Something I have to do...

Since I would like to focus all of my energies into writing and having a successful future, I might take an extended blogging break. I seem to fall into these co-dependent patterns, like writing because people are reading, when I really would like to focus those energies into writing a book. However, not all is lost. If you would still like to keep up with my antics, you can always "facebook me." I think this decision will benefit me in the long run, so please be happy for me. See you on Facebook!

Ah cha cha cha...

Ok, so I know you have all experienced the song that stays in your head and never leaves. Right? Right? When I was a kid, I used to watch a lot more television than I do now. I knew all of the commercial jingles (I swear I should have worked for an advertising agency) but this one would really get to me. Crispy critters. First, who the fuck wants to buy a cereal called "Crispy Critters"? Nasty. Yes, I want to eat bugs. Indubitably. Second, why does he say, "Ah cha cha cha." I hate when he says it, but once he says it, it stays with you. You go to wash your hands. Ah cha cha cha. You are in an important meeting with colleagues:

Boss: So our fiscal year is about to close out.
You: (thinking) Ah cha cha cha.

You're at home, and you get a call from a friend. Her grandmother died. You ask, "Where is the wake?" Ah cha cha cha. GAH!!!! How can I be compassionate when I am thinking of a mythical creature promoting cereal? Evil bearasarus!! Shut up!!

What does it mean? Is it bearasaurus code? On the plus side, it taught me a new word when I was a child, which was "indubitably." And I still use that word today. Well, more accurately, I used it yesterday, thank you very much. So here it is:

Practically Perfect

Last night, when I got home, my mother found me in the kitchen and brought a folded sheet over to me.

"It's a fitted sheet," she said proudly.

I observed the perfect fold. There was no lumpy mess, like what usually happens with sheets. It looked that perfect way that it never looks once you take it out of the package. How do they do it, you wonder. Why can't I do it that way? Why can't my hair looks as it looks in the salon? Why do I look fatter in that dress at home? Damn you, you skilled charlatans!

"How did you figure it out? Did you look it up online?" I asked.

"Yep."

Washed up

It was a rainy Sunday, but like every Sunday, we headed off to mass. I was feeling a bit sad, I guess the weather and my recent breakup had me feeling this way. Also, there was a solemnity to mass. The music was a little sadder, the voices heavier, filled with the woe of the day.

I was very tired when we left. Sadness does that to you. My sister and mom wanted to stop at the supermarket, but I wanted to go home and nap. I was not in the mood to be around people, and I just wanted them to leave me alone for a little while.

"Where are you going?" I asked when I noticed she passed our street.
"What? We are only going to the supermarket to get a few things."
"I don't want to go. Let me out!"
My sister pulled over and I got out of the car angrily. Why don't they ever listen to me? I slammed the door and she pulled away. I turned to walk down the street when a wall of water washed over me. I actually gargled it. I couldn't even see the culprit, and the driver didn't stick around either.

I walked home angry and wet, and then thought of my impatience and felt remorse. I showered and changed and sat watching television.

My sister came home and asked, "Are you ok? I saw you..." By this time, I am embarassed but amused that she witnessed my shower. I guess I just needed a little cooling off.

Off the hook

The bar is noisier than usual because it's the start of Memorial Day weekend. Or is it? Has it been that long since I have gone out to a bar? We walk towards the back after our party is gathered. It's a small crowd. The only friend who's coming tonight, aside from my sisters and brother-in-law, is on her way.

This outing shouldn't be happening. I say this because I wasn't going to make a big deal about my graduation. I have a hard time drawing too much attention to myself, and although I usually like to be the center of attention, when it comes to these types of milestones I am uncharacteristically humble. However, my friend Nelly convinced me that this is a huge deal, and I should go out.

I get rather excited once Nelly tells me that I should invite the other girls, so I log in to Evite and craft a special invitation with my graduation photo in it. I ask a few of the girls and also add my sisters. I figure they can come by for a couple of hours at least. I know my mother won't mind watching my nieces because it's for my special day.

In the end, a couple of people respond. A couple don't look at the invite, and a couple say "maybe," which means no, especially when it's Friday already and people still haven't responded "yes" or "no." I am not too surprised at this point, especially because of the "Walk for Lupus" fiasco, so I don't make a big deal about the small party. Instead, I am happy for the people who can make it, and head to the table with that "attitude of gratitude."

I am talking with my sisters when I look over and see a familiar face. It's another friend, one whom I didn't ask, and only because she has a son and only usually comes out after 10 pm (after he's asleep). I had been thinking about her lately though, so I find it coincidental and serendipitous that she was there. It turns out she was supposed to meet a friend who was stuck at work, so I invited her over to my table and she hung out with us for the night.

There were a few men there, but like anytime I go out, I never know if they are about my age and most of the time I try not to be too concerned with their presence because I don't go out to pick up men. I like to go out with my friends to have fun, catch up, talk with a few strangers, and then go home. I enjoy socializing. I believe if I go out with the expectation that I have to meet someone, I am going to be pretty disappointed if it doesn't happen, so I think, "Let's just go out with the expectation of being with people you haven't seen in a while, and commit to having a good time." My sister and my friend, since they are both in committed relationships, are noticing and ogling all of the good-looking guys in the place. I like to notice cute men as well, but I think 1) if they wanted to talk to us they would, and 2) maybe they are just out to watch the game and not really interested in talking.

By 7:30-8:00, my sister and brother-in-law head out. I am ready to leave as well. I just don't feel like being out because I am pretty tired, and maybe a little dejected. I have gone to many functions for the people who I didn't show up, and so I felt embittered at the fact that they wouldn't share my special night, the one which I spent the last three and a half years dedicated to, if even for a couple of hours. I am not a person who needs to have people there all night long, and a little acknowledgment goes a long way. Nothing. No e-card. No passing through to say congratulations. To say I was feeling a bit hurt would be kind of accurate. But I didn't complain about it all night. It was just a little nugget in the back of my head, the $50 I chipped in for so-and-so's limo so many years ago on her birthday; the $150 I spent when we went to 40/40 in Manhattan; the $110 spent at the fancy steakhouse on the Upper East Side; $75 at Tito Puente's; $80 at Bluewater Grill. But no one could sit with me for a $5 happy hour drink at an Irish pub in my hometown. I don't get it, but I didn't sweat it.

My other sister and friend convince me to stay later. We sit at the bar this time and start talking about other topics. I kept telling my friend how great it was that she was celebrating with us, even though I didn't invite her. How dumb did I feel? Someone who wasn't even invited (but certainly welcome) due to an oversight on my part, actually hung out with us. Meanwhile, my friends who have such wonderfully fulfilling lives, yet have nothing to talk to you about when you ask them what's new, couldn't make it out. I struggled with this when I wrote my thesis, but I would love to email my advisor and ask him, "Is this the definition of irony?"

My sister has graduated from looking at guys to trying to figure out whether they are single (read: available for me). I am mortified, as I didn't ask her to do this. It's embarassing. First of all, I can flirt with men if I find them attractive or appealing. I know how to get and keep a man's attention, I can engage in conversation. Yet, I have a very keen sense of intuition, which I should have followed when I wanted to leave at 8:00 pm. I just felt that past that time, I was pushing my capacity for fun. You know when you just know this is as much fun as you're going to have, because the smallest thing that anyone does is going to throw the scales off balance? That's exactly how I felt. Like that one feather on one side would just topple everything over and it can never be balanced the same, because some dumb fuck insisted on putting the feather there, thinking it wouldn't make a difference because it's a feather, and how much could a feather weigh? Well, I am here to tell you, a feather has enough weight to fuck up your night.

The men at the bar were an odd mix. The closest in proximity were two men in white shirts. One was bald, while the other had a mixture of a long hair and a fade, his long hair braided in a long, thin ponytail. My sister and her friend were fascinated by this juxtaposition of long and short hair. They began talking to him because of a word which I used which was supposed to describe my feelings lately towards people in general. The word? Misanthrope.

Occasionally, a word enters my cerebral cortex and I will try to remember its meaning. I do love words as a writer, and I have been trying to increase my vocabulary since I began graduate school and in my first graduate class someone described a text as "aspostrophic." Apostrophic, as in it had an apostrophe? Oh, friends, today that still baffles me. I look it up and I say "what?" I can't even remember the context now even though I (kind of) know what the word means.

So the other day, "misanthrope" entered my mind. "What does that mean again?" I thought. And lo and behold, it captured the very emotion I was feeling. I was describing this to my sister and friend, when I realized, how can you try to describe a feeling to two people who have already had more than three drinks in your presence? Still, I pressed on. They asked why I didn't want to hang out longer tonight? Why were you ready to go home so early, they asked, and I foolishly tried to use a fancy (albeit totally appropriate) word that encompassed my attitude towards a situation.

I wrote it on a cocktail napkin and showed it to them. If I hadn't, Nelly would have continued to say, "misantelope," and since I wasn't bemoaning my state as a single deerlike animal. So they stare at it, just as perplexed as before, when I first said it. My sister asks the guy with the long hair, who called himself "chief," if he recognized the word. He said no. However, it was the gateway to the conversation, which then ensued with, "We're celebrating because my sister just got her Master's degree in English and she just said this word." So we learn his name is Chief because of his long hair I presume, which makes him resemble a Native American chief, I suppose? I ask him if the nickname is a fake name like I used to use when I went out so men I wasn't interested in wouldn't know my actual name (which is still something I am trying to figure out because why is a name so powerful?) and he explains that his name is Joe, but Chief kind of stuck because of his long hair. Clearly, I am starting to see signs that my sister and friend are just a little tipsy, because my sister keeps talking to him as if he is a prospect for me, and my friend is petting his braid. My sister asks him his sign, and he says Leo. He asks me who he should be hitting on and I tell him, since I am not interested, that Capricorns and Leos are not a good match. Well, they aren't. Since I was trying to find out their ages, because they could have easily been between 25-40 (they had faces which made it difficult to tell), I start throwing out numbers like I am at a Bingo game. Chief finally settles on 45, but since most conversation at a bar is bullshit, I take it with a grain of salt. Then I ask him how he and his little buddy, Pete, know each other. Pete tells us he's Cuban so I start calling him Cuban Pete in my head, and of course, the song Jim Carrey sings in The Mask starts to play in my head. So he tells me something about community service and I joke, "Oh, so you're in prison," and he replies, "No, that's how I got out of prison..." and then the conversation kind of gets lost in the noise and the next word I hear is "escape." Uhhh, what? Oh, thanks sister. The day of my graduation I can say I met my future husband who's out on parole or a fugitive. This will be a memorable night for sure. So I begin laughing because I believe he's laughing and I turn to his friend and ask how they know each other. So then Chief calls me "mean." He then goes on to say that I am "cute at first, but then I show my 'mean' side." Ok, really? I don't even know you. Correction, I don't even want to talk to you, and now I am being subjected to your insults? So I turn my back to him. Why does my sister want to talk to these guys anyway? They seem very shifty and quite frankly, I came out to celebrate my day, not to talk to men.

I am pretty convinced that my sister has had too many drinks because she insists on talking to this guy (read: being an apologist for me) and I am not sure why. We came back in to hang out, yet it seems like she came back in solely for herself. Because she's not single like me, she wanted a few more hours to hang out. So is this night not about me anymore? Is this really an excuse for other people to go out and have fun and not celebrate my hard work? If I really believed I would only have a good time when I was flirting or talking to men, I would go out alone. I wouldn't have invited other people out. Clearly, I don't need to go out to a bar to pick out men. My potential for a good time is not dependent on whether or not I meet someone.

However, my sister thinks that maybe I am one of those people who is like, "Don't throw me a surprise party, people. Seriously. I don't even want to celebrate my birthday. You're not throwing me a party, right? I don't like surprises...waaah...why didn't I have a party? No one loves me!" I really do mean what I say. It's demeaning that she thinks she has to introduce me or "hook me up" with someone. I know she thinks she's looking out for me, but really I find that it makes me looks desperate and pathetic. I mean, what am I, a monster?

So I mention to her that she's had enough. I mean, you're trying to hook me up with a candidate for "America's Most Wanted?" Yeah. Time to go home. Because she's older than me, she doesn't take kindly to my advice. She says, "You're embarassing me." Really? Because, I'm not embarassed. I love for my sister to try to play Cupid with perfect strangers and try to shill for her sister who's such a catch she needs to meet random men at a bar. Not to mention, a sister who just graduated with a Master's degree which relies on being good with words. That speaks volumes about me doesn't it (pun intended)?

I start to tell her very plainly these things, and then I just have about enough. I am now beginning to get that downturn at the corner of my lips, which will only lead to one thing. The atmosphere now seems less loud and more lonely, spare. It seems sad, and the sadness is starting to permeate my soul, and I will not cry in this bar. I walk outside, but I won't leave without them. I just need to get air and get away from everyone else. My friend called me and asked me where I was. I told her that I was outside and I was ready to leave. My sister and I gave each other awkward goodbyes and left. I was so angry that she was going in this state, but I didn't like the fact that she was trying to look out for these guys the whole time we were out. Shouldn't it be enough that I worked so hard for my degree and was now accomplishing something? Why was it that we are only recognized for what we don't have? Should we always be thinking about the missing piece to the puzzle? Can't we just see the picture just as clearly without that missing piece?

I have been struggling to acknowledge this accomplishment as something that I should be proud of, just as much as any other milestone, such as marriage or having a child. This is something I actually can do something about, and not hope and fail miserably at. All of the success or failure depends on me, unlike the other aforementioned milestones. I cannot control whether I meet Mr. Right, or whether we will have a good relationship, but I can control how well I do at school. And why isn't that good enough? Why does my single state perturb those around me? Do they really believe I am that unhappy alone? Is that the kind of vibe I give out? Because many days I am very happy to be single. If I had to think about the bigger picture, I wouldn't want to rule out being married forever. But who wants to see anything in those terms? I mean, I can go without pizza today, but would I want to go without it forever? The answer is a resounding "no."

However, I can't get caught up in the forever. Eventually, I will meet someone. Will he be the "One?" I don't know. Only God knows. I am too caught up in the fact that I need to leave myself open to love and trust once I do meet that someone. That's something that no one can "hook me up" with.

Not Seeing

I am not sure if this is a component of Puerto Rican culture, but my family loves to make fun and tease each other. It's definitely a sport in my family. You're talented if you can dish it out, and a saint if you can take it. At times, it's very funny. Other times, relentless and as my mother would say "insuportable."

Take for example the five plus years where my cousin called me "Vera," a character from the television show "Alice." To this day, I am not sure why. I know at 9 years old, I certainly didn't look like a 40 year old woman playing a waitress on a popular television show. However, that didn't stop his incessant mocking. I was skinny though, so I was called, "noodle," "string bean," "stick," and any other name for skinny you can imagine.

Skin is a major identifier in my family. Family members are called "rubio" ("light-skinned" or "blonde"), "negro" ("black"), and "colorado" ("red"). Why give someone a name when you can just call them by their skin color? The time I dated a guy who was part Haitian, my uncle called him "jabao" which translates lightly to "high-yellow." He was light-skinned and had coarse hair, yet I didn't see what they saw. They never did learn his name. He would remain Gerard the Jabao.

Then I dated the guy who wouldn't cut his hair until he became serious with a woman. He did finally wind up cutting his hair while he was with me, and to my chagrin, revealed his big ears. So now he was known as "Orejas" (ears). We have quite the wordsmiths in my family.

So I try to ignore the teasing because I know this is how my family shows their love. When orejas and I begin to have problems, we decide to break up. That doesn't stop me from bursting into tears every so often over this, my love, my first real relationship as an adult, one which I thought would end in marriage.

My mother's perspective. Well, it all has to do with the term for boyfriend in Spanish. Novio. If you break the word apart, it becomes a Spanish phrase, "no vio" which means you didn't see. So whenever I start to feel down, my mom would say, "But it's right there in the word. Novio. No vio. Love is blind, and also he wasn't good-looking."

It's too bad I couldn't see that.

Egg-cellent conversation

I am at work. Ring. I see the call ID is my home phone number.

Mom: Did you use my brown eggs?
Me: No. I have the eggs I bought at Costco. Seriously, I have about 64 eggs. Well maybe 20 by now.
Mom: How about when you made the cakes for the kids?
Me: I bought my own eggs.
Mom (sounding doubtful): Oh ok.

Even though I didn't take them, I kind of feel like I did now.