Category Archives: Digressions

Enough is enough. I think I’ve had it. I don’t mind giving advice or helping people out with their personal problems, but what I can’t stand are people who are possessive. And here we are once again with my friend who was breaking up with her boyfriend. I have even given my long explanation about how only self-centeredness and vanity keep people from breaking up when they know they it’s over. So, why won’t her boyfriend get the picture?

It isn’t love that he is fighting to hang onto, it’s something else, and I’ve seen it a thousand times before. Continue reading →

When I was younger, so much younger than today
I never needed anybody’s help in any way
But now these days are gone and I’m not so sefl-assured.

I don’t relate to these lyrics from the classic Beatles’ song “Help”. When I was younger I was not more self-assured and now that I am older, I am not now less self-assured than before. Furthermore, if anything, I no longer need someone else’s help. As a matter of fact, I think that when we’re young we have a greater dependence on others, precisely for the reason that we are not comfortable with out insecurities. Here is what I mean. Continue reading →

. . . when I was 34 . . .

On Friday afternoon after a memorable Jornada de Fútbol, I began to notice a strange brewing occur inside. The next 24 hours were spent cramped up (quite literally) within my espresso machine of a body in the coffee bar of my apartment, trickling out café solo after café solo. This all brought me back to the infamous Human Espresso Machine of the Summer of 1996. At the time, I often wondered whether I would ever be the same. Continue reading →

Have you ever been in love? You spend all day at work, dreaming of nothing more than arriving at home to be with that special someone. Any absence from your beloved is flooded with thoughts of reunification. In a crowd, a mere glance across the room rings of complicity. You are dying for the escape, to rush to your secure, shared habitat to rejoice in total intimacy. No matter its size, your bed is your common palace and marks the territory of your kingdom.

Have you ever been in love? You know your beloved is not perfect. But you have accepted her faults as inherently intertwined with her attributes. You crave them all, you anticipate them all. You reach and find her, you close your eyes and see her, you sleep and dream of her.

Have you ever been in love? You never get angry with her, for you have already accepted your beloved in her essence. You do not need to ask for forgiveness, for you have been accepted in your essence. You have faith and you are trusted.

Have you ever been in love? And if these are the signs of love, Continue reading →

I fall in love too easily, I fall in love too fast. I already explained some months ago how I suffered with Natalia Verbeke (sorry, it was in Spanish), and the same thing happened to me a few years ago with Zhang Ziyi (as seen in the picture above). It always starts with a touch of love at first sight, and then I go on to renting or buying all of their DVDs. Unfortunately, Continue reading →

Lucio Battisti has two songs that I absolutely adore. The first one is “La canzone del sole” about a young man who, at the moment of his first intimacy with his young girlfriend, is shocked and intimidated to discover in her composure a much greater level of security and experience than in his (the nightmare of all Italian men, for sure, to discover that they are more innocent than their “innocent” targets).

And last night while listening to another friend describe how she is breaking up with her boyfriend (yes, everyone’s always confiding in me), I was remined of my other favorite song by Battisti, “Comunque Bella”.

“Comunque Bella” is about a man whose girlfriend arrives drenched in rain, with red eyes, obviously after a night of making love with a different man. She tells him that because he is a man she owes him no explanations and needs not ask for his forgiveness. As if after generations of being subjected to infidelities, women have no reason to justify their actions to men.

“Comunque Bella” would be translated literatlly as “however beautiful”, but I think in English it is more natural to translate it as, “but still you are beautiful”. And what I find so interesting about the song is its chorus, “you were beautiful, but still you are beautiful”. Thus, as the narrator looks upon his girlfriend entering the room with all of the evidence of having been unfaithful, he recognizes that not only was she beautiful, but that she continues to be beautiful. I really love this song, for one of the things that I most detest about my gender is its manifestation of weakness and insecurity through jealousy and possessiveness. Continue reading →