FREEDOM OF SPEECH = DOUBLE EDGED SWORD

I was reading in Yahoo! News today about a man called Albert Snyder. Mr. Snyder lost his son Matthew Snyder when he died on a Humvee accident in Iraq almost four years ago. Matt was 20 years old.

During his son's funeral the ever lovely Westboro Baptist Church showed up to protest against gays, and Jews and pretty much everybody else on God’s green earth with signs that read “God Hates America” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” “You are going to Hell” “Semper Fags” and other enlightened messages like those.

Mr. Snyder can’t sleep, he can’t eat, he suffers from depression since his son’s death (which is understandable) and is battling diabetes. He is angry and hurt and humiliated and probably wishing his son’s funeral would’ve been a dignified event for him to say goodbye without having all that bad juju thrown his way.

Mr. Snyder decided to sue the Westboro Baptist Church and was granted 10.9 million dollars that were after reduced to 5 million by another judge and then another judge reversed the verdict and he is now ordered to pay roughly $17,000 to Westboro for the legal fees they incurred. It doesn't seem right, does it?

According to Westboro Baptist Church, America is condemned, doomed to hell and being punished by its acceptance of what they call in their website “fag lifestyle”. After taking a gander at the Westboro website (and feeling right after like I had to take a bath on bleach or holy water) I realized just how difficult the law is. The first amendment of the constitution of this country established freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of religion and freedom for people to peacefully assemble, etc.

The amendment is a beautiful thing; not only respects my ideas and opinions no matter how unpopular they might be but it also protects my rights to voice them.

Poor Mr. Snyder had to see hate first hand and at a moment of crippling vulnerability. No father should have to bury his son and it made his tragedy even worse to see people gleefully holding signs that celebrated his death and the death of all those other soldiers out there who have lost their life in this war.

Even though Mr. Snyder is now without his son and grieving, and even though my heart breaks at the thought of him seeing those signs, the law states freedom of speech for all. Is it moral for those people to be there and mock his pain? No, and I am sure there are special places in whatever hell those fuck-heads believe in for people just like them. It is right for them to feel the entitlement of invading such a private moment and ruin it with their hateful, putrid beliefs? No, it isn’t.

Is it legal? Yes, it is.

Freedom of speech is defined as the right to speak without censorship and/or limitation, the right to speak or otherwise communicate one’s opinion without fear of harm or prosecution. It applies to all individuals in this country, it covers all opinions, and it defends all ideas.

Those who read this blog know how passionately against religion I am and how passionately for gay rights I am. So it is with a heavy heart that I recognize that Mr. Snyder is going to lose that lawsuit against Westboro.

The law should protect all: sick, hateful, disgusting, crazy individuals too. Even when their moral compass is up their asses, even when their beliefs are repulsive, even when they don’t respect the most private of moments, even when they have no understanding of the meaning of compassion their opinions also have to be respected.

The fact is that the loathsome crew from Westboro peacefully assembled to spew their venom. Mr. Snyder actually didn’t even notice they were there but until later when he saw his son’s funeral on the news. The law should protect Westboro because vile and abhorrent as they are they didn’t break any laws.

My only consolation and I hope for Mr. Snyder’s too is that the legacy of Fred Phelps founder of Westboro Church (won’t do the Baptist a disservice by affiliating them with him) seems to be on his last legs. I don't know if he is healthy or not, but a body can’t hold that much hatred and venom and continue working properly. The man is 81 years old already! Even if his progeny were to continue his work he is the heart of the operation and without him I hope it will dwindle to nothing.

I found Pastor Jim Sommerville’s blog while researching for this post; Pastor Summerville had an encounter of sorts with darling Fred one time when he and his band of roaches went to Richmond Virginia to harass its Jewish community.

Pastor Sommerville is a more evolved creature than I am and he decided to pray for the soul of Fred (what soul?) and for him to find love and let go of the hatred that, to quote Pastor Jim “has made him its disciple”.

I don’t have it in me to wish for Fred’s salvation. I don’t have it in me to pray for his rotten soul. If I was the praying kind I would pray for Mr. Snyder’s battered soul and broken heart. I would pray for his family and the families of all those who Westboro has touched with its grimy paws.

I would pray for Mr. Snyder to feel some consolation after the suit is over even when it probably won’t conclude as he hopes. If I were the praying kind those are the ones I would pray for, I wouldn’t waste a word on Fred.

Actually Fred can go to hell.

For Pastor Jim Sommerville’s post: http://jimsomerville.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/how-do-i-stop-my-enemies/

For the Yahoo! Article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_funeral_protests

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.

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!

Click here for the article’s link http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091221/sc_afp/environmentvenezuelapoliticsnative_20091221035737

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”

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.

FADING OBESSION AND THINSPIRATION

I was reading today about Kate Moss’ comment that was taken completely out of context but that sparked a lot of controversy (you people just loooooove the word “outrage” and “controversy” way too much) and made the people fighting the “beauty is bones” view have a mini stroke of rage. Apparently Moss was asked what motto she lived by and her answer was: “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” which is apparently one of the mottos of Pro-Anas and Pro-Mias everywhere.

When I read the term I was clueless, Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia or sometimes just “Anas & Mias” was something I have never heard of before, but oh this country never ceases to amaze me! Most of the times the shocks and surprises this country brings me are good, 99% of the time is something that makes me smile and makes me see that moving here was the right choice. There is, though, that one percent that is completely fucked up.

Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia, as my research revealed, are websites and groups dedicated to support anorexia and bulimia as a “lifestyle” and not as a mental disorder of any kind. They see it as a choice, as a way to control the one thing you can do something about, yourself. I entered the website thinking I was going to find it funny and that I was going to spend 15 minutes making derisive comments about the silly girls who wanted to be skinny and fit the twisted mold of today’s beauty. I was very wrong.

I spent three horrying hours reading how these girls (mostly girls but there were some guys) spend their life torturing themselves over a 9 oz. tin of cashews!! It would’ve been funny if they would’ve been just vain and superficial people with an obsession of being pretty, but every line spoke of deep-rooted problems., of pain, cutting, feeling invisible, sheer loneliness and it wasn't funny at all, it made me incredibly sad. There are pictures all over the place called "Thinspiration" where a skinny bobbled head Victoria Beckham poses looking like a skeleton, a bare backed bony Keira Knightly whose every back bone you can see, protuding hip bones, deep clavicles, ribs galore.

It’s confusing because at moments they seem so in control of it, as if their disease was part of who they are, as if it was soothing in a way. Some of them know it's sick, they know it’s not normal and still they do it. They want to stop but can't, they don't hesitate about cutting out people from their lives, friends, family who worries about their health and choose the disease or lifestyle instead. They rather be lonelily counting the calories daily to a high of 400 per day (which was the highest calorie count I read most barely survive on 245 calories a day) than to let people in their little circle of celery hell. They choose lonelyness, emptyness, pain, over anything and everyone else.

Some were angry at being judged, others had survived almost dying after being force fed and taken to hospitals and were trying their best to retain their anorexic lifestyle and not dying at the same time. They were struggling for a balance where they could be what they wanted to be, THIN and remain alive to be able to enjoy it. They all say that happiness is 3 pounds away and then another 3 pounds and another 3 pounds but no matter how thin they got, how their bones poked through, how they faded away into almost nonexistance they still sound unhappy about their body. A girl was worrying about the cup of salad she ate at lunch and how she knew it wasn’t bad for her because it had been only 200 calories but how the feeling of fullness made her want to purge. Part of her obviously recognized how irrational it was for her to worry about those 200 calories but the stronger part, the sickness in her made her want to get rid of it. In the forum she asks for guidance asking if she should or should not purge and even though I didn't get to see what happened later I am sure she went to her office bathroom to throw up the little nourishment she gave her starving body.

Others, thought were simply proud of their accomplishments. Proud that they hadn’t eaten anything solid in 8 months and that they were 84 pounds and 5 foot four. Some of them were in an imaginary war against the world. A war with battles they won each day by refusing to conform, by refusing to eat. To them their disease is control, it’s pure, it’s beauty and the world is simply keeping them away from that higher place where they are above all mere mortals who weigh triple digits.

After spending hours reading about these people torturing themselves over an unhealthy look and goal I couldn’t help but be thankful I spent my teenage and formative years back home. I remember when I started college I decided to drop a few pounds and was 109 pounds at 5 foot 3. My guy friends made an intervention in protest of my fading ass. They all complained that I could no longer pass the “towel test” (a test invented by a pig friend of mine where a girl puts a towel on her butt without holding it and the curve of her butt alone it’s supposed to keep it there) and that they could see my hip bones and that was not pretty. I came to the U.S. when I was 19 and my cousins hadn’t seen me in two years, they both thought I had an eating disorder because they could see every bone in my body pocking out. And I was in a healthy diet! I wasn't starving myself like these people do. As if food was an enemy sneakily waiting for them to fail.

I am so ever thankful that I was expected to have curves, that society back home demanded that I looked like a woman and not like a boy. I was so thankful that my guy friends wanted my ass to be bubbly and out there and liked it as it was and will ever be: Big. I would’ve never survived high school here. I would’ve never survived having my formative years being told I was ugly and fat. I would've turned out like those girls who starve themselves and have breakfast of celery sticks, lunch of a cup of peas and tea as dinner. How can they help but feel inadequate, fat, disgusting, ugly and unhappy when everything out there points out the same thing? That the body they have is not good enough? That happiness and success depends on them being skinny.

I grew up being told that curves were beautiful so I think they are, is it their fault that they think curves are disgusting when they were told that by television, magazines, friends, family, men that sharp angles are preferable?

I read this list of “inspirational quotes” to be thin in one of the websites and cannot help but feel depressed for these lost hungry souls.

• What nourishes me also destroys me
• Food is like art. To be looked at, not eaten
• Anorexia is not a self-inflicted disease but a self-controlled lifestyle
• Empty is pure
• If you close your mouth to food, you will know a sweeter taste
• If it taste good is trying to kill you
• Giving into food shows weakness. Say not to food and you’ll be better than everyone else
• Bones define who you really are, let them show
• They’ll say they are concerned about you, your health. All they want is to control you, they want to pin you down and force feed you that fat they call love
• People who eat are selfish and unrealistic (?)
• You don’t NEED food, you just want it.
• Don’t you want to walk on the snow and leave no footprints?
• When you start feeling dizzy and weak it means you are almost there
• Food rots your teeth
• Anorexia is not a disease. It is not a game. Anorexia is a skill perfected only by a few. The chosen, the pure, the flawless.

I truly hope those people someday see that having body fat is not the same as being fat. Eating one cookie it’s okay. Bones are not meant to be seen the same way we don’t see beams on a building because otherwise it’s falling apart. That life isn’t about counting the calories on celery sticks, it’s about being healthy and laughing, crying, eating, living, loving, not about secrets, and purging, misery, loneliness.

See the light, people! Have a doughnut!

NOTHING FITS. PURSUE OF AMERICAN FITNESS.

My body aches, I have crammed this week two 40-minutres sessions of cardio on the treadmill, yoga, abs and arms workouts and even my lashes are weeping. People here are obsessed with fitness which is funny specially when one considers the fact that America is one of the heaviest (I don’t like the word fat) countries in the world. Like I have pointed out before this is a country of extremes where the morbidly obese and the scarily thin coexist in shaky harmony. Since I am neither skinny nor obese I find myself being in that unhappy middle where obese people hate you because you complain about your weight and you hate the skinny people because they complain about theirs. I gave the gym a shot last year. I went every day for six painful, miserable months and actually gained two fucking pounds.

I am now happily exercising at home with my yet-to-be-paid-for treadmill. I rather bust my ass at home in the privacy of my own four walls than do it in front of a bunch of strangers. Granted is not really easy to exercise around a hyperkinetic dog that licks, pushes, barks and shoves her snout on your crotch but I’ll take that over talking a stroll down to the bowels of Hell. Dante didn’t talk about it in his Comedy, but I am sure it was a mere oversight. What else can you call a place where they make you weigh yourself in front of your husband and make you take measurements of your body so you know IN NUMBERS that your ass is too big and your boobs too small? As if you weren’t well acquainted with that fact. What else can that place be, if not Hell? With all the mirrors and the unflattering harsh lights, the inane music that makes you feel trapped in an elevator while you endlessly loop on a treadmill. You add to that the people around you that are a walking promise of what you might become (Gym Barbie and Willie the whale are your choices) and that sounds to me like a cocktail for insanity.

I remember clearly a girl in particular from my six-month stint in hell (a la Persephone) she was a chubby girl who was trying so hard to lose weight, you could see it. She used to jog/crawl on the treadmill next to mine, sheer determination coming off of her like waves. I could feel her need to fit in a pair of single digits Jeans. So there she was, wheezing air in and out, everything jiggling while her face got purple with a mix of pain, heat and concentration. She would watch Dancing with the Stars on the TV in front of us, seeing the graceful dancers and the cute outfits as an incentive to lose some weight and the shimmery lights distracting her from the pain. Inevitably damnation came in the shape of an Applebee’s commercial, with their fake “healthy” food and their yummy, greasy goodness. You could see the bodiless hands dipping the boneless wing in the sauce, damn them! And the girl would stop jogging, she knew that I knew that she was going to go home and wolf down some wings and there’s no point for her to kick her ass any longer for the night. Right when she is fantasizing about the drippy wings up come from the stairs the trim gym goddesses, in matching Nike outfits and perfect hair. They don’t sweat, they glisten and they climb the stairs gracefully while they pat the nonexistent sweat with a hand towel.

One time tired of seeing her defeat I did the unthinkable and talked to her, I NEVER talk to strangers but her face was just so sad that I couldn’t help it so I look at her and I could hear her thoughts: “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!!!” and I didn’t judge her because they were my thoughts too. Granted I didn’t really hate the skinny bitches in matching outfits and washboard abs. I would totally push them out of the way if a bus was going to hit them. I would just push reaaaaal hard. So filled with pity for my kindred spirit I told her: “Whatever they have like no ass” and smiled at her. She looked at me and I guess she thought I wasn’t heavy enough to hate along with her because her withering stare still gives me the hibbie jibbies and she replied: “Yes, they have no ass, but I have TWO” and she spits that “TWO” at me like a dart.

Even after that I kept going to the gym. I became one of those people I “ugh” about. I never really belonged there, tough, but kept going anyway. Dear Husband loved the routine, the endorphins (an urban myth as far as I am concerned). He would be all peppy and smiley and my eyes were stinging from the sweat, I was blinded by the fog in my glasses, my muscles cramping all confused because they were never worked like that before and my lungs didn’t know quite what to do with the air.

I hated that fucking place; even just remembering makes my blood boil. I still remember Dear Husband’s voice saying: “When you cheat while exercising you are only cheating yourself” every time I took a break. I love that man. God knows I do but when we were at the gym he would say stuff like “Don’t lock your knees” or “Give me two more”, “Love the burn, feel the burn” or my personal favorite “There is no can't here” and I swear I would feel this homicidal urge that only the fear of being someone’s bitch from 15 to 20 and that horrid orange jumpsuit, would stop me from going “Snapped” on his ass.

I tried. I really did. I would wake up tired and achy and not an ounce thinner and I would just say to myself “muscle is heavier than fat” and fool myself into going again. I would try to be all positive and shit and imagine myself jogging at the beach in my thong with nothing jiggling. I would repeat “The Secret” in my head over and over again “Don’t just wish to be happy, be happy, feel happy” Smug bastards.

The pain, I assured myself, was a gentle reminder of my efforts, I would someday, laugh at my pains, no! Someday I wouldn’t even remember what it was like! And I would be curling 35 pounds and I would run around naked in the beach, thong? Who needs a thong!? I would walk around the gym doing nothing, patting my forehead with a towel and being hated by all. Sigh. That’s when you know you are hot when petty women hate you on principle.

I am a stinking failure because no matter how obsessed this nation becomes with a 100 pound ideal of beauty I am never going to be it. I am Hispanic! My ass alone weighs close to 100 pounds. I cannot fight genetics. I am not meant to be thin and I am okay with it. I just wish every commercial, TV show, model; clothing store would stop ramming their ideals down my throat. Only in this country you go to a store where the size L is actually small enough to fit a 130 pound woman. Who do they think they are catering to? The average American woman is a size 10 to 14 but the stores carry jeans from 0 to an 8. Cero is not a size damn it! It’s a non-size! You have to actually go to that dark, musty area of the store where the “plus sizes”. Nobody wants to walk to that area of the store. That means the cute, tiny and acceptable jeans don’t fit your fat ass! Just walking in the periphery of the “plus” size is bad for your reputation, people look at you funny and you want to get violent... remind me, why do I like shopping again?

No matter. I will work out at home and be healthy and fit and God forbid curvy.
Fuck this country idea of beauty.

RACISM IN THE SOUTH? GET OUT OF HERE!

I was reading the news the other day and ran into the case of the Justice of Peace in Louisiana who resigned his post after refusing to marry an interracial couple. When Dear Husband told me about it he wasn’t really incensed but he was a little put out by it since we are an interracial couple ourselves and I just couldn’t muster enough caring to give a damn.

I will be honest and say that maybe since the issue hits so close to home I should be offended, annoyed, outraged, enraged and all those other superlatives, but in reality I am feeling somewhat indifferent about the issue. Not indifferent enough not to talk about it but indifferent enough that it didn’t ruin my day when I read about it and indifferent enough that I actually laughed when I read the article.

I was too busy reading it and trying to wrap my mind around the man’s logic to be able to get pissed off and weeks later I am still not angry at him. See the problem with this guy isn’t that he is racist; his problem isn’t that he is close minded, mean spirited or cruel. I don’t know the man, I don’t think any less or more of him because of his stand. I do not understand why he “worries about the children” of such unions and I truly don’t give a flying fuck. Why I do care about is the fact that he took it upon himself to decide not to marry this couple. The description of his job as a justice of peace isn’t to decide who marries whom; it doesn’t include deciding someone else’s future because of personal misgivings. As a government official he should do what the job requires regardless of how he feels about interracial marriage or the future of the possible offspring. When gay marriage happens all over the U.S. (Don’t bitch, is happening) Justice of Peace like him won’t get to decide to marry a gay couple or not. They shouldn’t be protected by their personal feelings, religious inclination or their inability to grasp why a man would want to marry another man. They should get the job they are being paid for done. They should perform the job and move on to the next couple who hopefully to them will be a man and a woman of the same color that will keep their need for uniformity satisfied.

The problem isn’t that Keith Barthwell refused to marry this couple. The problem is that the Parrish that hired him allowed this to happen before, since by his own words he has refused to marry interracial couples before and referred them to someone else. The problem is that the Parrish that hired him didn’t do a good job at doing check on the man and weren’t aware or didn’t care about his prejudice. He isn’t require to think, feel, ANYTHING he should be blind to anything else but the law who states "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

See that is a thing that happens here in the U.S. that doesn’t happen back home. Back home when a black man marries a white woman or vice versa there is not going to be a Justice of Peace who gives enough of a damn to “take a stand” and not marry them because of their skin color. First people wouldn’t give a damn and second if they did they still wouldn’t care enough not to do it. Indifference works wonders in such cases. Back at home people do not think their inclinations, preferences, racist bias etc, should be respected enough to do something like that. We do not think that because this is what we feel, because this is what our conscience tells us, then the state, the country need to respect it. Citizens in this country feel the country needs to respect whatever brain fart comes out of their mouth which works in some cases and in others simply doesn’t.

I harbor no resentment toward Mr. Barthwell, first because he is an old, set on his way bigot who is not going to change his mind so why bother getting pissed off, and second because the poor man is obviously slow since he doesn’t even recognize his actions and words as racist when he says: “I'm not a racist," "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house” Well bless his generous heart for being so open minded as to allow the darkies in his living room.

The man is a closed minded fool to be pitied and ignored. Instead he is being sued by a couple who saw an opportunity to make some money out of the situation. If they were truly interested in justice they would sue the Parrish for hiring a racist and allowing him to refuse to marry interracial couples. Instead they are seeking unspecified damages claiming “emotional distress as a result of the incident”.

Give me a fucking break. I don’t think is right that this couple had to be reminded of the narrow mindedness of people the day of their wedding when it should’ve been a happy day for all involved but if all it takes is that to cause emotional distress then I wonder if this emotionally fragile couple should marry at all instead of being institutionalized until they are balanced.

This man was given free reign by the Parrish to decide on his own accord based on his personal beliefs who to marry and who not marry. The Parrish should be the one held responsible for not monitoring this man who abused his power and got away with turning interracial couples away for two and half years. The thing is he is right. He has the right to choose what to believe in. It stinks that what he believes in is stupid, backwards and ignorant, but he is entitled to those beliefs. I don’t like them but since he isn’t riding in the night (as far as I know) in a white hood burning trees and stoning people then I say he is a pretty harmless old bigot like there are all over the world. What he did was wrong disgusting, but he righted that wrong by removing himself from the position that gave him the opportunity to excert his bigotry on other people. I do not believe his stupidity and ignorance means he has to pay the rejected couple any money.

This couple have the opportunity to open the eyes of many in that Parrish of Louisiana, they have the opportunity to bring light to a problem that we all want to believe is gone, but is in reality alive and well all over the country, and instead of choosing to turn this opportunity into something good, they are victimizing themselves and looking for monetary compensation for something that was wrong, annoying, insulting, hurtful but hardly traumatizing. They should, as someone who has been touched by this issue, make sure that the Parrish does a better job at hiring unbiased individuals that won’t put their personal beliefs before the job. Instead they choose to go after a guy who is no longer working as a Justice of Peace in the Parrish and therefore holds no power to repeat his abuse in the future. The Parrish however, holds the power to choose to hire as many bigots as they please. This couple seem to be aware of the fact that is easier to get money from a civil suit to an individual than to sue the government. If justice is what they were after instead of money, they would make the Parrish and the whole freaking State of Louisiana pay for their negligence and indifference. Instead they rather make a few bucks of the dumbass who already quit.

I have nothing else to say on the issue aside from: Mr. Barthwell you needn’t worry about any of the mixed children I may or may not have with my blue-eyed, lily white husband. I assure you any children I have with him will be incredibly smart, bilingual, culturally rich and hot as hell.

To the couple who is suing Mr. Barthwell instead of the Parrish: Shame on you for ignoring justice for the sake of some cash.

For the article please follow the link:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/03/louisiana.interracial.marriage/index.html

DISSAPOINTED

I am equally annoyed by racism as I am for the minorities who choose to use the race card and use racism at the drop of a hat over nothing and be like the kid that cried wolf and got eaten for being a dumbass.

Every single time that I have gotten accused of racism I really want to get violent. I am not a racist, I do not have a bigot bone in my body, something I do not take credit for but thank my mom for being open minded and having a heart of gold. When we were growing up there was a kid in the neighborhood the other kids weren’t allowed to play with because he was gay. He was 10 years old or so and was friends with my brother. He was sweetest, kindest kid and he used to tell us all the time he understood if we didn’t want to be his friend. The kid was also famous because he was on a TV show at the time and had no friends whatsoever. The only house he was allowed in was ours because the moms in the neighborhood thought his “situation” was contagious and they didn’t want him poisoning their kids and turning them fruity. My mom was even stopped and asked to recapitulate and consider the damage this child was doing on my brother’s psyche. My mom gave a rare show of her temper and told them to fuck off.
Stuff like that stays with you. I was taught from a young age not to care about what people are and concentrate on their actions.

I have been living all this time with pink colored glasses because although I have been a target to some ignorant people they have all been so damn dumb is hard to take offense (you cannot blame people for being stupid and racist when they have been fucking their sisters and interbreeding. Bloodlines deteriorate like that, is not their fault). I thought that the majority of us were above racism to a certain point. We have a black president! (I am NOT saying African American) and even though some crazy white people out there were not happy about it, still the great majority of the NORMAL people were okay with it.

I was so freaking mistaken is appalling! And I HATE to be wrong. This lady I know was talking to me about her child and how now that he is about to leave elementary school and start middle she is choosing schools. Apparently her child is “gifted” (aren’t they all?) and she is choosing magnet schools for him. She complained this morning in desperation because all the schools she is thinking about are all “black” schools? What do you mean? I asked thinking it stood for something. “They are all full of blacks”. I stood there thinking she was going to laugh (She voted for Obama!!) but she wasn’t. She was being serious! She meant it. She didn’t want her “gifted” child to associate with black people. I turned around and came to my computer to type this. As I do it she is still right now still complaining to others about it. She says the schools have “nothing but black people in it” What does she expect? For them to have their own school? For segregation to start again so her part Puerto Rican, part German, part Jewish and part BLACK child can go to school with people with her same skin color? The fact that the woman’s father is part black is just flabbergasting.

I have been so silly! I thought all this time that when some complained about being discriminated against it was just whining and complaining and manipulating those still ridden with “white guilt”. I thought that some were taking advantage of the fact that now everyone has to be extremely P.C. and everyone’s scared of being sued and everyone is scared of being accused of being racist, or sexist, of bigoted. I thought things were moving forward! Shame on me for being so stupid.

As I write this I remember another “friendship” that ended because of a similar issue. I was friends with a woman I met on ESOL classes when I first came to the country. She was Colombian and was married to a blond blue eyed Gringo who was simply gorgeous (kinda like me). They had two little girls about to start elementary school and one day we were driving around an area an hour away from where we lived and they were thinking of moving to. They were looking for schools and were checking out the playgrounds of some of them. After playground number four I asked “What the heck are we doing?” and he said. “I’m counting the blacks” and proceeded to tell me that there were more black children than white and therefore the school was unacceptable. She nodded her head at his brand wisdom and sighed at the trouble of having to keep looking for a school with enough whites.

I looked at the kids playing in the playground and felt incredibly and horribly guilty of being in that car sharing my air with those disgusting people that had seemed so nice and now were judging a school because of a group of 7 year old skin color. They knew nothing of it. They kept playing innocent of the devious minds of adults that should know better but are nonetheless thinking them less because they are black. That was the last time I saw them and never again accepted their invitations to hang out because if I were black they wouldn’t be inviting me anywhere. I guess my brown skin was good enough for them, well their rotted minds and souls are not good enough for me, thank you very much.

I’m feeling a little sad today. I actually liked and respected this fellow Obama supporter, this fellow woman, this fellow shoe lover I spend hours with. We liked the same books, the same movies. I lent her my Ann Rice novels! She and I had even the same virulent temper that sometimes gets away from us.

I feel a little betrayed, a little confused, a little nauseated. Vipers hide everywhere. One never knows where they are, where they hide their poison, when they’ll strike. I guess this will show Dear Husband why I don’t trust anybody, because inevitably some of them show their true colors, and theirs are never black and always ugly.

I’LL TAKE STUPID QUESTIONS FOR $2,000, ALEX.

I love Jeopardy!, I was introduced to it by Dear Husband when we started dating and was amazed by how smart he was knowing all the Geography, Sports, History and Trivia questions (I kicked his ass on Literature, Mythology and Arts). Every time the Stupid Question, Stupid Answers category comes up (I’ve seen it at least 5 to 10 times in the last two years) I get pissed off, because the questions are truly so stupid I can’t answer them! I always end up thinking the answer cannot be the answer because this is Jeopardy! People! And the answer, therefore, cannot be that easy.

Sometimes people remind me of the Stupid Question from Jeopardy! Since my fateful arrival to this country I have been introduced to so many stupid people I have been truly amazed. Now I don’t want to make it sound like the stupid people reside in this country only. I do not want to imply that people here in average are stupid or dumber than anywhere else, because is neither true nor my intention to make it sound like that. But you see the U.S. is a country of extremes, I have met the kindest, nicest, funniest, smartest, sweetest and hottest people here in the U.S. I have also met the craziest, the meanest, the rudest, cruelest and dumbest.

I guess diversity has a lot to do with that. There is such an amazing medley of cultures and races here I am sure one is bound to meet the worst and best of all without even trying. Since most of my adult life has been spent in the U.S (I was like a baby bird back home, featherless and wingless) I cannot be at fault that most of my knowledge and experience comes from interacting with people from here.

Now that the P.C. police have been appeased I can continue. As I was saying I have met my share of dumb people, bless their heart, and they have provided me with endless hours of entertainment and endless feelings of superiority (shame on me) and sometimes, I swear sometimes I do try to be nice about it, but come on! It’s hard to be nice or patient and not roll my eyes when people that should know better say stuff worthy of the Jeopardy! Category.
Here are a few sample moments that I am not making up and actually happened, I swear:

Them: Oh so you are from Venezuela? Cool. Do you guys have like... ketchup and stuff?

---

Me: Huh?

---

Them: Ketchup, you know tomato sauce.

---

Me: Like Heinz? Yes…. Why?

---

Them: Oh so even the same brands! Imagine that.

---

Me: ???

---

Them: So you had Coca Cola and stuff over there too.

---

Me: I’m from Venezuela, not Cold War Russia.

---

Them: What about hot water?

---

Me: Are you serious?

---

Them: So you have water heaters, because my mom was on a mission once and she said she had to shower with cold water.

---

Me: She was probably in a very small town.

---

Them: Oh so not all towns are small? You lived in a city? You didn’t see monkeys flying and stuff? Snakes?

---

Me: In the zoo! I lived in a city.

---

Them: Oh…so you had like cars and stuff…right?

---

Me: Yes, we have cars.

---

Them: Your English is very good, you barely have an accent.

---

Me: Thank you. I learned watching “Friends”

---

Them: Oh so they play it over there too!

---

Me: It’s called cable.

---

Them: So you were born in Colombia, how interesting.

---

Me: Thanks, I think so.

---

Them: So were you ever a drug mule?

---

Me: Excuse me?

---

Them: Well isn’t that what Colombians do?

---

Me: Go read a book.

---

Them: So where exactly is your country located?

---

Me: In South America.

---

Them: Oh! (laugh) I thought you were a foreigner, so what part of Florida?

---

Me: Kill me now

---