Puppet complex

Apart from my cocky attitude and my deeply rooted opposition towards religion, one thing is meant to stick with me for the entirety of my days: existencialism. I truly ignore if this happens only to me or if it is rather a disease of humanity, but at least once a year I stop all of the sudden and wonder: Wait! just what the hell are you doing and why???? The why is the most important part. Life seems ok until you feel the strings in your limbs, all pulling, one at the time and then all at once. You swiftly recognize how tangled you are and try desperatedly to free yourself. When did you allow everyone to tell you what do to, where to go? How come you stood this all this time?

This year has been tough in the sense that I rarely feel free to do what pleases me. I love my job, but as enjoyable as tasks might be, it is still eight hours a day of following guidelines.One string is pulling my left hand. I couldn't be more excited about the subjects I'm taking at University, but it translates into 6 hours of class a week and the universe knows how many extra hours of reading and writing afterwards. There's another string pulling my right wrist. It's nice to be surrounded by friends, but it becomes exhausting explaining to every single person who wants to hang out that you need a couple of nights just for yourself. My left knee feels fasten on the side. Insert all the family celebrations in the picture and how important is for you to attend not to come across as a bad son\brother\uncle\whatever other category I fit into. My right ankle is totally trapped. That's a lot to take for someone who wants, just for two days, that the world stops moving so fast and that what determines what to do in the next minute is always an imposition rather than a wish. 

Seriously, am I the only one who screams inside for a minute of instrospection, an hour of solitude, a day of introspection, a week of calmness? When one is blinded by what needs to be done, the true self can very easily suffer asphixia and die slowly. Above all, I'm afraid of yielding again without questioning. I don't want to tame the inner horse that, even after laboring in the fields, waits for the night to run freely and stomp on the saddle until is dust.

Stupid Rachel and Ross

I had long avoided the last episode of Friends for one very simple reason. I didn't want it to end.
Yesterday, I guess I was kind of bored, and a marathon of this T.V. show was on Warner Channel Latin America, so I thought "what the heck" and watch it until the end. How much I regret this.

There are plenty of things I hated about the last episode. Some, like the fact I rarely watch again any tv show after seeing the ending, concern only me. Some others, like how much I hate Ross and Rachel beign together, might be more relatable to you.

Once in university, a professor said that Friends represented all that we wanted in life. She said "how many of you are going for a coffee later with your friends to talk about your private lives and adventures?" That was an appalling slap on my face because that was exactly what my plan was. For a long time, I was so proud of my life being as light as a season of Friends and always having that comforting closure by the end of each season. Time went on and just like in the T.V. show, the bonds between our group of friends grew stronger. One thing was missing from my life -- because yeah, I'm a Rachel kind of guy-- love. Ross is far from being prince charming, but hey! aren't his feelings for Rachel truthful and can't they work their differences out? I didn't get too excited about true love because RACHEL IS GOING TO PARIS! I repeated to myself. That's how it ends. I move on with my life and love is going to be just part of it, not the center.

Rachel and Ross. Their comes and goes in real life would have made them grow apart. Seriously, out there no one gets you out of a plane. But don't you hate how things always get back on track for the two of them and in a rather Disney Studios ending they keep selling us the idea that true love exists? My last break up took my heart out of my chest and pumelled it against the ground, and took something I once deeply loved to a hateful place of no return. I was through beleiving in happy endings, and once again became aware of how selfish people are... until I saw this and now I can't help but to hope I'll see my life becoming a fairy tale.

Don't you hate that? Stupid Rachel and Ross. It's all their fault.

Pity f*ck and kharma

This is a random thought I had while blowing my nose, so I don't think it deserves a lot of attention. Still, it's been a long time since I last blogged so I thought it would be cool to write about something anyway.

My thoughts were suddenly drawn to the idea of a Pity fuck as ways of balancing kharma and attone misdeeds. The scenario does not come out of the blue. In the superb and almost biblical for the queer community Queer as Folk TV show (US version,)the character Ted Schmidtz once sleeps with a very hunky guy who randomly hits on him on a bar. He's dazzled by and terrified with the idea of this "so-very-out-of-his-league guy" showing any interest in him, and spite of his damaged, low self-esteem, he goes all the way with the guy, because nobody in his right mind would let an opportunity like that just go. It turns out the stud was no other that balancing his kharma and counterweighing a year of awesome sex life with one pity fuck: picking somebody average and sleeping with him to give him the sex experience the poor thing wouldn't be able to have by his own means.

When Ted finds out he's been the subject of this other guy's extremely egotism, he's destroyed. How can he not be? He felt attractive for a night, he gained some confidence about himself, he probably thought he had something special and rare that people could see. Next day, he ilussion is shattered, and the fact that he's been pitied only rubs all his insecurities on his faces with a huge red stamp on them that say "It's true." You're ugly. It's true! You're lame and uninteresting, fact! It takes Ted some time and support from his friends to regain a bit of his previous yet feeble confidence.

Alright, I don't know any jerks who go around sleeping with people because they feel sorry for them (or so I hope,) but I do know a great deal of people toying with the idea of spending a night with someone because "they are nice." Ain't that the same, I wonder. Some of us get attention from people we're not really attracted to, play around with the people we actually like, but then after a break up, moment of weakness, or some shitty state of mind, we "come down from our pedestal and mingle with the mortals." We give pitty fucks. We do not get pitty fucks.

Or do we? I'm not sure! My self steem is terrified by the idea of someone sleeping with me out of boredom or compassion. The last time a guy hooked up with me with no apparent reasons other than "we're not fucking anyone else tonight anyway", I just couldn't keep myself aroused -- the thought of a possible pity fuck too strong to let me enjoy myself.

Let's get back to the victims of this act of malicious compassion. You sleep with someone because you're sorry for them. How do you respond to their question: What did you like about me? I'm sure it's one of the first things you'll hear come out of their mouths right after you kiss them for the first time. How do you respond to them when they're excited telling you how happy they are because they've felt attracted to you for some time now, and they never thought this moment could come true and all that? Like poor Ted, they might be dealing with self-steem issues that by no means improve because you slept with them. From their perspective, it is not that you gave them a present. It's more like you've used them and after the sex you decided they were discardable. Let us not take it too far. Plenty of kisses during a night are enough to give that person the feeling that they're special to you; in that respect, my friends, an awful lot of you have sinned.

I'm not changing the world with this post or anything. I just want to ask openly, guys, are we that messed up? Is it my idea or are we actually spreading pity instead of truthfulness or affection? No one needs my pity. I, for sure, do not need anyone to look at me and feel sorry.

Ne Sui Pas

Ne suis pas

By Isaac López

I remember that gray, melancholic afternoon of a winter in London, where it rarely snows. The streets around Leicester Square were busy and the boulevards showcased figurines of people, fully clothed in black. The Picadilly Area surrounded by buildings gave the impression the center was no more than a small universe recreated in a crystal ball. My place in this cosmos was meant to be inside one of these red cafés, leaning forward the figurine in front of me while supported by my forearms on the table. The other person who was opposite to me sat so still and so immutable that it might as well had been a Greek statue. What did I know about him other than he had the cutest face in the world and that I was obsessed with the depth of his blue eyes? There I had him in front of me, speaking in the often regarded as the most romantic language of the world; the scene would have been perfect for a love movie if he hadn’t been telling me the dreariest words that could came out of his mouth. He couldn’t. He couldn’t – he insisted. His life would be simply ruined if his mom found out he was dating me.

“What’s so bad about us?” I inquired with a stern look. I was back to my senses, but still struggling not to get lost in the fine line of his cheek. I loved when he didn’t shave for around three days, the velvet brown shadow outlining his features.

“She finds out, and my life as I know it is over! They will stop sending me money. I’ll be forced to go back and face shame. I’m not ready.”

The way he made it sound—I tried not to picture myself as a horrible monster that wouldn’t ever fit in the family. I reminded myself, not without some degree of difficulty, that it was not personal; I had been there too and understood the situation. Not for that, I approved. I couldn’t believe my ears.

I had met him not long ago, somewhere in Soho, still part of that bubble we lived in. I hadn’t had the chance of seeing his demons come out or to see the holes in his perfectly kept appearance; I was far away from using those phrases stable partners use like “I know you”! It had been some months since I felt bold enough to come to him at the bar and ask him for his number; still his motivations and fears remained a mystery to me. All but one he was voicing with distress: he couldn’t let anybody find out he was gay.

I took it as a joke first. We had spent around two months like hopelessly enamored teenagers. On our first date I had stopped him before we walked any further on Old Compton Street, the brezee making us shiver, the perfection of his body hidden underneath his black cloack and the elegance of his neck disguised under the thick woolen scarf. I stared directly at his bright blue eyes and gained the courage to refuse to move any further without having tasted the moist of his lips. He looked down and stood still. He smiled shyly and said “why not.” Then we kissed for the first time, and in the touch of my freezing hands to the cotton covering his hip I knew I had found something special. We danced all night, kissed on the dancefloor and promised to do it again. We walked holding hands all the way to Trafalgar Square, looked for the highest point and climbed it, kissing with the yellow eye of the Big Ben in witnessing our adventure. We received the only snowy days of the season with joy, fought with snowballs in Green Park at midnight, and fell on the sidewalk the time we drunkenly danced on the icy pedestrian paths. Cold struck us together on Christmas, and though we celebrated new year’s apart when his family came, we texted each other around midnight wishing the new year would help us adding new chapters to this happy novel we were writing. Once we met randomly in the center, went out for drinks and we ended up piggybacking from Soho to Picadilly at three in the morning, that part of the London warmer because of the lights. While he was riding on my back, he locked his arms around my neck and asked me “Can we stay like this forever?” I didn’t say anything then, but that same night I got home and told myself that I had been the silliest man on earth for not even whispering “yes” when I wanted to scream that I loved him on top of my lungs.

That’s when I decided I had to ask him to start a life together. That’s when he replied, in a grave, dry tone “I can’t.”

I still had a hard time following his logic. In here, you could climb the Victoria Monument in front of Buckingham Palace and shout from the rooftops that you liked cocks. Somebody might reply “good for you” and that’s about it. It wasn’t like in Uganda, that they publish your name on a list of faggots and next thing you knew someone came to your house at night and fired a bullet in your skull. Nor were we living in the Nazi Germany, doomed to wear a stripped uniform with a pink triangle and to die gassed, discarded as scum, our names forgotten in the echo of all the voices screaming in terror before facing death. We had it really simple. We just had to stand our ground before our families and embrace who we were. I saw no complexity in achieving such goal in the western society to which we belonged. Besides, we were still protected by the London bubble. What could hurt us over here?

Still, he shook his head in terror. His image froze as he hid his face from my gaze.

The sun went down before the clock hit six in the afternoon. The gray bubble acquired the contrast of the darkness of the alleys and the lights from the garlands hanging in the air from one side of the streets to the other. Inside the red café, however, the scene lacked light. Whatever illusion had been painted in my face before was gone with the last trace of the bleak day light in winter. I asked him what the problem really was. Was it me, not worthy enough of him? He asked me not to be ridiculous. What was it then? Hadn’t he meant what he whispered to me that night of January? He promised me the words had come from his heart, but would they be enough to shield us from the world? Unlikely. The problem was not what we felt. The problem was who we were.

My mind, disturbed, tried to find the wrong in what we had lived. I was trying my best to find the mistake in the picture of his body lying next to mine in my bed while through the open window the light of the closest lamppost flickered because of the falling snowflakes; there was no flaw in such harmony. How could he not want to fight for that? The repetition of his voice saying “he couldn’t” pounded in my head like hammers hitting iron. What good was being ready to open your heart to somebody when this person couldn’t even stand for who he was?

“Let’s say your mom confronts you. She doesn’t go around the bushes and asks you ‘Are you gay, Mathieu?’ What do you reply to that”? I asked angrily, every word impregnated with consternation.

“Ne suis pas” he uttered, gesticulating as if he needed to convince me. That hurt. The deep wrinkle in my forehead might have given him a hint of what was crossing my mind.

I tried to see the boundaries, to follow the crystal dome that enclosed him –us, in such oppressive confinement. I failed to notice them; actually, I failed to see any association of the city with the crystal ball. London was now a curve that expanded and expanded to other lands. He broke the fantasy. We were exposed to all the voices condemning our feelings.

“If you can’t be yourself in London, you may not be able to be free anywhere else in the world” – I said bitterly as I pulled out a ten pound bill to pay for my Americano and his barely-sipped espresso. I left the table and walked to the entrance, waiting for him to call me in his mother tongue or in his English with the marked French accent, but none of that happened. I was waiting for his arm to reach out for mine as I passed and not let me go, but instead I found my way out with a distressful lack of difficulty.

I left the café when the picture was in black and white. I was turning my back on my lover, but it meant little now that he had turned his back on us --more importantly, on himself. He didn’t move for a while, his espresso less frozen that him. Broken hearted and all, I left, in apparent slow motion, to proudly be me. He stayed, “not being.” The picture faded away.

Life from a Small Room.

Once I thought that if I ever had to live in a small, damp room in the city, with a flickering lightbulb dangling from the roof and the annoying sound of a drop constantly falling from the faucet, I was going to be alright. The reason? In this picture of stained bed sheets, cracked walls, and an incredibly skinny me in underwear I still had my laptop plugged and a explosion of ideas, images, and colors bursting from my head.
I currently rent a small, damp room in San Pedro. I either keep my door open to let the air in - in spite of the cold that comes with it at night, or confine myself to a moldy closed space that gets really stuffy after a while. I caught the flu and it has been really hard to recover partially because the room does not make recovery any easier. The location is great though - I couldn't be happier living around the hectic campus, and my light does not flicker; in that sense, it's not as bad as I pictured it. But is the typing and the storm of ideas present in my life? I owe myself big time in that part.
Gotta make this small room worth being here! Gotta get cracking with the writing!

I belong here - Soy de acá.

In one of the most gorgeous sunsets I’ve seen in my life, I grabbed a baby turtle and release it to the sand, so that it could find its way to the Costa Rican Pacific. I was standing somewhere in the left extreme of a line of forty people, everyone shoulder with shoulder, holding their hopes of preservation in the shape of an animal and finally release them to continue the circle of life. A race of forty hatchlings immediately started leaving their small and barely noticeable track, some more hasty than others in responding to Mother Nature’s call. Their instinct dictated them to go forward, the roaring ocean claiming its children. Mine – I dare to call it such for the time being, in the biggest of ironies, started following the sun, not going straight as the rest, so it took it a while to meet a wave. I felt a rush of excitement when the little black spot in the sand embellished with the colors of the sunset finally disappeared under a veil of foam, salt, and water. “This is kinda the day it’s been” my Canadian group says. This is the description of my last afternoon of work at Junquillal.

How could I’ve taken this for granted? As a kid, my father took me to a lot of places in Costa Rica so after a while I started believing I’d seen it all. I longed for Europe and traveled there then, came back not really knowing if anything was left for me in this land. This is when I find out I’ve lived my life in no less than paradise. The heath hugged me, the kindness of the people made my days brighter, and the peace I found taught me that although I was able to see the beauty in another places, I had given my soul to this land long time ago. The culture of double standards, of widely accepted mediocrity, and blatant face saving still bugs me. I still criticize and condemn the lack of interest of the population in vital political and environmental matters. Nonetheless, I want to be here, and though my heart is scattered around the world with the people I love, the part that I still keep is in love with this place. I’ve been suspecting I was hopelessly surrendered to Costa Rica since I started my trips around the country once I came back, but it has been these days of waking up with the sound of the waves, contemplating the dusk with the sound of the howling monkeys in the back, and the walks in the night through a shimmering green field of fireflies that has convinced me of being in the right place. While essentially remaining a city boy, I’ve been able to venture in the cloud forest, to witness the silent majesty of a volcano, to run two miles in the beach to see a huge leatherback nesting in the Caribbean, to see the sun rising in different coasts, to live at the foot of a mountain with the shape of a sleeping Indian… I’ve been living to the fullest and rediscovering a place where I completely wrongly thought once that I did not belong.

30 Days Song Challenge. Songs 1 to 10

These days I am running short of stories to tell in the blog or inspiration to come up with something new. I felt like I wasn't doing much worth telling, but then I came across this challenge on facebook in which you post a song everyday for a month; there was a chance to tell 30 stories with music over there.

Day 01. Your favorite song at the time. Fuckin' Perfect - Pink.
I was in London. One of those evenings when my sister and I used to skype, she asked me if I had listened to the latest song by Pink. She sent me the link and I started helping her with the pronounciation of the words, and before I knew I was so into it!!! I put it in my mp3 player when I came back to Costa Rica, and in some sort of Pink mode (only finished because of Gaga's new songs,) I listened to Fuckin'Perfect every day and made sure everybody around me felt just happy with who they were.

Day 02. Your least favorite song. Party in the USA - Miley Cyrus.
I rarely hate songs, and I couldn't care less about Miley Cyrus's career, but this song really annoys me. I dunno why. Maybe it bothers me listening to Costa Ricans singing about the USA. We should all party in Europe. It's so much more fun!

Day 03. a song that makes you happy – Born this Way – Lady Gaga
Yet another song that does not excite me at first but starts growing in me like a zombie infection! It came out one Friday while I still was in London. That same night they played it in a club in Vauxhall I went to and after that, I was just playing it every single day on Spotify. It is very liberating. I was thinking about how closeted I had to be when I came back to Costa Rica, but the song reminded me that I had nothing to be embarassed of, and that I was born to be brave.

Day 04 A song that makes you sad. How - Maroon 5
Mathieu and I had our ups and downs, and he was prone to give up on love while I insisted I was going to give it a shot. Ultimately, he gave up. As the album Hands All Over accompanied me in that relationship, some lines of these song just fit very well in the outcome of the events. "I dont understand the meaning of love, but I dont mind if I die trying" "why are the ones you love the ones who make you want to cry, and how?"

Day 05 A song that reminds you of someone. Never Gonna Leave this Bed - Maroon 5
Guess in whose bed I spent my last night in London? I felt like I really wanted to miss the flight and stay like that for days... Oh well, too chessy for this blog. Next song, please!

Day 06 A song that reminds you of somewhere . Nein Mann -Laserkraft
Marian, Diana's Colombian friend, played this song for us one day while pre partying at Diana's in Berlin. I thought the song was a lot of fun immediately. It wasnt until next day in Mauerpark that the song became an anthem for Berlin! We were having fun at the karaoke in this park. Let's say we had the idea of smoking something we had bought on the subway the day before. Booom! They play Nein Mann twice and the music just comes from everywhere! People dance like in a ritual and sing very low "Nein mann, Ich will nacht ein gehn." I hadnt felt that alive in a long time.

Day 07 A song that reminds you of a certain event - The Spanglish Song - Jay Brannan
I fell in love with Jay two years ago or so when I came across one of his songs on youtube. The moment I found out he was playing in London less than a month after I arrived, I bought two tickets and waited... He totally lived up for my expectations, and the concert was a success! I invited Raluca and we had so much fun. Raluca, though knowing Jay is gay, couldnt take her eyes off him and enjoyed the music. I remember I was the only Spanish speaker in the crowd who knew the chorus by heart and could sing along The Spanglish Song.

Day 08 A song you know all the words. Please don't let me go - Olly Murs.
Yet another trace of my former British life. Along Ambitions by Jessy McEldery, this song was being played all the time when I got to London. They were famous because the singers came from the X factor, a musical reality show as big as American Idol over here. My softie side loved the fact that the song was about being helpessly in love after running away from feelings all life. In addition, the beat was playful, the video was interesting, and Olly Murs's smile is golden.

Day 09 A song you can dance to. Release me - Agnes.
I listened to this song for the first time in a club in London and absolutely loved it, but none of my friends knew who she was or what was the song called. During the week I stayed in Barcelona, Therese started playing random swiddish music for me, and there she was, playing Agnes and the song I had been looking for several days ago. I kept dancing the song whenever they played it at clubs, and play it in my room along Born this Way, Airplanes, What's My Name, and some other London songs. The night Mar and I went to Club Oh! they played a remix almost right when we arrived. That was enough for me not to stop dancing for the rest of the night.

Day 10. A song that makes you fall asleep. Dearly Beloved - Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack.
I inserted the game, waited for the PS2 to load and there it was, the menu song for Kindom Hearts. The piano was soft, the sound of the waves like a lullaby... closest feeling to heaven I've ever gotten. At that time, I wasnt an expert in dowloading albums from the web, so I ask Mar to give me the Kindgom Hearts soundrack as a present. She did. I recorded the tracks in my computer, and even used the cd player to play Dearly Beloved in replay and fall asleep. I feel like floating every time I listened to it. Damn Japanese composers and their heavenly music.