confusion price, wry toast, the ofrenda completed

"Is constant confusion the price I pay for authenticity?" I asked Ming.

"I don't know," he said.  He was waiting to turn right on a red.

I told him about a certain person I knew who was never confused, a macho man who had all the answers.  It seemed like it must be nice, to have your whole life figured out and know everything.  But maybe at a deeper layer, he really didn't know much, so it was more of a performance.  That would explain why he needed all that valium.

I laughed because we were driving by the Neon Museum.  They're having a special event for a couple months--I saw two metal detectors and lots of overflow parking, security guards in bright vests, with walkie talkies.

"That laugh was at the metal detectors at the Neon Museum," I told Ming.  "Good luck with your pathetic attempts at safety.  There is no safety," I added.  "It was a wry laugh.  And not like rye toast."  I imagined rye toast, warm and buttery.

Ming helped paint this ofrenda at our friend's house a few nights over the past week.

So we went to Winchester Cultural Center last night so he could see the ofrenda finished and in place.

Ming told me a bit of the story--a farmer of corn, an attempted relocation that resulted in death.  I think it's beautiful art.

I asked about the actual women in the ofrenda.  I thought they should tell a story or carry a sign written in beautiful script saying they were victims of imperialism or something.  Yeah, the whole family died.

I was sitting in the minivan for most of an hour, feeling too much emotional pain for crowds and noise.  My window was rolled down.  I watched the sky turn purplish.  A lot of people walked by on the sidewalk toward the celebration.  I could hear some distant music from the stage.

I heard bits of the conversation of passers by.  A mom asked her kid in Spanish if he was sad.  A lady wore a pretty dress and had her face painted.  A man wore a skull mask on the back of his head.

I'm at the time in my cycle when I take things personally and feel a ton of anguish--everything hurts.  I was asking Ming how to reconcile being a valid functional ok human with this monthly suffering for no reason.  "Is this the price I pay for the sacred honor of being able to create life in my womb?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"Evolution seems pretty ridiculous," I said.

The other day I was thinking how men have nipples--I think we all start out as girl babies in the womb.  So...almost all men are trans?  Does that make sense?  It made sense to me.