jueves 4 septiembre 2003
TIJUANA, BAJA CALIFORNIA. Last night walked around the park at sunset shortly after seven p.m. it was the lingering light fast fading away ah yes autumn is coming, sweet, cooling autumn on the coast of California where Mexico rises up from New Spain into the north, into the distant cold, into
Not so many families this week, all the kids are going back to school, all the chavos and chavas walking the early evening street in the class uniforms, brown, blue, white, plaid, clusters of the future citizens, ten, twelve, fifteen years old, books in their arms, backpacks on some of their shoulders, boys and girls young men and women laughing it is only the first week of school and everything is new and fresh and yes it is good to be young,
what did that old fart Julius Caesar say....
that the only problem with youth is it is wasted on the young
well maybe it wasn't him, maybe it was Hitler instead I don't remember who said it
heh heh no don't misunderstand me I don't want to be a child my childhood sucked they all made fun of me because I was fat and smart no not that again please I have spent too much time on this earth already I must be middle aged for this soon of years and then I will be getting really really old and then
besides I have always preferred autumn, yes.
Walked up Cinco de Mayo street, no, es una avenida, Danial, three blocks, no, two and something, and into the Lugar del Nopal. Max had told me about a photography exhibition opening there last night. I sat in the corner and had two glasses of red wine which on my empty stomach went STRAIGHT to my head and I could barely scribble from memory the poems I want to send to the Indiana Review "Between Cultures" call for . . . well, here, here's what they said on their web page at http://www.indiana.edu/~inreview/general/wbcissue.html
Yeah well, perhaps you can see why I find it so attractive....
I ran into a couple of people I know and they mentioned how I was sitting in my corner scribbling away, oh yes, I said, trying to explain about the contest, in my still adequated but very far from perfect language and thinking meanwhile how Yepez mentioned Bernstein yesterday in his blogita language language langugageelleleleladnaandald
Oh no, she laughed last night, smoking a long cigarette -- you can still smoke in restaurants and bars in Mexico, but not for long I fear -- oh no there is absolutely nothing of hybridism or transculturalism here! Ha ha ha ha....
God I love this place
Indiana Review invites submissions for a special issue about marginal identities, immigrant experiences, transnationalism and hybridity. We are looking for poems, stories, and creative nonfiction that explore and complicate the ways race, gender, class, national identity and sexuality collide and overlap.
But honestly, who wouldn't love it? A gentle walk up the street from the evening park. A cool wine bar to kick back and sip earthy red from the dusty hills of Baja California. Just enough money to have two glasses for seven dollars... next time buy the carafe for nine.... Attractive, intelligent people to talk with, who actually seem to understand my still foreign tongue. And the struggle to iron out the wrinkles in a new poem I've been working on and almost got right last night
en la calle
a street vagabond keeps her stuff inside a meter box on the wall makes her toilette in window glass beside a beauty shop "estética" two young women walk by eating much better-dressed nachos I only write this plastic bowl to hold them both
Tomorrow is my mother's birthday. I went to Jorge Espinoza's jewelry store on Revolution back in the arcade passage oy how to describe it... how to explain where it is... mmm well, go check out the San Diego big newspaper's site at http://www.signonsandiego.com/bajaguide/silver.html and scrill down to where they say:
Best shops in Tijuana Jorge Espinosa has been one of most respected names in fine silver for decades in Tijuana....
Okay Sandra, I know, I know, I told you it was WRNg to read your paper onion baboob, but... well, it's a source, yes, and makes its advertisements pay them worthwhile yes to get ahold of us little readers, and here's some more
anyway I had a delightful time chatting with Jorge -- his English is excellent and his Spanish is very very proper and he is magnificently courteous like a real Mexican gentlemen well hell, that is what he is, after all, not to mention a damn good jeweler if you will pardon my anglo saxon vulgarity or Frenchwhatever
and after a bit of talk and thought I bought a couple of pair of earrings from him and looked at some necklaces oh my I wish I could afford those....
Well things could be worse. At least my mom doesn't have to keep her stuff in a hole in the wall on the street, no.
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