lo que es de nosotros...

estuve escuchando algo de george lopez. i had not heard his stand up, although i had heard people talking about it. it was hilarious! i know it's so stereotypical, but come on!: we all have that in our families, where when you're dying they have to bust out with the 'vicks'-cure. you could have a freaking ear-ache & somehow vicks is the cure-all. then there was the other joke about how we're do-it-yourselfers. we can't hire people to do our home projects; we always have someone who knows of a guy that can do it for cheaper. yeah, g.l. was funny!

i rememember when i first started learning about who we were, as Latinos, as mexicanos, as chicanos. things started making sense. When I lived in Mexico, I realized how different all these things were, how I became like a chameleon, adapting to the context & issues of the place I inhabited at the time. There were many differences between mexicanos & "pochas/os" like me. But still, this was me, I said to myself. This is where I came from. I was introduced to literature and arts, and other things that were "ours."

we're so heterogenous, but at least many of the mexican families i know can relate to george lopez. we have something in common.

un poema... para variar

surgió un problema

inesperado

lejos

o tal vez

cerca

contigo

será un dilema?

no pueda ser bendición:

 

de repente

los días

tormentas

de repente

las tardes

volcanes

de esperas

de repente

cuevas

horrendas

inciertas

de repente

santos

y rezos

velas

incienso

oraciones

de noche

de repente

peticiones

y mandas

que no me ahogue

la vida

que se calme

la inútil ausencia

que se esfumen

malditos

esos días

que para verte

se hacen tanto de rogar


--(xencha)

a bit of doom...and anger

Can't help feeling this doom when i hear that my baby bro was arrested, like a criminal for no reason at all, by some suburban cops on his way back from greeni's house. No reason for pulling him over, but of course, tickets emerged for various things, and then they handcuffed him and took him in for suspended license. and someone had to go spend 200 dol to bail him out. Fingerprints & mug shots taken. It's a new procedure, they said, although it feels strange. Que hijos de puta, comemierdas, y...mal fin tengan! Come on?! Spare me the bullshit. A few weeks ago, Dr. Vodka & I hovered over Mundo when some gangbangers beat the shit out of him, and he called the cops and no one came to his rescue! And now to hear another incident where these pricks continue in their uselessness by arresting innocent well-to-do citizens. You know, I hate to play the race card, but what else is it?! Someone explain that to me! They're trying to finish they're fucking quota, it's that time of the month?!

Anyways, we think we're free. I've had this discussion w/ A a couple of times over chat. He says: at least you have choices in your country (unlike Cuba). I say: check out our choices, A, why don't you come & see for yourself? Why don't you stop undermining our struggles in this country, why don't you give some validity to the fact that we have injustices that we are constantly living and fighting against. Then, the whole political discussion explodes: your government is evil, and so is mine. We have these authority figures who are power hungry and manipulative: they exist everywhere, in every country, on the local levels, with the cops and the pinche tienditas de cabrones despotas who overcharge the paisanos por productos mexicanos, and within our families...

this bad weather and little stories have a way of aggravating me.

tiene muchas sospechas de mi...

I think she is confused about me: she wants to think I'm a good girl because at my age, I've made it through school (for the most part), without getting pregnant (which also is PROOF that I have not had premarital sex!), and without embarrassing the family. At this point, though, that does not matter. Now other issues are more worrisome, like the fact that I am not exactly in line with the whole church thing.

--tienes tiempo de ir a los bailes y a las cantinas, pero no tienes tiempo de ir a misa?
--si voy a misa, pero yo prefiero rezar yo sola. ademas, dios esta en todas partes, no tengo porque ir a hacerlo frente a un padre.
--ay! (she performs the part of the vaquero getting shot in the heart in the duel), tu no sabes lo que estas diciendo!
--claro que no; pero no tengo porque ir con un padre a que interceda por mi; para eso yo le rezo a mi abuela y a los santos, y al mismo dios. ademas, el padre es una persona, un viejo como cualquier otro. yo no se porque uds andan de muy pinche serviciales con los padres. algunos hasta se empenhan en andarles oliendo el culo, como si fueran dioses.
--ay! mejor callate! se me hace que tu eres masona o sinarquista. esa es de la religion mas mala que hay...

y ahi se quedo esa conversacion. she is convinced that i am evil, that i hate the church, that i am of a different religion (not being Catholic means you are already in the wrong), that i am outright wrong. well, there are worse things than not believing in the church, like believing blindly in it.

but i do have to shut up next time, not because i agree with it, but because i have to respect the fact that for my family it has become more of tradition, it is part of our culture & background. and if i want to continue being on good terms with my family, i have to participate. not that that's a bad thing at all: nobody is forcing me to enjoy the parties that we throw for any number of reasons, like el bautismo de greeni... with a band and dancing, as we drink away, cussing into the wee hours of the night, como los demonios que somos!

ademas de trabajo, que hay de nuevo?

nada.

my job is becoming such a drag. it's not that there's not anything to do, it's that the stuff i'm doing is something i'm learning nothing from anymore at this point. it's not exciting anymore, and it's disorganized.

anyways, i have to make a decision: should i stick with it until i finish my dissertation work, since it is flexible. or should i look for something else? at this point, i feel like i'm just lingering around waiting, going in mindlessly & automatically to work. it's a job.

new times--30 approaches

i'm going back to cuba. for vacation. of course, there is also the added bonus of meeting a friend that i was not able to hang out with last time i went, because of time. i am NOT hoping to find love, (although I am so in love with the idea of going back there again); that's not the point. the point is... that i get to travel to cuba again, sooner than i thought because now i have this excuse and reason; that i get to meet new people and plant more memories there; that i get to go on an adventure b/c after all, this is the year of my 30th birthday, and i don't get any pleasure out of bungee jumping (i'm so afraid of heights) or sky-diving, or any other such life-threatening experiences (cuba is safer than that & so is the plane ride).

today at work, and all this week, people have been telling me that i look different.

--hey, you look nice! did you have to interview someone today? (we're conducting interviews w/ people for a research project)
--no, no interview.
--oh! who are you cheating on us with?

they seem to think that i'm dating someone. the reality is that i'm approaching that age: early mid-life-crisis-type of feeling with the 30s. and i don't want to get there and realize i'm still not taking care of myself, or i'm too sloppy or have too little time even for myself...

but anyways, back to cuba: the point is, i get to leave for a while, and then stay in mexico for another while, and "desentumir" my brain, (as one jerk once so lovingly suggested to me) of this routine, maddening situation of work and work and study and come home. i vowed not to fall into that trap, and this is my periodic attempt to break from that. there comes a time when i feel like i have to take action, to move, to do something different. it will be one more experience in my life, b/c you know, 'la vida pronto se acaba.' it's time to leave...again.

PASS

after what seemed months of agony studying for comprehensive exams, they were finally over at the end of february. what a grueling experience: handwriting for hours on some topics that are supposed to bring all your knowledge on a field together. somebody said, that can't be good for exposing your knowledge on a field.
last night i got the letter of the results. i didn't read what it said: i only referred to the grid that had a list of the exams I took and read, PASS, PASS, PASS. and i was very, very happy.

"regrésamelo todo, corazón...cuando sientas que existo"

Do you ever love a song that someone recommends you, simply because that person recommended it to you? Well, this is different. I genuinely love the song. Some years ago, when I was undergrad and had my own radio show, I boasted the only Spanish show in the entire Bloomington-Normal area. Although few students on the campus caught my show, many Latinos living in the area would tune in and call for requests. With my limited music collection (because of my broke-ass and my limited musical repertoire), I usually could never honor their requests:

--No tienes algo de Maná?
--No, no tengo...
--A ver, algo de rock?
--No... pero no te gustaría escuchar algo de Selena?
--?!...

And I would usually play whatever the Spanish radio stations in Chicago carried. Pretty limited. Then, Dini came into the picture. He shared his music collection of rock and pop. Then, I left to Merida for a year and I discovered "rock en espanhol." And ever since then, my music fancies have been ever-expanding. It's not just rock, it's jazz, and blues, and ska, and trova, which I fell in love with when I lived in Mexico City, and musica huasteca... and tons of other goodies that I had no clue about.

I've been listening to more trova: armando rosas, and the sexy, hypnotic lyrics of raul torres con su "Regresamelo Todo":("corazon, lo quiero de regreso: tus caricias de ada, tus labios de jasmin, tus orgasmos mas densos... y si lo tienes bien, si no es mucho pedir, regresa tu con ellos...")

I wish I had my radio show again... I would share many wonders and musical delicacies with my faithful listeners.