Under the Illusion

I was overhearing the TV this evening, a program on the History Channel on the theme of warfare. A soldier from this present age was talking about how cheap landmines proved to be, compared to tanks and other artifacts of war. He then flung around the extravagant sum of 40 million dollars: the cost of a single tank.

Which set me to thinking.

Have we really realized how costly it is to wage a war? Billions of dollars go into killing a foreign nation, toppling its government, instating a new one and keeping the order in general until opposition subsides. This bothers me greatly. This money could be used to improve upon the culture, infrastructure and knowledge of this nation, instead of being spent on squandering another. What bothers me even more, to the core of my beliefs, is that this great deal of money is actually being used for violent purposes - to kill people, if you will! Don't people see this is just another WWII situation? Of course, we're "the good guys" now, and no one has grabbed us by the balls, no jews are protesting in English, but our ears are quite deaf to any other language, no matter how loudly spoken. Apparently, "Mercy, please" doesn't count unless spoken in English. That's why no one is moved by these stories: no one has bothered to place the subtitles.

The other part of this that bothers me is that MY money, the money I earn each day as I wake up and make the goodwilled effort to go and work for, the money I spend in food, clothes, sometimes some little extras to make my life better... are directly or indirectly making someone's life far away much worse. I'm obviously referring to the silk road of Taxes. Each year, if you pay your taxes yearly, or each day, if you pay sales taxes... you pay the government a bit of what you earn, a bit of what you spend. We gripe about it, of course, but only because it is money we would rather have in our pockets so we can spend it in yet more things to make our life more pleasant.

I believe most people don't stop to think that with every bit that each one of us puts in, we're amassing a great sum of money. Money we're giving to the government. Money the government spends on war. Our money, our efforts, our sufferings are going bit by bit into making warfare. We work so Dubya can kill peole off. Wow.

Now I am not very comfortable with this. Actually, I disagree. So, do I stop paying my taxes? No, I can't. I would go to jail in a matter of a few years. We are actually paying taxes so they won't throw us into a cell. Our freedom is an illusion, it's bought! No matter what I do for a living, I have to pay taxes, otherwise it's considered illegal and prosecutable by law. This so-called freedom they sell you is not for free. It is not my born right. I have to earn freedom and actually agree, in principle, to kill those muslim motherfuckers, even if at heart I totally hate it and disagree with it.

So, what do we do? We live on, under the impression we're free, but we're not. We've been caged in a structure called society. We're all born the same way and brought into a societal structure into which we're educated for the final purpose of, at due age, integrating ourselves into the worforce and toil away at the turning wheels of the mechanism of war. We are The Big War Machine. Billions of humans wasting away under the impression of freedom, trapped into the mechanisms of the art of warfare.

Just a few steps away from Aldous Huxley's A Brave \New World.

Feeling better...

...although the problems do not cease to come in. My car's "check engine" light just came on today, but I doubt that something's wrong with the car. It could be more like something's wrong with the light.

Well, have taken good advantage of my new toys (40GB iPod and 3200 Nikon Coolpix) and will soon show for it. In the meanwhile, just wanted to jot down that this is one of those moments in which I feel pretty much stable, and in which I usually don't write at all.... well, I decided to, so as to leave evidence that those moments sure exist! ;-D

BTW: Gala died this morning. Mom bought another bird (a green and blue parrakeet that prefers to sit on the swing instead of the perch, bloody weird bird... what should I call her? I am accepting suggestions below! Soon I will post her photo too)

Cuando lo importante da paso a lo urgente

... según Mafalda (qué no daría yo por un scanner funcional para poder poner también el strip en cuestión).

Entre exabruptos y tantrums cáusticos, me he percatado de la mayor pérdida en este último mes y medio, lo que ha provocado esta sensacion de ansiedad (restlessness) en mí. No es la pérdida del tiempo libre (en un momento pensé que sería algo así), pero me veo progresivamente enredándome en la telaraña de la vida comunal/ejecutiva/empleocéntrica del yuppie. Poco a poco aplazando aquello que es importante para mí (el tiempo y energía que le dedico a mi familia, a mis seres queridos, a las cosas q me gustan, y - lo más importante de todo - a mí misma) para atender lo que es urgente. Ni siquiera se trata de tener más o menos días libres, de vacaciones, fuera de la oficina. Ya se va tratando de algo mental, psicológico.

Es decir: You may take Diana out of the office but you can't take the office out of Diana.

Eso es terrible! De pronto encontrarse en la cama a las 11PM intentando descansar y ver q no se puede pensar en nada más alla de lo q pasó durante el día en la oficina o los problemas sintomáticos del apego a ella. Es una de esas relaciones love/hate, y esto es enfermizo.

Necesito encontrar forma de desconectar y poder atender mis propios problemas en mi propio tiempo. Si no paso tiempo en la oficina, lo paso pensando en lo q sucedió, y peor aun: dreading to go back.

It's the end-all, be-all of my puny, little existence. ugh ...

Yuppie shite

Pues tengo q encontrar la forma de salir de eso, antes de empezar a pensar q sería bueno tener propiedades en Los Paseos. Tengo q poder encontrar la forma de q, aun estando dentro de la oficina, no se me olvide q lo q me gusta es el arte, q esto no me haga sentir miserable por no poder estudiarlo ahora, sino q me sienta bien pq no soy parte del rebaño de mierda de estos oficinistas en realidad. Que camino con ellos, pero sólo hasta el momento en q poncho. Que podemos ser compañeros, pero no tienen que conocerme. Que esto es solamente un trabajo, y no mi vida entera.

Tengo q encontrar la forma de desconectarme ... y lo voy a lograr.

My New Pets

The two lovers...



Dalí ...



... and Gala


The story is quite simple: I was doing errands (mostly bank errands, the most depressing and tedious errands of all kinds). I was at El Señorial Plaza (the most depressing mall, go figure, perfect place for the most depressing errands). I had just finished paying this month's installment for the car plus some late fees. I was walking back to my car and I passed by the pet store. Now, usually I'm not very fond of these places since they sell what will never be rightfully ours: another life. Plus they keep the dog-breeding industry alive while there are millions of stray/mixed-breed dogs out there begging to be adopted. Why have a snooty poodle when you can have faithful, playful mongrelSpot! :-D

Well, what caught my attention was a big cage with five tortoises (I love turtles and tortoises). It mostly caught my attention cuz these animals were outlawed years ago in the island (basically cuz of salmonella epidemics due to high contact with them). I was talking to Mom on the phone in the meanwhile and I was telling her all about it. I started touching one of them under the paw and it snapped at me! Nasty ho's!

Well, I turned my attention to the parrakeets. I have never been a fan of caged birds , but these two struck me as an explicitly happy couple. I put my finger to the cage, expecting them to screech in fear and scuttle away, but the male just got closer and nibbled at my finger softly. I was as hooked as I would have been with a pup.

I bought them and brought them home. Meet our new family members: Dali and Gala! :D

Re:

Why is it that for me, even if life has pulled me to and fro, I do not feel the weigh of past wounds... do I not learn?

Why is it that I pay no heed to consistent heartbreak, and make the same mistakes all over again?

I retain the same joy in loving, the same carelessness in throwing my heart away, in surrendering myself to the tiniest whims of emotions ... still a child at heart and not in the best sense.

I see others around me growing more cautious, even in love itself, incapable of the same innocent surrender they once were. In me I only see the same carelessness intertwined with a dark tendency to feel doom in the slightest cloud.

I have a belief that love will be love wherever you put it, however you feel it. That's why these "grown up" tendencies to be more cautious or more detached scare me so, cuz a hardened hard is just too easy to find... the easy way out of just feeling and living the most out of life.

Maybe I'm being to hard on the others, maybe I'm being immature at all .... this...

But to see the apples around me rotting away while I still work hard at keeping my own core intact ... it's frustrating, it breaks my heart.

And maybe this drama won't help at all, but one too many times I have seen people being spoiled for good by situations ...

Maybe one day I will be the old lady sitting in a corner smiling out the window, not caring at all, still feeling like a toddler, still remembering all except how she got into the assylum.

If only old age would get here fast, then maybe I will only see that the rotten apples around me resemble little dark hearts, wilted flowers, something out of a song, something that doesn't touch me ... by then only sunlight and breeze will touch me, and those never rot at all ...

Trading Spaces

Go to Anais's Travels for the serious stuff today.

This will only be a display of mirth and a subtle wish of owning this:



The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra

It's 1961 and Dr. Paul Armstrong (Larry Blamire) and his lovely wife Betty (Fay Masterson) head into the mountains in search of a recently fallen meteor containing the rare element atmosphereum. Paul needs it to help him with his science work, but Betty'd just as soon have a vacation. Also in the area, sinister Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe) asks trusty Ranger Brad (Dan Conroy) the whereabouts of Cadavra Cave, mysterious home to rumors of a legend of the Lost Skeleton." That night, both parties witness what appears to be yet another meteor falling. Immediately after, a local farmer is killed by a horrible, unseen thing. Is there a connection? Indeed there is. The second meteor is actually a disabled alien spaceship with a strange couple from the planet Marva, Krobar (Andrew Parks) and Lattis (Susan McConnell). These aliens discover they also need Atmosphereum to power their really high tech ship, and notice their horrible pet mutant (Darrin Reed), which they travel around with for some reason, has escaped. Unfortunately, Dr. Fleming discovers he also needs the atmosphereum to bring to life the dreaded Lost Skeleton of Cadavra which he finds in the cave.

After the aliens disguise themselves as earth people with the aid of their "transmutatron", Dr. Fleming swipes it and morphs four different forest animals into his own ally - the beautiful cat-suited Animala (Jennifer Blaire). Now everyone's after the atmosphereum and the Armstrongs find they have their hands full, capturing the mutant, stopping the evil scientist, and vanquishing the power-mad Skeleton who wants to rule the world.


Oh well....


I sleep now.

If we were in medieval times...

our roads and our highway would look like a BIG medieval joust field.



Our flags:



Our contenders:


But none of it will matter if this guy wins the elections!


Either of these two would be as bad!

Toy CAGA!

Por las elecciones, mas las de afuera (EU) q las locales ... let's hope for the best