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.

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.

THANKSGIVING AND MY NEW BEST FRIEND, XANAX

I apologize to those of you who kindly take the time to read my blog for the long days of not posting. I was hit with a thing I call writer's block (and other folks just call sheer lazyness) and couldn't find a thing to say. If you have nothing interesting to say better stay quiet right?. I didn't want to bore you guys with blathering nonesense just for the sake of posting something.

Anywho, Oh the holiday season is here! Tra-la-la-la-la-la and all that! I am so excited that December starts tomorrow and that finally I can go all Christmas-crazy with a reason. I woke up this morning feeling completely blah and ech and icky (a combination of spicy chicken wings for dinner, a fight with Dear Husband and the start of my monthly cycle) and then I remembered November is over today, I get paid and Christmas for me starts tomorrow woot woot, yay, holla and all those!

I had an amazing time from Wednesday on when Dear Husband and I left to go to Indiana to see the family for thanksgiving. As I have shared before, I have of late developed this paralizing tiny fear of flying and a dear friend of mine was sweet enough to share some of her Xanax with me so I could relax on the way there (bless your heart AL). I rode the flight to Atlanta on nothing but a rum&coke and experienced THE worst flight I’ve ever taken. We were delayed for an hour and thirty minutes because of bad weather and the entire way there was so rocky we couldn’t even get drinks because it wasn’t safe to pull the cart. I spent the flight shaking, watching Cash Cab and pretending I wasn’t praying for whichever God above to let me see another day.

We landed safely in Atlanta with plenty of time to catch our flight to Indy and I sat at the TGI Fridays in the airport downing martinis and trying to get my heart rate back to normal. Twenty minutes before take-off I chugged the last of my third dirty martini with the Xanax I should’ve taken on the first flight and let me tell you I completely understand why people get addicted to prescription medication because I haven’t been that relaxed since I stopped sucking thumb and drinking chocolate Nesquik from a baby bottle. I was laughing in the face of death the entire flight to Indianapolis and every time the plane shook I contemplated my mortality with a cheery thought and prepared with eagerness for my next life (I am a firm believer in reincarnation). I am never flying any other way but with Xanax and Grey Goose running freely through my system.

Indianapolis was as always cold and grey (I’ve only been over there during the fall) and we had a great time on Thanksgiving eating turkey and spending time with Dear Husband side of the family I don’t get to see much. I talked to his charming grandpa who recently lost his wife and was touched by how much in love he still seemed to be with his deceased wife. We exchanged presents (we are not seeing them for Christmas) and spent a few hours playing Monopoly. Spending time with Dear Husband’s family (I haven’t been married enough time to start thinking of them as my family just yet) always makes me think how obviously different we are. Not just his family and mine but how different the interaction between him and his family is, the interaction between them and myself and my family and him. There is an air of… formality I am not used to and that I think is normal here but completely foreign to me. I am used to being irreverent and used to talking to my family members the same way I talk to my friends. With his family there seems to be a more delineated line between “adults” and “children” even though we are now ALL adults there is that deference to the uncles, aunts, parents etc that we don’t use in my family.

I know people that read this blog might think I get repetitive when I say that I get these moments when I realize how different we truly are, Dear Husband and I. But it seems as if I never run out of them. You know those moments when the light goes off and I am presented with yet another example. I try to convey to Dear Husband how I see the differences as interesting but I think sometimes the words come out a little critical as if I was comparing his family to mine (with his losing to mine) instead of just comparing notes.

As his family said goodbye, and his aunt and uncle and cousins left for the day to go back to their hometown which is several hours away from Indianapolis I couldn’t help but be surprised at how differently we express our love for each other. They obviously love one another since they drove hours to come to Indianapolis to spend an afternoon together; but as they left waving goodbye I found it so weird that they would wave goodbye instead of hugging each other or kissing each other. The whole departure was so sudden and efficient I was left reeling! One moment they are saying “we gotta go because we have a long drive” and the next they are all bundled up and waving goodbye at the door.

Do you have any idea how damn long it takes for my family to actually leave a freaking place?! We say goodbye like seventeen times and then there is always someone who has to go pee and another starts telling a story of something that happened twenty years ago and then we are all involved in the story and we say goodbye again and we start talking all over and by the time we are at the door we have hugged, kissed and hugged and kissed and hugged and kissed each other goodbye so many times it could last us a lifetime.

Friday we went to Chicago. I couldn’t help but be in utter awe at the sight of Lake Michigan. That thing looks like the freaking Ocean! The cold wasn’t that bad and I loved seeing my breath puff in front of me. We saw a PETA demonstration in front of a fur store and even though I really don’t like PETA I also really don’t like fur so I was just hoping for some fake-blood throwing scenario but nothing happened (sucks). We spend the night playing Sequence with mom in law’s family whom I adore because they are amazing and laughing at the stories they had to tell. My new grandma is one of those saucy women that haven’t let religiousness get in the way of their humor. She is tiny, white haired and full of spunk.

Saturday came too soon and it was already time to go, a grumpy Dear Husband was suffering from a horrible migraine that wouldn’t go away and concerned family members were getting on his frayed nerves. By the time we made it to the Atlanta Airport after an uneventful flight from Indiana we were exhausted, hungry, annoyed and ready to make it home. All of the sudden a simple conversation trying to compare Chicago to D.C. for our next home turned suddenly into a fight over Dear Husband selfishness and his marriage to his iPhone and my daddy issues. Believe me it was not a fun flight to Miami but again Lady Xanax came to my rescue and I was just too chilled to give a damn.

Oh the issues that come up when families get together and emotions are running high…

We made it home exhausted and emotionally beaten. I hate arguing with Dear Husband and I know he hates arguing with me because I am hard to beat in a verbal fight and if I am angry I get mean.

Today though I saw the calendar and the slate was wiped clean. There is no silly argument that Christmas cannot cure and all I can think of now is the pretty gifts I’ll give, the pretty tree we’ll get, the decorations, the Christmas music, having family over, and how lucky I am to have a husband who loves me, a family that I adore, a roof over my head, money in the bank, an evil cat who loves me in spite of his better judgment and a dog who peed on her bed last night after a doggie nightmare.

I might fight with Dear Husband. I might complain about my weight. I might have a homicidal hatred for Dear Husband’s cell phone and his obsession with it. We might be strapped for cash and my birthday this year might be celebrated less than gloriously. But our house will smell like pine and Max and Zoey will spend their first Christmas together and my sister will come down from NOLA and we’ll have a great time together and there isn't any need for Xanax for that.

SEASONS CHANGE & SOON THE HAPPIEST TIME OF YEAR!!

I don’t think most people here realize just how amazing it is to be able to enjoy watching the seasons change. Most people here take for granted the breathtaking coloring of the leaves, the white pristine snow that cover their cars, bloomy spring that comes and greets you when you’ve had enough of white and gray and blistering summer when you are yearning for the beach. They rather concentrate on the leaves they have to rake, the salt to break the ice, the allergy from the pollen and the humidity that comes with heat. Ungrateful bastards you all! (Sorry, I am bitter).

Oh how I wish I could enjoy some snow fight and catch some ticks on the leaves (I read somewhere they love dead leaves) or walk under full bloom cherry blossoms in DC and…well to be honest I could give up summer for a while. I know people in cold weather envy the Florida heat, ignorant bastards all of you (again I apologize) but believe me there is something to be said about change. About pulling out the boots and gloves, and thick woolen socks and scarves. Something to be said about wishing for spring so you can wear that cute white summer dress you didn’t get to wear as much as you wanted.

There is no break in this Florida monotony. No kaleidoscope of colors, no white to the horizon, no romantic and tragic naked trees, just green and green and green and more green. Back at home we didn’t get a change in season; we got hot summer with cool breezes and no humidity and lots of rain and then blissful chill that lasted for months.

I don’t think there is anything as frustrating for me than to go shopping for a Christmas tree when is 89 degrees outside. So freaking discouraging! How is one to choose a beautiful tree to light one’s Christmas if is blistering hot outside? Last year I had to wait until almost the 20th when it finally got chilly (Florida chilly) the nerve, the fucking nerve!!!

But no matter, there is no weather wretched enough to ruin Christmas for me. Hell, October ends and I get the tingles! What is going to make this Christmas more special than others is that I am married this year for the first time and you know what that means? Only one set of gifts from the both of us!! I knew there had to be something good about being shacked up (I kid, Googly Bear, I kid).

Every year Christmas gets here and I go a little crazy. I admit it, there are worse problems to have than this. I am one of those psycho people who are done with Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving and is totally broke in January because of the 12 foot tree she jammed in her living room. I go all out, I go insane I even buy presents for my cat Max who cannot possibly celebrate Christmas since he is the spawn of Satan and that would make no sense... And the worst is (for those around me not for me) that I don’t consider Christmas just the 25th of December, for me Christmas is to be celebrated for the entire month of December from the 1st to the 31st!! *She gives an evil cackle* I sing carols at the office, my iPod plays nothing but Christmas music and Dear Husband hates me because he ends up with: -“Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling too. Come on is lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you. Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling ‘Yoo-hoo’ Come on is lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you!”- Stuck in his head until May.

I tell you, you people have AWESOME Christmas music. I mean don’t get me wrong I have wonderful memories of my dancing to my Christmas music from home but there is just something so typical Hollywood and United State-y to the music, so cheery and happy and I can feel myself going crazy already and I can’t wait for December to start!!!! (Yes, all those exclamation points are needed). Poor Dear Husband is probably already dreading the month to come and my obsession with it. I guess is because I am myself a Christmas baby I consider the whole month my month.

I am flabbergasted every year when I see the 27th of December, sad looking trees thrown carelessly on the front porch of some houses, littering the sidewalks and just thrown there, ignored without dignity as if they didn’t matter as if they hadn’t gifted them with hours and hours of shiny sparkly color. I name my tree every year (hey, don’t judge) and every year I feel the loss when is time to say goodbye and I am holding onto one end and Dear Husband is pulling the other screaming “It’s February!!” Sigh, good times.

Back at home Christmas starts sometime in October and doesn’t end until late January. We enjoy the hell out of Christmas, with concerts, food, more food, drinking, never ending dancing, shopping and some more food. Back at home Christmas is a black tie event. Even if you are just throwing a party at your own house with the three members of your family (which is impossible because we are Hispanic) you still dress to the nine to welcome baby Jesus and the New Year. We don’t wear jeans, or cotton, or flats. We do our hair, our nails, our makeup and in full attire gorge on pastries filled with pork, beef and vegetables.

Here you have Christmas during the day, which is so odd. We first of all celebrate Christmas Eve so the 24th we spend the day preparing, getting ready, cooking last minute, finding shoes to go with the outfit and then around 10 pm we start eating and drinking and dancing and then at midnight we wish each other a Merry Christmas.

On New Year’s Eve we wear yellow underwear, eat 12 grapes for 12 wishes for 12 months, we carry money for a prosperous New Year and carry suitcases around so the year to come brings some traveling. We dance until our feet weep and vow never to wear the shoes again that go so fabulously well with the outfit we purchased to wear that day.

I have seen friends here welcome the New Year in their PJs. That is unacceptable! What kind of year can you expect ahead if you welcome it on your Hello-Kitty slippers and your hair like a nest? Hell New Year it’s so damn important that even Microsoft Office 2007 knows it because it won’t let me put it on lower case!

Back home and now here, in foreign land we choose to spend them with family because that’s how we want your next year to be, around family and friends, surrounded by love ones, with plenty of food, money, travel, adventure, awesome clothes, looking beautiful and full of hope for the things to come.

We are only 16 days away from Thanksgiving and we all know that means December is around the corner.

Poor baby, get ready!!

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

THE CREDIT GENERATION

It took me almost four years to pay a $5,000 credit card debt that I racked up after buying myself a pretty bedroom set, a living room set and a 10-day trip to New York City and Boston. Every time I saw that looming $2,900 and $2,000 on two separate credit cards I got short breathed and panicky. How the hell was I going to pay $5,000 with a $10.00/hr job (that I loved) and with rent, cell phone, services and lawyer fees to pay also?

Don’t ask me how it happened, one day I was sleeping on a twin bed someone gave me when I came to the country, or that we got in a garage sale (I tend to forget the details of those dark days) and the next I am shopping for beds in Ashley Furniture and purchasing a $1,000 mattress (totally worth it, my mattress is delicious). I guess it was some remnants of that spoiled girl I was that I still have in me. I wanted so badly to have something pretty, something shiny and new, something I hadn’t inherited from a stranger. I wanted to sleep in a brand new mattress, not one already slept in by someone else. Those words “credit available” seemed to me like another daddy willing to buy me something without me having to worry about paying for it right away. I remember sleeping in my brand new bed and seating on my brand new couches and setting my drinks on my brand new coffee table and I felt so grownup setting a coaster in my table not to stain it. I was so happy laying in the middle of my queen bed, starfish-like and sleeping like a baby.

I don’t know when exactly I noticed that I owed $4,900 to two different credit cards. How did I get here!? Suddenly my bed didn’t feel quite like MY bed. It wasn’t mine after all, I hadn’t paid for it. I had gone to NYC and Boston on borrowed money. I had bought clothes there and food and walked around Cambridge with money that didn’t belong to me. I ignored it. I am ashamed to say I pretended the $4900 wasn’t looming over my head like a dark cloud, but it was. Before I had time to buy the matching night stands I was getting calls from the banks. I was so ashamed! And pissed off too! Why in the world would they give ME of all people the power to buy without having the money?! Why would they give me a credit card!? Why would they trust me with it? My dad made that same mistake and gave me an extension of his credit card, and believe me that shit didn’t last a month.

Credit is a weird concept to us, because back at home you cannot buy a house or a car, or anything like that without being able to actually buy it. There are no mortgages for any stranger that walks in a bank and says “I wanna buy that house” that shit doesn’t happen. I mean the mortgage business exists but pretty much everyone gets denied. If you want to buy a car you have to be able to pay for that car. My dad got my car when I was 16 and that car was almost completely paid for by the time it left the dealership.

Everyone here can buy anything. It’s one of those double edge swords of a capitalist nation. My question is if you can’t afford it, should you have it? I could’ve slept in my twin bed for years to come. I don’t know who slept, used or died in that bed before me, but it was clean and it was comfortable so what did it matter? Aside from my imagination running away from me and me picturing unspeakable things happening in my previously owned mattress the truth is it was enough. But we always want more don’t we?

I finally paid my credit card debt August of 2008. I cannot begin to explain how it felt. When I tell my friends about it they laugh at me. They think I am naïve and silly thinking that $4900 credit card debt was a lot when they have car payments, mortgages and stuff around with still 5 to 25 years of payment looming ahead. I guess it might seem silly to some to consider $5,000 as little debt but to me it was $5,000 that I owed that I didn’t have. I didn’t want to spend the next 3 years paying that money; I didn’t want to owe that money at all! I didn’t want to buy anything else, knowing that I partially owned stuff that I hadn’t paid! What if something happened? What I lost my job? What if I couldn’t work anymore? What if I got sick? What if? What if? What if? I have seen what ifs come to life, I am here in this country after a what if I didn’t expect and couldn’t control.

I guess the Amish are more right than we think. They do not believe in credit or the use of a service they have not paid for. Imagine how much free of debt we would be if we didn’t buy stuff we couldn’t afford. Granted, cars would be less cool, and houses less pretty and TV’s a lot smaller but at least we all would know they are ours and no one else’s.

One time I was listening to the radio and heard a commercial of a company selling computers saying: “Can’t buy a computer because of bad credit? Bad credit isn’t your fault! And we can help!” I was so pissed off I could’ve thrown that radio out the window. That’s how I got trapped into $5,000 worth of debt. Because I thought that I was not responsible, that it was not my fault. If you have bad credit whose fault is it if not yours? (Barring special circumstances). We are tricked into thinking that our bad choices and our stupid mistakes aren’t our fault. That they happened to us and not because of us. How about some accountability? How about being responsible and owning up to the shit you got into?

I went shopping this weekend and after spending $380.00 on pillows, wall décor, throws for our house and other completely useless but amazingly pretty stuff, I decided to give my credit card a little use since it hadn’t been used for an entire year and my bank actually called to say they would cancel it if I didn’t use it. As I swiped the card I was having cold sweats. I smiled shakily to the girl in the register and I am sure she thought that credit card wasn’t mine and I was just stealing from someone because I looked so nervous. I smiled some more and left the store with my loot sweaty hands and rolling stomach and I can’t helped but be annoyed at the fact that I didn’t enjoy shopping that day and that is unacceptable! How dare you ruin my religion!

What kind of institute calls you to threaten you with closing your account if you don’t shop? I’m like a recovering addict here lady! Does the AA call their members and say hey you are doing wonderfully, too wonderfully! Have a relapse already!

I told my friends I used my credit card this weekend and got a lot of stuff I couldn’t afford for the new house. They were all so glad for me and patted me in the back saying “How else can you get stuff if not like that?” and smiled at me paternally as if I had suddenly taken my first step. I smiled like a dumbass and said nothing. Thirty minutes later I ran to my computer and scheduled a complete payment. By this time tomorrow that credit card will be blank and everything paid off. Take that bank! You thought you had reeled me back in, well it takes more than that bitches! I put my credit card back in the chest in my closet that is locked with a key. Is not in my wallet anymore and it will stay in the closet until once more I can afford to buy more stuff.

I took a big breath yesterday when I saw the balance tomorrow will be cero. I am a shame to this capitalist nation and I don’t give a damn I know I am making the Amish proud.