02/17/22: fair warning, the literature museum was dope, and this is long

 Grandma's House

    I had the best day today. Uncle Dirk and I went to some museums and hung around Lima for an entire day. We tried to see the changing of the guards, but they weren't doing them anymore cause of COVID. We found this cool looking building on our way there, at least.

So instead we got lunch at this total hole in the wall. I was skeptical at first, but it turns out they made my FAVORITE dish that my mom always made, and I assumed she just slapped it together, but no!! That's a legitimate dish. I was in love. Even though the bathroom was the size of a utility closet, and you had to wash your hands in the same sink as the kitchen, and the "water" wasn't water at all, but some kind of lukewarm tea.

    The first course of ceviche practically melted in my mouth, and my second dish, my favorite, was split peas, rice, and fish. My whole life, I swear, I assumed Mom made that patchwork dish for maximum protein. I was wrong! Never had I been happier to be wrong.

    We went to find Casa de la Gastronomia, a museum about the history of Peruvian foods, but it was closed! We peeked inside and it looked beautiful, so that bummed us both out. But off we went, our spirits still high, to Casa de la Literatura, a Peruvian literature museum. It turned out to be right next to the bar we'd hung out at with Jenny. We'd just missed it.

    Literatura was free, and you could take photos, and it was gorgeous. 

    The first exhibit was a bunch of art of the famous authors, and a map of the linguistics, and where they were most concentrated in Peru.

 

    An exhibit there featured Peruvian authors' poems, and that was really... Oh my God, some of them were heartbreaking and relatable.

1) 2)

3) 4)

5)

    I'll put the translations of everything at the bottom.

    There was an exhibit that looked like my room's walls at home-- I joke that my room is the "redrum" room; my walls were decorated the exact time Stephanie had that first tiktok dream about me-- and that whole museum was so cool. I had fun deciphering the exhibits, occasionally googling words, but for the most part, figuring things out myself with context. That'll be on the bottom.

    Afterwards, we were dying for refreshments. Uncle Dirk wanted coffee, and I wanted something cold, so we voted frappuccinos, and set off in search of Starbucks. We passed the Chocolate Museum on our way, and decided to stop in. It smelled amazing.

    We sampled a lot of their wares, and spent half an hour picking out what chocolates we wanted. At the cashier, we realized they had a cafe with frappuccinos! What luck! We could see them making chocolate while we drank.

    They were insane. Dark chocolate frappuccinos. I'm not really a dark chocolate person but Uncle Dirk is, so he finished his first. I made it through about half of mine before I tapped out and he drank the rest of it. 

    Refreshed, we went to the Museum of Pisco, the national alcoholic beverage of Peru. Still, I'm not sure if it's more closely related to vodka or tequila, but their sampling portion involved us swirling different Piscos in our mouths, and there was no severe burn, or urge to gag after tasting it for that long. I love vodka, but that shit burns, and having it in my mouth for too long-- if I'm not already fucking wasted; then I can't taste anything and it's like water-- makes me want to gag when I've swallowed.

    That's what she said. Anyway.

    Tasted some, bought some more-- roughly 4 bottles were in Uncle Dirk's backpack after that; he had one, I had three-- and the warmth in my stomach was fantastic. Grandma's driver wasn't available until 8pm, and it was only 5pm, so Uncle Dirk and I found a bar doing Happy Hour and ordered more drinks. He made fun of me because I was nursing mine instead of chugging it like he did.

    We were the only people inside the bar and for some reason, the waiter gave me the remote to their TV playing music. I was embarrassed to do this, but I played Taylor Swift. It turns out Uncle Dirk does enjoy some of her music! Good taste runs in the family. Somewhat.

    In between all of this, I was doing a lot of souvenir shopping. Souvenirs and stuff for myself, not questioning whether I'd have enough room in my suitcase yet.

    I will.

    It was the best day.

    J

PS: I was trying to get Uncle Dirk's attention at a market stall, and I almost said Dad. I managed to catch myself and changed course-- so I thought-- but instead the word "Dad" still almost came out. I caught it too, but only after the first part. I said "Duncle." Someone murder me.

Redrum Room Translations:

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

10)

11)

12)

1) Poetry, simply poetry.

has been, is and will be

I think the beloved need for expression boils down to:

I write because I like to write.

That is my fundamental motivation. I deliver my poems like an open ring so I communicate with myself, enjoy or sublimate my sadness or worries

write naturally and simply, as grass grows. and that through what is written the light of life can be seen

2) only the act of writing allows us to believe that time does not exist. this would be at the root of the compulsion to write. the urgency to do so is also the rush to capture life before it escapes

Perhaps like everyone else, I began to write for myself, although with the tacit desire to make my verses known to others, as time has passed, the same thing has continued to happen to me, but with greater intensity

I don't care about grammar.

A writer is content and style.

Books have been made to demonstrate that.

Cervantes, Balzac, Dostoevsky, etc,

they wrote wrong

But they created and revealed a world.

3) everyone expected me to be something interesting, intelligent, but no one was precisely a poet. The best thing was that I felt that those words that no adult could write could say them better than me. It was a salvation in a moment of personality crisis. Then I said to myself: I have done this not obeying anything, nor fulfilling anything that was expected of me.

And I still persist: I have preserved that adolescent thing, in the sense that everything I have done and matters to me must be done in disobedience.

4) the book has always been very important to me, so much so that through it I have allowed myself to make one more definition of the human being. Man is the only animal that reads. The parrot can talk, the monkey can play, the hyena laughs, but there is no animal that reads.

5) I love this nonsense library. This mouth of bone, my voice, my nothingness and his blind horse.

I do not make my art to please others or to get the fleeting applause of others, but to satisfy the imperative inescapable mandate of destiny that tells me: sing, write, draw, think.

The goal of the poetic experience is the poem, but the construction of the poem, at the same time, is the means by which the poet recognizes himself and places himself in life. I have the impression that something of that deaf struggle of mine against death could have been impregnated in the poems themselves.

But poetry is, above all, a battle against death and oblivion. The poem is uncertain reality or dream. Poetry must be a struggle for the one who writes it and for the one who reads it.

6) I have to write out of habit, custom, defect, vice or virtue, but the thing is that I always write. Of course, in many moments I have felt great discouragement, because when I put myself to the typewriter, I asked myself: who is going to read me?

7) I have returned, I know, to the anguish of a night that is ending, to the finished poem, to silence, to my life.

8) the most complete poem is the different unity: half of the one who writes it, half of the one who feels it.

I will light a word, quickly.

My verses will transmit the fire of our people.

9) I want to write, but foam comes out. I want to say a lot and I get stuck; There is no spoken number that is not sum. There is no pyramid written without bud.

10) I understand poetry as the refuge of the genuinely human in an era that denies man

11) I write with an obsessive question in my ears: Is this the exact word or is it the feint of another that comes

not more beautiful but more specular?

I believe that just as the pearl is a disease of the oyster, art is a disease, a secretion of the soul. Absolutely healthy beings are hardly artists; health brings us closer to stones, so you have to be a little sick to produce and appreciate art.

Freedom of thought and freedom of expression, along with freedom of action. Because not only is the action of the people prohibited, but even their word is not known. That's why I'm a writer.

I can do well in this life.

12) I write to know why I write, this is the big question that I have always asked myself. I don't know if writing will clear it up; but all my literary activity tries to find the answer to its own reason for being 

Poem Translations:

1) I'm a man.

I have built a temple

where my virility has no limits.

Five virgins surround me

by day I undress them when contemplating them

At night I cover their bodies

with my anguished and renewed semen.

this need

It comes to me from a very young age;

when i tried to ring

moans woke me up

of my mother and her lover.

But I am a man.

nobody dares

to desecrate my kingdoms.

2) Being away from the places where part

of our life wraps them in stunned sweetness.

nostalgia is fierce

oh vacant parks beaches and bars

from whose consistency I start

the fear of meeting again in front of them

is the fear of the unreal

nothing remains untouched

the unreal was ours despite the consummation

of places and things

3) a poem per day

any bread to devour

eyes

eyes

big ass eyes

they will smile at me intelligently

and they will make me blush

immediately leave

urgently urgent

forget suitcases

miss the train

reach

ask

ask

ask

a poem per day

and any bread to devour

4) I love the sign we put up

about our desire

and transformed without revealing himself.

I love abandoned roads

before tiredness

I love the city you live in

the wound we made

I love everything of yours that I have left

and everything of mine that identifies you

5) I am

the bad girl in history

the one that fornicates with three men

and I cheated on her husband.

I am the woman

that I deceive him daily

for a miserable plate of lentils,

the one that slowly took off her clothes of goodness

until it turns to stone

black and barren,

I am the woman who castrated him

with infinite gestures of tenderness

and fake moans in bed.

I am

the bad girl in history.