Half-Life

I turn 34 tomorrow.

I can't remember my birthday last year or what I did to celebrate it. I mean, I'm sure if I look back at my calendar or photos I can piece it together, but offhand it's a blank.

A lot of last year felt blank honestly. Well, a mix of blank and bouncing between "I feel incredible joy, my life is exactly what I've always wished for," and "I feel unbearable pain and something major in my life must change." Exhausting and deeply confusing, all these opposite feelings.

It had been creeping up on me for a while that a major life inventory was due. Then one day in August, it happened. I was no longer afraid to look inside and name my truths. This unstoppable stream of words and emotions and bravery came out of me, and I shared with the people I love.

It's so refreshing to feel like myself again, to turn on the fuck-it button (ligar o foda-se), to learn about what I want and don't want, to be humble and grateful, and to make sure I am living my life accordingly.

Tomorrow, on my birthday, I will:

- Go swimming at 6:15am at the Plunge (the pool by our house that I had been curious about for ages and finally started going to with a couple of girlfriends to swim laps).

- Find something that seems delicious as a birthday treat and go buy it.

- Have a picnic lunch on our deck with Rico, his mom (who is here and loving life in California), and my mom. Hanging out with the moms is one of my favorite things.

- Then I have therapy in Berkeley, with a woman I recently started going to and totally love. (I had been thinking about going to therapy for the last 7 years. Seven!!! I guess you go when you are ready, and I'm so glad I did.)

- In the evening I will go paint with my painting group. (My 90-year-old friend Manny hosts it at his house, and there are two other local artists who attend regularly, plus guest participation by Rico's mom every once in a while.)

Already my birthday this year has been a good one. Pre-birthday, I guess, but whatever. I feel like it's started. My dad told me the first cranes made it to New Mexico on their fall migration, so the kick-off is official.

I just had solo dance party in my gallery, which was fabulous. And I am working on the sketches for a challenging commission, a geometric ring in sterling silver. The design is two lines zig-zagging through life (around the ring band) that eventually converge and intersect at two points. Beautiful concept, but a nightmare to calculate and draw (although this is just the kind of math + pattern + aesthetics problem I love).

There is some major full-circle synchronicity to these rings, too. In the summer of 1999 I was 17 and fell in love with a boy in Brazil. Very long story short, it ended with me heartbroken and full of self-hate. Although we eventually found closure, this person and that relationship have been riding shotgun in my unconscious for the past 17 years. I just realized this is exactly half my lifetime ago!!

Again long story short, I now find myself making promise rings for him and his girlfriend. Today while sketching yet another version of the design, I had an epiphany about the reasons why this half-life relationship has continued to have such a hold on me. I had a major cry, and then lightness. What a wonderful birthday gift, this moment of self understanding.

Julho Nervoso

Man, July has been quite the month when it comes to anxiety and nerves. There's been:

* World Cup (enough said).

* Fraud using my business credit card.

* A medical procedure that was pretty straightforward but had me absolutely terrified, shaking and crying the entire time. I have some major phobias surrounding cutting, stitching, and just knowing that someone is "messing with" my body. I am still exhausted from the emotional energy spent at the doctor's office.

* Results from said procedure: basal cell carcinoma. What????? Yep. A dot of skin cancer on my shoulder. Highly treatable, very unlikely to give me future problems, but still. Que susto! If you've spent lots of time in sunny-ass places like New Mexico, Brazil, Mozambique, and California, go get your spots looked at. I was shocked at this diagnosis, especially because I'm young, my skin seemed ok, nothing overly suspicious or strange going on. Just a routine skin check, and boy am I glad I went!!

On a much more pleasant note, Rico and I had our 6 year wedding anniversary at the beginning of the month. We went to the Fogo do Chão churrascaria at Santana Row in San Jose. It was pretty delicious, but not quite up to par with the Fogo in São Paulo. Still, it was a relaxing getaway and allowed me to baby my stitches.

Hard to believe it's been 6 years already...

What's been going on lately

A lot, really. The gallery (the showroom is now a gallery, btw. linguistic obsessions...) Anyhow, the gallery has been on several people's radar lately, including the Chamber of Commerce. I had a visit from Jamie the other day, which was really nice. She is a big fan of Kina, so was super excited to see Emi's work in the gallery.

 I've been heavily involved in organizing a community event called Point to Point. We are reinventing and reimagining our community, connecting the (red) dots, and having a lot of fun with pop-ups, performances, collaborations, and impromptu everything. Oh, look! I have red dots in my gallery already! Find out more here. Join us if you're in town!

I've been making new work. Here's a piece called "You make me happy when skies are gray." It is composed of repurposed brooches and treasure components found in my grandmother's drawers in Italy and collected as a child, a woven golden grass disc (capim dourado, Brasil), and a copper and sterling silver backplate and prongs. It is a brooch and also a wall piece.

I've also been working on a custom project. It has to do with polo and voyages and championships. It's been a lot, and I just finished it, and I feel relieved and excited and tired.

We went to Takoma Park (Washington, DC) to visit our very best group of Moz friends (minus a few good ladies and gentlemen, of course, but geography and babies make it hard.) Still, a reunion happened.

Here we are, being silly on the street before dinner. My friend Kyle joined us later, an old friend who I met in college (the first time around) in Albuquerque. It's good to be with old friends. Not "old"friends...Old. old. OLD. OLDOLDOLD. WHATEVER. You know.

London-São Paulo-Scotland-Geneva-Maputo-DC-Sweden-Solomons-Cariocas-New Mexico-California selfie 

People drank a lot of tea. And gin. And ate lots of cake and oysters. 

We had some silly times.

Some fancy times.

Some happy times.

It really was. And it was the best.

The Postcard Mobile

Here's the finished result of the project I told you about here. My favorite part was organizing the postcard flowers into a color gradient that flowed both horizontally and vertically. I'm exhausted (not enough sleep last night) but satisfied with the end result, and my critique went quite well in class today.

Now to figure out what to do with this thing...

Postcards

Our first assignment in my Sculpture I class is to make 50 sculptures. We can use any materials, they can be any size, and we can create intuitively or have a specific concept. We're also encouraged to be eco-friendly in our materials choice and our processes. We've been challenged not to buy anything for the project, rather use only found, borrowed, or already-owned objects in our work.

I decided to make 50 "sculptures" using my childhood postcard collection. I've collected postcards since about the 4th grade. Many of them I bought as souvenirs on various trips around the US and abroad; others were sent to me by friends and family over the years. Until now, my postcards have sat in a box in the closet, tucked safely away but essentially out of sight and subsequently out of mind.

I'm cutting up each postcard into a floral shape, pasting together the petals, then will string them together on fishing line. At the end of each strand I will create a small wire sculpture to act as a weight. The strands of postcard flowers will hang from a circular wire structure, sort of like a veil. From the outside the viewer will see all of the colors; from the inside of the mobile, they will see the white side of the postcards, some of which have writing and stamps, and a small center of color taken from the printed side of the card. I imagine this will be almost a floor-to-ceiling work once it's finished next week.

I've really enjoyed the process of making the postcard flower mobile. I like the idea of reducing clutter in my home, and it's been refreshing to "get over" the sentimental ties that lead us to cling to things from our past. Part of me didn't want to cut up the postcards, as they were these precious mementos from people and places I may never see again. However, the memories didn't fade with the cuts, and now I will have a beautiful object to display that will actually remind me more of what I want to hold on to than a hidden box of postcards ever could.

Mortifying, But Too Good Not to Share

For most of my teenage years, and well into my twenties, I kept a journal. Here is a particularly priceless excerpt from one of them, written when I was 14 years old:

November 11, 1995

TO DO:

• Go to Smith's and buy more hair dye
• Wear my walkman 24/7
• Become an enigma
• Have different looks daily, i.e. hair, clothes
• Start wearing cool makeup and jewelry
• Get a life on weekends
• Get Aiden!
• Throw an exclusive, kick-ass party

Verbatim, I swear.

A New Chance

What a strange day. Busy. A little crazy. Full of procrastination, even though this is the home stretch.

In the morning I went to pick up some checks from translation work I did for a local University, then spent over an hour at the bank trying to cash said checks. Nothing was wrong, it was just a slooooooow process.

I came home, ate some delicious mexican lasagna leftovers from my moment of culinary inspiration last night, then got to work. I have many things pending:

- Maize Mills Business Plan and Feasibility Study
- Translating University's web site text
- Translating project documents from a Malaria Project
- About 12 outstanding custom jewelry orders

And, of course, packing. And socializing. And lounging in the sun.

Despite all that's going on (today is 8 days to Cali), my day was totally overshadowed by an email from someone who was part of my life 10 years ago. A lot of water is under that bridge, but suffice to say this person was once very close to me and that things ended on a particularly sour, hurtful note.

Over 2 years ago, in June 2007, on a late night up alone while visiting my Dad, I was struck with the desire to write an email to this person. All I wanted to do was come clean, apologize for the not insignificant part I played in the disastrous end to the relationship. I wrote for over an hour, spelling out all of the words and actions I regretted, trying to convey my most sincere apologies even though so much time had passed.

I sent that fateful email, and never heard back. At first I was anxious, hoping for a response, but then after a few months I let it go. Recognition of my olive branch would have been nice, but at the end of the day the cathartic process of writing out my regrets, accepting them, and forgiving myself was much more important.

Today I received an unexpected email from this person from my past. I couldn't believe it. (S)he asked if I had time to chat, that (s)he was plagued by a sense of guilt and ingratitude regarding the period when we were part of each other's lives. I was blown away.

I gathered the courage to ask if (s)he'd received my message over two years ago. (S)he said no. So I resent it, knowing for sure that this time, my apology will be read. I admit, I'm beside myself with nerves wondering what this person's response will be, but I'm trying to remind myself that the truly important part of this exercise has already passed - forgiveness of self for decisions and actions past. The fact that I had the opportunity to make sure this person receives my apology is simply icing on the cake.

My 1998 Mind

When I first moved to Brasil in 1997, I started keeping a paper journal. I wrote dilligently every day for the first year I lived abroad, and then kept the habit for some 6 years after that initial exchange experience. I started transcribing my journals to the computer sometime last year, and have made slow progress since then.

Recently, I went through my journals from 1998, and found several quotes - some recorded by me, some written by friends - in the inside cover. I thought I might share...

A gente sempre destrói aquilo que mais ama
em campo aberto, ou numa emboscada;
alguns com a leveza do carinho
outros com a dureza da palavra;
os covardes destroem com um beijo,
os valentes, destroem com a espada.

- Oscar Wilde, copied from a display at the Museu do Índio in Alter-do-Chão, Pará, in the Amazon. I remember taking a photograph of the display because the quote struck me so deeply. I was 16 years old. Reading through websites about the museum, I just learned it has been closed. What a shame.

Mulheres

Como as mulheres são lindas!
Inútil pensar que é do vestido...'
E depois não há só as bonitas:
Há também as simpáticas.
E as feias, certas feias em cujos olhos vejo isto:
Uma menininha que é batida e pisada e nunca sai da cozinha
Como deve ser bom gostar de uma feia!
O meu amor porém não em bondade alguma
É fraco! fraco!
Meu Deus, eu amo como as criancinhas...
És linda como uma história da carochinha...
E eu preciso de ti como precisava de mamãe e papai
(No tempo em que pensava que os ladrões moravam
no morro atrás de casa e tinham cara de Pau.)

- Manoel Bandeira, as written by my high school classmate Fabiano, more commonly known as "Chato". He was perhaps the smartest person in our 200-student class. He knew poetry by heart - as exemplified by this verse he copied by memory into my diary - and scored nearly perfect on all our tests despite being a known user of cocaine and weed, and a regular sniffer of glue.

"Chato", my friend from school, wrote more in my journal, quoting poets from memory:

Cocaina

Eu queria ser um poeta do povo
Com o rosto queimado pelo hálito quente das multidões
Ao invés disso estou aqui
Pondo sal nesta sopa rala
Que no máximo vai dar para dois

- Paulo Leminsky, as written without effort by Fabiano Chato.

I wonder if I'd be capable of transcribing a poem by heart.

I don't think so.

Perhaps song lyrics, or a memorable quote from Subcomandante Marcos that has been at the base of my email for over a decade. But not a poem. I'm not a poetry kind of person. Nonetheless, I appreciate immensely the verses on the pages at the front and back of my precious journals.

Here are a couple more, also from Chato:

A garota protestante foi buscar água no poço
Eu disse que ela era linda
Ela disse que Jesus ia voltar
Eu disse que seus olhos eram lindos como os olhos de Jesus
Então ela me deu um beijo na boca e eu disse
[Jesus existe.]

- Manoel Bandeira

Deus dá a todos uma estrela
Alguns fazem dela um sol
Outros nem conseguem vê-la.

- Elena Kolody

Eu estava aqui amargurando
Chorando
Então ela veio chorando com um leve sorriso
E nós pulamos juntos do prédio
[Morrendo felizes.]

- Paulo Leminski

Fisga a lua prata
Pescador imaginário
Deixou o mar no escuro
[Depois]
Pintou estrelas no muro
E sentiu o céu ao alcance
das mãos.

- N.J.

I am impressed with my old friend Chato. He wrote multiple poems in the blank pages of my journal without any particular effort. He was also 16. How many boys that age do you know now who would be capable of reciting poetry? Not that many, I imagine...He was a special kid, for sure. I wonder what happened to him.

My lyrical wisdom, at least in the end cover of that particular diary from 1998, came in the following form:

Se o mundo fosse dos jovens
Todo dia faria sol
Todo mar teria onda
Toda música seria reggae
E toda fumaça faria a cabeça.

- Bob Marley

Not quite as eloquent as the modern Brasilian masters, but it spoke to me. To this day, I've not taken the time to look for this quote in English. The Portuguese version reminds me so much of my first exchange year abroad, of my friends, of our collective adventures. Good times, for sure.

I find it funny that I went through so much trouble to record verses and poetry in all my diaries from my teens and early twenties, and now I'm essentially a poetry-phobe. I don't appreciate it (with few exceptions), I don't seek it out, and I don't feel moved to record it for later perusal. Funny how we change...

Aparição

When I was a sophomore in college, living in Rio de Janeiro, one of my childhood friend was killed in a car accident in Albuquerque. He was driving home from a play when a drunk driver being chased by the police ran a red light and slammed into his car. He was eighteen years old.

My friend's name was Manoa. We met in elementary school, when he was in fourth grade and I was in fifth. We shared a classroom back then, as the Montessori school we attended was very small. We were both eventually accepted to the same private school, and played together in the jazz band for several years. Manoa played saxophone, and I played piano.

If I remember correctly, Manoa was half Filipino and half Isleta Pueblo Indian. My mom sent me the newspaper clipping about his death, how the community had lost such a promising young star in such a seemingly unfair way. My mom told me about Manoa's funeral, how he had a traditional Isleta ceremony and was wrapped in a woven rug. She relayed to me Manoa's mother's words, that life would never be the same without their only child, but that the family somehow was able to find solace in their spirituality.

Last night I dreamt of Manoa. It was so clear, so moving, that I actually feel that Manoa came to me in my dreams here in Mozambique, halfway around the world from New Mexico.

I dreamt I was at a house party near the beach, waiting for a group of friends to arrive. Eventually they did, and in the midst of the familiar faces was Manoa. He was dressed in jeans and his long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. He looked exactly the same as I remembered him, though somehow older and wiser.

"Are you really here?" I asked.

"Yes. I am here."

I ran and hugged him, amazed to feel the warmth of his body, and the strength of his arms as he returned the embrace.

"Can other people see you?"

"No, just you."

But that wasn't quite true. My friend Sam was at the party, a Puerto Rican santero I met a few months before moving to Mozambique. Sam wore beaded necklaces for Ogun and led weekly drumming circles.

"I can see him, too," Sam told me. I know he is here.

The rest of the party-goers were oblivious. I wondered what I looked like from their perspective, desperately hugging thin air and resting my head on a non-existant shoulder.

I looked up at Manoa and said, "I'm sorry for not sticking up for you more. I should have been there for you."

Manoa used to be quite overweight in elementary and middle school, and he wore his hair in a thick bowl cut. The popular kids used to make fun of him, especially during PE when Manoa would quickly get out of breath while running around the football field. The kids would say he looked like a gorilla, nostrils flared, dark skin and hair glistening with sweat.

I did stick up for Manoa many times, but I could have done more. I still feel bad about it.

"It's okay," Manoa told me, "you were there for me."

I hugged him even closer. It seemed like the world around us had stopped, and all I could see or hear was him, his breathing, his deep brown eyes. It was so real.

"I love you," I whispered. "I'm so glad you are here."

"I love you, too," Manoa said. "I always knew I would love you, and I always have."

I woke up and immediately felt that Manoa had come to me. I've dreamt about him before, but it was always in the context that he was still alive, had never died, was just another character in the random cast of my unconscious thoughts. This dream was different. I knew Manoa had died, and that he'd come back only for me (and Sam, the santero) to see. It was very real, very moving.

I told Rico my dream and started crying. It was a bit odd to tell my husband that I'd professed my love to another person in my dreams, but it was true. I did love Manoa, and it was absolutely the right thing to say when he appeared to me. I knew he loved me, too. A very different kind of love than the one between a couple, or even the love between family. This was almost a divine love, unconditional, forgiving, pure.

I wonder why Manoa chose to come to me. We were never that close while in school, and completely lost touch when I moved to Brazil. I suppose, should one believe that these things are real and not just a random result of brain flashes, some things we just have to accept, even though we don't understand their meaning or purpose at the time.

Sunday Scribblings: Time Machine

Sometimes I just want to go back, to see if I can find some of the colors and smells and friends that I know were part of my life. I remember very little about my childhood, especially before about age eight.

Most of my memories I know I've created from the photos my mom keeps in a shoebox. I falsely remember my pony Shorty, my red snowsuit with rainbow piping, the summer heat while fishing for trout at Shady Lakes, the trip to Amsterdam where I wore a dress with a numbers print and stared out the window of a ferryboat.

The things I do legitimately remember are scarce and quite blurred.

I remember picking blossoms off the geraniums my mom used to grow in whisky barrels in the sunroom. I would make bouquets of white, red and magenta flowers. For my mom to have been in that house, it was before I was six.

I have random flashes from the summers spent at my grandmother's house in Italy. I remember eating calamari out of a brown paper sack at the beach, the long driveway up to her house flanked by walnut trees, the musty smell of her attic full of African masks.

I recall making mud pies with my neighbor Janelle, and picking apples from the orchard behind the house where I first lived. I remember our ugly old dog, Dolly, who had curly grayish fur and short legs. We had four other dogs, including one who adored me and supposedly would wait at the gate for me to come home, but sadly I don't recall Lobo other than from photos.

I remember one day at school a girl called Brooke got a massive bloody nose as we sat cross-legged in a circle on colored carpet mats. I must have been eight or nine.

I also remember that as part of a class assignment that same year, we had to do a show-and-tell presentation. I brought in a plant that had striped light and dark green leaves and occasionally would produce clusters of red and yellow berries. I don't remember its scientific name, but my memory of this plant is clear enough I'm sure I could find it if I took enough time on Google.

I have flashes of other things: my bookshelf full of toys and books, the white lace-up Easter shoes I'd wear on special occasions, the feeling of sleeping on a high 4-poster bed that I could barely climb up on by myself, eating roasted cashews after trips to the doctor's office for yearly immunizations...

Perhaps most interesting are the things I don't remember.

I have no memories of my mom and dad together. I don't recall any details of their separation or divorce. I don't know how the process went when my mom and I moved to Albuquerque from the country house we lived in when I was born. If I'm not mistaken, my parents split when I was five years old. I realize it's early to remember anything with clarity, but I'd imagine I'd have at least some recollection of our family life before that point...

Sometimes I have the distinct feeling that there is something from my childhood that, if I could only begin to remember, would unlock a lot of my current struggles. Perhaps if I could travel back in a time machine, back to those essential early years, I could at least know where to start my work.

Sunday Scribblings: First Job, Worst Job, Dream Job

My first job was also, coincidentally, my worst job.

I was 15 and living in Maringá, Brazil as an exchange student. As commonly happens, local English schools are willing to turn a blind eye to the fact that students on a temporary residency visa cannot work, so desperate are they to hire native speakers that will, as an added bonus, teach for next to nothing.

The lure of $250 reais per month (at the time, roughly equivalent to USD 250) to teach conversational English was too great. I didn't really stop to consider what the reality of teaching back-to-back 2 hour classes on Friday afternoons would be like. I thought the job would be easy, a relatively painless way to get some extra cash so that I could travel to the Amazon at the end of my exchange year.

Boy, was I wrong on all fronts.

To start, I was teaching English to teenagers. Teenagers, for God's sake! They are a tough crowd any day of the week, but keep in mind that I was only 15 at the time. Half of my students were older than I was and therefore paid me no respect. A good portion of the boys were more interested in trying out their flirting skills on the American girl than learning about phrasal verbs. The kids would throw things while I had my back turned, and would torment me by yelling out words in Portuguese that I intuitively recognized as filthy, but didn't yet know their meaning.

It was clear to me that all of my studetns were only in conversation classes because their upper-middle-class parents thought it was the appropriate activity for after school. They didn't give a crap about learning new vocabulary; they just wanted to get the hell out of the classroom.

After my first double class session, I went home and had a breakdown. The class had been a disaster. It is damn hard to fill 2 hours of time, especially given that the language school didn't supply me with any teaching materials, books or curriculum suggestions. I was on my own, and improvising my way through the classes once my hour or so of prepared material ran out was taxing, to say the least.

Every week I'd struggle to come up with ideas for class. One day we talked about food habits and made a meal in the courtyard of the English school on a double burner that I'd brought from home. Another day I brought in my high school yearbook and we talked about the differences in being a teenager in the US and in Brazil. Yet another day, at the very end of my creative ideas, and quite frankly sick of the job, I had both classes watch "Say Anything" without subtitles, then write me a paragraph about their reaction to the movie.

I lasted about 2 months at this job, then resigned. I missed the steady income, but still managed to make it to the Amazon, mostly thanks to the help of my parents. It would have been satisfying to pay my own way 100%, but the stress of my job wasn't worth it. I gladly accepted the help, knowing there was no way I wanted to pass up the chance to visit the rainforest.

So that was both my first and worst job, though I've certainly been through much more terrible situations in jobs since then (i.e. the time in my job as Director of an HIV Prevention Program when one of my staff members yelled, when asked to arrive on time to work, "Fuck you! I don't gotta do what you tell me. You aint my mother!" and puffed out her chest, challenging me to discipline her. I fired her on the spot.). I've certainly had my share of drama in jobs, but that first one as an English teacher was without a doubt the most painful on a regular basis.

As for the last bit of the prompt, I'm sure it will come as no surprise to those of you who have been reading my blog over the past month that my dream job is actually my current job! Yes, I know, I am one lucky girl. :)

Looking Back on Month 1

For your reading pleasure, a few of the highlights thus far from Journal #1:

22 July, 1997 (day 1 of journal)

I’m in Miami right now at the Fairfield Inn for the orientation [for AFS exchange students prior to leaving the country]. It’s alright, I guess, but pretty boring. Our leader is Joy – that same woman from NY – the kooky one. She’s such a bitch.

We’re quarantined here basically. Shandi and Shelly [fellow AFS-ers] wanted to go get their tongues pierced – I really want to get my nose or tongue pierced. Probably my nose, but I couldn’t hide it in pictures. Maybe I’ll get a tattoo. Mom would kick my ass.

In retrospect? Good thing we were quarantined in that hotel.

I then go on to talk about the flight from Miami to São Paulo, followed by a 10-hour bus ride overnight to Maringá, the city I was going to live in. Unfortunately my travel narratives aren't that interesting - apparently all I cared to dedicate journal space to was gossip about boys!

25 July, 1997

The house here is nice. I have my own room, but I have to share a bathroom which sucks. You can’t flush toilet paper in Brazil. The shower is really small and is electrically heated. For lunch, we had meat and Japanese white rice. I wonder if I’ll eat sushi?

Wow...I was pretty spoiled. I've come a long way when you consider that I shared one bathroom with 5 other people for nearly a year back in Chimoio, and that it was the least of my complaints about that household.

28 July, 1997

Today, Helena [my 13-year-old host sister] and I went shopping. I bought a corduroy skirt and a pair of ass-tight jeans. I can’t believe I’m wearing them. It’s against everything that I believe.

Again, how things change. I am now a diehard fan of the ass-tight jean. Can't really bring myself to wear any other kind, truth be told.

04 August, 1997

Well, I survived my first day of school. Inkari took me and Julie [exchange student from France] to school. We met the head of school (not the principal). Her name is Helenita. She has 2 different colored eyes. The principal is supposed to look like a black Abe Lincoln. Behind the school is a river that smells like shit.

Nobel [name of the high school] is mostly open air. The teachers move classrooms, not the students. School is from 7:15 to 12:00. We have 2 breaks during the day, and 6 or 7 classes. I don’t have to take tests, do homework or do gym. Cool!

I subsequently met said principal and confirmed for myself that he does, in fact, look just like a black Abe Lincoln. I still can't believe they let exchange students have such a sweet deal at school. I suppose they understood that learning a new language and adapting to a new culture was work enough without the additional pesky stress of things like tests and homework!

13 August, 1997

School was ok today – nothing special. We had double math, grammar, geography and literature. In literature, I read part of a short story out loud. It was tough, and a little embarrassing, but when I was done the whole class applauded. Giovanna said that I read better than some people who speak Portuguese.

Hugo, the boy who sits behind me, kept saying “Suck my woody!” during class, not because he really meant it but because he knew I'd understand the English and have a hard time keeping a straight face. It was so funny. Today was Maíra’s birthday. She’s 16 now.

Ah, teenage boys. Gotta love them... Re-reading this cracked me up because I actually remember this day at school quite well.

16 August, 1997

Last night was damn cool. I went with Rafael’s whole family to Moda Paraná. We watched a fashion show which kind of sucked, but the music was cool. They were showing summer clothes, and when the ass-bikinis came on, Rafael said I should get one. Ha, ha!

I'll let you all guess as to which style bikini I prefer to wear nowadays. Apparently Brazil had quite the effect on my fashion choices as well, despite my initial resistance.

19 August, 1997

Today we went with Inkari to Londrina [neighbor city where I had to register with the Federal Police]. We walked all day long to take id pictures, go to the bank, go to the police and go to his grandma’s house. My feet hurt so much! I had to wash them in the sink at Inkari's grandma's because they were completely black from being sweaty and walking around in the dirty streets.

Well, I got all my paperwork done for my id card. The guy in the police station was checking me out so much. He was sitting there just staring at me. Too bad he was about 50, fat and hairy!!

Ah, some things never change. I'd still not be thrilled at the prospect of 50, fat and hairy!

21 August, 1997

Today was a normal day, but it was kind of frustrating. I saw Rafael [current object of a massive crush] again at school. During breaks Tiago, Rafael and I just hang out and try to talk. It’s kind of uncomfortable. I never know what to say, and I feel stupid trying to speak in Portuguese. So, as a result of all this, I feel so dumb – I think Rafael must think I’m just a dumb American girl – young and ditzy. I wish I could speak better with him. I just get so nervous. At least I know he understands. When he went to the US for his exchange, he didn’t speak any English.

I feel so strange during the breaks. I start out with the girls in my class, feeling like an intruder. Then I see Rafael, say hi, and feel stupid and desperate. Sometimes I really hate Portuguese!

It's good to remember that this language hasn't always flowed so fluently from my mouth...

I'm only 1 month into my diary and already this has been such a great project. It's amazing to re-read my entries. Most of the details I remember quite well. I think writing has a massive effect on how my memory works.

I'm still in the light and fluffy bit of my experience. I took it upon myself to spare you the incessant passages about this-or-that cute boy from my class, or from the tennis club, or who I saw at the pharmacy. Take my word, this sort of stuff comprises 80% of the material, but it gets a bit old to read (so I can imagine it would be doubly boring for you, the reader, given that you have no idea who these people are). However, I do promise to share worthwhile observations about all of the boys I was obsessing about. It's just that up to this point I seem to have been unable to describe any of them in words other than "cool", "hot" or "fine".

I know the content is going to get heavier, and that some parts of my journals will be downright unpleasant and painful to re-read. Still, it's definitely worth it, even if the whole book thing never materializes. Just to be able to go back and reflect is really valuable.

Caminhos da Memória

After much procrastination and excuse-making, I have finally started one of my big life-projects.

You see, when I was 15 and moved to Paraná, Brazil for a year-long student exchange, I started keeping a diary. I wrote every single day during that year (such discipline! where did that all go?) and thus have a pretty complete record of the changes that took place during such a critical time in my life.

It's all there in writing...the first feelings of being ashamed to be an American, the struggle to learn Portuguese, the identification with Brazilian culture, travel to the Amazon and all along the coast and interior of the country by bus and boat, the unfortunate development of an eating disorder, lots of dates with lots of boys, and the decision to not go back to high school and instead go straight to college and independent living once back in New Mexico.

I kept writing after that year abroad, so I actually have a detailed record of my life from age 15 to about age 23. So much happened during that period...

Last year my mom very kindly DHL-ed me all of my journals. My grand plan was to transcribe them to Word, thus quieting the paranoid part of my mind that is convinced there will be a fire or a flood or some other disaster and I will lose all of my journals, and also giving life to the dreamer in me that recognizes I've got a pretty good first draft of a book (or books!) just waiting to be put together.

It's taken me quite a while, but I'm finally tackling this project. Last night I opened the first journal from my year in Maringá, starting in late July 1997. TEN YEARS AGO, people! How did this happen? How did all this time slip away?

I remember being on exchange and meeting other students that had returned from programs, say, 3 years prior. My reaction was, "Wow, that was ages ago!" And here I am now, a full decade after the fact, forever changed by the decision to live and study in a country not my own.

My initial reactions to re-reading my journals are the following:

- my handwriting is still exactly the same as it was when I was 15 years old;

- I was more-than-slightly obsessed with boys;

- I already had a poor self-image, in particular with relation to my body;

- I used the word "damn" in all its variations way too much;

I wil share later in the week some of the funnier passages I've come across so far.

Orange Style

Orange isn't usually a color I like. I own one orange piece of clothing - this pumpkin colored shirt I got several years ago at Cantão, my favorite store in Rio. Even though I don't usually go for pumpkin colored clothing, I really love this shirt, so much in fact it seems I've managed to permit a few orange accessories to creep into my wardrobe over time. The shoes are from Overstock.com, my materialistic obsession when I lived in Austin and had a fatty NGO salary to spend away on stuff like shoes and handbags. The headscarf is an old thing from the Scarf Bag, this gigantic straw bag - like the name implies - full of old scarves passed down from my Grammy and my mom.

The Scarf Bag was the source of endless entertainment when I was younger when I'd tie squares of silk together to make shirts and skirts and play dress-up. A fabulous Halloween costume even came out of the scarf bag that my mom dubbed Diamond Belle. It was this lacy old dress from God knows what decade - the 1930's maybe - with the finishing touches of multi-colored ostrich feathers pinned in my hair and a fluffy off-white ostrich feather fan.

Anyhow, back to the orange and pink crazy paisley scarf in the photo. I never took advantage of the treasures in the Scarf Bag in my daily style until a few years ago when I grew the cojones necessary to rock a scarf and mean it. Now I wear scarves as headbands, around my neck, as belts, tied around a ponytail. I even learned how to make a proper headwrap using a scarf thanks to a lesson from Dona Lídia a few months ago.

So yesterday, when contemplating what to wear with my pumpkin shirt, I realized that this scarf would match perfectly. I got dressed and was waiting for Jenny to pick me up to go to a movie premiere downtown. Shockingly (ahem, ahem), Jenny was a wee bit late and I got bored. I grabbed my camera and started taking photos, mostly of myself because, you know, I'm not at all vain and would never do portrait sessions and later post the pictures on my public blog. As I was taking the pictures, I realized how matchy-matchy my outfit was and had a good laugh.

I wasn't even going to post these - I swear - but I felt compelled to after visiting the hairdresser this evening as I'm going through some mild withdrawals and felt the need to see my "before" look. My hair is no longer like it appears in these photos. I don't know how I will rock a headscarf without my hair sticking up and looking totally 80's. Just when I was getting used to this Elvira-ish haircut, now it's radically different. Okay, maybe "radically" is a bit of an exaggeration, but my hair is easily 3 or 4 inches shorter. Really short. Think lip-length messy bob.

I'm cool with short hair, and actually prefer it if truth be told, but the thing that frustrates me is that the haircut I am currently sporting is THE EXACT OPPOSITE of what I asked the hairdresser to do. All I wanted was a freaking trim! I even told the hairdresser that I didn't want a short bob just to be he understood I didnt'want a big change. Jenny was there at the salon with me. She is my witness that the guy totally took matters into his own hands and went wild with the straight razor. Yes, I could have stopped him in the middle or complained, but I'm not that motivated. And I actually kind of like the forced change in image.

Part of life in Mozambique is that each time I go to the hairdresser, no matter how clear and specific my request is, I always end up with a totally unexpected haircut. Even when I go to the same person twice in a row and ask them to just trim my ends, I walk out with an entirely different hairstyle. I don't really get it. It can't be that hard to replicate a basic haircut, but apparently it's a bit much to ask here in Maputo. Good thing I'm pretty laid back about my hair, and good thing I've got an oval-shaped face which makes it easier to pull off questionable cuts.

I will eventually post a photo of my new haircut, but before that I need to have a shower and wash out the blow-dried Texas-style volume and product the guy so proudly spent 30 minutes working into my hair. Underneath it all I believe there is a decent cut that I will grow to like if I can style it my own way. I hope...

The Girls Are All Grown Up...

A few minutes ago, desperately needing a break from my Death by Power Point, I decided that a little procrastination was in order. What's my favorite way to waste a bit of time? Google, of course. For some reason I was inspired to look up old friends from elementary school. I discovered that Kate, who was somewhat of an archnemesis of mine, was a cross-country star in college and spent a year abroad in New Zealand. I found some photos of her breaking through the finish line in a race and smiled: Kate looks exactly the same as I remember her.

Free associating, I thought about the other kids that went to school with me and Kate at The Montessori School in Albuquerque. In 5th grade, two new girls joined our class. They were sisters, Nicole and Kristy Austin, who had moved from California with their hot, single mom Tina. In the midst of all the other moms in jeans or business suits, Tina Austin used to show up to school to pick up her girls wearing a leopard print tube top, spandex leggings and patent leather stilettos, her bleached blonde hair pulled back in a high ponytail with a matching leopard print scrunchee.

Nicole and Kristy were like junior carbon copies of their mom. Sure, they wore all the same 80's fashion as the rest of us girls, but there was always something different: their pants were a little tighter, their shirts showed a sliver of midriff, they wore red lip gloss to school, and they always had their hair styled as if participating in a pageant. Nicole and Kristy were my introduction to Valley Girl slang, to Paula Abdul, and to the wonders of the spiral curling iron. Part of me chalked it all up to the girls being from California, but even at the tender age of 10 I knew Nicole and Kristy were on a very different path from the rest of us. They were sweet girls, and we would have sleepovers and go to dance class together and share cherry coke slurpees from 7-11, but differences in our values, upbringings and interests kept us from being really close friends.

A few years ago, an old friend from The Montessori School sent me an e-mail with a link to some Hott Girls Swimsuit Edition calendar out of Phoenix, Arizona with the accompanying message: "Look closely at Miss October and see if you don't recognize her." I opened up the site and took a good look at the model. She had a disproportionately huge boob job and bright dyed blonde hair, but there was no mistaking it. "Coco", the bikini-clad testament to silicone, was Nicole Austin, larger than life and on the fast-track to soft porn. Kristy, her sister, was featured as an extra in the group photo on the calendar's cover and looked equally boobtastic.

So today in my quest to look up old classmates, I remembered the e-mail about Nicole and decided to google her. Imagine my surprise when all of the results that came up were for Coco, Ice-T's skanky wife that I always read about on Perez Hilton. Initially I thought, "No, that can't be Nicole. Ice-T's wife is, like, 35 or something." I don't know why I had this impression. Mabye it's because Coco smacks of some washed-up Hollywood "actress" who desperately clings to her youth by wearing stripper gear and being generally tasteless. Someone like Kimora Lee Simmons, perhaps, or Bai Ling. Whatever, the fact that both women are named Nicole Austin must be a coincidence.

But then I saw a snippet of a biography and my eyes locked on the phrase, "...born in California in 1979, moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico at the age of 10." Holy shit. I started browsing the photo galleries on Perez Hilton and imdb. It took me a while to see through the nose job, the cheek implants, the ginormous 39DD boobs and the butt implants (yes, butt implants), but after a while I saw it. Her eyes are still the same. Oh my God. I used to go to elementary school with Ice-T's Playboy-featured wife. The girl that went trick-or-treating with me in 1990 and taught me how to peg-roll the bottom of my jeans is now the woman with a perma-camel toe and a pound of silicone in each ass cheek. I'm shocked, but honestly not at all surprised.

Somewhere in a storage unit back in the US, I have a photo album full of pictures from 5th grade. I wonder how much a gossip rag would pay for pictures of Coco wearing a puffy paint sweatshirt and playing Twister in my backyard?

For some examples of this woman's class, click here, here, here, here, here and here.