Fashion mags

I love fashion photography. I love the sick carnal stories they tell, especially the big names like Gucci and Prada.
I'm looking thru the September Harpers Bazaar- Fall Fashion. Just like People has the "Star Tracks" in the beginning, fashion mags have the expensive brand- name ads. Thats really all i like- the muffin- tops of the magazine world. Yet somehow when you make a purely muffin- top magazine, like Star or Us, it is less satisfying than just reading those first 15 pages or so. The quality and texture depreciates. But, on the grand scale, when youre comparing, say, staring at a pelican for an hour and celebrity magazines, it's only a slight difference. I'm still waiting for them to come out with an all fancy pants fashion ad magazine. Sure, there's filler but its worth it.
This season Prada has a kind of severe dominatrix headmistress clutching her big black bag. Behind her is the shadow of another similar creature, giving the idea that there are many of them residing in this blue shadowy other world- all sitting around like iguanas.
Next it's the Gucci hippies, dancing around in a drug- induced trance. smelling flowers sexily.
TODS's clothes are all- American and hideous as always but they do have Gweneth Paltrow as their model. They even made her look bad, though.
The Chanel Girl has found her way to an empty room from a hip party in a run- down victorian mansion. She is Just Too Cool. She looks like she is ready either to have sex or a conversation, I wonder if that was her script.
But here is my favorite- Dolce & Gabana- they're doing this plaid thing for fall. I wish you could see it. It's like a big rich inbred family having a winter vacay at the Kensington's Lodge.
There's the two bratty younger cousins in the center. The dopey family hang- around/ worshipper who's in love with the oldest sister is holding a horse with her. The young gay writer and his boyfriend, the jock cousin who might or might not have hooked up with him, but has had a thing for, like, forever with the spunky red- headed. This is the type of family immortalized in "the Royal Tannenbaums"- totally messed up and insular. You are disgusted and yet want to be one of them. The older cousin who lives in a soap opera, and might or might not be gay, Victoria! It's so dramatic. How can you not get sucked in to their twisted lives filled with love and deceit.
Oh, and I love the Blumarine Girls- total Burning Man freaks, in their tutus.
I'm obsessed, obviously, so don't take my word for it- but I saw these photos in an exhibit of "radical NY art from the 80's"- where the guy had taken a set from an advertising shoot and shot his takes from slightly off kilter. The effect was to de- stylize the stuff they were selling- if you look at it all from a different angle all the desire and magic deflate and it just looks, well, totally lame.
That was my favorite. Someday I'd really love to do that with all those red carpet and celebrity "star Tracks" shots- just take the picture from over their shoulder. Either that or gloss up and stylize pictures of my friends going in and out of convenience stores. No one could look as bad as Britney.

In Tulum. ps i finally figured out posting pictures

first off let me say that i am so happy and feel so blessed to be here right now. really my dream when i was in austin was to be on a beach practicing massage somewhere in the carribbean. at the time i didnt even know how to spell carribbean, as i learned with a few google searches.

i hadnt thought any further than that- basically what we're all fantasizing about at work or home in our "normal" lives- we want to live in a dream. and the dream is probably different for everyone- for some it is the best hamburger in the world, for others it is having unlimited access to designer clothes and the body to wear them. it's the loving family, the dog at the lake, the sportscar. we're all thinking about it. all the time it seems.


i had the beach dream real bad when i left.

ok the clothes one, too. but what was really looping around and around in my bored funky head was the scene of me wearing a cute dress riding my bike down some cobbled colonial street with the carribbean ocean in the background and waving gracefully to all of my rasta carribbean friends, of whom i was the queen.

is that so much to ask? actually i was asking so much more- a crowd of hip artsy friends and a ton of money, the perfect boyfriend... i could really go on now that i think of it.

but the main idea i had when i left austin a month and a half ago was this: live near a beach and practice massage.

when i got here everyone said you gotta go to this place where they might hire you to do massages. it's a little hotel and restaurant on the beach with cute cabanas and thatched roofs. their main business is bikini fitness retreats where mostly americans and english women come for a week or 10 days to eat healthy, work out alot, do yoga, ogle hot young guys on staff, and get lookin good for their bikinis.

i went there to audition as a massage therapist but it's the slow season and they wont have work for me until december. but got hired to do some bookkeeping instead. and i will be doing a work trade for a while in exchange for living out there. so i got a place to stay and meals for a month or so, yes! sweet!

then, on my birthday, i was headed out there and a couple of guys gave me a ride- one was american and the other peruvian. they were going to a nearby hotel for work as well. we exchanged small talk, i said i was a massage therapist looking for work, etc. and then thanks, good luck on everything, this is my stop, goodbye nice meeting you. fifteen minutes later, they came back to get me and said this is your lucky day- the lady at the other hotel really needs a massage therapist. so i went and met her and she was una amor. so sweet and we had a great time talking and she said,"i want you to be the massage therapist for hotel parayso"! the only problem is as i said, it's the slow season and it happens to be the slowest season in like 25 years, what with all the hurricanes, economy and safety worries. so i have to wait for some business which usually comes around in a month or so. we'll see.

but on my birthday after that i felt so good. i was wading into the calm blue water, no one else was around, and i started laughing to myself- i did it! i cant believe i did it and i did it by my birthday. i took a chance and now heres my dream right in front of me.

i should also back track and tell you about how i found my saint- the Virgin de la Caridad del Cobre. in cuba i had given leo's sister, maribel, some incense and she put it away to save for september 7th which is the day of yemaya, the goddess of the sea. i said wow- my birthday is the 8th and she was like really? that is the day of the Caridad del Cobre and she is the saint of all cuba. she is very loving and she brings luck to those born on her day. it seemed like everyone in cuba knew all the days of all the saints and goddesses (cuba is the same as many latin countries- christianity flourishes alongside of all the deities everyone worshipped before and both are fuller for it). I would say i was born on the dia de la Caridad, and people would be like, oh the 8th of september? you could name a date like, december 4th- they'd think for a minute and say- that's the day of Santa Barbara.

Anyway, through another lucky adventure, which i'll have to write about later:), i was given a little gold framed picture/ statue of her. maribel told me that when i get to mexico i must pray to her everyday and ask for guidance and help on my path, to meet the right people and be guided to the good situations. she said i could ring a bell when i'm talking to her and to offer her 5 sunflowers. she didnt know why but that's what people give her.
i have been praying to her every day and while i still havent gotten her a bell, on her day i went to get her some sunflowers. i went to the only tienda in tulum that sells flowers to find them. when i got there it looked like they only had three left, but in the end they had exactly 5 left- perfect! i bought them and offered them to La Caridad. I know that she has been working on my behalf and that she led me to the massage job with the nice people. i am so happy to have found her and to feel her love and blessings.
so to backtrack to what i started out talking about- it's ironic that our idea of a perfect life is really just the end of a story- got the husband, the job, the kids, the place- whew! thank god i dont have to think or worry anymore- but what happens in the end is that we die, right?

but this is just the beginning of my story. lots of ups and downs and all that to come and like rumi's poem i want to invite them both in, each as a cherished guest, to my house.

love ya,

juanita

OMG I gotta blog

Ooooh I´m so excited. Igot my own blog. I got some ice cream. I got my own blog. woohoo! this is just the kind of personality cult i was made for!
i feel so technologically advanced. this is how i felt when the first pictures of me surfaced on the web.
oh crap. i guess i have to actually say something now. it´s like the honeymoons already over and real life is setting in. that didn´t last long, but hey neither my honeymoons so lets get down to biz.
first i´ll name off my favorite blogs- the inspriations of this truly:
1). well of course you already know that for about 5 months i´ve been obsessed with glassyeyes.blogspot.com- 15$ eyeglasses including the lenses and s&h and everything?! thats a deal. i´m the proud owner of four pairs, including one very dorky one. i should also be the future proud owner of a t-shirt that says "ask me how to get cheap eyeglasses on the net"
2). www.desdecuba.com/generaciony i have just been turned on to this one- very interesting blogger in Cuba, censored there and, i just read, said to be paid for by the CIA. I remember the frustration of the people i met there when i read her blog. and it´s like i´m right there and she´s talking to me.
that is actually all the blogs i know.
i tried facebook but i couldnt figure out how to get a blog on there and besides i just dont like having another thing to check on the computer, another tech addiction. i knew it wouldn´t work out- facebook and me, but still i gave it a shot. you live and you learn.
with this blog i do thee keep in touch. i am travelling in mexico right now and would like to be able to write back about what i´m doing so anyone can look it up anytime and i don´t have to mess with mass email anymore. theyre so nineties and eary 2000´s, dont you think?
so. that´s it. it´s my very own blog i´m so stoked. i want to send alot of love out to family and friends- i miss yáll but i know we´ll see each other soon. some SUNNy day!