Aquí te amo

Esta obra fue escrita por Pablo Neruda

Aquí te amo.
En los oscuros pinos se desenreda el viento.
Fosforece la luna sobre las aguas errantes.
Andan días iguales persiguiéndose.

Se desciñe la niebla en danzantes figuras.
Una gaviota de plata se descuelga del ocaso.
A veces una vela. Altas, altas estrellas.

O la cruz negra de un barco.
Solo.
A veces amanezco, y hasta mi alma está húmeda.
Suena, resuena el mar lejano.
Este es un puerto.
Aquí te amo.

Aquí te amo y en vano te oculta el horizonte.
Te estoy amando aún entre estas frías cosas.
A veces van mis besos en esos barcos graves,
que corren por el mar hacia donde no llegan.

Ya me veo olvidado como estas viejas anclas.
Son más tristes los muelles cuando atraca la tarde.
Se fatiga mi vida inútilmente hambrienta.
Amo lo que no tengo. Estás tú tan distante.

Mi hastío forcejea con los lentos crepúsculos.
Pero la noche llega y comienza a cantarme.
La luna hace girar su rodaje de sueño.

Me miran con tus ojos las estrellas más grandes.
Y como yo te amo, los pinos en el viento,
quieren cantar tu nombre con sus hojas de alambre.

26 Things II

Another 26 Things project is starting tomorrow. Well, it's tomorrow here in NZ, for those of us at the forefront of the International Dateline, rather than at the tail end.... hee. Just teasing.

I haven't picked up the camera in weeks and I think I need this project to give me a kick up the ass.

What say you? Is anyone else doing this? I twisted Ralph's arm into saying yes.

Nightclub

by Billy Collins

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

Ship and Tugs

Just another ship picture, taken from the deck. I love watching the big ships when they come in and dock just below our house. The whole house vibrates from the engines. It is such a comforting noise to me.

When I was in my early twenties, I was travelling in Greece and took an overnight ferry to Crete. I was in a tiny cabin with bunks and it was hot, and the sound of the engine vibrated everywhere. Others complained of the noise and the heat. But I loved it. I felt so snug and secure in that little cabin.

Whenever I hear and feel a ship's engine now, that same feeling of comfort and safety comes back to me.

Where are the rock bands?

Okay, you early childhood educators out there, I have a challenge for you. I'm looking for some good learn-to-read resources that appeal especially to boys, and to my Matthew in particular.

Matthew is doing really well at reading. He has only been at school for four months now, and already he has gone up two levels in reading. He is very quick to pick up the words and the grammar, but lately I've found that his initial enthusiasm has waned and he is reluctant to read the books that he brings home.

At his level, he brings home books which have a slightly more complex sentences and wider vocabulary, but they are still at a fairly simple level of reading. And herein lies the problem. They are the right skill level for his reading ability, but they are definitely not holding his interest.

He is bored with them. The topics are mundane, and not nearly exciting enough to capture the imagination of a bright, inquisitive and perceptive five year old. I mean, baby animals, taking the dog for a walk, stomping in gumboots - all things that you might read to a two or three year old, but not to a five year old who can tell you that his favourite punk song in the whole world is 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)?' by the Buzzcocks.

Where are the dragons, the pirates, astronauts, explorers? What about volcanoes and dinosaurs and spies and robots? Where are the rock bands?! Who writes these books? And where are the ones that are going to hold my son's attention long enough to get him to read it?

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Peace Flame

Friday night blues

It is Friday night, the end of a long hard week, and I am in a headspace that I don't want to be in. This night should be filled with anticipation of the coming three days of rest. Instead I'm just tired and emotional.

This week began with a visit to the doctor about my abdominal pain. She confirmed it was most likely an ulcer or pre-ulcer condition of some sort. She had a long word beginning with G, but damned if I can remember what it was. She gave me a script for Zantac, and it seems to have helped. The cause of the ulcer? Stress, too much spicy food and alcohol, or just bad luck, says my doctor. I've had plenty of it all, so god only knows which one it is.

Matthew did not want to go to school on Monday and Tuesday. Who knows why or what goes through the mind of a five year old at any given moment. Any discussions with him about the matter resulted in a different answer every time. One time he didn't like fitness class. Another time, he didn't like the hard work - spelling and maths in particular. Getting him out the door and into the car became a torturous game of negotiation, bribes, encouragements and threats. By the end of the week, though, whatever it was seemed to have passed and he happily went off to school. There are some small mercies for which I can thank god.

No such problems with Joshua, who is a happy, cheerful and stout little fellow. No, grumpiness is not his problem. His problem is lack of sleep. Which night was it that I got approximately three hours of sleep, due to Joshua crying? I can't remember, they are all a blur.

Work, too, got me down this week. I did not feel supported and I hate sarcasm as a management tool.

Too much. Too tired. Too many.

And to top it all off, my period started. Nothing like a headache and a little blood to round out an otherwise grueling week.

Sleep beckons. Perhaps I'll have a better perspective on life in the morning.

Seek and Ye Shall Find

Looking through my logs and statistics is always such an interesting pasttime, whenever I take the time to do it. I used to look regularly, but now I rarely look at my stats report, and even less at the actual logs.

But today I wandered on in, and had a wee look, and was surprised at the number of people who arrive at my site through search engines. So, a few questions of you seekers.

To the person who got to my site by putting "http://www.somejinglejanglemorning.com/slipstream" into Google and searching for it. There's always one. You do know, don't you, that if you know the address, you don't have to search for it?

To the person who searched for somejinglejanglemorning.com on whois.sc - did you find what you were looking for?

To the person who got here via the search "Sheryl Crow bikini?" You gotta be kidding, right? Are you fifteen years old or what?

To the person who came here via the search "fuck me boots". Wow. Which search engine were you using? Cos it sure wasn't Google. Well, at least I don't come up in the first ten pages of results in that search.

To the person who got here via the search "What is Wondering Jew?" Well, don't ask me, ask Doug.

To the person who got here via the search "music helium cat power smashing pumpkins throwing muses belly." What great taste in music you have! We should get together sometime and compare collections.

To the person who got here via the search "slipstream up in heaven". Uhm, that's kind of creepy. Do you know something I don't?

To the person who got here searching for "Deb". I can't believe you found ME! Out of all the thousands of Debs on the Internet, you got to little ol' me. Amazing. Was I the Deb you were looking for?

And to the 45 people who got here by searching for "Slipstream" - if I was who you were looking for, just hit that Add Favourites button.

Or better yet, join the notify list :)

Tulip Pink

I seem to have a pink thing going at the moment.

The tulips are ablaze in the Botanic Gardens. Beautiful.

Pluck This

Okay, whoever invented the concept of plucking one's eyebrows deserves to be tied down and have every hair plucked from his body. And yes, it must have been a "he" because women would never inflict something so completely insane upon themselves. You never see men plucking their eyebrows, do you? There's a damn good reason for that. It bloody well hurts!

And it's not even like plucking accomplishes anything. If, after plucking, men stopped dead in their tracks and said "My god, those eyes! So beautifully accentuated by those exquisite eyebrows!" then I might reconsider the value of this otherwise tiresome chore. But no.

The thing is, my eyebrows are strawberry blonde. Do you know how hard it is to "shape" blonde eyebrows? No matter what I do they still look like tufts of straw. My eyelashes are also blonde and short, and it takes a hell of a lot of Maybelline to make those babies look luscious.

When I was in my teens I used to know a woman who shaved her eyebrows and drew them in with an eyeliner pencil. I used to think she was crazy, but now, you know, I'm not so sure. Now I'm thinking maybe she just had blonde eyebrows.

Waiting

Good Friday

Friday morning I woke up feeling like I had spent the night in a boxing ring. I was exhausted, my neck hurt, my abdominal pain was back and I had one of those headaches. So I said, fuck it, and took the day off work. I was in desperate need of a day to myself.

And what a glorious day it was too. I spent the morning in bed, and finally dragged my ass to the shower around 11:00am. Had lunch in my dressing gown, put my feet up and watched some cooking shows on The Living Channel. Man I love that channel. It's like the television equivalent of a Home and Garden magazine. A little bit of cooking, a little bit of interior decorating, some arts and crafts, a dash of gardening. What more could you ask for in a television channel? My only complaint is that they don't show The Designer Guys nearly often enough for my liking.

Anyway. I digress. The day was glorious, so after a quick burst of housework, I went for a walk. Oh, I did manage to get dressed first. The neighbourhood appreciated that.

Walked down to the local garden centre, the library, the pharmacy. Started to feel tired and a little weak, so walked to the other garden centre with the big houseware shop and drooled over beautiful things that were too expensive (a wallet with a black and white photo of a young Audrey Hepburn on it), and had a melon-flavoured mineral water and sundried tomato scone.

Felt much better. Walked back home. It was hot.

Collapsed for a while. Checked my email. Message from Michael saying "RING ME." Rang him. He told me the good news that his company had got an important job that they had put in a proposal for. Hooray I said. More work is always good news.

Later that day, I was actually happy for a change to see the kids when they came racing through the door. I was feeling rested and relaxed, not the usual grumpy stressed-out mother that they have come to know and love.

I so wish I could do that every Friday. Mental health days every now and then should be mandatory.

Fair, fat and forty

In the comments to my entry Poked and Prodded, one reader mentioned that my abdominal pain sounded like it might be my gallbladder. So, the librarian in me could not resist. I dutiful went on to the Internet and looked up information on diseases of the gallbladder.

And this useful little snippet of information is what I found on one of the sites:

"In medical school, the "five F's" help doctors to remember the usual patient with gallbladder disease: "fair, fat, forty, fertile, and female." Sexist as it sounds, it describes the group most frequently affected by gallbladder disease: overweight middle-aged white women with a history of several pregnancies."

Aaaaaaaaaaarggggggggghhhhh..... somebody just shoot me now. Look what I have become.

Sigh.

Wheel

Wheel of a cannon, taken here.

Why I should stay home on the weekends

Sunday night. Already. Weekends aren't what they used to be. They're definitely making them shorter these days.

I went shopping on Saturday afternoon for plastic storage boxes. Hey, just call me domesticated. What can I say, plastic storage boxes do it for me. I came away not only with a large box (for Matthew's Action Men toys), and a medium box (for Matthew's Playmobil police station pieces), and a small box (for Lego blocks), but also a whole bunch of Christmas stuff that I had no intention of buying until I was there. Wrapping paper, stocking stuffers, advent calendars for the boys, decorations. In New Zealand, we don't really do Halloween and we don't have Thanksgiving, so we plough right on into that Christmas spirit early.

Like two whole months early. We must be crazy.

On the way back home, with my car loaded with enough cheap Christmas gear to keep a Taiwanese factory going for a month, I remembered why I hate driving in the city on the weekends. Or any day of the week, come to think of it. Idiot drivers.

I'd like to impart a few words of collective wisdom to those drivers who should not be on the road:

1. Indicator lights. Have somebody point these out to you one day. They are the little lights on the back of your car which lets the driver behind you know that you are going to make a left hand turn in three seconds. Quite useful really.

2. When the sign says 70, and the roads are clear, and the sky is blue — you can actually go 70. Try it sometime. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

3. Roundabouts (rotaries to you North Americans). When you come to a roundabout, you slow down, you look right... if there are no cars coming, guess what, you can go! You do not have to stop and wait. And you especially do not have to stop and wait for the car on your left to go, because you have right of way, you idiot!!

4. When I am coming around the large roundabout at Kilbirnie, or zooming out of the Mount Victoria tunnel, do not, I repeat do not think you have just enough time to pull out in front of me. You do not. I am just shifting up into third, and picking up speed, and it really pisses me off when I have to brake for you. You idiot.

5. When it's the middle of rush hour and we are stuck in traffic, don't bother beeping your horn behind me. Okay. I can't go anywhere. The person in front of me can't go anywhere. So we might as well all just save ourselves the heart attack, sit back, relax, and think of nice calm things.

Bad drivers. Man. Enough to give a person an ulcer. Just as well I usually take the bus to work.

I wear my sunglasses at night

Well, I got tired of the brown. So thought I'd try a bit of purple.

And no, this isn't me :) I may not be beautiful, but I definitely don't look that masculine! This photo was taken by N Bell, and downloaded from istockphoto.com. I think it's a picture of the photographer himself, and is entitled "I wear my sunglasses at night."

I like it.

Sunset Pink

I think there should be a lipstick this colour, don't you?

Poked and prodded

Sorry that I haven't been updating much. I've not had a lot of time to devote to this journal. And, well, I've not been entirely well over the past little while, either. I hate to dwell on sickness, but that seems to be my life at the moment.

Remember those bunches I had in my abdomen a few months ago, and I went to a specialist and had a scan done and everything? Well, everything came back normal at the time. But the past few days I have had very bad pain in the exact same spot, and it is sort of swollen and tender just there under my ribcage.

So back to the doctor I go tomorrow. I keep thinking, great, this is just what I need on top of everything else. Poked and prodded and scanned... to find what? Argh, I think I'm allergic to doctors.

It will all be okay in the end, I'm sure. It could be anything. We'll see. I'll let you know how it goes, and what the outcome is. But don't get worried if I don't update soonish. It's just because I'm really busy, not because anything is horribly wrong.

Canoes

Are these canoes or kayaks? I always called them kayaks, but New Zealanders seem to call them canoes.

Just a little

I'm sitting here listening to Lucinda Williams, trying to stay awake long enough to watch a Johnny Cash special on television at 11pm — Johnny Cash Live at San Quentin. Feeling lethargic and a little drunk after two glasses of a very good 1998 Pinot Noir, followed by a glass of a very good Shiraz. Nice. I have a little mellow glow going on at the moment.

Last night it was pouring with rain, and thunder rumbled across the sky. I sat in the living room of my friend Chel, glass of wine in hand, on the floor, warmed by the heater. We watched the wind and rain beat against the window and talked about life and love and sex and happiness and choices and growing old. She listened and hugged me and I felt better than I had in a long time.

Just now Lucinda is sounding a little like Tom Petty. Just this song. Just a little.

Forty is a strange age. Not young, not old. Someone told me the other day that forty was the new thirty. That the generations are slipping back a decade. We are having our kids later, buying houses later, starting careers later. We play through our twenties, a decade when our parents would have worked and married and had kids and settled down. Then at thirty we start thinking a little more seriously about life. Well, some of us. Others of us still thought we were immortal at thirty. That we could do it all. That we could make decisions or not make decisions on a whim because we had all the time in the world. That a decade would be long enough to accomplish it all.

At forty I am beginning to realise the folly in that kind of thinking. I'm beginning to count all the things that I'm never going to do in my life, all the options that are closed to me now, all the paths I will never take. Arrogance has been replaced by a sense of urgency and I no longer feel like I have time just to drift.

Some of this is the wine talking. And some of it is Lucinda singing Blue. But mostly it's me feeling introspective. Just a little.

Yes Yes

by Charles Bukowski

when God created love he didn't help most
when God created dogs He didn't help dogs
when God created plants that was average
when God created hate we had a standard utility
when God created me He created me
when God created the monkey He was asleep
when He created the giraffe He was drunk
when He created narcotics He was high
and when He created suicide He was low

when He created you lying in bed
He knew what He was doing
He was drunk and He was high
and He created the mountains and the sea and fire at the same time

He made some mistakes
but when He created you lying in bed
He came all over His Blessed Universe.