2013 year in review

Exciting as all hell. Raw, inspired, growth. You have stunned me, 2013. You have made me feel like a 12 year old, freshly picked off some vine.

The world is grand and exposed. Tile in old colonial quarters... sour, tropical drinks. Hunger and angst and a shuffling of dreamscapes and the ocean on my feet! Biking through the smog and returning with the cinematic rhythm of falling in love with life, confused, just like an adolescent again.

Some women are islands

I am, indeed, an island.

Like that fifth grade project create-a-country where you papier-machêd a dream paradise land with palm trees and dolphins and strawberries into the shape of a moon. Something isolated, something forced, something repressed, but dreamy. Far away, lonely as hell, heavenly and void of civilizations. Something private and deeply exposed beneath the sun and dry sand.

When I run out of sleep, when I run out of thirst, my head becomes a glass ball full of swirling smoke. Swirling, swirling, swirling.

No man is an Island, Fer said, dammit Alice, No man is an Island

But I am, indeed, an island. Also worth noting, I am not a man. I have found out a way to fortify myself with a moat the size of an ocean, and while my voice carries far and eerily across the sea, most voices that get released are tired and shortsighted, focused on surviving the time of day and surviving the weather.

Yes, I have visitors by motorboat, but I hide in my jungle. I feel like that terrifying island from life of pi that glows at night and that which is organic becomes carniverous. Hidden, mystical, barbarious, scared of myself.

Other times its beautiful, peaceful, and quiet, colorful but distant. Could be swallowed up by the sea, dying for company.

Mama hands and her virtual universe

I remember my mother sitting in front of a computer in the mid-90s, writing down encrypted Norse patterns from a video game, to decode the most advanced puzzles to get to the next level in the virtual universe, Raven. If she was intent on her task, we hardly noticed. Her hands did it for her, scribbling and scratching like a comfort doodle while talking on the telephone, like a life drawing in the park. Nonchalant decoder.

It was like her crossword puzzles on a clipboard before she went to bed. Very serious braintainment puzzle accomplishment achieved in her most intimate moments. Pijamas, with cat, soft warm relaxed skin in bed. Advanced sudokus, all filled in, beside her in bed as she slept.

I don't even remember playing Raven because it was too difficult, too obtuse, too confusing and multilayered. I feel like one day I asked my mom what happened to that game and she probably answered, half paying attention, oh I solved it, it was all right.

It was a bit like those afternoons on sunny weekends where suddenly mom wouldn't answer the phone and then we of course asked "where the heck have you been?" And shed just answer, "the GARDEN" with a giant breath and excitement in her eyes and active veins in her forearms. I have absolutely no clue what she did back there, or why. Weeding, I guess. Sometimes she said she moved some things around. All I know is nothing ever died unless it was supposed to, and her hands did all the work. Sometimes she would come back with a snapping sprout, or a sliced up hand, or a black, bruised index fingernail, or worse, a worm. These things were worth sharing.

And then there were dozens of rolls of cloth and drawers of needles and thimbles and old bullets from wars and magnifying glasses. All were used for making quilts. I don't ever remember any quilt she made, but I remember the sound if the machine. Hours of silence, calmness, and the tvktvktvktvkk. Tvktvktvktvkk. Her hands did it for her.

Overeager

Shame, mania, the occasional reminder that I can "come off the wrong way"

"Aggressive", "control freak", "surprising and uncomfortable".

I don't mean to be abusive. In fact, I really mean to be constructive. Maybe I've been taught to love by beating down and embracing, as a rebellion and a loneliness if sorts, of being too smart and too solitary too often.

And when I feel valued, I go balls to the wall and I don't see any reason to inhibit myself if I'm a positive whirling force of eager energy and hope and spirited volition.

"I want to be pushed too", I've told others, but people who have disappointed me push back with biting, personal words I am unfairly loyal to. "You just want control," they may say; "You need to chill out." Or worse yet "You need to be patient."

"You need to be patient" really means "You can't grow here," and "You need to calm down," really means "I can't keep up with you and I am insecure so I will make it your problem rather than find strengths with you and help you channel the positive force that is your energy." Yet, the reality is, sometimes its not my world I've walked into. Maybe for them, they really do need me to be patient. and I reject those needs. I'm like a smart, destructive, beautiful Samoyed. You abandon me, you bore me, and I will chew through that which you value. I don't mean to. I just get hurt and upset at the unstimulating world sometimes. I can't believe I just called myself a dog.

I've been trained, and I remind myself when I am on my best behavior that the pull rather than push method is a universe of missed opportunities but far more qualified wins. Ugh, the traps of being a lady. And the reality is, wow, its my duty to find strengths and channel force too. I know I shouldn't waste my time with the inerts and the inerters. But an inertive force can be very powerful and requires rebirth. I can't allow myself to become a Samoyed. Or if I am, I have to choose to be a damn loving one. Waking up helps, though it may keep me from sleeping.

On Saturday, I didn't get out of bed all day. "Now is not the time to visit. Please respect our decision." The words of sharp, unexpected rejection crushed me, not just because they meant I would not get to see friends or family for more weeks. But it's almost thanksgiving. That wasn't all of it. I didn't even let Gemma or Hector in when they knew I was upset and knocked on my door. I was in bed, unshowered, staring at a white screen, makeup halfway smeared across my pillow.

They crushed me because they reminded me that my eagerness must, as a curse, be repeatedly punished. Once I earn familiarity, it is far less punished. Maybe it's because I can be deeply inspiring, if condescending. Maybe it's because I am genuine, if clumsy. Maybe I brighten the room with my quirks and my hope for a stallion ethic. Maybe they see me deflate, human, alone, defeated. I try not to be Don Quixote but I'd rather stay young and hungry. I suppose I am learning to hide desperation and ego. In expectation of disappointment, and in lack of social validation since i am overwhelming enough to begin with I rarely get feedback, this is the most challenging thing ever.

Regardless, a generator makes loud noise outside my balcony. I think it's coming from the nightmare kitten truck from which sparks flew behind a curtain later that Saturday when I was stumbling across the street in heels, eager to meet a complete stranger who had come a long way to find me. The truck is horrifying, it is literally covered with dripping kittens. The kind of thing you paint if you feel a lot, suddenly, and then wished you hadn't created it. I asked my new stranger to walk up and see what the sparks were, since the surprise of the emerging sparks had almost caused me to eat it. "Welding I guess," he said. I stood there for a second with my hand on my head.

I am an artist, I must remember, I am like that. I will find strangers, who will come a long way to find me. "You still have those wild eyes" my friend Kelly stated, commenting on a pic I'd posted of me age three, my mother, and my sister whale watching, leaning over a foamy and speedy expedition boat's edge. This fills my heart infinitely. Kelly had told me openly once she thought I was a terrible or at least loatheable person when she had met me - who is this hot girl saying what she wants and challenging people. Until she learned I was like that - I really didn't even realize I came off that way, she said, and she realized I'd be a best friend for life.

Kelly lifts me of my rebellion and of my kicking and screaming. The thing about me is, I feel invisible, but I am heard. She reminds me that it matters. She is loyal. She shows me she needs me. And I'm determined to do the same. It may take some time, but I'm determined to focus more on rewarding and less on heart-sleeving.

Kelly told me once, "It is so beautiful, vulnerability," and she was talking about a moment that became a soulmate husband. "Ha" I said and "hmm" I thought. A man at a wedding and I once dove into the Caribbean at the end of the night and he lay floating weightless in my arms and I think he apologized for being weightless. "Sorry I'm weightless," he said. "Vulnerability is important," I said. We both kind of just floated there, wondering at each other. I thought of all the times anyone had shared with me under the stars.

This is the standard we can afford to have. It's the standard like a lullaby when we fall off, from kicking the monkey bars, when they kick us back. We are left to look up at the sky and squeeze the dirt through our fingers and pull up grass gently and smell it. Remember those moments after doing cartwheels as a kid, when you lay alone and gawked at the size of space, which you only saw once a week? Well, thank goodness we get kicking and kicked, or else we may never get this view :-)

Outing

 what I almost told my family, again, but it was too much to wrote them, and I got embarrassed.

I think most people may not understand bisexuality because gay is "other" but bi is chameleon. Truth is I've always been queer, since I was 0, its a part of my swagger just like frida, ellen page, whatever, but no one can say I won't end up in a traditional marriage and perfectly happy - barefoot mama in a garden - yet taking executive calls and owning it - and still feeling a deep sisterhood with the blow songs and glad to be part of the community as a person! I hope I get to do it all, all that expression and still be me

And a great love. Where pathetic is pathetic but vulnerable wildly strong. Where from across the room , things go soft, and the whole room fills with soft. where a little voice and a little chord dare to be girly, raw, vital and biting. Where the wild things are in hoods and mischievous smirks and bring creative gifts because we notice everything when we are in love with the world.

Chameleon shoulders, chameleon necks. Chameleon fingers, chameleon dance moves. Chameleon wreckage, and chameleon declarations. Silent chameleon decrees of fresh, groovy accomplishments!

Since you need to maintain your patio life, when you live in a tropical country:

  An open heart collects a lot of air particulates

Aka pollution; it may turn gray, with black spots... wipe it off every couple of days, bleach, re-lacquer, unless you like the spots.

An open heart requires: Weather-resistant furniture so the shifting storms that occupy don't cause damage; space heaters when it gets cold, because it will; and good music to create atmosphere....

Fortunately, despite all this, everybody wonderful  a sunny terrace to a stuffy room. There's nothing so refreshing.

Broken arm

Arm feels like it has endured a short life as a chew toy for some fiberglass puppies. Slow, playful, boisterous gnaw. Fractured little armlet is making too much noise on a hot earthy night!

What i almost posted, to advertise my tumblr page

Team FB,

Craving nostalgic cult classics? Check out my tumblr blog with Perez-like narration to yesteryear's rebellious anthems.

Cultcultcult. Today's theme is grunge and there are references to Mr. Mugatu, middle school Metallica shows and, in good uncomfortable 90s fashion, suicide (bad). Kinda like looking at old yearbooks. Its sweet, really.

Who knew I was gonna be an old school MTVer? The girl without a TV. Previous themes include French a-go-go, Riot Grrls, Brazilian Psychadelic music and Sexy 50s geriatric jazz. Tip for diligent readers: search for "Alice goes where" elsewhere on the internet and it'll get real.

Whats not possible with a broken arm

Ladies/Gents- if you are ever one-armed, as in: you broke your arm and can't use it, and are cooking some healthy greens, please note the following track record:

1. Opening bottle of white wine using feet & one-handed screwing: Possible
2. Jar of mustard, using hand and teeth: Impossible. Mustard jar shatters on floor, reveals jar was actually truffle salt. Fuck.
3. Jar of actual mustard, with armpit: Impossible. Ow! Using knees: Impossible. Crotch: possible. Wow the strength.
4. Turmeric. Possible. Thank god. Things almost got weird. That stuff is y-e-l-l-o-w.
5. Cutting carrot to caramelize with onions, by carefully balancing on cutting board, and making clean, confident whaks: omg what was I thinking. Carrots fly into abyss under sofa. Must go scuba diving.
6. Neighbors seeing me one-armed sofa diving for carrot piece: Priceless.

Put on some loud rock music and closed my blinds.

Bathtub honey wine

Zelch! What is this, unfiltered? Nonsense! The cork is plastic... Can't be corked...
Bathtub honey wine?

Bizarre.
Tasted fine in my greens with mustard and vegetable broth. Not buying this again.

Fake applications for being a better human being, because i realized i needed to try

  Future of mexico
Design thinking
Equality of access and technology
Scalability 2.0
Resources in macro
Macrodesign
Development and innovation
Reworking business models for development
Rethinking equality
Rethinking borders via communication
Inter continental communication in business
Bridging gaps in knowledge sharing on diverse teams
Better collaboration cross continent
Spain to mexico
Australia to UK
US to Asia
Designing new interfaces as solutions to equal access
Poverty solutions

MacroDesign : Macroeconomic + Design Innovation
How can we use principles of artificial intelligence to help people's access to water?
How can we create plasticity in emergency response systems?
How can we increase access to banking via mobile for people who live in rural or isolated urban areas?
How can we accelerate distribution networks of credit among impoverished communities, and encourage feedback at a manageable scale?
How can electrical solutions for governments be better visualized to real-time inform international energy policy?

All these ideas I want an academic basis for.

In school, I studied neuroscience and art to go to the very limits of what science and social communication was capable of. Now, I want to do this in business school: arrive at our ultimate human barriers and redesign the limits of human impact of technology. My grandfather, who was a civil engineer who became a quantum physicist in his old age, wrote a chapter called "quarks: turning and other quirky behavior" which explored the moment that math, our language, breaks down, and the rules as we know it begin to disintegrate. This is like an un-detangleable bottleneck in a web app; after reaching a certian scale, sometimes you can re-code and restructure to get the efficiency you need to function but sometimes you need to redraw your entire language and perspective to GROW - thereby coming up with an understanding of the world and how to solve problems at this scale.

This is a principle I have taken from the most thrilling tenets of my 5-year career in emerging internet technologies, and 4-year study of contemporary art & neuroscience: once we reach a certain scale of data that our understanding begins to break down, once we reach our own physical, sensory, or resource-based limits, then we must discard the very basis of our barriers (be it C++ for HTML5: be it neurotransmitters and begin to study growth factors; be it paint, and begin to use computers) in order to reveal an entirely new language to describe the future.

comScore and Nokia propelled me into amazing projects at the forefront of emerging technology (user research and mobility), and Google has treated me well. Once seasoned in disruptive tech for 4 years in Silicon valley, I joined Google on a personal mission to move into the d3veloping world & extend my humanitarian scholarship program (Robertson Scholars), which focused on leadership through a humanitarian spirit, hunger for discomfort, intellectual curiosity, community service, and courage. Like that program, Google gives employees access to tackle huge social or economic problems with scaling simple tools. In college, it may have been a camcorder; at Google, its code and all of the information of the world extracted using it. Examples include Project Loon, Charity Water, Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops, and more.

In my current team, I'm tasked with two "break barriers" projects this season: 1) Partnering with the federal government to re-market the country of Mexico to the world via the internet (combatting negative stereotypes thru interactive, experiential media promoting investment in Mexico) and  2) Managing the workflow of a team dedicated to the biggest industry for Google in the country - and the biggest legal industry for Mexico after oil - tourism.

Tourism reveals macroeconomic trends unravelling between Mexico and Brazil, Colombia, Spain, the U.S., China. I research huge-scale investments, technology access, crime patterns, profit models, auction dymanics and geography for my multi-market pitches to top global travel companies about their expansion strategy in LatAm. My recommendations are usually based in reworking digital intelligence within their own business models.

My market covers 589,000 humans, but just a fraction of them are participating - and if I can go to business school and develop strategies to build solutions to accelerate access for the 63% of Mexican swithout access to internet - imagine potable water - then I could scale to markets of 2 billion, and help feed democratizing inventions' penetration to those currently without access. Access to internet, education, water, medicine, jobs. I want to discover other tools: so far I understand camcorders and code, but there must be many more.

To do this well, I have to be a serious people person and understand old world conservatism, institutions threatened by tech, and align with audacious leaders and influencers on the ground willing to disrupt in the name of equality. My progress on building a foundation in my first year here has been really interesting in Mexico as it's going through a major adolescent period of economic development.

Outside of work, I am a major ambassador from Silicon Valley to bring agility and change-driven mindset to influential groups in Mexico City. I serve as a coach and core ally for angel investors in the region (500 startups, angelhack), women developers, incubator initiatives in the private (wayra) and public (inda / entrepreneur) sectors,  and I'm even involved in a project creating the official narrative to incentivize national banks to launch mobile banking solutions and broaden their reach. I have been invited to host innovation workshops for X org representing Mexico problem-solving from my house, and I'm being recruited to be country manager and launch Spanish-Latam expansion for an SF ads solutions platform focused on a disruptive media model (RTB). I have spoken at tech conferences to engineers about disruptive problem-solving thru "coding for poverty" and received a standing ovation. I have had an amazing year of plugging into the real challenges and opportunities of the developing world.

I am hoping you will accept me into your program because I want to deeply study technologies of scale - and how to redesign solutions to basic problems in the name of human equality - and ensure that they work.
After two years with your program, I'd like to go to a CEO and sit down and discuss how to get to 10x WHILE helping solve human problems. And walk her through the economics of how that is going to work. Sustainability and design thinking are inherent to this plan, because they encourage the flexibility required for an organization to change values and start thinking in a new human scalable language. The type that allows us to break barriers again - understand the plastic brain and the quarks of humanity - of suffering, and of money. If you accept me into your program, I promise that I will be a catalyst for the class and represent a great legacy for the program moving forward. I think like an artist, work like an engineer, and dream like a politician. I want to learn great management skills to go where we have never gone before!

Why having crushes are dangerous and why it sucks when they are crushed

There are so many spectacular things to do that if you are down, you must wake up. If you are tired, you must get out. Do not keep pushing a little, but rather push a lot, enough to get you to a totally new place, and you will see what you are capable of. What is mind boggling is how many possible lives you could be leading right now. Hundreds of possibilities of love, of disaster, of amazing ambitions succeeded or failed. What if I moved to Boston? Who would enter and take over my world? What if I moved it Singapore? What of I simply started something radically new? How unfamiliar could the past become? How much more could you accomplish? We have no time for the ordinary, if we open our imaginations. If we open our own doors, winds gush in, and accelerate us to a speed we didn't once know possible.

The hard part is that you have to constantly be creating dreams and fantasies - tactile, visual, graspable visions of the future - to make them happen, and move with the audacity to make things real and possible. Sometimes we let it fog up and don't create new visions for a while. This is where things get stale. But with any simple fantasy you can go wildly through a set of patterns to enact a million variations of that movie - that real life enactment. Its so simple. And so permutable.

Me flirting, when someone was kind

Something I never sent.

Aw thanks baby.. it's a milestone at least :) gotta do the math and figure it all out!

Thanks wonderful! :) we'll see

Life reinvents itself... wild and pretty. This summer solstice its like doing this cool conjuring masked dance and all these different friendly beasts are coming out to convive

How to deal with being irresponsibility explosive at a workplace setting

The best we can do is make sure the bad days don't sabotage the good ones, that is, when its good, being really extreme, and when its bad, painting your mind punk rock and channeling your best energy into creative creative productions.

Because the only thing rewarded in good is extreme, the exact same thing punished in bad.

The Prince

The difference between the adventurist, the narccisist jetsetter, the free spirit and the douschebag overachiever is in the heart. Otherwise, they have the same energy to grow, seek growth, drive growth and recycle themselves as they decompose, regenerate, age and die many times throughout their lives. These are the people who capture my attention the most - all 4 types. The adventurist, wildly driven by curiosity, and confident in his own impact - will conquer mine.

Big thighs

You know, as lost as we are, I think we have a lot of it figured out. And thank goodness we got lost, or else home would mean nuthin.

I have these big thighs where if I slump down and let my belly go flat and hard, the thighs welcome everything in the world. Nobody could wreck them. They are strong as sin.

I have these tiny wrists that keep my fingers and tongue delicate, vulnerable, nimble. My lips jut out in a deep under bite when I'm relaxed. There's no messing with my attitude. I am a tough detective, I'm watching you with that lip.

If I slump down just right, and hide just right, my mind will take its own way to get where it needs to go. But for as intense as I am, all this mental space is like a big steam room. Time flies by until I gotta go get air.

I do not need to be a leader

I do not need to be a leader, lord, I can do without the baggage. Make me a trailblazer, but bless me with a fire that makes things grow, not die. Make me a trailblazer mama.

Where if I light things up without expecting it, I may ravage and nourish like a flood - in come the new crops!

"care less" to succeed more

id rather be terribly conflicted and overstimulated
but desperate? its excitement that comes off as vanity and flippancy is it
am i really screaming so loudly with a polite update in passing
do i really gain credibility by doing nothing
is that really how they do it

not easy being a free spirit terrified of losing control, yet definitely one who hears her drum only.
one day ill be an artist, but if i can survive within the corp system just a few more rides around the park
a bit more whiplash, splinters, blasts of misty breeze, sunburn and vomit
i'll consider it a wild success

El Futuro

Javier

yo tambien estoy emocionado de unirme a un equipo ya muy exitoso

nos va a ir muuuy bien, ya verás!

Patricia

the world is unlimited in LATAM, amiga!

you are going to a big playground

Boisterous on a Friday

I feel boisterous like I want to go to an amusement park and get on the stage in the middle of the park and sing karaoke.

It's a special kind of boisterous.

I run at yellow lights!

I run at yellow lights!

If I am a leaky velocity oozing fire hydrant, and someone has put a big board on me to keep me from spraying all over the traffic especially as they wait at those lights, well I'll run all over the street!

I'll find some mold! I'll grow something bold! I am water, dammit! Physics is on my side!

I run at yellow lights!

I am waiting for you, wet and drying on the other side.

The danger with old mod chef's coats

Hands in the pockets, phone in the hand. Let go of the phone, let it hang. Krapp! On the sidewalk again. What's happening?

These pockets have no bottoms. Just like that.

Advice from Kaarima's mother on how to treat chemo symptoms through diet, as I held myself because kaarima was moving

Silium - dehydrated seed
Linasa - grano 2 tsp con agua y tomar todo
Fibra natural

Aloe /sabila 3 aloe, miel, 1/2 kilo, licuadora, 1a taza de tequila o aguardiente. Toma 1a cuchara len mañana en el referí, una en noche. Remedio para cáncer para limpiar el digestivo. Ayuda del alcalinidad de la sangre.

Apio, pina, perejil, toronja. exprimidor.

1 Vaso de agua, Mañana, cebolla rojo, ajo, 3-4 limones. Limpiar el cuerpo. Para cambiar la alkalinidad, porque esta congestionada. "kel escorpionazo". Fuerte pero ayuda en purificar.

eat vegan

La reprimida intoxica ...tiene que aprender en salir las emociones

Yoga es mejor

Types of angst at 26

Sustainable, realistic angst. Terribly responsible angst.

Limbo questions, getting right down to the matter as a single person in the world:

Which is better- being excited about the present or having hope for the future? What restlessness is healthy, and when does it get toxic? What is abandonment? When is adventure escapism, thrill-seeking, and when is it confronting reality?

How much should I go out of my way to show my friends I care about them, if we neither have enough time for each other? What am I saving money for? How often does my posture offend people, when I put my feet up and knees to my chest in every chair I sit on? Why do awkward butterflies turn into emotional crush butterflies when you put the right music on?

I have Feelings

I have Feelings.
So cool!

Trembling with excitement

My brain is hopping out of my seat.

discouraging people

make me sad.
Everyone
should be encouraging. Discouragement should always be replaced by momentum, faith, sympathy, and humor. people who are incapable of this, stay away from leadership positions. that is all.

what inspires me in latin airports

i want a little two year old son with light brown skin and a paperboy hat.

Why I wish the Internet could be more like the very conversational tropical birds outside my window as I snooze

They have a far better relevancy algorithm for search results. They are amazing little machines-utterly mobile, feed off of their own infrastructure and even help it thrive and reproduce (passing seeds). They are effortlessly social. They are full of delightful surprises with their complex song, which is subtle, expressive, and at once minimalist and graceful, while attention capturing and detailed.

I think i am high on water

I hate drinking water! I never get thirsty. What is happening.... this expressive, nervous, thoughtful energy, in my headphones, bottle after bottle after bottle.

when lace falls apart

it becomes so sexy, so decrepid, and so cool
like baby coral pressed in a book, or like skin
that has been stretched until the cells make patterns, and the individual molecules separate
revealing flowers you may not have noticed, tiny stitches
you have no idea how came to be

and demented, weak, delicate shapes
that had been withstanding the skin and force, twist, and bloat of your body for years!

oh no, I don't want to throw this away, though god forbid the naked bare skin be exposed in large soft patches where the lace broke, tempting to reach in
it's too cool! I'd rather stretch it until it breaks, and glue it on a board with rubber cement, to eternalize its stretch, and strange cellular structure, mutated, glued, full of skin and weak.

Imagine an entire wall of old lace, stretched and broken and flat, glued behind glass, disintegrating, faded and unraveling at the seams. Imagine it kept taut for eternity! beautiful pinks, taupes, golden with age, gray with dust, rose with washes- the synthetic fibers as stretchy and parasitic as neurons, the the stiff cotton ladies' lace as stale as cornbread snowflakes, crumbling like dandruff.

up there it would sit on the wall like a brain of secret paralysis, modesty, sex, and delicacy.

the hungarian boy

was quiet but not shy. he did not know what to say. he had learned to not trust people, not because he had been betrayed,

but because people often did not understand when he said certain things.

the boy had uncombed hair which uncombed itself under hoods, leaning against walls, backs of busses, and when he was truly happy, the palms of his hands. his eyes were small and hidden, though people would notice him from far away (only when he wanted them to least).

When he was happy, people didn't look so much... it was when he was put in a box that his small hidden eyes glowed with a cynical, discerning roughness that pierced through any flat environment.

the boy was a chess genius, and smiled at his mother, though often had too much energy to handle her. mental restlessness to listen. Occasionally he would walk out of class, blatantly disrespecting authority. he was easily unimpressed and dangerously hard to read. he was sexy, even if he was just eleven or twelve. he felt extra sexy when he stayed still with his shoulders hunched over, when he was angry and tired and his brain was worn down enough to not give a fuck about anything. he loved himself then.

he liked the ties, because he respected feeling sophisticated, but hated the way his pleated pants felt when he sat down.

He wanted to play with the old men in the park, but feared their rotten breath, so he watched them from his window. his favorite was the lively man in mustard wool who would smirk and touch his face when he was frustrated.

he couldn't sleep at night, so would close his eyes and imagine conveyor belts and fresh fruit and making out. when he dreamt, he dreamt of infinity and controlled states of near-doom and vast oceanic halcyon. he was little, but he had a real swagger - yet all of his forcefulness came from his delicate, passionate face.

he was a chess prodigy at ten, playing for the president and hosted on trains all the way to st. petersburg and switzerland. By twelve, he felt useless, lost, full of presence, and smarter than ever.

he wasn't sure if it was the best part of his life or the worst part of his life when he was thirteen, and decided he didn't care to be the best 13-year old chess player in the slavic lands, probably because he wouldn't get it, but mostly because he had given up long before he tried.

my comfort place

i am back

- its been a long time - i forget how beautiful this music is

in my comfort place

a little bit crazy

with the hair on my arms ajar, sweeping, chilling, shaking

soft high harmonic voices, waterdrops and davcy synthesizers - it's a safe spot where my breaths are more meaningful, my energy is thoughtful, where eye contact is charged, where patience is not empty - but rather, Really a virtue because the feelings and the energy is sustainable, without emptying itself

It's being back on the wavelength

it's like crying after a funeral, watching the beauty of the thousands of sun-lit leaves

angles are beautiful, textures are meaningful, and time is presently intense and dashingly destructively celebratory and delicate and rejoiceful

it's good to be back, stroked again by chills, kissed by my own live brain

The Flower

I stopped the man because there was a blue smeary painting with gorgeous layers, a sign that just said "bliss". I wanted to buy it, and I could buy it, because it was small and on the street attached to a woven wire fence.

"It's not my painting... people just leave them here." Oh no, I can't take it then, because other people (I waved my arms) need to have it. I looked at him very seriously. The bliss stays on that fence.

The bearded man had a look - which all San Franciscans recognize - that he was about to say something unexpected. Oh god, what was he about to say. He looked too inspired. He said something about living in the moment, but way more intense. And then he said,

"Thank you for bringing that color into my life." Just, Wow. Thank you.

My flower is fuschia. The mexican lady who sold it to me said it, too - I was called to it by that color. I was called to it. In her yellow and goldenrod walls, by mexcian damsel with a guitar, smiling with us ca. 1940.

"Look, look at these walls I have! Its.... let me find it... the color of this cerulean here." Oh wow. Wow wow wow. She lit up. This is the flower. This is the bruja flower.

A bum pulled out his magnifying glass to take a look. "I love Orchids." This one is so beautiful. This one is really... wow. I'm not going to bother you, but I would climb a tree just to take a little piece of a flower like this. He is talking about for his mojo. He's from the deep south, he said.

What should I name her? I asked Adam. "Darfur," he said. Oh god, what a depressing name for something that is supposed to bring happiness. Really? I was just looking at the map. I looked up, and the only map he could be referring to was of San Francisco. Seriously, Darfur?

Dah-fuuurhh. I let it roll, softly, like french. Dah-fooorhh. Its a a soulful sound. This little flower.

Back in bed, this flower is my valentine. It's the only one I need, seriously. This orchid is so vibrant, so unbelievable fuschia that any other color near it, the more brilliant, the more blindingly passionate and invigorating becomes the combo. This is the flower to eat papaya nearby to. This is the flower for the inside of tomatoes. For deep, black hair, for brilliant green grass, or green parrots, for medium gray wet stones.

26 is the new 14

happy-angsty. except attitude adjustments are less corporeally challenging.

instead of your whole body trembling with tense, shameful dread and self-rejection,
its now more of a sneaky, manipulative trick we play on ourselves

in order to think positively about change as it shakes up our world.

We have mastered the game of the worst of 14 year old rivals.. those who drove you to develop through fear of perception: a sneaky undercurrent of influence based on survivalist values: self pity and contempt is much more satisfying, though cleansing positivity is far healthier, we are convinced of an attitude change only when considering how we will be perceived.

Its the new 14!

my jaw problems suck

because they induce headaches when I'm coziest.
face mashed into the pillowtop, cheeks dislodged for dreaming. ouch, ouch,

however may I burrow?
I prop my face up, hand down, knuckles at my temples.

my new straight life

Ok ok ok ok ok not so bad. Blackbird "with the lesbian bartenders" has 2 straight guys, and they're already my favorites. "I was thinking about the mezcal." "do you like spicy? bitter?" "Yeah." "I know just the drink. I can make you something wonderful."

And I trust him, the bearded jack, and the tiny, engaging argentine with the papyrus scrolls listing drinks in proper german prose and caps with curved Ls - agave, cardamom, bell pepper, rhubarb. cinnamon and plum wine. rosemary and maple. mist of scotch. amaro nonino.

It's all sparkle, and no glow. Thank god!

Doodles, tamales, and hand-carved cherry bar-heads, save my soul.

its ok

because comfort comes at both
the most waken and sleepyest moments
because wherever you are you will find your way to one.

a baby in cascais

the man who lay on the beach

dreaming, and analyzing the flowers - with the authentic words, and the glow, like liquid sunmelt all over my body and soul, launching an entire language into

my spirit for the first time

is having a baby.

at 26, my last guarded youthful fantasy

launching into tropical fruits, art in cobblestone streets, villas with linens, turquoise seas, and 100% natural attitude within it,

has been struck with life.

The kind that kicks you and tells you, "wake up! go to work." when your throat hurts.

Ay, the language of twisted trees with blossoms in the moon that smell amazing

and make your skin shake;

and the home I found on a greek island which I turned into

my room in a hole, in chinatown, to recreate every night in the same pajamas -

our youthful fantasy lives on and shakes its head at time.

dust; windex; clutter; sore throats, and babies.

18-22. 18-22. All of my fantasies, 18-22. cuban rooftops, dawn in Mycenaean territory, overlooking the goats; sunset with papaya and hawaiian gypsy music; the company is never so fresh.

22-26, 22-26. Same four years, and I've built a stale patience

of a woman.

I can swingdance for goofs and sautee artichokes and eating one in my cramped hallway floor straddling the heater, resenting a stale white striking some untuned chord in my heart.

I have to choose in the meaning of life to have meaning.

I have to choose in love, to wake up.

If I am not present, I am not. Why is life cold, if I have life. What use is a foggy city, with no angst. My skin needs some whisper, without bashfulness. A deep kiss, without self-consciousness. My curiosities have dwindled to shadows of themselves, like schoolnights in elementary school. Somewhere in there there was a fire, somewhere I was weary, somewhere I sang.

My guitars are all over my house, one in each room, each missing strings.

My orchid refuses to die, unwatered on my mantle, reaching up like a ballerina.

A tissue paper I destroyed in careful shapes damaged by the wind of opening and closing my door guards the exit of my room, with a drawing of my orchid etched into the tissue the color of the thin, south atlantic sea.

My computer shouts, "IT's Twelve O'Clock". My clay animals which are whisles, from Latvia and Panama and India and Mexico all look at me patiently. "This isn't over yet, Alice, this isn't over yet," and forgive me for not closing my drawers, or buying a new lamp in years.

May the bursts flow through me! Please, extend your half-life, push me to care about the corners of the good things, bear me again, I am not burrowing, I am here, help me present.

The Tall Redheaded Woman

She has appeared twice already before me. This woman is like a ghost. She is powerful, and she is silent. Her pants are dry cleaned, and she is not stiff.

my new gay life

why does this place make me eat everything with my fingers?
the french fries are so tiny and curried I have to reach down and grab six shreds to get a bite.
Why so sugar,
why so icy.
why am I the only woman here on women's night, elbows on the cold marble -reeking of straight, or old, or happily invisible, while I lean on the cold clean marble, as the green lights fade to purple, and he disappears.

I'm suffering here to interrupt him adjusting the tv. "Excuse me? So realistically how long do I have to wait to not be the only one at the bar?"
"the girls are waiting to come out."
He looked at me like an alien.

Well, at least they closed the door. The marble is freezing, and I am no longer sad I wore my merino, and big black pants, and frumpy ballet flats. My eyes and my new deep gray nails will be it for me tonight, if I last. 30 minutes, 3 hours later, It's still daytime and dark and cold.

The big, dark, metal lounge facing the street echoes in its aluminum weeknight abandonment. The castle door up front trembles on its drafty edge.

top reasons why my hip may have been rotated causing my spine to be shaped like a Z

1. scrunching to lie down on the work shuttle between silicon valley and home
it's cold in here
laptops make terrible pillows
where o where do my feet go?

2. too much salsa dancing, too little sex

3. I only tend to eat things which require citrus-thinned sauces which, in turn, require dipping with other pieces of food. examples from the past 24 hours
ceviche
hearts of pine salad
artichoke hearts
or maybe it's just food-on-food lunge-overs
mussels in beer sauce
hommos and pita

4. I broke my big toe in September
I may subconsciously
Limp

5. I can only dream with my face out the window, stomach down, knee twisted up

6. broken tailbone at ten left me left-cheek chair sitting for over a decade of right-handed school desks

The female engineer probably studied something else

i.

thank

Navigation

that we are explorers underneath it all.

Among us who have known

since six, since dreaming of quasars and strings and acceleration - - (wondering if it all has to be centripetal)

that there is no edge - - (it just goes on around to where we started)

we do not wander - - (with celestial eyes we sail).

ii.

Yes, yes.... the staircase is full of fog, but we're used to that in california up on the cliffs- -

we know the steps, we know them so well,

we made ourselves

the waxy warp molds on each stair

where to place your foot! each stair slightly like a cushion,

tempur-pedic stair.

iii.

Sailing to borneo

because why else would we be in the cold ass water off the california cliffs? to surf?

we bring our skilled tools to predict the storm, find cures for parasites and sea fungi,

track whale migrations, demystify their strange underwater language,

and measure the most visible stars - - (we do this to let men define empires).

How do I navigate off the edge? she asks. what is the map, the map, she asks. how do I come home?

we navigate by the invisible ones. the ones "too" far away.

the ones just past the edge.

how is that.

See we are quite excellent at triangulation, us navigational women.

the invisible stars push us like gigantic magnets.

they twist our hair when we sleep and cause ankle blisters.

they refresh us with strong silver mist-gusts right before dawn, when we are half awake and reorganizing where we're even going today. what the hell home means.

the invisible stars say "shh, you are moving, shh, you are moving."

we can feel everything all along, including the dark matter (the stuff men find out with math).

The dark matter we know is just like balance, like sea legs.

i.

Dr. King said - faith is the first step when you don't see the whole staircase.

but what if we made the staircase.

we don't see it but we know it.

Women have been taught that, for us,

the earth is flat, and if we venture out, we will fall off the edge.

Among us who have known,

since six - -

we do not wander.

if you are what you eat

choose

- spicy and fresh but likely to give gas

- rich fat and so sweet you make the people lie down afterwards

- multigrained but very bland

- questionable and expiring

i'm rich, fat, and very fresh

i'm spicy and crunchy and won't sit still...in your belly

i'm crisp and clean and help wash you like kombucha or a good shower which you needed

i'm fibrous and I will fight

but you will reap the benefits

i'm tangy and creamy and overwhelming and go well with madeira, aged, and smooth like pubescent skin.

modernity on feb. 11th

M: have you found it already?

me: part of it

a tasty appetizer!!

and i am growing more ingredients

for my next few bites
M: Hmmmm.....lol, don't know if I understand that one? lol

I was asking if you have found it already 'cuz on your status update it says, "you don't have to wait for love"...

me: i know!

im becoming a hippie

M: lol.

me: i have a little vegetable garden

to grow things myself! and to share

more proactive

though i am also into gourmet bits of love...

from fancy places

you seem to also like both

thats good news..

M: indeed.

Actually, i'd rather breathe it right off the sides of buildings, insides of lit windows, hilltops and sunrises. some sort of anaerobic trick one can only dream about..

career frustration at 24

I am not suited for an average life. My days are like rows of teeth, ready for decay. I need to eat stronger, healthier, more vivaciously flavorful foods.

I am terrified that I have wings but am evolving into an emu. Soon I will be selling my eggs in a pen with nectarine trees. sounds pretty, but at moments of colorful drive my instincts surface: to migrate with the seasons and build nests all over and sleep in close memory with vibrant, swooping escapades.

I need to be enveloped in exotic, thrilling, challenging experiences that make me cry in frustration and scream for the unknown.

I have to live like Picasso, always doing things he cannot do, because that is how he gets to do them.

In the name of vivacity and artistic vitality, please let me navigate my reality towards a breeding ground for dreams, risks, ambitions and strategies : I want to build tools that allow my spirit to pump faster, further, marathons on its own! Where are the ergonomic running shoes for my spirit? Where can I buy clothes that breathe, for when I am sweating and need to expand? How can I sign up for the race that is no longer defined, and how can I start up that beautiful hill?

I'm stuck at the start-off drinking station and the water tastes soft.

I love

Yo soy como el chile verde, Llorona, picante pero sabroso.

what turquoise means to me, lately

my favorite spots on my favorite color I took two pints of, on the wall
the color that migrated to boots, headband, 2 pairs of glasses, leather wallet,
the color i already had in a diary, three scarves, an enormous beaded necklace from my sister, a dress from a beach in panama, the cover of my akropolis book, my very favorite sexy shirt, my previous room's largest wall, watered down and intense, senior, expressive, "me" defined year, in durham, my old eyeliner from 1999, and my favorite lost vintage stone swirl earrings

are the watered-down patches that make the wall look translucent, birthmarked, and illustrative
that highlight the expanse
where I had to press extra hard with new paint makes the watered down parts glow even more luminously, birthmarked, and illustrative

not unlike acrylic when you wash it on and rub it off dry ceramic, let it dry and wash it off, wash it on and drip it off, rub it on and wash it off (I did that with a jail cell sculpture once, a tiny diorama)

the only time I have seen this color alive in nature is on the surface of the deepest part of lake tahoe at 6pm in early september from five blocks through the woods, out in the middle of the lake, deeper and brighter and richer than any airy cerulean could support in the sky.

dogs i don't like, even though i like dogs

Inga just walks around... Like she's blackout all the time

message to M never sent

What dream began Nailed beneath the
floorboards of vesuvio with excel
became a half-empty sparkling dry
Italian. Raincheck.

non-codes for where

there's a firefly preaching and searching up against my window
the fire detector says okay and watches
my butt is smooth
over the air mattress that feels like water where it ends at my ankles.
Just as I have grown up
I have grown up! I have not grown up. I don't listen unless it sounds like a foreign language,
or if I want to kiss it.

The warning neighbor with the broken lamp of four fruit-colored heads dangling by popscicle wires
read my palms and said he had never been so off before
but how can you be a libra? but your career line is so broken; but your lines are still forming
in one year, they will look completely different - even the left hand of your birth destiny!
I paced because I wanted his desk for seventy dollars
I paced because I saw the porn on his laptop, and told him it was okay
I paced because his lamp was broken, and because he was fat.
"Be careful around here," the warning neighbor said, because he is leaving: "there is a secret knock, for neighbors here."
Seven bits, the smoke and the half pipe.

The driver from Sudan has a friend who was shot by drug criminals in Durham.
The singer from Miami knew it was Leonard Cohen and not Songs by Ohia
The singer with the long mustache sang, just right, more than full-souled in the Carolina corner
The man who made my pita said AIDS must be bad in Thailand
"I'm not having sex there, ever."
The man who sells plants at Home Depot wrapped carts of deck supplies in enormous sheets of plastic wrap as the store closed
as I picked off the dead leaves from my new baby

Over cold bruchetta bearing goat cheese from a plastic tub, and water smoothies,
the wind knocked over a potted tree, but the pot did not crack
the waitor said duke students are not nice and he offered me a job.

Ally was in Monaco, Andy was in China, Alyssa was in Costa Rica, Annie was in Austria, Chris was in Russia, Carson was in Cambodia, Jon was in Brazil, Collin was in Spain, Will was in the Czech Republic, Katie was in India, Joan was in Italy, Eric was in Korea.

I was in heat, in need of little, in Panama, insecure, inside myself, in denial, in a while, inland, before the islands, when I sailed away sailless on a motorboat to paradise. This summer I stopped biting my fingernails, plucking my eyebrows, shaving my legs, and ripping at my feet.

Both Madelines looked at me with open, painted eyes. Where do you go? They ask.
Pedro appeared for the first time from behind, not from the cigarette porch.
Nick's hair is shorter. Pedro's hair is longer. Katie's hair is shorter. My hair is longer.

I wonder how many larvaes fall asleep at five in the morning and have forgotten when they wake up.