Back to the Present

Quick update on me for anyone who gives a damn before I proceed to post on some sick shit: Head has been pulled out of ass and am finally thinking in present tense instead of past. Pat on back. Nothing like a good massage and having your hairs ripped out by the roots by a fucking sadist to put you in the present.

I am in awe right now.

In-law Land never ceases to amaze me. Although this is the place of weird flamenquín fans I discussed earlier, it is also the place where Bob Dylan just played, so it has something going for it in my book that it never had before. There are two other things In-Law Land has that are high on my list right now of things that make my eyes roll back into my head with pleasure:

1) A kick-ass massage
2) A thorough wax job (I told you I get embarrassingly personal).

Let´s start with the latter because I have bitched many a blue streak (in real life, not yet on my blog) about waxing, hair removal, and the endless-hell-that-is-my-ape-like-albeit-blonde-body. If it were not toxic, I would superglue every single hair follicle on my body shut after first having each hair ripped out to its death. I don´t care if it isn´t natural or if I have bought into sexist consumer culture and the barrage against women convincing them that they should go through these painful procedures in order to remain youthful and sexy. Blah blah blah. Bullshit. Hair is sick. Get. Off. Of. Me.

I´m actually one of these weird people that gets pleasure from getting waxed (that is once I get over the initial fear that the aesthetician’s jaw will drop to the ground and then she will proceed to tell me that I am the hairiest individual she has ever laid eyes on). I actually like the feeling of having my hairs ripped out. I know that is weird, especially since and I have zero tolerance for pain normally and if you come near me with a syringe I will pass out before you get within 3 feet of me.

DISCLAIMER: Proceed only if you can bear TMI (too much information):

Spain is full of waxers, and this is where I was turned onto the whole joy of it all. But for some damn reason the ole U.S. of A. has surpassed Spain in the waxing of the nether regions (i.e. Brazilians, thanks Sex and the City). When it comes to that area of the body (the area that really matters) wax jobs SUCK here, and by here I mean the whole fucking city of Seville because my hairiness has been around town, believe me. Brazilian, Caribbean, what the hell does all this mean?? They still do not get all the effing hair off. I am sorry but there are certain areas of my body that I should not have to ask to be serviced (that sounds gross, I am talking about getting waxed here…Ok, admittedly still gross), it should be understood. No words should be exchanged. They should just think to themselves “Aaaw, honey, trust me, you don´t want that there….let me just…RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” and then life would be golden.

Lucky for me, this happens in In law Land. They are ahead of the hair-game. They are ahead of their time for being such a small Andalusian city. Maybe they watch more late-night free Spanish T.V. porn and know what the nether regions are “supposed” to look like in 2008.

As for the massage, I was delightfully surprised the other day when I spent the day at the spa and got a GREAT massage. Normally it is like someone tickling you with a feather over here, they do not seem to get that they need to actually work at it and bust some muscle into it.

So here I am today in the NOW, happy, relaxed, muscles that feel like butter, hairless and loving it. The present is good right now. My past was much too hairy….but those were the 90´s. It´s forgivable.

-Bluestreak

Lice, Flamenquines....camp.

I have been a little distracted lately and have not been able to post. Ok, very distracted. VERY.

Somehow, someone thought it was a good idea to put me in charge of 53 pre-teens for a two week, lice-filled summer camp. So I have been a tad busy. By some miracle I escaped unscathed and lice-free, but much more addicted to cigarettes.

Camp has made me realize that I need to be around people more, even if they are dwarf-shaped and completely insane (i.e. children). It is good to be out of my cave.

Camp also made me realize that I have a limit to the number of flamenquines I can consume in one lifetime, despite my uncanny ability to eat almost anything that is put in front of me. If you do not know what flamenquines are, imagine a corn-dog without the stick. I know that does not sound good, but now, imagine you are eating the corn-dog and everyone around you is trying to convince you it is some kind of fucking delicacy. Believe me, I am all for fried phallic food, that is, if I am at the Idaho State Fair talking to some dude with a mullet and missing teeth. Flamenquines are stickless, glorified corn-dogs, whose only missing element is the fair ride that allows you to vomit the thing up afterwards with ease.

Yesterday was the last day of summer camp. Once all the kiddies were with their respective parents, we headed to in-law land to pay a visit. Requests to eat out at a restaurant that was mildly non-cateto were ignored as usual. I whispered to my husband upon entering the restaurant of choice, "If they serve us one of those fucking corn-dogs I´m outta here" (empty threats, of course).

Luckily, by the time the famous flamenquines had arrived I had downed the precise number of beers which allow me to surpass the bitch threshold and no longer cared what dish I was about to eat nor which health codes had been violated in its preparation.

I ate the flamenquin.

Then I sat silent while everyone talked about how fucking great flamenquines are and how in Cordoba they are the size of a kids arm and are sometimes filled with shellfish. I closed my eyes, controlled my vomit reflex out of politeness, while really wishing for a Tilt-A-Whirl, a Yo-Yo, or a Gravitron.


Yessssssss.

-Bluestreak

P.S. I´m quitting smoking today. Fer reals.

Photos from Flickr:

On On The The Yo Yo by base10

The-Claw-III by thephotoholic

Outgrown

2:00 a.m. Alone, weird apartment in España profunda (Alomartes, Granada -- DON´T google it). Don´t ask.

I have no idea how I ended up here.

I am thinking of the sweetest, truest words I have heard from any friend in a long time:

"You have outgrown your old self".





Thank you.

And I am thinking "Anda que la vida no da vueltas ni ná".

Then, four nut-covered chocolate donuts later I am thinking, "What´s so bad about a fat ass?".

-former aerobics instructor, current donut overdoser, Bluestreak.

artwork from Flickr by nuanc

Death by hyphen

I´ve been SUCH a bitch lately.

Why are you crying? I don´t KNOW. I´m angry and I don´t know what or who it´s directed at. You hate the house, job? Yes. Is that why your a such a mess? MAYBE.

Is it possible that I remember happier times, but in those times I wasn't really happy either, I was just thinking about the past remembering illusive better times or obsessed with the future? That this might be the case does not bug me nearly as much as not knowing for sure if that was the case or not. Was I ever happy before or not??? What am I, fucking senile?

I'm sad. I'm cry-your-eyes-out-over-that-song-from-the-mixed-tape-someone-gave-you-eleven,yes,eleven-years-ago-sad.



I'm get-your-life-turned-upside-down-because-of-a-fucking-sunflower-field-with-just-the-right-light-sad.

I am feeling the drawbacks of the information age. It is not natural to be able to know about peoples lives from your past just by googling them. These are ghosts that never rest in peace. Facebook is the spawn of the devil.

I'm angry too. I'm be-a-bitch-to-my-sweet-husband-no-good-reason-angry. He cannot avoid my ridiculous whatever-crisis. He is dodging my fly-away bullets that I am shooting at myself and whatever moves. I can't even decide what kind of a crisis it is I'm going through (Thirties crisis? Identity crisis? Cultural crisis? I´ve-turned-into-a-total-sell-out-and-have-given-up-on-my-dreams-crisis? Should-I-have-a-kid-or-is-my-life-gonna-get-a-million-times-more-complicated-if-I-do-crisis?). If I knew I could read some self-help book or watch Oprah and shut the hell up. Marriage blows, especially when you are married to me right now. I KNOW, babe.

I talk to a good friend, my real-life friend. Talking to M is like getting a free 1/2 hour therapy session on the phone. That is, if by therapy you mean, having someone tell you all your problems with go away if you just reproduce. "You only think about what an inconveience kids are, you don't know the good" Why couldn´t I have just gotten knocked up and not have to deal with torturous decisions, this constant state of examination of if I should have kids and what it will mean, and blah-di-blah-di-blah. I seriously wish I had gotten knocked up five years ago and avoided the whole overanalyzation-of-when-is-the-right-time-part. Can someone just give me a kid? Drop it off at my house, all helpless and cute and little, and force me to make this decision, cause apparently I have gotten to the point over the years of being absolutely incapable of it.

I was better at this 5-6 years ago when I KNEW what I was doing. Hello, no one was gonna stand in my way. Cabezona. Or at least had the illusion of knowing what I was doing. THAT is the feeling I miss. THAT is happiness. Feeling 100% sure your decisions are the right ones. I guess that is what being young is and making impulsive decisions that will forever inform the rest of your life.

Ah, Cariño. I love you. I could never be without you, I never could before, no matter how dumb of an idea it seeemed for us to try to make this thing work being from different continents. I'm here fully aware that this life is gonna be rough being over here, in this place that I blame everything on. Leaving you would be like gnawing off my own arm, leaving here like amputating part of my spirit. But that doesn't mean I'm not gonna suck to be married to sometimes. It doesn't mean I'm never gonna look back and be sad for roads not taken. Sorry 'bout that. P.S. wanna have a kid?

Clip from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

artwork from flickr:

Mixed tape love by e.c.

and

The last Sunflower by Bernat

This Blog Post Cancels itself Out.

Ok I only have two nouns in my head right now. One is “drag” and the other is the Spanish equivalent, “coñazo”, so I guess I will use arithmetic to get my point across:

Lack of Inspiration +Homesickness +thirty something crisis + identity crisis - living arrangements I am happy with - a job I like = a blog that is a drag to read.

So, nothing has come to me lately to blog about that does not sound like me whining and feeling sorry for myself, and while trying to think of a topic that would be fun to write about, I started thinking about the fact that I blog and it is making me feel anti-blog. It all just irks me somewhat, it just feels so narcissistic. I feel like it is on par with gathering a group of people in a room and orating a speech to them and then waiting for them to comment on my brilliance or at the very least not stone me to death. I would never do that (wait, what am I saying? I did that all through grad school and considered it to be the closest thing to torture I have ever felt).

So why do I blog? I guess it is more for my sake than others. Hey, maybe I like to hear myself talk and am interested in subjects that I would bring up. Come on, do I really think I have something valuable to say to you, the consumer of information about my fucking boring life? Some people blog as an escape from their normal lives. I suspect that such is the case of THIS GUY, probably THIS GUY, and most definitely THIS GUY. Other people I know blog to keep family and friends informed about their lives abroad, posting pictures and updates, which I think is great, but I feel like facebook and my picasa web albums get that job done for me. Besides, I do not need my family members having their suspicions confirmed about how disturbed I am, which is why I like to be at least somewhat anonymous here (ok, so my siblings are allowed here, but if they do not already know that I am somewhat disturbed they must not have been paying attention since, say, birth).

Weirdly enough in light of all of this, I think about ways I can get more traffic to my blog. Why on earth I would do such a thing? Once I had to give an hour and a half lecture on the Sociology of Religion to a SOC 101 class of about 150 college kids, the memories of which are mostly suppressed and the rest are filed away under “Most Terrifying Experience Ever”. So, why would I possibly want a lot of readers? Don´t know, I´m stumped.

Ok, so there it is, a blog post about blog posts. My e-world is going to implode in on itself any second now. I promise next time, dear avid readers, to post on something only slightly more interesting than a pile of rocks but probably slightly less interesting that picking your nose.



I just can´t blog about Spain right now, I can´t even complain about it. Because right now I just want to kick it in the cojones. Sorry.

Artwork from Flickr by scarlet_rose77

MOSAIC

I don´t usually do these kinds of things, but I thought this one was really cool.

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Where do you live?

Here's how mine came out:

Where are all the men? A research proposal

The other day it dawned on me that after living here for the past three years, I have an abundance of American girl friends and not a single male American friend. Even when I was studying abroad here ten years ago, the vast majority of the students on my program were women. Here in Seville, as an expat, you can join the American Women´s Club, but to my knowledge, there is no American Club for men and women (at least not in Seville).

I have never really been a girlie girl, have always mixed socially with both men and women indiscriminately, and looking back note that my greatest girl friends have been slightly tomboyish. Girls night out in fact, is a new concept for me, and even seems a little weird sometimes. And while I love my americanitas (could not live without them), I am starting to realize that I miss the company of American men in a social setting.

So where the hell are all the American men?

In an effort to distract myself from my dreadfully boring job and being the sociologist that I am, I would like to examine this matter further. Here are my research questions for my imaginary study:

Is there a substantial difference between the rates of emigration of American men compared to American women?

Does gender inform country of choice? (i.e. are American men less likely to emigrate to a country like Spain, whereas they are more likely to emigrate to a country like Japan or Germany?...If so, why?)

Do American women have more tolerance for permanent cultural change due to how we are socialized?

Is there a difference between men and women with regard to retention in a foreign country (I mean, are women more likely to stay after spending time abroad and men are more likely to return home after a time?)

My admittedly weak hypothesis that is based on no real data other than my own experience is that most American men in Spanish-American relationships end up living permanently in the U.S. with their Spanish partners, whereas American women in Spanish-American relationships end up in Spain. Why? I think that in mixed Spanish-American marriages, traditional roles and expectations of gender are a factor in determining whether or not women will stay in a foreign country long term (that is, we American women are more likely to “follow our men” because it is ingrained in our skulls that that is what the good wifey does), whereas American men are more likely to convince their Spanish wives/girlfriends to go back to their country (cause that is what good Spanish mujercitas do too, follow their men). I could be way off here, which is why I should carry out the study and find out. Any thoughts? (or stones to throw at me?)

The main problem I can see with my study is that it would be impossible to get rates of emigration. There is no official data of who leaves the country and where they go. Anyone have any ideas of how one could obtain a list of emigrators that would be representative of all American emigrators?

Now I just need to quit my job, go back to an academic setting and do sociological studies all day. Is that asking so much?