Dec 28, 2009

THE NEW YEAR'S ASS KICKING FROM YOURS TRULY

I can safely say that in the twenty seven years of my life I have never, even once stuck to my New Year’s resolutions. At least not the whole lot of them. One year I did stick to one of them and lost a lot of weight and ended up 109 pounds of bony chin and clavicles (so unattractive) and another year I did finally learn how to drive (yeah I was 25 when I finally did it but the point is I got it done). Those are the two things I’ve stuck to. I haven’t ridden my $450.00 bicycle each weekend as I promised myself I would last year. I didn’t stick to my vegetarian diet (I did last 9 months, so yay me!) I didn’t learn how to play piano, or guitar, violin. I didn’t take ballroom dancing lessons and I didn’t try to learn Japanese or French.

I am a quitter, I must say. It is so extremely difficult for me to stick to stuff I don’t readily enjoy. I enjoy riding my bicycle but I enjoy more staying in bed and reading novels. I do love animals enough to become a vegetarian but it takes so damn long to cook meatless dinners! I would love to learn to do the quickstep and I’ve always dreamed of playing the piano. But I fear that the piano might take too long to learn and I don’t have the dough to spend on dancing lessons.

Nevertheless I am determined. This year is the year of the new me. No more half assed attempts, no more no-can-do, no more excuses. No more rationalizations. If I want to learn how to play the piano then I won’t get myself the $120.00 pair of shoes but the $30.00 option instead (Eeek) I guess I could stop spending $60.00 on haircuts…sigh. I guess I can stick to my guns. I will see results. As God as my witness I won’t be lazy anymore!!I’ll try my best to not be lazy anymore! ... I’ll make an honest attempt to not be too lazy I'll make an effort!! (Oh God, I can’t even commit on paper!)

No, I will not give in, damn it! Next year is the year. Next year I will:

  • Write no matter what or how badly every single day.
  • Show Dear Husband how much we love him.
  • Take Zoey for longer walks.
  • Finish the immigration paperwork.
  • Become a vegetarian…or pesco-vegetarian since I am not giving up sushi (I don’t care how much PETA wants to call fish the kitties of the sea) and don’t quit just because of the holidays.
  • Go bicycling with BT each weekend and exercise most days because she is getting married and I can’t let her down with her very important goal of losing 20 pounds before the wedding.
  • Use the Rosetta Stone to learn French at least 4 times a week.
  • Use my yet to be paid treadmill at least 3 times a week.
  • Be a nicer person (I always miserably fail with that one)
  • Volunteer at animal shelter (yes, sometimes they kill the animals, but stop being a pussy!)
  • Learn to play piano or guitar or both.
  • Try to be nicer, be diplomatic, not to hang up on, don’t murder tolerate dad.
  • Stop being such a smug, superior and snobby know-it-all.
  • Read less and practice hobbies that involve other people aside from me.
  • Get a hold of viper tongue.

Like Julie, from the movie I saw Saturday, I think I should set myself some timeframe. Since I don’t have A.D.D. as an excuse reason to not finish anything then it should be easier for me. I should have finished at least 2 of the 3 books I’m working on. I should at least know how to play some songs in the Piano by July. I should at least know how to say “I need the bathroom and can I have more beer” in French by April and I should have lost at least 15 pounds by July with my new pesco-vegetarian diet and exercise.

So prepare yourself 2010! Come hail or high water, no matter how much my comfy blankets reel me in. No matter how much I want to eat a piece of meat, no matter how lazy I feel or how pissed off I am I vow I will get up and bike, I will not lay down for 6 hours straight and hole up with a book (too often), I will not eat cute cows, pretty piggies or charming chickens! I will be active, I will, if it kills me, swallow the meanness and be nice.

So help me God.

Dec 27, 2009

JUST WRITE

Oh what a night. We, Dear Husband, sister and I, after a delicious (and expensive) dinner at an amazing restaurant called Leila’s went home to watch Julie and Julia. What a better way to end an amazing night but to enjoy the always breathtaking Meryl Streep.

Now I do not know about cooking, and as much as I hate to admit I don’t know much about blogging but I couldn’t help but relate to Julie Powell (played by Amy Adams) and her frustration with her professional life, her inability to escape a job she utterly hates, her fear of failure and her brimming hope that the big break was around the corner. Hope is scary shit.

As the movie went along I was so incredibly moved by both Julie and Julia’s dream come true of publishing, we hear in the end the many editors leaving offers and phone numbers in Julie’s answering machine and see the letter from the publishing house that after several years, continents and effort Julia received.

I could only imagine how that would feel and as I sighed and tear up a little at seeing MY dream come true in someone else’s life on TV, Dear Husband smiled at me and squeezed my hand letting me know that he thought that could be me.

Little did I know that an encouraging conversation about my future career as a writer could turn into an argument where he was fighting for one thing and I was about another! We spent ten minutes yelling at each other (ok, me yelling and he trying to speak on top of my yelling) just to discover minutes later than the only reason why we couldn’t agree was because I was fighting over one thing and he over another. We both said “oops” agreed that next time we should agree at least on what exactly we are fighting about before we start fighting and collapsed in a fit of laughter in bed.

The conversation pretty much started with Dear Husband trying to say that I could be a published writer if I put my mind into it and that if he wanted to be published he could. What he meant by that was that without writing abilities his drive alone would get him published because he would allow nothing, absolutely nothing get in the way of being published if that was indeed his dream. When he said it, it sounded to me as if he was saying that if he wanted to be writer he could. Regardless of the fact that he doesn’t write and he is totally left brained and his inclination are more mathematical. What I heard was that he, just by deciding to be one, could be a writer as simple as that and that if he wanted to he could outline a story and write whatever he wanted to write about.

Now, the subject of will and want is always been a touchy issue in our household since Dear Husband is a firm believer on “The Secret” and that anyone can do whatever they put their mind into and I am more of a pragmatic school of thought. To me it felt incredibly insulting that he felt that whatever ability God gave me to express myself, my thoughts and stories through the written word was meaningless when paired against the will of men. That whatever talent I have as a writer could be challenged by whomever person came along and simply decided to be a writer.

After we went through comparisons where Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Mike Piazza, Degas, Monet, Picasso, Beethoven, Bach, Nora Roberts, J.K. Rawlings and others were used as examples of abilities, talent and hard work, we got to the bottom of his point which was that talent alone is not going to get me anywhere if I don’t have the guts to go after it. And that some talentless fool out there may get what I want simply because they wanted it more than me. Because they fought for it, because they were fearless, because they let nothing, absolutely nothing get in the way of what they wanted.

I have to want it. Nothing is going to happen unless I make it happen.

Julie and Julia went after their dreams with an unstoppable determination. They fought against society, geography, lazy co-workers, and unsupportive parents and in Julie’s case crippling fear of failure.

Hope is indeed scary, it brings forth all sorts of dreams and feelings, plans and possibilities but I am going to embrace it damn it because nobody wants it more than I do.

You’ll see.

Dec 25, 2009

AWESOME CHRISTMAS!!

Oh the many things to be thankful for, family, friends, music, food, alcohol, alka-seltzer and extra strength Tylenol.

I woke up this morning and I am 27 years old today, almost 30 and lucky that I am alive, healthy and surrounded by the many people in my life that love me and enrich my existence. I usually hate my birthdays, it makes me uncomfortable cutting the cake with people looking at me and I usually just want to spend it in bed and ignore the fact that each year I get older and that soon there’ll be gray hairs and menopause, wrinkles and brittle bones. Agh!

Today it was different, today I woke up happy. I was happy because I had so many presents to open and the $300 worth of gift cards gives me this almost manic and giddy feeling because of the serious shopping I have to do in the near future, but more than anything I woke up happy because even though Dear Husband was in the bathroom spewing wine, beer and whiskey and even though my head was pounding and even though Zoey was waking me up way too early, even though the house was a mess of wrapping paper and tape I was happy that the place smelled like pine, and that everybody loved their gifts and that today I will celebrate another year that I am alive.

Today my dear friend Dick proposed to his lovely girlfriend BT and that is just one more reason to love this day.

Let’s think today about those much less fortunate than us, those who are poor, afflicted by disease or simply those who have many blessings and choose not to see them. We are so incredibly lucky to be alive and well and I hope I never forget it.

Merry Christmas to all!

Dec 21, 2009

ANGELS FALLS NO MORE

As I prepared myself to read the sad news of Brittany Murphy’s death, I saw in Yahoo! News that Venezuela’s abductor president was saying that Angels Fall (Salto Angel) the tallest waterfall in the world was no longer going to be called Angels Falls since there was no way for U.S. Pilot Jimmy Angel to “discover” them since that would imply no one was living in the area at the time (1937). In other words the man refuses to name the UNESCO World’s Heritage Site after a gringo who happened to fly by.

I understand the logic behind the move, hell I can even I understand that is annoying to have something intrinsically Venezuelan named after some random pilot. But to strip such a landmark of its recognizable name seems a move made out of silly pride and not because he wants to keep the names local. Who the fuck is going to be calling the waterfall Kerepakupia Meru? Not the Venezuelan people let me assure you of that. Because we cannot pronounce it! I would understand if the name was an English name that was unpronounceable in Spanish, a very difficult last name like Schroeder (which took me forever to be able to say) but the name of the pilot who saw the waterfall and made it famous was Angel, luckily a word that is the same in English as it is in Spanish. If that is not fate then I don’t know what it is.

Doesn’t he feel some sort of respect for tradition? Doesn’t he understand that people don’t want to change the things that are familiar and dear to them? We didn’t want Venezuela to be the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, we didn’t want the Avila Mountains to be called Guaraira Repano and we’ll be damned before we call Angels Fall Kerepujwhogivesafuck! Is his need to insult the United States so deep ingrained that he would strip the waterfall of its beautiful name? Because this has nothing to do with the pilot not being Venezuelan and everything with the pilot being a U.S. Citizen. If Jimmy Angel had been French, Spanish, heck Russian the Falls would’ve kept its name. He sees this as an opportunity to slap the U.S. in the face with his 8-year old boy attitude of not sharing a toy and this is “mine, mine, mine!!” One would think a leader of a country was above dick measuring. Apparently not.

I feel so incredibly impotent, seating here miles away while he ruins the country with his ideals. He doesn’t seem to understand that the country belong to its people, not him. Venezuela is not his property to deface, change, ruin and shit on as he wishes. Why oh why is he still in power? When is he going away? When is this going to end? What else is he going to do before he gets kicked out of power? What other sacred places, traditions is he going to soil, rape and claim as his? Until when are we going to accept his Attila the Hun attitude and let him conquer whatever the hell he wants to take?

He can change whatever the hell he wants to change because it won’t make a difference. He can make it officially Karewhateverthehell and it will always be Salto Angel, the same as everyone calls Venezuela simply VENEZUELA and the Cerro Avila will always be the Avila.

Some things remain unchangeable Mr. Chavez, the same way you will always be an ignorant, arrogant, dirty ex-con with no class, education or an idea of what the fuck you are doing!

Dec 16, 2009

IN KEEPING WITH THE SUBJECT OF LOVE…

I have a confession to make. I am a sucker for romance novels. It might come as a surprise to those who do not know me, and have never been in my house, or been overwhelmed by my ever filling bookcase, but I am. I think is a funny, inexplicable trait in me because I am in general an untrusting, glib, and sarcastic no-bullshit kind of girl, but there is something about true romance that makes my cold heart go gooey. I am not talking about grand gestures and candle light dinners, rose petals in bed (who is going to clean that shit after?!) and big movie proposals. I am talking about true romance. About the true meaning behind holding a hand, yearning that unreachable someone you think you can’t have. Covert glances, whispered confessions, secret rendezvous, and such. I am talking about Mr. Darcy & Lizzy, Mr. Rochester and Jane, Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, Catherine and Heathcliff, Wall-e & Eve.

Whatever happened to that kind of romance? Did we all grow bitter and cynic? Whatever happened with writing sonnets and dueling at dawn for a lady’s honors? Whatever happened with slaying dragons and… okay I might be getting carried away but there is something so sweet in the innocent, all-abiding, all-consuming and inevitably tragedy of love stories of before.

I was doing my hair this morning while watching Reba reruns (don’t judge) and a Tresor commercial came on with Kate Winslet in all her Oscar performance glory running across a bridge to reach her love. The misty veil in which the commercial was shot gives you a hint of separated lovers, through hardship or simply a long commute one does not know, but when they hug and you see the blissful look on her face you cannot help but assume they have been reunited after a tragic something. There is no way that it is just a hug of “this was a long weekend”, it was a “we are finally together” hug.

I am a sucker for romance because I can’t wear perfume without having a head-splitting allergy attack and I was ready to go buy the damn thing!

It’s romance, only romantic when tragedy, difficulty and peril plague it? Is it only when couples have to overcome something that we find ourselves sighing? Lizzy and Darcy had to fight their prejudice and pride, Jane and Mr. Rochester his betrayal and his insane wife, Anne and Captain Wentworth the distance that almost 10 years had forged between them, Catherine and Heathcliff the sick tendencies of their personalities and death, Wall-e and Eve had to fight 700 years of technological evolution.

Have we been programmed and taught to believe that only difficulties can make a romance romantic? There is something to be said of struggle that makes everything after accomplished taste sweeter, or is it just the thrill of the chase? Is it simply a brain induced pleasure after deprivation? God knows a piece of chocolate tastes sinfully better if I haven’t had some for a while.

If that is the case then are we fooling ourselves into falling out of love simply because we have a comfortable, pleasant romance instead of a movie, tragic, dramatic one? Is overcoming the impossible necessary to have a fairy tale romance? Have we been brainwashed into thinking that struggle is the only way a love can be romantic?

Or is it simply that life has become so easy, generally speaking, that nothing can get between two lovers? Before there was social convention, war, famine, social stature, disease, long distances, race, gender, everything to get between two lovers. Life is so easy now that nothing tests love anymore. Before people pined for weeks waiting for a letter that would hold a precious lock of hair in its folds and would be kept close to the heart to be read, perused and wallowed over while wasting away with lovesickness. Now we text, shoot an email, call.

Is that a good thing? Did marriage last longer before when the possibility of tragedy was ever looming? Are we so used to everything being so easy that we get bored? Are we missing something? Are we lacking that bittersweet pleasure of loving at a distance? Or are we better as is, enjoying, gorging on the person we love without fear of anything?

I rather enjoy Dear Husband to the fullest without drama, without tragedy, without anything tearing us apart. That said I will keep being a sucker for romance, shed a few tears for those tormented separated souls…and sigh.

Dec 9, 2009

I LOVE YOU VS. TE AMO

I have realized just now that I have never said the words “Te Amo” to anybody. I read them in corny, translated to Spanish, Harlequin books, heard Antonio Banderas huskily and sexily said them to irresistible women on TV, but never, not even once have I said those words to any living creature before. And for the first time since…ever, I have noticed it. What it’s in a name, Shakespeare would say, “A rose by any other name” and all that, love is love, amor, L’amour, Gram, Amore, etc. It shouldn’t matter what language I’ve said it in, but somehow it seems it holds more meaning if I say them in Spanish. What worries me is that I haven’t said them in Spanish to anybody before.

A name holds power, Dumbledore would say. Saying “You-Know-Who” gives power and sense of foreboding to a simple combination of dashes and words. Love or Amor should come out the same way to me, since both languages as just as easy, but Love in Spanish, holds a mysterious power for me.
I was tonight, in a haze of Shiraz, writing in my head my Christmas letter to a dear friend. You know one of friends who you cannot help but adore, one of those friends, who you don’t know why you love, one of those friend who stand against every principle you have, but a friend who has shared with you years of experiences, knowledge, a friend who has seen you at your worst, a friend who has cried with you, picked up your vodka puke, a friend who you don’t respect, but love nonetheless. A friend who knew you before you became you, a friend who knows your secrets, a friend who knows who you really are deep down, the geek, the slut, the insecure, the lame, the scared part of you and still loves you and for that you adore them. I was writing to them in my Shiraz inspired wisdom that I wished them a merry Christmas and in my head I wrote that I missed them in my life. As I wrote in my head the Christmas letter with a fond “You always made me smile” and a “I love you” I realized that I had to translate it to Spanish because it’s simply wrong to write to such an old friend in a foreign language… and then I couldn’t tell him all the things I had just written in my head in Spanish, I felt so much more comfortable baring my soul in a language that wasn’t my own.

Spanish it’s a romantic language, sexy, beautiful, “mysterious” to some, to me, however, it’s nothing else than an inflexible language that is as strict as an old nun who doesn’t let you wear makeup. I love English because it’s a language that allows you so many liberties; it allows you to do with it what you may. If you are creative enough you can do with it what you want. Kind of like Playdo or the Legos. Spanish allows no bullshit, no playing around. Spanish has one word for an irrefutable, undeniable, all consuming feeling and is Amor (love). You don’t use “Amor” on any other instance but I Amo my newborn baby or Amo my husband, or Amo my mom, or Amo my sister. There is no Amo my Levi Jeans in Spanish. In English Love has somehow lost all meaning. In Spanish there are levels of liking, or love, in English, colloquially at least, without getting poetic you have “like”, “love” and if you are creative enough, “adore”.

As romantic as the Spanish language is, I cannot be “romantic” with it. I can say the corniest, cheesiest, Nicolas Sparky things you can imagine in English and not bat an eye. The moment I have to say “I love you” in Spanish, I feel squeamish.

For the first time I have noticed that I have been hiding all this time behind the language. Not knowing all I’ve said held no meaning because I was hiding behind the meaningless barrier that speaking a foreign language lent me. I feel as if every word spoken has been a lie, a fraud, as if none of them had really come from the heart. My brain… well my brain and the writer in me, may speak fluent English but my heart is not bilingual and it speaks Spanish only.

So, officially to Dear Husband I will say. “Te amo, y confio en ti como nunca pense que confiaria en un hombre” and to that friend who has been my friend forever: “Ver tu foto siempre me hace sonreir”

Dec 8, 2009

SMELL AND MEMORY

According to Sarah Dowdey of www.howstuffworks.com “A smell can bring on a flood of memories, influence people's moods and even affect their work performance. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain's limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling it's sometimes called the "emotional brain," smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously. Bear with me I am going somewhere with his, I promise. “Despite the tight wiring, however, smells would not trigger memories if it weren't for conditioned responses. When you first smell a new scent, you link it to an event, a person, a thing or even a moment. Your brain forges a link between the smell and a memory. When you encounter the smell again, the link is already there, ready to elicit a memory or a mood”

I smelled home in the air this morning on my way to work and I’ve spent all morning feeling homesick. I cannot remember the last time I even felt homesick (probably last Christmas because firewater always makes me homesick and weepy) or maybe in my civil wedding this year when I couldn’t enjoy the company of people I wish were there with me. As much as I felt the painful twinge in my heart I couldn’t help smiling. The smell was some sort of soapy, clean, disinfectant smell that reminded me of a bathroom (a private one, not a public one) and I really cannot recall what the moment was but it made me think of a trip I made to Colombia one summer almost 15 years ago. It’s amazing that I am now old enough to have 15 year old memories (Eeeek!) but also amazing is the fact that I can recall the moment on a flash of smell. I remember how I felt that moment. I couldn’t recall the day, or whose bathroom it was, but I remember the sense of expectation for the vacation days to come. I remembered the wondering what I would do with my time and the books I would read. I remembering feeling love, for the place, the people I was with and hot with the sticky Colombian summer.

I spent this last weekend alone with Dear Husband in California doing some business stuff and I sat on my couch watching TV and feeling homesick. For two whole days I thought I was just missing Dear Husband and our depressed dog Zoey wasn’t helping matters much with her “I-miss-daddy” puppy eyes. Then I realized I only felt like that (down and a little depressed, and therefore hungry) when I was seating on the couch. Dumb that I am I didn’t notice that the smell of our Christmas tree was making me miss Christmas at home. The smell of dog and pine and freshly cleaned house was bringing memories of home.

I still miss home so much. I miss the music and the people, the plans, the city that shines blindingly on Christmas, the Avila Cross that sits on the mountain, turned off all year and then lit up brightly for the whole month of December and that looks like it floats on the air at night, when the mountains are so dark they blend in with the night sky. I miss the chilly air and the chilly mornings, I miss the Christmassy billboards and the 15 foot blow up Santa one of the banks put on its building climbing up to the roof to leave some presents. I miss the Gaita concerts, with songs we’ve all heard before a million times and still make us want to cry. I miss the grapes, and the preparations, I miss the smell of the city, a combination of pine, smog and food. I miss my home with its high view of the valley and how it seemed to glow all twinkly at night with the city bellow us shinning green, red and yellow full of Christmas lights.

I wish the smell and the barreling emotions that come with it would give me a warning instead of swallowing me whole in bittersweet memories of moments lived so long ago but I still remember as if they were yesterday.

One of my exile buddies living here in Florida after leaving Venezuela posted in his Facebook how depressing Christmas is away from home, how he misses the celebrations that start in December and don’t end until half way January. It’s not just the parties he misses, but the familiarity, the sense of belonging. His immediate family, like mine, it’s here in the same city and even though it feels ten thousand times better now that they are here, we are all still castaways during Christmas time, away from all familiar, drifting around listening to jingle bells and eating turkey instead of listening to danceable Christmas music and eating hallacas.

Nothing, not even being away from home can ruin Christmas from me. I took a deep breath Saturday of my Christmas tree smell, the sweet, sharp, crisp and clean scent made my heart weep for all left behind, and the twinkling lights mocked my mood. Ahead we move all the time, leaving behind precious things that will never come to be again part of our lives. Thank God for the sense of smell that won’t let us forget.

Dec 7, 2009

THE ETERNAL MYSTERY OF U.S. HIGH SCHOOLS

At lunch today we were all discussing our memories of prom night. Some were dumped by their boyfriends, others (like me) had the guy they liked showing up with their ex girlfriend, and another had their graduation so long ago she had to waltz with her father as a tradition. When you work with someone from Argentina, Puerto Rico, Bulgaria and New York, recounting war stories from high school can get pretty interesting. As it happened my prom night memories were pretty similar to everyone else except of course for the New Yorker.

School here is so different from back home that is like a parallel universe I’ve never visited and not matter how many times it has been explained to me it remains confusing, scary and clouded in an almost science-fiction-like fog of mystery.

It has always baffled me how school works here. From electives classes and going to different schools for each phase (elementary, middle, high school), to the school districts things by neighborhoods and homecoming parties and prom queens and kings. Back at home you don’t get to elect your classes, even if math is not your strongest area, you still have to suffer through eleven miserable, terrifying, traumatic years of algebra, geometry, arithmetic and my nemesis… trigonometry. Fucking trig I still have nightmares about it. When I watched TV and teenagers said hi to each other tentatively in school saying “You are in my history class aren’t you?” I never understood what they meant. Back at home we got a classroom assigned with other 30 to 40 students, you get assigned a seat at which you are to remain for the rest of the year and teachers come to you. Back at home you have no choice but befriend your classmates, you spend five days a weeks, 6 to 7 hours a day in a classroom with them, breathing the same air, sharing the same torturous math teacher and forced to work in groups. You sit in the seat next to someone for 6 to 8 hours for five days weeks and you learn to like them whether you like it or not.

I was the new girl on my sophomore year in High School. Since wretched math was kicking my ass I had to change schools to one that allowed students to choose if they wanted to spend their last two years learning social or science studies. Since the left side of my brain is stunted and never developed I went with social and spent my last two years in heaven with classes like French, Latin, Sociology, Philosophy, Psychology, Art History, English, and the right side of my brain enjoyed the party while the left grew cobwebs.

Whenever I think of high school here I remember how easy it was for me to change school and make friends. I had a blast on my last two years in high school and I shiver to think how much harder it would’ve been here. I was the new girl in a graduating class that had been in the same school since elementary. I was the new girl among teenagers that had seen each other for eleven years, five days a week. They knew each other’s grandparents, cousins, they knew each other secrets and had memories dating back to the time when some were still sucking thumb. Here it would’ve been impossible for me to befriend them since I don’t make friends easily, but back at home was so easy because we were stuck with each other all day.

Here is so different! Prom is before you actually graduate and the parties are unsupervised and at hotel rooms… I can’t even wrap my mind around it. Our graduation party was the day we got our diplomas and we work our dresses and suits under our gowns, we partied with family members and friends until five in the morning at a rented hall, had dinner, a champagne toast (even though most student were under 18 and therefore not allowed by law to drink). We partied as if it was a wedding, with a DJ, a photographer, a band and flowers. The party was the last time I saw some of them and a big way to say goodbye with a bang. It would’ve felt sort of anticlimactic if I had to see them all the next Monday after such a celebration.

Here you dress up, rent a limo and go to a hotel room to have drunken sex with a boy who has no idea what he is doing. Even if things were done that way back home parents would’ve never allowed their kids to go to a hotel room after a party. Here let me pay for hotel room where some randy teenage boy is going to pop my little girl’s cherry. Riiiiight.

Doesn’t anybody notice how simply wrong that is? *She says failing at trying to sound non-judgmental* Don’t get me wrong there were plenty of people that were sexually active at my graduation, but that didn’t mean we were allowed to celebrate our high school graduation party at some random hotel room without adult supervision. Back at home even the most rebellious rebel wouldn’t have dared to smoke in school property. There, school grounds are almost holy grounds and you don’t fuck around with school ground, you don’t graffiti, have sex under bleachers, smoke, drink, and give birth in bathrooms.

My poor cousin had to finish her high school years here and she was once almost took a mint from a guy who offered without knowing he was giving her Ecstasy. She saw people getting high in the bathrooms and I can’t even imagine getting away with smoking a cigarette at my old school, where the Spanish (from Spain) priests had eyes like a hawk and would know if someone skip school and called your parents if you talked back or misbehaved.

I love this country and I am happy to be here but I am also happy that I came here when I did, with two years of college under my belt and that I didn’t get electives that were going to keep me from meeting my friends, I am happy I didn’t have prom king or queens. I am glad I finished school back home where my graduation class was of two hundred people instead of getting lost in a sea of anonymity in a class of a thousand like my cousin and two of my friends.

I am forever grateful that I didn’t have to celebrate getting out of school by going to a hotel room to feel pressured into having sex with some pimply inexperienced boy with sweaty hands who didn’t know the clitoris from the anus. Amen.

Dec 2, 2009

FORGIVE & FORGET? OR OFF WITH THEIR HEADS?

So Tiger is spreading the love even though he has a wife of six years and two children. When a beautiful woman like Erin cannot keep her husband satisfied it makes one wonder. Who can? If success, fame, fortune, health and love cannot keep you happy then what can? Tiger is THE numero uno golf player in the world. He is at the height of his career, he has a beautiful family, he has everything anyone can ever want. Respect, success on his field, money, EVERYTHING. And apparently everything was simply not enough. Is it men as a gender who have an inability to stay faithful in spite of everything going well? Or is it more human nature?

What does it take to cheat? It is a disregard for that other person’s feelings? A need for instant gratification without regard of long term consequences? Is it carelessness? Is it loneliness? Horniness? Is it because that other person is offering something the person you chose to share your life with cannot give?
Or maybe is it because society places such a burden on marital rolls. Men are expected to be hunters, gatherers, providers, brave, romantic, strong yet sensitive like in the movies and women are supposed to be nurturers, sex kittens, cooks, mothers and everything in between. Who can fill such shoes? No one. We are all left dissatisfied because we have unrealistic expectations of the people we married and expect them to make us happy in each facet of our lives.


Although rationally I understand how difficult it is to remain faithful to someone until death, emotionally I don’t have any tolerance for the issue. I understand how hard it is to completely satisfy someone else, in and out of bed but how do people get past the sense of betrayal, the anger and the hurt? How do they move on? How do they open themselves again to the person who did the one thing they promise not to do in front of friends, family, the law and for those who believe in that, God?


In my family’s case forgiveness did absolutely nothing except for extend the humiliation and make more obvious the inability of my cheating father to commit to the woman he married and promised to love until death, the woman he chose as his mistress or the children he had with both. In which circumstance is forgiveness a good idea? I have been shown forgiveness when it comes to cheating is just a form of denial and silly hope that things will change.


In situations like these I wonder why would anyone marry? It’s such a risk, such a gamble, such an irrational promise of love, commitment, faithfulness and loyalty that we give too freely and without taking into consideration that there might come a time when we will be able to break it. Back at home almost all my friends had parents that were cheating on their spouses. Let me rephrase that most of my friends had cheating dads. Is it a Hispanic thing? Or are all men potential cheaters? Does it have to do with nationality, status? Or simply with having a dick?


Are women simply more discreet and conniving enough (don’t fight it you know we are) that we’ll cheat without getting caught? Or is it that we simply are brave enough to admit defeat and end a relationship before it gets to the point of cheating?. For men is it a case of wanting to have the cake and eat it too? (an expression that makes no sense to me because what else could you do with a cake if not eat it?) Or is it that their fear of confrontation (don’t bitch you guys know it’s true) keep them from facing the truth of their failing relationship and it’s simply easier to look at greener pastures without permanently leaving the farm?


We all dream (secretly or openly) about that breathtaking love that will last forever, epic and with a soundtrack, we all want to be Noah and Ally, or Lizzie and Mr. Darcy, Anne and Captain Wentworth, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head…but how realistic is it to really be with someone for 50 years without forgiving some step outs?


Every time I see a couple that has been together for 20 to 50 years I always wonder which one has cheated, which one has forgiven. I haven’t decided yet if that makes me a cynic or a realist. I guess anyone can cheat and anyone can be cheated on. Maybe everlasting love isn’t about a perfect love but loving in spite of fucking cocktail waitress and spending too much time on the phone or leaving the toilet seat up.


I rather think Mr. Darcy loved Lizzie all the days of his life and never looked at another woman the way he looked at her. I rather think Dear Husband will do the same.