Keith Olbermann and dissident America

Keith Olbermann's special insight on Bush in the remembrance of the 9/11 tragedy five years later is a historical speech. I was glad and relieved to find, from abroad, that America is not as simple as some think it to be. Some American people are speaking up as voices that could, hopefully, produce much-needed change.

Paja day

I'm working at half the pace I should today. There are those days when one simply should let go and relax, enjoy the moment. I had wonderful concentration last week, closing things that could have kept me dragging along for ages only 20 days before. But today there is something I need, perhaps seeing the world outside a little, walking around in the park, reading a good book and things of that kind.

Well, I'm also tempted to buy some ice-cream and eat it. My favorite flavor is dulce de leche, and Persicco ice cream parlor is only a few blocks away...Should I resist the temptation and try to stick to my recently lost pounds? Maybe, after all these things, I should only keep on working.

Too bad. The day outside looks lovely, and I can't fully see it through my window.

Wbloggar back

Bloggers worldwide must have received the news of the return of Marcelo Cabral's wbloggar with joy. Only last week we were disappointed to find his site was down and looking like a serious issue had come up. Luckily now we can sit back and relax on this unfortunate lockdown.

Sunday September 3rd. It is a chilly and cloudy afternoon in Buenos Aires, Agassi played his last match in a tennis tournament today, and was kicked off by an unknown German named B. Becker. If there was a nationality that should not have sent him out, it was German, but life has those oddities.

Done by 38

Funny Little Frog

[Listening to: Funny Little Frog - Belle & Sebastian - Funny Little Frog (03:10)]

I am 38 today. An interesting age, if one thinks about it. Not yet 40 and no longer 30, not in between things, but somehow past the middle term of the third decade of my life. It is fine, I guess, if life has been lived relatively well, which I am not sure it is my case. Whatever, I'm OK in a not too nice day in Buenos Aires (cloudy, melancholic and busy).

I am launching another year in the continous ride to purgatorium. There is a reason to celebrate, which I will not do today but this weekend, before the struggle with my working life begins as people (bosses included) begin to return from their holidays.

I felt like writing the other day, and did not quite begin to do it. Another frustrated effort. At this pace, I will become a writer at around the same time as Jose Saramago, although I'll never get the Nobel Prize.

I am 38, currently writing about Brazil politics and energy issues, and reading a great contemporary writer, Roberto Bolaño in a long piece of work put together after his death entitled 2666. This is one of the best books I've read in the past two or three years, a thoroughly recommendable piece of work.

Good Friday

[Listening to: Sweet The Sting - Tori Amos - The Beekeeper (04:16)]

I have always wondered why the Holy Week Friday was known in English as Good Friday. First of all, if you are a Catholic, the death of the Christ, even for Salvation's sake, should not be good at all. I would personally call it Sad Friday, Mourn Friday, or something of the sort. Whatever the case, there is another oddity about this particular Friday. In France, a relatively Catholic country I would say, this Friday people work (here I am), but the real holiday is Monday. I am thinking, is this a sign that the actual celebration is the resurrection, or is it simply a misconception on the part of the French?

Tori Amos in the background, a cold and rather dark afternoon outside. Autumn is coming finally, the good days on this side of the hemisphere are slowly coming to an end. Have a Happy Easter!

Dana Dies

In the latest episode of The L Word, one of the most lovable characters died, the tennis player Dana Fairbanks, portrayed by Erin Daniels. True, I had never really felt strongly for Dana for that matter, although I must admit that it was an interesting character. The love story with Alice is a reflection of many parallel stories in lesbian life, sad that it ended so dramatically and without much else to hope for. Death, the great leveller, intervened early in Dana and Alice's lives, taking one away and leaving the other to grieve the loss of a lover/friend. Much has been argued against having had Dana lose her battle to breast cancer, and I understand that the show producer, Ilene Chaiken, hesitated herself, finally choosing to kill Dana as a way of raising awareness over the issue. To that I might as well say, what about those lesbians who regularly go to their gynecologists and have cancer anyway? By not giving Dana more than 5 episodes of "life", IC proved that the lethal variant can just blow you away in no time if you are young. Unless some counterpart to this is given in the show at some point of its fourth season, the precedent has been set that cancer kills. Thanks for the news! Together with lesbos going back to men (Tina), irreversibly unfaithful dykes (Shane), and lezzies on the hunt for men to get those precious drops of sperm, the show has been as stereotyped as lesbian portrayal in prime time TV series for the average guy. Now, instead of keeping suspension of disbelief as valid as when Shakespeare the troubadour wrote his most memorable works, the show has chosen to give homosexual women a lecture on how serious life is, so much so that it can kill your lovable people. My only question to this is: Didn't we know this already from life itself? Isn't life hard enough to need more TV reality crap being fed into our system when we should be simply enjoying ourselves as viewers a little more? Guys, I'm not asking for promiscuous lifestyles or anything like that, but I think that lesbian cancer is another of a long list of typical issues in lesbian life. Calling people's attention by killing off Dana was perhaps a little bit too much, whereas giving hope, or at least keeping her alive long enough to make her own farewell process, would have been a much more reasonable storyline. There is nothing to do, bad writing is bad writing, regardless of your sexual preference.

Imagine Me & You
As I said in a past posting on this blog, gay-related films keep making headlines and proving that, when it comes to love, all forms of it can be marketable. I still cannot comment on the film as it is unlikely to arrive in Argentina any time soon, but I imagine it to be closer to Kissing Jessica Stein than to When Night is Falling. Nevertheless, it's good to have a gay story as a driver inside a romantic movie aimed for mainstream audiences, so I'll probably be saying more on this once I've seen the film. The worst that can happen is to become less attracted to Piper Perabo, whose role in Lost and Delirious will be among the best remembered performances in lesbian cinema.

Line 14 - Madeleine

A few days ago, I felt like a train from Line 14 in the Paris Underground. I had no driver...
Sometimes, having no driver could be a positive thing, provided you arrive at your destination unharmed. Other times, having no driver leaves you yet more lonely, locked up in your little corner and complaining about the lack of opportunity, or explaining the absence of goals.
I'll remain without a driver for a little while now. Let life surprise me.

Some things are better worth letting machines memorize. After some intense internet prowling, I've decided to click on a link I'd like to remember, a movie I'd like to see sometime. It will never be released in my hometown probably, but thank G there's Amazon!

Imagine Me & You

It is snowing in Paris. Some would say it is a sign, of what? One thing is for sure, it will stop the cars from burning in banlieue areas.

I have to feel all right. Some things are changing. It does not have to do with facts, it has to do with possibilities, even if they cannot be used. I'm going through losses in this journey through life, and I guess I must let them be part of the flow that I cannot go with.

Will I come back to Paris soon? It is the first time I've had the feeling that I will not. And I might have closed a cycle. The fear lies in not opening a new one.

Well, it is raining now in Paris, after a beautiful day of quite nice autumn temperatures. I went walking around town, enjoying the holiday as much as possible and knowing it was short and appreciated. The classic Paris is there, with change that I would say is positive. People look more lively, and gay. Yes, I think the community has made Paris a city to live in. They can be seen a lot, men and women, looking trendy and happy, a melancholic leftover from those days when Paris was a moveable feast. It is midnight again, and I have to get up early in the morning to work tomorrow. Time for bed, and perhaps another post tomorrow

Arrival in Paris, October 31 2005, Halloween (allo, gouine? in the local jargon) It is now midnight in full, and the Toussaint has begun. I am tired, jet-lagged, and somewhat happy to be in Paris. November is not the best month to be here if you are not a winter fan. They changed the time on Saturday and now it gets dark pretty soon for my taste. Anyway, I am growing into a grumpy old woman, remembering her winters and summers in a different Paris, where being a foreigner was a problem, but not particularly life threatening.

Going to bed in a little while, my hands on the keyboard, me in my pijamas, and a sea of sensations, deja-vus and, why not? happiness. Bon séjour!

There is a TOE that applies to me when I speak to her. I would re-call it TOEW (theory of everything wrong), which in fact is a theory of everything (or mostly everything) right. Sometimes as we go through life, we keep the same level of maturity in our connection to certain people that we had when we met them, even if years have gone by and we have grown out of our former age and interests at the time. Therefore, the same schemes are repeated, the same debates and endless discussions take place, to no avail, because nobody is ready to admit defeat, as we had never admitted defeat earlier in our period of human exchange. It's funny, as it would seem that we are not only one age related to how old we are, but we are different ages depending on who we are dealing with.

This is a view of Mamita's lounge in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We were strolling along the nice beach of white sand and blue sea when we came across a wonderful place with sunchairs and even beds underneath cozy and fashionable white canopies. We stayed there the whole afternoon sipping a few daiquiris and piña coladas, while listening to Buddha Bar volumes on end. May 2005, a month to remember but a holiday that was only too short

This is a late update on my weblog. I entered the page today after years of neglect on Blogger, only to be positively surprised with the almost ancient nature of the blog creation. While everybody was scarcely aware of the power of the Internet on our way of living and expressing ourselves, I was trying to put up a weblog myself with a very basic blogging tool at the time. I remember it could take me ages to upload the page, as we were in 2001 back then. Today, in 2005, Webloggers are a legion, Blogger is much more efficient and nice-looking, and I am happier.