My Culturally Rooted Tangent

I sang at choir in the church basement tonight. Please, laugh away.

Yes, I'm a good Irish Catholic lady who practiced with fellow choir members for two and a half hours -- less a twenty minute break in which we drank wine or beer and ate hors d'ourves. (You can refill your glass at the end of break so you have sustenance for the second half of practice!)

Since I am grooving on my catholicism tonight, I shall make confession. I love singing! It's challenging fighting all of the complications of harmony (so appropros on so many levels), it is so challenging fighting all of the bullshit of organized religion -- but somehow set it to music and I feel it. So many conflicts, but goddammit -- I'm still a fucking catholic!

Excuse me, Irish Catholic.

See, that differential is significant. I don't buy into that political pope crap. I also grew up with several guys who killed themselves because they were destroyed by the tragedy of being raped by priests. I imagine one of them as a significant image in the Jungian Archetypical Heaven now. He was golden and beautiful and Michelangelo would have painted him as the Archangel Michael. And I was taught to practice catholicism by 13 years of catholic school and my Irish catholic grandma and Jesuits and a book of the saints. So really and obviously, I'm an overanalyzing, superstitious woman. But aren't those the qualities that keep religion solid, stable and historical?

The point I was trying to make a minute ago is I don't pray to Jesus or God. I think pure, unsinful beings are unapproachable (and a load of misogynistic, hallucinogenic bullshit). I am the product of faith passed on from the oppressed -- pray to your mother and your friends and family, the Blessed Mother and the saints.

And the name is also significant. I was not taught to pray to the Virgin Mary; I was taught to pray to the Blessed Mother. Recite both of those names to yourself and see who you want to call on to assist you in your petitions. Tonight I stood on a bridge that rocked over the Chicago River while singing "Gentle Woman" to a a gift of urban nature which always blesses me. Blessed Mother, thank you for your children.

And tonight I also sang with the church choir -- even "Danny Boy" (yuck) which according to the music notes was published in "Londonderry" rather than Derry. I hate "Danny Boy". Over-played and praising saccharine martyrdom to The Man.

We should sing "The Wind That Shakes the Barley". It's a more valuable theme and it relates better to the times.

"Twas hard the woeful words to frame

To break the ties that bound us.

But harder still to bare the shame

Of foreign chains around us."

Today, the foreign chains are made of different steels. In this millennium, foreign does not refer to other nations and cultures, but rather, multinational corporate persecutors. We are cuffed by different oppressors but we are all still trapped.

And now to quote a catholic from a different culture: "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees."

So let us pray.

Witching Hour

I am not a nice girl. I am not a sweet woman. The clock just struck truth and madness. I started this mermaid symbology to tap into my inner beauty but my inner beauty is dark and strange. On Saturday I was toted in a bicycle chariot up California Avenue by a potion brewing warrior. We kissed in the shadows and now I finally release my inner mother nature. This year, boys and girls, mother nature is tsunamis and tornados. She is moonstruck coyotes clamoring at the cataclysm. She laps up chaos and laughs at your dismantled structures. This siren sings sailors from their personal bondage and throws mona lisa smirks from her island.

Swim, bitches, swim.

(Credits to Dean and Diamanda Galas for inspiring this train of madness. Also to Tray Mead for the image.)

These Theses

I'm trying to concentrate and create my thesis paper, so suddenly every other thing in the world is interesting and intersecting. Which would almost sound raunchy if it wasn't so dull.

My thesis is on cravings. Does treatment with such-and-such device reduce cravings? Unfortunately, the people being rated are already lacking cravings in life which is why they are seeking this treatment in the first place. This muddles the data.

Muddles... data... It's all gone uncertainly Heisenberg on me. It doesn't matter, I guess. I just have to do a remotely comprehensive presentation and then turn in one stack of paper so they'll hand me a stamped one.

Hey, I almost sound like pre-June 2010 Jen, again. I think I'll have to add a picture of a topless mermaid, now. Then we'll all feel better.

I'll work on flowing sentence structure after my thesis.

Ironically Craving

craving: an intense, urgent, or abnormal desire or longing

What I crave and what I do are not presently joined. I crave a long sleep on the warm grass but I sit at a desk and read articles about craving. I craft a grant about craving scales as they relate to addiction while I crave sunshine and birdsong and leisure but my arms are strapped with plastic tubes to the keyboard and so I crave as I create an explanation of craving.

I have officially drowned myself in the existentialist sewer.

Monday Night Purgatory

I wanted to go to Weeds tonight for the open mike poetry because it was the annual Erotica Valentine's reading but I'm feeling decidely UN-erotic. I've never been very good at writing erotica, either. My work goes quickly pornographic and it doesn't take long to turn completely hardcore. Then Gregorio sent out a message that there would be filming and we should dress up and then possibly fall in love with someone. The pressure was mounting. Then I got my period (see what I mean about the suddenly hardcore) and had to drive to the far south side to visit someone in the hospital. Also, whenever I go to Weeds I end up drinking a bunch of tequilas and the next thing I know it's 4:30 a.m. and I'm getting thrown out of the Old Town Ale House. I wouldn't feel right tomorrow morning asking the patients how much they've been drinking while tequila and lime seep out of my pores and the seven dwarves sing "heigh ho" in my skull while driving sledgehammers against my temples.

I hate working in the mornings. It is decidedly not erotic.

Cram It

I like this picture. I ganked it here.

Happy New Year!

How perfect to end this dastardly decade with a blue moon! Goodbye to the aughts and Happy New Year, everybody. Let's make the world a sweeter place in the teens.

Love to you all from the bottom of my emotional ocean.

-- La Sirena

Sleeping by yourself at night can make you feel alone...

There is a difference between lonely and alone; but sometimes the choice to be alone can be lonely. Although I imagine there are those who feel quite lonely even though they have chosen not to be alone.

Choosing to be solitary does not necessarily mean loneliness nor being alone but sometimes it's just so daunting knowing you need to go home to an empty apartment. There are certain creature comforts that come with companionship. For example, having someone to cuddle with in bed. Of course, then that someone usually expects you to shave your legs on a regular basis, but still, it gets hella cold at this latitude and it is pleasant to have someone keep your feet warm.

So I bought some cozy socks and I still sleep on the couch because your bed doesn't seem so empty when you are sleeping on the couch. But then your bed accidently starts accumulating clothes and turns into a kind of express lane closet and then even if you find someone worthy of visiting your bed, you can't really invite them over for a cup of coffee at the end of the night due to the three or four mountains of clothing heaped on the bed and sorted by degrees of cleanliness.

So I think I'm going to clean my room. But I'm not shaving legs yet. This is a process, you see.

(Oh, and I took this image from George Lindmark's Fantasy Paintings site.)

Naiad

Today is a breathtaking gift of Nature all rolling green with her azure cap and puffy cumulus feathers. Wandering away from my house, I encounter brick-painted, huddling homes from two centuries ago built by immigrant Irish who saved a few pennies and built a new community in a triangle a couple miles removed from the death-stench stockyards of their employment. Today there still exists a few Irish and Poles but now it is mostly comprised of upwardly-moblie Mexican nationals who have yard sales on Saturdays and fiestas on Sundays.

The triangle is bordered by Archer Avenue (formerly the Road to Widow Brown's) which reaches out from Chinatown into the wandering desires of Resurrection Mary. This is the southern border of Mount Pleasant, which settles along the river. The Chicago River is now the home of haunted steel mills and scarred ports. Most of it is vacant although the passing trains graon on their tracks day and night like a grandfather on the porch warning against the transcience of our values.

Here, the river itself is spanned by several suspension bridges still studied today by rapt mechanical engineers. The river, far below me, appears in the sunlight as a chunk of amber hiding in its depths some winged prehistoric creature. With its ornaments of railroad ties and ordered train cars and abandoned factories and graffittied granaries it stands in stark contrast to the lake it flows from -- divorced from natural union by dynamite. Once I visited her here among the broken factories and prarie flowers and I came back with a baby. Once I led a parade to meet her at her contrived lake source and dyed her the color of envy.

I am never far from her for long.

Today is my first day of school. No really, I start a Master's of Science program. I kept waking up every hour last night because of excitement and nerves.

So back to writing papers and studying and generally trying to behave myself.

I may have to be more sedate but I will not become boring.

(Oh, and this mermaid was created by David Delamare. I like his mermaids and have used them in previous posts although they all kind of look like they're just lolling around, waiting for Dave to creep up and seduce the song out of them.)

Stuff & Nonsense

I haven't posted in a very long time but I'm feeling sort of creative in an enthusiastically disinterested kind of way -- so here is some stuff and nonsense...

Yesterday, I stopped by the bodega to buy some smokes and there was a large, thuggish and quite stunningly attractive man buying lottery tickets, but he wasn't buying them the usual way. Instead of handing over a pre-filled card or rattling off numbers scrawled on a scrap of paper, this guy bought seven lottery tickets like so:

Next, the fives and eights -- five, eight, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-five, twenty-eight. Now the twos and sevens -- two, seven, twenty-two, twenty-seven, thirty-two, thirty-seven...

Seriously, this went on for about ten minutes and it was hot as hell in that store. Then as I was walking out, the same guy re-enters (nearly running me over) and seven guys walk in behind him as if by choreography(from the left, from the right, from the left, and so on. I finally had to elbow my way out of the doorway). As, I walked to my car I saw them come out of the store and walk down the street in formation. I started to wonder if the lottery tickets were actually an elaborately coded communication system among extremely organized street crews. Who knows? Maybe I'm just imposing patterns on everything.

Also, three of my girlfriends are moving out of town: Denver, Austin and Amsterdam, respectively. I'm itching to move but the kid's got one more year of school and I promised myself I would make strides toward stability. But there's a joyful surrender in a big move that I really miss. Moving can be seductive.

I read a book by a very wealthy capitalist and I learned some things, like it's nice to have tits and assets and it's really good to earn more than you spend. It was actually quite refreshing to read a book by someone who undestands that an economic system is supposed to be about economics -- not an ethos. Once you accept a given economic -ism as your personal savior, you are morally bankrupt and totally fucked.

Not that I'm judgemental or anything.

p.s. I borrowed that picture from somebody's photobucket account

Dulce Veneno

It's been such a long, hard winter. Three of my friends have been laid off in the last week and a half and a whole lot more are bracing themselves for the inevitable. It is still sooty/ snowy and cold. It did warm up to just over freezing this weekend, so that was nice.

I am trying to be more positive. Here are some breasts to cheer us all up.

Another thing that cheers me ... I like the song Dulce Veneno by Uranio. Unos de los musicos del grupo Uranio -- especificamente, el cantador -- son muy sexy de modo machos paisos, sino no haría dormirlo eso tipo del piso para comer bizcochitos. Mejor, él comería mi bizcochito. They play the song on Mex to the Max on the chicano music video station, which I now have thanks to my digital convertor box.

I am glad we get new channels -- including one that shows movies like It Happened One Night and Taxi Driver and All That Jazz weeknights at 7 pm. That almost makes up for the fact that every time a truck or squad car goes by my house everything pixelates to pieces. Seven o'clock movies are good because they keep me off the booze and cigarettes and men.

Warning: this post oozes in a way which may make some readers uncomfortable

As far as I am concerned there aren't enough references to menstruation in this world -- good, bad or indifferent. That's why I co-wrote a play about it 15 years ago. Guys don't like to hear about it, though... I took all the boys to see a show last night and they were completely grossed out by all of the mushy sex and period references made by this particular all-female troop who enjoy discussing all of their particularly female seepages in all of their technicolor glory and divinely crass hilarity.

But alot of women have internalized the male squeamishness with feminine discharge -- bloody or otherwise. I was talking to a female doctor last week (and this particular conversation was the gelatinous zygote that blossomed into this post) and she actually used the phrase "...cookbooks give me the female equivalent of wood..." which confused me and I was sure that I misheard her. Then her meaning very slowly dawned on me and to clarify this bizarrely misogynistic, euphemistic turn of phrase, I said,

"Do you mean to say that cookbooks make you moist? Because the female-equivalent-of-wood would be moist."

So she rolls her eyes and scrunches up her nose and says, "....eeewww, no I wouldn't say anything that inappropriate! THAT is too much information. I just get really, really excited about cookbooks." (Yes, I swear on all that is holy that this woman is a full-fledged medical doctor.)

And right now you need to understand that sometimes I am the female equivalent of Mr. Spock and just must say the most logical yet completely ridiculously obvious thing, such as,

"But you ARE a female and the female equivalent of wood IS moist, so..."

And that was when our hapless mermaid realized that this conversation was a fruitless endeavor and that this self-described "female with wood" was not a peer but a superior on the employment foodchain, although not an acutal supervisor and so our sirena quickly disappeared like morning wood over the toilet bowl.

mala sirena

I just received a fantastic Christmas present. Rhapsody now has 60 Liliana Felipe songs for my listening pleasure. (I posted about Liliana a couple of years ago.)

Her music may not be for everyone, but if you're a dirty little secret lover of cabaret, then this will be just the thing por El Hábito.

Here is a link to listen to my theme song, Mala.

My Rhapsody Playlist

Here are the lyrics. If you want, you can click on them for my English translation.

Mala porque no me quieres
mala porque no me tocas
mala porque tienes boca
mala cuando te conviene

mala como la mentira el mal aliento y el estreñimiento mala
Mala como la censura
como rata pelona en la basura
mala como la miseria como foto de licencia
mala como firma de Santa Anna como pegarle a la nana
mala como la triquina mala
mala y asesina mala como las arañas
mala y con todas las mañas
mala como el orden la decencia
como la buena conciencia
mala por donde la miren
mala como una endodoncia
mala como clavo chato
mala como película checa
mala como caldo frío
mala como fin de siglo

mala por naturaleza de los pies a la cabeza
mala, mala, mala, mala
pero que bonita chingaos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tightly Clichéd

I haven't been reporting because I don't feel like being anything but me and lately I don't make for very good copy. Here are some infinitive forms which currently describe my life: to work, to mother, to granddaughter, to daughter, to sister, to aunt, to behave, to economize, to dodge bill collectors, to heal, to be healed, to sleep, to dream, to plan, to laugh, to master, to rest, to renew, to recalim, to befriend, to enjoy the occasional solitude, to not take things very seriously.

As I said, it doesn't make for interesting reading but it makes for good living.

The biggest news is that I'm trying very, very hard (and not so very perfectly) to kick that devil nicotine once and for all. Please, no comments about how the only way to quit smoking is cold turkey. It isn't and all cold turkey does is make me a homicidal maniac. Nobody wants to see that. Nations will declare jihad on the US because of the large, foul cloud of bad vibes and violence emanating from my aura. It would be very, very bad -- as in hell on earth, armageddon, etc.

The other biggest news is that I'm working on an application for a Master's in Science program offered at the university/hospital where I work.

And in other news...

My son now drives and we just spent the holiday at my mom's eating cold turkey and watching a brazillion bootleg movies.

Also, I wish Blog Ho would post because he's practically my last enjoyable vice in this life since I cut back on the booze and the loose men. Practically, not totally or definitely, so please, still no comments about cold turkey. I don't want to hear it.

Have you noticed that many "loose" men aren't "loose" at all, but rather uptight when you get down to it? So the term "loose" is not a very good one when applied to men of leisure and easy pleasure. Let's change it to "tight" since "tight" is the second syllable in "uptight" and "tight" can also slangily mean drunk and/or a really good mesh of skilled and talented musicians during an improv jam session or (mistakenly used in reference to) a recorded song which sounds very good only after about 10,000 takes.

I have some new girlfriends and some blast-from-the-past girlfriends popping out of the woodwork and I've been having lots of fun hanging out with the girls and doing cool things at cool places and not really caring if you think I'm cute while doing it.

Mostly, I hang out with cool chicks, but I do still know some "tight" guys, in case you were concerned about my ability to be heterosocial. In fact, it was a couple of "tight" guys who helped me relocate my super powers a couple of weeks ago at an improv show during which 2 troupes performed; one female troupe of improvisers called Children of a Lesser God and one male troop of improvisers called Uncle's Brother. The male troop contained some famousish people. The female troop was "tight".

Yeah, during the show the one "tight" guy friend started asking me for a bunch stuff because he is not a boy scout, but rather a journalist. Meanwhile the other tight guy friend was suffering from the adverse effects of a reiki sneak attack coupled with acupuncture, allergy season and a musty rug at the IO, which may cause runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes, ague and overall fatigue. Yet somehow all of the symptoms, wacky energy, extemporanea and general hilarity were strangely regenerative, kind of like an eclipse on Heroes or possibly more like the way the destruction of Alderaan and the death of Obi-Wan brought the gang closer together and led to the eventual triumph of rebel forces against the Empire.

So once again, I have the magical ability to pull any necessary item out of my purse at any given time, for which my superheroic alter ego, Single Mom, is rightfully renowned, and if you ever run into me while drowning in a river I promise to dig you out a straw or a self-help manual on survival or somesuch -- or maybe I'll just dig you out of the current so you don't die.

Not on my watch, pal.

Evidently, I'll Eat Pretty Much Anything

This is a food meme. I got it from Nigel.

• Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
• Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
• Put in red any items that you would never consider eating.
  

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros

4. Steak tartare One of my favorites! Mmmmm, raw, red meat.

5. Crocodile

6. Black pudding

7. Cheese fondue

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari

12. Pho

13. PB&J sandwich

14. Aloo gobi

15. Hot dog from a street cart

16. Epoisses

17. Black truffle

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes

22. Fresh wild berries

23. Foie gras

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn, or head cheese

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper -- but I cried all over myself! As an ex once said, "Pain is a flavor."

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters -- another favorite!

29. Baklava -- I've worked at a couple of Greek Restaraunts -- but I only ate the baklava at one of them. I generally don't like flies in my pastries.

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas --I've seen them at Trader Joe's. As much as I like wasabi, these things do not appeal to me.

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl

33. Salted lassi -- I like the fruit lassis better.

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float --My son would rather have RBFs than cake on his b-day.

36. Cognac with a fat cigar

37. Clotted cream tea

38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail

41. Curried goat -- There used to be a great Nigerian take-out near one of my jobs that served curried goat with yams. mmmmm.... And yes, pain is a flavor.

42. Whole insects --Chocolate-covered ants AND fried grasshopper.

43. Phaal

44. Goat’s milk

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more -- thanks Pete, Richard and Sam!!!

46. Fugu -- I don't ever need to eat anything that poisonous.
47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut

51. Prickly pear -- the jelly

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone -- but I can't wait to try it!

54. Paneer

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal

56. Spaetzle -- I had to google it first, and yes, I have eaten it.

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV -- Thank god for the Belgians.

59. Poutine

60. Carob chips
61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads

63. Kaolin -- seriously, what is this? According to google, it's Chinese clay or an emollient used with anhydrous as an insecticide???

64. Currywurst

65. Durian

66. Frogs’ legs -- When I bartended in the country, one of my regulars went frog giggin', deepfried his harvest and brought them into the bar. Meh..

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis

69. Fried plantain -- I love fried plantain...

70. Chitterlings, or andouillette

71. Gazpacho -- Not only have I eaten gazpacho, 3 other women and I did a performance piece in college which involved the creation of a batch of gazpacho as a metaphor for how much La Reconquista shaped Spanish culture.

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe

74. Gjetost, or brunost

75. Roadkill --I'd like to say never, but the economy is tight and I'd sure as heck carry a dead possum home for soup before I'd let the family starve.

76. Baijiu

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum -- very good, but I prefer Tom Kha

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse -- see #75

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake

Tuning in...

I need to tune into another psychic station for a few days, because the state of the world is so not good right now -- honestly, my state of mind isn't so good either. I haven't been feeling well. I am in the wrong line of work. And yet somehow, I feel like I'm on the cusp of figuring something important out -- if only I could break through that final layer of skin, rip off the scabs or something.

Also -- mermaids have very dramatic, passionate love lives but not such stable ones. This is mostly a result of personal choices with the occasional lifestyle consequence thrown in... some of us are not really cut out for domesticity. And don't ever let anyone shame you into being something you are not or wearing costumes that don't fit.

Pirates are sexy and roguish and best of all, impermanent. I am not stupid. I knew that ship would set sail eventually. In fact, I counted on it -- torn between the tight excited flush of eploration and the desire to return to the ocean floor to mull it all over.

Unraveleing a tangle of thoughts, sensations and emotions is a joy unto itself.

Braaaains ... need brains....

I wrote a test on OK Cupid and you should take it and rate it (because I entered it in the geekery contest.)

Go, now before the zombies get you. Have fun!

http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-zombie-pandemic-personality-test

I Love Quizzes...

The Tri-Variable Personality Test (qualified psychologist) ... Test

Your Score: The Modernist

You scored 42Artist, 30 Philosopher, 27 Scientist!

You represent all that is hypermodern in thinking and existing in today's society. You live a very active and agile mental life, combining it with sporadic activities that involve intense personal expression (art, blogging, etc.) As opposed to the other types, your thinking style is a combination of: methodical, artistic and introspective. This means you are at different points in time capable of: valuing something, imagining it spatially, and enjoying its value experientially. You are likely highly literate, but you are a jack of all trades in that no particular field captures your fancy entirely. You may find yourself involved in a range of activities; make sure you are comfortable with your own identity and that you do not neglect any of the major aspects of thought. There could potentially be a propensity for skiddishness or flightiness. Furthermore, you are very easy going as a friend and partner ... easily absorbing the personalities around you, but not committing to any side in particular. Quote from a Modernist: "People often think I'm flip flopping on my opinons, when in reality, I'm just seeing many sides to something." Examples of Modernists: Tony Blair, Leonardo Da Vinci, Aristotle

Link: The Tri-Variable Personality Test (qualified psychologist) ... Test written by divncom on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test View My Profile(divncom)

Move It On Over...

I'm moving to a new place (in the real world, not the blogworld.). I'll holler at you in a few.

By the way -- this Sirena Frame was created by Kenny Chavez.