Walking down Gay Street

El otro día fui a Barcelona a hacer unos encargos. Uno de ellos era en el Gaixample, among the gay community. Aunque hacer división de zonas en la Ciutat Comptal dependiendo de si "hay" gays o no, es algo absurdo, más que nada porque están por todas partes.

Desde que volví de Inglaterra he tenido un poco esa necesidad de tener amigos gays: a todos nos gusta tener gente a nuestro alrededor con los mismos intereses. Cuando era más joven (note el "más joven", que no "joven" a secas) solía tener muchos amigos gays. Solíamos salir los fines de semana y reunirnos con otros grupitos de gays. Y solía tener muchas amigas lesbianas, y nos lo pasábamos bien por ahí. Ahora no es así.

Me crucé con muchos en Barcelona y tuvimos eses momento que Leavitt describe tan bien como unos nanosegundos de reconocimiento. O el Gaydar (el radar, no el servidor de contactos) en pleno uso.

I cast my eyes over the crowd; I cast and cast, like a fisherman, until they locked, for a millisecond, with another pair of eyes.

David Leavitt, While England Sleeps

He pasado demasiado tiempo fuera del ambiente y ahora las cosas me sorprenden sobremanera. Aunque sé qué es lo que me voy a encontrar cuando voy a "zonas gays".

Sin embargo esta vez era diferente.

Iba yo por la calle tan tranquilo, dentro de mi felicidad y de mi pueblerismo absoluto y cuando me cruzaba con "semejantes" me sentía mal. Y pongo semejantes entre comillas porque, sobre todo, me refiero a los gays de gimnasio, que son los que me miran mal porque no tengo músculos ni pelo ya casi, tengo barriga y no visto a la moda.

Más tarde, en la estación de Passeig de Gràcia, pasaron un maricón, una diva y una reinona. (La reinona debía tener veintipico, los demás rozaban los cuarenta --dato extra, no importante.) Sucedieron esos microsegundos de reconocimiento y, acto seguido, la diva me miró con cara de desprecio.

¿Adónde hemos llegado?

Puedo llegar a entender o aceptar que las maricas de gimnasio miren mal a los demás maricas porque no tenemos musculos ni nos depilamos. Digo que lo entendería o lo aceptaría puesto que ellos viven en un mundo en el que lo que no está dentro de SUS gustos no merece la pena. Muy al estilo de la película Chuecatown. Pero no entiendo que alguien que por mucho que en su día hubiera pertenecido a los "chicos guapos" del barrio y que hoy ya es parte de los "discriminados" por los anteriormente mencionados, no se de cuenta de su error.

Me atrevo a decir error y lo digo otra vez, y si queréis lo pongo en mayúsculas. ERROR. Los que me conocéis, los que me habéis leído con anterioridad, sabéis que detesto usar generalizaciones y decir que alguien se equivoca sólo porque no coincida su opinión con la mía. Pero esta vez sé que llevo la razón. Discriminar está mal, punto de partido. Séa la razón que séa por la que estás criticando. Que si el otro lleva el pelo azul, es demasiado alto, demasiado bajo, gordo, tiene acné, no tiene músculos, su ropa es de Bershka o no sabe que el Che fue un gran revolucionario... Por mucho que tengan una o más de una de estas cualidades, no hay razón en el mundo suficiente para discriminar a alguien. O quizás sí, discriminar al que discrimina.

Es que las cosas han cambiado. En el trabajo peco de discriminación positiva, pero intento contenerme. Pero hoy me ha llamado la atención un usuario. Le he tenido que llamar la atención porque no había pedido turno y le he hecho levantarse del ordenador para que otra chica se pusiese. Me ha dicho: "Siempre se los dejáis a los mayores". Datos: él tendrá unos 12 años, ella 15 ó 16. Datos: ambos son moros (recuerde el lector que no lo digo despectivamente y que hay diferencia entre moro, mahometano, magrebí, árabe o marrón). (Lo de marrón creo que sólo se dice en inglés).
Osea, que ya no es aquello de que "me discriminas porque soy moro", sino que le discrimino por joven. Bueno, si te digo la verdad, prefiero dejarle el ordenador a una chica que va a mirar su correo y a buscar información (por mucho que lleve el velo) que a un chico que va a jugar a juegos "prohibidos", bajarse música aunque no se pueda y a ver vídeos en YouTube.
Quizás será discriminación, pero es así: es una biblioteca y la información ha de tener prioridad al ocio.

Pues vaya, ya no tengo nada en común con el resto de la comunidad. Antes he puesto esta palabra en negrita, ahora la he puesto en cursiva. En inglés se usa mucho esto de la comunidad. Mi pueblo, mis compañeros de profesion, mis compañeros de "orientaciones" sexuales..., mis compañeros de parroquia. Pero, en serio, ¿qué tiene la comunidad gay de comunidad?
Es una tautología en sí misma. Como lo del "sentido común" que no es nada común.

Teniendo en cuenta que ahora mismo soy homosexual no practicante, ¿qué es lo que todavía me define como gay? ¿Que leo novela gay? ¿Esas novelas donde todo es sexo y todo es drogas? ¿Esas novelas que describen lo que ni yo ni la mitad de mis amigos y conocidos gays vivimos? Salvo algunos autores, por supuesto. A uno ya ho he citado más arriba y se merece todos los aplausos del mundo.

He preguntado qué es lo que ha pasado con nuestra sociedad. Me gustaría tanto saberlo... Espero algún día descubrir el elixir que convierta este mundo en algo más "normal".

Descobriment

Assegut en un banc llegeixo un llibre recomanat per una noia que es queda cega. No és que me l'hagués recomanat ella, perquè me l'ha recomanat molta gent, però hi ha alguna connexió impalpable entre aquest llibre de gat i amb la cantant txecoslovaca.

Aixeco el cap i miro el cel, pensant en la darrera frase. Un ocell vola i, per un instant, es queda quiet deixant que el vent faci la feina. No es mou, però no cau, perquè el vent el manté a l'aire.



Els animals també senten la felicitat d'ésser viu.

minúsculas

este post es para ti. y además no tiene mayúsculas.

esta mañana, cuando volvía del mercado, mi corazón se ha parado. anoche, de camino a casa, ya en mi calle, vi, a contraluz, que la casa donde estaban los cuadros de tamara de lempicka [lempítska] esaba haciéndo mudanza. vi cajas y rollos de burbujas. mudanza, qué gracia, justo estos días. y hoy, al volver del mercado, cargado como iba, pensaba, qué pena. y justo en ese momento, la, i presume, propietaria o quizás ya expropietaria de la casa, ha salido a tirar algo a la basura. justo cuando yo pasaba. he parado, la he mirado, he mirado a la pared de su salón y he visto que los cuadro ya no estaban. la he vuelto a mirar y le he dicho: you know, every day, when i am on my way home, i look at those tamara de lempicka (he dicho [lempíka] porque la gente es muy ignorante) paintings you had there. ella me ha mirado y, con una medio sonrisa, me ha dicho: and now they are gone, a lo que yo he respondido what am I gonna do? y ella me ha respondido con una mezcla de chiste, sarcasmo y borderío, moviendo su media melena morena you'll get lost.
al volver a casa esta noche, todavía se podían ver las alcayatas, pero no había nada más.

al volver a casa, en el tren, me he tenido que quitar my headphones porque me he dado cuenta que, a mi alrededor, ya había música. había una mujer, bastante grande, con rastas, negra, cantando mad world y tocándo la guitarra. me he quitado los cacharros para poder oírla. he cerrado el libro que me tiene tan enganchado, ese libro que tú también conoces. la he observado mientras tocaba ya la segunda mitad de la canción, con su acento americanizado. la he observado mientras bromeaba y hablaba de la siguiente canción, una propia. mi parada ya llegaba y me he preparado dos monedas con la cara de la reina (una y dos) para poder dárselas al salir. la luz de la estación ha aparecido y me he levantado, me he acercado y le he mostrado las monedas y he hecho el gesto para dejárselas en el bolsillo, lo que ha aceptado, o esperaba, o algo. mientras no se detenía el tren y se abrían las puertas, me he plantado justo a la salida mirándola. de repente he oído un susurro que me ha llamado la atención. la única palabra que había oído con claridad ha sido smiling y sí, yo estaba sonriendo porque aquellos últimos tres o cuatro minutos habían sido preciosos.

sí, ya sé, el silencio es parte de la conversación.

All I need

Yesterday I helped on a move.

Boxes, boxes, bags and suitcases.
Thousands of them.

One year? Is it one year to accumulate all that? Wow. I don't have that many things and it's been almost three for me. Three? or a life time? I can't even remember.
You know, there is many people who have no clothes to wear.
I have three pairs of shoes. And that's enough.
This winter I've been throwing things out and giving things away. I haven't finished. And when I finally move, then, I'll be done. I don't want to give my books away. I already did give many of them. But I am not moving them.

I don't need many things. I'm waiting for you to take me to the Langue d'Oc or for you to take me to Danmark. I'll fill one suitcase with two or three books, two pairs of jeans, 4 t-shirts, some underwear and the shoes I am wearing. Oh, and my Laptop to keep you up to date. That's all.

That's all I need.

I'm ready.
Take me.

I definitely am a language freak

~The target player loses two cards~

There were this two mountains of cards. There were thousands of them. One pile had cards in Spanish, the other one in Russian. I never played roleplaying games, but know a bit about it. I said "Give me one of them", he said "Choose the one you like". I took a wad from the pile in Russian, handed it to him and said "You choose". This is the one he gave me. It shines. It's not beautiful. It shows how freak I am.

Day one

So I have finally finished the course. Yesterday I took the last of the possible exams of this year. So, now I am done.

Something interesting happened in the exam: when waiting to go in, I looked a guy who was standing a couple of meters from me. He was really handsome but he had a prayer beads around his neck. Perhaps it was to bring him luck. Or, perhaps, he memorized his text book like a prayer. So, I was looking at him, and he was looking at me. He must not have been from the island because he seemed to have the same problem I had in June, with the system. So, when he came into the room I was already sitting and he looked at me when he passed by. He finished before than me and, when he left, he looked at me, turning back when he was at the door. I thought when I would finish I would find him there, waiting. But, nah... nothing. Pity, because it would have proven movies right.

To celebrate, my brother and I were supposed to go out but things became weird. A cousin of ours is in the island and we were going to meet, but he called to cancel. Also, my all-times best (girl)friend is here with her partner and her child. We had arranged to meet to go out (she hasn't gone out since she got pregnant, so it was quite a thing) but I was going to cancel for the cousin thing, because my brother had arranged already, but, then, when he canceled, we decided to meet in the end. So, they went to Pachá to had dinner and they were going to stay there for dancing. So we went. Was fantastic, because we were in the list. Ha! Great. I felt like Carrie Bradshaw! Also, I was wearing my Ted Bakers, my favourite shoes. Although, it wasn't the first time I was on a list, this time it felt great.
So, we were chatting and dancing all night and we had so much fun. The only problem is that there was way too many people. Many of them English. And they were rude. They thought that they owned the place. Even one guy, fat guy, was so rude to me making like he wasn't hearing me when I was telling him very kindly "Excuse me, can I pass through?". After a couple of times, he looked at me and pointed at the next person, different direction of where I was going. So I had to make myself space to pass. At the moment, there were few women making and spectacle and they were very pretty: I bet the stupid fat rude English prick was looking at them as he has never had the opportunity to see one naked woman in real life. Listen, dude, I have! You loser!
Oh, god! Those people get on my nerves. Not the English people, I mean the rude people who think they are better than anyone. Only one guy said "sorry" to me. Yeah, he was British, but, hey, he was Indian or Pakistani descendant.
Drunken and drugged idiots. Lots of ladies who thought they looked pretty and they just looked like hookers. Lots of stupid Italian "children" with sunglasses. A guy threw up in front of me. Then, we moved, and we were just there quietly and a girl made us move because her friend who had a broken leg and was on a wheelchair, wanted to be where we were. So, they pushed. Then, a friend of her, who was old and ugly, was pushing me around. I hated that. But at least, one of the friends of the stupid-I-bet-she-broke-her-leg-behaving-like-a-child-just-because-she-was-in-Sunny-Spain girl, was real hot. And, from time to time, he was using his t-shirt to wipe his face and I could see his six-packer. Though, he was not the kind of guy I like. At all. He seemed from a Bel Ami movie (never seen one, actually), but, for some reason, I thought he was so good looking. He looked at me, but I don't think he was ready to get out of the closet, yet. Cuz he was so gay.

Anyway, so I have finished in this island. Next Wednesday I am flying to Barcelona. Then, I'll be preparing my move. Will see what happens.

Najwa Nimri – "So Often" – "Walkabout"

Today is so boring
It's gonna start today
So often

I'm gonna change my ways
So often
(...)

Image taken from here.

After the bees

The day I was attacked by the bees, I got the invitation to go for a show around at the school of the owners of the bees. It happened today. The school is from Fundació Onada, a school for mentally disabled people.

The visit was very interesting. Half of the children were out on an excursion and today they didn't have any kind of special activity so most of them were just drawing in the main room. They, even though called children, are most of them my age or much older, only few were younger and the youngest is seventeen.
It is very important to have an school like that in this town as the closest one is too far from here. Some of the children are from my town and I know them since I was a kid. One of them is the neighbour of my sister, and former neighbour of my grandpa, so I have seen him many many times.
Obviously there are many different types of mentally disabled people. Some of them are "more" disabled than others, and these are the ones who need more attention. And others need just some help and training to be able to get a normal job. The ones in the middle would end up in one of the bunch or the other.
Mostly, what they do, is practical jobs: easy things like to put the cap of a pen, paper boxes and such. Also, they recycle paper. And what is more surprising they recycle mayonnaise. They get the pots of mayonnaise that have run out of date from restaurants, hotels and such, they put it in a kind of machine that separates the glass from the mayonnaise (this goes to a recycling business) adding watter to it and then they separate the watter from the mayonnaise. The watter is reused and the mayonnaise is used to create bio-diesel-fuel, the less polluting fuel. They also recycle the used oil (from frying).
We also met one of the beekeepers –Yuri Gagarin :P . She is such a nice person and she explained us so many things about bees (and invited me to get the astronaut dress and go in there with the bees –which I am certainly not doing any time soon) and showed us what they do. I am not going to explain how it works as I know you all know how to use Google and Wikipedia. But something very interesting: OK, so they give the bees a human-made honeycomb made out of a thin piece of wax that has the little hexagon shapes. The bees pull the hexagons out (it is difficult to explain without hands) as it is almost flat and they place either honey or eggs in them. The interesting thing comes when they do not have enough space in the box: they create a brand new honeycomb out of beeswax and honey. When the beekeepers get that, after cleaning it very good, it can bee chewed (beeswax must not be toxic).
The honey is not sold, just given to relatives and friends. They gave us two pots that I am so looking forward to try.

The visit was certainly very interesting. It is so good the work they are doing for those guys and girls. Also, they do some kind of social work: they bring them to shop, into town, to Port Aventura and such so people sees them and stops being afraid of them. Also they do equine-therapy (therapy with horses) and many other activities.
What seems very interesting is that this association is very into ecology: they recycle everything and they know the important of it, they also have horticulture-therapy (?), i.e. they also have a kitchen garden and work the land as a activity. Well, as well is very important that they teach them basics on personal hygiene and cleaning so they can devolve independent (this matter is very difficult as they normally live with their parents until they die and then they have to find a house to stay in).
[Oh, one of the children just passed by.]

Well, this was my morning, today. A very nice, interesting experience. Since my life is going through continuous changes lately, I can't decide anything. But if I have spare time in the future I will definitely think of volunteering.
BTW, it isn't a private school, it is supported by a private organization but the parents only pay for meals and material they need. So, if anyone has some extra money and does not know which Charity give it to, stop searching.

I know the photo is not great but I took it with my cell phone.

Exercising is not good for health

Last Friday I had the worse experience in my entire life, that I can recall, of course.

My sister and I have been going cycling through the tracks around my village for the last few days. This was normal, fun, nice. We were in the last quarter of the track, almost arriving into town, when I felt an insect flying around me. At first I thought it was a dragonfly, as I was just seeing it from the side of my right eye. I, then, tried to shoo it off but soon I realised it wasn't a dragonfly nor only one. It was a whole bunch of bees. A swarm was following me. I was about to lose control of the bike so I stopped and threw it to the floor. I tried to run but I couldn't. It was then when I saw the beekeeper (it could have easily been Yuri Gagarin, though). She (I think was a she for the voice) was shouting at me "¡Fuera!" ("Shoo! Go away!") but I was somehow understanding "¡Para!" ("Stop!") so I did.
At the same time my sister was shouting at me to get the fuck on the bike and fly away (she was not swearing but it really sounded like). I was paralyzed. I couldn't react. I shouted to the beekeeper to get (the fuck) over there and help me. My sister was still shouting, I tried to run but I couldn't; my legs weren't working. I fell on the ground (hurting my knees, by the way). I even thought I must be allergic as I was having a very bad reaction. Then I did as the beekeeper "was saying" I should do, I stayed quiet in the ground with my hands covering my face. My sister helped me to get up and to shoo the bees away of me. She told me to get her bike (which was closer to where we were) and get out, so I did. I could have gone straight to the Olympic Games as I cycled so fast that I was in town in less than a minute. My sister took long to arrive –the bike's chaing ha. I was having a nervous breakdown. I had been stung by at least six bees. Three of them were big bites, the worse in my head which still hurts, the rest were small as I was shooing them off.
The worse of everything was the nervous-breakdown, really. The stings are just stings and, as I must not bee allergic, they are not important. My wounded knees still hurt as well but it will pass out. But what will stay in me forever is the bad feeling. I couldn't react, didn't know what should I do and, even though my sis and the beekeeper were telling me what I should do, I couldn't see that was what was right.
The curious thing is that the other day we were talking about this, sort of, with my father. He was explaining us how when he was younger, he almost died drowned where there was not more than a meter deep. He panicked and instead of pulling the leg down so he'd reach the ground, he thought he was deeper and he'd die. The same happened to me, I thought nothing I could do would save me and I never tried (until the very last moment –if at the very beginning I had speeded up nothing would have happened).
And another funny thing is that less than a week earlier I was talking with a friend and we decided which animals should disappear of the Earth. Insects, all of them. And also rats, mice, slugs (not snails though) and dogs (yeah, dogs... she didn't mind, I do). Ah, I forgot and city doves.
Anyway... my sister and I went to the Primary Attention Centre (small hospital for emergencies and family medicine). There happened the real thing. It was horrible. I had the anti-tetanus and the antidote jabs. The last one was the worse, it really hurt me. Moreover it was on my bottom (she was telling me I shouldn't complain as I have a tattoo in my bottom and I have a piercing in my tongue, though I just don't like needles).
So I went home (half an hour before having to be back at work which I arrived over an hour late –I called my boss before, of course). I was very tired. I had a bath so I would relax. Still I was in shock. It had been horrible. I was very upset. My sister and I were jocking, actually, about all of this. I was saying that I couldn't care less about the trees and nature. I am a city guy! Fuck exercising! Or at least, I will enrol in a gym: that's why they invented them, so there are no bees around.

Update:

I forgot to say two things.
One is that the owners of the bees are from Fundació Onada, an association of people with Down Syndrome and such. They called the hospital asking if anyone had gone with bee stings. The hospital called me and I called them. They were actually worried. They invited my sister and I to go to the atelier (not for the beekeeping thing, but other kind of activities). So that was very nice. (Read here.)
The other thing is that since then I am very afraid of any kind of flying insect. Like that night, when I went to bed, a fly was around and I got so scared that I had to go under the sheets: my heart was going non-stop. And on Sunday we went to the country for an Argentinian asado (more or less a barbecue) and I was freaking out about every bee that I was seeing. This is actually scaring me a lot.

Ammendment
I made a mistake with the name of the association. Now it is ammended and linked.