The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 450 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 8 trips to carry that many people.
Llegó mi hora.
Todas las cosas de las que decidí huir
Todos los sentimientos que temí experimentar
Todas las emociones
Que con implacable rigor me esforcé en controlar
Todas las vivencias que intenté ocultar
Todas las partes de mí
Que me he esmerado tanto en rechazar
Todo lo vergonzoso
Todo lo incómodo
Todo lo estridente
Todo lo ridículo
Todo lo sobresaliente
Todo ha comparecido hoy ante mi
Para ser reconocido
Aceptado
Valorado.
Siempre presagié este momento
Como uno de exterminio.
Que desatada la furia de las bestias,
Que por tanto tiempo y con tanta vehemencia fueron reprimidas,
Ellas sólo embestirían a ciegas y lo devastarían todo.
No quedaría nada.
Sin embargo,
Me encuentro en total calma.
Rodeada de sus mansas presencias
Puedo sentir la certeza como algo tangible.
Siento el zumbido y el calor de mi vibración
Elevándose y expandiéndose.
Siento la trampa, la duda y el miedo
Y también…
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Buddy, you did it again ! Superb!
El cónclave.
Me costó al principio identificar su forma.
Sólo pude ver unos trazos intrincados de metal.
Al concentrarme más vi formarse la silueta, imponente, de metal bruñido.
Mezcla de Transformer y el Destructor guardián de Asgard, lo vi lleno de fuego en las entrañas.
Le pregunté quién era sin miedo ni curiosidad: yo esperaba a alguien.
“El Orgullo”, contestó.
El Orgullo fue el primero en comparecer
Y yo lo recibí sin prejuicios ni rechazo.
El segundo temblaba incontrolablemente.
Pensé que era de frío o hambre; se la veía tan consumida con su cuerpo enjuto y frágil.
Al acercarse me di cuenta de que temblaba por las millones de lombrices que corroían su panza.
La Falta de Confianza llegó segunda y yo no dudé en aceptarla.
La Desilusión llegó sin cuerpo, como una ráfaga de aire caliente que te envuelve de repente y te reseca las narinas y la garganta;
Pero no la resistí.
Mi cuerpo no se tensó ni mis ojos se cerraron intentando dejarla afuera;
Intentando proteger mis ideales acerca de quién y cómo debo ser.
Ella también entró y su calor, que parecía abrasador, se convirtió en calidez.
La niña llegó andando a ciegas, nublada su vista por un eterno sollozo.
“Soy La Ansiedad“, dijo con voz entrecortada por los espasmos del llanto.
Esta vez no hubo ni gritos ni zarandeos para que se detuviera.
Entró y se refugió en una total calma.
“¡YA MISMO, YA MISMO, AHORA!”
El ensordecedor mandato del gigante torpe y desfigurado rugió en el aire
Y todo el Universo quedó imposiblemente estático por 30 segundos.
Esperé a que todo volviera lentamente a ponerse en movimiento y le di la bienvenida.
La Compulsión había llegado.
Envuelta en cuervos y con la frente marcada a fuego llegó La Envidia.
Flotó hacia mí a pocos centímetros del suelo. Solapada y silenciosa, sabiéndose la más despreciada.
Aceptarla sin reparos me hizo sentir un poco más humilde y cercana a mi humanidad.
Las miles de hebras de La Tristeza me erizaron al rozarme y se adhirieron a mi como una gigantesca telaraña.
Me sorprendió lo delicado de su toque, lo sereno de su pulso;
La familiaridad con la que recibí su abrazo.
El Capricho se arrastró hasta mí tullido, espástico y tartamudo.
Verlo avanzar a pesar de su marmórea rigidez me convenció de la potencia de su voluntad y en esa admiración se diluyó cualquier rechazo que su deformidad hubiera despertado en mi.
Lo acaricié e inmediatamente noté como su agarrotamiento se distendía.
En el suspiro de alivio que salió de su boca al fin pude entender los apopléjicos graznidos y chllidos:
“RECONÓCEME”, eso decía.
El aliento de la bestia anunció su presencia mucho antes de que viera su formidable cuerpo.
Un vaho pútredo y acre que penetró mis ojos haciéndolos llorar y se asentó en mi estómago.
Enormes patas que me llegaban al hombro.
Pelaje negro, ralo, erizado y grueso como espinas.
Jirones de carne colgando de sus cuadradas mandíbulas.
Su cabeza aún teñida por la sangre fresca de aquellos que soñó con destrozar.
Se acercó con paso elástico, aullando
Y en la mezcla de agudos y graves de su grito descifré su nombre: Venganza.
Estiré mi brazo y la acaricié sintiendo el poder de sus músculos bajo la piel.
Se echó a mis pies y enseguida supe que yo era el amo.
Entonces miré a mi alrededor y vi como mis bestias se extendían más allá de lo que mis ojos, mi conciencia o cualquiera de mis otros sentidos podían distinguir.
Todas en sus horrendas formas, todas en sus sobrecogedoras presencias.
Todas partes de mi que responden a la distorsión con que las azoto.
Y comprendí que mi aceptación es su mansedumbre.
Amarlas es liberarlas; es liberarme.
Last Friday a colleague of mine told us that Depeche Mode had released a new album not long ago; so I dutifully set myself to see what it was about.
I spent four hours this morning listening to Delta Machine and I enjoyed every single lap. I made a list of those songs I liked best, but when I listened to them again this evening, my preferences shifted. Therefore, I decided to give you access to all of it and let you have your picks.
In my case, my favourites up to this minute are Welcome to My World, Soft Touch/Raw Nerve, Always, and My Little Universe.
Anyway, I can’t think of Depeche Mode without instantly invoking the classic below.
I found this article quite interesting. Actually, I found it interesting enough to force my already fragile attention span to keep on reading after the third line.
I found specially remarkable the following lines: “…Poor self-control is often associated with poverty, low grade performance and overall achievement in life – irrespective of whether or not a person has high IQ… That is why I mentioned in my Fasting for the brain and bulge article that exercise and diet education won’t lead people to a healthier lifestyle, for that – I would argue self-control is a far more powerful function.”
Give it a try; it’s worth the 3 minutes you’ll be away from your phone.
Today I turned on the radio -what I hadn’t done in ages, and found out that Lenny Kravitz has released a new album and they were playing this single.
I immediately fell into it (screw all phrasal verbs! I don’t know if I used the correct one, but my brain came up with it so, to play along with the mood of the song, I’ll mentally strut on this and don’t give a shit to accuracy).
As I was saying, I’ve listened to it like 20 times in a row so far and I can’t stop dancing around my laptop as much as my headphones’ wire lets me.
It fills me with an intense desire to go out and… STRUT the world! And for those 3:08 minutes that the rhythm is hitting my ears I feel invincible; I feel it is… “OK to be myself because I have nothing to prove”.
The other 23 hours 56′ 52” are another tune; but this is one of the reasons why I love Rock’n’Roll, because for the span of a song you own the world.
Oh, yeah!
It’s been so much to process! This FIFA World Cup has brought another bunch of extreme emotions to us Uruguayans. Pretty different from the ones we lived in South Africa and which we were hoping to have back. Well… now that I think of it I’m pretty sure that many peoples in the world would have loved to experience what we did in the matches against England and Italy. Yeah! It’s still amazing to be a Uruguayan. Each and every one of our matches is a Hollywood movie; all that drama and suspense!
But what everybody is talking about is Suárez, so how couldn’t I!
It is pretty simple though:
1. He is the most amazing football player of the last four years, PERIOD. Argue as much as you want, you won’t convince me otherwise. Go and operate Messi, Ronaldo o Neymar. Robben or James Rodríguez, you pick. Then make them play 28 days after the operation as Luís played against England and we’ll talk. Have those players suspended several dates and then make them become the best player of the Premier League along with the fact that they must carry ytheir teams from middle positions in the table to playing for the championship, which Liverpool could have won if their defense hadn’t been so bad.
2. He is the biggest jerk on Earth. He ruined everything for him and us.
3. He can’t help it and that’s why we Uruguayans love him more. Even when we were all shocked by his deed we understand it’s an instinct much stronger than any reasoning he can make.; otherwise, he wouldn’t have made it, obviously. Look what a mess he made of things! The FIFA profile video on Uruguay previous to the World Cup presented Suárez as a player with a “fiercely determined attitude” -and I’m quoting. It’s that attitude that made him continue playing for more than 20 minutes against England when he was completely cramp and he scored two goals in the mid time.
4. He needs to work on it because we all agree it’s not good to go around biting people as if you were a 3-year-old. It’s OK to play with the passion of a child, but not to behave like one. You better go around punching or kicking or hitting people like a real man, so you break some ankles and noses as it should be.
5. I never before loved my President more* than when I saw how he reacted to all this. He was a real big father to Luís and with it, to all of us his siblings in a pretty devastating moment for a country which religion is football. I completely celebrated and share his words: the FIFA authorities are all “old sons of bitches”.
* I didn’t vote for him. I didn’t want him to become our President in the first place, but after all these years I learnt to appreciate this simple man with all his faults and bizarreness; all his wisdom and arrogance; but mostly because of his humanity.
6. FIFA’s treatment of Luís Suárez and its sanctions are criminal and it just showed to the world how lethal absolute power can be. What they wanted to make seem as a moral judgement just put in evidence a truly desproportionate setting of scores that the English press wanted over Luís from long ago and how the FIFA, the Brazilians, and the Colombians took advantage of a man’s flaw. Uruguay is a persistent, dangerous annoyance to all their national pride and business and Luís provided the gretest of excuses to flush us out.
Oh, boy! The line that sets apart righteousness from simple retalliation is so thin. As thin as the line separating fairness from taking unfair advantage from a situation. It blew on their faces though when some people in the world dared to speak up against the exagerated punishment. Timid, powerless rebells in the biggest transnational dictatorship of all times.
But when we were all convinced that nothing was above the all-powerful FIFA, the God af all gods, money, spoke up. Now they are “reducing the sanctions” even before the appeal was presented. Now that they made sure that Uruguay didn’t make it further (we had produced enough damage already), they won’t hold their ground as easily as it seemed. Liverpool won’t waste the 80 million euros they invested in Luís. As always, richs get what they want and poors, as my country, get what they deserve for their insolence of thinking themselves equal to the almighty royalty.
Finally. Please, before losing the point of all this and accusing me of biased or ridiculous, go back to point s 2 and 4.
We still have an amazing set of players that make us proud, including Luís. We received them as winners at the airport even when they didn’t make it to the Round of 16. That, I think, is another thing many peoples of the world would like to have. This special communion with a group of men we respect and love as a community. Thanks to Tabárez and Lugano for that. I know Godín is up to the task to replace the greatest skipper we have had in a long time.
Well, I think the next international tournament is the Copa América. See you there!
There is excitement around. We can’t wait for it to start! Best thing of all? How much we, Uruguayans, are bond to this group. We trust they’ll do their best and that is priceless.
“Soy Celeste, Soy Celeste; Celeste soy yo!”
imnotthatbad 