WTF or Aww? You decide

When I was trying to come up with a title for this post there was nothing else in my mind but WTF. I was trying my best to come up with something witty and funny and short that would embody the feeling of the post, but there is nothing in my mind except for a glaring WHAT THE FUCK. That’s it, nothing more.

DH, sent me this link this morning:

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/15202-fans-bring-cadaver-to-colombian-soccer-match.html

I think he secretly enjoys finding weird shit that happens in either Venezuela or Colombia so he can ask me about it and feel like he married some exotic woman from a crazy faraway land.

When I read the article my first reaction was “ew” and laugh hysterically because as surprising and bizarre and unexplainable the situation was, it still completely plausible. Part of me wasn’t really that shocked. What does that say about me and about my people in Colombia? I am not sure.

If you have problems opening the link, let me summarize what the article is about:

Seventeen year old Christopher (DH is surely disappointed by the “regular” name) was gunned down in his neighborhood while he was playing football (soccer for my gringo friends) and his friends, took his body (coffin and all) from the funeral home and “paraded” it to a game in the stadium for the team he rooted for. Christopher belonged to a fan club of the Cucuta Deportivo team known as the Barra del Indio (a “barra” is a group of fans) and it was friends in that group that took him to the game. So his body could witness the victory? Not really since after further research I found out the teams tied and since there was a cadaver in the stadium the score stopped being so important to those who were there.

Interestingly enough the “barras” are not allowed in the stadium because they are the Colombian version of Hooligans. They break shit; they get into fights, shoot people when their team loses, etc. This time, however, the barra was allowed into the stadium. Apparently all they had to do all along to gain entrance was to bring a body.

I can only imagine how the conversation went at the entrance of the stadium…

What explanation can there really be for this? Was it the grief? Was it the last wish of the deceased? Or are my people simply nuts?

I am going to go with a little bit of all three.

I am sure for the average American bringing a body to a stadium is just crazy, hell it sounds crazy to me and I am Colombian! But I guess is the Colombian in me, that isn’t totally taken over by American pragmatism, which can pause for a moment and find the situation almost poetic. When one stops to think about it, if they knew the guy, if the friends knew how much he loved soccer, and he died playing soccer, what a better way to honor his memory than to bring his body to the stadium? I am sure nobody would’ve batted an eye if it had been ashes. I think the most shocking part; the part difficult to get over the part that made me go “ew” is that his whole body, bullet riddled and all, ready to be buried was there, inside that coffin, being carted around by his friends like a Colombian version of a Weekend at Bernies.

What if he had fallen out? Did they stop to think about the consequences? Did they take a moment to consider the logistics of it all? I doubt it. Latin Americans are not really worried about such things. Where was his family? His mother? What were they thinking?

Don’t even get me started on how the sheer tragedy of the death of a seventeen year old is being overlooked because his body being paraded in a stadium makes a better story. Sadly deaths like those are oh so common in that and many other areas of my country.

I guess there is enough Hispanic romanticism and impracticality in me to read the article, and after getting over the shock, find the situation epically poetic.

In the end I am nothing if not pragmatic, not because of my time in the U.S. but because that is my number one personality trait. And the pragmatic part of me, cannot say anything else, but WTF?

Here’s a little video for those inclined to watch it live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh79Miik-Cg&feature=player_embedded

ARIZONA LOVES GUNS, HATES SPICS

Ok, so I am exaggerating and being inflammatory and biased. That’s the beauty of blogs; I don’t have to curve my opinions because it is MY blog. (It’s my party and I cry if I want to). It’s a shame really what is happening in Arizona; I had it in my head to visit every state in this country since I can’t travel outside yet and I thought since the U.S. is so big, varied and beautiful there is still plenty for me to see here without feeling bad that I can’t travel outside yet. So far I’ve been in Louisiana, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, D.C., South Carolina, Rhode Island, Connecticut and of course Florida.

When the concealed weapon law passed in Arizona (allowed in bars and all that) I decided on the spot to forget about visiting the state. I don’t want to be in a place that allows such a lethal combination as guns and alcohol and now that I am one of those bothering spics they want to get rid of I decided, for my safety, to stay away from there. I fit, after all, the description of what they are trying to purge the state of. There goes my visit to the Grand Canyon!

I understand some of the reasoning behind people that are against illegal immigration. You cannot go to Law School for two years and not learn a little to see the two sides of every argument. I understand when “they” say that immigrants should learn English. I completely agree with that statement (but then again I speak it so it may be easy for me to say so), I think that since we decided to come to this country then we have to go native, as they say. We have to try to, not forget where we come from, but definitely try to embrace some of the things that this country offers. We should all make an effort to speak the language. This country offers free ESOL classes (I know because I took them) and they don’t ask you for papers to take ESOL classes why not make an effort and try to learn?

I understand that, what I don’t understand is the vitriol that comes from the people that hate us. It is a little scary to be honest, I have never been in the receiving end of such intense dislike. When I read the comments of users in the online news I feel…I don’t know how to explain it, it’s not fear, or maybe not just fear, but a combination of fear and confusion. Confusion because I don’t see myself as an usurper, I don’t see myself as a burden to this country, I don’t see myself depleting the coffers or using welfare or crowding the ER and leaving unpaid bills. I don’t see myself as an obstacle to progress. I’ve paid my taxes, I pay my bills, I work hard, I contribute and all that I’ve done with the government doing its best to kick me out.

I don’t think people here understand really what it means to be an immigrant. I think they think we want to feel unwanted or that we simply don’t care and that we come here like leeches to suck the U.S dry and take advantage. That is never the case. I think most of them forget where they come from since the U.S. Is first and foremost a country built BY immigrants starting with those first immigrants that came here aboard the Mayflower.

We come here because there is no future where we come from, because we want to work and make money, because we want a roof over our heads and food on our table. We come here because there is no other choice. Why else would we come to a place that doesn’t want us? To a place where we have to learn a new language and struggle through cultural differences? Why else would we leave everything we love and know behind if it wasn’t because we want to work for something better?

To those who say we steal their jobs, I ask, which job am I taking from you? and shouldn’t it behoove you to wonder why they prefer to hire me over you? What am I bringing to the table that you aren’t?

To those who say I’ve caused gang troubles. I am not even going to bother addressing that one, the big cities in the U.S. have always had gang problems and it’s not exclusively a problem caused by immigrants and I am the furthest thing from a homie as you can get.

To those who say I am living on welfare, I have never EVER in the 8 years I’ve been in this country received help from the government. I've worked for everything I have and own and no-fucking-body is going to come and tell me it was a handout.

To those who say we increase the crime rates in areas, all I can say is I don’t even jaywalk and have never broken a law in this country or any other.

What exactly is it that they dislike about me? They don’t know me, they don’t know what kind of person I am, what my goals and dreams are, if I am good or lazy, or hard working and bad. Do they dislike my skin color? Or is it my accent or maybe my customes? Or is it simply the fact that I am here breathing their air, regardless of the reasons, regardless of how hard I work? Is it easier for them to pile me up with a group of people instead of think of us as individuals? With different stories, different reasons, different backgrounds, different personalities, different needs? I guess is easier for them to think of us as a whole group of people instead of thinking of of each of us as a person.

Would it matter if I was blond? Would they even notice I am here if I was a redhead? Or black? Is it my stature and my brown skin that makes me unwanted? Are Irish immigrants in Arizona also unwanted? Canadians? Brittish? Or just the little brown ones? Just the ones of us that look like spics? What about Asians?
I can’t say how sad it was to read that news yesterday on the day of my 8th anniversary of coming to this country.

Is it going to make a difference in my future what happens in Arizona? Who knows, maybe if the law isn’t considered unconstitutional then others might try to pass similar laws in other states and it would spread like a disease and it might eventually touch me.

I guess all we can do is wait and see.

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!

WHY I’M THANKFUL AND CAN’T FORGET IT

Yesterday I read in the news that Transparency International published its annual Corruption Perception Index which ranks 180 countries according to the “perceived” levels of corruption. While the sentence “perceived corruption” makes it sound less factual and more conjectural I am sure it is a fairly accurate list.

Venezuela was ranked 162 on the list, just 18 spots from the last, only 9 above from Iraq and 5 above Iran. How does that make any sense? We are talking about two nations that have been at war with each other, with themselves, with other countries for the greater part of a century!

Venezuela was lucky enough to only have one battle in its history, the battle for its independence and never ever since has been at war. It suffered through three dictatorships at the beginning of the century and although forever plagued by the corruption of its dictators (Castro, Gomez and Jimenez) who stole millions from the country and even more corruption from its elected presidents like Lusinchi and Perez (who also stole billions) Venezuela was blessed with a certain level of peace, safety, openness, embracing all. Immigrants from China who wanted to have more than one child came to Venezuela and were happy to have as many children as they wanted. People from all over Europe (Portugal, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, etc) made Venezuela their home and it welcomed them with open arms. Jewish people felt safe to also make Venezuela their homes and migrated there from countries all over the world during WWII and before that.

How does a country so rich in natural resources, so rich in culture, so diverse, so beautiful and generally peaceful finds itself ranked among nations like Iran and Iraq that have not met peace in decades, Haiti who has been ravaged by nature and political unrest since I can remember? How could it be bellow countries like Vietnam who just 30 years ago was at war? Ethiopia who was just 10 years ago at war with Somalia who is the most corrupt on the list? How could be tied at number 162, TIED with the Democratic Republic of Congo! TIED!!! with a nation who just declared its independence like 10 freaking years ago for Christ’s Sake!!

While I find myself so incredibly thankful that I am here (in country number 15), I cannot help but be thankful with a heavy heart. I cannot feel fully satisfied for having move on when some family and plenty of friends remain behind. I cannot help but remember how it was before I came. I lived in Venezuela for 17 years. It seems so little now that I have been here in the U.S. for almost half that much, but it was an important 17 years. I left Colombia when I was three years old and I hardly remember the 3 years I spent there. Venezuela has always been home. I grew up there. Ran, kissed my first boyfriend, danced my first dance, drank my first beer, went to college, and graduated high school. All that I did never feeling in any way that my country lacked anything! How silly I was. In 2008 Caracas (the capital) was declared murder capital of the world. I was never even robbed once in the 17 years I lived there!

Now more than ever I am enraged with its “President’. For his appropriation of every privately owned industry in the country, for his appropriation of the Hilton Hotels in Margarita Island, for everything he has ever done in the almost 11 years on power. Now he is talking about declaring war to Colombia who is Venezuela’s sister land. Simon Bolivar must be dust rolling on his grave!

God forbid that from happening.

Note: I dont appreciate the fact that I have practically turned this into a political blog. I don't like! I don't like it!

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.

MORE RELIGIOUS STUFF

I know I am probably going to step on a lot of toes writing this post but here I go.

My cousin, who is an even bigger flaming liberal than I am (and that’s saying something) has this blog war going on with another girl who shall remain nameless. Apparently the girl who is a devout Christian goes hunting and was excited about killing Bamby’s mom last week or so. My cousin is a devout liberal animal rights advocate; these two couldn’t be more incompatible if they tried!

As the blog war developed I couldn’t help but go visit this girl’s website. She is an innocent looking 21 year old newlywed whose entire blog is dedicated to her life as a servant of her Lord Jesus Christ and all that.

Honestly is like visiting a foreign country when I go to blogs like that because I have never really been exposed to extremely religious people until I came here because is too much effort to care and back at home the most stout Christian doesn’t give that much of a damn. I truly love to see these blogs because it uncovers a whole different world of people and costumes, beliefs and rules that I have never heard before.

This girl for example had a 6” rule. She was not allowed to be any closer to her boyfriend, then fiancé then husband, than 6 inches. Her own dad put her engagement ring on because her fiance wasn't allowed to touch her. Anything closer than 6 inches I guess was the road to perdition. In her own words “hand holding leads to hugging, hugging to kissing and kissing to fornication”.

That’s just a word I love, fornication. It has such an ugly connotation, so biblical, so strong, one of the few words left in that book that hold any strength. Adultery doesn’t mean shit anymore, neither does sodomy nor sodomite but fornication remains a word that still holds a little sinful tingle.

We Hispanics have a problem with rules, regulations and chains of command. We always want to see the president of the company, not a manager. We are used to rules standing there for only those who want to respect them and to be broken by those who are smarter and decide not to. Back at home is common for everyone to run the red lights after midnight, pay off the cops, drive without insurance, pay under the table to get your driver’s license even though you have never been behind the wheel of a car, we mooch off the cable of the neighbor, etc. I know that about us. We are laid back to the point of indifference when it comes to things like that because I guess we need to concentrate on bigger problems like money, rent, unemployment, crime rate, education, medicine, etc. Rules like those are easy to ignore when bigger things are going on which I believe also leaks into our religious life. It’s just too damn hard to be everything the bible expects one to be (although I never, in all my years in Catholic School, read anything about 6 inches of separation).

In my humble opinion life is sometimes hard enough to impose in ourselves rules that are completely unnecessary. I think my own principles, standards and simple logic would be enough to keep me from fornicating with every man I have ever dated. I never needed a 6 inch rule to keep me from dropping my panties and spreading my legs. So why this devout Christian feels the need to keep such a distance from the man that is to become her husband I will never understand. Does she think she is going to be struck by lust in a moment of weakness and fornicate his brains out one day at a church picnic?

Aren’t life’s challenges enough to keep life interesting? Why make it harder on yourself? Why miss all those kisses, hugs, cuddles, hand holdings and ass grabbing that makes the beginning of a relationship so damn sweet? Why curve the impulse of tonguing your boyfriend goodnight? Even if it is to push him away later because you need to save yourself.

It’s so damn hard to be good. In the immortal words of Albus Dumbledore (who makes more sense to me than the bible) “Difficult times are coming, times in which we must all choose between what is right and what is easy”. Almost everything that is right is also difficult. I have discovered that to be an unequivocal truth, right along with “everything that is delicious is either fattening or sinful”. So if being good and trying not to gossip is hard, if being good and trying to not be mean is hard, if being good and trying not to judge is hard, if being good and trying simpley to BE good is already hard, why make it any harder?

So I’ll continue to eat meat in Good Friday. I’ll continue to cuss, I’ll continue believing in woman’s inherent right to choose abortion, I will continue to believe in a man’s right to love a man and choose to share that love in whichever way makes them happy. I will continue to believe that whichever superior power is out there, it would want me to DO good, BE good and live my life to the fullest.

To quote another “blasphemous” book:

"I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are." — Philip Pullman (The Amber Spyglass)

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?

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Me: Huh?

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Them: Ketchup, you know tomato sauce.

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Me: Like Heinz? Yes…. Why?

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

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Me: ???

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

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

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Them: What about hot water?

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Me: Are you serious?

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

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Me: She was probably in a very small town.

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

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

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

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Me: Yes, we have cars.

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

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Me: Thank you. I learned watching “Friends”

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Them: Oh so they play it over there too!

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Me: It’s called cable.

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

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Me: Thanks, I think so.

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Them: So were you ever a drug mule?

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Me: Excuse me?

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Them: Well isn’t that what Colombians do?

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Me: Go read a book.

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Them: So where exactly is your country located?

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Me: In South America.

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

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Me: Kill me now

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REALITY TV IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH U.S

When I flip channels and see shows like “Toddlers and Tiaras”, “John and Kate plus 8”, “The Duggars and their 100 children whose names start on J” and stuff like that, I get the shivers. I do, I swear, every hair in my body stands on end and I get all goose-bumpy because the Catholic in me cannot help but remember what happened to Sodom and Gomorra after its corrupted society deteriorated to the point there was no soul worth saving and because I am logical enough to know that every civilization that has ever reached that point of decomposition has inevitably fallen apart (Rome, India, China).

Last week people spent hours watching “horror” unfold on TV as the boy with the balloon was searched for hours and everybody thought the worse when the balloon finally made it down and the child was not there. I don’t know what is worse, the media that turned the situation into a freaking circus, the people that watched mesmerized as if the possibility of a child plummeting to its death was fascinating, or people like me that have become so desensitized with media frenzy that we couldn’t give a fuck. Our give a damn is busted.

Now that the jig is up and we all know the family did that in the name of entertainment and in the hopes of getting a Reality TV show I cannot help but being disgusted at us for allowing shit like that to happen. These people didn’t give a flying fuck about the safety of their children, the breaking of the laws, the impact this manipulation could cause on impressionable kids that age all because “of their fascination with the limelight” as the lawyer put it. People will speculate about the kind of person that does that, but all I can think of is who the hell are we to judge them when we have allowed that to happen before! We celebrate stupidity, we celebrate lack of morals, we celebrate dishonesty, hair pulling, back stabbing, rudeness, bitchiness, arrogance, dysfunction, we celebrate everything that should be considered wrong and find it interesting and admirable. Fuck that, I don’t consider it interesting, I don’t fucking watch it. YOU DO (you know who you are).

And I do not appreciate the fact that this post is making me sound all sanctimonious and self-righteous, damn it! That is not the kind of person I am. But enough is enough! I don’t want to see another woman whose vagina has to be as wide as a subway tunnel because of her inability to wrap it up “because every child has been a blessing” (Come on!). I do not want to see Kate being a bitch to her child army because of John. I do not want to hear one more time about Wife Swapping, Bachelors, Bachelorettes, Nany 911, Toddlers and Tiaras, Shot of Love with Tila, Rock of Love Bus, Bad Girls Club, Flavor of Love, The Beauty and the Geek, Keeping up with the Kardashians, that Denise Richard show, and every one of those tacky, disgusting and low class shows out there that appeal to the lowest common denominator and make ignorant, self centered, greedy and power hungry people like the Hennes put their children and the family’s future at risk, breaking the law because of the possibility of a reality TV show.

Let’s rise above that people! Let’s watch some Animal Planet, Discover, A&E, History Channel. We can do it! Hell I’ll give up watching Dancing with the Stars, I will I promise. But let’s stop this nonsense. Let’s not watch one more Bachelor dump a Bachelorette on TV and pretend we actually believe is true. Let's not look anymore at OctoMom, Paris, Levi Johnston (prick has made me actually feel bad for Palin) and others who are famous for being famous! Let’s boycott shows like Laguna Beach and The Hills (Honestly who the hell watches that?) YOU people who watch that shit have made leeches like Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag crawl from under some muggy subterranean hell they should’ve never risen from! I will never forgive you for the fact that I actually know who these fucking people are even thought I have never watched that dumbass show. I’ll never forgive you, never, NEVER!

I swear if the Heene’s get a reality show after this, I am moving.

P.S: Okay, so I am in a bad mood today and I actually have no problems with the Duggars aside from the fact that they make money of the fact that they don't use contraceptives. Kudos to them for still having sex so long into their relationship, but really, is there a need to make a show of it? Is there?!

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.