Todo cambia a la luz del día.
Tu deseo no fue suficiente. Tus placeres no son los míos. Tu necesidad es egoísta.
Dirás que soy yo la egoísta. Que como puedo yo privarte de un placer tan básico, como es el provocar dolor durante el sexo.
Sin embargo, creo yo, que si no es mi fetish, no es mi culpa.
My baby is in need of an overhaul. The XT gear and brake set is nearing the end of its lifetime. The teeth on the rear cassette are so worn I’m having trouble moving up or down a gear, in front and in back.
I’ve been looking at the Shimano website since last year, lusting over the new models, but after getting the UQ Student Union bike shop to quote me the labour and parts, I can only afford the LX gear and break set. Argh!
What do I need new gears for, I hear you say? Ride them into the ground. Well, that’s what I was doing…but when you are no longer able to drop down or go up a gear, it gets a bit much. The clunky changeover is annoying.
At this stage I’m thinking internal gears next. Danish winter bike style. Protected from the elements and all that. Rust here is a killer, that way I don’t have to worry about a chain either.
I used to have a winter bike, but it was a cheapo from a discount retailer in Germany and I ended up giving it away. Now I want a real one, but no money, no love.
*Sigh*
I’ll just have to try to get sponsorship for one of my long distance rides, so I can afford the components.
Stay posted. I’ve been meaning to plan a ride down the PanAmerican highway. It would be the ride of a lifetime.
Tenth anniversary of a fascist regime. Tenth anniversary of a nincompoop in charge. Tenth anniversary of Johnnie Howard and the media is licking his boots, grovelling in front of him, as if he were our Messiah.
He is credited with revamping the Australian economy. Reality check: he implemented the reforms Paul Keating had passed in Parliament before he was voted out of power.
He has just stated on national television that he didn’t think One Nation voters were racist. If they weren’t racist, they must just be plain fools, voting for someone who promised to print more money in order to kick start the economy.
Don’t even get me started on little Johnnie Howard.
How it is possible for anyone to continue to be voted in after the huge deception of the electorate regarding the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, is beyond me.
How so many people, particularly geriatrics, continue to vote for a man who is making education a fantasy for low income earners, is also beyond me.
How anyone believes a word that comes out of his mouth, is also beyond me.
I’ll stop now before the bile rises to my throat and chokes me.
Life, as Marvin the paranoid android puts in, usually gives you a pain in all the sides of your left diodes. Sometimes, though, it puts you through a cyclone of emotions right when you don’t need it. It lets you know you’re still alive. It wears you out. It punches your lights out. You’re left for dead, gone, dodo. Then you realise the blood is pumping through your veins, you’re bruised and battered, bleeding internally from a million places, but the adrenalin is flowing through your veins.
It’s kinda like the first time you go snowboarding without lessons, wearing waterproof cycling trousers and a light shell instead of the usual Gore-Tex gear. You’re soaked, you’re half-frozen, your hands are turning blue, your fingertips are about to go black and frostbite is about to set in. Yet you’re still picking yourself off the floor, righting yourself back up on that beautiful piece of wood and fibreglass and trying it once more. Down the slope you go, hoping you’ll get there in one piece, before they shut the slopes for the night.
You throw yourself on the bed and wish for an ice bath, but it’s too cold for that and a hot bath will only increase the swelling. You think back on the last time you were this knackered and you realise it was that time she stayed the night one week before leaving for Nepal.
This new set of feelings for a totally new person, whom you hardly know is a bit of a shock. The absolute physical need to taste their skin, smell their aroma, drink their whole self in, comes as an absolute surprise. The liquid warmth between your legs, the shortness of breath are indices of how much you want to see them again. And again.
You’re even contemplating skipping class, physio, setting up the parent’s pc, everything. You know it’s madness, though, because if it was him, he wouldn’t be setting aside those things he had to do. He’d be seeing you when it was convenient for him. So the pit of fire in your belly is going to have to wait. The swooning sensation in your arms screaming for his arms is going to have to be put to the side.
The storm has not abated, though. It rages in your veins, in your thoughts and in your heart. You don’t want anything, but you want more. This is when you know, life has just thrown a wobbly in your direction. Spanner in the works, hiccup, whatever you want to call it. It’s a wake up call, letting you know there’s still hope for you. So you’d better enjoy it while it lasts.
Nuestros ojos se buscaban, posponiendo la inevitable conclusión. Nuestras extremidades se acercaban sin tocarse. Cada segundo que pasaba, cada palabra que salía, nos llenaba a los dos de una emoción arrolladora, a la que ninguno pensaba resistirse. Me había convertido en lava, que salía entre mis piernas. Necesitaba sentir su piel bajo la mía. Después de criticar y desmoronar una película que yo sabia no le iba a gustar, a pesar de sus expectativas, el comenzó a despedirse. Su voz me invitaba a lanzarme a la deriva, sin pensamiento alguno. Por fin, no pude resistirlo y le pedí un beso.
Sus manos asieron mi cara firmemente, su lengua penetro mis labios, buscando la mía. Perdimos todo sentido del tiempo.
As we all settled in for the usual intonation of the vows, the celebrant took centre stage. Somebody should have coached her first.
“We are gathered here today to witness the joining in matrimony of a man and a woman, Santina and Moira”. At this juncture, Mira intervened. “His name is Santiago. Mine is Mira,” she explained. The celebrant did not skip a beat. She sniffed, raised her nose in the air and continued.
“Santina, do you take Mira to be your wedded wife?” she asked, with no trace of having heard Mira. Santi, couldn’t resist correcting her. “My name is Santiago,” he replied.
The celebrant, pressed her lips together, raised her eyebrows, drew her breath in sharply and repeated the question, with no alteration to Santi’s new monniker.
“I do”, he replied, a huge smile breaking out through the solemnity of the occasion.
“In sickness and in death, for better and for worse, until death do you part?”, the celebrant asked Santi. With his wide smile, each perfectly white tooth gleaming, Santi repeated after her, “In sickness and in death, for better and for worse, until do us part, I, Santiago Ramirez, take you Mira Schauble as my wife.”
After a huge inhalation of breath, the celebrant turned to Mira, and repeated the question. Mira’s smile escaped being cherubic due to the evil gleam in her eye, as she rejoined “I, Mira Schauble, take you, Santiago Ramirez, as my wedded husband, in sickness and in detah, for better or for worse, til death do us part.”
Her triumphant expression was substituted almost immediately by one of uncontrollable mirth.
” Santina and Moira, I now declare you married, under the laws of Australia”, said the celebrant, getting the last word in. “Please approach and sign the register”.
As Santi and Mira sat down to scratch their signatures on every bit of paperwork the Federal Government and the city of Brisbane required of them, I nudged the closest person to me.
“Let’s hope the register has their names spelt correctly, otherwise they won’t be married legally”, I joked. The beautiful, dark skinned brunette tried to contain her laughter, as the celebrant shot me a dirty look.
The breeze blowing in from the river cooled us down from the intense sun of the afternoon. Santi paced up and down the rotunda at the little peninsula overlooking the Port of Brisbane, joking with his “brother”, his oldest friend who had just flown in from Mexico and with his father, a friendly but reserved older man in a light coloured suit. Santi’s powerful shoulders filled out his white tux, his tanned olive skin contrasting with the ivory tones of the jacket. His gleaming teeth bared in a wide smile, he hugged everybody in sight.
Santi wielded a handycam as if he’d been born with it attached to his hand. He filmed conversations, the wind blowing in the trees and even blades of grass as they wilted in the heat. Finally, at the top of the hill next to Newstead house, a golden skirt appeared. Santi strode over to the rotunda. He re-arranged his parents and the chairs, taking his place to wait for Mira.
Her beautiful blonde tresses piled on top of her head, Mira slowly descended the hill, the very picture of happiness. Her gold satin dress accentuated her curves, her elegant walk enhanced by the swishing of her hooped dress. Looking at her did your heart good, even though you knew she was secretly pining for a cigarette.
Her best friend played the clarinet from a stage set next to the rotunda, accompanying her gait. As she reached the rotunda, Santi’s face glowed brighter with every step she took.
Once she had reached his side, Mira’s father released her arm and placed it on Santi’s proferred elbow. The marriage celebrant approached and the comedy of errors began.
I love weddings. Everybody else’s. Unlike other women, I’ve never really had the white wedding and princess fantasies. Instead of dreaming of being rescued by a gallant, dashing, hero, I often wanted to be the one doing the rescuing. So much more fun. This whole waiting around for the guy to get off his arse, pull up his socks and figure out what to do is not my thing. Back to the weddings, though.
The reason I like them is not because of the dress, or the bridesmaids, or any of that pap. It’s the insight you gain of that couple and the cultures they represent, especially from their guests and relatives. At this point in time, I am planning to go to a wedding in India. From what I’ve heard, they’re huge. Massive undertakings, full of colour, music, dance and food. Expectations run high. Hope they aren’t dashed to the ground.
Until now, the best wedding I’ve been to is also one of the most modest and least ostentatious ones I’ve ever seen. I am friends with both the groom and the bride and this certainly makes a huge difference. Santi and Mira managed to grasp the essence of a fun wedding. Not many people do. Lesser mortals wish to impress their relatives or fulfil some pie in the sky cockamamie fantasy, which they have imbibed from movies and novels.
Making a concession to Santi’s relatives, who weren’t all able to come to Australia from Mexico, they had two weddings. One was in Brisbane and one in Mexico City. I’m still smarting over not being able to go to the one in Mexico. Having a lean year means no travelling. Alas, we’ll all have to be content with the little bit of Mexican flourish and spice that Santi imbued into the Brisbane reception.
Instead of boring everyone stiff with breathless descriptions of the scenery and the bride’s dress and beauty, I will upload a few pictures. It took place at Newstead Park, overlooking the river and managed to keep the entire ceremony to under twenty minutes. The guests and the bride took longer to arrive, than it took for Santi and Mira to tie the knot.
The best part was waiting for Mira to make her entrance. This gave all her guests a chance to mingle and get to know each other.