Motivation to make ridiculous amounts of money

At the end of February, I went to an Art museum in Chicago. I liked many of the things I saw there, and it made think that I really want to become ridiculously wealthy. Why? Many people want money to buy overpriced sport cars, yachts, homes, or travel around the world. Those are all nice, but they're all ephemeral luxuries. I want to have enough money to have full bodied durable stone sculptures of me made with accuracy. And I somehow become a billionaire, I want my own pyramid, goddammit (or Pharaoh-dammit)! A sanctuary of all things me. This might seem a little narcissistic, but it really is not (OK, maybe just a little bit). It's just that I want to immortalize my figure, so that many centuries from now, when all of humanity has probably killed each other, a sculpture of me as humanity's heritage alongside the works of artists from ancient civilizations to contemporary artists going through Renaissance and all that. Then if some aliens find this planet and decide to colonize it, they can look at my sculpture and think "Damn! that's a good looking motherfucker!"

Melodía para Melody

Cómo añoro tu sonrisa
que me regalabas al yo cantar
junto al muelle mi verso mejor
un día junto al mar, y hacía brisa

El roce de tu piel lisa
me incita a brindarte esta melodía
para celebrar la juventud y el amor
aunque la canción se la lleve la brisa

En el rosal

Vals D'Arienzo

Tembló el rosal al escuchar aquel adiós
Hasta las rosas se quedaron sin color
si por mis celos yo perdí tu querer ay de mí
Me dice el corazón, me miente el corazón que nunca volverás
A dónde ir sin tu querer que fue canción?
A quién pedir que me devuelva aquel amor?
Los besos que me diste ayer nunca más los tendré
Nunca más volverán bajo aquel rosal

Desde tu ausencia ya no canta ni el zorzal
Quedó sin flores el jardín de aquel rosal
Pero no importa, sé que un día volverás
Buscando mi querer debajo del rosal y allí me encontrarás

Volvió a crecer en el rosal la roja flor
y al pretender cortar la flor llegaste tú
Sollozando dijiste
"no, no mi amor, déjala... yo te daré la flor que vuela al corazón para soñar los dos"
Ha vuelto aquí bajo el rosal a florecer
con tu querer aquel romance de los dos
Promete que no volverás a dudar nunca más
y alejar del rosal y mi amor jamás

Desde tu ausencia ya no canta ni el zorzal
Quedó sin flores el jardín de aquel rosal
Pero no importa, sé que un día volverás
Buscando mi querer debajo del rosal y allí me encontrarás

Doble ve, té, efe

Recordé al amanecer
la razón de este terrible dolor.
Aguanté hasta el atardecer
y quedé vacío;
al caer la oscuridad del anochecer
se borró todo en el olvido
al yo quedarme dormido

Estos secos labios

Amenazante sombra
que parece desafiar
el mulesto murmullo del motor
sobre la cual baila una hormiga
y en un río a lo lejos
sonríe un feo manatí
mientras un cocodrilo
contrae la gripe canina
en una jungla ártica
en el polo norte
y la silla de cuero
razguña una nalga
sobre la cual nació un desierto
que fijamente mira el alacrán
y un moreno que sigue despierto

Melón

¿Sabés que lo que comiste recién era carne de perro? - preguntó el padre, a lo que la niña replicó - Entonces mañana comamos gato

things to work on

• Balance. Being a tall guy has benefits in dancing tango, such as being able to have a clear lead without being too forceful or too subtle, but balance isn't one of them due to our comparatively high center of gravity. This is especially an issue for giros and with shorter women while in close embrace. I keep saying to myself I will take up some martial arts class to work on this aspect, but so far it's been all talk.
• Boleos and ganchos. Ever since my mentor Mariko told me pretty much that my boleos sucked, I've been completely psyched about them. When I hear the music and I know there's a segment in which boleos will fit nicely (think Di Sarli instrumentals), I get the pressured mindset that I must perform it sharply, but either the boleos are followed badly (if at all) or they are executed but feels like the follower just did it because she knows it's what I'm trying to lead but didn't feel the lead. Same applies to ganchos.
  
• Transition between open and close embrace. Whenever I transition between the two embraces, it feels like I lose connection with the follower, or at best the transition isn't as smooth as I'd like it to be. So lately I tend to stay in close embrace unless a follower for some reason pushes me to open embrace (dammit, I should have showered this week!). A few weeks ago I danced to an electro-tango song with my good friend Grace at a práctica, and afterwards she told me she didn't know I could dance 'Nuevo'... I guess always dancing close embrace has earned me the reputation of being a traditionalist. So the questions remain: Should I occasionally transition to open embrace a la Villa Urquiza style at all? If so, how to smoothly do it without losing connection?
• The role of the left arm. What to do with it? I've noticed a lot of leaders tend to move the left arm a lot, and it often looks very ugly, especially if the left arm is being used to lead. For performances, some dancers use the left arm movement as embellishment. Everybody does something different with their left arm, but I think it should mostly be static and merely serve as a point of connection where the follower can rest her hand comfortably. Which leads me to the next point (and also relates to being a lanky dude): in the past I've danced with shorter women with pretty much impeccable technique, but the embrace is not comfortable because I tend to put my left arm too high up and it looks like the follower is fighting against me at this point of connection, as Mariko once pointed out.
• Musicality - though I think I have above average musicality, there is always room for improvement, especially with something so complex and rich as musicality. In particular, I felt there is a lot of unexplored territories in musicality in my dancing at Ney Melo's class tonight (awesome, awesome class).
• The walk - again, this is like life. There is always room for improvement. One may claim to be good at the walk or at life, but you can always do better.
  

That is all for now, no whiny poems today

hielo

En una eternidad de soledad impenetrable
me sumergí para olvidarte,
para refugiarme del resto del universo,
para borrar el pasado,
sentir indiferencia por el presente,
y no preocuparme por el futuro

oasis

A pesar de estar en una plaza repleta de gente, en realidad estoy cruzando un desierto interminable de soledad, ya que no puedo dejar de pensar de las fantasías que tuve de pasar buenos momentos contigo en esta extraña ciudad. Será que algún día me cruzaré ante un oasis ucraniano...........

Paid tandas.... pure bullshit

This afternoon I went to a práctica, where I paid $15 for entrance. I was told I had the option to pay an extra $10 for a tanda with one of the instructors. I thought that was rather strange, but I assumed that money would merely guarantee a tanda with one of them, and given that I am currently unemployed, I opted not to. I later asked a lady for a dance, and she flatly refused because she was 'on duty' and I hadn't paid. I had to sit out a Troilo tanda. WTF? I still refused to pay - it would be like paying for sex when you know you can get laid for free. I wanted to tell her that I've received free instruction from Gloria Arquimbau (in Chicago, where I was a 'taxi dancer' for a festival) and any possible instruction these local nobodies could provide would pale in comparison, not to mention that I was only looking to dance, not get unsolicited instruction. Thing is that I danced with one of the 'instructors' at a milonga the night before, and I had a good tanda with her. And good tandas are priceless, but they're also free, or at least should be. What a hospitable way to welcome newcomers to town...

Brain explosion

I have so much stuff in my mind that at my current sleep deprived state I cannot possibly unify everything under one coherent theme. So I'll just write everything that I remember down in bullet points:

• I had an extended conversation with a friend whose identity shall not be revealed because he/she (damn right, I'm not even revealing his/her gender!) may have disclosed confidential information that he/she should not have according to social norms that escape my comprehension. I now know a side of the story behind Chicago Tango's current bitch fighting going on between organizers. And that made me wonder why people are always fighting. Between family, between friends, between colleagues, between religions, between countries, there's always bitch fighting. Why? Do people ever grow up? I ask this rhetorical-looking question because when I was a teenager I held the naive belief that everything I was unsatisfied about my life would be at least lessened, if not fixed, when I became an adult because, supposedly, I would be mature. But that's clearly not the case. And really, most of the time, if not all (though there is no way I know of of quantifying such data), all the bitch fighting is because of stupid reasons, stemming from misunderstandings, disagreements, intolerance, and such trivial things that one is supposed to overcome by the time one reaches adulthood. Bah... if only all these ideas I had as a teenager were true... I think most people are ultimately so selfishly into themselves that they do not give a crap about others, and by that token they fuck others over if it benefits their endeavors. So basically karma goes around biting everyone's ass. Speaking of which.... I am paranoid.... I fear that one of these days karma is going to come back and bite my ass so suddenly and so hard that I won't even have time to say 'Oh shit'. Fuck... maybe I should start going around doing good deeds to get good karma to cancel it out. Good idea! Everyone, do this and there will be less bitch fighting! (I think)
  
• When the time comes when I am looking for a wife, I am marrying Ukrainian, and there's no way around it.... unless I find a nice Brazilian girl. Or Colombian. Or Argentinian. Or Italian. Or Cuban.
• My thing with Ukrainian girls is that when I go to milongas, normally I think of nothing else than the music and the dance... But when I am dancing with a Ukrainian girl, whether it is someone I've known for a while or I've just met, whether she has been dancing for 3 months or all her life, the dance feels like a 3-song love affair (No, I don't do any inappropriate touching and I don't get a boner). So yeah, basically the two main requisites for someone to be my wife is to be goddamn beautiful (which Ukrainian girls are) and goddamn good tango dancers (which Ukrainian girls are).
  
• It amuses me to see girls in Florida wearing Ugg boots because it's 'winter'. Ugg-ly boots redefine ugly, but I'm willing to forgive wearing them if it keeps their feet warm when it's fucking cold out. I don't care what each individual's definition of fucking cold is, but it is never fucking cold in Florida. Fact. Unless it's the Ice Age, which it's not. Speaking of which, if any of the above Ukrainian girls are wearing Uggly boots in Florida, I might be forced to revise my hypothetical wife searching criteria. But by definition Ukrainian girls are awesome by fitting into the criteria categories, so it is physically impossible them to cancel out their awesomeness by such aberration as Ugg boots. It would like breaking Laws of Thermodynamics of Cool (1st law: If you are cool, you do not wear uggly boots). Also applies for crocs, only that these do not have the fucking cold excuse. Seriously, WTF?
  
• I haven't slept. I had much more to say but I forgot. I will come back to this later. Oh yeah, happy new year