Celebrate (?)

Do you celebrate things? Occasions? Yourself?

I tend to not.

Today is my 24th birthday. Tomorrow is my graduate school graduation ceremony.

What have I been doing? Working & weeping.

I am not a birthday person. At all. They depress me though not because of the aging factor. And the fact that every single one of these 24 years, it has literally rained on my date (and whenever I choose to throw a party) doesn't help the cause.

I should be upbeat. I'm young, educated, and slightly successful.

But all day I have fought off a torrential downpour of tears. On the train, with clients, surrounded by coworkers. They just creep up on me again and again. And not just any tears. The tears you need to hold back because they hold so much ridiculous emotion with each tiny droplet. The ones that'l give you a migraine at the end of the bout from their intensity.

And here I am, rounding out the last few hours of my date, still glum as hell. Sometimes I tell myself I'll try to be better about it next year. Not let myself get so depressed. But it happens, year after year.

Here's to the day after my birthday.

2 years 2 many

As I've mentioned, recent weeks have been hectic. But from them came Jon's 24th birthday and our two-year anniversary. (Did you know 2 years stands for cotton or china? Or something like that)

So. For the sake of my lovely boo, I am here to commemorate these past couple of years. And cheers to many more. Instead of flowery words I just wanted to share some smiley pics. We are a pair for words with few flicks to parade our silliness.

Here's to loving to live and living to love.

No drizzle ma nizzle

TC corner, March 2011

NYC has a pathetic excuse for rain. In all honesty, if I was a cloud responsible for this territory I would feel lame about my raining abilities.

Because it really isn't rain, non-technically speaking. It is an annoying drizzle that lasts all day without pause. It's not the kind of rain that makes you want to go out and frolic in your bathing suit on a hot summer day but the kind that leaves your clothes muddy once the bus plows by with it's 4' sewer wave  in it's wake. It feels as if the residue from someone else's sneeze is loitering your radial being. It doesn't rain hard enough to actually open up the umbrella (which even if you did you'd still end up wet thanks to the wind's temperamental wheezing) but enough that your coat will develop a light layer of wetness and your skin becomes moist. The subways are a slippery, condensated mess. The sky stays a foggy shade of clouded gray, though one can't actually make out any clouds.

Miami on the other hand has my kind of rain. The term torrential downpour is more accurate. You can smell the rain before it even hits. The sun will be shining brightly in the front yard and all of a sudden the backyard becomes a swampy marsh within minutes. And then it's over. The clouds swim over and garden the next block. The rainbow shines brightly overhead.

Soggy masses- 2 train, March 2011

Sunnyside and the livin' ain't easy

Sitting in a waiting room overflowing with older Latinos takes me back to Miami. For two and a half hours, I was spouted back to my hometown on a brief mental holiday wondering why I have such a love-hate relationship with my Latin-fused roots.

This doctor's waiting room wasn't like the typical American office. As a matter of fact, it was a replica of the many offices I've waited in back home. The usual sense of quiet nerves was replaced with high-wattage conversations between relative strangers who became fast friends drinking cortaditos y pastelitos juntos in between meals.

That's what Latinos do: they talk a lot very loudly with anyone around them. The small cramped waiting room was the adulterated version of a high school cafeteria full of exuberant cries of laughter and frustration-- not to mention avid discussions of Lady Gaga and the latest Cristina drama. Silence is an unknown concept as is the preference to be alone.

My mother is like this. She will talk to anyone anywhere anytime. A trait that has mostly annoyed me out of sheer embarrassment. Now it just makes me laugh on a good day. But it's not just my mom- it's almost every Latino I've ever met or heard about. I'm the exact opposite. Reserved, quiet to downplay my mother's loudness, and selective with who I decide to share secrets with. An unmistakeable reflection of my own Americanness despite my bicultural identification. In my textbooks we (Latinos) are described as being passionate. An adjective I enthusiastically subscribe to when defining myself.

But this loudness, the constant chatter that creates the humming sound of a shopping mall food court gets to me. It vibrates my synapses and rattles my brain because sometimes I just need some quiet time in my head. Something NYC gives me too much of apparently. These extremes- white noise and constant rumblings make me crankily crabby. On vacations, it's nice to delve right into the loudness of tropical Miami or the eerie silence of too-many-thinkers in overpopulated Manhattan. But living in either one of these polarities daily makes my neurons cha-cha right out of my ear drums into a panicked suicide jump towards the ground.

Which is why I live in Sunnyside (Queens). A brief seven minute train ride gets me out of the roarings from my multicultural neighbors into the silence of the masses. Just like I do with my different names or rather alter-egos, I alternate between my conflicted surroundings.

Sunnyside, Queens January 2011

optimal oasis

South Beach, Summer 2006

I'm a nature-oriented person. I may not hike mountains or go "real" camping. But I photosynthesize off greenery, thrive off of fresh air.

It's snowing outside. My body jumped awake when I sleepily opened one eye at 4:30 and noticed the white sheet covering the sky leaving a pinkish glow. I'm excited. For a minute I thought there wouldn't be any more snowfall this season. Especially in the city, snow helps remind me that it is a sentient culture, that we're not simply living in a robotic consumer-driven snow globe.

I need nature. To ogle, to feel breathing on my skin, to remember to be alive.

Three Mile Island, Harrisburg PA, 2008

PA Back roads, any-burg, PA, 2008

Miami Sunsets, 2005

Snow Stars,  Camp Hill, PA, 2007

"optimal oasis"

photosynthesis-like soul

sprawled amongst a netted bliss:

honest ground kisses deep roots

guiding branches towards the north,

panoramic perspective beams

glittery sunshine, blazing

kaleidoscopic patches against closed eyes.

masturbating senses marinate in

longing as serenity sedates

the current state of being.

Breakfast of Champions

Wednesdays have never been a super day for me for one reason or another. This time it specifically revolves around the fact that I don't get out of class until nine. Which is kind of ridiculous. Even though the professor is pretty amazing. Nine is just ridiculous.

Plus, I'm just making excuses because I slacked off most of the day after I finished the majority of my thesis. I had all the intention to write before bed. But I passed out watching Dilbert episodes on Netflix (who knew Dilbert had a series in the late 1990s?!?).

Today, I did what every (read: most) female New Yorkers dream of doing at some point in there city existence: I went to the Barney's Warehouse Sale. So I left empty-handed, at least I ventured over and can now check that off of my superficial bucket list of things to do while still living in the city. Honestly, maybe it was because we went so late in the afternoon, but there was nothing worth dropping "sale" money on.

And as we made a pit stop at Better Burger so I could pump some iron, protein, and overall fatty grass-fed, free-range hormone-antibiotic meat into my system since I've been re-suffering my "pseudo-epileptic episodes" and need to monitor my diet, Andrea was offered the job at the hospital she applied at thanks to her soon-to-be sister-in-law.  (run-on much?) Only Andrea can land a high-paying, part-time job with amazing benefits at a coveted hospital within five days of a spontaneous interview. And honestly, that's part of the reason I love her so much.

We ended the afternoon with a celebratory drink at some random pub in the Penn Station area. We use to wake up and celebrate the day with a "breakfast of champions" which consisted of a 12-pack of beer poured in coffee cups split between us. Now with responsibility and a not-so-up-to-par bodily system I gave her the Appletini I ordered to ching-ching with and sipped on a delicious Magic Hat #9.

I always enjoyed Thursdays.

Andrea's Celebratory Toast, Penn Station, February 2011

Dumplings

Summer of Love 2006, (Mom's house)

Flight to NYC for TC orientation, June 2009

305 Spring Break, March 2010

Andrea is one of my best friends. We have been since the 7th grade (1999) marking our friendship a whopping 12 years old! That's half of my existence!

As of tomorrow, she will officially be living with us. Needless to say I am super excited. Our other best friend is coming up to help her move her stuff. So this week will be full of goofy pictures and memorable antics. To hold true to my daily posts, I'm most likely going to stick to photo-bloggin' so I can fully enjoy this mini-vacation with them.

Happiness is:

Sometimes, happiness must take us by surprise to remind us:

"Smile", East Village,
Spring 2010

Other times, denying impending responsibility is necessary:

"Denial", East Village, Spring 2010

Usually, it involves your oldest friends:

"Old dogs", Soraya's 22nd, May 2009

And for a few lucky ones, it involves The Unbearable Lightness of Being:

"Taxi Romance", NYC, June 2009

Happiness, involves theme songs to get through the days:

 But ultimately,

SMILE ! + <3 = :)

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Once upon a time, during those formative high-school years, I used to spend afternoons wandering around Downtown (Miami) and Bayside. Exploring delicious hole-in-the-wall food spots full of (probably my all time) favorite snack empanadas, pastellitos de guayaba, croquetas....etc. Well, one day my best friends Soraya & Claudia joined me for this journey. After wandering around the pseudo-beach set at Bayside, some shopping, and indulging in above delicacies we headed back on the Metro to catch the ever slow and never on time Kat bus home.

By the time we got to the Dadeland North station we were all exhausted in that obnoxious hyper way. Coming down the ridiculously long escalator I spotted our bus at the curb almost ready to pull out. Not wanting to wait 30 minutes for the next one, I decided to make a run for it so I could tell the driver to hold on for my friends to jump in.

Or at least that was the plan. I made it to those rude, squeaky accordion doors trying to step inside and the next thing I know I felt my neck smooshed in between said doors. The driver hadn't seen me and closed them! I panicked realizing that my lollipop head was inside the bus while the rest of my body was outside the doors, thinking he was going to start driving off and leave me beheaded. I must have made some kind of loud, squawking sound because he looked over me, yelled some pretty harsh words, and opened the doors.

Of course, Soraya & Claudia had fell to the floor laughing hysterically. Who wouldn't? I had sacrificed my glorious, gigantic head to avoid waiting around forever for them (or maybe my own bratty wants).

Sadly (or rather comically), this would be far from the last time I had some ridiculous episode happen to me on Miami's public transportation system.