Non-Bimbo Pop Star Poetry

I don't know which category I fit into. I don't buy celebrity gossip magazines and I don't read them but I do skim through them while I'm waiting in line to pay for groceries and that sort of thing. Just to see what these crazy celebrities are up to. Do these magazines exist because us "regular" people need celebrities to validate our "normal" lives? Or is it because we constantly need proof that celebrities are not gods and that their lives are just and messed up as ours? I recently caught myself asking Bill if celebrities also get the back of their heels all bloody when they have to break in new shoes. There was a point when I started my snazzy new temp job where the back of my heels were just a mess because of my new fashion shoes. I know I'm not the only one this happens to. My friend Kristin who is so much more fashionable than I am always has the coolest shoes and is quite pretty and dramatic that she could be a celebrity herself just based on that. But her feet aren't exempt from the wrath of new fashion shoes. I don't need to validate MY life by comparing it to a celebrity ever again!!! And that's that! My favorite example of a stinky celebrity is Brittney Spears. I can't for the life of me figure out why she is so popular. I'm not an envious person. I don't envy models or girls with big boobs or girls who guys consider "hot". You know why? I haven't met a single soul who thinks they're perfect. Everyone seems to think their is something wrong with them. That's why I just roll my eyes when friends of mine look at other girls and think, "I hate her. She's gorgeous." Yeah, she probably does look gorgeous but she probably hates other girls for a totally different reason. Girls are like that. Thank goodness for our competitive nature huh?

So back to Brittney Spears. I don't understand why she is so popular or how she can even be considered a role model to anyone. I've seen some pictures of her looking just as ordinary as any of us. Take away her microphone, her lip-sinc-ing music, her fancy constumes, her face cake and her heavily coreographed dance moves and add a cigarette, ripped jeans, a stained t-shirt, flip flops and bad poetry and you have any girl that lives on my street. She's a good performer I guess. That's better than I can do. But she probably only speaks English and I can out-perform her in that department anytime. Bring it on Brittney!

And my other favorite famous-for-something-I-can-very-well-do-myself Paris Hilton. Yes, she is pretty and she is tall and she is thin. That's ALMOST more than I have going on, BUT at least my job title isn't socialite and I didn't become famous because my boyfriend sold me out by putting a sex video with me in it on the internet. Did you know that a socialite doesn't even have to go to college? That means that the chances of having a conversation about how utterly awesome the medina in Fez is, is completely out of the question. Plus, I think if a video of me sans clothing appeared on the internet I don't think I'd become famous at all. But after all. My last name isn't Hilton. Its Rodriguez. Just like 20 million others in the world. I did go to the same high school with the son of the person who owns Tupperware. How can you own Tupperware? But it's true. You really can. I went to a really snobby-rich-kid high school. That's how I know Mr. Tupper the Second. He was a socialite in his own way. But not attractive at all. Or tolerable. But that's just the impresssion I got from sitting in the same Chemistry class as him. Sorry Tupper.

See how everyone is better than someone in something? Doesn't that make your feel great? Some of the stuff your parents tell you when you're growing up IS true.

Being Thankful that We Can Stuff Our Faces

A turkey isn't the only thing you can stuff on Thanksgiving. People across the nation and probably around the world are thankfully stuffing their faces too. I haven't had a "complete" thanksgiving since senior year of high schoo. That was actually the last time I was able to be home for the holiday. This is the 3rd year in a row I've spent Thanksgiving with Bill's family and this year it was different! I had a meatless turkey roast with vegetarian gravy, instant mashed potatoes, creamy corn, white rolls slathered with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! and sangria. Lots of sangria. Yum. And for dessert I had Kahlua cake (the only exception I will make for consuming dark chocolate), squash pie, pumkin pie, cranberry bread and pumkin bread- all in one sitting. Great huh? It's the only day of the year where I'm THANKFULL that I have the option of stuffing my face because I know there are so many people that unfortunately will not have the opportunity to go to bed tonight with a stomach that is as full as mine. Any other day of the year, I'd be utterly disgusted with myself. I ate all 3 meals in one sitting. But I guess that's the way things are done around here. Next year I hope to host a thanksgiving dinner of some sort and serve RICE. I still haven't figured out why rice isn't included in the meal. It could definately replace that red lumpy jiggley stuff that stared at me all throughout the dinner. Who's idea was that?

During my last year in Madrid all of us got together and had a thanksgiving dinner. I participated by volunteering to cook the turkey because apparently it's not commonplace to MARINATE the turkey so that it has some flavor and it's not all dry when you serve it. Plus the marinade is also really good with RICE! So being vegetarian, I volunteered to cook the turkey and I also made rice. I don't remember how the turkey came out but I do remember that no one even touched the rice. My feelings were slightly hurt that day. I was actually in a pissy mood that day because everyone was so caught up in re-creating the traditional thanksgiving meal that everyone has with their own families. That's what I wanted to do too. I just figured since we were such a diverse group of people that maybe our thanksgiving would be diverse too. Nope. Had to be traditional down to the stuffing- except for that the turkey was cooked by a vegetarian. (These days I won't even go NEAR a giant dead bird swimming in its own blood). Anyhow, I was in a pissy mood because all of my ideas for dishes were shot down because they weren't TRADITIONAL (the last time I was home for thanksgiving there was mexican food, pasta, rice and beans and turkey). This year, I brought 2 liters of Sangria and everyone loved it.

Tradition doesn't always have to be the same thing all the time to be traditional, now does it?

Happy Thanksgiving.

Mice to Neet You = Nice to Meet You

Do you ever feel like not meeting new people? I do sometimes, only because I always have to get into my wholef life biography within the first 5 minutes of meeting someone. Sometimes its fine because it keeps the conversation going and it goes off on tangents and comes back again. And then it ends with something like, "Great. Well it was mice to neet you...David.". Mice to Neet You?! The simple question, "So where are you from?" is supposed to be just that a simle question with a simple answer that starts out something like this:

Stranger 1: "So where ya from?" (Because no one says where ARE you from, its usually sowhereyafrom...)
Stranger 2: "From (insert the same of some obscure town near a big city). It's near (some big city)".
Stranger 1: "Oh cool. My cousin's friend lives there. I hear its a prett cool city."
Stranger 2: "Yeah, there's some cool bars and stuff."

That's what I hear all the time. That question used to be simple for me. My strategy is that I was always from the country I was living in. If I was visiting Disney World and I met someone there I'd say I'm from Costa Rica because that's where my bedroom was and my clothes were and that's where my high school was. But this strategy failed me when my parents moved to Colombia while I was away at college in Spain and I didn't have a room in the room house they moved into. Then when I moved to Boston I was suddenly not from anywhere at all. I wasn't from Costa Rica because my family didn't live there anymore and my room ceased to exist. I wasn't from Spain because not just ANYONE could be from Spain, plus I had no relatives there and no house. My life was packed away neatly into two suitcases. When I first moved to Boston and I moved into my dorms people would ask me where I was from and I wouldn't know what to say. I hadn't planned on this happening. I was suddenly not from anywhere. I was born in Florida but that had been 20 years ago and my stint in Miami hardly qualified me as being a Floridian because I didn't even want to be there, let alone be from there.

The answer I settled with was that I'm from alot of places. But somehow that do me any justice whatsoever. I'm Latina but not from any specific country. I'm Cuban, but I've never been to Cuba. I'm American but only by citizenship. I don't feel American, I don't feel Cuban and most of the time I don't feel Latina because I don't feel like the rest of them. I didn't grow up in a typical latino household. That's probably it. I don't think I could ever BE from somewhere. I think I missed the window. I'm not a typical anything or anyone. I'm not even a typical non-typical person.

Can you even be a typical non-typical person?

I Used to be a Strange Here Too

I just finished reading this book by Bill Bryson called In a Sunburned Country. It was about the author's travels in Australia. He has a pretty good sense of humor and manages to find the funny aspects in even the most mundane of activities and places. He made me want to go to Australia like tomorrow. It seems like I know Australia just a little bit better- because before I read the book I knew virtually nothing. Ha. There's this other book he has that I want to read next called I'm a Stranger Here Myself. Its basically about coming back to the states after being away for 20 years. He moved to England when he was around the same age as I will be when I move to Australia. He came back to the states with an English wife as a middle aged man and settles in New England. New Hampshire maybe. Some quaint New England town. I read a page here and there when I went to Borders and he talks about about how upon his return he discovered that there was such a thing as microwavable pancakes and 24-hour hotlines for questions, comment and complaints about floss.

I would have loved to have read that book before moving to New England- Boston as a matter of fact. I wish someone had told me that Northeastern really ISN'T a good school and that college students here define "rolling out of bed and coming to class". I wish I had known that words were going to be getting shorter as the weeks went by. Without even realizing it Psychology had become Psych, Political Science had become Poli-Sci and Irish Literature had become Lit. Even ethnic labels had changed. Orientals are Asians, Blacks are African-Americans and Hispanics are Latinos. There are words like pocket book and bubbler and r's are constantly being added where they have never existed and they are ignored where they have always been. "Leaf peeping" is something you do in the fall when all of the trees are on the verge of death. You have to tip people for doing what they should have been doing in the first place. Taxi driver charge a fare that's calculated by a meter and then you're expected to tip them for taking you where you asked them? Isn't that what they're SUPPOSED to do? You have to tip bartenders for removing the bottle cap from your beer and for taking the time to serve you a weak drinks?

These past two years I've spent in Boston have been my first two years living in America since THIRD GRADE. I lived in Miami for 2 years, but that doesn't count because it's one of the few places where you can do everything and not speak a word of English. You can even open a business and not speak english there. So no, Miami is not considered the "real" America. I can't say I've had the same comical outlook as Mr. Bill Bryson had upon his return (because I haven't, I really haven't), but I can look back and laugh about how horribly I handled moving back to America.

I can't say I've had a WICKED good time, is all I can say. (wicked?)

I Heart Productive Days

Bill and I had a really productive day yesterday. I finally got a chance to get all those dust bunnies out from under the bed, along with pens, random pills of bill's allegry medicine, socks and bobby pins. The area under your bed can really be like the Bermuda Triangle. There's a corner in my kitchen I've named the Bermuda Triangle because its the dirtiest, grossest and tightest corner in the whole kitchen. Everytime I'm cooking or cutting vegetables or just hanging out in the general vicinity with any type of food, anything that falls onto the floor rolls into that corner like there's some sort of invisible force pulling it over there. On a very bad day you can find, remains of sour cream, julienned carrots, zuchinni cirles and kashi puffs. That's all gone now. Sounds gross but its not as bad as it sounds.

When I lived at home doing chores wasn't such a big deal. I'd just do it and it'd be done. There were some chores I didn't like but I'd do them anyway because my step-mom told me to. I think lots of Latino parents are either obsessively obsessed with cleanliness or obsessively obsessed with not knowing what the word means. My parents fall in the former category. I hated cleaning walls that everyone else dirtied by dragging their hands across when they walked by. Its strange. Just like the footprint I found in the refridgertor last weekend. Cleaning was so easy at home because it was a group effort. Everyone put in their 2 cents and thing got done. Here, sharing the place with three other people things stay clean for about half a day. The dishwasher is always full of clean or dirty dishes and the sink many times gets full of dirty dishes when the dishwasher is full of clean dishes. There are always dust bunnies under my bed, there is always toothpaste in the bathroom sink, the fuzzy mat on the floor in front of the toilet is always dusty and the dirty clothes bin always has dirty clothes in it.

Why is cleaning so difficult now that I'm away from home? I can't even manage to put my clothes away after wearing them. At home not one day went by where everything wasn't in its place. Every saturday I would clean my room and my bathroom. Everything was always spotless. Sundays I would clean the other side of our house, the side only "visitors" were allowed to go into. It was the side with the really good furniture and really big TV. Our houses get considerably bigger each time we move. The place my parents live in in Colombia is a palace. I'm not lying. It has 3 floors a view of the whole city. I got lost the first time I went home. I don't do chores there anymore. They have 2 house keepers, so I only make my bed and make sure my dishes get put in the sink.

The wonders of Soy Milk

I went to Montreal this weekend to visit some friends from Madrid who study at Concordia. The friends that made the right choice and did not venture back to America. (What was I thinking?) The highlight of the trip was Saturday morning's brunch and a party our friend Svetla kind of threw in our honor (that's what she told everyone). So we had brunch at this wonderful little restaurant called Chez Cora. They had the most interesting breakfast foods. I chose something called Bobby's Button Breakfast, or somthing like that made with a Theo style omlette. It gets even more intersting. My omlette was made with egg whites only and it was inside a crepe. Lots of wonderful vegetalbes with chedder cheese hiding inside a crepe. What a great idea. Crepes and eggs. The span of time inbetween Chez Cora and the party was uneventful and brutally cold. I dont think it could have gotten any colder that day. But we went walking around the old port with our friend Victor who lives there and then got icecream after we warmed up. We went to this ice cream shop where you could taste as many flavours as you wanted witout commiting to anything. You could just leave after trying all the flavours and say, "I think i've changed my mind. I can't seem to find a flavor that I like". That's because you've already tasted 25 flavors of ice cream and can't deal with your brainfreeze. So after icecream we go to pick up party materials-namely vodka. White russians sounded really good to me, so I figured that soy milk would be good because i hear mixing milk and vodka is not the best of ideas. It was actually really good. I almost felt like i was doing my body a healthy favor by consuming these delicious cocktails. Imagine that? A healthy cocktail that contains vodka. That's exactly what it was- a vegetarian specialty.

vodka plus kalua plus bailys plus soy milk = wholesome and healthy

I had two drinks and by the time i made it back to the kitchen there was not a drop of alcohol left to be found. It was only one third into the party and all the drinking items had run out. I heard that the canadian party scene involves wine. I did notice quite a few unopend wine bottles and many empy vodka, rum, etc bottles clean as a whistle. You bring crappy stuff that you yourself don't care to drink and down the good stuff. The best part is when the hostess started collecting money to buy alcohol after hours from some guy (i think liquor stores clost at 11). So Bill and I donate $20, i think the hostess put in around $100. I didn't even see a drop of vodka for the rest of the party. But we were dutifully handed an half empty bottle of rum that was "ours". I don't like rum. And there wasn't any Coke. So the party pretty much ended around that time. My share of vodka was drunk by someone I dont even know and everyone else could only chip is $2-$4. What's that?

My first party with Canadians=cheap wine and cheap guests and vodka hoggers

Has Sex in the City Taken the Cosmo with it?

A few weeks ago I read some article in some night life magazine for boston about what's "in" and what's "out". Who gets to decide what in and what's out? Who ever it is shouldn't be allowed to. Or at least they should rotate the opinion makers. Who decided to romantize the life a trucker? Trucker hats? Por-favor! The "magazine" listed Cosmopolitans and anything Burberry as things that were "out". Surprisingly enough, belt with giant personalized buckles that say witty things like "Sex Sitten" and "Hot Babe" are "in". I hated the sight of that plaid print that was plastered on everyhing from umbrellas to backpacks to linnings of expensive coats. FYI: That style has been out in Europe for like the past two years. Apparenly, Burberry also makes a chic carrying case for the iPod that costs like $200. For that you can almost buy yourself an iPod. So back to the Cosmopolitans, according to this magazine their "in-ness" endend with the last episode of Sex in the City. This might be because I haven't seen most of Sex in the City (but enough to know that its super), but I recently discovered them. And I think they're great!

My big question is who trains american bartenders? And what do they teach in bartending school? I think most of it has to do with cheating customers out of their money. Do you know how many $7 martninis it takes to equal 1 5€ vodka con naranja? Two to four. The glasses are so tiny and the drinks so weak. Let's not even start how restaurants and clubs don't even fall in this category because these establishments aren't aware of how much these same drinks cost anywhere else in the city cost.

$6 for a shot? Come on. Where's my vodka con naranja?!

Half Sane = Not Fully Insane

It turns out the place I've been working at for the past month and a half since I graduated wants me to stay for a "couple of weeks". I'm in one of those postions where just thinking about going to that job puts me right to sleep its so boring BUT I'm getting paid all this money to do boring things that people with Master's degrees can't be bothered to do. I have a degree! On the scale of valuable degrees, I think my art degree is almost at the boston. Yeah, I'm an artist, but artists don't have a place in a human resources office so I guess my temp agency did the best they could. Having a degree these days just doesnt mean as much. People always seem interested when I tell them I have a major in Art. I wonder if they think I'm starving. I'm not. I don't make a living from my art work that is sitting in my kitchen. I make it by filing everyone's crap in human resources. Filing is just my side job. I do that job 8.5 hours a day and then when I can I do my art stuff. Its all about time management. I also do crossword puzzles to keep my mind thinking and well. I started reading the biography of Andy Warhol. Man did he have some serious issues. His childhood pretty much sucked. I can't wait to find out more! There is such a fine line between sanity and creativity. Only a sheet of tissue paper seperates it. You can be existing right on the paper, half on each side.

As long as you are half sane, you could never be fully insane.

Life Expectations from Before you Arrive

When I was in 3rd grade, there was this girl would babysit me. She was in highschool and I thought she was so cool. I couldn't wait until I got to high school. When I was in 5th grade there was this girl I knew who was in 6th grade and I thought she was so mature and grown up because she had classes in another building- the building for 6th graders. A girl names Dorothy who also happend to be my friend was just one year ahead of me. I was a freshmen and she was a sophomore. For some reason I thought I was missing out on something. Like I wasn't part of the club. When I got to 10th grade, it seemd as if my friend Dorothy had taken they mystery with her because I couldn't see what was so cool about being a sophomore. My ex was a freshmen in college when I was a junior in high school. He once cut our conversation short because he said I just wouldn't understand. How I wish I could just go back in time, just this once, to smack him across the face and push him off the couch. Everyone knows colllege freshmen are the biggest, immature dorks on the face of the planet! The maturity level is not much higher in college than senior year of high school. At least at my highschool.

I thought that when I got a "real" job, the money I made would somehow feel like it was worth so much more. When I worked at IMAX in high school, every dollar was hard-earned. At my paper-filing job, it feels like I do alot of nothing and they pay me so much money. I thought you didn't get anything for nothing in this world. I want to earn the money they are going to pay me someday, so I'm going back to school. I can't wait.

Falling Back in October

Today was the first day of "daylight savings". I remember in school a teacher taught us a way to remember which way the clocks would change. "Fall back, spring foward." That's what she had said. And I still use it to this day. When I lived in Panama it was a no-daylight-savings zone. We were exempt from falling back or springing forward no matter what the rest of the world was doing. And why is it called daylight saving? What exactly am I saving? Time? Time for what? Each day I'm given 24 hours to spend. I wasn't aware of the fact that we even had an option of doing anything else but spend time. You can spend time with friends, waste someone elses time by showing up late to an appointment and you can also do things to pass time. You can do all sorts of things with time. Even if taking a short may "save" you time, you still have no choice but to spend that time doing some other task like spending more time at the place you took the short cut to.

Someone else once told me that the quickest way to get from point A to point B is via a straight line. My first day of public school in Miami sophomore year I would go home for lunch. My trip home consisted of taking various streets I was familiar with, it wasn't the shortest route. It wasn't a straight line. It would take me 15 minutes to walk home, I would have 10 minutes to eat and be sad and wishing I didn't have to return to that horrible place they called a school and then it would be 15 minutes to walk back to school. I would spend 30 minutes commuting back and forth from school. I was eventually informed about a short cut that would "save" me time when I told them my route. They laughed at me and said, "The quickest route between point A and B is a straight line."

Very true.