“I sit here before my computer, Amiguita, my altar on top of the monitor with the Virgen de Coatlalopeuh candle and copal incense burning. My companion, a wooden serpent staff with feathers, is to my right while I ponder the ways metaphor and symbol concretize the spirit and etherealize the body. The Writing is my whole life, it is my obsession. This vampire which is my talent does not suffer other suitors. Daily I court it, offer my neck to its teeth. This is the sacrifice that the act of creation requires, a blood sacrifice. For only through the body, through the pulling of flesh, can the human soul be transformed. And for images, words, stories to have this transformative power, they must arise from the human body--flesh and bone--and from the Earth's body--stone, sky, liquid, soil. This work, these images, piercing tongue or ear lobes with cactus needle, are my offerings, are my Aztecan blood sacrifices.” ― Gloria E. AnzaldĂșa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

It's a nasty thing being a human

My day starts as it breaks. The sunrise coats the dark as I gather my bearings and brush the mucus from my mouth while I shower, getting rid of natural odors from my abnormal sweating during hot summer nights. It's a nasty thing being a human. 

Construction work being done on the road alters commuters route(s). The bus I am on must make maneuvers around the renovations, which means I must take a detours. Public transportation gives an opportunity for one to temporarily be a sort of pg-13 voyeur.The driver snakes through alternative routes 


I remain in a state of half-sleep-half-awake until I arrive at my destination: a cup of coffee. At the shop, there's news about a shooting in Kenya on the television; no one pays much attention, it's routine—there is little meaning in a ridiculous situation when everyone is accustomed to everything. The only "normal" reaction to a ridiculous situation is a ridiculous one. Most of them face down nose in cyberspace and I feel suddenly down cast; I rush to grab the phone from my pocket. No text. No missed calls. No status updates. No chisme. These little nothings cover a larger nothing. It feels good to avoid the void, until it comes rushing at you 100 miles per hour, engulfing your sensations and subtly causing goosebumps and a sensation of absurdity similarly reflected in the tele. 

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