Girl Anachronicles

Some people say “Count your blessings”. They say it so much and so often, that it has been immortalized into posters, greeting cards and Power Point slideshows. It’s a saccharine, idiotic, Christian-Precious-Moments saying. Or maybe I feel about it so because I immediately associate it with an idiotic Precious Moments poster that was taped on the principal’s office wall in my Catholic school.

Now, “count your miseries” is something you don’t hear much at all. It sounds like an emo thing to say, it may indeed brush along the lines of something Tim Burton would make an animated movie about … but I think it might also help put things in perspective.

- A few weeks ago a friend finally broke up with his long-time girlfriend, after long months of toiling and pushing towards a fruitful relationship. It failed, and he’s now cycling between depression and mania.

- A week ago, Eze’s grandfather died. It was sort-of-unexpected: he apparently hit his head, and his cranium filled with blood. He died of associated respiratory complications (as he had signed a form asking NOT to be put in a respirator).

- Things at the office are NOT looking up:
– Work-wise, it’s chaos. Deadlines are being forced upon the staff, and the best word to describe the general reaction is “mutiny”.
– The boss’s ex-wife (and mom to one of my close friends)was found to have a brain tumor. It’s suspected to be malignant (a grade 2 glioma, to be exact). My friend relocated to Texas to take care of her mom and keep her company, which is totally understandable and fair and right… but it has created a palpable “hole” in this office.

- My grandfather died last night. Bone cancer. Spent the last year or so wanting to die. Last night he got his wish. Most of us are thankful, since it means the end of his plight, but we’re all joined in this bitter grief. His relief is ours to a certain extent, but we will still miss him. Besides, what really breaks my heart is the fact that I never got to see him again after 1995, and my father didn’t get to say “Goodbye”.

- Yesterday I had a bilateral breast MRI done. The doctor found a tumor, something of a change since last time I was checked (2 years ago). I’m petrified by fear (I’m a high risk patient for breast cancer).

- Two of our closest friends are going through more or less the same fucked up romantic situation. Girl leads on. Guy falls hard. Girl turns out to be dating someone else. It’s harsh, and having it happen in stereo is baffling.

- I went swimming: 50 meters. Nothing huge, just to check on my condition to see if I can use the Natatorium facilities. I pass, but barely: my lungs almost give out of the effort, and I realize that 8 years of smoking have taken a BIG toll. I quit smoking. I’m trying really hard to stay “quit”, but all other aforementioned miseries are making it hard to stick to my guns.

One blessing though: The urge to cry is far stronger than the urge to smoke. Isn’t life grand!

If I hear screams outside – and not your run-of-the-mill play-like scream, I’m talking about bloodcurdling, hair-rising screams – I’m the kind of person that will peek through the door’s eye-piece or look out the window. Unless it’s gunshots we’re talking about, in which case I’ll move to the innermost part of the apartment in a hurry (and it has happened more than once already). Same goes for numerous and insistent siren wails. Part of me does it because I want to be in the know (be it for the reason that it may: I like being a well-informed citizen … or I’m just turning into an old, gossipy fart!). The “bigger” part of me does it because it gets a thrill – an adrenaline surge – out of other people’s emergencies and crises. Same goes for when a hurricane is announced. The tornado-chaser in me wakes up and smiles a little bit.

Until now this part of me has had no bearing in my fortune. My curiosity has not gotten the best of me, not to the point in which any onlooker could be tempted to start talking about dead cats and such. But last night, in my dreams, it did.

I dreamt some regular Joe broke into my apartment with me in it. I tried to force him back outside, only to run into the grim figure of a dead neighbor. I had seen too much and the guys with the guns knew it. I knelt and I looked for the longest time into a brushed steel barrel (sort of flat-ish) and then it was over.

Next thing I know I’m looking at a mirror in a bathroom (not the mirror in my bathroom, but then again, dreams are fickle when it comes to spaces and appearances). What’s wrong with all of this is: I’m alive but I have a gunshot wound in my forehead and there’s blood streaming down my face and across my chest. Dry, caked blood. I’m supposed to be dead, but all I have to prove for it is a zit-sized hole … a zit-size smoking, gaping hole. Not supposed to be there, was it?

Then again, when some people started visiting my home, I realized most of them were seeing something completely different to what I saw in the mirror. Something completely different from what I look like (I’m under the impression, perhaps out of a glimpse I got during the dream, that I was a girl with long, light-brown, wavy hair). I had reincarnated almost immediately, I realized, out of concern for what would happen to Eze.

I woke up with a start. It was scary enough to see me dead in a mirror. Dead-but-alive. Holding on to dear life, even if it meant invading someone else’s body, out of concern for Eze. Thing is, I think I’m not afraid to die so much as I am afraid of missing out on the lives of my loved ones.

June 2nd, 2003
The bad news: My home burned down. I was left pretty much homeless, peniless, with only the clothes on my back and a brand new car to pay for. My four dogs died in that fire, probably burned, most likely asphyxiated by the smoke. I was left desolate, depressed, feeling lonely, and mourning my dogs like a crazy woman.
But the good news was I was alive, I had survived, and my family was there to support me, if not financially, at least emotionally (which is the priceless side of things). I literally rose from the ashes, and come 4 years, I had arrived full circle.

June 2, 2007
The good news: Eze and I have just acquired our first owned home. This has been the definitive step in our relationship, making our commitment concrete as a house. This is one step in life my parents haven´t taken yet, one step toward security, our roots finally taking hold somewhere. Curiously enough, the day chosen to sign the contract is the 4th anniversary of my total loss. I arrived full circle. But full circle is a coin with two sides.
When I arrived home to pick my car up and go to my family to celebrate my brother´s birthday, the bad news were awaiting lying on the pedals of my car. Pucho had stealthily sneaked into my car last night as I arrived home. I didn´t notice. No one missed him. No one found out until I opened that car door at 4PM. The unvented heat in that car at midday must have been unsustainable. He died a heat death, he died an asphyxiated death. Just like my dogs 4 years ago. In the same car that had been the sole survivor property of that fire.

I don´t know how to pay homage to Pucho. I am well aware of the differences inside our household that stemmed from the habits around caring for him. I am well aware that after a while, at least for me, Pucho had become a nuisance more than a pet. But I never wished ill on him, much less death. And as irritated as I allowed myself to become by him at times, I could not speak ill of an animal that was just that: an animal, with needs and perks like any other.

And more than an animal, Pucho was a very affective pet. He had enough love to show around the whole neighborhood, and that is something that cannot be erased or obliterated by simple circumstantial situations. Pucho was not only cute because he was a beautiful kitty. He was cute because he was a devoted kitty. He will be remembered and mourned, much more so by his rightful owners than by me, but it doesn´t mean I don´t feel sorrowful too by his death. My deep condolences to his two equally devoted owners (you know who you are). I share the sting of the broken heart his departure leaves.

Coming full circle can be sweet, but it can be sour as well.

Hay cierta calidad de surrealismo en el hecho de que el camino hacia mi oficina está pavimentado con partes putrefactas de animales. La nueva dirección física para llegar a mi oficina es “en la #1, en la pata de vaca, a la izquierda”. Un aroma orgánico del proceso de descomposición en su plenitud es lo que le da ambiente al estacionamiento frente a este edificio. Me cuentan mis compañeros que viajan hacia más allá sobre la #1 que “más abajo hay una cabeza”.

No quiero imaginarme si en lugar de estar rodeados de partes de vaca, fueran partes humanas: sería una imagen de pesadillas. Hace dos días llegué tarde a mi trabajo por lo que provocó esta situación: en la madrugada entre el martes 8 y el miércoles 9 de mayo, un camionero (probablemente medio dormido o naturalmente despistado, como yo) se fue por toda la #1 con su cargamento de desperdicios animales, y aparentemente quiso compartir de su riqueza y permitió que la portezuela de atrás se abriera, así repartiendo cabezas, patas, estómagos, orejas, tripas (y su usual contenido), etc por todo el pavimento.

Claro, sabiendo que la Ley de Murphy la tiene agarrada conmigo, estas cosas pasan en la temporada en que tengo el aire acondicionado del carro jodido (y en pleno inicio de verano, para acabar de joder!). Cuando pasé por ahi el primer día, lo q predominaba era un olor q supe reconocer aunq rara vez pasa por mi nariz: el olor a muerte, a sangre animal, a masacre. No era descomposición, eso vino luego, por la tarde, al día siguiente. El primer día era olor a recién muerto … y a mierda, obviamente, confirmado por la tripamenta aplastada (y vaciada a punta de tráfico pasándole por encima) un poco antes de la luz al lado de mi trabajo. Ese olor se me quedó pegado en la nariz el resto de la mañana.

Ya hoy la peste no es tanta, pero la pata de vaca sigue ahi. Me pregunto si los gusanos ya la habrán agarrado, si dispondrán de la piel (y el pelaje), dejando la figura al hueso … o si el sol estará disecando esa pieza solitaria poco a poco, para dejarla como marcador semi-permanente de la dirección física de mi trabajo.

La vaca era marrón.

UPDATE (13:05PM): Ya retiraron la pata de vaca de la carretera. Ya no hay pata de vaca para que la gente llegue aqui. So many lost people…