Where I grew up

I grew up in a home where for some reason I was embarrassed to do anything. Everything I did, everything I said, everything I thought was a secret. It still is.

I was incredibly embarrassed of keeping this diary. I had to wait till it has late at night, to sneak around and write without anyone noticing. I was embarrassed to paint, so I had to do it at school. I was embarrassed to watch TV so I never used the TV remote... I always wanted to walk around in my underwear at home; I've always felt embarrassed...

I don't come from a home where I am free to be myself. Judged, questioned... made uncomfortable. Everything is I was embarrassed to ask for the clothes I like. I still am. I was embarrassed to get the haircut I liked. I was embarrassed to bring my friends home or speak about home... or even have my parents come to school for grades.

I think from there came much of my urge to lie as a kid. I didn't like where I came from.

I know now, my mom was severely depressed most of the time... and contemplated suicide a lot. I know she didn't’ got married out of love. My dad is never around in any of my childhood memories... except to watch if I brushed my teeth... which was a traumatic experience.

my parents lacked taste.... they were always behind in any sense of fashion... you ask around my childhood could have very well taken place in the 80's ... plus they never cared much about how the place looked, or how we dressed... most of my clothes where inherited by my older cousins anyway, so they were always old fashioned... we didn't have cable, so we watched a lot of local TV, Peruvian channels mostly...the TV I watched was never in sync with the TV people I met. Watched.

I remember I played some games with my sisters, we had an Intellivision that never worked, and board games got so boring after a while, so we used our toys and made up storyline that were actually part of the TV roast of our own imaginary TV channel: happy channel, and each game we played was an episode of a show we had there. It was all pretty cool actually.

But most of the time my sisters hated me. They said I was little fag every time they could and were so embarrassed I was their brother. They however have each other for better or for worse. So I was forever excluded from, games, conversations, TV shows, friends, visits... They were pretty much geniuses on their own right, I was always left as the dumb old brother. The queer.

I can’t honestly remember my mom or my dad caring for us at all... like, being concerned about a school, or our happiness, or our wellbeing. I only remembered one time my parents were called by a teacher at school or something... and they asked me about it. And I told them that this girl on the bus was calling me names and bullying me.

I was the ugliest kid in school, I remember the girls saying I had like this huge head... which I found so painful (because it was true) I think I became oversensitive to criticism... and kind of forgot to talk to people.

Hence... I looked even more as a moron. I remember once, we went to the Francesa with the school... and most of my friends found it came and went on be themselves, leaving me alone. And there that there was this sign on top of a comic shelve.

"Pay for one... takes two"

And I didn't quite understand it.

"I pay for one... and I get two more? That two awesome to be true!!! I got to ask!"

I know.... I was kind of hardheaded. So I asked this lady about it. And she said something like ¿are you a moron or what?

I told her some lie about being in the hospital... but since then, I never ever asked for help in store... or to the police or anything. The sense of utter stupidity was just too much.

I remember being so lonely and stupid that time... and I kind of punished myself for years for it. I was a moron. An idiot who couldn't read a sign.

I lived with this moron complex, for years and years... I remember it wasn't till second semester in collage. A girl in my photography class asked, actually asked me if I had some mental disability... that I realized how amazingly stupid I appear to people.

School sucked for me... there were some few scarce memories that I cherish... but they are so few and feeble.

Tilatá was a nightmare... I remember never being able to make a stupid friend there. Like... never. I think there were few recesses I spent with people... and it was rare...

I remember I was psychology most of the time in my first school... then..., well they stopped caring. I never spoke much in my therapy sessions either... it must have been frustrating to everyone. I was just sad. By the end of my time there... I was such an outcast... I felt so stupid... I was glad...

then my second school... was, well at least different... co I kind of made friends with the most un cool people... which lasted about a year... and then it was again loneliness... being mediocre in all my classes. I don't think I excelled at anything... besides design and arts which weren't even considered in my school...

God I hate my school. I find it... unbearably boring...

When I think about it, I just have this urge of screaming... like just really screaming so loud I cry. I just never screamed... there were so many things I kept to myself, so many things unsaid, so many things undone, so many wrongs ignored... I was the kind of kid that would take a shotgun to school and kill people. I fantasized with it, on endless times. There is just such a sense of frustration about everything. About not being recognized there as... something special.

I just wanted to say deeply... "You are wrong, you are so wrong... and I am right."

Nausea... from what that school meant... nausea ...with some really bright colors that showed occasionally in the gray mist...

Now I'm home again. Term is over. And I'm alone... feeling stupid. 

(12 days late)

There’s no reason to live, but there’s no reason to die, either.

“There’s no reason to live, but there’s no reason to die, either. The only way we can still show our contempt for life is to accept it. Life is not worth the bother of leaving it. Out of charity, one might spare a few individuals the trouble of living, but what about oneself? Despair, indifference, betrayal, fidelity, solitude, the family, freedom, weight, money, poverty, love, absence of love, syphilis, health, sleep, insomnia, desire, impotence, platitudes, art, honesty, dishonor, mediocrity, intelligence – nothing there to make a fuss about. We know only too well what those things are made of, no point in watching for them.”

“God is growing bitter, He envies man his mortality.”

— Jacques Rigaut

Smoke Cathedral

The tragedy is not that life has no meaning but that there is no meaning that is worth a life. 

-  La catedral de humo. 

**Interview**

So for communications class, i got to be interviewed... thought i might post the answers: My first inteview as an author, lol

**Since when and why did you decide to start writing?**

I don't remember exactly... Writing has been something I've done most of my life. I suppose I had a lot to say and nobody to say it to, hence my need to express my feelings in whatever way I found nearest—most of the time, that was a book. The blog officially started in 2002, and that was the turning point for me, where I began to do it with some sort of discipline.

**What kind of writing have you done, and what has inspired you to carry it out?**

I've experimented with various forms: articles, short stories, children's stories, some poetry, prose, and especially inner reflections. I've explored different types of novels—romantic, suspense—a mixture of everything. I wrote what I wanted, what interested me, and what made me happy.

As for my inspiration, I guess it comes from everything that I have not experienced yet. Yes, it's something weird, but I think I experiment with things there that I couldn't live otherwise. Of course, I have based some stuff on experience, but I focus on new realities where you can experience new things or usual things more intensely.

**Which do you feel is your most successful novel, story, or poem?**

What a cruel question... Evaluating self-success is quite different from what society or others consider a success. The writing I received the most praise for was a critical essay on structuralist doctrine. Others have complimented me on an article I published in the school magazine to commemorate its 350th anniversary. For me, undoubtedly, the first chapter of a novella, which has been in production for about three years, seems like the best thing I've written so far, although very few people have read it.

**What have people said about your writings?**

Sharing what you've written can be exciting sometimes because I want people to read it and say, "Wow... I didn't know you could do this." However, this only happened when I was in school. I had teachers who really gave me wings and seemed to believe I had some talent. However, now... there is no longer anyone to show my work to. The system is different; I'm no longer seen as a talented child but as another young hopeful.

**Have you received any awards for your writings?**

Well, no. The truth is, I don't think I've reached the point where my work is worthy of competing with others. I have to polish my style and work on the message I want to convey. Also, an important factor is that most of what I write is in English, so it doesn't really belong to my literary surroundings and therefore is not easy to share with people.

**Name five brief works of yours, mentioning the importance of each.**

1. **The Life and Times of N***** I**s**: The first novel in what I hope will be a long series of novels. I wrote it over three years, and it is a rather complex story that has evolved so much that it is difficult to follow the pace. This book, along with all its sequels, will be the most important work of my life.

2. **Mikey's Torment**: A short story I posted online in a forum. It concerns a child who suffers serious abuse at school. It's a very sad story narrated by the "bad guy," so it's a fairly interesting story for me. It helps me explore the dark side within me.

3. **Metaphorae**: This is my diary, where I have everything I've felt and thought during the last five years or more. It is precious to me. Sometimes I think it needs to be edited and could be material for publication, but I guess all writers feel that way about their work.

4. **The Adventures of Perencejito**: This is what I wrote for my 8-year-old sister and concerns the adventures of Perencejito, a chibolin (this is his kind). It's a work that I have been told could easily be published.

5. **Book of Shadows**: A little project that deals with philosophy and spirituality, which are among my passions. Does magic exist? Does God exist? A small theory is developed from Descartes, the ontological concepts of Heraclitus and Parmenides, and Boolean logic. It is a work full of flaws and mistakes and still lacks a lot, maybe too much, to be read by anyone besides me. But the project is important to me.

“Why stay sane in a sick world?”

I feel… grossed out with me; I feel… sickened by all the things I’ve done.

I feel… useless, not being able to fix it; 

I feel… helpless not knowing someone to share all of this with.

I’ll fail, I know I will… I just can’t make it. I’m not good enough, I was not born well enough… I can’t grow into being good enough.

I want to rest, rest, from all this nonsense, rest from words, and rest from thoughts. I want to rest from myself, from failure, from dreams, from pressure.

I lied… I am more active in the late afternoons than in the morning.

I wish I was high, so there could be an explanation for doing this, for writing this. But there’s not.

I’m alone in a small filthy room and I am too short to reach the doorknob and get out. I’ve been there for ages, forever. I learned things, but then I forget them, I know I’m short, I know I can’t reach it, I know it’s impossible for me, no one’s there to give me had… no one’s there to lift me, no one’s there to do it for me…. “Do it for me” I’m so weak

There’s not a single drop of hope; not a whisker of joy… just nothing, just me, there forever, trapped, confused, in the dark, I know the world outside, I understand it… but I can’t live in it.

I don’t get people.

It’s so ridiculous, it’s almost pathetically funny.

“Why stay sane in a sick world?” 

(15 days late)

I got a crush on YOU

Sometimes you need to let that love for that someone you haven't known yet out of your system, and this is the result, and inspired by someone who doesn't even know I exist even though i saw him everyday for the last 2 years, here it are my diary entries.

"Eloi, Eloi lama ... sabachtani"

"Eloi, Eloi lama ... sabachtani"

These are the favorite words of those attributed to Jesus of Nazareth to Xag. In his own words, "they are of the few spoken by him that touch a sensitive fiber deep within my soul." 

This was what he said to me during the so-called: Holy Week, this is what a billion or so Catholics commemorate. Of course, while thousands gather in churches or processions during Holy Friday, Santiago decided to see for the first time the Passion of Christ on DVD.

For many, it would tedious and boring, but Xag is already accustomed to staying at home during the holidays. He thinks one does not need to go out for fun, on the outside he thinks there's nothing for him, He really wants to be a child, and he never was one. I understand it, for sure in another life I was like him. 

From the same moment he came out of class that Friday, Santiago was determined to make this Easter every bit different than any previous one. I heard him talking to himself while walking (as he did often) - "I'm going to devote myself solely to my book," he seemed convicted as he say it, but then again, so had he said so every Friday, for  2 years now. Strength faded in the eternal now and never concreted.

Santiago, or Xag as he was called by friends long, long, ago has dreamed of being a writer since the eighth grade, even before understanding what it was it meant entirely. It was not until he saw Harry Potter 3 that he understood. It was not until that moment when the movie ended, in the dark theater that he finally assimilated as his destiny.

"It’s the book or suicide."

 That the thought that haunt him usually after leaving the shower, soaked and fully clothed, when he sees his face in the mirror.

In November 2003 Santiago reached for the first notebook he found, that meaning, the most battered and old he had - and knew which were the characters of his story, filled with excitement, he dreamed of them that night and the months that followed... some unfortunate attempts to start failed miserably until a special night. The computer was turned on late and suddenly the words came, there was yet another moment of illumination ... The first page of his book was written that night.

Since then he has been writing continuously, writing about his characters, writing various scenes, as well as some dialogue. He wrote several chapters, developing a complex story, full of surprises and betrayals and death. I was all set up, until one day in December 2004, he read it...

"It was rubbish," He says with complete honesty "all but the first page I wrote a year ago, its garbage"

On Wednesday of Holy Week, Xag thought back on that night… he thought back on everything he had written and thought about everything that had not written, He then recalled his illusory claims to his classmates when he was fifteen. "I'm traveling and writing my book ... I do not think I will got to collage if I finish the first book for next year"

During the last days of Easter, his family traveled to Villa de Leiva, he decided to stay and was repeated again what he said on Friday. "I am going to devote solely to my book" But on Friday he had learned that ... a new Knights of the Zodiac game was out for the PlayStation 2, and that they had spent $ 11,000usd on plants for the construction of scenarios of the new Superman movie and saw the passion of Christ skipping the flogging scene.

On Thursday he sat 12 hours on the computer, after having slept another 12, he was glad to learn that t.A.T.u is recording a new album in Los Angeles, saw for the nineteenth time trailer for the new Batman movie. Instant messaged for an hour with people that are either far away, homosexuals or masochistic.

On Saturday, he decided to rest from the computer, drawing for a long time a deep blue-eyed boy he daydreamed, and then reorganized its action figures with special care of the "Capita Ray" figure which is valued at $ 2000usd, and finally saw Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns for the 20^th time.

By Sunday, the family had returned, and took refuge in his room to watch a marathon of the Trial of Michael Jackson.

"Like the Sphinx when it lost its nose” he whispers when asked how he feels. But then he smiled at me to repeat what I said before "is the book or suicide"

It was a boring week for everyone, even for him. And tortures himself and wonders "why is his life is not more?" he is upset and knows that he will lie on Monday to his classmates, and say that he traveled to Villa de Leiva. Finally, it is comforting to think that he is a romantic, that life is more, and that in another life he will no longer be the same.

(3 days late)

I’m sorry I have not being updating recently

I’m sorry I have not being updating recently, I just feel empty.

I’m sure is just part of my neurosis and hidden wishes of being totally unhappy. I just don’t want to go to school again, I know it sounds like a little kid, but I got a bad feeling about it... (.)

(22 days late)

Mortal silence

[…]  At about 2:45 am I heard a shotgun. It was like nine, the street in mortal silence. After I got to sleep again I dreamed, I met Cloud 9 again, she was a cute girl form school, I really liked her but I never told her. There I took her hand and told her "If the world would end up tomorrow, I must tell you that I love you, but I wasn't able to tell you before" we hugged for a long time.  […]

(2 days late)

No more tears now; I will think upon revenge.

No more tears now; I will think upon revenge.

I've come to a limit. I can’t take it no more, they did it again. My ex friend, lover, crush, whatever Minos was with other of his friends and tried to pull a phone prank to me, of course I recognized their voices especially Minos's voice when he shouted "homosexual bitch". I can’t stop imagining ways to make him suffer: sticking gum in his hair, pouring paint in his back pack, revealing that I and some friends saw him and Rhadamanthys masturbating each other during class. To childish?

(1 day late)

My ego

I had previously been publishing all this online (my ego!). But now I’m back to the privacy of myself. 

I think it is my duty to inform you that since I was born I have had difficulty relating to other people, mainly because of my eccentricities and behavior, for this reason I have not managed to have the opportunity to meet a single true friend in my life.

I studied in the Tilatá school, behind the western mountains, but for some reason I could not relate to people there. Tired and desperate a change of school came into my life a bit over three years ago.

The change brought both good and hard truths. I first realized that my behavior and way of life, it’s indeed very strange for my peers. But not everything is bad I was able to relate with some other freaks and even identify them as my real friends (for a while)... But life takes hard hits on me and I could not dodge all my misfortune. They turned against me for some undisclosed reason, from one day to another. To the point of having me become my now sworn enemies or taking disgust of my mere presence. Fortunately though I fell back on my feet and managed one of them continues to be a regular acquaintance.

It turns out also, I have a terrible memory, and before I start writing always put the keywords on the topics I want to discuss so avoid that something escapes me. But in time these words lose their meaning as I delve into my writing...  you might occasionally find random words scribble about. I hope you understand. 

I did not have to turn to any hidden powers against Obsidian. Thing I considered after our last encounter, so my karma is rather safe. Obsidian apologized, and I did not offend him further. Peace seems to work, with time, patience and endurance, but it works.

I quit going to IT and Programming courses, I think its best, it might mean I will not do anything with my life, no traveling abroad not anything... but for now I am content to find what is it, it makes me happy.... Yeah right? That's big lie, I feel like I am a failure and with luck I'll make it is a waiter someday. I fight with Valdes; he is sadistic and cruel, besides hates me because I am not very smart. We visited the girls at the Christ King, and surprisingly it was very ... hot? I flirted with a girl just as we came in... But my introversion not allowed me to go much further as to actually changing email addresses... plus people around me where weighing me down, so I ended up feeling like a loser, an imbecile. This day will bring me nightmares, I just want to meet girls and fuck, and then I want to meet someone special.

(22 days late)

I lost myself

I lost myself, and I don't know who I am again, how is it possible so recently I was so sure of being Xag...

 I doubt it now, not completely, but it is strange... I don’t know what it is. What is it I'm supposed to be? What I should do? Something simply got lost.

As usual Obsidian is angry with me, and keeps calling me "faggot" (which no longer bothers me as much, or so I think) A horrible feeling came back, I remember when I wasn’t Tilatá. I woke up feeling like wanting to die and just fuck everything to hell. It's a horrible feeling is just pure and absolute sadness and fatigue combined into a single feeling of ending the world, no one can have a good day after waking up that way. Awaking with a thought like "Please god help me!" Is pretty strange, I had not talked to Him in a while, as if I had needed for a very long time. I feel so helpless and just know that something is missing... just not sure what…

(6 days late)

I have wanted to run away from home...

I have wanted to run away from home...  since in some ill-fated English class we had to read: “From the Mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler”

I want to leave home and get to know who I am, solve a puzzle that bothers me so much…

Am I magical or not?

I spend a lot of my free time planning my escape. Thinking about how I am going to survive, how I’m going to pay for my adventure, what I should take and other stuff. Sometimes I choose Alnitak to go with me; she has always been in my head when I think in brother-sister adventure.

I plan on getting a compass and a tunic besides other stuff. I dream of taking my Book of shadows and go windows shopping for all this stuff as I try and make up my mind as of where I am going.

(5 days late)

Getting him to willingly kiss my shoes

Sorry, I have not written in so long, but I just could not find the time or the desire to do so, I had so  much to write about and now I only want to say that lately I've been getting my way with a lot of things, wedgies, melvins, ripping his shirt, get him almost naked and even getting him to willingly kiss my shoes. There is always this fear; scaring the hell out of me... it’s no laughing matter.

(25 days late)

Heating socks

It’s nine in the evening listening to Britney and heating my socks on the lamp (It’s so cold!!!). This is not turning out right, Every day I think about it that it fascinates me to see boys with their young bodies all bruised, pants off, crying in the backyard with their underwear up to their shoulders. Like if there wasn't anything else to me...  I read  about breaking the routine and I am craving.

(22 days late)

From what I've seen I would like him (my bully) to value me a little. where he forces me to do his homework and throws dirt at me through my window and makes me do things that I don’ t want to do, things i am too scared to do.

He pushes me all the time but, he cares for me as his special irreplaceable subject to abuse. I want it to be hardcore... real punches, excessive public humiliation, wedgies, swirlies, pantsings, public stripping, kegging, spitting, stuffing things inside my underwear, i day dream he drags me around the school, plays games with me, like I'm a ragdoll or puppy... plus all the shit  Obsidiana gets at school.

(5 days late)