gente llevaba disfraz, algunos no, pero las alas se convirtienro en parte de mi.Es muy difícil moverse entre la multitud con un par de alas sin darle a nadie con ellas.
Al final, acabé la fiesta en casa de alguien, y terminé volviendo a casa con mi maquillaje de egipcia corrido, las alas en una bolsa y vestida de bailarina oriental con botas, a las cinco de la tarde, cuando el espíritu de año nuevo ya se estaba desvaneciendo.

Pinchar aquí para ver más fotos.

El vídeo se oye muy mal, y tampoco es que se vea de maravilla, pero da una pista de como era el sitio. ÿ podéid jugar a " Buscando a Wally", e intertar verme vagamente peleándome con las alas mientras bailo.

¡¡¡FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!!!

Missing friends/ Echando de menos a los amigos

2008-12-28T10:18:00.000-08:00

Another year, I stayed in New York for Christmas.
I spent Christmas eve alone. I was going to a bar but it did not work out in the end. Then on Christmas day I was at home and went to have dinner to a colleague's house, with two other colliagues. Nice people, nice food...very nice :D

First I was a bit sad, because all my friends were going away. Until on Monday night, a friend of mine came to visit, because she had some things here she needed to take to Spain the following day.

This friend actually lives in my ex-aparment, because she got a very good priced apartment in the Lower East Side. But the woman who owns the place is a Santera witch, and she could not cope with the vodoo dolls. Everytime I move a book I find a rosary attached to a bone, a lock of hair attached to a small pergamine... Not to talk about the three rabbits frozen in my fridge...I swear I thought it was a cat the first time I openend the freezer :D
I asked M., my friend, to bring the spare key, to be able to go to the apartment to get my mail, because, of course, it was too much to take it to school and bring it over.

So finally, she comes to my place to get her things, me in a happy land after smoking and having had a beer,and suddenly she realises she has forgotten her key in school. That means she can not go home to get her stuff to go to school and then to the airport.
So at 11:00 at night, with 20F ( -8C) outside, I got dressed and we went to my ex aparment, quite far away. We were trying to get security to use a master key. So finally, I tell them I did not use the upper dead lock, and he says " Go to the apartment, we'll send somebody".
And there comes this guy, drunk,. with a big metal bar and tries to break into my house. But it did not work, because the dead lock was on. When we asked him he said " I have no master key"

11:30 at night, even colder now, we go down to the coner Deli and ask the guy if they know about a locksmith. Then a man says " You just have to drill it out", and another, probably on something, very nicely , says "I can take you to my door, there is al ocksmith sticker" So there we go through the snows of Harlem looking for the phone of a locksmith that never happenened to come.

And we came back to my place. She sorted it out the following day.
I said, "when you leave, do not lock the bottom lock, lock the upper one, because I have that key, so I can go a get my post". But no, no luck, she did not do it, and she left her key in another part of the city, far from my new house, far from my old house...to the end of Queens

So, when she left, I said...maybe, it is not so bad to sepend some time on my own...maybe I am not going to miss all my friends that much :D
IT'S A LIE!!! I LOVE YOUUUU AAAALL!!! I MISS YOU LOTS!!!
LOTS OF KISSE AND HUGS!!!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Otro año, y me quedé en Nueva York por Navidad.
Pasé la nochebuena sola. Iba air a un bar, pero al final no surgió. y el día de Navidad me quedé en casa, y luego por la noche fui a cenar a casa de una com`pñaera de trabajo con otras compañeras. Gente agradabele, comida agradable... muy agradable :D

Primero estaba un poco triste, porque otdos mis amigos se volvían a Expaña. ahsta el lunes por la noche, cuando una de mis amigas vino a visitarme, porque tenía algo en mi casa que necesitaba llevarse a España al día siguiente.

En realidad, esta amiga mía ahora vive en mi ex-casa, porque encontró un apartamento a precio de ganga en el Lower East Side, sitio molón de New York donde los haya. Pero la dueña de la casa es una rbuja santera, y fue demasiado para ella. Cada vez que muevo un libro, me encuentro un rosario atado a un hueso, un mechón de pelo atado a un pergamino...por no hablar de los tres conejos congelados que había en mi congelador, que juro que la primera vez que lo abrí pensé que eran gatos.

Le pedí a M, mi amiga, que me trajese la llave de sobra de la casa para coger my correo, porque, por supuesto, era demasiado para llevarlo al colegio y traerlo luego a casa.
Así que al final, llega a mi casa a coger sus cosas, yo en mi mundo feliz después de haber fumado y haberme tomado una cerveza, y d repente se da cuenta de que se ha dejado su llave en el colegio.
Eso significaba que no podía ir a casa a hacer el equipaje antes de irse a España al día siguiente.
Así que a las once de la noche, con ocho grados centígrados bajo cero fuera, me visto y nos vamos a mi ex-apartamento bastante lejos de donde vivo ahora. Intentamos que los de seguridad usaran una llave maestra o algo para abrirnos la puerta. Al final, conseguimos que nos mande a alguien porque el cerrojo de arriba no está echado, solo la llave de en medio. Nos dice " Id al apartamennto que ahora os mando a alguien"
Y aquí que llega este tío, todo borracho, con una palanca de hierro gigante, y se pone a apalancar la puerta. Pero no funcionó, porque el cerrojo de enmedio también estaba echado. Cuando le preguntamos, dice " No tengo niguna llave maestra"

Las once y media de la noche, con más frío todavía, bajamos al deli de la esquina a preguntar a ver si saben de un cerrajero. Un tío dice " Solo necesitas un taladro", y otro, que se había metido algo, pero supermajo, dice " En la puerta de mi casa hay una pegatina de un cerrajero" Y allá que vamos, a través de las nieves de Harlem, intentando buscar el teléfeno de un cerrajero que nunc apareció.
Y volvimos a mi casa, y solucionó su viaje al día siguiente.
Le dijé " cuando te vayas, no cierres las llave de enmedio, porque yo tengo una copia de la llve de arriba para ir a coger el correo" Pero no, no hubo suerte, no lo hizo Ha dejado su llave a una compañera suya que vive lejos de donde vivo ahora, lejos de donde vivía antes...a la otra punta de Queens.

Así que cuando se fue, pensé...tal vez no etá tan mal pasar unos diítas con una misma...tal vez no voy a echar de menos tanto a tod@s mis amig@s.
¡¡ES MENTIRA: OS QUIEEEEEROOOOO.....OS ECHOOO DE MENOOOOSSSS!!!
¡¡MUUUCHOS BESOOOOOS!!!
:D ¡¡FELICES FIESTAS!!

Santacon 2008 New York City ( English)

2008-12-16T18:20:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I got up at seven am, bacause I was already late and I had not finished my costume.

In fact, I had not even started it. So I went down to the sitting room ( yes, I went down because now I live ina dupleeeeeeeexsssssssssshhhhhhh) and I started making my Santa Bat girl costume...why Bat girl? Well... I was not going to be Bat man.
das Santa Bat girl then, I ran to buy a hat before joining the Santa Convention that had already started while Iwas finishing my costume. yes... that's it...Santa Convention...Some say 600, some say thousands...but definitely hundresds of Santas got togetehr to go from one place to another, from one var to another, here and there. people were really funny, especially when we would get the train and sauddenly, it completely got crowded with Satas, fro the beginning till the endand somebody dricrestly and nicely passed you their flask:D

As there were no permits, we did not know till the day before where it was going to start. And when Santa started moving, somebody shouted " Santa is on the move", and it was the tiem to ask " Where is Santa Going?", "Do you know whee Santa is going?", and somebody whispered a place and there we all went.I met them but I never got on time to the ferry, and it was said to be a great party....How can you miss hundreds of Santas? Well, you know I always get lost. I managed.

And there I was until my veretebrae told me it was enough, and I had to go home. If you see the photos, the ligther oone is in the morning, and the more blurry one in the evening, and you can see pain showing in the photo.

These are a few photos. More to come. And look for more on this site:D

Good spirit, fun, joy and celebration. One more Saturday in teh Big Apple.

HO HO HO!

Santacon 2008- New York City ( Spanish)

2008-12-16T17:44:00.000-08:00

El Sábado pasado me levanté a las siete de la mañana, porque ya llegaba tarde y aún no había terminado el disfraz.

De hecho, no lo había ni empezado. Así que me bajé al salón ( sí, me bajé, que ahora vivo en un duplexssssssshhhhhhhh) y me puse a hacer mi disfraz de Santa Bat Girl...¿ qué por qué Bat girl ?, porque no iba a ser Santa Bat man.

Ya vestida de Santa bat girl, salí corriendo a comprar un gorro antes de unirme a la convención de Santas que había empezado mientras yo terminaba mi disfraz. Sí... eso es...La Santa Convention...Dicen unos que 600 otros que miles...pero seguro que cientos de Santa Claus nos juntamos a ir de un lado a otro de Nueva York, todos a la vez de bar en bar, de sitio en sitio. Lo gracioso era la gente, sobretodo cuando cogíamos el metro y ,de repente, todo el tren de principio al final , se llenaba de Santa Claus, y disimuladamente, alguien te pasaba la petaca de algo. :D

Como no había permisos, no se supo hasta el día anterior el lugar donde empezaba. Y cuando Santa se ponía en movimiento, alguien gritaba " Santa is on the move", y era el momento de preguntar " ¿ Dónde va Santa?", "¿ Sabes dónde va Santa? ", y alguien susurraba un sitio, y allí que íbamos todos.

Me junté con ellos... no llegúe al Ferry proque me perdí. ¿ Que cómo se puede perder uno cuando va con cientos de Santas? Pues yo puedo... ya sabéis que siempre me pierdo.Pero dicen que el Ferry fue un fiestón. y ahí que estuve hasta que a las ocho, mi vértebra se negó a seguir. Si veis en las fotos, la que tiene más luz es de por la mañana, y la que está desenfocada por la tarde, y ya el dolor se asoma a la foto.

Pincha aquí para las fotos . Y busca más fotos por el flickr, que hay un montón.

Buen rollo, diversión, alegría y celebración. Un sábado más en la Big Apple.

HO HO HO!

Christmas concert at my school

2008-12-11T18:33:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, being in New York is like being in a film.
Today it was the Christmas concert at my school, and I offered to help the band.
Clarinets, trumpets, trombons, lots of percussion, elelctric guitars, a choir a four teacher, two of them music ones, dedicated to make that sound good.
About thirty kids playing instruments, different TV and film songs and a couple of Christmas carols.

Like in a Disney film or in a teenage series, or in Hannah Montana. But at my school, kids do not usually have any previous knowledge of music, and it might be the first time they actually have acces to the instruments. The instruments of course, belong to the school. They take music classes everyday, and that is why they are being able to play what they are playing, which is a lot for the background they have.
A clarinet comes to watch the concet and try to avoid playing. The teacher has to get off the stage and tell him off to bring him out of the audience in the morning, so that he plays with the band.
In the morning there is a bigger audience, because the other teachers bring the kids down so they can listen to the concert. In the evening, the auditorium is almost empty, just filled to a quarter of its capacity, being optimistic. Most of them being friends of the players... and some parents.
Putting together musicians and singers, there will be like thirty kids playing, trying their best. There is hardly a dozen parents in the audience.
A concert prepaired with such an effort, such an illusion...Nervousness, scripts...And the parents... where are they? Some can't come because of work, some will be in a different country, some will not be, some aight not even know that their offspring is playing, or might not even be able to notice their absence from home in a rainy winter night. But they are there, playing, like if the auditorium was full,like if they were playing the best of the music. Although some, like the clarinet, does not even come in the night to school.
Like in a movie, but not a Disney one or a teenage series....more like in other movies without happy endings or warm christmas' with presents or love.

And this way, teachers look at the last week and a half before the holidays, knowing that it is going to be down hill,being aware, as they unconsciousoy are, of the big amount of unfulfilled expectations and disapointments they are going to have to face. The way to a christmas time like the one in a amovie...but in an alternative one

Concierto de Navidad en mi escuela.

2008-12-11T18:16:00.000-08:00

A veces esar en Nueva York es como estar dentro de una película.
Hoy ha sido el concierto de Navidad, de mi instituto, y me he ofrecido a ayudar a la banda. Clarinetes, trompetas, trombones, mucha percusión, guistarras eléctricas, un coro, y cuatro profesores, dos de ellos de música, muy dedicados a que aquello sonara.
Una treintena de niños tocando distintos instrumentos, canciones de series de televisión y películas, y un par de villancicos.

Como en las películas de Disney o en las series de institutos, o en Hannah Montana. Pero en mi instituto, los chicos normalemnete no teinen conociemientos previos de música, y puede ser la primera vez que tengan acceso a los intrumentos. Los itnstrumentos por supuestos, todos del isntituto compartidos. Dan clase de música todos los días, y gracias a eso han llegado donde están, que bastante es para el background que tienen.
Un clarinete viene a ver el concierto y se escaquea.El profesor teine que bajarse del escenario y regañarlo para sacarlo de entre el público de la mañana, para que toque.
Por la mañana hay más público, porque los otros profesores bajan a sus alumnos a escuchar el concierto. Por la tarde, el auditoria está medio vacío, a un cuarto de su capacidad, con suerte. Y la mayoría amigos de los que tocan...y algunos padres.
Entre el coro y los músicos, habrá alrededor de treinta chavales tocando, haciéndolo lo mejor que pueden. Apenas hay una docena de padres en el auditorio.
Un concierto preparado con tanto es fuerzo, con tanta ilusión...Los nervios, las partituras... Y los padres, ¿ dónde están? Unos no pueden venir, por el trabajo, otros estarán en otros países, algunos no estarán, otros no quieren venir, otros puede que ni siquiera sepan que su hijo o hija está tocando, ni note su ausencia a las nueve de la noche de un lluvioso día de invierno. Pero ellos ahí, tocando como si estuviera el auditorio lleno, como si tocasen la mejor de las piezas.Aunque algunos, como el clarinete, ni siquiera aparece por el insituto por la tarde.

Como en las películas, pero no las de Disney ni las series de instituto... como otras películas sin finales felices ni navidades cálidas con regalos y amor.

Y así los profesores, nos enfrentamos a la última semana y media de clase sabiendo que va a ser cuesta abajo, sabiendo, como ellos sabes inconscientemente, la cantida de esperanzas incumplidas y desilusiones con que van a tener que enferntarse. El camino hacia una navidad de película, pero de película alternativa.

Jim Henson y Lepage ( English)

2008-12-05T20:48:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday I went to watch a movie at midnight, on a huge screen... Labyrnth. I could not beleive that they were showing it at a cinema. Once again, I loved it, especially the part of the worm. Once, I hooked up with a guy because he knew what the worm says in this film. He seduced me. When I asked him " ¿ Do you know who said this?" and he knew,suddenly, an aura lit up around him, like if somebody had miteriously pressed a button somewhere.And I hooked up with him

Sitting there, in the middle od the darkness at the cinema, I became 16 again at the orchestra of that theatre called Cinestudio Fantasio, where you could see three films for the price of a new release, all of them in original version. fifteen years ago. I could swera I went with Estíbaliz.did I go with you, Esti? I think so. Or did I go with you, Cris, because we used to drag you to see all this movies in ov? I didn't speak English then...who could have ever told me then that I was going to see it again understanding what they say, and in New York.

The following morning, I called the opera theatre at the Lincoln Centre and bought a ticket too see " The damnation of Faust", by Berlioz.
Tenor Marcello Giordani aFaust, mezzo Susan Graham as Marguérite and bass-baritone John Relyea as Méphistophélès.

It had great interesting things. There was a kind of scaffolding structure with two screens, one transparent sometimes at the front and one with mirros at the back, where sometimes you could see, difuminated, the image of the conductor and the orchestra. At some point, there was this interactive screen, that kept changing as the dancers and singers moved near it, and they kept waling on it from the floor to the ceiling, and dropping. Some trees dies as Mephistopheles walked near them when Faust is persuaded to sign his damnation, and a wonderful last run of Faust, who thinks he is going to save MArgerite but is actually rushing into hell, in a kind of animated frames in black an white, sourrounded by bats and demons. And a huge projection of Marerite's image slowly burning in flames as she sings the aria in which, despeaired, keeps waiting for a Faust that never comes.
And this is New York, from David Bowie a Robert Lepage, from a warm to a demon. And depp down, it is the same, human relationship, loe, treason, desertion, magic..., life itself. Told with music and images

Jim Henson y Lepage (Spanish)

2008-12-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

El viernes pasado fui a ver una peli a la sesión de media noche, en pantalla gigante... Labyrnth. ( Dentro del Laberinto) no me podía creer que la estuvieran poniendo en el cine. De nuevo, me volvíó a encantar, sobretodo el punto del gusano. Me encanta el gusano. Una vez me enrollé con un tío porque sabía lo que decía el gusano de esta peli. Me conquistó. Cuando le dije, "¿ Sabes de qué peli es esto?". Y lo supo.Y de repente se encendió una aureola a su alrededor, como si a alguién se acordará de repene que tenía que darle a un interruptor.y me enrollé con él.

Y allí sentads en la oscuridad del cine, volví a tener 16 años en el patio de butacas del cinestudio Fantasio, donde veías tres pelis por el precio de una de estreno, y todas en versión original. Hace quince años, juraría que con Estíbaliz. ¿ fue contigo Esti?Me suena que sí.¿O fue contigo, Cris, que siempre te arrastrábamos a las pelis en vo?Por entonces no hablaba inglés... quien me iba a decir que la iba a volver a ver entendiendo lo que decían y en New York.

A la mañana siguiente, llamé al teatro de la ópera y me cogí una entradapara "La condenación de Fausto", de Berlioz. Dirigida por Levin, con el Tenor Marcello Giordani aFaust, mezzo Susan Graham as Marguérite y el barítono John Relyea como Méphistophélès. Y sobretodo, con dirección escénica de Robert Lepage.

Tenía cosas muy interesantes. Una especie de andamio con dos pantallas, una transparente a veces en la parte de delante, y otra con espejos en la parte de detrás, donde a veces se podía ver, difuminada, la imagen de la orquesta.En un momento, aparecía una pantalla interactiva, que cambiaba las imágenes según los cantantes o bailarines se movieran, y estos andaban por la pantalla desde el suelo hastqa el techo para luego dejarse caer. Unos árboles que se iban dehojando al paso de Mefistófeles en la escena en la que Fausto firma su condenación. Y sobretodo, una maravillosa última carrera de Fausto, que piensa que se apresura a salvar a Margerite cuando en realidad va directo al infierno, como en viñetas animadas, en blanco y negro, perseguido por murciélagos y rodeado de demonios.Y una proyección gigante de la imagen de Margarite en llamas mientras canta el aira en el que, desesperada, espera a un Fausto que nunca llega.

Y así es Nueva York, de David Bowie a Robert Lepage, de un gusano a uno demonio. Y en el fondo, lo mismo: las relaciones humanas, el amor, la traición, las expectativas, el abandono, la magia...en fin, la vida misma.Contada con imágenes y música.

Election day in New York/Elecciones en nueva Yörk

2008-11-28T23:45:00.001-08:00

November 4th, 2008. Election day in USA, when, for the first time, an Afro-American could be elected president
And here I am, sat at a Professional Development Workshop at my school’s library, without students. It is an electoral school.
When I go through the hall, sometimes I fine big queues. Sometimes it is almost empty. There are some strange machines to vote, in which people get to vote, move a huge lever, press some buttons and move the lever again.
From time to time somebody sends a message. Someone calls at break Are there any news? Nothing yet.
School is over. Screenwriting class is almost empty. I go to a friend’s house, in the Lower East Side; I have dinner and a drink there. I go back home. It’s 11 pm. There is an expecting calm. I take the train. Change once. Somebody says “ It’s over” 45 minutes later I go back to the street in 125th at St Nicholas av. Down at the platform people are shouting and singing. I do not need to listen to the radio or what the TV any more in order to know what is happening. I get to the street. Masses of people flowing from one side to the other, shouting, “ Obama”, singing, dancing…one music groups passes by, followed by a crowd. Martin Luther King’s square is lit up with TV lights and crowded. The bells in the different churches don’t stop pealing. Cars have to stop. And buses. People open their doors and hold each other. I go back home, and call Spain,. I call m mother, at hospital, she has to be operated. She is about to get into the circus.
I go to sleep and I wake up with the elections hangover. I call again, alter a restless night. She is out, but she is not awake yet.
Alter school. I go to the doctor, to the orthopedist. I have another vertebra broken.
One day for the history of USA, for my mum’s history, for mine.
I ad one Obama pin to the memento collection from America, and a vertebra to the fractured vertebrae one.

Cuatro de noviembre de 2008. Día de las elecciones estadounidenses en las que, por primera vez un americno de color puede ser elegido presidente,
Y aquí estoy, sentada en un Professional Development Workshop ( u sea, un cursillo pa profes) en la biblioteca de mi centro sin alumnos, un colegio electoral.
Cuando paso por el vestíbulo, a veces hay largas colas, a veces casi nadie. Hay unas máquin muy raras para votar, en las que la gente entra,. mueve una palanca gigate, aprieta unos botones, y vuelve a mover la palanca.
De vez en cuando alguien manda un mensaje En el descanso se llama. ¿ Se sabe algo?
Nada.
Acaba el cole. En clase de guíon no hay nadie. Voy a casa de un amigo. En el Lower East side. ceno y tomo algo. Y me vuelvo a mi casa. Son las once. No hay nadie en la calle. Reina una tranquilidad expectante. Cojo el metro. Un transbordo. alguien dice, "It´s over" 45 minutos más tarde salgo a la calle en la 125th con St. Nicholas Av. Ya en la parada, la gente va gritando y cantando. Ya no tengo que escuchra la radio o ver la tele para saber que está pasando. Salgo a lacalle. Ríadas de gente de un lado para todo, gritando " Obama", cantando, bailando... PAsa un grupo de música seguido por una multitud. La plaza de Martin Luther King está ilumanda con focos televisivos, y repleta de gente. Las campanas de las iglesias no paran de repicar. Los coches se tiene que parar, y los autobuses.La gente abre las puertas y se abraza. Vuelvo a casa.
Y llamo a España, a mi madre al hospital, la tienen que operar.
Me voy a domir y me levanto en la resaca de las elecciones. Llamo otra vez, después de una noche intranquila. Ya ha salido, aunque aún no está despierta.
Voy al traumatólogo. Me dice que tengo otra vértebra rota.
Un día para la historia de EEUU, para la historia de mi madre, para mi historia.
Añado una chapa de Obama a la colección de recuerdos de América, y una vértebra más a la de vértebras rotas.

Halloween in New York / Halloween en Nueva York

2008-11-08T03:07:00.004-08:00

Halloween means letting your dark side free and wild.
I took a witch hat to school, but I am not allowed to wear it. At some point, the jokes kids used to play became to extreme and dangerous, and they just forbade it.
After school I put my red and white uniform from Manhattan Samba, and went to play with them. I played the tambourin, only aftea a few rehearsal. Most of what we played had nothing to do with what I did at rehearsal. But it sounded great anyway.
We went down Sixth avenue, from the East Village up to 20th st. Lots of people watching from the sides of the streets, lost of dressed up people coming and dancing, staying around us. We had some samba dancers in front of us, but it was difficult tnot to loose them.
Four hours playing non stop. By the end I could hadly feel my arm, or my wrists, or anything.
It took me two weeks to recover...but It was one of the best Halloweens I have ever had... apart from the parties with my friends in spain :D

Photos/Fotos

Sound is not good, but look at how many people. Play...Where is Wally/Ana?
El sonido no es bueno... pero la de peña que había.Jugad a ¿Dónde está Wallie/Ana?

Halloween significa dejar libre tu lado oscuro y salvaje.
Me llevé un gorro de bruja a clase, pero no me permitieron usarlo. En algún momento, las bromas que los chavales se gastaban entre ellos se volvieron demsiado esxtremas y peligrosas, y lo prohibieron.
Depués de las clases, me puse mi uniforeme rojo y blanco de Manhattan Samba y me fui a tocar con ellos. Toqué el tamborín, tras haber ido solamente a unos pocos enasayos. La mayoría de lo que tocamos no tenía nada que ver con lo que había hecho en los ensayos. Pero moló de todas maneras.
Bajamos pro la sexta avenida desde el East Village hasta la 20. Una multitud de gente nos miraba desde los lados de las calle, otra multitud, disfrazada, se acercaba y bailaba, quedándose con nosotros. llevábamos un grupo de bailarinas de samba delante de nosotros, pero era difícil no perderlas.
Cuatro horas tocando soin parar. Al final no podía sentir ni el brazo, ni las muñecas ni nada,,pero es una de los mejroes Halloween que he pasado...Aparte de las fiestas con mis amigos en España :D

Ber

2008-11-08T03:07:00.003-08:00

Ber

2008-11-08T03:07:00.001-08:00

What if your date is late?

2008-10-29T16:46:00.001-07:00

Internet dating is a complete complex universe in itself.

There are several situations in which you never know what to do. What if your date is late? How long do you wait until you decide he is not coming? or that he is not worth waiting for that long? "0 minutes? 30?
Then , after a while, you pay for your lonely beer and head home. Depending on how you were feeling about it, you can feel releif, disappointed....

But what if you are meeting him at your home? What can you do? Do you leave your own apartment? This is it... twenty minutes waiting...enough is enough... You pick your things up and leave. Or do you hide behind the door, switch the lights of and stop breathing to pretend you are not in when he knocks? You may even be able to shout " I am not in. I have left because you are late"

And if he is bringing your dinner... how long do you have to wait until you are so hungry you decide to eat?

Internet dating...what a ride!!! I am going to make myself a sandwich.

¿ Y si tu cita llega tarde?

2008-10-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

Las citas por internet son un universo complejo en sí mismas.

Hay muchas situaciones en las que nunca sabes qué hacer. ¿qué pasa si tu cita llega tarde? ¿ Cuánto tienes que esperar hasta decidir que no va a venir? ¿ o que no merece la pena esperarlo tanto tiempo? ¿ 20 minutos? ¿ 30?
Entonces, después de un buen rato, pagas tu cereveza solitaria y te vas a casa. Dependediendo de como te sintieras acerca de la cita, puedes volver aliviada, desilusionada...

Pero¿ qué pasa si has quedado en tu casa? ¿ qué puedes hacer? ¿ Te vas de casa? " Ya está...veinte minutos esperando....Se acabó"Coges tus cosas y te vas. ¿ O te escondes detrás de la puerta, apagas las l uces y dejas de respirar, fingiendo que no estás en casa cuando llama a la puerta? Incluso puedes decir " No estoy, me he ido porque llegabas tarde".
Y si trae la cena, ¿ cuánto tiempo tienes que esperar hasta que te decidas a comer algo, muerta de hambre?

¡Las citas por interntet! ¡ Todo un viaje! Voy a hacerme un sandwich.

Spinning the world around

2008-10-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago my mum told me that she is already on the waiting list to haver a operation done. than, even though at the beginning I had not thought about going back or anything, as my father had a small heart attack a few weeks ago, i thought I could go back if she gets operated in Thanksgiving, taking a few days from school.
But, it happens that I have a problem with my visa, and the Department of Education does not want to pay the amendment, so the school would have to pay. So, I don't fell comfortable taking days off, because, besides, I was told about the visa when I wast in the waiting room of a gynecologist about to have a biopsia done as my pap smear was not clear and they might had to perfor a small intervention, and i will have to take a few days off to rest. On top of that, my back is still hurting too much to be going around with suitcases and things. I would eat chocolate to feel better, but çi am getting I dontknowhowmanythings done in my mouth because i have a bunch of things to fix. I got that from my mum. And, all this, in English. Guess how can you tell the Orthopedist, after you find out what you call an orthopedist, that you have a kind of spreading pain that starts in your shoulder blade and goes up to I don'tknow ehre and when you move your arm like this...Besides, I was thinking about moving to a more central cheaper place. But As my fahter, who is wise, says " In troubled times better not to move"

Some things are more difficult when you are away. One of these days I was on the subway wondering if I would have come back, had I known how hard it was going to be with all these things. thatn, an old lady sat next to me, not looking at all like an old lady, an artist, who spoke Spanish and who would have liked to learn some southamerican indian language, and who had been a teacher in the public system of NYC for 30 years, and she said to me " Hay que tener cojones ", to be a teacher here. And she reminded me of the interesting things that happen in NY.
then, on my way to a DV8 production, I met a coreographer dancer that talked to me about the same. And we talked about belly dancing and flamenco, and rules...and had a laugh,.

And it happens that, New York, you give me the best and teh worst. It is so difficult and so wonderful to be with you

Y es que Nueva York, me das lo mejor y lo peor. Es tan difícil estar contigo.

Malabares con la vida

2008-10-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

Hace un par de semanas mi madre me dijo que ya la han puesto en la lista de espera para operarse. Así que, en principio, yo no había pensado ir ni nada, pero como mi padre tuvo un pequeño ataque al corazón hace tres o cuatro semanas, pensé que si la operan en Thanksgiving, lo mismo puedo coger tres días e ir una semana. Pero claro, resulta que mi tengo un problema con el visado, y el Department oof Education no quiere pagar el cambio, así que tendría que pagarlo la escuela. Así que me da cosa pedir días, porque además, justo me dijeron lo del visado cuando estaba en la sala de espera del ginecólogo que me tenía que hacer una biopsia porque la última citología no está clara, y lo mismo me tienen que hacer una pequeña intervención y tendré que pedir unos días de baja para hacer reposo. Ademá de que tengo la espalda bastante jodía todavía para andar con maletas y todo. Comería chocolate para aliviar mis penas, pero es que me están haciendo nosecuantas perrerías en la boca que tengo tropecientas cosas que arreglar. Herencia materna. Y además, todo esto, en inglés. Que vete a saber como le explicas tú al traumatólogo, después de saber cómo llaman al traumatólogo aquí, que tienes un dolor que te empieza en la paletilla pero se extiende por nosedonde y cuando mueves el brazo asín.... Además, quería mudarme de casa y buscar algo más céntrico y más barato. Pero como dice mi Padre, que es sabio, "En tiempo de tribulación, no hacer mudanza"

Ciertas cosas son más duras cuando estás lejos. El otro día iba en el metro y me preguntaba, si habría vuelto en el caso de haber sabido que iba a ser tan duro este año, con tantas cosas. Entonces se sentó junto a mí una mujer mayor, artista, que hablaba Español, que le habría gustado aprender alguna lengua indígena sudamericanana, que había sido profesora durante 30 años en el sistema público, y me dijo, en Español "Hay que tener cojones", para ser profesora. Y me recordó las cosas tan interesantes que pasan en Nueva York.
Y luego, camino de una producción de DV8, conocí a una bailarina coreógrafa que me hablo de lo mismo. Y hablamos sobre la danza del vientre y el flamenco, y las reglas...y nos reímos

Y es que Nueva York, me das lo mejor y lo peor. Es tan difícil y tan maravilloso estar contigo.

Playa de Fuego ( English; spanish below)

2008-10-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

I had read about the burningman festival so, when I heard that Playa de Fuego was a bruningman event taking place in a reachable place from New York, I decided to get there somehow.

I didn’t have a tent or anythingt and I can’t drive. I tried getting a lift, but didn’t seem to work. Eventually, the arrangement I got was taking a cheap chinatown bus to Willmington ( what is Willmington? I did not have a clue either) and somebody would pick me up from there.

I was there one day late, on Friday. On Thursday I bought a small tent, a big bag and lots of tuna tins, and bread; nothing can't be sold or bought where I was going. Then, I decided to start my way to PDF.

Friday afternoon. School is over. I take a taxi justo in time to get to Chinatown, with my bag full with what I had bought plus a borrowed sleeping bag, a torch, and my flute. I also took my cajón with a case which was almost as expensive as the cajon itself.
After the releif of getting on the bus, it is late. My lift calls, I tell him I’ll be late, and never answers back any more. So I get to Willmington Chinatown bus stop at 9:00 pm. Nobody there. Nobody answering. Me somewhere in a Chinatown in DE, waiting for somebody to go somewhere. After panicking a few times, a pick my phone up and call Puri in Spain, 3:00 am there.
“Puri, please, I need the number for Willmington taxi services and the address of PDF”
So she wakes up and checks it out for me and I get a taxi to the place, 20 miles and 75$ away. It was that or…. Or….One of those moment where there is no or ;)
The taxi leaves the highway and goes to secondary roads and ways, turns right and the corn… dead end…comes back, turns left at the corn field, and then another field comes alive. People going around carrying torches, real fire torches, at some gates “ Is this PDF?” “ Yes” Finally…I made it

I get my wrist band, drag my big bag through the gates and am directed to contact Camp.
5 minutes down the path, and there appears a smiling face “ Are you Ana? You made it” somebody waiting. How nice. I certainly did.

So I start building up the tent. They have changed a lot since the Canadian Style we had when I was little. This tent was 25$. With some help, I set it up, have a drink, a short stroll and go to bed. I have an air mattress, but I can’t find the plug. So I put my bag and my cajón in the tent and go to bed exhausted, since I left my flat in Harlem to go to school at 6:00 and it is 4:oo am. The things take half the tent, and it is cold, so I sleep with my coat.

7 am. It is freezing. I wake up looking for a fire. Sit next to it. This guy comes along eventually. 54..Nice. I talk to people for a while. A few peoplea around the fire, some have not slept, some are waking up. I look for a coffee to put in the boottle I am using to drink because I forgot a mug. We find some. We drink. He shows me round. We sit at Sexy Camp, he massages my back, says he plays the guitar, talks about music. I leave him to go to sleep. He never comes back to play with me, as he said he wanted to do. I get to my camp and go to sleep for a bit.
I find the plug to my mattress and blow it up. My mattress is bigger than my tent.
Somebody cooks brunch. Nice eating with the people of the camp. I trade mattresses with a couple who have a smaller one.
Now that I fit the mattress in the tent, my cajón and my bag can´t stay there, and I leave them aoutside.
We clean the dome and do some dancing. When my back hurts I take out the flute and play for them to dance. Class is over.
People walk around naked, half naked, dressed up, dressed. Everybody as they feel. Freedom
There is the foam slide contest. Naked people slide down a huge plastic on the floor, having fun enjoying, nice weather, nice music. Good fun. Sexy camp is holding a wedding.
Afther that I go to sleep. I wake up. It is going cold. I go for a shower. People practicing juggling, fire spinning, pole dancing…I join, I leave.
The showers consist of two cubibles with curtains. No door. Do not wash my hair.
The temperature drops down. Somebody else cooks dinner. Tonight, the pony is going to get burnt. I walk a bit. Drummers are setting up. I get the cajón and join them Peole still naked, or half naked, or not naked, or dressed up... fire spinners dance around the huge wooden pony at the sound of our drumming. Wonderful spinning and dancing- People cheers.
We go quiet. Didgeridoos move forward a start playing in the silence of the crowd. A flute plays. Then five people come to the centre of the circle with torches. They surround the pony and lift the torches People burst into cheers and shoutimg. The pony starts burning didgeridoos and shouting in the cool breeze that dances with the fire in the night We all watch the pony collapse and the flames raise higher. The drums start again and everybody runs to dance in circles around the fire.
I join them for a bit, and go back to drumming until, after a long long period of time the music ceases and people spread all over PDF again. Some stay watching the sparkles flying up from the fire into the darkness, creating it’s own dance with the distant music.
Somebody holds me. We lay next to the fire.I’ts barely 11 pm, but it seems deep into the night. The heat from the fire is nice. The temperature keeps dropping.
“Would you like to go and snuggle in my tent. We can look for a blanket”. I look around. It’s too early. Definitely, I have not taken all that hard work to get here, to go to bed this early…and without a blanket. I say goodbye and go from camp to camp, from fire to fire, from dance to dance… Spin the wheel at Whiskey and Whores, have to leg dance somebody for a whiskey shot. Keep dancing
At some point the cold is so nintense that all ther layer I have are not enough. I sit next to a fire, shivering. Eventually, City Bitch comes to me, half naked, and offers me a spare sleeping bag. How will she do it? I warm up and decided to go to sleep.

I get in my tent, four layers including a coat, and the air mattress, and two sleeping bags. It has not rained, but everything is wet.It's freezing cold.I swear I am bauying a frikking extra cold temperature sleeping bag.

I manage to get through a few hours at night. Twilight outside. I get up in the same clothes I went to bed, craving cofee and the warmth of a fire. There is water dripping inside the tent, like if it had rained for hours. I find the coffee. It warms my hands up. I find the fire. I sit down and listen to all type of conversations: Davind Lynch, the crisis, economy, music, people... The sun starts rising, the warm morning lights get thorugh the layers into my body: a zip of coffee, fire,sun...Some people leave, I stay. A morning DJ starts playing good music. I can't help myself and I start dancing, warming up, taking layers off.I dance for an hour until the sun is way up in the sky following me with the distant clouds, some people takes pictures, song after song, dancing on the grass in the morning sun until I feel sotired I want to go to sleep again.

I go back to contact Capm and clean the dome to nap in it, but then I see a yoga class starting. I join them. Some people are naked, some are not.

After yoga I get a a drink with the people at the camp. The class starts. Again, i have to stop because of my back. Then I am asked to play. Another flutist passes by and joins us. We improvise togetehr while they dance.
This is it. Time to sleep. I wake up, go for a walk, find a little dome. They are playing and singing. I get a rattle and join them. somebody singing says " Al PDF you don't loose your girlfriend, you just miss your turn". They something about me, they remember me playing the night before near teh fire. I play for a while. i say goodbye and leave to go for a shower. It is getting dark again, and cold.

I don't wear that many layers tonight. Put some tul around two pigtails. Very eighties. I have a drink at the camp. Somebody is offering dinner somewhere. I have some food and then go dancing around. Back an Whiskey and Whores. Looking for a ride back, i think I have one.

somebody calls me " Hey". He was in the morning fire. and offers me some strange sweet wine from a bottle. He tells me the pirate ship that was the symbol of one camp is getting burnt. We go there. There is playing and dancing. this time I dance around and around the fire. until i am tired. He gives me more wine. heh as a blankett. Lies to me about his age, he says he is older than he is. He has a blankett. We go to sleep. It is not as cold tonight.

i wake up and leave. Forget my scarf. They have a fire near the tent. People talking. I stay until the sun rises. Everybody leaves but one man. Eventually, we go searching for a coffe.
This time it gets more difficult. People are waking up and packing. finally we smell it. Two nice people in a tent. She is a wiccan. He tells us about his art projects.

Time to pack. I help to put the dome down. I put the tent up, packing everything. Time to leave
my scarf is brought to me. Somebody takes me to the bus with two more people.

i get home just in time for Jose to call me, my radio coneection with spain in "La Sábana", in Canal Extremadura Radio.
On my way back I hear people talking about somebody dead, probably youngsters. Back in New York. It is difficult to adjust to life again. Like if eerything was a dream

But life is there. It does notgive me a chance to rest and keeps tossing me around. And I keep dancing on.

PHOTOS TO COME

for anothe short video with fire gogos and some music, click here

Playa de Fuego ( Español)

2008-10-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

Había leído algo del Burningman festival, de forma que, cuando me enteré de que Playa de Fuego era una festival de burningman que iba a tener lugar no muy lejos de Nueva York, decidí llegar hasta allí de alguna manera.

No tenía ni tienda ni nada, y no puedo conducir. Intenté conseguir alguien que me llevara, pero no parecía conseguirlo. Al final, conseguí un arreglo: compré los billetes para un autobús barato que salía de Chinatown hasta Willmington ( qué es Willmington? yo tampoco tenía ni idea) y alguien me iba a recoger allí

Iba a llegar un día tarde, el viernes. El jueves compré una tienda pequeña, una bolsa grande y un montón de latas de atún y pan; nada se puede comprar ni vender a donde iba. Entonces, decidí comenzar mi camino a PDF.

Viernes por la tarde. El instituto ha terminado. Cojo un taxi para llegar justo a tiempo a Chinatown, con mi bolsa repleta de todas las cosas que he comprado más un saco de dormir prestado, un farol a pilas y mi flauta. También me llevé el cajón en una funda que me costó casi tanto como el mismo cajón.
Después del alivio de subirme al autobús, es tarde. El que me iba a llevar llama. Llegaré tarde, y no vuelve a contestar nunca más. Así que llego al Chinatown de Willmington a las nueve. No hay nadie. Nadie contesta. Yo en algún sitio en Chinatown en Delaware, esperando a alguien para ir a algún sitio. Después de unos momentos de pánico, cojo el teléfono y llamo a mi amiga Puri a España, las tres de la mañana allí.
"Puri, por favor, necesito el número de los servicios de Taxi de Willmingon y la dirección de Playa de Fuego". Así que se levanta y me lo busca, y cojo un taxi hasta el lugar, a 35 km y 75$ de distancia.Es eso o... o... Uno de esos momentos donde no hay o ;)

El taxi deja la autopista y va por carreteras secundarias y caminos, tuerce a la derecha en el campo de maíz... carretera cortada... vuelve y tuerce a la izquierda en el míz, y otro campo toma vida. La gente va de un lado para otro llevando antorchas en una puerta " ¿ Es eto PDF" "Sís" Por fin... Lo conseguí

Me dan mi pulsera, arrastro mi bolsa gigante a través de las puertas y me dirigen a Contact Camp. 5 minutos bajando por el camino, y allí aparece una cara sonriente "¿Ere Ana? ¡Lo conseguiste!". ¡Qué agradable! Ciertamente... lo conseguí...

Así que empiezo a poner la tienda. Han cambiado mucho desde la canadiense que tenía cuando era pequeña con mi familia. Esta tienda me ha costado 25 $. Con un poco de ayuda, la pongo, me tomo algo, un paseo y me voy a la cama. Tengo un colchón de aire, pero no puedo encontrar el a. Así que pongo la bolsa y el cajón en la tienda y me voy a dormir, exhausta, ya que dejé mi casa de HArlem para ir a clase a las seis de la mañana, y son las cuatro de la mañana. Las cosas ocupan la mitad de la tienda, y hace frío, así que duermo con el abrigo.

Las 7 de la mañana. Hace un frío que pela. Me levanto buscando un fuego. Me siento junto a él. un tío viene. 54. Agradable. Hablo con la gente un rato. Hay unos pocos junto al fuego. Algunos no ha dormido, algunos se levantan. Busco un café para poner en la botella del Starbucks que estoy usando apra beer, porque se me ha olvidado coger una taza. encontramos café. Bebemos. Me enseña el festival. nos setamos en el Sexy Camp., me da un masaje en la espalda, dice que toca la guitarra, habla de música. Le dejo y me voy a dormir. Nunca vuelve para tocar como dijo que haría. Me vuelvo a mi Camp y me duermo un rato

Encuentro el tapón de mi colchón y lo inflo. Mi colchón es más grande que mi tienda. Alguien cocina el brunch. Es agradable comer con la gente del campamento. Cambió el colchón por uno más pequeño con una pareja. Ahora que pongo el colchón e n la tienda, no caben ni la bolsa ni el cajón, y los tengo que sacar fuera..

Limpiamos la bóveda y bailamos un poco. Cuando me duele la espalda, saco la flauta y toco para que bailen. La clase termina
La gente se pasea desnuda, medio desnuda, vestida, disfrazada. Todo el mundo según le apetece. Libertad. Hay un concurso del tobogán de jabón. Gente desnuda se desliza por un plástico puesto en el suelo, divirtiéndose, un tiempo agradable, música agradable. Mucha diversión. Hay una boda en Sexy Camp.
Después , me voy a dormir. Me levanto. Hace frío. Me voy a la ducha. La gente practica malabares, malabares con fuego, pole dancing... Me uno a ellos, me voy.
Las duchas son dos pequeño cubículos con cortinas. Sin puertas. No me lavo la cabeza
La temperatura sigue bajando drásticamente. Alguien cocina la cena. Esta noche van aquemar el Pony. Paseo un poco. Los percusionistas se están preparando. Cojo el cajón y me uno a ellos. La gente, todavía desnuda, no no desnuda o disfrazada...malabaristads de fuego bailan alrededor del enorme pony de madera al son de nuestros tambores. Maravillosos malabares y bailes. La gente grita.
Nos callamos. Los didgeridoos se ponen delante y empeizan a tocar en el silencio de la multitud. Una flauta también toca. Entonces, cinco personas se acercan al centro del círculo con antorchas. Rodean al pony y levantan lan antorchas. La multitud estalla en gritos. El pony comienza a arder, didgeridoos y gritos en la brisa helada que baila con el fuego en la noche. Vemos como el pony se cae y las llamas se alzan más altas. los tambores comenzamos otra vez y todo el mundo baile en círculos alrededor del fuego.
Me uno a ellos un rato, y vuelvo a tocar hasta que, después de un rato largo, la música se para y la gente se dispersa por PDF otra vez. Algunos se quedan mirando como las chispas vuelan desde el fuego hacia la oscuridad, creando su propia danza con la música distante.
Alguien me abraza. Nos tumbamos junto al fuego. Apenas son las 11, pero parece que es mucho más tarde. el calor del fuego es muy agradable. La temperatura sigue bajando.
"¿Te gustaría que nos fueramos y nos abrazamos en la tienda? Podemos buscar una manta" Mir a mi alrededor. No he gastado tanto esfuerzo para llegar aquí, apra ahora irme a dormir a las once...y sin manta. digo adiós y voy de camp en camp, de fuego en fuego, de baile en baile...Juego a la ruleta del Whiskey and Whores y tengo bailar de forma sexy con alguien a cambio de un chupito de Whiskey. sigo bailando.
En cierto momento, el frío es tan intenso que todas las capas que llevo no son suficientes. Me siento junto a un fuego, temblando. City Bitch viene hacia mi, medio desnuda, y me ofrece un saco de dormir que tiene de sobra. Me pregunto cómo lo hará. me caliento un poquito y me voy a dormir.
Me meto en la tienda, cuatro capas incluyendo un abrigo, el colchón de aire y dos sacos de dormir. No ha llovido, pero todo está mojado. Hace un frío de la muerte... de la muerte muerte...prometo comprarme un puto saco de dormir extra térmico para temperaturas polares.
Consigo pasar un par de horas por la noche. Fuera, el crepúsculo. Me levanto con la misma ropa con la que fui a la cama, necesitando desesperadamente un café y el cálido descanso de un fuego. Hay agua goteando dentro de la tienda, como si hubiera lllovido durante horas. Encuentro el café. Me calienta las manos. Encuentro el fuego. Me siento y escucho todo tipo de conversaciones: David Lynch, la economía, la crisis,mmúsica, gente...El sol empeiza a salir, la cálida luz de la mañana atraviesa las capas hasa mi cuerpo: un sorbo de café, el fuego, el sol... Algunos se van, yo me quedo. Un DJ matutino empieza a poner buena música. No me puedo resistir y comienzo a bilar, entrando en calor, quitándome capas. Bailo durante una hora hasta que el sol está arriba en el cielo, siguiéndome con las nubes distantes, alguna gente hace fotos, canción tras canción, bailando en la hiuerba al sol matutino hasta que estoy tan cansada que me quiero ir a dormir otra vez.
Vuelvo al campamento de Contact y limpio la bóveda para dormir, pero veo que empieza una clase de yoga. Algunos están desnudos, algunos no.
Después de yoga me tomo una caipiriña con la gente del campp. La calse comienza. De nuevo, tengo que parar por mi espalda. Me piden que toque. otro flautista pasa junto a nosotros y se nos une. improvisamos juntos mientras bailan.
ya está. Hora de dormir. Me levanto y me voy a dar un paseo, hasta una pequeña cúpula. Están tocando y cantando. Cojo una especie de maraca y me uno. Alguien canta " En PDF no pierdes la novia, solo pierdes el turno" dicen algo sobre mmí, me recuerdan de la noche anterior, tocando junto al fuego. Toco un rato. Digo adiós y me voy a duchar. otra vez la noche empieza a caer, y está haciendo frío.

No llevo tantas capas esta noche. Me pongo un tul alrededor de dos coletar. Muy ochentero. Me tomo otra caipiriña en el camp. Alguien está ofreciendo la cena en algún sitio. COmo algo y me voy por ahí , a bailar. Vuelvo al Whiskey and Whores. Busco alguien que me lleve de vuelta. creo que lo consigo.
Alguien me llama " Hey"Estaba en el campamento de la mañana, y me ofrece un extraño vino dulce de frutas. Me dice que van a quemar el campo pirata que era el símbolo de unod e los campamentos. Vamos allí. hay música y baile. Esta vez, bailo alrededor del fuego, hasta que estoy cansada. Me da más vino. tiene una ventana. Me miente sobre sue dad, dice que es mayor de lo que es. tiene unamanta. Vamos a dormir. Esta noche no hace tanto frío.
Me despierto y me voy. Me olvido el pañuelo. Tienen un fuego junto a la tienda. hay gente hablando. Me quedo hasta que sale el sol. Todo el mundo se va, menos uno. al final, vamos a buscar un cafe
Esta vez es más difícil. La gente está levantádonse y yéndose. Finalmente, olemos café. Hay dos personas en la tienda. Ella es wiccana. El nos habla de sus proyectos de arte

Hora de hacer la maleta. ayudo a desmantelar la bóveda. Quito la tienda, empaquetándolo todo. hora de irme. me devuelve el pañuelo. Alguien me lleva al autobús con más gente.

Llego a casa justo a tiempo para que me llame Jose, mi conexión radiofónica con España en " La Sábana", en Canal Extremadura RAdio.
De vuelta a casa escucho a alguien hablar sobre un muerto, seguramente joven. De vuelta en Nueva York. Es difícil volver a la vida normal. Como sito do hubiese sido un sueño.

Pero la vida esta ahí. No me da una oportunidad de descansar y me sigue llevando de un lado para otro. Y yo sigo bailando

FOTOS PRONTO

PAra un poco de música y gogos de fuego, pincha aquí.

Paper rose/ Rosa de papel

2008-09-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

Each morning, I am given a paper rose.

Here, in New York, everybody races around, up and down the train, all packed. Nobody stops to have a coffee. So you buy your coffee from little mobile carts laying on the streets.
There is a little cart next to the train stop where I get off. And two nice men in them, one of them really tall and good-looking, with a beautiful smile.

Everyday, he smiles at me. He puts my coffee on a paper bag, and rolls the top, so it looks like a rose. Sometimes, he even puts a white seviette in the middle , to make a white heart in my brown paper flower.

And this way, each morning, I am given a paper rose, when the darkness does not want got go away and the day stretches languidly.

When the loneliness that impregnates the night start disappearing. When the night in which the shadows of fears and worries, shadows that shape in the darkness to hold us under the sheets, mixes together with the day. When the first light makes these vanish into the air, leaving behind the trace of a real concern turned into a dream for a night. After the mind finds magic solutions and desperately tries to disseminate anxieties and fears, creating dreams that numb sadness, which starts running back through your veins with the first breath of the wakefulness.

After the night, but before the day.

Before going back into the fight. Before frustration and limits. Before reality becomes overwhelming. Before everyday problems become forms, insurances, doctors, telephones, pupils, people, colleagues, memories, hopes, fears…Before life

In between sleep and wakefulness, he gives me a paper rose with a serviette heart. I look into his eye, his smile warms my heart up, and I cant avoid a huge grin in my face, beyond the day, beyond the night.

And there is no other rose in the world I would change mine for.

My paper rose.

Cada día, por la mañana, me dan una rosa de papel

Aquí, en Nueva York, todo el mundo corre de un lado a el otro, arriba y abajo del tren, hasta los topes. Nadie se para a tomar un café. Así que se compra el café en pequeños carritos que hay en la calle.
Hay una carrito al lado de la parada de metro donde me bajo. Y dos hombres muy agradables en él, uno muy guapo, con una sonrisa preciosa.
Cada día, me sonríe. Me pone el café en una bolse de papel, y enrollla la parte de arriba para que parezca una rosa. A veces, incluso pone una servilleta blanca en medio, para hacer un corazón blanco en mi flor de papel.

Y, así, cada mañana, me dan una rosa de papel, cuando la oscuridad no termina de querer irse y el día se despereza lánguidamente.

Cuando la soledad que impregna la noche comienza a desaparecer. Cuando la noche en la que se refugian las sombras de los miedos y preocupaciones, sombras que toman forma en la oscuridad para abrazarnos debajo de las sábanas, se mezcla con el día. Cuando la primera luz hace que éstas se desvanezcan en el aire, dejando atrás el rastro de una inquietud real convertida en sueño por una noche. Despues de que la mente encuentre soluciones mágicas e intente desesperadamente difuminar angustias y temores, regalándonos sueños que adormecen la tristeza, la cual vuelve a correr por las venas con la primera respiración de la vigilia.

Depués de la noche, pero antes del día.

Antes de volver a la lucha. Antes de las frustraciones y los límites. Antes de que la realidad se convierta en abrumadora. Antes de que los problemas cotidianos se transformen en formularios, seguros, médicos, teléfonos, alumnos, personas, compañeros, recuerdos, esperanzas, miedos... Antes de la vida.

Entre el sueño y la vigilia, me da una rosa de papel con un corazón de servilleta. Yo le miro a los ojos. Su sonrisa me da calor en el pecho, y no puedo evitar una sonrisa enorme, más allá de la noche, más allá del día.
Y no hay ninguna otra rosa en el mundo, por la que cambiaría la mía.

Mi rosa de papel.