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The success of the polls have tipped.
Psychoanalysts say that writers bury frustrations under words, but don't solve them. I suppose, when one wanders into this little page, I seem to be the most extremely frustrated human being.
"Do you enjoy being the only human being amongst robots?"
"Oui. I love the fact that I can bend my legs."
Everyone plays in the streets. A punk teenager. An old man with his blue folk guitare. Everyone plays in the streets.
Eveyrone, in the streets.
When I was young I pretended to be a robot. How I wanted shiny armour over my face, how I wanted collapsible feet with rockets underneath.
The success of the polls have tipped. Contrary to popular belief, I find it amazing, being human.
Dusty stones and dirty dogs
Days are moving quicker, especially now; I've kept very quiet about it but there are so much things to think about and so many things to do that as an antithesis to it all I simply find myself falling to bed and falling asleep at once.
But to wake up sometime is a good idea: everything moves and I feel like I'm watching someone else getting ready, a move to France, a move to new lives, staring under bright lights at circles on my hand, trying to figure out which one is best, which one is for keeps.
What people don't know is that three years ago in Marinduque Julien and I exchanged dusty stones at the foot of the old antique house we were staying in. This was the closest thing to perfection, that afternoon in a foreign island where people spoke a different language, where he and I were the only ones who understood what we wanted to say. A dirty dog watched our little exchange from the corner, scratching himself behind his ear, urgently. Like I said, the perfect engagement.
Tuesdays come and go
Anyway there are lines of songs that keep floating in and out of my head these past few days, staying in bed and only getting up to add something to a slowly emerging portfolio of works, and wondering what I should really do. Almost as if, I'd had enough of this imaginary pilgrimage to Mecca, of facing one side and kneeling on worn out knees, making a some sort of declaration, trying to prove some kind of point. But, who do you really prove points to? To yourself? Or to others? Do you earn stripes serving your country in the war, or does the war end up colouring stripes across your body, maybe someday when you're six feet under, face covered in blood, limbs unrecognizable and strewn and scattered with a trumpet playing a mournful but heart warming rendition of the National anthem in your dead ears, with three shots ringing out and the flag placed revently across your belly...
Now how did I digress to war, I don't know, I don't know anything, and I'm really feeling like I should enter a confessional booth and ask a clown for penance. Maybe he'll say, "Okay, ten jokes, two sarcastic remarks, five puns and an act of contrition", and I'll feel better.
Or maybe it's just plain boredom and hanging out doesnt seem so very alluring anymore, and the encouragement of others saying "you're doing this for art" isn't so enticing anymore, but then if not for art then what am I doing this for, and I refuse to believe I would do something I wasn't happy doing, I'm not that type of person, I refuse to be the person who lives life like a death sentence stamped on his forehead, no, it must all be for something, but for what, then?
And when I talk to people who are serious and practical they tell me that my dissatisfaction is normal because I'm doing something abnormal and my senses are bound to knock me off my feet sooner or later, but I looked inside my soul this afternoon, during that perfect moment when sun hits your face and it's orange and gorgeous and no, it's not about positions, it's not about money and it's not about being different because when I think of it maybe there aren't any differences in the world, only subtle alterations, between smiles and frowns it's just a smile upside down, not necessarily opposites.
But now I'm talking about opposites when I just convinced myself earlier that everything has an opposite, for which I'm glad because it complements everything.
I finished a stupid murder mystery paperback this morning and I swallowed the story like one would swallow a live fish - I can't believe people can write such crap when they can write about opposites and war and death sentences and make up theories that will aim to reach for something broken... wouldn't that be beautiful, to quietly aim for imperfection? Why is everyone so obsessed with being pretty and charming and adoring to the public? I don't understand it... Everyone is interesting, everyone has an interesting side, as long as they put aside the fronts they put on for the public. Fronts. Fronts, as in war fronts, and I feel like I'm peering from a hole over barbed wire, in my fatigues and my helmet.
So. In conclusion. Should I smile and say, "Oh, it's all so satisfying, I'm just going to Mecca, I just confessed to a clown and he gave me penance: Why did the chicken cross the road?" Or should I just admit to you that I've been trying to visualize all day how a turtle would look without its shell?
I'll go with the latter.
And I have no conclusion for this.
Only to say that I can't write anymore, and the keyboard is pleading that I press all the wrong keys lately, form the wrong words lately, put together the worst sentences lately, and I don't know how to fix it.
I simply wish for you.
XOXO Kala
PS. Ah indeed, how would a turtle look without its shell? Wide feet, flat back perhaps, tiny head? I think it would look adorable.
Good Lord
Holy crap am I in a lot of trouble.
Haircuts are a complicated Kala Matter. Please, believe me. It's always in my face or eyes. It's always cut INCORRECTLY. And now, as I sneak narcissistic looks at my reflection in a mirror as I type this, I even suspect that it's lopsided.
A haircut is supposedly the answer to everyone's problems. For me, a haircut is like coming up with the bright idea of drinking a bottle of vodka the morning after a very bad hangover.
A brief consultation with my friend Flem concerning my hair made me realise that my haircut would have been fashionable had it been the 80's. I had hair like this in grade school. Sadly, now, it's too short to do anything about it. I could try to have it layered a bit but I admit that I am afraid to touch it lest it generate more dangerous results.
If there is a hair miracle worker out there, I need your benediction now. And the timing is impeccable, too, and I mean this with every drop of sarcasm in my body. Crap. I just need something that will keep people from thinking that Julien's gone off and married a mushroom.
Languages and Life
The beautiful thing about learning a new language are the beautiful mistakes that come with it. It's like giving birth to a new mind that thinks and puts together words differently. It's like breathing new air - struggling with it first, of course. Slight changes in the words you would usually use give a very clumsy, but at the same time, fresh meaning.
Hyper conjugation
The other night I got hyper with my French conjugation. Three hours of our French lessons and still I wasn't satisfied. Lying in the dark at around two in the morning, still shaking from conjugating you'd think it was a coffee attack, I shook Julien's shoulder.
"Pssst. Give me another verb."
He grunted. "A verb...? Dormir." Then he turned over in bed. 'Dormir' means 'sleep'.
I conjugated it carefully, first in present tense, then struggling with the past and present tenses like it were a baby. I didn't get another verb after that because he was already asleep when I asked him to 'check' my answer.
Actually, I mix up a lot of things, especially the 'be' and 'have' verbs, which are the basics. Does that mean I have no hope? I think not. I'm equipped with all the French words I still remember from watching TV5 movies. And anyway, Julien praised my ability to put together 'interesting and creative sentences'. Ha! Then again, that could be bias speaking.
Wrong words first
Since I think I am definitely out of the "Je suis Kala" and "Bonjour Mademoiselle" stage, the first sentences I started putting together were insults.
"Tu es bete," I told Julien lovingly, which means "You are stupid".
He good-naturedly ignored me.
"Tu es con," I whispered to my brother in passing. It also means "You are stupid".
"Le monde? C'est con!" I shouted out a few months ago, during this said period.
That's when Julien bought me a Grammar excercise book.
My shiny yellow grammar book was the arrow pointing towards socially-acceptable sentence construction.
But I guess nothing beats training to talk in French. The other night at Moomba I struggled to make him understand a sentence about not wanting to have a two-headed dog as a pet. All in French! Yip-yip-yip!
One evening I asked Julien what 'sacre bleu' meant, being one of the French expressions I remember from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. He told me it was a very old French expression.
"Hardly anyone uses it anymore!" he exclaimed, laughing at the thought.
"Can I use it?"
"As you want," he said, which is his 'diplomatic' response.
"Can we both use it, especially in France?"
He didn't look too enthusiastic about using "Sacre bleu" while in conversation with friends.
"Please?" I pleaded.
"Okay," he said sadly. "But I only hope that this 'sacre bleu' stage will be finished before it's implemented."
I know I used to say bravissimo, que horror, and muy caliente a lot, but for the meantime, at least till the stage ends, I'll be sporting the corniest of all - sacre bleu!
If you're curious about the robot
The robot on the left side of this page was created by Jul using 3dsmax (told you he was genius!). Isn't it Astroboy-ish? Kneel before Mahmud, people! Mahmud, my rotating robot!
And
After all these years of meeting everywhere we possibly can, of crying at the airport departures and joyful reunions at airport arrivals, after the withdrawal symptons of being apart and the high of two-week-holidays together ... it's nice to tell you we're getting married next month.
:-)
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