Reflections of Cuba Part I:
in the cobblestone street,
some hot Cuban beat
i yearn to move with your bleeding feet...
its Saturday Night Fever at the Vampire Discoteca
and you sway in your John Travolta suit... lingering on the brim of the dance-floor
watching me like the hot Spanish prick that you are. And I want you. At least I think I do.
All your comrads have tried, but my eyes are only wide for you.
Some Aj Maclean teenage vampire who no hoblo anglaise... which is why I ask myself "my God, why you!? Why in this crowd, in this weird bar - a salsa club rave-like hybrid" where I feel more at ease cutting up the floor than I do usually in its north american equivalent.
I would have rather you just held out without saying a word. I would have rather left believing in the romantic eye contact we exchanged from afar. But you had to shatter all that. Shatter the cinematic story I was playing out in my mind. You actually danced the last dance with a partner across from you... with another human being. Someone else. Some random chicita with an unmemorable face and an even more nondescript soul.
So I said adios and I shook your hand goodnight. And I was gone. And as were you.
********
Cuba was an overwhelming jambalaya of flavor, emotion and womanhood. It was more surreal than anything else. I will return with more reflections of my experience. I have gained many insights, connections and a new obsession for red snapper fish and Cuban salsa music. I must learn how to dance with a partner in the coming years.
If ever in doubt... I shall now think to myself, "WWCD": What would Che do?...The Answer... "He'd start a revolution!"
x's & o's bros,
LO
If I were any religion I would be: Santeria.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
You sleep, I sleep, we all sleep alone
| I can't tell you how I feel right now. For the time being, I guess you can say I feel an exhausted sense of peace, but I doubt that'll last. Onwards and downwards and around and between, my emotions right now are in perpetual shift. Fucking film sets. Now here's a paradox: I HATE set. I hate it. It's absolutely everything I despise: stressful, crowded, on a time limit, and full of expensive, highly technical equipment. Because it's where all the ideas in your head get birthed into exhaustive, nerve-shredding life, shooting a movie is the very definition of follow-through which, let's face it, is not my forte. However, on the flip side, there are very few things that illicit as much of a rush and sense of satisfaction as getting in your groove and finishing your day. I love talking to actors. I love watching them work. And I love how film zeroes in on those tiny movements and nuances that make me quietly swoon in front of the director's monitor and think : "Ah so...THIS is why we do it." I always though that people who called themselves 'storytellers' were kind of pretentious. But I like to tell stories. It makes me like humanity a lot more. So I think I'll keep doing it. Yours, Inari If I were a piece of subcultural vomit, I would be...green and purple hair. |
Saturday, December 6, 2008
“Cher, you’re a voigin who can’t drive…” – Tai (Clueless 1995)
There’s something imperceptibly sexy about a pair of cotton Hanes underwear. Full-coverage, elastic banded, a shade of beige or burgundy, even perhaps a little bow tied just below the belly button. Maybe I’m just deluded; maybe my perception of “sexy” is (what’s the PC term for) "retarded." Nonetheless, it was a pair of Hanes underwear that gots me a thinking. And so it is underwear that is the placenta to the birth of this post…
Sometimes, but not often, I have these moments when I finally begin to understand the appeal of having a close knit romantic relationship. Someone who calls you all the time, someone you go out to eat with, watch movies, and hold hands with... and whatever else the kids get up to... or down with for that matter.... these days.
Last night I returned to the big city after a quick trip to the Niagara region to apparently go to Simcoe to get my G license. (Which I did rather righteously might I add.) A few days earlier, I had finished writing and polishing the first draft of my first feature film screenplay. Think coming-of-age fantasy, 90s grunge-influenced youth dealing with their parents and the fate of their afterlives… Donnie Darko meets Eternal Sunshine meets… My Girl… except not at all. (The References change almost daily.) Anyways, after I was back in T.O, I emailed the .pdf off to my professor, which then left my night virtually free to engage in any sort of leisure activity my heart so desired. I ran some errands, checked off a few must-do’s in my planner and eventually found that it was time to just, i don't even know, relax or something like it.
What is my definition of "relax"? Well in a cable-less house, it’s difficult to discern… because had we a tv relaxing wouldn’t feel so much like work and at the same time it wouldn't feel so much like “doing nothing,” and i HATE doing nothing. Therefore having cable tv would significantly reduce my anxiety. But that isn't an option. So the big question is: What does one do alone on a Friday night wearing Hanes underwear, feeling accomplished, and finally kind of social? I’d like to say I had myriads of options come to mind, but as I discovered, I’m not as creative with my free time as I once thought I was.
Eventually I decided to put on some tunes. And then I paced around my room a bit, around the empty house, and eventually around the neighborhood, and the greater GTA. And I did this all alone, might I add. Back at home I swept the kitchen floor. This and my music compilation of unrequited love songs were my major mistakes of the evening. There is just something so elusively allusive about the kitchen floor that makes me think about love. Boys particularly. It’s not the floor itself… but the many streams of consciousness that evolve within my mind as a result of the idea of the kitchen floor. I think blue denim and painting walls. I think rainstorms and making pancakes. I think endless conversation and uncomfortable but elated eye-contact... Christmas-themed boxer shorts etc. etc. … All of which are random activities generally done in the company of a significant other and yet all random activities I have only done with humans of the female persuasion (not that I don’t love women… but more than often not in the way a male would affect each of these circumstances.)
Truth be told, I get acutely scared that I’m wasting my youthful looks on my own four walls and computer screen. But then again I shouldn’t worry so much. Stress causes women to age at an irregularly rapid rate. So if and when, any of these Kitchen floor moments come to fruition I might be naturally shriveled like my fingertips post bath-time… and that’s the really scary thought. So I’m having this debacle debate over and over in my head… and I’m arguing back and forth with myself about how I am, and what I want and how it all contradicts each other… and at that very thought I stopped! I literally just threw down the broom and left the kitchen, and the pile of rice-krispees swept into the corner of the floor, and I went to sit on the stairs to reflect... because God forbid I have one thoughtless moment to myself. I realized this is what happens when I have a bit of free time. I think that it would be nice to pencil someone in when I see fit. But once something exciting with a deadline comes up in my life, I just want to erase their existence 100 percent completely - shutter at the thought if they come up again etc. I think the best thing for me and for all babes out there, is just avoid romance or the teased thought of a relationship, and just save it for my imagination and various written scene studies. That’s all. That's all there is to it. I'm Cher friggin Horawitz and I'm saving myself for Luke Perry, except not him... but the idea of him... yah know?
So what’s my New Year’s resolution? Graduate next semester (obviously) AND be a human being who could if they wanted, have it all – the work thing, the friend thing and maybe the kitchen floor-Hanes-her-way-meets-Christmas-boxer shorts-thing. No, 86 that completely right away right now, 100 percent!! My New Years resolution is to continue to trust myself and continue to be in two places at once. I know that makes no sense at all... but I don't make sense sometimes. It’s not a bad thing. And it’s a fairly easy resolution to keep. But then again, I don’t like it “easy.” I don't like it "easy" at all.
Maybe I'll see you New Years Eve... maybe I won't,
Lo.
If I were a holiday decoration I would be: This depends. I say I’d be a Nativity set, but I know I’m actually homemade construction paper garland rings made with Elmer’s glue at heart.
Wow. I like run on sentences.
Sometimes, but not often, I have these moments when I finally begin to understand the appeal of having a close knit romantic relationship. Someone who calls you all the time, someone you go out to eat with, watch movies, and hold hands with... and whatever else the kids get up to... or down with for that matter.... these days.
Last night I returned to the big city after a quick trip to the Niagara region to apparently go to Simcoe to get my G license. (Which I did rather righteously might I add.) A few days earlier, I had finished writing and polishing the first draft of my first feature film screenplay. Think coming-of-age fantasy, 90s grunge-influenced youth dealing with their parents and the fate of their afterlives… Donnie Darko meets Eternal Sunshine meets… My Girl… except not at all. (The References change almost daily.) Anyways, after I was back in T.O, I emailed the .pdf off to my professor, which then left my night virtually free to engage in any sort of leisure activity my heart so desired. I ran some errands, checked off a few must-do’s in my planner and eventually found that it was time to just, i don't even know, relax or something like it.
What is my definition of "relax"? Well in a cable-less house, it’s difficult to discern… because had we a tv relaxing wouldn’t feel so much like work and at the same time it wouldn't feel so much like “doing nothing,” and i HATE doing nothing. Therefore having cable tv would significantly reduce my anxiety. But that isn't an option. So the big question is: What does one do alone on a Friday night wearing Hanes underwear, feeling accomplished, and finally kind of social? I’d like to say I had myriads of options come to mind, but as I discovered, I’m not as creative with my free time as I once thought I was.
Eventually I decided to put on some tunes. And then I paced around my room a bit, around the empty house, and eventually around the neighborhood, and the greater GTA. And I did this all alone, might I add. Back at home I swept the kitchen floor. This and my music compilation of unrequited love songs were my major mistakes of the evening. There is just something so elusively allusive about the kitchen floor that makes me think about love. Boys particularly. It’s not the floor itself… but the many streams of consciousness that evolve within my mind as a result of the idea of the kitchen floor. I think blue denim and painting walls. I think rainstorms and making pancakes. I think endless conversation and uncomfortable but elated eye-contact... Christmas-themed boxer shorts etc. etc. … All of which are random activities generally done in the company of a significant other and yet all random activities I have only done with humans of the female persuasion (not that I don’t love women… but more than often not in the way a male would affect each of these circumstances.)
Truth be told, I get acutely scared that I’m wasting my youthful looks on my own four walls and computer screen. But then again I shouldn’t worry so much. Stress causes women to age at an irregularly rapid rate. So if and when, any of these Kitchen floor moments come to fruition I might be naturally shriveled like my fingertips post bath-time… and that’s the really scary thought. So I’m having this debacle debate over and over in my head… and I’m arguing back and forth with myself about how I am, and what I want and how it all contradicts each other… and at that very thought I stopped! I literally just threw down the broom and left the kitchen, and the pile of rice-krispees swept into the corner of the floor, and I went to sit on the stairs to reflect... because God forbid I have one thoughtless moment to myself. I realized this is what happens when I have a bit of free time. I think that it would be nice to pencil someone in when I see fit. But once something exciting with a deadline comes up in my life, I just want to erase their existence 100 percent completely - shutter at the thought if they come up again etc. I think the best thing for me and for all babes out there, is just avoid romance or the teased thought of a relationship, and just save it for my imagination and various written scene studies. That’s all. That's all there is to it. I'm Cher friggin Horawitz and I'm saving myself for Luke Perry, except not him... but the idea of him... yah know?
So what’s my New Year’s resolution? Graduate next semester (obviously) AND be a human being who could if they wanted, have it all – the work thing, the friend thing and maybe the kitchen floor-Hanes-her-way-meets-Christmas-boxer shorts-thing. No, 86 that completely right away right now, 100 percent!! My New Years resolution is to continue to trust myself and continue to be in two places at once. I know that makes no sense at all... but I don't make sense sometimes. It’s not a bad thing. And it’s a fairly easy resolution to keep. But then again, I don’t like it “easy.” I don't like it "easy" at all.
Maybe I'll see you New Years Eve... maybe I won't,
Lo.
If I were a holiday decoration I would be: This depends. I say I’d be a Nativity set, but I know I’m actually homemade construction paper garland rings made with Elmer’s glue at heart.
Wow. I like run on sentences.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
A vague presentiment of doom
I miss those moments of clarity I used to have on winter nights. Maybe it's because it's been unusually warm these past few days, as well as unusually wet. There is something about the smell of cold air that evokes minor epiphanies. That, or one of the early signs of hypothermia is minor psychosis. I don't know.
So...the holidays. I know I'm jumping the gun, because there is that clusterfuck known as a film shoot to contend with first. I think I've eaten up all my reserves of pre-set panic and must now resort to on-set hysteria to get me through it all. I look forward to it, natch. But the holidays! That is another bowl of upchuck altogether. I won't doom myself by saying I expect great or terrible things, but I will admit that I'm entering the festivities with the cautiously optimistic hope that it won't be completely miserable.
I've often been accused of being self-defeatist, to which I respond with a hearty 'Fuck you, douche-wanker'. Self-defeatism is a reductionist's answer to everything...those are just negative thoughts, you should just do this, you just need more confidence (like it's some kind of toggle you can switch...please). I think I've made this rant before, but I'll say it again and again and again and again until I completely swallow my own beautiful lies: when all is said and done and you find yourself staring at inner oblivion, empathy is the only thing that will convince you that you are not completely alone.
Yours,
Inari
If I were a perfect body part, I would be...a collarbone.
So...the holidays. I know I'm jumping the gun, because there is that clusterfuck known as a film shoot to contend with first. I think I've eaten up all my reserves of pre-set panic and must now resort to on-set hysteria to get me through it all. I look forward to it, natch. But the holidays! That is another bowl of upchuck altogether. I won't doom myself by saying I expect great or terrible things, but I will admit that I'm entering the festivities with the cautiously optimistic hope that it won't be completely miserable.
I've often been accused of being self-defeatist, to which I respond with a hearty 'Fuck you, douche-wanker'. Self-defeatism is a reductionist's answer to everything...those are just negative thoughts, you should just do this, you just need more confidence (like it's some kind of toggle you can switch...please). I think I've made this rant before, but I'll say it again and again and again and again until I completely swallow my own beautiful lies: when all is said and done and you find yourself staring at inner oblivion, empathy is the only thing that will convince you that you are not completely alone.
Yours,
Inari
If I were a perfect body part, I would be...a collarbone.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
you see tinsel at night and plaid in the morning
Pretend this is written on Hilroy lined paper in a 3-hole duotang with a blue bic pen I found on the floor.
part one: "Tinsel"
I imagine an evening in his parents' semi-finished basement. We sit on that snake-like couch that fills the entire room, you and me. And the four or five of them are spread around on the rug or wherever. It's Christmas time, so naturally I allow myself to relax... at least in the evenings when i've allotted time for some mindless fun.
The house (which is one of many houses in this elite suburban town that looks just the same as the one next door) is decked with the kind of holiday decor a mom would buy at a craft show. This makes us think of the craft show phase conversation we had while on a walk searching for grapes a Fall evening in weeks past.
We're watching movies or Fresh Prince or something. We talk and analyze easy things. The kind of conversation that makes us smile and laugh, like which Aunt Vivian we prefer - pre or post Nicky. We have the kind of time one has with "friends" not "classmates" or worse yet, "film student classmates" ...and I'm thankful for this... and I imagine you are too.
We eat raspberries from the container, listen to home-made rap jingles and play silly games like Never Have I Ever, except you and I are the only ones who never have to swig in comparison to the sausage party we've somehow invaded. Later we go for a haunted walk and crave 88 fine Vietnamese Cuisine. We stand in a circle and I look over at you and you're smiling and laughing and comfortable. Maybe you're a little sleepy, but that's nothing new. We feel like kids at moments like this... when we're around them...when we're in this town... perhaps because this is essentially a middle-school Friday night agenda sans TGIF and tear-aways.
I get lost in this thought and I laugh some more. I feel like i'm on an escalator, but really my feet are just numb and there's ice on the asphalt. A moment goes by and I look up and I see that we're not in that ticky-tacky town at all. You're really just sitting in the kitchen drinking NiQuil and inhaling nail polish remover and I'm cooking the same thing I cook every night - angering carnivores everywhere. We are only just reminiscing. The tap is dry and shia's empty and we're antsy for it. I don't know if we want it or need it. Maybe we don't want it at all. Maybe this was all just a fleeting thought pregnant with a snapshot from third year that I had in my own mind?
I wonder sometimes how things could have been different if some "jenk" stuff didn't go down? I can't seem to think of how else to phrase that even though I try my best for mediocre eloquence. I wonder about it and I think you wonder about it too. Once in a while I wish things didn't become so weird... even as much as I dig weird as weird is only but a natural feeling and I take comfort in what is considered "natural." There really isn't an ending for this but I'm ready to move on to my next thought. We can talk more about this later.
part two: "Plaid"
I believe in that worldly adage "United we stand, Divided we fall" which I believe is originally a patriotic song lyric of some sort. But what it stands for is more than often true in work, in love, in family and friends.
They say when you live in the city your friends are your family... but sometimes I can't help but wonder if the value I hold others is nearly equivalent of there value of me. And sometimes, even if it's just for a second I think of the Rose City and if the people there are any different or any better - value me less or more. Then I remember that this is just me over analyzing everything and then I focus again and I feel better. I like to focus and i like to feel control. It improves my mood significantly. I like work too - that helps. I'm somewhat of a workaholic you can say. Yet at the same time, I'd like the freedom of jetting off to Costa Rica or Egypt at a moment's notice. And at the same time I'd like to waste days away sitting under trees reading William Blake and making out... if I remember how, that is.
Anyways, the point is... I can't at this moment jet off... but I will. I once paid a palm reader on the street 15 bucks and she told me I was going to be a "globe-trotter." I believe her even if she was constantly looking over my shoulder for the cops. No matter how far you go...you can always go "home" again... wherever you consider that home to be. Some of us think that if we don't do something now we'll never do it.... and I thank God I was born with the security in myself to know I'm totally not like that.
A game for you to play:
1. Never have I ever: recorded a song about the ozone layer on a Windows 95.
2. Never have I ever: wore spandex bicycle shorts with neon stripes on the side.
3. Never have I ever: danced on a riser at a shkeify bar, while wearing "Gina" earrings.
4. Never have I ever: liked your best-friend.
5. Never have I ever: ate at the Mandarin then got bad in a parked car.
I need some chamomile and a newspaper asap, blogging makes me feel a little silly.
xoLo.
If i were pajamas I would be: man's plaid shirt, tube socks with 2 stripes on the ankle and CK briefs circa 1990.
part one: "Tinsel"
I imagine an evening in his parents' semi-finished basement. We sit on that snake-like couch that fills the entire room, you and me. And the four or five of them are spread around on the rug or wherever. It's Christmas time, so naturally I allow myself to relax... at least in the evenings when i've allotted time for some mindless fun.
The house (which is one of many houses in this elite suburban town that looks just the same as the one next door) is decked with the kind of holiday decor a mom would buy at a craft show. This makes us think of the craft show phase conversation we had while on a walk searching for grapes a Fall evening in weeks past.
We're watching movies or Fresh Prince or something. We talk and analyze easy things. The kind of conversation that makes us smile and laugh, like which Aunt Vivian we prefer - pre or post Nicky. We have the kind of time one has with "friends" not "classmates" or worse yet, "film student classmates" ...and I'm thankful for this... and I imagine you are too.
We eat raspberries from the container, listen to home-made rap jingles and play silly games like Never Have I Ever, except you and I are the only ones who never have to swig in comparison to the sausage party we've somehow invaded. Later we go for a haunted walk and crave 88 fine Vietnamese Cuisine. We stand in a circle and I look over at you and you're smiling and laughing and comfortable. Maybe you're a little sleepy, but that's nothing new. We feel like kids at moments like this... when we're around them...when we're in this town... perhaps because this is essentially a middle-school Friday night agenda sans TGIF and tear-aways.
I get lost in this thought and I laugh some more. I feel like i'm on an escalator, but really my feet are just numb and there's ice on the asphalt. A moment goes by and I look up and I see that we're not in that ticky-tacky town at all. You're really just sitting in the kitchen drinking NiQuil and inhaling nail polish remover and I'm cooking the same thing I cook every night - angering carnivores everywhere. We are only just reminiscing. The tap is dry and shia's empty and we're antsy for it. I don't know if we want it or need it. Maybe we don't want it at all. Maybe this was all just a fleeting thought pregnant with a snapshot from third year that I had in my own mind?
I wonder sometimes how things could have been different if some "jenk" stuff didn't go down? I can't seem to think of how else to phrase that even though I try my best for mediocre eloquence. I wonder about it and I think you wonder about it too. Once in a while I wish things didn't become so weird... even as much as I dig weird as weird is only but a natural feeling and I take comfort in what is considered "natural." There really isn't an ending for this but I'm ready to move on to my next thought. We can talk more about this later.
part two: "Plaid"
I believe in that worldly adage "United we stand, Divided we fall" which I believe is originally a patriotic song lyric of some sort. But what it stands for is more than often true in work, in love, in family and friends.
They say when you live in the city your friends are your family... but sometimes I can't help but wonder if the value I hold others is nearly equivalent of there value of me. And sometimes, even if it's just for a second I think of the Rose City and if the people there are any different or any better - value me less or more. Then I remember that this is just me over analyzing everything and then I focus again and I feel better. I like to focus and i like to feel control. It improves my mood significantly. I like work too - that helps. I'm somewhat of a workaholic you can say. Yet at the same time, I'd like the freedom of jetting off to Costa Rica or Egypt at a moment's notice. And at the same time I'd like to waste days away sitting under trees reading William Blake and making out... if I remember how, that is.
Anyways, the point is... I can't at this moment jet off... but I will. I once paid a palm reader on the street 15 bucks and she told me I was going to be a "globe-trotter." I believe her even if she was constantly looking over my shoulder for the cops. No matter how far you go...you can always go "home" again... wherever you consider that home to be. Some of us think that if we don't do something now we'll never do it.... and I thank God I was born with the security in myself to know I'm totally not like that.
A game for you to play:
1. Never have I ever: recorded a song about the ozone layer on a Windows 95.
2. Never have I ever: wore spandex bicycle shorts with neon stripes on the side.
3. Never have I ever: danced on a riser at a shkeify bar, while wearing "Gina" earrings.
4. Never have I ever: liked your best-friend.
5. Never have I ever: ate at the Mandarin then got bad in a parked car.
I need some chamomile and a newspaper asap, blogging makes me feel a little silly.
xoLo.
If i were pajamas I would be: man's plaid shirt, tube socks with 2 stripes on the ankle and CK briefs circa 1990.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
"Without you, I'm lost and weird."
It all comes down to simple adoration. Simple love, carried out simply. Speechless, thoughtless, untrue and unreal and intangible everywhere but in your bones.
Without you, I'm lost and weird. You make me feel more than normal.
Yours,
Inari
If I were a meat puppet, I would be....Pepperonochio
Without you, I'm lost and weird. You make me feel more than normal.
Yours,
Inari
If I were a meat puppet, I would be....Pepperonochio
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