label me

Labels are annoying. They have a way of defining you that is trite and limiting. For example, when people ask me where I am from, the answer they're looking for is not New Jersey. They want to know if I am Korean or Japanese. When I reply that I am Chinese, they give a knowing nod and say, "Oh really?!" But what does it mean to be Chinese? Obviously, I am not the Chinese from China in their imaginations, but that's not important because a Chinese is a Chinese above all else, whatever that means.

Sometimes, labels can be useful. For example, recently I discovered that I am a flexitarian. All of my life when people ask me about my food preferences I feel compelled to explain that while I love vegetables and eat and cook mostly vegetables I am an omnivore. But that is a mouthful. Finally, I have my own label. Like vegetarians, pescatarians, lacto-ovo vegetarians, I-eat-chicken vegetarians, I-eat-chicken-fish-eggs-dairy vegetarians, the-only-animals-I-eat-have-two-feet-or-less vegetarians, and vegans, I have a word to describe me (at least my food preferences anyway).

Having a label this time feels good. It feels like there may be a colony of like-minded flexitarians in the universe. That I am not alone. I may not be unique, but now I am legitimate.

girly man

Riding in a bus today, my attention alighted on the back of a young man's left earlobe. He wore an earring. If he and his stud had been facing me, his face and jewel would have seemed patches of color, wallpaper on a bus. But because he had been facing away, I saw it. The earring back was silver and dainty, its two ends curling c0yly. I thought the whole business girly.

Pirates don't look girly, from the front or back. Maybe it is because the earrings they sport are hoop-shaped. Just as they don't use pretty ribbons to tie their wooden legs on, they don't need backs to keep their earrings in.

The young man was also wearing a ring. It was a brass band with carvings on it. Visualize this ring as if it had a big fat diamond or emerald or ruby protruding from it and you will understand my feeling toward the earring back.

To speak a Romance language compels one to make decisions about, or be reminded of, what is masculine and what is feminine. In a Romance language, there are no queer nouns, no sliding scales, no spectrum of beings.

Though now it is normal, even hip and sometimes uber manly, for a heterosexual man to wear earrings, to me, in my Spanish-speaking frame of mind, I was looking at a transvestite.

my favorite weed

ten thousand honey
suckles suggest sweet summer's
secret solitude

torta, salt and sweet

My sometimes fantasy is to open a cafe. I would serve torta and gazpacho, in summer. I would serve celery and potato soup and garnish it with watercress and lump crab, on request. Maybe I shall serve sandwiches; I would need to find a fine bakery. Definitely chocolate chip cookies. And hot chocolate with cinnamon and cloves.

tempest in a teapot

I ran out of things to say. I tired of my own voice, in my head, my own words, on my screen. I found my days ordinary, my thoughts ordinary, my words ordinary. Me ordinary.

The end of December, all of January, and the beginning of February have not been ordinary: I applied to two post-graduate programs, past time with friends from New York, visited Cusco and Machu Picchu, slept with a kitten, fell sick twice, left Perú, gazed at Betelgeuse at 4,400 meters (2.7 miles) above sea level, hitchhiked to the beach with a middle-class Chilean family, and cooked gazpacho.

Yet, I am all a tempest in teapot. The source of my solitary steaming storm is secret. To me too.

One symptom is that I have lost my appetite, but not my hunger. I no longer delight in food: tonight I hunted at two supermarkets and four restaurants and caught two pieces of plain crusty bread for dinner. I experience intense cravings for specific foods: scalding spicy tofu in a black stone bowl garnished with raw egg and scallions, salted raw crab with bright orange roe with leftover rice that is reheated with boiling water, creamy saag paneer with glutinous naan brushed with nutty canary ghee, sour and spicy tom yum with straw rice noodles and julienne bamboo, stir fried peanuts and seaweed with salt and sugar and beer, silver noodles with prawn and star anise in a clay pot, and everything my mom and my dad cook.

I love cooking. I miss someone cooking for me.

I love Peruvian cuisine. I hate Peruvian-Chinese food. I yearn for wantons in soup, their thin slippery skin sliding around my tongue, and the burst of flavor from the dainty ball of perfectly seasoned, perfectly textured filling in the center. Peruvian wantons, whose skin is as thick as lasagna layers and filled with SPAM-textured mystery meat, are spirit crushers. Or fried wantons. Here, they are deep fried sheets of dough; it is as if you were served two slices of bread for a sandwich. Ja gao is a steamed dumpling made with rice flour filled with chunks of jumbo shrimp. In New York, they glisten like pink opals; in Peru, they resemble burst pimples.

I love writing. I hate writing.

I will try, though.
For you.
For me.
Not to appease appetite, but to sate hunger.

taxi? taxi!

Taxi?
Taxi? Taxi? Where are you going?
Taxitaxitaxitaxitaxi?

I flew into Lima from Cusco this morning and "taxi" was the greeting I received from the throng of well-wishers at the airport. Well-wishers I call them because they were concerned for my safety. It turned out that they were not offering me a ride at grossly inflated prices, they were offering security services reasonably just prices. Apparently, taking a taxi from the street (of all places!) was dangerous.

One of the airport personnel actually followed me out of the building, into the parking lot, and begged me to take a taxi from the badge-wearing driver fast at his heels. While the airport worker was saying to me, "Please, Miss, take a taxi here. Don't take one from the street," the taxi driver was shouting, "Fifty soles. Thirty. Twenty-five. Twenty-five soles."

I could look on the bright side of things and interpret this scene to mean, "Welcome to Lima. It is very dangerous here." Or, I could be a Schopenhauer and understand it as, "Welcome to Lima. Give me your money."

I thanked them, headed out of the airport, and hopped into a combi. Before I got on the combi, however, another taxi driver warned me that the ride would take at least 2 hours. The combi ride cost s/ 1.50 and lasted 45 minutes, about 5 to 10 minutes longer than a direct taxi, though I had to walk an additional 7 minutes from the bus stop to my apartment.

Lima! Home sweet home. Despite the clammy humidity, grimy streets, and menacing chauffeurs, I am happy to be back, because of the ceviche, because it is by the sea, and because I know how to get home for s/ 1.50 instead of s/ 50.

familiar faces

Friends from the States arrived in Lima last night. Carlos and I meet them at their hotel at midnight, toured their apartment for a room, had a drink, and parted at 2. Already we're adjusting them to the party schedule in Perú.

house

I can't wait for Carlos to arrive.

We bought the first and second seasons of House, M.D. and are addicted to watching it. I suppose I could watch it without him, but that wouldn't be very nice. Then again, Carlos has always claimed that I'm not very nice to him; so I could use this opportunity to prove him right. He would like being right. Right?

that way

Trying to obtain precise directions in Lima is to feel like blood is spurting from your eyes and ears. The only fruit pluckable from such an exercise is ripe vexation.

One day, Carlos asked a man where the bus stop was. The unhelpful man motioned behind him, said "that way," and took off. I thought, What the fuck! The entire fucking city of Lima is fucking "that way." Grrr...

week of loss

My phone was stolen.

My sunglasses fell and broke when I launched a surprise hug attack against a boy in Carabayllo.

My silver earring in the shape of a turtle probably washed down the drain in the shower.

Losing my earring reminded me how, years ago, I had lost the other turtle in the pair. Even as I endeavored to sever hopeless attachments, old associations surfaced like churned sedimentary rocks.

That can be nice, like looking at photographs, the ghosts of a finite instant.

Time, faithfully flowing forward, will carry more important things and people away from me in its current. Floating toward and away from each other at differentiated rates, we live in a perpetual progress of loss, losing each other and inevitably ourselves, though, all in our own good time.

happy hanukkah

Evidence of the Diaspora in Lima.

thousand cranes

There was a Christmas party for the children in Carabayllo and I was invited to help and participate.

There were activities like crafts and face painting, and there was entertainment in the form of two clowns, one Barney the Dinosaur, and one tripped-out Mickey Mouse.

I taught origami to 20 or 30 kids, of all ages and skill levels. Just when I was halfway through a lesson, two or three kids would show up late and ask to be taught. And just as I got them caught up, a few more stragglers would show up and beg to be taught, too. For four hours, I demonstrated how to make paper cranes and couldn't move on to anything else.

For the first time, I truly appreciated Carlos's challenge to teach these kids. And, for the last time will I make anymore paper cranes.

ají relleno de quinoa

I made these.

They are ají stuffed with quinoa. Ají with their seeds and veins can kill you; without, they are mild and sweet. Quinoa is an ancient grain more potent in protein than tofu; in this context, they have the texture of steamed cuttlefish eggs.

It took me 1.5 hours to unseed and devein 16 of these suckers and 15 minutes to stuff them. (Therein lies the reason the rounder, apple-shaped rocoto is more popular for stuffing.)

here's my phone, take my money, too

The morning after my phone was stolen, I went to the police station to file a report. The policeman took my information, but before the report could be official, I would need to go to the Banco de la Nación and purchase a voucher of sorts. (I guess if you can't punish the thief, might as well fine the victim for being careless.)

I finally found a branch and there were two lines that stretched out the door. I estimated a 2-hour wait to purchase something that I will then need to bring back to the police station in order to claim that I've been robbed, officially. Needless to say, I didn't wait. I decided there was no hurry and could return another day since the police didn't seem to be in a rush to find my phone either.

revolutionaries

Carlos and I attempted to go to a lecture at the National Library.

There was a coloquio on Victor Humareda, an influential artist who shaped modern Peruvian painting by veering from and changing its historical direction. It has been 20 years since his death and the National Library organized an exhibit of his paintings and drawings, photo portraits by various photographers, and panel discussions on Humareda's œuvre and impact.

We arrived early to tour the exhibit and seated ourselves in the auditorium a few minutes before 19:00, when the discussion was scheduled to begin.

Five minutes past, the auditorium was still mostly empty and the stage and guest chairs were completely vacant. Ten minutes later, 15, 20, 25, nothing, not even an announcement. Finally at 19:30, the auditorium now mostly full but still no guests, we inquired when the talk would begin. The usher said "in five minutes." We left. We didn't arrive in Peru yesterday and recognized the hackneyed euphemism.

I was surprised that no one else seemed angry, or at least a little bit annoyed. I wished that the audience members were wise to value their time and demand better for themselves. But then that would require them to be revolutionaries, too.

purloined phone

I was rushed, my guard was down, the bus was crowded. Someone reached into my bag and took my phone. I am angry not only because the thief violated my personal space, but took something that he did not earn.

Moreover, my phone has a security lock on it. If he ever turns it off and on again, he will not be able to use it without the password. Pyrrhic victory for me, but I am not satisfied.

mini shake

Another earthquake. Just before 17:00. This one lasted under 10 seconds. It's amazing how loud these things are.

industrious idling

After an activity-filled week, Carlos and I wanted to take it easy on Sunday.

We woke up at 9. A friend came over and I taught Carlos and our friend yoga on the roof of my apartment. Afterward, we brunched at a yummy cevicheria, desserted on creamy gelato, walked to the beach, chatted with friends who had just finished surfing, watched Volver, snuck in to see the last, terrible, 30 minutes of Happy Feet, and ate tamales and fruit for dinner with wine.

Even though we had fun, it still felt like hard work.

no woman no cry

A.K.A. "No Yoga No Cat." Yoga was canceled. The nice lady who lets us use her house was not available today. So, no yoga and, therefore, no Silvester.

caral

We took a day trip to Caral, "La Civilización Más Antigua de América." It is located about 115 miles north of Lima, situated 15 miles inland from the desert coast of Perú, in a valley of barren mountains.

Settled about 5,000 years ago, Caral's pyramids and mummies are contemporary with those in Egypt. According to our guide, researchers believe the city was meticulously planned (versus organically blossomed), which suggests a ritual function. (Think New York City and Washington, D.C. New York happened because people came. Washington, D.C. was deliberately architected to fulfill a specific function.) The inhabitants of Caral performed many ceremonies as well as traded with neighbors from the coast and jungle.

Being on the site and imaging specters walking to and fro, trading, aching, and laughing was surreal. Aside from the idea of something impressive, the sight of monochromatic dirt, rock, and sky did not fill me with cheer.