and borges was afraid of sex

the other night i was sitting on the toilet, and then i yelled to alexandra,
asking if she´d put me in a movie.

we were spanning time together in her friend´s apartment, they are currently in spain.

mostly it´s where she stays some nights, where i stay fewer than that, and where we act out semi-domestic situations together.

a few minutes earlier she had mentioned that she did the make-up for a commercial on television; i was looking and smoking absently out the window, and i glanced over the t.v. a second too late.

and next i heard her holler that "si", that she would put me in a film. right then i felt my ego skim into some smooth warm vagina, then the rest of my shit slid out, and later on i went home.


*


the term "being in love" is an example of language´s feeble attempt at framing a part of the succession of events that are called reality, and i think there´s an arrogance there, to expect that such a term can be applied equally and thoroughly over a period of happenings or successions that are called a "time".

*

a few weeks ago i went to the demo premiere of an educational video series entitled "ecuador pluricultural", which Alex helped to produce.

the series features the voices of members of various indigenous tribes narrating over video-tape of varying aspects of their daily lives. quite interesting.

during the reception after the video had been aired, i was standing around absently and alone as i often do, and a member of the huaorani tribe attempted to engage me in conversation in a language that neither of our parents spoke.

we were drinking juice.

i think i was able to communicate to him that no, that i didn´t work for audiovisuales don bosco, and that i was, in fact, a student studying spanish in ecuador until the end of may.

he told me some things that i had trouble making out, and he handed me a colorful pamphlet about the huaoroni tribe, in which someone had summarized their plight: the offering of invitations to their community in order to raise awareness about their dwindling resources in the face of ecuadorian governmental expansion.

i stood their for awhile, fondly leafing through the photos of jungle scenes and half-naked folk, and when he was leaving, for reasons i still don´t understand, the amiable man wrote down his number for me on a piece of paper and gave it to me. this confounded my girlfriend as well.

it could have been a huaorani custom, but judging from the pictures in the pamphlet i´d say the huaorani have a less than thriving telecommunications market.

*

a few days ago i came across a very colorful piece of paper showcasing the various indigenous tribes of ecuador, complete with a diagram of their respective provincial ubication. the huaorani, a community of 3,000 people, live in the north-eastern amazon of ecuador, and they speak huao tiriro.

an adult male and female huaorani together with their infant child were represented in a quadro-color near-naked illustration, and, as if the ethno-fires of alterity hadn´t been sufficiently fueled between the huaorani and i, it looked as if the depiction of the huaorani adult male in the illustration was in possession of an erect penis.

i wasn´t positive, though, because their seemed to be a belt-like string spanning the circumference of the huaorani´s waist, which could have been holding up the silo.

i asked alexandra about it, and she said that yes, that the string was holding up the silo. only she didn´t say silo.

so i think i might give that guy a call one of these days, to see what´s up.

i wonder if he drinks beer.

*

i realized a few days ago that i had ignorantly and happily simplified life again, and that the graves of my more difficult and melancholy selves weren´t dug very deep, and that they were only sleeping, anyway.

or maybes these were the selves of others?

welcome back, in any case.

desde la cara de dios

how come no one ever told me in such explicit terms?
that
the world is filled with those that possess/ed the Verb, the Word, logos, as they call it (¨to do", i suppose), and those that just borrowed it.

quite interesting, the idea that western expansion that led to a global culture obliges/d those who didn´t share such ideas, who were content in existence sans progress, expansion, perfection, and only as part of something, to justify themselves as Men in light of this new global era.

but i can´t undo my western-ness. and that´s fine. because i probably wouldn´t have, then, pink floyd in my headphones.

or then maybe i would.

(we call it riding the gravy traaaaaaain)

*

going to another country always makes unfold my ignorance before me, effortlessly. just lays it all out. and i feel, in verisimilar-ness to all the clocks on the wall in all the places here that have nearly exactly the wrong time (for the on-and-offing of electricity?i´m not sure), that i lose some conventional meaning i had at some point.

but maybe i never had even that...as for the clocks, and for me as well, i´m not sure with what it´s replaced.

nos vamos creando, puede ser. O nos vamos estar creado.

i know at least i am the stranger here.

*

last night i was looking at a map, looking at where i´ve been. it´s still all so close, in so many ways.

i feel, and i direct this particularly to you, Mr. Gregory, who, in your regretful absence, make known your presence, that i must, at some point, penetrate the un-west.

but not the un-westerner, necessarily.

*

right now i write you from the valley.

from the illusion of order, the fashion show that is the Universidad de San Francisco de Quito. where most everyone´s a lighter shade of brown. i like my professors, but i really haven´t made many friends.

last week alexandra and i went to a school-affiliated party to which many of my compañeros de clase were alleged to attend and at which i aspired to make friends. but the lighting too absent, the music too loud, i nair (sp?) met a soul.

even several months ago this sort of party would be right up my alley, i think i would have been able to fulfill that maldita cycle that so often calls me by my more secret name, complete with awkward and half-conscient nocturnal emission, morning unfamiliarity, the end in regret.

you know, the hurried emptying of that cup of thoughtless, clumsy passion.

but i just didn´t have that in me anymore.

*

a couple of nights later, she told me that she would go anywhere in the world with me, and then
i had a feeling i´ve never had before.

oh but that fucking cowboy, that freedom spirit, no matter how artificial or deceptive be he, o! and now i love him now i damn him!, is still a very integral part of my soul.

i leave you wishing you could come and have a Pilsener here with me, feel this weather on your soul, this being...

so drop a piss for me.

mountains, cigarettes and foreign names.

so i made it to quito.

these past few days have been very nice. i really haven´t gotten used to the city as of yet, but i´ve hung out with good people.

i think the toilet water just goes straight down.

i think i´m realizing that i´m in love. which is some wicked type of magical shit. it only takes a self.

i can smoke in the house and the guard lets me out at night. he lets me in during the day.

i stand out like a cum stain among all the brown faces, but it´s alright. there are a lot of honkies here.

i was thinking that will revvoem should come here. i´m not sure why. i think he might enjoy himself.

yesterday i came, and today.

abba´s playing in the room of internet.

until later,
right now i´m just all eyes and pussy.

c/o the bane of financial institutions

for lack of anything else more meaningful to write, i include the text of an unnecessarily wordy letter sent to My Video Shoppe of Grand Rapids, MI, which reads as follows:

1 de enero de 2005

To whom this may concern at My Video Shoppe:

My name is Zachary Campbell and I have been one of your customers for awhile now. At some point in the late fall/early summer of last year I accumulated some late fees for a few DVDs at your locale. I was informed of my tardiness and of the fact that financial matters would be turned over to some sort of financial and/or collecting institution if I weren’t to turn in my viewing selections either that night or the next day. I promptly returned the discs in the time allotted.

Earlier this past month I was contacted by a credit agency alerting me of a matter of debt I currently have with My Video Shoppe. Said agency had not been able to contact me until then because I had undergone a change of residence; I wasn’t aware that I owed My Video Shoppe said debt. The week of 20 December I contacted My Video Shoppe and discovered that the amount was around $88 USD. I am enclosing a personal check in the amount of $90 USD, in order to settle my debt.

If there is any further matter that needs to be addressed between us, you can contact me via e-mail (as I will be living abroad in the following months) at zachcampbell@gmail.com.
I wish you success in your continued pursuit to offer films of a higher quality and variety to the populace of West Michigan. I appreciate your fairness in this matter.

Best Regards,


Zachary David Campbell

sometimes the best present of all is a helping hand

so it's my last sunday in the ole states united for awhile. the past few weeks at home have been good and family. i've had way too many doctor's visits, so it will be nice to leave and to think of my health as a distant vague idea rather than something that could drag me down and eventually really give me the old fuck over if I keep disregarding it.

but of course maybe it already has a few times.

i feel near invincible in some ways, though. for all my vaccinations.

you can give me your yellow-fevered, hepatitis-ed, typhoided, malarialed beings as company if you wish. and i may play Judas to your Dr. Jesús.

speaking of the man's birthday, i spent the last few hours of christmas in a shitty suburb karaoke bar surrounded by people whom i would have loved to piss off if i had had more than one beer in that place. in any case, i listened to 50-cent's 'birthday' and i thought of the christians' Saviour as just a shorty in the manger, being serenaded by 50-cent himself.

quite a powerful multicultural image.

my new year's eve was filled with tamed revery. my friend smoked me of his smoke that seemed to be laced in some way. i'm not sure what it was, though, save energizing. i think he got it from one of his relatives and said it was the kind of weed parents smoke. parental marijuana. i threw up stomach acid and potato peels later for a good ten minutes and he said it sounded like i couldn't breathe.

suppose i'm not quite cut out yet to be any sort of a parent.

and those type of moments are antithetical to the ones in which i feel invincible. i can take on nearly any third-world disease now but i can't make it through my twenty-second fucking new year's without throwing up.

funny thing, mr. gregory never even stuck his nervous being around on new year's. i wonder what he's been up to-most likely fumbling around in his hope chest in infinitesimal failure. i wonder if he'll find out that what he's looking for has never even been in there...

* * * * *

some sort of sour melancholy is starting to grow like mold on the outer boundaries of my consciousness. i'm not sure for what it's there, or even if it's singular.

i'm really anxious about leaving, in a way. and about alexandra. even though i feel like i do it time and again, i know i do have reservations about throwing myself into situations where i may never even figure out W.T.F. is going on.

the best thing for me to do in those types of situations is to just keep smoking cigarettes.