Abstinence - the Healthy Alternative

So funny, and yet so very very sad. Here is more.

My Night with Federico Garcia Lorca

(as told by Edouard Roditi)

It happened in Paris.
Pepe asked me over to dinner
to meet a guy named Federico
who was on his way to New York.
I was nineteen years old.
Federico was eleven years older
and had just finished
a relationship in Spain
with a sculptor
who had been rotten to him.
Federico only had two lovers--
he hated promiscuous queens.

We were both Gemini.
Since astrology
was very important to him,
Federico took an interest in me.
We spoke in Spanish.
I had learned it
from my grandmother, a Sephardic
Jew, who had taught me
sixteenth-century expressions.
Federico was amused by all this.

We drank a lot of
wine that night.
In the morning, when I woke up,
his head lay across my nipples.
Hundreds of people
have asked me for details:
Was Federico fabulous in bed?
I always give them my standard answer:
Federico was emotional
and vulnerable; for him,
the most important thing wasn't sex
but tenderness.

I never saw him again.
The following day he left for England
then New York and Cuba.
Later, the second love
of his life was murdered
defending the Republic.

All this happened in Paris
almost sixty years ago.
It was just a night of love
but it has lasted all my life.

Jaime Manrique

Easter

Thanks for the congrats, everyone! It turned out to be a great evening, even if the table we got was a bit big - unfortunately girlfriend couldn't reach my thigh under the table. Ah well, we made up for that later:-)

The Easter holidays will be dead boring this year. Girlfriend is away on a cabin with friends for five days. (That's the longest we've been apart the last five years. Pathetic, I know). I'm working on my thesis (sigh), my advisor had quite a few things to say about my theory chapter that I need to straighten out. With girlfriend away I could work all day, but I know I don't have the stamina. I've been working nine to five today, including a generous lunch break. And now I'm fed up. Perhaps I'll have a small glass of red wine, and discourse theory will become interesting again.

Hurra for oss!

Today my girlfriend and I have been together for five years! In honour of the day, I'll work on my marriage-chapter :-) And later today, there will be celebration! Good food, something nice to drink, smiles, lots of "do you remember that time when...", flowers, candles and she'll wink to me across the table, and probably secretly pinch my thigh under the table.

Here's to us, and at least another five years!

Don't let that horse

Don't let that horse
eat that violin
cried Chagall's mother
But he
kept right on
painting
And became famous
And kept on painting
The Horse With Violin In Mouth
And when he finally finished it
he jumped up upon the horse
and rode away
waving the violin
And then with a low bow gave it
to the first naked nude he ran across
And there were no strings
attached

-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti