touching on some travels....

who are your favorite artists? i like egon shiele, laurtrec, manet, matthew barney and of course van gogh. i love peter paul ruebens, not to be confused with his brother. i went to the sistine chapel and within 20 feet of the pieta, i started crying. it was amazing. i am without words. i had an art professor who told me that when michaelangelo finished his pieta (and many people did the pieta), people went to see it, and he heard them commenting about what a lovely job david did. (david, the artist). that night, he went and carved his name into the sculpture.
when i went to see the statue of david in florence, the people say "he's italian from the waist up" cause his penis is so small. hahahahaha

i love italy. i love florence and madrid. i could write a novel based on my travels (i am!) but madrid is particularly splendid. it retains an authenticity i don't see in many urban cities. barcelona... psh. international whatever. i want unfiltered culture. and that's what madrid is.

another beautifully rich city is valparaiso, chile. you get old town. it's the oldest shipping port in s. america. dirty as fuck. beautiful as hell. they have these crazy funicular elevators that take you up the hill. i always forget the names of them so i have to wiki it, but they are crazy old wooden elevators that creep up the steep hills into the crowded mess of colored houses. it's an experience.

another city i love is rio, of course. but i am biased. i'm from there. and i also don't know a lot about it. i have never been to the favelas, and copa and the favelas live side by side. i read a great quote about rio from a prisoner there.

"rio's biggest symbol is the figure of christ that holds out his stiff, concrete arms to the world beneath him. never did his words mean so little to those below. never in my life have i seen so little charity or compassion in any city where extreme wealth and unendurable povery lie side by side."

it's a beautiful quote and a very viable statement. you should see the poor kids peddling on the streets, sometimes only four years old! the first time i went to brazil, i went to some hippie fair/market and a little toddler begged us for cash. i started to cry. my brazilian friend told me not to give him money. i didn't, and i was so disturbed that someone this small had to eek out a living this way. could his mom not find a job? where was the father? brazil is a complex place and i consider myself lucky, very fortunate, to live where i live.

As a hair stylist, I am also a therapist

I know, you think "hair stylist" and you think, some mediocre dumb person who went to beauty school. To back up my credentials, I have to add that I'm not just a hair stylist. I'm also a therapist. Of 16 years.

I went to school for psychology for a year and saw a flyer for "cosmetology 101". I was excited about it and thought it far more practical than the direction I was headed. So I enrolled in beauty school. 9 months later, I graduated and got a job working at a salon. I was 19.

I bought a hair salon at 23, owned it for 5 years and eventually sold it to move to San Francisco. Here I am, with a job with no boss, and no schedule. I make my own hours, I take long vacations and I get paid in cash daily. How does this happen? Cause I'm smart.

Most hair stylists are categorized as uneducated. That's ok. We'll let the rest of the world of stereotypers believe that if they want to. But the fact is, we listen to your crap day in and day out. We multi-task. While I'm mixing up color, you are talking about your annoying mother, or how someone at your job is blowing their nose. Meanwhile, we do the job that three other professions attack. We are on par with bartenders, therapists and surgeons. We are not doing brain surgery here. We are picking your brain. And you will tell us things you would never tell a living soul.

I asked my clients, just for nyucks, "what is the worst thing you have ever done in your life?" One client remarked, "I fucked my best friend's fiance` on their wedding day." He had never told another soul.

We know you. You rely on us. You rely on us for your mental health, your physical beauty, for the way you feel when you look at yourself in the mirror every day. We are not naive. We have heard it all. Half of it goes in one ear and out the other. We see 8 people a day. How are we supposed to remember everything everyone says?

But after 16 years, I wouldn't change my job. I love it. I love the stories people tell. I love the gratitude. I love the loyalty of clients, I love the play in the salon. It is the most rewarding job I have ever had, and I don't mind listening to you complain. Cause in the end, I know that I have helped you in some remedial way, that my presence has made a difference on the Earth, no matter how minute.

this poem i wrote..

i feel your wind, i feel the pull
dragging me far away
i see the fields, you're lifting horizons
and i could throw it all away

oh, thunder
taking it all
taking it all away
oh, thunder
taking it all
there's nothing left to say

open my back door, open my window
to let you in
so i can breathe
breathe you in


then you take it all away

you are coming
coming closer
never saying when
but you'll be here
raging thunder
until the end

sunday the 22nd, photo sesh

we went to the beach, played in the water, body surfed, got slammed by waves. we went to our favorite restaurant, miguel's. we had mole-covered enchiladas and pork pozole, a delicious spicy broth with hominy. i wasn't impressed with the mole, as it tasted mostly of chocolate-covered enchiladas. we were trapped in the pouring rain going to the restaurant so as we are running through the streets in our flip flops and dresses, we are drenched and laughing while all the locals laugh at us. we didn't mind the rain at all. we loved it! i loved getting drenched and splashing through puddles, washing my feet under the waterfall from the awnings. when we arrived at miguel's, we were soaking wet.

the remainder of the night is spent watching "the closer" and "the breakup" followed by a short intermission of soft-core porn that was on for free. monday comes, i wake up around 9:30 and steph tells me minutes out of my slumber, "i would like to catch the ten 'o clock bus". i hurriedly gather my things and boil some eggs for the road. we walk up the street and see our bus pulling away. it says "pto. vallarta" on the window. i know it's ours. we hail the driver and ask if we can get on. he motions for us to get on and we sit in the back and i am terrified by a wasp, so i change seats. half way through the trip, the driver collects money for tickets and neglects collect ours. so we got a free ride!

we arrive in puerto vallarta, the last leg of our trip, immediately catch a bus that drops us off at our FREE HOTEL that steph got with frequent flier miles. villa vallarta. we have a poolside suite and the night is ours. there seem to be only two families staying at the hotel. it's a full moon and we spend the night in the 4 foot deep pool laughing. thern we are inspired to have a photoshoot. i braid my hair and tie it around my chin so it looks like i have a chin strap. steph loves this. i get my cat hat on and start posing in these ridiculous positions on the lounge chair. then steph gets on the bar and sips her drink through a pencil. then we move to the pool and we re-enact the phoebe cates scene from fast times at ridgemont high. but steph is coming out of the water with a life preserver around her neck instead. genius! then we do some failed topiary-peeking shots. we move to the outdoor shower and i take some sexy photos without a bikini top with a flag over my breasts. we did another with steph in the outdoor shower with a plastic chair. then we saw an empty coke machine and we got inside, pretending to talk on the phone as if it were a phone booth. steph even made me crawl into a buffet case, where i half-killed a spider with my stomach.

mexico cont'd

after being on the public bus in any country, i don't know what to do with my hands. i don't believe sanitizer works, so i'm afraid to touch my face to play with my zit or to bite my cuticles. things are different here. seeing the old men asleep with their cowboy hats, i imagine them shoveling shit or dirt which has most likely been christened with a stray leper dog's feces. i can't help but to touch the top rails of the crowded bus as it bounces around, throwing babies into crying fits and mothers to cover their young from the weathered populus.

i say "i can't wait to wash my hands". steph offers me sanitizer and i ask her if she thinks it really works. she says "well, it kills 99.9% of bacteria". well, that means it doesn't work. they are just telling us that on the label so they aren't held liable if we get icoli. of course they would. but i use it. then i immediately put lip balm on with my pinky, negating everything i just said.

when we arrive to our place in melaque, i decide to sleep on the balcony so i can get some relief from this humidity. this way, i can hear the waves, as our digs are right on the beach. i can feel the wind and see the clouds and smell the ocean. sleeping on the balcony was short-lived. i need fans and cold air!

anywho, finishing up on mexico. finally.

the center of town seems to be a main drag with cars "cruising". shirtless young men on the backs of trucks rubber-necking hot ladies as they drive around the block with low-rider VW bugs blasting home-spun mexican pop. there is a plaza with a fountain. but more importantly, scantily clad teengagers who seem to avoid the advances of smarmy men with a flip of the hair and a snively laugh to their friends.

a few tomale vendors push their carts of food in an icebox over the cobbled streets and mothers and grandmothers talk while seated outside their closing taquerias, whose outdoor tables are lined with multitudes of salsas served in large colorful plastic bowls.

in our room, we talk for hours on the bed about men in every detail imaginable. but we keep discreet with those we love. tomorrow, i'm hoping to hike to the top of this small hill where an abandoned and ramshackle beach bar was built and is now decomposing into broken wood and brown dried palm fronds. most of the time, i donm't know what to do with myself. but writing gives me a reason to travel and travel gives me a reason to write.

Leving Yelapa, going to Melaque

Today, we left Yelapa on a boat. We ran out of gas on the way to Boca de Tomatlan and we're bobbing in the water as the boat attendants make cell calls to the local boats to bring us gas. After about 15 minutes, we arrive in Boca. We wait 2 hrs for our bus to arrive. We get on the bus and after a couple of hours, we are stopped by what we think are the military, which is common. They are looking for drugs and documents. But after 45 minutes or so, everyone starts to get off the bus and we realize it has broken down. We wait on the side of the road for a replacement. We get on the replacement bus and we are crammed into it like sardines, standing and holding onto the top rail. Stop by stop, people get off the bus and there is finally room for us to sit. The ride is another three hours of life-threatening passing on the left. We finally make it to Melaque and get our hotel, an easy find right on the beach. it's a comfortable two bedroom with a kitchenette.

We drop off our things and head for food. We find ourselves a few blocks away at a sit-down joint called Miguel's. We are attracted because we see a sign that says 7 pesos for a taco. That's 70 cents. We order five and finishing up, walk around, past leather shoe stores, dolce stands, places that sell shell jewelry, a "supermini" (market), ice cream stands and a toy store with inflatables for the water. We stock our fridge with tequila and lime, ice, water, eggs, tortillas and queso fresco. The night is young and the waves and wind are restless. The storm is coming in and I sleep on the balcony feeling sorry for the screaming cat downstairs who has to fight for the leftover fish bones in the trash below.

About Yelapa's beach

We arrive to a beach full of lounge chairs and palapas behind. This divides the tourists from what is behind the palapas; the local dwellings. Inside the palapas, there are 5-10 locals drinking beer and talking amongst themselves. They watch us foreigners arrive in the water taxi which has two stops: the pier and the beach. Everyone needs to make a living and everyone has a way to give their fellow local a kick down. Whether it be name dropping or some kind of trade of services, "cheaper" seems to be the operative word.

But for some reason, I don't want this place to be spoiled. I can see a native Indian ethnicity in the children, in the way they trade, and I want that sincerity and authenticity to last. I want to keep Yelapa a secret because it has become so commercialized. But I can't, and I'm not the first to recognize it's simple beauty.

The kids are waiting for fishing boats so they can unload the daily delivery of restaurant supplies. Soda, rice, sugar and other sundries.... Meat and vegetables are hard to find in this town. There is little refrigeration. When a fishing boat comes to shore, it has to be parked on the sand if it's not anchored in the water. The way they do this? In Brazil, they use logs under the boat and have 5 men push the boat onto the sand. In Mexico, they rev up the motor and speed onto the shore, just in time to let the motor up so as not to touch the sand. The boat comes at an alarming speed to the shore and up onto the populated beach.

In our stay, Yelapa

There is a house cat who just gave me a flea. I can hear the cicadas playing their maracas in unison. They come out in the morning and in the evening. This morning, I woke up to the sunrise, the pink clouds over the green mountains, lit from below. The sky lifted, showing off the reflection of the clouds in the bay. A momma bird was teaching her babies how to chirp. In her morning lesson, she would chirp a song or a saying. Then she would tell them to repeat. They would repeat, trying to imitate the sound she makes. Then she would repeat this lesson until they got it. Then she would move onto another phrase. And so on. This lasted a couple of hours. Every once in a while, a baby bird would squawk as if frustrated. Then the momma would teach her baby to fly. She flies below the baby as if she were a safety net while the little one is flapping vigorously and somewhat non-directional.

But this is all new to me. I imagine the old lady who runs the place is quite bored with such things.

To leave this guesthouse, we climb 178 algae-covered stone steps to the entrance. We walk through the town center, lined with concrete homes, small restaurants and convenience stores, kids running around barefoot, using brooms to knock the collected water off the tarps on their front porches. Construction workers let us walk by. But this town is small, only having one main road and donkeys and horses for transportation. Sometimes, we would see a motorcycle. The waterfalls above the town allow for some streams to wash over the road, and after we walk through the lush and humid paths, we finally see the river we need to cross to get to the beach. It's a wide river about three feet deep. We lift up our dresses and wade across without shoes. The warm water rushes by with twigs and a random floating fruit. We are across, finally making it up the sandy embankment and we reside on the beach for one more day of potential sun.

On our return from the beach, we enter a small restaurant where an old woman prepares one of the best breaded fish tacos I have ever eaten. Her kids are watching TV and her husband (or son) serves us. Her daughter smiles as she runs to ask her dad for more juice in a plastic cup.