Mis pies son como de cartón
que voy arrastrando por cada rincón.
Mi cama se hace fría y gigante y en ella me pierdo yo.
Mi casa se vuelve a caer,
mis flores se mueren de pena,
mis lágrimas son charquitos que caen a mis pies.
Te mando besos de agua que hagan un hueco en tu calma.

Bebe, Razones

At five the half moon moved above the roofs in the watery air, visibly spherical. I laid on the floor listening to an american voice talking on the PC radio into the earpiece, conscious of my back in the neat silence among the familiar walls. Talks of war and politics and people went on and I partially followed, gliding above details, motivations, tones, only minding the flowing of the voice in the stream. This inadvertence is what makes entertainment, I thought, that's why everything can be entertaining.

Later in the morning sun, helping Gisa moving a table into a elevator, I was gifted a couple of gratis not liberating laughs during the efforts. Also just before the cat had chased a fly against the window panes and effortlessly won it, as the moka blurbed its smell of coffee in the whiter space.
The story went that Gisa had lent the table to us two years earlier, and now we were returning it, and we were without a table. As me and Gisa took the table away the cat mourned the loss by looking up from where the comfortable shades between the legs of the table had just been, in the room in Libi's house. As we went across the terrace I wanted Gisa to admire the plants, to ask me which was what, she did it but only a little bit (where one quietly should squat next to the planters).

Down in the street, to the rackless roof of Gisa's long car we strapped the table with hooked elastics running through the back seat windows, the radio singing desaparecido out loud causing reproving glances of the sidewalkers, while passengers waiting at the tram stop looked upon us benevolently, mistaking us for a informative diversion.

I disengaged although previously meant to chaperon Gisa to her new house outside the city, we said goodbye, always inadequately, and she went alone and I walked away down the street, table orphan, under the tall trees fluttering up above in bright green and dark green against unequal patches of clear brown and white where the sun reached the bark. The black roofs, upper edges of the canyon, seemed to wave as well behind the waving trees. I longed for unconscious sex, for open smiles, for solidarity, for friends, for undefined merit.

I thought of Libi who was not there at the moment, at myself and my collections of guilt, I saw how she must have gotten sick of me in the end and how I-- I got frustrated with the world she wanted me to join, chosen for me, unfit for me, and I though at how we kept loving or wanting each other nonetheless, secretly, unreasonably, not able to give anymore that little much. Egoism is what makes love beside other things.
I hated all the rights and all the wrongs now, my rights and her wrongs more than everything. I walked by the windows and the beggars, entered the Panificio for a supply of focaccia, got out and felt so tired, I wanted it to be night, the peaceful night, with us separated one from the other, living off each other different rhythms of sleep, the moments I most likely loved her the most. More freely. Most sincerely. But it was too sad and I couldn't think about it anymore. The street appeared all crowded now, hurrying me against the stone walls of the condos.

-- In picture above: Lince, quarter to one.

"Me, Love's servant? I wasn't at all! And suddenly my heart felt ugly, I was sick of myself. I thought that my aim of being simple was just a fraud, that I wasn't a bit goodhearted or affectionate, and I began to wish that Mexico from beyond the walls would come in and kill me and that I would be thrown in the bone dust and twisted, spiky crosses of the cemetery, for the insects and the lizards."

-- The Adventures of Augie March

I am reading this book slowly, partly because I am reading other things and partly just because its language is sometimes difficult for me: and also I was very impressed and got clobbered by the fact that as soon as Augie finds love he goes to Mexico following obviously eagles and snakes. It took me by surprise and had me sliding down memory lane (again).

"And so"

And so we were laying in bed inside the room by the open roof. Our naked bodies etcetera, one against the other dark against the white sheets etcetera. Above our heads the mosquito net which bothered us during sex when one of us stood up on top. Outside, incessantly, the sea-- but I wrote these things already.

We had an argument because Eli had invited us to go with her to the disco in the village nearby, and then Martina said she wanted to go alone. This wasn't the argument because it was me the one who nicely took it out of her that she wanted to go alone -- advantages of being more experienced -- and then, OK, I said, but tomorrow it's our last day here, isn't it kind of stupid? It wasn't. I also took it out of her that she wanted to be alone the following day as well.
She was funny to look at, her profile sulking in the pillow, senses scanning the roof and the noises, at moments making a long face, casually asking, does it bother you?
Now I am forgetting spanish all the way... I don't know if she said '¿te molesta?' or something else.
She was playing the part, let's be real cold and forget all about it, this was but a small amount of the ominous fury she was going to be capable of, stomping on the things she feared she wasn't able to keep from happening, the pain mixed with grace-- but spontaneously I knew better, again the lousy advantages of experience -- and said: of course it bothers me, I want to be with you -- I said it in a gentle way -- and I knew she didn't expect the straight self-exposing dope, a degree of sincerity yet to be known by her-- that's when the argument started, pure obstinacy on her side to make things slump -- I need to be alone, I came alone, I have to go away alone, she said. It's all right, I said, it's a pity, but all right. Just don't be upset now.
But she dressed up in a hurry, in the remaining seconds during which we didn't look at each other. I felt kind of hurt because of the impersonality and the swiftness of this small tragedy -- her behind disappeared in the short jeans skirt, her small lovely breast in the top, her dear mouth disappeared behind a door closed in a rush. I said 'stupid' as the door closed and regretted the sedate casualty of the remark. Then the sea only made noises.
I stayed in bed for a while more. I didn't know of what she was capable of at that time and didn't really worry.

Then I got out, climbed down the stairs, looked down from the terrace to the sea, the empty uneven beach and the foamy round waves under the big clouds -- I went further down, to the beach and to eat. On the way to the restaurants I found abandoned on the sand a bracelet with little colored stones stringed to a leather ribbon and took it.
Later it was still bright, it was bright until late. I got to the internet place, started reading or writing emails, emails that probably contained omissions or lies, and from the monitor I raised my head and there she was, out in the street, licking a white ice cream with her red red tongue and looking at me through the window hole with the same dark serious eyes in abeyance. I smiled, got out. She came close to me and said "I am impulsive". I opened my arms to make her come close and stop her from explaining things, and we hugged and didn't let it go. The girl of the internet place was sitting under the porch with her baby just out of the crib and looking at us. The baby had learned to walk. The dusty road was empty and quiet. I felt Martina's grip and her smell. It was so simple -- and mysterious at the same time. What were her thoughts in that moment? What her feeling? In what area exactly our feelings were meeting? What name or address it had? But we were happy and relieved and no words were needed. Has my heart ever beat that fast? (Yes it has. It doesn't matter.) Eli went alone to the disco that night and Martina told me that when she came back it was four in the morning. We were finally asleep.

"I hate these memories"

I hate these memories. They come to me across the things I read and the music I hear. Funny how I listened to all those songs so keenly the first weeks and now the sheer idea that something like "our" song might exist and might be heard paralyzes me. I thought those things were supposed to go away or not to hurt so much. At the same time I feel like I am pushing the memories to the surface where they should evaporate and dissolve. Because they will. The thing I like most about astrology, whatever kind of astrology including the mayan that Martina liked so much, is the knowledge that the wheel keeps turning, always, although in a complex uneven way. So nothing lasts identical for too long. I feel that I am turning, my hair and posture are already half-way-- I soon am going to look at something else: this is so terrible and unjust-- and these idea of sending her a picture one day of myself from the garden where I will be doing--- whatever, should it be possible, I won't care to send her anything anymore. That's how it goes. Etcetera.

Let's generalize for a moment here (actually what follows is not a generalization but my personal experience which I pretend to be general)
...when you talk to the woman or the girl you're with, the so called partner, and express whatever feeling of discouragement or desperation or weakness, she will immediately give you words of continuous and pressing solidarity that will revolve around the concept that whatever feeling you are experiencing it is simply not true. It is unmotivated. It is silly. It is probably the opposite, instead. There probably is some detail you didn't considered thanks to which things aren't so bad. You are probably doing perfectly fine. It goes so much so that you both get to a stage where she asks: "what's going on?" and you quickly: "nothing!" although you really need to talk. Because her prompt caring denial would be worse than silence.
On the other hand if you talk to your ex or to a girl you're friend with, you have a chance that she might express her solidarity in a less censoring way, which --if talking serves a purpose-- is the only way for you to move forward. She might even find the words to look in dismay at your condition without denying it. That's because she doesn't feel threatened by it. You're not her man, so your defects can be observed more objectively. This might explain why men seek love and then get bored by it. And why they keep falling in love with friends and exes. And why probably your girlfriend is a splendid talker and listener and helper --but not with you.

Libi came back from the beach. I was glad to see her. I badly wanted to make love, to say things, to make her do things. She came in with the collection of bags and packs she was bringing with her smile, a reddish tan, splendid eyes, came to me --I grabbed her wrist firmly and put her hands on my dick and started to undress her with the other hand. She complied seriously, the act, our act had started beautifully. We kissed for long, which is something I not so often do... But for a magic moment I was feeling freer or lighter, I don't know. Our hearts were beating fast, we moved from the kitchen to the floor of the room to the couch to the bedroom. It only was bad knowing that this was also welcome as a symbol for making amends for something else, which is the tragic ugliness of familiarity... It took a while to take off me all the urge and the mysterious need. I know that making love can help much. I felt almost non alone. I almost hoped I had done something good, given something good--

Today everything's wrong, Libi again is asking me the wrong questions and I, feeling miserably alone, knowing to be unbearable, not knowing what to say, only thinking I have to go away, no inertia this time please no inertia. So different can be two days one coming next to the other.
Later we were sitting at the table and I wasn't listening anymore. I was recalling similar moments from other years, different table, walls, glasses, voice, face, questions. Recognizing a moment I didn't recognize back then, but that I was now feeling clearly: the moment I came to know I had to go, I had to be away.
As much as I love this woman, I was thinking, whom I can't make happy now (where I wish "I" was written lowercase) And if I don't want to leave her, but make her happy --it doesn't matter because I have to go (where?), however long it is going to take to make it happen because everything is for me and for her so unbearably difficult-- And I went on imagining a reunion later on. Our being finally together because I was coming back finally healed in my spirit and my emotions. I couldn't look at her but I wanted. I felt this grip in my stomach because yesterday it had been so different and now it was shit. Then I thought how life is actually much shorter than that, and how there is never going to be the time to achieve anything else but adaptation to this personal disaster and limitation and emptiness -- and so I drowned into that sea of anguish and premonitions and Libi went to bed, without us looking at each other anymore that night.

there was this beautiful sky. I was staying in bed, I had cried, not hardly or for long or anything. Just a result of scattered thoughts of people far, the inability to summon them up, the clumsiness or weight of the world that couldn't be moved or pulled, the bitter promises of the future. I couldn't see very well, because of the wet paste in the eyes. I unhooked the mosquito net, it rolled on itself with a slam! after which the radio was playing quietly. I cleaned my eyes with my fingers curled. a unsteady coolish breeze came to my face with diverted noises from the avenue behind the condos. all words were mixed up in my head, all thoughts still as if queuing up on a bench against the wall to be called forth. it was all so familiar and this familiarity what I could stand less, less than any other form of pain or boredom. the things a ghost of once intense things I hardly could connect to now. the hatred for the city was one thing with hatred for myself, the weak--

no, not exactly that. i took the pictures of the sky automatically thinking 'this will go for the blog'. I knew it hardly mattered because I still lacked the courage to take out for a walk the things I wanted to say. the sunsetting sky was seriously beautiful. if only I had the ability to see into things like I used to. i closed the left nostril with a finger pushing air out. the right one still half-closed since then, not creaking anymore. I think it will stay this way, I thought satisfied-- so since nearly about the time my last intense emotions were, some is still trapped-- and the most shitty thing is to be uncertain of the accuracy of your own memories and the details that are fading out and, you know, this unwillingness to explain.

The days drag by.

I'm choked by food,
by the shit I expel, the words I say.
The daylight that shouts at me
every morning to get up.

The sleep which is only
dreams that chase me.

-- Ingmar Bergman, from The Passion of Anna

The following scene is more calm. There is no trace of slapping oneself in the face and cursing out loud in the empty apartment. Kicking chairs, shaking random obstacles, people, relatives, bloggers, the heat. Counting on the absence of witnesses. On the pages everything I know is written about each vegetable form living out on the terrace. Soil, chemistry, prune and multiply. Something I am mediocre at like most of everything. Flor suggested me a new source and now I can look for more details on the internet for each of them and feeling I know more --the phrases that are useful appear to me as if highlighted on the page. But I don't really know more I am only informed.

Life is minor now. It doesn't matter the rage for the apparent phoniness of everything and the hypocrisy and the malfunction. I think I never had so little respect for myself as I am having now. Although there's no bottom end to that.
From behind comes classical music, probably Bach. The first feeling when trying to focus on the effect of the music on myself is that the music sounds so modern. The superficial consideration leaves me unhappy.

Flor found me on the internet, with little investigation recognized me out here and found the blog and asked me out. The global village. What sense can have a thing like this, we have been briefly together so many years ago and so much has happened since then and now she comes. We were very young and almost totally ignorant of love but this doesn't make that experience more relevant to me. All the contrary. I seem to remember that the sex was especially good. Or that we had fun because we both tended to be outsiders (although I was a professional outsider). But beside such vague feelings it is something dear I can barely relate to now. Life changed me anyway even if I still am an outsider. Folks don't seem to know I want Time to pass and changes to be even when I state that I don't want to get older (because of the failures). Walking around in the bookshop she said, you still matter to me, you always mattered. I didn't know what to say. I felt moved and detached and embarrassed. She seemed uncomfortable and we let the topic fade away. Myself, I stopped thinking about you when masturbating years ago, I thought, which doesn't necessarily mean anything. Our conversation flew easily. We always could talk of everything, and apparently we still do. At moments it even appears interesting. I am out of the world anyway.
Out of the bookshop the city was wet, the dark asphalt glimmering in the late afternoon light and the sopping walls drawing mysterious bodies of smudged films of water, the trees of the park a obscure still mass encircling the left side of Piazza Cavour, trapped behind the tall green fence, nobody around. The last days of quietness of the busy middle class city, skies moving from gray to darker gray, the light coming from the isolated open bar where the men stand against the counter and don't talk nor move.

It was days ago and now it is the past and it doesn't exist anymore. It is still raining above the city, and the sun light is white, the corners are damp and clothes are withdrawn from the balconies--

I understood something recently, that as much as my life can come to be a failure, as much as I keep dropping out, and as all the material means to be and fight for keep passing me by or making me fail or go mad or flee, still nothing really would interest me -- enriching my present moment -- simulacrum of reality -- as much as love life. And I am not strictly talking about my own love life, and the satisfaction of my own desires and longings -- with time my own desires and longings, my suffering and struggling and groping for love seem to become less relevant or less interesting than the general human constant reaching for love and the general wasting or losing love all around.
And as I read a honest book, or hear a true story I notice how my interest doubles or triples as soon as the element of emotion and desire, sex and good willing and wrongdoing for love appears. As soon as "I met a person" is said, "I keep thinking of him" is said. "I miss the bitch" is said. As soon as "I dreamed of you again" is said to oneself. Everything about it matters to me, provided the manifestation of love is stronger than -- I don't know, the other important things suddenly ceasing to be important. It must be that I am not capable of feeling fine in any other realm. Everything matters when it is genuine, the trivial things that keep repeating renovating and consuming themselves through the centuries through the bodies through the rooms and the drawers, and the more unpredictable, scandalous ones-- Morbid affection, violence, betrayal, servitude, mysterious bonds, inverted poles, manias and eclecticisms-- all coming down to my witnessing and participating, my own mixed feeling of stupor and acknowledgment: so this is love too.

And yet I am so incapable to love, in a proper reasonable way. I get so easily impatient as well as inert, bored, inept, false, lazy-- because my crave is for the variety, possibly-- is this why I could so little relate to the barely disclosed ambitions of Flor to go to bed with me for old time sake-- like she wanted to come up (Libi being away) and I said just park here and didn't invited her in-- she had her own reasons that had nothing to do with me, and my heart isn't prepared to bend yet. Every morning, every afternoon, every night I have someone in my mind who is far and away-- my heart isn't capable to bend yet--

Across the sleeping city we had passed near the house where I lived back then, with my father's wife and my step-brother. Every time I walk by that place in the bourgeois hell of via Plinio, something that I systematically avoid to do, a mess of bad memories and the bare square weight of past life attacks me, and I can't avoid to lash out my distaste and my disgust for those past days. The huge wooden door, always closed, and the precious shops, the brand new cars parked under the tall old plane milanese trees -- the dog turds and cockroaches in the deli and the still loners waiting at the stop of the 60-- when everything was wrong and all days were wrong and it was wrong my not being able to break out of there. My ridiculous communist so called parents so eager to settle themselves in the bourgeois neighborhoods -- and the fights, my father's yells, the humiliations and the disgust and the unbearable dishonesty of myself and who I was -- And then Flor next to me said, every time I pass in front of this place I have all these nice memories of when we were together, and I came here to visit you in your room-- it was so nice to be with you there, do you know? It was the sex but all the rest too-- With all your rudeness you were pretty welcoming, you know?

It took me so long to come up with a post and I don't know how to end it.

Invers come ona pidria
-- Milanese saying

(...) Well, damage oneself, all right. But deliberately that's the knack, thus in a perverted way, so that half of ourself remains asleep during the whole process and can later complain about it. You can do it for too much self-involvement, or too much confidence, or hatred for yourself. Self-damaging behavior is for example when we are loved, and we do everything we can to convince the lover that we do not deserve to be loved. Or it is when we deliberately damage our public face, that still gets credit, because we intimately doubts its integrity or merit, or because we hate that public face for being more popular than the unconfessed face we have. And it is a lot more than that.

Nina to Corpodibacco 05:25 pm
Come with me to Ferrara at the end of August. There's a terrific conference about Baroque Music and Science. I have to go anyway because I present a poster. I understand why you are not answering me. I understand everything. But I am sorry not to hear from you.

Corpodibacco to Nina 5:09 am
Nina, I don't give a shit about conferences and posters, go figure.
Anyway, it is not that I'm not calling for resentment or incomprehension. It's just that I'm left without bridges to connect myself to the others. I'm not getting anywhere... let's leave it at that. Libi soon will go to Paris with a girlfriend, but I don't know what I am going to do.

Nina to Corpodibacco 9:32 am
I haven't asked you to come to Ferrara to look at my poster. I don't give a shit about it either, don't you worry. I was asking you to come to be with me, but considering that you keep looking for the abysses and basically you adore this inertia of yours, stay in the deep shit where you are.

The sense of comparing someone to a upside down funnel is that a funnel cannot stand in any other way but upside down. Someone who is like that is someone integrally wrong, wrong by nature, and not seriously meant for this world, like a funnel is not meant to be piled up with the rest of the dishes and pans. Sometimes this happens because of fear, haste, or because of confusion, or because of the transiting planets. Some other time one is just born like that, invers como una pidira, upside down like a funnel. If you put two or three funnels together the results can be funny but certainly unusable. Or painfully ludicrous.