Posted 3 years, 4 months ago in the late afternoon by oso
Still stalling. Actually, what I’ve been doing - for a minute here and a minute there - is transcribing my old journal from Cuba onto my computer. Boy did I used to be an idiot. I used to care about things so much. sigh.
Everything’s been non-stop crazy since coming back to San Diego. Lots of work, lots of errands, lots of traffic. Not that we don’t have traffic in Monterrey. Gonzalitos blvd might as well be called trafficalitos blvd., but it’s so much more enjoyable there. Just like the lucha libre. You fuck with people and they fuck with you and by the time all the fucking is over, you’re at work.
Here it’s just seriousness and stiff lips. No eye contact, no screeching tires, no pretending to side-swipe someone, no fun.
Plus, I no longer sleep. Not that I’m one to protest sleep … I’m such a big fan, was a big fan even before they were on Pitchfork, but lately we just haven’t been getting along for whatever reason. I dunno. It’s hard for me to break it to sleep, but I just don’t need him around anymore. I stay up until 1, 2 in the morning and then comes along 6:30 or 7 and something inside me is compelled to greet them wide-eyed. Maybe it’s the crack.
Much of my midnight to 2 a.m. time is spent reading. I used to have this rule … in fact, I still should … that I’m only allowed to check out one book from the library at a time. Two under exceptional circumstances. But for so long I’d check out four books at a time and of course I’d only read 3/4 of the first one and then punish myself with late fees.
Anyway, I take back what I said about ‘used to being an idiot’ ’cause things never change quite as much as we think they do. Which probably played an influence on me checking out four books from the library the other day. Four books even though I was only half way through The Brothers Karamazov which reads about as fast as all the crazy old people who shouldn’t be driving around my hood.
But I needed a break from this Dostoyevsky kid so I started reading The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi by Salam Pax, which is actually a blog, but on paper. This, I thought, was a crappy idea, but once again, I was so wrong. For whatever reason I never got into the craze surrounding Where is Raed? even though most bloggers were mentioning him at least as often as I mention my gastrointestinal happenings. I probably checked out a couple posts, but something I’ve noticed is that when I come to a blog with 200 or 300 comments after every post, I get turned off. Maybe it’s penis envy.
But man, this guy’s great. And reading a blog in a book is so much better than reading it on a screen. Everything comes together so much clearer and more effective when you read through an entire year of some person’s life in just a couple hours. It made me think, I’ve been reading so many blogs for almost two years now that I’m sure, in all, I’ve read dozens of what would be ‘blog books.’ But I wonder if the reading would be more meaningful if I actually read them as blogs instead of ADHD mouse clicking every five minutes. Like just this morning I was reading a post by EMC about running on the beach and I was totally entranced and yet even so I still had to physically hold back my index finger so I wouldn’t click away.
Ok, I’m late … I realize this post is completely unsatisfactory which is why I leave you with a picture of HP kissing Cindylu. There’s a picture of HP kissing me too (which is why I look so happy below), but you have to paypal me $10 for a copy. I don’t think I’m supposed to post this picture because it’s a game killer for Cindylu … but really, can you kill her game?
I agree with you completely. It’s amazing how much multi-tasking we actually do when we are in front of a computer. When I read the blogs and online magazines, i’m usally at work, or it’s late at night or on a random whim in the afternoon. I work in an office, and I’m online most of the time, which means (as I am now) posting things first. But I’m also doing countless other things, checking my work email, cooresponding with other writers, a few friends, helping my buddy who’s getting married coordinate his bachelor party in Vegas this week, reworking my lesson plans, fixing up my resume, looking for another job, looking at writing schools, and all while also thinking about what I’m going to write…point being that the computer experience is approached in this multi-tasked fashion as opposed to a more intimate one with a book.
hehe i think i am taller than HP…
see … you and i so need to have a drink some day. what converastions we’d all have … y’all’d laugh bad at my accent though. i just know it.
i’ll get a picture of myself standing between you and hp. the cameraman won’t know it but i’ll have a hand on each of your asses and you’ll BOTH be smiing just like oso in that picture. BWAH!
Oso,
If you get paranoid at every little noise, thinking that everybody is out to get you, it’s definitely the crack. Throw a little more baking soda in, it will help…LOL.
Hey!!! I did not try to kiss you (besides, if I was into men, I’d have better taste than that, I’d look for guys that look more like….me!!). Besides, you don’t want to give Myke false hope, do you? He has already told me he has latino fever. LOL.
Elenamary,
hehe i think i am taller than HP…
For the record, I was leaning over, so I look a bit shorter than I am (5′8″)…but with that aside, I do think you’re taller and lighter than me, Elenamary. It’s all that spanish/white blood in you, and for the record, I’m still angry at what you gachupines did to my people.
Myke,
You know us conservatives, we’re intolerant to ass grabbing!! But Oso, you might have a chance there.
I don’t think it’s possible to kill my game. I think it was born stillborn. Plus, don’t you remember my whole thing about not liking Mexican men and them not liking me?
I am not Spanish. The area my mother was from was conqured by the French…do have a little french in me but on my Mexican side, I am pretty indigena. I am white and not short because I am Irish.
buenas oso !!!!
ya regresate de san diego, nop? jaja
hey !!! me traes mi pelirroja de sandiego porfas…. que no se te olvide… !!
Nos vemos y cuidate.
awww, sweet picture.
Wackala!! Is that a Lakers pennant?
Hp and Cindylu make a very loveable couple.
Gustavo,
We do, don’t we.
I tell Cindylu that all the time.
Btw, not only is that Lakers what you see there, but a little to the upper left, you can see the corner of a Dodgers one as well.
Los Angeles rules!!!
My blog would make for a horrible book. Half the crap I post is hyperlink heavy.
The transcribe effort brings about a question I’ve had for a while. How does one easily journal electronically? Laptop, cellphone with a bluetooth keyboard, punch cards? Of course it is lamer than paper, but I’m already lazy and lame. Laptops just seem like waay too much of a pita (size and liability) for trips, but I don’t know of an easy way to do it otherwise. Maybe a pocket pc & keyboard, but thats still a bit of a pain in the ass. Maybe voice recording on the mp3 player and popping that through dragon speaking or something crazy.
Heading out to the boonies,
Chris.
Catarf,
Nunca voy a entender la afición mexicana para las pelirrojas. Pero si, te voy a traer tres.
ChrisN,
That’s a good point … the hyperlink footnotes do get frustrating … especially ’cause I often wanna click them. Not being able to read the comments is frustrating too and would turn the value of this blog into about 0.
Good question about the journal writing. I mostly just use ink and paper and hope that in 30 years (when I’ll probably really start reading my journals again) they’ll have an easy solution to scanning in handwriting into something searchable.
Have a great time oot there.
Man, I swear every time I read Hp’s comments and look at his picture I hear his never-before-heard voice…I think it’s Speedy Gonzalez, but now that we now he’s a dodgers fan..shit, i dunno.
“Here it’s just seriousness and stiff lips. No eye contact, no screeching tires, no pretending to side-swipe someone, no fun.” - Echoing my post-India thoughts homie. I remember at the end of Goodfellas, Liotta goes to the Witness Protection Program and is complaining about how every day is the same…there’s no fun, the food is shitty, etc etc -
The brown people bring life, intensity, spunk, beauty, intrusion, shamelessness. It’s the other extreme from what we experience in the West (yes, I believe that to be West Europe and the US). No contact, no authenticity, no smiles here. Outright starring, fun shit talking with the chai guy/rickshaw driver/fruit slanger. Everything is rehearsed over and over here, but it’s hard to tell who will say/do what next in brown town.
pace man.
Speedy Gonzales??? Who do you picture now? Pedro Guerrero? Fernando Valenzuela?