I Like Girls Who Wear Abercrombie & Fitch...

Is your eight year old daughter a late bloomer? Does she come home sad from school because all the other girls in her class have a full rack and she is the only flat chested third grader in her class? Are her grades dropping from lack of self esteem? Is she depressed cause summertime is coming and she can't find the perfect bikini? Well your in luck!! Abercrombie & Fitch has upped their game and started mass producing padded bikini tops for your child at a small fee of $24.50!


A small price to pay for the long lasting encouragement your daughter will have in becoming a pregnant teen. Drop those books elementary school children. Who needs a lawyer, a doctor, a nurse, a CEO, a teacher, a professor, the president, world leaders, when we can have future sluts in training!

Whatever parent buys this for their child should be awarded and not shot. Who wouldn't want their daughter to put out the image of being an older woman, more developed than she really is or needs to be? Who wouldn't want their daughter building sand castles to the sweet sounds of waves and wolf whistles? And while you're at it, why not stop and by your baby some birth control pills and a gift certificate for a Brazilian wax cause that's where she's headed after she realizes all the attention she will be getting.

Are the executives at Abercrombie that desperate for sales that they have slumped to marketing adult women products to elementary school children? The economy can't be that bad.

Thinking of this reminds me of my own little padded bikini top story. I developed really early and I can't remember who bought me this bikini but either way the top was super padded and since I had my own little lemon bumps it made my chest way bigger than it really was and I remember feeling a tad ridiculous but more than that I felt grown up. Maybe any attention was good attention for me at the time. There was a pool at the high school nearby that we could go swim at, which we did every summer. It was the first time I would rock that bikini. I don't remember getting that much attention, I do remember feeling very self-conscious about how I looked. An elementary child worried about what she looked like in a navy blue padded bikini top. Soon I just forgot about trying to look older and just began to enjoy myself. I got out the pool to jump in and as I ran to my destination spot I slipped and I fell right on my face. It was then that it occurred to me that I had been wearing a very grown up swim suit. I was humiliated. No one appeared to notice but the bottom line is I felt even worse that I was trying to look grown up when I was still playing like a child. Grown up women don't run around a pool because they know the dangers a slip and fall can do to their image. Grown up women don't buy heavily padded bikini tops because they know how silly they will look and are usually content with what God has graciously graced them with.

You buy a child a padded bikini top she is going to think she is older and ultimately will try her hardest act older forgetting about being a child until she falls flat on her face.

How Lovely Is The Life I Lead.

It's hilarious that I have to work all day and then go home and work all night. I love sitting here at my desk and contemplating my next move, my next call, my next dodge, my next word and then stressing my brain out to oblivion with all the chaos that comes my way. I never anticipated a sit-down job to be so fantastic. It really is all I could ever want. Sitting here practicing posture techniques, typing with out looking, or what different ways I can organize my desk. I have mastered the technique of guessing who is coming by the sound of their pitter-patter on the linoleum floor. Nine times out of ten I always guess right. I can tell by the length of their steps and the heaviness of their feet or the squeek their shoes make or don't make or the way they come down the stairs or how the upstairs door slams when they close it. It's actually a talent I have honed over the years of working here and I am considering including that talent on my resume. I listen to complaining literally ALL DAY from a wide array of people. Co-workers, sales partners, customers, buyers, dock employees, my computer fan from being over worked... all underpaid.

Then I get to go home. I have about 45 minutes of alone time that use to be spent cooking and tiding up a bit before members of my congregational family arrive. But now I have realized that those 45 minutes are truly the only real moments alone I have at home so I spend them instead on Sorority Life like a real woman should. Of course in between the moments it takes for my computer to download I am in the kitchen prepping for the spectacular dinner I am imagining in my head. After I am done whooping virtual ass, buying all the hottest virtual clothes virtual money can buy, and of course virtually pampering my virtual boyfriend that is if one of my virtual sorority slutty sisters hasn't stolen him, I drag my feet to my lovely kitchen and begin the task of dinner. YAY!

Thankfully, I am the type of mother that does NOT care what my kids will or will not eat. I never indulge in their pickyness because once you let them get away with it they will do it time and time again. I never got to choose what I ate and they are granted the same privileges. While I am on this subject I absolutely can't stand mothers that proclaim what their child will and won't eat and they bring their own snacks to the party because of it. Unless your kid has tried it they don't know if they like it or not! So quit with the dumb shit! There are starving children all over the damn world! Shit there are starving children here in San Jose that don't get a choice in what they can eat or won't eat. My kids eat what I cook, if they don't like they don't eat and until they can buy their own groceries that's how it is. I always tell them when they don't like what I cook that they are NOT at a restaurant and if they were I would be the manager, the president, the boss with the sauce and I would kick them out with out a refund just for complaining.

After we eat dinner together as a family, they have the opportunity to watch a movie, read a book, play a game, clean their room, draw or color, take a bath, and leave me be. While they are occupied with their tasks at hand the hubby gracefully plops himself in front of the computer to work while I tend the kitchen and the dishes and the draperies and the laundry and the sweeping and then I do them again! All the mean while I am in a whirlpool of self-loathing cursing every sock, toy, dish, chair, jacket that is out of place ruining what should be ME TIME!

Then following the round-up of all things scattered, I calmly ask Mordecai and Rigby to brush their teeth and hop into bed. I use to let them watch movies but that shit just keeps them up later so lately I have been playing this CD called Sleep Sounds we got at a hotel once. They hate it, I love it cause they are asleep in about 20 minutes when it would normally take them hours to crash. I don't know why I ever thought watching a movie to go to sleep is a good idea for kids that aren't even trying to go to sleep in the first place. I put the CD on and I close the doors to the hallway and the kitchen giving them peace and tranquility while I ever so gracefully plop myself in front of the TV hoping to catch something good on Netflix.

Concurrently, the wonderful, amorous man I call Baby Daddy is still in oblivion working on his pictures and I mentally debate with my mental self about interrupting his work and letting him know that I am going to watch a movie if he would like to partake in such activities. One hundred percent of the time I am successful at pulling him away from his rigorous assignments. I then patiently wait and watch as he shows me what he has accomplished so far while waiting for a professional critique. I inwardly beam with pride, joy, accomplishment, happiness when I see the marvelous work he does but I can't show too much pride or excitement or overdo my compliments otherwise he will think me fake. Like any artist he appreciates constructive valid criticism not the "I-think-every-single-little-thing-you-do-is-absolutely-fantastic-even-if-you-hate-it" type of banter I guess I can sometimes give. Whatever. It's how I feel. It's the reason why I don't get upset when he sits there hours at a time while I am sweating to the tunes of a dirty house because I know that whatever he is working on is going to be brilliant and I don't want to be the one to hold him back or make him feel like he can't be great because his nagging ass wife. If he wasn't so adept, I wouldn't be as supportive but then again would I even realize he wasn't skilled cause I am his wife and love him to pieces and everything he does?

We snuggle up in bed, sometimes with an ice cold one, sometimes with a snack, sometimes just each other. And these are the moments I can't wait for. The moments when it's back to us. The moment's when I get to lay down next to the man that's played the lead role in all of my dreams including my nightmares. Ignoring my never ending back pain and just basking in the infinite love I feel for him and my children at this very moment when I finally get to do what I want and not what I HAVE to do. I say a little prayer to God asking him to please pretty please slow down the axis of the earth around the sun and let me have extra moments of this tranquility.

And then BAM my phone rings and it's my Grandmother giving me her ritual wake up call that I quickly devalue by going back to sleep as soon as I hang up. Sometimes she calls me back at 6:30, most times she doesn't but that's okay because the devil himself disguised as my husband's cell phone alarm will now continuously ring for the next hour every five minutes marking the pinnacle of another fateful day of waiting till I reach those last few hours that make the rest of my wonderful day all worth it. Indeed the life I lead is lovely, can't wait to do it again tomorrow.

Ciao.

(ps. I really do love my life.)

La Ramona

Admittedly, I'm ashamed it took cancer to bring me closer to her, to make me realize her value, to understand that she is the key to the past, the blueprint to my history and the reason I am here. Being appreciative of the wrinkles that cover her body resembling not only signs of old age but also signifying chiseled roads of a life filled with anguish, laughter, tears, loss, widowhood, betrayal, joys, anxiety, stress, depression, hunger, peace, acceptance, enjoyment, happiness, sadness, sickness and above all love.

Courageous and captivating is this woman. She speaks her mind and doesn't care what anyone thinks. She can still cook up a storm too when the chemo doesn't have her 'tumbao del caballo'. She rarely cries, but when she does you can't help but cry with her. She's independent, hard headed, stubborn, passive aggressive, and charming in every way. Her laugh is infectious, her smile heart-warming. You do for her she does for you. You don't do for her you can bet that she will STILL do for you. When she lost all her hair and finally moved back home she spent a lot of time showing everyone she could her bald head. As much as she would say, "I don care, eso crece pa' tra" I knew a part of her did care. Even still she looks mighty thuggish and stylish in her beanies now.

Every time she finishes a treatment, or I am going over for a visit, I always tell her, "Gramma, I'm bringing over some beer we are gonna celebrate!" She usually replies, "Nena, pero tu ta' loca!". For her birthday, I told her I was going to bring some over and instead of replying her normal answer this time she said, "Bring IT!"

Even if we weren't that close when I was little, she is the only grandparent I have, and as a woman I am doing my best to know all I can about her. All her struggles, all her fears, all her ambitions, what she liked as a child, what she ate as a child, what she dreamed of as a child, all her secret recipes for making the best sofrito in the world and the best arroz con gandules in the world. I really don't want to be that person with the "coulda-woulda-shoulda" blues.

Phrases like, "El que tenga tienda, que la tienda, o si no que la venda", "llevatelo, I have more!" "cometelo, yo ya comi" "sinverguenca" "mi caso en na" "ay caramba" are just a few that warm my heart when I picture her saying them. Her English is broken. Broken like her heart the day her husband died, broken like her soul the day she lost her father and when she lost her mother. Broken like her spirit when she realized that she would never again see her children under the same roof alive.

When I found her on the floor when she fell, my world came tumbling down. I felt that I had failed her. What was the point of me spending nights with her if I wasn't able to help her? To see her that way changed my life forever and what I call failing she calls saving. She says I saved her life that day, introduced me to her social worker at SSI as her "savior". But I'm no captain, I did the Lord's work that morning.

Our family is troubled and dysfunctional. If I had to rate our dysfunction from 1-10 I would say it falls right around 8.5. You name it, it's more than likely happened. Everyone has gone their separate ways now. I always ask her, "What did you do that your kids have all gone mad?" She laughs, shrugs her shoulders innocently and says, "I don no". She's grown accustomed to the tension that resides in our family. I know she felt that at least one good thing could come from her being sick, and that was the family unida.

We are especially chosen to have blood connections with certain people for a reason. It is not by chance that my Grandmother is my Grandmother. Had I not spent the night with her that night who knows what could have ended up happening. God knew that I felt it necessary to be by her side to protect her. I have a purpose in this family, I know that like I know that this chair will be patiently waiting for me tomorrow. I know that like I know that my sweet old Grandma is going to call me at 6 am sharp to wake me. I can feel that my task in this family is going to be huge and maybe even burdensome, God just hasn't revealed that task to me yet.

Dear Butterfly...

She finds comfort in her daughter's warm embrace. She finds peace when her baby places her tiny head on her inviting shoulder. She was a fool for thinking she knew love before this little treasure, while looking into her eyes she is lost in this passionate love. Understanding the definition of bond and accepting how far she will go to do what needs to be done. Protecting her love is her only aim.

Her beauty lies not only on the surface of her fair skin, but to the deepest parts of her amorous heart. A heart she uses to feel when her skin and instincts betray her. A heart she uses for crying when her eyes are weak and dried out. A heart she uses for contemplating when her mind and eyes were blind. A heart she uses for listening when her ears are functioning foolishly. The strength her heart employs when it's time to give, to love, to care, to adore, to console, to protect and nurture is rarely matched. Giving all these things deeply and faithfully expecting nothing in return only hoping that those around her would reciprocate her unequivocal love from time to time.

She's best friend material. She's good wife material. She's good mom material. She's maid of honor material. A confidant that's hard to find nowadays. She speaks the truth and you had better be ready to hear it. Rarely holding her tongue knowing the burden that comes with it being with held. Going the extra mile, the distance, knowing what it takes to make you feel special is her specialty. When she does it, it's irreplaceable.

To know her is to love her, to want to be around her, to respect her, to want to hear her smile and laugh. Her armor's grown more solid from the battles she had to face, but no matter how fierce or destructive that assault may seem, you can be sure she will be victorious.

Be proud Butterfly, not many have a heart as profound as yours, as skilled as yours, as youthful as yours, as bruised as yours, as earnest as yours.

Time is so precious, your purpose here is to fly... <3

The Root Of All Evil...

No it's not my mother or the tobacco industry or the roach coach or bubble guts or forgetful buyers here at RSF or Rocky Road Ice Cream or Facebook or yeast infections or my memory or drugs or menstrual periods, it's MONEY!

It's the reason you work and abandon your family for 8 hours a day sometimes more sometimes less. It's the reason you pick or not pick certain people as friends. It's the reason we invite certain people places or why we fight with significant loved ones. The reason you don't pick up the phone sometimes or the reason why you do. The reason you avoid people, stores, church, school, corners, and sometimes family. The reason why you dress a certain way, why your kids dress a certain way. It determines what kind of car you decide to drive and where you chose to get it serviced. Why you decide to take certain trips or shop in certain places.

It's the reason why you feel relieved after you have been stressing for days on end about rent, car payments, bills period. You pray every night that everyone stays healthy and that no one dies because hospital care is expensive and so are funerals. It can make you happy and it can make you miserable.

People like to lie sometimes and say that having money isn't everything and that it can't buy happiness. Sure it can't buy permanent happiness, but the following things are items money can buy that can make you happy; fake tits, nice clothes, sex, dancing, shoes, food, jewelry, friends, bottle service, limo rides, drugs, tattoos all of which bring great happiness.

People who have a lot of money rarely think of anything else besides trying to get more of it or scam people out of theirs. They don't think about the family down the street struggling or the hungry people downtown, or the kids dying at St. Jude's. Who knows maybe I wouldn't either.

Living pay check to last week's paycheck is no joke. Sitting at a desk all day where the people that surround you boast of good wine, fine dining, expensive schools, expensive vacations, upgrades, and making more money tends to over cast your situation and bring you down more than normal. You begin to imagine what you would do with just a portion of the money they held. I'm sure these things aren't done with malicious intent. They couldn't have a clue about how this month's rent was going to be late for the first time had God disguised as Uncle Sam not came through last minute.

When I have it I don't value it. I convince myself that I can spend it all today cause I will get paid again next week. I am a wreckless shopper and although I am frugal, I am frugal in a I-can-buy-more-because-it's-cheap kind of way. I can go to the dollar store simply because everything is a dollar and still somehow manage to spend 50 dollars. After all a sugar holder is imperative to any kitchen especially mine where we hardly eat sugar that way.

I try to scheme get rich quick ideas but some how forget the extent of my laziness. I pick small fights with the person closest to me out of frustration. I ignore people who call me who do have money and bitch about how they are so poor. I push things to the back of my brain as if they are going to disappear there....

And then Taxes come and I am relieved! I release anxiety through heavy sighing, mental cart wheels, and then in my mind I practically spend it all in it's entirety while landing dangerously at square one again. I promised myself that I will be more money responsible for myself, my family, and my children.

Amen

I Pity The Fool.

When I was younger and people were rude or disrespectful towards me I would simply take mental notes. Memorize those notes and use them for future attacks when they least expected it. I'd harbor my grudges like only a female can and patiently wait until that grudge is nice and ripe to squeeze it's evil succulent juice all over their would-be smitten faces.

I don't like to hurt people's feelings and as much as I wish the above statement were true 100% of the times that I was double crossed, it's not. I was indeed rarely double crossed and when I was, I would simply turn the other cheek. Things like stealing my clothes, which I know I deserved since I use to steal clothes myself, or spreading rumors about me, or talking about the way I looked, or the evil kids that use to take the bus with me to school and call me names cause of my luscious locks. I ignored a lot of these things and made them not matter in my world. I relied on higher forces to fight my battles even if at the time I didn't believe in that higher force.

Except I remember this one time in second grade when we had just moved in with my wonderful new step dad in his wonderful new apartment located in the marvelous hood of ______ and I was reconnected with an old bff I knew from my previous school before the last one. She was new to our class and no one would befriend her except me! My previous friend of had left to another school and so her timing was impeccable. We became as close as second grade little girls could get and before we could get any closer my mother transferred our schools again.

So you would imagine this chance encounter would bring great joy to my life. Reconnecting with an old friend who knew me when my mom and dad were still together, who knew me when my life was complete, should have been pleasant, right? Except there's those offset circumstances that sometimes occur when old friends 're-meet'. Circumstances like they might not remember you and in which case means that they were obviously more important to you than you were to them and no one wants to face that humiliation. Or what if they DO remember you but they are crazy now, like do drugs, lost all their kids, no job, no car and are just looking for someone new to reconnect with so they may wreak their own havoc on your life simply because of the ONE time you guys were friends back then?

Or what if they happen to be related to a group of Bebe's Kids that didn't like you? Which was my case. I never knew why her cousins didn't like me. They operated a small candy store out of their house where they sold gum for one penny and on occasion would give away free bread. So you know we was up in that piece almost every otha day! Maybe it was cause we were there all the time, or my name-brand clothes, or my light skin and nappy head, or my billy ray cyrus hair cut, whatever the reason was, they did not like me and were determined to sic their cousin, my only friend in the world at the time, on me.

Except they found my sister first. She so innocently was riding her bike and they thought she was me. The curse of looking like some one that is so damn sexy! My sister ran in the house crying because these little delinquents had mistaken her for me. I was pissed. As much as my sister and I were like oil and water at the time, no one was allowed to bully her except for me. I don't remember clearly if my mother had instructed me to not come back unless I kicked her ass or if that was something I had heard other people say about their own mother's and somehow incorporated that into my own memory, all I know is there was a lot of finger snapping and neck rolling when I went out there to confront the culprits which were long gone by the time I got there.

However, the following day on my way to purchase my penny gums, who was there patiently waiting my exit from their house? Yes, it was her with her army of degenerate cousins and me by myself. Why I chose to go alone that day I will never know. I guess a part of me is pretty tough. I just realized that right now. Anyway, there was a lot of back and forth and some more neck rolling and finger snapping until one of her inbred cousins finally pushed her into me.

I swear till this very day I won that fight. I remember her trying to hit my face with her knee to no avail. Besides, I had already had months of sparring with my older step-brother and sister so this little changa was nothing to me. I knew the chances of me seeing her there were great since it was her cousins house yet I still showed up, alone. When the fight was over, I remember walking away alone shouting that oh so popular word that completely defines a woman's character during her menstrual cycle. Never seen that beecha again. Never had another fist fight with someone of no blood relation again. All my other fist fight's were with family members and those don't count.

It's an experience I can knock off the bucket list. The point is, there is no point. You mess with a little girl recently inducted into the broken-home hall of fame your bound to face some reprecussions. Just kidding. I'm not that tough. Or am I?

Part 1

Always seeking attention, she angrily grabbed her bag assured this altercation would finally be the last. Assuming this asshole's passiveness was driven from his apathetic attitude


HER: 'You're fucken serious right now?'
HIM: 'I don't know what your talking about...'
HER: 'I'm sitting here practically on my knees and obviously in denial about the person I thought you were. Hoping that the part of you that cares shit about me would apologize for doing what you have done.'
HIM: 'You're really delusional if you think talking that way is gonna get an apology out of me.'
HER: 'Seriously, I could fucken slap you right now.'


Bothered by his begrudging ways, belittled from her begging, and broken in bits from bitter betrayal. She partly believed his bigotry had been cured. Bereaving this bond would be hard.


HIM: 'You know, that's your problem. You talk like an angry teenage boy.'
HER: 'Trust me considering what the fuck is going on right now, talking like a teenage boy is the LEAST of my damn problems.'
HIM: 'I don't know what stories you have built in your mind, but I can tell you right now NONE of them are true.'
HER: 'Really?? For REALS?? You're gonna insult me that way? Well why don't you and your infinite genius ass mind help my poor little second-class brain understand then??'
HIM: 'I can't, not right now. I haven't got the words yet and it's still too soon.'


She carefully contemplated all counter blows conscious that no amount of clever come backs could erase what's already been spoken. Consumed with emotion she was completely aware that cultivating any type of caring from this creep would prove pointless.


HER: 'So that's it? That's my spectacular answer? I have been wasting my fucken time with you! Why couldn't you be a damn man and come to me FIRST?!'
HIM: 'This wasn't a thought out elaborate plan that needed your approval. It just happened and I didn't mean to hurt you. Or anyone for that matter...'
HER: 'How conveniently fucken typical. You didn't mean to hurt me?? Too late for fucken that and really when I think about this shit ass relationship that's all you have ever done is hurt me...'
HIM: 'Well then why did you stay in it then?'
HER: 'You want a bullshit answer or the truth? Cause I can give you what you've been giving me all these years. BULLSHIT! I really can't even believe you have the nerve to talk to me that way.'


Down to the depths of her soul she knew deeply now that the demise was near. Dammit how did this happen? Deciding to diverge the disillusioned heart swelling in her chest, she deliberately dumped her demeanor and leveled with him.


HER: 'You know what, I'm not gonna do this with you anymore. I know this fucken cycle I know this damn routine. You do this shit all the time. You are so fucken predictable it's pathetic. I am at a turning point with you.'
HIM: 'I'm pathetic? You just confessed that you have no idea why you have stayed with me this long because all I have done is treat you like shit. At least I can say more than that about why I stayed in this relationship.
HER: 'Really? I wish I could fucken say I didn't care why or that I am not in the least bit interested to know why you did because I think you're just a lazy prick that was too coward and not man enough to face me and be honest....
HIM: 'I loved you.'
HER: 'LOVED?????'
HIM: 'LOOVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! Dammit!!'
HER: 'You disgust me...'

Complicated Maids.

You say you hate your life and have even tried to end it.

You say with out him you can't live, forgetting your breaths before him.

You drink yourself into a stupor convinced your numbing the pain.

You spend your nights crying wishing you had something to gain.

You wake up the next morning forsaken by last nights tears.

No time to feel the anguish, the crushing that you suffer cause you've tasted it before.

A road you wish were less traveled but your pride and anger stray you.

Assured the whole world hates you awaiting their chance to betray you.

Return your heart to inventory, it's damaged inside and out.

You been done dirty so many times no one ever stands a chance.

Blackened hearts by blackened souls rarely see the light.

Never seeing joy in little things shutting your eyes too tight.

Blinded by your jealousy and your deviant behavior.
No clean slate, no forgives or forgets, you forget about forgiving.

Enraged by your own faults, can't blame no one else yet you still find a way.

Somehow you must face that mirror girl, maybe later not today.

Sazonada to perfection, you been around the block.

Artificially protraying something not true.

Zigzagging those crazy streets, lowriding with skeezy men.

Oh if what you knew now was what you knew then.

Deep down inside you just want what we all want.

You just haven't found the way to get it.

First find God. The real one. Not the one envisioned in your head.

Next find yourself. The real you. Not the one you pretend to be instead.

Bathroom Encounters Of The 3rd Kind...

My family members tell me that when I was little I liked to hide while releasing excrement. Curtains and closets were my choice victims. Strangely enough some of my earliest childhood memories involve doing my duties. First memory was me running around in our living room in a diaper and I had to use the restroom and although I had a diaper on, like a lady I ran to the bathroom and shut the door. I looked at myself in the mirror and the chills began. I even remember someone barging in on me and me slamming the door on them.


My most fondest early toilet memory is of me lying on my Titi Sara's kitchen floor, her sweeping and me asking to be changed. I must have been asking like a brat because the next thing I knew my older cousin picked me up, took my diaper off and sat me on the toilet with the seat up and left me there. I vaguely remember her in my face muttering something about I need to start using the toilet and then storming off. Lazy bitch.

Then there was the time we moved to Puerto Rico I must have been 4 or so. I was on the plane and I had to go really bad so I went to the bathroom. I guess I was in there for a long time because when I walked out there was a line of people waiting to go and they applauded as I walked out. It was my first standing ovation hopefully not my last.

Point is I like to take my time. I need to be relaxed. I need to be alone. I need a book or a cell phone. I need air freshener. I need to know that no one is waiting for me to finish. I need to not hear my kids crying or fighting and the doorbell can not ring. But life being what it is, unpredictable and relentless, constantly defies my rules and in which case I plug my ears and close my eyes.

The bathroom situation at work is a horrendous one for a person with my needs. We have 2 stalls side by side. That's it. Anyone can walk in at any given time and disturb the flow of things. They don't know my fears and insecurities. At least at the movie theater's I can go to the far end stall and wait for everyone to leave so they don't see it's me. There have been times when I have let all the girls here know to not go in while I'm there and not just cause of the wonderful odor that I leave behind but also because of my 'special needs'. The only solace I have when nature calls another poor unfortunate soul to the throne at the same time as me is the small chance they don't know what shoes I am wearing and therefore can't identify the culprit. I can only hope. Other times I have lifted my feet up completely as if they hadn't noticed the only other stall door in that God forsaken bathroom was closed.

Everyone knows that in a company with 8 women and only 1 bathroom the chances of someone coming in the same time as you are highly likely. When these unfair circumstances arise, I automatically freeze all natural flows, pray to God nothing slips, hold my breath hoping they are holding theirs too while quietly wishing and missing the much less frightening times when I could crap in hiding.

Justifying Failures

As much as I try and not let past experiences get in my way now I always find myself excusing my present behaviors on 'not-being-taught-when-I-was-younger'. But how long can I really milk that for if I even still can now? How long can I really say, 'because-my-momma-never-taught-me' or 'because-my-dad-was-never-there' or 'I-grew-up-way-too-fast-for-hygiene-and-etiquette-to-make-my-top-list-must-do's'. The fact that I even realize this must mean that the time is NOW to stop using those excuses.

Question is, am I truly ready to let go of my crutches? To truly abandon every justification that has made me a slacker, a procrastinator, a dweller of all things traumatizing, a push it to the back of my mind kind of person till the fees have added up hasta el tope? Or the fact that I justify dropping out of school to begin with because I got pregnant and I wanted to focus on mother hood and my daughter not my future. Can I really blame that on my child? Will she grow up thinking that she held me back? Is that burden fair to place on her? Sure she is young now and doesn't realize it but she is smart and just as I question my own existence as a burden placed on my own mother have I doomed my child to the same fate? I kinda want to cry even writing that because it's the first time I have ever admitted it and I am not sure if I am completely ready to admit it.

Since I'm on this path of self-revelations, the truth is I dropped out of school cause I was lazy. It was hard for me to work two jobs, pay rent, gas, go to school full time, do homework, buy books, have a social life, wake up early Monday thru Monday, essentially had no help from no one at the time, look good and be pregnant. I was not made for those duties. Faults I blame on my past. There were other kids making it. Why couldn't I? Was it really my fault I wasn't taught to handle and manage all these things together, that I was forced to? Who's fault was it then that I wasn't taught to fight through life's harsh realities when it came to 'normal-day-to-day' struggles like work and school and responsibilities but without question knew I didn't need a man to raise kids or be happy? Without question, I knew a woman could do whatever she wanted how ever she wanted with whomever so long as it was making HER life happy? Why couldn't these things include school, or work, or brushes, or money, or lotion, or true love, or true family love?

I was in my walking class when a classmate told me how she had taken a year off to raise her child. It sounded like an excellent idea. She made it perfectly clear that it was imperative I return after that year off was taken and completed other wise everything would be screwed up. I was already failing my math class. I couldn't for the life of me get out of remedial math in the two years I had spent studying there. My English professor would not cut me any slack on making up homework even when I had explained to her that I was on Medi-Cal and could only take the prenatal appointments given to me which just so happen to fall on the hour of her class. Bitch. And in the year that I took my leave, SJSU decided to switch everything online. Yeah nothing crazy difficult, but it was just another obstacle I had no intention on overcoming.

I felt like the two years I completed there were sufficient enough and joining the sea of college-dropouts wasn't really that bad. The fact that I was even accepted into SJSU was an accomplishment for me. I probably didn't even have to attend one day of curriculum and I would still ride that boat till it sank. So basically I was looking for an excuse to drop out and fail. Motherhood was the perfect, most justifiable, sympathetic way to not have to go back. Besides what kind of mother would I be if I left my child everyday just to go to school? I was working full time by then and I would never see her if I did that.

I lay in bed every night thinking of what if, or I'm going to call the school tomorrow and get a copy of my transcripts and enroll again. Instead I wake up the next morning late and I forget about it all. Even if my Grandma, God bless her soul, calls me every morning at 6 and 630 am to wake me up. I linger in the past because I think I'm still trying to figure it out and understand it. I still want these excuses to be valid in my present day life because it helps me to put off till tomorrow what I know I so badly need to do today.

Looking in the mirror is hard to do knowing all this sometimes. Aside from all physical defaults, my eyes are relentless once they see past superficial insecurities and go straight to the ones that lie beneath the surface. The ones I can't escape nor deny. The ones that need to be faced and dealt with as soon as possible.

And what comes next when writing this reminds myself to call the school and get my transcripts right now that their phone lines are open and everything would be readily available and I still won't pick up the phone and do it?

International Woman's Day.

In most normal cases girls are taught from a young age to act like a lady, keep your legs crossed, don't play with boys, wipe front to back, don't burp out burp in, don't fart in public and try not to fart at all, don't eat too much candy or you will get fat, don't use fowl language, keep your private parts private, don't let just any one water your flower, don't pick your nose and always curtsy.

And if your real old school than never should a girl look a man directly in the eye, please only speak when spoken to. Five lashings for forgetting to dot your I's and cross your T's. Make sure to serve your man the biggest piece of chicken and serve him first, encouraged to marry a hardworking rich man with good genes from a good family, to sit up straight and if we disobey pray we don't get beat.

Oddly enough some girls are also taught to put on make-up to enhance what features God has given them as if God's blueprint was wrong. We wear clothes tighter cause it makes us look skinnier and in my case fatter. We stick our stomachs in when someone cute walks by. Fake laugh at stupid jokes, flick our hair in provocative ways, pretend to like stuff knowing deep down we could give two shits.

Cook, Clean, Cater, Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

We convince ourselves we don't need men when they fail us, or kids when we think we can't give birth. A part of us dies inside when the one thing God has put us here to do is unreachable and it's then that we realize how much we really did want children to begin with. We soothe ourselves with false lullabies when we feel inadequate. No matter how much we try and not conform to the mediocre stereo types put forth by the media and Old Navy in the end we buy the jeans and the perfume and the hair products and the make up and dresses. We all secretly want to be skinny and we just lie to ourselves when we say we are happy just the way we are. We are programmed that way since birth.

Most strive for perfection but instead sell themselves short with undeserving men, undeserving jobs, undeserving friends. Never ending to-do lists that max out their stress capacity and tolerance levels. We leave our full time jobs only to go home and punch in for our second full time job. We hold our breath desperately for the weekends even when nothing is planned.
We compete with each other instead of backing each other up and supporting each other, guiding each other.

In this whirlwind, we somehow forget what we are worth if we are even worth anything. All these tasks become so routine that we can't fathom not doing them on a daily and lose respect for women that don't care to do them secretly burning with envy that we ourselves don't possess that trait of not giving fuck.

Everything we are taught since birth is either put into play or out the damn window. I don't care who I fart in front of. I use to. I'll pick my nose when I think no one is looking and your damn straight I been busted. I only really play with one boy on a daily basis. I use fowl language, keep my privates private and I curtsy when I can.

Beautiful Disaster (Project)

Last night started off beautifully. For starters she hadn't cried from her recent traumatizing break up which was quite an achievement considering that was how she had been normally spending her weekends. She drank an ice cold beer while she dolled and primped herself for the nights adventure. It had been a while since she had gone out this way. Her relationship had consumed every moment of her life. She wanted to wear the jeans she always wore and be comfy but decided she was feeling frisky and opted for the sexy skirt instead. She slipped on her 'special occasion' illegal leopard heels while silently praying for her feet asking God to give them strength, longevity and endurance for the hours ahead. She was filled with an excitement she almost forgot that she was even capable of feeling.

Undoubtedly, she absolutely missed nights like these. Nights where she took her sweet time getting ready. When every strand of hair landed perfectly around her face. Nights when her eyebrows matched in length and arc. When her foundation or mascara was neither clumpy or blotchy simply blended to perfection. Nights when she could leave her house with out the heavy burden of sanitary napkins. When she didn't have to drive and when she knew she wouldn't have to pay much either.

Protection in her clutch, lip gloss poppin', I.D. ready, she steps outside to smoke a cigarette while waiting for her comrades. Calmly exhaling her first drag feeling the smooth toxins relax her excitement as she imagines all the things they could and would get into. Reassuring herself that this is exactly what she needed.

All the rest she remembers in fragments like a movie reel with scenes snipped out every so often and then taped back together with the part missing always remaining a mystery. She knew they had stopped at the local sushi spot for Saki Bombs, Dragon Rolls, and her favorite Miso Soup. She knew they had went to a bar where a sucker for pretty girls on a highway of mayhem way out of his league bought them all drinks. They shared a few laughs and as a reward for his drinks her friend drug him to the middle of the dance floor jiving around him while he danced with his arms in the air like a drowning child with up syndrome.

They hopped in a cab that reeked of spices and body odor. They teased the cabby and asked him sexy questions he was way too shy to answer, gave him a tip and told him Target had Axe on sale. They stammer into their destination and that's where the next scene is cut. She flashes in and out of familiar settings. People, liquor, fancy girls, fancy furniture, fancy boys, couch, music, laughter, jokes, kitchen, beer, shots, bathroom, conversations with strangers, debates with friends, shoving, back yard smoke breaks, red wine, boys fighting, girls dancing, picture frames breaking, neighbor's yelling, snooping through bedrooms, taking pictures, falling down, removing shoes, snooping through fridge and back yard kisses!! She KISSED her friend! UGGHHHH!!! Embarrassing... She vows to pretend she doesn't remember that one.

Sitting on her bed she tries her hardest not to cry or cringe with shame. Although no one is around, she finds it hard to breathe in the presence of her sober mind. She seeks her memory desperately asking frantic questions; Did she dance with him? Did she really drink that much? Had she confessed her deepest secret to her closest sidekick? Did she do her famous 'dance'? The one that she is deeply embarrassed of, the one her friends never stop her from doing? How did she get home? Why is she alone? Did she really wipe her butt with their towels? She searches more deeply and more intensely.

Why do these things happen to her? Why the fuck won't she learn her lesson? How many times had she been at this same exact point of low? Her hangover is so fierce she can hardly get a grip on reality. As she ventures to the furthest part of her memories from last night she reaches for her phone. The part she had been dreading. She turns it on. She fishes for any incriminating evidence. Please, please, please don't let their be a text to him. Please tell me I didn't drunk text him she begs herself subconsciously already knowing the answer. Having seen in her phone what her heart already knew, she cries and solemnly swears to never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever drink like that again.

Jay Oh Bee,

One morning, two weeks after I turned 15 my mother, having been 4 months pregnant at the time, in a hormonal rage screamed at me to be out of her house by the time she got home from work. of course me being the rebellious 15 year old that I was, did exactly that. I didn't have much at the time and I thank God that my future husband's family was kind enough to take me in. I really didn't know what to expect from that point on from anyone in my life. I know that no one came to my rescue, no one defended me or offered to take me in. I think at that point everyone felt that I was going to end up pregnant, a drug addict, loser, low-life scum. No one tried to reach out or take me in. Everyone probably figured I was my mother's problem. I refused to fall into the same-cycle a lot of my family member's did. I guess it's part of Puerto Rican culture to let a child 'make-their-bed-&-lie-in-it'. Instead of nurturing them, guiding them, being there for them unconditionally whether they follow your rules or not.

I knew my future mother-in-law wasn't too pleased about me staying there with her son. But being the Mother Theresa she was and still is, she couldn't let me live on the streets. For that, I will be forever grateful. Had they not taken me in, Lord knows where I would be now. What direction my life would have taken, what dumps I would have ended up in. I'm playing, it wouldn't have been that horrendous.

I knew from the beginning that I didn't want to be a burden on their family. I wanted to be invisible. I was shamed that my mother had thrown me out and I wanted them to know that I wasn't that bad of a kid so I looked for a job right away. The first place that hired me was Wilson's Leather in Valley Fair. I was very good at what I did there. I was top sales associate in the whole district during my first six months of employment. The managers I worked under didn't understand how I achieved this month after month. It was easy now that I think about it. I sold everyone on their lay-away program. Lay-away was something I knew very well. Customers loved the idea of having to only pay small portions monthly. Business was booming! I ignored the 'Jiminy Cricket' in my head each time I sold an item on lay-away knowing deep down this person was NOT going to fulfill the contract and pay in full by a certain date. I just sold with 100% confidence that I was going to make that extra money in commission. And that I did.

After the first 6 months I received $100 gift certificate for my achievements. I went to the Wilson's Leather at the Great Mall and bought an ugly blue leather jacket that I never wore. Also, all the lay-aways I had sold started coming back unpaid. I began to lose commission and I began to lose interest in that job. I worked there for a total of 9 months. I had little jobs since then but my big break came in 2001 when I seen a flyer at my high school's career center for Race Street Foods paying 10$ an hour. That was a lot for me. I got all dressed up in my Sunday best for that interview. Had I known that I had the job before I even walked in there I wouldn't have gotten so dressed up.

I worked weekdays, weekends, part time as a counter clerk. Learned a lot about myself in those times. Learned a lot about working in those times. I was the only girl working there because apparently smelling like fish wasn't very desirable for most 18 year old girls because they already smelled like fish! I had nothing to hide.

I climbed up pretty quick at Race Street. I was a fish cutter in 2 years, an Inside Sales Consultant in 3 years, and a slave to the entire restaurant industry since. A job that was suppose to only get me through college while I trained and prepared myself for a more rewarding, permanent and not so dead-endish career ended up being my less rewarding, more permanent stable, dead endish career.

No one could have prepared me for the anguish I suffer here everyday. Minus the complaining, the problems, the mistakes, the high prices, the 2 high maintenance reps, the back pain, the weight gain, the low-office morale, the parking, the rules, the politics, I have to admit that I kinda like my job. Sure it sucks at times, but having watched people around me lose their jobs, their health care, their sanity, I've realized that Race Street has been nothing but good to me. I know I can call in sick at any given moment and they will understand, I can come in late everyday and no one would say a word, I have free health care, I have 401K options, internet at work, I can use the phone anytime, the bathroom anytime, I can take breaks anytime if I wanted but I never do, I sometimes get free food from customers, I always get free offers that I rarely comp on, I work with girls that have become my family, owners that consider me family, and I know that it would take something pretty crazy to happen for them to fire me.

I must remember these things when I want to strangle someone here....